Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Sea Woman reveals that Nightingale was taken by City Hall for questioning after the incident involving the Sewer’s Egg. Although the damage may have been accidental, City Hall has not explained its actions.
• Nightingale’s own family is apparently preventing her release, making ordinary political connections ineffective.
• Sea Woman asks Liu Zheng either to accompany her to the Garbage Processing Plant or to rescue Nightingale. She offers him a relic left by her mother, which may be especially effective against the Chaos Club. Her mother instructed her to open it if the Chaos Club ever sought her out.
• Liu Zheng agrees to consider helping, largely because he possesses a Chaos Club gold card and fears its potential danger.
• He consults Cow-Horse, who mocks the idea that a food delivery worker could extract someone from City Hall. Cow-Horse suggests Liu Zheng contact his influential acquaintances.
• Liu Zheng calls Novelist, initially to review her writing. He criticizes her thirty-chapter outline for focusing too heavily on romance and harems instead of the advertised rebirth-and-career storyline. He explains the importance of maintaining a novel’s primary source of reader satisfaction.
• Liu Zheng then asks Novelist to help free Nightingale. After hearing that Liu Zheng caused the Sewer commotion by catching the Sewer’s Egg, Novelist becomes admiring and agrees that a rescue may be possible.
• Novelist says the necessary arrangement is a galaxy-level private room at Bloodstained Restaurant and a first-tier banquet, apparently the sort of setting used for high-level negotiations. In return, he asks Liu Zheng to help create his future novel’s title and synopsis.
• Cow-Horse explains that Napoleon can arrange the banquet, but obtaining the galaxy-level private room requires Britannia’s assistance. The chapter ends with Liu Zheng realizing he must approach Britannia.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains pragmatic and self-interested, reluctant to become involved in a dangerous rescue unless Sea Woman’s mysterious relic offers him protection from the Chaos Club. He nevertheless demonstrates loyalty and resourcefulness by seeking outside help.
• Sea Woman shows determination and desperation over Nightingale’s imprisonment. She openly admits that rescuing Nightingale is her true objective and is willing to surrender her most valuable inheritance.
• Nightingale is established as politically vulnerable despite having City Hall connections, because members of her own wealthy family oppose her release.
• Novelist continues to revere Liu Zheng as a mentor. She is eager to follow his literary advice and views helping him as a meaningful reward, though her intuition and possessive undertones create comic tension.
• Cow-Horse acts as Liu Zheng’s sarcastic adviser. It mocks his questionable relationships and lack of official power but still helps identify practical contacts and resources.

Significant Themes

• Power and influence: City Hall cannot be challenged through ordinary means, so Liu Zheng must rely on elite connections, favors, and carefully staged negotiations.
• Transactional relationships: Even personal favors are framed as exchanges, with Sea Woman offering a relic and Novelist requesting future writing assistance.
• Appearance versus reality: Liu Zheng presents the rescue as business, while others suspect romantic motives. Similarly, Novelist’s novel promises a career-focused story but is actually dominated by romance.
• Maintaining focus and priorities: Liu Zheng’s literary critique parallels the chapter’s broader concern with identifying one’s main objective and not becoming distracted by secondary pursuits.
• Comedy through cultural and species absurdity: The chapter repeatedly contrasts Liu Zheng’s ordinary self-image with the bizarre society around him, including nonhuman species, unusual technology, and Cow-Horse’s outrageous suggestions.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Sea Woman: Their negotiation establishes the rescue mission and the potential importance of Sea Woman’s inherited relic.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: Their banter highlights their informal boss-and-employee relationship, with Cow-Horse ridiculing Liu Zheng while still offering useful advice.
• Liu Zheng and Novelist: Their mentor-student exchange shifts from literary criticism to political assistance. Liu Zheng’s authority over Novelist is reinforced, while Novelist’s admiration borders on flirtatious devotion.
• Liu Zheng and Britannia/Napoleon: Neither appears directly, but both are positioned as essential contacts in the plan to secure the banquet and private room needed to negotiate Nightingale’s release.

Chapter Summary: “Britannia, Sir, You're Truly Mighty”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng seeks a way to arrange a Galaxy-Class Private Room, but realizes dealing with the restaurant’s leaders—especially Britannia—will be dangerous.
• Cow-Horse agrees to help after Liu Zheng promises to use money transferred from Napoleon, though he insists Liu Zheng handle Britannia personally.
• Cow-Horse calls Britannia repeatedly before Britannia finally answers.
• Liu Zheng uses elaborate praise and historical comparisons to win Britannia’s attention. He compares Britannia to Tong Guan, a powerful eunuch general from the Song Dynasty, portraying him as a courageous and respected “man among men.”
• Britannia becomes interested and orders Liu Zheng to write him a six-hundred-character account of Tong Guan. Liu Zheng produces a polished piece and sends it.
• Britannia later agrees to discuss Liu Zheng’s request but mocks him for expecting a Galaxy-Class Private Room in exchange for a short essay.
• Liu Zheng continues flattering Britannia while subtly suggesting that Cow-Horse is indispensable to the Delivery Department, preventing him from transferring to Customer Service.
• Britannia reveals that several Galaxy-Class Private Rooms have become available because of the earthquake, which Liu Zheng indirectly caused through his earlier actions involving Sewer’s Egg and Nightingale.
• Britannia offers Liu Zheng two possible ways to obtain a room:
  1. Work temporarily as a waiter for a Galaxy-Class Private Room.
  2. Deliver something to Oink.
• The chapter ends with Britannia’s voice turning ominous, suggesting that the delivery mission will be dangerous.

2. Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates exceptional intelligence, adaptability, and manipulative social skill. Though physically vulnerable and dependent on others, he successfully controls the conversation through flattery, historical knowledge, and carefully worded negotiation.
• He also shows a pragmatic willingness to exploit Cow-Horse’s connections and money while presenting his requests as reasonable.
• Cow-Horse appears fearful of Britannia due to their previous violent confrontation, in which both suffered severe injuries. He is reluctant to intervene but ultimately helps Liu Zheng make contact.
• Cow-Horse’s suspicion of Liu Zheng grows as he recognizes how naturally Liu Zheng lies and flatters. He also becomes comically frustrated by Liu Zheng’s ability to manipulate dangerous people.
• Britannia is established as unstable, prideful, and fascinated by masculinity, courage, and recognition. Liu Zheng’s praise temporarily transforms Britannia’s anger into interest and cooperation.
• Britannia is also shown to be cunning: rather than granting the room freely, he offers Liu Zheng dangerous tasks as payment.

3. Significant Themes

• Manipulation through language: Liu Zheng’s words are more powerful than physical strength. His carefully tailored praise allows him to negotiate with someone far more dangerous than himself.
• Masculinity and identity: Britannia’s status as the restaurant’s “only true male” is treated as a source of pride and insecurity. Liu Zheng exploits this by presenting Britannia as a heroic masculine figure despite his being a eunuch-like character.
• Survival and pragmatism: Liu Zheng repeatedly chooses whatever strategy offers the best chance of survival, even if it requires humiliation, deception, or dangerous alliances.
• Power and hierarchy: The restaurant operates through a rigid hierarchy in which strength, intelligence, money, and connections all determine one’s opportunities.
• Cause and effect: Liu Zheng discovers that his earlier actions indirectly created the very opportunity he now needs—the earthquake opened up the Galaxy-Class Private Rooms.
• Humor amid danger: Threats of torture, bodily injury, and death are mixed with absurd dialogue, exaggerated flattery, and Cow-Horse’s irritation, creating a darkly comic tone.

4. Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse argue over responsibility, money, and whether Cow-Horse should help him. Their relationship is based on mutual dependence, manipulation, and comic hostility.
• Cow-Horse acts as Liu Zheng’s intermediary with Britannia but quickly abandons responsibility once Britannia answers.
• Liu Zheng and Britannia engage in a verbal power struggle. Britannia threatens him, while Liu Zheng calmly redirects the conversation into praise and historical storytelling.
• Liu Zheng’s comparison of Britannia to Tong Guan successfully appeals to Britannia’s ego and changes the emotional balance of the conversation.
• By emphasizing Cow-Horse’s importance to the Delivery Department, Liu Zheng subtly blocks Britannia from recruiting him.
• The final offer from Britannia places Liu Zheng in a new dilemma: accept a dangerous temporary job or deliver an unknown object to the terrifying Oink.

Chapter Summary: “Liu Zheng, You’ve Been Exposed”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Britannia informs Liu Zheng that he must choose between dangerous assignments and recommends sending him to the Customer Service Department, where Oink’s familiarity with him could be useful—or dangerous.
• Liu Zheng confirms that the Black Market will not open for another three days and that there is no other way to contact Oink. Since Nightingale may not survive that long, he abandons the plan to seek Oink’s help.
• Britannia reveals that it has already arranged Liu Zheng’s transfer, leaving him no choice but to work in Customer Service. Liu Zheng angrily blames Britannia, while Cow-Horse mocks him for being caught off guard.
• Liu Zheng reflects on his recent success manipulating relationships and conflicts within the Restaurant. He realizes that he had become overconfident and forgotten how unpredictable the bizarre Restaurant residents could be.
• Cow-Horse gives Liu Zheng a gold Memorial Medal for earning Outstanding Employee three times. The medal attaches itself to his vest and appears to be both an honor and a possible symbol of status.
• Cow-Horse secretly tells Liu Zheng about a centaur informant in the Customer Service Department who may help him, warning him not to reveal the connection to Britannia.
• Cow-Horse advises Liu Zheng to conceal his intelligence and avoid showing off, since powerful Restaurant employees dislike anyone who seems cleverer than they are.
• Si Xue calls to report that Sewer’s Egg has been handed over and that City Hall personnel are entering the Sewer. She also confirms that Liu Zheng will work in a Planet-Class Private Room, which is dangerous but substantially safer than a Galaxy-Class assignment.
• Big White Goose Ottawa arrives to escort Liu Zheng. He is a highly experienced former employee from the same era as the Legendary Deliveryman.
• Liu Zheng wins Ottawa’s approval by greeting him energetically and offering him dried fish and sake. Ottawa recognizes the quality of the food and becomes friendlier.
• As they head toward Customer Service, Ottawa reveals that Liu Zheng’s actions during his mere five days at the Restaurant—especially smuggling Li’s bones out—have caused major upheaval.
• The chapter ends with Ottawa suddenly confronting Liu Zheng, spreading his sharp feathers and accusing him indirectly of being responsible for significant events.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Becomes more self-aware, admitting that his earlier success made him arrogant. He remains frightened by the assignment but adapts quickly, using politeness, humor, and food to build rapport with Ottawa. However, his growing reputation now makes concealment increasingly difficult.
• Cow-Horse: Acts as both mentor and reluctant protector. It mocks Liu Zheng but gives him valuable practical advice, a secret contact, and the Memorial Medal. Its hidden connections suggest that it is deeply involved in the Restaurant’s internal politics.
• Britannia: Demonstrates its manipulative and threatening nature by arranging Liu Zheng’s transfer without giving him a real choice. It appears to know enough about Liu Zheng’s relationships to place him in situations where his secrets may be exposed.
• Si Xue: Shows authority over Liu Zheng while also protecting or advancing him by arranging a safer assignment. Her warning makes clear that she values competence but has little tolerance for failure.
• Ottawa: Initially appears as an eccentric, dignified elder and former employee, but his knowledge of Liu Zheng’s activities reveals that he may be far more observant and dangerous than he first seems.
• Nightingale and Oink: Though absent from the scene, both remain important to Liu Zheng’s decisions. Nightingale’s endangered condition forces Liu Zheng to abandon one possible plan, while Oink represents a dangerous source of personal information about him.

Significant Themes

• Reputation and exposure: Liu Zheng’s remarkable accomplishments have made him famous within the Restaurant, but this reputation now threatens his ability to hide his motives and past actions.
• Overconfidence and humility: Liu Zheng recognizes that his successful manipulation of others caused him to underestimate the Restaurant’s unpredictability.
• Power and political networks: The Restaurant operates through informants, favors, secret alliances, and competing departments. Survival depends as much on relationships as on strength.
• Appearance versus reality: Cow-Horse advises Liu Zheng to act foolish despite being intelligent, emphasizing that appearing harmless may be safer than demonstrating competence.
• Survival under coercion: Liu Zheng repeatedly tries to choose the least dangerous option, but powerful figures such as Britannia and Si Xue can redirect his plans at will.
• The burden of recognition: Awards and praise, such as the Memorial Medal, bring status but may also make Liu Zheng more visible and vulnerable.

Important Character Interactions

• Britannia pressures Liu Zheng into accepting the Customer Service assignment and taunts him by emphasizing Oink’s knowledge of him.
• Cow-Horse alternates between ridiculing Liu Zheng and helping him, ultimately providing both protection and intelligence.
• Si Xue gives Liu Zheng operational information and warns that incompetence will not be tolerated.
• Liu Zheng and Ottawa develop an initially friendly rapport through exaggerated greetings and shared food, but Ottawa’s final confrontation turns the interaction ominous.
• Ottawa’s recognition of Liu Zheng’s role in moving Li’s bones suggests that Liu Zheng’s activities are known far beyond the Delivery Department.

Chapter Summary: “Clothes Fit Best When You Peel Off the Skin First”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Big White Goose warns Liu Zheng that Li is not inherently evil, but his enormous ambitions have caused harm. Goose implies that Liu’s connection to Li and the Legendary Deliveryman is dangerous and advises him to consider cutting ties.
• Liu refuses to abandon Li yet, since he still intends to obtain the hat and complete the Legendary Deliveryman set. Big White Goose tells him to continue forward and contact them if he eventually changes his mind.
• Goose leads Liu to the Customer Service Department, which is filled with a powerful perfume Goose invented to neutralize unpleasant odors among the Restaurant’s many species. The fragrance has also reduced employee deaths by over thirty percent.
• Liu learns about the department’s hierarchy:
  • Third-class waiters share Mirrors and chairs.
  • Second-class waiters receive individual makeup tables and sofas.
  • First-class waiters have private rooms.
• Goose shows Liu their modest private room and Britannia’s more prestigious brass-doored room. The contrast suggests Britannia currently holds greater authority, while Goose has been reduced from their former position.
• Because three Planet-Class Private Rooms need staff, Goose asks Liu to choose one. Liu jokingly flatters and bribes Goose, earning their amusement and goodwill. Goose recommends that Liu hide his strength and restrain his greed.
• Goose explains that waiters often die by accepting tips and guest demands beyond their abilities. Liu also asks about mental interference, and Goose confirms that the Restaurant has safeguards, though they are imperfect.
• White Spider delivers Liu’s new Customer Service uniform. Liu attempts to commission custom clothing from her, but her fearful and hostile reaction makes the interaction awkward.
• When Liu tries to put on the uniform normally, Goose reveals the department’s horrifying dress code: Liu must first peel off his own skin. The chapter ends as Goose cuts him from collarbone to pelvis.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Remains cautious but continues using humor, flattery, bribery, and calculated social maneuvering to gain advantages. He shows concern for others—even anonymously helping Goose financially—and demonstrates an interest in building relationships with White Spider. Despite his lighthearted behavior, he remains aware of the dangers surrounding Li and the Restaurant.
• Big White Goose: Reveals a more complex history. Once a powerful Customer Service Department head, Goose is now retired, injured, and politically diminished, though still respected. Their advice to Liu is protective but also reflects personal experience with ambition, loyalty, and loss of power.
• Li: Although absent, he becomes more ominous through Goose’s description. His ambitions are portrayed as so immense that they continue to burden others even after death.
• White Spider: Appears timid and uncomfortable under Liu’s attention, yet also defensive and aggressive. Her reaction suggests she is easily frightened but not powerless.
• Britannia: Does not appear directly, but her influence is established through her superior-looking private room and her position as the current department head.

Significant Themes

• Ambition and its consequences: Goose portrays Li’s ambitions as destructive, suggesting that grand goals can become burdens that harm both the pursuer and those around them.
• Power, status, and decline: The Customer Service Department’s room hierarchy and the contrast between Goose’s worn room and Britannia’s brass door reflect Goose’s fall from authority.
• Appearance and identity: The chapter emphasizes masks, uniforms, perfume, and skin. The department’s work involves concealing unpleasant realities, culminating in the literal removal of Liu’s skin before he can assume a new professional identity.
• Greed and self-preservation: Goose warns that pursuing tips without considering one’s limits leads to death. Survival requires restraint rather than simple opportunism.
• Social manipulation and mutual benefit: Liu and Goose engage in playful bribery and exaggerated flattery, showing how relationships in the Restaurant are built through negotiation, favors, and calculated friendliness.
• Trust amid danger: Goose offers help while warning Liu, but their own entanglement with Li and Ghost Hand makes it unclear how safe that help truly is.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu and Big White Goose: Their conversation shifts from mutual suspicion to tentative cooperation. Liu flatters and bribes Goose, while Goose responds with affection and practical advice.
• Liu and White Spider: Liu tries to overcome White Spider’s fear and anger by apologizing and offering paid work, but she remains visibly uncomfortable and retreats into the shadows.
• Liu and Li’s legacy: Though Li is absent, Goose’s warnings force Liu to confront the possibility that his association with Li may eventually become untenable.
• Liu and the Customer Service Department: Liu begins transitioning into his new role, learning its dangers and customs just before being subjected to the department’s gruesome method of changing clothes.

Chapter Summary: “Liu Zheng, Beautiful Beyond Species”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Big White Goose repeatedly peels Liu Zheng’s skin off with remarkable precision, causing pain but almost no bleeding or physical damage.
• During the process, Liu Zheng and Big White Goose discuss the Legendary Deliveryman, Heaven Butcher, and the power struggles within the Bloodstained Restaurant.
• Big White Goose reveals that the Legendary Deliveryman, Li, was extremely powerful. It recalls several incidents, including him defeating a former head chef and mentally crippling a guest who used mind control.
• Big White Goose explains its opposition to Li’s plans. It believes the restaurant’s current state, though flawed, is preferable to the emptiness and despair that would exist if the “mirror” were broken.
• Big White Goose asks Liu Zheng to help preserve the restaurant’s current condition, while Liu Zheng avoids committing. He remains loyal to Ghost Hand and privately suspects Big White Goose may have had some connection to the Legendary Deliveryman’s death.
• Liu Zheng is forced to eat his waiter’s uniform. The clothing later grows back from inside his body, forming a flawless uniform.
• Big White Goose explains that a flawless first uniform indicates exceptional natural potential in a waiter, though it does not guarantee future success.
• Big White Goose applies an elaborate “supreme” makeup treatment, using bizarre supernatural tools and creatures to cleanse and reconstruct Liu Zheng’s face.
• The makeover makes Liu Zheng extraordinarily beautiful—so beautiful that his appearance transcends species and identity. Despite the grotesque process, Big White Goose sends him to receive guests through a newly appeared door marked with a blue planet.

Character Development

• Liu Zheng remains sarcastic, adaptable, and cautious. He flatters Big White Goose when necessary but does not trust it, recognizing that its gentle appearance hides considerable cunning.
• His loyalty to Ghost Hand becomes clear. Even under pressure, Liu Zheng refuses to abandon the person who previously protected and supported him.
• Liu Zheng shows growing suspicion and political awareness, wondering whether Big White Goose may have played a role in the Legendary Deliveryman’s death.
• His flawless uniform reveals that he possesses unusual innate talent as a waiter, suggesting significant potential.
• Big White Goose is further characterized as both skilled and manipulative. It acts like a benevolent mentor while coercing Liu Zheng and trying to recruit him to its side.
• Big White Goose’s former authority and survival instincts are emphasized. It is not merely a harmless old employee but someone experienced enough to understand the restaurant’s dangers and political realities.
• The Legendary Deliveryman gains a reputation for overwhelming power through Big White Goose’s stories, despite not appearing directly.

Significant Themes

• Appearance versus reality: Liu Zheng’s beautiful new face conceals a disturbing, mutilating process, reflecting the restaurant’s broader contrast between polished appearances and horrifying truths.
• Loyalty and political neutrality: Liu Zheng is caught between Big White Goose’s desire to preserve the status quo and Ghost Hand’s opposition to it.
• The danger of change: Big White Goose argues that destroying the restaurant’s illusions will not bring freedom, but instead reveal an absolute void and despair.
• Potential versus achievement: Liu Zheng’s perfect uniform signifies talent, but Big White Goose stresses that potential alone does not guarantee accomplishment.
• Identity and transformation: Liu Zheng’s body, clothing, and face are repeatedly altered, making his identity increasingly unstable and suggesting that survival in the restaurant requires becoming something beyond ordinary humanity.
• Cruelty hidden beneath professionalism: The restaurant’s standards of grooming and service are maintained through grotesque supernatural violence, showing how elegance and brutality coexist.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Big White Goose: Their exchange combines mutual probing, sarcasm, coercion, and reluctant instruction. Big White Goose attempts to recruit and train Liu Zheng, while Liu Zheng flatters it and secretly evaluates its motives.
• Big White Goose and the Legendary Deliveryman: Their professional relationship was apparently friendly, but Big White Goose still opposes Li’s objectives on ideological and practical grounds.
• Liu Zheng and Ghost Hand: Though Ghost Hand does not appear, Liu Zheng’s thoughts show that he feels indebted to and loyal toward Ghost Hand, especially because of Ghost Hand’s past protection.
• Liu Zheng and the makeup creatures: The grotesque tools used on him reinforce his helplessness and the absurd violence of the restaurant’s service culture.
• Liu Zheng and his new role: By the end of the chapter, he is transformed into a flawless, striking waiter and is sent to interact with customers, marking his formal advancement into a more prominent position within the restaurant.

Chapter Summary: “Planetary Level, for Real?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng enters a private restaurant room and finds four male residents—the old man, fat man, thin man, and a child in dinosaur pajamas—devouring a dead doe.
• The three adults demand Liu Zheng’s flesh. He attempts to deter them by explaining that his body has repeatedly regenerated and mutated, but they remain eager to eat him.
• They offer him various rewards:
  • Money from the thin man
  • A City Hall security appointment from the fat man
  • A Vampire bloodline through the old man’s First Embrace
• Liu Zheng identifies the old man as Emile’s Blood Father. This causes the vampire’s memories and emotions to briefly return. He gives Liu Zheng the password to his safe and asks him to tell Emile that he cannot return because escaping the hospital came at a terrible cost.
• The fat man and thin man continue trying to consume Liu Zheng. The old man protects him by binding them with blood chains and ordering Liu Zheng to leave.
• Liu Zheng discovers that the restaurant room is an illusion. After removing his own eyes, he briefly sees a vast cosmic scene: a massive fireball, an endless white expanse, and a tiny blue planet displaying apparent images of Earth. This confirms that the restaurant may exist on a truly planetary or cosmic scale.
• The old man explains that the room lacks the proper angles needed to summon a Tindalos Hound, preventing Liu Zheng’s usual escape tactic.
• Liu Zheng reaches the door and tricks the fat man and thin man into hesitating by pretending to summon the Hound. He escapes just as the old man collapses from exhaustion.
• The child in dinosaur pajamas reveals that he has merely been observing the entire scene for amusement. He declares that the others may now die, causing the three adults to melt instantly.
• The child collects and eats their remains, then recognizes Liu Zheng from a previous encounter. Liu Zheng also realizes that the child previously wore panda pajamas.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng: Remains calm and resourceful despite being treated as food. He uses humor, deception, regeneration, and knowledge of the residents to survive. His connection to Emile allows him to gain valuable information from the vampire and helps restore the old man’s fragmented identity.
• The old vampire: Initially appears predatory and offers Liu Zheng power, but his memories of Emile awaken his protective instincts. He sacrifices much of his strength to hold back the other residents and help Liu Zheng escape. His identity and sanity remain unstable, but his bond with Emile gives him hope.
• The fat man and thin man: Are portrayed as relentless, grotesque predators obsessed with eating Liu Zheng. They are unaffected by threats of mutation and treat the old vampire with no respect, suggesting that normal status or authority has little meaning in the restaurant.
• The dinosaur-pajama child: Emerges as the most powerful and terrifying figure in the room. He is detached, mocking, and treats the others’ deaths as entertainment. His ability to kill the three adults effortlessly establishes him as a major threat.
• Emile: Never appears directly, but her concern for the vampire and continued effort to save money become crucial to preserving his identity and hope of escape.

Significant Themes

• Identity and memory: The old vampire nearly loses himself, but his connection to Emile temporarily restores his memories and purpose. The child’s recognition of Liu Zheng also emphasizes the persistence of identity across grotesque transformations.
• Survival through adaptability: Liu Zheng survives not through superior strength but through improvisation, psychological manipulation, regeneration, and exploiting the residents’ fears.
• Cosmic horror and unstable reality: The private room is revealed to be an illusion masking an incomprehensibly vast setting. The apparent view of Earth as a tiny planet challenges Liu Zheng’s understanding of scale and reality.
• Predation and dehumanization: The characters treat bodies as food and flesh as a commodity. Liu Zheng’s mutations make him both victim and potential delicacy, while the child’s casual consumption of the adults reduces even powerful beings to objects.
• Powerlessness and hierarchy: The old vampire’s apparent authority means nothing to the fat man and thin man, while the child effortlessly dominates everyone. The chapter suggests that power in this world is unpredictable and dependent on hidden rules.
• Dark humor amid horror: Liu Zheng’s sarcastic comments about his “dirty” brain, mutated flesh, and supposed lack of freshness contrast with the extreme violence, creating a grotesque comedic tone.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng negotiates with the three adult residents while refusing to show fear.
• He manipulates the old vampire by invoking Emile, prompting the vampire to reveal the safe’s password and eventually defend him.
• The old vampire attempts to restrain the fat man and thin man with blood chains, buying Liu Zheng time to escape.
• Liu Zheng deceives the fat man and thin man by pretending to summon a Tindalos Hound.
• The dinosaur-pajama child watches all of them, then kills the three adults after declaring that their entertainment has ended.
• The child recognizes Liu Zheng’s body from their previous meeting, hinting at an ongoing and potentially dangerous relationship.

Chapter Summary: “Meeting an Acquaintance Made Him Especially Hungry”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng encounters Pajama Guy again in a Restaurant private room. Pajama Guy blames him for the deaths of three intestine slaves and demands compensation.
• Pajama Guy claims the slaves—including a valuable vampire capable of functioning as a dialysis machine—were worth roughly three million, far beyond Liu Zheng’s means.
• When Pajama Guy attacks him, Liu Zheng prepares to use a perfect-grade item called the Golden Finger. However, his Memorial Medal suddenly heats up and catches Pajama Guy’s attention.
• Pajama Guy recognizes that the Memorial Medal can exempt Liu Zheng from one punishment for breaking Restaurant rules. Realizing he might receive nothing, he proposes a settlement: Liu Zheng must provide one hundred sets of intestines.
• Because Liu Zheng possesses Flesh Rebirth and can regenerate, Pajama Guy plans to eat his intestines as they grow back. He orders a level-three set meal to replenish Liu Zheng’s strength.
• A centaur from the Customer Service Department delivers the meal. Liu Zheng attempts to invoke Cow-Horse’s name, hoping for assistance, but the centaur remains professional and instead agrees to serve as an official witness.
• Both parties pay the witness fee, activating the Restaurant’s semi-official Witness System. The system guarantees that the settlement will be enforced and protects the parties if one side breaks the agreement.
• Pajama Guy repeatedly removes and consumes Liu Zheng’s intestines while Liu Zheng eats the set meal to restore his energy and regenerate. The process lasts three hours and leaves Liu Zheng physically diminished but stronger.
• Once one hundred sets of intestines have been consumed, the witness declares the original dispute settled. Pajama Guy then reveals that although the compensation issue is over, Liu Zheng is still technically using the private room, implying he may continue exploiting the situation.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng shows greater confidence and familiarity with Restaurant rules. He argues with Pajama Guy rather than immediately submitting and relies on his powerful items, Memorial Medal, regeneration ability, and connection to Cow-Horse.
• He also demonstrates adaptability by accepting the painful settlement and using the level-three meal to recover and improve his attributes.
• Pajama Guy is established as extremely powerful, calculating, and predatory, but also willing to compromise when Restaurant rules and the Memorial Medal threaten his advantage. His appetite and fascination with Liu Zheng’s regenerative intestines reveal a grotesque but almost childlike enthusiasm.
• The centaur appears as a disciplined, impartial representative of the Restaurant’s semi-official Witness System. It initially views Liu Zheng coldly but becomes somewhat more favorable toward him after seeing him cooperate and pay the required fee.
• Cow-Horse’s influence is indirectly reinforced: Liu Zheng’s status as Cow-Horse’s subordinate earns him some recognition, even though the centaur does not directly rescue him.

Significant Themes

• Rules as protection and leverage: The Restaurant’s regulations can restrain even powerful figures. Liu Zheng’s Memorial Medal and the Witness System prevent Pajama Guy from simply taking what he wants.
• Exploitation and survival: Liu Zheng must literally sacrifice and regenerate his own organs to survive, while Pajama Guy treats him as both compensation and food.
• Power balanced by bureaucracy: Strength alone does not determine the outcome. Official procedures, witness fees, contracts, and Restaurant enforcement create a dangerous but reliable legal framework.
• Body horror and grotesque consumption: The chapter emphasizes the absurd horror of Liu Zheng’s endlessly regrowing intestines being eaten as a negotiated payment.
• Resourcefulness under pressure: Liu Zheng survives not by overpowering Pajama Guy but by combining cleverness, rare items, regeneration, social connections, and knowledge of the Restaurant’s systems.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Pajama Guy speak like hostile acquaintances, trading accusations and sarcastic remarks while negotiating the value of the dead slaves.
• Pajama Guy intimidates Liu Zheng physically but ultimately negotiates because the Memorial Medal threatens his ability to collect compensation.
• Liu Zheng tries to communicate with the centaur through Cow-Horse’s name, seeking help without openly challenging Pajama Guy.
• The centaur remains neutral, formalizing the deal and explaining its enforcement through the Witness System.
• During the settlement, Pajama Guy enjoys consuming Liu Zheng’s regenerating intestines, while Liu Zheng restores himself through the meal. Their interaction becomes a grotesque exchange: Pajama Guy eats, and Liu Zheng grows back what is consumed.
• At the end, Pajama Guy technically honors the agreement but immediately hints that he may continue pressuring Liu Zheng over the unresolved private-room service.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng provokes Pajama Bros, a powerful customer who has already consumed roughly one hundred sets of intestine-based dishes. Ready to use both his Golden Finger and the Chaos Club Membership Card if necessary, Liu considers turning the card into a weapon against him.
• Before the confrontation escalates, a centaur employee intervenes. Citing Customer Service Department rules, it claims responsibility for supervising Liu’s work and takes over the private room.
• The centaur kicks Liu out of the room, sending him through a strange, star-filled transition back to the Customer Service Department lounge.
• Big White Goose catches Liu and learns that he received no tip and was instead forced to provide food for Pajama Bros. Liu also reveals that three of Pajama Bros’ intestine slaves died because of the incident.
• Liu decides to return to the Delivery Department, worried that Cow-Horse may need help, though Big White Goose insists that Cow-Horse is far more capable than it appears.
• Big White Goose removes Liu’s waiter uniform and explains the limits of recovery abilities: injuries affecting the essence between the body and “flesh” are difficult or impossible to heal, while Liu’s Flesh Rebirth can restore ordinary physical damage.
• As compensation for Liu’s dangerous service and lack of a tip, Big White Goose gives him Madness Facial Cleanser, an item that temporarily increases charm and repairs facial damage. It is intended for use at the Black Market, where it may allow Liu to win over even a top-ranked courtesan.
• Liu asks Big White Goose to contact Minister Britannia and confirm the reservation of a private room. Britannia confirms that the reserved room is the Solar System and that Liu’s people only need to state its name upon arrival.
• After Liu leaves, Big White Goose reflects that Liu has been trapped in the Bloodstained Restaurant since the moment he entered. Ghost Hand remains hidden nearby, silently observing.

2. Character Developments

• Liu Zheng continues to display recklessness, resourcefulness, and a willingness to gamble with his life. However, he also shows growing awareness of the dangers of the Restaurant and of the need to rely on allies such as Cow-Horse and Big White Goose.
• His Flesh Rebirth ability is emphasized as extremely powerful but costly, since it is connected to the terrifying attention of an evil god. Liu also gains a better understanding of the limits of regeneration.
• The centaur reveals itself as a competent and rule-conscious employee willing to protect Liu, partly because of its regard for Cow-Horse. Its intervention prevents Liu from provoking a potentially fatal conflict with Pajama Bros.
• Big White Goose acts as Liu’s mentor and protector. It explains the Restaurant’s harsh survival logic, gives practical advice about hiding strength, and provides Liu with a valuable item for his future plans.
• Cow-Horse is presented as deceptively powerful. Although lazy, greedy, and frequently battered, it may possess enough hidden strength and resources to manage the Delivery Department alone.
• Britannia remains curt and distant, but Big White Goose suggests that Britannia’s attitude toward Liu may actually indicate approval or unusual favor.
• Ghost Hand continues to observe from the shadows, reinforcing the sense that Liu is being watched and evaluated by unseen forces.

3. Significant Themes

• Survival through risk and adaptability: Liu survives not through raw strength alone, but by bluffing, exploiting rules, using dangerous abilities, and finding powerful allies.
• Hidden strength and appearances: The chapter repeatedly contrasts outward impressions with reality. Cow-Horse appears unreliable but may be extraordinarily strong, while Liu’s seemingly casual behavior conceals serious danger.
• The price of power: Liu’s regeneration is highly advantageous, but it carries the burden of being watched by an evil god. The chapter emphasizes that every benefit in the Restaurant demands a corresponding cost.
• Entrapment and loss of freedom: Big White Goose’s final reflection suggests that Liu’s employment is not temporary in any meaningful sense. Once someone enters the Bloodstained Restaurant, escape may no longer be possible.
• Workplace hierarchy and rules: Department regulations are both oppressive and protective. The centaur uses the rules to remove Liu from danger, while the Restaurant’s employment structure determines who may intervene and who bears responsibility.
• Charm as a survival tool: The Madness Facial Cleanser turns attractiveness into a practical weapon, linking Liu’s future Black Market mission to manipulation, seduction, and social power.

4. Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Pajama Bros: Their interaction is openly antagonistic. Liu taunts Pajama Bros despite being outmatched, while Pajama Bros treats him as disposable food service.
• Liu Zheng and the centaur: The centaur forcibly removes Liu from danger while insulting him as a “newbie.” Liu is annoyed but recognizes that the centaur is acting protectively.
• Liu Zheng and Big White Goose: Their conversation is familiar and mentor-like. Big White Goose mocks Liu’s misfortune, advises him to remain close to Cow-Horse, explains his regeneration, and rewards him with the facial cleanser.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse: Although Cow-Horse does not appear directly, Liu’s concern for it shows trust and loyalty. Big White Goose’s comments deepen the mystery surrounding Cow-Horse’s real abilities.
• Liu Zheng and Britannia: Their phone conversation is brief and formal. Britannia confirms Liu’s reservation but hangs up before he can finish thanking it, leaving Big White Goose to interpret the exchange as possible hidden approval.
• Big White Goose and Ghost Hand: There is no direct conversation, but Big White Goose appears aware of Ghost Hand’s presence and ends the chapter by speaking toward it, creating an atmosphere of surveillance and concealed agendas.

Chapter Summary: “Old Fart’s Gold Coins Weren’t Easy to Farm”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng returns to the break room after securing the “Solar System” private room for the upcoming Tier-One Banquet. He tells Cow-Horse that he suffered a major loss, though Cow-Horse points out that he survived and lost no money.
• Cow-Horse worries that Britannia may suspect the centaur who helped Liu Zheng escape the Customer Service Department. They conclude that acting immediately could endanger the centaur, so they decide to wait and respond only if necessary.
• Liu Zheng proposes using the reward from returning Sewer’s Egg to ask the Restaurant’s owner to protect the centaur. This shows his willingness to sacrifice a valuable reward to repay someone who saved his life.
• Cow-Horse demands the return of the Memorial Medal they lent Liu Zheng. After some joking and arguing, Liu Zheng gives it back, and Cow-Horse immediately swallows it to keep it safe.
• Cow-Horse confirms that Napoleon has agreed to host the Tier-One Banquet, though their evasive behavior suggests obtaining the agreement was difficult.
• Liu Zheng contacts the Novelist, who prepares to arrange the banquet in the Solar System private room. Liu Zheng is careful to maintain their relationship because he suspects she may have ulterior motives but still values her assistance.
• Cow-Horse mocks Liu Zheng about his relationships with several women, joking that the Kitchen should open bets on who will sleep with him first. Liu Zheng protests while Cow-Horse leaves to arrange the betting.
• Liu Zheng calls Vampire Girl and tells her that her blood father has died. He claims that the deceased left him the password to a safe and asks him to pass it on.
• Vampire Girl is shocked and eager to learn more, but Liu Zheng refuses to reveal the full details, partly because the incident occurred in a Restaurant private room and might violate its rules. He instead offers to provide the password in exchange for settling their debt.
• Vampire Girl decides to order delivery rather than discuss the password over the phone. Her order is only a serving of ordinary mashed potatoes, highlighting how expensive even simple Restaurant food is.
• Liu Zheng delivers the meal to the “Red Witch” board game club. He avoids looking at the Witch statue to prevent another lightning strike, but an invisible barrier blocks his entrance.
• The Witch statue turns its eyes toward him, implying that it deliberately prevents him from entering. Liu Zheng resignedly asks what the Witch wants from him.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng continues to show loyalty and a strong sense of obligation. He is willing to give up a priceless reward to protect the centaur who saved him, although he remains cautious about revealing sensitive information.
• He also demonstrates increasing resourcefulness and opportunism by charging Vampire Girl a “brokerage fee” for the safe’s password.
• Cow-Horse remains abrasive, manipulative, and humorous, but their concern for Liu Zheng and willingness to help the centaur reveal a degree of loyalty. They also rely heavily on Liu Zheng’s future earning potential.
• Vampire Girl becomes highly emotional and desperate after hearing of her blood father’s death, suggesting that the safe and its contents may be extremely valuable.
• The Novelist continues to act as an important ally, arranging the banquet while reassuring Liu Zheng that helping him will not cause trouble.
• Britannia is characterized indirectly as vindictive and dangerous, especially toward anyone suspected of helping Liu Zheng.
• The Witch statue shifts from a passive landmark to an active obstacle, showing that the Witch is deliberately monitoring or interfering with Liu Zheng.

Significant Themes

• Debts, favors, and repayment: Liu Zheng weighs valuable rewards against the obligation to repay the centaur’s life-saving favor. His dealings with Vampire Girl also frame relationships as negotiated exchanges.
• Loyalty versus self-interest: Liu Zheng balances helping others with protecting himself, while Cow-Horse’s support mixes genuine concern with financial interest.
• Power and vulnerability: Even powerful individuals such as the centaur and Vampire Girl are constrained by stronger authorities, Restaurant rules, or dangerous enemies like Britannia.
• Information as currency: The safe’s password, the circumstances of the blood father’s death, and knowledge about private-room events all carry significant value and risk.
• Humor amid danger: Insults, romantic teasing, and absurd situations—such as betting on Liu Zheng’s love life or delivering plain mashed potatoes at enormous cost—lighten an otherwise threatening environment.
• The hidden costs of survival: Liu Zheng survives dangerous situations but accumulates obligations, enemies, and complications rather than escaping without consequences.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse trade insults while discussing the centaur, the Memorial Medal, and the banquet. Their relationship is antagonistic on the surface but built on mutual trust and dependence.
• Liu Zheng and the Novelist maintain a cautious, unequal alliance. He worries about what she may ultimately want from him but continues relying on her assistance.
• Liu Zheng’s call with Vampire Girl combines emotional news, suspicion, and bargaining. He withholds information while exploiting her urgency to secure payment for the password.
• Liu Zheng’s encounter with the Witch statue ends the chapter on a tense note. Despite trying to avoid provoking it, he is stopped and forced to acknowledge its presence.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Witch silently pressures Liu Zheng to bring her both Bad-Luck Coffee and board games. After misinterpreting her wishes twice and being struck by lightning, he correctly guesses what she wants.
• Liu Zheng agrees to buy her coffee but refuses to stay and play because of work. Witch punishes him by lashing his butt with lightning, then kicks him into the board-game parlor after he returns with coffee and desserts.
• Liu Zheng delivers extra portions to Britannia and Big White Goose through Cow-Horse, though Cow-Horse complains about the expense and inconvenience.
• At the café, Liu Zheng speaks with Vampire Girl, who leads him into the women’s restroom for privacy. She asks him to help break into Blood Father’s safe, warning that Blood Father’s relatives are waiting outside and may attack them.
• Vampire Girl admits she wants Liu Zheng to act as a decoy. He refuses, unwilling to risk his life for potential treasure, especially since he expects to receive a large payment from Nightingale.
• Vampire Girl gives Liu Zheng a “payment in advance” by biting him and injecting Life Essence into his body. By calling her name, he can temporarily gain strength comparable to hers for approximately three minutes.
• Liu Zheng accepts the Life Essence as an interest-free loan but continues refusing to help immediately. He later realizes Vampire Girl has effectively seduced him.
• As Liu Zheng returns to the Delivery Passage, he receives a call from Novelist, setting up the next development.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains pragmatic, sarcastic, and cautious. Although tempted by the possibility of treasure and stronger abilities, he prioritizes survival and refuses to serve as a decoy. He also shows increasing confidence in negotiating with powerful residents.
• Witch is portrayed as childish, possessive, and physically expressive. Her lightning attacks are less about serious harm than punishment and humiliation, but she clearly expects Liu Zheng to indulge her demands.
• Vampire Girl reveals greater vulnerability beneath her teasing and aggressive personality. She fears her blood relatives and does not trust anyone else enough to help her access Blood Father’s safe. Her willingness to share Life Essence shows both strategic calculation and a degree of personal attachment to Liu Zheng.
• Cow-Horse continues to act as a reluctant but dependable courier, complaining about Liu Zheng’s requests while ultimately helping him.
• Liu Zheng’s thoughts also reveal the pressure of his broader circumstances: his father is being hunted, his mother’s fate is uncertain, and his girlfriend is under investigation, yet he must continue working.

Significant Themes

• Survival versus greed: Liu Zheng rejects the chance at wealth when it requires exposing himself to serious danger, emphasizing his practical survival instinct.
• Manipulation and mutual exploitation: Vampire Girl intends to use Liu Zheng as a decoy, while Liu Zheng evaluates her strength and Life Essence as useful resources. Their relationship mixes genuine concern, bargaining, and opportunism.
• Humor amid danger: Lightning punishment, restroom misunderstandings, vampire blood jokes, and Liu Zheng’s self-deprecating remarks keep the tone comedic despite threats involving powerful vampires and dangerous relatives.
• Trust and vulnerability: Vampire Girl claims she cannot trust anyone else, while Liu Zheng remains wary of being exploited. Their exchange of Life Essence creates a temporary bond and gives him a stake in her future problems.
• Work as an inescapable obligation: Even during family crises and supernatural conflicts, Liu Zheng continues fulfilling delivery assignments, reinforcing the chapter’s absurd contrast between mundane employment and extraordinary danger.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Witch communicate through guesswork, lightning strikes, and reluctant compliance, establishing a humorous but unequal relationship.
• Liu Zheng and Vampire Girl trade insults and flirtatious banter while negotiating the safe-breaking plan. Their conversation shifts from suspicion to cooperation when she grants him Life Essence.
• Vampire Girl’s attempted seduction succeeds in making Liu Zheng reconsider his connection to her, though he still refuses to risk himself immediately.
• Liu Zheng’s call from Novelist at the chapter’s end interrupts his return to work and likely introduces the next major plot thread.

Chapter Summary: The Fastest Legend in Eerie City

Key Plot Points and Events

• Novelist confirms that Liu Zheng’s rescue-related problem has been resolved, instructing him to wait for Nightingale to contact him.
• Liu Zheng proposes that Cow-Horse accompany Vampire Girl to claim her late Blood Father’s inheritance in exchange for half the money. Cow-Horse initially seems interested but unexpectedly refuses, avoiding the subject when questioned.
• Nightingale calls to announce that she has been released. Rather than discuss payment over the phone, she asks to meet Liu Zheng in person. Because Liu Zheng cannot leave without accepting a delivery order, she arranges for Sea Woman to place one.
• Liu Zheng suspects that Nightingale may be financially dependent on Sea Woman, since Sea Woman repeatedly handles the orders. He keeps this concern from Cow-Horse to avoid provoking it.
• Liu Zheng receives a delivery order for a common mashed potato salad at Aladdinding Apartments. The system description humorously notes that calling the dish “salad” doubles its price.
• While traveling, Liu Zheng encounters a strange unmanned bicycle operated by white gloves and leather shoes. The bicycle repeatedly follows him and challenges him to a race through bell signals.
• Liu Zheng tries to avoid the confrontation, but the bicycle refuses to back down. A bizarre armored Red Dragonfly with an old man’s head appears and declares itself the referee of the “Urban Fastest Legend Brawl.”
• Although Liu Zheng never agreed to compete, Red Dragonfly insists that the race is unavoidable. Liu Zheng finally decides to redirect the challenge toward Tindalos, preparing to use the Chew Toy.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains pragmatic, money-conscious, and wary of unnecessary danger. He tries to avoid conflict but is also increasingly eager to vent his accumulated hostility on anyone who gives him an excuse.
• Cow-Horse shows unexpected restraint by refusing the vampire inheritance job despite being tempted by the money. Its evasiveness suggests a hidden reason or personal concern.
• Nightingale is revealed to be free but possibly in financial difficulty. Her request to meet face-to-face implies that the situation surrounding her rescue and payment is more complicated than Liu Zheng expects.
• Ghost Hand continues to appear intoxicated or incapacitated, though coffee briefly cheers it up enough to act energetically.
• Liu Zheng’s Chew Toy remains ready for combat, emphasizing Liu Zheng’s growing confidence and preparedness.
• The bicycle is characterized as competitive, persistent, and oddly expressive, using its bell as a form of language.
• Red Dragonfly introduces itself as an overdramatic, justice-themed referee, parodying a classic children’s hero while being visually unsettling.

Significant Themes

• Money and exploitation: Characters repeatedly negotiate over inheritance, rescue payments, and delivery compensation. Even supernatural favors are treated as business transactions.
• Avoiding conflict versus embracing violence: Liu Zheng calls himself a pacifist and tries to avoid trouble, yet he admits that his violent impulses are building and looks forward to confronting a suitable target.
• Absurdity and parody: The chapter satirizes board-game delivery systems, overpriced food labels, heroic television formulas, and dramatic competition narratives.
• Communication and misunderstanding: The bicycle’s bell signals create a communication barrier, while Red Dragonfly imposes its own heroic script regardless of Liu Zheng’s objections.
• Unpredictable supernatural bureaucracy: Rescue arrangements, delivery orders, government-like entities, and strange rules continue to shape Liu Zheng’s movements and choices.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse banter over the vampire inheritance, with Cow-Horse refusing to explain its sudden lack of interest.
• Liu Zheng and Nightingale negotiate indirectly, with Nightingale insisting on a face-to-face discussion and Liu Zheng immediately asking about compensation.
• Liu Zheng reluctantly helps Ghost Hand by giving it Cow-Horse’s last cup of coffee, prompting Ghost Hand’s playful gratitude.
• Liu Zheng and the bicycle engage in a comic confrontation: the bicycle demands a race through bell codes, while Liu Zheng repeatedly attempts to postpone or avoid it.
• Red Dragonfly forces itself into the dispute as referee, delivering exaggerated moral lessons and turning an unwanted encounter into a formal contest.
• The chapter ends as Liu Zheng prepares to redirect the race toward Tindalos, suggesting that the coming confrontation may involve a dangerous supernatural opponent rather than an ordinary speed contest.

Chapter Summary: “Deadly Delivery, Delivered at All Costs”

Key Plot Points and Events

Liu Zheng encounters a courier from Deadly Delivery: a bicycle carrying a Work-Glove-clad courier and accompanied by a clone of a Tindalos Hound. Red Dragonfly serves as the contest’s referee. The courier proposes a race to the Aladingding Apartments, with Liu Zheng’s Legendary Delivery Box as the prize. If Liu Zheng loses, the courier receives the box; if he wins, the courier will provide one free delivery.
Liu Zheng objects that the stakes are unfair, since the Legendary Delivery Box is far more valuable than a single delivery. After several minutes of argument, the courier offers an additional “doorstep receipt service.” By tearing up a special Delivery Slip, Liu Zheng can summon the courier instantly, regardless of distance or obstacles. Although Liu Zheng still considers the exchange unequal, Red Dragonfly approves the revised stakes.
The rules also establish that both contestants’ abilities will be restricted to roughly equal levels and that outside items are forbidden. Red Dragonfly activates a strange contest device, the Revolving Beacon, transforming the cityscape and filling the route with floating treasure chests marked by question marks. The event is revealed to be an “Urban Speed Legend Contest.”
When the race begins, Liu Zheng and the courier initially run at equal speed. Liu Zheng realizes that the treasure chests are likely essential to victory. He opens one and receives a blue rocket launcher, while the courier obtains a red one. Both immediately fire at each other, causing a massive explosion. As they are thrown through the air, Liu Zheng recognizes the contest as an item race.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng remains opportunistic, argumentative, and resourceful. He challenges the fairness of the contest, tries to exploit loopholes, and negotiates for better terms. He also quickly recognizes the strategic value of the treasure chests once the race begins.
• Red Dragonfly demonstrates strict impartiality as a referee. Despite having a personal interest in being allowed to referee in the Sewer, they refuse to favor either participant and enforce deadlines, balanced stakes, and equalized abilities.
• The Deadly Delivery courier is portrayed as frustrated and belligerent. It wants Liu Zheng’s delivery box because its own box is old and difficult to replace, reflecting resentment toward City Hall’s inefficient logistics system. Its repeated bell-ringing serves as its main form of communication.
• The Tindalos Hound clone highlights the unusual nature of the competition but does not directly affect the race. Its replaceability makes it fearless.

Significant Themes

• Fairness versus value: Liu Zheng questions whether the contest’s rewards and risks are genuinely equivalent, while Red Dragonfly insists on formal fairness rather than subjective valuation.
• Bureaucratic neglect: The courier’s anger over its broken bell and decade-long wait for a replacement exposes the incompetence and indifference of City Hall.
• Rules and loopholes: Liu Zheng constantly tests the contest’s boundaries, while Red Dragonfly enforces rules rigidly but allows negotiation within them.
• Utility hidden behind absurdity: The seemingly bizarre doorstep receipt service turns out to have powerful practical applications, including escape from sealed spaces and emergency transportation.
• Competition as chaos: The race initially appears to be a simple speed contest but becomes an item-based battle involving random weapons and explosive attacks.

Character Interactions

Liu Zheng and Red Dragonfly engage in a witty, adversarial negotiation. Liu Zheng repeatedly challenges the contest’s rules, while Red Dragonfly responds with formal rulings, warnings, and dry sarcasm. Red Dragonfly also mediates communication between Liu Zheng and the bell-ringing courier, translating the courier’s complaints and proposals.
Liu Zheng briefly attempts to build a future relationship with Red Dragonfly by offering to ask Sewer residents whether the referee could gain access there. Their exchange reveals Red Dragonfly’s desire to referee in the Sewer and Liu Zheng’s willingness to trade information for potential advantages.
The chapter ends with Liu Zheng and the courier immediately attacking one another after opening the first treasure chests, transforming the race into a chaotic armed contest.

Chapter Summary: “This One’s for My Asshole”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng and the courier continue competing in a bizarre item-based footrace toward the Aladdin Ding Apartments.
• Liu Zheng obtains a barrel of nitrous oxide (“NO”) from a treasure chest. Realizing it can function as propulsion, he drinks it despite his hesitation. Blue flames erupt from his anus, launching him forward at tremendous speed and allowing him to overtake the courier.
• He uses the opportunity to taunt the courier, burning and blackening parts of its bicycle and gloves with his exhaust flame.
• Liu Zheng later obtains a magnet, but it is useless while he is in the lead. The courier finds a metal shield, though neither contestant can immediately use their items effectively.
• As both racers approach another set of chests, Liu Zheng eats a banana for energy and tricks the courier into believing he will throw the peel. After distracting it, he throws the peel beneath the bicycle’s rear tire. The courier crashes heavily.
• The courier then uses a Demon Mask against Liu Zheng. The mask reverses his sense of direction, causing him to move backward whenever he intends to move forward and slowing his progress.
• Despite the disadvantage, Liu Zheng retains a narrow lead through a combination of stamina, experience, and the earlier nitrous boost.
• Near the finish, both racers reach a final row of chests. The central chest is black and appears ominous, but Liu Zheng decides that the potential reward is worth the risk. He and the courier race for it.
• Liu Zheng breaks open the black chest first, revealing a warhead with a countdown. Both characters react with furious middle fingers as the chapter ends.

Character Development

• Liu Zheng demonstrates increasing confidence and adaptability in the item race. He quickly understands how to exploit unusual objects, even when doing so requires extreme pain or humiliation.
• His mischievous, aggressive personality becomes more pronounced. He enjoys sabotaging the courier and openly celebrates its misfortune rather than showing mercy.
• Liu Zheng also reveals a pragmatic willingness to gamble. Although he understands the danger of the black chest, he reasons that losing the Legendary Delivery Box would not immediately threaten his survival, so he chooses to take the risk.
• The courier becomes increasingly competitive and enraged. It uses the slingshot to conserve energy, attempts to exploit defensive items, and retaliates with the Demon Mask after Liu Zheng’s banana-peel attack.

Significant Themes

• Resourcefulness under pressure: Victory depends less on raw speed than on recognizing how to use strange items creatively.
• Risk versus caution: Liu Zheng weighs the danger of the black chest against the possible reward and chooses decisive action over excessive hesitation.
• Competition and opportunism: Both racers constantly seek advantages and are willing to sabotage one another rather than cooperate.
• Humor through pain and absurdity: The chapter turns Liu Zheng’s physical suffering—especially the flaming exhaust from his anus—into a source of comedic power and triumph.
• Unpredictability and danger: The race’s constantly changing items make every advantage temporary, while the final warhead suggests that the contest may have consequences far beyond simply reaching the finish line.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng repeatedly mocks the courier, especially after using the nitrous flames to overtake and burn its bicycle.
• The courier responds by ringing its bell furiously, chasing him, and later using the Demon Mask to reverse his movement.
• Liu Zheng tricks the courier with a fake banana-peel throw, then successfully causes it to crash by placing the peel under its rear wheel.
• After the courier retaliates with the Demon Mask, both racers remain locked in a tense, hostile contest for the final chest.
• At the cliffhanger ending, they share the same shocked and furious reaction when the black chest reveals a countdown warhead.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng survives the competition by positioning himself behind the nuclear weapon and shielding himself from the blast with his tentacles. He awakens unharmed at the entrance of the Aladingding Apartments.
• Red Dragonfly declares him the winner and rewards him with a Gold Champion Medal, a fine-quality item that grants preferential treatment and may undergo a transformation after ten medals are collected.
• After Red Dragonfly departs, Liu Zheng attempts to deliver food to Nightingale but discovers that the apartment’s gate is locked.
• The woman occupying the security booth refuses to help unless Liu Zheng agrees to visit her home and scream for her entertainment. Horrified by her aggressive advances, he escapes.
• Nightingale cannot leave her apartment while waiting for the delivery, so she and Liu Zheng devise a way to open the gate. Nightingale creates a false fire emergency by setting off an explosion and shouting that the building is on fire.
• The alarm automatically opens the gate, but the evacuation causes a stampede of bizarre residents that repeatedly throws Liu Zheng through the air, breaking and healing his body.
• Liu Zheng reaches the twelfth floor but becomes trapped in a bizarre corridor where room numbers are arranged without logic. He cannot locate Nightingale’s room, 1219.
• Nightingale agrees to pound on her door so Liu Zheng can follow the sound. However, every door in the corridor begins pounding simultaneously, leaving him in an even more disturbing and confusing situation.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates strong improvisational ability and composure under extreme danger, both during the competition and while dealing with the apartment’s obstacles. He remains pragmatic, sarcastic, and willing to threaten Nightingale when necessary.
• He also reveals his disgust and discomfort when confronted with the security auntie’s sexual harassment, contrasting with his usual fearlessness.
• Red Dragonfly recognizes Liu Zheng’s creativity and tactical skill, particularly his use of props and his response to the nuclear blast.
• Nightingale shows herself to be mischievous, resourceful, and willing to exploit chaos—though she is also reluctant to risk punishment for helping Liu Zheng. Her laughter at his predicament highlights their teasing relationship.
• The security auntie is portrayed as shameless, predatory, and financially powerful, using her wealth and sexual appetite to manipulate men.

Significant Themes

• Resourcefulness in absurd danger: Liu Zheng repeatedly survives through quick thinking rather than brute force.
• Bureaucracy and arbitrary rules: Even supernatural residents and delivery workers are constrained by apartment regulations, security procedures, and City Hall authority.
• Power and leverage: Liu Zheng’s influence comes not from wealth but from his association with the Bloodstained Restaurant and its powerful boss, allowing him to pressure Nightingale.
• Dark comedy and grotesque absurdity: Sexual harassment, nuclear explosions, false fire alarms, bizarre residents, and endlessly shifting apartment doors are presented through exaggerated humor.
• The unpredictability of the supernatural city: Familiar situations—such as entering an apartment building or finding a room—become surreal, threatening, and impossible to navigate.

Character Interactions

• Red Dragonfly congratulates Liu Zheng, awards him the medal, and encourages him to organize more entertaining competitions.
• Liu Zheng clashes with the security auntie, who refuses to open the gate unless he provides sexual entertainment.
• Liu Zheng and Nightingale argue over the delivery, each blaming the other for the problem. Their exchange mixes irritation, mockery, and reluctant cooperation.
• Liu Zheng threatens to report Nightingale to City Hall, exploiting her fear of punishment and her weaker political backing.
• Nightingale ultimately helps him by staging a false fire alarm, though she plans to blame Sea Woman if discovered.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng and Nightingale’s attempted cooperation producing a new mystery: instead of hearing only Nightingale’s door, he hears every door in the corridor pounding at once.

Chapter Summary: “Stockings”

Key plot points and events

• Liu Zheng enters a hostile apartment corridor where residents violently pound on their doors. He uses humor and threats—particularly the threat of releasing Tindalos Hounds—to intimidate them into silence.
• He tests several doors, bantering with the unseen occupants. At room 1211, a frightened man invites him inside in a sinister tone, revealing a crimson-lit room and a supernatural Cardboard Man.
• Despite sensing danger, Liu Zheng enters and deliberately embraces the Cardboard Man while holding his dangerous items: the Chew Toy, Golden Finger, Chaos Club Membership Card, and delivery slip. The Cardboard Man is visibly terrified of him.
• Liu Zheng threatens to tear up the delivery slip and unleash chaos unless the Cardboard Man helps him reach room 1219. The creature finally gives him a paper strip that acts as a guide.
• The paper leads Liu Zheng to Nightingale’s room. He finds her standing precariously on the edge of a shattered floor-to-ceiling window, apparently after an explosion.
• Nightingale invites him in for tea. Their conversation turns into playful, provocative banter involving Sea Woman’s room and stockings, but Liu Zheng dismisses the nonsense and asks directly whether Nightingale is out of money.

Character developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates increasing confidence, recklessness, and psychological dominance. Rather than retreating from supernatural threats, he provokes them, weaponizes their fear, and maintains control through bluffing and absurd humor.
• He also shows practical intelligence: recognizing the Cardboard Man’s fear, he forces it to cooperate rather than fighting it directly.
• The Cardboard Man is established as an eerie but fearful entity. Although initially threatening, it becomes desperate to get Liu Zheng out of its room and ultimately assists him.
• Nightingale appears physically vulnerable after the explosion but remains confident, flirtatious, and manipulative. Her playful behavior masks whatever serious issue prompted Liu Zheng’s visit.
• Sea Woman, though absent, is characterized indirectly through her Japanese-style room, youthful aesthetic, and close relationship with Nightingale.

Significant themes

• Fear as a source of power: Liu Zheng survives by making supernatural beings fear him more than he fears them.
• Performance and deception: Much of the chapter consists of threats, teasing, and staged confidence. Liu Zheng’s bravado may be partly an act, but it successfully alters the balance of power.
• Absurdity amid horror: Terrifying entities and lethal situations are undercut by jokes about delivery work, tea, clothing, and stockings.
• Control versus vulnerability: The residents, Cardboard Man, Nightingale, and Liu Zheng all attempt to control one another, often through intimidation or psychological manipulation.
• Boundaries and social rituals: Doorways, invitations, tea, and hospitality become unsettling versions of ordinary social customs in a supernatural setting.

Character interactions

• Liu Zheng taunts the unseen residents and forces them to resume their pounding after they fall silent.
• He verbally threatens the man in room 1211, then confronts and physically embraces the Cardboard Man, reversing the expected predator-prey dynamic.
• The Cardboard Man reluctantly guides Liu Zheng to Nightingale after he threatens to “mail” it by tearing the delivery slip.
• Liu Zheng and Nightingale exchange sarcastic, flirtatious insults over tea. Their familiar banter suggests an established relationship built on mutual provocation rather than trust or warmth.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng cutting through Nightingale’s distractions and directly asking whether she has run out of money, shifting the interaction toward the likely purpose of his visit.

Chapter Summary: Cow-Horse: If You Can't Squeeze Her Dry, I'll Squeeze You Dry

Key Plot Points and Events

• Nightingale explains that she is now financially ruined and being hunted by her family after escaping City Hall’s prison. Her father has frozen her assets and is pressuring her into a political marriage to separate her from Sea Woman.
• Liu Zheng jokingly suggests killing Nightingale’s father or siblings to resolve the inheritance problem. Nightingale reveals that her siblings will soon hold a secret gathering, creating a possible opportunity.
• Although Nightingale offers Liu Zheng ten million to help eliminate her siblings, he refuses to become involved in the dangerous family conflict. Instead, he contacts his employer, Cow-Horse, about the offer.
• Cow-Horse initially considers the job but rejects it after realizing the danger posed by Nightingale’s powerful family and bounty hunters. He orders Liu Zheng to pressure Nightingale for whatever payment she can still provide.
• Nightingale gives Liu Zheng the gray stone coffin-like box promised by Sea Woman. The system does not identify the item, making Liu Zheng suspicious of its ownership or nature, though he recognizes it as a weapon against the Chaos Club.
• Liu Zheng refuses to directly help Nightingale overthrow her family but proposes finding her another way to earn money. He contacts Vampire Girl, who offers Nightingale and Sea Woman a potentially profitable job.
• Vampire Girl demands forty percent of the profits, leaving Liu Zheng sixty percent to divide between himself and the two women. Liu Zheng agrees to present the offer to Nightingale.

Character Developments

• Nightingale is revealed to be wealthy by birth but vulnerable because of her family’s control over her assets. Her desperate, manipulative, and flirtatious behavior masks her need for independence and financial resources. She becomes more determined to fight back against her family.
• Liu Zheng remains cautious and pragmatic. Despite the huge financial reward, he refuses to risk his life in a conflict beyond his strength. He demonstrates growing strategic awareness by arranging alternatives rather than abandoning Nightingale entirely.
• Cow-Horse shows greed but also practical survival instincts. The ten-million reward briefly excites him, yet he quickly recognizes that the job would make them targets for powerful enemies. His order to “squeeze” Nightingale reinforces his exploitative attitude toward money.
• Vampire Girl emerges as a business-minded figure who is willing to offer work to Nightingale and Sea Woman while taking a substantial cut. She also trusts Liu Zheng enough to negotiate through him.
• Sea Woman does not appear directly, but her relationship with Nightingale and her promised payment remain central to the chapter.

Significant Themes

• Wealth and power: Money determines freedom, inheritance, marriage prospects, and survival. Nightingale’s enormous potential fortune contrasts with her immediate helplessness because her family controls her assets.
• Family as oppression: Nightingale’s family uses political marriage, financial restrictions, and violence to control her personal choices.
• Pragmatism over greed: Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse recognize that a massive reward is not worth provoking powerful enemies, emphasizing the dangers of pursuing wealth recklessly.
• The nature of the world: The existence of borders and the Border Management Bureau makes Liu Zheng question whether the world is real or an artificial realm created by the Hell Game. The memory loss suffered by approved travelers further deepens the mystery.
• Negotiation and exploitation: Nearly every relationship is framed as a transaction. Liu Zheng, Cow-Horse, Nightingale, and Vampire Girl all bargain over risk, payment, and loyalty.

Character Interactions

• Nightingale and Liu Zheng exchange sarcastic, flirtatious banter while discussing murder, money, and her family crisis. Liu Zheng repeatedly rejects her attempts to draw him into the conflict.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse discuss the ten-million contract. Cow-Horse’s initial excitement turns into refusal once the risks become clear.
• Liu Zheng questions Cow-Horse about the world beyond the border, learning that outsiders forget what they experience beyond City Hall’s territory.
• Nightingale gives Liu Zheng the mysterious stone box and again asks for his help. He declines but offers to find her paid work.
• Liu Zheng negotiates with Vampire Girl, who agrees to employ Nightingale and Sea Woman under a profit-sharing arrangement. The chapter ends with Liu Zheng preparing to relay the offer to Nightingale.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng negotiates a deal with Nightingale, agreeing to help the receptionist of the Red Witch board game club seize an inheritance. Nightingale reduces his share from forty to thirty percent but insists that he accompany her, Vampire Girl, and Sea Woman because none of them trust one another.
• Liu Zheng agrees, arranging for them to summon him by ordering takeout. To avoid people he offended in Nightingale’s apartment, he leaves through a twelfth-floor window. He survives the fall, though he is temporarily half-paralyzed and suffers displaced organs.
• Before leaving the apartment complex, he is horrified by the enormous guardhouse auntie, who again invites him to visit her.
• Back at Bloodstained Restaurant, Liu Zheng informs Cow-Horse about the inheritance plan and voluntarily offers it ten percent of his profits. Cow-Horse approves and spares him a beating.
• Liu Zheng questions Cow-Horse about the border surrounding Eerie City. He learns that people and races have migrated into the city, that those who cross the border generally lose their memories of the outside, and that permitted travelers may conduct business or search for migratory races. The border is described as “much bigger than you imagine, and much smaller than you imagine.”
• Liu Zheng reflects on the possibility that a future Hell Game dungeon may take him outside Eerie City, making his current relationships and connections potentially valuable.
• To pass the time, Cow-Horse challenges Liu Zheng to Go. Cow-Horse dramatically opens at the Tengen point, having taught itself from children’s books. Despite Liu Zheng’s attempts to play down to its level, Cow-Horse loses only three of six games, and the match continues until evening.
• After Ghost Hand brings Liu Zheng a new delivery order, he escapes the Go marathon. His next delivery is a large serving of French fries for Nightingale, to be delivered to Tombstone No. 18703 in a cemetery.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates practical judgment by accepting Nightingale’s condition and recognizing that his presence may prevent a violent conflict among the participants. He also shows increasing strategic awareness by considering how Eerie City’s border and his relationships could affect future dungeon worlds.
• Nightingale reveals her distrustful but pragmatic nature. She wants Liu Zheng present as a neutral buffer between herself, Vampire Girl, and Sea Woman.
• Cow-Horse shows unexpected competitiveness and pride. Despite being ignorant of formal Go concepts, it is enthusiastic, persistent, and surprisingly difficult for Liu Zheng to defeat.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse’s relationship becomes more companionable: Liu Zheng shares profits, asks about the world beyond the city, and spends hours playing with Cow-Horse, even while finding the experience exhausting.
• Vampire Girl, Sea Woman, and Nightingale are positioned as uneasy collaborators whose mutual distrust may threaten the inheritance mission.

Significant Themes

• Trust and unstable alliances: The inheritance plan depends on enemies and strangers cooperating while expecting betrayal.
• Survival through relationships: Liu Zheng recognizes that his connections in Eerie City may be essential if he is sent beyond the city in a future dungeon.
• Mystery of the wider world: The border, memory loss, migration, and uncertain relationship between Eerie City and the outside world deepen the setting’s larger mysteries.
• Dark comedy and absurdity: Liu Zheng survives a deadly fall, encounters a terrifyingly amorous guardhouse auntie, and plays bizarre Go matches, creating humor within a dangerous supernatural world.
• Routine amid danger: Restaurant work, staff meals, games, and takeout deliveries provide mundane interruptions to supernatural threats and inheritance schemes.

Important Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and Nightingale negotiate the inheritance deal, with Nightingale securing his participation as a mediator.
• Liu Zheng narrowly avoids further trouble with the apartment residents by escaping through the window.
• Liu Zheng reports the deal to Cow-Horse and offers it a share of the earnings.
• Liu Zheng questions Cow-Horse about the border and learns more about Eerie City’s geography and history.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse play an extended series of Go games, highlighting their contrasting personalities: Liu Zheng’s technical knowledge and Cow-Horse’s enthusiastic ignorance.
• The chapter ends with Liu Zheng receiving a delivery order from Nightingale at a cemetery, setting up the next encounter with the inheritance group.

Chapter Summary: “Giving Liu Zheng a Wild Dad”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng wakes Cow-Horse to ask about delivering an order to the Cemetery, offering money to compensate for disturbing its sleep.
• Cow-Horse explains that the Cemetery is a protected burial district where humans and Dead races such as Vampires, zombies, and Ghouls can purchase graves. Powerful Dead are allowed to exist there freely as long as they follow the Cemetery’s rules.
• The Cemetery’s Dead can be dangerous because death and the Cemetery’s environment intensify their obsessions. Cow-Horse advises Liu Zheng to deceive, bargain with, threaten, or fight them if necessary.
• Cow-Horse reveals a shortcut: someone visiting a grave receives protection from the Cemetery’s rules. Since Liu Zheng is an orphan, he can either bury a corpse as his “father” or tend an unknown grave and acknowledge its owner as a “wild dad.”
• Liu Zheng considers burying Natasha’s remains but rejects the idea of tending a random grave because of the danger of accidentally awakening a hostile Dead spirit. He decides Natasha is safer to bury than the mysterious Legendary Deliveryman’s Skeleton.
• Cow-Horse gives little practical help, joking that its own grave-visit had nearly cost it a leg.
• Liu Zheng receives the meal “French Fries,” whose insulting note criticizes the Restaurant for repeatedly ordering potatoes.
• Because the Cemetery is over a hundred kilometers away, Liu Zheng hires the Driver and obtains a Ferrari rather than traveling on foot.
• Before going to the Cemetery, Liu Zheng stops at Rose Street to visit French Plane Tree and bring Natasha’s remains. However, French Plane Tree unexpectedly refuses to let him move them.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates increasing caution and resourcefulness. He evaluates multiple ways to survive the Cemetery’s dangers rather than blindly following Cow-Horse’s advice.
• He also shows strategic judgment by choosing Natasha’s remains over the Legendary Deliveryman’s Skeleton, recognizing that the Skeleton contains too many unknown secrets.
• Cow-Horse is established as knowledgeable about the Cemetery but deliberately unhelpful and mischievous. Its advice reflects the practical, ruthless methods used by experienced deliverymen.
• French Plane Tree continues to show attachment to his “hometown,” meaning the entrance to the Chaos Club, and hints that he would bring Liu Zheng with him if he returned. His refusal regarding Natasha’s remains introduces a new conflict.
• The Driver remains efficient and accommodating, offering increasingly unusual vehicles for Liu Zheng’s deliveries.

Significant Themes

• Death and identity: The Cemetery treats the Dead as residents with rights and routines, blurring the boundary between life and death.
• Obsession as survival: Powerful wills and unresolved obsessions allow the Dead to persist, but those same qualities make them increasingly dangerous.
• Pragmatism versus morality: Liu Zheng must consider ethically dubious actions, such as claiming a random deceased person as his father, in order to gain legal or supernatural protection.
• Inheritance and risk: The promise of the Vampire’s inheritance motivates Liu Zheng, but every step toward it requires him to weigh potential rewards against unknown dangers.
• Workplace absurdity: Dangerous supernatural errands are treated like ordinary delivery jobs, complete with payment, customer notes, transportation, and employee survival strategies.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng bargains with and questions Cow-Horse, exposing their familiar but antagonistic boss–employee relationship.
• Cow-Horse mocks Liu Zheng’s orphan status and suggests he “acknowledge a wild dad,” while Liu Zheng remains skeptical of its advice.
• Liu Zheng speaks with the Driver about White Spider and transportation, revealing his growing connections within the delivery network.
• He jokes with French Plane Tree about missing home, then asks to move Natasha’s remains. French Plane Tree’s abrupt “No” ends the chapter on a cliffhanger and suggests that Natasha’s burial—or her remains—may be more significant than Liu Zheng expected.

Chapter Summary: “A Roaring Filial Piety, Folks”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng tries to retrieve Natasha’s corpse from French Plane Tree so he can use it to enter Good Death Cemetery. However, French Plane Tree refuses because it considers Natasha part of its “family,” having given her the name “Natasha Marceau” and buried her beneath a gravestone.
• After rejecting Liu Zheng’s offers—including the Legendary Deliveryman’s Skeleton—French Plane Tree eventually gives him a coffin made from its discarded bark. Liu Zheng plans to use or sell it during the cemetery trip.
• Liu Zheng contacts Cow-Horse for information about his assigned grave, number 10086, belonging to Red Pig. Cow-Horse warns him that Red Pig is dangerous but dislikes fighting beautiful women, giving Liu Zheng a possible advantage.
• Cow-Horse explains that Liu Zheng may sweep additional graves besides the assigned one, though doing so increases the risk of encountering ghosts. The bark coffin may be valuable to undead creatures such as zombies or vampires.
• Liu Zheng drives to Good Death Cemetery, where Nightingale, Sea Woman, and Vampire Girl are waiting. All three have dressed in elaborate black outfits suited to the cemetery’s atmosphere.
• At the cemetery gate, the group encounters an old cowboy serving as the caretaker. He checks their grave-visiting authorization and explains the cemetery’s tiered packages, ranging from D-tier at one thousand to S-tier at ten million.
• Liu Zheng initially considers purchasing a C-tier package but upgrades to B-tier after noticing the caretaker’s apparent disappointment, framing the decision as an act of filial piety. Vampire Girl protests at the cost.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng demonstrates persistence, bargaining skill, and opportunism. He tries several ways to secure Natasha’s body or useful equipment, then relies on strategy and money to overcome obstacles at the cemetery.
• French Plane Tree reveals a possessive and sentimental side. It regards Natasha as someone under its protection because it named and buried her, refusing to treat her merely as a corpse.
• Cow-Horse continues acting as Liu Zheng’s informant, providing valuable knowledge about the cemetery and Red Pig while also showing fear of the dangerous grave.
• Nightingale openly admits nervousness about the upcoming mission but continues protecting Liu Zheng. Her apparent attraction to him may be partly an act motivated by fear of Novelist.
• Sea Woman is more reserved but participates in the group’s banter and also acknowledges her anxiety.
• Vampire Girl remains playful, flirtatious, and financially practical. She jokingly treats the coffin as a bride price, uses exaggerated tears to tease Liu Zheng, and objects strongly to the expensive cemetery package.
• Red Pig is established as a potentially dangerous figure whose weakness or preference regarding beautiful women may help the group survive.

Significant Themes

• Filial piety as performance and commerce: The cemetery turns grave-visiting into a business with expensive service tiers, while Liu Zheng humorously exaggerates his “filial” devotion to justify spending more.
• Names and burial as sources of attachment: French Plane Tree’s refusal to surrender Natasha shows that naming and burying someone can create emotional or supernatural bonds.
• Negotiation and exploitation: Liu Zheng constantly searches for ways to turn objects, relationships, and information into advantages.
• Fear masked by humor: The characters joke, flirt, and bicker to manage their anxiety before entering a dangerous cemetery.
• Strength, protection, and dependence: Liu Zheng admits that the women are stronger and places them in front, while Nightingale protects him for both personal and strategic reasons.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng and French Plane Tree argue over Natasha’s corpse, the coffin, and payment, with French Plane Tree repeatedly rejecting his attempts at negotiation.
• Liu Zheng and Cow-Horse discuss Red Pig’s personality, the usefulness of the coffin, and the dangers of sweeping multiple graves.
• Vampire Girl flirts with Liu Zheng by calling the coffin her bride price, while he dismisses her marriage claims and mocks her supposed origins.
• The three women tease Liu Zheng about his relationships and use flirtation and fake tears to ease tension before the mission.
• Nightingale and Sea Woman compete subtly over their closeness to Liu Zheng, though Nightingale’s protectiveness is partly connected to Novelist.
• At the gate, Liu Zheng manipulates the caretaker’s expectations by upgrading the group’s package, only for Vampire Girl to challenge his extravagance.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Liu Zheng forces Vampire Girl to pay for entry and supplies by threatening to abandon her quest for her Blood Father’s inheritance. She reluctantly hands over all her money.
• The group—Liu Zheng, Vampire Girl, Nightingale, and Sea Woman—passes the cemetery’s entry inspection. The old cowboy administrator explains that Package B contains:
  • Red wine infused with demon-suppressing nails
  • Ten-year sandalwood incense powder
  • A slice of white wax oil pizza
• The administrator gives them five rules for visiting graves, including avoiding insults or damage, staying on concrete paths, and remembering that gravestones with photographs tell the truth while those without photographs lie.
• He fires a bullet that becomes their guide through the cemetery, then departs dramatically.
• The group decides to visit Vampire Girl’s Blood Father before her grave, since their real goal is to obtain wealth from him and doing so preserves their justification for entering the cemetery.
• As they travel deeper, the cemetery grows colder and reveals graves of wildly varied designs. Liu Zheng accidentally attracts the hostility of a mausoleum’s divine stone statues and is struck between the brows by an invisible stone arrow, though his immunity prevents serious harm.
• A ghost attempts to touch Liu Zheng, but Vampire Girl aggressively protects him and throws the ghost away.
• Vampire Girl explains that the cemetery greatly amplifies her strength. She also confirms that Liu Zheng’s Life Essence will likely become more potent there, potentially making him the strongest member of the group.
• Vampire Girl refuses to let Liu Zheng drain her again, warning that he must bring her Vlad III if he wants more essence. She begins considering ways to make herself a higher priority in Liu Zheng’s plans.
• Nightingale notices something on Liu Zheng and Vampire Girl’s backs: two naked Ghost Children are clinging to them and covering them with bloody handprints.
• The group attacks the children with Liu Zheng’s knife, Sea Woman’s fishing-rod limbs, Nightingale’s gunfire, and Vampire Girl’s claws. None of the attacks affect the Ghost Children, who remain unharmed and mock the group.

Character Developments

• Liu Zheng continues acting as the practical leader and negotiator. He uses intimidation, bribery, and planning to move the group forward, while also displaying arrogance and a desire for revenge against those who attack or disrespect him.
• Vampire Girl remains frightened of Liu Zheng’s threats but also becomes increasingly possessive and protective of him. Her strength is greatly enhanced inside the cemetery, and she starts plotting how to gain greater importance in Liu Zheng’s priorities.
• Nightingale demonstrates awareness and caution, warning Liu Zheng not to provoke powerful cemetery residents. She also contributes humorously to the group’s banter and proves effective in combat.
• Sea Woman maintains her sarcastic, irreverent personality and joins in mocking Liu Zheng. She is also a powerful combatant, though even her attacks fail against the Ghost Children.
• The contrast between Liu Zheng’s relatively limited supernatural power and the nonhuman women’s innate abilities is emphasized.

Significant Themes

• Power and status: The cemetery reflects a world where high-ranking beings are overwhelmingly powerful, while Vampire Girl’s lower status explains her relative weakness.
• Money and exploitation: Access to the cemetery and its services depends on payment, reinforcing the idea that money controls supernatural institutions as much as ordinary society.
• Rules versus danger: The cemetery operates under formal rules, but its residents and supernatural forces remain unpredictable and dangerous.
• Protection and possessiveness: Vampire Girl’s defense of Liu Zheng reveals growing attachment, even as their relationship remains combative and transactional.
• Limits of strength: Despite the group’s combined abilities, the Ghost Children cannot be harmed, establishing a threat that may require unusual methods rather than brute force.
• Truth and deception: The administrator’s warning about photographs and gravestones introduces a theme of unreliable appearances and potentially reversed truths.

Character Interactions

• Liu Zheng bullies Vampire Girl into paying, while she complains but ultimately complies.
• The three women tease Liu Zheng about his habit of showing off, creating a playful but antagonistic group dynamic.
• Vampire Girl protects Liu Zheng from a ghost and claims him possessively as “my man.”
• Liu Zheng questions Vampire Girl about her enhanced strength and the effects of Life Essence, while she warns him not to drain her again.
• Nightingale acts as the group’s observer and warns them about danger, ultimately discovering the Ghost Children attached to Liu Zheng and Vampire Girl.
• The entire group cooperates in attacking the Ghost Children, but their combined efforts fail, leaving the chapter on a threatening cliffhanger.