Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree bonds with the wardrobe in the Death Building. It absorbs the building’s accumulated resentment, repairs some of its damage, and coexists with it after being checked by the wardrobe’s blade marks.
• The tree’s phantom becomes the wardrobe’s third divine pattern, giving Gao Ming broad access to the Death Building and the power to eject players—though the blade marks appear to prevent him from killing them there.
• The transformed wardrobe can lead to different nightmares depending on its offering. Gao Ming can also sense the two other Flesh-and-Blood Giant Trees he planted in Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ Brain-Domain Game, and travel to their nightmares without an offering.
• Seeing the trees as a way to breach the company’s facilities, Gao Ming resolves to gain clearance and reach its Level Five Classified Laboratory.
• Zhao Gu confronts Gao Ming over what he placed in the wardrobe. Brother Bug and the Information Exchange Center’s leader defuse the standoff by showing the lobby Gao Ming’s history of rescuing students and being harmed by the company.
• Gao Ming shares the trees’ origins and abilities privately with the Death Building’s leaders, but initially earns suspicion: the passages they create could also let the company invade their refuge.
• He challenges the leaders to think beyond fear and consider using the passages to attack Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. Gao Ming declares that he intends to rebuild a route to the deep world for personal reasons.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming gains significant power and strategic options, but remains guarded about his motives and refuses to trust the group fully. He shifts from defending himself against Zhao Gu to persuading the leaders to turn his discovery into an offensive weapon.
• Zhao Gu is intensely protective of the Death Building. He lowers his hostility after hearing Gao Ming’s story, but still insists on understanding and controlling the risk.
• Brother Bug acts as a mediator, urging calm and encouraging Gao Ming to share information with the people in charge.
• The Information Exchange Center’s leader uses Gao Ming’s public record to ease the crowd’s suspicion, then listens with the other leaders as Gao Ming reveals the trees’ capabilities.

Significant themes

• Trust versus paranoia: The players have good reason to fear betrayal, but suspicion may prevent them from acting against their common enemy.
• Power and risk: Gao Ming’s new passages could enable retaliation against the company—or expose the Death Building to attack.
• Revenge and purpose: Gao Ming appeals to the players’ anger at their suffering, while revealing that his own plan is driven by a personal need to return to the deep world.
• Choosing offense over survival: The chapter’s title reflects Gao Ming’s rebuke of the leaders’ fearful caution and his push toward decisive action.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming confronts the player leaders, arguing they should stop hiding and work with him against Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. Though he has used up his Flesh-and-Blood Seeds, he believes the Death Building’s new privileges make him too valuable to kill.
• His connection to the Death Building lets him explore hidden areas. In a concealed warehouse, he finds rare medicines and supplies, then discovers a shrine containing recordings of Huang Ying’s private confessions.
• Huang Ying’s recordings reveal that he is exhausted and frightened by the burden of being treated as the players’ savior. He fears forgetting the divine spirit he once relied on and becoming convinced by his own heroic persona. Gao Ming decides to protect the shrine so the players’ image of Huang Ying remains intact.
• At the building’s lowest level, Gao Ming finds a gigantic insect husk beneath the structure, apparently the source of the Death Building’s power and its ability to exist in the black fog.
• The players remotely summon Gao Ming back to the conference room. They agree to help him gain level-five clearance at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals, but ask him to find a person inside a nightmare: Zhang Mingli, a moral education teacher.

Character developments

• Gao Ming asserts himself as a potential ally and leader, while cautiously investigating the Death Building’s secrets. Hearing Huang Ying’s recordings makes him see the celebrated figure as an ordinary, suffering man.
• Huang Ying is revealed as deeply vulnerable beneath his public savior image, struggling with fear, pressure, and the possibility of forgetting someone important.
• The player leaders move from suspicion to cooperation after discussing Gao Ming’s proposal. Their willingness to help is conditional on him locating Zhang Mingli.

Significant themes

• Public image versus private reality: Huang Ying performs confidence for the players while privately admitting his despair.
• Memory and identity: His fear of forgetting a divine spirit suggests that memory helps sustain both personal identity and faith.
• Power and resistance: The players’ hidden resources and the Death Building’s extraordinary secrets suggest that resistance remains possible despite the company’s repression.
• Trust and leverage: Gao Ming and the leaders negotiate cooperation through mutual usefulness rather than complete trust.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming challenges the leaders to join him, then leaves them to deliberate rather than forcing an immediate answer.
• He indirectly encounters Huang Ying through the shrine’s recordings, gaining sympathy for him and choosing to conceal the discovery.
• Brother Bug and the Information Exchange Center’s leader welcome Gao Ming back and offer support, asking him to locate Zhang Mingli in return.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming promises Brother Bug and the other Molten Fire leaders that he will find Zhang Mingli and bring him back to the Death Building. They warn him that Zhang has saved many lives, but there is something unusual about him.
• Brother Bug brings Gao Ming out of the forbidden game Perfect Life and into Fu Family Village. Old Cao gives Gao Ming a homemade communicator that can interfere with his Black Ring. Gao Ming is warned that Perfect Life login pods and related items are now contraband and likely traps set by Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals.
• The leaders explain that unstable allies are hidden in Fu Family Village, so Gao Ming is escorted safely out. He returns to the Old District, having secured symbiotic nightmares for all three Flesh-and-Blood Seeds and needing only to raise his clearance at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals.
• Gao Ming visits Bai Huang. In her son Bai Xiao’s preserved room, he finds a photo of Bai Xiao and Bai Qiao. The image stirs memories and pain he cannot fully explain, suggesting his connection to the children and events in his dreams may be real.
• Gao Ming and Bai Huang discuss their shared hostility toward Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals and the possibility of returning to the first nightmare. Bai Huang reveals that reaching Level Five requires a brain implant, which she fears could make her forget her children. She ultimately says she is willing to accept it if Gao Ming will help find them.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming continues to conceal his ties to Molten Fire while gaining its trust and accepting its communicator. He is focused on raising his clearance but is also increasingly affected by memories linked to Bai Xiao and Bai Qiao.
• Bai Huang’s guarded manner softens around Gao Ming. Her grief and determination become clear: she has kept her children’s rooms intact and is prepared to risk her memories to search for them.
• Brother Bug, Old Cao, and Guan Li treat Gao Ming as an ally, offering practical help while cautioning him about both Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals and the unstable people hidden in Fu Family Village.
• Gao Ming and Bai Huang recognize a shared motive: both oppose the company and want to uncover what happened to people they care about. Their cooperation is established, though Gao Ming does not yet answer her request directly.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: The brain implant threatens Bai Huang’s memories, while Gao Ming’s incomplete recollections blur the boundary between dreams and reality.
• Grief and hope: Bai Huang’s preserved rooms embody her refusal to give up on her children.
• Trust and secrecy: Gao Ming navigates alliances while concealing his connections, and Bai Huang risks acting on trust in him.
• Corporate exploitation: Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ experiments, classified labs, and contraband schemes frame its pursuit of control as a threat to both body and mind.

Plot points and events

• Bai Huang asks Gao Ming to accompany her into a Deep Nightmare test at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ Level Five Classified Laboratory. Passing it would raise her security clearance and give her a chance to investigate before undergoing cerebral surgery.
• She admits she is afraid of losing herself in the nightmare, and says she needs someone beside her to keep her grounded. Gao Ming agrees to help.
• At home, Gao Ming contacts Brother Bug to ask whether Molten Fire can sabotage Bai Huang’s surgery. Brother Bug replies with descriptions of four of the company’s thirteen body-modification methods:
  • Filling: inserting anomalous objects into the body to gain their properties.
  • Name substitution: taking a dead person’s name and identity to inherit their abilities, at the risk of losing oneself.
  • Calamity offering: sacrificing parts of oneself for protection from evil spirits.
  • Shrine construction: using one’s body to build spiritual defenses, at the cost of becoming nearly immobile.
• Brother Bug warns Gao Ming that all modifications exact a price. Gao Ming wonders whether people he has encountered, including Wan Jie, were modified.
• Liu Yi arrives with groceries and a large boxed gift. Inside is a gaming helmet.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang shows vulnerability for the first time, openly acknowledging her fear. Her search for her missing children remains her driving purpose, and she places significant trust in Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming commits to helping Bai Huang and continues planning his next move against Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. He is also aware that Liu Yi’s presence comforts him and keeps him from returning too readily to nightmares.
• Brother Bug acts as an information source and cautions Gao Ming against the risks of modification.
• Liu Yi brings warmth and normalcy into Gao Ming’s home, while her gift of the gaming helmet hints at a possible new development.

Significant themes

• Identity and self-loss: Nightmare trials and modification procedures can erode a person’s sense of self.
• Power at a cost: Each enhancement offers protection or abilities but demands bodily or psychological sacrifice.
• Trust and dependence: Bai Huang seeks support from Gao Ming, while Liu Yi serves as an emotional anchor.
• The pull between safety and danger: Gao Ming finds comfort in ordinary life yet remains drawn toward investigating the nightmares.

Key plot points and events

• Liu Yi gives Gao Ming a secondhand immersive gaming helmet, supposedly for relaxation and trauma relief. Its blank appearance and unknown game—Lying-Flat Supermarket Simulator—make Gao Ming uneasy. He sets it beside a spot where he has glimpsed a mysterious figure.
• After dinner, Liu Yi gets tipsy and shares frustrations about strange incidents at work and the developer behind an unfinished apartment project. Gao Ming enjoys the rare chance to relax with her. He later dreams of someone using the helmet to work a supermarket night shift.
• The next morning, Gao Ming learns Bai Huang has arranged a Level Five classified clearance test at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ secret laboratory. He accompanies her as her chosen assistant.
• Before they leave, Bai Huang prepares a meal and speaks candidly about her past, behaving more like a mother than the guarded person Gao Ming knows.
• They are collected by disguised workers in an ordinary moving truck. Gao Ming is blindfolded and transported in silence, guided by a pair of warm hands—presumably Bai Huang’s.
• During the journey, Gao Ming recognizes a calming medicinal scent and wonders if he has encountered it before, perhaps through Dr. Xuan Wen. A familiar voice warns, “You shouldn’t have come back,” before he experiences a sudden sensation of falling.
• Gao Ming and Bai Huang arrive in a dim room with several other Black Ring wearers taking the test. No staff or instructions appear. The group searches the room and finds a shrine containing a seated paper figure instead of a statue or ancestral tablet.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains wary of the helmet and the supernatural, but values ordinary comforts: time with Liu Yi, sunlight, and a quiet home. He also supports Bai Huang by accompanying her and listening as she opens up.
• Liu Yi shows affection by buying Gao Ming the helmet, then shares her anger and workplace experiences with him. Their easy, domestic rapport gives Gao Ming a brief respite from danger.
• Bai Huang displays unexpected warmth and vulnerability before the test, cooking familiar dishes and talking about her past. On arrival, she instinctively protects Gao Ming by drawing him behind her.
• Gao Ming and Bai Huang enter the test together, but the ominous warning and unexplained transport suggest that Gao Ming’s presence may be known—or unwelcome—to someone connected with the laboratory.

Significant themes

• Comfort amid horror: Sunlight, food, and companionship offer temporary refuge from Gao Ming’s frightening life.
• Uncertainty and suspicion: The unmarked helmet, secret transport, mysterious voice, and unexplained test all signal hidden dangers.
• Family and care: Bai Huang’s meal and Liu Yi’s affection reveal tenderness beneath the characters’ stress and guardedness.
• The ordinary made unsettling: A moving truck, a gaming helmet, and a paper figure take on ominous significance in a world where danger hides in everyday things.

Key plot points and events

• Testers at Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals encounter a shrine whose contents appear different to each person. A wall opens into small doors labeled with those visions.
• A Tester warns that the shrine may be tied to a nightmare and claims a living god resides within it. Meanwhile, A Hai is seized by an unseen force and repeatedly smashes his head against the shrine.
• Gao Ming sees a paper figure in the shrine, but finds no door matching it. He follows Bai Huang through the door labeled “posthumous photograph,” which matches her vision of Bai Xiao’s memorial photo.
• Gao Ming emerges alone, buried in a coffin in a cold, moonless graveyard. He escapes as a storm begins and discovers a money pouch containing three bloodstained copper coins and a prescription.
• He senses the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree approaching through his heartbeat, while Walkie-Talkie Number Two picks up strange static. He sets aside his larger goals—finding the device’s true body and locating Zhang Mingli—and cautiously heads toward a nearby village.
• At the village entrance, he reads a blood-drenched stone tablet naming the place Dreamfold Town.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming trusts his danger instinct, takes Bai Huang’s hand, and chooses to stay with her rather than split up. Once alone, he remains alert and methodical, investigating his surroundings and keeping his long-term objectives in mind.
• Bai Huang is visibly shaken by the shrine and its connection to Bai Xiao, but takes the lead through the matching door.
• A Hai abruptly loses control and attacks the shrine, suggesting that the danger can affect Testers before they understand or enter the nightmare.
• The other Testers debate what they see and how to proceed; their conflicting perceptions deepen the group’s uncertainty. Gao Ming and Bai Huang’s separation after entering the same door raises questions about how the nightmare works.

Significant themes

• Unstable reality and perception: Each Tester sees something different in the shrine, and even experienced participants cannot tell whether they are dreaming.
• Fear and survival: The shrine exerts an immediate, lethal-seeming threat, pushing the group to act without clear instructions.
• Isolation and uncertainty: Gao Ming wakes alone, separated from Bai Huang and the other Testers, with no explanation for the transition.
• Clues and hidden connections: The coins, prescription, altered radio, and approaching tree suggest that the nightmare contains clues linked to Gao Ming’s wider journey.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming enters an unfamiliar nightmare without realizing exactly when the transition occurred. Suspecting it may be a hidden brain domain—possibly Number Two’s—he proceeds cautiously, aware that this may be Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ final test for level-five security clearance.
• Outside the town, a human-clothed Yellow Weasel blocks the road and silently demands payment. Gao Ming gives it a copper coin and runs for the town; afterward, he sees candlelight in a small temple near the burial ground.
• The town is called Dreamfold Town. Its entrance tablet is covered in names, some faded or erased, prompting Gao Ming to wonder whether the town was built from the people and nightmares represented by those names.
• The entrance bears cryptic rules about how to behave around people, ghosts, and beasts. After Gao Ming enters, the warning changes to a threat that it is easy to enter but hard to leave.
• Seeking shelter, he chooses a road lined with red lanterns and approaches a household apparently celebrating a wedding. When someone announces, “The groom is back,” the courtyard falls silent and unseen occupants seem to watch him. Gao Ming flees.
• He climbs over a wall to escape the pursuing footsteps, landing in a courtyard where a black donkey grinds something bloody in a millstone. A trapped man inside urges Gao Ming to kill the donkey, but the donkey’s gaze begins to affect his mind. Gao Ming resists and escapes into the house instead.

Character development

• Gao Ming shows caution and resourcefulness: he avoids an unnecessary fight with the Yellow Weasel, pays it off, and later chooses flight over confronting the donkey.
• He remains alert to clues, but his curiosity is balanced by survival instincts. When the trapped man’s plea draws the donkey’s attention, Gao Ming recognizes the danger and acts quickly.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and the Yellow Weasel: The weasel blocks his path and appears to demand money. Gao Ming gives it a coin, then escapes without a fight.
• Gao Ming and the wedding household: The residents remain unseen, but their sudden silence and the voice identifying him as the groom turn his arrival into a threat.
• Gao Ming, the trapped man, and the donkey: The man begs Gao Ming to kill the donkey, while the donkey’s stare disorients him. Gao Ming refuses to engage and slips away.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and concealed realities: Gao Ming cannot tell when he entered the nightmare or what kind of world it is.
• Rules and danger: The town offers warnings, but their meaning and reliability are unclear; even ordinary actions may invite harm.
• Survival over heroism: Gao Ming avoids fights and refuses to be drawn into another being’s conflict when the risks are unknown.
• A world built from suffering: The names on the town’s tablet and the bloody mill suggest that the town may be shaped by human lives, nightmares, and torment.

Plot and key events

• Gao Ming searches the butcher’s house and finds dried animal hides, restraints, a bloodstained bed, and equipment seemingly meant for a foal. The disturbing clues suggest the house is not an ordinary slaughterhouse.
• He discovers a hidden ledger recording livestock transactions. Its entries refer to animals as people, leading him to suspect that the “livestock” are Testers from Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals.
• Black Donkey enters. Gao Ming breaks the town’s warning against speaking to beasts and identifies himself as a Tester. Black Donkey reacts angrily to the company’s name, then shows him a box containing a burned picture book and two coins.
• The book reveals that Testers seeking Level Five Security Clearance are trapped in a nightmare where they must uncover one of thirteen bodily “modification methods.” Its writer became Shopkeeper Wang’s servant in hopes of learning one, but later realized the town’s animals were the Testers who had entered with him.
• Black Donkey scratches “the modification method” into the dirt, suggesting his transformation resulted from one of these procedures. A voice from the millstone claims the book is his and warns Gao Ming not to trust the donkey.
• Black Donkey resumes turning the mill and drinking its blood, growing larger and sleeker. Gao Ming concludes that the modifications are extremely dangerous and decides to find the butcher’s knife for protection—not to kill the donkey.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from wary investigation to a grim understanding of the nightmare’s cruelty. He is willing to break rules and disclose his identity to test Black Donkey’s response, but remains cautious.
• Black Donkey is revealed as an intelligent, tormented former Tester, apparently transformed by a modification method. His destruction of the saddle and whip suggests painful past treatment; his silent cooperation contrasts with the millstone voice’s warning.
• The millstone’s speaker offers information about the book but tries to turn Gao Ming against Black Donkey, leaving its motives uncertain.
• Gao Ming and Black Donkey communicate through gestures and the written clue, while the disembodied speaker competes for Gao Ming’s trust.

Significant themes

• Dehumanization and exploitation: Testers are treated as livestock and subjected to torture and bodily transformation.
• Institutional secrecy and abuse: Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ hidden experiments appear far more horrific than the Testers expected.
• Trust and deception: Gao Ming must judge conflicting warnings and clues in a setting where even apparent allies may be dangerous.
• Survival under coercion: The book’s fragments show a desperate effort to endure and warn others, even as the town strips its victims of identity and control.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming escapes the butcher shop after finding a rusted slaughtering knife marked with the character “Zhu” and a sheepskin. He suspects the shopkeeper, Wang, may have been killed or ground up by the black donkey turning the mill.
• A bloodstained intruder enters the shop, apparently searching for something. Gao Ming flees rather than risk meeting it.
• Nearby, he finds a grim slaughterhouse where a white pig is bound for butchering. The pig’s eyes seem human, and Gao Ming recognizes it as a Tester he encountered earlier.
• Beneath stitched lips, Gao Ming discovers the Tester’s face inside the pig’s throat. The man explains that the nightmare’s horrors are symbolic and must be understood in their true forms to be defeated.
• The Tester says he was abducted while searching for materials to help his teammate, Fei Gong, develop Spirit Vision. He gives Gao Ming a sealed clay pellet for Fei Gong, warning him not to open it because it harms living people. In return, he promises that he and Fei Gong will help Gao Ming find a modification method and escape.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains cautious and resourceful: he arms himself, reasons through the town’s dangers, and chooses to flee when a threatening presence enters the butcher shop. Despite his self-interest and plans to extort Yellow Skin, he decides to help the trapped Tester.
• The trapped Tester is frightened but clear-headed. He trusts Gao Ming only cautiously, yet gives him a potentially dangerous message and offers a practical bargain.
• Fei Gong, though absent, is established as the Tester’s teammate and a possible ally.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming assesses the butcher shop and its likely inhabitants, trying to infer who is responsible for the violence.
• He approaches the bound pig carefully, reassures it, and frees its mouth enough to speak with the Tester inside.
• The Tester explains the nightmare’s rules and entrusts Gao Ming with the pellet and instructions to find Fei Gong.

Significant themes

• Appearance and hidden identity: The pig conceals a human Tester, while the town’s people and objects may represent deeper forces.
• Survival and uncertain trust: Gao Ming must make choices in a hostile world where even apparent allies may be dangerous.
• Symbolism and insight: Ordinary force may not defeat nightmare creatures; understanding what they truly represent is essential.
• Cruelty and complicity: The slaughterhouse’s ritualized violence reflects the nightmare’s dehumanizing horror.

Plot points and events

• A face trapped in a white pig tells Gao Ming that the butcher’s house, meat shop, and feeding house are connected parts of a transformation process. The butcher has gone mad, killed the meat-shop owner, and is searching for the feeding-house master. Gao Ming refuses to take any tools, suspecting the butcher would come after him for the stolen knife he already carries.
• From hiding, Gao Ming overhears the butcher arguing with what seem to be two voices within him. The butcher rages about his stolen knife and threatens to kill the “black donkey,” while another voice tries to stop him. Gao Ming escapes as the shadows around the butcher spread.
• Gao Ming suspects the second voice belongs to a Tester sharing the butcher’s body—and may explain why the butcher spared the black donkey, another Tester. He reflects that Dreamfold Town may contain symbolic counterparts to people or things in reality, and that some Testers could be imprisoned Forbidden Game players.
• He travels to the town’s abandoned west side, where the street and its empty houses seem unnaturally watchful. Though ready to turn back, he finds the Earth God Temple he was seeking and cautiously passes it without incident.
• Behind the temple, Gao Ming discovers an unfinished house containing a wooden pillar with a living face inside and a clay figure. The pillar’s inhabitant communicates through stove ash, asking for mercy and promising to leave Gao Ming a way to shelter there once the shrine is complete.
• The encounter makes Gao Ming wonder whether living people can be built into shrines—and whether the city in his earlier nightmare was itself a vast shrine. He recalls a gigantic grave and fears he may be the one buried in it.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and observant, using the stolen slaughtering knife as protection while avoiding unnecessary confrontations. His suspicions about the town’s symbolic nature deepen, as do his unsettling doubts about his own identity.
• The butcher appears violently unstable, shifting between a booming, murderous voice and a shrill voice that opposes him. His obsession with the knife and threats against the black donkey suggest a fractured identity and an unresolved bond with her.
• The white pig’s trapped face provides information and tries to bargain with Gao Ming, but the butcher’s sudden return cuts the exchange short.
• The shrine inhabitant cannot speak directly and uses ash-written messages to plead with Gao Ming, offering future refuge in return for mercy.

Significant themes

• Fractured identity and possession: The butcher’s competing voices suggest that different selves—or people—may coexist in one body.
• Symbolism and hidden reality: Dreamfold Town may mirror a deeper reality, with its people and places representing something beyond themselves.
• Transformation and bodily construction: The connected butcher, meat shop, and feeding house—and the living man embedded in a shrine—hint at disturbing processes that reshape bodies and identities.
• Uncertainty about self and fate: Gao Ming’s image of the grave raises the possibility that he is tied to the nightmare in ways he does not understand.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming examines Li Zhu, who has been transformed into the support pillar of a ruined house. Li Zhu claims he built a spirit shrine to protect people, and asks Gao Ming to help collect anomalous objects.
• Gao Ming reveals that Li Zhu’s companion will not return: he has become a pig. He offers Li Zhu a wax-sealed pellet in exchange for information.
• Li Zhu explains that the pellet contains a sacrificial villager’s heart flesh, an offering used to build a spirit shrine. He and another tester, also named Li Zhu, were once part of a three-person team led by Tang Hu. Their captain entered a deep nightmare to help them escape, then later arranged their qualification test and chose their modification methods.
• Gao Ming feeds the pellet to a clay statue in the house. The statue comes alive and speaks as Li Zhu’s new body. Li Zhu says he has completed four of the nine steps needed to build a spirit shrine and will wait for Tang Hu.
• Li Zhu identifies his captain as Tang Hu, Lord Tang’s newly adopted godson, and urges Gao Ming to seek him out if he gets into trouble. He insists Tang Hu’s transformations of his friends were meant to help them survive.
• Gao Ming leaves to continue searching for Bai Huang. Soon, the night watchman approaches West Street. Gao Ming hides and sees that the watchman’s head is empty except for burning black incense. Instead of turning back, the watchman proceeds down the street.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains wary and pragmatic: he bargains for information, tests Li Zhu’s honesty, and acts quickly when the pellet is opened. He is unconvinced by Li Zhu’s loyalty to Tang Hu.
• Li Zhu is trusting, self-sacrificing, and fiercely loyal to his captain. Once restored to a speaking body, he becomes more talkative and reveals Tang Hu’s identity, though he still withholds some details.
• Tang Hu emerges as a powerful and morally ambiguous figure. His friends credit him with saving their lives, but his role in turning one into a pig and another into a house raises doubts.
• The night watchman is presented as an especially unsettling threat, seemingly able to walk into dangerous places without regard for ordinary limits.

Significant themes

• Survival and sacrifice: The spirit shrine is built from Li Zhu’s body and depends on sacrificial offerings; survival in this world comes at a steep cost.
• Loyalty versus morality: Li Zhu sees Tang Hu’s actions as protective, while Gao Ming questions whether such treatment can be called kindness.
• Transformation and agency: Characters are altered into objects or creatures, with little control over their forms or fate.
• Danger without boundaries: The watchman’s fearless advance suggests that the rules governing threats and safety are uncertain.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Li Zhu negotiate: Gao Ming trades the heart-flesh offering for information, while Li Zhu tries to persuade him to trust and eventually seek out Tang Hu.
• Gao Ming challenges Li Zhu’s devotion by pointing out the brutal consequences of Tang Hu’s choices; Li Zhu answers that those choices were made so his companions could survive.
• Gao Ming’s encounter with the night watchman is silent but tense: he hides as the watchman detects the area and continues down West Street.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• The night watchman discovers Gao Ming hiding on West Street and rings his gong, warning that the air is dry and fire is a danger.
• Gao Ming finds flakes of yellow clay and rice paste shedding from his clothes. They appear linked to the Earth God Temple, whose statue seems to have attacked or marked him. As the flakes fall away, the pressure on him lifts.
• The temple grows hostile, but the night watchman’s gong seems to suppress it. Gao Ming mistakes the watchman’s warning to seek shelter for an invitation to follow and trails him through Dreamfold Town.
• The watchman leads Gao Ming to a dark alley and then to his home, where he nearly collapses because the incense in his hollowed-out head is almost spent.
• Inside, Gao Ming finds a hidden ancestral shrine. The watchman renews his power by lighting a fresh incense stick from the shrine and placing it in his skull.
• The watchman offers Gao Ming the chance to become his new partner. He explains that the previous partner was killed after abandoning his incense offerings and losing his way; the Yellow Immortal sacrificed his head to the River God, and townspeople divided up his body.
• Warning that Gao Ming’s fiery blood attracts the town’s gods and ghosts, the watchman says ancestral protection could help him survive. He produces a face-gouging knife and bone-shaving plane, then asks Gao Ming whether he will become a night watchman.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains wary of supernatural bargains, but his curiosity and need to navigate the town lead him to follow the watchman and enter his house. He recognizes that the watchman’s protection may come at a cost.
• The night watchman is revealed as a fragile but dutiful guardian whose strength depends on ritual incense and ancestral support. He seeks a replacement partner and appears sincere, though the tools he prepares make the initiation seem dangerous.

Significant themes

• Protection at a price: Survival in Dreamfold Town seems to require submitting to rituals or transformations with unknown costs.
• Tradition and obligation: The watchman’s power depends on honoring ancestors and maintaining incense offerings.
• Order amid horror: The watchman represents a remnant of civic order, capable of restraining even the hostile Earth God Temple.
• Identity and bodily sacrifice: The previous watchman’s fate—and the tools prepared for Gao Ming—suggest that becoming a protector may involve severe physical consequences.

Character interactions

• The watchman repeatedly warns Gao Ming to leave dangerous areas, while Gao Ming misunderstands and follows him.
• Gao Ming helps carry the weakened watchman into the shrine room.
• The watchman explains his role, his former partner’s death, and the protection the position may offer, then directly invites Gao Ming to join him.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming rejects the old Night Watchman’s offer to take over his role. The Watchman warns that Gao’s intense blood qi makes him a target: the town’s inhabitants may try to sacrifice him, while creatures beyond it may try to devour him.
• The Watchman recognizes Gao’s Butcher’s Knife and learns that Gao has clashed with the Butcher. He warns Gao to insist that his transformed friend “was a pig to begin with,” then offers to settle the feud if Gao becomes a Night Watchman. Gao refuses because he must find his missing friends.
• Instead, the Watchman escorts Gao to the town’s Schoolhouse, gives him an unlit incense stick to use in an emergency by lighting it with his heart’s blood, and warns him to stay inside until after the fifth watch.
• At the Schoolhouse, they meet a rough, hostile man who berates the Watchman and seems to expect another person sent by Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. The Watchman leaves after enduring the insults.
• Gao recognizes the man as resembling the Zhang-surnamed person the players had asked him to find. When asked his name, the man identifies himself as Zhang Mingli.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and determined: despite the dangers and the Watchman’s offer of protection, he puts rescuing his friends first.
• The Night Watchman shifts from threatening Gao to helping him, though his assistance seems partly self-interested. His knowledge of the town’s supernatural forces and his fading lucidity suggest his role is precarious.
• Zhang Mingli is introduced as an abrasive, unconventional figure—far from Gao’s image of a teacher. His contempt for the Watchman and references to repeated “tests” hint at a larger connection to Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals.

Significant themes

• Survival and moral choice: Gao must weigh safety against loyalty to his friends.
• Uncertain trust: The Watchman offers real help, but his motives remain unclear; Zhang Mingli is equally difficult to read.
• A distorted world: The town’s customs, transformations, and supposed institutions defy ordinary expectations.
• Escalating danger: The approaching Hai Hour signals that the night—and the town’s threats—will grow more perilous.

Plot points and events

• Zhang Mingli recognizes Gao Ming as unusually blunt and asks whom he intends to kill. He sends him to wait in the schoolhouse, warning that Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals tricked him into coming to Dreamfold Town.
• Gao Ming suspects Zhang may be a trap: the company would be unlikely to let a respected player hide there unless his presence served as bait. He decides not to reveal himself or rely on Zhang’s help yet.
• While waiting, Gao Ming discovers that wrapping the Butcher’s Knife in the crying sheepskin conceals its baleful energy, though it makes the child inside cry harder. He reasons that defeating the Butcher may require confronting the chaos and slaughter the man represents.
• Two Testers enter the schoolhouse: Wan Min and her younger brother, Wan Yang. They recognize Gao Ming from the shrine’s “Posthumous Photograph” passage and propose cooperating to find the Eleventh Modification Method and earn Level Five Clearance.
• Gao Ming says he only came to escape danger. Wan Min assumes he, like them, saw someone in the photograph who has become an obsession.
• Wan Min claims their father rescued them from a cult and was an early Tester in Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ Brain-Domain Experiment. Gao Ming suspects her father is Wan Jie, another early Tester whose distinctive double pupils match hers.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and self-reliant. Though he considers Zhang Mingli a possible ally, his suspicion of the company makes him wary of trusting anyone too quickly. He focuses on understanding the nightmare’s symbolism and preparing to confront the Butcher.
• Zhang Mingli is abrasive and irreverent toward Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals, suggesting he distrusts or despises the company. He keeps Gao Ming at a distance rather than openly helping him.
• Wan Min presents herself as cooperative and perceptive, using their shared shrine experience to build trust. Gao Ming nevertheless senses she may be concealing something.
• Wan Yang stays near the entrance and appears armed with hidden scissors, making the siblings’ friendly offer feel guarded as well.
• The encounter contrasts Gao Ming’s caution with the siblings’ practical interest in forming an alliance.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: The company, Zhang Mingli, and the Wans may each have hidden motives; apparent allies cannot be accepted at face value.
• Survival through understanding: Nightmare monsters are tied to symbolic roles and rules, so defeating them requires grasping what they represent.
• Obsession and inner demons: Wan Min interprets the Posthumous Photograph as revealing the person each Tester is compelled to see.
• Resistance to exploitation: Zhang’s contempt for the company and Gao Ming’s suspicion frame the Testers’ struggle against Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals and its experiments.

Key plot points and events

• Wan Min explains the dream release transformation method: it summons a tester’s own nightmares by spending mental strength and willpower. It is more controllable than methods involving anomalous objects or ghost gods, but requires facing one’s deepest fears and completing difficult trials.
• She proposes that Gao Ming join her and her brother, Wan Yang, in exploring the deep nightmare. Gao Ming remains wary, suspecting he could be used or sacrificed.
• Zhang Mingli gives Gao Ming a hand-copied scripture and orders him to deliver it as a gift for Lord Tang’s sixty-fifth birthday. He hints that Lord Tang has celebrated this same birthday for ten years, prompting Gao Ming to infer that Lord Tang died at sixty-five.
• On his way to the Tang Residence, Gao Ming senses the butcher approaching after the sheepskin on his back begins crying. The butcher’s furious, contradictory shouting suggests a dispute over a stolen knife and Shopkeeper Wang, but Gao Ming flees before encountering him.
• Gao Ming reaches the crowded Tang Residence just before the birthday banquet begins. The guests seem unnaturally light and paper-like; the mansion is decorated with unsettling details, including blindfolded stone lions, doll-headed child attendants, and a hall lit by white candles.
• A handsome young man—identified in Gao Ming’s thoughts as Tang Hu, Lord Tang’s adopted godson—kowtows to the hall and asks permission to begin. After an inhuman growl answers, the guests file in with gifts. The hall remains eerily silent, leaving Gao Ming to fear they may be getting killed—or eaten—inside.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is drawn to dream release because it may let him recreate his nightmares, but he continues to distrust Wan Min’s offer and approaches Zhang Mingli’s task cautiously. He relies on quick observation and avoids directly confronting the butcher.
• Wan Min presents the method persuasively and seeks Gao Ming as a potential teammate, while Wan Yang openly watches him with suspicion.
• Zhang Mingli gives Gao Ming an ominous assignment and tests his understanding with a riddle-like question about Lord Tang’s repeated birthday.
• Tang Hu appears deferential to his adoptive godfather, while the guests’ strained politeness suggests they fear Lord Tang’s displeasure.

Significant themes

• Trust and manipulation: Gao Ming cannot tell whether Wan Min’s invitation is cooperation or a trap.
• Fear as power: Dream release turns personal terror into a means of confronting powerful nightmare beings.
• Uncanny ritual and concealed violence: The birthday celebration’s festive gifts and decorations contrast with its silence, dread, and possible slaughter.
• Identity and inner conflict: The butcher’s argument about being “you” and “me” hints at divided identity or a struggle with the self.

• Key events: The chapter announces that the print edition of Ghost Story Game Designer: Sishui Apartments is available for preorder on Taobao. It offers 1,300 personally signed copies and first-printing bonus gifts.
• Character developments and interactions: No story characters appear or develop; the announcement addresses readers directly.
• Themes: The promotional message highlights adventure, suspense, and an imaginative reading experience.
• Overall: This is a brief publication announcement, not a narrative chapter.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming reaches the Tang family’s birthday banquet carrying a handwritten scripture as his gift. He recognizes Tang Hu by the Black Ring and claims that Li Zhu and his companion sent him for help.
• Tang Hu appears welcoming but keeps a firm grip on Gao Ming, apparently believing he has sneaked in to escape the butcher. He leads him toward a secluded side room, saying it is the safest place until the banquet ends.
• The room belongs to Chunniang, a woman whose quarters even the servants avoid. Tang Hu behaves affectionately toward her, though Gao Ming senses his tenderness is an act.
• The butcher arrives at the residence, raging about a “little lamb” carrying his knife. The house’s supernatural defenses block him at the entrance, but Gao Ming realizes he cannot safely remain outside.
• Gao Ming lets Tang Hu push him into Chunniang’s room. Once the door is shut, Tang Hu reveals his true purpose: he has offered Gao Ming to Chunniang as food.
• Tang Hu mocks the two Li Zhus for trusting him, dismisses Gao Ming’s protest, seals the door with a talisman, and leaves Gao Ming trapped with Chunniang. She begins to reveal her monstrous nature.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains alert and adaptable, using the Black Ring connection to approach Tang Hu and then choosing the least dangerous option when the butcher arrives. He recognizes Tang Hu’s menace but is caught in his trap.
• Tang Hu is exposed as calculating and treacherous. Though he presents himself as a caring ally, he has exploited the Li Zhus and now sacrifices Gao Ming to protect himself or secure favor in the Tang Residence.
• Chunniang is introduced as a seductive, predatory creature. Her beauty contrasts with the corpse-like odor and fish-scale markings visible on her body.
• The Li Zhus are absent, but Tang Hu’s contemptuous account reveals that their faith in him was misplaced and that he used their transformations for his own purposes.

Significant themes

• Betrayal and misplaced trust: Tang Hu’s apparent friendship conceals exploitation.
• Survival and moral compromise: Characters are forced to choose between immediate self-preservation and helping others.
• Deceptive appearances: The festive birthday celebration masks a hostile supernatural world; Chunniang’s beauty and Tang Hu’s warmth both conceal danger.
• Entrapment: Gao Ming’s escape routes narrow until he is shut inside a room with a monster.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming tests Tang Hu by invoking the Li Zhus and implying an alliance; Tang Hu responds with polite control.
• Tang Hu pretends to be affectionate with Chunniang, while Gao Ming watches suspiciously.
• After trapping Gao Ming, Tang Hu openly taunts him and condemns the Li Zhus’ trust.
• Chunniang addresses Tang Hu as her beloved, then turns her predatory attention toward Gao Ming.

Plot points

• Gao Ming resists Chunniang’s supernatural seduction, seeing through her beautiful appearance to the monstrous fish body hidden behind the curtains.
• Chunniang alternates between tempting him with a life of comfort and threatening to turn him into a paper servant. When Gao Ming remains unmoved, she reveals her history: she was sacrificed as a maiden to the river god, transformed through torture, and later taken by Lord Tang.
• After the gauze falls and her grotesque form is exposed, Gao Ming shows neither disgust nor fear. He explains that he does not want to harm her, partly because she sheltered him and partly because the Butcher has threatened anyone connected to him.
• Gao Ming offers to help Chunniang kill Lord Tang and the Water Dragon King—and even destroy Dreamfold Town. He argues that Tang Hu seeks acceptance in the town, while he wants to tear it down.
• Chunniang doubts Gao Ming can defeat Lord Tang. She explains that Lord Tang represents the townspeople’s greed and cannot be destroyed while that greed persists.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming demonstrates composure, empathy, and resolve. Unlike Tang Hu, he treats Chunniang as a person rather than pretending affection for his own advancement. He backs his words with the Butcher’s stolen slaughtering knife and offers either cooperation or a fight.
• Chunniang shifts from seductive confidence to anger and vulnerability. Her hatred of Lord Tang, the Water Dragon King, and the townspeople stems from her betrayal and transformation. Gao Ming’s calm acceptance gives her reason to pause, though she remains skeptical of his plan.
• Their encounter evolves from predator and potential victim into a tense, tentative negotiation. Outside the room, Lord Tang and the Butcher appear to be confronting each other.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus personhood: Gao Ming refuses to judge Chunniang by either her beauty or her monstrous body.
• Betrayal and revenge: Chunniang’s suffering fuels her desire to destroy those responsible.
• Greed and corruption: Lord Tang embodies the town’s collective greed, suggesting that defeating him requires confronting the people’s deeper nature.
• Sincerity versus opportunism: Gao Ming contrasts his genuine empathy with Tang Hu’s calculated performance.

Plot points

• Chunniang tells Gao Ming that Lord Tang’s annual birthday banquet is a trap: he gradually consumes the townspeople who serve him or bring him gifts, yet their greed keeps them coming back. Though the town knows his crimes, no one believes they can kill him.
• When Gao Ming offers to prove that the townspeople can be defeated, Chunniang’s distrust erupts into violence. He avoids attacking her, wary that using the butcher’s knife might attract the Butcher.
• Chunniang’s strength fades because chains and a Golden Lock pierce her body. Gao Ming gives her a little of the rainwater she has collected, restoring her appearance and calming her.
• Chunniang sets Gao Ming a test: retrieve the Ancestor Tablet beneath the Ancestral Hall’s Offering Table and burn the hall. He refuses for now, since doing so would turn the whole town against him.
• She offers an alternative: retrieve the Golden Key hidden in a secret room behind Lord Tang’s Birthday Hall, and she will perform three favors for him. Gao Ming agrees, seeing a practical alliance in their shared opposition to the townspeople.
• Chunniang gives him a bloodstained, scale-covered Gauze Robe. Wrapped around the butcher’s knife, it masks the weapon’s baleful aura and quiets the Sheepskin sheath.
• Watching through a hole in the window, Gao Ming hears the Butcher apparently placate Lord Tang and offer him a birthday gift, while the Butcher’s two inner voices contradict one another. The chapter ends as the Night Watchman announces the second watch and warns everyone to close their doors and windows.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains cautious and pragmatic: he tries to earn Chunniang’s trust, avoids escalating the fight, and accepts a bargain without relying on promises.
• Chunniang shifts from furious, traumatized mistrust to controlled cooperation. Her history of betrayal explains why she wants actions rather than assurances; her beauty and monstrous body underline how others have treated her.
• The Butcher seems outwardly restrained, but his conflicting voices suggest volatile anger beneath the attempted civility.
• Gao Ming and Chunniang form a tentative alliance, while Gao Ming observes the uneasy relationship between the Butcher and Lord Tang from a distance.

Significant themes

• Trust and betrayal: Chunniang’s past makes trust nearly impossible, and Gao Ming recognizes that deeds matter more than promises.
• Greed and complicity: Townspeople condemn Lord Tang yet keep courting him for personal gain, helping sustain his power.
• Appearance and exploitation: Chunniang’s beauty once attracted desire; after her sacrifice, her altered body makes her an outcast.
• Pragmatism amid danger: Gao Ming weighs each offer and threat, choosing useful alliances while avoiding a premature fight.

Key plot points

• As the second watch begins, Dreamfold Town grows markedly more sinister. Gao Ming suspects survival may require either hiding until dawn or undergoing the town’s dangerous bodily modifications; he also wonders whether the nightmare itself can be destroyed.
• Chunniang expects Gao Ming to reject her demands, but he agrees to carry them out one at a time. Outside, the night watchman’s presence makes the grotesque butcher wary; once the watchman leaves, the butcher resumes threatening the Tang household.
• Lord Tang orders the birthday banquet to continue. His children and grandchildren present gifts and offer obedient birthday wishes, though they look drained and fearful.
• The last gift is a scripture Gao Ming delivered on Zhang Mingli’s behalf. Tang Hu claims credit for arranging it, hoping to avoid suspicion.
• Lord Tang opens the scroll and discovers a list of his children whom he killed. He interprets it as a challenge and crushes Tang Hu’s arms and hands with the unseen force controlling the estate.
• The names’ accumulated resentment and deathly aura begin seeping into the secret chamber behind the birthday hall, unnoticed by Lord Tang.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains observant and strategic, agreeing to Chunniang’s requests while studying the town’s dangers. He recognizes the birthday gift may have a hidden purpose.
• Chunniang teases Gao Ming and is surprised when he agrees to her demands.
• Tang Hu shows confidence during the banquet, but the scripture exposes his vulnerability. He takes credit for Gao Ming’s gift, then is severely injured by Lord Tang.
• Lord Tang appears commanding and composed until the scripture reveals his murdered children. His possessiveness and paranoia surface: he insists that his family and estate belong to him.
• The watchman and butcher are mutually hostile, but the butcher avoids attacking while the watchman is nearby, hinting at the watchman’s hidden power.
• Lord Tang’s descendants perform dutifully but harbor fear and resentment beneath their outward submission.

Significant themes

• Power and ownership: Lord Tang treats his children as extensions of himself, using his authority to control and punish them.
• Fear concealed by ceremony: The birthday banquet’s orderly rituals mask violence, oppression, and the family’s resentment.
• Buried consequences: The gift turns Lord Tang’s history of murder back against him, while the resentment it carries quietly spreads into the estate.
• Survival through observation and choice: Gao Ming weighs competing ways to endure a nightmare whose rules are still unfolding.