Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming studies Hanhai’s haunted-house information at Nightlight Studio when the office lights flicker and shadows gather, signaling that a game has begun without his choosing.
• Wei Dayou rallies the exhausted staff, celebrating the unexpected success of their horror-dating-game test version and urging them to finish the release. He heads out to check the electrical room despite Gao Ming trying to stop him.
• Everyone receives the rules of an office survival game: one person is possessed; the group must kill that person to escape; the ghost will awaken in an hour, and its victims will become ghosts. Gao Ming recognizes it as a game his studio once designed.
• An elevator arrives carrying a long-dead man’s corpse, along with delivery rider Su Mo and One-Horn Game manager Ma, who accuse each other of being possessed. Gao Ming judges from the corpse’s lividity that it died at least a day earlier, so neither man necessarily killed it.
• Gao Ming and Xia Yang reason that the ghost may have moved from the corpse into someone who touched it—or may be manipulating the group into targeting innocent suspects. The chapter ends with Su Mo and Ma giving conflicting accounts of what happened in the elevator.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains observant and cautious, recognizing the game and its psychological traps. He tries to warn Wei Dayou and investigates the corpse rather than accepting the accusations at face value.
• Wei Dayou shows loyalty and determination, expressing the studio’s shared frustration and hope. He misunderstands Gao Ming’s warning as concern about the project and leaves before Gao Ming can explain.
• Xia Yang is unexpectedly calm and even amused by the danger. He discusses possible responses with Gao Ming and helps question the two elevator passengers.
• Su Mo and Manager Ma are terrified and each insists the other is the ghost. Their contradictory stories deepen the uncertainty.
• The Nightlight employees initially dismiss the message, but their solidarity and commitment are emphasized through Wei Dayou’s speech.

Significant themes

• Fear and moral compromise: The game forces people to consider killing someone to survive; Gao Ming warns that crossing this line can erode a person’s humanity.
• Manipulation and mistrust: The rules and the corpse’s arrival make suspicion itself dangerous, potentially turning the group against innocent people.
• Workplace perseverance: Wei Dayou’s speech highlights the staff’s exhaustion, attachment to the studio, and hope that their new game can revive it.
• Horror becoming reality: Gao Ming’s fictional game design turns into a lethal situation, blurring the boundary between game and real life.

Plot points and events

• During the new game’s one-hour grace period, Gao Ming investigates a conflict between deliveryman Su Mo and Manager Ma. Manager Ma claims Su Mo is possessed by a ghost, while Su Mo insists the ghost killed Manager Ma’s colleague. Gao Ming leaves Xia Yang to watch Su Mo and warns Nightlight Studio’s employees to stay together and not leave.
• Gao Ming seeks Xuan Wen’s help. The Shadow World violently rejects her, but Gao Ming’s connection to Zhao Xi’s memories protects him from the shadows as he helps free her temporarily. Xuan Wen reveals she can perceive people’s hearts and emotions, though she isn’t registered as a player.
• When Xuan Wen senses someone screaming, Gao Ming returns to the office and discovers most employees are gone. Su Mo says Xia Yang went downstairs to investigate. Gao Ming and Xuan Wen follow the screams and find signs of a massacre across several floors.
• Before the game’s hour is up, the shadows recede and the game ends. Xuan Wen concludes that a human killer slaughtered employees—including the person possessed by the ghost—to escape. Gao Ming finds a group photo of Unicorn Game Studio’s competitive First Work Group: seven possible survivors or suspects.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming acts urgently to organize the workers, but is unable to prevent the killings. The discovery leaves him feeling responsible for the horrors connected to his games. Xuan Wen reassures him that his death would not stop them and that the city needs him.
• Xuan Wen struggles against the Shadow World’s attempts to pull her back into darkness. She is becoming accustomed to the immense emotions she absorbed and shows a sharper, unsettling side in her exchanges with Gao Ming. Her unusual ability lets her detect a scream—and helps her reason out what happened.
• Su Mo remains frightened and insists he is innocent; Gao Ming’s suspicion of him gives way to the more disturbing possibility that a human perpetrated the massacre.
• Manager Ma flees, convinced Su Mo is dangerous. Xia Yang stays behind to watch Su Mo, then leaves to investigate a scream.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen’s partnership deepens: Zhao Xi’s memory-bound chain protects Gao Ming from the shadows, and Xuan Wen directly challenges his assumptions about her.

Significant themes

• Human cruelty versus supernatural evil: The chapter’s central horror is that a person may be more ruthless than the ghost, killing indiscriminately for survival.
• Guilt and responsibility: Gao Ming wonders whether he is accountable for the horrors tied to the games he designed.
• Fate and resistance: Xuan Wen’s struggle against the shadows reflects the Shadow World’s effort to force events—and people—back onto its designed path.
• Trust and suspicion: Conflicting accusations make it difficult to identify who is dangerous, while the real threat may be someone among the apparent survivors.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• After the building’s lights return, Gao Ming and Xuan Wen discuss the previous escape game. Gao Ming condemns the killer for murdering seven people, while Xuan Wen argues that the killer also saved others and that everyone ultimately made their own choices.
• Gao Ming returns to Nightlight Studio and discreetly checks its employees, suspecting the killer may have been hiding on the thirteenth floor and could be one of them. Xia Yang and Wei Dayou explain where they were during the incident, but Gao Ming finds no obvious signs of guilt.
• Police question the studio staff. Manager Gou defends his employees as harmless, while the staff remain unaware of how close they came to the deadly game.
• Later, members of the Investigation Bureau meet Gao Ming. They reveal that Qin Tian—the investigator who had recommended him—has died in another Level Three Anomaly Event.
• The Bureau offers Gao Ming a position, citing his unusual composure and success in surviving a Level Three event. It explains that Hanhai is short of experienced investigators and warns that travel restrictions may soon be imposed. Joining could give Gao Ming both greater freedom to travel and a way to investigate the spreading anomalies.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed but is increasingly aware that anomaly events have real, lasting consequences. Qin Tian’s death deepens that realization. He considers joining the Bureau as a practical means to investigate the disaster and eventually trace its origins.
• Xuan Wen challenges Gao Ming’s moral judgment, framing the killer’s actions as a choice made in a desperate situation rather than simple cruelty.
• Nightlight Studio’s employees appear ordinary and unaware of the danger they narrowly avoided. Gao Ming questions Xia Yang and Wei Dayou, while Manager Gou passionately vouches for the staff.
• The Investigation Bureau representatives recruit Gao Ming by praising his abilities and explaining the organization’s need for survivors like him. Their offer is presented as voluntary, though the prospect of future travel restrictions adds pressure.

Significant themes

• Moral ambiguity and responsibility: The argument over the killer’s actions raises the question of whether survival can justify terrible violence.
• The reality behind the “game”: Anomaly events may resemble games, but their victims—and the investigators who die confronting them—are real.
• Fate and choice: Gao Ming faces a decision that could draw him further into the disaster, while the bloodstained Black Ring symbolizes how his path may be tied to forces beyond his control.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming accepts the Investigation Bureau’s Black Ring, completes its ownership verification, and learns that it contains official anomaly-response protocols and records from previous owners.
• Office Director Chen Yuntian explains that the Old City District is experiencing frequent and increasingly common Anomaly Events. He gives Gao Ming three days to prepare, then assigns him to Investigation Team One in place of Qin Tian.
• Gao Ming returns to the game studio, reassures Manager Gou and Wei Dayou, and entrusts Xuan Wen with running Nightlight, finding the hidden killer player, and organizing game production for Strange Tale.
• When an emergency alert reports an anomaly on Minlong Street, Gao Ming chooses to respond immediately rather than wait for his three-day preparation period.
• He travels into impoverished, overcrowded Lishan, checks in at the local Investigation Office, takes an electric scooter to the scene, and introduces himself to the investigators already there.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming formally commits to investigating anomalies. He sees his knowledge of the games’ connection to reality as an advantage and wants to act quickly, gain resources, and increase his influence. His willingness to answer the alert shows he is eager to learn the Bureau’s methods firsthand.
• Chen Yuntian comes across as controlled and pragmatic. He welcomes Gao Ming but stresses the danger of the district and expects investigators to follow orders.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen show growing trust: he gives her significant responsibility, while she teases him about finally trusting her. Their relationship remains ambiguous.
• Manager Gou and Wei Dayou check on Gao Ming after the Bureau’s visit; Wei appears newly energized about making games.
• The Bureau’s staff treat Gao Ming with respect once they verify his Black Ring, highlighting the status attached to frontline investigators.

Significant themes

• Fate and uncertainty: The opening reflects on whether lives are predetermined, while the events suggest the future remains unpredictable.
• Responsibility amid growing danger: Gao Ming accepts a role that puts him on the front line as anomalies become more frequent.
• Knowledge and control: He hopes to use his information advantage—and the Bureau’s protocols—to prepare for threats and shape what comes next.
• Social inequality: The contrast between Hanhai’s gleaming smart district and Lishan’s cramped, neglected housing underscores the unequal conditions in which the crises unfold.

Plot points and events

• Investigator Gao Ming arrives early to help investigate reports of relentless child crying in an apartment building on Minlong Street. A family with a violent, quarrelsome couple once lived on the fourth floor; they moved away suddenly, and the child may have been left behind.
• Deputy team leader Bai Qiao explains that the Bureau believes the event is low-risk and brings several inexperienced recruits along as training. Gao Ming and two others are the only veterans among the ten investigators entering Building 4.
• Inside, Gao Ming studies a child’s disturbing crayon drawings. They depict the parents fighting while grotesque red figures emerge from their conflict and torment the child—interrupting his homework, keeping him awake, and leaving him afraid even to close his eyes.
• As the team tries to unlock Apartment 405, their Black Rings flash red and communications fail. A mass of shadows floods the building, triggering the hidden game.
• Gao Ming recognizes that the shadowed area is as large as one from a previous Level Three event, contradicting the team’s Level One assessment. The investigators are trapped inside a much more dangerous anomaly, possibly involving a ghost.
• Bai Qiao and the driver warn the team to gather useful information and survive. A red Black Ring light means they are cut off; clocks inside cannot be trusted, and escape is confirmed only when the light turns yellow.

Character developments

• Gao Ming demonstrates experience and alertness: he interprets the drawings and quickly realizes the event is far more dangerous than expected.
• Bai Qiao leads firmly and responsibly, emphasizing vigilance, teamwork, and the importance of surviving with whatever information they uncover.
• The rookies begin the operation nervous but curious, unaware of the true danger until the anomaly activates.
• The burly driver, another veteran, reinforces the team’s survival rules once communications are lost.

Significant themes

• Childhood trauma and fear: The drawings suggest the parents’ violence has created a terrifying world for the child, with the red figures embodying recurring, invasive torment.
• The gap between appearances and reality: A seemingly mild event escalates into a Level Three anomaly, showing the danger of underestimating the unknown.
• Survival and knowledge: Investigators are encouraged to document patterns, but only if they can make it out alive.
• Isolation and uncertainty: The event cuts off communications and makes familiar measures of time unreliable.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming questions the apparent low danger of the event and asks whether the child was harmed; Bai Qiao shares the limited police findings and leads the briefing.
• Bai Qiao and the driver instruct the recruits to follow procedures, stay with their partners, and heed the Black Ring’s warning signals.
• Gao Ming’s discoveries on the stairwell provide the team—and the reader—with a disturbing possible account of the child’s experiences.

Key plot points and events

• As the building’s temperature drops and communications fail, Gao Ming and the rookie investigators enter apartment 405, where a missing boy and his parents once lived.
• The apartment is damp, moldy, and wrecked by what appears to have been repeated, mutual violence between the parents. Gao Ming suspects the family’s long-standing dysfunction may have attracted the Anomaly Event, rather than the event causing the abuse.
• In the boy’s relatively clean bedroom, Gao Ming finds a hiding place inside the wardrobe, a crude rag doll, and a crayon box marked with the wish: “I really wish I could hide somewhere no one could find me.”
• Gao Ming concludes that the boy may have become the doll—or otherwise vanished by having his wish fulfilled. The team begins collecting evidence, while Gao warns them that the incident may be more dangerous than a Level One event.
• Reflecting on the boy’s likely fear and the red figures in his drawings, Gao recognizes the pattern of an Omen-level game he created, “Phobia.” Its premise is a fear that spreads contagiously through the city.

Character developments

• Gao Ming takes the lead in investigating despite lacking formal training. His observations and psychological insight help him connect the family’s violence, the boy’s wish to hide, and the Anomaly Event.
• His past experience counseling serious offenders informs his understanding of how an abusive home can shape a child’s behavior and emotional life.
• Bai Qiao remains cautious and watches Gao closely, questioning his informal methods but allowing him to investigate.
• The rookie investigators follow protocol and gather evidence, though their equipment is unlikely to offer reliable protection.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming steps in front of Bai Qiao to scout the dangerous apartment, treating her as essential to the team.
• Bai Qiao illuminates his way and later challenges his suggestion that the boy became the doll, emphasizing that speculation is not a substitute for procedure.
• The team coordinates into scouting, doorway, and support groups, with Gao warning them about the likely severity of the event.

Significant themes

• Fear and the need for safety: The boy’s hiding place, blanket “walls,” and written wish suggest a desperate search for refuge.
• Abuse and psychological harm: The parents’ violence creates an environment in which the child cannot feel protected and may become chronically fearful.
• Anomaly Events exploiting vulnerability: Gao suspects these phenomena seize on emotional “gaps” and fulfill wishes in horrifying ways.
• Tools versus the unknown: The investigators persist with equipment despite its poor success rate, reflecting humanity’s determination to confront what it cannot yet understand.

Plot points

• In the game-like Anomaly Event “Phobia,” fear itself is the danger: it intensifies in stages, can overwhelm people, and may spread between them. The game’s disastrous ending involves city officials killing residents to stop the contagion.
• Gao Ming realizes he is experiencing physical symptoms of fear and warns the other investigators not to trust their senses or give in to panic. When he finds himself alone in Room 405, he focuses on controlling his thoughts.
• After hearing investigators scream and apparently get dragged away, Gao Ming breaks through doors and searches the corridor. He withstands the frightening sights and sounds by confronting them, using positive self-talk and psychological techniques.
• Gao Ming appears close to escaping the game, but chooses to stay rather than leave the other investigators vulnerable. He reasons that he must enter deeper into fear to reach and save them, and uses a backpack of memorial portraits to imagine himself in the missing child’s position.
• The chapter then follows Zhu Miaomiao, a rookie investigator and former firefighter whose husband and child vanished in an Anomaly Event. In Room 406, she is overwhelmed by fear. After mistakenly striking a colleague with her axe, she believes she has killed them and that she can never return to her family.
• A child appears from the closet and invites her to hide inside.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming demonstrates unusual composure and confidence in the face of fear. He shifts from trying to protect himself to deliberately risking further exposure in order to help his team.
• Zhu Miaomiao is revealed as physically strong and fiercely motivated by her missing family, but her first encounter with overwhelming fear exposes her vulnerability. Her guilt over the apparent death of a colleague leaves her susceptible to the child’s manipulation.
• Gao Ming tries to protect the absent investigators with his warning and later searches for them, while Zhu’s colleagues become the source of the screams and apparent pursuit that intensify her panic.
• The child uses Zhu’s fear and guilt to persuade her to enter the closet, ending the chapter on a threatening cliffhanger.

Significant themes

• Fear as a self-reinforcing contagion: panic can distort perception, deepen isolation, and spread through a group.
• Courage as action, not absence of fear: Gao Ming manages fear by confronting it, while Zhu’s fear overwhelms her despite her physical strength.
• Guilt and manipulation: the child turns Zhu’s belief that she harmed a colleague into a trap.
• Responsibility and sacrifice: Gao Ming gives up a chance to escape because he fears what may happen to the others if he leaves.

Plot points and events

• Rookie investigator Zhu Miaomiao hides in an apartment with a strange boy, who warns her that his enormous, fused-together parents are hunting people. She hears their footsteps and learns the monsters are waiting outside the neighboring apartment.
• When a rookie colleague opens the opposite door, Zhu sees the monster poised to attack and risks exposing herself to warn him.
• The monster breaks into the apartment. The burly driver holds it back long enough for the others to escape, while Bai Qiao urges them to stay inside the Anomaly Event and search for clues. Panicked rookies ignore her and flee toward the fog; the hidden boy goes with them unnoticed.
• Left alone, Zhu faces the monster. Her fear recalls a childhood fire, and she nearly loses her grip on her Fire Axe.
• A young man wearing no Bureau uniform rushes in, wraps a chain around the monster’s neck, and tells Zhu not to be afraid.

Character development and interactions

• Zhu Miaomiao moves from frightened hiding to a brave, instinctive attempt to save her colleague. Though her childhood trauma overwhelms her, she remains standing and tries to defend herself.
• Bai Qiao stays composed and offers sound instructions, but the terrified rookies cannot follow them.
• The burly driver demonstrates selflessness by distracting the monster so others can escape.
• The boy reveals that the monsters are his parents, whose violence and constant fighting have shaped his fearful life.
• The young man enters as a calm, unexpected rescuer, and his words evoke Zhu’s memory of the firefighter who saved her as a child.

Significant themes

• Fear versus reason: Terror makes the rookies abandon training and ignore the dangers of fleeing into the fog.
• Courage under pressure: Zhu acts despite being afraid, warning her colleague and resisting the monster.
• Trauma and rescue: The monster’s approach reawakens Zhu’s childhood memories, while the newcomer’s arrival echoes her earlier rescue.
• The cost of violence: The parents’ cruelty threatens outsiders and has clearly left the boy living in fear.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming deliberately sinks deeper into the investigators’ shared fear to reach the monster born from their phobia: a fused, monstrous version of the child’s parents.
• Knowing that fear gives the imagined creature power, Gao Ming attacks it without hesitation. As the others regain their composure, Zhu Miaomiao overcomes her own fear and charges in; the fear-feeding tendril attached to her withers away.
• Gao Ming strangles the monster with his chain, destroying it and absorbing its remains. The Shadow World begins to recede, but the other investigators are missing.
• Outside Building 4, Gao Ming finds the street swallowed by expanding shadows and discovers a pale child who may be the source of the “Phobia” event. He offers the boy a place among the kind residents of his apartment building. The child vanishes, and the shadows withdraw—though Gao Ming suspects the game has expelled him rather than been defeated.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao emerge into the rain, but the rest of the team remain lost in the Shadow World. Gao Ming resolves to make the Lishan Housing Complex there a refuge for the living before a greater disaster arrives.

Character developments

• Gao Ming demonstrates his ability to control fear and use decisive action to break others’ panic. His concern for the missing investigators and determination to protect future survivors reveal how deeply compassionate he is, despite recognizing the cost.
• Zhu Miaomiao recovers from the supernatural terror by drawing on her courage as a rescuer. Her gratitude and unquestioning decision to follow Gao Ming show her growing trust in him.
• The pale boy remains mysterious: he may be the source of the event, or a person who has chosen to remain in the Shadow World.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming’s brutal attack on the monster is meant to show Zhu Miaomiao and the others that it can be resisted, while his condemnation of the abusive “parents” also speaks to Zhu’s experience of fear.
• Zhu helps by confronting the monster once she regains her courage, then follows Gao Ming into the Shadow World despite the danger.
• Gao Ming approaches the boy gently, offering him a safer, warmer family rather than trying to capture him.

Significant themes

• Fear and self-control: The monster gains strength from people’s fear, making courage and reason essential to survival.
• Chosen family and refuge: Gao Ming’s offer to the boy—and his plan for a stronghold—recast home as a place of safety and belonging.
• Compassion as a burden: Gao Ming accepts that trying to save people will be costly, but believes it is still the right thing to do.
• Uncertain reality: The Shadow World and the boy’s role suggest that the anomaly cannot be explained by ordinary rules, leaving the nature of the two worlds unresolved.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao return from the anomaly in Building Four on Minlong Street. Of the ten investigators who entered, only the two of them make it back; eight are lost in the shadows.
• Zhu Miaomiao retrieves the Investigation Bureau’s equipment, and the pair return to the Lishan Investigation Office, where staff have been unable to contact the missing investigators.
• Gao Ming explains that the event was far more dangerous than its level-one assessment suggested—possibly level two or three. In this anomaly, fear became physically real and hunted people.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao reconstruct the event for the Bureau, and their findings are sent to the General Bureau. Director Chen Yuntian praises Gao Ming for bringing back crucial information and advises him to build trust with his new teammates.
• In the nearly empty Team One office, Bai Xiao welcomes Gao Ming. He explains that he trusts Gao Ming because of Qin Tian, and says the team should stand together against anomalies rather than turn against one another.
• Bai Xiao reveals that the team will be sent to the East District to face what may be Hanhai’s first level-four anomaly event—the same event in which Qin Tian died. Gao Ming suggests joining them.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains focused on his larger plans, but Bai Xiao’s sincere welcome gives him a new appreciation for human solidarity in the face of supernatural threats.
• Zhu Miaomiao is shaken by the losses but backs up Gao Ming’s account and continues working with him. She also helps retrieve equipment and complete the event reconstruction.
• Bai Xiao, grieving the loss of his sister Bai Qiao and other investigators, initially confronts Gao Ming coldly. He ultimately restrains his anger, trusts Qin Tian’s judgment of Gao Ming, and welcomes him to the team.
• Chen Yuntian recognizes the importance of the survivors’ report and encourages Gao Ming to develop trust with his colleagues.
• Gao Ming and Bai Xiao begin their relationship on wary but genuine terms, while the missing investigators’ fate—and Qin Tian’s death—binds the team to the dangers ahead.

Significant themes

• Fear as a weapon: In the Minlong Street anomaly, panic made imagined threats real, turning fear into a direct cause of death.
• Uncertainty and preparedness: Anomaly events can defy their assessed danger levels, and the Bureau’s limited understanding can put investigators at risk.
• Trust and solidarity: Bai Xiao argues that investigators must rely on one another; cooperation is humanity’s answer to supernatural enemies.
• Loss and perseverance: The team faces devastating casualties, yet the survivors’ information may help protect others and offers hope that the lost could someday return.

Key plot points

• Bai Xiao tells Gao Ming that headquarters has restricted access to the main investigation, while Minlong Street and Lijing Subdistrict still need monitoring.
• Rather than join the team’s planning, Gao Ming searches Qin Tian’s computer and contacts the Investigation Bureau’s information staff. He hopes to find criminals from cases he designed—eliminating dangerous ones and recruiting those who might be redeemable.
• The Bureau quickly identifies Yan Hua, a distinctive, heavily tattooed fighter with a perfect underground-match record.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao travel to a restaurant Yan Hua regularly visits. There, Gao Ming confronts her with details of her brutal childhood and reveals the secret behind her anger. When Yan Hua swings at him, she stops her fist just short of his face.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows initiative and confidence, using his intimate knowledge of his fictional criminals’ weaknesses to seek them out. He also uses hypnotic speech and painful memories to reach Yan Hua.
• Zhu Miaomiao remains protective and eager to support Gao Ming, accompanying him despite his claim that he is only visiting a friend.
• Yan Hua is introduced as physically intimidating and feared by those around her. Gao Ming’s account exposes the frightened, traumatized child beneath that menace and suggests she has not yet become the murderer she may become.

Character interactions

• Bai Xiao sets limits on Gao Ming’s involvement in the main operation, while Gao Ming pursues his own plan.
• Zhu Miaomiao follows Gao Ming to the meeting, ready to back him up.
• Gao Ming confronts Yan Hua alone, recounting her abusive upbringing in detail. His words provoke her fury but also halt her attack by revealing that he knows her deepest secret.

Significant themes

• Violence and its consequences: Yan Hua’s childhood abuse shaped the rage and violence she carries.
• Knowledge as power: Gao Ming uses what he knows about the criminals he created to find and influence them.
• Redemption versus prevention: Gao Ming intends to stop those beyond saving while offering others a chance to change.
• Identity and hidden pain: Yan Hua’s intimidating appearance conceals a history of fear, shame, and suffering.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming confronts Yan Hua, a dangerous underground fighter whose violent urges stem from childhood trauma. Though she initially threatens him, he defuses the situation by invoking her sister, Yan Ling, and persuades her to sit and talk.
• Gao Ming claims Yan Ling is alive but trapped in another world accessible through anomaly events. He asks Yan Hua to trust him, follow his “treatment,” and wait for a chance to find her sister. He argues that healing her trauma requires more than simply taking revenge on her abusive stepfather.
• Yan Hua agrees to hear him out and saves his contact details, though she suspects he may be more troubled than she is. Gao Ming asks her to call him “Doctor Gao.”
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao leave to investigate another person identified by the Investigation Bureau. At Saint Louis College, Gao discovers that security footage of a student being beaten has been deleted. He condemns the guard for helping conceal the incident.
• Gao and Zhu enter the school and search the high school classrooms. They hear students accusing Wan Qiu of sneaking into the girls’ restroom, setting up the next confrontation.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows both nerve and hidden fear: he appears composed while facing Yan Hua, though afterward he realizes he is soaked in sweat. He uses empathy and Yan Ling’s name to redirect Yan Hua’s aggression, while presenting himself as her ally and would-be therapist. At school, his confrontational investigative style worries Zhu.
• Yan Hua shifts from poised violence to wary openness when Gao mentions her sister. Her attachment to Yan Ling reveals the tenderness beneath her brutality, and she accepts Gao’s offer of help despite doubting his sanity.
• Zhu Miaomiao acts as Gao’s partner and cautious counterbalance. She shares a meal with him, questions his lack of fear around Yan Hua, and tries to stop him from barging into the school.
• The security guard has participated in covering up the beating by deleting footage, illustrating how people can enable harm even when they are not its direct perpetrators.

Significant themes

• Trauma and violence: Yan Hua’s violent impulses are linked to childhood abuse and ongoing pain; physical strength and retaliation alone cannot heal them.
• Complicity: The deleted footage shows how seemingly minor acts of concealment can become links in a larger chain of wrongdoing.
• Trust and connection: Gao gains Yan Hua’s attention by invoking the person she trusts most, offering companionship and a possible path toward healing.
• The supernatural threat: Gao’s claims about anomaly events and a looming catastrophe suggest that ordinary investigations are unfolding alongside a larger, dangerous supernatural crisis.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming hears that Wan Qiu is being bullied and finds four students tormenting him outside the girls’ bathroom.
• He attacks the bullies, takes one student’s phone as evidence, and dismisses the threat of punishment. He argues that investigators who risk their lives protecting the city deserve support when they protect someone vulnerable.
• Gao Ming offers Wan Qiu a place with the Lishan Investigation Office, promising to help him become strong enough that no one can hurt him again. Wan Qiu accepts his hand.
• Gao Ming takes Wan Qiu from the school under the Investigation Office’s authority, then buys him food and promises to look after him.
• Gao Ming recognizes Wan Qiu as the tragic figure from a crime game he once designed. In the future, Wan Qiu becomes Hanhai’s most dangerous criminal—but the game’s experiment showed he could have built a different life without the serial killer who adopted him. In reality, however, he remains trapped as a brain in a laboratory.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from controlled investigator to openly violent protector. His brutality is deliberate: he wants to rescue Wan Qiu and recruit him, while also trying to make amends for having designed the boy’s tragic story.
• Zhu Miaomiao is alarmed by Gao Ming’s attack and worries about the consequences, but his reasoning persuades her to accept his actions.
• Wan Qiu appears vacant and helpless during the bullying, yet responds to Gao Ming’s offer and takes his hand—a first step toward belonging and a possible alternative future.
• A-Zun and the other bullies are confident in their status and connections until Gao Ming overwhelms them.

Significant themes

• Intervention and redemption: Gao Ming tries to change the fate of someone whose suffering he once imagined.
• Power and protection: The chapter questions whether rules and discipline should outweigh defending the vulnerable.
• Choice versus fate: Wan Qiu’s imagined life suggests childhood trauma need not determine his future, even as the laboratory’s reality makes his freedom uncertain.
• Partiality and belonging: Gao Ming offers not impartial justice but loyalty, food, and protection for someone he considers his own.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming remains committed to changing Wan Qiu’s tragic fate, rather than allowing the boy to become the monster depicted in the game. He learns that Wan Qiu has shut himself off emotionally and considers gentler ways to help him, while accepting that an ordinary life would still be a good outcome.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao return to the Lishan Investigation Office with Wan Qiu. Their planned newcomer training is unnecessary: rumors that Team One has an eighty-percent field fatality rate—and that every newcomer dies—have scared off its recruits. The scheduled newcomers have joined other teams instead.
• Gao Ming video-calls Wei Dayou at Nightlight Studio. Xuan Wen reports that she can manage the voices in her head and taste emotions, and believes collecting a hundred thousand different emotions may transform her. She hopes the studio’s game might help her escape death by keeping her alive in people’s memories.
• Gao Ming warns Xuan Wen that other people with memorial portraits may recognize and target her. Xuan Wen hints that something dangerous is hidden at Nightlight Studio, and Fortune the cat’s frantic reaction to Gao Ming strengthens his suspicion that the studio—or the games stored there—may be changing in abnormal ways.
• At night, Team Two leader Ma Lian and Team Three leader Chen Bing arrive to reassign Team One’s patrol duties. Gao Ming refuses to leave because the anomaly at Building 4 on Minlong Street remains unresolved. Ma Lian insists he is not asking; Gao Ming defiantly answers that he is not asking Ma Lian either.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows compassion toward Wan Qiu and resolves to oppose the Shadow World’s predetermined fate. He also protects Xuan Wen while remaining alert to the studio’s growing dangers, and openly challenges Ma Lian’s authority.
• Wan Qiu remains withdrawn and overwhelmed by the unfamiliar city, but Gao Ming gives him a place with the team and hopes to help him without repeating the Psychopathic Killer’s cruelty.
• Zhu Miaomiao continues to act with kindness, having agreed to take Wan Qiu in if necessary. She is willing to follow the new patrol assignment, unlike Gao Ming.
• Xuan Wen has gained some control over her inner voices and developed an ability to perceive emotions. Her ambition to make the game widely known is paired with a chilling confidence about defending Nightlight Studio.
• Wei Dayou is happily absorbed in game development and remains unaware of the danger around him. Fortune’s unusual attachment to Gao Ming provides a brief comic moment but also signals that something may be wrong at the studio.

Significant themes

• Fate and agency: Gao Ming seeks to rewrite Wan Qiu’s scripted destiny and continues resisting the Shadow World.
• Care versus cruelty: He rejects torture as a way to unlock Wan Qiu’s potential, preferring to give the boy safety and choice.
• Memory and survival: Xuan Wen wonders whether a story remembered by many people can preserve her beyond physical death.
• Hidden danger and mistrust: The studio’s unexplained secrets, the possible mutation of Gao Ming’s games, and the Investigation Bureau’s internal power struggle all suggest threats are growing.

Key plot points and events

• Ma Lian confronts Gao Ming after Gao talks back to him, but Chen Bing steps between them. Once Ma leaves, Chen assigns Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao to rest before their midnight duty.
• Gao makes a bed for Wan Qiu and gives her his number. Zhu reflects on how, despite his rough edges, Gao is considerate and brave.
• Rather than patrol with a group, Gao returns alone to the haunted building at No. 4 Minlong Street. He uses a memorial portrait to evoke the dead boy’s feelings and trigger an anomaly.
• In Room 405, Gao finds the supposedly removed rag doll back inside the wardrobe, along with a child’s frightened message: “I won’t hurt anyone! Go away!” He leaves a long, reassuring note offering the child snacks, toys, and company, while asking it not to harm the trapped adults.
• Gao’s Black Ring signals an emergency: the entire Investigation Team One group sent to the East District has gone missing. Chen Yuntian reports that only two investigators have escaped the anomaly there, both severely harmed—one dead and the other traumatized.
• Gao suspects someone is deliberately feeding the East District anomaly with investigators to make it grow. He decides to enter it with a team the following night.
• He summons Yan Hua, explains the situation, and she agrees to join him, quitting her underground-ring role and adopting the name “Number 17” for the operation.
• Chen Yuntian returns expecting Gao to resign, but instead finds Yan Hua in Team One’s office and asks who she is.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows both resolve and compassion: he stands up to Ma Lian, cares for Wan Qiu and Zhu Miaomiao, and tries to communicate peacefully with the child in Room 405. Faced with the East District disaster, he shifts quickly from suspicion to a plan of action.
• Zhu Miaomiao recognizes Gao’s kindness beneath his blunt, seemingly selfish manner. Their exchange shows her concern for his reckless approach, while Gao quietly makes sure she gets a place to sleep.
• Chen Bing prevents the conflict between Gao and Ma from turning physical, while treating Gao with consideration because her father respects him.
• Ma Lian remains antagonistic toward Gao, but the alarming news about the East District quickly sobers him.
• Yan Hua demonstrates directness and loyalty by accepting Gao’s account and joining his dangerous mission, though she warns him not to deceive her.
• Chen Yuntian is burdened by the apparent loss of his elite team and worries Gao will quit; his surprise at finding Yan Hua hints that the team may be rebuilding.

Significant themes

• Compassion amid horror: Gao responds to the child’s fearful message with patience and offers of companionship rather than force.
• Courage and responsibility: Gao repeatedly takes risks to protect others and chooses to confront the growing East District threat.
• Trust and uneasy alliances: Yan Hua’s decision to believe Gao contrasts with the hostility between Gao and Ma Lian.
• The mystery of engineered anomalies: Gao’s suspicion that investigators are being used to strengthen the East District event raises the possibility of deliberate manipulation.
• Blurred boundaries between the living and the dead: The boy in Room 405 seems almost like a ghost, yet his message suggests fear and a desire not to hurt anyone.

Key plot points and events

• With Investigation Team One gutted by disappearances and deaths, Chen Yuntian expects Gao Ming might leave. Instead, Gao volunteers to lead the struggling team and recruit trusted people himself.
• Chen appoints Gao acting team leader, responsible for personnel training and night duty, and gives him a spare Black Ring. Gao brings Yan Hua and Wan Qiu into the team; he also gives Yan Hua a ring.
• Gao learns the team’s patrol area includes the two streets where he lives and plans to address those after the East District anomaly.
• While searching Bureau files, Gao finds an email from police officer Li Lin questioning inconsistencies in the Henshan prison riot and noting that Gao’s psychological state changed around the time of his first anomaly encounter. Gao deletes it without pursuing the matter.
• Gao studies the East District case: a massacre at the Sishui Street apartments, an investigator who escaped with severe injuries and later died, unusual preservation of the body, and the smell of meat and chanting heard near the site after midnight.
• Wan Qiu says the massacre victims in a photograph are watching Gao, heightening the sense that the site remains haunted.
• The clues remind Gao of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal ritual described in an old book. He suspects someone is raising the entity and resolves to kill the person responsible.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming steps into leadership despite the team’s losses, presenting himself as determined and willing to take responsibility. His former work as a prison psychological counselor informs his confidence in assessing people.
• Chen Yuntian shifts from concern that Gao might quit to trusting him with Team One, though he warns him about Yan Hua and Wan Qiu’s limited qualifications.
• Yan Hua and Wan Qiu become Gao’s recruits. Wan Qiu’s unsettling perception of the victims suggests he may be unusually sensitive to the supernatural.
• Li Lin, though absent, becomes a potential source of scrutiny into Gao’s past and mental state; Gao avoids that inquiry by deleting the email.

Significant themes

• Duty amid loss: Gao chooses responsibility over retreat as the Bureau faces a crisis.
• Trust and leadership: He builds a team from people he knows rather than relying on reluctant recruits.
• Humanity and corruption: Gao contrasts those who risk themselves to protect others with people who willingly serve the Shadow World.
• The cost of forbidden knowledge: Gao understands the ritual but fears that contact with the entity may create an irreversible bond.
• Growing uncertainty about Gao: The police report’s questions about his mental state, alongside his confident dismissal of them, leave his condition and history unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming takes Zhu Miaomiao, Yan Hua, and Wan Qiu to Sishui Street to investigate an Anomaly Event that may soon become uncontrollable. He asks Zhu whether she will trust his judgment over the Investigation Bureau’s; she commits to following him, and he invites her along with her fire axe.
• On the drive, Gao Ming calls Xuan Wen to arrange a meeting and explain that someone is helping a Strange Tale grow. Their teasing exchange suggests a personal rapport beyond business.
• At Sishui Street, a ragged old man, Uncle Wu, warns the team they will die that night and tries to sell them talismans. Gao Ming tests the talismans, finds no response from Wan Qiu, and drives the old man off by reaching for the fire axe.
• At a noodle shop, a waitress explains that Uncle Wu removes protective talismans from the haunted Sishui Street Apartments and is rumored to have a ghost attached to him.
• A resident of the apartments dismisses the ghost stories. She says the low rent, included furnishings, and freedom from troublesome neighbors make the risk worthwhile. The chapter ends with her blunt declaration that she is not afraid of dying.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows himself as a decisive leader, testing Zhu Miaomiao’s loyalty before bringing her into danger. He remains wary of claims about the supernatural, checking the talismans rather than accepting the old man’s warning.
• Zhu Miaomiao chooses personal trust in Gao Ming over automatic adherence to official procedure. She joins the expedition and remains attentive to the team’s safety.
• Yan Hua and Wan Qiu read the case information together. Yan Hua’s patience with Wan Qiu contrasts with her intimidating appearance.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen exchange playful, flirtatious banter. Xuan Wen wants a life with freedom, dignity, and genuine love, and wonders whether Gao Ming sees her as more than a business partner.
• The waitress and the resident offer opposing perspectives: the waitress treats the apartments as genuinely haunted, while the resident prioritizes economic necessity and refuses to be intimidated by the rumors.

Significant themes

• Poverty versus supernatural danger: For people with few choices, cheap rent can outweigh fear of ghosts or even death.
• Trust and loyalty: Zhu’s choice raises the question of whether personal allegiance can take precedence over institutional orders.
• Rumor and reality: The old man, the waitress, and the resident present competing claims about what is dangerous and why people live in the apartments.
• The desire for ordinary human connection: Xuan Wen’s wish for freedom, dignity, and true love gives her playful exchange with Gao Ming a more serious undertone.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming pays a local woman, “Fat Sister-in-Law,” to show him her home in the Sishui Street Apartments. He leaves Yan Hua and Zhu Miaomiao at the restaurant and goes with Xuan Wen and Wan Qiu.
• Fat Sister-in-Law explains that Building A has been evacuated and sealed after strange incidents; its former connecting passages to Building B are now blocked by police.
• The apartments feel oppressive and neglected. Looking across at Building A, Gao Ming briefly sees a family of four watching him from a window—including an elderly figure with what appears to be blood at their mouth. They disappear almost immediately.
• Fat Sister-in-Law leads the group to her cramped, overcrowded home. She says a man hanged himself there after killing his two children.
• Wan Qiu becomes visibly distressed and urges Gao Ming to leave. Xuan Wen also silently signals that they should go.
• As Gao Ming departs, he glimpses a huge stuffed doll crawling across the floor behind Fat Sister-in-Law.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains observant and composed, investigating the building despite his discomfort. He notices Fat Sister-in-Law’s concealed fear and the suspicious doll.
• Fat Sister-in-Law presents herself as practical and unafraid, but her glance toward the doll suggests she knows more than she admits—and may believe the haunting will not harm her.
• Wan Qiu reacts strongly to the apartment’s presence, showing fear unusual for his normally quiet demeanor.
• Xuan Wen shifts from her usual lightheartedness to a serious, wordless warning, implying she senses danger too.

Significant themes

• Poverty and overcrowding: The building’s cramped, unsanitary conditions expose the hardship faced by migrant families.
• Fear and denial: Residents dismiss or normalize supernatural danger, perhaps because daily survival already demands so much of them.
• Hidden danger: Sealed passages, rumors of bodies in the walls, the vanished family, and the crawling doll suggest that the building’s horrors are real and concealed.
• Human hardship alongside the supernatural: Gao Ming’s opening remark frames the chapter’s ghostly threats against the equally frightening realities of poverty and neglect.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming uses money to persuade Fat Sister-in-Law to guide the group, while she shares local rumors and her personal account of the apartment.
• Fat Sister-in-Law’s matter-of-fact attitude contrasts with Wan Qiu’s alarm and Xuan Wen’s silent caution.
• Gao Ming notices Fat Sister-in-Law’s reaction to the doll but does not confront her before deciding to leave.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Xuan Wen, and Wan Qiu investigate the unsettling apartment building. After a woman leaves, a plush doll crawls to a chair and eats noodles, suggesting a ghost may be hiding inside it.
• Wan Qiu lists disturbing signs in the apartment: eyes inside the doll, a bound child, ritual materials, strangers’ ID cards, blood around the rice cooker, and something other than rice cooking inside. He also senses grave danger in Building A.
• Xuan Wen concludes that the Strange Tale has grown powerful enough to act in daylight and may have escaped the Shadow World’s restrictions. She suspects someone is deliberately feeding it—and that the Investigation Bureau may be allowing people to remain nearby to conceal the danger or lure in victims.
• Gao Ming rejects leaving the area. Xuan Wen outlines possible responses: expose the location as a hidden game stage to attract capable players, or enter themselves to investigate and claim what lies inside. She estimates only a 30% chance they can escape alive.
• At a barrier between Buildings B and A, the group sees the badly injured Investigator Bai Xiao running through the corridor. Gao Ming recognizes him, tears down the barrier, and leads Xuan Wen into Building A, but Bai Xiao’s footsteps vanish.
• Wan Qiu is suddenly dragged into an apartment. Gao Ming and Xuan Wen find him seated at a table set for eight, with bowls of cold rice and chopsticks standing upright in them. Wan Qiu appears possessed or controlled, smiling before he begins devouring the rice, which turns red as he eats.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains determined to confront the danger despite the risks, prioritizing stopping the Strange Tale and understanding who is behind it.
• Xuan Wen acts as a perceptive and pragmatic strategist, identifying the likely conspiracy and clearly weighing the cost of entering Building A.
• Wan Qiu, initially valuable for noticing supernatural details, becomes the group’s first apparent victim inside the building; his sudden altered behavior ends the chapter on a cliffhanger.
• Bai Xiao appears extraordinarily resilient, surviving severe injuries, but his frantic flight suggests he is trapped and possibly close to collapse.

Significant themes

• Greed and deliberate cruelty: Strange Tales grow through human sacrifice and exploitation, implying that people may be as dangerous as the supernatural threats.
• Institutional corruption and concealment: The lack of evacuation or patrols raises suspicion that officials are hiding the event or using civilians as bait.
• The boundary between game and reality: The Strange Tale has become active in daylight, showing how rapidly supernatural game scenarios can overtake ordinary life.
• Risk, survival, and incomplete knowledge: The characters enter despite poor odds, knowing they may only gain the information needed to survive a later encounter.

Character interactions

• Xuan Wen warns Gao Ming not to look back and shields him as they assess the building.
• Gao Ming asks Xuan Wen to evaluate their options, and she candidly challenges his assumptions about the Investigation Bureau.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen respond together when Bai Xiao appears, while Wan Qiu’s warnings guide their attention toward Building A.
• When Wan Qiu is pulled inside, Gao Ming and Xuan Wen rush to rescue him, but find him apparently under the Strange Tale’s influence.

Plot points and events

• Wan Qiu eats rice meant for the dead and becomes possessed or used as a conduit for a message: “Ghosts eat people, people eat flesh, flesh eats ghosts,” followed by a warning that eating the rice is the only way to survive. He then collapses.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen discover a shrine in the apartment’s bedroom containing portraits of the eight victims of the family massacre, with fresh incense still burning. They flee the building with Wan Qiu.
• Uncle Wu meets them in the corridor and helps them escape. He admits he was a security guard in Building A on the night of the massacre and says the killer was a troubled believer in a mysterious “Flesh-and-Blood Immortal.” He also claims there are both hostile and protective ghosts in the building, and that Investigators may have been bringing things there to “raise ghosts.”
• Gao Ming receives a Bureau order mobilizing all Investigators who have faced Level Three anomaly events for a decisive operation at Sishui Street that night. He estimates the apartment’s anomaly is at least Level Four.
• Gao Ming gives his companions the choice to withdraw, warning that the chance of death is over ninety percent. Everyone—including Zhu Miaomiao, Xuan Wen, Yan Hua, and the recovered Wan Qiu—chooses to stay.
• The group studies murder sites and plans to enter from the opposite side of the Bureau’s operation. As night falls, the street is sealed and the Bureau’s best Investigators begin moving toward Building A.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming takes charge, gathers information from Uncle Wu, and openly acknowledges the danger before letting the others choose for themselves.
• Xuan Wen restrains Gao Ming when he tries to stop Wan Qiu and later commits to staying, saying she needs to keep an eye on Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao.
• Wan Qiu survives the possession-like episode and insists on joining, saying that eight people are waiting for him.
• Zhu Miaomiao stays out of professional duty, while Yan Hua likewise refuses to leave.
• Uncle Wu shifts from seeming merely eccentric to a guarded but useful source of information. He trades details for a purchase of his talismans and is visibly alarmed when Gao Ming’s Black Ring signals.

Significant themes

• Belief and the supernatural: Uncle Wu suggests belief can give strange beings power, while warning Gao Ming not to believe everything he hears.
• Sacrifice and solidarity: Despite the extreme odds, the group chooses to face the danger together.
• Uncertainty and deception: The building’s ghosts may be good or evil, the rice’s warning is cryptic, and the Bureau’s motives are questioned.
• The cost of investigating the unknown: The approaching operation is framed as a desperate attempt to contain an anomaly that may soon spiral out of control.