Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• On his eighteenth birthday, Gao Ming sits through a seemingly cozy family dinner while news reports a serial murderer called the Rainy Night Killer. His parents’ behavior and the home’s unsettling preparations suggest they are not what they seem.
• Gao Ming secretly drugs and restrains them, then reveals a bedroom crammed with grotesque copies of his parents. Each night, new “parents” arrive and try to keep him there.
• He recalls that three days earlier, after quitting his job as a prison psychological counselor, he became stranded on an inexplicably empty bus in a tunnel. Soon afterward, his game about improving family relationships began unfolding as a deadly reality.
• Gao Ming believes the twisted scenario is a game he must clear by reaching eighteen candles. After trapping the latest parents, he sees the hallway return to normal and concludes he has escaped.
• A man matching the police description of the Rainy Night Killer appears outside. Gao Ming, mistaking the danger for an ordinary person and confident the game is over, invites him in. The chapter ends with the killer entering, apparently eager to attack.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from tense, silent observation to deliberate action: he drugs and binds the impostor parents, reasons out the game’s rules, and prepares to leave. His affection for his real parents contrasts with his suspicion of these copies. His confidence at the end may be dangerously misplaced.
• The parents perform loving domestic roles, but their identical smiles, apparent transformations, and desperate attempts to keep Gao Ming suggest they are monstrous imitations.
• The Rainy Night Killer enters under the guise of a rain-soaked stranger; Gao Ming welcomes him, unaware of—or unconcerned by—the threat.
• The apparent warmth between Gao Ming and his “parents” is repeatedly undermined by their uncanny behavior and his clinical preparations, creating a tension between familial affection and horror.

Significant themes

• The uncanny beneath domestic comfort: A birthday dinner and loving family rituals conceal a grotesque, threatening reality.
• Reality and perception: Gao Ming cannot tell whether he is mad, trapped in a game, or caught in a supernatural world.
• Family, care, and confinement: The game’s message—that parents should spend time with their children—becomes sinister when companionship turns into forced imprisonment.
• False security: Gao Ming believes he has escaped one danger just as another arrives at his door.

Key plot points and events

• Qi Yan, the Rainy Night Killer, enters Gao Ming’s home intending to prey on him. Gao Ming offers him drugged food and water, then lures him toward the bedroom by claiming his ill parents are inside.
• When Gao Ming opens the door, Qi Yan sees the room filled with horrifying, tangled Ghost Dads and Ghost Moms. While Qi Yan is distracted, Gao Ming strikes him with a vase, drugs him, and restrains him.
• Gao Ming questions whether Qi Yan can see the apparitions. Qi Yan’s reaction confirms that the supernatural events are visible to someone other than Gao Ming, strengthening Gao Ming’s belief that his game is connecting reality with the world of Ghost Mom.
• As the bedroom returns to normal, a Ghost Mom breaks free and lunges at Gao Ming. She drags Qi Yan into the shadows before disappearing, apparently taking something from him. By 4:44 a.m., the room is normal again; Qi Yan is left alive but vacant and seemingly vegetative.
• Gao Ming finds two mysterious photographs that appear to be rewards for completing the game. One depicts him among a crowd of parents and comes with a message naming him the family’s new “parent,” with the power to help or torment family members and a duty to draw more people into the games. The other, showing Qi Yan, explains that the family’s home is a refuge for people near death or trapped in extreme circumstances—but warns that many regret entering it.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains outwardly gentle and self-deprecating, even calling himself too introverted to speak to his parents. In practice, he is calculating and composed: he uses hospitality as a trap, incapacitates Qi Yan, and treats the apparitions as evidence to investigate.
• Qi Yan arrives confident and predatory, planning to torture Gao Ming, but is quickly overwhelmed by the bedroom’s horrors and Gao Ming’s tactics. His final fate suggests that Ghost Mom has left him mentally devastated.
• Ghost Mom and the other parents behave like dangerous, possessive forces. Though restrained and fading with the bedroom’s supernatural overlap, one Ghost Mom makes a final attack and takes Qi Yan into the shadows.
• The contrast between Qi Yan’s murderous intentions and Gao Ming’s apparent kindness drives their encounter: each initially misreads the other, and Qi Yan discovers too late that Gao Ming is far more dangerous than he appears.

Significant themes

• Kindness as a mask: Gao Ming’s warm welcome conceals deliberate manipulation, while Qi Yan’s expectation that kindness signals weakness proves disastrous.
• Family and belonging as both refuge and threat: The home offers desperate people another option besides death, but its family members can be terrifying, and the new “parent” is granted unsettling power over them.
• Reality blurring with nightmare: The bedroom’s temporary overlap with another world raises the possibility that the games and urban legends may permanently merge with reality.
• Choice and moral corruption: The photographs promise Gao Ming freedom to care for or torment the family, while recruiting others into the games makes that freedom ethically dangerous.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming studies two memorial photographs and infers that the “home” mentioned in one is a separate world inhabited by Ghost Dad and Ghost Mom. He suspects his ability to turn games into reality may be the “key” that lets them enter this world.
• Qi Yan’s memorial photo deteriorates rapidly, suggesting that his consciousness or soul is being tormented in that other world. Gao Ming calls the police before Qi Yan dies.
• Gao Ming finds no news of the bus he rode on: official records say all buses were suspended during the storm. This deepens his suspicion that reality itself is wrong.
• News reports reveal multiple crises: a riot and disappearances at Henshan Prison, a fire at Hanjiang’s theme park, and violent crimes in Hanhai’s Old City District. Gao Ming connects the recent surge in strange events to the day he entered the tunnel.
• Police led by Li Lin arrive and arrest Qi Yan. Li warns Gao Ming that the Old City District has suffered repeated, unusually brutal incidents over the past three days.
• A disfigured investigator from New Shanghai briefly searches Gao Ming’s apartment, but his communicator malfunctions in the bedroom, and he leaves without explanation.
• After the police depart, Gao Ming continues watching Qi Yan’s photo crack. Outside, Li Lin orders a check on Gao Ming’s background and learns that his latest prison mental-health assessment recorded a danger score beyond the testing device’s limit.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains methodical and rational, but his confidence in the ordinary world is eroding. He starts treating the strange events as evidence of a larger, connected crisis.
• Li Lin is cautious and guarded. Though Qi Yan has been caught, he recognizes that the danger extends beyond one killer and withholds details about the wider investigation.
• Qi Yan appears close to death, while his photo suggests his ordeal continues somewhere beyond ordinary reality.
• The New Shanghai investigator is introduced as an unsettling, secretive figure whose equipment cannot function in Gao Ming’s bedroom.

Significant themes

• Reality’s instability: Suspended buses, missing passengers, and escalating anomalies make the world seem fundamentally unreliable.
• Life, death, and other worlds: The memorial photos may link living people to a place where their souls can be harmed.
• Hidden catastrophe beneath public normality: Official praise of orderly “Model Cities” contrasts sharply with violence and disasters.
• Rationality under pressure: Gao Ming’s professional discipline helps him assess events, but even he begins to suspect that the world is not what it seems.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming calls emergency services, unsettling the operator by calmly reporting a killer while worrying more about whether the suspect will survive.
• Li Lin questions Gao Ming, advises him to stay indoors, and later asks his colleague to investigate him.
• The New Shanghai investigator searches the apartment without coordinating with Li Lin, highlighting the presence of separate authorities and unclear jurisdiction.

Key plot points and events

• After surviving the previous night’s supernatural events, Gao Ming learns that torrential rain and flash floods have made the city’s roads impassable. He still cannot explain why the worlds of his game designs are becoming real.
• Hoping to prevent further disasters, he goes to Nightlight Game Studio to retrieve and destroy the designs he created there—especially his most dangerous concepts.
• At the studio, Manager Gou is angrily criticizing the team for turning an assignment for an innovative romance game into a horror project. Nightlight, once focused on suspense games, is struggling through a shift away from horror.
• Gao Ming explains that he is not there to interview but to reclaim his proposals. He warns Wei Dayou not to go out at night and says he may stop making horror games.
• With Gao Ming’s help, Wei retrieves his archived designs. Gao Ming sorts them by escalating danger: criminal, rumor, omen, ghostly words, strange tale, and uncontrolled strange tale. He has created 126 designs, including four in the most dangerous category.

Character developments

• Gao Ming acts decisively and responsibly, trying to limit the consequences of his designs becoming real. Though he once entered game design to create horror games he wanted to play, he now considers giving them up.
• Manager Gou appears blustering and eccentric, but his anger reflects genuine pressure: Nightlight ranks last among Motu Technology’s studios, and he fears it will be disbanded. Despite the studio’s new direction, he recognizes Gao Ming’s talent and wants him to join.
• Wei Dayou remains earnest and loyal to Gao Ming, having previously credited him for an award-winning design. He helps recover the proposals and is concerned about Gao Ming’s warning.
• Xia Yang, the studio’s laid-back but internationally recognized lead artist, stays largely unfazed by the argument.

Significant themes

• Fiction becoming reality: Gao Ming’s designs may be more than stories, making his creative work potentially dangerous.
• Responsibility and consequences: Gao Ming tries to take accountability by retrieving the designs before they can cause further harm.
• Creative ambition versus survival: Nightlight’s artists want to make distinctive work, but commercial pressure pushes the studio toward safer, more marketable games.
• Escalating danger: The six-tier classification shows how threats progress from ordinary human crimes to expanding, reality-altering supernatural events.

Character interactions

• Manager Gou clashes with Wei Dayou over the failed romance-game assignment, while Xia Yang offers mild support for the overworked team.
• Gao Ming’s arrival makes Manager Gou uneasy because of his reputation for disturbing horror concepts; Gou nevertheless invites him to work at the studio.
• Gao Ming reassures Wei Dayou, warns him about the coming nights, and persuades him to help retrieve the archived designs.

Plot points

• Gao Ming, a prison counselor and horror-game designer, believes his game concepts are becoming real and dangerous. He burns his unfinished proposals and asks Nightlight Studio to delete his work.
• He insists the studio remove the ninth route from its dating game, To Our Love That Will Eventually Fade. Gao Ming created that route’s heroine, Xuan Wen—a brilliant, possessive serial killer—and fears the game could bring its horrors to life.
• After the studio deletes his ideas, a new employee arrives: a woman named Xuan Wen. Her presence unnerves Gao Ming and the office cat.
• Gao Ming discovers that Li Lüxin, another heroine in the game, died mysteriously two nights earlier, deepening his suspicion that the game and reality are connected.
• In private, Xuan Wen calls Gao Ming “Honey,” claims they share a past involving a tunnel, and says she has already killed the women who were targeting him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming grows increasingly fearful and vigilant, determined to prevent his designs from becoming real. He trusts his instincts—and the cat’s apparent alarm—more than the reassuring reactions of his coworkers.
• Boss Gou wants to preserve the dating game to save the studio and its employees, but agrees to remove the ninth route when Gao Ming presses him.
• Wei Dayou, the game’s original designer, is puzzled by Gao Ming’s advice to minimize romance and interaction, but helps revise and delete the material.
• Xuan Wen appears gentle and poised, yet behaves with chilling familiarity toward Gao Ming. Her claims suggest she may be the game’s fictional killer made real—or someone who knows more about Gao Ming’s recent past than he does.

Significant themes

• Fiction becoming reality: Gao Ming fears that his horror ideas are manifesting in the real world.
• Love and possession: The dating game’s romance turns sinister through Xuan Wen’s obsessive devotion.
• Dread and uncertainty: The chapter leaves unclear whether Gao Ming is confronting supernatural events, a distorted memory, or a calculated threat.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming concludes that Xuan Wen is an unknown entity wearing a familiar form. Unlike his parents, she appears able to move freely in daylight and knows about his experiences in the tunnel and his plan to delete his games.
• He warns his coworker Wei Dayou to avoid Xuan Wen and stay inside after dark. Dayou dismisses the warning, while the cat Fortune makes a dramatic but futile attempt to follow Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming studies Hanhai’s bus network and realizes the supernatural catastrophe may extend far beyond his games: the mysteries, murders, and horror stories in his memory may all have become real. He suspects he has somehow triggered the apocalypse.
• Gao Ming waits for Xuan Wen, hoping she can provide answers. They travel together to their shared apartment complex, where she denies responsibility for the recent murders.
• In the building, they see an elderly woman mourning her adopted son, Zhao, who died by suicide three days earlier. Gao Ming recalls Zhao’s forced smiles and the last time he saw him.
• Xuan Wen takes Gao Ming to apartment 2507—the place where Zhao died—which she has rented. Gao Ming hesitates at the threshold, reminded of a horror game he once designed.

Character development and interactions

• Gao Ming is increasingly convinced that his imagination may be creating real horrors. Though wary of Xuan Wen, he recognizes that she may be his best source of information and chooses to follow her.
• Xuan Wen remains unsettling and enigmatic. Her apparent affection for Gao Ming feels possessive, and her denial about the murders leaves her motives unclear.
• Wei Dayou remains friendly and dismissive of danger, prioritizing ordinary explanations over Gao Ming’s warnings.
• Fortune displays an unusual survival instinct, playing dead amid danger but desperately trying to escape with Gao Ming.
• Zhao is remembered as kind and helpful, but Gao Ming sensed that his cheerful manner concealed distress. His death adds a personal, ominous dimension to the unfolding crisis.

Significant themes

• Imagination becoming reality: Gao Ming fears that the supernatural stories in his mind are manifesting across Hanhai.
• Uncertainty and distrust: Familiar people and ordinary spaces may conceal something dangerous.
• Hidden suffering: Zhao’s outward kindness masked inner pain, while the elderly woman’s mourning reveals the human cost behind the horror.
• The uncanny in everyday life: A familiar city, apartment corridor, and rented room become threatening settings.

Chapter Summary

• Gao Ming visits Room 2507, where Xuan Wen lives amid the belongings of the deceased Brother Zhao. She reveals a large black-and-white wedding photograph of herself and Gao Ming—one he cannot remember taking.
• Xuan Wen explains what she witnessed after the Ghost Festival: Gao Ming was walking through a tunnel filled with bodies and speaking to something. She says she rescued him and recounts a voice’s warning that the city’s horrors may become real, and that Gao Ming had supposedly died and made a deal to survive. The tunnel may have had other living passengers, whom Gao Ming could seek out.
• Xuan Wen says that after waking in reality, she found a memorial portrait of herself. As she killed the other dating-game heroines, the wedding dress in her portrait—and the larger photograph—began gaining color. She suspects killing the other dead characters is freeing her from some restraint.
• She has developed a theory for bringing games into reality early: it requires a recently deceased person’s haunted home, a memorial portrait as an entry ticket, and Gao Ming as the passage. Xuan Wen intends to hunt the emerging games and consume their ghosts. She has eight blank memorial portraits ready.
• Rather than flee, Gao Ming agrees to test her theory in Room 2507, saying he can help. As he opens the door, a disfigured investigator arrives and urgently warns that the room is dangerous.

Character Developments and Interactions

• Gao Ming remains uncertain about his missing memories and possible death, but shifts from fear to cautious control once he understands Xuan Wen’s plan. His experience counseling violent offenders helps him manage her.
• Xuan Wen is revealed as an obsessive, calculating, and highly dangerous force. Her affection for Gao Ming is intense, but she also treats him as the key to pursuing her own goal. She speaks casually about killing the heroines and preparing to enter more haunted games.
• Their relationship is intimate yet threatening: Xuan Wen wants Gao Ming close and expects him to remember a promise, while he questions her claims and tries to assess her without provoking her.
• The investigator’s arrival interrupts their proposed experiment and suggests the danger surrounding Room 2507 is imminent.

Significant Themes

• Memory and hidden truths: Gao Ming’s amnesia may be self-protection, and the tunnel’s events remain unresolved.
• Death and return: The portraits’ gradual colorization raises the possibility that the dead can regain life or freedom.
• Games becoming reality: Urban legends and horror scenarios are emerging into the city, with choices that carry different costs and rewards.
• Obsession and agency: Xuan Wen’s love, violence, and strategic intelligence make her both a potential ally and a threat.

Plot points and events

• A disfigured investigator warns Gao Ming and Xuan Wen to leave apartment 2507, where former resident Zhao Xi died by suicide. He says the apartment’s danger may be connected to an unexplained supernatural presence and warns them not to replace Zhao’s belongings, imitate his habits, or experience the same emotions he did.
• After the investigator leaves, Xuan Wen reveals her plan: deliberately reenact Zhao’s life and emotional state to trigger the forming ghost story early, hoping to confront it before it fully merges with the city and causes wider deaths.
• Gao Ming agrees. In a darkened room, he sits before a mirror with a blank memorial portrait and recalls Zhao’s life and despair.
• Gao Ming begins to experience Zhao’s isolation and self-loathing. The candles go out, the apartment fills with shadows, and the mirror shows a distorted, inverted world.
• A loud crash draws Gao Ming to the balcony, where he sees a corpse in the courtyard, its neck broken and its gaze fixed on apartment 2507.

Character developments

• Gao Ming is curious and willing to take serious risks, even when warned of danger. He ultimately accepts Xuan Wen’s plan and immerses himself in Zhao’s painful memories.
• Xuan Wen shows a calm, determined willingness to provoke a dangerous supernatural event, believing early confrontation is preferable to letting it grow.
• The investigator appears genuinely concerned and knowledgeable about the anomaly, though he refuses to explain its nature fully.
• Zhao Xi, through Gao Ming’s recollections, emerges as a generous and cheerful man whose outward optimism concealed deep rejection, exhaustion, and despair.

Character interactions

• The investigator tries to persuade Gao Ming and Xuan Wen to evacuate, but Gao’s questions and Xuan Wen’s refusal frustrate his efforts.
• Xuan Wen explains her strategy to Gao Ming, who challenges its wisdom but eventually agrees to participate.
• Gao Ming’s attempt to understand Zhao’s perspective creates the chapter’s central link between the living and the dead.

Significant themes

• Hidden suffering: Zhao’s kindness and cheerfulness masked profound loneliness and a longing to belong.
• Risk versus prevention: Xuan Wen argues that facing danger now may prevent a far worse disaster later.
• Memory and identity: Recreating Zhao’s life and emotions may allow his unresolved pain and supernatural presence to return.
• Isolation and despair: Zhao’s lack of support turns hardship into self-loathing, while the apartment becomes a physical expression of his entrapment.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming deliberately re-enters the overlapping worlds using Xuan Wen’s method, but finds himself alone in Zhao Xi’s apartment. The room is frozen in the moment of Zhao Xi’s suicide.
• Zhao Xi’s phone reveals the residents’ group chat, where Wang Kuisheng posts videos of Zhao’s corpse outside. Residents notice the body appears to move between recordings.
• Gao Ming checks the balcony and finds the corpse has vanished. Wang, who went to investigate, stops responding.
• The residents discover that calls and messages outside the group chat do not work. As they argue over Zhao’s death, Xiao Qiu reports hearing something crawling up the stairwell.
• During a group video call, Xiao Qiu is attacked in her apartment. As she tries to escape through a window, a pale face—apparently resembling Wang—rises into view, and Xiao Qiu is dragged into darkness.
• Gao Ming recognizes that the danger may involve more than Zhao’s moving corpse. He suspects the building’s residents may already have been replaced by ghosts.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains observant and controlled, quickly assessing the supernatural situation and studying the neighbors’ reactions for clues. He becomes increasingly wary of everyone in the building.
• Xiao Qiu shifts from frightened but communicative to completely panicked as the presence reaches her apartment; she is ultimately killed or taken.
• Wang Kuisheng disappears after going to investigate the corpse, then seems to reappear as the pale face outside Xiao Qiu’s window.
• The other residents show fear, suspicion, and self-preservation, while some turn to blame Zhao Xi’s family for his death.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and mistrust: Gao Ming cannot tell who is human and who may have been replaced.
• Isolation and failed community: Although the residents are neighbors and share a group chat, fear prevents them from helping Xiao Qiu.
• Death returning to haunt the living: Zhao Xi’s corpse appears to move and enter the building, turning unresolved guilt and conflict into a supernatural threat.
• Technology as both connection and helpless witness: The group call lets residents see the danger but cannot protect Xiao Qiu.

Character interactions

• The residents confront one another in the chat: Fang Shuqi accuses Zhao Xi’s family of exploiting him, while Li Li angrily denies responsibility.
• Xiao Qiu pleads with the neighbors for help, but no one acts before the attack.
• During the video call, residents watch Xiao Qiu’s ordeal and shout warnings, while Gao Ming silently observes their faces and behavior.

Key plot points and events

• Residents argue over Zhao Xi’s return and blame his family, while the stairwell fills with the sound of something crawling upward. Li Li flees with her child, leaving Zhao Xi’s adoptive mother behind.
• Yao Yuan, a terminally ill former police instructor, claims he has suddenly regained his strength. Though the other residents distrust him because of his disturbing appearance, Gao Ming suspects that he may be genuine: the strange beings can imitate normal people too convincingly.
• Gao Ming tries to leave Zhao Xi’s apartment and catch Li Li, but cannot find her despite following her apparent route. He begins to suspect that the neighbors visible on the group video call—and perhaps the call itself—are part of an illusion.
• Fang Shuqi reports that Zhao Xi is outside his door. Security footage shows Zhao Xi crawling up the stairs and knocking. After nine knocks, Fang Shuqi appears to fall to his death, but Gao Ming sees no body below—only blood—strengthening his suspicion that the video is fabricated.
• Gao Ming recalls a game he once made, The Only Family, whose protagonist uses his phone to sustain a fantasy family. The game’s endings include choosing delusion again, destroying the phone and trying to change, or dying while clinging to the phone.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains calculating and willing to consider extreme measures, including restraining Li Li and her child to test whether they are real. He uses inconsistencies between the call and the physical world to investigate the haunting.
• Yao Yuan reappears as a possible ally: although his body looks corpse-like, he says he is mentally clear and physically recovered. The contrast makes him seem more trustworthy to Gao Ming than the normal-looking residents.
• Li Li shifts from accusing Zhao Xi’s family to fleeing in terror, abandoning both the call and his adoptive mother.
• Fang Shuqi becomes the apparent victim of Zhao Xi’s haunting, though the mismatch between the video and Gao Ming’s view leaves his fate—and the reality of the event—uncertain.

Significant themes

• Reality versus illusion: The video call and security footage may be manufacturing events that do not exist in the physical world.
• Appearance and trust: The most visibly monstrous person, Yao Yuan, may be real, while ordinary-looking neighbors may be deceptive.
• Fear and self-preservation: Residents accuse, abandon, and suspect one another as danger closes in.
• Family as fantasy and refuge: Gao Ming’s game suggests that imagined relationships can both comfort and trap someone, raising the possibility that the phone is central to the current illusion.

Character interactions

• Neighbors blame Zhao Xi’s family, while Li Li counters that they helped drive Zhao Xi to his death through gossip and mistreatment.
• Li Li berates Zhao Xi’s adoptive mother, then abandons her when the stairwell grows frightening.
• Yao Yuan invites everyone to his apartment; the group’s distrust silences him, but Gao Ming privately considers him a potential ally.
• Gao Ming watches the neighbors through the group call while trying to investigate them outside its view, increasingly treating their interactions as possible deception.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming realizes the apartment-building anomaly resembles The Only Family, a game whose protagonist, Zhao Xi, was driven to suicide by pressure and hostility at home. The phone’s disturbing videos may reflect Zhao Xi’s own wishes and perceptions.
• Gao Ming believes the game’s good ending requires Zhao Xi to destroy his phone, so he decides to resist the phone’s influence and test whether Teacher Yao in room 2707 is real.
• Before he can reach 2707, an investigator pulls him into room 2706. The investigator explains that they are trapped in an “Anomaly Event,” where communication with the outside world fails and residents may be replaced.
• The investigator describes the Joint Bureau of Anomalous Disaster Investigation and shares survival rules, including finding residents and agreeing on a recognition signal, distrusting clocks, avoiding sleep, and following strict precautions after midnight.
• Gao Ming remains skeptical that simply obeying the rules is enough. He messages Teacher Yao and prepares to continue investigating.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays cautious and analytical, but the investigator’s claim that communications cannot reach the outside world alarms him because he remembers receiving a call from his mother in a previous game. He chooses action and investigation over passive survival.
• The investigator is frightened but tries to guide Gao Ming, revealing what the bureau knows and urging him to follow the rules. Gao Ming accepts the information but does not fully trust either the rules or the investigator.
• Zhao Xi is portrayed as a tragic figure whose isolation and accumulated mistreatment overwhelmed him, despite appearing to have family and neighbors.
• Gao Ming and the investigator’s exchange establishes a wary alliance: the investigator offers protection and knowledge, while Gao Ming keeps his distance and follows his own judgment.

Significant themes

• Isolation and despair: Everyday cruelty and pressure can accumulate until a person sees no way out.
• Rules versus judgment: Survival guidelines may help, but rigid rules cannot account for every situation; Gao Ming believes people must think for themselves.
• Reality and perception: The videos, residents, and even communications may be fabrications shaped by the anomaly or Zhao Xi’s phone.
• Agency and authorship: Gao Ming’s closing thought—“I myself am the rules”—suggests he sees his role as more than a passive player, hinting that he may be able to shape or challenge the Strange Tale.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming, the investigator, and Teacher Yao take shelter in apartment 2707 as Zhao Xi’s corpse appears to climb the building, killing neighbors shown in a group video call.
• Gao Ming suspects the neighbors in the call—and the apparent attacks—are not real people or events, but fabrications generated by Zhao Xi’s phone. He proposes testing this by opening apartment 2607, whose resident appears in the call.
• As they watch Huang Mingming in 2501 panic and get attacked, Gao Ming leads the others to the sixth floor. They force open 2607 and find it empty and long-abandoned, confirming that the video-call neighbors are fake.
• The phone’s recordings reveal Zhao Xi’s isolation: he filmed his adoptive family’s daily life, but felt unwelcome and lonely, using his phone as a confidant.
• Gao Ming concludes that the terrifying events reflect the darkness surrounding Zhao Xi and proposes speaking directly with the dead.

Character development and interactions

• Gao Ming remains bold and pragmatic, willing to risk the hallway to test his theory. He is not simply acting out of compassion: he also wants to verify who is real and understand the phenomenon.
• The investigator is frightened and urges retreat, believing survival and reporting information should take priority. He nevertheless follows Gao Ming and witnesses the danger firsthand.
• Teacher Yao is initially cautious and confused, but quickly recognizes the significance of Gao Ming’s reasoning and helps break into 2607.
• Zhao Xi, though absent in person, emerges through his recordings as a lonely, disabled man who longed for family connection but feared rejection.
• Huang Mingming’s desperate pleas and confession suggest he had falsely accused Zhao Xi of theft, linking the apparent violence to past cruelty and guilt.

Significant themes

• Isolation and the need for connection: Zhao Xi’s phone becomes his “only family” because he has no one he trusts.
• Reality versus illusion: The video call presents a convincing but false version of the building, and Gao Ming survives by questioning appearances.
• Guilt and consequences: Huang Mingming’s confession ties his torment to his mistreatment of Zhao Xi.
• Courage, caution, and survival: Gao Ming accepts calculated risks, while the investigator represents a more conventional fear-driven response.

Chapter summary

Key plot points

• After watching a video in which the dead Zhao Xi massacres his neighbors, Gao Ming argues that the horrifying scenes may reflect Zhao Xi’s suffering and a plea for help—not simply a ghost’s urge to kill. He suspects the ghost-story game and reality are beginning to merge.
• Gao Ming asks the investigator and Mr. Yao to prepare a makeshift rope, then goes alone to Room 2507 to meet Zhao Xi. He believes Zhao Xi must destroy his own phone to break free of its illusions.
• Gao Ming welcomes Zhao Xi and speaks honestly about the hardship he endured: rejection by his adoptive family, exploitation, gossip, and false accusations. He tells Zhao Xi he deserves happiness and offers to become his family and accomplice.
• Zhao Xi stops crawling, but appears unable to respond emotionally. He grabs Gao Ming and tries to push him out of the window, apparently intending to make him share the fatal fall.
• Gao Ming lets Zhao Xi draw him toward the balcony, then shoves Zhao Xi back inside. The phone falls from Zhao Xi’s body, while Gao Ming tumbles out of the window. The investigator and Mr. Yao catch him with the rope, though he is badly injured.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows compassion and nerve, treating Zhao Xi as the person he knew rather than as a monster. He risks his life to reach him, but also acts strategically, hoping to change the story’s outcome and destroy the phone’s hold over Zhao Xi.
• Zhao Xi is revealed as a deeply wronged and lonely man whose cheerful exterior concealed despair. His pause at Gao Ming’s offer suggests that some part of him still hears or recognizes the kindness, even though he remains driven by the force controlling him.
• The investigator and Mr. Yao move from disbelief and concern to active support, holding the rope and trying to save Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• Compassion in the face of horror: Gao Ming insists on seeing the suffering person behind the monstrous appearance.
• Isolation and the need for family: Zhao Xi’s longing for a home and understanding is central to his tragedy; Gao Ming offers genuine connection rather than judgment.
• Illusion versus reality: The phone’s fabricated worlds reflect unmet desires and pain, while Gao Ming argues that reality can still be changed through action.
• Agency and sacrifice: Gao Ming risks his life to interrupt the repeated pattern of Zhao Xi’s death and revenge.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming clashes with the investigator’s caution and Mr. Yao’s willingness to sacrifice himself, insisting that he is the one who should speak to Zhao Xi.
• In Room 2507, Gao Ming addresses Zhao Xi with warmth and candor, acknowledging the injustice he suffered and offering him belonging.
• When Zhao Xi turns violent, Gao Ming does not retaliate; he uses the moment to push Zhao Xi back inside, while the investigator and Mr. Yao pull him to safety.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming destroys Zhao Xi’s phone by dropping it from the fifth floor, erasing the videos that recorded Zhao Xi’s hidden malice and loneliness.
• After climbing back to the balcony, Gao Ming chooses to jump back into Zhao Xi’s apartment. He tells Zhao Xi he understands how a lifetime of hardship and isolation pushed him toward suicide, and offers to be his family. He embraces him rather than merely comforting him with words.
• Black shadows—carrying Zhao Xi’s memories and despair—surge onto Gao Ming and form a chain around his arm. Gao Ming senses that fully grasping the chain might give him Zhao Xi’s abilities, but could make Zhao Xi disappear.
• Zhao Xi sees that he is absent from the apartment’s mirror and understands something about his situation. He leaves instead of jumping from the building. As he descends, the building’s shadows disperse and its temperature rises. Gao Ming learns that Zhao Xi had been alone in the building; the neighbors in the group chat were fake.
• The investigator celebrates the apparent resolution of the anomaly and urges Gao Ming to join the Investigation Bureau. Gao Ming sends him to search Zhao Xi’s apartment, then follows Zhao Xi.
• A memorial portrait appears where the shadows recede. Teacher Yao then fades away, leaving another portrait. Its inscription reveals that he was terminally ill in reality and had experienced a renewed sense of life in the shadow world, apparently by choice.
• Zhao Xi’s portrait shows Gao Ming holding him back from the fall, with black chains binding their arms. Its inscription says Zhao Xi willingly became part of Gao Ming so his suffering could be made known.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming moves beyond investigating Zhao Xi to offering him genuine care and family. He refuses to seize the chain despite the power it may offer, prioritizing Zhao Xi’s choice and survival. His compassion also earns the investigator’s admiration, though Gao Ming cautions that his approach cannot simply be replicated.
• Zhao Xi shifts from numb despair to confusion and pain, then makes a decisive choice to leave rather than take Gao Ming with him. His bond with Gao Ming persists through the chain and the portrait.
• Teacher Yao appears to have found vitality in the shadow world but cannot leave it. His disappearance leaves unresolved whether his fate was truly his own choice.
• The investigator is astonished by Gao Ming’s success and eager to recruit him, while Gao Ming treats the investigator’s enthusiasm with dry humor.

Significant themes

• Loneliness, neglect, and compassion: Zhao Xi’s tragedy grows from being repeatedly dismissed and pressured. A sincere embrace and recognition of his suffering matter more than easy reassurance.
• Family as both care and burden: The portraits describe family bonds as promises and responsibility, but also as authority and control.
• Choice and sacrifice: Zhao Xi chooses to leave; Teacher Yao may have chosen life in the shadow world; and Zhao Xi’s willingness to join Gao Ming carries a cost.
• Memory and testimony: Destroying the phone erases Zhao Xi’s recordings, but his memories and suffering remain in the chain and portrait—now entrusted to Gao Ming.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming notices that Zhao Xi’s posthumous photo is linked to him by shifting chains. He suspects that sharing Zhao Xi’s story and helping him release his obsession may unlock Zhao Xi’s ability, though the ability’s nature is still unknown.
• Back at the apartment, Xuan Wen has subdued a disfigured Investigation Bureau agent. The agent explains that anomaly events began in Xinhu six months ago and that survival is extremely difficult. He invites Gao Ming to join the Bureau, which offers authority in exchange for dangerous frontline work, and sends him its seven-level threat classification.
• The agent identifies the recent ghost-story event as Level 3: a tangible ghost appeared and took control of victims. He realizes Teacher Yao was trapped in the event.
• Gao Ming and the agent find Teacher Yao dead. His daughter had called an ambulance, but it arrived too late. Gao Ming suggests the old man may have chosen his own fate; his apartment feels peaceful rather than haunted.
• Back at apartment 2507, Gao Ming tells Xuan Wen that the blank photo she gave him was consumed when used as a one-time “ticket.” He shows her Zhao Xi’s photo and proposes turning Zhao’s experiences into a game, so players’ emotional responses might help him without exposing them to the real supernatural danger.
• Xuan Wen warns that Gao Ming’s games became real because of what happened in a tunnel—not because of a power he can freely use. Replicating the effect may require returning there. Gao Ming says his goal is to tell Zhao’s story, not to make more games real, and suggests Zhao might offer Xuan Wen a safer way to sustain herself.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains cautious but open to joining the Investigation Bureau, recognizing the protection and authority it could provide. He also begins considering a more compassionate, less dangerous way to help the dead through storytelling.
• Xuan Wen shows both physical strength and curiosity about Gao Ming’s supernatural experiences. Though she accepts his proposal in principle, she gives him a serious warning about the risks and limits of his power.
• The investigator moves from trying to recruit Gao Ming to candidly explaining the danger and offering practical survival information. His own scars and the loss of his team show the personal cost of his work.
• Teacher Yao’s death closes his story on a quiet, possibly chosen note; the photograph of his youthful heroic act suggests how strongly he held onto his past.

Significant themes

• Fear and escalation: The Bureau’s scale shows how an anomaly can grow from a localized disturbance into an uncontrollable force fed by fear.
• Memory, grief, and release: Zhao Xi’s chains suggest that bonds and remembrance may help the dead resolve their obsessions.
• Sacrifice and responsibility: Investigators risk their lives to delay a larger disaster, while Teacher Yao’s death may reflect a choice of his own.
• Stories as memorials: Gao Ming considers games not merely as dangerous gateways, but as a way to make suffering understood and give the dead a lasting memorial.

Character interactions

• Xuan Wen restrains the investigator, while Gao Ming prevents the situation from becoming a straightforward rescue and presses him for answers.
• The investigator recruits Gao Ming and explains the threat system; Gao Ming follows him to discover Teacher Yao’s fate.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen exchange ideas about Zhao Xi’s photo: she recognizes its pulsing chains, while he explains his theory and offers it as a possible source of help for her.
• Their teasing, familiar banter continues despite the serious discussion, ending with Gao Ming brushing off Xuan Wen’s joke about being eaten.

Plot points and events

• Back home after surviving another horror-game episode, Gao Ming studies his black-and-white memorial photos and wonders whether the dead might return when the games merge with reality—and whether they would still be themselves.
• A family photo on his phone unsettles him: he, his parents, and a meal are pictured, but he cannot remember who took it. He recalls receiving calls from his parents during the three days he was trapped, despite being told that anomalies cut off communications.
• Worried that something has been impersonating his parents for months, Gao Ming calls home repeatedly. On the seventh attempt, the call connects. The room turns cold, shadows gather, and his mother’s voice insists, “Stay here.” Gao Ming is nearly overwhelmed.
• A food-delivery knock interrupts the apparent haunting, allowing Gao Ming to hang up and escape into the corridor. The delivery worker, Su Mo, is unharmed and says he noticed nothing strange.
• Reviewing his security-camera footage, Gao Ming sees that he appeared to spasm and fight invisible attackers during the call. Su Mo mistakes him for someone possessed and flees.
• Gao Ming concludes that Ghost Dad and Ghost Mom can emerge from the memorial photo when he looks at it while calling home, but that the process can still be interrupted. He considers turning this frightening effect into a weapon, recalling how his parents once appeared carrying cakes during his confrontation with Zhao Xi.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from suspicion to terror as he considers that the voices he has trusted may have been ghosts. Even after escaping, he quickly begins analyzing how the haunting works and how he might use it.
• Su Mo, a nervous university student making his first part-time delivery, unknowingly saves Gao Ming by knocking. Gao Ming tries to reward him, but his strange behavior frightens Su Mo into fleeing.
• Gao Ming’s memories of his parents are warm and ordinary, making the possibility that the callers are impostors especially disturbing.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty of identity and memory: Gao Ming cannot remember who took the family photo and questions whether familiar voices are truly his parents.
• The supernatural invading ordinary life: A routine phone call and food delivery become part of a dangerous haunting.
• Fear turning into strategy: Gao Ming begins treating the ghostly parents not only as a threat, but as a potential tool.

Chapter 17 Summary

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming studies his family’s memorial photographs and considers how to activate their individual powers. Though his Ghost Parents can protect him by delivering cake, he knows he needs greater help to survive the growing supernatural chaos.
• He thinks about the thirty-six criminals from his earlier game designs. Some are irredeemable, but others may have been shaped by hardship; Gao Ming hopes he can prevent some of their tragedies. He considers contacting the Investigation Bureau, while recognizing that its involvement could limit his freedom.
• At five in the morning, Xuan Wen arrives and insists Gao Ming accompany her to Nightlight Studio. She wants them to finish a romance game and test whether its story can affect her.
• Xuan Wen proposes transforming the project into a terrifying romance game centered on her and Gao Ming, with the other female leads’ stories cut or ending in their deaths. The game would also draw players in and let Xuan Wen feed on their emotions.
• Together, Gao Ming and Xuan Wen prepare a new proposal featuring murder cases, disturbing imagery, and a bold marketing plan. They persuade Manager Gou and the studio staff to consider abandoning the conventional romance-game approach for horror.
• Gao Ming argues that Nightlight Studio must target a distinct audience to survive. He pledges to make the game frightening enough to stand out, drawing on his recent firsthand experiences.

Character developments

• Gao Ming is increasingly focused on survival and accepts responsibility for helping people shaped by the tragedies in his designs. He also sees horror-game design as a way to prepare players for real danger.
• Xuan Wen is determined, efficient, and still pursuing greater strength and freedom. Her relationship with Gao Ming remains a pragmatic partnership, despite the supernatural attachment created by his game design.
• Manager Gou remains cautious about risking the studio’s future but is impressed by the proposal and faces the need to consider an unconventional strategy.
• Nightlight Studio’s staff begin to take the plan seriously as they see the materials and hear Gao Ming’s candid assessment of their situation.

Significant themes

• Responsibility and redemption: Gao Ming reflects on how circumstances can turn people into criminals and wonders whether he can change their fates.
• Art meeting reality: His game designs can affect people and supernatural events, making creative choices consequential beyond entertainment.
• Survival and preparation: Gao Ming wants horror games to help players recognize danger and think about how to stay alive.
• Risk versus conformity: The studio must choose between following a familiar formula and taking a risky approach to stand out.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen work together, but their partnership is marked by tension: she pushes him relentlessly, while he remains wary of her intentions.
• Gao Ming and Manager Gou debate the studio’s direction; Gao Ming urges experimentation, while Gou worries about responsibility and the client’s requirements.
• Gao Ming appeals to the staff’s shared history and precarious situation, encouraging them to back a distinctive horror project.

Plot

• Gao Ming persuades the hesitant Nightlight Studio team to test a radically changed version of their client-funded romance game. Instead of softening Xuan Wen’s route, he turns it into a punishing supernatural-survival horror game, drawing on murder cases and his own firsthand experiences.
• Manager Gou reluctantly supports the plan, while Gao Ming pushes for an unrestricted public test rather than a small, controlled trial. The studio retitles the game To Our Love That Will Eventually Die and releases it for free without waiting for client approval.
• The game attracts attention online, with players sharply divided between one-star and five-star reviews. Its brutal, unpredictable deaths and eerie atmosphere make it a hit among horror players.
• Investor Zhao discovers the game, recognizes the title as his proposed romance-game concept, and tries it. He becomes absorbed, dying repeatedly before reaching the eleventh night.
• When Manager Gou visits, Zhao demands an update on his investment. Gou finally points out that Zhao is already playing the game he funded, leaving Zhao stunned.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming emerges as the team’s driving force: confident, inventive, and willing to risk the studio’s remaining resources to preserve its identity. His supernatural experiences now directly shape his designs.
• Manager Gou struggles between his promise to the client and his faith in the team’s talent. He eventually backs the test and tries to manage the investor’s reaction.
• Wei Dayou and Xia Yang support Gao Ming’s proposal, helping unite the team around the project.
• Boss Zhao, initially anxious about his investment, becomes an engrossed player—experiencing firsthand the game’s appeal and the irony of its direction.
• The studio works collaboratively, studying real murder cases and trying to recreate their details, while Gao Ming’s forceful leadership contrasts with Manager Gou’s caution.

Significant themes

• Creative conviction versus commercial expectations: Nightlight risks defying the client’s brief to make the distinctive game it believes in.
• Authenticity and lived experience: Gao Ming’s firsthand encounters lend the horror a disturbing realism.
• Risk, testing, and audience judgment: The team lets players—not internal caution—decide whether the unconventional concept works.
• Horror as engagement: The game’s relentless danger frustrates and shocks players, yet keeps them coming back.

Plot points

• Gao Ming watches the game’s effect on Xuan Wen after more than a thousand people download it. Xuan Wen hears the players’ emotions as voices; their attention seems to anchor her in reality and weaken the Shadow World’s hold.
• Xuan Wen’s condition worsens: her face distorts, and she scratches herself. She refuses to leave, fearing she might lose control, and asks Gao Ming to restrain her and record her transformation so they can study it.
• Convinced that the game can safely gather emotion for Strange Tales, Xuan Wen urges Gao Ming to finish it and attract more players. Gao Ming privately considers using the profits to support the supernatural beings he controls and seeks out haunted houses—and more black-and-white photographs.
• Wei Dayou mistakes Gao Ming and Xuan Wen’s situation for a lovers’ quarrel and encourages Gao Ming to apologize. When delivery rider Su Mo brings them milk tea, he overhears their discussion about tying Xuan Wen up and recording her transformation, misunderstands its context, and is horrified when Gao Ming catches him listening.
• Meanwhile, Chairman Situ becomes acting director of the Investigation Bureau’s East District branch. He orders Doctor Lu to gather seven investigators experienced in serious anomaly events and plans to take them into a haunted building that night, disregarding normal procedure.

Character developments and interactions

• Xuan Wen shows both growing instability and self-control: she recognizes the danger she poses and seeks practical safeguards, while remaining committed to the game as a way to stay grounded.
• Gao Ming is protective toward Xuan Wen but also calculating, viewing the game as a possible source of money and resources for his supernatural plans. His blunt exchanges with Wei Dayou and Su Mo add comic relief to the chapter’s horror.
• Wei Dayou misreads the situation and offers well-meaning but misguided romantic advice. Su Mo, already wary of Gao Ming, interprets the overheard conversation as sinister and inappropriate.
• Situ is revealed as ambitious, cold, and willing to override rules; Doctor Lu is cautious but complies with his orders.

Significant themes

• Attention as power and protection: Players’ emotions strengthen the game’s connection to reality, helping restrain Xuan Wen’s supernatural influence.
• The cost of containment: Xuan Wen’s attempt to remain controlled is physically and psychologically painful, and Gao Ming must balance her safety with the office’s.
• Ethics amid catastrophe: Gao Ming considers exploiting supernatural forces for resources, while Situ dismisses established rules in pursuit of his aims.
• Comic misunderstanding beside horror: Su Mo’s misinterpretation contrasts with Xuan Wen’s genuinely dangerous condition, blending dark humor with tension.

Key plot points and events

• After startling Su Mo at Nightlight Studio, Gao Ming warns him not to pry into things he doesn’t understand and to avoid staying out late. Su Mo flees, but in an elevator he hears a story about a programmer who died at work and a possible ghost seen at the dead man’s computer.
• When another employee enters the elevator, Su Mo notices the man staring at him. The employee says, “So you really can see me,” suggesting Su Mo has encountered something supernatural.
• Meanwhile, Nightlight Studio’s game demo gains more than 15,000 downloads, lifting the team’s spirits and renewing hopes that the studio can recover.
• Gao Ming wants the staff to leave before Xuan Wen loses control, but Wei Dayou and the others insist on working late.
• In the storage room, Gao Ming finds Xuan Wen wrapped in shadows and developing black, chainlike blood vessels. He realizes that the growing audience’s awareness of her is strengthening her existence, while the emotions she consumes threaten her stability.
• Gao Ming considers destroying or claiming the chain connected to Xuan Wen’s powers, but chooses instead to leave her milk tea. After he leaves, Xuan Wen opens her eyes and questions his gesture.

Character developments and interactions

• Su Mo remains an anxious, ordinary college student trying to support his family. His fear deepens after the elevator encounter, which hints that he may be able to perceive ghosts.
• Gao Ming shows both caution and compassion. Though he recognizes the opportunity to exploit or destroy Xuan Wen, he holds back and offers her a small comfort instead.
• Xuan Wen is gaining a stronger sense of self as more people learn about her, but this growth is destabilizing. Her final remark suggests awareness of Gao Ming’s kindness—and skepticism about his motives.
• Wei Dayou is buoyed by the game’s success and represents the studio’s renewed determination, resisting Gao Ming’s attempts to send everyone home.
• The elevator employees’ ghost story spreads fear and connects workplace pressures with the supernatural events unfolding at the studio.

Significant themes

• Belief creates existence: Public attention and emotion appear to give supernatural beings greater reality and power.
• Ambition versus survival: The game’s success motivates the staff to work harder even as late-night labor becomes dangerous.
• Power and compassion: Gao Ming must choose between exploiting Xuan Wen’s vulnerability and treating her as someone capable of experience and feeling.
• Isolation and recognition: Su Mo’s question—whether he can see the employee—echoes the chapter’s broader concern with who can perceive, believe in, or acknowledge the supernatural.