Chapter Summaries

Key events

• Gao Ming realizes Black Threads feed on malice and can eventually overwhelm a person. Worried about losing control after betraying the gangs, he carves part of the Blood City Ghost Markings into his chest.
• The markings produce blood-red threads that let him restrain the Black Threads and briefly amplify his physical strength, though he still cannot control the Black Threads themselves.
• Gao Ming studies evidence from Wansheng about corrupt councilors. Councilor Yuan Nian has replaced his organs with those taken from healthy citizens, while Councilor Ci Mei publicly poses as a civic hero but secretly indulges in brutal slaughter.
• A Black-Thread-afflicted man pounds on the studio’s door, pleading for help while radiating malice. Wu Wei barricades the entrance; Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang hesitate to call the Night Watch because of the cost.
• The Night Watch kills and removes the man. Gao Ming senses that one of the officers is connected to the Execution House, though he cannot identify who inhabits the officer’s body. The Night Watch leaves the studio with another bill.
• Gao Ming resolves to continue searching for Bu Ming the next day, despite the group’s mounting expenses.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming takes a risky step to manage the Black Threads and discovers a new source of strength. He remains pragmatic and unfazed by debt, but his willingness to drag his companions into danger is implied.
• Wu Wei acts decisively during the attack, barricading the door and urging someone to call for help. She later dismisses Gao Ming’s plan as another empty promise.
• Jia Youzhi is anxious about the studio’s finances and refuses to take on another debt, suggesting that Director Li should bear the cost instead.
• Ding Xiang shares Jia Youzhi’s hesitation. Both are frightened by the man outside and by the price of calling the Night Watch.
• The Night Watch’s arrival shows that its services are effective but costly. Gao Ming’s recognition of one officer hints at a hidden link between the Night Watch and the Execution House.

Significant themes

• Malice as power: Darkness can grant strength, but it threatens to consume those who rely on it.
• Corruption and hypocrisy: Gang violence is mirrored by councilors who publicly condemn crime while benefiting from cruelty and exploitation.
• Debt and danger: Financial costs accumulate alongside the physical threats, while Gao Ming treats both as risks he is willing to accept.
• Hidden identities and past connections: The Night Watch officer’s connection to the Execution House suggests that familiar figures may be concealed within the city’s institutions.

Plot points and events

• The morning after Gao Ming’s first night in the Dark Shrine World, news breaks that Bu Ming and Yuan Qing’s daughter have been killed at the hotel. Surveillance footage is gone, and rumors blame Black Mastiff of the Takekawa Society.
• Gao Ming’s companions suspect the killings may be part of a plot to turn Wansheng and the Takekawa Society against each other, though they debate whether the Night Watch would risk provoking the conflict while it still needs the Takekawa Society’s medicine supply.
• Gao Ming recognizes medicine as a powerful resource in the city. He intends to learn how it is made and whether he can reproduce it, and believes the Blood City Ghost Markings may help him resist the malice that threatens to overwhelm people.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang agree that the group must avoid being linked to the hotel deaths. They settle on a cover story: they went to seek another advertising opportunity from Black Mastiff.
• The Night Watch demands a city security donation of 110,000 before nightfall. Gao Ming’s crew can contribute almost nothing: Wu Wei has only a bus card and a little cash, Ding Xiang has debts, and Jia Youzhi is selling blood. Gao Ming leaves to pay using valuables he took from the hotel melee, intending to add a further gift.

Character developments

• Gao Ming stays composed despite the killings and the impending gang conflict. He thinks strategically, sees medicine as a route to influence, and accepts responsibility for the Night Watch payment when his crew cannot help. He also refuses Jia Youzhi’s suggestion to sell body parts, confident that mastering the malice in his heart could make Li Sansi’s body powerful.
• Ding Xiang shows strong hostility toward the Takekawa Society, condemning its rise and its alleged human experimentation to secure medicine.
• Jia Youzhi is cautious about the danger of being implicated in the murders, but his poverty and desperation are clear.
• Wu Wei brings the alarming news and reacts with shock to the Night Watch’s enormous demand.

Character interactions

• Wu Wei wakes Gao Ming with the news; Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang join the discussion, offering competing theories about who benefits from the killings.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang press Gao Ming to confirm he never met Black Mastiff, then agree on a shared alibi.
• Gao Ming asks his crew to contribute to the donation. Their inability to pay leaves him to shoulder the burden, while Jia Youzhi’s grim joke about selling Gao Ming’s organs prompts an angry rebuke.

Significant themes

• Medicine as power and control: Access to treatment can determine who survives and help gangs build authority.
• Malice and resistance: Gao Ming’s struggle against the force within him contrasts with the desperate, destructive behavior medicine scarcity can provoke.
• Survival under exploitation: The Night Watch protects citizens while extorting them, and the city’s residents toil simply to stay alive.
• Intrigue and self-preservation: The uncertain murders and the crew’s carefully chosen cover story show how dangerous it is to become entangled in the city’s power struggles.

Key plot points and events

• After a perilous bus journey, Gao Ming reaches a Night Watch outpost to return a valuable item to the officer who issued him a slip. He bribes the outpost’s elderly gatekeeper, Old Loach, with a watch and necklace, then is told to pay an exorbitant “public security donation.”
• The staff identify the patient who attacked Gao Ming as danger level eleven, which means a fee of 110,000. When Gao Ming appears unable to pay, they threaten that entering the outpost may be easier than leaving it.
• Meanwhile, Bai Xiao—inhabiting the body of Night Watch officer Black Crow—struggles to control the malice infecting him. He recalls that Night Watch officers deliberately release drugged patients into the streets at night, where they become monsters, then hunt and collect them.
• Old Loach, the outpost’s corrupt chief, tells Bai Xiao that someone has come looking for him. Bai Xiao heads to reception and feels an uncanny recognition or connection when he sees Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming introduces himself to Bai Xiao as Li Sansi.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains resourceful and determined, using the valuables he has collected to get access to the outpost and locate an officer. His attempt to deal honestly with the Night Watch collides with its corruption and coercion.
• Bai Xiao / Black Crow is exhausted and repulsed by the Night Watch’s cruelty. He nearly harms himself while trying to remove the malice, but suppresses the impulse and investigates the newcomer.
• Old Loach is revealed as a manipulative, self-serving leader who enjoys his power over both Gao Ming and Bai Xiao. He has apparently undermined Black Crow’s team, reducing it from six officers to three.
• Gao Ming and Bai Xiao’s first encounter is charged with a mysterious sense of recognition on Bai Xiao’s part, setting up a significant connection between them.

Significant themes

• Institutional corruption: The Night Watch, supposedly responsible for public safety, profits from fear and violence.
• The loss of humanity: Poverty and lack of medicine turn living people into “monsters,” while the officers treat this as routine.
• Malice and moral resistance: Bai Xiao fights the corruption within himself even as the system around him normalizes cruelty.
• Survival and unequal power: Gao Ming’s vulnerability exposes how easily ordinary people can be extorted in this world.

Plot points and events

• Short on money at the Night Watch outpost, Gao Ming recognizes Black Crow, the officer who helped him the previous night. He thanks him publicly, then privately claims that medicine from Hanhai can cure the sickness in Black Crow’s heart.
• Black Crow reacts strongly to the mention of Hanhai and to the ring Gao Ming slips into his pocket. He decides to take Gao Ming to the photography studio, but first orders him to follow a safer route.
• Black Crow leads Gao Ming through Slop Alley, a dangerous slum bordering the Third and Fourth Districts. He warns him about its inhabitants—“rat people,” “dog people,” and “pig people”—and brings him to an illegal clinic.
• The clinic’s scarred nurse attacks Gao Ming on sight, but Black Crow stops her and identifies him as a guest.
• In private, Black Crow demands to know who sent Gao Ming and where Doctor Gao is. Gao Ming probes Black Crow’s worsening condition and learns that someone may have tampered with his anti-malice medicine.
• Black Crow’s malice intensifies whenever they discuss violence. Gao Ming recognizes qualities in him resembling a friend named Bai, then offers a new medicine: his own blood, revealed when he cuts his wrist.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows resourcefulness and nerve, using secret information and a carefully staged message to gain Black Crow’s attention. Though he remains guarded, he appears willing to risk himself to help.
• Black Crow is revealed as volatile and tormented by growing malice, yet protective enough to hide Gao Ming and bring him onto his own territory. His reaction to Hanhai suggests the medicine may offer genuine hope.
• The nurse is established as suspicious, aggressive, and closely tied to Black Crow’s network.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming approaches Black Crow with exaggerated gratitude, then shares the Hanhai message privately. Black Crow responds with suspicion and force, but ultimately takes him along.
• Black Crow warns and guides Gao Ming through the slums, explaining the local dangers.
• At the clinic, Black Crow physically shields Gao Ming from the nurse and vouches for him.
• Their private conversation becomes increasingly tense as Gao Ming questions Black Crow’s treatment and condition. It ends with Gao Ming offering his blood as medicine.

Significant themes

• Trust and survival: In a hostile city, alliances are fragile, and trust is framed as rare but necessary.
• Corruption and bodily decay: Black Crow’s malice and the suspected tampering of his medicine suggest danger within the very systems meant to protect him.
• Class inequality: The contrast between Slop Alley and the luxurious Grand Duke Hotel underscores the city’s extreme social divide.
• Medicine and sacrifice: Gao Ming’s blood may be a cure, but offering it makes healing inseparable from personal risk.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming gives Black Crow a bottle of his blood, which Black Crow drinks as a test of Gao Ming’s medicine.
• The reaction is intensely painful: Black Crow collapses and claws at himself while the blood’s force battles the malice inside him. The disfigured woman from the clinic breaks down the reinforced door to reach him.
• After recovering, Black Crow says the medicine has eased his mind more than anything before. Unlike the Takekawa Society’s drug, which only suppresses malice temporarily and becomes less effective over time, Gao Ming’s blood appears to counter malice and help restore a person’s true self—making it a threat to the city’s order.
• Black Crow explains that the city’s thirteen districts are structured to cultivate darkness. Everyone carries a “seed” of it, and finding the city’s deepest darkness may be the only way to end the system.
• To obtain equipment and staff to dilute Gao Ming’s blood, Black Crow proposes worsening the conflict between Wansheng and the Takekawa Society. Gao Ming supplies edited video and information that could help provoke that escalation and earn Black Crow merit.
• They also consider how to remove a hostile old man at the outpost, since Night Watch rules prevent them from acting openly.
• As Gao Ming leaves the slums, he asks whether the disfigured woman can be trusted. Black Crow calls her his hidden prisoner and says she was condemned for being too beautiful and pure to harbor dark thoughts.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains calm while Black Crow is in danger, treating his blood as a possible remedy and thinking strategically about how to use the city’s factions against one another.
• Black Crow relaxes and becomes more candid after taking Gao Ming’s blood. He recognizes its potential to challenge the city, while still struggling to control his violent impulses. He and Gao Ming form a pragmatic alliance.
• The disfigured woman shows deep concern for Black Crow, risking damage to the clinic to get inside. Her apparent loyalty contrasts with Black Crow’s harsh treatment of her and his claim that she is his prisoner.
• Gao Ming and Black Crow exchange sharp, wry remarks, then cooperate in planning. The woman’s hostility toward Gao Ming keeps her relationship with Black Crow—and her true nature—ambiguous.

Significant themes

• Malice, suffering, and humanity: The city cultivates darkness, while Gao Ming’s blood may help people recover their buried selves.
• Power and dependence: A treatment that works too well can threaten those who rely on suppression and the systems built around it.
• Trust and moral ambiguity: Black Crow’s concern for the woman sits uneasily beside his cruelty, and official judgments about purity may not match appearances.
• Resistance through manipulation: Rather than confront the city directly, Gao Ming and Black Crow plan to exploit rivalries and institutional rules.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming returns to the studio on Dog Street and finds Black Mastiff’s men assaulting his three underlings and seizing their equipment over Li Sansi’s debt.
• He insists the contract gives him another week, but the thugs demand payment immediately. When one punches him, Gao Ming deliberately takes the hit and pretends to be badly injured, buying time.
• The collectors leave, warning that if the debt is unpaid the next morning, Gao Ming and his underlings will be sent to the Takekawa Society’s live-subject laboratory.
• The studio’s computer has been smashed, though Wu Wei managed to protect the camera. Gao Ming explains that he escaped the Night Watch by promising them far greater profits.
• The underlings reveal they had considered making money by producing a “forbidden film.” Ding Xiang describes two kinds: staged hunts of popular targets and footage from dangerous sealed-off zones. The chapter ends with her explaining the latter idea.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming maintains his timid Li Sansi act in public, but shows resourcefulness by enduring the punch and misleading the debt collectors. He briefly feels moved by his staff’s loyalty, then loses that sentiment when Jia Youzhi worries about whether Gao Ming still has valuable organs.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang insist they trust Gao Ming and won’t abandon him, though their loyalty is mixed with panicked concern about their own fate. Both repeatedly fret about his organs.
• Wu Wei is more cautious and lets Ding Xiang explain the forbidden-film proposal after revealing that it was her idea.
• Gao Ming challenges his staff to explain why they stayed, dismisses Jia Youzhi’s lofty talk of loyalty, and demands practical solutions.

Significant themes

• Survival and exploitation: Debt collectors prey on Dog Street’s impoverished residents, while the threat of organ harvesting and human experimentation shows how people are treated as commodities.
• Loyalty versus self-interest: The underlings defend Gao Ming, but their fears expose the practical, self-preserving side of their devotion.
• Deception and improvisation: Gao Ming survives through acting, negotiation, and calculated risk rather than open confrontation.
• A society’s appetite for horror: The market for forbidden films reflects the city’s growing depravity, setting up a dangerous new way for the group to seek money.

Plot points and events

• Facing debt and the threat of being sent to the Takekawa Society’s live-subject lab, Gao Ming agrees to film inside a restricted zone, hoping the footage—and perhaps valuables found there—will earn money.
• He learns about four restricted sites in the Third District and chooses the Former Takekawa Pharmaceuticals Site. He also plans to use the trip to draw the dangerous old Night Watch man away from the outpost, clearing space for Black Crow.
• Gao Ming’s three underlings provide money for a bribe. Wu Wei initially doubts the plan, but after Ding Xiang challenges her, she decides to accompany Gao Ming and operate the camera.
• As Wansheng and the Takekawa Society move toward conflict, Gao Ming and Wu Wei take a bus to the site. The chapter ends with the old man threatening to hunt Gao Ming down; Gao Ming dares him to come.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming accepts the dangerous mission pragmatically, using both the restricted-zone expedition and his debt to the old man as opportunities to advance his plans. He remains sardonic and blunt, but trusts Wu Wei enough to let her join.
• Wu Wei shifts from misjudging Gao Ming as a useless drunk to acknowledging that his recent actions have changed her opinion. Despite her fear, she chooses to stand by him.
• Ding Xiang shows her persuasive, calculating side: she helps convince Gao Ming to go and pushes Wu Wei to join, while framing the choice as a matter of survival.
• Jia Youzhi supports the plan and contributes money, presenting Gao Ming as the only one they trust to enter the zone.
• The old Night Watch man and Gao Ming’s exchange becomes openly hostile, setting up a likely confrontation.

Significant themes

• Desperation and risk: With few options left, the characters gamble their lives for money and survival.
• Trust amid self-interest: The underlings are scheming and fearful, yet they pool resources; Wu Wei’s decision to accompany Gao Ming suggests a growing bond.
• Hidden history and power: The restricted zones hold clues to the city’s past and to the rise or decline of its factions.
• Escalating instability: Blood-marked streets and the brewing conflict between Wansheng and the Takekawa Society signal that the city’s fragile calm is ending.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Wu Wei return to the old Takekawa Pharmaceuticals site to investigate its restricted apartment buildings. A Night Watch officer lets Gao Ming enter alone after taking a bribe, while Wu Wei stays behind.
• The officer explains that one apartment floor was massacred after an employee stole an experimental drug. The deaths were so chaotic that investigators believed the victims had collectively turned on one another. Their missing body parts were allegedly assembled into a creature now hiding in Building A.
• Rather than lead Gao Ming toward the apartments, the officer takes him elsewhere. He reveals that he has tortured previous explorers, killed them, and left their bodies in the apartments. He plans to turn Gao Ming into a monster and deliver him to an older Night Watch officer.
• The officer attacks, but the chapter cuts to the older man confronting him afterward. Gao Ming is now imprisoned in an iron cage, transformed into a snarling monster.
• The older officer offers the man, known as Corpse Ghosts, a place back on his team and twice his usual weekly supply of a drug in exchange for his silence. Corpse Ghosts is tempted but questions how the older man keeps obtaining the newest drugs.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains audacious and resourceful, using a prepared IOU and pretending to be terrified in hopes of manipulating the officer. His plan fails, and he is transformed.
• Wu Wei accompanies Gao Ming but is left outside the restricted area; she has little direct involvement in the events.
• Corpse Ghosts is revealed as a sadistic Night Watch officer who abuses his patrol assignment to torture and kill visitors. His addiction or dependence on the drug is apparent, though he retains suspicion and self-control.
• The older Night Watch officer appears cautious and powerful, with leverage over Corpse Ghosts. He offers a deal rather than simply punishing him, suggesting a morally compromised, factional organization.

Significant themes

• Corruption and abuse of authority: Night Watch officers exploit their positions, take bribes, and conceal crimes.
• Monstrous transformation and bodily horror: The missing body parts, experimental drug, and Gao Ming’s conversion blur the boundary between human and monster.
• Manipulation and mistrust: Gao Ming tries to turn the officer against his superior, while the older officer and Corpse Ghosts negotiate through threats, secrets, and incentives.
• Power and dependence: Access to drugs gives the older officer influence, while Corpse Ghosts’s craving makes him vulnerable.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Wu Wei move together to the site, but the officer separates them before entering.
• Gao Ming bargains and then attempts to recruit Corpse Ghosts against the older officer; Corpse Ghosts rejects the offer and attacks him.
• The older officer confronts Corpse Ghosts over Gao Ming’s transformation, then tries to buy his cooperation with drugs and reinstatement.

Key plot points and events

• The old man arrives with several Night Watch officers to collect the captured, rapidly transforming young man. He plans to keep him alive as part of a grotesque “garden” of people consumed by malice, and prepares to inject him with a substance that accelerates its growth.
• Just as the injection is about to happen, the old man senses an attack and shields the prisoner. Gunmen open fire, killing or badly wounding several officers.
• A wounded officer’s malice erupts, spreading black threads and eyes through his body until he becomes a violent monster.
• Black Crow appears with armed allies, including people from Slop Alley. The Corpse Ghost refuses to help the old man and blocks his escape.
• Black Crow accuses the old man of secretly cultivating malice and exploiting outside forces to avoid the Night Watch’s ban on killing its own members. He threatens to make the old man’s disappearance look like a failed rescue in the Zhuchuan Pharmaceuticals Apartment Restricted Zone.
• Cornered, the old man threatens to unleash the monster inside himself by using a promoter. He then reveals that Night Watch officers are outsiders whose blood is incompatible with the city, and claims his dangerous experiments are meant to change their oppressed circumstances.

Character developments

• The old man is exposed as cruel and calculating: he treats transformed people as specimens and has deliberately cultivated malice within himself. Yet he presents his actions as survival and resistance against the Night Watch’s exploitation.
• Black Crow demonstrates that he has anticipated the old man’s tactics and arranged a coordinated ambush. He uses the organization’s rules and the restricted zone to corner him.
• The Corpse Ghost remains detached and self-interested, refusing the old man’s offer and declining to intervene on his behalf.
• The wounded Night Watch officer loses his remaining reason and becomes a monster, illustrating how quickly malice can overwhelm a person.

Significant themes

• Malice and transformation: Unchecked malice turns people into prisoners of their emotions and eventually reshapes them into monsters.
• Power and exploitation: The old man’s claim that he is trying to protect Night Watch officers complicates his monstrous methods, while revealing an organization that uses and experiments on its members.
• Loyalty, rules, and betrayal: The Night Watch forbids officers from killing one another, but its code is entangled with fear, manipulation, and self-preservation.
• Humanity and monstrosity: The chapter suggests that monstrousness is not only physical; the old man’s cruelty appears long before any visible transformation.

Character interactions

• The old man tries to recruit the Corpse Ghost with promises of medicine, but the Corpse Ghost dismisses him and later blocks his escape.
• The old man taunts and examines the captive, treating him as a specimen rather than a person.
• Black Crow confronts the old man over the attack and his secret cultivation of malice, while the old man defends himself by exposing the Night Watch’s hidden practices and threatening to unleash his own monster.

Key plot points and events

• Old Dog exposes the Night Watch’s identity and argues that its members’ commitment to justice only brings suffering. He warns that the others will eventually become like him.
• Black Crow and his allies prepare to kill him, but Old Dog begins releasing the malice he has cultivated inside himself—a process that could create a devastating super-monster.
• Gao Ming, disguised as the “monster” Old Dog had been using as a shield, injects several blockers and suppressants directly into Old Dog’s heart. Gao Ming can control malice briefly while retaining his sanity, which shocks Old Dog.
• Old Dog attacks, but the drugs disrupt the transformation. His body briefly mutates into a creature with a threat rating of 112 before exploding.
• To cover up the death and hide evidence, Black Crow orders the killing of Corpse Ghosts, blaming him for the scene. Slum-dwelling Dogmen then clear away the remains.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming reveals that he can wield malice without immediately losing control. He and Corpse Ghosts had previously been hunting one another, but they joined forces when Old Dog’s arrival left them no alternative.
• Black Crow demonstrates calculated ruthlessness: he helps stage Gao Ming’s apparent transformation to bait Old Dog, then has Corpse Ghosts killed to protect the operation.
• Old Dog is revealed to have been nurturing malice for years, making him both a threat and a grim warning about what the Night Watch’s burdens can do.
• Corpse Ghosts is sacrificed after working with Gao Ming and Black Crow. The Dogmen obey Black Crow, despite being controlled through drugs and dependent on him for payment.

Significant themes

• The cost of kindness and justice: Old Dog claims the Night Watch’s ideals are the source of its members’ suffering.
• Survival and moral compromise: The hostile city pressures people to abandon principles, submit to control, or use others to stay alive.
• Power, corruption, and control: Malice threatens to consume people, while drugs and manipulation offer only limited ways to manage it.
• Betrayal and expendability: Alliances are temporary, and people are discarded when they become inconvenient.

Chapter Summary: “Garden”

Key plot points and events

• In the slums, some people become Ratmen, Dogmen, or Pigmen—“beasts” shaped by tragedy and desperation. After the Corpse Ghost’s death, the crime scene is cleaned and its evidence sent to the Forbidden Zone.
• Gao Ming and Black Crow recover the Corpse Ghost’s belongings: a hidden handgun and a copy of the night-watch rules. Black Crow explains that travelers from other cities can become night watchmen by obeying the first night watchman’s rules, gaining power in return. Gao Ming declines, believing the city must be completely overturned and rebuilt.
• They visit the dead “old dog’s” villa, hoping to seize valuables before news of his death spreads. In its garden, they discover that flowers have been cultivated with human remains.
• A concealed room reveals crude drug-making equipment and evidence that the old dog worked with the Takekawa Society. Its drug, grown from Fate Flowers fed on living people—especially the innocent—suppresses malice. Black Crow realizes the Society’s influence reaches across districts and that its control over patients makes it dangerous.
• Gao Ming disappears into the garden and uncovers a pit of bodies entwined with roots. He finds that his blood can make a seed grow into a grotesque flower bearing humanlike faces. Black Crow tastes one of its petals and feels his malice suppressed, replaced by a reverence for death.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains committed to his own radical path rather than pursuing the night-watchman’s reformist system. His blood’s effect on the seed suggests he has an unusual, potentially disturbing connection to the flowers.
• Black Crow grows closer to Gao Ming after their victory over the old dog and speaks more openly with him. The old dog’s death brings him visible relief, but tasting Gao Ming’s flower leaves him vulnerable to a new influence.

Significant themes

• Survival and dehumanization: Slum residents accept becoming “beasts” as a last resort.
• Corruption hidden beneath respectability: The old dog’s beautiful garden conceals human sacrifice and criminal dealings.
• The cost of healing: A drug that suppresses malice is produced through the exploitation and murder of innocent people.
• Reform versus revolution: The night-watch rules offer a way to change the city, but Gao Ming believes only total destruction and rebuilding can defeat its malice.

Character interactions

• Black Crow explains the night-watch system to Gao Ming and invites him to join; Gao Ming refuses.
• The two investigate the old dog’s villa together, with Black Crow uncovering the drug operation while Gao Ming digs into the garden.
• Gao Ming asks Black Crow to taste the flower grown from his blood. Black Crow’s reaction reveals that it suppresses malice but also induces an unsettling worship of death.

Plot points

• Gao Ming learns that Fate Flowers can suppress malice, though the petal he gave Black Crow works through extreme pain and despair. Black Crow suffers intensely after swallowing it, and the petal’s influence remains in his body.
• Gao Ming decides to make medicine from Fate Flowers and establish a small pharmacy in the slums. He plans to later seize the Takekawa Society’s drug research institute, arguing that its new drug uses pleasure to cause addiction, while his aims to treat malice at its source.
• Gao Ming entrusts Black Crow with seeds, his blood, and the Corpse Ghosts’ Night Watch rules, asking him to run the pharmacy and build support within the Night Watch. He warns him to keep their outsider identities secret.
• Gao Ming returns to find Wu Wei waiting for him. They leave for Second District to visit Councilwoman Ci Mei, whom the poor regard as a moral and spiritual refuge.
• Their taxi driver takes them onto a deserted road. Gao Ming spots evidence suggesting the driver has attacked women. The driver admits he has drugged them with a Takekawa hallucinogen and plans to assault and kill them. Gao Ming draws a handgun and prepares to stop him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows growing ambition: he wants not merely to profit from the drug trade but to reshape the city. He also demonstrates trust by placing the pharmacy’s future in Black Crow’s hands.
• Black Crow is shaken by the petal’s suffering but accepts an important role in Gao Ming’s plan. He senses something familiar in Gao Ming’s appearance, though he cannot identify it.
• Wu Wei waits anxiously for Gao Ming and goes with him, strengthening his trust in her. She is also quickly affected by the taxi driver’s drug.
• The taxi driver initially presents himself as friendly and praises Councilwoman Ci Mei, but reveals himself as a predatory criminal using the Takekawa Society’s drug.
• Gao Ming and Wu Wei’s journey shifts abruptly from a hopeful visit to a dangerous confrontation, with Gao Ming taking control when the driver threatens them.

Significant themes

• Pain, malice, and healing: Fate Flower medicine suppresses malice through suffering, raising questions about whether a cure that inflicts pain can truly heal.
• Power and corruption: The Takekawa Society’s drug trade exploits people through addiction, while criminal violence grows around the flowers.
• Trust and secrecy: Gao Ming builds alliances while concealing that he and his companions are outsiders.
• Appearances versus reality: The driver’s respectable image and praise of goodness conceal his brutality, underscoring the city’s pervasive moral danger.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming kills the taxi driver after realizing the driver may have endangered him and Wu Wei. The taxi’s trunk contains an extensive body-disposal kit, suggesting the driver was a serial killer. Gao Ming cleans the car and dumps the body in a river.
• On the way to the Second District, Gao Ming encounters a masked figure in a hazmat suit who gives him a card for the “Cleaning Company”—apparently a group that disposes of bodies.
• Gao Ming takes Wu Wei to the Sacred Heart Chapel to meet Councilor Ci Mei. The chapel is crowded with desperate citizens seeking help, while access to Ci Mei is tightly controlled.
• The worshippers say visitors must surrender their malice suppressants and confess their sins before Ci Mei might see them. Gao Ming suspects the ritual is a way to exploit or control them.
• Instead of confessing, Gao Ming passes criminal evidence from Wansheng through a hidden opening in the Confessional and demands to see Ci Mei, claiming to be an old acquaintance. He is then escorted through a concealed passage by Ci Tong, a disfigured, blind girl adopted by Ci Mei.
• The chapter ends as Gao Ming reaches Ci Mei’s office and sees her: a dignified, striking woman whose appearance seems far younger than her age.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains pragmatic and guarded, quickly disposing of the driver and treating the chapel’s rituals with suspicion. He uses evidence and a bold bluff to bypass the usual process.
• Wu Wei wakes in the taxi, confused by the missing driver and their situation; Gao Ming keeps the truth from her.
• Ci Tong is introduced as Ci Mei’s adopted child and guide. Despite her injuries, she navigates the hidden chapel passages confidently.
• The desperate worshippers reveal how much influence Ci Mei has over the poor, who seek her help even at the cost of their medicine and physical well-being.

Significant themes

• Desperation and exploitation: The citizens’ suffering makes them vulnerable to rituals that demand valuable medication and self-punishment.
• Appearance versus reality: The orderly, prosperous Second District and the chapel’s holy image conceal unanswered questions and disturbing practices.
• Pragmatism and survival: Gao Ming prioritizes caution and leverage over conventional morality or ritual.
• Power and access: Ci Mei’s authority is reinforced by barriers, intermediaries, and strict procedures that separate her from the people seeking help.

Plot points

• Gao Ming confronts Councilor Ci Mei with photographs showing her grisly activities at Wansheng’s Flesh Forest. She admits the images are of her, framing her violence as repentance.
• Gao Ming accuses her of using anti-gang campaigns for personal gain, then proposes an alliance: exploit conflict between Wansheng and the Takekawa Society to seize their manpower and drugs. He suggests this could build Ci Mei’s power and eventually make her the city’s first female mayor.
• After leaving the chapel at dawn, Gao Ming and Wu Wei return to the studio and find it wrecked. A dangerously unstable patient is inside, while Ding Xiang and Jia Youzhi are tied up on the roof.
• Surveillance footage reveals that Old Dog, a Night Watch member, came the previous night. The studio’s occupants begged for their lives, so he spared them but left them hanging beside the patient as a cruel threat.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming combines evidence, political insight, and manipulation to recruit Ci Mei, presenting his own violent plans as a campaign against evil. Back at the studio, he pretends not to know who attacked it while investigating the footage.
• Councilor Ci Mei openly acknowledges her disturbing actions but sees them through a self-justifying, almost sacred worldview. She is ambitious and perceptive, recognizing that Gao Ming’s proposal could benefit the Second District as well as herself.
• Wu Wei accompanies Gao Ming and is startled by the unstable patient.
• Ding Xiang and Jia Youzhi are revealed to have submitted to Old Dog rather than resisted, despite Ding Xiang’s panicked claim that they had stood firm.

Significant themes

• Hypocrisy and self-justification: Ci Mei dresses cruelty in the language of repentance and public service.
• Power disguised as idealism: Gao Ming and Ci Mei both use the rhetoric of bringing light while pursuing political and personal advantage.
• Violence and intimidation: The gangs, the Night Watch, and the threat of the unstable patient all show how power is enforced through fear.
• Light and darkness: The chapter repeatedly blurs the boundary between good and evil, suggesting that “light” may itself be false or corrupt.

Plot points

• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang are found tied up in Gao Ming’s studio after pleading with him on surveillance footage to save them. Gao decides to hand the still-conscious, dangerously unstable patient over to Takekawa Pharmaceuticals, whose patients rarely return.
• Before Gao can rest, Wansheng gang members arrive. Their hall master Li Chong announces that the Takekawa Society has handed over Black Mastiff’s businesses and people to Wansheng, which now intends to absorb them.
• Gao, Wu Wei, Jia Youzhi, Ding Xiang, and other people associated with Black Mastiff are taken to Wansheng Street. They learn they are being gathered for the funeral of Wansheng’s boss’s daughter, who was killed on Wansheng territory.
• The crowd, furious and eager for revenge, demands that Black Mastiff’s people be punished. Yin Shou, another hall master, abruptly beheads one of the captives, provoking Li Chong’s anger and pushing the funeral toward chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed and practical, first arranging care for the unstable patient, then concealing his backpack and calmly identifying himself when Wansheng arrives.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang abandon their earlier defiance and flatter Gao, calling him their savior and family. At Wansheng Street, they fear the crowd and try to make themselves less noticeable.
• Wu Wei explains how the Night Watch and Takekawa Pharmaceuticals handle patients who lose control; she stays with Gao through the increasingly dangerous events.
• Li Chong asserts authority over Black Mastiff’s former people but tries to restrain the crowd and prevent further bloodshed.
• Yin Shou disregards Li Chong’s authority, using the funeral’s anger to kill a captive and escalate tensions.

Significant themes

• Power and expendability: When powerful groups clash or make deals, ordinary people become convenient targets.
• Mob vengeance and redirected anger: Wansheng’s fury is aimed at Black Mastiff’s people because confronting the Takekawa Society is too risky.
• Fear-driven loyalty and survival: Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang’s sudden devotion to Gao, and the captives’ helplessness, show how quickly people adapt when their lives are at stake.
• Unstable authority: Li Chong’s attempt to control events is undermined by Yin Shou, suggesting that Wansheng’s apparent unity may not last.

Key plot points and events

• At Wansheng’s funeral gathering, Yin Shou ignores Li Chong’s attempts to restrain him and kills a Black Mastiff gang member. Li Chong threatens him with a concealed gun, but White-Browed Marquis arrives and stops the confrontation.
• Marquis orders Li Chong to open Wansheng Hall’s inner gates for the waiting guests. The chapter describes Wansheng’s decline from a dominant gang into a weakened organization divided among its remaining halls.
• At the coffin sits Wansheng boss Yuan Qing, whose grotesquely altered appearance contrasts with the polished public image shown in the media. He insists that Black Mastiff’s family kneel before the coffin, but shows little interest when Li Chong reports the earlier killings.
• Prominent guests are revealed in a private room: Councilor Yuan Nian, a powerful Night Watch officer, and the Flower Lady from the Fifth District.
• Outside, Yin Shou and other gang members demand revenge for Big Sister’s murder and urge an attack on the Takekawa Society. Their calls for justice are mixed with greed for the society’s drugs and factories.
• Yuan Qing’s menacing presence finally silences the crowd—just as someone among the escorted-in prisoners produces a gun and aims it at his heart.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Chong tries to prevent violence, even pointing a gun at Yin Shou, but lacks the authority to control him or the wider crowd. He remains dutiful and cautious around senior figures.
• Yin Shou is furious, defiant, and eager for revenge. He openly challenges Li Chong and uses the funeral to rally Wansheng’s members.
• White-Browed Marquis demonstrates his senior standing by stopping Yin Shou and directing Li Chong’s actions.
• Yuan Qing appears frail and monstrous, yet commands the room through sheer menace. His tenderness toward the coffin suggests deep attachment to the deceased, while his indifference to further deaths unsettles Li Chong.
• Wansheng’s members are portrayed as divided and opportunistic: some invoke Big Sister’s death, but many are chiefly motivated by revenge, territory, and profit.
• The final gun aimed at Yuan Qing abruptly shifts the scene from internal unrest to a direct threat.

Significant themes

• Decline and fragmentation: Wansheng’s former dominance has given way to retreat, defections, and competing interests.
• Violence and self-interest: Calls for justice mask the gang’s desire for drugs, factories, and power.
• Public image versus reality: Yuan Qing’s sanitized public portrayal hides his horrifying appearance and violent past.
• Control and instability: Li Chong’s efforts to manage events are repeatedly overwhelmed, while authority depends on fear rather than agreement.
• Sudden reversal: The apparent climax of Yuan Qing’s display of power is interrupted by an unexpected assassination attempt.

Key plot points and events

• At Yuan Qing’s daughter’s funeral, Yuan Qing restrains his anger over the suspected Takekawa Society involvement, insisting the killing is still under investigation. He privately suspects the person who stands to benefit most.
• Someone openly shoots Yuan Qing in the abdomen. Though the wound may not be fatal, his age and poor health cause him to collapse.
• The shooting triggers a massacre: Wansheng members blame the Takekawa Society and attack its people, while the captives fight to escape.
• Gao Ming gets Wu Wei out through the chaos, then returns for Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang. He drives them away as Wansheng pursuers give chase.
• Unable to seek help from the Night Watch without exposing his connection to Black Crow, Gao Ming heads toward Takekawa Society territory.
• Back at the funeral, Wansheng leaders argue over who let the gun into the hall. The White-Browed Marquis halts the infighting and announces that the Takekawa Society will be destroyed that month.

Character developments and interactions

• Yuan Qing shows unusual restraint and political caution, recognizing that a rush to revenge could benefit the real culprit. His shooting exposes how physically vulnerable he has become.
• Gao Ming acts decisively under pressure, using his control of malice to strengthen himself and risking a return into danger to rescue Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang.
• Li Chong is panicked and defensive as Ban Zi accuses him of allowing the gun into the hall. He claims a traitor exploited the earlier commotion.
• Yin Shou angrily rejects Ban Zi’s implied accusation and threatens him, nearly turning suspicion into more internal violence.
• The White-Browed Marquis takes control, suppresses the dispute, and redirects Wansheng’s anger toward the Takekawa Society.

Significant themes

• Manipulated violence: The shooting appears designed to provoke a war, while the real killer remains unknown.
• Power and vulnerability: Yuan Qing’s authority rests on fear and strength, but age and illness make him physically fragile.
• Scapegoating and factional distrust: In the confusion, Wansheng members suspect one another as readily as their enemies.
• Survival and divided loyalties: Gao Ming saves his companions while avoiding the Night Watch, aware that revealing his connections could endanger him.

Plot points and events

• In Wansheng’s inner hall, White-Browed Marquis urges Councilor Yuan Nian to retaliate against the Takekawa Society. He hides the detail that Yuan Qing was shot, but argues that the gang has pushed everyone too far; Yuan Nian’s response is not shown.
• Gao Ming escapes Wansheng and drives into Takekawa territory, where he spreads a distorted account of events: that Black Mastiff’s men shot Yuan Qing at his daughter’s funeral. As Wansheng’s furious members arrive, the Takekawa guards believe the story, and the two groups erupt into violence.
• Having ignited the conflict, Gao Ming slips away, changes cars, and heads to Sacred Heart Chapel with three subordinates. He avoids returning to the studio and asks for a new place to stay.
• Ci Tong guides Gao Ming through a hidden passage to Councilor Ci Mei. She has heard about the unrest and sees the violence as evidence of his resolve. Gao Ming tells her that her followers must follow his rules in the Third District for now; she agrees, expecting to act more freely once the Night Watch intervenes.
• Gao Ming’s larger strategy is to use the Night Watch’s authority with Ci Mei and Ci Mei’s backing with the Night Watch, positioning himself to exploit the chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming reveals himself as a calculating instigator: he fuels hatred between Wansheng and Takekawa, then withdraws before the fighting traps him. His rhetoric about bringing light to the city hints at ambitions beyond defeating the gangs.
• Councilor Ci Mei becomes more interested in Gao Ming and agrees to cooperate, impressed by his decisiveness. She also sets an expectation that he will not delay her too long.
• Ci Tong, blind and familiar with the chapel’s hidden routes, guides Gao Ming and describes the freedom and danger of operating in darkness. Gao Ming curtly rejects her suggestive approach and insists on getting straight to Ci Mei.
• White-Browed Marquis openly favors retaliation, while Yuan Nian remains composed and gives no explicit answer in this chapter.

Significant themes

• Manipulation and misinformation: Gao Ming’s embellished story turns an already tense situation into open conflict.
• Power through alliances: Both Gao Ming and Ci Mei seek to use one another’s networks while preserving room to maneuver.
• Light and darkness: The chapter contrasts public claims of order and justice with the hidden schemes and violence operating beneath them.

Key plot points and events

• In the Thirteenth District, officials gather as people are tortured and killed in a foundation pit. The council is hunting outsiders—apparently infiltrators from another city—and has adopted a policy of killing suspected accomplices even when they may be innocent.
• The council learns that one of its thirteen representatives has already been replaced. Fear and suspicion spread through the meeting, and members argue that the first Shrine should go to the General Investigation Bureau to counterbalance the Ghost Story Players.
• The chapter introduces the Mercy Society, a charitable group founded at Councilor Ci Mei’s urging. It offers food, clothing, and informal medical care to the poor, while gangs tolerate its work but prevent it from gaining power. Ci Mei secures their support by giving them evidence that could implicate her.
• In the Third District, Gao Ming—now posing as Li Sansi, a Mercy Society priest—speaks to a crowd of impoverished followers. His words carry an uncanny influence, and he unexpectedly declares that he will try to correct the city’s warped injustices.

Character developments

• Gao Ming uses the priestly role and the crowd’s longing for hope to build devotion around Ci Mei. He recognizes that people deprived of something—especially light and compassion—may desire it intensely. His unscripted vow suggests a broader personal purpose.
• Ci Mei is presented as both a ruthless operator and the figure of hope promoted by the Mercy Society. Her willingness to use blackmail and leverage reveals that her charitable work is entangled with political manipulation.
• Jia Youzhi watches Gao Ming’s influence grow and worries that the Mercy Society could transform desperate slum residents into something dangerous.

Significant themes

• Fear and mistrust: The council’s discovery of an infiltrator makes cooperation nearly impossible.
• The cost of security: The district’s hunt for outsiders sacrifices innocent citizens and risks creating chaos of its own.
• Hope as power: The poor’s hunger for light and relief makes faith a potent force—and potentially a tool for manipulation.
• Moral ambiguity: Charity offers genuine help, but it also serves political aims; figures like Ci Mei and Gao Ming may pursue justice through unsettling means.

Character interactions

• Council representatives challenge one another over the outsider threat, but the revelation of a replacement silences open debate and turns them suspicious of one another.
• Gao Ming addresses Ci Mei’s followers, presenting her as the source of their hope and drawing an enthusiastic response; his improvised promise deepens that connection.
• Jia Youzhi observes Gao Ming’s success from backstage and voices concern about its possible consequences.

Key plot points and events

• Three days after sheltering in the Mercy Society, Gao Ming and his companions learn that the city is collapsing into conflict. Wansheng initially gains ground against the Takekawa Society, but the Takekawa Society uses drugged patients as nighttime monsters to reclaim territory. Its poison and cut-off drug supply also threaten to turn Wansheng members into monsters. Yuan Qing survives his shooting.
• Gao Ming decides to avoid joining the gang war for now and build strength within the Mercy Society. He has been studying information about Forbidden Zones and suspects the Takekawa Society’s new drug is connected to its old pharmaceutical factory becoming one.
• Gao Ming’s own experimental medicine resembles the Takekawa drug, but its agonizing effects kill local people who take it. He considers entering a Forbidden Zone to learn why and develop a safer version.
• When his companions protest, Gao Ming reveals that he and Wu Wei never entered a Forbidden Zone during an earlier film shoot: he stole the Night Watch’s Investigation Rules from its perimeter. He used the document to pose as a Night Watch representative and win Councilor Ci Mei’s trust.
• Gao Ming admits that he has been deceiving both Ci Mei and the Night Watch. If discovered, he and his group could be hunted by the Night Watch, Wansheng, and the Municipal Council Hall—making a dangerous trip into a Forbidden Zone seem less reckless by comparison.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains strategic and willing to take extreme risks. He sees the Mercy Society as a base, not a refuge, and reveals how precarious his position really is.
• Wu Wei distrusts the Mercy Society’s hypocritical atmosphere and opposes Gao Ming’s plan to enter a Forbidden Zone. She is also drawn to news of the fighting.
• Jia Youzhi has settled comfortably into the Society’s false piety, enjoying its modest benefits. He desperately tries to keep Gao Ming from endangering their newfound security.
• Ding Xiang is relieved to be away from debt collectors and favors waiting before leaving, but she too is uneasy about Gao Ming’s plans.
• Gao Ming physically gathers his three subordinates to disclose his secret. Their alarm underscores how his past deception has put all of them at risk.

Significant themes

• False safety and borrowed time: The Mercy Society offers temporary shelter, but the group’s apparent peace rests on Gao Ming’s dangerous lies.
• Survival versus ambition: Gao Ming accepts risks to gain knowledge and power, while his companions prioritize staying alive.
• Deception and unstable loyalties: Gao Ming maintains different identities with rival institutions, and the escalating conflict makes exposure increasingly likely.
• Weaponizing suffering: Both the Takekawa Society’s drugged patients and Gao Ming’s painful experimental medicine show how people are turned into tools in the struggle for power.