Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• After rescuing Luo Dong’s wife from the Execution House, Gao Ming brings her back to the fourth floor and tells her he is a founder of the Deadwater Forum, asking her to pass the message to Luo Dong.
• When the Flesh-and-Blood Grudge House disappears, Gao Ming senses a distant presence watching him. He suspects summoning the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God into reality makes him more vulnerable, but presses on.
• Gao Ming finds documents describing the building’s four mutation ranks—human, dog, beast, and monster—and learns that only a few have reached the beast rank. The records suggest the clay sculpture’s faith centers on awakening animal nature in human souls.
• Gao Ming and Luo Dong’s wife reach the fifth floor, where they discover pet products that are actually designed for humans, including restraints, clothing, and sexualized devices.
• Manager Nian appears and confirms she deliberately transformed her younger brother, Nian Yu, into a monster. She says she despises hypocrisy and believes people conceal ugliness beneath their kindness.
• Nian Yu’s sister reveals that she can hear the thoughts of people and animals. She claims her god wants to speak with Gao Ming.
• The fifth floor’s exits are sealed as mutated company employees emerge. A deer-headed monster blocks the door, while a nine-headed bird thrusts its beak through a window, trapping Gao Ming and his companions.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains determined and pragmatic, protecting Luo Dong’s wife while investigating the building. He recognizes that Manager Nian’s cruelty is tied to her belief that people are fundamentally hypocritical.
• Luo Dong’s wife is frightened by the supernatural surroundings but speaks bluntly to Manager Nian, briefly challenging her before worrying that she may have provoked her.
• Nian Yu’s sister, Manager Nian, is revealed as a disturbing antagonist: despite having been loved by those around her, she deliberately corrupted her brother and sees animal instinct as more honest than human restraint. Her mind-reading ability gives her knowledge of Gao Ming’s thoughts.
• The siblings’ contrast is emphasized: Nian Yu was remembered as kind and obedient, while his sister believes that behavior concealed his true nature.

Significant themes

• Hypocrisy and human nature: Manager Nian sees affection, respect, and morality as masks for selfish or degrading thoughts.
• Instinct versus restraint: The building’s mutation system and its human-made “pet” products blur the line between civilized behavior and animal desire.
• Corrupt faith and transformation: The clay sculpture’s belief system turns inner nature into bodily mutation, suggesting that belief can reshape both identity and form.
• Power and vulnerability: Gao Ming’s supernatural resources help him survive, yet summoning them may expose him to a deadly watcher.

Character interactions

Gao Ming protects and leads Luo Dong’s wife, while asking her to carry a message to Luo Dong. On the fifth floor, she and Gao Ming confront Manager Nian over her treatment of Nian Yu and her view of humanity. Their exchange is interrupted when the company’s transformed employees and two powerful monsters surround them.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming confronts Manager Nian, whose body is being used by an emotionless presence linked to a clay sculpture. The presence offers to help him fight the beings it calls the “killers who murdered the shadow world,” in exchange for violent, antisocial people and control of the Lishan area.
• Gao Ming rejects both deals. He argues that humans already possess ample cruelty and refuses to let the supernatural powers set rules over him.
• He unleashes the Execution House and the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, openly defying the taboo against using overwhelming power. The rocking horse is destroyed, the clay sculpture pendant falls, and its remaining will retreats toward the sixth floor.
• Gao Ming captures Manager Nian and sends her into the Execution House. He then uses the Blind Man’s Posthumous Photograph to locate Big Dog, who appears to be trying to consume the Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture.
• Gao Ming heads upstairs to help Big Dog, but the Nine-Headed Monster Bird and Deer-Headed Hunter attack. Xia Yang steps in to handle them. The chapter ends as the hunter’s attack on Luo Dong’s wife is mysteriously stopped.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows no fear and grows more openly defiant, choosing to draw fate’s attention rather than submit to its rules. He also uses his ability to conceal his plans while Manager Nian can read his thoughts.
• Manager Nian is revealed as the vessel of another presence and is taken captive after Gao Ming defeats it.
• Big Dog has left the Dog Kennel and seems to be pursuing a new path by targeting the Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture.
• Xia Yang appears calm and courteous despite readily engaging the monsters.
• Luo Dong’s wife witnesses the confrontation and remains vulnerable when the next attack begins.

Significant themes

• Defiance of fate and authority: Gao Ming rejects the supernatural beings’ attempts to negotiate rules and territory.
• Human cruelty: He argues that people can be more inventive and terrifying than beasts.
• Change through suffering: Gao Ming’s accumulated misery fuels his demand for a complete transformation.
• Power and its cost: Gao Ming’s ghosts are bound to his fate, while invoking greater power risks attracting fate’s attention.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Manager Nian’s hidden occupant bargain, challenge one another, and ultimately fight; Gao Ming captures Nian.
• Gao Ming coordinates indirectly with Big Dog through the Posthumous Photograph and sets out to assist him.
• Xia Yang offers to deal with the incoming monsters, separating Gao Ming from the immediate attack.
• The Deer-Headed Hunter targets Luo Dong’s wife, but an unexplained force prevents it from striking.

Key plot points and events

• Xia Yang uses Luo Dong’s wife as a living canvas, marking her with images of a Fierce Beast and a vengeful ghost. The powers boost her, and Xia Yang takes control of her body as she fights the Deer-Headed Hunter.
• Gao Ming pursues the Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture to the Pet Supplies Building’s top floor, where he finds a horrific nest of flesh and blood made from murdered citizens.
• The Beast God, unable to act without possessing a host, threatens Gao Ming and claims that killing Fate is necessary for freedom. Gao Ming counters that the god’s contempt for ordinary people makes it no better than Fate.
• The Beast God unleashes taboo power, causing cracks in the night sky and drawing the attention of a terrifying presence—apparently Fate itself. The Flesh-and-Blood Immortal retreats to the Execution House to hide.
• Gao Ming tries to lure the Beast God into danger, but its nest turns into a vast mouth. Its bites strike him from a distance, leaving wounds that the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal cannot heal. As animal fur grows across his injuries, Gao Ming falls, and the Beast God crawls toward him, vowing to eat him.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Yang reveals his ruthless, godless outlook: he treats people, gods, and memories as materials for his art and tries to reshape Luo Dong’s wife for his purposes.
• Gao Ming remains defiant toward the gods, but recognizes that their abilities operate by unfamiliar rules. He knowingly risks provoking Fate, relying on the Execution House as protection.
• The Beast God shifts from preaching about freedom to openly attacking Gao Ming, exposing its hypocrisy and desperation when threatened.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Immortal chooses self-preservation and withdraws rather than confront the danger.
• Gao Ming also notices that Big Dog, the Blind Man, has become adept at hiding from him.

Significant themes

• Power and hypocrisy: The Beast God condemns Fate’s control while treating people as disposable objects.
• Freedom versus fate: The gods’ attempt to escape their limits may draw the attention of an even greater force.
• Art and control: Xia Yang sees lives and powers as materials he can use to create his desired outcome.
• The unknown rules of supernatural power: The Beast God’s attacks can inflict wounds without physical contact, raising the stakes for Gao Ming.

Plot points

• Gao Ming escapes the Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture by drawing Fate’s attention to it. Big Dog, who has secretly been competing with the Beast God for its followers’ faith, emerges from the shadows and carries Gao Ming away.
• Fate’s gaze reaches the Beast God’s host. The dead and tortured souls return as curses, tearing at the Beast God and its stolen faith until the god is destroyed.
• Gao Ming and his companions survive, but the encounter has a cost: Gao Ming’s hair turns partly white and wrinkles appear, while the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal is weakened. Big Dog is shaken as well.
• Big Dog finds the Beast God’s faith has mostly dissipated, but he has claimed half of it, gaining sharp fangs and a powerful offensive ability. His rescued “dog people” can also become followers and strengthen him.
• Gao Ming recognizes that Big Dog has found a new purpose. He gives him Nian Yu, whose mutations and knowledge of the underground water network will be useful, and Nian Xin, who freely gives Big Dog her faith.
• Gao Ming heads for the fifth floor. With the sculpture gone, Xia Yang and the Lishan Hospital patients subdue the remaining monsters there.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming reveals how far he will go to survive: he deliberately uses Fate against the sculpture, despite the danger to himself and his companions. He remains composed afterward and supports Big Dog’s newfound confidence.
• Big Dog shifts from a timid, mainly defensive survivor into a more formidable figure with followers, new abilities, and a clear path. He protects Gao Ming and earns Nian Xin’s admiration.
• Nian Xin is drawn to Big Dog’s imposing appearance and kind inner nature, seeing him as the true Beast God and willingly pledging her faith. Nian Yu is entrusted to Big Dog as a powerful, useful ally.
• The Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture/Beast God dies cursing Gao Ming and warning that Fate has noticed him. The Flesh-and-Blood Immortal suffers from Fate’s presence but remains with Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• The cost of confronting Fate: Fate’s power is vast and impersonal, and even merely encountering its gaze harms those nearby.
• Faith and identity: Big Dog takes the Beast God’s followers and becomes a new focus of faith, suggesting that belief can reshape power and status.
• Survival through ruthless strategy: Gao Ming’s victory comes not through a fair fight but through cunning and willingness to exploit dangerous forces.
• Appearance versus inner nature: Nian Xin is captivated by Big Dog’s fearsome exterior, but also by the kindness she perceives beneath it.

Key plot points and events

• Big Dog agrees to take the pet-building monsters as followers—but only after Gao Ming brings them into the Execution House, binding their fate to his. The Nine-Headed Strange Bird, Deer-Headed Hunter, and tentacled Nian Yu submit, completing Big Dog’s Beast Markings.
• Through the markings, Big Dog glimpses memories of the Beast-Faced Clay Sculpture and learns that the Blood City Lord killed the Beast God and apparently many other gods. The killer appears as a smiling man with a vicious hammer. Big Dog destroys the memory before it can threaten him.
• Gao Ming wonders whether becoming a Blood City Lord might let him escape Fate. Then Luo Dong’s wife senses that her family is in danger, and Gao Ming follows her into the stairwell.
• They find investigators advancing through the building despite the surrounding anomalies. In the lobby, Luo Dong is shielding his ghostly daughter while she fights monsters. The investigators have orders to attack.
• Their apparent leader is Yuan Hui, Gao Ming’s former classmate and a former accomplice of Situ An. Now wearing an East District Investigation Bureau uniform and newly acquired Ghost Markings, Yuan Hui orders Luo Dong to surrender.

Character developments and interactions

• Big Dog shows greater care and restraint than before, devising a way to reassure Gao Ming while accepting the monsters’ allegiance. He also recognizes the danger in the Beast God’s memory and acts quickly to protect himself.
• Gao Ming remains cautious: though confident against the clay-sculpture monsters, he recognizes the Investigation Bureau—and its apparent support from Fate—as a more unpredictable threat.
• Luo Dong openly defends his daughter, insisting that she remains his child despite becoming a ghost and emphasizing that she has harmed no citizens and has repeatedly saved him. He also shields his timid son as investigators close in.
• Luo Dong’s wife seeks help rather than abandoning her family, and Gao Ming agrees to investigate.
• Yuan Hui’s reappearance links the current confrontation to Gao Ming’s past. His Ghost Markings suggest he has gained power, but he does not yet control it.

Significant themes

• Family and identity: Luo Dong refuses to define his daughter solely by her transformation into a ghost.
• Fear, fate, and power: Gao Ming considers becoming a Blood City Lord as a way to resist Fate, while the Blood City Lord’s god-killing power hints at a larger struggle.
• Humanity versus monstrosity: The ghost daughter protects people, while the human investigators threaten her family.
• Trust and shared risk: Big Dog’s plan binds the monsters to Gao Ming, reflecting a growing bond between them.

Key plot points and events

• Yuan Hui prepares to kill Luo Dong and his ghostly family, arguing that the Investigation Bureau’s cruel treatment of Anomalous people leaves him no reason to show mercy. Luo Dong refuses to flee, willing to sacrifice himself to protect his family.
• Gao Ming’s Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God feeds on Luo Dong’s despair and willpower, recovering slightly. Gao Ming concludes that willpower and faith may let ordinary people resist Fate.
• Gao Ming steps in and stops Yuan Hui’s attack. He and Yuan Hui, former classmates, exchange accusations: Yuan Hui insists he serves Hanhai’s citizens, while Gao Ming calls out his rise through the Bureau as betrayal.
• The Female Host receives instructions from her superiors and privately tells Yuan Hui something that changes his course. Rather than fight, Yuan Hui announces that the General Bureau has altered its approach to the Ghost Story Players.
• He reveals that black fog has isolated Hanhai, and that the Bureau is seeking cooperation against the worsening disaster. It also plans a major purge of escaped clay sculptures from Lishan Hospital, offering rewards to anyone who participates.

Character developments

• Gao Ming becomes more certain that collective resistance to Fate—through willpower, faith, and people who have overturned their destinies—is the way to break the false nightmare.
• Yuan Hui is shown as increasingly warped by resentment and his Ghost Markings, despite presenting himself as a righteous servant of the public. He agrees to relay the Bureau’s offer, but Gao Ming remains suspicious of his motives.
• Luo Dong is overwhelmed by guilt and self-blame, yet proves willing to die for his family. Gao Ming’s intervention gives him hope when he has nearly given up.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God responds to a living person’s desperate willpower for the second time, showing signs of recovery.

Character interactions

• Yuan Hui threatens Luo Dong and his family; Luo Dong stands his ground to shield them.
• Gao Ming confronts Yuan Hui, invoking their shared past at Hande Private Academy and challenging his loyalty to the Investigation Bureau.
• Gao Ming’s arrival interrupts the attack and saves Luo Dong’s family. The investigators, meanwhile, remain tense and divided between fear of the Anomalous and reluctance to witness another tragedy.

Significant themes

• Resistance to fate: Willpower and faith may offer people a way to challenge a predetermined order.
• Institutional cruelty and moral compromise: The Bureau’s claimed duty to protect citizens conflicts with its imprisonment and experimentation of Anomalous people.
• Sacrifice, guilt, and family loyalty: Luo Dong’s willingness to die for his family contrasts with his belief that he has failed them.
• Unstable alliances: The Bureau’s proposed cooperation comes amid a crisis, but Gao Ming distrusts its motives and sees its actions as serving Fate’s existing order.

Plot points and events

• After resolving the Pet Building anomaly, Gao Ming warns the Investigation Bureau to respond sooner to future crises. He escorts Luo Dong and his family toward Lishan, then leaves once he is sure they are safe.
• Gao Ming enters cordoned-off Lishan Hospital with Big Dog’s help, intending to find A Fang’s parents. The Rear Building has changed since the Black Lake was destroyed and its clay ghost-god sculptures escaped, though the Investigation Bureau still guards it.
• Gao Ming suspects Wan Jie may be misleading the Bureau’s leadership about the hospital. Xia Yang shares his doubts, noting Wan Jie’s ability to get security personnel out of the Black Lake alive.
• In the former operating room, Gao Ming finds A Fang and the Doctor Couple. They have tried to make the gruesome room welcoming, but its grotesque furnishings and watchful toys keep it unsettling.
• Gao Ming asks A Fang to communicate with the other will inside him. That will reveals that Situ An and Lu Zang hid its memories in two clay sculptures—Past and Future—buried deep in the Black Lake. The chapter ends with Gao Ming wondering whether the Bureau’s coming “Great Screening” is intended to target them.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains protective of those he has helped, but his growing power and ambition are evident: the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal wants to eliminate rival candidates and rule Hanhai with him. Gao Ming nevertheless approaches A Fang calmly and appeals to their shared history rather than provoking him.
• A Fang is frightened and knows little about the will within him, but he manages to relay important information. His immense, poorly understood power makes him both vulnerable and dangerous.
• The Doctor Couple are still bound to Gao Ming through the Execution House. Their attempts to transform the operating room suggest they are trying to build a gentler life under his control.
• Luo Dong expresses gratitude to Gao Ming, who tells him to focus on surviving and protecting his family.
• Gao Ming and Big Dog investigate the hospital together, while Gao Ming’s suspicions about Wan Jie are reinforced by Xia Yang’s observations.

Significant themes

• Power and control: A Fang’s inner will, Gao Ming’s influence over the Doctor Couple, and Wan Jie’s possible independence all raise questions about who truly commands whom.
• Past and future, and hidden truth: The names of the two sculptures suggest that Hanhai’s history and fate are tied to secrets still buried in the Black Lake.
• Care amid horror: Gao Ming’s concern for Luo Dong’s family and A Fang contrasts with the violence and grotesque setting.
• The cost of institutional failure: Gao Ming criticizes the Bureau for arriving after tragedy, while its continued cordon may reflect misinformation or deeper motives.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming recalls the immense power sleeping beneath the polluted faith surrounding the divine statues and considers whether to confront them.
• A Fang gives Gao Ming a posthumous photograph showing him asleep before a haunted house, along with a key to the home he built from haunted building blocks. He asks Gao Ming to protect his many parents.
• Gao Ming gives A Fang a lollipop and proposes an alliance: A Fang can seek his help if he faces danger. Gao Ming suspects the photograph is also trying to convey a warning.
• Back at Zhang Ding’s supermarket, Gao Ming meets with Xuan Wen, Wei Dayou, and others to review reports on the rapidly expanding Ghost Story Player community.
• The group identifies two major organizations: the East District’s Disaster Response United Mutual Aid Society, led by Situ Cheng, and the Old City District’s increasingly influential Righteous Gang, led by Shen Tian.
• Gao Ming gathers information on promising players and plans to reach them before the General Investigation Bureau’s mass screening, so their willpower can help the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God become a dream ghost.

Character developments and interactions

• A Fang shows childlike trust and attachment, but his own haunted “home” and abundance of posthumous photos suggest he is an unusually powerful candidate chosen by the shadow world. His request about “all my parents” echoes Gao Ming’s own uncertainty about his many parents.
• Gao Ming balances caution with pragmatism: he recognizes A Fang’s danger but sees the boy as a valuable potential ally. He also turns his attention to recruiting strong players for his larger plan.
• Xuan Wen reveals concern for Gao Ming’s safety, while Wei Dayou and the others brief him on the changing player landscape. Big Dog questions whether A Fang can be trusted.

Significant themes

• Trust and uneasy alliances: Gao Ming seeks help from dangerous candidates even while questioning their motives.
• Adaptation and survival: Ordinary people rapidly organize and grow stronger as familiar rules collapse.
• Identity and memory: Gao Ming’s uncertain memories of his parents mirror the chapter’s blurred boundaries between ordinary people, ghosts, and calamities.
• Power through belief and will: Divine statues grow stronger with believers, while players’ willpower may empower the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God.

Key events

• Gao Ming concludes that he must gather willpower energy, alter Hanhai’s citizens’ fates, and eliminate or contain the rival candidates for Blood City Lord before Fate destroys him. He also recognizes that the twelve Blood City Lords are divided.
• With the black fog advancing and communications cut off, the General Bureau prepares a mass screening—an effort that signals the disaster has escalated beyond its control.
• Wan Jie meets with the Jingtuo God before the screening. He has disobeyed orders before, and the General Bureau is unhappy with his conduct, but he insists he will deliver results.
• The screening site, between the impoverished Old City District and wealthy East District, is affected by a suspected level-five anomaly. Investigators entering it lose their memories and become Anomalous.
• The Jingtuo God explains that clay sculptures released from Lishan Hospital may be responsible. They can manipulate memories and strip away ghost markings, disabling ghost-granted powers—including those of Wan Jie, Gao Ming, and the Ghost Story Players.
• Wan Jie is ordered to resolve the anomaly and is also encouraged to eliminate his rivals. The Jingtuo God privately questions whether his assembled security squad could kill Wan Jie, then sends them to the Old City District.
• Fan Li, Li Chengcai, and Ouyang Susu arrive at Xiangshengyong Apartments. Still grieving Sister Zhang, they decide to look for Class Thirteen first, remembering that they owe Gao Ming their lives.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming accepts a clear but perilous strategy and becomes more cautious about protecting the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal, whose repeated injuries and healing depend on living willpower energy.
• Wan Jie remains calm and openly hostile toward Gao Ming. His comments suggest he distrusts the General Bureau and suspects it might sacrifice him and his people.
• The Jingtuo God maintains a controlled, strategic manner, conceals his intentions from Wan Jie, and appears to be testing the strength of the squad he has gathered.
• Fan Li has grown more mature and now wears a metal mask; his resolve is sharpened by gratitude to Gao Ming. Ouyang Susu remains affected by Sister Zhang’s death and urges caution.
• Wan Jie’s meeting with the Jingtuo God is polite but tense, while the special squad—including Zhuo Jun and Bai Xiao—waits nearby. Fan Li’s group, meanwhile, heads toward the same dangerous screening zone seeking Class Thirteen.

Significant themes

• Fate and resistance: Gao Ming’s struggle is to gather enough power to defy the system governing everyone’s lives.
• Collapsing order and survival: The spreading disaster, fading daylight, and severed communications leave people facing an increasingly desperate world.
• Class division: The wall between the Old City and East District physically embodies the inequality separating the poor from the wealthy.
• Distrust and shifting alliances: The Blood City Lords are divided, Wan Jie doubts the General Bureau, and the screening may bring rival factions into conflict.
• Vulnerability and loss: The anomaly’s ability to erase memories and disable ghost powers threatens everyone, while Sister Zhang’s death lingers with her companions.

Chapter Summary: “Gathering”

Key plot points and events

• Security personnel, Ghost Story Players, and other factions gather outside Xiangshengyong Apartments for the General Investigation Bureau’s “Great Screening,” an anomaly event tied to Lishan Hospital.
• The Jingtuo God’s driver explains the rules: participants are assessed by how long they survive, since newcomers are not expected to hunt ghosts. The supernatural threats can alter memories, so participants should distrust their own recollections. The ghosts’ true forms are two clay sculptures; destroying them could end the anomaly.
• Participants collect keys to individual rental units. Each key admits up to five people, and entrants are instructed to find the matching room and hide inside.
• Wan Jie arrives with an injured team. He and the Jingtuo God discuss the possibility that their intended targets have entered the event—or may be ahead of them—and the apparent lack of a way back.
• The Jingtuo God secretly orders Zhuo Jun’s East District Security squad to use sewn-in Posthumous Photographs to restore their memories, then carry out the original plan. If possible, they are to ensure their opponents never leave the anomaly.
• Zhuo Jun’s squad enters, with Bai Xiao at the rear. His key is marked 4343. As he crosses into the courtyard, the Malice within him surges into his brain, and its voice seems to recede as his vision blurs.
• The chapter ends with the Jingtuo God checking on the second screening site, Changcheng Residential Complex, and asking whether members of Class Thirteen have arrived. They have not yet been seen.

Character developments

• Bai Xiao has changed significantly since earlier events: his body is concealed beneath his uniform, he carries an unusual blade, and he has apparently consumed Malice’s flesh. Entering the anomaly triggers a dangerous reaction from the Malice inside him.
• Wan Jie appears battered and weary, but remains wary of the Jingtuo God and recognizes that someone has been recruiting unusually promising citizens as Ghost Story Players.
• The Jingtuo God is shown as ruthless and personally invested in the operation. His wounded hand and deliberate use of pain suggest suppressed emotion, while his order to eliminate opponents reveals the screening’s hidden agenda.
• Zhuo Jun and his squad follow the Jingtuo God’s instructions, entering the apartments equipped with a way to recover altered memories.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: The ghosts can tamper with memories, making self-trust a key danger.
• Survival as exploitation: The screening is presented as an opportunity, but participants’ lives are being used as bargaining chips by powerful officials.
• Hidden motives and factional conflict: The stated test conceals a plan to trap or kill certain participants.
• Entrapment and inevitability: The oppressive atmosphere and entrants’ inability to look back suggest that crossing into the anomaly may mean surrendering control—or any chance of retreat.

Character interactions

• Wan Jie and the Jingtuo God exchange tense remarks about missing targets and the people recruiting Ghost Story Players; the driver intervenes to prevent the conversation from escalating.
• The Jingtuo God gives Zhuo Jun and the other squad leaders private instructions, turning them from ordinary screening participants into agents of a covert operation.
• The crowd’s interactions are mostly cautious and practical: people form groups, collect keys, and avoid antagonizing the powerful or dangerous figures present.

Plot points

• At Changcheng Residential Complex, the Great Screening begins. Investigation Bureau teams distribute keys and key cards to a crowd that includes citizens, Ghost Story Players, Anomalous individuals, and wanted criminals. As shadows spread around the complex, the surveillance feed cuts out.
• Jingtuo God sees Class Thirteen students Wang Jie and Xishan among the entrants, but stays outside the anomaly event. He believes Gao Ming is already inside and expects the building to strip away his memories; he waits for someone to emerge.
• Inside Xiangshengyong Apartment Building, Bai Xiao becomes separated from his teammates and is pursued through dark corridors. His growing fixation on finding room 4343 consumes his memories. When he enters, the room feels like home, though he cannot recall why.
• Bai Xiao discovers a conspicuous red Gift Box containing a bracelet. Seeing it brings his younger sister Bai Qiao’s name to mind, and he wonders whether the bracelet is especially important to him.
• Xishan also wakes in a strange apartment with no memories. A Gift Box draws him in; its contents—a set of women’s underwear—restore memories of a woman upstairs whose death deeply affected him.
• Doors open throughout the building as other occupants find their own gifts.

Character developments and interactions

• Jingtuo God is suspicious and confrontational toward the Branch Bureau Chief, but chooses caution over entering the complex. He remains focused on Gao Ming and the possible cost of inheriting Situ An’s legacy.
• Bai Xiao is reduced by the building’s influence to confusion and instinct, yet his gift briefly reconnects him with a meaningful personal memory.
• Xishan begins disoriented and concerned only with food; his gift revives a painful memory that challenged his beliefs.
• The Bureau branches and Situ Cheng’s group avoid open conflict, each side prioritizing its own goals and conserving strength. Xishan’s recollection also links him emotionally to the unnamed woman whose death changed him.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: The building erases memories, while the gifts appear to restore selected ones.
• Obsession and the cost of focus: Bai Xiao’s determination to reach his assigned room crowds out everything else.
• Objects as emotional anchors: The gifts reconnect people to relationships, grief, and formative experiences.
• Inheritance and fate: Jingtuo God frames taking Situ An’s inheritance as accepting its consequences.
• Distrust and moral ambiguity: The crowd contains both ordinary people and dangerous individuals, while authorities weigh public image and self-preservation against intervention.

Key plot points

• Wang Jie receives a red gift box containing the broken knife he used to commit his first murder. The discovery convinces him that someone witnessed or knows about the crime, and he decides to find the sender and eliminate them.
• His memories are incomplete and increasingly unreliable. Although the luxurious apartment feels familiar, he suspects it may not truly be his home. Surveillance footage shows that he himself carried the box inside, adding to the mystery.
• Outside his apartment, Wang Jie meets his neighbor Situ Cheng, who warns him that an unknown disaster has struck the city. The Old City and East District are dark, and people at the Xiangshengyong Apartments are reportedly screaming and being chased. Residents have received mysterious red gifts.
• The elevator display turns a vivid, eye-like red. When it reaches the 18th floor, the lights go out and the elevator opens, releasing a foul-smelling, human-shaped entity. It approaches Wang Jie’s door and presses its face against the peephole as the door begins to warp.
• In a separate scene at the Xiangshengyong Apartments, Fan Li gives Dr. Li Chengcai a key labeled 4441 and sets off to find Gao Ming. Fan Li senses Gao’s presence through a supernatural connection created by drinking the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s heart’s blood.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Jie is exposed as a murderer who craves intense stimulation, yet the apparent arrival of a genuinely inhuman threat unsettles him. He remains curious and confrontational, choosing to watch the danger rather than immediately retreat.
• Situ Cheng warns Wang Jie about the catastrophe but provides little certainty about its cause. He appears grim and deeply dissatisfied with life, though something keeps him going.
• Fan Li shifts from searching unsuccessfully for Gao Ming to following a sudden supernatural signal. He entrusts Dr. Li Chengcai with the key and proceeds alone.
• Wang Jie’s exchanges with Situ Cheng reveal that the mysterious gifts may be connected to the residents’ survival, while Fan Li’s brief interaction with Dr. Li Chengcai establishes their split in the dangerous apartment building.

Significant themes

• Unreliable memory and identity: Wang Jie cannot trust what he remembers about his past or even his home.
• Hidden guilt and exposure: The murder weapon turns a buried crime into an immediate threat.
• The collapse of ordinary safety: A familiar residential building becomes dangerous as the power fails and an unknown entity arrives.
• Competing forms of danger: Wang Jie sees himself as a hunter, but recognizes that the entity outside is unlike any human killer.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Fan Li enters Xiangshengyong Apartments to find Gao Ming, following the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s urgent call. Though danger closes in and his teammates, Doctor Li and Ouyang Susu, try to contact him, Fan Li ignores the warnings and presses onward.
• On a floor where every apartment is numbered 0715, Fan Li takes refuge in an unlocked room. Inside, he finds Gao Ming—apparently a high-school student—hanged and dead.
• Fan Li searches the apartment and uncovers evidence of Gao Ming’s troubled past: his parents’ divorce, a psychiatric assessment suggesting hereditary mental illness, declining grades, and a diary describing severe bullying and despair. Its final entry indicates Gao Ming expected to attend a class outing the next day but could no longer bear living.
• Fan Li concludes that this version of Gao Ming died in high school, raising the possibility that the adult Gao Ming he knows is a ghost or otherwise connected to the supernatural.
• When Fan Li leaves the apartment, he finds another Gao Ming in the neighboring room: alive, wearing the same school uniform, and seemingly unaware of him. Fan Li realizes that the floor may contain a different high-school Gao Ming in every apartment.

Character developments

• Fan Li shows unwavering loyalty to Gao Ming, risking his life and disregarding his own safety to reach him. Faced with Gao Ming’s corpse, his determination gives way to shock and urgent efforts to understand what happened.
• Gao Ming is revealed through the apartment’s clues as a lonely, bullied teenager under severe pressure at home and school. The apparent suicide complicates Fan Li’s understanding of the adult Gao Ming he knows.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and trust: Fan Li’s devotion to Gao Ming overrides his survival instincts.
• Isolation and despair: Gao Ming’s childhood home offered no refuge, while bullying and family breakdown left him unable to find a reason to live.
• Identity and reality: Multiple versions of Gao Ming—and the uncertainty over whether the adult Gao Ming is a ghost—make memory, death, and personal identity unclear.
• The unseen cost of survival: The chapter reveals a painful past behind the powerful, seemingly capable Gao Ming.

Character interactions

• Fan Li ignores the distorted calls of Doctor Li and Ouyang Susu as he follows the Immortal’s summons.
• He tries to save the dead high-school Gao Ming, then examines the teenager’s belongings to piece together his past.
• At the chapter’s end, Fan Li confronts a second, living high-school Gao Ming, setting up the mystery of the apartment floor and its many identical-numbered rooms.

Plot points and events

• Fan Li finds Gao Ming on July 14, but Gao Ming doesn’t recognize him and assumes he’s delusional. Fan Li insists he came to help and claims they have a bond.
• A grotesque, fast-moving creature approaches when the hallway light goes out. Fan Li forces his way into Gao Ming’s room, explaining that staying in the corridor too long attracts the “unclean things.”
• Fan Li shows Gao Ming an incomplete diary found beside the body of another Gao Ming in a room across the hall. Gao Ming compares it with his own diary: the first seven entries match, but the eighth onward records different choices and outcomes.
• In Gao Ming’s diary, he fought back violently against a bully and was eventually expelled. He plans to join his class’s outing the next day to confront the bully again.
• Fan Li realizes the rooms may contain alternate versions of Gao Ming, each shaped by different life choices. He also wonders about a distant room sealed with talismans.

Character developments

• Fan Li is resourceful and persistent, risking injury to gain Gao Ming’s trust. He begins piecing together the mystery of the repeated date and the different versions of Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming is wary and initially rejects Fan Li, but becomes curious when he sees the matching diary. His version is confrontational and reckless, prepared to risk severe consequences to retaliate against his bully.

Character interactions

• Fan Li tries to reassure Gao Ming and prove their connection, while Gao Ming responds with suspicion and keeps a knife ready.
• The diaries give Gao Ming concrete evidence that Fan Li’s story may be true, though they also reveal that their lives diverged.
• Fan Li and Gao Ming cooperate uneasily after the creature appears, with Fan Li taking shelter and Gao Ming remaining cautious.

Significant themes

• Choices and alternate lives: Small differences in decisions can lead to radically different outcomes.
• Identity and memory: Gao Ming’s unfamiliarity with Fan Li contrasts with the evidence linking them.
• Violence and consequences: Gao Ming’s decision to fight back brings escalating retaliation and expulsion.
• Uncertainty and danger: The repeating date, duplicated rooms, strange creatures, and sealed door suggest a larger mystery still unfolding.

Plot points and events

• Fan Li convinces expelled high-schooler Gao Ming that their apartment corridor has changed: every door now bears the number 0715, and each room may contain a different version of Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming says the corridor seemed normal earlier and proposes testing whether the change is supernatural or a flaw in his memory. He agrees to investigate, despite Fan Li’s warning that they can remain outside for only about a minute.
• In the apartment opposite, they find that the suicide victim’s body has vanished. Gao Ming searches the room, then deliberately lingers at the doorway to observe the approaching ghost.
• As darkness spreads, a mass of human limbs and a familiar-looking face crawls toward them. Fan Li pulls Gao Ming inside just in time.
• Gao Ming finds documents in his bag that differ from what he expects in this version of his life: a psychiatric diagnosis and divorce certificate. He reasons that the rooms represent lives shaped by different choices, and suggests searching them for a better outcome.
• Someone knocks. Through the peephole, Gao Ming recognizes Liu Yi, his former classmate who once confessed to him. Although the corridor is dangerous, he opens the door and pulls her inside. She carries a red gift box.

Character development

• Gao Ming proves unusually analytical and courageous. Though visibly terrified, he treats the haunting as a problem to investigate and risks staying outside to learn about the ghost.
• He begins accepting Fan Li’s account after seeing the altered corridor, the vanished body, and the monster. He also recognizes how different choices have shaped his family life and relationships.
• Fan Li is cautious and increasingly alarmed by Gao Ming’s recklessness, but acts decisively to protect him.
• Liu Yi’s unexpected appearance introduces a personal connection from Gao Ming’s past—and an unanswered question about why she has come.

Significant themes

• Alternate lives and consequences: Different decisions create different versions of Gao Ming, with contrasting family circumstances and personalities.
• Fear versus action: Gao Ming acknowledges his terror but refuses to let it stop him from seeking answers.
• Memory and reality: The characters cannot be sure whether the transformed corridor is a supernatural maze or whether Gao Ming’s memory has been manipulated.
• Curiosity and danger: Seeking knowledge may reveal the truth, but every investigation risks attracting the ghost.

Character interactions

• Fan Li tries to warn Gao Ming about the corridor and the ghost; Gao Ming listens but repeatedly pushes beyond the safer course.
• Their contrasting approaches—Fan Li’s caution and Gao Ming’s boldness—create tension, while Fan Li’s rescue shows his concern for Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming shares personal history about his family and Liu Yi, prompting brief empathy from Fan Li.
• The chapter ends with Gao Ming bringing Liu Yi inside, setting up a new mystery around her visit and the gift box.

Key plot points and events

• Liu Yi, a woman from Gao Ming’s future, arrives with a gift and two diaries. She realizes this expelled Gao Ming is not the version she seeks: he has no personal gift, and therefore isn’t the right Gao Ming.
• Liu Yi explains that each person trapped in the strange tale world has a room containing a deeply important gift. Finding it may be essential to escaping.
• The rooms are all numbered 0715, and the diaries place them on July 14. At midnight, it will be July 15—the Ghost Festival, when Gao Ming’s life-changing choices originally began.
• Liu Yi believes that recreating those choices will help produce the “right” version of Gao Ming and prevent someone from harming him.
• Gao Ming writes appeals to the other versions of himself and slips them under room doors, hoping to enlist their help. When no one responds, the trio tries forcing a door open, but discovers that rooms can only be opened from within.
• As they hurry back to their room, they hear repeated thudding from the talisman-covered door at the end of the corridor. Someone—or something—inside appears to be trying to get out.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Yi is revealed as cold, decisive, and physically powerful. She protects her gift, doubts this Gao Ming’s identity, and gives Fan Li clear instructions to find his own room and gift.
• Gao Ming is confused by Liu Yi’s claims but remains determined to discover what the “right choice” is, even attempting to break into another room.
• Fan Li stays loyal to Gao Ming despite being urged to leave. He mediates when Gao Ming makes an insulting comment about Liu Yi’s appearance and helps organize their brief trips into the corridor.
• Liu Yi and Gao Ming clash over his identity and behavior, while Fan Li repeatedly serves as the practical, good-hearted intermediary between them.

Significant themes

• Identity and alternate selves: Several versions of Gao Ming occupy separate rooms, and the group must find the one whose past can lead to the desired future.
• Choice and fate: Liu Yi’s plan depends on recreating pivotal decisions from Gao Ming’s past.
• Trust and selflessness: Fan Li risks his own chance to find a gift because he refuses to abandon Gao Ming.
• The uncanny and impending danger: The repeated room numbers, the Ghost Festival timing, and the sealed, trembling door deepen the supernatural threat.

Key plot points and events

• After the expelled Gao Ming hears another version of himself calling for help from a room covered in talismans, Liu Yi warns that the voice may belong to a ghost. She suggests that Gao Ming’s memories were frozen on July 14, leaving him vulnerable to different outcomes shaped by his choices.
• Liu Yi explains that the trapped Gao Ming may have become a vengeful ghost. The expelled Gao Ming, undeterred by the danger, wants to meet or even join forces with him.
• To help investigate, Liu Yi gives Gao Ming a blood-red Student Council armband containing a ghost. Wearing it makes him seem nonliving to nearby ghost creatures, though he remains vulnerable if one sees him directly.
• Gao Ming reaches the sealed room, removes a talisman, and looks inside. He sees a neat, ordinary home and another Gao Ming celebrating his birthday alone, with a cake and a mysterious red gift box.
• The ordinary Gao Ming hears a knock and receives a note in handwriting identical to his own, warning him about ghosts in the corridor. When he cracks open the door, a grotesque monster bursts from the darkness. Terrified, he slams the door shut.
• The chapter ends by identifying him as the “most ordinary” Gao Ming: unlike the expelled version, he has no bullying, expulsion, or inherited mental illness in his past.

Character developments

• Expelled Gao Ming is reckless and seemingly indifferent to death. Rather than retreating from the supernatural, he imagines becoming a ghost himself and fighting other ghosts.
• Liu Yi acts as the group’s practical analyst. Though she recognizes the risk, she trusts Gao Ming with the armband because she needs to discover which room contains his gift box.
• Ordinary Gao Ming is introduced as comparatively sheltered and untroubled, but his first encounter with the monster leaves him overwhelmed by fear.

Character interactions

• Liu Yi restrains Gao Ming’s impulse to rush into the corridor and explains how different choices may have created different versions of him.
• Gao Ming challenges her cautions with his reckless attitude; Fan Li is stunned by his willingness to die.
• Liu Yi gives Gao Ming the armband, and he accepts the dangerous task despite Fan Li’s objections.
• The two versions of Gao Ming never meet directly, but their matching appearance and handwriting connect them across the door.

Significant themes

• Choice and identity: Different decisions create distinct versions of the same person.
• Fear and courage: Gao Ming’s reckless bravado contrasts with the ordinary version’s instinctive terror.
• Ordinary life disrupted: A quiet birthday alone becomes entangled with ghosts, an unexplained gift, and a warning from an apparent alternate self.
• The danger of assuming familiarity: The voice behind the door may sound like Gao Ming, yet Liu Yi warns that it could be something dangerous.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming wakes in his dark, heavily ritualized apartment, his body covered head to toe in protective inscriptions that have grown into his skin. He cannot wash them off and feels alienated from his own reflection.
• His grandmother’s repeated voice messages insist he remain indoors for seven days to avoid misfortune. She claims his parents vanished because they ignored a fortune-teller’s warning, and that supernatural forces took them.
• The apartment is filled with unsettling precautions: dead fish, burned offerings, scattered soil, a knife tied to a lampshade, and a bedroom covered in painted eyes, ears, and talismans. Gao Ming avoids the bedroom and hides in a wardrobe, where he reads his diary.
• The diary reveals that his grandmother raised him through obsessive rituals, kept him from school, and repeatedly subjected him to harmful practices in hopes of finding his missing parents. Gao Ming was eventually able to attend school, but his inscriptions and injuries made him an outcast.
• Writing the date, July 14, Gao Ming says he now believes in ghosts—but also notes that his grandmother is dead, despite her continuing to send messages. A knock at the door makes the apartment’s warning bells sway, ending the chapter on a cliffhanger.

Character developments

• Gao Ming is presented as an ordinary, contradictory person—timid but determined—and as someone shaped by isolation and trauma. Though disturbed by his appearance and surroundings, he remains controlled and observant.
• He appears to have reached a turning point: he accepts the possibility of ghosts, yet questions the impossible messages from his dead grandmother.
• Grandmother, seen through her recordings and Gao Ming’s memories, is devoted to her family but consumed by superstition. Her attempts to protect or recover her loved ones inflicted lasting harm on Gao Ming.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming’s relationship with his grandmother is conveyed through her insistent recordings and his diary. Her messages urge obedience and frame isolation as protection; his final words suggest grief, disbelief, and unresolved attachment.
• His parents are absent but central to the family’s history: their disappearance drove his grandmother’s rituals and shaped Gao Ming’s childhood.

Significant themes

• Fate versus self-determination: Gao Ming’s name and family history cast his life as predetermined, while his quiet actions suggest a desire to make his own choices.
• Trauma disguised as protection: The grandmother’s rituals are intended to ward off danger but leave Gao Ming physically and emotionally scarred.
• Isolation and alienation: Gao Ming is cut off from others, made to feel monstrous by his body, and enclosed within a home that is both refuge and threat.
• Uncertainty between supernatural and psychological explanations: The chapter’s disturbing details and the dead grandmother’s messages leave open what is truly happening.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming refuses to listen to repeated voice messages from his grandmother, but accepts her video call. She begs him to stay inside, claiming a ritual will lift his calamity in seven days.
• He realizes the video does not match the apartment’s present reality and opens his grandmother’s sealed bedroom despite her warnings.
• He discovers her corpse tied to a chair, surrounded by talismans and ritual objects. She appears to have died after taking unregulated pills supplied by the spiritual “master” she trusted.
• Gao Ming recalls fragmented, painful memories of being killed by supernatural beings—one attacked him through the past, another made a terrible future real. He remains unsure whether the memories are genuine, but believes the danger is not over.
• Another call shows Gao Ming from the apparent viewpoint of his grandmother’s corpse. Her body begins moving, and he flees, fearing she will escape the room.
• He grabs his schoolbag and diary, then desperately tries to break through the chained, talisman-covered apartment door. The chapter ends with unnatural sounds coming from the bedroom.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming moves from guarded curiosity to horror and urgent self-preservation. He recognizes his grandmother’s rituals as harmful rather than protective, yet the supernatural events deepen his uncertainty about his own memories and fate.
• Grandmother, both in the call and through her reanimating corpse, is portrayed as sincerely frightened for Gao Ming but deluded by her faith in the “Great Immortal.” Her attempts to protect him have instead contributed to the danger.
• Their interaction shifts from her pleading and commanding him to stay put, to Gao Ming confronting the reality of her death and fleeing as she appears to awaken.

Significant themes

• Misguided faith and exploitation: The grandmother’s trust in a spiritual master leads her to reject ordinary care and take dangerous medicine.
• Protection becoming harm: Her efforts to shield Gao Ming from misfortune turn the home into a threatening “Ghost Pit.”
• Memory, death, and fate: Gao Ming’s bodily memories suggest deaths across different pasts or possible futures, leaving him unsure what is real.
• Entrapment and escape: The sealed bedroom and barricaded front door reflect how the family’s attempts at protection have trapped Gao Ming in danger.

Key plot points

• As the writing-covered Gao Ming escapes his room, Grandma’s corpse pursues him. The expelled Gao Ming, Liu Yi, and Fan Li help him get clear and retreat to their room.
• Liu Yi explains the apartment’s repeating-room anomaly and shares the group’s diaries. The writing-covered Gao Ming reveals that his room is different from the others: it contains Grandma’s corpse, and he has fragmentary memories of being a Ghost Story Player who entered the apartments.
• He suspects two gods divided his fate: one trapped his flesh and blood in a terrible future, while the other tore apart his memories and soul, leaving him in the past. Liu Yi theorizes that Grandma’s references to “Sir” and the “Great Immortal” may point to these two forces.
• Liu Yi identifies a crucial deadline. At 6:30 a.m. on July 15, Gao Ming and his classmates were meant to catch the Route 27 bus to a group activity that changed their lives. To keep Gao Ming on the right path, they must get him to that bus stop before the event at seven.
• Grandma locates the writing-covered Gao Ming and attacks their door. Since it will not hold, Fan Li prepares to draw her away so the others can escape.

Character developments and interactions

• The writing-covered Gao Ming is revealed as isolated, physically marked by blessings that cause him pain, and burdened by broken memories of a powerful future self. He is awkward but willing to share what he knows.
• The expelled Gao Ming is startled by his counterpart’s appearance and history, while the writing-covered Gao Ming sees him as a possible version of himself who has already made wrong choices.
• Liu Yi takes charge, comparing evidence and guiding the group toward the bus as the key to restoring the correct sequence of events.
• Fan Li supports Liu Yi’s reasoning, then volunteers to distract Grandma so the others can flee.

Significant themes

• Choice and fate: The Gaos may have diverged through past decisions, and the group must try to preserve the choices that lead to Gao Ming’s strongest future.
• Memory and identity: The scattered Gao Mings embody different pieces of one person’s life, while the writing-covered Gao Ming’s painful memory fragments hint at a larger struggle over his past and future.
• Time and escape: The working clocks and the 6:30 bus deadline make time central to the anomaly and turn escape into a race against both the clock and the ghosts.