Chapter Summaries

After discovering that the East District had been alerted, Xu Huo left the hideout and tried to blend into the West District crowd. An East District player then launched a mass slaughter, and more inspectors arrived to surround him as residents fled.

• Xu Huo found that the Stinger bracelet could inject poison and destroyed the alarmed work-log device before leaving the hideout with the captives and Mutated Plant.
• Xu Huo entered a restaurant and pretended to fight with two drunks while East District players searched the area.
• An inspector in uniform appeared, and frightened West District residents began fleeing and accusing the East District of planning to kill them.
• The inspector unleashed swordlight, slaughtered dozens of people, and destroyed buildings while the Rebel Army and local inspectors tried to intervene.
• After killing the people who challenged him, the East District player turned toward another crowded area, where several more inspectors formed a circle around him.

An East District Inspector slaughtered civilians until a masked Player intervened, prompting the East District players to accuse the Rebel Army of disguising itself as Inspectors. After the masked Player escaped their pursuit, he passed through a door into an unfamiliar basement, where a mysterious figure told him he was safe.

• A masked Player swapped Artifacts with the crazed Inspector, causing an explosive slime Artifact to blind him, while East District players moved to stop both men.
• The long-haired East District Player killed the Inspector, revealed his changed face, and accused the Rebel Army of disguising its members as Inspectors to slaughter civilians.
• The East District players attacked the masked Player with a shock-wave Artifact, but interference let him teleport away and flee.
• The long-haired Player tracked the masked Player to an old neighborhood, but the trail stopped as the masked Player used a Decoy Prop to mislead his pursuers.
• The masked Player unexpectedly passed through a door into a basement several miles away, climbed toward the exit, and threw his blade at a figure who said the place was safe.

Xu Huo trapped a Mask player and questioned him about the East District’s devices and the Rebel Army. After warning that the Rebel Army might be walking into a trap, Xu Huo offered to cooperate and revealed he knew the Mask player had not killed the East District players.

• Xu Huo trapped the Mask player in the basement and questioned him about why East District players concealed their physical information.
• The Mask player explained that East District devices were difficult for the Rebel Army to acquire and modify because they had unique serial numbers and remote deactivation systems.
• Xu Huo showed the Mask player the corpse of an East District player and asked whether East District players had gone berserk before.
• Xu Huo warned that claims of widespread secret support for the Rebel Army could be a ploy or a trap, then revealed that several listed contacts had ties to inspectors and safe houses might have been infiltrated.
• The Mask player asked whether Xu Huo would help the Rebel Army, and Xu Huo offered mutual assistance before shattering the player's Mask and helmet.

Xu Huo offered the Mask player a supposed weakness shared by East District Players to bring the Rebel Army into a deal, then left as unrest spread through the West District. The black-market groups surrounded the Surveillance Department, demanding to know whether the district would be razed, while Xu Huo asked why Han Cong was absent.

• Xu Huo told the Mask player he could trade knowledge of a weakness shared by East District Players, then vanished and left contact information.
• The Mask player relayed Xu Huo’s offer through Dimension Below and waited for a reply; after a call with his brother, he confirmed that one of three sealed seeds had not sprouted.
• News and footage of the East District Players’ massacre spread, causing West District residents to flee, sell their belongings, or fear for their safety.
• Black-market organizations and their recruited players surrounded the Surveillance Department, demanding an answer about plans to raze the West District.
• Inspectors at Xu Huo’s branch panicked over the lack of a response from headquarters, and Xu Huo asked why Han Cong was missing.

Xu Huo and the other West District inspectors were selected by East District players for compulsory training and taken from the besieged Surveillance Department building. As they left under threat of tracking bracelets, a child threw a pebble at the ponytail inspector.

• Li Song told Xu Huo that Han Cong had disappeared after leaving the Surveillance Department, while the inspectors waited inside as a hostile crowd gathered outside.
• Two East District inspectors arrived in a flying vehicle and demanded the list of people selected for training.
• The ponytail inspector chose Xu Huo, Lin Guang, two other inspectors, and two team leaders, using black lines to restrain them and silencing one team leader who objected.
• The East District inspectors fitted the six chosen West District inspectors with Poison Thorn tracking bracelets that could kill them if they broke the rules.
• The two East District inspectors led the six West District inspectors out through the crowd, and a child emerged and threw a pebble at the ponytail inspector.

Xu Huo and the other West District inspectors were taken to the shadow wall checkpoint, where an East District inspector threatened those who protected their own people. As the group underwent screening, several people tried to break through, and East District players killed the rebels.

• East District inspectors took Xu Huo and the others aboard an aircraft, and the ponytail man ordered his colleagues to deal with people who protected the next generation.
• Xu Huo watched the crowd outside the Surveillance Department vanish, frightening one of the inspectors accompanying them.
• At Gate 3, Xu Huo spotted a Rebel Army member and signaled that he agreed to their proposed exchange inside the East District.
• A player broke through the checkpoint inspection gate and fled toward the East District, prompting guards to control and rescan the remaining inspectors.
• Three more people tried to force their way through the checkpoint, and an East District player killed one and crushed his head.

Xu Huo and the West District inspectors entered the East District, where the sights and the Gate No. 3 incident left them uneasy. During a traffic shutdown, Xu Huo met a Rebel Army contact, took a new identity, and left with a woman who offered to explain life in the East District.

• An East District player killed three people who had tried to force their way through Gate No. 3, and the inspectors continued into the East District.
• Xu Huo and the other inspectors admired the East District’s clean, advanced city while questioning the residents’ reaction to the killings.
• A factory explosion shut down nearby roads, and Xu Huo and Lin Guang discussed their fears over the East District and the Rebel Army.
• Xu Huo met a Rebel Army contact in a restroom, received East District identity documents and a Mask, then left the rest area with a middle-aged woman.

Xu Huo stayed in the East District under Sister Yan’s protection after losing his West District identity. As the Rebel Army monitored him and promised to arrange legal identification, he learned about the district and the dangers surrounding his temporary identity.

• Xu Huo got off a bus with Sister Yan in a residential area where Rebel Army members watched him.
• Sister Yan took Xu Huo shopping, brought him to her apartment, and secretly replaced the detector’s chip before checking the room for dangers.
• Xu Huo explained that he could no longer return to the West District because his identity would be invalidated, and Sister Yan offered to find him a job and legal identification.
• Sister Yan warned Xu Huo to stay inside while she worked and explained that automated aircraft could scan his apartment, while his Mask’s identity would not last forever.
• After Sister Yan left, Xu Huo watched television and explored the apartment, aware that the Rebel Army was monitoring him because his skills as an inspector made him valuable.

Xu Huo asked the Rebel Army to investigate East District player modification and Agor Company's psychotherapist, then arranged a replacement identity card and left his lodging after engineering a reason to go outside. He evaded the public safety office and rode a city bus toward the heavily guarded city center, while the person following him got off.

• Xu Huo proposed that the Rebel Army investigate East District player modification and Agor Company's psychotherapist, and they asked him to wait while they looked into it.
• Xu Huo sent Bai Kou an East District player's identity card and Access Card and asked her to forge a replacement.
• Xu Huo knocked paint from an upstairs neighbor's rack, then left his room amid the dispute and ensuing fight over compensation.
• Xu Huo slipped away from the crowd before reaching the public safety office and boarded a city loop bus.
• The bus detoured around the sealed area, the Rebel Army member following Xu Huo got off, and Xu Huo continued toward the city center past heavy patrols.

Xu Huo entered the East District’s city center during preparations for Agor Company’s fiftieth anniversary and investigated the district’s population policies. He discovered that Agor controlled its hospitals and research, while an unusually high miscarriage rate remained unexplained in public records.

• Xu Huo entered the city center without disguising himself and passed East District Players who watched him coldly.
• Residents promoted Agor Company’s anniversary raffle as the mayor announced the slogan, “The future of Yuquan City is yours to create!”
• Xu Huo used a Jixin Terminal to read about the East District’s annual program for raising and training children to become Players.
• Xu Huo found a study attributing the district’s high miscarriage rate to genetic self-selection and learned that Agor Company owned the laboratory behind it.
• Xu Huo discovered that nearly every licensed hospital belonged to Agor Company and that public records contained no pre-division policies about population growth.

Xu Huo investigated East District’s population controls and Player activity, gathering clues from an underground Doctor and a propaganda operation disguised as a media company. After leaving to investigate former Rebel Army sites, he was intercepted by a woman who offered him a way to earn extra cash.

• Xu Huo questioned an underground Doctor, who confirmed the city government was secretly restricting births and directed him to a bar where people traded secrets.
• Xu Huo visited the bar and discovered a media operation that manufactured conflicting stories about the city government, Agor Company, and the Rebel Army.
• Xu Huo examined the reports and concluded that East District’s Players often lost control, while Agor Company might have developed a new way to train Players.
• Xu Huo left to visit former Rebel Army sites, but a woman intercepted him and asked if he wanted to earn extra cash.

Xu Huo followed a woman to an underground gaming-hall gathering place, where he learned about real-world bounties and Agor Company's control of Yuquan City. After hearing the group discuss the Rebel Army, he claimed it could be wiped out by giving it a forced choice.

• Xu Huo followed a woman to a gaming hall and used a high-level game account to find a hidden gathering place in a man-made cave.
• Xu Huo met Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou, who explained how players posted and claimed bounties targeting real people.
• Old Zhou told Xu Huo that Agor Company controlled Yuquan City and manipulated news about the Rebel Army and the West District.
• Qiao Qiao suggested ways Agor Company could discredit the Rebel Army, and the group debated whether the organization could be eliminated.
• Xu Huo said that wiping out the Rebel Army would be easy if it were given a forced choice.

Xu Huo discussed how the East District and Rebel Army might be forced into conflict over the West District Clean-Up Plan and proposed using Dove as leverage. After the conversation, several Players contacted him about teaming up, meeting, or revealing information about “White Blood.”

• Xu Huo argued that the Clean-Up Plan could force the Rebel Army to fight the East District during the anniversary celebration.
• Xu Huo suggested that the Rebel Army should attack Agor's headquarters and later proposed making Dove surrender in exchange for canceling the plan and improving West District benefits.
• The Players debated how the Rebel Army could respond, including taking hostages or finding a scapegoat for Dove.
• Old Zhou and Qiao Qiao messaged Xu Huo about teaming up against Agor Company, while two others asked to meet him.
• Another Player messaged Xu Huo, asking whether he wanted to know what “White Blood” was.

Xu Huo met two people who responded to his attempt to draw out information about White Blood and the East District’s plans. The first fled without giving him information, while the second offered a bounty-list tip in exchange for his help.

• Xu Huo met a man in a Duckbill Hat, who offered White Blood information if Xu Huo signed a contract and cooperated with him.
• Xu Huo refused to sign, and the man fled after Xu Huo suddenly appeared with a blade at his neck.
• Xu Huo concluded the man was likely a low-level Rebel Army member trying to draw Outer District Players toward White Blood.
• Xu Huo met a middle-aged woman in a park, and they discussed the possibility that the East District planned to take the West District hostage.
• The woman said she wanted an Outer District Player to help her and offered information about someone on the bounty list in return.

A woman told Xu Huo that Agor Company hospitals deliberately caused miscarriages and let her sick child die, then urged him to destroy the hospital. After returning to Sister Yan’s compound, Xu Huo confronted the Rebel Army over what they knew, leaving their peaceful arrangement in jeopardy.

• A woman asked Xu Huo to destroy an Agor Company hospital and described how it had killed her five viable fetuses and withheld treatment from her sick child.
• The woman offered information about the location and timing of an operation by wanted target number nine, a psychological therapist, and explained that she was about to be assigned treatment that might erase her memories.
• Xu Huo accepted the woman’s note and promised to help if her account was true, though the operation came before the anniversary celebration he had planned around.
• Xu Huo returned to Sister Yan’s place, where Sister Yan offered him a false identity and a noninterference agreement.
• Xu Huo accused the Rebel Army of knowing that Agor Company hospitals were killing fetuses, and a man behind Sister Yan stood up angrily to challenge him.

Xu Huo confronted Sister Yan and the Rebel Army about their failure to help East District civilians, then learned they lacked the evidence and access needed to expose Agor Company. The next morning, he met Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou to compare their clearance tasks, and Old Zhou revealed that his cover in the East District had been blown.

• Xu Huo accused Sister Yan and the Rebel Army of ignoring suffering in the East District, and the furious man attacked him before realizing Xu Huo was not an Outer District Player.
• Sister Yan explained that the Rebel Army could not gather evidence against the hospitals because Agor Company controlled them and the rebels lacked legitimate identities.
• Xu Huo asked whether the Rebel Army would publish evidence and stop Agor Company’s suspected extermination plan, then agreed to remember their sacrifice if they died fighting.
• Sister Yan promised to find Xu Huo a legal identity, while he privately maintained his cover and avoided pressing the Rebel Army for more information.
• Xu Huo met Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou, who discussed White Blood and their clearance tasks.
• Old Zhou said a therapist had exposed his East District infiltration, and Xu Huo asked whether the East District had truly discovered him or merely bluffed him into confessing.

Xu Huo, Qiao Qiao, and Old Zhou compared their missions and discussed the East District’s capture of Outer District players and the Rebel Army’s secrecy. After Xu Huo destroyed an ambush of armed robots, he confronted the player who had lured him to the meeting, but East District forces suddenly surrounded both groups.

• Qiao Qiao explained that East District players captured Outer District players alive, while he and Old Zhou described missions tied to Agor Company.
• Xu Huo asked whether the Rebel Army could help them enter Agor, but Old Zhou said they had found few useful contacts.
• Xu Huo went to meet the player who had questioned him about the hostage plan and found a lockdown barrier and armed robots waiting instead.
• Xu Huo cut through the barrier and five robots, escaped the city center, changed his appearance, and tracked down the watching player with Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou.
• The windbreaker-wearing player gathered other Outer District players and implied that his group might fight Xu Huo’s, but a combat aircraft struck one of them as East District players arrived and activated item-disabling devices and vibration disruptors.

Xu Huo and the other Outer District players fought East District players who trapped them with coordinated attacks and spatial barriers. After the lockdown collapsed, aircraft and city defenses joined the pursuit, and Xu Huo fought his way into a hospital’s surgical building.

• The East District players activated a lockdown barrier and attacked the Outer District players with coordinated Artifacts and Abilities.
• The East District players used spatial power to immobilize the battlefield, killing two Outer District players before Xu Huo used Cube Space to disrupt the Space Rays.
• The Outer District players broke through the barriers, but armed aircraft, tracking rounds, and the city’s defenses forced them to flee through the streets.
• Xu Huo fought his way past a hospital’s defensive barrier and armed robots, then charged into its surgical building.

Xu Huo, Qiao Qiao, and Old Zhou uncovered evidence that Yuquan City’s hospitals were coordinating to control births and conceal abnormal miscarriages. They planned to expose the hospital staff’s confessions through a virtual reality game and stir unrest before the coming conflict with the Rebel Army.

• Xu Huo fought through East District Players at the hospital, but Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou reached the operating room first and found the psychotherapist dead.
• Xu Huo called off the fight, then returned to the hospital and seized records about children who died unnatural deaths and miscarriages, along with the Director and five doctors.
• Xu Huo regrouped with Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou at an arcade and showed them the documents, revealing that hospitals shared data to control newborns.
• Xu Huo said they could use the evidence to fuel conflict in the East District before its battle with the Rebel Army.
• The three planned to record the six captives confessing and distribute the videos through a virtual reality game because Agor Company controlled the Jixin Terminal.

Xu Huo, Qiao Qiao, and Old Zhou examined how Yuquan City's players coordinated so efficiently and suspected the Agor Company might use drugs or surgery to enhance combat performance. After questioning a captured East District player, they learned he knew nothing about White Blood and that his group’s Potions came from the game.

• Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou considered whether Yuquan City's coordination came from shared knowledge of items, while Xu Huo attributed it to careful team composition and possibly Evolution interference.
• Xu Huo suggested the Agor Company might make its players more efficient through brain surgery or drugs, possibly involving the rumored White Blood.
• The three agreed to investigate White Blood and recruit more people, then spread the confession video.
• Xu Huo questioned a captured East District player under truth serum, but the player had never heard of White Blood and said their Potions came from the game.