Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo met Nie Xuan, declined to join Vanguard Squad, and gave him a case of potions and a syringe before Nie left Ting City. Xu Huo then visited Zhou Ning and showed her group the potions he had brought.

• Xu Huo told the painted woman to leave District 014 for her safety, then left Yu Qingqing in charge of her.
• Yu Qingqing told Xu Huo that General Manager Zheng had apologized to her and offered her a new acting contract.
• Xu Huo met Nie Xuan at a café, declined to join Vanguard Squad, and gave him a case of potions and a P0T Syringe.
• Nie Xuan asked whether Xu Huo had the Super Artifact, but Xu Huo gave no revealing reaction before Nie left.
• Xu Huo visited Zhou Ning and found Hu Wenhu, Zhou Xiao, and the injured members of their group at home.
• Xu Huo opened the case of eight vials, and Zhou Ning and the others stared at the potions in surprise.

Xu Huo gave Zhou Ning and her companions potions, learned about her Medusa profession, and investigated the frightened boy she had taken in. After warning Zhou Ning to move because a neighbor was spying on her, Xu Huo returned home and stopped Yu Qingqing from attacking him with a knife.

• Zhou Ning explained that her Medusa profession gave her the ability "Elderly Medusa," and Xu Huo described her as a Special Evolver with potential.
• Xu Huo questioned the chained fifteen-year-old in Zhou Ning's home, confirmed he had not eaten anyone or taken an Evolution Potion, and paid him to draw blood.
• Xu Huo noticed a neighbor spying from behind his door and warned Zhou Ning to move, so she decided they would leave that night.
• Xu Huo received a photo of Yu Qingqing tied up after she tried to attack the painted woman, then bought ingredients for hot pot.
• Xu Huo untied Yu Qingqing and warned her to behave, but she grabbed a kitchen knife and swung at him, so he caught her wrist and threatened to fight back next time.

Xu Huo obtained a new lighter that could ignite a large area and prepared to travel to Hai City while planning how to face the Super Artifact crisis. Meanwhile, a group of players chose a megacity in District 014 as their destination and crossed over to greet its residents.

• Xu Huo received V's tools, a lighter that could ignite three square meters of a target within three seconds, and tested its abilities.
• Xu Huo asked Yu Qingqing to return home and prepare his room; she agreed, and the painted woman joined her.
• After seeing Yu Qingqing off, Xu Huo rented an SUV and took the painted woman to pick up Wang Chaoqing for a trip to Hai City.
• In an E-class instance in District 014, a tattooed man burned a pile of corpses while a group of players gathered and discussed their targets.
• The group chose a megacity in District 014, used a jade disc to open a doorway across the ocean, and entered it.

As global unrest spread, Xu Huo brought Wang Chaoqing to Hai City, where the calm seemed suspiciously out of place. Meanwhile, unidentified attackers slaughtered Players in Capital City’s Safe Zone, leaving the Special Affairs Bureau unable to protect them.

• Xu Huo listened to reports of worldwide riots as he drove toward Hai City with Wang Chaoqing, who feared Players might target the city.
• Xu Huo said few Outer District Players had likely entered and that the state could handle low-level threats, while High-level Players remained a greater concern.
• Xu Huo entered Hai City and heard a Server describe it as calm compared with other cities, where looting and reports of cannibals had frightened residents.
• Xu Huo suspected Hai City’s unusual calm concealed a plan.
• A Military Old Man learned that fifty Players at the Special Affairs Bureau had been killed in less than an hour, even after they were sent into hiding in the Safe Zone.
• The bureau’s director told the conference that the mass killings appeared focused on Players at the Special Affairs Bureau.

The Ghastly Sound Knights threatened District 014 with attacks unless the Super Artifact or its holder appeared in Hai City, while foreign Players converged on Country X. Xu Huo recognized the danger of their plan, but the chapter ended when someone noticed the plaza ground turning black.

• The Special Affairs Bureau learned that Players were being killed from a List and approved a backup plan to protect the Super Artifact’s holder.
• The Ghastly Sound Knights, represented by Lili, broadcast an ultimatum and detonated two secret bases to demonstrate their threat.
• Foreign Players in Capital City discussed forcing the Super Artifact’s holder to reveal himself, while a boy and Mr. Lawrence headed toward Hai City.
• High-level Players from around the world rushed to Country X as Xu Huo watched the broadcast in the plaza.
• Xu Huo prepared to leave, but someone shouted that the plaza ground was turning black.

Xu Huo and the others were caught inside a vast black-and-white pattern as people across Hai City began exploding. A man appeared on every screen to announce the rules of the Black and White Life and Death Game, leaving Xu Huo with ten minutes to understand the deadly roulette.

• Black-and-white stripes spread from the cinema across the square, streets, and buildings, while Xu Huo sensed they restrained anyone above them.
• People in the square began exploding, and a man who rushed into the shop also burst apart at the entrance.
• Xu Huo ordered Wang Chaoqing to close the shop and had the manager gather everyone inside and find information about the stripes.
• Xu Huo examined aerial footage and satellite images showing a giant roulette pattern converging on a skyscraper.
• A middle-aged man appeared on screens and announced that participants had to play in pairs, black meant death, white granted a survival chance, and two chances were needed to leave before the ten-minute countdown expired.

After the Black and White Life and Death Game trapped the city, Xu Huo tried to determine whether it was a Dungeon or an item and advised the people in the store on how to respond. The assistant’s sudden explosion showed that the game had begun, leaving the survivors in panic as people across the square started dying.

• Xu Huo watched videos of people and vehicles exploding when they tried to leave the Black and White Wheel, while the government urged everyone to stay put.
• Xu Huo stopped the chef from leaving and explained that a Ticket might offer a way out if the wheel was an item rather than a Dungeon.
• Wang Chaoqing asked Xu Huo for a Ticket, but refused when Xu Huo told him to go to the Skyscraper first.
• The chef’s assistant claimed to see a wheel and a countdown, then fell into a daze; Xu Huo suspected the game was affecting people’s minds.
• Xu Huo advised the others to stay conscious and describe the wheel if they entered the game, but the assistant then exploded and people in the square began exploding too.

Xu Huo searched for a way to escape the Black and White Life and Death Game while the government sealed off the wheel area and Players converged on Hai City. When a new wheel appeared in his shop, two people saw it, and Xu Huo’s group tried to keep them still until the countdown ended.

• Xu Huo considered how the Ghastly Sound Knights’ gathering in Hai City complicated his plan to remove the Super Artifact from District 014.
• Xu Huo told Wang Chaoqing to check the Skyscraper for outside Players and follow them if possible.
• The shop manager let an elderly couple shelter in the shop and urged them to look closely if they saw the wheel.
• A male Server panicked after seeing a wheel and exploded when he touched it, prompting Xu Huo to warn that panic made people die faster.
• The female Server and the old woman saw a new wheel, so Xu Huo and the old gentleman restrained them while the others tied them to chairs.

Xu Huo survived the Solo Life-or-Death Game after using the Two-Color Rubik's Cube to influence the roulette, then left the Front Hall with the painted woman, Wang Chaoqing, and an old gentleman. At the Mall, he saw two camouflage-clad men with White Bars arrive as their leader announced they were taking control.

• Xu Huo watched the Server and old woman die, then was pulled into the game's white space and examined the roulette wheel.
• Xu Huo used the Two-Color Rubik's Cube as he tried to affect the wheel, and the pointer stopped on the edge of a White Grid, ending the game.
• Xu Huo returned to the Front Hall, found a White Bar on his hand, and washed the blood from his face in the Back Kitchen.
• Xu Huo kicked the manager aside and left with the painted woman, Wang Chaoqing, and the old gentleman.
• Xu Huo entered the Mall and noticed that nobody there had a White Bar, then saw three men in camouflage uniforms arrive, two of them marked with White Bars.
• The leader of the camouflage-clad men announced that they were taking over the Mall and ordered people nearby to gather there.

Xu Huo stayed with the camouflage-clad soldiers after suspecting their intentions, then intervened when one of them attacked the painted woman and the old gentleman. He agreed to work with Brother Feng only if the soldiers left his companions alone and stopped killing indiscriminately, and asked how they planned to make the crowd cooperate.

• Xu Huo told the painted woman and Wang Chaoqing to stay with the others while he accompanied the soldiers led by Brother Feng.
• The store manager and Server accused Xu Huo of attacking them, but Brother Feng ordered his men to silence them and lock all six first-floor exits.
• Brother Feng ordered his men to search for people with White Bars, and Tall Sturdy Camo exposed a woman’s White Player number by tearing open her shirt.
• Tall Sturdy Camo grabbed the painted woman and threatened the old gentleman, so Xu Huo disarmed him and fought him briefly.
• Brother Feng stopped Tall Sturdy Camo and offered Xu Huo a deal; Xu Huo agreed to work with him if his companions stayed safe and the soldiers avoided indiscriminate killing.
• Xu Huo asked Brother Feng how he expected the people in the Mall to cooperate.

Xu Huo confronted Brother Feng about the rules of the Black and White Wheel and learned that it belonged to the Undertaker and was called “Better to Seek Death Than Survival.” As the multiplayer Life-or-Death Game began, the wheel forced the survivors into a deadly trial, and Xu Huo suspected Brother Feng was hiding the reason his group wanted to break the game.

• Brother Feng threatened to kill anyone who failed to join a group of forty, and the mall’s frightened survivors split into five groups.
• Xu Huo gathered the remaining people into his group, and Brother Feng revealed that the game’s second round required at least twenty-four players rather than groups of exactly forty.
• Several people tried to cross between groups, but the floor formed deadly black-and-white wheels that killed them instantly.
• Brother Feng explained that players would take turns entering the wheel’s center to spin it, and Xu Huo agreed to go first while questioning what the group hoped to gain.
• Brother Feng admitted the item was called “Better to Seek Death Than Survival” and gestured for Xu Huo to step forward as the pointer slowed.

Xu Huo failed to survive the Life-or-Death Game, then suspected that its wheel could be beaten by refusing to turn the pointer. An old gentleman survived by turning it, leaving Xu Huo to challenge Brother Feng’s assumptions and propose testing the other option.

• Xu Huo waited instead of turning the wheel, but his White Bar disappeared and he learned that he had landed on a black grid.
• People on nearby wheels were forced into the game and died in bloody explosions, while Brother Feng chose the next person to play.
• The old gentleman volunteered in place of a woman with a child and entered the game wearing his wife's Ring.
• Xu Huo carved “Don't turn” into the old gentleman’s palm, but the man turned the pointer at the last moment and survived.
• Xu Huo argued that refusing to turn the pointer might offer another way to survive, and asked why they should not try it.

Xu Huo investigated how to survive the Life-or-Death Game and concluded that a white pointer might signal a chance to live, though it did not guarantee survival. After several Players died, he entered the game again and reached for the pointer as the countdown ran down.

• Xu Huo warned that refusing to turn the pointer might keep Players alive temporarily but would not let them escape, and Wang Chaoqing showed him a report about a hypnotizing woman at the Skyscraper.
• Xu Huo proposed that the item’s name meant those less afraid of death might have better odds, but Brother Feng sent Duckbill Hat into the game instead.
• Duckbill Hat failed, and Brother Feng sent Players into the game one after another, with the next seven or eight dying.
• Xu Huo noticed Tall Sturdy Camo counting the dead and volunteered to enter the game.
• Xu Huo saw a white pointer again and reasoned that it likely indicated a chance to survive, though it did not guarantee one, before reaching for it.

Xu Huo tested the Life-or-Death Game and discovered that the Lucky Hourglass did not guarantee survival, while the game’s pointer color seemed to matter. After surviving one round and losing his White Bar in the next, he was seized by Qi Shan.

• Qi Shan entered the Life-or-Death Game with the female Player and the old gentleman beside him, and both companions died when the Lucky Hourglass activated.
• Xu Huo concluded that the Hourglass likely required people who already had a chance to survive, and he suspected that only the white pointer could land on the White Grid.
• Xu Huo entered the game and emerged with a White Bar, then began a second round using the Two-Color Rubik's Cube.
• Xu Huo lost his White Bar after the second round, and Qi Shan grabbed him by the collar.

Xu Huo outmaneuvered Brother Feng and Qi Shan during the Life-or-Death Game, killing Qi Shan and forcing Brother Feng to spin the pointer. Brother Feng’s Hourglass then exploded into bombs coated with Alien Toxin, leaving Xu Huo and the others poisoned.

• Xu Huo taunted Brother Feng and his men into taking another turn, but Tall Sturdy Camo spun the Black Pointer and exploded eight minutes later.
• Brother Feng entered the circle with the Hourglass as Qi Shan gathered the remaining people around him, and a Flying Arrow struck at Brother Feng from the Mall’s second floor.
• Xu Huo attacked Qi Shan while the Flying Arrow distracted him, and the painted woman lured Qi Shan off the platform, where the game’s rules killed him.
• Xu Huo repeatedly attacked Brother Feng until he spun the pointer early, then Brother Feng threw the Hourglass, which split into bombs and exploded.
• Xu Huo found green liquid on fragments lodged in his back, and Wang Chaoqing identified it as Alien Toxin while Brother Feng accused Xu Huo of deceiving him.

Xu Huo explained that the Life-or-Death Game could be escaped by resisting the urge to spin the pointer, while Brother Feng demanded a way to win and attacked him. The painted woman turned the fight around, forcing Brother Feng to escape, and Wang Chaoqing recovered his item.

• Xu Huo explained that the roulette wheel preyed on fear and that leaving the pointer untouched was the real way to escape the Life-or-Death Game.
• Brother Feng challenged Xu Huo's explanation, then feinted toward Wang Chaoqing and trapped Xu Huo in Duckbill Hat's red smoke.
• Xu Huo fought Brother Feng through the smoke, but Brother Feng's Metal Block absorbed Xu Huo's Sword Qi.
• Brother Feng seized the painted woman and threatened her to force Xu Huo to reveal how to get a chance to survive.
• A player on another wheel exploded before finishing his announcement, and the painted woman stabbed Brother Feng and caught his sword, prompting him to escape.
• Wang Chaoqing picked up Brother Feng's Metal Block after the painted woman dropped it.

Xu Huo and the painted woman subdued the attackers on the Black and White Wheel, but the group remained trapped as rescue efforts stalled. Xu Huo returned to the Life-or-Death Game to test whether repeatedly leaving the pointer untouched could let its participants win.

• The painted woman gave Xu Huo the Metal Block, and he thanked her for helping kill Qi Shan and drive Brother Feng away.
• Xu Huo told the injured survivors he had no Antidote left and advised them to seek government help once they escaped.
• The painted woman used Posters to fetch clothes and supplies, then entertained the children while Xu Huo told their parents to repay the shopkeepers.
• Xu Huo called the rescue hotline, learned that no one seemed to have escaped the Black and White Wheel, and told Wang Chaoqing to keep calling for help.
• Xu Huo sat inside the Life-or-Death Game and considered whether repeatedly leaving the pointer untouched could make the participants victorious.

As the command centers struggled to contain the Life-or-Death Game and the Ghastly Sound Knights’ invasion, Captain Xing reported that Brother Xu had driven away the Outer District Players and ended a multiplayer game at Defu Mall. Wang Chaoqing revealed Brother Xu’s method and began sharing what he knew in exchange for an Antidote.

• The Haishi Command Center reported widespread deaths, hostages, and failed rescue attempts as the Ghastly Sound Knights remained hidden in the skyscraper.
• The Jing City official ordered an attempt to trap Outer District Players in the Life-or-Death Game and accelerated Hai City’s civilian evacuation.
• Captain Xing told the command center that two Outer District Players had been killed, one had escaped, and the wheels at the mall had vanished after Brother Xu solved the game.
• Wang Chaoqing said Brother Xu had completed twelve rounds without turning the pointer and offered further information in exchange for an Antidote.
• The Commander-in-Chief promised to send an Antidote, and Wang Chaoqing began explaining what he knew about the Life-or-Death Game.

The command room identified Xu Huo as a capable but troubled Player and decided to recruit him to help with Hai City's crisis. Near the Skyscraper, Xu Huo prepared a plan with the painted woman and called the authorities, claiming to be the Player who had obtained the Super Artifact.

• Wang Chaoqing told the command room that facing death without fear could help people resist the artifact's illusions, but Dr. Sun explained why the method was difficult for soldiers to use.
• The Secretary reported Xu Huo's identity and achievements, and the Commander-in-Chief ordered Captain Xing to find him and bring him onto their side.
• Xu Huo weighed the risks of acting near the Skyscraper and leaving Hai City before his train departed.
• Xu Huo discovered that the painted woman's ability could affect paper objects in houses belonging to the same owner, and promised her the Gentleman of Light Medal for her help.
• Xu Huo used a Voice Changer Toy to call the command room and announced that he was the Player who had obtained the Super Artifact.

Xu Huo asked the government to help the painted woman claim properties in the Black and White Wheel so she could control the buildings and draw High-level Players away from Hai City. As rescue teams moved stranded people outdoors and the painted woman marked territory on a map, the Undertaker and his companions discussed District 014’s prospects.

• Xu Huo told officials he would try to draw the High-level Players away with the Super Artifact and requested property transfers, paper in the buildings, and the evacuation of people who could be moved outdoors.
• The Commander-in-Chief of Hai City transferred one property to painted woman, and surveillance confirmed that she could control the paper inside it.
• Xu Huo and painted woman moved between locations while the government began transferring properties and rescue teams cleared people from multiplayer Life-or-Death Games.
• At a bookstore, painted woman marked the areas claimed by the Black and White Wheel on a map and told Xu Huo she did not want a house as large as a castle.
• At an aquarium, the Undertaker and his companions criticized the people of District 014 and debated whether the district had potential as a breeding ground or a place for business.