Hanhai

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Hanhai (瀚海)
Alias(es)	Hanhai Blood City; Hanhai Dead City 803 814
Nature	One of the Thirteen Blood Cities; formerly a destroyed city concealed beneath an artificial human society, later restored as a realm of dreams 640 673 809
Location	The Deep World, surrounded by black fog; connected to Xinhu through dream passages and a tunnel at the junction of Hanhai, Xinhu, and Hanjiang 449 673 803
Rulers	Gao Ming and Gao Yun following its restoration; the original Blood City Lord was annihilated and his name erased 803 809
Affiliation	Allied with Central, Xinhu, Rotting, and Darkness Blood Cities against Fate 908
Role	Originally a site for human–ghost coexistence, subsequently a prison and experimental testing ground; rebuilt to shelter abandoned souls and resist outside control 639 640 658 687
Status	Restored and strengthened; its rules are completed after Dream’s destruction, and its territory later reaches three times its restored size 903 908

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Blockade breached	798	Gao Yun completes God Usurpation in the Dark City and becomes a low-rank Unspeakable, breaking the other Blood Cities’ blockade of Hanhai.
Blood City will reawakened	802 803	Gao Yun’s flames restore the city’s Ghost Markings. Gao Ming places his heart into the former Lord’s corpse, awakening Hanhai’s collective will and beginning its reconstruction.
Blood City manifests	807	Citizens’ souls and memories help Gao Ming bring the nightmare Blood City into reality. Its rules transform the dead and strengthen the Greater Ghosts who joined it.
Two-Lord rule established	808 809	Wen Qing heals Gao Ming’s heart rather than claiming it. Gao Ming becomes the outward-acting Lord, while Gao Yun becomes the city-bound soul; together they wield Hanhai’s dream rule.
Rules and defenders strengthened	810	Gao Ming and Gao Yun destroy Dream’s lingering will, relocate the Flesh-and-Blood Furnace, and mark the buildings with Hanhai’s Ghost Markings. The empowered Dream Ghosts can fight Unspeakables.
Expansion through Deep Dreams	813	The city absorbs forgotten dreams and the world’s regrets. Its population grows by ten percent, while the Giant Tree’s roots connect it to countless Deep Dreams.
Blood City rules completed	903	Dream’s annihilation returns its dream rules and accumulated faith to Hanhai, completing the city’s Ghost Markings and giving Gao Ming mastery over all of Dream’s shrines.
Territory tripled; seven Dream Ghosts	908	Over four years, Hanhai triples in size and develops seven Dream Ghosts. Its defenders collectively survive an attack from Aging Blood City.

Background / History

The apparent free port

Hanhai initially appears to be an international free port divided into nineteen districts. Its recorded history describes a city founded amid wartime upheaval a hundred years earlier, welcoming politicians, merchants, and refugees before becoming one of the world’s three great free ports. Its wealthy East District contrasts sharply with the cramped apartment clusters of the Old City District 6.

This open, transient society also conceals exploitation. Missing people and marginalized residents are easily overlooked, while Situ An uses his position in the Hanhai Charity Federation to reach vulnerable groups. Over more than twenty years, he builds a network extending into the city’s powerful institutions 118 188. Later revelations establish that Hanhai’s apparent reality—and many residents’ memories—has been artificially constructed 328 640 803.

Destruction of the original Blood City

Hanhai was once the strongest of the Thirteen Blood Cities. General accounts attribute its destruction to the other twelve cities; a participant from Rotting Blood City specifically recalls nine Blood Cities joining an Unknowable traitor to slaughter Hanhai’s Dream Ghosts 673 803.

The original Lord’s soul was annihilated, and everyone who remembered him was killed. The victors shattered the city’s rules, plundered its resources, and repeatedly cursed its ruins to prevent recovery. His enormous, faceless corpse survived beneath the Shadow World, coveted by rival Lords but left unused because they could not exploit it and distrusted one another 803.

The Vast Sea Project

Xinhu’s Saviors chose the devastated Hanhai as the site of the Vast Sea Project, intending to build a society where humans and ghosts could coexist. They constructed the apparent human city over its ruins and nurtured the entity that became the General Investigation Bureau, using the former Lord’s remains as a source of life for the dead land 639 686 802.

The project changed after the Savior disappeared into the black fog and a new Number Zero took control. Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals converted Hanhai into a prison and testing ground, pursuing eternal life and Ghost God power. The other Blood City Lords imposed scripted lives and prohibited powers that exceeded their permitted rules 639 640 687.

The company selected ten potential Blood City Lords, then added three more Candidates on the night of their transfer. Gao Ming entered after nearly dying while saving children in a school-bus crash; Xuan Wen sent his fading consciousness into Hanhai to preserve his life 640.

Anomalies and isolation

The collapse of Hande Private Academy’s containment accelerates Hanhai’s disaster. Class Thirteen escapes with substitute ghosts, while the school’s anomaly develops far beyond its initial level-three classification 195 196. A later surge triples the number of anomaly incidents and brings four consecutive level-three events, including clay idols that erase worshippers’ memories and identities 310.

Deadly black fog eventually severs contact with the outside world. The Investigation Bureau loses every investigator sent into it and links the isolation’s beginning to the uncontrolled Lishan Hospital anomaly 327. After escaping through the tunnel, Gao Ming sees Hanhai as an enormous grave inhabited by long-dead souls whose apparent lives and memories are false 463.

By Gao Ming’s return, expanding Sick Districts have overwhelmed the Bureau. Ghost Story Players and civilian self-rescue groups increasingly provide the protection its institutions cannot 669 670 676.

Reestablishment

Gao Ming gathers agreements from Hanhai’s powerful ghosts and approaches the General Investigation Bureau as a representative of both Ghost Story Players and the Sick Districts. The Bureau’s leaders reveal their concealed opposition to the Blood City Lords and agree to help prepare the restoration 685 687 688.

Gao Yun’s transformation into an Unspeakable supplies the foundation the project lacked. During the ritual, he burns his power, soul, will, abilities, and memories; four Dream Ghosts anchor Dream’s shrines in the ruins, and Gao Ming offers the heart carrying Hanhai’s collective obsessions 798 799 803.

The restoration draws attacks from rival Blood City Lords. Investigators, the Bureau Chief, the Giant Tree, Yan Xizhi, and Weird Wish merge their bodies or wills into the emerging city. Despite attacks that age its inhabitants, spread decay, erase identities, and make the city illusory, Hanhai descends and acquires its two new Lords 804 805 807 809.

Resistance against Fate

Hanhai’s renewed strength allows its Dream Ghosts to strip a Rotting Blood City Unspeakable of its rules and leave it believing it is an ordinary cat. However, the restored city remains incomplete until Dream is fully destroyed 810 811 903.

To protect Xinhu, Gao Ming recalls Hanhai’s Dream Ghosts and confronts nine approaching Blood Cities through Delirium. Hanhai’s resistance buys four years and one month, allowing its allies to advance their plan against Fate 831 900 903. During his absence, the city expands and survives Aging Blood City’s attempt to destroy it 908.

Hanhai later joins Central and Xinhu as one of three fulcrums of the Blood Sacrifice. The addition of Lone Island and Doctor Gao brings its contribution close to theirs, despite its originally weaker power 912.

Geography and Landmarks

Location	Description
East District	Initially Hanhai’s most prosperous district. Later devastated by anomalies and supported by Luo Dong’s relief efforts 6 670.
Old City District	Gao Ming’s original residential area, characterized by dense, oppressive apartment blocks. Its Shadow World streets lead toward the buried Blood City ruins 6 800.
North Harbor New City	A protected area whose permanent residency is offered as a screening reward. It houses the General Investigation Bureau and is heavily infiltrated by decay during the restoration 328 802.
South City	The Wang Family’s power base; destabilized as Weird Wish grows stronger after Gao Ming leaves Hanhai 681.
Sick Districts / Shadow Wards	Supernatural areas spreading across the city, especially its western outskirts. Gao Ming identifies the shadow-covered wards as Hanhai’s original territory rather than an invading foreign realm 669 674.
Hande Private Academy	Situ An’s former sacrifice-breeding ground and the site of a catastrophic anomaly. Later used by the Bureau to treat patients 118 196 305 311.
Lishan Hospital	The uncontrolled anomaly associated with Hanhai’s isolation; later kept under heavy surveillance 327.
Hanan Building	Hanhai’s fourth-tallest building. Its enormous screen broadcasts Situ An’s posthumous message 219.
Hanhai City Shopping Center and Square	Site of Gao Ming’s public return and the gathering of Ghost Story Players from across the city 672.
Three-City Junction tunnel	A passage near Hanhai, Xinhu, and Hanjiang, passing Hate Mountain Prison. After restoration, it reveals branching destinies connected to Gao Ming’s corpses 449 811.
Flesh-and-Blood Furnace	Relocated from the Execution House into the restored city; used to reforge chains and imprint Hanhai’s buildings with Ghost Markings 810.
Lone Island	Approaches Hanhai through the open Heavenly Gate and later contributes to its Blood Sacrifice 810 912.

Rules and Supernatural Properties

Dream Realm

Hanhai’s restored form is a dream that genuinely exists and connects to living minds 809.

• Every soul entering sleep becomes subject to its dream domain 809.
• Forgotten dreams and the world’s regrets are drawn into the city, which has no fixed boundaries 813.
• The Giant Tree extends roots into countless Deep Dreams, accelerating expansion 813.
• Hanhai’s dream powers can reach the Endless Mortal Worlds, whose deep dreams overlap with those of the Deep World 914.

Blood City Ghost Markings

The Ghost Markings carry Hanhai’s rules, inherited memories, and connection to its inhabitants 808 809 825.

• Their restoration recovers original buildings and memories of past battles 802.
• Gao Ming’s heart links him to citizens’ souls and allows him to sense the city 808.
• Gao Ming and Gao Yun communicate through dreams and the city’s markings 908.
• The inherited memories contain knowledge of other Blood Cities, but little about the Blood Sea, which the former Lord avoided approaching lightly 825 828.

Collective Will and Reconstruction

The restored city is sustained by its population’s joined wills, obsessions, and memories rather than one individual’s strength 803 807.

• Rebuilding requires a sufficient population, collective will capable of enduring the Deep World, and a living Unspeakable willing to become its foundation 687 798.
• Souls and memories can merge into the city to make its structures solid and accelerate manifestation 804 807.
• Gao Ming and Gao Yun must cooperate to wield its central rule 809.

Restrictions Before Restoration

The destroyed Blood City’s broken rules weakened its ghosts and allowed outside powers to regulate its inhabitants 668 687.

• Its remaining resources and rules could support at most nine Dream Ghosts 626 687.
• The General Investigation Bureau’s collective entity was the only Dream Ghost officially permitted by the occupying Lords; it secretly nurtured another 687.
• Forbidden powers risked attracting the watchers overseeing Hanhai 325 669.
• Black fog and seals prevented inhabitants from leaving. Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals also altered its consciousness-transfer passage to operate only one way 463 658.
• Blood Color’s powerful creatures possess strong resistance to dreams, limiting Hanhai’s preferred means of attack 825.

Institutions and Major Forces

Organization	Role in Hanhai
General Investigation Bureau	Initially formed around the search for truth, later shaped by Number Zero’s influence. Its hidden leadership ultimately supports rebuilding Hanhai despite earlier abuses and compromises 669 686 687 799.
Ghost Story Players	Clear anomalies, kill harmful ghosts, and rescue residents. Their public Contribution Leaderboard rewards service rather than strength alone 670.
Deadwater Forum	Hosts the Contribution Leaderboard and coordinates player missions; Fan Li agrees to adjust missions for the rebuilding campaign 670 674.
Student Council	Unites members’ wills through survival-oriented rules. Later operates from the East District Investigation Bureau as a major relief organization 311 676.
Hanhai Charity Federation	Supports vulnerable residents, but Situ An exploits his position within it to build influence and access marginalized people 118 219.
Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals	Runs consciousness-transfer experiments, maintains subjects’ bodies in nutrient pods, and uses Hanhai as a testing ground 640 658.
Civilian Self-Rescue Organizations	Resourceful local groups that help residents survive institutional collapse; seventeen major organizations are notified before the restoration ritual 676 800.
Three Great Chambers of Commerce	Their sixteen large affiliated companies are included in preparations for reestablishing the Blood City 800.

At the restoration countdown, the citywide notification network reaches 37 Investigation Offices, 16 large companies, 112 Ghost Story Player bases, and 17 major civilian Self-Rescue Organizations 800.

Rulers and Defenders

• Gao Ming — Co-Lord and principal organizer of the restoration. Embodies Hanhai’s hatred, fury, and outward expansion; acts beyond the city while Gao Yun guards it 809 811.
• Gao Yun — Co-Lord and city-bound guardian. His sacrifice becomes Hanhai’s stabilizing soul, preventing him from freely leaving 803 809.
• Original Blood City Lord — Unnamed former ruler whose surviving corpse becomes the material basis of the rebuilt city 803.
• Flesh-and-Blood Immortal — Central participant in the restoration. After merging with the Rotting Lord under its own dominant will, it becomes an Unknowable belonging to Hanhai 800 906.
• General Investigation Bureau Chief — A collective entity formed from five officials, connected workers, and the former Lord’s flesh. Merges into Hanhai during restoration and later fights as an empowered Dream Ghost 686 802 804 810.
• Yan Xizhi, Weird Wish, and the Bureau’s hidden Dream Ghost — Restoration participants who merge into the Blood City and become powerful defenders 804 810.
• Phobia and Ji Zhe — Joined within the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree; connect Hanhai to Deep Dreams and help defend and expand it 810 813.
• Zhang Ding — First to become a Dream Ghost in reality. Specializes in Mass Disaster Dreams and joins Hanhai’s seven Dream Ghosts 908.
• Fan Li — Leading civilian rescuer and first-ranked contributor, instrumental in rallying Ghost Story Players behind Gao Ming 670 672 674.
• Luo Dong — Leads relief efforts in the East District and is called its acting bureau chief 670.

Notable Quotes

“Hanhai is an enormous cage, built to imprison the ghosts banished by the great Blood Cities.”
— Gao Ming 803

“My brother said Hanhai was a cage, but also a window for change. It was built from despair, yet filled with hope. It was full of death, yet brimming with life.”
— Wang Ping’an 533

“As long as the flames don't go out before the Blood City fully descends, Hanhai will be reborn!”
— General Investigation Bureau Chief 804