Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The Investigation Bureau launches a coordinated assault on Sishui Apartments. The anomaly’s reach has tripled, engulfing the entire street—including Gao Ming’s group in Building C—and cutting off communications.
• Xuan Wen is unexpectedly trapped by the ghost story, while Yan Hua feels an unsettling sense of belonging in the Shadow World. Gao Ming hears a heartbeat inside the walls, which begins affecting his own.
• As the group crosses from Building C to Building B, Xuan Wen and Yan Hua seem unable to see Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao and vanish into the shadows. Wan Qiu also disappears, leaving behind his protective charm. Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao continue alone.
• Building B appears as it did decades earlier, with restored walls, old sound-activated lights, and a working elevator. Fat Sister-in-Law emerges carrying rotten vegetables and old clothes, her body grotesquely swollen and leaking foul water.
• Gao Ming approaches her as though she were an ordinary neighbor. Before she can take them inside, their neighbor Gossip warns them not to enter any apartment if they hope to escape. She says an old woman on the first floor may help, but they must beware the building manager.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays composed and pragmatic, urging the others not to panic and carefully treating Fat Sister-in-Law as a normal person. His protective charm shows no reaction to her.
• Zhu Miaomiao remains wary and armed, but follows Gao Ming’s lead after their teammates disappear.
• Xuan Wen discovers she is vulnerable to the anomaly, despite having expected the Shadow World to reject her. Yan Hua reacts to it with disturbing exhilaration, as if it is where she belongs.
• Wan Qiu disappears soon after the group is separated, leaving Gao Ming without his charm.
• Fat Sister-in-Law appears welcoming but is implicated in disturbing behavior involving her children and collected clothing. Gossip, despite her grotesque four-mouthed face, acts as an informant, trading warnings and neighborhood secrets while insisting she is discreet.

Significant themes

• Isolation and fractured perception: The anomaly separates the group and makes people invisible to one another.
• The uncanny hidden in everyday life: Familiar neighbors and apartment routines conceal grotesque supernatural realities.
• Composure as survival: Gao Ming’s choice to act normally may be safer than reacting with fear.
• Uncertain loyalties and belonging: The anomaly affects people differently, raising questions about who can resist it—and who may feel at home in it.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao find that the residents of Building B have also become ghostly, though Gao’s protective charm suggests some are not evil ghosts.
• On the stairs, they encounter a scarred young man with no shadow. He mistakes Gao’s Black Ring for a mark worn by “human livestock” from the Ghost Market and reveals that he collects Black Rings.
• On the first floor, they see Zhou Ji, an old man forced to carry and support his abusive, adult-headed baby son.
• A middle-aged man in a room built around a grave invites Gao and Zhu to lure Zhou Ji over. Gao spots the trap: the man’s room is filled with grasping arms. An old woman seals it with a talisman.
• The old woman, known as Spirit Medium, warns them that an open door in the building is likely dangerous. She takes them into her room, crowded with ghostly statues and talismans, and warns that they will soon change into their “truest selves” and may then be unable to leave.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains wary and observant, avoiding the trap by noticing the danger before touching the door. He removes Zhu’s Black Ring to reduce the risk of being recognized.
• Zhu Miaomiao is frightened by the residents and by the ghostly young man, but continues investigating with Gao.
• The scarred young man appears to be a dangerous ghost tied to the building’s past; his collection of Black Rings hints at previous encounters with Investigators.
• Spirit Medium acts as both protector and guide. Her authority over the baby and her ability to seal the trap suggest considerable power.
• Zhou Ji is presented as a tormented father, while his son’s abuse makes their relationship unsettling and grotesquely inverted.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus reality: Spirit Medium suggests that the residents’ monstrous forms may reflect who they truly are, while seemingly ordinary appearances may be deceptive.
• Entrapment and transformation: The building’s doors, rooms, and warnings reinforce that entering the anomaly may make escape impossible.
• Abuse and distorted family roles: Zhou Ji’s suffering under his dependent, violent son turns the idea of family care into a grotesque burden.
• Fear, suspicion, and protection: Talisman-sealed windows, offerings, and Spirit Medium’s warnings show residents trying to defend themselves in a world where danger can hide behind apparent hospitality.

Key plot points and events

• The Spirit Medium explains that everyone in Sishui Apartments is gradually influenced by the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal, which turns deep obsessions into physical forms.
• In the Bronze Basin, Zhu Miaomiao sees her dead parents—charred figures fused to her shoulders—revealing her grief and longing. Gao Ming’s reflection triggers a violent supernatural reaction: the basin overturns, its water turns to blood, and the Spirit Medium declares that he has taken part in the Immortal’s ritual before.
• The Spirit Medium links Gao Ming to Situ An, a Hanhai Charity Federation official who also wears a black wristband and carries the Immortal’s aura. She warns that one of the two worshippers will die, and says Gao Ming should kill Situ An before Situ An kills him. She directs him toward the Ghost Market on the ninth floor.
• The Spirit Medium gives Zhu Miaomiao three Killing Talismans, explaining that they can kill worshippers—but not the Immortal—and warns that anyone who has eaten flesh and blood is no longer human.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao head to the ninth floor. There they find bloodied uniforms, trails of blood, and signs that Investigators were hunted from Building A and dragged back into it.
• As bloodshot eyes open in the darkness, Bai Xiao emerges in a blood-soaked raincoat, holding two bone cleavers and looking violently transformed.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhu Miaomiao confronts the manifestation of her deepest trauma but responds with grief rather than fear. She trusts Gao Ming and tells him about the talismans the Spirit Medium gave her.
• Gao Ming remains composed despite the Spirit Medium’s accusation and questions her about her hostility toward the Immortal. He trusts Zhu Miaomiao with the talismans and suspects Situ An may be a mole within the Investigation Bureau.
• The Spirit Medium shifts from helping them to fearing Gao Ming after sensing the Immortal’s aura on him. Though she warns Zhu Miaomiao to kill him if he becomes possessed, she also describes him as an unusually suitable “vessel.”
• Bai Xiao appears at the end as a possible threat, seemingly connected to the slaughter of the Investigators.

Significant themes

• Trauma made physical: The Immortal gives bodily form to people’s deepest obsessions.
• Humanity and corruption: The building’s rules blur the line between people, ghosts, and flesh; eating flesh is said to end one’s humanity.
• Trust and suspicion: Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao rely on one another, while the Spirit Medium’s warnings and the mystery surrounding Situ An complicate their alliances.
• Escalating horror: The ninth floor’s massacre and Bai Xiao’s appearance suggest that the threat is not limited to ghosts—and that the Strange Tale’s rules are changing.

Key plot points

• Bai Xiao attacks Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao in the blood-soaked ninth floor of Building B. His body twists unnaturally, and strange black writing crawls across his skin.
• Driven into a room, Gao Ming summons Zhao Xi through the memorial portrait and bloodied chain. Zhao Xi restrains Bai Xiao, enduring his attacks, while Gao Ming binds Bai Xiao and Zhu Miaomiao strikes him with the Fire Axe.
• The talisman-enhanced axe wounds Bai Xiao, and the black writing disappears. Bai Xiao collapses, seemingly dead; Gao Ming finds his Black Ring sewn inside a wound in his abdomen.
• The ring’s recordings reveal that the apartment building is dangerous: its humanoid inhabitants may not realize they are dead, entering rooms is perilous, and eating the meat is warned against—even though another recording says it prolongs survival. The morgue on the fourth floor and a home marked by white lanterns are described as safe. Bai Xiao also warns Investigators to protect their hearts.
• Gao Ming discovers that the Killing Talismans appear to be made from human skin and contain trapped ghosts; using one draws blood from Zhu Miaomiao and makes her feel as if it is consuming her.
• Carrying Zhao Xi, Gao Ming crosses into Building A, where residents seem to live ordinary lives—though each is missing some part of their body.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays alert under pressure and relies on instinct rather than combat training. He uses Zhao Xi’s bond to turn the fight and later resolves to make their deaths meaningful.
• Zhu Miaomiao fights despite the talismans’ physical cost. She is shaken by having to kill Bai Xiao, the upright former team leader who hired her, but recognizes him as a dangerous threat.
• Bai Xiao is revealed as a tragic, corrupted figure. His recordings preserve clues for others, suggesting he tried to help even as he became violent and inhuman.
• Zhao Xi manifests from his portrait and clings to Bai Xiao, using his accumulated suffering as a supernatural force. His bond with Gao Ming is both protective and dangerous.

Significant themes

• Humanity and monstrosity: Bai Xiao’s apparent transformation, and the residents’ bodily absences, blur the line between living people and ghosts.
• Sacrifice and survival: The talismans demand blood, while the conflicting meat warnings show how dangerous survival rules can be.
• Memory, grief, and purpose: Bai Xiao’s recordings and Zhao Xi’s lingering pain preserve the dead’s experiences; Gao Ming insists their deaths should matter.
• Uncertainty and hidden worlds: The building seems less like a contained anomaly than a real, parallel world, with rules that remain unclear.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao enter Sishui Apartments, a seemingly warm, close-knit community whose cheerful surface hides a nightmare shaped by the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal.
• Their rental agent, Gong Xi, leads them toward the fourth floor. Along the way, they see Investigators imprisoned in a butcher’s shop and treated as livestock; Gong Xi explains they are offerings to the Immortal. His vegetarianism and apparent kindness distinguish him from the other residents.
• Gong Xi warns that the fourth floor is haunted and tells them to flee if they see an apartment with a white lantern.
• On the fourth floor, a rat-masked building manager and several masked children attack Gong Xi while trying to break into his apartment. Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao intervene, forcing the intruders to leave.
• Inside, they meet Gong Xi’s elderly grandmother, who appears to be alive. Gong Xi says she is a ghost who followed him after dying, though her account suggests a different history: she brought him to Hanhai, raised him, and later lost him after he joined the Charity Association. She has since searched for him but no longer recognizes him.
• Gao Ming realizes Gong Xi may be the one who disappeared and was mutilated: his mouth is sewn shut and stuffed with coins. The chapter ends with him asking the grandmother whether she would fear Gong Xi if he returned as a ghost. She admits she might not recognize him.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains cautious and alert to taboos, but Gong Xi’s story unsettles his assumption that the Shadow World’s strange encounters are merely like games. He responds with unexpected tenderness toward the grandmother.
• Zhu Miaomiao shares Gao Ming’s unease, reacts with disgust to the human livestock, and helps defend Gong Xi.
• Gong Xi is revealed as a compassionate, dutiful young man whose cheerful service-worker persona conceals a tragic past. He is frightened for his grandmother, not for himself.
• The grandmother is confused and forgetful, but her guilt and grief emerge in her account of raising and losing Gong Xi.

Significant themes

• Fear as love: Gong Xi is afraid of his grandmother’s worry, suffering, and disappearance; his fear expresses attachment rather than self-preservation.
• Memory and loss: The grandmother’s dementia and inability to recognize Gong Xi deepen the tragedy of their separation.
• Appearance versus reality: The apartments’ inviting community masks violence, while the supposedly monstrous residents can show humanity and devotion.
• Humanity across life and death: Gong Xi and his grandmother remain emotionally connected despite the uncertain boundary between human and ghost.

Character interactions

• Gong Xi treats Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao with warmth and professionalism, while they struggle to reconcile his kindness with the building’s horrors.
• Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao protect Gong Xi from the rat-masked attackers, earning his gratitude.
• Gao Ming enters Gong Xi’s home and gently questions both him and the grandmother, piecing together their conflicting memories.
• Gong Xi holds his grandmother’s hand despite her not recognizing him; Gao Ming’s final question draws out the painful possibility that she might fear him if he returned as a ghost.

Chapter summary

Gao Ming and Gong Xi take Gong Xi’s grandmother and belongings to a hidden room marked by a white lantern, hoping to evade the building manager. Gong Xi explains that white-lantern rooms are exceptions to the building’s compulsory worship of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal: their residents suffered for refusing that deity and instead worship other gods.
Inside the room—where a family was massacred—Gong Xi’s offering to the House God fails. A group of unnerving paper effigies appears, and the little girl among them takes Gao Ming’s black ring and protective charm. She burns the charm, revealing that it contains pieces of a family photograph, then leads Gao Ming to Uncle Wu, who has been hiding there and making offerings to the victims.
Uncle Wu shows Gao Ming a camcorder recording of the massacre. A killer murdered eight people across two neighboring families, drew strange symbols, and died by suicide. The Charity Association arrived before the police and removed items from the killer’s body. Uncle Wu suspects the organization has deliberately cultivated ghosts in Sishui Apartments.
He describes the building’s supernatural order: its two most dangerous entities are the murderous killer, whose heart is driven by violence, and the awakened statue of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal, whose heart is formed from collective belief. Residents otherwise fall into four categories—the human “life” aspect, the desire-driven followers, the dying residents who eat sacrificial meat, and the wronged dead trapped by resentment. Uncle Wu believes killing the two powerful ghosts may allow them to escape. Gao Ming points out that they must also reckon with Situ An, the Charity Federation’s vice president, who is inside the building.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming grows more morally conflicted: seeing Zhao Xi’s frightened neighbors and Gong Xi’s devotion to his grandmother makes him question who is truly at fault. He remains determined to protect people and confront the forces behind the building.
• Gong Xi shows tenderness toward his grandmother and reverence for the massacre victims, even as his altered, ghostlike appearance grows more pronounced inside the haunted room.
• Uncle Wu is revealed to be a survivor, an annual caretaker of the victims’ shrine, and the maker of Gao Ming’s charm. His guilt over failing to stop the massacre complicates his distrustful, irritable manner.
• Gao Ming and Uncle Wu clash over the withheld truth, but Gao Ming insists on hearing what Uncle Wu knows. Their exchange exposes the Association’s possible role and the building’s supernatural structure.
• The paper effigies are presented not merely as threats but as wronged family members whose remains and memories are tied to Gao Ming’s charm.

Significant themes

• Humanity and monstrosity: Humans and ghosts may share fear, grief, and attachment; appearances alone do not define who is in the wrong.
• Grief, memory, and guilt: Gong Xi’s grandmother, Uncle Wu’s offerings, and the family photograph all show how the dead remain bound to the living.
• Exploitation of suffering: The Charity Association may have turned tragedy and death into instruments for cultivating supernatural power.
• Belief and transformation: Worship shapes the building’s residents and gives the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal its power, blurring the line between faith, desire, and corruption.

Chapter summary

Key plot points

• Uncle Wu reveals that Situ An forced him to pretend to be foolish to survive in Sishui Apartments. A young volunteer who tried to expose the building’s secrets disappeared after their recording reached Situ An.
• Uncle Wu warns that the Flesh-and-Blood Heart inside the family’s murderer and the divine heart inside the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s statue must not fall into Situ An’s hands. He identifies the statue’s location: a hidden shrine on the first basement level of Building A.
• Uncle Wu gives Gao Ming protective talismans and a handful of consecrated rice, which may help him remain sane if forced to eat the flesh that drives people mad.
• Gong Xi joins Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao, guiding them toward the Ancestral Hall in exchange for the paper figures’ protection of his family.
• Elsewhere, Xuan Wen recognizes that impostors have replaced Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao. She and Yan Hua destroy the shadowy doubles.
• Wan Qiu becomes separated from the others and hides in Room 506. Through the peephole, he sees the feared building manager remove a rat mask—and discovers the manager has a rat’s face.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming learns more about the building’s supernatural factions and rules. Though he has never met Situ An, he feels an intense, inexplicable hostility toward him. He continues to protect Zhao Xi and pursue the statue with Zhu Miaomiao and Gong Xi.
• Uncle Wu remains too frightened and physically weak to join the group, but helps by sharing what he knows and providing supplies. His account also agitates Gong Xi’s Grandma, who seems to recognize the story of the vanished volunteer.
• Gong Xi becomes the group’s guide and “inside man.” His loyalty is rooted in protecting his Grandma, not in worship of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal.
• Xuan Wen proves perceptive and ruthless, identifying and attacking the impostors before they can strike. She cautions Yan Hua against recklessness and notices a change in Yan Hua’s hand.
• Yan Hua fights with overwhelming force, consuming the shadows released by her opponent. Her power grows, but so do strange black markings that appear to be a curse. She insists on pushing forward because Gao Ming is the only person who may know where her older sister is.
• Wan Qiu is left alone and frightened, but his intuition helps him evade immediate danger and discover the building manager’s monstrous nature.

Significant themes

• Trust, identity, and deception: The impostors mimic familiar people, while even the supposedly human building manager is revealed to be something else.
• Power and its cost: Yan Hua grows stronger by consuming shadows, but the spreading markings suggest that this strength may carry consequences.
• Faith and family: Gong Xi’s devotion to protecting his Grandma outweighs religious allegiance, while Yan Hua’s search for her sister drives her actions.
• The Shadow World as a real world: Gao Ming recognizes that it has its own rules and fragile balance, rather than being merely a supernatural disaster.
• Survival under oppressive power: Uncle Wu’s fear of Situ An and his forced disguise show how dangerous it is to expose the building’s secrets.

Key plot points and events

• Wan Qiu finds torn diary pages in apartment 506. They describe a neighbor in apartment 505 who hears children at night and notices a growing stench, hinting at the family living across the hall.
• He encounters sisters Xian Xian and Nannan, who invite him to eat. Their mother remains hidden in the kitchen, where her decomposed fingers serve the food.
• Wan Qiu realizes the mother is dead but continues caring for her daughters from her rotting corpse. As the third dish is prepared, he foresees several ways the family might kill him.
• Terrified, Wan Qiu nevertheless steps forward to take the dish. When he breaks down and calls for his own mother, Ghost Mom comforts him instead of harming him.
• Wan Qiu tells the family the truth about how he entered the building and that his friend has disappeared. Nannan suggests asking Gossip for help.
• Wan Qiu reveals that the feared building manager appeared to be only a rat stealing food, challenging the sisters’ understanding of him as a powerful threat.

Character developments

• Wan Qiu is frightened and emotionally vulnerable, but chooses to face the kitchen rather than leave the sisters to fetch the dish. His past deprivation makes the family’s kindness feel like a rare experience of home.
• Nannan is lively, caring, and protective of her family; she welcomes Wan Qiu and quickly offers to help him find his friend.
• Xian Xian is more guarded and aware of danger. She understands that her mother is dead and cautions Nannan about the building manager.
• Ghost Mom remains devoted to her daughters, continuing to cook and care for them despite her death. She also responds tenderly to Wan Qiu’s distress.

Significant themes

• Family and care beyond death: The mother’s love persists through her ghostly, decaying form.
• Trauma and the need for kindness: Wan Qiu clings to compassion because he has endured so much cruelty and loneliness.
• Fear versus reality: The building manager’s terrifying reputation contrasts with Wan Qiu’s observation that he may simply be a rat.
• Survival through human connection: In a dangerous, supernatural world, the family’s welcome gives Wan Qiu a brief sense of belonging.

Character interactions

• The sisters treat Wan Qiu as a guest, while he is initially wary of their mother and the food.
• Ghost Mom’s gentle response to Wan Qiu’s breakdown transforms the encounter from a potential death trap into an unexpected moment of comfort.
• Xian Xian and Nannan argue over the danger of the building manager, while Wan Qiu’s account offers a different explanation.
• The family’s concern for Wan Qiu’s missing friend leads Nannan to propose seeking help from Gossip.

Key plot points

• Wan Qiu is welcomed by Ghost Mom’s younger daughter, whose approval makes him hesitate to leave. Investigators arrive at the apartment; the sisters call them dangerous and say they gained power by eating meat from the Ancestral Hall Restaurant.
• Gao Ming and his companions follow the smell of meat to a hidden basement lined with mysterious restaurants. Outside one, they encounter a badly mutilated old man who appears satisfied with some long-awaited outcome.
• Inside, a deranged Investigator eats a piece of meat, then bites his own hand. He leaves in a trance, while the restaurant’s door shuts and cannot be opened. Zhu Miaomiao strikes it with her axe, but the room seems to shrink.
• The restaurant owner urges them to order. The meat’s scent overwhelms their judgment: Zhu nearly tastes the remnants on a plate, and Gong Xi admits he feels tempted too. Gao Ming stops Zhu.
• The owner explains the bargain: residents willingly surrender flesh, while the meat they eat consumes their desires. Their missing body parts are the cost of the exchange.

Character developments and interactions

• Wan Qiu softens toward Ghost Mom’s younger daughter, revealing how much her acceptance affects him.
• Gao Ming remains alert and protective, resisting the restaurant’s influence and restraining Zhu before she gives in.
• Zhu Miaomiao struggles intensely against the meat’s pull, showing how the restaurant attacks emotional and physical cravings alike.
• Gong Xi recognizes the danger and helps by noticing that the room is closing in, though he too is affected by the aroma.
• The sisters warn Wan Qiu about the Investigators and urge one another to stay inside and safe.
• The Investigator demonstrates the bargain’s horrifying effects: loss of self-control, mutilation, and apparent self-cannibalism.

Significant themes

• Desire and self-destruction: People trade parts of themselves for the satisfaction of their cravings, only to lose control.
• Consent under desperation: The owner claims residents volunteered, raising the question of how freely people choose when they have nowhere else to turn.
• Appetite as corruption: The meat’s aroma attacks not just hunger but identity and reason.
• Hidden costs and exploitation: A meal with no listed price conceals a terrible exchange.

Key plot points

• The restaurant’s supernatural aroma draws Zhu Miaomiao toward her deepest wish: being reunited with her dead parents. Her wounds begin forming their faces, and she loses control.
• Gao Ming refuses to abandon her. While Gong Xi restrains Zhu, Gao enters the kitchen, where a faceless chef chops meat into a blood-filled pool.
• The voice in the pool offers to fulfill desire in exchange for a person’s “divine heart.” When Gao enters the pool, it recognizes something unusual about him and asks whether he has been there before.
• The pool attacks Gao and takes his left eye, exposing fragments of his forgotten memories of a tunnel lined with watching corpses. Zhao Xi pulls him free; the restaurant returns to normal, and Zhu regains control.
• Gao realizes his deepest desire is frightening and keeps its nature to himself. He then re-enters the pool and finds a statue of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal. Gong Xi’s touch causes it to shatter.
• The chef leaves the restaurant, and the group follows him to a basement rental unit marked “Seize All Life” and “Seize All Death.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming protects Zhu rather than sacrificing her, withstands the pool’s attack, and loses an eye. His recovered memories deepen his determination to revisit the tunnel, while his silence suggests he fears what his own desire reveals.
• Zhu Miaomiao is nearly overcome by grief and longing for her parents, but survives without eating the offered meat. She later returns to herself.
• Gong Xi restrains Zhu at Gao’s request, then accompanies Gao and follows the chef. His accidental touch destroys the statue.
• Zhao Xi saves Gao by pulling him from the pool.
• The group’s cooperation—restraining Zhu, rescuing Gao, and following the chef—helps them survive the restaurant’s threat.

Significant themes

• Desire and its cost: The pool promises to fulfill wishes, but demands something fundamental in return.
• Grief and temptation: Zhu’s longing for her parents makes her vulnerable to the restaurant’s supernatural lure.
• Identity and memory: Gao’s lost memories and mysterious past suggest that his deepest desire may be tied to events he cannot yet recall.
• The body as a source of truth and horror: The restaurant claims the body reveals a person’s instincts, while Gao’s ordeal shows how violently that belief can be exploited.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Zhu Miaomiao, and Gong Xi enter the Ancestral Hall, where portraits made from human skin hang above an offering table. An investigator kneels beneath it, chanting with strange writing covering his neck.
• The chef is suddenly killed by a dagger. Qing Ge, a young director from the East District’s Queen Investigation Office, reveals that his team had been using the hall as a trap for a ghost that feeds on people’s faith. The target—the statue of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal—is missing.
• Qing Ge invites the separated investigators to join his group in hunting a man-eating ghost. Gao Ming accepts outwardly but warns Zhu Miaomiao that something is wrong with the East District investigators. He secretly sends Gong Xi away with the injured Zhao Xi.
• On the fifth floor, a sharply dressed man kills an investigator with a bone cleaver. Qing Ge identifies him as Situ An, director of the East District Investigation Bureau.
• Situ An offers the investigators a chance to gain the power to kill ghosts by eating a piece of meat: they have a fifty-percent chance of gaining that ability and a fifty-percent chance of becoming ghosts themselves.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays composed and observant despite his injury. He conceals what he knows about Uncle Wu and the missing statue, distrusts the East District group, and feels an unexplained, intense urge to kill Situ An.
• Qing Ge appears cold and authoritative, but shows deference to Situ An. His office seems to have suffered catastrophic losses, possibly leaving him its sole survivor.
• Zhu Miaomiao trusts Gao Ming’s judgment and follows his lead rather than joining the group unquestioningly.
• Tian Yuan, an optimistic investigator from another branch, welcomes Gao Ming’s team and offers medical help.
• Situ An establishes himself as ruthless and charismatic: he kills in front of the group, then appeals to their grief and frustration to make his dangerous offer seem like a path to hope.

Significant themes

• The cost of power: Situ An offers strength against ghosts at the risk of becoming one.
• Trust and deception: Gao Ming conceals information and questions the motives of apparent allies.
• Desperation and hope: The investigators’ helplessness makes them vulnerable to Situ An’s bargain.
• Humanity under supernatural threat: The chapter blurs the line between human and ghost, especially through the body-horror imagery and the offer to transform.

Key plot points and events

• An investigator eats the mysterious flesh and endures a violent, three-minute transformation. Black characters appear on his body, and he gains the ability to hurt ghosts.
• Qing Ge tests his new power by stabbing his wounded hand, then sends him to attack Fat Sister-in-Law, a ghost near Building B’s fifth floor. Using the injured hand to wield the Dagger makes the wound he inflicts resist healing and begin to rot.
• Seeing that the flesh works, other investigators fight over pieces and join the assault on Building B. Fat Sister-in-Law is killed, dissolving into black sludge.
• Gao Ming realizes the flesh lets humans and ghosts effectively trade places—and suspects Situ An lied about the earlier investigator becoming a ghost. Situ An may have killed him for another reason, while using his story to encourage others to eat.
• Situ An rallies the investigators to retaliate against the building’s ghosts. As they attack, Gao Ming warns Zhu Miaomiao that Situ An intends to kill everyone in Sishui Apartments, human or ghost, and that the old woman on the first floor may be in danger.

Character developments and interactions

• The young investigator changes from hesitant to empowered and frenzied, discovering that pain enables him to damage ghosts.
• Qing Ge takes charge of the test, pushing the young man into action and explaining the connection between pain and power.
• Situ An emerges as a charismatic but deeply suspicious leader. His apparent concern for the city wins the investigators’ loyalty, while Gao Ming sees signs that he is manipulating them.
• Gao Ming remains wary and analytical, scrutinizing Situ An’s motives rather than joining the crowd’s excitement.
• Zhu Miaomiao expresses concern for the old woman, prompting Gao Ming’s warning.

Significant themes

• Reversal of roles: Humans gain the means to hunt ghosts, but the transformation blurs the boundary between victim and monster.
• Pain as power: Suffering becomes a weapon, though using it comes at a cost to the investigators’ humanity.
• Manipulation and mob fervor: Situ An’s framing of the flesh persuades the investigators to take a dangerous gamble and turn against the residents.
• Moral ambiguity: The chapter questions whether revenge against ghosts is justice—or simply another form of cruelty.

Plot points

• Situ An reveals that the flesh he gave the Investigators is poison, not an antidote. It empowers them but gradually corrupts them, and he has deliberately used it to prepare them as weapons.
• He explains that a brutal double-family murder happened in Sishui Apartments twenty years earlier. The killer, now a man-eating ghost, is somewhere in the building. Situ An intends to kill it and take its flesh-and-blood heart.
• Situ An collects three remaining Killing Talismans from the Spirit Medium, who condemns him as a madman but offers no help beyond the talismans.
• The group enters Building B’s sealed basement, where the ghost’s hunting grounds resemble filthy prison cells. The ghost attacks, making Investigators disappear and turning ordinary objects into lethal traps.
• Situ An advises the group not to lose hope if captured, claiming the ghost delays killing victims who continue to resist.
• The ghost deceives the group by replacing a missing Investigator, then strikes at Situ An and Gao Ming. Both are dragged into separate rooms and sent through hidden passages.
• Gao Ming wakes in what appears to be a body-disposal room filled with torture equipment. The missing Investigator is there, begging him for rescue.

Character developments and interactions

• Situ An is revealed as calculating and ruthless: he knowingly sacrifices residents and corrupts Investigators to create a force strong enough to challenge the ghost. He and the Spirit Medium share a tense, distrustful exchange.
• Gao Ming recognizes Situ An’s true ambition and stays alert rather than fleeing. He and Situ An both sense the group has been compromised, but their different instincts do not prevent the ghost from capturing them.
• Qing Ge takes a cautious, protective stance, ordering those who have not eaten the flesh to stay paired and avoid entering rooms.
• The Investigators trust Situ An and follow him into danger, even as the flesh’s curse begins to undermine them.

Significant themes

• Power at a cost: The flesh gives the Investigators strength while eroding their minds and bodies.
• Manipulation and sacrifice: Situ An treats people as tools in pursuit of his goal.
• Fear and hope: The ghost exploits terror, while resistance and hope may offer a chance to survive.
• Deception and paranoia: The ghost’s replacement of an Investigator makes the group unsure whom they can trust.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming confirms the torture chamber is empty except for him and the Investigator, but learns the room itself is the threat: its chair and instruments act under the vicious ghost’s control.
• The Investigator, trapped in a bloodstained chair, is tortured and killed. His heart—marked with black writing—is swallowed by the chair, which then binds Gao Ming with red threads.
• Gao Ming endures relentless cutting and mutilation. He tries to keep his fear and despair in check, believing that holding on to hope is his best chance to survive.
• After eighteen minutes, Situ An’s screams come from the next room. The instruments abandon Gao Ming to torture him, giving Gao Ming a chance to break free.
• Too badly injured to climb back up the hidden passage, Gao Ming crawls down another passage to a locked iron door. The pursuing chair follows him.
• With escape blocked, Gao Ming calls his family using a photograph of himself with his parents. The call connects despite the anomaly’s isolation, and the figures in the photograph appear to react to his voice.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows exceptional endurance and resourcefulness, observing the chamber and identifying his escape options even while in agony. His determination is tested, but he refuses to surrender.
• The Investigator is terrified and unable to explain the danger. His death buys Gao Ming time.
• Situ An, previously a source of pressure for Gao Ming, is tortured in the next room; his resolve breaks before Gao Ming’s.
• Gao Ming’s final call creates an uncanny connection between him and his parents in the photograph, hinting that they may be more than ordinary images.

Significant themes

• Endurance and hope: Gao Ming survives by resisting despair, though the chapter acknowledges how difficult that is.
• Cruelty and control: The chamber turns torture into a system designed to break its victims psychologically as well as physically.
• Time and suffering: The nineteen-minute wait makes each moment feel agonizingly prolonged.
• False escape and isolation: The apparent routes out lead to further danger, while Gao Ming’s call offers a fragile, mysterious link to the outside.

Key events

• Severely injured and trapped in the torture chambers, Gao Ming calls his ghostly parents for help. Their arrival breaks open the sealed door, and they protect him from the Man-Eating Ghost’s pursuing chair.
• With his parents guiding him through the lethal underground maze, Gao Ming reaches the chambers’ central corpse pile. There he finds a four-faced, eight-armed clay statue containing a beating Flesh-and-Blood Heart—the apparent source of the chambers’ baleful energy and the call he has sensed.
• As his parents are forced back into the memorial photograph and Situ An closes in, Gao Ming bites into and swallows the heart. His body begins transforming, and mysterious black characters appear on his wounds; he can make out the word “fate.”
• Situ An arrives and reveals that he struck a deal with the Man-Eating Ghost, allowing it to possess him. He suggests he may now try to eat Gao Ming and take the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s power.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows extraordinary resolve, pushing onward despite terrible injuries. His attachment to his parents gives him strength, but swallowing the heart marks a dangerous, irreversible choice.
• Ghost Dad and Ghost Mom demonstrate their enduring devotion. Though they have no overwhelming powers, they repeatedly return from harm and guide Gao Ming safely through the maze.
• Situ An reveals himself as ruthlessly pragmatic: he treats even the ghost that tortured him as a potential ally and dismisses moral judgment and hatred as irrelevant. His goal—not personal feelings—drives his actions.
• Gao Ming and Situ An meet at the heart of the chambers and act decisively against each other’s interests: Gao Ming consumes the heart just before Situ An can intervene.

Significant themes

• Family and belonging: The parents’ welcome and birthday greeting represent warmth and refuge amid horrific violence.
• Willpower and survival: Gao Ming keeps moving when his body is nearly spent, while Situ An endures torture for his own purposes.
• Transformation and moral ambiguity: Gao Ming’s choice to consume the heart may grant power but threatens to change him fundamentally; Situ An’s willingness to ally with a monster reflects his rejection of conventional morality.

Plot points

• Gao Ming consumes the Flesh-and-Blood Heart hidden in Killing Paradise, while Situ An survives by accepting the Vengeful Ghost’s consciousness and merging with it.
• Situ An explains his resentment: praise from a powerful man once made him feel that his hard work—and, ultimately, his life—had no real meaning. He sees the world as indifferent and humans and ghosts as equally worthless.
• With the Heart removed, the underground torture chamber collapses. The Investigators locate and destroy the Vengeful Ghost’s true body, helped by Yan Hua.
• After the Vengeful Ghost is dead, Situ An accuses Gao Ming of being a Man-Eating Ghost and claims he helped the enemy. The injured, mentally affected Investigators turn against Gao Ming, despite Zhu Miaomiao’s defense.
• Yan Hua holds the Investigators back and helps Gao Ming escape, telling him that Xuan Wen is in danger on the ninth floor of Building A. Gao Ming heads there, feeling the Heart’s curse and mutation spreading through his body.
• Situ An leaves by a secret passage, confronts the Spirit Medium about the remaining Killing Talismans, and kills her, declaring he no longer needs talismans—or anyone who can make them.

Character developments and interactions

• Situ An emerges as both a victim of the Vengeful Ghost’s torture and a ruthless antagonist. His bitterness about being treated as insignificant fuels his contempt for both people and ghosts. He exploits his authority to turn the Investigators against Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming gains power from consuming the Heart but becomes physically altered. Isolated and unable to persuade the Investigators, he relies on Yan Hua’s intervention and prioritizes rescuing Xuan Wen.
• Yan Hua shows fierce loyalty to Gao Ming, risking herself to get him out of the pit. Her determination intensifies as her injuries worsen.
• Zhu Miaomiao tries to defend Gao Ming, while Qing Ge quickly accepts Situ An’s accusation, illustrating how fear, authority, and the Investigators’ deteriorating mental state shape their choices.
• The Vengeful Ghost, now sharing Situ An’s body, is powerless to stop the destruction of its true body. Situ An’s cold refusal to help it underscores that their cooperation is unstable and one-sided.
• The Spirit Medium remains fatalistic, believing fate sets limits even on those who can alter others’ destinies; Situ An rejects this belief and kills her.

Significant themes

• Despair and insignificance: Situ An’s central wound is the realization that praise and effort can be shallow, leaving him feeling excluded from the world he inhabits.
• Power, trust, and betrayal: After a shared victory, Situ An redirects the Investigators’ violence toward Gao Ming, showing how authority can override evidence and loyalty.
• Fate versus agency: The Spirit Medium accepts destiny’s boundaries; Situ An seeks control through the Death Apartment and Killing Talismans, then claims he has outgrown both.
• Transformation and moral instability: Gao Ming’s new power comes with a curse, while the Investigators’ fight against ghosts leaves them increasingly compromised themselves.

• Gao Ming survives Situ An’s attack: After escaping a brutal beating, Gao Ming’s wounds begin healing and his strength grows. He realizes that eating the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s heart is unlike consuming ordinary meat: it may mean merging with, or replacing, the Immortal. The building’s many voices flood his mind, and his heart begins transforming into a torture chamber marked by the deaths and ghosts he has encountered.
• The Ghost Market has fallen silent: Gao Ming finds Building A’s ninth floor deserted and in mourning. In the butcher shop, he discovers investigators entering a blood pool to trade parts of themselves for flesh—only for the butcher to seize the flesh from them.
• Situ An’s operation is exposed: The butcher, Li Xiu, identifies himself as a deputy office director and reveals that the Investigation Bureau runs the shop under Situ An. The investigators’ lives have been used to obtain power and meat; those who resist are turned into food or weapons. Gao Ming realizes Situ An plans to defeat the building’s vicious ghost, claim the heart, and then challenge the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s consciousness—using the coming disaster to seize power.
• Gao Ming defeats Li Xiu by taking a risk: Though Li Xiu is stronger and more skilled, Gao Ming deliberately lets the cleaver wound him so he can bind Li Xiu with a chain. He pulls them both into the blood pool, using Li Xiu’s fear of death against him.
• The pool reveals Xuan Wen: As their bodies reach the bottom, their consciousnesses continue downward. Gao Ming sees eight ghost-and-god statues surrounding a woman who is resisting the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s will. The woman appears to be Xuan Wen.
  Character developments and interactions: Gao Ming’s body and mind are increasingly changing as he absorbs the building’s pain and voices, but his resolve to oppose Situ An remains firm. Li Xiu embodies the Bureau’s corruption, justifying the sacrifice of others as a means of gaining power; Gao Ming rejects that logic and confronts him directly. The chapter ends by linking Gao Ming’s struggle to Xuan Wen’s battle against the Immortal.
  Themes: The chapter explores the corruption of institutions, the dehumanization of people in pursuit of power, and the cost of exchanging one’s identity for strength. It also blurs the boundary between gaining power and becoming the very force one hopes to control.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Li Xiu fight in the butcher shop’s Blood Pool. After eating the meat, Gao Ming heals quickly, while the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s influence drives Li Xiu into madness. Gao Ming defeats him and destroys the pool’s statues by letting their stone hearts’ red veins enter his wounds.
• The eight heroine-like ghosts continue attacking Xuan Wen, whose will is weakened by the Shadow World’s possession. Gao Ming tries to get her out, but the ghosts and mind-controlled Investigators drag them back under.
• Xuan Wen tells Gao Ming to escape and find the Immortal’s main will, which may be hiding inside a resident. Before he can leave alone, Wan Qiu arrives with Nannan, her sister, Ghost Mom, Gossip, Ghost Boy, and Zhou Ji. Ghost Boy kills the Investigators.
• The flood of blood offerings causes the Immortal’s statues throughout Sishui Apartments to fade and break, suggesting its main consciousness is returning to the Ancestral Hall in Building A.
• Xuan Wen urges the group to go there, but Gao Ming insists on saving Yan Hua first. As they descend, he notices the white lanterns on the fourth floor have gone out and Gong Xi’s family is gone.
• At Building A’s entrance, Gao Ming encounters Situ An and the surviving Investigators. They present a wounded corpse whose clenched fists and fighting stance suggest he resisted to the end—the chapter closes with a tribute to his defiant spirit.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming risks his life repeatedly to protect Xuan Wen and refuses to abandon Yan Hua, even when pursuing the Immortal’s main will seems more urgent. His flesh-and-blood heart gives him strength but also threatens to consume him.
• Xuan Wen is trapped between the Shadow World and the Immortal’s influence. Though she nearly gives up on escape, she helps Gao Ming and shares what she knows about the Immortal’s plan.
• Wan Qiu returns alive and brings allies to help Gao Ming. Ghost Boy acts decisively, slaughtering the Investigators he no longer considers human.
• Situ An reappears with a surviving group, setting up a confrontation. The corpse he presents embodies resistance to cruelty and fate.

Significant themes

• Defiance against fate: The closing image of the stubborn flower echoes the characters’ struggle to resist the Shadow World and the Immortal.
• Loyalty and self-sacrifice: Gao Ming and Xuan Wen repeatedly risk themselves for one another; Gao Ming’s choice to save Yan Hua extends that loyalty to others.
• Corruption and loss of humanity: Li Xiu becomes like the prey he once butchered, while the Investigators’ devotion to the Immortal turns them into threats.
• Power’s cost: Gao Ming’s strength comes with the danger of being overtaken by the force empowering him, and Xuan Wen’s stolen powers leave her vulnerable.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming finds Yan Hua dead, killed by Situ An with a Killing Talisman. Situ An removes the Giant Ghost tattoo from her face and says she refused to join him.
• Shaken by Yan Hua’s death, Gao Ming confronts Situ An. Xuan Wen urges him to prioritize reaching the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal, but Gao Ming remains determined to kill Situ An.
• The two groups descend to the first basement level of Building A. The shrine and corridor are damaged, and Xuan Wen warns that the Immortal’s main will is still present.
• Meat-crazed residents and Investigators rush toward the shrine, triggering a chaotic battle. Qing Ge fights Ghost Boy while Gao Ming and Situ An duel, exchanging severe wounds.
• As the fighting intensifies, the dead’s blood and resentment flow underground, and parts of the corridor collapse into a vast Blood Pool beneath the apartments.
• The collapse reveals the shrine’s hidden chamber: a towering, living-looking Divine Statue with eight arms, rooted in the Blood Pool and absorbing victims of the family massacre. Gong Xi and Grandma are found nearby; Zhao Xi is badly torn apart, and Uncle Wu is missing.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is forced to confront the cost of leading others into danger. Yan Hua’s death brings his previously suppressed fear of losing companions into focus, but he still faces Situ An directly.
• Situ An presents himself as fearless and convinced that his twenty years of preparation justify his actions. He reveals that he admired Gao Ming, even while trying to kill him.
• Xuan Wen stays pragmatic, urging Gao Ming to pursue the power of the Divine Heart and prevent further deaths rather than act on vengeance.
• The battle pits Gao Ming against Situ An, while Qing Ge and Ghost Boy fight nearby; both groups are also swept into the wider conflict around the shrine.

Significant themes

• Grief and responsibility: Gao Ming recognizes that he never prepared himself for the deaths of those who followed him.
• Fear and perseverance: Gao Ming admits he is afraid but keeps moving forward, contrasting with Situ An’s claim to feel no fear.
• Ambition and sacrifice: Situ An’s long preparation and pursuit of power stand against the human cost of his plans.
• Corruption and accumulated suffering: The Blood Pool and Divine Statue embody the resentment, pain, and prayers gathered over twenty years.

Plot points and events

• Situ An’s twenty-year plan reaches its climax as blood, souls, faith, and the hearts at the shrine flow into the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal. A transparent “Divine Heart” begins to form before the worlds have fully merged.
• Situ An and Xuan Wen race to claim it, but Gao Ming tackles Situ An and binds him with a chain. Situ An stabs Gao Ming with a Killing Talisman, leaving a wound that drains his life and cannot heal.
• Gao Ming calls on Zhu Miaomiao to kill Situ An. Situ An argues that the meat is necessary to protect the city; Gao Ming insists it is poison that prevents people from becoming ghosts. Zhu chooses Gao Ming’s side, condemns Situ An for forcing people to eat one another, and kills him with a talisman-enhanced Fire Axe. The talisman’s cost leaves her gravely weakened.
• Situ An’s two intertwined vicious souls survive and rush toward the Divine Heart. Meanwhile, Uncle Wu pushes Gong Xi and his grandmother into the Blood Pool. Gong Xi cannot save her; her disappearance causes the statue’s four faces—Life, Desire, Death, and Karma—to awaken.
• Uncle Wu stands beside the statue and challenges the worshippers, accusing them of becoming savage once the flesh ripened and asking what they truly worship.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains determined to stop Situ An even while gravely wounded, using his own life as the price of holding him in place.
• Zhu Miaomiao overcomes her hesitation and loyalty to her superiors’ mission. Remembering her murdered family, she chooses to oppose Situ An, though the talisman ages and weakens her.
• Situ An is exposed as a fanatic whose claimed goal of saving the city cannot excuse his atrocities. Though his body is destroyed, his vicious souls continue the struggle.
• Uncle Wu reveals a close, unsettling connection to the statue, appearing almost possessed as its aspects awaken.
• Gong Xi is left devastated and helpless after losing his grandmother to the Blood Pool.

Significant themes

• Faith corrupted by desire: worshippers’ devotion gives way to brutality once they can benefit from the flesh.
• The cost of survival: the “meat” is presented as a false salvation, while talismans and sacrifices also exact a steep personal price.
• Moral choice amid authority and fear: Zhu must decide whether to obey the Bureau’s cause or reject the violence it enables.
• Life, death, and suffering: the statue’s four aspects awaken amid sacrifice, linking the supernatural ritual to human pain.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Situ An’s struggle becomes both physical and ideological: Gao holds Situ in place while urging Zhu to reject his promise of salvation.
• Situ tries to sway Zhu by invoking her family’s deaths and the Bureau’s sacrifices, but she answers by condemning him and striking him down.
• Gong Xi’s attempt to protect his grandmother ends in tragedy when Uncle Wu pushes them into the pool.
• Uncle Wu’s final rebuke turns the statue’s awakening into an accusation against the people who worshipped it.