Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Xu Feng, Chen Ye, and Master Zhu meet at the abandoned mine. Xu Feng recognizes Zhu from a previous encounter at the Wanquan County Funeral Home, while Zhu recognizes Xu Feng’s forum username and suspects he has ties to a mysterious group.
• Zhu asks about the mine’s Great King God. Xu Feng says it was bound in chains and likely died, but Zhu is unsettled by the mine’s collapse and warns that the mysterious people may return.
• Zhu enters the mine and sees the corpse left by Xu Feng’s ritual. Xu Feng presses him to explain who “those people” are. Zhu agrees to talk after they leave and cleanse themselves of bad luck.
• Chen Ye uses a drone to check the area. Xu Feng loads the wrapped Great King God and ritual items into the pickup, and the three perform a series of cleansing rites before leaving.
• On the drive, Zhu describes rumors of people making ghosts by attaching human remains to Wild God statues. He doubts this was an established folk tradition and says the Great King God’s earlier statue looked entirely different: Song Chuming standing on a headless Giant Alligator.

Character developments

• Xu Feng is confident and controlling, but chooses to give Zhu chances rather than simply threaten him. He is especially attentive to Zhu’s fear of the mysterious group and wants to understand its cause.
• Master Zhu is cautious and deeply afraid of “those people,” yet his curiosity about the mine outweighs his fear. His knowledge suggests he may know more about the site’s history than he initially reveals.
• Chen Ye remains practical and cooperative, handling the drone and supplies while following Xu Feng’s instructions.

Significant themes

• Power and fear: Zhu’s fear of the mysterious group is more intense than ordinary suspicion of practitioners, hinting at their cruelty or disregard for human life.
• Folklore versus deliberate atrocity: Zhu distinguishes genuine, stable tradition from violent practices dressed up as folk belief.
• Ritual and superstition: The characters’ cleansing rites mix caution, habit, and theatricality, underscoring the uncertain boundary between belief and practical danger.
• The past concealed beneath the present: The Great King God’s altered appearance suggests that something changed at the mine, raising questions about its history and the people involved.

Character interactions

• Xu Feng recognizes Zhu and draws him into conversation, gradually turning a casual reunion into an interrogation about the mysterious group.
• Zhu stays guarded but cooperates, warning Xu Feng about the danger and eventually sharing what he has heard.
• Xu Feng and Chen Ye work together to secure the site and transport the remains, while Xu Feng lets Zhu ride with him to continue questioning him.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Feng reflects on the gains from the recent encounter: Ren Bo’s divine power has visibly strengthened, and Xu Feng plans to release the “elixir” inside the Great King God. Whoever claims it—the Youdu Lord or Ren Bo—will become a stronger protector for Xu Feng’s Forest Ranger’s Courtyard.
• Xu Feng believes the Great King God’s statue contains the Giant Alligator’s Earth Qi. With the Precious Mirror and the Earth God’s guidance, he hopes to locate other scattered Earth Veins.
• Master Zhu explains that the Mine’s workers built and worshipped a statue of Song Chuming after disasters were blamed on the Giant Alligator’s blood. The statue was believed to keep the Giant Alligator pinned down, and the Mine became safer.
• Master Zhu suspects Song Chuming’s body remained at the Great King Temple after his Daytime Ascension and has continued “eating” people through disasters to pursue some unknown goal.
• Xu Feng challenges this theory: if Song Chuming has been so openly harming people, why have powerful investigators not stopped him? Master Zhu says those investigators are ghosts themselves, sharing Song Chuming’s origin—“ghosts fighting ghosts.”
• Xu Feng points out that rival ghosts should logically compete for territory and resources, potentially consuming people without restraint. Master Zhu admits the situation does not fit neatly: the mysterious beings he witnessed were few, appeared lifeless, and seemed unlike ordinary religious figures.
• Master Zhu recalls ancient, filthy ancestral tablets whose inscriptions he cannot remember, and says the other survivors forgot the event entirely. Someone eventually led the survivors away, but Master Zhu cannot remember that person’s appearance.
• Xu Feng concludes that the mystery extends beyond the Great King Temple and asks how he compares with the beings Master Zhu encountered. Master Zhu calls him “Grandpa Human,” suggesting he ranks near the top among heaven, earth, and man.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Feng remains pragmatic and self-protective, viewing powerful spirits as potential allies while probing inconsistencies in Master Zhu’s account. His questions reveal growing concern that a larger, hidden force may be threatening him.
• Master Zhu shares his long-held suspicions and memories, becoming animated when Xu Feng understands his idea about the ghosts’ shared origin. He also admits the limits of his knowledge and memory.
• Their conversation is a clash of speculation and scrutiny: Master Zhu offers a theory based on personal experience, while Xu Feng tests it against logic and presses for details.

Significant themes

• Power and survival: Xu Feng prioritizes staying alive and sees stronger supernatural patrons as a practical safeguard.
• Unreliable memory and hidden history: Key details—the tablets’ writing, the mysterious rescuer, and the other survivors’ recollections—are missing or distorted.
• Competing supernatural forces: The idea of ghosts battling ghosts suggests that apparent evil may be only one part of a broader conflict.
• Uncertainty and paranoia: Each explanation raises further questions, leaving Xu Feng with the sense that unseen forces may be moving against him.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Xu Feng rejects Master Zhu’s proposed title of “Grandpa Humanity,” warning that such a grand label could make him a target. Master Zhu believes Xu may be the one capable of confronting Grandpa Heaven.
• Master Zhu presents his theory that Grandpa Heaven and Grandpa Earth are both aspects of Song Chuming: Grandpa Heaven is Song’s soul after Daytime Ascension, while Grandpa Earth is the body he left behind. He also believes Song killed and consumed the local guardian deity, the Giant Alligator, and that the Great King God statue supports this theory. Master Zhu claims to have extensive research files to back it up.
• Stopped beside the road, Xu reflects on how the strange supernatural world is drawing closer to him. Having once risen from an insignificant practitioner to a major figure in the game, he now fears he may be expected to protect the real world too. He resolves to take things one step at a time.
• Xu asks why the Great King God statue became sinister. Master Zhu recounts witnessing the Mine collapse as a child: the world seemed to turn upside down, and the statue fell from the Mine Tunnel. As it fell, Song Chuming’s figure appeared to melt into the headless Giant Alligator, then crawl out from beneath it. The once-sacred statue seemed to become an evil spirit.
• Master Zhu was knocked unconscious by a falling stone and woke among strange people, but he remembers little more. Xu questions why he interprets the transformation as passing through an invisible “door”; Master Zhu admits he does not know, though he imagines it might have been a vermilion temple door.
• Xu connects the account to the Corpse-Liberation Immortal rite, in which death is a necessary condition for transformation. He stops short of explaining the connection further, leaving Master Zhu puzzled.
• During the silent drive, Xu privately wonders whether the Ghost Script on the statue is real and whether an ascension to immortality could have turned Song into an evil spirit. He also questions what his game console is—and what he himself may become.

Character developments

• Xu Feng remains cautious about labels and theories, but the conversation deepens his sense that he is becoming entangled in a much larger supernatural crisis. His confidence gives way to unease and questions about his own future.
• Master Zhu (Old Zhu) emerges as a modern, meticulous investigator with extensive research, yet his most important evidence is a childhood memory he cannot fully explain. He is shaken as he relives it and acknowledges the limits of what he knows.

Significant themes

• The instability of reality: The collapse reverses heaven and earth, while a sacred statue appears to transform into something evil.
• The uncertain boundary between divinity and monstrosity: Song Chuming’s supposed ascension may have produced not a god or immortal, but an evil spirit.
• Knowledge and its limits: Master Zhu gathers evidence systematically, but his central account remains difficult to verify or interpret.
• Transformation and identity: Xu’s past rise in the game, the statue’s change, and the possibility of his own future transformation all raise questions about what a person—or deity—can become.

Character interactions

• Xu and Master Zhu balance respect with skepticism: Xu listens carefully but probes the assumptions behind Master Zhu’s story rather than accepting them outright.
• Master Zhu shares his theory and traumatic memory openly, while Xu offers water, asks clarifying questions, and makes a tentative connection to Corpse-Liberation Immortality.
• Their conversation ends in silence: Master Zhu waits for Xu to explain his thought, but Xu keeps his most unsettling conclusions to himself.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Feng returns to the Forest Ranger’s Courtyard with the corpse and prepares a tall, bare pole to serve as a “ladder” for sending the dead person’s soul away. He plans to see whether the corpse will disintegrate once its inner Golden Core is destroyed; if not, he will arrange for burial or cremation.
• After making offerings to the Youdu Lord and the dead, Xu Feng sets up shade and camp beds for Chen Ye and Master Zhu, ordering them to sleep in case they are needed overnight.
• Xu Feng asks Master Zhu to prepare an outline of his past investigations and to provide access to an eight-terabyte collection of material. He then patrols the mountain, finds nothing unusual, and returns by noon.
• Examining the stitched corpse, Xu Feng finds that its unsettling energy has subsided, but the incense gives no signs through divination. He believes the key issue is an egg-sized core in its abdomen and expects to learn more that night.
• Master Zhu shows Xu Feng photographs from Maoma Mountain: a secluded, windowless hut, ancient-looking hemp strips marked with blood and writing, and Ghost Script on trees and the hut’s doorway.
• Master Zhu explains that the site is Dead Souls Crossing, where local people exiled those believed to have returned from the dead. With no water source, the settlement may effectively have been a place of execution. Song Chuming supposedly met his teacher there, and records suggest the hemp warnings have existed for three or four centuries.
• Xu Feng recognizes the Ghost Script as potentially more than writing: some marks may be runes pointing directly to the Netherworld. He learns that a forest ranger led Master Zhu to the site and was responsible for patrolling it.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Feng remains calm and pragmatic, relying on preparation rather than expecting help from other supernatural powers. He balances ritual work with practical investigation and treats the corpse as an unresolved problem to be handled step by step.
• Master Zhu shifts from awed observer to useful investigator. He shares his photographs and deductions about Song Chuming, Dead Souls Crossing, and the mountain’s history. His comment that he has dealt with forest rangers before prompts Xu Feng to wonder what he knows about them.
• Chen Ye assists Xu Feng with the pole and follows his order to rest, though he offers little commentary.
• Master Zhu is impressed by Xu Feng’s strength, comparing him to an old battlefield standard-bearer; Xu Feng downplays the comparison.
• Xu Feng’s interactions with both men are direct and matter-of-fact: he assigns them tasks, asks for evidence, and keeps their attention focused on the next stage of the investigation.

Significant themes

• Ritual and practical problem-solving: Xu Feng combines offerings and soul-sending customs with plans for physically disposing of the body if the ritual fails.
• The boundary between life and death: The corpse’s possible Golden Core, the alleged “dead returned to life,” and the Netherworld-directed script blur the distinction between living and dead.
• Local belief and suppressed history: Dead Souls Crossing’s terrifying reputation may conceal a history of deliberate abandonment or murder.
• Uncertainty and vigilance: Xu Feng avoids assuming that supernatural forces will help him, instead preparing for multiple outcomes and investigating clues carefully.