Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming arrives late at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ experimental warehouse, where he joins Xu Deyi, Jiang Miaomiao’s mentally impaired older brother, and a three-person testing team.
• The group is assigned to enter B11, the brain domain of a deceased young man whose illness made doors and dark, narrow passageways provoke severe reactions. Researchers suspect his nightmares may contain doors leading to deep nightmares.
• Tang Qing escorts them underground and explains that middle nightmares are dangerous because waking up is difficult. Testers must identify whose nightmare they are in, uncover why it formed, and investigate the dreamer’s life.
• The donor’s history is poorly understood, so this is the first group to enter the domain. A successful escape earns a base reward of 5,000 yuan, with additional payment for useful findings.
• After receiving protective gear, the testers proceed toward the nightmare. Tang Qing asks Gao Ming to protect Jiang Miaomiao’s brother, promising extra compensation.
• Gao Ming asks about Tang Ling. Tang Qing reveals that she is his older sister and works in the Level Five Classified Laboratory.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is eager to enter a deeper nightmare and readily agrees to protect the vulnerable newcomer. His question about Tang Ling hints at a personal or investigative interest in her.
• Xu Deyi is anxious about the dark passage but focuses on the financial reward; he instinctively stays close to Gao Ming.
• Tang Qing is exhausted but professional and deferential toward Director Chan. He tries to manage the group, especially by warning newcomers not to split up.
• The testing team includes a sharp-eyed woman with glasses, a contemptuous burly man, and a more considerate young man. The woman notices the lack of background information; the young man warns the newcomers about the danger.
• Director Chan Yiqiu, head of Zone B, verifies the testers’ authorization and permits them to enter.

Significant themes

• Risk and uncertainty: The group enters an unexplored nightmare with little information, where escape is far less certain than in shallow nightmares.
• Control and exploitation: The company uses money to recruit testers and guide their behavior, while concealing details about the donor and facility.
• Care amid danger: Gao Ming’s promise to protect Jiang Miaomiao’s brother contrasts with the team’s dismissive attitude toward newcomers.
• Hidden knowledge: The partitioned brain, obscured laboratory levels, and Tang Ling’s classified workplace suggest that important truths are being kept out of reach.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming suffers a sudden, painful episode while Tang Qing is speaking; when it passes, she has disappeared. The remaining testers prepare to enter the nightmare, with experienced participants warning the newcomers to stay together and follow orders.
• The group meets Bai Huang, a formidable veteran who has repeatedly entered dangerous nightmares while searching for her comatose children, Bai Xiao and Bai Qiao. Their consciousnesses may be somewhere in the dream system. Gao Ming recognizes the siblings’ photo, suggesting he encountered them in an earlier nightmare, though he cannot clearly remember.
• As the group moves through a dark passage, the foolish older brother hears his little sister warning him not to go farther. Qian Jin opens a door, and the passage abruptly gives way to a snowbound manor in the mountains.
• In guest room 2001, the testers find a broken window, shards of glass, and melted ice mixed with pine needles and leaves. The evidence suggests someone outside threw a block of ice through the window, but there are no footprints to identify them.
• Gao Ming notices a strange, damaged snowman in the courtyard: it has one missing button eye, no hands, a half-eaten carrot nose, and a red lipstick-painted mouth. The group leaves the room to investigate the manor, keeping together. Though the nightmare feels intensely real and freezing, Xu Deyi is warned not to put on unfamiliar clothes.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang is introduced as a disciplined, capable “lone wolf,” but her search for her missing children reveals a deeply personal motive. Gao Ming’s apparent recognition of them gives her new reason to trust and cooperate with him.
• Gao Ming shows empathy toward Bai Huang and reacts strongly to her children’s photo, hinting at a connection to his past experiences that he does not yet understand.
• Qian Jin takes the lead and tries to build rapport with Bai Huang, while his experience helps orient the group.
• The foolish older brother senses danger through his sister’s warning and tries to stop Gao Ming from advancing.
• The testers form a cautious working group, relying on experience and Bai Huang’s reputation, though the newcomers remain exposed to the nightmare’s dangers.

Significant themes

• Family and the drive to protect loved ones: Bai Huang’s search for her children and the older brother’s response to his sister’s warning both center on family bonds.
• Trust, cooperation, and survival: The group’s safety depends on staying together and following experienced leaders.
• Memory and hidden connections: Gao Ming’s vague recognition of Bai Huang’s children suggests that past nightmares may hold clues.
• Uncertainty and deceptive appearances: The apparently ordinary winter manor is a dangerous dreamscape, where unexplained clues—the broken window, vanished tracks, and unsettling snowman—signal a threat.

Key plot points and events

• The group finds Tang Qing’s promised information about the dream owner missing from their communicator. They suspect something went wrong, though the reason is unknown.
• Gao Ming proposes using evidence in the manor to identify the nightmare’s real-world origins. After hearing a violin, he leads Xu Deyi and the fool to the third floor.
• They find the corridor’s rooms open and doorless, apparently accommodating the dream owner’s reported fear of doors and dark, narrow passages. The fourth-floor attic, however, is barred by iron railings and marked off-limits.
• In room 3003, they meet a young man playing violin beside a fireplace. He welcomes them as stranded tourists, lets them stay without charge, and gives them keys.
• The host explains the manor’s history and lays out practical rules: use the kitchen and supplies sparingly, close doors behind them, stay near the manor, avoid the fourth floor, and shut all doors and windows at night to keep out starving wildlife.
• Once back in the corridor, the group questions whether the host is truly the dream owner. Qian Jin notes that the man does not resemble the young man in the hospital bed, suggesting another person may be involved. The barred attic becomes their focus.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is pragmatic and assertive: he dismisses Zhi Ge’s objections, looks for physical clues, and takes the initiative to investigate the violin.
• Zhi Ge is hostile toward Gao Ming and warns him to respect the veterans, but the music interrupts their confrontation.
• Xu Deyi is fearful and stays close behind Gao Ming.
• Qian Jin behaves politely toward the host and shows sharp observational skills, noticing the mismatch between him and the hospital patient.
• Rao Rao questions the nightmare’s unusual duration and possible danger.
• The host appears courteous and generous, but his restrictions—especially the warning about the attic and the rules for night—leave the group uneasy.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and misdirection: Missing information and conflicting clues make it unclear who the dream owner is or what the nightmare requires.
• Safety versus hidden danger: The manor feels calm and welcoming by day, yet the host’s warnings imply a threat after dark.
• Isolation and confinement: The snowbound setting may trap the group indefinitely, while the forbidden attic suggests a secret within the house.
• Contrasts: The host’s gentle violin music and hospitality stand against the harsh winter, his hunting rifle, and the possibility of danger.

Key plot points and events

• Bai Huang suspects the sealed-off fourth floor conceals something dangerous. She proposes splitting up: one group investigates the Manor’s resident, while another searches outside for clues to the nightmare’s owner.
• The group gathers supplies in a storage room. Bai Huang equips her “foolish older brother” with survival gear, especially fire-making tools, but avoids handling the nightmare’s objects herself.
• Bai Huang warns Gao Ming that relying too heavily on nightmare objects can blur the line between dreams and reality until a person can no longer escape.
• Bai Huang and the fool venture outside into a severe snowstorm. They find a sign for East Lake, apparently behind the Manor, and inspect the building’s exterior.
• Bai Huang observes that the fourth-floor windows are hidden by the roof. She also discovers frozen, snowy handprints climbing the wall near the broken window of room 2001, pointing toward a room on the fourth floor.
• Gao Ming recalls seeing a snowman with red lips in the courtyard, but it has vanished. As darkness gathers, piano music sounds from the Manor, and someone—or something—appears to watch the group.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang takes charge of the investigation and prepares carefully for nightfall. Her caution about nightmare objects reflects her experience and suggests she understands the danger of becoming trapped in a dream.
• Gao Ming shares her wariness, leaves his hands empty in the storage room, and reveals that he longs to return to the memories of his past nightmare. Bai Huang recognizes that his motives differ from those of ordinary testers.
• Bai Huang asks whether her two children were doing well in Gao Ming’s nightmare, but he cannot remember, leaving the question unresolved.
• Rao Rao is frightened by Bai Huang’s suggestion that a ghost may be on the fourth floor and stays close to Zhi Ge.
• Qian Jin joins Zhi Ge and Rao Rao, while the fool and Zhi Ge compete to carry heavy equipment.

Significant themes

• The unstable boundary between dreams and reality: using objects from a nightmare may make it feel increasingly real and prevent escape.
• Memory and identity: identifying whose nightmare this is may be essential to overcoming it.
• Hidden dangers and observation: the sealed floor, climbing handprints, vanished snowman, and watching presence all suggest that the Manor conceals threats beyond ordinary wildlife.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Xu Deyi, and the fool return to the manor after a brief walk around its courtyard. The cold outside is nearly unbearable, but the temperature rises once they enter the building.
• Bai Huang chooses to investigate farther on her own, showing unusual speed and resilience. Gao Ming suspects survivors may carry abilities or objects acquired in other nightmares, and that repeated exposure can strengthen the mind.
• In the kitchen, Xu Deyi starts cooking. Tension flares when Zhi Ge and Rao Rao object to using shared food and fuel before everyone has gathered. Qian Jin tries to mediate, while Gao Ming avoids escalating the dispute.
• Bai Huang returns at night, soaked and troubled. She reports that there is no way out and the worsening blizzard may trap them; the supposed resort is actually near abandoned cemeteries, not recreational facilities; and strange barefoot footprints and handprints mark the snow outside.
• With the piano music stopped and night falling, the group agrees to eat and then stay together in one room to get through the first night.

Character developments

• Gao Ming becomes more alert to the possibility that abilities gained in one nightmare can carry into another. He remains cautious and avoids unnecessary conflict.
• Bai Huang emerges as capable and self-reliant, but her discoveries reveal that even she cannot control the situation.
• Xu Deyi is cold, hungry, and combative, but contributes by cooking and ensures Bai Huang gets the best portion.
• Qian Jin continues trying to keep the group cooperative, even as his patience with Gao Ming’s group begins to wear thin.
• Zhi Ge and Rao Rao grow more controlling over food and supplies, especially with Bai Huang absent. Rao Rao’s warm greeting to Bai Huang contrasts with her dismissive treatment of Xu Deyi and the fool.

Significant themes

• Survival and scarcity: Food, fuel, warmth, and shelter become sources of tension.
• Trust and deception: The owner’s description of the area proves unreliable, making the group question what else they have been told.
• Adaptation across nightmares: Gao Ming considers how earlier experiences may strengthen people or grant them abilities that persist.
• Fear of the unknown: The unnatural traces in the snow suggest something dangerous may be moving outside.

Character interactions

• Xu Deyi clashes with Zhi Ge and Rao Rao over cooking and rationing, while Qian Jin attempts to broker a compromise.
• Gao Ming questions Bai Huang about her findings, and she shares the grim news with the whole group.
• Xu Deyi’s thoughtful serving of soup to Bai Huang shows his concern for her, while the others’ reactions underline the group’s divisions.

Key plot points and events

• The group finishes a tense meal after receiving three pieces of bad news. With night falling and the manor lacking electricity, they debate whether to search the owner’s room or question him.
• Bai Huang refuses to lead or join the others, choosing to act alone. Zhi Ge, Qian Jin, and Rao Rao head upstairs together; Xu Deyi stays near Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming suspects the nightmare follows its own rules. He notes that the fourth floor is sealed behind an iron barrier and that its rooms have no doors, leading him to believe the dream’s owner may be imprisoned there.
• The man from Room 3003 arrives at night, armed and visibly frightened. After eating the soup left for Bai Huang, he reveals that a group of mountaineers died in an avalanche the previous winter—and that their apparitions have appeared outside the manor on successive nights. Most recently, they seemed to be preparing to climb in.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows confidence in his deductions and urges the group to seek explanations rather than attack the owner. He suspects the greatest danger may be inside the manor, not outside.
• Xu Deyi remains fearful but resourceful, trying to stay close to Gao Ming and offering to help keep watch. He also tries to build goodwill with the owner by offering him food.
• Bai Huang stays detached from group decisions, reinforcing her reputation as a lone operator.
• Zhi Ge favors caution and group investigation, while choosing to shelter with Qian Jin and Rao Rao.
• The fool stays quiet but becomes visibly alarmed when the armed owner appears.
• The owner shifts from his relaxed daytime manner to a guarded, frightened figure, suggesting the manor’s danger is real and familiar to him.

Significant themes

• Fear and isolation: The characters distrust one another and must decide whether to band together or fend for themselves.
• Uncertainty and competing dangers: The sealed fourth floor suggests a threat within the manor, while the mountaineers’ apparitions menace it from outside.
• Rules beneath the nightmare: Gao Ming believes the bizarre setting has an underlying logic that can be uncovered through careful observation.

Key plot points

• The manor’s owner warns everyone to stay in their rooms overnight, keep doors and curtains closed, and ignore anything that might wake them.
• Qian Jin urges Gao Ming, Xu Deyi, and Fool to join the other testers for safety. Gao Ming refuses, though Qian Jin relays a disturbing story from the owner of room 3003.
• In that story, the owner’s younger brother vanishes after building a huge snowman in the courtyard. The only trace is one shoe beside East Lake; afterward, the snowman disappears. The owner recalls that it seemed to smile.
• Gao Ming wonders why different people have heard different frightening stories, suggesting that several accounts may all be true. He finds no answer when he knocks on Bai Huang’s door.
• Xu Deyi explains that he entered the dangerous tests because he urgently needs money to support his family and pay off debts. His account makes Gao Ming reflect on his own lack of fear and the possibility that he has died before and lost memories.
• Despite Xu Deyi’s warning that the manor’s owner may be the greatest danger, Gao Ming takes a lamp and heads out to keep watch with him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains unusually calm and becomes more convinced that his missing memories conceal an extreme past. He trusts his own abnormality enough to face danger directly.
• Xu Deyi reveals the desperation behind his participation and shows that his crude, reckless manner hides intelligence and concern for Gao Ming. He tries to stop Gao Ming from taking unnecessary risks.
• Qian Jin acts conciliatory after the earlier tensions, apologizes for his companions, and offers a warning, though Gao Ming remains unsure how much to trust him.
• Fool stays close to Xu Deyi and appears frightened, but says little.
• The owner is presented as both a source of warnings and a possible threat, making his intentions ambiguous.

Significant themes

• Fear and desperation: People endure terror for reasons that outweigh their fear, especially when survival or family is at stake.
• Unreliable reality: Conflicting stories suggest the manor may contain multiple truths—or that its events cannot be understood normally.
• Memory and identity: Gao Ming’s speculation about repeated deaths raises questions about what he has forgotten and who he once was.
• Trust and danger: The testers must decide whether to rely on one another while even apparent helpers may be unsafe.

Plot points and events

• Alone in Room 2009, Gao Ming sets simple precautions to detect an intruder, then senses the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree calling to him through the nightmare. He considers using its growing reach to gain leverage over Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals, but recognizes that trusting the company would be dangerous.
• He tests the blood-powered Walkie-Talkie he received from Number Two. It picks up a faint voice, and the signal improves as he climbs higher.
• At the barred landing between the third and fourth floors, Gao Ming throws a makeshift torch beyond the barrier. In its light, he sees a tall, red-clad figure with its face hidden by hair.
• A violent force knocks him down, and the barrier shakes as though something is trying to break through. A wary resident from Room 3003 intervenes and pulls Gao Ming to safety.
• The man reveals that the beings on the fourth floor are his parents, then takes Gao Ming to Room 3003 and begins to explain the manor’s last secret.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains cautious, preparing safeguards in his room, but his curiosity and appetite for information lead him to risk approaching the forbidden floor.
• His connection to the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree appears unusually intimate and possibly useful, though he understands that exploiting it could be perilous.
• The Room 3003 resident is established as vigilant and armed, yet willing to protect Gao Ming from provoking the threat above.

Significant themes

• Family and unnatural bonds: Gao Ming feels a “parental” connection to the growing tree, while the Room 3003 resident’s parents have become terrifying entities.
• Curiosity versus survival: Gao Ming’s attempt to see and hear more nearly brings disaster.
• Control and trust: Gao Ming considers using the tree strategically but distrusts the pharmaceutical company and recognizes the danger of bargaining with it.
• Isolation and uncertainty: Darkness, barriers, distorted signals, and unseen presences make reliable knowledge difficult to obtain.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming silently tests the Walkie-Talkie for contact with Number Two, but receives only fragments of a voice.
• The Room 3003 resident physically stops Gao Ming from approaching the fourth-floor threat, warns him that he could endanger everyone, and offers an explanation in the safety of his room.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming visits the armed man in Room 3003 and examines a family photograph. The family’s faces are distant and expressionless; his younger brother’s face has been gouged out.
• The man says his brother disappeared, while his younger sister is even stranger: records and photographs prove she existed, but he suddenly lost every memory of her.
• He recounts how his father cared for his ill stepmother by bringing her something from East Lake in a black bag. The supposed “fish” thrashed inside, but the brother saw only clumps of hair.
• The father served the stepmother covered bowls of soup and secretly ate her leftovers in the kitchen cellar, where the man once heard digging.
• In winter, the father sealed off the fourth floor. The man disobeyed the order to block it completely, and later saw his parents transformed into monsters that appear at night. He now guards the way upstairs.
• The man asks Gao Ming to investigate East Lake. Gao agrees to go, learning that the strange “fish” appear only at night.

Character developments and interactions

• The man is wary of Gao Ming’s curiosity but gradually shares disturbing family history. He appears protective of his missing brother and distressed by his inexplicable loss of memory about his sister.
• His feelings toward his father are conflicted: he admires his strength and devotion, yet fears what he has become and suspects the family’s troubles may involve the stepmother.
• Gao Ming probes the man’s account, remains skeptical, and focuses on details that may lead to evidence—especially the lake and cellar.

Significant themes

• Unreliable memory and identity: The brother vanishes from photographs, while the sister remains documented but is forgotten.
• Family secrecy and disintegration: Strange disappearances, hidden food, and monstrous parents turn the household into a mystery.
• Curiosity versus safety: Gao Ming’s investigation pushes into dangers the man has repeatedly warned him about.
• Winter, confinement, and hope: The man endures a sealed, threatening world by believing summer will bring improvement, though Gao Ming questions whether winter ever ends.

Key plot points and events

• A mysterious man urges Gao Ming to leave the Manor at night and go to East Lake, where a fish appears. Gao Ming hesitates, recognizing that the trip through the blizzard would be extremely dangerous.
• The man says the Manor was safer before outsiders arrived, but admits he can no longer guarantee anyone’s safety. He offers to show Gao Ming what is happening and hints at a disturbing connection to the fourth floor.
• A bowl breaks in the kitchen. Gao Ming finds that the stove flue has been wrecked from the inside, with snow and water in the ashes. The man suspects the snowman that abducted his younger brother has entered the Manor.
• Following wet footprints, they reach a locked cellar entrance. The man opens it with a key marked “pain,” but quickly returns, visibly shaken, saying the snowman is not there.
• The trail leads upstairs and stops outside Gao Ming’s room, but before he can investigate, Xu Deyi screams from Room 2002.
• Xu Deyi flees in terror. Through his room’s uncovered window, Gao Ming and the man see frozen mountaineers climbing the Manor’s exterior. The creatures move toward Room 2001, whose window has been smashed.
• The man rushes to Room 2001 and fires his shotgun.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains alert and pragmatic. He questions the man’s advice, notices his shift from calling them “tourists” to “outsiders,” and investigates the damaged stove and wet trail.
• The man appears protective and earnest, but his grief and anger surface when he suspects the snowman is present. His cryptic remark about “reuniting” with the people on the fourth floor hints at a dark secret.
• Xu Deyi panics when he sees the frozen climbers and escapes his room. By drawing back the curtains despite the man’s earlier instructions, he exposes the approaching threat.
• Gao Ming and the man work together, tracking the intruder and responding to the danger, though the man takes the lead with his shotgun.

Significant themes

• Trust and uncertainty: The man seems sincere, yet his slips of language and evasive hints make his motives and identity unclear.
• Isolation and survival: The blizzard, dangerous terrain, and sealed Manor leave the characters with few safe choices.
• The past returning: The mountaineers the man described as lost have come back as frozen creatures, turning earlier events into an immediate threat.
• Hidden horrors and confinement: The locked fourth floor, cellar, and strange keys suggest the Manor contains secrets that may be as dangerous as the creatures outside.

Plot points and events

• During the night, a gunshot drives the frozen mountaineers away from the Manor. The armed man scolds the group for opening a window, while Gao Ming notes that ammunition is scarce and may have special significance in the nightmare.
• Fool says he heard his sister calling from beyond the Manor, near East Lake. Gao Ming takes the claim seriously: he recalls sensing something at the lake and suspects it may connect to other dreams or explain why the dead mountaineers return. Water weeds on the climbers and the fishy, rotten smell around Room 2009 support the possibility that the snowman also came from the lake.
• The man asks after Bai Huang, who was staying in Room 2001. Gao Ming explains that she did not break the window. The man orders Xu Deyi to fetch tools and the others to block Room 2009.
• Gao Ming and Fool find Room 2009 drenched and unnaturally cold, but the snowman is gone. They keep watch outside rather than enter. Gao Ming wonders why the creature chose that room, how it knows the Manor so well, and whether it could be the missing younger brother.
• After a sleepless night, the group hears knocking at dawn. Bai Huang returns, soaked in snow and ice, looking badly frostbitten. The man warns that she may be a monster in disguise. Bai Huang says she has made an important discovery but will not reveal it yet.
• Bai Huang challenges the group to question whether the armed man is truly the Manor’s owner, ending the chapter on that uncertainty.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains observant and analytical, connecting clues about East Lake, the snowman, and Room 2009. He takes Fool’s strange report seriously despite Xu Deyi’s ridicule.
• Fool appears frightened and vulnerable, but his claim about hearing his sister may provide an important clue.
• The armed man is protective and authoritative, but his insistence that Bai Huang may be an impostor—and his sole control over the Manor’s story—makes him increasingly suspect.
• Xu Deyi is cowardly and dismissive of Fool, seeking Gao Ming’s help rather than carrying out the man’s order alone.
• Bai Huang returns with a mysterious discovery and openly questions the man’s identity, shifting suspicion toward him.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and distrust: It is unclear who is human, who is a monster, and whether the man’s account of events can be trusted.
• Memory and identity: Gao Ming wonders whether the snowman has the missing brother’s memories—or is the brother himself.
• Hidden connections and thresholds: East Lake may link dreams or worlds, while Room 2009 seems to draw danger for reasons not yet understood.

Key plot points and events

• Bai Huang returns to the Manor after spending the night outdoors, injured and suffering from frostbite. She says she hid in the woodshed and went to East Lake, where she saw enormous fish beneath the ice.
• The homeowner initially threatens Bai Huang with his rifle, then lowers it and takes her to room 3009 for treatment. He warns that something strange entered the Manor during the night and must be found before dark.
• Qian Jin, Rao Rao, and Zhi Ge emerge from room 2004, having stayed inside in obedience to the homeowner’s rules. Xu Deyi resents their caution, but Gao Ming argues that blindly following the rules can be dangerous.
• Gao Ming connects four unusual keys—labeled pain, sorrow, resentment, and hatred—to hidden doors in the Manor. He suspects the doors conceal the nightmare owner’s body or memories and are linked to the Snowman.
• Zhi Ge explains that the exit from a middle nightmare is usually hidden behind a door shaped by the Dream Owner’s subconscious. The group identifies three known locked doors: the cellar, a hut behind the woodshed, and room 3009. Gao Ming infers there is a fourth.
• The group investigates the hut. Its thick, windowless brick walls and strange red iron door suggest it was built for a disturbing purpose.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang remains defiant under threat but gives the homeowner information that visibly unsettles him. Her account of the huge fish hints at danger beyond the Manor.
• The homeowner reveals his fear of the Snowman’s presence and shows unexpected concern for Bai Huang by arranging treatment.
• Gao Ming takes the lead in interpreting clues and mediating tensions, encouraging cooperation while challenging reliance on the homeowner’s rules.
• Xu Deyi is frightened and frustrated, especially with the team that stayed behind a closed door, but Gao Ming prevents the dispute from escalating.
• Qian Jin and Zhi Ge offer to cooperate and share knowledge about the nightmare’s exit; Zhi Ge’s urgency contrasts with his earlier demeanor.
• Rao Rao remains skeptical and sharp-tongued, warning that safe areas shrink as a nightmare’s psychological defenses collapse.

Significant themes

• Rules versus independent judgment: Obeying instructions may offer short-term safety but can also prevent people from confronting the nightmare.
• Trauma and hidden memories: The four emotion-labeled keys suggest that the Manor’s doors embody the Dream Owner’s unresolved pain and negative emotions.
• Cooperation amid distrust: The characters must share information despite fear, resentment, and competing survival strategies.
• A shrinking refuge: The Manor’s apparent safety is deteriorating as the nightmare spreads.

Key plot points and events

• Qian Jin proposes a nighttime escape plan: Gao Ming will distract the Manor’s owner while Qian Jin, Zhi Ge, and the fool break through the wooden doors to Room 3009 and the cellar.
• Gao Ming suggests using the Snowman and the mountaineers as distractions, despite the danger of provoking both the owner and the ghost. He also suspects Bai Huang may know more about the house.
• While following a sign through the snowy woods, Gao Ming finds the scattered parts of a child’s rag doll and reassembles it. A pale little girl appears and takes the doll.
• The girl says she is forbidden to appear during the day because it might cause trouble for her brother. When Gao Ming describes the Manor’s current owner, she insists he is not her brother.
• She recalls that her family once lived happily in the Manor. Her grandfather forbade anyone from entering the fourth floor, but after his death her father and brother went there to sort through his belongings. Her father later said that her brother had opened a door, releasing something that he managed to shut away.
• The girl claims the evil thing escaped from that door and was responsible for the deaths in the Manor. As she speaks, blood seeps from injuries corresponding to the places where her doll was torn apart.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows initiative and growing confidence, weighing risky ways to escape and questioning the accepted story about the Manor. His heightened senses also make him attentive to clues others might miss.
• Qian Jin recognizes Gao Ming’s usefulness and tries to recruit him, though his plan relies on Gao Ming taking the greatest risk.
• Xu Deyi mocks the veteran players and challenges their cautiousness; Qian Jin dismisses him.
• The little girl shifts from a withdrawn, seemingly innocent child to a frightened witness with a disturbing, personal connection to the Manor’s history. Gao Ming’s questions trigger her distress, but she shares what she remembers.

Significant themes

• Conflicting truths and unreliable accounts: The girl’s history contradicts the owner’s version, leaving the Manor’s past uncertain.
• Risk and survival: The characters debate whether desperate action is safer than hiding.
• Memory, innocence, and loss: The restored doll reconnects the girl to her former self and to memories of her family.
• Hidden evil and forbidden knowledge: The sealed fourth floor and the door that was opened suggest the Manor’s present horror began with something long concealed.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming questions the ghost girl about the events at the Manor. She says a malevolent being inside her rag doll took control of her body at night, causing disturbances and eventually making her appear to attack the cellar with a knife.
• Her family initially locked her up, then tried to remove the entity by performing a ritual on the fourth floor. The girl says the entity had manipulated events from the start: it planted a hidden needle to wake her during the ritual and impersonated her when her parents visited, making them less likely to believe her.
• During the ritual, the girl’s soul was forced into the rag doll, while the entity took over her body. Her father later destroyed the doll and buried it in the pine forest, trapping her soul there.
• The entity then threatened the girl and harmed her family. Her mother went mad and was confined to the fourth floor; her father sealed it off and tried to destroy the door connected to the supernatural force; and her brother became consumed by guilt and developed a violent fear of doors and windows.
• The girl insists her brother never left the Manor. Since Gao Ming has searched all but four rooms, he suspects the brother is hidden in one of them. He asks whether she will enter the Manor with him.

Character developments and interactions

• The girl reveals herself as a victim whose body and identity were stolen, while showing continued concern for her family—especially her brother.
• The entity is revealed as patient and calculating, deliberately staging clues and exploiting the family’s trust and fear.
• Gao Ming listens, compares her account with what he has observed, and turns her testimony into a plan to search the remaining rooms. Her story differs from what she previously told him, leaving some uncertainty about what—or whom—to trust.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: The entity mimics the girl convincingly and manipulates her family into doubting the real her.
• Identity and control: The body-swap ritual leaves the girl trapped in a doll while an impostor inhabits her body.
• Guilt and trauma: The brother’s remorse and fear of doors and windows show the lasting damage caused by the events.
• Family devotion and helplessness: The girl remains worried about her family despite being powerless to reach them.

Key plot points and events

• The little girl explains that her rag doll is incomplete until it is sewn with her mother’s needle and thread. Her mother once lived in room 3009 and was later imprisoned on the Manor’s fourth floor. The girl can leave the pine forest only at night.
• Gao Ming visits East Lake despite her warning. The frozen lake feels unnaturally threatening, and he spots a humanlike figure moving beneath the ice before it vanishes into the lake’s dark center. A blood-sticky red mailbox and two boats sit on a dock, where an unseen influence urges him toward the water. He suspects the lake may lead into a deeper nightmare.
• Back at the Manor, the homeowner fortifies the building against night attacks, using nets said to repel nightmares and special sheets that supposedly let a living person take a ghost’s place in death.
• Gao Ming finds Bai Huang in room 3009, injured but healing and unusually drowsy. While checking the room, he sees the needle and thread the girl needs—but leaves them untouched.
• Gao Ming suspects the homeowner may be a monster trying to escape the nightmare by taking over the testers’ minds. He considers the needle and thread a possible deliberate test to see whether the group has encountered the girl. He arranges for Xu Deyi to fetch medicine near nightfall, and the chapter ends as darkness arrives.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and observant, investigating East Lake while weighing the risks. He distrusts the homeowner’s preparations and refuses to take the needle and thread, choosing instead to conceal his knowledge.
• The little girl trusts Gao Ming and guides him, but warns him that East Lake is dangerous. Her need for her mother’s sewing supplies gives Gao Ming a concrete task tied to her family’s history.
• Bai Huang appears vulnerable after a sleepless, exhausting ordeal. Her changed demeanor and sudden drowsiness alarm Gao Ming, who wonders whether she is truly herself.
• The homeowner grows increasingly fearful and controlling, recruiting Xu Deyi and Fool to reinforce the Manor. His defensive measures may also conceal a more sinister plan.
• Xu Deyi and Fool help with the preparations, though Fool is also quietly collecting items for an unknown purpose.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: Gao Ming questions whether people—and even familiar allies—are what they seem.
• Nightmares crossing boundaries: East Lake may connect this nightmare to a deeper one, while the homeowner may be seeking a route into reality.
• Fear and survival: The characters prepare for night in different ways, revealing how danger drives suspicion and secret agendas.
• Hidden truths and moral suffering: Gao Ming’s suspicion that the homeowner destroyed the girl’s family casts the child’s brother as a possible victim rather than a threat.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming warns Xu Deyi that the owner may be watching him closely. He tells him to avoid the other Testers, keep his distance from the owner, and appear cooperative while delaying or cutting corners.
• At dinner, the owner claims an unclean presence has entered the Manor and urges everyone to work together. He sends Qian Jin upstairs with food for the supposedly injured Bai Huang.
• Qian Jin later tells Gao Ming that Bai Huang ate some meat and said, “It’s not fish,” possibly referring to fish she caught at East Lake. Gao Ming tells him to stick to their plan.
• Alone in room 2009, Gao Ming senses the supernatural presence growing stronger, especially the call from East Lake. The room grows colder, and ice forms overhead.
• A Mountaineer appears outside the window, while a face in an icicle seems to react to Gao Ming’s account of the rag doll’s story. Gao Ming suspects the face may be Younger Brother, or part of him, and wonders whether he became Snowman.
• Hearing Qian Jin and the others knock, Gao Ming deliberately grabs the icicle and screams for help. The owner arrives with a hunting rifle.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains strategic and composed, using the others’ attention as cover while probing the Manor’s mysteries. His performance of terror unexpectedly brings back fragments of memories of repeated deaths.
• Xu Deyi resents being managed but trusts Gao Ming enough to follow his instructions.
• Qian Jin acts as a messenger and appears to be cooperating with Gao Ming’s plan; his observation of Bai Huang raises fresh questions about her behavior.
• The owner presents himself as a protective host, but his suspicions of Gao Ming seem to be growing.
• The supernatural figures—the Mountaineer and the face in the icicle—respond differently to the story, suggesting they may hold distinct pieces of the truth.

Significant themes

• Conflicting accounts and uncertain truth: Gao Ming must decide whether to trust the people in the nightmare or the ghosts of the winter night.
• Performance and deception: Gao Ming and his allies pretend to cooperate while pursuing their own plan.
• Fragmented identity and memory: The rag doll, Younger Brother, and Snowman may be divided or connected in ways not yet understood.
• Growing supernatural danger: The cold, East Lake’s call, and the figures appearing around the Manor signal an approaching threat.

Plot points and events

• The exhausted homeowner returns to Room 2009 and confronts Gao Ming after finding the curtains open. A Mountaineer outside attacks the window, and the homeowner prepares to trap the snowman, ordering Gao Ming to fetch a brazier and firewood.
• Gao Ming finds Zhi Ge and Fool chopping through the kitchen cellar door. He and Qian Jin explore the cellar, where pickled food appears to conceal the smell of preserved bodies.
• In the final vat, they discover a headless corpse matching the nightmare’s owner—the young man Gao Ming previously saw in a hospital bed. Gao Ming suspects the snowman may contain the missing head and that the corpse is its body.
• Gao Ming and the others remove the corpse, but the homeowner catches Rao Rao before she can rejoin them. He forces her into Room 2009, makes her wear the dead Adoptive Mother’s clothes, and orders her to sing beside the brazier.
• As the song echoes through the house, water seeps through the walls and forms a human outline. On the fourth floor, a bloodied, twisted figure in a red dress begins forcing itself through the railing.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains determined to investigate the nightmare, willingly handling the corpse and pushing his companions to help, despite their practical goal of simply escaping.
• Qian Jin is increasingly distressed by the cellar’s cold and stench, and questions Gao Ming’s decision to carry the body.
• Rao Rao is reluctantly drawn into the homeowner’s ritual and made to impersonate Adoptive Mother.
• The homeowner shifts from guarding against the snowman to controlling the others and using Rao Rao in a mysterious ceremony. His motives remain threatening and unclear.
• Zhi Ge and Fool work together to break into the cellar, while the group’s uneasy cooperation is complicated by the homeowner’s suspicion and force.

Significant themes

• Buried truth and concealed identity: The corpse suggests the nightmare’s owner has been hidden from view, while the snowman may contain his missing head.
• The dead intruding on the living: The body, the Mountaineer, and the emerging figure blur the boundary between human remains and supernatural threats.
• Control and sacrifice: The homeowner’s gun and forced ritual show how survival in the nightmare depends on power—and how others may be used as tools.
• Investigation versus escape: Gao Ming seeks answers, while the Nightmare Hunters prioritize getting out and being paid.

Plot points and events

• While Rao Rao distracts the Manor’s owner, Zhi Ge and Qian Jin head to the Third Floor to open another hidden room. They decide not to attempt a reckless rescue, hoping instead to make Rao Rao’s sacrifice count.
• The group keeps the headless corpse rather than surrendering it to either the owner or the ghost creatures. Qian Jin takes it to the ground floor while Zhi Ge, Gao Ming, Xu Deyi, and Fool search upstairs.
• In Room 3009, they find the hidden room’s Wooden Door already open. Inside is Bai Huang, dressed in a bloodstained garment and suffering from confused, uncertain memories.
• Gao Ming discovers a blood-filled gift box containing a letter. Touching it plunges Xu Deyi into overwhelming sorrow; Gao Ming pulls him out of the effect, then experiences the letter’s grief himself.
• The letter is a child’s apology to his mother. It reveals that the child accidentally released a dangerous being by opening a forbidden door. After the being killed his younger sister and other family members, he vowed to keep it confined. He used an object left by his maternal grandfather to sacrifice himself and seal the creature inside his own body. The letter also describes a ritual and its precautions.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhi Ge and Qian Jin’s loyalty to each other and to their team is evident in their coordinated actions, even as they make the painful choice not to rush back for Rao Rao.
• Zhi Ge grows suspicious of Bai Huang because her memories leave open the possibility that something else controlled her. Bai Huang remains composed and suggests the owner may be trying to turn them against one another.
• Gao Ming shows quick judgment by stopping Xu Deyi from being overwhelmed by the letter, then faces its sorrow himself.
• Xu Deyi’s tough-guy image gives way to visible vulnerability when the letter makes him feel abandoned.
• Fool contributes by pointing the others toward the box and letter, despite his frightening appearance.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and responsibility: Rao Rao’s distraction and the child’s self-sacrifice both involve accepting danger for a larger purpose.
• Grief and guilt: The letter embodies sorrow, while its author’s remorse is tied to the catastrophe he caused.
• Trust and suspicion: The group’s bonds are tested by Bai Huang’s uncertain memories and the possibility of manipulation.
• Emotional danger: The letter turns grief into a force that can overwhelm anyone who encounters it.

Key plot points and events

• A letter confirms the nightmare’s history: the owner ignored his maternal grandfather’s warning and released a ghost from behind a door. The ghost possessed his younger sister, then killed family members and visitors. The owner trapped it inside his own mind, leaving himself in a vegetative state.
• The Manor’s homeowner preserved the clues rather than destroying them, raising suspicion that he may still intend to use them. Repeated visits by Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ Testers could give the trapped ghost chances to escape.
• The group suspects the ghost might escape by swapping souls again. Zhi Ge accuses Bai Huang of being an impostor, pointing to her unusual willingness to eat in the nightmare and her appearance in the hidden room wearing the owner’s mother’s clothes. Bai Huang insists she is herself.
• Gao Ming sides with Bai Huang, while cautioning the others against certainty. His comparison of her to her missing son, Bai Xiao, persuades her to explain her investigation.
• Bai Huang reveals that East Lake may lead to a deeper nightmare. The “fish” beneath its ice are actually people from other nightmares; once caught and brought out, they become fish. The homeowner’s grandfather ate them, apparently gaining vitality, and may have used the ghostly forces behind the door to stave off illness and death.
• Bai Huang caught one of the creatures and took it to the brick house behind the Wood Shed. She made a bargain with its inhabitant: she will help kill the homeowner in exchange for help opening the way to a deeper nightmare and completing the ritual.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang emerges as a determined investigator with a supernatural ability to sense malice concealed in emotions. Her priority is finding her missing children, even if it means pursuing a deeper nightmare rather than escaping.
• Gao Ming shows perceptiveness and trust in Bai Huang, recognizing that her conspicuous oddities may not mean she has been replaced. His mention of Bai Xiao helps her decide to share what she knows.
• Zhi Ge and Xu Deyi realize that their goals conflict with Bai Huang’s: they want to escape the nightmare and claim their payment, while she wants to descend further. Zhi Ge’s suspicion of Bai Huang gives way to understanding the stakes.
• The homeowner is reframed as potentially connected to the nightmare’s hidden history and its predatory rituals, though his precise plans remain uncertain.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and containment: The nightmare’s owner sacrificed his own life and consciousness to keep the ghost from harming others.
• Trust and uncertainty: In a nightmare, suspicion can be protective, but appearances and seemingly obvious clues can mislead.
• Conflicting motives: Survival and escape clash with Bai Huang’s personal mission to find her children.
• Distorted reality and exploitation: The “fish” reveal that nightmare rules transform human victims into resources, while the grandfather’s meals suggest a grotesque exchange of life and vitality.

Plot points and events

• Bai Huang argues that the House Owner is trying to make her a scapegoat and may have already switched places with one of the Testers. She believes Gao Ming’s unusually strong will makes him hard to possess, which is why the House Owner has tried to gain his trust.
• Rao Rao screams for help from Room 2009. The group finds her tied to a mold-covered bed in the Red Dress, while the House Owner lies unconscious nearby. The Hunting Rifle is missing.
• Bai Huang suspects Rao Rao, who had been alone with the House Owner and helped with the ritual. Gao Ming warns that she may be a decoy—or that the House Owner may now be hiding in another Tester. He points out that he himself was meant to assist with the ritual and could have been framed instead.
• Gao Ming urges the group to keep both Rao Rao and the House Owner under watch while they investigate further. They find the keys to the remaining rooms, marked Resentment and Hatred.
• The group leaves the Manor during a blizzard. Mountaineer corpses are climbing its walls, and the missing rifle leaves them without a reliable way to fight ghost creatures.
• Gao Ming unlocks the Resentment room behind the Wood Shed. Inside are a slowly turning phonograph playing a boy’s sobs, walls covered in scratch marks, photographs covering the surfaces, and an overwhelming chill.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and analytical. Rather than accepting Bai Huang’s theory or accusing Rao Rao outright, he considers several possibilities and prioritizes keeping suspects close while searching for evidence.
• Bai Huang presents herself as composed and perceptive, claiming the House Owner is manipulating the group to shift suspicion away from himself.
• Rao Rao is frightened and furious at being suspected. She insists Gao Ming is framing her, while Zhi Ge—her close companion—hesitates before intervening and eventually restrains the House Owner.
• Xu Deyi remains timid, especially when he sees a Mountaineer corpse notice him outside the Manor.
• The group’s trust is strained: the possibility that the House Owner has taken over a Tester makes every person, including Rao Rao and Bai Huang, a potential threat.

Significant themes

• Deception and misplaced trust: The House Owner may be hiding among the Testers, and apparent victims or allies could be decoys.
• Identity and possession: The group cannot be sure who is truly inhabiting each body.
• Fear under uncertainty: Gao Ming’s cautious reasoning contrasts with the others’ panic, but no one can yet prove who is telling the truth.
• Escalating danger: With the rifle missing, the group must explore the remaining rooms while exposed to the supernatural threats outside.