Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng discusses his Honorary Homeowner Medal with Cow-Horse, explaining that he earned it through a dangerous rooftop bungee challenge. Collecting all five medals would prevent delivery orders from being refused and stop security guards from blocking access to low- and mid-tier residential compounds, though they would not help in upscale areas.
• Cow-Horse reveals that it has collected no medals because it can simply overpower guards and considers the medals more troublesome than useful. Medal holders may also be asked by customers to perform additional tasks.
• Liu Zheng recounts being forced to walk a notoriously vicious dog. Cow-Horse laughs at his misfortune but also acknowledges his courage.
• Liu Zheng explains that he traded Maotai and the tree-like entity Dai Lego for a three-day sick leave slip, intending to search for Fire Mage, Wolf Knight’s powerful brother.
• Cow-Horse warns him that sick leave is extremely dangerous. During leave, Liu Zheng loses his status as a restaurant employee, cannot enter the Bloodstained Restaurant normally, and loses the restaurant’s protection at night.
• Cow-Horse outlines two alternatives: entering the restaurant as a paying customer, which is safe but unaffordable, or staying at an inn, which is cheaper but highly dangerous. Liu Zheng rejects both options as impractical.
• Cow-Horse then receives a call from the boss. Several kitchen workers have been hospitalized because of problems with the latest goods shipment, and the two are ordered to assist in the kitchen.
• Cow-Horse warns Liu Zheng that the kitchen is far more dangerous than ordinary delivery work. He must ignore anything disturbing, obey the rules, and avoid trying to act heroically.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse lifting the blue curtain and entering the restaurant’s mysterious darkness.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains pragmatic and survival-focused. Although he wants to find Fire Mage, he reassesses his plan after learning that sick leave effectively removes the protection keeping him alive. His willingness to help in the kitchen also shows his habit of accepting danger when necessary.
• He demonstrates self-awareness about his weakness, acknowledging that nearly everyone in the city is stronger than him, but he continues to survive through caution, adaptability, and opportunism.
• Cow-Horse displays a mixture of mockery, concern, and authority. It laughs at Liu Zheng’s misfortunes but gives him crucial survival advice and clearly understands the risks of the restaurant kitchen.
• Cow-Horse’s attitude shifts sharply when discussing kitchen rules, revealing that its friendly behavior toward Liu Zheng has limits and that it will kill him if he endangers them both.

Significant Themes

• Survival versus ambition: Liu Zheng’s desire to search for Fire Mage conflicts with the need to remain under the restaurant’s protection.
• The hidden cost of freedom: Sick leave appears beneficial but strips Liu Zheng of the identity and shelter that keep him safe.
• Rules as protection: The restaurant’s rules are not bureaucratic inconveniences; they are essential safeguards against death.
• Powerlessness and resourcefulness: Liu Zheng is physically weak compared with nearly every supernatural being around him, so he survives through caution, negotiation, and making use of limited opportunities.
• False safety and hidden danger: Medals, inns, sick leave, and even friendly relationships all contain risks that are not immediately visible.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse exchange sarcastic remarks about the medal and Liu Zheng’s miserable condition, showing their increasingly familiar relationship.
• Cow-Horse mocks Liu Zheng’s dog-walking ordeal but also respects his nerve.
• Their discussion of Fire Mage becomes a warning about Liu Zheng’s vulnerability and the dangers of abandoning the restaurant.
• Cow-Horse acts as both adviser and enforcer, explaining the consequences of sick leave while making clear that it will not tolerate violations in the kitchen.
• Despite Cow-Horse’s harshness, the two cooperate when ordered to assist the kitchen, entering the dangerous area together.

Chapter Summary: “White-Feather Chicken and Calico Cat”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse arrive at the kitchen of Bloodstained Restaurant, which is unexpectedly clean, bright, and highly organized. The kitchen operates like a silent factory, with chefs communicating through gestures rather than speech.
• They meet Napoleon, the arrogant White-Feather Chicken who manages the kitchen. Napoleon explains that if a citizen is transformed into Black Goat’s Young, they lose their citizen status and legal protections. However, within the kitchen, Napoleon claims that he alone makes the rules.
• Napoleon assigns Cow-Horse to his usual pastry work and orders Liu Zheng to wash vegetables, dismissing Liu’s ability to cook home-style dishes because the restaurant does not serve such food.
• Liu meets Salmon, an adorable Calico Cat working in the kitchen. Salmon reveals that its owner’s face now appears in its fur. The owner threatens Liu, but Salmon casually explains that it ate him so they could remain together forever and avoid the owner’s body decaying.
• Under Napoleon’s supervision, Salmon and Liu return to work. Liu is assigned to wash pink-capped Hand-Blue Mushrooms, which temporarily turn his tentacles blue. Salmon reassures him that the mushrooms are poisonous but gives him an eraser that removes the discoloration.
• Liu successfully washes an entire basket of mushrooms, earning Salmon’s admiration. He is then sent to retrieve frozen meat from the freezer. When he opens the top bag, he sees something disturbing, and the chapter ends on his shocked reaction.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Remains practical, sarcastic, and focused on avoiding unnecessary work. He is pleased to be assigned simple tasks and uses his tentacles effectively, but his confidence is repeatedly challenged by the kitchen’s bizarre dangers.
• Cow-Horse: Acts boastful and domineering toward Liu, pretending to be a strict “father,” yet appears subordinate to Napoleon in the kitchen. His lack of knowledge about citizen status also reveals that he does not fully understand the consequences of transformation.
• Napoleon, the White-Feather Chicken: Establishes himself as an authoritarian and highly respected kitchen leader. He is proud of his control over the staff and openly looks down on Liu’s abilities and status.
• Salmon, the Calico Cat: Appears cute, friendly, and innocent, but casually describes eating its owner as an act of devotion. Its combination of sweetness and horrifying behavior reinforces the abnormal nature of the restaurant.
• Salmon’s owner: Though mostly represented by a face in the cat’s fur, he is possessive and threatening toward Liu, showing jealousy and hostility.

Significant Themes

• Absurdity and horror: Mundane kitchen tasks—washing vegetables and retrieving meat—are mixed with poisonous mushrooms, body transformation, and a cat that ate its owner.
• Hierarchy and status: The kitchen has greater authority than the delivery department, while citizenship determines legal protection. Napoleon’s control demonstrates how power can override formal rules in isolated spaces.
• Identity and transformation: Liu’s altered body, the loss of citizen status after transformation, and the owner’s face becoming part of Salmon’s fur all blur the boundaries between human, animal, and monster.
• Darkly comic survival: Liu responds to grotesque situations with sarcasm and reluctant cooperation, using humor to cope with danger.
• Possessive love and permanence: Salmon’s claim that it ate its owner to remain with him forever presents affection as something obsessive, consuming, and disturbing.

Character Interactions

• Napoleon criticizes Liu’s physique and abilities while offering him a place in the kitchen if he proves useful.
• Cow-Horse and Liu exchange antagonistic but comic “father-and-son” insults, though both retreat when Napoleon intervenes.
• Liu and Salmon quickly develop a friendly working relationship, with Salmon showing curiosity and admiration toward him.
• Salmon’s owner threatens Liu, prompting Liu’s sarcastic defense that he prefers dogs.
• Salmon guides Liu through the mushroom-washing task and helps him remove the blue discoloration from his tentacles.
• The chapter ends with Liu’s encounter with the frozen meat, setting up a likely revelation or danger in the next scene.

Chapter Summary: “One Step to the Stomach”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng helps prepare food in the kitchen after discovering a young woman’s corpse, whose abdomen has been hollowed out. The sight leaves him frightened and furious, but Cow-Horse forces him to focus on work.
• To cope with his emotions, Liu Zheng rolls an excessive number of pastry wrappers using his tentacles. Cow-Horse stops him and assigns him to wash vegetables instead.
• Cow-Horse reveals that the woman’s remains are being used to make Old Ginseng Whole-Person Soup, treating the horrific situation as an ordinary kitchen task.
• Calico Cat sends Liu Zheng to catch a dangerous Frogfish, warning him to announce the lifting of its covering and protect his ears.
• Frogfish releases a devastating croak that shakes the tank and nearly overwhelms Liu Zheng. In anger, Liu Zheng thrusts a tentacle into its mouth “all the way to its stomach,” stopping its cry, then knocks it unconscious.
• Liu Zheng prepares the Frogfish and saves its blood and organs. He gives the scraps to Calico Cat, which eagerly eats them.
• Human Face, appearing among Calico Cat’s fur, becomes jealous and suspicious of Liu Zheng’s growing rapport with the cat. Liu Zheng jokingly claims he gave the scraps for Human Face’s sake, temporarily appeasing him.
• After Calico Cat praises its master, Human Face asks Liu Zheng to extend a tentacle. When Liu Zheng complies, the cat fur suddenly hardens and pierces into his flesh, ending the chapter on a threatening cliffhanger.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng displays increasing emotional resilience. Although horrified by the corpse, he channels his fear and anger into work and demonstrates practical skill in food preparation.
• His anger also becomes more dangerous and impulsive, as shown when he violently subdues Frogfish instead of merely capturing it.
• Liu Zheng begins forming a tentative working relationship with Calico Cat, sharing food scraps and engaging in playful manipulation of Human Face.
• Cow-Horse reveals a harsh but protective attitude. It mocks Liu Zheng while also warning him to stay alive and preventing him from dwelling on the corpse.
• Calico Cat remains greedy, affectionate toward its master, and envious of Liu Zheng’s many tentacles.
• Human Face shows possessiveness and jealousy over Calico Cat, while maintaining an indulgent, controlling bond with it.

Significant Themes

• Desensitization and survival: The kitchen workers treat corpses and monstrous ingredients as routine, forcing Liu Zheng to adapt quickly to an environment where horror is normalized.
• Violence as labor: Killing and preparing creatures is presented as ordinary work, blurring the line between cooking, cruelty, and survival.
• Coping through action: Liu Zheng manages fear and anger by concentrating on physical tasks rather than reflecting on what he has witnessed.
• Possessiveness and control: Human Face’s jealousy and the cat’s devotion suggest that affection in this world is closely tied to ownership and domination.
• Dark humor amid horror: Cow-Horse’s blunt jokes, Calico Cat’s appetite, and Liu Zheng’s sarcasm provide comic relief without diminishing the grotesque setting.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: Cow-Horse orders Liu Zheng around, mocks him, and pushes him toward productive work, but its command to “stay alive” reveals genuine concern beneath the hostility.
• Liu Zheng and Calico Cat: Calico Cat instructs Liu Zheng in kitchen procedures and benefits from his generosity. Their interaction becomes friendly and transactional, with Liu Zheng teasing the cat and Calico Cat eagerly accepting the food.
• Liu Zheng and Human Face: Their exchange is marked by mutual suspicion and sarcasm. Liu Zheng deliberately provokes Human Face by implying he is competing for Calico Cat’s affection.
• Liu Zheng and Frogfish: Their encounter escalates from a dangerous capture to brutal retaliation, demonstrating Liu Zheng’s willingness to use his unusual tentacles violently.
• Human Face and Calico Cat: Calico Cat openly adores its master, while Human Face responds with indulgence toward the cat but hostility toward Liu Zheng, culminating in the unexplained attack on Liu Zheng’s tentacle.

Chapter Summary: “Never Strike Out”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng experiences a hallucination of a gigantic Salmon attacking him. Guided by a voice, he harpoons it, losing some Sanity Value but earning the temporary “Never Strike Out” status.
• The status greatly increases his chances of fishing successfully and strengthens his resistance to sanity pollution from fish. Liu Zheng considers it especially valuable because many delivery orders involve fish.
• In the Kitchen, the White-Feather Chicken asks Liu Zheng to taste a strange soup containing living, wormlike ingredients. Although Liu initially pretends that his sense of taste has not recovered, the Chicken exposes the lie.
• Liu describes the soup as spicy, sour, numbing, salty, and fishy. The Chicken adjusts the recipe by adding rosemary, bay leaves, and Salt Leeches.
• The soup causes Liu to experience severe digestive distress. He releases an enormous amount of foul gas, forcing the Kitchen staff to use gas masks and activate the ventilation system.
• Cow-Horse, who was also exposed without a gas mask, angrily confronts Liu. Their argument escalates until the White-Feather Chicken intervenes.
• The Chicken then assigns Cow-Horse to retrieve a shipment of smuggled goods, explaining that the previous batch was not properly inspected and caused many deaths. In exchange, it offers to resolve Cow-Horse’s dispute over a bottle of Vlad III and give Liu a cup of Golden Mead.
• The chapter ends with the implication that Golden Mead may trigger another encounter with the Gospel, since Liu has already gone insane once.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates increasing adaptability to the Kitchen’s bizarre and dangerous environment. He willingly sacrifices Sanity Value to gain the fishing-related status and uses humor and evasiveness to cope with disturbing situations.
• His physical recovery is emphasized: his sense of taste has returned due to his strong physique and Flesh Rebirth, though he tries to conceal this to avoid tasting dangerous food.
• Liu also becomes more integrated into the Kitchen’s operations, though he remains an outsider who is repeatedly exposed to its hazards.
• White-Feather Chicken is shown as both an experimental cook and a practical manager. It calmly treats grotesque ingredients and dangerous side effects as routine, while also negotiating assignments and rewards.
• Cow-Horse develops as a volatile but transactional ally. It becomes furious at Liu over the gas incident but is willing to accept a dangerous task if properly compensated.
• William and the Kitchen staff reinforce the impression that the Kitchen is staffed by nonhuman beings accustomed to abnormal food and procedures.

Significant Themes

• Sanity versus survival: Liu repeatedly accepts sanity loss and psychological danger in exchange for useful abilities or rewards.
• The normalization of the grotesque: Horrific events—living ingredients, poisonous food, violent gas, and sanity pollution—are treated as ordinary workplace problems.
• Absurd humor in a dangerous world: The chapter uses slapstick conflict and exaggerated bodily comedy to relieve the tension created by supernatural threats.
• Transactional relationships: Characters cooperate through bargains, compensation, and favors rather than trust or morality.
• Humanity and otherness: Liu’s recovered senses and partially nonhuman body highlight his uncertain position between ordinary humans and the Kitchen’s monstrous inhabitants.

Character Interactions

• Liu and the White-Feather Chicken interact as reluctant coworkers: the Chicken relies on Liu’s taste-testing while Liu tries to avoid responsibility.
• Liu and Cow-Horse quarrel over the disastrous gas incident, each blaming the other for bringing him into the Kitchen.
• The White-Feather Chicken mediates their confrontation and redirects Cow-Horse’s anger toward an external mission involving the smuggled goods.
• The Chicken also uses its past conflict with Cow-Horse over the Vlad III bottle as leverage, turning an argument into a negotiated assignment.
• Liu’s possible reward—Golden Mead—links him directly to the chapter’s continuing theme of sanity-threatening supernatural experiences.

Chapter Summary: “Round God Sect”

Key Plot Points and Events

• White-Feather Chicken tells Liu Zheng that Golden Mead may help him, convincing him to leave the restaurant despite his current weakness.
• To protect himself, Liu Zheng borrows the chef’s knife Gluttony, a Perfect-quality weapon that:
  • Restores ingredients to optimal condition when cutting them.
  • Devours part of anything it strikes according to its appetite.
  • Allows Liu Zheng to transform into the Gluttony Demon for one minute once fully fed.
• Calico Cat accompanies Liu Zheng to inspect the ingredients, while Cow-Horse handles the negotiations and potential fighting.
• The group exits through the restaurant’s bright, incense-filled kitchen passage, contrasting sharply with the dark takeout passage. Cow-Horse cynically explains that the incense masks the smugglers’ stench and that their desire for light hides their corrupt hearts.
• They meet a group of iron-masked smugglers at dusk. Cow-Horse recognizes them as the people who originally sold it to the restaurant.
• The smugglers are led by Garcia, now a high priest of the mysterious Round God. Garcia claims that he offered “all pain” to his god and preaches that all people will eventually become “wax” for their lord.
• Cow-Horse openly mocks Garcia’s faith, calling the Round God a false god that cannot bestow Gospel. Despite the provocation, Garcia and his followers remain eerily calm and proceed with the exchange.
• The smugglers deliver a heavy wooden crate and its manifest. Liu Zheng is asked to inspect the documents.
• Garcia notices that Liu Zheng has heard the Gospel of an evil god and becomes intrigued. He invites Liu Zheng to learn about the Round God, whom he calls the “Heavenly Father and Savior.”

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng accepts that he must continue taking risks in this dangerous world and prepares himself more seriously for combat by gripping Gluttony.
• He remains cautious and observant, noticing the suspicious history surrounding Cow-Horse and the smugglers, though he chooses not to question it yet.
• White-Feather Chicken reinforces its authority as the restaurant’s strategist and commander, assigning each member a specific role.
• Cow-Horse displays both hostility and surprising poetic insight. Its bitterness toward Garcia and the smugglers reveals resentment over having been sold to the restaurant.
• Calico Cat serves as the group’s ingredient inspector and provides comic relief by recognizing Cow-Horse’s borrowed poetic lines.
• Garcia is established as a calm, fanatical religious leader whose interest in Liu Zheng suggests that Liu’s connection to an evil god may be significant.

Significant Themes

• Faith and fanaticism: The Round God Sect’s language of salvation, unity, pain, and transformation presents religion as both devotion and psychological control.
• False holiness and hypocrisy: The sect’s masks, incense, and rituals create an image of purity while Cow-Horse suggests that their inner nature is corrupt.
• Exploitation and ownership: Cow-Horse’s revelation that the sect sold it to the restaurant introduces a history of trafficking and raises questions about the supposed legitimacy of the “farm.”
• Food, appetite, and power: Gluttony reflects the restaurant’s recurring connection between consumption and strength, turning eating into a supernatural weapon.
• Light and darkness: The brightly lit passage and incense contrast with the sect’s ominous behavior, suggesting that outward displays of holiness may conceal darker motives.

Character Interactions

• White-Feather Chicken gives Liu Zheng and Calico Cat their assignments while Cow-Horse leads them through the exchange.
• Cow-Horse and Liu Zheng joke and argue indirectly about Gluttony, which appears to have been lodged in Cow-Horse’s chest.
• Cow-Horse mocks Garcia’s beliefs, while Garcia responds with unnerving calm rather than anger.
• Calico Cat exposes Cow-Horse’s attempt to sound philosophical by identifying the lines as poetry by Bai Langzi.
• Garcia singles Liu Zheng out after learning he has heard the Gospel of an evil god, setting up a possible confrontation or recruitment attempt in the following chapter.

Chapter Summary: “Employee or Holy Son?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng rejects Garcia’s invitation to join the cult, distrusting any “god” worshipped by smugglers and refusing to listen to another Gospel after his previous experience with an evil god.
• The cult delivers their purchased goods: a mermaid priestess of royal blood, frozen inside a block of ice. Her identity and purity are emphasized, implying she is intended for exploitation by powerful customers.
• Cow-Horse expresses disgust at the trafficking operation and reveals that merfolk are already protesting at City Hall. Garcia cynically claims that City Hall tolerates the cult because its activities serve the city’s needs.
• Garcia activates a strange black-circle barrier that distorts the surroundings, concealing the transaction from outside observation. Cow-Horse explains that the cult believes only its god can judge its sins.
• The mermaid is protected by “Mermaid’s Tears,” a self-defense mechanism that will cause her to kill herself if the ice is removed improperly. Because the buyers cannot inspect her condition, Cow-Horse initially refuses to accept the shipment.
• Garcia threatens to sell her to the Black Market instead. Calico Cat warns Liu Zheng that the order came from an important council figure, and the restaurant will suffer if it cannot fulfill it.
• Liu Zheng challenges Garcia’s business practices, arguing that the cult’s shipping method damages its reputation and threatening to use Cow-Horse’s connections to powerful Black Market figures against them.
• Facing the possibility of losing future business, Garcia agrees to remove Mermaid’s Tears—but only if Liu Zheng listens to his Lord’s Gospel.
• Garcia attempts to recruit Liu Zheng by promising guaranteed food, shelter, safety, and freedom from labor. He contrasts this with the restaurant, where Liu Zheng may eventually be treated as livestock or an ingredient.
• The chapter ends with Cow-Horse framing Liu Zheng’s decision as a choice between remaining a disposable corporate employee at the restaurant or becoming the cult’s protected “holy son.”

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains skeptical, pragmatic, and resistant to religious manipulation. However, he demonstrates growing strategic confidence by using business pressure and political connections to force Garcia into negotiation.
• Garcia is revealed as a calm, manipulative cult representative who combines criminal commerce with sincere religious zeal. His persistence suggests that recruiting Liu Zheng is a personal or doctrinal priority.
• Cow-Horse continues to despise the iron-masked smugglers and shows a volatile but loyal nature. Despite their hostility, they obey Liu Zheng’s command to stand down and openly acknowledge the restaurant’s exploitative nature.
• Calico Cat functions as a practical intermediary, reminding Liu Zheng of the restaurant’s obligations and the consequences of rejecting the mermaid.
• The mermaid is presented as a traumatized and vulnerable captive, symbolizing the victims of the city’s hidden trade. Her royal and priestly status makes her both politically valuable and especially desirable to exploitative buyers.

Significant Themes

• Exploitation and commodification: The mermaid is treated as merchandise, while Liu Zheng is warned that the restaurant may eventually treat him as an ingredient rather than a person.
• Institutional corruption: City Hall appears aware of widespread crimes but ignores them when they serve political or economic interests.
• Religion as manipulation: The cult uses promises of safety and comfort to recruit people, presenting itself as a refuge while being involved in smuggling and trafficking.
• Corporate slavery versus cult protection: The chapter satirically contrasts Liu Zheng’s employment at the restaurant with the cult’s offer of guaranteed care, raising the question of whether either option provides genuine freedom.
• Reputation and power in criminal markets: Even illegal organizations depend on trust, reputation, and relationships with larger factions.
• Moral compromise: Every faction—including City Hall, the restaurant, the Black Market, and the cult—appears willing to tolerate cruelty when it is useful.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Garcia: Their negotiation is both a commercial dispute and a battle over ideology. Liu Zheng rejects Garcia’s religious appeal but successfully pressures him through threats to the cult’s business reputation.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: Liu Zheng restrains Cow-Horse’s aggression and takes control of the negotiation, while Cow-Horse provides blunt confirmation that the restaurant itself is exploitative.
• Garcia and Cow-Horse: Their hostility reflects a long-standing conflict between the restaurant and the cult. Cow-Horse openly insults the smugglers, while Garcia responds with controlled provocation.
• Liu Zheng and Calico Cat: Calico Cat urges Liu Zheng to accept the shipment because of the restaurant’s political obligations, pushing him toward a compromise.
• Garcia and the mermaid: Although Garcia speaks of business and religion, he participates in delivering a captive person for exploitation, highlighting the contradiction between the cult’s supposed moral authority and its actions.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng decides to continue delivering takeout rather than settle permanently in the dungeon, valuing his freedom and identity despite the offer of free food and lodging.
• Garcia, a powerful representative of the Round God Sect, prepares to leave with the cultists after Cow-Horse and Calico Cat refuse to fight.
• The imprisoned Mermaid Princess, Kova, secretly contacts Liu Zheng through telepathy and asks him to rescue her from the cult.
• Kova offers Liu Zheng the Counterfeit Heart of the Ocean, an equipment item that allows underwater breathing and increases swimming speed. It can be removed from the dungeon and is bound to her life, meaning it will shatter if she dies. She also promises him an additional undisclosed gift.
• Liu Zheng attempts to buy Kova, but Garcia claims that the Black Market has already purchased her. Liu Zheng argues that Garcia is violating the principle of “first come, first served.”
• When Garcia refuses to sell, Liu Zheng threatens to release the Hound of Tindalos using its chew toy. Cow-Horse, Calico Cat, their owner, and even Garcia react with extreme fear, demonstrating the creature’s terrifying reputation.
• Liu Zheng uses the threat to immobilize Garcia, then stabs him in the shoulder with Gluttony, which devours part of Garcia’s flesh.
• Garcia warns that further attacks will force both sides into a deadly confrontation. Instead of backing down, Liu Zheng declares that the conflict is only beginning and drives Gluttony into his own chest, ending the chapter on a dramatic cliffhanger.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains pragmatic, irreverent, and self-interested, but he is also increasingly bold and manipulative. He refuses to help merely out of kindness, demanding compensation from Kova before taking action.
• He demonstrates strong control over dangerous situations by exploiting everyone’s fear of the Hound of Tindalos, even though he himself is surprised by how terrified the others are.
• Liu Zheng’s final self-stabbing suggests either a calculated strategy, a supernatural ability, or a willingness to endure extreme pain to gain an advantage.
• Kova, the Mermaid Princess, is revealed to possess telepathy and significant bargaining ability. Though desperate, she tries to secure her rescue through promises and valuable magical equipment.
• Garcia is shown to be confident and threatening but not fearless. His composure breaks when Liu Zheng invokes the Hound, though he regains his reasoning and attempts to prevent mutual destruction.
• Cow-Horse and Calico Cat make clear that they are unwilling—or forbidden—to fight directly, leaving Liu Zheng to confront the situation through intimidation and deception.

Significant Themes

• Freedom versus comfort: Liu Zheng rejects a seemingly ideal life of free food and shelter because he fears losing his identity and becoming trapped in the dungeon.
• Transactional morality: Nearly every relationship is treated as a bargain. Liu Zheng will risk himself for Kova only if the reward is worthwhile, while Garcia views her purely as merchandise.
• Power through reputation and bluffing: Liu Zheng’s greatest weapon is not immediate physical strength but his ability to exploit others’ fear of the Hound of Tindalos.
• Identity and madness: The chapter repeatedly questions whether someone remains “alive” if they lose themselves, while Liu Zheng deliberately presents himself as unpredictable or insane.
• Escalation and defiance: Liu Zheng refuses to accept intimidation or compromise, turning a commercial dispute into a potentially lethal confrontation.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Garcia engage in a tense battle of wills over ownership of Kova, with both using threats and legalistic arguments about the transaction.
• Kova secretly negotiates with Liu Zheng through telepathy, while he responds skeptically and mocks her proposed rewards.
• Liu Zheng attempts to command Cow-Horse and Calico Cat, but both refuse to fight because of orders from the head chef.
• Liu Zheng’s threat involving the Hound terrifies nearly everyone present and shifts the balance of power in his favor.
• After injuring Garcia, Liu Zheng escalates rather than withdraws, signaling that the confrontation—and possibly a larger conflict with the Round God Sect—is only beginning.

Chapter Summary: “You Won’t Even Spare Fish”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng bargains with Garcia and the Round God Cult by repeatedly stabbing himself, using his rapid regeneration to prove his determination and force the cult to stop sealing the crate.
• Garcia, impressed by Liu Zheng’s endurance and “dedication,” agrees to trade and praises him as someone the sect could use even without receiving the Gospel.
• The cultists inspect the Mermaid Princess. Garcia uses a candle and a ritual called Drawing the Ground into a Circle to suppress the ice surrounding her, allowing the cult to examine her safely.
• Calico Cat verifies that the captive is genuinely a member of the Mermaid Royal Family. Garcia confirms her purity through her ability to use Mermaid’s Tears, which only pure mermaid priests can wield.
• Garcia gives Liu Zheng a Round God Cult Token, which prevents attacks from the cult and may produce an unknown effect if burned. Liu Zheng suspects the token could summon or reveal the Round God, potentially allowing him to pit the Round God against the Gospel’s forces.
• The cult leaves, and their protective circles disappear. Cow-Horse complains that the anticipated battle never happened.
• The Mermaid Princess fulfills her promise by transferring her power into the Heart of the Ocean. Liu Zheng retrieves the pendant and roughly removes the wax from her body.
• Liu Zheng, Cow-Horse, and Calico Cat argue over ownership of the Heart of the Ocean and each character’s contribution to the deal. Liu Zheng eventually pays them both with banknotes, satisfying them.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng examining the enhanced Heart of the Ocean.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates extreme pain tolerance, cunning, and manipulative bargaining. He uses self-inflicted wounds to intimidate Garcia and secure the trade, while secretly considering how the Round God token might be exploited.
• Garcia shifts from suspicion to respect, recognizing Liu Zheng as a valuable and unusually resilient individual. He remains polite and composed but clearly has hidden motives.
• The Mermaid Princess becomes more openly grateful toward Liu Zheng, though she is also anxious and resentful about his rough treatment. She keeps her promise by empowering the Heart of the Ocean.
• Cow-Horse remains greedy, boastful, and opportunistic. It claims credit for protecting Liu Zheng and demands a share of the reward.
• Calico Cat is cheerful and food-focused. She obediently inspects the Mermaid Princess and is pleased when Liu Zheng gives her money for dried fish.
• Garcia and the cultists are portrayed as ritualistic and calculating, relying on suppression magic and symbolic objects rather than direct violence.

Significant Themes

• Mutual exploitation and transactional loyalty: Nearly every relationship is based on bargaining, payment, or the exchange of power.
• Pain and sacrifice as leverage: Liu Zheng turns his willingness to suffer into a negotiating weapon, suggesting that endurance can be more powerful than conventional strength.
• Hidden agendas and dangerous artifacts: The Round God token appears useful but potentially hazardous, reinforcing the recurring theme that gifts often conceal threats.
• Greed and commodification: The Mermaid Princess is treated as an object of trade, inspection, and value, while the characters casually discuss her status in black-market rankings.
• Absurdity amid danger: Horrific violence, religious rituals, and supernatural threats are undercut by petty arguments about money, fish, and personal shares.
• Control versus freedom: The Mermaid Princess is physically suppressed and traded, while Liu Zheng tries to control the powers and factions surrounding him.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Garcia: Their negotiation is a contest of will. Liu Zheng uses self-harm to force Garcia’s cooperation, while Garcia responds with admiration, ritual caution, and a suspiciously useful token.
• Liu Zheng and the Mermaid Princess: Their relationship is uneasy and transactional. She thanks him for saving her, but he immediately demands the promised reward and treats her roughly while retrieving the Heart of the Ocean.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: They constantly insult and challenge one another, each claiming to have been essential to the successful deal. Their hostility is tempered by practical cooperation and Liu Zheng’s willingness to pay Cow-Horse.
• Liu Zheng and Calico Cat: He orders Calico Cat to inspect the Mermaid Princess, and later compensates her with money. Her simple delight contrasts with Liu Zheng’s irritation.
• Cow-Horse and Calico Cat: Both compete for compensation and remain focused on their own rewards, reinforcing the group’s comically mercenary dynamic.

Chapter Summary: “Like a Fish in Your Lotus Pond”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng discovers that the upgraded Heart of the Ocean now allows him to move faster underwater, breathe underwater, and absorb the soul of an aquatic creature he kills to gain its corresponding ability.
• While wondering what power he might gain from the strange Frogfish, Liu Zheng agrees to help the mermaid princess escape by distracting her pursuers.
• To buy time, he casually converses with his boss, Cow-Horse, asking about safe hotels and pretending to consider using a sick-leave note.
• Cow-Horse explains that most hotels are dangerous for humans. Although some establishments cater to humans, Liu Zheng is too dangerous-looking to be welcomed there because other creatures fear he might eat them.
• Cow-Horse recommends Rock Never Dies, a hotel supposedly friendly toward music lovers. The hotel is located near Chaos Club, making Liu Zheng suspicious that the two places may be connected.
• Liu Zheng initially considers choosing another hotel, but Cow-Horse insists that Rock Never Dies is his only realistic chance of survival.
• The mermaid princess finally announces that her escape plan has succeeded.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates his usual resourcefulness and willingness to take risks. He accepts the mermaid’s request because he trusts that Cow-Horse will deal with the consequences and because the transaction would otherwise fail.
• He remains calm and humorous under pressure, using jokes, questions, and threats to keep Cow-Horse distracted.
• Liu Zheng also shows increasing awareness of his ambiguous status in the world: although he is human, others view him as a potentially dangerous monster.
• Cow-Horse is revealed to have once been the bassist in a band led by Black Claw. Their music promoted racial equality and civil rights, but the city government shut the band down for being “vulgar” and “violent.”
• Cow-Horse claims to have abandoned ideals of equality and now embraces the world’s brutal law of the strong preying on the weak, though their fear of Liu Zheng’s weapons suggests they are not as fearless as they pretend.
• The mermaid princess remains dependent on Liu Zheng’s ability to stall their pursuers, but successfully completes her escape during the conversation.

Significant Themes

• Survival through deception and improvisation: Liu Zheng avoids direct confrontation by manipulating conversation and exploiting Cow-Horse’s assumptions.
• Discrimination and social hierarchy: Humans occupy a vulnerable position in this world, treated both as prey and as feared predators. The discussion of human-only hotels parallels real-world racial segregation.
• The collapse of idealism: Cow-Horse’s former activism and present cynicism highlight how oppressive societies can suppress political expression and destroy hope for equality.
• Predator and prey relationships: The repeated jokes about eating Liu Zheng emphasize the chapter’s central social order, where every species views others as food or threats.
• Humor as a survival mechanism: Liu Zheng uses sarcasm, dark humor, and absurd conversation to maintain control in a dangerous situation.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and the mermaid princess communicate secretly, with him agreeing to distract their enemies while she escapes.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse engage in a tense but playful conversation. Cow-Horse repeatedly threatens to eat him, while Liu Zheng counters with veiled threats involving his teeth-grinding stick.
• Their exchange reveals both a strange familiarity and an underlying power struggle: Cow-Horse acts superior, but quickly becomes frightened when Liu Zheng displays his weapon.
• Their discussion of music and the banned band exposes Cow-Horse’s past and creates a brief contrast between former ideals of equality and their current cynicism.
• The chapter ends when the mermaid confirms that Liu Zheng’s stalling has worked.

Chapter Summary: “Skinning and Stuffing”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng observes that the mermaid who thanked him and invited him to the Mermaid Kingdom was only a decoy. The real Mermaid Princess had already escaped by shedding her body or skin.
• He returns to the restaurant kitchen with Cow-Horse, where White-Feather Chicken and Calico Cat hear the story of their encounter with Tindalos and the Mermaid Princess.
• The group discusses Tindalos, a terrifying creature whose past rampage killed half the restaurant. They also explain the danger of mentioning its master, the Fire Mage, especially around the Service Department.
• White-Feather Chicken offers Liu Zheng a position in the kitchen, but Liu refuses because he wants to complete the Legendary Deliveryman Set.
• When the supposed “merchandise” is inspected, White-Feather Chicken realizes that only the Mermaid Princess’s discarded skin remains. She has escaped.
• To fulfill the order, White-Feather Chicken retrieves a frozen female mermaid from storage. He decides to skin her and stuff the Mermaid Princess’s discarded hide, rather than impersonate one mermaid as another.
• The mermaid awakens during the process and attempts to use her song, but White-Feather Chicken incapacitates her. Calico Cat then skins her alive while Liu Zheng watches helplessly.
• The chapter ends with the mermaid communicating telepathically with Liu Zheng, begging him to save her child.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains distrustful and emotionally guarded. Although he helped the Mermaid Princess, he refuses to believe in friendship and views all beings as fundamentally dangerous. However, witnessing the mermaid’s suffering awakens guilt and sympathy in him.
• The Mermaid Princess is revealed to be clever and resourceful, using a discarded body or skin as a decoy to escape capture.
• White-Feather Chicken is established as a skilled and ruthless kitchen master. He is knowledgeable about unusual ingredients, casually handles violence, and demonstrates pride in his ability to turn even a skin into a usable culinary product.
• Cow-Horse continues to provide comic relief through exaggerated loyalty, foolishness, and constant bickering with White-Feather Chicken. Despite his incompetence, he appears genuinely concerned for Liu Zheng.
• Calico Cat proves to be more than a mascot. She gives an accurate report, follows orders efficiently, and expertly skins the mermaid.
• The female mermaid shifts from a helpless victim to a desperate mother, using her final communication to ask Liu Zheng to protect her child.

Significant Themes

• Deception and survival: The Mermaid Princess survives by shedding her body and leaving behind a convincing decoy.
• Moral compromise and helplessness: Liu Zheng recognizes that the restaurant’s rules make the mermaid’s death almost inevitable, yet he still feels responsible for failing to stop it.
• Institutional brutality: The restaurant treats living beings as merchandise and ingredients, while its departments operate through fear, hierarchy, and grim practicality.
• Distrust versus compassion: Liu Zheng insists that friendship is impossible in this world, but his reaction to the mermaid’s plea shows that empathy remains within him.
• The value of identity and the body: The discarded skin becomes an object that can be processed, stuffed, and used, emphasizing how the restaurant reduces living creatures to their physical parts.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse return to the kitchen while joking and recounting their experience.
• White-Feather Chicken mocks Cow-Horse’s exaggerated concern for Liu Zheng but also offers Liu a place in the kitchen.
• The group discusses the dangerous history of Tindalos and its master, revealing fear and resentment toward the Service Department.
• White-Feather Chicken treats the escaped Mermaid Princess as a logistical inconvenience rather than a person.
• Liu Zheng silently sympathizes with the substitute mermaid, but his compassion comes too late to prevent her suffering.
• The mermaid’s final telepathic plea creates a direct emotional bond with Liu Zheng and sets up a possible conflict over whether he will attempt to save her child.

Chapter Summary: “Golden Mead”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng is asked by the Mermaid Princess to save the soul of her unborn child. Although he refuses to save her personally, he agrees to preserve the child’s soul.
• The Mermaid Princess suddenly tears open her abdomen, and the fetus—transformed into seawater—surges into Liu Zheng’s Heart of the Ocean. The item absorbs it and becomes enhanced.
• The enhanced Heart of the Ocean grants Liu Zheng major advantages underwater: increased movement and recovery speed, the ability to breathe freely, and reduced damage.
• The Mermaid Princess’s life force rapidly fades after the soul transfer. The White-Feather Chicken repairs her body and disguises her by removing her skin, reshaping her, and stuffing her into the fish’s skin.
• Using oil taken from Gluttony and an unusual piece of linen, the White-Feather Chicken restores the body so perfectly that it appears indistinguishable from the real Mermaid Princess.
• The reconstructed Mermaid Princess is dressed with lemon slices and sent out to serve as part of the restaurant’s ritual meal.
• The White-Feather Chicken confronts Liu Zheng, accusing him of interfering with the ritual and helping the Mermaid Princess escape. Cow-Horse intervenes, arguing that Liu Zheng’s actions prevented the fish from being stolen by the Black Market.
• Though Liu Zheng admits taking the Heart of the Ocean, Cow-Horse persuades the White-Feather Chicken to spare his life. The chicken agrees to punish him rather than kill him.
• As promised, Liu Zheng receives a bowl of Golden Mead. The drink restores half of his lost Sanity and raises his maximum Sanity by ten points.
• Immediately after Liu Zheng experiences the drink’s restorative effect, the White-Feather Chicken attacks him, hooking its claws through his collarbones and beginning his punishment.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Demonstrates emotional hardness and practical self-interest by refusing to save the Mermaid Princess, while still agreeing to preserve her child’s soul. He gains a significantly enhanced underwater artifact and accepts responsibility for taking it without revealing the full truth.
• Mermaid Princess: Becomes increasingly desperate and manipulative. Her apparent surrender conceals a final attempt to transfer her unborn child’s soul into Liu Zheng’s artifact. Afterward, her body is reduced to a ritual object and reconstructed as a near-perfect puppet.
• White-Feather Chicken: Reveals its exceptional skill, intelligence, and cruelty. It performs the restaurant’s rare “skinning and stuffing” technique, restores the Mermaid Princess’s body, negotiates Liu Zheng’s punishment, and ultimately attacks him personally.
• Cow-Horse: Acts as Liu Zheng’s protector and mediator. It argues that Liu Zheng’s actions served the restaurant’s interests and reinforces its role as a boss who protects its subordinates.
• White-Feather Chicken and Cow-Horse: Their exchange shows both tension and an underlying organizational relationship: the chicken demands accountability, while Cow-Horse insists that the group protect its own.
• Calico Cat: Briefly functions as a cheerful assistant by delivering the Golden Mead.

Significant Themes

• Self-interest versus compassion: Liu Zheng helps the unborn child but refuses to save the mother, showing compassion limited by personal benefit.
• Death, identity, and reconstruction: The Mermaid Princess’s body is dismantled and remade, raising questions about whether the reconstructed figure is still truly her.
• Exploitation and ritualized violence: The restaurant treats living beings as ingredients and transforms tragedy into a culinary performance.
• Power and punishment: The chapter emphasizes the restaurant’s internal hierarchy, where usefulness may prevent execution but does not eliminate consequences.
• Soul and vessel: The child’s soul is absorbed into the Heart of the Ocean, blurring the boundaries between life, death, equipment, and possession.
• Bargains and hidden costs: Liu Zheng receives the promised reward, but the transaction is immediately followed by violence, reinforcing that every benefit in this world carries danger.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and the Mermaid Princess: Their negotiation begins coldly, but she deceives him through the transfer of her child’s soul. Liu Zheng gains power while refusing emotional involvement.
• Liu Zheng and the White-Feather Chicken: Their distrust escalates into open confrontation. The chicken suspects Liu Zheng of sabotaging the ritual, while Liu Zheng remains evasive and defiant.
• Cow-Horse and the White-Feather Chicken: Cow-Horse prevents the chicken from killing Liu Zheng by reframing his actions as beneficial to the restaurant. Their argument reveals both rivalry and mutual dependence.
• Liu Zheng and the restaurant staff: Though treated as a subordinate or outsider, Liu Zheng is valuable enough to receive a reward before being punished, showing his uncertain position within the restaurant.

Chapter Summary: “Inventorying the Spoils”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng spends the day assisting in the restaurant kitchen while being restrained by the White-Feather Chicken. Drill bits pierce his body to keep his wounds bleeding, and his blood is collected by a nest of orderly white rats.
• Cow-Horse continues making pastries and teases Liu Zheng about choosing the Delivery Department instead of the kitchen. The White-Feather Chicken remains suspicious of Liu Zheng but lacks—or does not require—concrete evidence to punish him.
• After ten at night, Liu Zheng’s kitchen duty ends, and he is released, having shrunk to half his original size from the ordeal.
• Liu Zheng says goodbye to the Calico Cat, who appears to know something about his actions but chooses not to report him. The mysterious man associated with the cat remains wary and silent.
• Cow-Horse demands payment for protecting Liu Zheng from the White-Feather Chicken. Liu Zheng reluctantly gives it money, after which Cow-Horse goes to sleep.
• Unable to sleep, Liu Zheng reviews the eight items he has collected:
  1. Human-Bone Crutch – Provides a useful speed boost.
  2. Legendary Deliveryman’s Vest – Grants the Legendary Disguise, allowing him to appear human and walk upright.
  3. Legendary Deliveryman’s Delivery Box – A powerful growth-type item strengthened by completing deliveries.
  4. Sick Leave Slip – Useful but risky, requiring careful consideration.
  5. Jiahe New Residence Honorary Homeowner Medal – One of five medals needed to move freely through most residential compounds and ensure customers accept deliveries.
  6. Tindalos Chew Toy – A dangerous single-use weapon capable of destroying both Liu Zheng and an enemy.
  7. Round God Cult Token – A suspicious gift from High Priest Garcia that Liu Zheng keeps in case it becomes useful.
  8. Enhanced Heart of the Ocean – An adaptable, partially growth-based item that can absorb and replace souls and be carried out of the dungeon.
• Liu Zheng realizes that only the Human-Bone Crutch and Heart of the Ocean can survive outside the dungeon, making the fate of his other equipment dependent on possible settlement compensation.
• He concludes that his dungeon experience has been unusually dangerous and that his survival has depended on intelligence, ruthlessness, and extraordinary luck.
• He recognizes that merely surviving the required seventy-two hours will not be enough. To earn an A-grade evaluation, fulfill the Betting Agreement, and avoid being erased, he must obtain the Legendary Deliveryman’s Hat and complete the first part of the puzzle.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains humorous and irreverent despite extreme pain, using boredom and sarcasm to cope with his situation. His review of his items shows increasing confidence in his abilities, but he also acknowledges that luck cannot protect him forever.
• Cow-Horse is established as both a capable protector and a shameless opportunist. It saves Liu Zheng from punishment but charges him for the service, while continuing to mock his department choice.
• White-Feather Chicken remains suspicious and authoritarian, treating Liu Zheng harshly while enforcing the restaurant’s rules.
• Calico Cat shows possible secret sympathy or knowledge of Liu Zheng’s wrongdoing by declining to report him. Its relationship with Liu Zheng becomes warmer through their farewell.
• The unnamed man connected to the Calico Cat continues to watch Liu Zheng with distrust.

Significant Themes

• Survival through adaptability: Liu Zheng’s progress depends on using different abilities, disguises, allies, and unusual items.
• Luck versus competence: Liu Zheng credits both his cleverness and ruthlessness, but especially luck, while recognizing that relying on luck is dangerous.
• Rules and arbitrary authority: The restaurant’s rules matter more than evidence, emphasizing the oppressive and irrational nature of the dungeon world.
• The cost of protection: Cow-Horse’s help is valuable but transactional, showing that alliances are based on negotiation rather than pure loyalty.
• Accumulation and preparation: Liu Zheng’s inventory represents his growing power, but each item also carries limitations, risks, or conditions.
• Identity and disguise: The Legendary Deliveryman’s Vest allows Liu Zheng to function in a hostile world, reinforcing the importance of concealment and performance.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse exchange sarcastic banter about kitchen work, the Delivery Department, and the price of protection.
• Liu Zheng and the White-Feather Chicken clash indirectly, with the chicken treating him as suspicious “Delivery Department trash” while Liu Zheng mocks the lack of evidence against him.
• Liu Zheng shares a friendly farewell with the Calico Cat, whose apparent decision to protect him hints at a deeper relationship.
• Liu Zheng’s final reflection shifts the chapter from comic suffering to serious determination: he must seek the Legendary Deliveryman’s Hat and advance the dungeon’s central puzzle before his luck runs out.

Chapter Summary: “Your Flesh and Blood”

Key Plot Points and Events

• On the fourth day in the instance world, Liu Zheng wakes to Cow-Horse exercising in preparation for an upcoming trip to Paradise Island. Their conversation turns into crude banter about vacationing and prostitution, revealing Cow-Horse’s shameless personality.
• Their employee meals arrive as a reward for helping in the kitchen the previous day. Cow-Horse is delighted, but Liu Zheng is horrified to find that his meal is a “Vampire Rat Family Pizza,” made from the very rats he had previously fed with his own flesh and blood.
• The pizza restores Liu Zheng’s stamina but inflicts a dangerous “Bloodthirst” status, causing periodic urges to drink blood. Satisfying the urge boosts his attributes, while resisting it reduces them.
• Knowing his actual abilities have been severely weakened, Liu Zheng forces himself to eat the entire pizza. His body then undergoes a violent transformation: his skin is destroyed, his body enlarges, and his human flesh is replaced by a dark, chitinous shell and glossy tentacles.
• Although Cow-Horse mocks his increasingly inhuman appearance, Liu Zheng remains calm because he believes he can regain his original form after clearing the instance. He privately views Cow-Horse and the residents of the world as limited beings compared with his future potential.
• Liu Zheng decides to use his Sick Leave Slip but first prepares for the appearance of the Ghost Hand. He borrows three bottles of liquor from Cow-Horse and offers them to the hand in exchange for information or a favorable transaction.
• The Ghost Hand consumes the bottles, including the glass, but gives Liu Zheng only the delivery slip. Cow-Horse laughs at Liu Zheng for making what appears to be a poor bargain, while Liu Zheng treats the loss as a minor charitable act.
• The new delivery order is for a serving of Wood Elf milk at Room 403, Building E, West River Center, to be delivered within forty minutes. Because the destination is not a normal residential complex and a customer is specifically named, Liu Zheng suspects the delivery will be dangerous.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Becomes physically more monstrous after eating the rat pizza, but demonstrates strong self-control by suppressing his disgust and enduring the transformation. He remains pragmatic and confident that his current appearance is temporary. His willingness to sacrifice resources for information also shows growing strategic maturity.
• Cow-Horse: Continues to act vulgar, selfish, and opportunistic, but also shows a degree of loyalty by sharing liquor and food-related knowledge. It takes pleasure in Liu Zheng’s transformation and mistakes his calmness for defeat.
• Ghost Hand: Shows signs of intelligence and independent judgment. It appears affected by the liquor, gaining some vitality, but refuses to provide any extra benefit beyond completing the exchange.

Significant Themes

• Transformation and loss of humanity: Liu Zheng’s body becomes increasingly inhuman, raising questions about identity and whether physical form determines humanity.
• Survival versus disgust: Liu Zheng must consume the remains of creatures connected to his own flesh in order to recover his strength, emphasizing the brutal compromises required for survival.
• Pragmatism and long-term hope: Liu Zheng tolerates present suffering because he believes escaping the instance will restore his human form and unlock greater possibilities.
• Unequal bargains and exploitation: The liquor exchange highlights the uncertain rules of the instance world, where every transaction may involve hidden costs and where information is difficult to obtain.
• Limits of perspective: Liu Zheng sees the world’s powerful inhabitants as confined by their own environment, suggesting that survival and knowledge may matter more than immediate strength.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse exchange sarcastic insults and crude jokes, establishing their familiar but antagonistic camaraderie.
• Cow-Horse teases Liu Zheng about the rat pizza and offers to eat it for him, while Liu Zheng eventually accepts the meal despite Cow-Horse’s mockery.
• Cow-Horse ridicules Liu Zheng’s transformation, but Liu Zheng responds with concealed contempt, believing he will ultimately surpass the creature.
• Liu Zheng attempts to negotiate with the Ghost Hand through liquor, but the hand takes the offering without giving him anything beyond the delivery assignment.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse confronting a potentially more dangerous delivery mission, setting up the next conflict.

Chapter Summary: “Ghost Hand and the Skeleton”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Cow-Horse warns Liu Zheng about delivering to office buildings, explaining that their employees and security guards are difficult to deal with. He advises Liu Zheng to rely on strength, luck, or cleverness—and to win over higher-ranking managers when necessary.
• Cow-Horse gives Liu Zheng money and orders him to purchase Bad-Luck Coffee, a popular drink sold only in office buildings. He also hints that Liu Zheng should buy extra coffee to build goodwill with the restaurant kitchen before Cow-Horse goes on vacation.
• Liu Zheng encounters Ghost Hand drunk beside the delivery cart. After vomiting glass-filled sludge, Ghost Hand leads him into the pitch-black delivery passage.
• Ghost Hand reveals that the passage contains a hidden branch. It guides Liu Zheng to a human skeleton and instructs him to carry it.
• The skeleton is extremely heavy despite its small size and appears to be missing its right hand. Liu Zheng suspects the remains may be connected to Ghost Hand, though he cannot confirm this because no system description appears.
• Ghost Hand disappears back into the darkness at the passage’s exit, leaving Liu Zheng to decide what to do with the skeleton.
• Believing the skeleton should be buried, Liu Zheng takes it to French Plane Tree, assuming the tree’s soil would be suitable. However, his arrival interrupts the tree’s strange attempt to catch “soil carp.”
• French Plane Tree reacts angrily to Liu Zheng’s disruption, but its attitude changes abruptly when it sees the skeleton and exclaims, “It’s Li!”

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng becomes increasingly resourceful and willing to investigate the restaurant’s mysteries. He remains cautious but trusts Ghost Hand enough to follow it into an unfamiliar passage and carry the skeleton.
• Cow-Horse demonstrates practical knowledge of the restaurant’s supernatural workplace and shows a manipulative, self-serving side by assigning Liu Zheng the difficult task of buying coffee. His impending vacation also forces Liu Zheng to think about building relationships with the kitchen staff.
• Ghost Hand becomes more mysterious and purposeful. Its drunken state does not prevent it from guiding Liu Zheng to the hidden skeleton, suggesting it has a personal connection to the remains.
• French Plane Tree is shown to possess bizarre abilities and habits, such as fishing for creatures in the soil. It is easily angered but recognizes the skeleton—or the person associated with it—as significant.

Significant Themes

• Survival through adaptability: Cow-Horse emphasizes that success as a Bloodstained Restaurant deliveryman requires strength, luck, or intelligence rather than straightforward confrontation.
• Hidden histories and unresolved identities: The skeleton and Ghost Hand suggest an unexplained death or past connection within the restaurant’s supernatural world.
• The absurdity of the supernatural: Mundane delivery work is mixed with bizarre events, including office-building dangers, drunken body parts, soil fishing, and a skeleton weighing hundreds of pounds.
• Trust and cooperation: Liu Zheng must rely on strange beings such as Ghost Hand and French Plane Tree, even when he does not understand their motives.
• Power and hierarchy: Cow-Horse’s advice about flattering managers reflects the importance of social rank and influence, even in the restaurant’s dangerous supernatural environment.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: Cow-Horse gives Liu Zheng workplace advice while mocking his status as a deliveryman. Liu Zheng recognizes the hidden purpose behind the coffee request and accepts the need to cultivate relationships.
• Liu Zheng and Ghost Hand: Ghost Hand communicates nonverbally, leading Liu Zheng through a concealed route and making him retrieve the skeleton. Their relationship develops through cautious cooperation.
• Liu Zheng and French Plane Tree: Liu Zheng interrupts the tree’s unusual fishing activity, provoking an angry exchange. The conflict is interrupted when the tree recognizes the skeleton and reacts with sudden alarm, introducing a major mystery surrounding “Li.”

Chapter Summary: “The Death of the Legendary Deliveryman”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The French Plane Tree identifies the bones Liu Zheng recovered as belonging to Li, the Legendary Deliveryman. The item description confirms that Li was a legendary figure who once dominated the Bloodstained Restaurant with his “Delivery Punch,” but ultimately “failed” and died.
• Liu Zheng is shocked because Cow-Horse had assumed Li was still alive. This discovery raises several mysteries: who killed Li, what caused his failure, and whether Ghost Hand is actually Li’s severed hand.
• The French Plane Tree explains that Li was human and the strongest human it had ever known. However, it notes that the recovered hand does not resemble Li’s enormous hands, casting doubt on its connection to him.
• Liu Zheng agrees to bury Li’s skeleton beside Natasha. The tree claims it is preserving the remains as a valuable collectible, partly because it despised Li and wants his grave constantly before it.
• Liu Zheng gives the tree an Excellent-quality liqueur in exchange for advice and protection.
• He asks about using the sick leave note to seek the Fire Mage, despite the risk of temporarily losing his restaurant-employee identity. The tree admits it lacks sufficient information and can only protect him on its own street, and even then only from weaker enemies.
• The tree suggests that Liu Zheng seek protection from the Round God Sect, since he possesses one of its tokens. Liu Zheng refuses, preferring practical transactions over dependence on divine faith.
• Liu Zheng attempts to trade money and the Heart of the Ocean for a collectible that might help him. Even the valuable pendant, which contains an uncorrupted merbaby soul, is insufficient.
• As the chapter ends, Liu Zheng looks at his Legendary Delivery Box and realizes he may be able to steal deliveries to obtain something valuable enough for the trade.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng becomes more cautious and morally reflective. Although Li’s skeleton could potentially be used as a powerful shield, he chooses to bury it out of respect for the dead and fear of Ghost Hand’s possible reaction.
• He also demonstrates increasing desperation and resourcefulness. With the Legendary Deliveryman dead and his own protection uncertain, he begins considering theft as a means of acquiring the power or items he needs.
• The French Plane Tree/Dai Lego reveals its complicated attitude toward Li: it deeply loathes him but still recognizes his extraordinary strength and considers his remains a priceless collectible. It also proves relatively pragmatic, offering protection and information while openly admitting its limitations.
• The Legendary Deliveryman gains greater importance through his death. His past reputation suggests immense strength, while the circumstances of his failure and death become a major unresolved mystery.

Significant Themes

• Death and legacy: Li’s remains reveal that even the most powerful figures can ultimately fail and die. His legendary reputation contrasts sharply with his anonymous, coffinless burial.
• The value of power and identity: Liu Zheng worries about losing his status as a restaurant employee, showing how identity and institutional protection are crucial in the dangerous dungeon world.
• Pragmatism versus morality: Liu Zheng balances survival instincts with human decency when he chooses not to exploit Li’s bones, though he remains willing to consider stealing deliveries.
• Transactions versus faith: Liu Zheng rejects relying on the Round God Sect, emphasizing his belief that clearly defined exchanges are safer than uncertain divine favors.
• Collecting and commodification: The tree treats Li’s skeleton and the Heart of the Ocean as collectibles, reducing even people, souls, and remains to objects with trade value.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and the French Plane Tree debate Li’s identity, the nature of Ghost Hand, and the circumstances of Li’s death.
• Their conversation reveals mutual distrust and differing values: Liu Zheng shows concern for Li’s dignity, while the tree views the skeleton primarily as part of its collection.
• The tree offers limited protection and advice, but Liu Zheng must continue searching for stronger allies or resources.
• Liu Zheng’s attempted trade of the liqueur, money, and Heart of the Ocean establishes the tree as a difficult but potentially valuable merchant.
• The chapter concludes with Liu Zheng and the tree’s negotiations unresolved, as Liu Zheng begins planning how to use the Legendary Delivery Box to obtain a more valuable offering.

Chapter Summary: “Ambitions of the French Plane Tree”

Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng opens a delivery package containing Wood Elf’s Milk, a Fine-grade healing item that grants Nature Affinity. The effect makes animals and plants favorably disposed toward the user, though it ends if he attacks.
• The French Plane Tree immediately demands the milk, revealing that drinking it would allow it to evolve again. Liu Zheng refuses to give it away freely because he also needs the item’s Nature Affinity to use the Tindalos Hound safely.
• To negotiate, the tree destroys a game console, revealing a Perfect-grade Golden Finger. The item can be used once to choose one of three random cheats, making it extremely valuable.
• The French Plane Tree offers to trade the Golden Finger, money, and the Heart of the Ocean—but adds a condition: Liu Zheng must investigate whether the restaurant’s Wood Elf possesses acorns from the Oak of Ages in Athel Loren.
• The tree explains that consuming an acorn together with Wood Elf’s Milk would let it evolve fully and expand its influence beyond its current street, potentially controlling several surrounding streets.
• Liu Zheng realizes that evolution might free the tree from its current restrictions and demands a safeguard. The French Plane Tree reluctantly agrees to a growth-ring contract, binding it to maintain its existing rules and relationship with Liu Zheng even after evolving.
• Liu Zheng leaves with the Wood Elf’s Milk still in his possession, since the delivery must be completed before the item can be duplicated.
• After Liu Zheng departs, the tree addresses a skeleton buried in the soil—apparently connected to the mysterious Legendary Deliveryman, Li. When the skeleton fails to respond, the tree wonders whether he is dead and begins questioning his hidden intentions.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains cautious, calculating, and willing to negotiate rather than surrender valuable resources. He recognizes the French Plane Tree’s ambitions and protects himself against its future growth by requiring a binding contract.
• He also shows a pragmatic willingness to maintain long-term cooperation. Although he intends to exploit the tree’s potential, he does not plan to break their agreement.
• The French Plane Tree reveals an intense desire for evolution and territorial expansion. Its ambition extends from controlling one street to dominating several nearby streets, where it would become nearly untouchable.
• The tree demonstrates both greed and strategic cleverness: it offers exceptional rewards, imposes a condition involving the Wood Elf, and uses the contract to ensure Liu Zheng cannot deliberately avoid helping it.
• The Legendary Deliveryman/Li remains mysterious. His skeleton and apparent death raise questions about whether his condition is genuine and what plan he may be pursuing.

Significant Themes

• Power and ambition: The tree’s hunger for evolution reflects the desire to transcend limitations and expand control.
• Trust and self-protection: Liu Zheng accepts cooperation but insists on safeguards, showing that alliances require enforceable boundaries.
• The cost of power: Both sides must sacrifice something—Liu Zheng risks helping the tree grow, while the tree gives up freedom from its old restrictions.
• Manipulation and mutual exploitation: Liu Zheng plans to benefit from the tree’s resources, while the tree attempts to force him into helping secure the acorn.
• Mystery and hidden schemes: The unexplained skeleton and Li’s possible survival suggest that the apparent events may be part of a larger plan.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and the French Plane Tree bargain over Wood Elf’s Milk, with neither willing to concede without compensation.
• Liu Zheng challenges the tree’s plan to evolve by pointing out that it might escape its current obligations.
• The two establish a growth-ring contract, formalizing their relationship and preventing the tree from abandoning its rules after evolution.
• The tree pressures Liu Zheng to investigate the Wood Elf immediately, while Liu Zheng warns that he may not have regular access to the restaurant’s kitchen.
• After Liu Zheng leaves, the tree interacts with the buried skeleton, revealing its concern about Li’s unexplained presence and possible plan.

Chapter Summary: “Spitting on the Ground, Going Broke”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng arrives at West River Center, a low-rise office building populated by strange workers wearing paper bags with painted, animated faces.
• The workers stare at Liu Zheng’s delivery box, suggesting that food from the Bloodstained Restaurant is highly desirable or difficult to obtain.
• A cleaner stops Liu Zheng for spitting outside the building and demands a 100-unit fine. She then insists that he clean the entire property-management zone.
• When Liu Zheng offers to pay her to do the cleaning, she raises the demand to more than 2,000 units, revealing that she is deliberately exploiting him.
• Liu Zheng calls Cow-Horse for advice. Cow-Horse explains that the building’s management is notorious for extorting delivery workers and that all office buildings may be controlled by an enemy of the current Bloodstained Restaurant.
• Liu Zheng realizes the restaurant’s change in ownership to Si Xue may be connected to the hostility.
• Cow-Horse warns that entering the building by force or paying off management could cost at least 10,000 units. He also explains that workers fight to obtain jobs at the restaurant because its staff meals are extremely valuable.
• Liu Zheng devises another solution: instead of paying a fine, he offers the cleaner coffee from Bad-Luck Coffee.
• The cleaner, apparently taking orders from the security guard, accepts two specific drinks and allows Liu Zheng to proceed.
• Liu Zheng heads toward Bad-Luck Coffee and encounters its disturbing sign: an upside-down, bleeding deer’s head whose tear burns with black flames.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates his survival-minded attitude. He tries to appear aggressive enough to avoid being bullied, but he is also cautious and willing to pay or negotiate when direct confrontation is dangerous.
• His resourcefulness becomes clear when he shifts from arguing over the rules to exploiting the cleaner’s apparent desire for Bad-Luck Coffee.
• Liu Zheng also begins connecting local hostility to larger conflicts involving the Bloodstained Restaurant and its new owner.
• The cleaner initially appears petty and bureaucratic, but her threatening transformation reveals immense physical power. Her willingness to accept coffee shows that she is motivated by more than enforcing rules.
• Cow-Horse serves as a pragmatic informant, explaining the building’s extortionate practices and the economic value of the restaurant’s food.
• The security guard is introduced as a quiet but influential figure, apparently approving the coffee arrangement.
• The mysterious deer sign at Bad-Luck Coffee establishes another unsettling supernatural presence.

Significant Themes

• Exploitation and bureaucracy: Property-management rules are used as excuses to extort delivery workers, turning minor offenses into severe financial burdens.
• Power struggles affecting ordinary people: The conflict between the office-building owner and the Bloodstained Restaurant’s current management forces low-level workers like Liu Zheng to suffer the consequences.
• Survival through adaptability: Liu Zheng succeeds not through overwhelming strength but by assessing danger, negotiating, and finding an unconventional solution.
• Economic inequality and scarcity: Clothing, painted faces, jobs, and access to restaurant meals all reflect social status and competition for resources.
• The absurdity of the supernatural world: Ordinary actions such as spitting, ordering coffee, or entering a building are governed by bizarre rules and can provoke monstrous transformations.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng confronts the paper-faced office workers, who retreat when he responds aggressively.
• He argues with the cleaner over the fine and cleaning duty, unsuccessfully attempting to resolve the matter through payment.
• His call with Cow-Horse provides crucial context about the building’s hostility and the restaurant’s importance.
• Liu Zheng negotiates with the cleaner by offering coffee rather than money; the security guard silently authorizes the deal.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng approaching Bad-Luck Coffee and encountering its eerie, suffering deer emblem, foreshadowing another dangerous or supernatural interaction.

Chapter Summary: “Bad-Luck Coffee”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng receives confirmation that his immunity to rationality-reducing effects is working. Nearby, Fire Tears burns away a pool of blood shed by the constantly crying Deer Head.
• He enters Bad-Luck Coffee to fulfill a request from the cleaner and orders a large quantity of coffee, including specific drinks for others at Bloodstained Restaurant.
• The coffee shop is staffed by grotesque extensions of a single entity: a floating heart connected by blood vessels to clerks made of exposed front halves, organs, and bones.
• Liu Zheng receives a group-buying discount, but delivery to Bloodstained Restaurant costs an additional 1,200 yuan because delivery workers supposedly never return from the restaurant. The fee is described as “employee depreciation.”
• He buys additional desserts and coffee, hoping to strengthen his relationships with Cow-Horse, Salmon, and others while also supporting French Plane Tree’s plan to steal from the restaurant kitchen.
• After completing his purchases, Liu Zheng is told that tipping is mandatory. The required tip is “one face,” revealing why the office building’s employees have drawn-on faces.
• When Liu Zheng hesitates, the clerks surround him and invite him to join the “Bad-Luck Coffee family,” promising freedom from luck, beauty, individuality, reality, hunger, pain, and the risk of being fired—but condemning him to eternal work.
• Liu Zheng calls Cow-Horse for help. Cow-Horse casually explains that the face will grow back quickly and insists that losing it is not dangerous.
• Reassured, Liu Zheng agrees to pay the tip. The clerks immediately restrain him in a reclining chair and begin their supposed “premium service,” starting with scraping out his eye.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains generous and practical, spending heavily to help his allies and ensure the coffee reaches Bloodstained Restaurant. However, his patience is tested by the shop’s bizarre charges and threatening rules.
• He also demonstrates courage and adaptability: despite recognizing the danger of losing his face, he trusts Cow-Horse’s explanation and chooses the least immediately destructive option.
• Cow-Horse is revealed to be highly casual and insensitive toward Liu Zheng’s danger. He treats the loss of a face as a minor inconvenience and reassures Liu Zheng mainly by arguing that his death would not benefit anyone.
• The Bad-Luck Coffee entity appears organized, commercially polite, and deeply horrifying. Its clerks behave like customer-service employees while treating mutilation and assimilation as ordinary business procedures.

Significant Themes

• Corporate horror and exploitative labor: The coffee shop combines customer service with bodily mutilation, hidden fees, compulsory tipping, and “eternal work.”
• Loss of identity: Faces represent individuality and reality, while the shop promises to remove beauty, individuality, and even reality from those who join it.
• The absurdity of commercial logic: “Employee depreciation” and mandatory face-tipping turn death and dismemberment into routine business expenses.
• Trust amid danger: Liu Zheng must rely on Cow-Horse’s questionable reassurance because he has no safe way to judge the threat himself.
• Generosity and obligation: Liu Zheng’s purchases are motivated by loyalty and strategic alliances, showing how favors and debts shape survival in this world.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng interacts with the grotesque clerks as ordinary service workers, negotiating prices, delivery, and tips despite their terrifying appearance.
• His phone call with Cow-Horse shifts from anger and accusation to reluctant trust. Cow-Horse mocks Liu Zheng’s fear but ultimately convinces him to pay the tip.
• Liu Zheng’s purchases are connected to several off-screen relationships: the cleaner who requested coffee, Cow-Horse and Salmon at Bloodstained Restaurant, and French Plane Tree, whom he hopes to assist.
• The chapter ends with the clerks restraining Liu Zheng and beginning the “eye scraping” procedure, leaving him in immediate danger despite having complied with their demands.

Chapter Summary

Plot Points and Events

• At Bad-Luck Coffee, an employee performs a series of grotesque “beauty services” on Liu Zheng:
  1. Scrapes out his eyes.
  2. Molds new ears from the flesh around his ear holes, then removes them.
  3. Dresses him in bridal robes and a phoenix coronet before threading the skin from his face.
• Liu Zheng’s regenerative abilities allow his eyes and facial skin to begin growing back almost immediately.
• The employee asks him to write a blessing for the restaurant, intending to use his face and message for corporate promotion. Liu Zheng instead writes, “Bad-Luck Restaurant, fuck your mother.”
• After leaving the coffee shop, Liu Zheng returns to the office building and delivers the promised coffee and desserts to the janitor.
• He pressures her into accepting the cake by threatening to let his dog defecate around the area she is responsible for cleaning.
• During their conversation, Liu Zheng learns that the janitor receives only 200 yuan from the property management company, that her husband was “dealt with” by City Hall after losing his job, and that she supports three teenage sons alone.
• Outraged by her exploitation, Liu Zheng gives her 500 yuan for her children and another 300 yuan intended for the security guard.
• The janitor offers Liu Zheng a discarded face, but he refuses because his own face will regenerate. She gives him a bottle of insecticide instead.
• The item is identified as an excellent-quality “Janitor’s Disposable Insecticide,” capable of eliminating harmful vermin. Liu Zheng plans to use it against pests in the White-Feather Chicken’s kitchen before entering the building.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates extreme tolerance for pain and a casual attitude toward his regenerative body, treating horrific mutilation with sarcasm and irritation rather than fear.
• His rebellious personality becomes more pronounced: he openly insults Bad-Luck Restaurant and refuses to cooperate with its attempt to exploit his appearance.
• Despite his aggressive and manipulative humor, Liu Zheng shows strong compassion toward exploited workers. He sympathizes with the janitor’s poverty and gives her substantial financial assistance.
• His supernatural abilities continue to develop, including greater control over the regeneration and priority of his body parts.
• The janitor is portrayed as overworked, poor, and burdened by responsibility for her children. Her gratitude toward Liu Zheng grows, and she attempts to repay him with a discarded face and the insecticide.
• The Bad-Luck Coffee employee remains polite and professional while committing grotesque acts, emphasizing the disturbing normality of the restaurant’s practices.

Significant Themes

• Body horror and regeneration: Physical mutilation is presented as a routine service, while Liu Zheng’s ability to regrow body parts undermines the permanence of bodily violence.
• Exploitation and class inequality: The janitor’s low wages and difficult family circumstances contrast with the property company’s apparent ability to profit from workers’ labor.
• Kindness beneath cruelty: Liu Zheng uses threats and vulgarity, yet his actions toward the janitor are genuinely generous and protective.
• Absurdity and dark humor: Horrific events, workplace politeness, and mundane bargaining are mixed together for comic effect.
• Resistance to institutional power: Liu Zheng mocks Bad-Luck Restaurant and the property management system rather than submitting to their authority.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and the coffee employee: Their interaction is defined by the employee’s calm professionalism and Liu Zheng’s silent endurance, followed by his deliberately insulting written “blessing.”
• Liu Zheng and the janitor: He teases and intimidates her into accepting food, then learns about her hardships and offers financial support. Their relationship shifts from humorous coercion to mutual goodwill.
• Liu Zheng and the security guard: Though the guard is not directly present for most of the exchange, Liu Zheng insists on sharing money with him, showing concern for other exploited workers.
• Janitor and security guard: The janitor negotiates with the guard before returning to work, suggesting solidarity or coordination between the building’s low-ranking employees.

Chapter Summary: “Elevator Nightmare”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng arrives at a strange office building to deliver a package to Manager Wang on the fourth floor.
• The turnstile initially blocks him. A white-collar worker, Manager Huang, offers to let him through in exchange for his delivery bag, but the security guard intervenes and warns Liu Zheng that delivery bags are valuable.
• The guard allows Liu Zheng inside and secretly hints that he should use the elevator restricted to even-numbered floors.
• The elevator attendant insists that building policy requires visitors to go to the top floor before reaching their destination. She sends Liu Zheng to the eleventh floor, which opens onto a terrifying jungle filled with unseen dangers.
• Liu Zheng realizes the attendant is frightened of the consequences if the elevator becomes unusable for executives. He threatens to fill it with insecticide, forcing her to send him directly to the fourth floor.
• After intimidating her, Liu Zheng gives her “Bad-Luck Coffee” and casually encourages her to smile despite workplace hostility.
• As he leaves, the attendant warns him to beware of Wang Manni, calling her a “bitch.”

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates caution, adaptability, and sharp observational skills. He tests the building’s rules rather than obeying them blindly and uses the attendant’s fear to gain control.
• His willingness to threaten others contrasts with his playful, conversational manner. He can shift quickly from polite small talk to calculated intimidation.
• Liu Zheng notices that the “Painted-Face People” have difficulty controlling their exaggerated facial expressions. He uses this weakness to identify the elevator attendant’s fear.
• The security guard appears detached but quietly helpful. He provides indirect guidance while avoiding overt involvement because of the building’s surveillance.
• Manager Huang is opportunistic and tries to exploit Liu Zheng’s lack of knowledge, but she is ultimately subordinate to the building’s rules and the guard’s authority.
• The elevator attendant initially acts confident and bureaucratic, hiding behind “building management policy.” Under pressure, however, she panics and reveals her vulnerability. Her final warning suggests she may be sympathetic—or at least willing to help Liu Zheng after being intimidated.

Significant Themes

• Survival through social manipulation: Liu Zheng survives by reading people, exploiting loopholes, and treating every interaction as a negotiation.
• Absurd and oppressive bureaucracy: The building’s arbitrary policies—such as requiring visitors to visit the top floor—create danger while disguising cruelty as standard procedure.
• Appearance versus reality: The characters’ artistic faces and exaggerated expressions reflect their identities, but their outward roles do not reveal their true fears or motives.
• Power and workplace hierarchy: Employees are constrained by surveillance, management, and the threat of punishment. The guard’s advice to “argue in private, fight in public” reflects a world where appearances and public blame matter more than justice.
• Kindness mixed with menace: Liu Zheng alternates between offering coffee and making violent threats, showing that friendliness can be another survival tactic rather than genuine trust.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng questions Manager Huang about the delivery bag, but the security guard interrupts and prevents her from exploiting him.
• The security guard gives Liu Zheng indirect instructions and warns him about Manager Wang’s cruelty toward employees.
• Liu Zheng clashes with the elevator attendant over the building’s rules. He defeats her resistance by threatening the elevator and the executives who depend on it.
• After forcing her cooperation, Liu Zheng softens the encounter by giving her coffee and discussing the value of smiling under oppressive working conditions.
• The attendant ends their interaction by warning him about Wang Manni, foreshadowing a dangerous confrontation on the fourth floor.