Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Ci Nian sees Gao Ming’s body as a patchwork of rotten flesh, unsettling Gao Ming and raising questions about whether he is truly the complete Li Sansi.
• Gao Ming meets the White-Browed Marquis, who reveals that the Mountain Lord and Night Watch poisoned wounded Wansheng fighters instead of treating them. Gao Ming tells him to hide while Gao Ming maintains his cover within the Mercy Society.
• The Marquis gives Gao Ming a forbidden bottle marked with an ear. Ci Nian senses that it contains dangerous memories and warns Gao Ming not to open it, but Gao Ming refuses to surrender it.
• The Night Watch continues to hold its ground against several gangs in the Fourth District. Gao Ming concludes that the Night Watch must not fall too soon, since the Municipal Council Hall may target the Mercy Society next.
• Gao Ming reports his gains from Wansheng to Councilor Ci, presenting himself as a loyal servant while arguing that the Mercy Society can grow by helping people amid disaster.
• He proposes deliberately destabilizing pollution sources by detonating Forbidden Zones across other districts, keeping rival gangs occupied and giving the Mercy Society room to expand. Councilor Ci approves the ruthless strategy.

Character developments

• Gao Ming grows more strategically ambitious. He uses his position in the Mercy Society as cover, builds influence through crisis, and is willing to unleash wider disaster to advance his goals. Ci Nian’s vision also deepens the mystery surrounding his identity.
• Ci Nian displays unsettling perception and warns Gao Ming about the bottle, though his serious manner contrasts with his childlike appearance.
• The White-Browed Marquis remains consumed by vengeance against the forces that betrayed Wansheng’s fighters, but accepts Gao Ming’s instruction to lie low.
• Councilor Ci is impressed by Gao Ming’s rapid success and is willing to embrace his dangerous plan.

Significant themes

• Power gained through disaster: Gao Ming sees catastrophe not only as destruction but as an opportunity to recruit, accumulate wealth, and expand influence.
• Loyalty and deception: He publicly pledges himself to the Mercy Society while pursuing a concealed agenda.
• Forbidden knowledge and dangerous power: The bottle may offer resistance to darkness, but its contents are warned to bring calamity.
• Moral corruption: The chapter questions whether a supposed force for good can justify causing suffering to become indispensable.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming clashes with Ci Nian over the boy’s disturbing description of him and later over the forbidden bottle.
• Gao Ming and the White-Browed Marquis share information and establish a cautious alliance, with Gao Ming directing the Marquis to stay hidden.
• Gao Ming reports to Councilor Ci, using apparent loyalty and practical advice to persuade her to support his plan for wider chaos.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming secures the Mercy Councilor’s approval to destroy selected forbidden zones, with the Mercy Society supplying intelligence, personnel, and Pastor Ci Nian’s guidance. If the plan is exposed, the Society will disown him; Gao accepts responsibility and the role of “devil.”
• Gao rejects Bishop Ci Xiang’s objections and sets out with Ci Nian to target the First District’s Terminal Station. They postpone the Thirteenth District’s Municipal Council Hall, whose forbidden zones are too heavily protected.
• The First District’s history is tied to Wansheng, once the city’s dominant gang. Its collapse followed Mountain Lord’s rise and victory over the old boss; rumors say he entered the Terminal Station with the Municipal Council Hall’s help and returned as something changed.
• Gao, Ci Nian, and four armed Mercy Society pastors enter the station with explosives. Ci Nian warns them to follow his steps, avoid the broken escalator, and treat the ticket gates as a dangerous checkpoint.
• Unable to find a real ticket, Ci Nian makes one from scrap paper using an unexplained ability. Gao’s Forbidden Zone Vision activates involuntarily, and the patterns he sees on the paper become Li Sansi’s face.
• The group passes through the gates holding hands. On the other side, the station is completely dark.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is pragmatic and willing to take the blame for a destructive plan he believes may clear the way for a new world. His involuntary vision unsettles him, especially because he fears losing his grip on reality.
• Ci Nian proves calm and capable in the forbidden zone, directing the group and demonstrating mysterious powers. He obeys the Mercy Councilor rather than judging the mission morally.
• The Mercy Councilor supports radical destruction as a means of rebuilding, while making clear the Mercy Society will protect itself if the operation fails.
• Bishop Ci Xiang openly opposes Gao’s plan, but Gao dismisses him and refers him to the Councilor.
• Gao and Ci Nian exchange threats and warnings, yet cooperate closely as leader and guide during the descent.

Significant themes

• Destruction as a path to renewal: Gao and the Councilor frame devastation as necessary to create a better world.
• Public virtue and hidden violence: The Mercy Society’s compassionate image contrasts with its covert support for bombings.
• Power and corruption: Wansheng’s history suggests that overwhelming strength can breed internal collapse, while institutions manipulate gang rivalries.
• Uncertainty and fractured identity: The station’s supernatural influence awakens Gao’s vision and deepens his fear that he may no longer distinguish reality from delusion.

Plot points

• Gao Ming and Ci Nian lead the Mercy Society into the vast, dangerous Terminal Station Forbidden Zone. Ci Nian explains that the Municipal Council Hall has stabilized it by dividing it into five nodes; the group’s mission is to destroy those arrangements simultaneously and awaken the resentment buried beneath the city.
• Ci Nian gives the group white-cloth strips as warning signals: when they turn red and smell strongly of blood, the members should detonate their explosives. He offers no clear plan for getting them out.
• An unfamiliar man appears on the platform, claiming to be An Luan, a martial-arts sparring partner heading home with a birthday cake for his daughter, An Meng. Ci Nian warns everyone not to touch anything he offers. An Luan leaves, and a red signal light appears; something huge begins rushing through the tunnel.
• Elsewhere, Mountain Lord tortures a Night Watch officer for information about other officers with Owl epaulets. The prisoner refuses and identifies Mountain Lord as An Luan, accusing him of being a councilor’s pawn and the murderer of his wife and daughter.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains wary and inquisitive, questioning the plan’s risks and whether trains will come. He senses another Dream Ghost when An Luan mentions his daughter.
• Ci Nian is highly capable inside the Forbidden Zone but visibly frightened and strained. His cold instructions and refusal to promise the group’s safety reveal how dangerous—and possibly expendable—he considers the mission.
• An Luan / Mountain Lord first presents himself as an ordinary, family-minded commuter, then is exposed as the masked torturer. The contrast between his story and the prisoner’s accusations creates uncertainty about his identity and past.
• The Mercy Society members obey Ci Nian and prepare to carry out the coordinated attack, while An Luan’s arrival interrupts their plans and heightens the danger.

Significant themes

• Reality and perception: The subway may appear abandoned to the group while its Forbidden Zone counterpart contains monstrous entities.
• Deception and mistrust: An Luan’s harmless-seeming account conflicts sharply with the accusations made against Mountain Lord.
• Danger and sacrifice: The group is sent into a lethal mission with no reliable escape plan.
• Buried violence and resentment: The planned explosions aim to disturb the resentment beneath the city, linking the Forbidden Zone’s threat to past cruelty.

Plot points and events

• The Mountain Lord kills a Night Watch officer who accuses him of murdering his wife and daughter to gain power. He then kills a longtime subordinate who witnessed the exchange, insisting that he is truly Wansheng’s Mountain Lord.
• Gao Ming and his companions board a frightening, metal-enclosed train that appears empty. When Gao Ming’s forbidden-zone vision briefly activates, he sees the train’s interior transform into a vision of blood-feeding underground creatures. Li Sansi’s reflection appears again, and Gao Ming recognizes that his control over the vision is weakening.
• Ci Nian warns that the train is not an ordinary subway: it represents the city’s miserable life, carrying its passengers ever deeper into darkness. Gao Ming dismisses the warning in front of An Luan, though he continues questioning the stranger.
• An Luan recalls boarding at Tiger’s Mouth Street, and the train stops at Tiger’s Mouth Station. A crowd of disturbing passengers boards.
• A tall man named Zhang Yan recognizes An Luan and humiliates him over his poverty, strange condition, and work. An Luan finally confronts him, but Zhang restrains him and threatens further violence.

Character developments and interactions

• The Mountain Lord responds to accusations with immediate brutality, then kills a witness to protect his position and identity.
• Gao Ming shows increasing sharpness and distrust, while his weakening control of forbidden-zone vision—and Li Sansi’s recurring appearance—suggest growing danger.
• Ci Nian acts as a wary guide, trying to protect Gao Ming from the train and its power to assimilate passengers. Gao Ming shields him from An Luan’s questions by pretending he is a mentally unwell relative.
• An Luan initially tries to make conversation and seems concerned about getting home to his wife and daughter. His vulnerability becomes clearer when Zhang Yan publicly bullies and threatens him.
• Zhang Yan and his companions treat An Luan with contempt, revealing the class hostility and violence he faces.

Significant themes

• Identity and denial: The Mountain Lord rejects the truth about his past, while An Luan seems unsure of his own circumstances.
• Descent and entrapment: The train symbolizes a life that carries people into darkness, with the threat of losing themselves through assimilation.
• Violence and survival: Characters use brutality to protect power or endure hardship.
• Poverty and social exclusion: Zhang Yan’s abuse exposes the prejudice and vulnerability of people from the slums.

Plot points and events

• On the train, Zhang Yan attacks An Luan, accusing him of theft, causing a younger disciple’s disappearance in a Forbidden Zone, and driving their master into the hospital. An Luan insists he acted on the master’s orders, but Zhang beats him while the other martial-hall disciples look on.
• Gao Ming catches An Luan’s daughter’s cake before it falls, then intervenes after the assault. He notices that An Luan is unusually resilient and seems to be restraining a strange power.
• An Luan explains how his master trained him: after finding him badly injured in the slums, the master immersed him in blood and minced flesh, confined and blindfolded him, and fed him living creatures and other disturbing mixtures. An Luan rapidly advanced through the first three martial realms, but the bodily changes were involuntary and frightening.
• The master later took An Luan to the edges of Forbidden Zones and showed him grotesque images to visualize, suggesting his “training” may have served a sinister purpose.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan appears meek and accepts the disciples’ accusations, even while physically capable of resisting. His story reveals fear and confusion beneath his loyalty to the master, who gave him a home but subjected him to horrific treatment.
• Gao Ming shows compassion by protecting the cake and helping An Luan despite warnings to stay out of the dispute. He questions An Luan and listens to his account.
• Zhang Yan is revealed as hostile and contemptuous toward An Luan. Though he once helped him adapt to city life and taught him basic martial arts, he now beats him and treats him as a disgrace.
• Ci Nian tries to keep Gao Ming from getting involved, but Gao Ming ignores the warning.

Significant themes

• Abuse disguised as care: The master’s gifts and martial instruction may have concealed an attempt to transform An Luan into something inhuman.
• Belonging, gratitude, and blame: An Luan feels indebted to his master and accepts others’ condemnation, even as he admits the master was wrong.
• Hidden power and vulnerability: An Luan’s extraordinary strength and resilience coexist with helplessness, fear, and a reluctance to fight.
• Cruelty and compassion: Zhang Yan’s violence contrasts with Gao Ming’s intervention.

Key plot points

• An Luan recounts how his master drove him through punishing training in the Forbidden Zone. He emerged with exceptional martial ability but also began seeing terrifying entities and suffering severe mental distress.
• Though the Martial Arts Hall expected him to become its foremost disciple, An Luan chose to remain in hospital with a doctor who recognized that his illness was psychological. They later married, and he continued working at the hall while eating his master’s daily “Tiger Bone Soup.”
• After their daughter was born, his wife examined one of the soup’s unusually intact bones and compared it with a book. An Luan realized it was a human hyoid bone—not an animal bone—meaning his master had been deceiving him.
• An Luan resolves to return to his wife and child and stop submitting to his master. As he speaks, the subway becomes dangerously unstable, then calms when it reaches Tiger Bone Soup Station.
• Decaying figures board and surround the passengers. Ci Nian sends a priest off the train to detonate a bomb when signaled, warning that the priest will be safe if he avoids Gao Ming.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan moves from gratitude and obedience toward rejecting the abuse and deception that shaped his life. His wife and daughter give him a reason to reclaim his choices.
• The master is presented as both a revered rescuer and a controlling figure: he saved An Luan and helped train him, but forced him into dangerous suffering and apparently fed him human remains.
• An Luan’s wife acts as a source of safety and clear judgment. She recognizes that his real illness is in his mind and helps uncover the truth about the soup.
• Gao Ming listens closely to An Luan’s story and recognizes its significance. Ci Nian angrily warns him against interfering in others’ fates, while directing the passengers’ response to the station’s threat.

Significant themes

• Obligation versus autonomy: An Luan’s gratitude to his master and community has been used to pressure him into choices he never wanted.
• Trauma and recovery: His martial advancement comes alongside psychological damage; safety and care, rather than further discipline, begin his recovery.
• Betrayal and grotesque truth: The revelation that the “tiger” bone is human exposes the horror hidden beneath the master’s supposed care.
• Family and the possibility of change: An Luan’s wife and child help him choose a life beyond the Martial Arts Hall.
• Fate and intervention: The station appears tied to a decisive turning point in An Luan’s life, while Ci Nian insists that meddling with such turning points is dangerous.

Key plot points and events

• An Luan continues recounting his past while he, Gao Ming, and Ci Nian ride the subway. He says his master admitted that An Luan had been fed medicinal meals made from human flesh since childhood. As a boy, An Luan had been thrown into a vat made from the flesh and blood of children who had beaten him.
• His master framed this as the price of pursuing martial-arts greatness, insisting that reaching the top required sacrificing everything.
• The master then sent An Luan on a mission with Wansheng Gang. An Luan discovered that the gang’s supposed enemies had not stolen anything; a Wansheng hall master had killed people and taken their goods, then planned to destroy the rival gang to cover it up.
• The attack became a massacre. Trapped and near death, An Luan’s desperate will to survive triggered a supernatural transformation: grotesque creatures he had visualized emerged from his wounds and attacked through the shadows. By dawn, he was the only survivor inside the rival gang’s headquarters.
• An Luan recovered physically, but the experience damaged his mind and soul. The monsters and the dead remained within him, taking control of his body when he slept.
• Hoping to escape the Martial Arts Hall and live quietly with his wife, An Luan instead became dependent on his master, who claimed that continued training—and reaching the sixth level of martial dao—could free him from the visions. To obtain the resources he needed, An Luan joined Wansheng and pursued a hall-master position.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan reveals the origins of his trauma and supernatural abilities. His account exposes both his vulnerability and the terrible violence beneath his composed exterior; his family remains an emotional anchor.
• Gao Ming presses An Luan for details despite the danger and discomfort, while briefly using forbidden-zone vision to see the dead gang members inhabiting An Luan’s body.
• Ci Nian tries to restrain Gao Ming, seeing his questions as reckless provocation.
• An Luan’s master is revealed as manipulative: he subjected An Luan to human-flesh meals and later used An Luan’s dependence on him to keep him training.
• Li Sansi appears in Gao Ming’s vision among the corpses, and his resemblance to Gao Ming in tone and manner seems to be growing.

Significant themes

• The cost of ambition: An Luan’s pursuit of martial strength is built on exploitation, bodily harm, and the loss of ordinary life.
• Corruption and complicity: Both the Martial Arts Hall and Wansheng are entangled in cruelty and criminal violence; An Luan is drawn into a system he hoped to escape.
• Trauma made physical: The dead and the monsters within An Luan embody how violence continues to inhabit and control him.
• Hope versus dependence: An Luan wants a peaceful life, but his master’s promise of a cure keeps him trapped in the martial world.

Plot points and events

• An Luan explains that he pursued Wansheng’s martial arts training out of fear and desperation, hoping to purge the supernatural forces inside him and protect his wife and daughter.
• He rose to become Wansheng’s most powerful disciple, reaching the fifth martial realm after consuming vast quantities of medicine and other “supplements.” But each imagined monster became a real heart inside him, strengthening its hold over his mind and body.
• His master and Wansheng pushed him toward an even more extreme breakthrough, subjecting him to pain, emotional torment, forbidden substances, and encounters with the Forbidden Zones. An Luan came to suspect his master did not understand martial arts—or might not even be human.
• After learning his family could be in danger, An Luan rushed home and found his master speaking with his wife. Her tears and changed expression left him frightened and uncertain about what had happened.
• Unable to advance further, An Luan resigned, spent his resources hiring cleaners to seal his powers, and tried to escape Wansheng. Though a council member helped frustrate Wansheng’s plans, An Luan remained consumed by fear for his family and the need to get home.
• As An Luan’s memories intensify, the train and its passengers become part of his monstrous body. He cries out to go home, and the train reaches Municipal Council Hall Station.
• Two figures wait on the platform: a tall, thin woman and a little girl with an umbrella and schoolbag. Ci Nian tries to leave with someone, but Gao Ming grabs him and insists he stay as his “eyes.”

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan is revealed as a once-celebrated martial artist whose ambition and loyalty to Wansheng turned into entrapment. His apparent power masks a growing loss of control and an obsessive fear for his family.
• His master and Wansheng emerge as manipulative forces that exploited An Luan and threatened the people he loved.
• The council member acts as a covert ally, warning An Luan and obstructing Wansheng’s schemes.
• Gao Ming continues pressing An Luan to remember despite the danger, while Ci Nian warns him that the memories may unleash something horrific. Ci Nian ultimately tries to flee, but Gao Ming prevents him.

Significant themes

• Ambition and exploitation: An Luan’s drive to advance makes him vulnerable to those who promise power.
• Power as corruption and loss of control: His cultivation turns imagined monsters into physical forces within him.
• Family, fear, and protection: An Luan’s attachment to his wife and daughter becomes both his emotional anchor and a means others can use against him.
• Memory and danger: Recovering the past transforms the train and raises the threat to everyone aboard.

Plot points

• An Luan’s wife and daughter board the subway. His daughter eagerly calls to him, but his wife stops her from approaching.
• The wife confronts An Luan: she says he has ignored her warnings about Wansheng and stayed fixated on completing the Martial Path, despite the danger to his family. She also accuses him of treating them as an “anchor” to keep himself sane, not as people he truly prioritized.
• Zhang Yan and fellow Martial Arts Hall disciples expose several disguised Municipal Council Hall employees who had been spying on An Luan. Zhang claims the Council planted An Luan’s wife in his life to exploit his vulnerabilities.
• Zhang defends An Luan’s master, saying his threats against the wife were meant to keep her from harming An Luan or their daughter, and argues that Wansheng and the master invested in An Luan as a weapon.
• Ci Nian warns Gao Ming that the forbidden zone turns what they learn into a dangerous, twisted power and urges him to leave. Gao Ming stays absorbed in the revelations.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan briefly softens when he sees his daughter, then becomes defensive and angry when his wife challenges his priorities. He insists that reaching the fifth stage and communing with God will let him protect his family.
• His wife reveals deep disappointment and grief. Though Zhang says she was a planted operative, she insists she saved An Luan and accuses the Martial Arts Hall and Wansheng of exploiting him.
• Zhang Yan intervenes physically against the Council’s agents and verbally challenges both the wife’s account and An Luan’s understanding of his life.
• Gao Ming pieces together the competing factions’ motives but is too captivated to heed Ci Nian’s warning.
• Ci Nian tries to shield himself from the revelations and urges Gao Ming to escape the carriage.

Significant themes

• Love versus ambition: An Luan believes his martial advancement will protect his family, while his wife sees it as the ambition that has displaced them.
• Manipulation and exploitation: Both Wansheng and the Municipal Council Hall have shaped An Luan’s life for their own ends; even his marriage is presented as politically engineered.
• Truth as danger: In the forbidden zone, learning more is itself hazardous, as knowledge can become a source of power.
• Innocence amid factional conflict: Gao Ming concludes that An Luan’s daughter is the only person around him whose love is free of ulterior motives.

Plot points

• Zhang Yan and An Luan’s wife press An Luan to choose between staying with Wansheng and returning to his family. Their argument agitates him, causing the subway to distort and leak “filth blood”—the accumulated pain and corruption of the dead.
• The blood harms Gao Ming and threatens to overwhelm the carriage. Ci Nian explains that the passengers and much of the scene are products of An Luan’s memories and suffering.
• An Luan’s daughter remains untouched by the surrounding malice. Gao Ming sees that the other passengers are connected to An Luan and appear intent on corrupting her, so he protects her.
• Gao Ming tries to make An Luan face the present: An Luan is dead, but his daughter is still alive, and he should not trap her in his painful memories.
• An Luan tells Zhang Yan he cannot endure the malformed hearts inside him and no longer wants to follow the martial path. He wants to spend his remaining time with his family as an ordinary person.
• Zhang Yan rejects his decision and attacks him. An Luan refuses to retaliate until Zhang Yan’s third punch is stopped by an unseen force. An Luan’s body reveals the monstrous hearts and dead fingers within him.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan expresses his desire to abandon Wansheng and the martial path, revealing how unbearable his physical and emotional torment has become. His choice remains unresolved.
• Gao Ming endures the filth blood and acts protectively toward An Luan’s daughter. He attempts to intervene as a counselor, but An Luan does not respond to him.
• Zhang Yan remains fiercely loyal to Wansheng and sees An Luan’s withdrawal as betrayal, resorting to violence when persuasion fails.
• An Luan’s wife urges him to come home for their daughter, while Zhang Yan counters that she may be serving the Municipal Council Hall. Their competing claims leave An Luan caught between family and duty.
• Ci Nian panics at the danger and resents Gao Ming’s decision to provoke An Luan. The daughter’s kindness toward Gao Ming stands in sharp contrast to the hostility around her.

Significant themes

• Duty versus family: An Luan is pressured to choose between service to Wansheng and a life with his family.
• Trauma and memory: The forbidden zone turns An Luan’s suffering into a world that traps and harms everyone within it.
• The cost of sacrifice: An Luan’s body and mind have been deformed by the role Wansheng expects him to fulfill.
• Protecting innocence: His daughter’s freedom from malice offers a fragile contrast to the corruption consuming the carriage.

Key plot points and events

• An Luan’s power overwhelms the train, and Ci Nian realizes he has triggered the Forbidden Zone’s highest difficulty. He warns that An Luan will kill the passengers next.
• Zhang Yan tries to bring An Luan back to Wansheng, arguing that his departure will endanger their master and the Martial Arts Hall. When An Luan rejects Wansheng’s tyranny, Zhang Yan enters the Third Martial Realm and attacks.
• An Luan kills Zhang Yan with a devastating punch, though he appears to hold back at the last moment. The train slows after Zhang Yan dies and announces that it has reached the Terminus.
• The doors open on the right rather than the left. Ci Nian sees that there is no platform beyond them—only a vast, consuming darkness—and warns everyone not to leave.
• An Luan, exhausted after killing his senior brother, asks his wife where they are going. She answers, “Home,” and leads him and their daughter toward the exit.
• Gao Ming grabs the girl, then uses forbidden zone vision. He sees a network of blood- and bone-strewn tracks representing people’s lives and unresolved obsessions, all converging into the darkness.
• Ci Nian explains that the passengers are aboard a train formed from An Luan’s life: if An Luan leaves, they may be dragged into the darkness too. He also realizes that multiple Forbidden Zones have fused.
• Gao Ming releases the girl despite Ci Nian’s protests. He has noticed birthday cakes in the darkness, suggesting that the Dream Ghost Weird Wish is using her abilities to enter people’s memories and steal something.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan openly rejects Wansheng and its oppressive rule, but his choice costs him the life of Zhang Yan, the senior brother who protected him since childhood. His grief and exhaustion are visible, though he still follows his wife toward “home.”
• Zhang Yan remains loyal to Wansheng and refuses to yield, even as An Luan’s corruption and power grow. Their final confrontation turns a lifelong bond into a fatal break.
• Ci Nian shifts from panic to desperate warning, recognizing that the Terminus is a trap. He cannot make the others heed him, especially Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming acts on what he sees through forbidden zone vision, prioritizing the strange clues in the darkness over Ci Nian’s immediate plan to keep everyone aboard.
• An Luan’s wife stays beside him and leads him and their daughter toward the exit, but her words and demeanor suggest little genuine affection.

Significant themes

• Rebellion and its cost: An Luan’s resistance to Wansheng’s tyranny is morally forceful, but it ends in the death of someone close to him.
• Obsession and entrapment: The life-train tracks embody unresolved pain and attachments that bind people to the darkness.
• The past as an inescapable journey: The passengers are caught inside An Luan’s life, where events seem already fixed and leaving may only deepen their peril.
• Manipulation and hidden motives: The cakes hint that Weird Wish may be exploiting memories and obsessions for an unknown purpose.

Key plot points and events

• Ci Nian tries to escape the mutating Life Train using refugees’ tears and two strange white pills, which briefly help him fade toward reality. An Luan’s growing mass of dead limbs catches him, ruining his escape and forcing him to fight back.
• Ci Nian berates An Luan for turning against the master who rescued and sustained him, invoking An Luan’s debts and hardship. An Luan listens but remains unmoved, then chooses to leave the train with his wife and daughter.
• The train’s passengers and objects rush toward An Luan as he exits, suggesting that each carriage represents a chapter of his life and that the whole train forms part of him. Ci Nian, Gao Ming, and the pastor escape onto the platform as well.
• At the terminus—the convergence point of the dark city’s subway lines—Ci Nian reveals that the city aboveground feeds the darkness with accumulated malice, pain, and suffering. The Municipal Council Hall oversees this process, though it is divided into factions. Ci Nian urges the others to avoid the twisted tracks and wait for a Life Train they can escape on.
• An Luan’s train transforms into a gigantic blood-red worm covered in the faces of people he killed or swallowed, linking his martial power to the lives he consumed.

Character developments and interactions

• Ci Nian is revealed to be resourceful and determined to survive, but his fear and anger make him volatile. He tries to control both An Luan and Gao Ming, while his escape fails despite his preparations.
• An Luan rejects Ci Nian’s appeals to debt and loyalty. His decision to leave with his wife and daughter suggests that his family matters more to him than obedience to his master.
• Gao Ming remains curious and observant, asking about the city’s hidden purpose even when Ci Nian insists on focusing on survival. His curiosity frustrates Ci Nian, who distrusts him.
• An Luan’s wife and daughter accompany him out of the train; the daughter innocently asks whether the terminus is their new home.

Significant themes

• Freedom versus obligation: An Luan must choose between repaying the master who gave him a new life and acting according to his own priorities.
• The cost of survival and power: An Luan’s martial strength is tied to people he killed or consumed, making his power inseparable from violence.
• A city sustained by suffering: The revelation that human anguish feeds the darkness exposes a system of exploitation overseen by a fractured authority.
• Past and identity: The train’s carriages embody An Luan’s life, and their convergence into a single monstrous form suggests that a person’s history cannot simply be left behind.

Key plot points

• An Luan and his “Blood-Red Train” are pulled into a mass of living tracks deep inside the First Forbidden Zone. The tracks embody the lives he ruined, while the hatred attached to his crimes feeds the creatures in the darkness.
• As An Luan begins to merge with the darkness, memories return: the Municipal Council Hall engineered his breakthrough to the Sixth Level by arranging for him to kill his beloved daughter, believing the trauma would make him stronger. They planned to let the Forbidden Zone’s will take over once he completed the breakthrough.
• His daughter’s ghost confronts him with the truth. An Luan resists the tracks binding him, but his wife urges him to stop hurting others. In the ensuing struggle, she smashes the cake he has been protecting, and the daughter’s apparition breaks apart with it.
• Before disappearing, the girl voices her wish that her father will come to his senses. The wish becomes supernatural patterns that cling to An Luan. He kills his wife, whose body turns into malicious black threads that clash with the wish-patterns. The forces spread through the tracks, enlarging the living mass.
• Elsewhere, Gao Ming and Ci Nian infer that the An Luan inside the Forbidden Zone is the real man, while the figure using his body in the outside world may be a city-sustained divine spirit. With that spirit gone, they believe they may only have to face a maddened An Luan.

Character developments and interactions

• An Luan shifts from resignation to furious resistance as his memories return. His love for his daughter remains, but grief and rage overwhelm him, leading him to kill his wife and further entangle himself in supernatural forces.
• The daughter moves from a seemingly innocent presence to a witness who reveals the truth of her death. Her final wish becomes a force that may affect An Luan.
• The wife tries to restrain An Luan and stop further harm, but her actions intensify the confrontation. Her death releases the malicious threads.
• Ci Nian shares the rumors about An Luan’s past, helping Gao Ming interpret what they have witnessed.

Significant themes

• Guilt and karmic consequence: An Luan’s accumulated violence returns as the living tracks and the hatred consuming him.
• Manipulation and betrayal: The Municipal Council Hall exploited his love and grief for its own aims.
• Love entangled with violence: An Luan’s devotion to his daughter cannot prevent the harm he inflicts.
• Wishes and malice: The daughter’s hopeful wish and the wife’s vengeful threads become opposing supernatural forces.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Ci Nian assess the swelling mass of living flesh at the Forbidden Zone’s core, which appears to be formed from the city’s ruined lives.
• Ci Nian explains that a “god” once associated with the First Forbidden Zone has departed. The remaining monster acts by instinct, consuming despairing lives and generating deeper darkness.
• Ci Nian proposes using the Forbidden Bottle Gao Ming received from the White-Browed Marquis. Its soothing sounds may poison the monster’s darkness, weakening the Forbidden Zone and giving them a chance to escape.
• Gao Ming insists Ci Nian accompany him, partly to keep him safe and partly because he needs Ci Nian’s ability to navigate the darkness. He threatens him with the Black Gun; Ci Nian reluctantly agrees.
• They cross a disorienting maze of abandoned trains, each representing a failed life its owner had surrendered. As they near the core, the trains become saturated with blood and signs of the monster’s influence.
• At the center, they find a gigantic dark embryo. An Luan is partly fused with it, while wish patterns and darkness rules battle over him. The wish patterns retreat with part of his consciousness when they begin losing.
• Gao Ming realizes that Weird Wish may be inhabiting An Luan and repeatedly using him to approach the embryo, then escaping with part of his will when the attempt fails.
• As Ci Nian calls for Li Sansi to open the Forbidden Object, Gao Ming activates the Blood City Tattoo and rushes toward the embryo.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows increasing decisiveness and tactical suspicion. He recognizes the danger of Weird Wish’s connection to An Luan and stops concealing his abilities when action becomes necessary.
• Ci Nian reveals how much he knows about the Forbidden Zone and the city’s institutions, including the Mercy Society’s arrangement with the Municipal Council Hall. Though resourceful and fearless as a guide, he is still frightened when Gao Ming threatens him.
• Gao Ming and Ci Nian trade barbed remarks, then fall into a tense partnership: Gao uses intimidation to secure Ci Nian’s help, while Ci Nian guides them through the maze.
• An Luan remains a contested vessel: the darkness rules and Weird Wish’s patterns struggle over his body and consciousness.

Significant themes

• Despair and exploitation: The abandoned trains embody lives their owners have given up, which the monster absorbs.
• Hope as both rescue and possession: Weird Wish offers comfort to the desperate, but its connection to An Luan suggests that hope may also exploit him.
• Institutional corruption: Ci Nian describes the Mercy Society as serving the Municipal Council Hall’s interests rather than simply saving people.
• Survival through uneasy cooperation: Gao Ming and Ci Nian rely on each other despite distrust, coercion, and differing priorities.

Plot and key events

• Gao Ming attacks the Darkness Embryo with the Black Gun, exposing its core: a mass of black fog resembling the darkness surrounding Hanhai.
• He forces the Forbidden Bottle into the wound. The treasured sounds stored inside—moments of love, recovery, reunion, and ordinary happiness—fill the embryo and weaken its darkness.
• As the embryo reacts, Weird Wish and An Luan seize the opening. Weird Wish’s patterns begin consuming the First Forbidden Zone.
• Gao Ming leaps into the embryo to confront the “living thing” within. Under forbidden zone vision, it appears as a baby with Li Sansi’s face and tries to provoke Gao Ming into killing it. Gao Ming ignores its taunts and restrains it.
• When the fog clears, the being is revealed as a living, frail girl, resembling An Luan’s daughter. Weird Wish starts to make her the heart of the Forbidden Zone.
• An Luan resists, unwilling to let his daughter become the bearer of the darkness or a vessel for a “divine spirit.” His conflict with Weird Wish threatens their takeover.
• Gao Ming proposes another heart and brings Ci Nian into the embryo, intending to use the unusually gifted boy in place of An Luan’s daughter. He promises to show Ci Nian the real world once the danger has passed.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows both resolve and compassion: he fights the darkness with memories of life’s beauty, refuses to be manipulated by the creature’s taunts, and tries to spare An Luan’s daughter—even while making a risky choice on Ci Nian’s behalf.
• Weird Wish and An Luan move from cooperation to conflict. Weird Wish sees their agreement as fulfilled and wants to claim the Forbidden Zone; An Luan’s priorities remain protective of his daughter.
• Ci Nian is startled when Gao Ming pulls him into the embryo. Though he has repeatedly tried to escape, Gao Ming values him and believes his abilities make him a better candidate.
• The creature exploits Gao Ming’s connection to Li Sansi by taking his face, but its attempt to shame and provoke him fails.

Significant themes

• Light and darkness: Gao Ming rejects creating light by denying that light exists; the sounds in the bottle offer the embryo a reminder of what makes life beautiful.
• Memory, hope, and ordinary happiness: Everyday moments and loved ones’ words become a force capable of weakening profound evil.
• Sacrifice and exploitation: The struggle over who will serve as the Forbidden Zone’s heart raises the question of whether a person can be saved or is merely being used.
• Choice and moral identity: Gao Ming refuses to let the creature define him as a monster, while his decision to involve Ci Nian remains ethically fraught.

Key plot points and events

• Ci Nian realizes Gao Ming is connected to one of the marked outsiders hunted by the city. Gao Ming restrains him in the embryo at the First Forbidden Zone’s center, where the wish markings take over the city’s accumulated hatred and resentment from the dark rules.
• An Luan regains control of himself as the markings leave his body. Gao Ming explains that both of them were exploited by the forbidden zones and their “god,” and proposes that they reclaim what was taken from them.
• Gao Ming reveals his plan to destroy the forbidden zones. An Luan objects that the resulting chaos could kill and contaminate countless innocent people, but ultimately agrees to help keep Mountain Lord occupied.
• Gao Ming takes An Luan’s daughter with him, hoping to find Forbidden Bottles to treat her. He and An Luan agree to conceal their cooperation. With An Luan and Weird Wish’s help, Gao Ming recovers the explosives without detonating them and leaves the First Forbidden Zone.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shows strategic ruthlessness and a willingness to provoke catastrophe, but also compassion toward An Luan’s daughter. He sees himself as someone fighting a system that has robbed people of their lives.
• An Luan shifts from despairing resignation toward cautious cooperation. His concern for innocent people—and his daughter—remains strong, despite his monstrous body and belief that his fate was inevitable.
• Ci Nian is exposed as a captive and potential source of information after recognizing Gao Ming’s dangerous secret.
• Weird Wish gains influence over the First Forbidden Zone by intercepting the power flowing into its central embryo.

Significant themes

• Shared victimhood and resistance: Gao Ming frames himself and An Luan as fellow sufferers of forces that exploited them.
• Revenge versus collateral damage: Gao Ming argues that destroying the rotten system is necessary, while An Luan warns that innocents will pay the price.
• Humanity, guilt, and identity: An Luan sees himself as an irredeemable monster; Gao Ming insists he still deserves dignity, hope, and a life of his own.
• Power and exploitation: People, children, and even accumulated suffering are treated as resources by the city’s ruling forces and forbidden zones.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming subdues Ci Nian and dismisses his protests.
• He confronts An Luan bluntly, challenging his fatalism and condemning the martial teachings that shaped him, then appeals to his love for his daughter.
• An Luan challenges Gao Ming’s destructive plan but agrees to cooperate when Gao Ming offers to protect his child.
• Gao Ming and Weird Wish maintain limited contact while working together to take control of the First Forbidden Zone.

Plot points and events

• While Gao Ming and Ci Nian have been missing for three days, the Mercy Society turns the refugee camp into a propaganda film set. Wu Wei discovers that several forbidden zones across the city have violently gone out of control.
• A photograph from the Thirteenth District appears to show Li Sansi—Gao Ming’s assumed identity—among the patients attacking a forbidden zone. The Municipal Council Hall is also hunting outsiders, prompting Wu Wei to wonder whether Li is one of them.
• Gao Ming calls Jia Youzhi and asks him to bring clean clothes and medicine to a northern riverbank. Jia learns that the largest forbidden zone in the Thirteenth District, Dark Mountain, has just gone out of control.
• Jia retrieves Gao Ming and a frightened young girl, whom Gao calls his goddaughter. Gao looks markedly changed: exhausted, eerie, and apparently inhuman. Back at camp, he has the girl’s injuries treated and asks about the ongoing battle in the Fourth District.
• Bishop Ci Xiang confronts Gao, demanding to know what he and Ci Nian did. Gao says Ci Nian is trapped in a forbidden zone but alive. The bishop confirms he can track Ci Nian through the Mercy Society’s Mercy Bottle.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming returns transformed and unsettling, yet remains composed and protective of the girl. He suggests the chaos in multiple forbidden zones is helping the Night Watch survive.
• Wu Wei takes the possible consequences of Gao’s actions seriously, while Ding Xiang and Jia Youzhi react with dread and denial. Jia’s nervous loyalty is evident when he obeys Gao’s request despite fearing the fallout.
• Bishop Ci Xiang is stern and suspicious but restrains himself because he knows Ci Nian is alive. His confrontation with Gao leaves their conflict unresolved.
• Gao’s relationship with the girl is presented as protective, while his bond with Ci Nian remains central to the bishop’s demands.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and suspicion: The city’s disasters, outsider hunt, and photograph blur the line between coincidence and deliberate sabotage.
• The cost of loyalty: Gao’s associates face danger and possible guilt by association because of his actions.
• Transformation and hidden identity: Gao’s changed appearance intensifies doubts about who—or what—he has become.
• Chaos as opportunity: The spreading crises weaken the forces fighting the Night Watch, giving the resistance more time to hold out.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming confronts Bishop Ci Xiang, who warns that tampering with the Thirteenth District’s Black Mountain Forbidden Zone could unleash catastrophe and claims the Municipal Council Hall is retaliating against the Mercy Society. Gao Ming denies responsibility and resists the bishop’s attempt to restrain him, briefly threatening him with the Black Gun.
• Gao Ming learns that senior Mercy Society members possess “mercy vessels” that shatter when they die, making an easy assassination impossible. He has Jia Youzhi preserve footage showing that the woman at the Refugee Camp is not the real Mercy Councilor, then sends him to contact the White-Browed Marquis.
• Over the next two days, the Mercy Society gains public favor by treating victims of escaping pollution sources, while negative reports about the Society and its leader flood the city. The Councilor uses her double, Ci Tong, for public rescue work and gives speeches herself, but privately presses Gao Ming about his actions in the Thirteenth District.
• After Black Crow reports that the Night Watch has nearly been destroyed and the district war is ending, Gao Ming puts his next move in motion. He sends five modified Dogmen ahead with weapons, brings Li Sansi’s resurrected mother under a black robe, and travels to meet the Councilor.
• Gao Ming arrives at the Mercy Society chapel, where Bishop Ci Xiang reveals that the Councilor has remained there, protected by a large crowd of devoted believers.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays composed and defiant, concealing his intentions while advancing a plan against the Mercy Society. He treats the bishop’s warnings as a threat rather than a reason to back down.
• Bishop Ci Xiang shifts from trying to intimidate Gao Ming to warning him that he is endangering the Society and himself. Despite his forceful manner and violent past, he claims he is trying to save Gao Ming.
• Jia Youzhi proves useful and obedient, gathering evidence without questioning Gao Ming’s orders.
• The Mercy Councilor maintains a benevolent public image while privately confronting Gao Ming and demanding an explanation.
• Gao Ming’s subordinates remain loyal to him, while his preparations suggest a major confrontation is approaching.

Significant themes

• Public image and manipulation: The Mercy Society uses rescue efforts, speeches, and a double to shape public opinion, while the Council Hall counters with hostile reporting.
• Power and hidden agendas: Gao Ming and the Councilor both conceal their real intentions behind public statements and appearances.
• Betrayal and political opportunism: The Society’s rapid expansion amid district conflict has strained agreements and made it a target.
• Escalating danger: The Night Watch’s collapse and the spreading Forbidden Zone crises create an opening for Gao Ming, but also raise the stakes for the city.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming is brought through the Mercy Society’s chapel and into a guarded underground chamber beneath it.
• Inside, he finds the Mercy Councilor brutally beating two bound young men to death. Once she notices him, she shifts from violent fury to a warm, maternal manner.
• The Councilor accuses Gao Ming of provoking the Thirteenth District. He argues that the district would target her regardless and calls out her violence as a way of taking out her anger on innocents.
• She reveals that she has investigated Li Sansi’s records and knows Gao Ming is an outsider. Gao Ming admits he made little effort to conceal it, insisting that their shared enemy—the Municipal Council Hall—matters more than his identity.
• The Councilor rejects the idea that they were partners. She orders her armed, earless attendants to surround Gao Ming and announces her plan: carve patterns found in the Forbidden Zone into his skin, disguise him as the outsiders’ leader, and send him to the Municipal Council Hall as a diversion.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains composed under threat. He confronts the Councilor’s cruelty directly and tries to frame their relationship in terms of shared interests.
• The Mercy Councilor is exposed as deeply violent and volatile, suppressing her destructive urges in public but indulging them in private. Her sudden return to gentleness is unsettling rather than reassuring. She is also calculating: she sees Gao Ming as a tool, not an ally.
• Bishop Ci Xiang tries to reach the Councilor but is barred from entering, showing that his influence over her is limited.
• The earless attendants are revealed as obedient enforcers who follow the Councilor’s orders rather than responding to speech.

Significant themes

• Public piety versus private brutality: The chapel’s sacred beauty and the Councilor’s violence sharply contrast.
• Power and exploitation: The Councilor treats Gao Ming as expendable, intending to use his body and identity for political gain.
• Trust and manipulation: Gao Ming believes their common enemy might unite them, but the Councilor makes clear that their relationship has been transactional.
• Monstrosity beneath respectability: The chapter suggests that respectable institutions and figures can conceal extreme cruelty.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and the Councilor’s exchange turns from accusation to confrontation: he challenges her motives, while she asserts control and reveals she knows his secret.
• Ci Xiang’s attempt to intervene is blocked by the attendants, who escort Gao Ming alone to the Councilor.
• The Councilor’s final order transforms the encounter into an immediate threat: Gao Ming is to be mutilated and sent to the Municipal Council Hall as a decoy.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming realizes the Mercy Councilor plans to use him as a scapegoat: she will disguise him as the outsiders’ leader, then deliver him to the Municipal Council Hall. She claims she will honor him afterward, but admits the Mercy Society was built through repeated sacrifices.
• Gao Ming recognizes that the Society’s supposed “light” is a cruel performance. The Councilor’s victims—including the figures displayed in the passageway—were likely used as offerings and bargaining chips.
• Taken through a passage behind the Blood Pool, Gao Ming is brought to a human specimen room. The Flat-Head Doctor is ordered to mark him with patterns from the Forbidden Zone, but discovers Gao Ming is already covered in mysterious markings.
• As his blood completes the Blood City Ghost Markings, Gao Ming reveals that he really is the outsiders’ leader. An explosion rocks the chapel: the White-Browed Marquis has launched the attack Gao Ming planned.
• Gao Ming unleashes the Blood City markings and Li Sansi’s malice, manifesting a towering, monstrous spirit. He tears the doctor from the wall, destroys the room’s power, and begins hunting through the darkness toward the Mercy Councilor.

Character developments

• Gao Ming shifts from apparently compliant captive to the architect of a counterattack. He knowingly accepts the danger of using Li Sansi’s power, prioritizing his plan to kill the Councilor and take control of the Mercy Society.
• The Mercy Councilor is exposed as calculating and vicious beneath her benevolent public image. She treats sacrifice as a tool for advancing her organization and intends to discard Gao Ming once he is useful.
• Li Sansi’s influence grows stronger as Gao Ming draws on his malice. Their increasingly deep connection raises the possibility that Gao Ming may become something as powerful and dangerous as a Mountain Lord.
• The Flat-Head Doctor is revealed as a cruel accomplice who treats mutilated women and preserved bodies as objects; Gao Ming kills him during his escape.

Significant themes

• False salvation and hypocrisy: The Mercy Society’s promise of light conceals exploitation, violence, and self-interest.
• Sacrifice and power: The Councilor builds authority by consuming others, while Gao Ming turns the same system of markings, blood, and malice against her.
• The cost of power and identity: Gao Ming’s strength comes at the risk of merging with Li Sansi and losing control of what he becomes.
• Reversal of predator and prey: The Councilor’s intended victim has planned ahead and becomes the hunter.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming openly challenges the Mercy Councilor’s claims, exposing the gap between her sacred rhetoric and her brutality.
• The Councilor orders her armed followers to capture him and speaks with contempt once she believes he is helpless.
• The Flat-Head Doctor mistakes Gao Ming’s markings for an unfamiliar gang tattoo, then realizes they may indicate that Gao Ming is the outsiders’ leader.
• Gao Ming’s planned explosion by the White-Browed Marquis coincides with his transformation, enabling him to break free and pursue the Councilor.