Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo investigated Brother Song and the Han family for a way into the underground mines. After getting Han Ao drunk, he learned that the Han family smuggled low-grade ore out of a mine whose workers and visitors never saw where the ore was actually extracted.

• Brother Song learned that the informant’s stolen Communicator had been used to report several Players involved in kidnapping and human trafficking, then denied any involvement to a City Hall contact.
• A Han family member confronted Brother Song after he blocked his personal Communicator, and Brother Song warned him to wait before contacting him again.
• Xu Huo watched Brother Song and investigated the Han family, discovering that Han Ao’s father oversaw export inspections and could plausibly enter the mines.
• Han Ao left the jurisdiction for entertainment, and Xu Huo got him drunk with Potion until he confessed that he and his father had smuggled low-grade ore out of the mines.
• Han Ao told Xu Huo that neither he nor his father had seen the actual mine workings, which resembled an underground parking garage where ore was already piled up.

Xu Huo traced Han Ao’s stolen ore back to the Han family company and searched the direct-controlled district for the mine entrance. He discovered that He Pu’s key might identify a Mining Group employee, but the two former recipients he investigated could not explain it.

• Xu Huo hypnotized Han Ao into seeking more money, then used Jiao Cheng to buy ore from the Underground Market.
• Xu Huo watched Han Ao arrange to steal more ore through a Han family company employee, then followed the employee and his associates.
• Xu Huo searched guarded sites in the direct-controlled district and noticed the Mining Group building, where employees wore ore keys awarded for outstanding work.
• Xu Huo learned that He Pu’s key might belong to a particular key recipient and found that most recipients still worked for the Mining Group.
• Xu Huo visited a retired recipient and found a different Diamond Key, then learned the other former recipient had died and his belongings had been donated.

Xu Huo traced He Pu’s key to a Game Government Base director who had interviewed him, then watched the base come under attack. The assault ended with the mustached attacker badly wounded and the Base’s employees preparing to interrogate him.

• Xu Huo checked the gift company’s records and learned that He Pu’s key had been made for a Game Government Base director who had interviewed him.
• Xu Huo returned to the Yongxing Hotel, then watched the director until the man noticed him outside the staff-only street.
• The next day, Xu Huo sat across from the director, who revealed that he was a Gray Player and warned that working for the Game Government was not necessarily a good thing.
• Several Players and flying machines pursued a mustached attacker out of the Game Government Base, where he fought on despite being shot and gravely wounded.
• A Base employee said the attacker was trying to get himself killed, and another said a Potion was taking effect before they prepared to interrogate him.

Xu Huo retrieved five Perfect Evolution Potions from He Pu’s storage room in District 001, securing the inheritance he had come for. He left after warning He Pu’s former contact that Bai Kou was also seeking the estate.

• A swarm of slime-filled balls disrupted the Attack Incident, allowing the bearded player and the female Player to escape after they vanished one after the other.
• The middle-aged man gave Xu Huo the location of City Hall public storage No. 130 and left him an ID card.
• Xu Huo opened He Pu’s storage room with the mineral key and found five Perfect Evolution Potions labeled P0S through P4S.
• Xu Huo told the middle-aged man that He Pu had died and that he had inherited He Pu’s identity and estate.
• Xu Huo warned the middle-aged man that Bai Kou wanted He Pu’s estate and told him not to reveal that Xu Huo had taken it.

The other party neither admitted nor denied the matter and ended the conversation ambiguously. He warned that things requiring no immediate payment could demand a much greater price over time.

• The other party neither admitted nor denied the matter.
• The other party ended the conversation with an ambiguous statement.
• The other party warned that everything came at a price and that delayed costs could grow much greater.

Xu Huo and Chen Chou were trapped in an elevator and forced to watch a couple kiss. The chapter ended as the man pulled Chen Chou’s wheelchair out and bent down, leaving his next action unclear.

• Xu Huo and Chen Chou remained trapped inside the elevator and could not get out.
• A man reassured his companion, smacked them on the butt, and kissed them.
• Afterward, the man pulled Chen Chou’s wheelchair out of the elevator and bent down.

Han Yi's side overwhelmed the attackers, whose numbers dwindled as the battle went on. The chapter ended with the attackers suffering heavy losses.

• The attackers initially benefited from their planning and targeted restraints.
• Han Yi's side gained the upper hand as the battle continued.
• Many attackers died, most of them near Han Yi.

Han Yi defended the Han family’s rule over Flower City while the attackers fled, and Xu Huo reflected on how people endured oppression to survive. Xu Huo then entered the private room and confronted the dazed Brother Le, who asked where he was.

• Han Yi argued that Flower City’s residents preferred a stable life to uncertain change and ordered his Players to attack the three burly men.
• The three attackers fled into the Station, and Han Yi’s people cleared the battlefield while promising to pay for the damage.
• Xu Huo told Chen Chou that Han Yi was using excuses to justify his killings and reflected on how people adapted to hardship.
• Chen Chou admitted he endured humiliation and injury to stay alive, and Xu Huo said different forces could be seen as right in different circumstances.
• Xu Huo entered the private room, sat across from the high people there, and clicked a skull-engraved lighter until Brother Le came to his senses and asked where he was.

Xu Huo posed as a psychiatrist and coaxed Brother Le into describing his painful history with Han Yi and his fixation on pulling teeth. Brother Le revealed that he had not seen Han Yi recently and insisted Han Yi had not changed, leaving Xu Huo to question his assumptions about Han Yi.

• Xu Huo used a Potion and guided conversation to get Brother Le talking during their supposed therapy session.
• Brother Le described being abandoned in a welfare home by his mother and later witnessing Han Yi have her teeth pulled.
• Brother Le said the incident gave him nightmares, so he had all his own teeth removed and now collected dentures as a reminder to keep his place.
• Brother Le admitted that pulling other people's teeth made him feel as though he had become Han Yi.
• Xu Huo asked when Brother Le had last seen Han Yi, and Brother Le insisted Han Yi was unchanged despite having recently killed someone downtown.

Xu Huo learned more about Han Yi and investigated the sealed mineral vein beneath Flower City’s Directly Administered District. After a mysterious man revealed that the entire district might lie over the vein’s entrance, Xu Huo descended underground to test his theory.

• Brother Le told Xu Huo about Han Yi’s habits, locations, and security, and Xu Huo released him and questioned his companions.
• Xu Huo left Chen Chou behind and returned to the Directly Administered District to observe the Mining Group building and consider how to reach the mineral vein.
• A man in a windbreaker told Xu Huo that the vein’s entrance could span the entire Directly Administered District, rather than being a small door.
• Xu Huo entered a quiet neighborhood, disabled two surveillance cameras, and descended underground with the Spiritual World.
• Xu Huo concentrated his spiritual power and took out the “Mind-Only Gate.”

Xu Huo failed to find a hidden entrance to the mineral vein beneath Flower City and researched the legendary Super Player in the Game Government library. The record revealed the Super Player’s origins and revenge against the officials responsible for his family’s suffering, ending with the first delayed killing.

• Xu Huo searched the underground passages in the restricted district but found no clues, then returned to the hotel.
• Xu Huo learned that the Super Player had been a gifted researcher in Yuan City before a colleague injected him with Evolver blood.
• The Super Player boarded the Preliminary Train moments before the special forces could shoot him, but his older sister died after the city government detained his family.
• After reaching D-class and returning to Yuan City, the Super Player killed researchers and officials who had hunted him or stolen his work, while sparing four people he blamed for his sister’s death.
• The government protected those four after the Super Player announced a time for their deaths, but he disappeared into the Game and missed the deadline.
• In the second year, a former special forces member who had once been assigned to protect one of the four was killed.

Xu Huo read an account of the Super Player’s life, from his public execution of the researcher to his role in restoring District 001 and his eventual erasure from history. Suspecting the story behind the Han family’s credit and the Super Player’s descendants was more complicated, Xu Huo found the deceased author’s family’s city and decided to go there.

• The researcher livestreamed himself to provoke the Super Player, who killed him in public despite the resulting public backlash.
• District 001 fell into a period of lawlessness until a player organization, secretly aided by the Super Player, began restoring order.
• The Super Player rose to A-class, helped District 001 recover from an assault by Outer District Players, and later died of an Evolution Aftereffect.
• Xu Huo learned that the Han family had claimed credit for the Super Player’s research and that his nephew’s books about him had been recalled and destroyed.
• Xu Huo searched for the deceased author’s family and decided to travel to their city.

After transmigrating into the disgraced young Marquis Qin Hu, a modern special forces soldier realized his exile to the army was part of a plot to kill him. Stranded in a freezing vanguard camp with his frail attendant Qin An, he decided to seek help from Centurion Li Xiaokun.

• Qin Hu woke in a military camp and learned he had become the young Champion Marquis of the Great Yu Dynasty.
• Qin Hu recalled how Chen Ruoli and Princess Chang'an had helped frame him, leading to his exile and assignment to the front lines.
• Qin Hu and Qin An went out to patrol in a deadly snowstorm, while hostile sentries extinguished their warming fire.
• Qin Hu resolved to survive, protect Qin An, and return to the capital to settle accounts with those who had plotted against him.
• Qin Hu learned they had almost no money and decided to approach Centurion Li Xiaokun, who commanded the vanguard camp.

Xu Huo visited Zhuang Shanbai and learned how Old Gentleman Zhuang had kept his descendants out of the game and secluded the family in the city. After exploring the houses, Xu Huo confronted Zhuang Shanbai about the little bald boy, suggesting he had chosen the boy as his son so he would not have to live alone.

• Xu Huo met Zhuang Shanbai and calmed the little bald boy by trading him candy and snacks for tea.
• Zhuang Shanbai explained that his great-uncle had forbidden the Zhuang family from entering the game and warned local powers not to help them.
• Xu Huo pointed out that Old Gentleman Zhuang's defensive barriers covered the entire city, though Zhuang Shanbai believed they protected only his orchard.
• Zhuang Shanbai invited Xu Huo to stay overnight and look around the houses, and Xu Huo later helped prepare dinner with him and the little bald boy.
• Xu Huo watched the boy show off his reading journal and suggested that Zhuang Shanbai had chosen his own son so he would not have to live alone.

Xu Huo confronted Zhuang Shanbai about the mental power protecting the mine entrance and inferred that old gentleman Zhuang had left a Psychic Dungeon behind. Zhuang Shanbai let him search his father's belongings, but the documents offered little information about the Dungeon.

• Xu Huo suggested that the Zhuang family had left Flower City to protect themselves from the Han family and asked whether Zhuang Shanbai had another path forward than becoming a Player.
• Zhuang Shanbai tried to trap Xu Huo inside the house, but Xu escaped and used the little bald boy to keep Zhuang Shanbai from attacking at full strength.
• Xu Huo explained that old gentleman Zhuang's legacy could be a Psychic Dungeon controlling the mine entrance, then brought out Excavator 114 to amuse the little boy.
• Zhuang Shanbai allowed Xu Huo to enter his father's room and search the belongings he had left behind.
• Xu Huo examined the documents but found only scraps about old gentleman Zhuang's later life and little about his personal preferences.

Xu Huo investigated whether ore exposure and flawed Evolution Potion might explain shortened lifespans and Evolution Aftereffects in District 001. At the Zhuang family orchard, he met Zhuang Shanyu, a Super Evolver specializing in Mental Evolution, and the chapter ended with their tense exchange.

• Xu Huo read Old Gentleman Zhuang's notes and found that Zhuang Shanbai's father had died of organ failure despite being an ordinary person.
• Xu Huo compared lifespans across District 001 and found that mining cities had shorter average lifespans, leading him to wonder whether ore affected Evolvers and Players.
• Xu Huo ate with Zhuang Shanbai and his son, while the boy played with Xu Huo's robot in the yard.
• Zhuang Shanyu returned to the orchard and pressed Xu Huo with mental energy, but Xu Huo warned him not to start trouble unless he owned the Dungeon.
• Zhuang Shanbai introduced his cousin Zhuang Shanyu as a Super Evolver specializing in Mental Evolution.

Xu Huo stayed with the Zhuang family and explored their grounds while trying to understand how Old Mr. Zhuang had altered the Dungeon. After taking the little bald boy through the city, he concluded that the Zhuang family’s Dungeon grounds covered only their residential area and orchard, though he still did not know how to reach its core.

• Xu Huo sensed the Zhuang family estate with his Spiritual World and considered whether Old Mr. Zhuang had dismantled or altered its Dungeon grounds.
• Xu Huo spent the night in the courtyard, then made breakfast for the Zhuang brothers and the little bald boy, who complained that it tasted awful.
• Xu Huo went to pick fruit in the orchard, where the little bald boy joined him and asked to borrow a robot again.
• When Zhuang Shanyu tried to send the boy back, Xu Huo used a transporter to take him out of the orchard and into the city.
• Xu Huo and the little bald boy sold fruit as Zhuang Shanyu followed them, and Xu Huo noticed that the city’s devices were separate from those in the orchard.

Xu Huo spent five days accessing the core layout of the Dungeon environment at the Zhuang family home and compared its sections with a map of Flower City. He left questioning whether the Zhuang family’s ignorance was protection or a trap, and whether an Origin Stone inside the mineral lode could be contaminated.

• Xu Huo stayed with the Zhuang family for five days before using the "Mind-Only Gate" to reach the Dungeon environment’s core layout.
• Xu Huo discovered that the environment was divided into sections by thin metal partitions and found a narrow sealed gap in a support beam.
• Xu Huo compared the Zhuang family’s hidden layout with a map of Flower City and considered whether the Han family had broken through old Mr. Zhuang’s seal or controlled the mineral lode already.
• Xu Huo reconsidered whether the Zhuang family’s lack of knowledge was genuine protection or part of a trap designed to make outsiders ask about the mineral lode.
• Xu Huo connected the A-class player’s goal of contaminating the mineral lode to the Origin Stone inside it and asked about the Stone on the bounty platform and Dimension Below.

Xu Huo investigated the direct jurisdiction’s gates and discovered that distorted maps and photos concealed parts of its true boundaries. By aligning those discrepancies with the Zhuang family’s hidden Dungeon layout, he opened the Spiritual World and entered a dark space where an identical version of himself appeared.

• Xu Huo concluded that the direct jurisdiction might have multiple gates and posted a bounty seeking a way inside.
• Xu Huo questioned Zhuang Shanbai about the Han family, then left the Zhuang family and returned safely to Flower City.
• Xu Huo compared the direct jurisdiction with maps and aircraft photos, finding that its actual boundaries differed from the published images.
• Xu Huo aligned the boundary discrepancies with the Zhuang family’s layout and inferred that parts of Flower City could lie within the Dungeon setting.
• Xu Huo used “Mind-Only Gate” in an underground passage and entered a dark Spiritual World space, where an identical version of himself appeared.

Xu Huo escaped a mirror-like Spiritual World and discovered he could move through people and objects without being noticed. He waited near the Game Government Base for Han Yi to leave the directly administered district, but an autonomous Mirror Xu Huo appeared and began transforming the street into a Mirror World.

• Xu Huo broke through the invisible wall with spiritual power and returned to the underground passageway.
• Xu Huo found that he could pass through people and most real-world objects, while remaining imperceptible to Players and sensors.
• Xu Huo confirmed he was inside a Spiritual World outside the ore vein and stayed near the Game Government Base while waiting for Han Yi.
• An autonomous Mirror Xu Huo appeared across the street, and the surroundings gradually transformed into a Mirror World.