Chapter Summaries

Plot points

• Situ An realizes the water ghosts haunting the school are connected to the Lishan flood he investigated years earlier. He concludes that the past has come back to destroy him—but chooses to fight rather than retreat.
• Determined to kill Gao Ming and protect his plans, Situ An unleashes the twisted children he has secretly raised in the Office Building. The building is revealed as the School Hospital’s “warehouse,” where students who broke rules were tortured and turned into test subjects.
• As the flood peaks, the Student Council president initially tries to stabilize the school. His armband then appears to possess him, and he orders the frightened to stay behind while sending only the fearless to safety.
• The armbands reveal their grotesque origin: they were stitched from Gao Yun’s body. Gao Yun takes over Student Council members afflicted by the school’s phobia, absorbs their fear, and directs unaffected students toward safety.
• Doctor Lu begins to suffer a curse. The president reveals rule 131—anyone who turns a student into a monster will die—and his body is covered with cursed rules that punish those who break them.

Character developments and interactions

• Situ An abandons caution and reveals the full cruelty behind his rule at Hande Private Academy, releasing the monsters he created in an attempt to eliminate Gao Ming.
• The Student Council president shifts from the school’s last rational defender to an apparent vessel for Gao Yun. His changed orders pit the frightened against their fears and prevent anyone from escaping.
• Gao Yun emerges as a force bound to repeated deaths and suffering in a tunnel. He commandeers the phobia-afflicted council members and turns their armbands into a means of control.
• Doctor Lu is identified as the target of Gao Yun’s rule 131 curse, directly connecting Situ An’s abuse of students to his impending punishment.

Significant themes

• The past returning as fate: Situ An’s earlier investigations and actions converge on him in the school.
• Fear as both weapon and test: Those who cannot escape their fear are forced to confront it, while Gao Yun feeds on their terror.
• Cycles of death and forgetting: Gao Yun describes repeated deaths and the pain of being sought before death, then forgotten afterward.
• Cruelty and accountability: The monsters created through Situ An’s abuse become part of the supernatural judgment turning against him.
• Rules as supernatural power: Gao Yun’s ability to inscribe rules and impose curses suggests a power normally associated with Fate.

Plot points and events

• Gao Yun reveals that every Student Council armband was part of his body; his true body had been hidden in plain sight. Using strange rules inscribed on his armband, he exposes and attacks Situ An, who is possessing Doctor Lu.
• Situ An begins a mass sacrifice, merging the school’s ghosts, adopted students, and human “bricks” with the shadow world. He hopes to create a powerful ghost and gain influence by exploiting both the Investigation Bureau and the shadow world.
• Gao Yun’s actions cripple Doctor Lu’s body and disrupt Situ An’s protections. Doctor Lu warns that reinforcements from the General Bureau are coming and predicts Gao Yun will be forced to choose between humanity and ghosts.
• Watching from Big Dog’s back, Gao Ming notices that Doctor Lu’s injuries mirror the severe injuries he had after a previous appearance in the Tunnel. He realizes Gao Yun has witnessed his repeated deaths.
• Gao Ming recalls his promise to return for Gao Yun. Their intertwined experiences suggest that both escaped cycles of death: Gao Ming through repeated deaths and rebirth, Gao Yun through his own repeated suffering and eventual arrival at the school.

Character developments

• Gao Yun is revealed as far more powerful and deeply connected to the school’s rules than Gao Ming understood. He has apparently known about Gao Ming’s repeated deaths all along.
• Gao Ming recognizes that his promise to Gao Yun was fulfilled, and that his personal struggle was witnessed and understood by someone he once considered his closest friend.
• Situ An is exposed as a ruthless schemer willing to sacrifice everyone in the academy to advance his plan. Despite his confidence and precautions, Gao Yun’s rule-based attacks overwhelm him.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and exploitation: Situ An treats people and ghosts as material for power.
• Fate, death, and persistence: Both Gao Ming and Gao Yun endure repeated death and continue forward, resisting the forces controlling them.
• Promises and connection: Gao Ming’s vow to return for Gao Yun binds their separate cycles together.
• Hidden identity and recognition: Gao Yun’s true body was concealed in plain sight, while Gao Ming only now understands how much his friend knew and witnessed.

Character interactions

• Gao Yun directly confronts Situ An, countering his protections through the school’s curse rules.
• Gao Ming observes Gao Yun’s attack and interprets the matching injuries as evidence that Gao Yun has repeatedly seen him die.
• Though separated by the Tunnel and the present-day school, Gao Ming and Gao Yun remain linked by their shared past, Gao Ming’s promise, and their parallel struggles.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming infers that Situ An’s lingering blood has returned to the Office Building and asks the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God to devour him. Guided by Gao Yun’s hint, he follows the trail with Big Dog, using the flood and shadows to slip past the investigators.
• Situ An’s sacrifice summons a powerful presence from the Shadow World, which tries to seize Hande Private Academy. The Student Council President invokes the school’s rules to resist it, while declaring his intention to defy Fate.
• Zhang Ding and the survivors from Minlong Street join the fight, directing the water ghosts and the flood toward the shadow shrine.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree, driven by fear and rooted in the Phobia patients, advances from the collapsing Grand Auditorium. Its approach further destabilizes the academy and infects the investigators with fear.
• As several overwhelming forces converge, Big Dog tracks the blood trail through the Office Building’s maze-like rooms and stops at a previously unseen door marked “Teaching Assessment Room.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious with Gao Yun, recognizing that his hints are deliberate and that pressing him could be dangerous. He takes action based on the clue instead.
• The Student Council President reveals his commitment to resisting the Shadow World entity and challenging the predetermined future, even at the cost of his own body.
• Zhang Ding shifts from survivor to combatant, leading the Minlong Street group and using his limited control over the water ghosts to help Gao Ming.
• Ji Zhe fully embraces fear and his role as its source, becoming part of the Giant Tree and continuing forward even if the phobia patients are cured.
• Big Dog serves as Gao Ming’s tracker and guide, following Situ An’s blood into the unexplored part of the building.

Significant themes

• Defying fate: The Student Council President frames resistance as a fight against an apparently predetermined future.
• Fear as power and identity: Ji Zhe accepts fear rather than trying to escape it, while the Giant Tree turns collective terror into strength.
• Sacrifice and consequence: Situ An’s bloodline-ending sacrifice summons a dangerous force, intensifying the crisis.
• Colliding agendas amid chaos: The Student Council seeks order, while other groups act for their own survival or aims, pushing the anomaly toward catastrophe.

Key plot points and events

• Driven by repeated memories of his own brutal deaths, Gao Ming forces open the door to the Teaching Assessment Room before the black dog can stop him.
• The room is a hidden surveillance center: its screens monitor much of Hande Private Academy, and its microphone and camera let someone issue commands across the school.
• The feeds reveal Situ An, visibly ill and deteriorating but still composed. Speaking through the room’s surveillance system, he deduces that Gao Ming likely killed Doctor Lu and had been targeting him.
• Situ An offers Gao Ming wealth and influence, then argues that his actions—including turning Hande Academy into a place where students are sacrificed—serve a larger purpose: resisting a dehumanizing social order and preparing for the Shadow World’s inevitable invasion.
• He describes his experiment as a chance to destroy the old order and build a world that benefits everyone. Gao Ming locates him despite the deception of the screens.
• Gao Ming rejects Situ An’s justification, accusing him of seeking power for himself rather than liberation. The chapter ends before the two confront one another.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains focused on killing Situ An, even when offered rewards or challenged with arguments about justice. He interprets Situ An’s desire to escape Fate as a desire to control others in turn.
• Situ An is revealed as both a ruthless manipulator and an ideological revolutionary. Though physically failing, he retains confidence and composure, and shows Gao Ming a mix of respect, interest, and hostility.
• The black dog follows Gao Ming into the room but hesitates at the threshold, adding a note of uncertainty as the hidden center is revealed.

Significant themes

• Justice and perspective: Situ An argues that society decides who counts as just; Gao Ming judges him by his motives and sacrifices.
• Freedom versus control: Situ An frames upheaval as liberation from a closed, unequal world, while Gao Ming sees his ambition as a bid to become a new authority.
• Sacrifice and the greater good: Situ An claims deaths are necessary for a better future, but the chapter leaves open whether this is conviction or self-serving rationalization.
• Fate and power: The central divide is whether breaking free of Fate means freeing others—or gaining the power to rule them.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Situ An conduct a tense, largely verbal confrontation: Situ An analyzes Gao Ming, probes his motives, and tries to recruit or persuade him; Gao Ming refuses to engage with the offer and searches for his physical location.
• Their exchange establishes mutual recognition: Situ An admires Gao Ming while viewing him as a threat, and Gao Ming believes he understands the selfishness beneath Situ An’s ideals.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming confronts Situ An, who offers to make him powerful if he joins him. Gao Ming rejects the offer and says he would rather drag Situ An into the abyss.
• Gao Ming’s eight-armed Flesh-and-Blood Immortal attacks the living, flesh-built grudge house where Situ An is hiding. Its childlike cries suggest a connection to the little ghost Situ An is said to have raised.
• Gong Xi, one of the Immortal’s faces, recognizes Situ An as the man who killed his family and sewed his mouth shut, intensifying the attack.
• Situ An realizes Gao Ming has summoned the very ghost god he spent years trying to worship. Gao Ming merges with it, reliving the pain of his past deaths as he forces his way into the grudge house.
• Situ An warns that killing him could cause Hande Private Academy and its strange tales to spill fully into the city. Gao Ming ignores him and presses on, determined to kill him.
• As flesh-and-blood monsters fail to stop Gao Ming, Situ An is dragged back and takes out a black-and-white photograph of Hande Academy of Letters. The chapter ends before its purpose is revealed.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is shown as single-minded and frighteningly relentless. He sees Situ An’s repeated attempts on his life as making their conflict unavoidable, and accepts immense pain and risk to reach him.
• Situ An remains calculating and self-justifying, portraying his ambition as necessity and offering Gao Ming a place at his side. For the first time, Gao Ming’s ferocity visibly unsettles him.
• Gong Xi directs personal rage at Situ An for the destruction of his family.
• Big Dog is shocked by Gao Ming’s brutality, having mistaken him for a gentle, refined person.
• The confrontation is chiefly a clash of wills: Situ An tries to bargain and threaten, while Gao Ming refuses to engage with anything but his goal.

Significant themes

• Power and hypocrisy: Situ An invokes civilization and public order while treating people as expendable tools.
• Inevitability and vengeance: Gao Ming believes their conflict cannot be avoided as long as he continues to grow, and past deaths fuel his pursuit.
• Sacrifice and obsession: Both men are driven by extreme ambitions, but Gao Ming’s is reduced to one clear purpose: Situ An’s death.
• The cost of violence: Gao Ming’s power is tied to reliving the pain of dying, making his attack as self-destructive as it is forceful.

Key events

• Gao Ming ignores Big Dog’s warning and charges straight at Situ An, consumed by the need to kill him.
• The Teachers trapped in the Black-and-White Posthumous Photo attack Gao Ming through the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, planting seeds of negative emotion in his body.
• Rather than retreat, Gao Ming lets their roots enter his heart. The Teachers discover his inner world is already a wasteland twisted by countless deaths; they cannot harm him and become trapped there.
• Situ An, weakened and desperate, orders the Teachers to help him and tears the photograph apart. Its destruction breaks his influence over the school, but also triggers a full collapse.
• Situ An escapes through a tunnel of flesh and blood, apparently pulled along by a childlike presence. Gao Ming pursues him.
• Hande Private Academy merges with reality. Its perimeter wall collapses, revealing the General Investigation Bureau’s forces outside, ready to contain the disaster.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows that his fixation on killing Situ An overrides self-preservation. His willingness to absorb the Teachers’ attack makes his already damaged inner world central to the confrontation.
• Situ An shifts from manipulator to cornered fugitive. He blames Gao Ming for the crisis, but his decision to destroy the photograph and accelerate the school’s collapse is an act of self-preservation that endangers Hanhai.
• Big Dog recognizes Gao Ming’s dangerous change and tries to stop him, but cannot reach him.
• The Teachers turn against Gao Ming as Situ An commands, yet their assault traps them in his Heart Chamber instead.
• The school’s rules and the General Investigation Bureau’s containment efforts shape the conflict: as Situ An’s control fails, the Bureau’s presence becomes visible beyond the school.

Significant themes

• Obsession and self-destruction: Gao Ming pursues vengeance even at immense personal cost.
• Manipulation and betrayal: Situ An’s control depends on planted influences and alliances that prove unreliable.
• Collapse and consequence: Situ An’s desperate escape plan sacrifices the boundary between the school and the real world, exposing an entire city to danger.

Key plot points and events

• As Hande Private Academy’s level-four anomaly spirals out of control, the Investigation Bureau surrounds the school. Students mistake the searchlights and breach for rescue, but the Bureau opens fire on those rushing out, treating everyone inside as a possible ghost substitute.
• The phobia infection reaches its final stage, and both trapped people and ghosts rush to escape. Greater ghosts begin moving, while the school’s rules and spreading shadows make the crisis worse.
• Gao Ming pursues Situ An through the flesh-and-blood Grudge House, ignoring injuries and obstructions. At the tunnel’s center, Situ An reaches a child who looks almost exactly like him and orders him to kill Gao Ming.
• Situ An uses the child as a shield, then escapes through the Grudge House’s exit—revealing that the tunnel had been meant to keep Gao Ming from following him.
• Gao Ming and the Eight-Armed Ghost God overpower and absorb the child into the Execution House. The child does not resist, instead watching Situ An flee. The attack exposes memories that reveal another side of Situ An.
• The Investigation Bureau is ordered to enter the school despite the danger, apparently determined to retrieve Situ An. Meanwhile, the Student Council president triggers multiple campus rules in an effort to stop those entering.
• The chapter frames the events as part of three interlocking cycles: Gao Ming’s deaths and resets, Gao Yun and Class Thirteen’s Death Bus journey from ten years earlier, and Situ An’s repeated escalation of anomaly events and the shadow world’s invasion.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains single-mindedly determined to kill Situ An. His rage and resolve push him to cooperate with the Eight-Armed Ghost God, even at great physical cost.
• Situ An reveals his willingness to abandon even the child who resembles him. His brief backward glance suggests unease: the child knows secrets about him and may be essential to his connection with the shadow world.
• The child appears to be closely tied to Situ An’s past or identity. He obeys—or at least does not resist—when used as a sacrifice, leaving his true nature and motives uncertain.
• Wang Jie recognizes that the apparent escape route is a trap and urges Xishan to find a vehicle. His harshness contrasts with Xishan’s initial relief.
• The Investigation Bureau treats the school’s occupants as potential threats, while its sudden order to retrieve Situ An hints that he is unusually important to the authorities.

Significant themes

• False hope and desperation: A possible exit drives people and ghosts into danger; despair becomes more complicated when escape seems within reach.
• Cycles and repetition: The chapter connects several timelines and recurring patterns, suggesting the current crisis is part of a larger structure.
• Betrayal and self-preservation: Situ An sacrifices the child to save himself, reflecting how far he will go to protect his interests.
• Uncertainty of identity: The Bureau cannot reliably distinguish ordinary people from ghost substitutes, and the child’s resemblance to Situ An blurs the line between person, past self, and ghost.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and the Ghost God probe the memories of Situ An’s biological child, uncovering that Situ An has spent decades manipulating Hanhai’s supernatural disasters and may be helping the Shadow World merge with the city.
• The child was treated as a tool from birth. His mother died after childbirth, and the flesh-and-blood Grudge House was made from her body—the only place he felt safe.
• Before Gao Ming can reach his deepest memories, the child crushes his own heart, scattering crucial information. The hidden blood-red imprint of a city transfers to Gao Ming’s Execution House.
• The Ghost God absorbs the child and his Grudge House, recovering fully and growing enormously stronger. It can now spread flesh and blood through nearby buildings and turn them into temporary Grudge Houses.
• Outside, the Investigation Bureau and various groups clash amid widespread chaos. Gao Ming spots Xishan and Wang Jie escaping in a vehicle, joins them, and orders them to pursue the vehicle carrying Situ An.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming realizes that many calamities he thought he had foreseen or controlled were actually engineered by Situ An. He regards Situ An himself—not merely his supernatural resources—as the real threat, and vows to kill him.
• The child’s final act is a grim expression of loyalty to the father who never loved him: he destroys his memories to keep them from Gao Ming.
• Xishan is startled to find Gao Ming alive and suggests they flee; Wang Jie argues that capturing the East District bureau chief could give them leverage. Gao Ming listens but stays focused on the pursuit.
• Student Council members appear to be steering Situ An’s vehicle toward Gao Ming, hinting at a possible confrontation.

Significant themes

• Manipulation and power: Situ An’s intelligence, charisma, and long-term schemes have shaped both people and disasters across Hanhai.
• Family without love: Situ An’s marriage and child were instruments of a bargain, while the child’s loyalty persists despite his emotional neglect.
• Cycles and hidden causality: Gao Ming’s understanding of the city changes as he discovers that apparent fate and past “foreknowledge” were partly orchestrated.
• Safety amid cruelty: The child’s Grudge House, built from his mother’s body, represents a refuge fashioned from the only connection he had.

Key plot points and events

• Wang Jie sees the chaos caused by the flood and ghosts as the best opportunity to capture Situ An—and possibly take his place as East District bureau chief. He avoids the Student Council’s apparent pursuit route and drives ahead to intercept Situ An’s convoy.
• Wang Jie rams the convoy, forcing its vehicle off the road. Gao Ming and Gao Yun rush to the wreck, but two Security personnel get Situ An out and flee before the vehicle explodes.
• A burning, scarred figure emerges: Fu Huo, an Investigation Bureau office director whose credentials identify him as being from the Xinhu Old City office. Though engulfed in flames, he feels no pain and displays power comparable to a greater ghost. He orders everyone back into the school.
• Wang Jie and Gao Ming pursue Situ An through the flames. Gao Yun holds Fu Huo back using the school’s rules and cursed ribs.
• The chapter reveals that Gao Yun’s hidden Black-and-White Posthumous Photo depicts honored students, Student Council members, and alumni. Combined with Situ An’s photo and the photograph held by Yan Xizhi, it forms the true level-four anomaly event: Hande Private Academy.
• The General Investigation Bureau commits its Security forces to extracting Situ An, even at the risk of letting substitute ghosts escape. Gao Ming realizes the Bureau is prepared to sacrifice the school to protect Situ An.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Jie reveals his ambition and ruthlessness. He treats both investigators and ghost students as obstacles, and his determination to reach Situ An overrides concern for himself or Xishan.
• Gao Ming joins the pursuit and grows more distrustful of the Investigation Bureau. He now sees rescuing Situ An as the start of an open conflict with it.
• Gao Yun, the Student Council President, claims that his school rules were created to help people and that he alone is fulfilling the old principal’s wish. The students in his photo appear to recognize him, granting him temporary use of the campus rules beyond the school.
• Xishan remains dependent on Wang Jie and Gao Ming, following their lead despite his fear.
• Fu Huo is introduced as a powerful, apparently fire-resistant ghost aligned with the Investigation Bureau’s efforts to stop the pursuit. The Student Council President confronts him directly.

Significant themes

• Ambition and self-interest: Wang Jie’s bid for power mirrors the broader struggle among the Bureau’s factions.
• Institutional power and sacrifice: The General Bureau prioritizes Situ An over the school and the people endangered by its decision.
• Competing motives: Gao Yun presents himself as acting for the common good, contrasting with the self-serving behavior he sees around him.
• Hidden truths and layered identity: The combined photographs reveal that the school itself—not merely the events within it—is the level-four anomaly.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• The Level Four anomaly escalates toward Level Five, while factions in the Investigation Bureau struggle over what to do. Despite his injuries, Bureau Chief Situ An is considered too important to lose because he carries vital information about the school disaster.
• Gao Ming uses the chaos to escape: the Eight-Armed Ghost God shields him, and the Black Dog swallows him and slips away. The Ghost God then distracts the Bureau’s forces by attacking them.
• Situ An’s supposed escort raises his suspicions, but before he can investigate, Substitute Ghost–ridden school buses charge through the Bureau’s blockade. Floodwater brings further danger, including the Physical Education Teacher, who attacks the Security team.
• Two Security officers sacrifice themselves to protect Situ An. By swallowing fragments of Red Raincoats, they briefly invoke the power of Red Garments—an extremely dangerous practice that often kills those who succeed.
• Just as Hanhai Investigators reach Situ An, Yan Shaoyu attacks and wounds him. Liu Yi approaches with a dagger and declares that Gao Ming and Gao Yun both want him dead, so he must deserve it.

Character developments

• Gao Ming takes advantage of the confusion to escape and remains focused on his own plans, including absorbing Situ An.
• Situ An maintains his composed, authoritative manner despite his wounds, but his suspicions grow as the escort’s identity and promised transport become uncertain. By the end, he is cornered and badly vulnerable.
• The Security officers are shown as fiercely dutiful: they knowingly risk—and effectively give—their lives to defend Situ An and protect the city.
• Yan Shaoyu and Liu Yi emerge as direct threats to Situ An. Liu Yi frames the attack as justified by the fact that both Gao Ming and Gao Yun seek his death.

Character interactions

• The Eight-Armed Ghost God protects Gao Ming while drawing Bureau forces away from him.
• Situ An questions his escorts, but the flood and attacking ghosts prevent him from learning whether they can be trusted.
• Security officers Zhao Li and Zhao Yi confront the Physical Education Teacher to buy Situ An time.
• Yan Shaoyu ambushes Situ An, and Liu Yi advances on him, turning the rescue effort into a new attempt on his life.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and duty: Security personnel accept horrific risks in the name of protecting the city and their Bureau Chief.
• Power at a cost: Red Garment fragments offer extraordinary strength, but summoning their power can destroy the user.
• Uncertainty and divided loyalties: Amid the disaster, alliances are unclear, and even an official escort may not be trustworthy.
• The collapse of control: The escalating anomaly overwhelms the Bureau’s defenses, leaving survival dependent on desperate individual choices.

Plot points and events

• Liu Yi attacks Situ An, but the Investigation Bureau’s armed team arrives to protect him. Yan Shaoyu kills the team leader and helps wipe out the rescuers; Situ An watches without remorse.
• As Security personnel fall across the school blockade, their Blood Rings break and fragments of the red raincoat gather around a pale arm. The sacrifice restores the complete Red Raincoat, whose blood-red rain and furious attacks engulf the area.
• Situ An recognizes the garment as the Bureau’s most powerful weapon. The Bureau had divided its fragments among Security personnel and manipulated the entity with children’s corpses.
• The Art Teacher, speaking through Xia Yang, becomes transfixed by Red Raincoat and begins painting her own skin, intent on capturing the obsession in the garment’s heart.
• Meanwhile, Hande Private Academy collapses, and countless Human Bricks crawl out from beneath it. Fu Huo realizes that an unknown force had kept the school’s souls from being absorbed into the shadow world.
• Yan Xizhi emerges from the mud after carrying the Human Bricks to the surface. Seeing Situ An, the new principal, she calls his name in rage.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Yi acts decisively against Situ An but recognizes that the Bureau’s agents are being deceived and used. She is also frustrated that he survives amid the chaos.
• Situ An remains cold as the rescuers die, then reveals his fascination with the complete Red Raincoat. Yan Xizhi’s unexpected return finally shakes his composure.
• Red Raincoat is driven by the consuming, unresolved need to find her child. Her love has become a destructive obsession that turns the city into a field of bloodshed.
• Xia Yang sees Red Raincoat not as a person to save but as an extraordinary subject for art, captivated by the emotion embodied in her.
• Fu Huo grieves the loss of the Security personnel and is horrified by the scale of the Human Bricks’ survival. His confrontation with the Student Council President exposes the rebels’ goal: to remove the Investigation Bureau from Hanhai.
• Yan Xizhi’s feat reveals the depth of her endurance and her commitment to the trapped students. Her appearance turns the conflict toward a direct confrontation with Situ An.

Significant themes

• Love transformed into violence: Red Raincoat’s devotion to her child persists, but grief and obsession have made it catastrophic.
• Sacrifice and protection: The Security personnel die to unleash Red Raincoat, while Yan Xizhi suffers to bring the Human Bricks back to the surface.
• Control and exploitation: The Bureau manipulates supernatural beings and its own personnel; the rebels, meanwhile, reject the Bureau’s authority.
• Souls held against despair: Even after the students lose hope, an unseen force keeps them from being swallowed by the shadow world.
• Fate and survival: Situ An repeatedly escapes danger, but Yan Xizhi’s return suggests his apparent protection may finally be challenged.

Key plot points

• Yan Xizhi appears in the ruined academy and comforts the phobia-stricken students, renewing her promise never to abandon them.
• She confronts Situ An, who argues that happiness always comes at someone else’s expense. Yan acknowledges that she cannot give everyone a good life, but chooses to protect those who still believe in one.
• The students and Human Bricks gather around Yan by choice, while the coercive school rules lose their power. Their intertwined fates awaken her extraordinary ability, making her a potential maker of Hanhai’s future rules.
• Situ An sees Yan’s emergence as fate rewarding her for work he did, and vows to break free of his assigned role.
• Yan’s growing influence weakens Red Raincoat and the blood rain. Xia Yang attacks Red Raincoat through Art Teacher, but she tears open Art Teacher’s chest and throws away the painted skin.
• As Situ An stays close to Red Raincoat for protection, Gao Ming—concealed inside Big Dog—leaps out and grabs him by the throat.

Character developments and interactions

• Yan Xizhi moves from comforting teacher to determined protector, willing to kill to defend the students. Her power comes from their trust and shared connection, not threats.
• Situ An is unsettled by Yan’s goodness, which exposes his own worldview and self-loathing. He interprets her rise as an unfair fate and becomes more defiant.
• Gao Ming turns his memories of death into resolve, feeling that seizing Situ An is the first time he has truly grasped his own fate.
• Xia Yang displays disturbing fascination with Red Raincoat, treating the danger of being killed by her as artistic inspiration.
• Red Raincoat remains driven by the refusal to accept fate, but Yan’s influence weakens her powers.

Significant themes

• Hope versus cynicism: Yan admits happiness cannot be universal, but believes it can still matter to those willing to trust in it.
• Choice versus coercion: The students choose Yan freely, contrasting with rules that demand obedience through death.
• Fate and agency: Situ An resents the role he believes fate assigned him, while Gao Ming’s attack marks a moment of reclaimed agency.
• Community and belonging: The academy’s meaning survives its physical destruction through its students, memories, and the people who care for them.

Plot points

• In the storm, Gao Ming finally catches Situ An alone and strangles him, determined not to let his long-planned revenge fail.
• Situ An’s elaborate defenses have all been dismantled. As he dies, he wonders whether fate has arranged his downfall and believes Gao Ming, too, is trapped by fate.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God answers Gao Ming’s call, captures Situ An, and imprisons him in the Execution House inside Gao Ming’s heart.
• With Situ An confined, the death memories linked to him stop tormenting Gao Ming and merge into Gao Ming’s body and mind. Gao Ming feels a profound release and recognizes that the future has changed.
• Big Dog carries the exhausted Gao Ming away. Gao Ming then enters the Execution House, where Xia Yang’s self-portrait has appeared. Xia Yang explains that, through painting there, he has become bound to Gao Ming and can no longer restart his life.
• Situ An remains chained but hopeful. Xia Yang offers to paint him, while Gao Ming settles in beside the Ghost God.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming completes his long-awaited revenge without hesitation. His relief suggests that killing and imprisoning Situ An has lifted a deep psychological burden, while his changing physical abilities reflect the integration of his past selves.
• Situ An loses the power and protections that once made him seem untouchable. Even imprisoned, he retains his calculating, defiant belief that he may still escape.
• Xia Yang is revealed to be permanently tied to Gao Ming through his self-portrait in the Execution House. He is fascinated by Situ An and treats him as a subject for his art.
• Big Dog protects Gao Ming by carrying him from the dangerous scene, though he rebukes him for choosing to kill Situ An there and then.
• The Ghost God serves as Gao Ming’s force in the confrontation, swallowing Situ An and delivering him to the heart-prison.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: Situ An attributes his collapse to fate, but Gao Ming’s actions have altered futures in which Situ An was always present.
• Revenge and the cost of survival: Gao Ming’s repeated deaths and accumulated suffering culminate in his revenge, which brings relief but also turns him into the keeper of a personal prison.
• Memory and identity: The dead versions of Gao Ming become part of him, transforming both his abilities and his sense of self.
• Power and vulnerability: Situ An’s resources and schemes cannot protect him once Gao Ming reaches him, though his enduring hope shows that defeat has not erased his will.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming holds Situ An captive inside his heart chamber, where Xia Yang paints and tries to claim Situ An’s soul for his collection. Gao Ming keeps both men contained for now: he wants to learn more from Situ An and has no immediate plan to destroy Xia Yang.
• Situ An tries to discover why Gao Ming wants him dead, listing many of his own atrocities. Gao Ming says Situ An never personally harmed him—he simply wants to destroy him.
• Situ An warns that powerful people will eventually come looking for him, and that killing him could leave Gao Ming in his place. He then reveals that anomaly events did not begin recently: a door to the shadow world appeared in Hanjiang more than sixty years ago.
• According to secret General Investigation Bureau files, the people who first learned of the door went through it themselves, invading the shadow world rather than waiting for it to invade them. Situ An also contrasts Hanjiang, where powerful red-clad ghosts fought the shadow world, with Xinhu, where technology and daily life are being blended with it.
• Situ An claims Xinhu is helping the shadow world’s influence spread and says he is holding the line in Hanhai. Gao Ming rejects this as self-serving, suggesting Xinhu may be reshaping the shadow world rather than surrendering to it.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is unusually relaxed and pleased at the prospect of destroying Situ An. He remains wary, however, and challenges Situ An’s claims rather than accepting his self-portrayal as Hanhai’s defender.
• Situ An shows no willingness to submit despite his torture. He probes Gao Ming’s motives, admits the scale of his crimes, and offers consequential revelations while carefully controlling what he reveals.
• Xia Yang is identified as Gao Ming’s “truest self”—the self that takes on the acts Gao Ming refuses to own. He enjoys the strange company in Gao Ming’s chamber and continues painting Situ An, with each torn canvas inflicting wounds on his captive.
• The three men’s exchange is a contest of control: Gao Ming interrogates and judges, Situ An tests and warns him, and Xia Yang observes and acts on his own unsettling interests.

Significant themes

• Identity and responsibility: Xia Yang embodies the darker acts Gao Ming may disown, raising questions about whether separating one’s “true self” from one’s actions absolves anyone.
• Power, guilt, and survival: Situ An’s crimes are extensive, yet he insists he remains alive because he is still useful—and warns that replacing him may mean inheriting his role.
• Unreliable narratives and competing motives: Situ An mixes startling disclosures with possible self-justification, while Gao Ming’s skepticism leaves the truth about Xinhu unresolved.
• Reality’s unstable boundaries: The door, the shadow world, and Xinhu’s blending of memory, technology, and experience suggest that the distinction between worlds—and between the living and the dead—is breaking down.

Key plot points and events

• Situ An reveals that the Shadow World contains reflections of real cities. Xinhu’s shadow is a vast, blood-red city tied to someone in Xinhu, while Hanhai’s shadow has no master yet—meaning someone could potentially claim it.
• He warns that several powerful parties will seek him because of the secrets he knows, including the General Investigation Bureau, Xinhu’s Dream Murmur, and agents of the Shadow World. Since Gao Ming abducted him, those pursuers may target everyone involved.
• Gao Ming returns from the Execution House to learn that Hande Private Academy has collapsed into chaos. The Investigation Bureau’s blockade has been breached, and Class Thirteen has escaped with substitute ghosts, scattering in hijacked vehicles.
• Inside the academy, the Red Raincoat is losing strength while fighting You Liang, the Art Teacher, and Zhong Long, but refuses to flee.
• Yan Xizhi has become the school’s real authority over its rules. She is fighting the Red Raincoat, trying to cure Ji Zhe, and attempting to drive out the entity from the Shadow World.
• Ji Zhe and people with severe phobias, fused with the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree, attack the Shadow Shrine. Their fear infects the offerings and unsettles the entity within. Ji Zhe’s assault makes him the central force in the catastrophe.

Character developments and interactions

• Situ An remains composed and uses his knowledge to protect himself, implying that his captors may face retaliation if they destroy him or let him die.
• Gao Ming weighs Situ An’s revelations against events in the academy and considers approaching the weakened Red Raincoat to learn more about Hanjiang’s ghosts.
• Xia Yang remains cruel and fascinated by suffering, but he also understands that Gao Ming must survive because Xia Yang hopes to be reborn through him.
• Ji Zhe transforms from someone who considers himself a lifelong coward into a self-appointed hero, determined to fight despite the danger.
• The academy’s remaining forces are divided: many flee, while Yan Xizhi’s pupils and the Human Bricks stay behind.

Significant themes

• Ambition and power: Hanhai’s unclaimed shadow city creates the possibility of a new ruler.
• Secrets and retaliation: Situ An’s knowledge makes him valuable—and puts those connected to him at risk.
• Fear as a weapon: Ji Zhe’s group turns fear into an attack that even the Shadow World entity struggles to withstand.
• Heroism and reputation: Ji Zhe’s attempt at courage is real, but the authorities record him as a dangerous enemy responsible for the disaster, showing how public judgment can invert a person’s intentions.

Plot points and events

• The Hande Private Academy disaster escalates far beyond its original threat level. With the Investigation Bureau’s defensive lines broken and its reinforcements dead, Fu Huo decides to retreat and establish a new line in Hanhai’s East District. He rescues Zhuo Jun, Yuan Hui, and others while ordering an urgent call for support.
• The Student Council President, revealed as only one fragment of Gao Yun, tells Gao Ming that Gao Yun has hidden himself among the Student Council members. He warns that a catastrophe is coming and that many people may die as the price of breaking Fate.
• Gao Yun gives up control of the school rules to Yan Xizhi, who uses them to suppress Red Raincoat. When Yan briefly falters, Red Raincoat attacks Gao Ming, drawn to the dead child’s heart he carries.
• As the Student Council President escapes, he reveals that Hanjiang may hold answers about Gao Ming’s past and the “door.” He leaves Red Raincoat as a deliberately dangerous “gift,” believing she may know something useful.
• Gao Ming’s Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and the Execution House’s chains manage to capture Red Raincoat, but she gravely wounds Gao Ming before being dragged inside.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains determined to find answers about his deaths, Gao Yun, and the door. He reflects that surviving is a reward for the suffering he has already endured, though the battle leaves him badly injured.
• Gao Yun continues avoiding Gao Ming while pursuing his own way to evade Fate. His presence is scattered among the Student Council members.
• The Student Council President is revealed to be a damaged piece of Gao Yun. Despite his evasiveness, he helps Gao Ming by pointing him toward Hanjiang and arranging Red Raincoat’s capture.
• Fu Huo shifts from fighting the disaster to organizing a retreat and preserving whoever can be saved.
• Red Raincoat is shown as terrifyingly powerful and driven by slaughter, yet her reaction to the child’s heart suggests a deep connection to it.
• Xia Yang remains trapped in Gao Ming’s heart, but can still influence events by making his portrait of Red Raincoat appear on Gao Ming’s body.

Significant themes

• The cost of defying Fate: The coming disaster is framed as the price of breaking predetermined outcomes.
• Survival and sacrifice: Gao Ming sees continued life as hard-won, while the battle makes clear how many lives may be lost.
• Fragmented identity and hidden selves: Gao Yun’s existence across multiple Student Council members blurs the distinction between one person and many.
• Power as danger: Red Raincoat may be a source of answers, but capturing her nearly kills Gao Ming.

Character interactions

• Fu Huo takes command of the retreat and relies on Zhuo Jun to identify Bureau personnel and coordinate the withdrawal.
• The Student Council President warns Gao Ming about the approaching catastrophe, refuses his hand, and leaves him clues rather than meeting Gao Yun directly.
• Red Raincoat attacks Gao Ming, while the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and the Execution House’s chains struggle to contain her.
• Xia Yang, You Liang, Yan Xizhi, and Liu Yi urge Gao Ming to let them help, but the immediate fight leaves little room for discussion.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming survives the ordeal of placing Red Raincoat’s obsession inside his heart. As it threatens to overwhelm him, Principal Yan Xizhi uses the School Rules to steady him and calm the Red Garment.
• Red Raincoat, Gao Ming, and Situ An’s soul-heart begin beating in sync. Gao Ming learns that Red Garments are driven by painful obsessions: they neither choose to become ghosts nor want to surrender their ties to the living world.
• Rather than bind Red Raincoat and risk her breaking loose, Gao Ming accepts the danger of sharing his heart with her.
• With Situ An’s Shadow Shrine gone, the group faces the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree, which has absorbed frightened students and attacked both monsters and people. Yan Xizhi stays behind to contain it, believing its frightened souls might still be helped.
• You Liang warns that Situ An’s schemes may destabilize the whole city and urges Gao Ming not to become like him. Gao Ming instead plans to publish game guides and prepare people for the coming Universal Real Ghost Story Game—one he designed.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming endures the Red Garment’s suffering and chooses coexistence over control. His willingness to accept danger shows both his resolve and his growing readiness to take an active role in the approaching crisis.
• Yan Xizhi demonstrates the protective power of the School Rules, though helping Gao Ming visibly exhausts her. She remains behind with the Human Bricks to contain the tree and try to reform it.
• Red Raincoat shifts from a murderous frenzy to a calmer, shared rhythm with Gao Ming, though she remains an unpredictable presence within him.
• You Liang rejects Gao Ming’s implied invitation to build power, emphasizing the need to save people and warning him against becoming another Situ An.
• Liu Yi helps Gao Ming recover, while Yan Shaoyu watches their closeness warily. Liu Yi is later alarmed by Gao Ming’s plan to involve everyone in his horror game.

Significant themes

• Obsession and suffering: Red Garments’ powers and torment come from the unresolved attachments that keep them tied to life.
• Control versus acceptance: Gao Ming chooses to live with Red Raincoat’s danger rather than suppress her completely.
• Education and redemption: Yan Xizhi believes even the tree’s fearful, damaged souls may be changed.
• Becoming the darkness: With dawn absent and catastrophe approaching, Gao Ming resolves to use the night’s own tools to face what is coming—even as that choice risks making him resemble the threats he opposes.

Plot points and events

• With communications restored, Gao Ming calls Xuan Wen. He asks her to screen and guide new Deadwater Forum players and sends beginner-level game plans. He also urges her to promote a game based on her, explaining that it could help players anticipate disasters and survive them.
• Xuan Wen senses another woman with Gao Ming and teases him about a supposed romance. Gao Ming insists Liu Yi is only his former classmate; Liu Yi offers to call Xuan Wen and clarify, but Gao Ming refuses.
• Gao Ming and Liu Yi head through the woods to rejoin Zhang Ding. Gao Ming considers the supernatural hierarchy of Hanhai and concludes Zhang Ding may be able to command rules if he fully masters the flood disaster tied to his grudge house.
• Trapped in a wrecked car with an injured, pinned leg, Wang Jie learns the signal has returned. Rather than flee, he contacts his powerful family, reports what happened, and vows that Situ An and Zhuo Jun will pay.
• The Student Council President uses Song Xue’s spirit, imprisoned in a phone, to locate Class Thirteen students and circulate predictions of how they will die. He claims this is meant to offer them another choice after they suffer, though Song Xue reminds him that some helped him.
• Ji Fu discovers Hanhai has issued a Dangerous Persons List. He is startled to see fifty-one suspects associated with Class Thirteen, despite the class having only fifty students.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains focused on preparing others for the spreading crisis, while overlooking Xuan Wen’s jealousy and concern.
• Xuan Wen mixes practical cooperation with personal teasing, suggesting she wants more reassurance from Gao Ming.
• Liu Yi stays earnest and literal, offering to resolve the misunderstanding directly.
• Wang Jie shifts from helplessness to determination once he can call on his family; Xishan’s loyalty is shown by staying to help him escape.
• The Student Council President presents his curse as a way to give Class Thirteen a choice, but his methods and Song Xue’s objections make his motives troubling.
• Song Xue remains conscious and able to speak from within the phone, highlighting the President’s control over her.

Significant themes

• Preparation and survival: Gao Ming’s games and forum network are intended to help ordinary people face future anomalies.
• Power through memory, belief, and collective strength: Different kinds of ghosts grow through human remembrance, other ghosts, or control of rules.
• Uneasy moral choices: The President claims to help his former classmates while imposing curses and predicting their deaths.
• Interdependence and influence: Characters rely on allies, family networks, and shared belief rather than acting alone.
• The crisis widening: Restored communications bring new information, but also reveal that danger and conflict are spreading across Hanhai.

Plot points and events

• Fu Huo and the surviving East District investigators reach a heavily guarded checkpoint outside the district. Authorities seal the roads and detain them for screening, fearing that Hande Private Academy’s substitute ghosts could take over other people.
• At an isolation ward, Fu Huo criticizes the Hanhai authorities, while Zhuo Jun suspects they may be considering silencing the witnesses. A mysterious projection interrogates the group, focusing first on the disappearance of Situ An rather than the academy disaster.
• Zhuo Jun presents a misleading account of Situ An’s last moments, portraying him as a heroic defender and naming several classmates who were present. He then vastly inflates the number of victims at the academy—from roughly five hundred to 4,534—so the deaths can be blamed on the ghosts and the out-of-control school.
• Elsewhere, Cai Meimei returns home believing she escaped the substitute ghosts on the bus. But the ghosts are already inside her body. As they struggle to possess her, she grotesquely transforms and crawls toward her surveillance camera, accusing it: “You saw it! You saw me!”

Character developments and interactions

• Zhuo Jun shifts from anxious subordinate to opportunistic survivor. With Situ An missing, he sees a chance to advance and carefully shapes his testimony to protect himself and redirect blame.
• Fu Huo remains defiant despite severe injuries, openly condemning the authorities’ treatment of the investigators.
• Cai Meimei goes from terrified relief to helpless possession, showing that escape from the school or bus does not mean escape from the ghosts.
• Zhuo Jun and Fu Huo clash over the authorities’ motives, while the investigators are collectively subjected to a tense, politically charged interrogation.

Significant themes

• Institutional power and scapegoating: Officials focus on Situ An’s disappearance, while Zhuo Jun manipulates the death toll to shift responsibility.
• Survival and self-interest: Zhuo Jun exploits a crisis for personal advancement; Fu Huo’s injuries and defiance contrast with the political maneuvering.
• The persistence of horror: The substitute ghosts can travel unnoticed inside a victim, making ordinary safety—home, privacy, and surveillance—feel unreliable.
• Being watched and exposed: Cai Meimei’s final accusation turns the surveillance camera into an unsettling symbol of observation and helplessness.

Key plot points and events

• Spring Apartments owner Li Chun secretly uses hacked surveillance cameras to spy on his tenants, especially Cai Meimei. When she returns home drenched and frightened, he watches her undress, then sees her body twist unnaturally as substitute ghosts emerge from it.
• Cai Meimei crawls out of her apartment and reaches Li Chun’s room, which the building’s cameras cannot monitor. She kills him, but a substitute ghost stitches his body back together and takes him over.
• The transformed Li Chun adopts the name Ma Tao. He reasons that substitute ghosts and students may be hiding throughout the city, posing as people by day and seeking materials at night to build grudge houses. He hopes he and Cai Meimei can become greater ghosts.
• Ma Tao deletes Li Chun’s voyeuristic files and finds a mass video email from “Save Class Thirteen.” A masked student warns that a nationwide ghost-story game will begin at midnight and lays out survival rules: beware of people acting strangely, behave normally, avoid going out after dark, keep quiet about rewards from surviving anomalies, and distrust the Investigation Bureau. The sender claims Class Thirteen’s wanted students were framed.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Chun’s voyeuristic obsession and cruelty make him an easy target for horror; his death turns him into a substitute ghost who retains his memories and gains a new outlook.
• As Ma Tao, he is less interested in voyeurism than in understanding how the ghost world operates, though he remains calculating and self-serving.
• Cai Meimei changes from a tenant Li Chun idealizes into a horrifying ghost, then continues moving through the building and appears beside sleeping tenants, seemingly altering them.
• The masked sender directly challenges the Investigation Bureau’s authority. Ma Tao suspects the message may come from one of his former classmates, such as Wang Jie, Liu Yi, or Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• The collapse of trust: ghosts may imitate familiar people, while official authorities may not be reliable.
• Surveillance and voyeurism become grotesque reversals: Li Chun watches others, only to be hunted by the thing he watches.
• Survival depends on controlling outward behavior and keeping secrets in a world where fear itself can attract danger.
• The chapter presents the coming ghost-story game as a struggle over both physical survival and who gets to define the rules.