Chapter Summaries

Lu Li forced Amir and the other Indian Players to accept a one-nine split of the Realm Escape Vouchers and sign confidentiality contracts, then took charge as new tasks were announced. The Players rested and compared clues, beginning with Pan Xiaoxiao’s explanation of the plaza statue’s inscription.

• Lu Li claimed nine shares of the Realm Escape Vouchers for himself, made Amir take one share, and required the Indian Players to sign contracts concealing his involvement.
• Yellow Hair smeared himself with the dead Player’s blood and organs, then buried his head in the sand to try to fool the creatures at Bone Burial Beach.
• An armored guard announced three tasks: find the prince’s lover, identify the terrifying creature at Bone Burial Beach, and determine when blue phosphorescence appeared on the waves.
• The Players looked to Lu Li for direction, but he delayed accepting the tasks and told everyone to dance, rest, and share their information.
• Pan Xiaoxiao explained that the plaza statue’s inscription distinguished the Prince’s Ball from the Celebration Ball and indicated that commoners could not attend every night.

Lu Li and the others compared their findings about the Garden Crystal Coffin and the Royal Physician’s Herb Garden. Alisa’s account revealed the prince’s misfortunes and that one possible treatment for his illness remained untried.

• Pan Xiaoxiao reported that the Garden Crystal Coffin was heavily guarded and that guards offered benefits in exchange for gold coins.
• Li Luo described the half-human, half-fish corpse and said the guards would let visitors touch it if they paid.
• Two female Players confirmed that the guards offered access to the corpse’s tail gland, which supposedly prolonged life, though Pan Xiaoxiao said Yan Qi had found no real benefit.
• Lu Li concluded that the coffin guards could be bribed and were disloyal to the prince, while Pan Xiaoxiao cautioned that this applied only to those guards.
• Alisa reported that the prince had suffered a series of tragedies and a strange illness, and that his royal physician had one final treatment method left to try.

Lu Li and Pan Xiaoxiao compared their clues about the Secret Realm, including Alisa’s report that mermaid flesh might grant immortality and Lu Li’s discoveries at Hidden Cape. As they discussed the story behind Daughter of the Sea, Pan Xiaoxiao connected the prince’s history to the mermaid legend, while Lu Li hinted that he had a theory about clearing the challenge.

• Alisa told Lu Li that Old Whitebeard believed mermaid flesh could cure illness and grant immortality, and had promised a reward if she proved its effects.
• Lu Li described Hidden Cape, where he had found a bloodstained dagger and a message made of seashells, and said he had sent the traps and precautions to the group chat.
• Pan Xiaoxiao praised Lu Li’s exploration, then recalled that General Ao Zhan had said Lu Li alone could clear Daughter of the Sea.
• Lu Li summarized the little mermaid’s tragic tale and said he had a guess about how to clear the Secret Realm.
• Pan Xiaoxiao explained that the King of Hattlas was the prince saved by a mermaid in the original story, while the Secret Realm’s prince had married a mermaid transformed into a human.

Pan Xiaoxiao explained that the mermaid’s face had decayed and questioned Lu Li about the clues he left at Hidden Cape. A monster attacked a stranded Player, while Lu Li prepared his group to identify it and the injured woman crawled toward Yellow Hair, apparently hoping to drag him into danger.

• Pan Xiaoxiao said the prince’s wife’s face had rotted away, and Lu Li asked whether Ao Zhan had removed her mask.
• Pan Xiaoxiao asked Lu Li why he had left noble clothes and a visitation token on the reef at Hidden Cape.
• A monster attacked the injured female Player, but Lu Li ignored her pleas and told Alisa to record the creature while Li Luo rested with her eyes closed.
• Pan Xiaoxiao inferred that Lu Li suspected the monster was an enraged mermaid and had prepared for its sleep-inducing face.
• After the monster wounded her other leg, the female Player crawled toward Yellow Hair and laughed about making them die together.
• Lanbir wondered whether the female Player had a Title that could let her affect Yellow Hair through the Challenger Barrier.

A female Player tried to make Yellow Hair share the prince’s tasks, but after she was killed, he escaped the guards by promising to complete them. A tentacled horror attacked him on the beach, and Lu Li and the others concluded that its resemblance to the prince might mean there were two monsters; Li Luo offered to test whether it could be killed.

• The female Player accepted all three tasks for herself and Yellow Hair, then admitted they could not complete them, so a guard killed her.
• Yellow Hair denied being with the woman, then promised the guard he could complete the tasks and was spared.
• A tentacled horror emerged from the darkness and repeatedly tore at Yellow Hair while Lu Li and Alisa recorded it.
• Lu Li and Pan Xiaoxiao noticed that the monster resembled the prince, but reasoned that two horrors might exist because the beach creature had appeared while the prince was present.
• Li Luo suggested that the monster was not lethal and offered to go out and kill it so they could examine its corpse.

Lu Li guided Pan Xiaoxiao through the clues about the bloodstained dagger, the prince’s errand quest, and the mermaid’s tail scale, while the Players witnessed the monster devour Yellow Hair’s head. Lu Li chose to let the other Players take the quest and continued explaining his strategy.

• Lu Li warned Pan Xiaoxiao not to take risks and asked her to help analyze how to clear the Secret Realm.
• Lu Li showed Pan Xiaoxiao the bloodstained dagger, and she deduced that it had belonged to the mermaid who saved the king and might bear the queen’s blood.
• Lu Li prompted Pan Xiaoxiao to reconsider the dagger’s purpose and the prince’s errand quest, leading her to question whether the prince’s tail scale had come from his late wife.
• A monster devoured Yellow Hair’s head in front of the Players, revealing its horrifying appearance.
• Pan Xiaoxiao offered to take the quest before the other Players could act, but Lu Li calmly told her to let them take it while he finished explaining the strategy.

Lu Li argued that the prince’s crystal coffin did not prove he loved his late wife and sent Xing Anlin to investigate the coffin at night. As Xing Anlin reached it, he joked that they needed to light a candle before opening it.

• Lu Li explained to Alisa and Pan Xiaoxiao that a grand tomb could be a hypocritical display rather than evidence of love.
• Lu Li contacted Xing Anlin and used his Talent Ability to show the Garden Crystal Coffin on the outskirts of the palace.
• Lu Li told Pan Xiaoxiao that he believed the body in the coffin was not the mermaid who had saved the prince.
• Xing Anlin approached the unguarded coffin at night while Lu Li and the others watched through the screen.
• Xing Anlin asked Lu Li whether they had missed the step of lighting a candle at the coffin’s northwest corner.

Lu Li had Xing Anlin open the crystal coffin and discovered that the mermaid corpse was a fake, with its flesh deliberately carved away. The group still lacked evidence about the order of the prince’s misfortunes as Lu Li ended the investigation and declined to bribe the guards.

• Lu Li told Xing Anlin to open the crystal coffin so he could inspect the mermaid’s tail.
• Lu Li found a pale red tail scale among the corpse’s fallen scales, revealing that the body in the coffin was not the prince’s real lover.
• Lu Li turned the corpse over and discovered that someone had cut away most of the flesh on its back.
• Lu Li asked Pan Xiaoxiao about the order of the prince’s misfortunes, but she could only offer her earlier guess.
• Lu Li put away the screen, rejected Pan Xiaoxiao’s suggestion to bribe a guard, and awkwardly teased her about opposing bribery.

Lu Li sent one group to learn when the Goodman Caravan’s blue fireflies rose and led the others back to investigate changes in the imperial city. The palace gates were unguarded, and after the Players split up to search for clues, Wan Jiaxi questioned Shahrukh about why he had wanted to visit the Garden Crystal Coffin.

• Lu Li assigned the three college students to ask the Goodman Caravan when the blue fireflies rose, offering to let them redeem anything they paid.
• Lu Li led the remaining Players toward the imperial city, expecting its defenses to have changed after the terrifying creature revealed itself.
• Lu Li and the Players found the palace perimeter largely unguarded and split up to investigate separate locations.
• Wan Jiaxi chose to take his group to the Garden Crystal Coffin while Amir led his group toward the Plaza Statue.
• Shahrukh urged Amir to visit the Garden Crystal Coffin, but Amir dismissed him and left, so Wan Jiaxi asked Shahrukh what he had noticed.

Lu Li and his companions questioned the royal physician to establish the order of Hattlas Imperial City’s misfortunes and learn details about the royal family’s ailments and the queen’s assassination. The account confirmed their suspected sequence and left Pan Xiaoxiao startled by the revelation that the queen’s heart had been torn out.

• Wan Jiaxi persuaded Shahrukh to examine the mermaid’s corpse in the Crystal Coffin, but Amir called Shahrukh back before he could finish explaining.
• A royal physician recognized Alisa and allowed her group into the guarded herb garden without inspecting their visitor tokens.
• Lu Li asked the royal physician about the order of Hattlas’s misfortunes, and the old man listed the king’s dementia, the prince’s shipwreck and illness, the queen’s assassination, and Emily’s death.
• Lu Li learned that the royal family had no history of dementia or weak legs, and that the queen’s escaped assassin had likely used a dagger.
• Pan Xiaoxiao asked whether the queen’s heart was missing, and Lu Li covered for her by saying she was an assistant who admired the royal family.

Lu Li and Pan Xiaoxiao questioned the royal physician about the missing hearts of Queen Hattlas and Princess Emily, then connected the clues to the prince’s possible illness. Pan Xiaoxiao asked to see the prince, and the physician’s alarm suggested her suspicion had hit close to the truth.

• The royal physician said Princess Emily’s heart had been removed like the queen’s, but he could not tell whether she had died from an illness or an assassin.
• Pan Xiaoxiao proposed that the hearts were taken because someone hoped to use a mermaid’s heart as medicine.
• Pan Xiaoxiao remembered the monster’s words about immortality and eternal youth, then suspected Lu Li had been guiding her toward the trial’s solution.
• Lu Li asked Pan Xiaoxiao for her thoughts, and she asked the physician where the prince was so they could see him.
• The physician recoiled and demanded to know what Pan Xiaoxiao intended, prompting her to ask whether the prince’s strange illness had worsened.

Pan Xiaoxiao convinced the royal physician that she and Lu Li could cure the prince, and he agreed to take them to the palace. Meanwhile, Wan Jiaxi’s group found a pale red scale in the open crystal coffin and realized they could trade it to the Goodman Caravan for the letter Lu Li had delivered.

• Pan Xiaoxiao told the royal physician that her group intended to save the prince, and he agreed to bring them into the palace.
• Wan Jiaxi and his teammates examined the moved merman corpse in the open crystal coffin and found a pale red scale.
• Wan Jiaxi’s teammates recalled that Lu Li had delivered the same kind of scale to a Goodman Caravan merchant in exchange for a letter.
• Wan Jiaxi concluded that his group could trade the scale for the letter and read it because they had never accepted the prince’s delivery quest.

Lu Li and his companions entered the palace’s hidden depths, where they discovered that the prince was the monster that had attacked the beach. Pan Xiaoxiao was asked to treat him, but Lu Li admitted he had no plan and had assumed she knew how to clear the realm, leaving her to realize she was leading the group.

• Lu Li told Xing Anlin to let Wan Jiaxi’s group take the tail scale, while Xing Anlin followed them as a safeguard.
• Lu Li and the others were led through the palace to a small hall, where Pan Xiaoxiao recorded what she saw and traced a foul smell to a curtain.
• The imperial physician ordered the curtain opened, revealing the prince in a horrifying monster form.
• The imperial physician asked Pan Xiaoxiao to demonstrate her medical skills, and she turned to Lu Li for guidance.
• Lu Li said he had no plan and had followed Pan Xiaoxiao because he thought she knew how to save the prince.
• Pan Xiaoxiao realized that Lu Li had not been leading the group and that she was now responsible for setting their course.

Pan Xiaoxiao questioned the prince and his attendants about the timing of his transformation, but the maids admitted they had all fallen asleep and could not account for the night. As Pan Xiaoxiao tried to stall for time, Lu Li suddenly attempted to stab the prince, provoking the guards to surround them.

• Pan Xiaoxiao examined the prince and learned that he could not remember what had happened before he transformed.
• The imperial physician said the prince had stayed in the palace all night, and ten maids claimed they had attended him.
• Pan Xiaoxiao pressed the maids for the time of the transformation, and they confessed they had all fallen asleep.
• Pan Xiaoxiao said she needed more time to determine the onset and stabilize the prince, while the imperial physician and guards grew suspicious.
• Lu Li lunged at the prince with a bloodstained dagger, but the prince's tentacles blocked the strike.
• The imperial physician called Lu Li and his companions assassins, and the heavy armored guards cornered them.

Lu Li rescued Pan Xiaoxiao from the palace guards by suddenly returning with her to Bone Burial Beach, where he waited for the college students to bring back an item that would reveal when the waves would glow blue. The students returned with a purple seashell, and Lu Li prepared to use it after dark.

• Lu Li teleported himself and Pan Xiaoxiao away from the palace guards to Bone Burial Beach, leaving Wan Jiaxi confused by their sudden appearance.
• Lu Li asked Wan Jiaxi about the prince's letter and told him to photograph it for the Secret Realm Chat Group after reading it.
• The white-bearded imperial physician told the guards to keep the royal city under martial law and hunt for the escaped assassins, while a maid quietly left the prince's room.
• Three college students returned from the Goodman Caravan with a purple seashell they had earned by completing a mission to learn when the waves would glow blue.
• Lu Li praised the students, accepted the seashell, and said it should be used before sunset.

Lu Li reassured Pan Xiaoxiao that the Rule Realm raid had not failed and explained his suspicion that clearing [Daughter of the Sea] required confronting the prince in his monster form. He left the group preparing to investigate Hidden Cape with his precautions posted, while Pan Xiaoxiao remained unsure whether Lu Li’s success came from luck or hidden knowledge.

• Lu Li sent Wan Jiaxi and the other Players to investigate Hidden Cape, then posted his exploration findings and precautions in the Secret Realm Chat Channel after Pan Xiaoxiao suggested it.
• Pan Xiaoxiao apologized for drawing the royal guards’ pursuit and worried that the Rule Realm raid would fail, but Lu Li calmly told her it had not failed yet.
• Xing Anlin praised Lu Li in the Soul Realm and teased him for keeping his strategy hidden from Pan Xiaoxiao.
• Lu Li told Pan Xiaoxiao he had suspected the prince’s kindness and gambled on the possibility that [Daughter of the Sea] required Players to confront the prince in his monster form.
• Pan Xiaoxiao used [Extreme Thinking] to follow Lu Li’s reasoning and recalled that he had cleared [Fairytale Town] alongside Nikita.

Lu Li explained his theory that Hatteras's prince became ill after encountering mermaids and murdered his mother and wife in pursuit of a cure. He then proposed that the Players would split between human and merman factions, leaving Lu Li and three others to enter the sea when it glowed blue.

• Lu Li reconstructed the prince's history and suspected his illness was connected to mermaids and his murders were attempts to obtain a cure.
• Pan Xiaoxiao noted that past dungeon records confirmed mermaid body parts had miraculous effects, but neither she nor Lu Li knew why the prince remained ill and became monstrous.
• Lu Li predicted the Players would divide into human and merman factions, with the four would-be assassins unable to join the human faction.
• Lu Li told Pan Xiaoxiao to have the three college students report back in the evening and direct the other Players to stay on shore while the four entered the sea.
• Alisa asked whether the Players remaining on shore would join the human faction, and Pan Xiaoxiao realized Lu Li might have planned the apparent coincidences all along.

As heavily armored guards pursued them at Bone Burial Beach, Lu Li held them back with Soul Soldiers while Pan Xiaoxiao led Alisa and Li Luo into the sea. Lu Li joined them underwater, where the group prepared to find the merman faction before the guards followed.

• Lu Li told the others to leave a message in the Secret Realm Chat Channel, and Alisa mistakenly announced to the Players that they were heading into the sea.
• Lu Li summoned Soul Soldiers to hold back the heavily armored guards while Pan Xiaoxiao guided Alisa and Li Luo into the water.
• After losing nearly five hundred Soul Points, Lu Li used [Levitation] to fly above the battle and dive into the sea.
• Lu Li found that the rules let him breathe underwater, and Pan Xiaoxiao shared precautions through their chat group.
• Pan Xiaoxiao warned that the guards could also enter the water, so the group planned to find the merman faction for protection.

Lu Li and the others reached a glowing coral forest and learned that the Deep Sea Witch demanded treasured things, including Talent Abilities, as payment. Pan Xiaoxiao explained why she was willing to risk losing her Talent, and the group arrived at the forest’s guarded entrance.

• Pan Xiaoxiao told Alisa and Lu Li that the Deep Sea Witch traded goods for prices such as attribute points or Talent Abilities.
• Lu Li considered exchanging some of his less valuable Talents, while Pan Xiaoxiao offered to sacrifice her own Talent if necessary.
• Pan Xiaoxiao explained that Jin Guoxun’s divination suggested clearing [Daughter of the Sea] could save many lives by providing a valuable walkthrough.
• Lu Li respected Pan Xiaoxiao’s choice and guided her back to discussing the realm.
• Two masked fishmen stopped the group at the coral forest’s edge, and Pan Xiaoxiao wrote that they were adventurers.

Lu Li and his companions entered the underwater world and met Trelton, the King of the Mermaids. Pan Xiaoxiao offered to help with his troubles, setting up the search for clues about Emily and the mermaid princess.

• The merfolk guards admitted the group after they identified themselves as adventurers, and Pan Xiaoxiao explained that they needed to meet the king before exploring.
• Pan Xiaoxiao warned that accepting the Mermaid King's quest would be necessary to obtain an investigation token for the deep-sea witch, but failure could bring a deadly hunt.
• Lu Li agreed to proceed and learned that Pan Xiaoxiao would seek compensation for his losses and pay for his help.
• The group entered the Sea God Hall and met the weary Trelton, who said he would not show them around.
• Pan Xiaoxiao offered to help ease Trelton's worries in the name of friendship between their people.