Chapter Summaries

Chapter 97 Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng devise a scheme to protect Universe’s board from Wang Ming’s influence by pretending that Zhou Zeyang is secretly ambitious for the CEO position.
• Their plan is to make Zeyang appear like a capable, cold, and ruthless successor, thereby confusing the board and discouraging Wang Ming from using him.
• Zeyang enthusiastically agrees after being promised a dramatic “Matrix”-style makeover.
• During the board meeting, he makes a theatrical entrance with a black coat, hat, wind machine, and freshly mopped pathway. However, he slips on the wet floor and slides dramatically into the room, destroying the intended “cold and intimidating” image.
• Plan B involves presenting Zeyang as an intelligent business strategist. He reads a speech filled with corporate acronyms, initially impressing the board.
• His improvised “business analysis” soon becomes a string of video-game terms about lanes, cooldowns, area attacks, and ganking enemies. The board misunderstands the jargon as sophisticated strategy, while his family realizes he is improvising nonsense.
• After the meeting, Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng attempt Plan C: presenting Zeyang as kind and approachable by having him interact with cafeteria employees.
• Zeyang instead criticizes the cafeteria worker for skimping on meat and jokes about the tiny amount of rice in the porridge. Shi Jihan desperately reframes his bluntness as refined “negative space,” while Dad Zhou concludes that Zeyang is simply being himself.

Character Developments

• Zhou Zeyang remains naive, enthusiastic, and easily manipulated by flashy ideas. He genuinely wants to help his family and is delighted by the chance to appear like a powerful successor, but his lack of business understanding and gaming-based worldview repeatedly undermine the plan.
• Zhou Jingcheng shows strong protective instincts toward his younger brother and a mischievous willingness to put him through embarrassing “training.” He treats the scheme as both a strategic maneuver and an opportunity to tease Zeyang.
• Shi Jihan acts as the creative mastermind behind the plans, using romance-novel clichés and elaborate staging to manufacture Zeyang’s image. He is supportive but increasingly exasperated by Zeyang’s failures.
• Wang Ming continues trying to promote Zeyang as a potential talent, likely hoping to use him against Zhou Jingcheng. His praise becomes ironic because Zeyang immediately disproves the image he is selling.
• Zhou’s parents observe the chaos with skepticism. Dad Zhou is openly unimpressed, while Ms. Shen recognizes that Shi Jihan’s attempts to portray Zeyang as cold or elite may indicate a mental breakdown.

Significant Themes

• Family affection expressed through teasing: Zhou Jingcheng and Shi Jihan’s harsh “training” is actually motivated by their desire to protect Zeyang and strengthen the family’s position.
• Appearance versus reality: The characters attempt to manufacture a stereotypical domineering CEO persona, but Zeyang’s true personality repeatedly breaks through the performance.
• Incompetence mistaken for brilliance: Zeyang’s nonsensical corporate jargon and gaming references are interpreted by the board as sophisticated business insight, satirizing corporate language and people’s tendency to pretend they understand.
• The value of authenticity: Although every planned persona fails, Zeyang’s sincerity and natural enthusiasm remain more genuine than the carefully constructed images his family creates.
• Workplace and family satire: The chapter humorously exaggerates business politics, boardroom culture, executive succession, and the Zhou family’s unconventional methods of support.

Character Interactions

• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng work in perfect comedic partnership, coordinating Zeyang’s makeover, entrance, speech, and cafeteria visit.
• Zeyang trusts both men completely, even when they are clearly setting him up for embarrassment.
• Wang Ming praises Zeyang to his parents, but Dad Zhou dismisses the praise as absurd.
• Shi Jihan tries repeatedly to convince Ms. Shen that Zeyang is tall, cold, elite, and kind, while she responds with increasingly doubtful observations.
• The board members mistake Zeyang’s jargon for expertise, creating a comic contrast between their admiration and his family’s awareness that he is talking about video games.
• At the cafeteria, Zeyang’s blunt interaction with the food server exposes how impossible it is for him to convincingly perform a polished executive persona.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng complete the task of making Zhou Zeyang appear to be a “dependable successor” by staging a humorous photo of him being shoved against a wall. Their parents misinterpret the pose, and the system rewards them with Malice Points.
• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng continue practicing the decompression process, though their “practice” mostly becomes an excuse to experiment with system gifts and enjoy each other’s company.
• Their playful relationship continues through teasing, umbrella-sharing, mock violence, ice-cream cotton candy, and a public kiss. Zhou Jingcheng deliberately provokes Shi Jihan, while Shi Jihan retaliates by choosing a mosquito-themed sleep-aid ASMR.
• The Main System announces the final task: get Zhou Jingcheng’s parents to publicly support Zhou Zeyang taking over as CEO. Once completed, the system will determine whether Zhou Jingcheng has “lost everything,” causing the worldline to converge and forcing Shi Jihan to return.
• Shi Jihan becomes distressed at the possibility of leaving Zhou Jingcheng behind. Zhou Jingcheng reassures him and suggests that the system’s “ending” may function like triggering a game bug.
• Zhou Jingcheng decides to deliberately resign as CEO and have his parents sign the succession agreement, comparing the process to ending a frozen game by exploiting a bug.
• His parents and Zhou Zeyang are shocked, though they mistakenly assume he is stepping down to go on his honeymoon with Shi Jihan. Despite their doubts, they sign the documents, with Zhou Zeyang reluctantly accepting the responsibility.
• The system confirms completion of the final task and awards another 88.6 Malice Points.

Character Developments

• Shi Jihan remains mischievous and playful but becomes increasingly anxious about being separated from Zhou Jingcheng. His joking behavior gives way to an earnest promise to care for Zhou Jingcheng after they leave the world.
• Zhou Jingcheng continues to show affection through teasing, indulgence, and physical comfort. He also demonstrates strategic insight by realizing that voluntarily surrendering his CEO position may trigger the system’s required ending.
• Zhou Zeyang is repeatedly used as the target of Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng’s schemes. He develops from an unwilling participant in the staged “successor” image into the reluctant recipient of the CEO position.
• Mr. and Mrs. Zhou remain comedic and practical. They misunderstand Zhou Jingcheng’s motives, worry about their retirement and the company’s future, and argue over who should bear responsibility for Zhou Zeyang’s succession.
• The Main System becomes increasingly evasive and hurried, hiding the task-completion replay and fleeing before Shi Jihan can challenge its decision. Zero-Zero-Zero also takes on a more active, informant-like role.

Significant Themes

• Love versus separation: The approaching end of the worldline forces Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng to confront the possibility of parting, deepening the emotional seriousness beneath their constant joking.
• Playful intimacy: Physical teasing, mock conflict, food, and humor function as expressions of affection between the couple.
• Identity and personal anchors: Zhou Jingcheng’s CEO position is described as his central identity and “anchor point,” raising the question of whether losing status truly means losing everything.
• Subverting fate and systems: Rather than passively waiting for the system’s ending, Zhou Jingcheng finds a way to manipulate its rules, treating reality like a malfunctioning game.
• Family and succession: The chapter satirizes corporate inheritance by portraying the transfer of leadership as chaotic, unwanted, and driven more by family banter than careful planning.

Character Interactions

• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng constantly tease and retaliate against each other, but their humor is paired with obvious affection.
• Their kiss over mint-chocolate cotton candy highlights their romantic closeness and temporarily eases their tension.
• Shi Jihan confides his fear of leaving, while Zhou Jingcheng comforts him with reassurance and physical affection.
• Zhou Jingcheng’s parents and brother react with shock and comedic disbelief to the succession documents, misunderstanding the real reason for his resignation.
• The family’s argument over who should become CEO ends with Zhou Zeyang being pressured into signing, completing the final system task.

Chapter 98 Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shi Jihan successfully clears all his assigned instances and receives the humiliating hidden achievement “Ultra-Ultra-Ultra-Ultra-Vicious Cannon-Fodder Wage Slave.”
• His accumulated 4,795.38 Malice Points are converted into cash, and he receives a gold bank card.
• The Main System attempts to complete the worldline settlement by confirming that Zhou Jingcheng has “lost everything.” However, the assessment repeatedly fails, causing the Main System to malfunction and possibly crash.
• Zhou Jingcheng reveals that Shi Jihan has become his true emotional anchor point. Although his CEO identity was supposed to be the anchor, losing Shi Jihan—not his wealth or status—would be the only thing that truly meant losing everything.
• This revelation creates a major problem: Shi Jihan cannot complete his mission by leaving Zhou Jingcheng, because his departure would be the very loss required to trigger worldline convergence.
• The Main System arrives in its true form: a giant flaming, roasted braised goose egg. It is overwhelmed by the situation and struggles to fix the system errors caused by Zhou Jingcheng’s attachment to Shi Jihan.
• To avoid further damage to the other worlds, the Main System offers Shi Jihan a one-day trip back to his original world, promising that he can return afterward.
• Shi Jihan eagerly agrees, mainly because he wants to retrieve his money and potentially sell his belongings, internship position, and even his boss’s company for profit. Zhou Jingcheng agrees to accompany him.
• Shi Jihan, Zhou Jingcheng, and Zero-Zero-Zero prepare to travel. Instead of bringing Zhou Jingcheng’s body, they plan to transfer only their consciousnesses, leaving their bodies behind.
• The Main System sends them back, but the transition leaves both bodies lying unconscious on the office floor.
• Shi Jihan awakens in his original world, seated in a university examination room with a blank Chinese-language test in front of him. He immediately regrets returning and demands to go back.
• Zhou Jingcheng appears as a consciousness and confidently claims the test is easy because he recognizes all the characters—only to admit that he cannot answer any of the questions. The invigilator mistakes Shi Jihan’s emotional reactions for a sudden mental breakdown.

Character Developments

• Shi Jihan: Remains greedy, opportunistic, and comically practical, immediately calculating how to maximize his profits during the one-day return trip. However, he is also beginning to accept Zhou Jingcheng’s presence in his life, inviting him to see his original world and treating him as a partner.
• Zhou Jingcheng: Fully acknowledges that Shi Jihan is more important to him than his CEO identity, wealth, or status. His declaration confirms the depth of his attachment and shows that he is willing to oppose the system to remain with Shi Jihan.
• Zero-Zero-Zero: Continues acting as Shi Jihan’s mischievous accomplice. It supports the host’s plans, teases Zhou Jingcheng, and provokes the Main System, though it becomes frightened when the Main System tries to punish it.
• Main System: Suffers a catastrophic emotional and technical breakdown because Zhou Jingcheng’s attachment disrupts the mission’s logic. It becomes desperate to send Shi Jihan away, offering compensation and inventing the trip to his original world as a solution.

Significant Themes

• Love as the true measure of loss: The chapter challenges the system’s simplistic definition of “losing everything,” establishing that emotional attachment can outweigh wealth, power, and social identity.
• System rules versus human emotion: Zhou Jingcheng’s feelings create a contradiction the Main System cannot calculate or control, turning romance into a literal system-breaking force.
• Comedy through bureaucratic failure: System warnings, compensation offers, malfunctions, and the Main System’s frantic reactions parody rigid administrative systems that cannot handle unpredictable emotional behavior.
• Greed and practicality: Shi Jihan’s immediate plans to monetize his return home contrast humorously with Zhou Jingcheng’s sincere emotional concerns.
• Partnership and belonging: Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng increasingly behave as a united pair, while Zero-Zero-Zero becomes part of their unconventional household dynamic.

Character Interactions

• Zhou Jingcheng directly tells Shi Jihan that he may be his new anchor point, forcing Shi Jihan to confront the possibility that their relationship is central to the mission.
• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng jointly challenge the Main System, asking whether it has the power to force Shi Jihan’s return.
• The Main System attempts to bribe Shi Jihan with compensation and Malice Points, but he refuses to cooperate unless he can return afterward.
• Shi Jihan invites Zhou Jingcheng to visit his original world, and Zhou immediately agrees.
• Zero-Zero-Zero jokes about Zhou being “Xiao Zhou” and offers travel advice, earning unexpected affection from Zhou while horrifying the Main System.
• After arriving in the original world, Shi Jihan looks to Zhou for help with the exam, but Zhou’s inability to answer the questions leaves Shi Jihan even more frustrated.

Chapter 144 Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shi Jihan remembers that his exam is open-book, but he has brought no notes. With Zero-Zero-Zero’s help, he uses Zhou Jingcheng’s projected data form as a “screen,” covering Zhou’s body with excerpts from a classical Chinese reference book.
• The bizarre method attracts the proctor’s attention. The teacher mistakes Shi Jihan’s strange behavior and laughter for possible mental illness, leaving Shi embarrassed and annoyed. He finishes the exam early and returns to his dorm.
• Shi discovers that he has been sent back to the period shortly after his transmigration. Fortunately, his thesis is already completed, and he confirms that an important event marked on his calendar is still three days away.
• Back in his cramped university dormitory, Shi begins compressing his belongings into Zero-Zero-Zero’s storage. He plans to leave the dorm and take his possessions with him.
• Shi asks Zhou to accompany him to visit his grandparents’ graves. On the journey, he reveals his true background: he was raised by his grandparents, who died in a car accident after ensuring he would receive enough insurance money to complete his education and become independent.
• At the cemetery, Shi tells his grandparents that he is doing well and introduces Zhou as his boyfriend. Zhou respectfully introduces himself, while Shi affectionately kisses him and jokes about his good taste in men.
• Shi then activates the “Miracle Grave-Grave Package,” creating a supernatural display of floating ghost lamps and images from another world. Nearby visitors mistake the phenomenon—and Shi’s conversations with an apparently invisible person—for a haunting and flee in terror.
• After leaving the cemetery, Shi declares that their next task is to sell the furniture and appliances from his home for a large profit, surprising Zhou with his sudden practicality and enthusiasm.

Character Developments

• Shi Jihan remains resourceful, shameless, and optimistic. He improvises during the exam, cheerfully accepts his return to the past, and focuses on turning his circumstances to his advantage.
• His personal history is revealed in greater depth. Despite losing his grandparents, Shi remembers their love and recognizes that their final act protected his future.
• Shi’s cheerful personality is shown to be partly intentional: even in a shabby dorm, he decorates a small corner with wallpaper and cute objects to make life more pleasant.
• Zhou Jingcheng becomes more emotionally supportive and protective. He is moved by Shi’s difficult past, promises him a better future, and sincerely introduces himself to Shi’s grandparents.
• Zhou’s wealthy, extravagant nature remains evident when he casually proposes buying and combining entire dormitory units to create a larger home.
• Zero-Zero-Zero displays intense emotional attachment, bursting into uncontrollable tears at the cemetery. Its dramatic reaction provides comic relief and disrupts the solemn atmosphere.

Significant Themes

• Optimism and resilience: Shi transforms awkward, painful, or impoverished circumstances into opportunities for humor and happiness.
• Memory and family: The cemetery visit allows Shi to honor his grandparents and acknowledge how their sacrifices shaped his life.
• Love across worlds and identities: Shi introduces Zhou not merely as a companion from another world but as his boyfriend, integrating Zhou into his personal history.
• Comedy through cultural and supernatural misunderstanding: Shi and his companions treat extraordinary phenomena casually, while outsiders interpret them as evidence of possession or ghosts.
• Building a future: Zhou’s promises of a larger home and Shi’s plans to profit from his belongings both suggest that they are actively preparing for a shared life.

Character Interactions

• Shi uses Zhou’s data projection to cheat—technically creatively—on the open-book exam, while Zhou complains that this is no way to treat a boyfriend.
• Shi and Zhou tease each other over the cramped dormitory, Zhou’s extravagant plans, and Shi’s attraction to handsome men.
• Zhou comforts Shi at his grandparents’ graves and formally presents himself as Shi’s partner.
• Shi treats Zero-Zero-Zero like a troublesome but beloved companion, ordering it to store his belongings and scolding it for crying too loudly.
• The chapter ends with Zhou bewildered by Shi’s decision to turn directly from an emotional cemetery visit to a money-making scheme.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shi Jihan retaliates after Zhou Jingcheng pulls out one of his hairs, covering Zhou—and eventually himself—with educational mosaics and turning the enormous screen into a movie theater and Gomoku board.
• The Main System returns after failing to repair its bug. Shi Jihan says he wants to go back immediately, explaining that his attachment to his former world disappeared after returning to it once.
• Zhou Jingcheng blackmails the Main System by threatening to let its accumulating error pop-ups cause a crash. He negotiates for Shi Jihan and Zero-Zero-Zero to remain in the original world, promising to help resolve the bug.
• The Main System reluctantly agrees and sends them back, but reveals too late that time in their world had continued passing because their mission was incomplete.
• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng awaken after being unconscious for half a month—inside a coffin during a fake funeral. Their families had organized the funeral after finding them collapsed and fearing they had encountered something supernatural.
• Their return terrifies the mourners, especially Shi Bochuan, who repeatedly faints. The funeral musicians switch to playing “Good Luck” once the two are confirmed alive.
• Zero-Zero-Zero’s consciousness returns, and the system begins unbinding itself. During the countdown, Zhou impulsively proposes marriage to Shi Jihan, with Zero-Zero and Pizza volunteering to be flower children.
• Zero-Zero successfully unbinds, leaving the pair permanently in their world. Zhou plans a series of formal proposals during a three-month vacation, traveling with Shi Jihan to romantic destinations around the world.

Character Developments

• Shi Jihan remains mischievous, shameless, and willing to provoke both Zhou Jingcheng and the Main System. However, his reaction to his family’s worry reveals genuine emotional attachment and tenderness beneath his chaotic behavior.
• Zhou Jingcheng becomes increasingly protective and openly affectionate. He confidently negotiates with the Main System, supports Shi Jihan’s wishes, and finally expresses his desire to marry him.
• Zero-Zero-Three gains the freedom to remain with Shi Jihan after unbinding from the Main System. Its enthusiastic reaction shows how deeply it values its host and Zhou.
• Shi Zhongye struggles to express affection but admits that Shi Jihan’s disappearance frightened him deeply, marking a rare moment of emotional honesty.
• Shi Bochuan is comically overwhelmed by the apparent resurrection, emphasizing how seriously the family had feared Shi Jihan’s death.

Significant Themes

• Freedom and self-determination: Shi Jihan, Zhou Jingcheng, and Zero-Zero-Three resist the Main System’s rules and choose their own future.
• Found family and emotional attachment: Despite the absurd circumstances, both families genuinely grieve and worry over the two men.
• Love expressed through chaos and humor: Threats, teasing, fake funerals, and an impromptu proposal all become ways for the characters to express care.
• Rebirth and new beginnings: Awakening in the coffin symbolically resembles resurrection, while the system’s unbinding marks the beginning of an ordinary life together.
• Choosing happiness: The chapter ends with Shi Jihan accepting a future filled with love, travel, and repeated formal proposals.

Character Interactions

• Shi Jihan and Zhou Jingcheng maintain their playful, antagonistic banter, with Zhou retaliating to Shi’s provocations while quietly indulging him.
• Zhou takes the lead in negotiating with the Main System, while Shi intensifies the threat by repeatedly telling it to “crash.”
• The Main System is manipulated by both men and reluctantly concedes to their demands.
• The families’ panic contrasts with Shi Jihan and Zhou’s confusion and humor when they awaken in the coffin.
• Shi Zhongye’s admission that he was “worried to death” briefly moves Shi Jihan, revealing the family bond beneath their usual teasing.
• Zhou’s marriage proposal transforms the funeral scene into a romantic moment, and Shi Jihan accepts—but insists on a more elaborate proposal with plenty of flowers.

Chapter Summary

• Key plot point: The chapter ends with the realization that many past moments had given the protagonist opportunities to tell Shi Jihan, “I love you,” but he failed to say it. This marks the conclusion of the main text.
• Character development: The protagonist recognizes his unspoken love and reflects on his hesitation or missed chances. His feelings for Shi Jihan are clearly established as deep and genuine, though previously unexpressed.
• Significant themes: The ending emphasizes unspoken love, regret, missed opportunities, and the importance of emotional confession. It suggests that the protagonist’s emotional journey centers on confronting feelings he has long kept hidden.
• Character interactions: The passage refers indirectly to repeated interactions between the protagonist and Shi Jihan—moments in which a confession might have taken place. However, no specific dialogue or scene details are provided in the excerpt.
  Because only the final page is provided, this summary is limited to the chapter’s concluding moment.