Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• The chapter opens with Jin Dali’s backstory: a principled debt collector who refuses to target vulnerable people. After losing his job, he forms the small Skull Society with friends and relatives, later disguising it as a research group to operate in a city dominated by larger, gang-connected collection firms.
• Jin and his group choose Li Sansi as a target. Gao Ming confronts Jin with a gun, then recruits him to secretly investigate Li Sansi’s accounts and connections. In return, Gao promises Jin the apartment and future work.
• As Gao leaves, he overhears Jin’s family-like exchange with his uncle. Their ordinary affection offers a brief reminder that genuine human bonds remain in the distorted city.
• Gao examines photographs associated with Li Sansi and feels increasingly uneasy about his own identity. He finds that Li’s former residence seems to have been kept far from the Underground Water Network.
• With taxis unavailable amid escalating unrest in the Third District, Gao commandeers a Wansheng driver’s car and heads toward the sewage treatment center.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang report that the Takekawa Society and Wansheng are in open conflict. The Takekawa headquarters has been bombed, illness is spreading, and gangs from other districts are getting involved. Mountain Lord, a former ally of Wansheng, is also advancing toward the district, apparently to exploit the fighting.
• Ding Xiang suggests fleeing the danger and wonders whether Gao intends to replace Councilor Ci Mei. Gao rejects the speculation and tells her to focus on promoting the value of light and peace. He stays in the Third District because he has further plans.

Character developments and interactions

• Jin Dali is revealed as an ambitious but unusually principled small-time operator. Though frightened by Gao’s gun, he agrees to help and remains attached to his dream of building an organization that can challenge the established gangs.
• Gao Ming uses both intimidation and promises to enlist Jin, while continuing to investigate Li Sansi and pursue an undisclosed objective. His discomfort about the photographs suggests that his own connection to Li may be more complicated than he understands.
• Ding Xiang reads Gao’s strategy as potentially political, speculating that he might replace Ci Mei. Gao shuts down the idea without explaining his plans.
• Jia Youzhi reports the worsening crisis with evident amusement, while Ding Xiang is more cautious. Jin’s affectionate exchange with his uncle contrasts with the violence and cynicism surrounding them.

Significant themes

• Principles amid corruption: Jin’s rules set him apart from the city’s ruthless debt-collection world, even as he tries to build power within it.
• Humanity surviving disorder: The Skull Group’s familial warmth provides a small, hopeful counterpoint to the city’s violence.
• Power and opportunism: Gang leaders exploit chaos, and Mountain Lord’s delayed intervention appears self-serving.
• Identity and hidden pasts: Gao’s reaction to Li Sansi’s photographs and the unusual geography around Li’s former home deepen the mystery surrounding him.
• Hope as influence: Gao treats the public’s longing for light and peace as a way to attract followers, suggesting that faith and political power are intertwined.

Key plot points and events

• While driving, Gao Ming questions his gang-affiliated passenger about loyalty, gang violence, and whether the city would be safer without gangs. He argues that the Municipal Council Hall has failed to protect people, allowing gangs to fill the void.
• At the Third District sewage treatment center, Gao Ming learns that access to the Underground Water Network is controlled by the Cleaning Company, or else requires going through its main entrance in the Second District. He suspects the network may be connected to the company.
• Using a business card from a cleaner, Gao Ming drives into the Second District, whose orderly, affluent streets contrast sharply with the Third District’s gang violence and wreckage.
• Deeper in the district, the clean surroundings give way to abandoned houses, dead vegetation, and a sickening sweet smell. Gao Ming suspects the fragrance is masking something foul.
• Gao Ming takes the frightened driver with him into the blackened woods. They find a polluted black river flowing into a cave beside a sewage plant, where hazmat-suited cleaners enter and leave.
• Gao Ming hears voices from the cave—those of his adoptive family and Aunt Xia, apparently recalling a traumatic childhood incident involving his younger brother. The driver hears nothing.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming questions the driver in a calm, probing manner, using the conversation to explore the city’s power structures. He remains unusually composed in the diseased-looking area and seems drawn toward it. His experience there triggers vivid voices tied to his past.
• The driver begins terrified of Gao Ming but becomes somewhat more comfortable talking with him. His envy of the Second District fades as he encounters its hidden decay, and he remains an unwilling companion, unable to perceive what Gao Ming hears.
• Their interaction is marked by an imbalance of power: Gao Ming controls the journey and the questions, while the driver’s fear keeps him compliant.

Significant themes

• Failed institutions and gang power: Gangs claim to offer protection, but their violence thrives because civic authorities are weak or compromised.
• Appearance versus reality: The Second District’s cleanliness and prosperity conceal pollution, abandonment, and possibly deeper horrors.
• Perception and the supernatural: Gao Ming’s experience of the Forbidden Zone differs from the driver’s, leaving uncertain whether the voices are supernatural, psychological, or both.
• Hidden past and trauma: The voices connect the present journey to Gao Ming’s painful childhood memories.

Plot points

• Gao Ming, accompanied by Wansheng’s bound driver, descends into the Underground Water Network while reliving memories associated with Li Sansi.
• His fragmented speech reveals deep anger toward his father, whom he blames for shaping his desire for revenge and turning him into “a ghost.” He also seems to see or address people hidden in the darkness.
• Gao Ming navigates the maze-like tunnels with uncanny familiarity, avoiding the maintained routes used by the Cleaning Company.
• At a barricaded passage marked “Forbidden,” he notices a gap beneath the wire mesh and pulls the driver through the sewage to reach the restricted side.
• Gao Ming glimpses a child being chased and forced to hide beneath river garbage, an image that appears connected to Li Sansi’s traumatic past.
• He insists that they continue deeper, believing they are close to something significant and suggesting he himself may once have been one of the strange beings rumored to inhabit the tunnels.
• They find a discarded Cleaning Company task board. Its orders include retrieving abandoned observation equipment, locating a vagrant woman called Auntie, recovering infected corpses, and harvesting fate flowers. Gao Ming is especially intrigued that the Company is seeking cameras, possibly including the one Li Sansi discarded.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts between lucidity and disorientation, as memories and present surroundings blur. Despite this instability, he remains determined and displays impressive knowledge of the tunnels.
• The driver grows increasingly frightened and repeatedly tries to persuade Gao Ming to turn back. He obeys out of fear and dependence, even as Gao forces him through the polluted water.
• Gao’s anger at his father and his empathy for the pursued child expose the pain beneath his erratic behavior.

Significant themes

• Trauma and memory: Suppressed childhood suffering returns as vivid, haunting memories.
• The past as a haunting presence: Gao describes painful memories as ghosts that prevent peace.
• Descent into darkness: The physical journey underground mirrors Gao’s psychological journey into buried experiences.
• Institutional secrecy: The Cleaning Company’s forbidden zones and concealed tasks suggest that the underground holds secrets beyond ordinary waste management.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and the driver venture deeper into the Underground Water Network, where the surroundings become increasingly grotesque and reality seems to give way to darkness.
• They find a dead, experienced Cleaning Company worker. His walkie-talkie picks up a panicked survivor who mistakes Gao Ming for a ghost and insists that the captain is dead.
• Farther on, they discover another corpse, apparently mutilated for its organs, and follow the blood trail to a man fishing with human organs as bait.
• The tattoo-covered man calls himself Cook. He leads Gao Ming and the driver to an abandoned sewage station where people have made a precarious home among garbage heaps.
• Cook prepares the strange fish raw. Children emerge from the heaps and eagerly eat it, revealing tattoo-like scars resembling the roots of a Fate Flower.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains composed amid increasingly horrific sights, suggesting he has grown accustomed to the Underground’s abnormality. He tries to learn about the survivors but does not let the radio caller’s accusations deter him.
• The driver is increasingly frightened and disgusted, but begins adapting to the corpses and the desperate life below.
• Cook is introduced as a pragmatic, rough-edged survivor. He claims to eat only garbage, yet lives among people forced into extreme conditions.
• The children appear to have survived in the tunnels for some time, but their scars hint at a disturbing connection to the wider supernatural world.

Character interactions

• The driver clings to Gao Ming for reassurance and later reacts with revulsion to Cook’s catch and meal.
• Gao Ming attempts to question the walkie-talkie survivor, but the man distrusts him, accuses him of killing the captain, and cuts off communication.
• Cook offers Gao Ming and the driver a place to rest and food, then takes offense at their disgust. The children eagerly accept the meal he sets aside.

Significant themes

• Survival and deprivation: The underground residents endure lethal conditions, scavenging and eating whatever they can.
• Isolation and mistrust: The radio survivor rejects rescue, convinced that outsiders are threats.
• The corruption of reality: Flesh-like garbage, human-faced fish, and other mutations make the tunnels feel governed by a hostile, living darkness.
• A hidden, forgotten population: The chapter reveals people—and especially children—living beyond the awareness of the world above, while their scars suggest an ominous fate.

Key plot points and events

• Cook argues that surface cleanliness is an illusion, claiming the city’s waste and death are handled in ways that explain the Second District’s wealth and the Cleaning Company’s power. He eats fish eyes with unsettling relish, appearing more alert afterward.
• Cook hints that Gao Ming resembles a child he once knew, then warns the group not to venture deeper into the Abandoned Water Network, where people can become part of the darkness.
• Gao Ming and the driver continue onward, encountering disturbing bodies and other anomalies. The driver sees nothing in the darkness, while Gao Ming can perceive the horrors.
• They meet a conscious silicone doll floating in a bathtub. She bears two Fate Flowers and speaks openly about them.
• When Gao Ming asks about Auntie, the doll becomes frightened. She explains that Auntie is not a person but a “Madness Infection”: contact causes a victim’s memories to become a madwoman who overwhelms their identity, and the infection passes to another person upon contact.
• The revelation triggers memories in Li Sansi of Auntie’s episodes and of how being taken in by her changed his personality.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains wary of his unusual ability to see what others cannot and worries about losing his grip on reality. He presses the doll for information, even threatening to implicate her.
• The driver is overwhelmed by the underground world, reacting with nausea and fear; he cannot see the horrors that Gao Ming describes.
• Cook appears both deeply adapted to the underground and possibly delusional. His warning and cryptic story leave open whether his worldview is madness or insight.
• The silicone doll is unexpectedly kind and innocent, despite her strange origin and mischievous impulse to frighten the driver. Mention of Auntie reveals her intense fear.
• Li Sansi’s past is connected more strongly to the mystery: Auntie’s madness may explain the transformation of his personality.

Significant themes

• Perception and truth: What seems filthy or monstrous may look different through other eyes; the chapter questions who is truly deluded.
• Madness and identity: The infection turns a person’s own memories against them, blurring the boundary between self and illness.
• Adaptation and corruption: Cook and the underground children have survived by accepting a world others find unbearable, raising the question of what survival costs.
• Unexpected innocence: The doll’s gentleness contrasts with the grotesque setting and the human brutality implied elsewhere.

Key plot points and events

• The Silicone Doll tells Gao Ming that a Cleaning Company team once entered the Underground Water Network; only one member survived, likely hiding in an abandoned monitoring station. She gives Gao Ming animal offal to use as bait for the water-dwelling creatures.
• As Gao Ming leads the driver through the pipes, the driver falls into the sewage and is nearly attacked by a scaled, humanlike creature. Gao Ming pulls him to safety and offers the creatures the offal.
• Six fish-human monsters gather and eat the food. Gao Ming asks them to help find Auntie, but they refuse; when he asks instead about the surviving cleaner, one large creature agrees to guide them.
• The creature leads Gao Ming and the driver through the dangerous, abandoned network to an area where Auntie is said to appear. There, Gao Ming finds a disturbing message carved into the wall about a madman occupying a boy’s body while the boy is trapped in darkness.
• Gao Ming reaches a locked monitoring station. After quietly opening its boarded window, he sees a pair of shoes hanging inside, suggesting the missing survivor may have hanged himself.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming uses the Silicone Doll’s information and treats her help with genuine gratitude. He also shows resourcefulness by using the offal to bargain with the monsters.
• The Silicone Doll is helpful and easily embarrassed, apparently because of her programmed personality.
• The driver remains frightened and distrustful, especially when the creatures appear; Gao Ming’s rope restraint becomes his only protection.
• The fish-human creatures are dangerous but capable of basic communication and negotiation. Their fear of Auntie is clear, as several flee when Gao Ming mentions her.
• The surviving cleaner remains unseen; the apparent hanging at the chapter’s end leaves his fate uncertain.

Significant themes

• Survival through negotiation: Gao Ming navigates threats by adapting and bargaining rather than relying only on force.
• Transformation and madness: The monsters’ altered bodies and the carved message deepen the chapter’s concern with lost identity and imprisonment within another self.
• Fear and uncertainty: The driver’s terror, the creatures’ fear of Auntie, and the silent monitoring station sustain an atmosphere of escalating dread.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and the driver find a dead hazmat-suited cleaner in an underground monitoring station. A warning on his mission camera forbids using cameras in the abandoned water network.
• Gao Ming powers up the camera despite the driver’s objections. A voice on the walkie-talkie identifies himself as Wei Si, the sole survivor of an eighteen-person cleanup squad sent to investigate a suspected Forbidden Zone.
• Wei Si warns that the squad saw something that drove them mad, and urges Gao Ming to leave. He says Gao Ming is already close to “her” and that recalling the past or turning on the camera may draw the entity near.
• Gao Ming plays the camera’s footage. It shows cleaners encountering a woman who seems to emerge from the darkness and possess a squad member. The team panics, and the footage ends with the camera pointed at the woman’s black, pupil-filled eyes.
• After watching, the driver finds he can perceive things in the darkness. He sees a woman’s head on every instrument display—and notices Gao Ming trembling.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains curious and determined, continuing to investigate despite Wei Si’s warnings and the driver’s fear. He also hints that he visited the water network as a child, when it was still ordinary.
• The driver is increasingly frightened and urges Gao Ming to leave. Exposure to the footage appears to change his perception.
• Wei Si speaks through the station’s walkie-talkie, revealing the squad’s fate while growing frantic as Gao Ming probes for answers.
• Gao Ming’s calm persistence contrasts with Wei Si’s desperation and the driver’s panic.

Significant themes

• Forbidden knowledge and perception: Seeing or recording the entity seems dangerous in itself, and observation alters what people can perceive.
• Memory and thought as threats: Wei Si warns that remembering the past can connect Gao Ming to the thing underground.
• Fear, guilt, and survival: Wei Si’s warnings carry the weight of his squad’s destruction, while the survivors’ curiosity and fear pull them in opposite directions.

Plot points and events

• The woman from the mission recorder appears across the Monitoring Station’s screens, driving the driver toward madness. He tries to gouge out his eyes, but Gao Ming stops him, warning that it would only let Auntie possess him more completely.
• As Gao Ming’s face transforms between Li Sansi’s and his aunt’s, buried memories surface. Li Sansi’s aunt had a hereditary mental illness and subjected him to years of erratic, frightening treatment. Eventually, Li Sansi brought her into the Underground Water Network and pushed her into the Deep Pool.
• Gao Ming relives the memory alongside Li Sansi. Auntie’s disappearance did not end her presence: her madness seemed to merge with Li Sansi and spread through the darkness.
• At the Deep Pool, the Blood City Ghost Markings and Li Sansi’s malice battle for control of Gao Ming. Objects from his memories rise from the sewage and assemble into Auntie’s face.
• Realizing that fear of the unknown can make imagined horrors seem real, Gao Ming begins to understand the power of the Dark Shrine’s master.

Character developments

• Gao Ming endures the struggle between the Blood City markings and Li Sansi’s darkness, while uncovering the source of Li Sansi’s trauma. He concludes that Li Sansi himself created much of the darkness and nightmares surrounding Auntie.
• Li Sansi is revealed as a deeply traumatized child who ultimately killed his aunt, then became psychologically entangled with her madness.
• The driver is overwhelmed by the apparition and nearly blinds himself; Gao Ming’s intervention gives him a chance to escape.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming prevents the driver from gouging out his eyes and leads him through the tunnels.
• In the recovered memories, Li Sansi’s aunt’s unpredictable treatment leaves him caught between fear, confusion, attachment, and distress.
• Gao Ming confronts Auntie’s presence at the Deep Pool by shooting at her apparition, then continues onward with the driver.

Significant themes

• Trauma and inherited darkness: Li Sansi’s buried experiences persist within him and resurface through Gao Ming.
• Fear shaping reality: What people imagine in darkness can seem to become real.
• Memory and identity: Recovering Li Sansi’s memories alters Gao Ming’s body and threatens his control over himself.
• The persistence of guilt and horror: Auntie’s apparent death does not end her influence; she remains embedded in Li Sansi’s mind and the surrounding darkness.

Key plot points and events

• In the sewage-filled Deep Pool, Gao Ming sees three corpses that appear connected to Li Sansi’s subordinates: Ding Xiang, Wu Wei, and Jia Youzhi. He realizes these may have been imagined by Li Sansi in the darkness and then made real through the Dark Shrine’s power.
• Gao Ming suspects the Shrine’s Original Body lies beneath the Deep Pool, where the city’s waste and hidden secrets collect. But the darkness overwhelms him, and the Blood City Tattoo begins to weaken.
• Recognizing that the Shrine master has lured him into a trap, Gao Ming orders the driver to carry him out. The driver risks his own safety and follows Gao Ming’s directions through the tunnels.
• The Ninth Cleaning Squad finds them, disinfects them, and seals them in corpse bags before hauling them away. Once out of the darkness, Gao Ming regains his reason, though Li Sansi’s malice has grown stronger and his traumatic memories seem to be taking on a life of their own.
• Realizing the other Dream Ghosts may also be in danger, Gao Ming decides not to contact them yet. His next plan is to weaken the Shrine master by eliminating the gangs and rebuilding the Municipal Council Hall.
• Gao Ming wakes in a rubbish truck among corpses and deliberately makes noise, prompting the driver to slow down and investigate.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming endures the Shrine master’s attack and gains insight into how its power works. His control over Li Sansi’s darkness is fragile, and his returning memories pose a new threat.
• The driver proves loyal and courageous: despite fearing Gao Ming may be overtaken by madness, he carries him to safety. Gao Ming recognizes that the driver ultimately saved his life.
• The Ninth Cleaning Squad treats the pair as contaminated escapees, sealing them in isolation bags rather than showing concern for their condition.
• Gao Ming and the driver rely on each other: Gao Ming navigates their escape, while the driver physically carries him through the tunnels.

Significant themes

• Darkness as psychological despair: Darkness is more than the absence of light; it exposes and amplifies buried trauma and malice.
• Imagination made real: The Shrine master appears able to turn things born in darkness into physical reality.
• Trust and survival: The driver’s decision to help Gao Ming becomes crucial, showing how cooperation can overcome fear.
• Secrets and corruption: The Deep Pool’s refuse reflects the city’s hidden wrongdoing, while Gao Ming’s proposed campaign against the gangs suggests confronting that corruption directly.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming escapes a Cleaner patrol by hiding among corpses, knocking out two Cleaners, and taking over their truck with the driver.
• He finds surveillance footage and test results. The footage shows nothing unusual in the Underground Water Network, leaving uncertain whether his later encounters were real or distorted by the darkness within Li Sansi.
• The driver is found to be pathogen-contaminated. Gao Ming’s results are far worse: he is labeled an extremely dangerous class A pollution source, with uncontrolled malice, severe drug poisoning, and three different madness infections.
• Gao Ming destroys their records to conceal the driver’s status. When the driver panics about infecting others, Gao offers a remedy: his own blood. The blood suppresses the driver’s malice but sharply raises his danger and contamination readings, and the driver passes out.
• Gao suspects his blood has changed because he has recovered Li Sansi’s lost memories and become more deeply fused with him. He carries the driver to safety and returns to the Third District with help from Councilor Ci Mei.
• Back at his temporary quarters, Gao reunites with Jia Youzhi, Ding Xiang, and Wu Wei. As violence spreads through the district, the subordinates urge him to flee, but Gao refuses to abandon the situation.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains decisive and protective, even as his alarming test results raise questions about his own condition. He also becomes suspicious of his subordinates, looking for signs that they may not be human, and tells them they will never be apart again.
• The driver shifts from fear of being exposed to fear of harming others. He accepts Gao’s blood despite distrust of the Night Watch, then collapses from its effects.
• Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang urge Gao to escape the escalating gang war; Jia has even gathered the Mercy Society’s donations to help them leave. Ding also describes gangs abducting believers and drugging them, possibly to turn them into Pigmen or Dogmen.
• Gao and his subordinates clash over whether to flee or stay. Their greetings appear caring, but Gao’s new suspicion casts uncertainty over their relationship.

Significant themes

• Contamination and identity: Gao’s increasingly extreme readings—and his possible fusion with Li Sansi—blur the boundary between person and pollution source.
• Moral responsibility: The driver’s anguish over potentially infecting others contrasts with his criminal past, while Gao refuses to leave him behind.
• Uncertainty and mistrust: The footage cannot confirm Gao’s experiences, and he now questions both his perceptions and whether those around him are human.
• Violence and survival: The Third District is consumed by gang warfare, with civilians and believers caught in the growing chaos.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming suspects someone is deliberately escalating the conflict between the Takekawa Society and Wansheng, using the Third District’s gangs as pieces in a larger plan. He intends to turn the district into a “meat grinder” that forces every faction to get involved.
• As Jia Youzhi urges retreat, a Mercy Society steward warns that a Level Five pollution source has entered the Third District. The Cleaning Company wants to investigate, but the Night Watch has blocked it and is not responding to the danger.
• Gao Ming realizes the reported pollution source may be himself. If the Cleaning Company publicizes Li Sansi’s identity, he could lose the cover that lets him operate unseen.
• Gao Ming secretly obtains five Dogmen from the Disfigured Nurse. He disguises them in Night Watch uniforms, names them the Death-Omen Birds, and orders them to follow the Night Watch member codenamed Owl.
• As night falls, the Takekawa Society releases patients transformed by excessive stimulant injections. Wansheng detonates explosives across the disputed territory, setting off a vast fire and intensifying the gang war.
• While the gangs battle amid flames and explosions, mutated Pigmen burst out of the slums, revealing another threat joining the chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains calculating and proactive. Rather than simply flee, he covertly prepares to manipulate events, while also worrying that his hidden identity may soon be exposed.
• Jia Youzhi is frightened and repeatedly urges Gao Ming to leave. His nervousness grows when he hears about the Level Five threat.
• The Disfigured Nurse is tense and secretive, checking her watch during their meeting. Though she refuses to explain what is happening, she gives Gao Ming five Dogmen.
• The Mercy Society steward warns residents to stay indoors, highlighting the danger and the Night Watch’s failure to respond.
• The Dogmen are treated as expendable forces: drugged, stripped of independent consciousness, and used in Gao Ming’s covert operation.

Significant themes

• Escalation and manipulation: Hidden actors exploit existing rivalries to drag the entire district into conflict.
• Institutional failure and self-interest: The Night Watch and other organizations appear unwilling or unable to confront the danger, while factions prioritize their own gains.
• Dehumanization: Patients and Dogmen are turned into tools or monsters through drugs and violence.
• Chaos spreading beyond control: The gang war, mass release of patients, explosions, and Pigmen’s emergence converge into a district-wide catastrophe.

Plot points and events

• While fighting erupts in the Third District, Old Fang and Bannu remain in the First District to guard the Black Market and a key to one of the Mountain Lord’s warehouses. Bannu worries about threats from multiple factions; Old Fang dismisses his concerns.
• Bannu leaves to monitor the Night Watch, leaving Old Fang in charge. As the night grows quiet and the smell of blood intensifies, Old Fang senses danger.
• The lights go out, and the Night Watch attacks Old Fang with five armed operatives and a powerful officer wearing epaulets. The Mountain Lord cannot be reached.
• Cornered, Old Fang injects himself with a hidden substance. He transforms into a powerful, monstrous creature, resists gunfire, and leaves a warning for the Mountain Lord through their secret signaling method.
• Old Fang attacks, but the officer controls blood-red malice, drains his power, and corrupts his soul, killing him.
• The officer is revealed as Gao Ming. He preserves Old Fang’s mutated heart and reflects that the Mountain Lord’s men are stronger than he expected; the five accompanying Dogmen are badly injured.

Character developments

• Old Fang begins as complacent and dismissive, but proves resourceful and fiercely loyal when attacked. Even as his transformation erodes his reason, he makes sure to warn the Mountain Lord.
• Bannu is cautious and perceptive, recognizing the many dangers facing the Black Market, though he leaves before the attack begins.
• Gao Ming is revealed as a formidable Night Watch officer whose controlled malice can overwhelm even a transformed opponent. His confidence is tempered by the damage his team suffers.

Significant themes

• Complacency versus vigilance: Old Fang mocks Bannu’s caution, but the threat Bannu anticipated arrives.
• Loyalty and sacrifice: Old Fang risks himself and clings to his purpose long enough to send a warning.
• Power and loss of self: The substance makes Old Fang stronger, but malice steadily consumes his identity.
• Hidden conflict and shifting alliances: The attack unfolds amid turmoil involving the gangs, Night Watch, and other district powers.

Character interactions

• Old Fang and Bannu clash over how seriously to take the threats, while sharing responsibility for protecting the warehouse key.
• Old Fang fights the Night Watch operatives and tries to escape, but the epauleted officer blocks his routes and ultimately defeats him.
• In his final moments, Old Fang’s loyalty to the Mountain Lord motivates his warning; Gao Ming treats him as both a dangerous opponent and a source of information.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming stores the malice-filled hearts of Bannu and Old Fang, planning to use them in experiments that could strengthen the Dogmen. He promises the Dogmen that, after defeating the gangs, he will try to restore their minds and freedom.
• Earlier, Jin Dali told Gao Ming that Li Sansi had accumulated huge debts and sold his body to clinics—not to fund filmmaking, but to buy materials connected to resurrecting the dead. Gao Ming still does not know whom Li Sansi hoped to revive.
• To investigate, Gao Ming targets the First District’s Mountain Lord and enters the Black Market through a hidden passage in Old Fang’s bedroom. He has already spread a source of pollution there to create a diversion.
• Gao Ming and the Dogmen raid the Black Market’s armory and a secret Inner Warehouse. He takes a Fate-Flower-grown human head, living organs, and medicinal liquids that might aid resurrection.
• He also discovers a heavily guarded bottle filled with preserved eyeballs, each reflecting a person or beautiful world. Sensing the lives and hopes contained within them, he steals it despite triggering alarms. The bottle bears the character for “offering,” but its purpose remains unknown.
• Gao Ming escapes after setting off explosives and leaving the warehouse open, expecting desperate Black Market outlaws to join the looting and deepen the chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming’s ambition expands beyond survival: he is pursuing Li Sansi’s resurrection plan and valuable Black Market resources, while remaining alert to the Mountain Lord’s defenses.
• Despite using the Dogmen in dangerous experiments and as guards, Gao Ming views them as subordinates rather than disposable tools and offers them hope of regaining their identities.
• Jin Dali’s investigation provides crucial intelligence about Li Sansi. Gao Ming acts on it but remains uncertain about Li Sansi’s motives and intended resurrection.
• Gao Ming’s growing malice appears to influence his choices, especially his urge to approach and steal the mysterious Eye Bottle.

Significant themes

• Resurrection and the limits of life: Li Sansi’s preparations and the warehouse’s biological materials suggest a desperate attempt to overcome death.
• Exploitation and dehumanization: People are sold for experiments, while bodies and organs are treated as resources.
• Hope amid corruption: The eyes preserve visions of beauty and human longing within a brutal city.
• Power, loyalty, and freedom: Gao Ming’s promise to the Dogmen contrasts with the systems that have stripped them of their minds and autonomy.
• Chaos as strategy: Gao Ming deliberately destabilizes the Black Market to cover his escape and provoke wider disorder.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming’s fire triggers widespread looting and violence in the Black Market, helping plunge the district into chaos. He sends his Dogmen away with what they can carry, then finds the freezer where Li Sansi had hidden a young woman’s corpse.
• Seeing her clothes awakens the word “Mother” in Li Sansi’s memories. Gao Ming takes the body, sensing that carrying it brings him an unfamiliar calm.
• Fleeing citizens crowd near the Old Pharmaceutical Factory’s forbidden zone to escape the gangs, infected people, and violence. Gao Ming realizes that documenting the gangs’ abuses could help turn public opinion against them.
• At the factory, Gao Ming places the corpse in a medicinal pool and uses fresh organs, living tissue, and blooming Fate Flowers to restore her body. From the forbidden zone’s strange perspective, he sees photographs and memories within her corpse, tied to Li Sansi by blood vessels.
• The woman’s body begins to revive, but her will is too weak to resist the competing wills carried by the new organs. Gao Ming’s attempt to strengthen her with his blood worsens the danger and provokes Li Sansi’s inner malice.
• Gao Ming then places the mysterious eyes from the Black Market’s “Eye Bottle” inside her. Their wills flood her mind, and her wounds and mental scars heal. She revives and begins transforming, growing taller and developing unfamiliar divine patterns.

Character developments

• Gao Ming acts decisively amid the chaos, but the woman’s presence reveals a softer side: carrying her eases his malice and gives him peace. He risks himself to bring her back, even when the process becomes dangerous.
• Li Sansi remains largely absent, but the word “Mother,” his preparations to retrieve the corpse, and the memories preserved within her reveal a deep attachment. His inner malice reacts fiercely when Gao Ming interferes with those memories.
• The woman transitions from a preserved corpse toward a new, powerful being. Her identity is initially fragile, but the eyes’ wills help restore her mind and vitality.

Significant themes

• Chaos as a force for change: Gao Ming sees the collapse of the old order as a chance for something new to grow.
• Power, oppression, and public resistance: The gangs’ violence drives ordinary people toward the forbidden zone and suggests that fear might give way to opposition if the gangs can be challenged.
• Memory and identity: Photographs and memories sustain the woman’s sense of self, while the organs and eyes bring other wills that threaten to remake her.
• Life emerging from death: Gao Ming’s resurrection attempt blends body parts, memories, and supernatural forces, creating life that is both miraculous and unsettling.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Li Sansi interact indirectly through the memories and malice within Li Sansi’s heart; Gao Ming’s efforts to revive the woman cross a boundary Li Sansi fiercely guards.
• Gao Ming’s encounter with the woman is intimate but one-sided: her corpse awakens his recognition of “Mother” and briefly quiets his hostility.
• The fleeing citizens’ presence shapes Gao Ming’s thinking about how the gangs might be opposed, though he avoids contact with them and proceeds into the forbidden zone.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming completes the resurrection of Li Sansi’s mother. She returns as a towering, patterned monster whose presence calms both Gao Ming and the malice inside Li Sansi.
• Gao Ming wonders whether she is truly Li Sansi’s mother: her original consciousness is gone, and what remains seems to be the maternal figure preserved in Li Sansi’s memories. A detector places her danger level at its maximum, matching Gao Ming’s.
• Gao Ming covers and clothes her, jokingly proposing that Li Sansi call her “Mom” while he calls her “Sis.” She gives no objection, and he takes her out of the Forbidden Zone.
• Black Crow warns that the city is collapsing into violence. The Night Watch has released experimentally modified Pigmen into the slums, moved officers into the Third District, and apparently been involved in the raid on Mountain Lord’s warehouse. Many undercover agents have gone missing.
• Though Gao Ming agrees to keep clear of the gang conflict, he sees the chaos as an opportunity. He disguises his group—including the resurrected woman—as Mercy Society pastors and offers refugees shelter and hot water near the Old Pharmaceutical Factory.
• The terrified refugees refuse to organize and some begin attacking the vulnerable. Gao Ming orders his Dogmen to reveal their weapons and shoots a man assaulting a girl, forcing the crowd to listen.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows both tenderness and pragmatism: he treats the resurrected woman with care, then uses intimidation when appeals fail. He remains evasive with Black Crow about his role in the Black Market raid.
• Li Sansi’s inner malice becomes less hostile toward Gao Ming under the woman’s influence. She restrains it like a mother calming quarrelling children.
• Li Sansi’s mother is reborn as a powerful, ambiguous being, emotionally attuned to Gao Ming and the malice but not yet able to speak.
• Black Crow warns Gao Ming repeatedly, revealing concern beneath his usual coldness. Gao Ming brushes off the warning and proceeds with his own plan.
• The refugees initially appear as victims of the city’s violence, but fear and desperation leave them disorderly and complicit in further cruelty. Gao Ming’s armed intervention establishes his authority.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: The resurrected woman may be less the original mother than a figure reconstructed from Li Sansi’s memories.
• Light and darkness: Gao Ming concludes that bringing help to a brutal city may require using the threat of violence.
• Order amid collapse: With institutions failing and factions preying on civilians, Gao Ming tries to create a protected space through a mixture of aid and force.
• Monstrosity and danger: The woman appears gentle and nurturing despite registering at the highest measurable threat level, complicating the distinction between benevolence and danger.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming uses armed force and a religious message to rally refugees near the Pharmaceutical Factory’s Forbidden Zone. He presents Li Sansi’s mother as the Mercy Society’s compassionate figurehead and organizes the refugees to build defenses.
• He sends Jia Youzhi, Wu Wei, and the others to film the Third District’s destruction from the refugees’ perspective. Gao insists Li Sansi’s mother be framed as a beacon of hope, though this irritates Ding Xiang and the others.
• The battle between Wansheng and the Takekawa Society devastates the district. Wansheng captures the Takekawa Society’s pharmaceutical warehouse, but the Night Watch then launches a major assault, rapidly taking territory from both exhausted gangs.
• At Wansheng Hall, the injured Yuan Qing is confronted by a Brass-Masked man who claims to be Wansheng’s rightful Mountain Lord and calls Yuan an impostor. Councilor Yuan Nian announces that the Municipal Council Hall has approved a plan to eliminate the Night Watch.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming becomes more commanding and strategically manipulative, using both weapons and media to shape public perception. His suspicion of his subordinates deepens after recalling three bodies resembling them in the Deep Pool; he doubts whether the people before him are real.
• Li Sansi’s mother is positioned as a symbol of shelter and hope, whether or not refugees believe she is truly the Mercy Councilor.
• Ding Xiang resents being displaced from the female-lead role and argues that she understands Gao better, but he assigns her a supporting role.
• Jia Youzhi initially refuses to leave hiding, then eagerly rushes out when Gao warns of the Pigmen’s return.
• Yuan Qing remains ambitious and resentful despite his injuries and losses. The Brass-Masked man challenges his legitimacy, while Yuan Nian backs the masked man and the council’s anti–Night Watch plan.

Significant themes

• Propaganda and spectacle: Gao uses fear, religious imagery, and carefully staged footage to build support and influence how the crisis is seen.
• Power disguised as justice: The gangs, Night Watch, and political authorities all claim legitimacy while using overwhelming violence to seize control.
• Hope amid brutality: The refugees respond less to whether their supposed savior is genuine than to the protection and solidarity she represents.
• Uncertainty and identity: Gao’s doubts about his subordinates, alongside the claim that Yuan Qing is an impostor, reinforce the chapter’s atmosphere of unstable identities and hidden truths.

Plot points

• Councilor Yuan Nian betrays Wansheng’s leader, Yuan Qing, and supports the First District Mountain Lord, who plans to take control of the Night Watch’s territory with help from other districts.
• Yin Shou kills Yuan Qing. The White-Browed Marquis escapes Wansheng Hall, while Yuan Nian orders his men to frame him as a Night Watch agent and blame him for the murder.
• The Mountain Lord considers shooting Yuan Nian but lets him leave, resentful of the councilors’ growing power.
• Gao Ming reviews evidence that the Municipal Council Hall helped the Mountain Lord split and weaken the once-dominant Wansheng gang. Meanwhile, he orders footage of the Third District’s suffering—and its people finding hope through Li Sansi’s mother—distributed across the city.
• The White-Browed Marquis is brought to Gao Ming badly wounded. Seeking revenge against Yuan Nian, Yin Shou, the Mountain Lord, and the Council Hall, he offers his remaining resources and his life in exchange for help.
• Gao Ming agrees to give him a chance, admits he needs manpower, and offers him blood marked with strange runes and malice.

Character developments and interactions

• Yuan Nian’s smiling civility masks ruthless self-interest: he treats Wansheng’s leader as expendable and manipulates the gang’s followers after the murder.
• The White-Browed Marquis moves from proud enforcer to desperate fugitive, but his fury and desire for revenge remain strong. He bargains with Gao Ming despite recognizing the sinister evil in him.
• The Mountain Lord has risen through Council Hall support, yet his hesitation to shoot Yuan Nian reveals his constrained position and resentment of political interference.
• Gao Ming uses both propaganda and calculated bargains to build influence. Jia Youzhi helps stage the media campaign, while the disaster victims bring the Marquis to him.

Significant themes

• Betrayal and political manipulation: Alliances are transactional, and murder is followed by a convenient cover story.
• Power and corruption: The Council Hall shapes gang leadership and profits from the resulting conflict.
• Revenge and survival: The Marquis’s will to retaliate becomes his only leverage.
• Hope as a weapon: Gao Ming plans to spread uplifting footage alongside his growing, morally dangerous influence.

Key plot points and events

• White-Browed Marquis is gravely injured, and Gao Ming offers him a choice: die or drink Gao Ming’s blood and risk becoming a heretic. Unlike other Native Residents, Marquis survives the agonizing transformation.
• Marquis’s intense hatred keeps his will intact. Gao Ming uses several Fate Flowers to sustain him until one takes root in his heart, becoming a flame-marked flower. Marquis can now burn malice and draw power from his vengeance.
• Marquis pledges loyalty to Gao Ming in exchange for help destroying the Municipal Council Hall. He offers to retrieve Wansheng’s hidden stores and rescue his loyal gang members before Yuan Nian and the Night Watch can reach them. Gao Ming lets him go despite Jia Youzhi’s objections.
• The Night Watch’s headquarters is under attack by multiple factions, and the violence is spreading. While watching from the outskirts, Gao Ming sees Li Sansi appear through his binoculars and threaten that Gao Ming will be next.
• Gao Ming realizes the Dark Shrine’s influence is worsening: lenses distort reality, and using Forbidden Zone Vision feels like exchanging perspectives with another presence inside him. The “Old Medicines” cannot diagnose the problem, only provide medicine to help him remain lucid.

Character developments and interactions

• White-Browed Marquis survives through sheer resolve and is transformed by his hatred into a powerful, flame-marked heretic. He becomes instinctively trusting of Gao Ming and offers practical support for his cause.
• Gao Ming shows both ruthlessness and strategic restraint: he spends valuable Fate Flowers to save Marquis, but makes clear that their alliance serves his own aims, not merely Marquis’s revenge. He also becomes increasingly alarmed about losing control of his perception and body.
• Jia Youzhi distrusts Marquis and argues that Gao Ming should exploit or hand him over, but Gao Ming dismisses the objection.
• Li Sansi remains an invasive, threatening presence, appearing through optical devices as the boundary between him and Gao Ming blurs.

Significant themes

• Will versus corruption: Marquis’s hatred enables him to endure a transformation that has destroyed other Native Residents.
• Power and the price of survival: Gao Ming’s blood offers strength, but subjects the recipient to terrible pain and change.
• Loyalty and control: Marquis’s allegiance is shaped by both gratitude and the blood’s influence.
• Eroding identity and perception: Gao Ming’s struggle with Li Sansi raises the threat that his body, vision, and sense of reality may be taken over.
• Escalating conflict: The attacks on the Night Watch suggest that the city’s power structure is destabilizing and that further violence is imminent.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming judges that he cannot defeat the dark shrine’s master in a direct fight. He stays involved to occupy the enemy while the other Dream Ghosts pursue their own chances to succeed.
• Believing that overthrowing the city’s leaders through assassination would only deepen its darkness, Gao Ming leaves the Pharmaceutical Factory to pursue a broader strategy.
• He meets the Mercy Councilor and proposes using the crisis to build the Mercy Society’s public support and armed strength. In return, he offers to serve as her enforcer and help her become the city’s first mayor.
• The Councilor accepts the gamble. Footage of her aiding disaster victims spreads through the city’s media, presenting her as a savior.
• Gao Ming learns of Kindling, an independent youth movement in the Seventh District that advocates fairness, freedom, and personal agency. Its popularity grows despite efforts to recruit or corrupt it.
• Threatened by Kindling’s genuine idealism, the Mercy Councilor orders Gao Ming to kill its leader within half a month. Gao Ming agrees outwardly but intends to follow his own plans.
• She assigns three subordinates—Ci Tong, Bishop Ci Xiang, and Pastor Ci Nian—to accompany him. Gao Ming recognizes them as potential overseers and privately considers how to get rid of them.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shifts from acting alone against the shrine to building political and social influence through the Mercy Society. He remains pragmatic and deceptive, concealing his intentions from both allies and adversaries.
• The Mercy Councilor reveals that her concern for the city’s people is entangled with ambition and possessiveness: she wants to be the one who brings light, and sees rival idealists as a threat.
• Kindling’s members are introduced as sincere young activists whose principles have won them public support, though they remain vulnerable to stronger factions.
• Ci Tong, Ci Xiang, and Ci Nian are presented as the Councilor’s unusual, capable representatives—and likely monitors on Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• Power disguised as salvation: Both the Mercy Society and Kindling claim to offer hope, but their motives and methods differ.
• Idealism versus political compromise: Kindling’s purity inspires people but frustrates leaders who have learned to operate within the city’s corruption.
• Public opinion as power: Media and aid to disaster victims become tools for building legitimacy and influence.
• Gao Ming’s strategic deception: He cooperates with the Councilor while keeping his real agenda hidden.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming gives Jia Youzhi instructions to protect the Pharmaceutical Factory and retreat to the Forbidden Zone if necessary.
• He bargains with the Mercy Councilor, offering strength and loyalty in exchange for her backing, while withholding his true plans.
• The Councilor demands Kindling’s leader be killed and assigns her three subordinates to Gao Ming, turning apparent assistance into surveillance.
• Gao Ming responds politely to the order but internally prepares to neutralize the three companions.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming secures the Mercy Society’s support for his journey to the Third District. Councilor Ci provides a convoy, medical teams, and media coverage; Ci Tong disguises herself as the councilor and takes her place.
• The convoy passes Cleaning Company checkpoints because of the Mercy Society’s influence. Gao Ming clashes with Bishop Ci Xiang, who credits his survival to faith, while Gao Ming mocks his claims.
• The group reaches the devastated Third District, where fires, corpses, wreckage, and fighting reveal the scale of the catastrophe. The conflict has spread into the Fourth District, and the Municipal Council Hall is publicly blaming the Night Watch while other districts fight them.
• At the Forbidden Zone’s edge, Ci Xiang organizes doctors to treat refugees and uses the media to showcase the Mercy Society’s aid. Gao Ming privately reconnects with Jia Youzhi and learns that the White-Browed Marquis is waiting by the northern riverbank.
• Ci Nian reveals he knows about the Marquis through a strange, monster-like vision. When Gao Ming asks what he looks like through that vision, Ci Nian describes him as “a lump of rotten flesh pieced together.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming uses the Mercy Society’s resources pragmatically, while keeping his own plans—including contact with the Marquis—secret. He is suspicious of Ci Nian and tries to intimidate him, though the child’s perception unsettles him.
• Bishop Ci Xiang emerges as a forceful believer who combines conviction with public-facing charity. He and Gao Ming trade sharp, irreverent remarks, but both recognize that the city’s institutions are failing.
• Councilor Ci supports Gao Ming while remaining safely hidden; Ci Tong risks herself by impersonating her.
• Ci Nian appears sleepy and disengaged, but proves perceptive and unusual, claiming to see the world through the perspective of a Forbidden Zone monster.
• Jia Youzhi acts as Gao Ming’s trusted contact and confirms the Marquis has honored their arrangement.

Significant themes

• Faith versus power: Ci Xiang attributes survival and influence to belief, while Gao Ming sees the practical advantages of institutional power.
• Public image versus reality: The Mercy Society’s media campaign presents compassionate aid amid genuine devastation; meanwhile, official broadcasts distort the Night Watch conflict.
• A city in collapse: The devastation, spreading battles, and competing narratives expose the cruelty and instability of the districts.
• Uncanny perception and identity: Ci Nian’s vision offers a disturbing, possibly literal view of Gao Ming, hinting that his nature is more complicated than it appears.