Chapter Summaries

Chapter summary

• Gao Ming and Fu Shu discuss the Fortune God. Fu Shu urges caution: the god’s consciousness is spread through nightmares supplied by Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals, and it can return to Dreamfold Town by possessing objects or residents connected to it. Killing Madam Xi alone would not stop it; destroying its nightmare supply at the source may be necessary. Gao Ming remains determined to fight, saying he pursued the Fortune God to rescue Fu Shu.
• Gao Ming’s power and unusual arrival raise questions. After absorbing the hearts of eight Joy Immortals, he senses that the god within him may once have been close to becoming Unspeakable. Fu Shu warns that Gao Ming misunderstands the Dream-Release Method and is taking reckless risks. When Fu Shu explains that living Testers appear inside town while monsters from other nightmares remain outside, Gao Ming realizes he alone entered through the Mass Grave. He privately wonders whether he has been misclassified—or is somehow dead.
• Gao Ming encounters the Yellow Weasels. He tosses them wedding items charged with joyful qi, prompting some to fight over them. Their human-eyed leader tries to communicate through gestures, but Gao Ming ignores it.
• The pair follow the wedding procession’s trail. The Xi Residence has been sealed by flesh and blood, with animal heads on its entrance and the sounds of suffering livestock inside. Guided by the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, Gao Ming instead heads toward the town’s southeastern exit.
• Fu Shu warns him about the Water Dragon King. The river creature demands young people and sacrificial animals, and the town’s gods cannot defeat it individually—or cooperate against it. Gao Ming goes on anyway. Beside the road, he finds a boy from the wedding banquet, bound and left with his belly eaten away. Fu Shu concludes that the procession sacrificed the child to cross the river, while the Water Dragon King may have taken others.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is increasingly confident and decisive, even as Fu Shu points out how dangerous his plans are. His private suspicion about his own nature introduces a major uncertainty about his status as a living Tester.
• Fu Shu shifts from pleading with Gao Ming to offering practical knowledge, though he remains skeptical and distressed by the horrors they encounter. Gao Ming’s reminder that he risked himself to save Fu Shu silences him.
• The Yellow Weasel leader appears more human and may be attempting contact, but Gao Ming chooses not to engage.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu share a tense partnership: Fu Shu urges restraint and explains the dangers, while Gao Ming repeatedly presses forward.

Significant themes

• Recklessness versus caution: Gao Ming’s resolve and growing power clash with Fu Shu’s warnings.
• Sacrifice and cruelty: The town’s survival depends on offerings, including children, revealing the brutal costs imposed by its supernatural powers.
• Uncertain identity and reality: Gao Ming’s arrival through the Mass Grave challenges the assumption that he is simply a living human entering a nightmare.
• Corruption and complicity: The gods, townspeople, and Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals are bound to systems that perpetuate suffering, while cooperation against shared threats seems impossible.

Chapter 578: “Above the Bridge Corridor”

Key plot points and events

• After burying a sacrificed child, Gao Ming and Fu Shu follow the wedding-trail to a covered bridge spanning a dark river. A shrine inside it holds shed snakeskin, suggesting the Joy Immortals sacrificed someone to gain passage from the Water Dragon King.
• Despite Fu Shu’s warnings, Gao Ming crosses without making an offering. The bridge then stretches into a supernatural loop as the river grows violent and mist conceals an approaching threat.
• Fu Shu panics and urges Gao Ming to sacrifice something. Gao Ming recognizes that Fu Shu’s fear is clouding his judgment, muffles him, and decides to confront the danger rather than flee.
• Gao Ming opens the shrine, pierces the snakeskin with his Butcher’s Knife, and smears it with his blood. The Flesh-and-Blood Immortal begins corrupting the Water Dragon King’s shrine and absorbing the worship devoted to him.
• A colossal snake with scales bearing anguished human faces attacks. Gao Ming dodges its strikes and wounds it, using the shrine as cover and daring the creature to damage its own sanctuary.
• The chapter ends with the bridge shuddering and the river rising, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains composed in the face of supernatural danger. Rather than give in to fear or appease the Water Dragon King, he uses the enemy’s shrine as a weapon and trusts his own strength and the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s power.
• Fu Shu is revealed to be deeply overwhelmed by fear of the Water Dragon King. His panic contrasts with Gao Ming’s resolve, and Gao Ming must silence him to think clearly.

Significant themes

• Fear versus resistance: Fear can paralyze, but Gao Ming treats danger as something to confront rather than flee.
• Faith and power: Worship is presented as a resource that can be seized; Gao Ming’s blood and the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s influence turn the Water Dragon King’s shrine against him.
• Sacrifice and exploitation: The bridge’s offerings and the sacrificed child reveal the human cost of gaining passage through the nightmare.
• The unknown: The mist and looping bridge intensify the threat, while the giant snake’s form begins to make that hidden danger tangible.

Character interactions

• Fu Shu warns Gao Ming about the Water Dragon King and repeatedly urges him to flee or sacrifice an offering; Gao Ming dismisses his panic and takes control.
• Gao Ming and the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal act in tandem: Gao Ming attacks the shrine, enabling the Immortal to mutate it and challenge the Water Dragon King.
• Gao Ming taunts the snake into attacking near its own shrine, turning its connection to the sanctuary into a possible vulnerability.

Plot points and events

• As floodwater engulfs the Bridge Corridor, Gao Ming faces the Water Dragon King, a gigantic black snake. He mocks it for demanding yearly sacrifices.
• Gao Ming releases his own nightmare. The horrific power spills into the surrounding two meters, disturbing Dreamfold Town’s carefully constructed deep nightmare and nearly overwhelming Gao Ming himself.
• Driven by memories of repeated deaths and torture, Gao Ming and the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God attack the snake. Gao Ming hacks its head with the Butcher’s Knife, badly injuring it.
• The Water Dragon King uses blood from their fight to connect its mirrored scales to Gao Ming’s soul. It turns the faces in its scales into copies of him and tries to expose and exploit his deepest fear.
• Gao Ming sees his fear take the form of an immense, cosmic serpent representing Fate. The vision lasts only a moment; the actual Water Dragon King is left mangled and falls into the river.
• The Ghost God returns to the Shrine, and Gao Ming’s nightmare is forced back into his heart. He collapses, shaken and at risk of losing the boundary between reality and nightmare.

Character developments

• Gao Ming displays immense, dangerous power, but releasing his nightmare brings him close to madness. His memories of repeated deaths fuel his violence and deepen his obsession with identifying his killer and changing Fate.
• The Water Dragon King shifts from predator to prey, attempting to weaponize Gao Ming’s fear but suffering severe injuries instead.
• Fu Shu, still bound to Gao Ming, is terrified by the nightmare’s release and stays silent.

Significant themes

• Fear and Fate: Gao Ming’s deepest fear appears to be Fate itself, which he refuses to accept as an unbeatable force.
• Power and its cost: Nightmare power lets Gao Ming challenge a formidable enemy, but risks crushing his mind and blurring reality.
• Trauma and repetition: Gao Ming’s history of repeated deaths and torture drives both his strength and his instability.
• Defiance: His determination to find his killer and change Fate persists despite overwhelming pain.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming taunts the Water Dragon King, then fights it alongside the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God.
• The Water Dragon King uses Gao Ming’s blood and the faces on its scales to probe his fear and attack his soul.
• Fu Shu witnesses Gao Ming’s transformation from his bound position and is too frightened to speak.

Key plot points

• Shaken by a glimpse of a mysterious figure called Fate, Gao Ming struggles to remember why he endured repeated deaths and how he escaped the nightmare city of Hanhai. He wonders whether he should stop searching for answers and simply live happily with Liu Yi, but feels that someone is waiting for him.
• Fu Shu reminds him that Bai Huang is in danger, helping Gao Ming regain focus. Gao Ming decides to rescue her, find Zhang Mingli, and exploit the Water Dragon King’s weakened state.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree reaches toward Gao Ming from other nightmares, apparently treating him as one of its own. His concealed walkie-talkie crackles, hinting that someone may be trying to contact him.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu cross the river toward the woods. Gao Ming’s shrine absorbs the fallen Water Dragon King shrine’s accumulated faith, while Fu Shu explains that the Dragon King’s stolen fear is stored in a temple beneath the river. Destroying or occupying it may be necessary to defeat him for good.
• An old, one-armed man warns them about a dangerous, intelligent man-eating creature known as the Man-Bear. Gao Ming presses on and enters the woods, where he discovers burial sites holding the dead and living: infants, elderly people sealed away by their families, dead lovers, and villagers driven mad.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is emotionally shaken by resurfacing memories but regains his resolve when reminded of Bai Huang’s peril. Despite Fu Shu’s caution, he calmly questions the old man and advances into danger.
• Fu Shu shows growing loyalty, promising to stay on Gao Ming’s side and offering to watch his back. He also provides practical information about the woods and the Water Dragon King.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree appears to be forming a deeper bond with Gao Ming, while the walkie-talkie suggests another, still-unidentified connection.
• The old man’s warning establishes the Man-Bear as a looming threat.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: Gao Ming’s forgotten past may hold the reason for his survival and a purpose others expect him to fulfill.
• Companionship amid horror: Gao Ming finds reassurance in Fu Shu’s loyalty and in the possibility that others care about him.
• Human suffering and corrupted ritual: The woods combine death, abandonment, and madness with prayers for blessings and the sounds of a wedding, creating a stark contrast between tragedy and celebration.
• Faith and fear as power: The fallen shrine and hidden temple reveal how worship and harvested fear shape the supernatural conflict.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Fu Shu pursue the Xi Residence’s wedding procession through the Dense Woods. Fu Shu explains that the Fortune God has been fed the joy from eight nightmare weddings; this ninth ritual could let it return at full strength and possibly become an Unspeakable.
• They reach the Joy Temple, where Bai Huang is trapped inside, chanting scriptures as the ritual transforms her fear into joy. The wedding sedan is empty, and ten Joy Immortals guard the temple.
• Gao Ming attacks first. He kills one Joy Immortal and consumes it with the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, discovering that the Immortals’ joyful energy eases the pain and despair caused by his Dream-Release Method.
• The remaining Immortals recognize Gao Ming from the wedding sedan and threaten Fu Shu over his theft from Madam Xi. Gao Ming refuses to negotiate and unleashes the Ghost God.
• Two childlike figures intervene, then draw the other Immortals’ Joy Threads into themselves. They transform into the Harmony Immortals, a pair of smiling, drum-bearing monks.
• In the ensuing fight, Gao Ming and the Ghost God wound one monk, but Gao Ming is injured too. He realizes their injuries are linked, leaving the battle unresolved.

Character developments

• Gao Ming is increasingly formidable and decisive, but his power still brings severe pain. He also discovers that joy from the Joy Immortals can temporarily soothe his suffering.
• Fu Shu remains afraid of the Fortune God and Madam Xi, but insists that he is now on Gao Ming’s side and warns him of the ritual’s danger.
• Bai Huang appears to be losing her resistance inside the temple, her anguished chanting turning joyful.
• The Harmony Immortals reveal themselves as composed, persuasive figures who can command the Joy Immortals and combine their power.

Themes and interactions

• The chapter contrasts joy as apparent blessing with joy as coercion: the wedding’s celebratory ritual is built on nightmare victims and forced transformation.
• It explores power and suffering, as Gao Ming’s attack harms him as well as his opponent, while the Joy Immortals’ energy offers him a troubling source of relief.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu move together against a shared threat, though Gao Ming’s blunt aggression contrasts with Fu Shu’s fear and caution. The Harmony Immortals, meanwhile, use gentle moral language to defend a violent ritual.

Plot points

• Gao Ming discovers that the Harmony Immortals’ seemingly harmless teachings conceal a formidable defense: damage dealt to them is reflected back onto him, while Red Joy Threads and absorbed Joy Immortals let them heal and grow stronger.
• Unable to break through with the Butcher’s Knife, physical attacks, or flesh-and-blood curses, Gao Ming realizes that an ordinary battle of attrition will fail. Meanwhile, Bai Huang’s chanting inside the Joy Temple grows unfamiliar, suggesting the Fortune God’s ritual is taking hold.
• Fu Shu advises Gao Ming to use his true advantage: the deep despair within him. Rather than attack the Harmony Immortals, he should make them share in it.
• Gao Ming charges into the monk’s belly, opens the Shrine in his sleeve, and commands the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God to release his nightmare without restraint.
• His despair erupts like a black ocean, overwhelms the invading Joyful Qi, and spreads far beyond its former two-meter range. The Harmony Immortals panic and consume the other Joy Immortals to shield the temple. Joyful Qi flows back into Gao Ming, helping preserve his reason even as the nightmare continues to intensify.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from relying on strength and endurance to weaponizing his own despair. He knowingly risks losing his will and soul to stop the ritual.
• Fu Shu proves more strategically useful than Gao Ming expected, identifying the weakness in the Harmony Immortals’ abilities. Their exchange shows growing trust, though Gao Ming teases Fu Shu for his “nasty schemes.”
• The Harmony Immortals reveal that their kindly, patient manner masks ruthless self-preservation: when threatened, they sacrifice the Joy Immortals they had absorbed.
• Gao Ming and the Harmony Immortals move from a stalemate of reflected violence to a contest of inner suffering. The monks’ attempts to protect the Joy Temple make them a barrier against the spreading nightmare.

Significant themes

• Despair as power: Gao Ming’s greatest weapon is the suffering he carries, though using it threatens to consume him.
• False kindness and hypocrisy: The Harmony Immortals preach patience and compassion while exploiting others and sacrificing them when endangered.
• The cost of survival: Both Gao Ming and the monks use others—or parts of themselves—to endure, but Gao Ming accepts the personal cost more directly.
• Control versus collapse: Joyful Qi and despair oppose one another, leaving Gao Ming balanced precariously between keeping his reason and unleashing more of his nightmare.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming’s nightmare expands inside his heart, manifesting the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and other horrors. The Joy Immortals fused with the Harmony Immortals begin to resist and flee.
• The Harmony Immortals use the Fortune God’s joyful qi to form a powerful seal, suppressing Gao Ming’s despair and imposing a fate of comfortable, unquestioning happiness. They hope to contain him until the Fortune God arrives.
• Gao Ming recognizes this happiness as another way of manipulating him—much like the apparent contentment that has surrounded him since waking. He rejects passive acceptance of fate and resolves to control his own destiny.
• He breaks the seal, unleashing his despair. His nightmare overwhelms the Harmony Immortals, whose power fails; the Ghost God then pierces them and devours their hearts and those of the other Joy Immortals.
• Gao Ming nearly loses his grip on reality, but Fu Shu grounds him by reminding him of his purpose and the people and experiences he must remember. Gao Ming’s nightmare retreats into his heart.
• Though badly injured, Gao Ming has mastered the Dream-Release Method and expanded his nightmare’s range to ten meters, within which Dreamfold Town’s rules cannot restrain him.
• He enters the Joy Temple and discovers its Joy Invitations, each tied to a living person’s dream. Fu Shu explains that the Fortune God feeds on people’s joy and pleasure, transforming their sweet dreams into nightmares.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shifts from enduring the Harmony Immortals’ control to consciously rejecting imposed happiness and taking responsibility for his fate. His power grows, but so does the danger that despair and memory confusion will overwhelm him.
• Fu Shu acts as Gao Ming’s anchor, helping him recover when he loses touch with reality. He offers to remember Gao Ming’s personal ties and unfinished wishes for future episodes of madness.
• The Harmony Immortals lose their composure and authority once Gao Ming refuses the happiness they impose. Their defeat reveals the vulnerability beneath their confident preaching.

Significant themes

• Free will versus fate: Gao Ming rejects the idea that people should surrender their lives to heaven or an inscrutable god.
• False happiness as control: Pleasure can numb pain, suppress truth, and keep people from resisting exploitation.
• Memory and identity: Gao Ming’s memories both fuel his nightmare and threaten to blur his sense of reality; human connection helps steady him.
• Exploitation disguised as comfort: The Fortune God’s system harvests people’s dreams and joy, turning something intimate and pleasant into a source of power and suffering.

Character interactions

• The Harmony Immortals try to pacify and persuade Gao Ming, presenting submission as wisdom; he answers by condemning their passivity and breaking their seal.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu share a moment of trust: Fu Shu grounds him and offers continued support, while Gao Ming appreciates the gesture but keeps some painful memories private.
• In the Joy Temple, Fu Shu interprets the Joy Invitations for Gao Ming, revealing how the Fortune God exploits the dreams of living people.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Fu Shu enter the Joy Temple, where the cheerful décor masks a dangerous influence. Fu Shu warns that the temple’s decorations and paintings may symbolize real suffering.
• On the second floor, a vast mural of peaceful, blissful people begins drawing them into its illusion. Fu Shu sees his deceased family and nearly loses himself, but Gao Ming jolts him awake by reminding him that his injuries mean he cannot reach them.
• Gao Ming reveals that he resisted the mural by injuring himself rather than harming the people in his vision. He attacks the painting, arguing that imposed joy is false.
• Madam Xi emerges from the mural in bridal attire. Fu Shu identifies her as a dangerous anomaly who helped imprison him and kill other anomalies.
• As Gao Ming moves to kill her, Madam Xi uses her power to make emotions other than joy erupt from his body: a blind tiger and two snake tails emerge, immobilizing him.
• Madam Xi warns that without joy—and without the Fortune God—Dreamfold Town will collapse into death and sorrow, dominated by the Taboo God and the Useful God.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming demonstrates formidable will and self-inflicted pain as a means of resisting the mural. His refusal to accept manufactured happiness leads him to attack it, though Madam Xi’s power quickly leaves him vulnerable.
• Fu Shu is also nearly overcome by the mural, revealing his deep longing for his wife and daughter. After Gao Ming saves him, he warns Gao Ming urgently about Madam Xi, exposing both his fear of her and their hostile history.
• Madam Xi appears calm, persuasive, and threatening. She speaks to Fu Shu as a former spouse, suggesting intimacy between them, while revealing that she can manipulate or unleash suppressed emotions.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu briefly cooperate against Madam Xi, but she turns the encounter into a confrontation over the town’s dependence on the Fortune God.

Significant themes

• False happiness and suffering: The temple’s bliss is seductive but coercive; Gao Ming challenges the idea that forced joy is genuine.
• Memory, grief, and attachment: Fu Shu’s vision exposes the family he has lost and the pain beneath his hatred.
• Emotion and balance: Madam Xi presents joy as essential to life, while the emergence of other emotions suggests that suppressing one feeling can unleash chaos.
• Dependence and control: The town’s survival may rely on the Fortune God, raising the question of whether its apparent happiness is worth the danger and suffering that sustain it.

Key plot points and events

• Fu Shu urges Gao Ming not to let Madam Xi or the Fortune God control his emotions, but Gao Ming’s emotional creatures erupt from his body: a blind Rage Tiger, a mute oriole representing joy, a venomous snake representing terror, and two flood dragons embodying grief and sorrow.
• As Madam Xi probes for what Gao Ming is hiding, his despair deepens. Rather than submit to the Fortune God, he unleashes his nightmare and loses himself in it.
• Gao Ming’s nightmare manifests as the towering Flesh-and-Blood Immortal, which gathers his mutated emotions and transforms everything nearby into flesh and blood. The destruction tears away the Blissful Paradise Scroll’s illusion, exposing a cavern of smiling corpses.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Immortal finds Bai Huang among the bodies. Madam Xi retaliates by bringing down skeletal remains and binding Gao Ming and the Immortal with red threads carrying the Fortune God’s karma.
• Madam Xi takes Bai Huang, now a Nightfolk, onto her back and heads out, reversing the usual wedding custom of the groom carrying the bride.

Character developments

• Gao Ming reveals the terrifying scale of his inner power. His emotions have become monstrous, yet remain bound to his will; to resist the Fortune God, he chooses his own nightmare over control and risks being consumed by it.
• Fu Shu overcomes his former cowardice to defend Gao Ming, then panics as Gao Ming’s rampage threatens them all. His desperate concern shifts to rescuing Bai Huang.
• Madam Xi loses control of events and appears to sacrifice herself to protect the Fortune God. Her voice ages as the scroll is destroyed, suggesting the cost of her actions.
• Bai Huang is revealed as a Nightfolk, with both a mother’s unresolved wish and a serene divine presence showing on her face.

Significant themes

• Agency versus manipulation: Fu Shu insists that happiness comes from within, not from the Fortune God, while Gao Ming’s choice to unleash his nightmare shows the danger—and defiance—of reclaiming control.
• The cost of losing oneself: Gao Ming rejects one form of outside control but risks annihilating his reason in the process.
• Illusion and corruption: The supposed paradise is exposed as a corpse-filled horror, revealing the ugliness beneath Dreamfold Town’s promises of joy.
• Grief and pain: Gao Ming’s emotions testify to suffering that cannot be erased by manufactured happiness.

Character interactions

• Fu Shu confronts Madam Xi in defense of Gao Ming and later tries to reach him as his nightmare takes over.
• Madam Xi psychologically probes Gao Ming, then attacks him and the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal when they threaten the Fortune God.
• Gao Ming’s obsession drives the Immortal to locate Bai Huang, while Fu Shu pleads for her rescue.
• Madam Xi carries Bai Huang away, setting up a conflict over whether Gao Ming and Fu Shu can stop her.

Plot points

• After the Joy Temple collapses, Gao Ming is overwhelmed by memories and loses consciousness. Red threads and pieces of the Blissful Paradise Sea scroll merge with him and the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God.
• He experiences a series of vivid, conflicting realities: first as a groom heading to his bride, then with a girl who describes being imprisoned and drawn to pain, and finally as a restrained psychiatric patient recovering after the birth of his child.
• In the hospital, a doctor explains that Gao Ming has Capgras syndrome and persuades him that his suspicions about his family are symptoms of illness.
• At night, a voice warns him that his wife and child are impostors. Gao Ming notices a bloodied walkie-talkie in the ward, then sees a Flesh-and-Blood Branch emerge from his chest.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains uneasy and distrustful despite each reality offering an explanation for his discomfort. He resists the roles imposed on him—as groom, captor, and recovering patient—and tries to distinguish what is real.
• The girl in the loft presents herself as both victim and willing participant, claiming that captivity reshaped her desires.
• The doctor is calm and reassuring, framing Gao Ming’s doubts as psychiatric delusions.

Character interactions

• Fu Shu tries to wake Gao Ming as the temple collapses, but he cannot respond.
• A steward and maids prepare Gao Ming for his wedding, while the procession escorts him to the Tang Residence.
• In the loft, the girl clings to Gao Ming and invites him to paint her; he rejects her advances and turns his brush toward a disturbing image of violence.
• In the hospital, the doctor tries to persuade Gao Ming that his wife and baby are real and that his doubts come from illness. A disembodied voice later contradicts the doctor’s account.

Significant themes

• Unstable reality: Gao Ming moves through convincing scenes that fracture or transform, leaving him unable to tell memory, delusion, and supernatural events apart.
• Doubt and control: Others assign meanings to his experience, while Gao Ming struggles to trust his own perceptions.
• Pain and creation: The loft links intimacy, captivity, and suffering to artistic expression and bodily violence.
• The supernatural within the self: The chapter’s ending suggests that the threat is not merely imagined: something physical is emerging from Gao Ming’s body.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming realizes the Flesh-and-Blood Branches inside him are real, not a hallucination. Responding to his heartbeat, they burst out and overrun the psychiatric hospital.
• The branches expose the hospital’s darker reality: patients who once had individual lives have been reduced to blank, obedient figures trapped in distorted, endless happiness. Gao Ming’s branches invade their dreams, replacing their vacant joy with pain.
• The invasion destroys the nightmares represented by the Joy Invitations, causing the hospital world to collapse. Gao Ming wakes in the Joy Temple, badly injured, with Fu Shu beneath him.
• Fu Shu explains that Madam Xi used the Joy Invitations to trap Gao Ming’s consciousness. The branches invaded those nightmares and rescued him, while also destroying the Fortune God’s foundation and taking over the temple’s nightmare stockpile.
• Fu Shu believes Gao Ming is now close to becoming Dreamfold Town’s Fortune God, if he can devour the Fortune God’s main consciousness inside Bai Huang. Gao Ming does not confirm that this was his plan.
• The branches’ invasion leaves pink liquid in Gao Ming’s body. His capacity to endure pain and despair increases, and his luck seems to improve. A blood rain then begins, signaling that one of the town’s gods has died.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming moves from disbelief to unleashing the branches, horrified by the destruction they cause. Once awake, he stays silent while assessing how his body has changed, rather than endorsing Fu Shu’s theory that everything was part of a scheme.
• Fu Shu supports Gao Ming during his unconsciousness and is astonished by his survival. He interprets Gao Ming’s actions as a layered plan and excitedly praises him, but Gao Ming neither answers nor validates that interpretation.
• The hospital’s patients and caregivers are revealed as part of a seemingly compassionate place that conceals profound harm: the patients’ joy has been distorted into empty repetition, while the caregivers are caught in the branches’ violent eruption.

Significant themes

• Joy versus suffering: Happiness imposed without balance becomes destructive; the patients’ endless pleasure has erased their individuality.
• Appearance and hidden reality: The hospital’s warmth masks a nightmare, and Gao Ming’s supposedly imagined monster proves real.
• Destruction and rescue: The branches save Gao Ming by consuming the nightmares, but their method also devastates the hospital and its inhabitants.
• Uncertain agency and interpretation: Fu Shu sees careful strategy, while Gao Ming’s silence leaves unclear how much control or foresight he actually had.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming survives his battle with the fortune god, though badly wounded. Fu Shu tells him that an object in Dreamfold Town’s ancestral hall may help him become an “unspeakable”: something transformed by countless offerings into a consciousness of its own. Gao Ming agrees to seek it out.
• While recovering, Gao Ming feeds the nightmares stored in the Joy Temple to the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree, even putting Joy Invitations inside his own body for the tree to digest. He and Fu Shu then leave the temple and follow Madam Xi’s trail.
• In the Dense Woods, they encounter a huge, bear-like Man-Bear wearing a scrap of red cloth. Though Fu Shu warns that it is a dangerous predator, the creature points them toward the bride’s trail and retreats rather than attacking. Gao Ming follows its directions and exits the woods safely.
• Near Dreamfold Town, the pair see signs of widespread upheaval: ghostfires, rising streams of blood qi, and mourning. Fu Shu concludes that the wealth-star taboo god has likely died, since the town’s spirit money has vanished.
• Fu Shu explains that Dreamfold Town was built to mirror the fate chart of the unspeakable called Dream. Its five taboo gods embody destined calamities: wealth, illness and mental frailty, suspicion and anxiety, domineering self-will, and arrogance and rebellion. Together with the fortune god, they preserve the town’s balance. Zhang Mingli appears to have begun targeting them.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows greater trust in Fu Shu, recognizing that Fu Shu called to him in the fortune god’s nightmare without seeming to seek an advantage. He remains determined despite severe injuries and shows how drastically he has changed since entering Dreamfold Town.
• Fu Shu shares crucial information about the ancestral hall and the town’s gods, while remaining cautious about the Man-Bear. He sees the chaos as an opportunity to exploit the conflict among the gods.
• The Man-Bear initially appears threatening, but behaves unexpectedly: it speaks in broken phrases, directs Gao Ming toward the bride’s trail, and withdraws. Its apparent fear of Gao Ming suggests his growing power and presence.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu work closely together: Gao Ming carries Fu Shu and relies on his knowledge, while Fu Shu advises him and interprets the clues around them.

Significant themes

• Transformation and power: Gao Ming’s altered body, resilience, and use of the Ghost God’s power show the cost and extent of his transformation.
• Fear and changing status: The Man-Bear’s retreat signals that Gao Ming may now be more frightening than creatures that once would have threatened him.
• Fate and calamity: The taboo gods personify different weaknesses in Dream’s fate chart, framing the town’s supernatural order as a system built around misfortune.
• Order collapsing into opportunity: The death of a god destabilizes Dreamfold Town, but Fu Shu sees the resulting chaos as a chance for hidden players to act.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Mingli, after securing a long-awaited promise, turns to reclaiming his conscience before confronting the five taboo gods. Gao Ming and Fu Shu speculate that he fears becoming like Dream and wants to keep himself in check.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu approach Dreamfold Town through blood rain and rising sinister energy. Graves seem to swell, suggesting the dead may be stirring.
• Bloody Yellow Skin pelts hang outside town. Gao Ming realizes the creatures were torn apart from within by someone other than the Butcher.
• An old woman offers Gao Ming shelter, then threatens him with venomous gu insects. Fu Shu warns him not to attack, just as a Clay Divine Statue appears behind her.
• The statue—apparently created by Zhang Mingli from the resentment of sacrificed children—overpowers the old woman and absorbs her and her insects. Its surface gains markings associated with her powers.
• The children’s spirits then possess the Yellow Skin corpses. The revived creatures chant Zhang Mingli’s name and trace curses around the town, apparently helping him curse Dreamfold Town.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains alert and compassionate toward victims, but recognizes that Dreamfold Town’s dangers make impulsive action risky. He and Fu Shu jointly identify the statue’s connection to Zhang Mingli.
• Fu Shu provides knowledge of the town’s gods and sacrificial practices, while warning Gao Ming away from the old woman and the statue.
• Zhang Mingli is revealed as both morally conflicted and strategically resourceful: he seeks his conscience, gathers unlikely allies, and turns the spirits of murdered children against the town’s gods.
• The old woman is exposed as a cruel participant in human sacrifice. Her customary role—preparing victims for the gods—is reversed when she becomes trapped and consumed in a jar-like punishment.
• The children’s spirits, once sacrificed and helpless, become agents of vengeance. The Yellow Skins also appear to join Zhang Mingli’s campaign.

Significant themes

• Conscience and self-restraint: Zhang Mingli’s attempt to reclaim his conscience suggests he fears what he might become.
• Reversal of cruelty: The old woman’s methods are turned against her, and exploited victims gain power to retaliate.
• Alliances amid chaos: Zhang Mingli’s campaign draws together ghosts and other beings that might otherwise be enemies.
• Escalating corruption and danger: Blood rain, stirring graves, curses, and altered buildings show Dreamfold Town becoming increasingly unstable and hostile.

Key plot points and events

• Fu Shu explains that Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals stripped Zhang Mingli of his dream abilities and decoded his memories, but cannot safely kill him: curses from the Deep World are embedded in his soul and would erupt if it were destroyed. Those curses suggest a former Savior was an Unspeakable with mastery of curses.
• Fu Shu warns that Zhang Mingli may attack all of Dreamfold Town. Gao Ming is less concerned, arguing that the company’s experiments on people make it deserving of destruction; Fu Shu insists it also helped during the original disaster.
• At the Xi Residence, the Butcher has turned the Fortune God’s former home into a slaughterhouse. Gao Ming feels the Butcher’s presence press on him like a knife, but Fu Shu says this may be because Gao Ming has grown powerful enough to threaten him.
• Using his Shrine’s connection to the Fortune God, Gao Ming locates the god near the Ancestral Hall. As they approach, the town grows more ominous: buildings seem to swell, and the road becomes a muddy, underworld-like path.
• At the Ancestral Hall, townspeople perform a ritual under the direction of the tattoo-faced Dream Priest. Fu Shu explains that the Priest once served as a respected civic leader, but the role now erases its occupant’s identity, leaving them seemingly mad and closely connected to a god.
• The townspeople prepare to cut open unpainted divine statues and place sacred contents inside them. Fu Shu urges Gao Ming to take the statues, which may offer supernatural protection. Gao Ming then sees a figure resembling Bai Huang bound to a Fortune God statue, apparently about to be cut open so her organs can be placed inside it.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows growing confidence and power, and a blunt, uncompromising attitude toward Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. He remains focused on rescuing Zhang Mingli and acts on his connection to the gods.
• Fu Shu grows increasingly troubled as the town’s collapse confirms his worst fears. He remains protective of Dreamfold Town’s original design and reluctant to dismiss the company’s past contributions, but helps Gao Ming navigate its dangers.
• Zhang Mingli, though absent from the scene, is revealed as both a major threat to the town and a victim of the company’s experiments.
• The Dream Priest is presented as a leader whose position has become horrifying: the gods select the Priest, and the role strips away personal identity.

Significant themes

• Power and consequences: Gao Ming’s strength makes even dangerous figures like the Butcher wary, while Zhang Mingli’s curses turn his attempted destruction into a threat to everyone.
• Institutional corruption and moral compromise: Fu Shu remembers the company’s past service, but Gao Ming judges it by its present abuse of human subjects.
• Loss of identity through religion and authority: The Dream Priest’s office, once civic and respected, now consumes the person who holds it.
• The grotesque entanglement of people and gods: Rituals treat human bodies and divine statues as vessels, culminating in the apparent plan to use Bai Huang’s organs.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Fu Shu clash over whether Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals deserves any credit, revealing their different generations and moral outlooks.
• Fu Shu warns Gao Ming about Zhang Mingli’s danger and the Butcher, while Gao Ming’s growing ability shifts Fu Shu’s view of him.
• Fu Shu guides Gao Ming toward the Ancestral Hall and advises him to seize the statues; Gao Ming’s discovery of Bai Huang in the ritual turns that plan into an urgent rescue situation.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming realizes the Dream Priest is using the Filling Method to help the Fortune God return, with Bai Huang’s will obstructing the process and her life at risk.
• As part of the ritual, a young man cuts open the Dragon King’s clay statue and removes its “divine innards”—talismans, straw, and bone-like pieces. The townspeople combine these with live animals and medicines.
• Gao Ming feels a powerful, familiar connection to the statues. He hides several of them, and doing so eases his physical pain and mental confusion. He briefly glimpses two illusory gods associated with the past and future, and sees countless threads of fate linked to him.
• When the missing statues prevent the ritual from continuing, a life lamp goes out and Bai Huang spits blood. The Dream Priest’s body convulses as names form a blood-red eye in his palm, with Gao Ming’s name in its pupil.
• The Dream Priest locates Gao Ming, who steps out rather than risk carrying all the statues away. Gao Ming says he wants to save his friend and offers himself as a potential ally, but the Dream Priest attacks.
• The Dream Priest begins splitting Gao Ming’s consciousness across different settings, apparently using people’s dreams to steal his senses. Gao Ming resists, believing his own nightmare is more powerful—and more real—than Dreamfold Town.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts between ordinary human concern and a frightening, hidden divinity. He acts to protect Bai Huang and the statues, while cautiously avoiding the Butcher’s Knife for fear of attracting the Butcher.
• Fu Shu explains the ritual and warns Gao Ming about the Dream Priest’s ability to counter the Dream-Release Method. He is frightened by the attack but remains an active adviser.
• The Dream Priest emerges as a dangerous adversary who can manipulate names, dreams, and perception. His hostility toward Gao Ming becomes personal once Gao Ming’s name appears in the eye on his palm.
• Bai Huang remains bound as the ritual’s apparent sacrifice; the ritual’s failure immediately harms her.
• Gao Ming and the Dream Priest are not negotiating partners: Gao Ming offers cooperation, but the Priest ignores him and attacks.

Significant themes

• Faith and supernatural power: The statues’ talismans and “innards” sustain their power, while their destruction leaves them ordinary.
• Fate and responsibility: Gao Ming’s vision of countless causal threads suggests his choices may affect many lives.
• Reality versus nightmare: Gao Ming’s confidence rests on treating his own terrifying world as real, rather than as a dream the Priest can control.
• Sacrifice and power: The ritual seeks to restore the Fortune God by endangering Bai Huang and using living creatures and sacred materials.

Key plot points

• The Dream Priest tries to erase Gao Ming’s name, but the attempt destabilizes the entire nightmare. He realizes “Gao Ming” is not the man’s original name, but a kind of lock or covering over his true identity.
• Using the Life Substitution Method, the Priest tries to replace Gao Ming with names tattooed on his body, including names associated with Dreamfold Town’s gods. None can withstand the force tied to Gao Ming’s identity.
• The Priest discovers that Gao Ming’s life may have been substituted. He also brings out the chained name Zhang Mingli, which carries an aura akin to the Unspeakable Dream.
• Gao Ming arrives at the White Tent House carrying the wounded Fu Shu. He quickly defeats the townsman guarding it and finds the Dream Priest injured, with the eyeball containing Gao Ming’s name in his palm.
• Fu Shu urges Gao Ming to take the name and suggests that recovering his true name could let him leave Dreamfold Town. But before Gao Ming can act, the Priest reveals that Gao Ming has forgotten his own name and mocks him for having been substituted.
• Gao Ming strikes the Priest, whose body dissolves into names, clothing, and foam. The Priest’s words leave Gao Ming questioning his identity.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains forceful and direct, even while carrying the injured Fu Shu. His apparent ease in defeating the townspeople contrasts with the Priest’s alarm at the danger hidden in his name.
• Fu Shu is badly wounded and complains that Gao Ming used him as a shield. Despite their bickering, he recognizes the significance of the names in the Priest’s hand and urgently warns Gao Ming.
• The Dream Priest shifts from confident manipulator to a frightened, injured figure overwhelmed by Gao Ming’s name. His attempt to uncover Gao Ming’s identity instead exposes the possibility that Gao Ming has forgotten who he really is.
• Gao Ming dismisses Fu Shu’s complaints as punishment for lying, while Fu Shu’s concern focuses less on his own injuries than on the chance to recover Gao Ming’s true name.

Significant themes

• Identity and memory: A name can contain a person’s memories and define who they are, but Gao Ming’s name may conceal a different identity.
• Substitution and hidden truth: The Life Substitution Method frames identity as something that can be exchanged, raising doubts about whether Gao Ming’s life—and perhaps his name—are truly his own.
• Power and vulnerability: The Dream Priest can manipulate names and borrow the town’s power, yet Gao Ming’s mysterious identity destabilizes his abilities.
• Trust and deception: Fu Shu and Gao Ming’s tense banter reflects their distrust, while the Priest’s revelation suggests that Gao Ming himself may be unaware of the deepest deception.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming questions whether “Gao Ming” is truly his name after recalling conflicting clues about his identity. Fu Shu warns him not to trust the Dream Priest, but Gao Ming remains determined to learn the truth.
• He confronts Bai Huang, whose body houses the Fortune God. When she refuses to cooperate, Gao Ming uses his Dream Release ability, forcing her through more than thirty cycles of torment to expose the god’s hiding place.
• The Fortune God is revealed as a Joy Candle burning within Bai Huang’s heart. Gao Ming’s despair weakens its flame, while the collapse of the Joy Temple and destruction of the dreams sustaining it leave it unable to recover.
• As his nightmare expands, Gao Ming sees fragments of possible past lives and identities—including work at the Investigation Bureau, a prison, and making games. Each path ends in death. He also glimpses Fate’s Guillotine, memories associated with Situ An and Xia Yang, and a vast grave-city identified as Hanhai.
• The Joy Candle goes out, and the Fortune God falls. The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God absorbs its fortune and luck, heals, and relights the candle in Gao Ming’s heart using Zhang Mingli’s soulfire. Its light slightly eases the pain of Gao Ming’s nightmares.
• Bai Huang survives, but her life is now tied to the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and her heartbeat matches Gao Ming’s. She tells him the Fortune God apparently traded Madam Xi to the Dream Priest in exchange for sacred organs and a chance to become a deity.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming becomes more determined to uncover his identity, even as the revelations intensify his pain. He defeats the Fortune God by weaponizing his despair and notices that the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God seems more human.
• Bai Huang resists Gao Ming at first, warning that her death would also kill someone else. After enduring his nightmare, she loses the Fortune God’s control and awakens, though she becomes dependent on the ghost god’s power.
• Fu Shu tries to keep Gao Ming from being manipulated by the Dream Priest and remains with him through the confrontation.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God grows stronger by absorbing the Fortune God’s power and takes on a more human quality. It relights the Joy Candle, giving Gao Ming some relief.
• The Fortune God is exposed as a candle sustained by joy and sacred offerings; its attempt to become a deity ends in failure. Its bargain also reveals its willingness to sacrifice Madam Xi.

Significant themes

• Identity and memory: Gao Ming’s name and past remain uncertain, and the visions suggest he may have lived multiple lives.
• Despair and endurance: Gao Ming’s suffering becomes both a weapon and a means of discovering hidden truths.
• Power and dependency: The Fortune God’s strength depends on joy and offerings, while Bai Huang’s survival becomes bound to another being.
• Humanity within horror: The ghost god’s apparent humanization contrasts with the brutality of the nightmare and the entities within it.

Key plot points and events

• Fu Shu explains that the Fortune God is trying to reclaim the joyful qi taken from Dreamfold Town by finding another divine statue and establishing himself as a god. He doubts the god can overpower Gao Ming’s stronger nightmare.
• Bai Huang asks about her missing children, Bai Xiao and Bai Qiao. Fu Shu fears they were sacrificed, but Gao Ming tells her he last saw them alive in Hanhai. She clings to this reassurance.
• As blood rain intensifies, the ground in Dreamfold Town shifts and a magnificent nine-story spirit shrine appears where the Earth God Temple stood. Its alluring, otherworldly presence draws townspeople inside, and they vanish.
• Fu Shu warns that the shrine is a living structure built through the brutal Shrine Construction Method: people are sacrificed, and their bodies and life force are used with anomalous objects to create structures that consume people and receive worship.
• He reveals that Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals developed the method while studying Dream’s self-restoring shrine. Shrine fragments were implanted in Testers, draining their memories and will; the resulting buildings were gathered in Dreamfold Town.
• The nine-story shrine is as powerful as a ghost god. Defeating it would mean fighting through all nine floors and opening the Heavenly Gate, whose destination is unknown.

Character developments and interactions

• Bai Huang remains focused on finding her children. Her grief and anger soften briefly when Gao Ming tells her they were alive in Hanhai, though she seems to seek comfort more than certainty.
• Gao Ming supports Bai Huang and invites her to stay with him, acknowledging a deep physical and emotional connection created by the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s modifications.
• Fu Shu shares painful knowledge about Dreamfold Town’s origins and admits that, despite his original hope of creating a paradise from human suffering, the project became a blood-soaked failure. He urgently tries to stop the others from looking at the shrine.
• Bai Huang sees the shrine as a red temple, unlike Gao Ming and Fu Shu, suggesting its appearance varies between observers.

Significant themes

• False promises of salvation: The shrine’s promises of immortality and safety conceal a predatory structure that consumes people.
• Human suffering turned into power: Illness, pain, memories, and even bodies become materials for supernatural construction.
• Hope amid uncertainty: Bai Huang holds on to the possibility that her children survived, while the chapter leaves their fate unresolved.
• Perception and the unknown: The shrine appears differently to different people, and the Heavenly Gate’s destination remains a mystery.

Key plot points and events

• The Nine-Story Spirit Shrine draws nearly everyone in Dreamfold Town toward it. Gao Ming suspects something extraordinary has been born inside, fed by the many living beings and anomalous objects sacrificed there.
• Reflecting on recovered memories, Gao Ming considers using Dreamfold Town to take the final step toward becoming a Dream Ghost. He treats the town as an opportunity to master power rather than a place to fear.
• While the Dream Priest is injured, Fu Shu leads Gao Ming to the ancestral hall to retrieve a black ancestor tablet bearing the surname Fu.
• They find the hall desecrated: its offerings and tablets are scattered, and the skinned corpses of past Dream Priests hang from the beams. Fu Shu realizes the current Dream Priest has stolen the former priests’ names from their dreams.
• The tablet is missing. Fu Shu suspects the Night Watchman moved the ancestral objects, but warns Gao Ming against trusting him: guardians of rules can be ruthless.
• Outside, townspeople continue toward the shrine, unaware that it is a predatory trap. Paper money pours from the Tang Residence, and black-thread-controlled figures march toward the shrine.
• Fu Shu theorizes that Zhang Mingli is using the Wealth Star’s power to exploit Lord Tang’s greed and recover his own conscience.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming has changed with the return of his memories: he feels closer to his true self, shows little fear, and openly considers embracing the power he once stopped short of mastering. Fu Shu approves of his resolve.
• Fu Shu acts as Gao Ming’s guide, but his confidence falters at the ruined ancestral hall. He is alarmed by the Dream Priest’s theft of names and cautions Gao Ming not to approach the Night Watchman.
• Bai Huang suggests stopping the townspeople, but Fu Shu silences her, implying that intervening may be too dangerous.
• Gao Ming and Fu Shu work together to interpret the shrine’s pull, the missing ancestral tablet, and the strange alliance of powers involving Zhang Mingli and Lord Tang.

Significant themes

• Power and fate: Gao Ming believes mastering dangerous power may let him determine his own destiny.
• Memory and identity: Names, dreams, and conscience are vulnerable to theft or manipulation.
• Predation disguised as salvation: The shrine appears to promise deliverance but is actually a place that consumes people.
• Corruption of order and tradition: The desecrated ancestral hall and the Night Watchman’s possible intervention suggest that institutions meant to preserve order may conceal cruelty.
• Greed and manipulation: Zhang Mingli may be turning Lord Tang’s avarice against him to achieve his own ends.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Bai Huang, and Fu Shu watch as the town’s rival powers converge on the Nine-Story Spirit Shrine, drawn by the unprecedented miracle it represents.
• Lord Tang’s birthday procession advances first, with his true identity concealed among the guests. The Butcher Zhu Ren follows openly, accompanied by livestock and Joy Immortals. Other supernatural figures—including a blood-soaked human skin and mourning paper figures—also emerge.
• Fu Shu explains that Zhu Ren was once an honest, kind man. Lord Tang and Shopkeeper Wang ruined his family and branded him as a slave, leading Zhu Ren to revere the animals he slaughtered. Fu Shu also admits Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals deliberately inflamed the ghost gods’ rivalries to hasten the creation of an Unspeakable being.
• As the Taboo Gods depart, darkness and cold intensify. Evil entities invade homes, the Bridge Corridor collapses, and the rising river brings corpses and a huge, approaching shape.
• The town becomes a vast sacrificial scene centered on the shrine, but Zhang Mingli’s whereabouts and plans remain unknown.
• At the height of the danger, the Old Night Watchman appears alone, ringing his bronze gong and announcing the fourth watch: “The hour of the ox! Bitter cold!”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming reflects that Zhang Mingli’s earlier actions may have been calculated rather than simply cruel, but remains alert to what Zhang is planning.
• Fu Shu reveals more about the town’s history and his own past involvement, while conceding that his view of the town may be cynical. Bai Huang challenges his bleak judgment; Gao Ming stops their argument so they can observe events.
• Zhu Ren’s transformation from victimized, gentle butcher into a brutal ghost god is clarified, deepening his feud with Lord Tang.
• The Old Night Watchman’s appearance stands out as an act of duty and a rare source of reassurance amid the chaos.

Significant themes

• Rivalry and manipulation: The town’s supernatural powers are being driven toward conflict, apparently to produce an Unspeakable being.
• Victimhood and transformation: Zhu Ren’s cruelty is rooted in the abuse and humiliation he suffered.
• Cynicism versus hope: Fu Shu sees the town as irredeemably corrupt, while Bai Huang pushes back against judging everything by that standard.
• Order amid catastrophe: The Night Watchman continues his ritual duties as darkness, cold, and violence overwhelm the town.