Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Situ An’s final video exposes corruption within the Investigation Bureau, shaking Investigators’ faith and public trust. The Jingtuo God orders the video erased and the bureau’s findings on Situ An released, while Chen Yuntian urges restraint and warns that the Shadow World’s real threat is its ability to replace people and manipulate events.
• The Jingtuo God refuses to seek more outside help, insisting Hanhai must rely on the Investigation Bureau. Soon afterward, Fu Ling reports that the East District Bureau has fallen: its stationed Investigators are dead, and the building has become a strange tale.
• A live broadcast initially shows a calm crowd and apparently normal Investigators. Then Four-Mouthed Auntie reveals her monstrous face, and ghost creatures emerge across the street. The crowd panics, trampling people as Hanhai’s public order collapses.
• With most Investigators elsewhere and the remaining ones occupied, no official force can protect the fleeing civilians. Gao Ming and other Ghost Story Players step in. Gao Ming rescues a little girl, and the Players confront the ghosts in full view of the public.
• Gao Ming looks toward the surveillance camera and challenges the Jingtuo God, identifying himself as Qian Junran, Class Thirteen’s English class representative.

Character developments and interactions

• The Jingtuo God responds to Situ An’s revelations with anger and damage control, then doubles down on the Investigation Bureau’s authority. His detached reference to citizens as “they” unsettles Chen Yuntian and Cen Guan.
• Chen Yuntian recognizes that the bureau’s response could worsen public suspicion. He argues for protecting civilians and seeking help, emphasizing that the enemy is intelligent and has been manipulating events for a long time.
• Cen Guan supports Chen’s warning, stressing that secret replacements may already have infiltrated the city.
• Gao Ming emerges as a calm, protective figure amid chaos. His rescue of the child sharply contrasts with the Investigation Bureau’s absence and makes the Ghost Story Players visible as defenders.
• Fu Ling urgently reports the East District’s collapse while searching for his two sons.
• The Investigation Bureau and the Ghost Story Players become direct rivals: the bureau seeks Class Thirteen, while Gao Ming publicly offers himself as a target.

Significant themes

• Shattered faith and institutional trust: Situ An’s exposure of corruption undermines the belief that gives Investigators their courage.
• Manipulation and hidden infiltration: The Shadow World’s danger lies not only in monsters but in replacements, deception, and the ability to turn public events to its advantage.
• Failure versus responsibility: The bureau’s absence leaves civilians vulnerable, while ordinary people in masks take the risk of protecting them.
• Public perception and legitimacy: The broadcast turns the crisis into a contest over whom citizens can trust—the Investigation Bureau or the Ghost Story Players.

Key plot points and events

• The Jingtuo God retaliates against the masked Ghost Story Player by stabbing a cursed cloth doll, using a Cursed Item that can harm someone whose name and appearance are known.
• Bureau officials worry that Ghost Story Players have become a rival source of faith for Hanhai’s residents.
• The Jingtuo God contacts an Investigator in the Forbidden Game’s deep world. The Bureau has secured the game’s Shallow Game Lobby and Garden Safe Zone in Xinhu, but its farthest-reaching team has vanished. He urges the Hanhai team to return because Hanhai is facing a citywide shadow-world crisis.
• The contact warns that Hanhai may be destined for “deep integration” and could be sealed off, though this is only game-world hearsay.
• Gao Ming enters the East District Investigation Bureau after Xia Yang has cleared its dangers. He plans to take its Security teams and supplies.
• Gao Ming and Zhang Ding find evidence of a blood sacrifice and a partly opened Blood Gate, with rookie Investigators suffering on its surface.

Character developments

• Jingtuo God shows both ruthless power and political concern: he punishes an opponent, but also seeks help from the Forbidden Game’s Investigators.
• Gao Ming treats people and supplies as resources for the coming crisis, while recognizing Xia Yang’s frightening capabilities.
• Xia Yang is revealed to have cleared the Bureau almost single-handedly, transforming from a potential team member into a major danger.
• Zhang Ding is disturbed by the uncanny, living paintings and warns that people like Xia Yang and Situ An must not become ghosts.

Significant themes

• Competing faith and authority: The Investigation Bureau is no longer the only power residents can trust.
• Blurred reality: Investigators in the Forbidden Game can no longer distinguish the game from the real world.
• Escalating supernatural crisis: Hanhai faces direct invasion, while other cities and the game world follow different rules.
• People as resources—and threats: Gao Ming seeks personnel and supplies, but unusually powerful individuals may be dangerous allies.
• Suffering and sacrifice: The Blood Gate’s victims show the brutal cost of confronting the shadow world.

Character interactions

• The Jingtuo God’s use of the cursed doll is a direct act of retaliation against the masked player.
• He speaks deferentially to the deep-world Investigator, asking the Hanhai team to return; the Investigator agrees but shares rumors about Hanhai’s future.
• Gao Ming and Zhang Ding assess Xia Yang’s aftermath together, then investigate the blood-soaked site and discover the Blood Gate.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Zhang Ding discover the Blood Gate is damaged and incomplete, apparently repurposed by Situ An as a vault. Rookie Investigators are embedded in it, still alive, so Gao Ming decides to take the gate and try to save them.
• In the corridor beyond, East District Investigation Bureau security forces open fire on the pair without warning. Zhang Ding floods the corridor, overpowering them while deliberately sparing them for later recruitment.
• The pair enter the House of the Abnormal, where they find files and photographs of abnormal individuals but no evidence of Situ An. Gao Ming suspects the site is a decoy; He Yi confirms the bureau had searched it without finding Situ An’s real home.
• Gao Ming and Zhang Ding move into the Butcher’s House, where they find Su Mo—also known as Xia Yang—dressed as a delivery worker. Gao Ming recognizes the eerie sense that events are repeating, then uses the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s power to pull Teacher Xia back from his uncontrolled behavior.
• Inside, Gao Ming sees the ruins of Skeleton City transform. The Birthday Posthumous Photograph’s shadows enter the ruins, rebuilding them into a City Model of Hanhai. Xia Yang explains that the model is a map of the Shadow World, showing where anomalies break out and the effects they cause. It is valuable and apparently controllable only by Gao Ming and Situ An.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious despite his growing power, protects his vulnerable physical body, and focuses on uncovering Situ An’s plans. His encounter with Su Mo unsettles him by suggesting fate may be forcing events into familiar patterns.
• Zhang Ding shows overwhelming strength but also restraint: he spares the security team and sees them as potential Supermarket employees. He presses He Yi for information, while Gao Ming questions He Yi’s usefulness.
• He Yi shifts from defiance to cooperation when confronted with the pair’s power, offering the danger posed by the Red Garment as a reason to keep him alive.
• Su Mo/Xia Yang appears frightened and powerless when Gao Ming finds him, but then reveals he has already uncovered the City Model’s significance.
• Gao Ming and Zhang Ding work together to breach the compound, while Gao Ming and Xia Yang share an uneasy relationship shaped by Xia Yang’s knowledge and Gao Ming’s suspicions.

Significant themes

• The uncanny merging of worlds: Gates, the Shadow World, and the living world are becoming increasingly entangled.
• Deception and hidden motives: Situ An’s apparent home may be a decoy, and even the investigation bureau’s presence does not mean the site is secure or trustworthy.
• Power and restraint: Gao Ming and Zhang Ding can easily overpower their enemies, but their choices about who to spare matter.
• Fate and repetition: Gao Ming’s recognition of Su Mo evokes a recurring pattern that may be difficult to escape.
• Knowledge as power: The City Model offers a way to anticipate anomaly outbreaks, making it potentially more valuable than force alone.

Plot and key revelations

• The flesh-and-blood City Model begins rebuilding when Gao Ming enters the Butcher’s House. Xia Yang urges him to place a Posthumous Photograph on it; Gao Ming uses the Birthday Posthumous Photograph, which the map absorbs, creating a connection between him and the model.
• Gao Ming discovers that the map shows anomaly activity across Hanhai City: darkened buildings indicate dangerous events, and moving red dots represent ghosts. By focusing on the dots in Spring Apartments, he sees the transformed Cai Meimei and the substitute ghosts through their eyes.
• Fully merging his consciousness with the map lets Gao Ming survey its shadow-covered areas, but the flood of information nearly overwhelms him. The map reveals itself as one of Situ An’s major assets, containing anomaly-event triggers and their rewards.
• Anomalies require blood sacrifice and extreme emotions. Their progression offers increasingly powerful rewards: physical enhancement, fragments that strengthen ghosts, ghost memories, and, at the fifth tier, the right to use a Shadow World rule.
• The map marks a hospital in the Old City District with the word “home.” Gao Ming suspects Situ An left it as bait to lure other heads of the family inside, but remains interested in discovering what “home” means in the Shadow World.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming approaches the map cautiously, investigates its information, and recognizes the danger of its rewards. He suspects his earlier restarts may explain why some of its systems resemble the horror games he created.
• Xia Yang acts friendly and instructive, guiding Gao Ming through the map’s powers. His eagerness and laughter suggest fascination with Gao Ming’s connection to it; Gao Ming remains wary and refuses to engage with his banter.
• Situ An’s influence becomes clearer through the map and its rewards. The system explains how he empowered subordinates such as Qing Ge and Doctor Lu, and the “home” marker hints at a possible trap.
• Su Mo stays quietly in the background, taking a blanket as the room grows colder.

Significant themes

• Power offered at a cost: The Shadow World uses increasingly tempting rewards to draw its leaders into escalating danger.
• Memory and repetition: Gao Ming’s knowledge of the map’s systems raises the possibility that he has reached this point in earlier restarts.
• Trust and manipulation: Xia Yang’s helpfulness and Situ An’s marked “home” both invite suspicion.
• Transformation: Cai Meimei’s horrific change shows how completely the Shadow World can remake those it consumes.

Key plot points

• Trapped in a room by Zhang Ding, Su Mo searches for an escape and accidentally touches Gao Ming’s Skeleton Map. Gao Ming learns that the map’s purpose is tied to restoring life to the shadow-world city of Hanhai, and that its citizens can receive blessings from their family heads.
• Gao Ming uses the map’s remaining blessings on Su Mo. Unlike most people, Su Mo shows almost no abnormal change: the blessings only modestly improve his physical condition.
• Curious, Gao Ming gives himself one blessing. It clashes violently with the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal inside him, nearly killing him. The Immortal destroys the shadow influence, but Gao Ming retains some benefits: stronger physical abilities, improved night vision, and a greater capacity for frightening thoughts.
• Gao Ming cannot uncover the secret of the hospital Situ An marked as “Home,” and the Skeleton City collapses when he withdraws from the map.
• Gao Ming pulls Su Mo to safety, tells him to remain true to himself, and leaves without explaining who he is. He then uses Xuan Wen to announce that Su Mo has triggered a Miracle Easter Egg, granting him improved stats and recognition as an ordinary Hanhai citizen.
• Gao Ming plans to leave the Butcher’s House and find a way to rescue the Investigators still trapped inside Situ An’s door. The door cannot be stored in a Posthumous Photograph, so it must be carried.

Character developments

• Gao Ming gains a clearer understanding of the shadow world’s blessings and their incompatibility with the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal. Though the blessing nearly kills him, he learns to absorb its useful effects by letting the Immortal destroy the rest.
• Su Mo remains unusually resistant to shadow-world influence. He receives a small physical boost and becomes a recognized citizen, while Gao Ming urges him to preserve his upright nature.
• Zhang Ding continues guarding the exit and tries to close the Blood Gate after Su Mo is thrown through it.

Significant themes

• Identity and belonging: Su Mo’s resistance suggests that alignment with the shadow world determines how its power affects someone.
• Power at a cost: Blessings can strengthen people, but for Gao Ming they provoke a near-fatal struggle within his body.
• Life and death: The shadow world’s larger ambition is to restore life to a dead city, while Gao Ming pursues the practical goal of saving trapped Investigators.
• Moral integrity: Gao Ming treats Su Mo’s refusal to fit the shadow world as something worth preserving.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Su Mo share a brief, uneasy rescue: Su Mo fears Gao Ming at first, while Gao Ming helps him and offers advice without revealing his identity.
• Gao Ming’s internal conflict with the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal becomes a violent battle over whether the shadow blessing can alter him.
• Gao Ming communicates with Xuan Wen to broadcast Su Mo’s achievement to the other Ghost Story Players.

Plot points and events

• Zhang Ding helps Gao Ming remove the Blood Gate from the East District Investigation Bureau. Ghost God Gong Xi rips it free while Zhang Ding’s floodwaters expose and wash away the black blood vessels anchoring it to the building. The gate is too powerful and strange to be stored in either Gao Ming’s heart or Zhang Ding’s Posthumous Photograph.
• They cover the gate and search the bureau. Gao Ming gathers equipment, while Zhang Ding transports it through the floodwaters to his Supermarket. They raid a hidden storeroom containing food, water, game headsets, and dangerous contraband—evidence that Situ An had been preparing for an apocalypse. They leave after Wei Dayou warns that General Bureau personnel are returning.
• Hanhai’s crisis deepens: roads remain blocked, inspections tighten, communications are restricted, and growing fear and disorder obscure the true arrival of supernatural horrors.
• At Lishan, Gao Ming decides to install the gate at Zhang Ding’s former home, in a densely populated, lawless district where it will be hard for the Investigation Bureau to find. The gate immediately sends blood vessels into the building’s foundations, beginning to spread its influence.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming acts decisively, using Gong Xi’s strength to remove the gate and seizing supplies for his group. He chooses to keep it in a strategic, defensible location rather than hide it somewhere inaccessible.
• Zhang Ding cooperates with Gao Ming despite the danger, offers his old home as a hiding place, and appears touched to find flowers and candles left there after his past efforts to help people.
• Xia Yang encourages Gao Ming to use the gate as bait to wear down the Investigation Bureau. He also offers to leave Gao Ming’s heart and kill their enemies, revealing his growing power and appetite for violence.
• Wei Dayou keeps the group mindful of the danger: those invaded by shadows cannot remain away from the shadow world for long.
• Situ An remains an unseen threat. His preparations and the missing logistics chief—who escaped with Situ An’s Posthumous Photograph—hint at plans still in motion.

Significant themes

• Escalating catastrophe: Hanhai’s systems of order and communication are failing as supernatural danger spreads.
• Power and risk: The Blood Gate is useful but dangerous, and even relocating it begins infecting its new surroundings.
• Survival through cooperation: Gao Ming’s group pools abilities and resources, while choosing a community as both refuge and strategic position.
• Moral tension: Xia Yang’s offer to eliminate enemies contrasts with Gao Ming’s more measured approach, suggesting that growing power may come at a human cost.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming reopens the Blood Gate in Zhang Ding’s former home, creating a reliable passage between the real world and the Shadow World. The home becomes a base: its bathroom houses the House of the Abnormal, and its bedroom holds the Butcher’s House and the Hanhai Skeleton Map.
• Gao Ming gathers people from Minlong Street and other groups, then has them touch the map to become citizens of Shadow City. The group includes Lame Bay villagers, students from Hande Private Academy, and East District Investigation Bureau personnel.
• As anomaly events spread, the map marks affected buildings by danger level: bone-white, blood-stained red, or shadow-black. Gao Ming assigns citizens to build and maintain the settlement or investigate dangerous sites.
• He Yi warns that the Investigation Bureau may resort to brutal experiments and says Hanhai was an “abandoned city” pursuing a secret path. He offers to help screen recruits and operate equipment, though Zhang Ding distrusts him.
• Wei Dayou reports that Zhao Xi and An’an entered the city to draw away Bureau security personnel. An’an was hearing a voice calling his name, and the two headed toward Hande Private Academy, likely to find Ji Zhe.
• Once the settlement passes one hundred citizens, Gao Ming grows stronger as each citizen contributes blood qi. He resolves to expand the city, contain its anomalies, and eventually return to the tunnel to confront the unseen person who has repeatedly killed him.

Character development and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from a survivor into the organizer and would-be ruler of Shadow City. He begins to define “home” as something he must build and protect, and intends to set Hanhai’s rules himself.
• He Yi tries to make himself useful by offering knowledge of Bureau equipment and recruitment, while revealing disturbing information about the Bureau. Zhang Ding remains suspicious of him.
• Wei Dayou brings the Minlong Street group and reports Zhao Xi and An’an’s disappearance.
• Xia Yang recognizes Gao Ming’s transformation and calls him the mastermind behind disasters. Gao Ming rejects that description, saying he is trying to restore an abandoned city.
• Gao Ming places Zhang Ding and the Supermarket customers in charge of entry, dangerous items, security, and rescue.

Significant themes

• Building a home and community: Gao Ming turns a haunted refuge into the foundation of a city.
• Power and responsibility: His growing strength comes from the people who join him, while he assumes responsibility for their safety and the city’s future.
• Control versus chaos: As the real and Shadow Worlds merge, Gao Ming seeks to contain anomalies and impose new rules.
• Cycles and self-determination: His ambition to confront the unseen killer reflects his desire to break the cycle of repeated death and take control of his fate.

Key events

• Gao Ming spends the night in the shadow world with a hundred Shadow City residents, turning the maze-like Lishan and Dazhai settlements into heavily trapped strongholds. His goal is to create a completely safe home.
• In daylight, Hanhai appears calm: the rain has stopped, and the Investigation Bureau suppresses information about the previous night’s horrors. Replaced residents blend into ordinary life.
• Xuan Wen continues building her influence through Nightlight Studio. The horror-game demo’s growing popularity strengthens her connection to the wedding photograph she shares with Gao Ming.
• She exploits underground lenders, making collectors who come after her disappear, then uses a hidden Deadwater Forum server to spread a video showing the Investigation Bureau brutally torturing captured Ghost Story Players. She intends to provoke public anger and weaken the bureau.
• At Gao Ming’s request, Xuan Wen prepares to investigate Lishan Hospital. A player tells her that the hospital seems normal from outside, but no living people remain inside; those who enter become trapped. The player’s family narrowly escaped, though the player avoids explaining why they were admitted.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is focused on building a defensible refuge and relies on Xuan Wen to investigate threats in the real world.
• Xuan Wen grows more powerful and confident as her game attracts attention. A psychological Criminal Murder Ghost, she deliberately manipulates people and public opinion, while anticipating a future confrontation with the Investigation Bureau.
• Manager Gou tries to keep Nightlight’s staff working by promising bigger bonuses, dismissing their suspicions about the studio’s disappearances and Xuan Wen.
• Nightlight employees remain uneasy after the disappearance of Teacher Xia and Fortune, and suspect Director Xuan’s arrival has brought more than professional opportunity.
• The Ghost Story Player offers to guide Xuan Wen to the hospital but withholds key information about the family’s admission.

Significant themes

• Order masking horror: Hanhai looks normal because the authorities conceal the truth and supernatural forces disappear by daylight.
• Manipulation and power: Xuan Wen uses fear, money, and information to steer both individuals and larger groups.
• Control across worlds: Xuan Wen sees fate in the living world and the shadow world’s control over ghosts as fundamentally similar.
• Isolation and entrapment: Lishan Hospital’s ordinary appearance hides a deadly prison, foreshadowing the next investigation.

Key plot points and events

• Hanhai’s Great Purge continues, now targeting Ghost Story Players as well as people replaced by anomalies. Publicly, the Investigation Bureau controls the city, though only a small part has fallen into shadow and the disaster is still in its early days.
• Xuan Wen leaves Nightlight Studio to meet a contact from the Deadwater Forum, suspecting he has a hidden agenda. At a Lishan fast-food restaurant, she notices a masked waiter whose face is visibly deformed and whose uncle-owner seems to protect him.
• Xuan Wen follows the waiter, Yang Yu, to the restaurant’s filthy back alley. She recognizes him as a Ghost Story Player and uses her ability to draw out what he knows about Lishan Hospital.
• Under her influence, Yang Yu recounts his family’s life in the hospital: his mother and father are the same person, a gender-nonconforming figure who raised four children with radically different bodies. The family lived hidden in pipes and underground, enduring abuse and mockery.
• Yang Yu remembers his mother protecting the children with scissors and a shovel, offering them a message of self-worth: their visible flaws were signs of being especially loved by God. The chapter ends with Yang Yu embracing the idea that he is “the normal person in this abnormal world.”

Character developments and interactions

• Xuan Wen is wary, independent, and drawn to dangerous situations. She quickly reads people’s motives and emotional states, but shows unexpected compassion by reassuring Yang Yu about his appearance.
• Yang Yu shifts from frightened and withdrawn to emotionally exposed under Xuan Wen’s questioning. His account reveals a painful family history and the belief that helped him endure it.
• Yang Yu’s uncle appears harsh toward him in public, but Xuan Wen suspects this is partly an effort to shield him; he is also genuinely caring for his sister’s sake.
• Yang Yu’s mother/father is remembered as both a parent and a protector, sustaining the children through cruelty and teaching them to find dignity in their differences.

Significant themes

• Normality and difference: The chapter challenges the idea that physical or social conformity defines who is “normal.”
• Compassion amid stigma: Yang Yu’s family faces ridicule and abuse, while Xuan Wen treats his appearance without fear or disgust.
• Protection expressed imperfectly: The uncle’s public scolding may conceal an attempt to defend Yang Yu from humiliation.
• Hope and self-worth: The parent’s words give the children a way to reinterpret their deformities and survive a hostile world.
• Institutional fear and social change: As the supernatural crisis spreads, the distinction between ordinary citizens and Ghost Story Players grows increasingly fragile.

Key plot points

• Yang Yu, a distressed hospital waiter, admits his resentment and violent impulses to Xuan Wen. She responds without disgust, offers him a Psychological Insight Mask, and persuades him to explain what he knows about Lishan Hospital.
• Yang Yu recounts the hospital’s decline and rumors that bodies disappeared from its morgue. On Ghost Festival night, he saw patients who had already died, then discovered his mother knew about the strange events and had him hide in a cabinet beside a corpse.
• Yang Yu says his mother still works at the hospital, but he has lost contact with her. He had hoped Xuan Wen could help arrange a Strange Tale mission to bring Ghost Story Players there.
• At the Investigation Bureau, Jingtuo God rejects Chen Yuntian’s suggestion to cooperate with Ghost Story Players, insisting they are part of a deception by the shadow world—even though some arrested players have not been replaced.
• After receiving an anonymous message that the players are targeting Lishan Hospital, Jingtuo God deletes Situ An’s records and issues orders. Vehicles carrying personnel returning from the Forbidden Game in Xinhu arrive at the bureau.

Character developments and interactions

• Yang Yu shifts from an agitated, knife-wielding outburst to reluctantly trusting Xuan Wen, who treats him with unusual acceptance. His account suggests his mother may know more about the hospital’s anomalies than he does.
• Xuan Wen uses empathy and the promise of changing Yang Yu’s fate to gain his confidence and investigate the hospital. Her calm encouragement contrasts with her increasingly unsettling, almost pathological expression.
• Jingtuo God remains authoritarian and suspicious, dismissing evidence that challenges his belief about the Ghost Story Players. Chen Yuntian argues for cooperation, but Jingtuo cuts him off.
• Chen Yuntian appears exhausted but continues to advocate a more pragmatic approach.

Significant themes

• Alienation and acceptance: Xuan Wen’s lack of prejudice makes Yang Yu feel seen, giving her influence over him.
• Manipulation and desperation: Yang Yu’s suffering makes him receptive to Xuan Wen’s offer, while the hospital’s mysteries are tied to his vulnerable family situation.
• Institutional distrust and denial: Jingtuo God clings to his theory despite contrary evidence, suggesting the Investigation Bureau may be misreading the threat.
• Hidden truths: Missing bodies, the mother’s unexplained knowledge, erased records, and the returning Xinhu personnel all deepen the chapter’s mystery.

Plot points and events

• At the East District Investigation Bureau, Team Leader K and two security teams arrive from Xinhu. K dismisses the need for a detailed briefing and asks directly for the anomaly’s location.
• Jingtuo God sends them to Lishan Hospital, where they suspect a dangerous anomaly may be concealed. Acting Bureau Chief Situ An’s final message about a hidden inheritance has drawn people there, but Jingtuo believes the “inheritance” is more likely to be a deadly trap.
• Su Mo returns to his rented room shaken by what he witnessed during the previous night’s anomaly events. His friends arrive with food and beer, worried because he had not answered his phone.
• Lao Sao reveals he has been entering abandoned, supposedly haunted houses to take valuables. He proposes that the group go to Lishan Hospital that night to steal medicine for Li Ding’s sick mother.

Character developments and interactions

• K is confident and blunt, believing his team’s experience in Perfect Life makes ordinary investigative protocols unnecessary. Jingtuo restrains his irritation and gives him the mission.
• Jingtuo God fears Situ An may have left a catastrophic anomaly behind, but remains confident that the Investigation Bureau still has the strength to keep Hanhai under control.
• Su Mo is exhausted and traumatized, and his firsthand experience makes him firmly oppose risking their lives in haunted locations.
• Lao Sao is resourceful and bold, but dangerously willing to gamble with his friends’ safety. His plan comes from both greed and genuine concern: each friend is struggling with financial hardship.
• Li Ding and Brother Xiong are presented as people in need of help—Li Ding’s mother is ill, while Brother Xiong’s family has suffered financial ruin. Their troubles help explain why Lao Sao’s risky proposal is tempting.

Significant themes

• Desperation and risk: Financial pressure pushes ordinary people toward dangerous choices.
• Conflicting responses to disaster: Su Mo wants to avoid further danger; Lao Sao argues that danger is unavoidable and should be faced for profit and survival.
• False promises and hidden danger: Situ An’s supposed inheritance may actually be a lethal trap.
• Power and confidence: K’s disregard for conventional authority reflects the unusual abilities and self-assurance of those shaped by Perfect Life.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Su Mo’s friends—Lao Sao, Li Ding, and Brother Xiong—discuss the emerging supernatural disaster. Lao Sao believes becoming a Ghost Story Player could offer a way to survive and improve their lives.
• Lao Sao proposes going to Lishan Hospital to obtain valuable medicine and secure the prescription Li Ding needs for his bedridden mother. Although Su Mo considers the plan dangerous, he joins rather than abandon his friends.
• The group travels to the impoverished Old City District and locates the hospital, which seems unnaturally deserted from outside.
• Su Mo receives an invitation to a new group ghost-story instance set at Lishan Hospital, but hides it from the others.
• Inside, the hospital appears crowded and frantic. At the dispensary, however, the doctor refuses to provide medicine until it is dark.
• Lao Sao checks his recording and discovers the apparent crowd was an illusion: the hospital was empty the entire time. He pulls Li Ding away, leaving the group to confront the hospital’s supernatural danger.

Character developments

• Su Mo is still frightened by his previous ordeal, but the improvement in his physical condition and his desire to become stronger make him more receptive to the Ghost Story Player path. His loyalty to his friends ultimately makes him join the risky expedition.
• Lao Sao emerges as ambitious, resourceful, and willing to take extreme risks. His plan is driven by both survival and the hope of escaping poverty; he also shows care for his friends by giving Li Ding his remaining money.
• Li Ding is earnest and focused on getting medicine for his mother, while Brother Xiong supports the group despite his unease.
• Lao Sao’s quick reaction to the doctor’s strange behavior suggests he is more alert and perceptive than his reckless attitude initially implies.

Significant themes

• Survival amid social hardship: Poverty and scarce opportunities push the friends toward dangerous choices.
• Loyalty and solidarity: Su Mo joins despite his fear, and Lao Sao shares his money and treats the others as family.
• The lure and cost of power: Becoming a Ghost Story Player offers hope and strength, but requires entering deadly supernatural events.
• Untrustworthy appearances: The hospital’s crowded interior proves to be an illusion, emphasizing that ordinary perception cannot be trusted.

Character interactions

• Lao Sao lays out his plan and tries to persuade the others that the disaster could be an opportunity; Su Mo challenges the morality and danger of taking medicine.
• Li Ding reassures Su Mo that he need not come, but Su Mo’s friendship with the group leads him to join anyway.
• Lao Sao gives Li Ding his bank balance and rejects his thanks as inappropriate between brothers.
• At the dispensary, Lao Sao silently pulls Li Ding away from the doctor and uses his camera footage to show him—and the others—that the hospital was actually empty.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Li Ding, Su Mo, Lao Sao, and Brother Xiong realize Lishan Hospital is governed by supernatural rules: although it appears crowded, no one is visible in Lao Sao’s footage.
• Lao Sao’s danger sense warns him away from the main entrance. They watch a patient cross it and get dragged into the shadows; his blood is then absorbed, and the entrance looks normal again.
• Lao Sao shares hospital rules with the group and anonymously posts an embellished account online, hoping to attract the Investigation Bureau’s attention.
• At the payment counter, Lao Sao notices a little girl appears in his camera footage, suggesting she may still be alive. He follows her father, who is trying to protect her.
• The father explains that the hospital seems to have been transported to a world of ghost creatures. Corpses have begun appearing among the living, and night brings even worse dangers.
• Survival depends on gathering and trading useful hospital items during daylight. The father shows them an empty bottle of Soul-Transference Drug, which can distract corpses long enough to escape.

Character developments

• Lao Sao proves observant, resourceful, and willing to take risks. He reveals a sixth sense for danger that developed after a near-death experience on Ghost Festival night. His practical, morally indifferent side shows when he posts online without much concern for who might be drawn into danger.
• Su Mo remains cautious and morally uneasy, questioning Lao Sao’s tactics and trying to understand his hidden abilities.
• Brother Xiong regains his composure and takes on a steadying, responsible role among the group.
• The father is revealed as a protective, experienced survivor, focused on keeping his fever-stricken daughter Xiao Xia alive.

Character interactions

• Lao Sao’s warning keeps the group from approaching the deadly entrance.
• Su Mo challenges Lao Sao’s decision to involve outsiders; Lao Sao brushes off his concern.
• Lao Sao approaches the father by presenting himself and his friends as fellow victims, earning enough trust to hear what he knows.
• The father shares survival advice and leads the group away from danger, while an injured-looking corpse emerges nearby in the Burn Department.

Significant themes

• Survival through observation and rules: Small clues—especially Lao Sao’s instincts and camera—can mean the difference between life and death.
• Appearance versus reality: The hospital’s ordinary routines conceal a deadly supernatural environment, and living people are hard to distinguish from corpses.
• Moral compromise: Lao Sao prioritizes survival and attracting help over the risk of endangering strangers.
• Family and solidarity: The father’s devotion to Xiao Xia contrasts with the group’s tentative cooperation as they seek ways to survive.

Plot points and events

• A middle-aged man leads Lao Sao, Su Mo, Brother Xiong, and Li Ding to the hospital’s Genetic Counseling Department. He explains that departments offer supernatural services at night, but each has its own dangers and price.
• The man warns that the department’s doctor appears in one of three curtained rooms: visitors might receive survival advice—or encounter a horrifying patient. He and Lao Sao and Li Ding enter one room; the curtain seems to separate them from the others.
• Outside, the little girl suddenly says the man is not her father. Su Mo then sees a badly burned, bandaged figure peering into the department and shuts the door against it. Brother Xiong freezes until the girl stabs his leg with broken glass.
• When the others emerge, the burned figure has vanished. Lao Sao explains that hospital doctors trade help for sacrifices, such as lifespan, pain, or hunting living people.
• Su Mo suspects both the man and the girl and urges the group to check for an exit before exploring further. They find an invisible barrier blocking the side entrance.
• A deformed man in a fast-food uniform runs into the hospital, followed by a strikingly beautiful office worker, whose arrival catches the group’s attention.

Character developments and interactions

• Su Mo remains alert under pressure: he acts quickly to bar the door, questions the apparent father and daughter, and prioritizes escape over investigating the hospital.
• The middle-aged man reveals how far he will go to keep his daughter alive and appears familiar with the hospital’s supernatural bargains. His identity and relationship to the girl become doubtful.
• The girl shifts from quiet passenger to perceptive, unsettling presence: she spots the burned figure and claims the man is not her father, then refuses to confirm what Su Mo saw.
• Brother Xiong is briefly immobilized by the apparition, while the girl’s stab jolts him back to action.
• Lao Sao shares information about the departments’ costs and ultimately agrees to follow Su Mo’s cautious plan.

Significant themes

• Survival through sacrifice: The hospital offers protection and assistance, but demands painful, morally troubling prices.
• Uncertainty and mistrust: Appearances and relationships cannot be taken at face value; even the supposed father-daughter bond may be false.
• Danger in seeking knowledge: Exploring the department could bring useful guidance—or expose visitors to something deeply horrifying.
• Entrapment: The visible exit is inaccessible, leaving the group confined in a hostile place just as new arrivals appear.

Key plot points and events

• Four college students encounter Xuan Wen, a striking woman searching for her younger brother, Xiao Yangyu. Lao Sao eagerly explains that Lishan Hospital is trapped in a supernatural incident: its apparent occupants are ghosts, and people cannot leave.
• The group checks secret camera footage and confirms Xuan Wen appears normally on camera, unlike the hospital’s ghostly patients. She is therefore a living outsider—though the narration reveals that she herself is a ghost.
• Yang Yu has run into the sealed rear building, a far more dangerous area tied to strange tales across the Old City District. Despite the risk and approaching nightfall, the students agree to search briefly, setting a ten-minute limit.
• In the rear building, they find signs of recent habitation, a damaged ventilation duct containing a piece of hospital-gown fabric, and a room filled with patients’ clothes that feels ominously like a graveyard.
• Near the back entrance, they discover many pairs of shoes arranged toward a posthumous portrait of Situ An, vice president of the Hanhai Charity Federation. Through his camera, Lao Sao sees a person standing in every pair of shoes.

Character developments and interactions

• Lao Sao is unusually captivated by Xuan Wen and readily tells her everything about the hospital, later taking the lead in noticing clues.
• Su Mo feels inexplicable pain and dread around Xuan Wen, as if connected to her by a disturbing past-life encounter. He stays guarded and secretly ensures she appears in the camera footage; she approves of his caution.
• Brother Xiong acts as the group’s steady, protective leader, offering to help Xuan Wen while setting a firm time limit for the search.
• Xuan Wen presents herself as a confused, frightened woman seeking her brother, but the narration’s revelation that she is a ghost creates dramatic irony. Her composure and curiosity contrast with the students’ alarm.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus reality: The hospital seems ordinary to Xuan Wen, but its patients are ghosts; the camera distinguishes living people from the dead.
• Trust and suspicion: The group helps Xuan Wen while verifying her identity, and she accepts their caution.
• Altruism under danger: The students risk entering a deadly area to help a stranger find her brother.
• Mounting supernatural dread: The abandoned rear building, discarded belongings, and eerie shoes build toward the revelation that unseen figures surround them.

Key plot points and events

• Lao Sao discovers that the hospital’s camera records an unsettling discrepancy: the crowded front building appears empty, while the deserted rear building is filled with people. He concludes that whatever appears in the rear building is definitely not human.
• Xuan Wen suggests taking a pair of shoes from the rear building to use against ghosts. She steals a pair from the room where the unseen occupants are paying respects to Situ An’s Posthumous Photograph, provoking a sudden rush of footsteps and forcing the group to flee.
• Outside, the camera reveals a long-haired woman in a blue dress standing close behind Xuan Wen. Although Lao Sao warns her, the woman remains; Xuan Wen seems unable to see her. Lao Sao quietly distances himself from Xuan Wen and tells the group to focus on finding supplies.
• As the patients grow increasingly disturbed toward nightfall, the group searches the hospital. Lao Sao finds a departmental chart and learns that Psychiatry may offer ways to identify Cursed Items and restore sanity.
• In the Psychiatry Department, the group enters a room marked by blood and a missing doctor. A severely mutated, sleepless patient emerges and attacks, pleading for help.
• Lao Sao, Brother Xiong, and Li Ding flee. Su Mo stays behind with Xuan Wen, shutting the door to protect them. As the patient pounds on it, Xuan Wen puts on the bloodstained white coat and calmly claims she will treat him.

Character developments and interactions

• Lao Sao shifts from admiring Xuan Wen to treating her as a liability after her impulsive theft. He avoids confronting her directly, instead warning his friends privately and leaving her at the back of the group.
• Xuan Wen remains bold and seemingly unfazed by supernatural danger. Her choice of shoes appears deliberate, and she ignores—or cannot perceive—the woman following her. At the chapter’s end, she takes charge by presenting herself as the patient’s doctor.
• Su Mo instinctively protects Xuan Wen, choosing to shut the door rather than abandon her, even as the danger mounts. His decision contrasts with Lao Sao’s retreat.
• Lao Sao and the group rely on the camera, whispered warnings, and group-chat messages to make sense of the hospital’s shifting dangers.

Significant themes

• Unreliable appearances: The camera reveals a hidden reality that contradicts what the characters see directly.
• Self-preservation versus loyalty: Lao Sao prioritizes survival and quietly distances himself, while Su Mo risks being trapped to protect Xuan Wen.
• Dangerous curiosity and impulsiveness: Xuan Wen’s theft triggers a threatening response, though her confidence may suggest she understands more than the others.
• The hospital as a distorted system of care: Psychiatry is rumored to offer help, but its rooms are bloodied, its doctor is gone, and its “patient” is a monstrous threat—leaving Xuan Wen’s proposed treatment uncertain.

Key plot points and events

• Su Mo is trapped in a consultation room with the violent Insomniac, who is forcing his way through the door. Xuan Wen calmly draws the monster’s attention and begins questioning him.
• The Insomniac says he cannot sleep because voices haunt him, insisting that they want to “come back.” Xuan Wen probes his past and learns he was an award-winning caregiver in the Critical Care Ward, where he sometimes slept on beds used by dying patients.
• Xuan Wen claims the voices are the spirits of the dead, which entered his head through pillows he used. She tells him to take her to the pillow.
• The Insomniac believes her explanation, begins crying, and agrees to lead her. Xuan Wen brings Su Mo along, tossing him a pair of women’s shoes.
• They reach the fourth-floor Critical Care Ward area, where the surroundings are decayed and ominous. Xuan Wen notes that the floor is likely the most dangerous in the front building.

Character developments

• Xuan Wen displays striking composure and skill at controlling the Insomniac. Her confident supernatural explanation may be insight, manipulation, or both. Her interest in having power over others’ lives is also revealed.
• Su Mo shifts from terror and helplessness to curiosity about Xuan Wen’s “treatment,” though he suspects she is making up her diagnosis. His earlier choice to stay behind had also left him an escape route.
• The Insomniac is shown to be frighteningly strong but deeply distressed and guilt-ridden. Xuan Wen’s explanation quickly changes his aggression into grief and cooperation.

Significant themes

• Belief and persuasion: Xuan Wen’s confident story succeeds where force might not, raising doubts about what counts as a legitimate treatment.
• Guilt and death: The Insomniac’s symptoms are tied to his work around dying patients and his fear that the dead are seeking to return.
• Control amid danger: Xuan Wen remains composed and takes charge while Su Mo is overwhelmed.
• Escalating horror: The move to the fourth floor signals a more dangerous setting, with decay and death reflected in the surroundings.

Character interactions

• Xuan Wen turns the Insomniac’s attention away from Su Mo, then uses questions about his work and habits to build a diagnosis he accepts.
• Su Mo watches in disbelief, doubts Xuan Wen’s claims, and follows them to the fourth floor.
• The Insomniac treats Xuan Wen as a doctor and guide, while his aggression toward Su Mo fades once she intervenes.

Plot and events

• The Insomniac leads Xuan Wen and Su Mo into a dark care ward, where black markings on the walls and bedding carry the final words of the hospital’s dead. Hearing the voices overwhelms him and keeps him from sleeping.
• Xuan Wen traces the voices to a pillow used by many deceased patients. She lies on it and draws the trapped souls into the eight unhealed wounds on her body, forcing them to help stitch her wounds shut. The voices quiet, and the Insomniac’s condition improves.
• Xuan Wen takes the pillow, judging it a high-grade Cursed Item—roughly equivalent to half a Greater Ghost. She charges the Insomniac for treatment: he must introduce her to another severely ill patient and remain under her care. He agrees and gives her two bottles of Soul-Transference Drug, a form of currency in the hospital.
• Meanwhile, Lao Sao, Li Ding, and their companion realize Su Mo is missing and return to the ward. They find only a pool of blood and conclude that Xuan Wen and Su Mo may be enduring something terrible.

Character developments and interactions

• Xuan Wen reveals her true nature as a Criminal Murder Ghost, not a genuine psychologist. She is fascinated by people’s last moments and can dominate the dead souls in the pillow. Her “treatment” is both effective and predatory: she heals the Insomniac, then binds him to her care and seeks out more patients.
• The Insomniac shifts from a frightening, tormented patient to a cooperative and grateful one once the voices stop. He accepts Xuan Wen’s demands and helps her by supplying medicine and promising referrals.
• Su Mo remains wary of Xuan Wen’s methods, but watches her treatment work and even considers asking her to examine him.
• Lao Sao blames himself for losing track of Su Mo and fears for what he and Xuan Wen might be facing.

Significant themes

• Death and unfinished wishes: The pillow preserves the dead’s final memories and regrets, showing how their attachments linger after death.
• Healing through horror: Xuan Wen’s cure depends on exploiting souls and inflicting or using pain, blurring the line between care and cruelty.
• Power and survival: The dead are subdued by a stronger supernatural presence, while Cursed Items can be used but not truly reclaimed without the power of a Greater Ghost.
• The cost of treatment: The Insomniac’s relief comes with obligations, and Xuan Wen’s help serves her own appetite as much as her patient’s needs.

Key plot points and events

• Brother Xiong hopes Su Mo and the woman escaped, but the group has found no sign of Su Mo’s body. Lao Sao admits he badly misjudged Lishan Hospital and feels a persistent, unexplained sense of danger.
• Lao Sao checks his online post and finds threatening comments from someone who knows there are four survivors, despite Lao Sao never saying so. The sender has also been tracking them through photos taken around the hospital and threatens to mutilate them.
• The sender reaches the Psychiatry Department: a boy whose head has fused with a gaming helmet, apparently unable to distinguish a game from reality. His mutated, fingerless hands can transform into weapons.
• The three men flee downstairs, but are tripped and subdued by Security personnel in black Investigation Bureau uniforms. Their leader, marked with ghost-like patterns and wearing a Blood Ring, questions whether Lao Sao is the Ghost Story Player.
• Lao Sao claims they came for medicine and warns the officers about the pursuing monster. The leader dismisses the boy as a low-level Shadow Mutation Product and approaches him alone.

Character developments and interactions

• Lao Sao shifts from trying to reassure the others to openly acknowledging his mistaken judgment. His danger-sensing instinct prompts him to flee, and under pressure he quickly begs the Security team for help.
• Brother Xiong tries to keep Lao Sao focused and initially clings to hope about Su Mo.
• Li Ding notices the suspicious details in the online messages and confronts Lao Sao about what he said to the boy. Lao Sao reveals he had exchanged the sort of insults common in online games.
• The helmeted boy behaves like an aggressive game player, treating the pursuit as play and his weapon-like mutations as game equipment.
• The Security leader is confident and dismissive of the boy’s threat, setting up a confrontation.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and distorted reality: The hospital’s dangers defy expectations, and the boy’s condition blurs the line between games and real life.
• Technology as a channel for horror: Lao Sao’s online post does not bring outside help; instead, it exposes the group to a threat already inside the hospital.
• Survival and misplaced confidence: The group’s plans and assumptions repeatedly fail, leaving them dependent on instinct and the intervention of strangers.
• Escalating danger and power: The chapter ends with a shift from the group’s desperate flight to a potential clash between the Security leader and the mutated boy.

Key plot points and events

• K, leader of the Investigation Bureau’s Security Team, confronts a child patient whose hands have become sickles. Using the ghost markings on his body and the Ghost Eye, K quickly cuts off the mutated hands. The child flees, and K absorbs the severed flesh through his markings, judging its source to be unusually powerful.
• K returns to the lobby and identifies himself and his team to Lao Sao. Mistaking Lao Sao and his companions for Ghost Story Players, the security personnel confiscate and search their phones before confirming they are ordinary visitors.
• Lao Sao describes the hospital’s survival rules, its medicine, and the different departments. Li Ding adds that Su Mo has disappeared, apparently taken by a monster.
• K assigns Team Nine to guard the first-floor entrances and orders them to kill anyone who resists. He takes Team Seven to investigate the anomaly’s source before nightfall.
• In a fourth-floor storage room, Xuan Wen is teaching Da Bo, a huge stitched patient with a young child’s intelligence. The wounded child patient arrives seeking Da Bo’s help against the people who attacked him. Xuan Wen recognizes that the wounds were made by a blade and that the curse on them differs from the hospital’s.
• Xuan Wen offers to help the child take revenge if he obeys her, then threatens to put him in a jar if he refuses. Her calm, doctor-like manner contrasts with her patients’ frightening appearances.

Character developments

• K is shown as powerful, controlled, and ruthless. His ability to defeat the child patient without drawing his blade highlights his confidence, while absorbing the mutated flesh suggests he can exploit or take in supernatural forces.
• Lao Sao hides his resentment and fear, and supplies information to prove useful. His online hostility toward the Investigation Bureau may become a problem if discovered.
• Li Ding reveals his concern for the missing Su Mo, though he does not know Su Mo is connected to the Ghost Story Players.
• Xuan Wen demonstrates both patience and coercive authority: she teaches Da Bo gently but immediately bends the injured child to her will.
• Da Bo is physically monstrous but mentally childlike, making him both threatening and vulnerable.

Significant themes

• Power and dehumanization: The Security Team treats civilians as disposable and acts with sweeping force, while Lao Sao sees them as arrogant and inhuman.
• Appearance versus nature: Da Bo’s monstrous body contrasts with his childlike mind; Xuan Wen looks and acts more like a doctor than the actual hospital staff.
• Control and survival: Characters negotiate safety through intimidation, bargains, information, and supernatural strength.
• Escalating danger: The hospital’s anomalies appear tied to a powerful source, and the Security Team expects Ghost Story Players to arrive after dark.

Character interactions

• K dominates the child patient in combat, then interrogates Lao Sao and his group.
• Lao Sao tries to appease K by explaining the hospital’s rules; Li Ding speaks up to report Su Mo’s disappearance.
• Xuan Wen comforts and teaches Da Bo, then turns the injured child’s appeal into a bargain backed by a threat.
• The child patient seeks help from Da Bo but instead becomes subject to Xuan Wen’s authority.