Chapter Summaries

Plot points

• During a citywide crisis, Gao Ming breaks into the Mercy Councilor’s underground chambers, where she is bathing among sacred statues.
• He attacks her, revealing the chamber to be a grotesque palace built from the bodies of believers and other victims. The Councilor uses her blood and the altered flesh in the walls to fight back, but Gao Ming overwhelms her.
• Bishop Ci Xiang arrives and asks Gao Ming to spare her, arguing that the Mercy Society needs stability and warning that her death would let the other Bishops seize its warehouse treasures.
• Gao Ming agrees to keep the Councilor alive, disables her with blood laced with malice, and demands Ci Xiang’s full cooperation. He plans for someone else to become Bishop and lead the Society.
• Afterward, Gao Ming cannot immediately turn off forbidden zone vision. His murderous impulses intensify, and he nearly stabs out his eyes before the vision finally switches off.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming acts decisively and condemns the Councilor’s atrocities, but his growing power and malice threaten to overwhelm his self-control. He clashes with the Councilor and negotiates with Ci Xiang.
• The Mercy Councilor shifts from confidence in her defenses to desperate fear. She offers Gao Ming the Society and its believers, but he refuses to trust or spare her freely.
• Bishop Ci Xiang is torn between moral horror and concern for the Society’s stability. His plea and offer of the warehouse keys persuade Gao Ming to postpone the Councilor’s execution.
• Li Sansi’s face appears in Gao Ming’s reflection, suggesting a disturbing connection to the malice affecting him.

Themes

• Power beneath respectability: The Second District’s order and refinement rest on force, while the Mercy Society’s apparent sanctity hides exploitation and murder.
• Faith corrupted by authority: The Councilor has turned believers into literal building material and treated human lives as expendable.
• Justice versus political necessity: Gao Ming seeks accountability, while Ci Xiang argues that sparing the Councilor may prevent wider disorder.
• Power and loss of control: Gao Ming’s strength grows alongside the risk that malice will consume his judgment.

Plot points

• Bishop Ci Xiang explains that the Mercy Society’s three bishops could tear the organization apart without the Mercy Councilor’s mediation. The Society has over 200,000 nominal members but only about 10,000 committed believers, and it is vastly weaker than the Municipal Council Hall.
• Gao Ming refuses to kill the Councilor for now, but secretly takes her through the chapel. He finds a cache of drugs, documents, valuables, and a Forbidden Bottle engraved with a tiny hand.
• The Councilor’s records expose grave crimes among powerful figures and institutions across the city, including human sacrifice, experiments on children, gang massacres, corpse trafficking, and unexplained disappearances.
• Gao Ming gives the evidence to the White-Browed Marquis, instructing him to spread it widely and avoid capture. He intends to blame the chapel bombing on the Municipal Council Hall and use the city’s existing unrest to turn resentment against it into open fury.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming moves from managing an immediate crisis to pursuing a broader attack on the city’s ruling powers. His use of the Blood City Ghost Markings is also deepening their fusion with Li Sansi’s malice, threatening his sense of identity.
• Ci Xiang is torn between loyalty to the Mercy Society and fear of Gao Ming’s reckless plan. Though he warns that provoking the Municipal Council Hall could bring devastating retaliation, he follows Gao Ming’s lead.
• The White-Browed Marquis accepts Gao Ming’s evidence and mission, apparently energized by the prospect of exposing the city’s corruption.
• The Mercy Councilor remains a source of critical information and wealth, but her past attempt to offer Gao Ming to the Municipal Council Hall underscores her willingness to sacrifice him to protect her position.

Significant themes

• Corruption and complicity: The documents reveal that the city’s powerful are deeply involved in atrocity, making the darkness a social system as much as a supernatural threat.
• Instability as opportunity: Gao Ming believes catastrophe may weaken institutions enough for suppressed public anger to become revolt.
• Power and identity: Gao Ming’s growing reliance on forbidden power comes at the cost of an increasingly uncertain boundary between himself and Li Sansi.
• Loyalty and survival: Ci Xiang’s attachment to the Mercy Society conflicts with his instinct to protect himself as its future becomes uncertain.

Chapter summary

The narrator asks readers for two days off because their wedding is the next day. They explain that wedding preparations and the arrival of friends from out of town will keep them busy, and they expect to be too hungover to wake up until the day after the wedding.

• Key events: The narrator announces their upcoming marriage and requests a brief break from posting.
• Character development: The narrator reveals a personal milestone and a lighthearted attitude toward the celebrations.
• Themes: Life changes, celebration, and balancing creative work with personal commitments.
• Interactions: The narrator addresses readers warmly as “brothers and sisters,” asking for their understanding and time off.

Plot points

• After the White-Browed Marquis and Wansheng’s forces retreat, Gao Ming urges Bishop Ci Xiang to stop hesitating and side with those willing to risk everything against the city’s corruption.
• Li Sansi’s Mother reveals her power, sending glowing “Light Feathers” across the Second District. They extinguish fires, heal the injured, and calm survivors, who hail her as a godlike savior.
• The crowd realizes their supposed savior is not the missing Mercy Councilor. Gao Ming pressures Ci Xiang to cooperate, using the Councilor’s life as leverage.
• Ci Xiang publicly presents bodies and evidence linking the attack to the Municipal Council Hall, though he cautiously blames only one councilor. He calls Li Sansi’s Mother the Society’s “hope” and declares that the Mercy Society will no longer follow the Hall’s restrictions.
• Elsewhere, the Mountain Lord returns from destroying the Night Watch’s last underground fortress. He learns that forbidden zones across the city are failing, the First District remains safe, and the Mercy Society has turned against the Council Hall. Yin Shou gives him a document concerning the Society.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming embraces open confrontation, trusting Li Sansi’s Mother to inspire people and pushing Ci Xiang to act.
• Li Sansi’s Mother moves from hidden figure to public symbol of hope through her healing miracle.
• Bishop Ci Xiang shifts from cautious resistance to backing the Mother and defying the Council Hall, though his public accusation remains politically guarded.
• The Mountain Lord treats the Society’s rebellion as an opportunity and remains focused on larger power shifts. Yin Shou serves him deferentially and reports the city’s unfolding crisis.

Significant themes

• Hope amid devastation: The Light Feathers transform a night of destruction into a shared experience of rescue.
• Faith and truth: People’s devotion transfers from the absent Mercy Councilor to the person who actually saves them.
• Risk versus compromise: Gao Ming challenges Ci Xiang’s instinct for caution, while Ci Xiang’s eventual choice signals a break with the old order.
• Power and political upheaval: The disaster weakens the Council Hall’s credibility as forbidden zones fail and factions reposition themselves.

Key plot points and events

• The Mountain Lord displays seven severed heads and vows to kill every remaining Night Watch officer. Councilor Yuan Nian arrives to challenge him, but the Mountain Lord refuses to be intimidated.
• At the Mercy Society’s chapel, Gao Ming meets with Bishop Ci Xiang as the society reels from the previous night’s violence. The Municipal Council Hall has sent two negotiating delegations.
• Videos exposing the Mercy Councilor committing brutal crimes spread widely. The Municipal Council Hall’s control of the media leaves the Mercy Society unable to defend itself, and its Holy Mother’s public standing collapses.
• The negotiating delegation is then killed in an explosion, with footage implicating a Mercy Society member. Gao Ming suspects the Council Hall staged the attack to create a pretext for destroying the society.
• Word arrives that the Mountain Lord is approaching after killing the Night Watch in the Fourth District. While Jia Youzhi urges surrender, Gao Ming orders believers evacuated, core members to hold the chapel, and the doors opened for the Mountain Lord.
• Gao Ming asks about a nearby abandoned subway entrance and whether it connects to the First Forbidden Zone, hinting that he plans to ambush the Mountain Lord rather than negotiate.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed amid escalating crises. He rejects surrender, takes charge of the society’s response, and appears to be preparing a calculated confrontation.
• Bishop Ci Xiang is exhausted and increasingly hopeless, but follows Gao Ming’s reasoning as events unfold.
• Jia Youzhi panics and proposes surrendering to the Mountain Lord; Gao Ming shuts down the idea.
• Wu Wei brings the damaging videos and recognizes how devastating their spread is.
• The Mountain Lord is presented as ruthless and confident, openly threatening further slaughter.

Significant themes

• Power and propaganda: The Council Hall appears able to shape public perception and manufacture justification for violence.
• Secrets as leverage: The exposed videos show that mutual blackmail underpins political alliances, but no one’s secrets are fully safe.
• Fear versus resolve: Others see surrender as the only option, while Gao Ming responds to danger with planning and defiance.
• Escalating conflict: Failed negotiations, public scandal, and looming violence leave little room for peaceful resolution.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming reveals his plan to confront the Mountain Lord and says he wants the Mountain Lord’s body. His larger goal is to help An Luan and Weird Wish reclaim their bodies, destroy the “god” in the forbidden zone, and ultimately weaken the dark unspeakable.
• Though Jia Youzhi warns him that he is outmatched, Gao Ming commits to the gamble. Bishop Ci Xiang agrees to hold the Mercy Society’s headquarters, try to persuade the other bishops not to surrender, and provide Gao Ming with Forbidden Bottles from the Society’s hidden caches.
• Three days later, the Mountain Lord is recovering on a rooftop near the Second and Third Districts. Councilor Yuan Nian urges him to attack the Mercy Society, but the Mountain Lord says he is still injured and reluctant to strike fellow locals.
• Yuan Nian brings him a large offering of flesh from the Black Mountain Forbidden Zone. The Mountain Lord agrees to visit the Society at noon and meet its “god.” He then kills two of Yuan Nian’s employees for having shot one of his men; Yuan Nian leaves without intervening.
• Afterward, Yin Shou reports that the Society is cooperating with outsiders and that its “god” seems to have come from a forbidden zone. The Mountain Lord suspects it may be like him and explains his theory that God’s different parts are scattered through the city and its forbidden zones.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shifts from concealing his intentions to openly declaring a high-stakes confrontation. His threat to kill those who betray him underscores his resolve—and his danger to both allies and enemies.
• Jia Youzhi tries to restrain Gao Ming, emphasizing the real risk of death, but Gao Ming refuses to back down.
• Bishop Ci Xiang moves from skepticism to cautious cooperation, agreeing to protect the Society and supply Gao Ming while postponing any decision to submit.
• The Mountain Lord reveals both vulnerability and power: his injuries are not fully healed, yet he remains terrifyingly formidable. His massacre of the employees shows how readily he enforces his authority.
• Yuan Nian attempts to pressure the Mountain Lord but is intimidated into compliance. Their exchange reveals the Municipal Council Hall’s dependence on him and its willingness to pay heavily for his cooperation.
• Yin Shou behaves with fearful obedience while receiving the Mountain Lord’s unsettling explanation of God.

Significant themes

• Gambling with life and power: Gao Ming knowingly risks everything against a stronger foe.
• Loyalty, betrayal, and coercion: The Mercy Society must choose whether to resist or submit, while the Mountain Lord rules through fear.
• Corruption and dependence: The Council Hall’s gift of forbidden flesh illustrates how political authority is entangled with supernatural forces.
• The fragmented nature of God and evil: The Mountain Lord’s theory suggests that divine power is divided into parts that compete to become more evil—making the Society’s apparently benevolent “god” an anomaly.

Plot points and events

• Mountain Lord reveals that the Mercy Society was originally meant to offer hope to vulnerable people only to crush it, but claims it has strayed from that purpose by acting as a genuine force for salvation and creating an anomalous “god.” He intends to “correct” them.
• His convoy enters the Second District, where residents and businesses keep quiet and shut themselves away. The gangs there do not try to stop him.
• Rather than go to the Mercy Society’s Chapel, Mountain Lord heads toward an abandoned subway station. He recognizes the Society is deliberately preparing a battlefield, not fleeing.
• The Chapel is demolished, its pastors killed, and the district’s people are left to watch in fear and grief.
• Mountain Lord leads his force into the subway tunnels. He senses the Society’s “god” throughout the underground network and insists on pursuing it despite Yin Shou’s warnings.
• Explosives detonate beneath the advancing group, collapsing a large stretch of tunnel and killing or injuring many. Mountain Lord survives and continues forward despite his wounds.

Character developments and interactions

• Mountain Lord is calm, ruthless, and increasingly consumed by the prospect of confronting and devouring the Society’s “god.” His attraction to its presence overrides caution.
• Yin Shou remains deferential to Mountain Lord, but his battle experience makes him wary of the subway’s dangers. He questions the plan and suggests safer alternatives, though he ultimately follows orders.
• Mountain Lord’s men contrast with Yin Shou’s rowdier crew: they move quietly and project disciplined menace.
• The Second District’s residents and merchants are powerless spectators, intimidated by Mountain Lord’s violence.

Significant themes

• Hope as a weapon: Mountain Lord describes the Mercy Society’s original mission as raising people’s hopes in order to destroy them.
• Power and intimidation: The convoy’s passage and the Chapel’s destruction show how force silences an entire community.
• Faith under attack: The ruined Chapel and murdered pastors symbolize the brutal assault on the Society’s beliefs.
• Obsession and overconfidence: Mountain Lord’s hunger to reach the anomalous “god” leads him into a prepared trap, while Yin Shou’s caution goes unheeded.

Plot points and events

• As the Mountain Lord’s forces push through the underground tunnels, they fight unusually resilient Dogmen in pastor’s robes. Yin Shou finds their enlarged hearts marked with strange patterns, suggesting forbidden-zone modifications.
• An abandoned subway station suddenly activates. A train appears, and the Mountain Lord vanishes, leaving Yin Shou and the others trapped and unsure what they are facing.
• The Mountain Lord encounters a platform and visions of his former life as An Luan. His old martial brothers urge him to join Wansheng, but he rejects them as illusions and kills the figures.
• Inside a supernatural train, memories of An Luan fill the windows and seem to stir the humanity within the Mountain Lord. He answers with overwhelming malice, destroying the visions.
• He finds himself inside a gigantic flesh-and-blood worm. Believing the First Forbidden Zone has been taken from him, he punches through the creature and emerges into its domain, where its rules now oppose him.
• He sees a middle-aged man with a battered camera and recognizes him as Li Sansi.

Character developments and interactions

• Yin Shou remains a determined field commander, but his confidence falters as he realizes the enemy may be a god controlling forbidden zones—and that even the Mountain Lord may be in danger.
• The Mountain Lord is revealed to have been An Luan, a name he violently rejects. The memories expose a former life shaped by martial ambition and Wansheng, while his present identity is defined by ruthless malice and immense power.
• The apparent Zhang Yan and junior martial brother try to draw An Luan back toward his past and the platform. The Mountain Lord treats them as hostile illusions, killing Zhang Yan and refusing their appeal.
• The Mountain Lord’s final recognition of Li Sansi suggests their encounter will be important to the conflict over the First Forbidden Zone.

Significant themes

• Identity and buried humanity: An Luan’s memories challenge the Mountain Lord’s present self, but he suppresses them rather than reclaiming that past.
• Power and control: The Mountain Lord’s forces are strong, yet forbidden-zone anomalies make conventional weapons and authority unreliable.
• The past as a weapon: Familiar people and memories are used to destabilize the Mountain Lord, turning personal history into a supernatural trap.
• Reversal and betrayal: The First Forbidden Zone, once associated with the Mountain Lord, now seems to have been usurped and has turned against him.

Plot and events

• The Mountain Lord confronts Gao Ming, speaking to him through Li Sansi’s body and accusing him of a history of cruelty and causing misfortune.
• Gao Ming disputes parts of the accusation, but cannot clearly recall some events. He has merged deeply with Li Sansi and believes this is his best chance to defeat the Mountain Lord.
• The Mountain Lord attacks first, overwhelming Gao Ming with immense strength and martial skill. Gao Ming unleashes the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, whose power is amplified by his blood-red malice.
• The Ghost God proves outmatched in direct combat. On Gao Ming’s order, it sacrifices itself to restrain the Mountain Lord.
• Flesh-and-blood worms emerge and bite the Mountain Lord, drawing him into a dreamlike illusion built from An Luan’s memories. The chapter ends with the Mountain Lord caught between his powerful present self and his helpless past.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains composed despite severe pain and an apparently overwhelming opponent. He knowingly risks deeper fusion with the Dark Shrine, using the Ghost God and a hidden tactic rather than relying on strength alone.
• The Mountain Lord displays contemptuous confidence and formidable combat ability, but his connection to An Luan’s memories leaves him vulnerable to reliving his former weakness.
• Li Sansi’s past is presented as disturbing and uncertain: the Mountain Lord describes him as deeply evil, while Gao Ming’s recollections contradict several details.

Themes

• Memory and identity: Gao Ming’s memories are incomplete, and the truth of Li Sansi’s past remains uncertain.
• Power and control: Great strength is not enough when an opponent can manipulate perception and exploit emotional history.
• The cost of power: Gao Ming’s use of the Shrine’s power tightens its hold on him and accelerates their fusion.
• Darkness and moral ambiguity: Gao Ming’s tactics and past raise questions about how much of his apparent evil is real—and whether he can separate himself from it.

Character interactions

• The Mountain Lord interrogates and condemns Gao Ming, while Gao Ming responds with calm, selective corrections.
• Gao Ming directs the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God during the fight, ordering it to hold the Mountain Lord even at the cost of its own safety.
• The battle turns from physical combat to psychological attack when the worms draw the Mountain Lord into An Luan’s memories.

Plot points

• Gao Ming and Li Sansi work together to trap the Mountain Lord in layers of nightmares built from An Luan’s memories. Gao Ming’s plan is to draw him into the First Forbidden Zone’s core, where their allies and the terrain can help defeat him.
• The Weird Wish has seized control of the forbidden zone, using its tunnels as extensions of itself and the citizens’ birthday wishes as a source of power. It joins Gao Ming, the two Dream Ghosts, An Luan, and Li Sansi’s Mother in the assault.
• The nightmares weaken the Mountain Lord and crack his bronze mask, but he recognizes the dreams as illusions. By centering himself in the present and uniting his six faculties through fist intent, he breaks free.
• The Mountain Lord’s six corrupted faculties manifest as a gigantic, wounded black tiger, which tears through the flesh-and-blood worms and attacks the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God’s phantom.
• Though badly injured by his escape, the Mountain Lord regains consciousness, denounces the outsiders, and launches a lethal punch at Gao Ming. The chapter ends with Gao Ming seemingly unable to evade it.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming reveals the full scope of his strategy: he does not intend to face the Mountain Lord alone. However, Li Sansi’s hostile presence within his body remains a danger, and Gao Ming is now directly in the Mountain Lord’s path.
• Li Sansi continues to share Gao Ming’s body and taunts him, insisting they can no longer be separated. His usual talk falls silent when the Mountain Lord attacks.
• The Mountain Lord demonstrates formidable discipline and resolve. Rather than simply overpowering the nightmares, he uses meditation and physical awareness to reclaim his identity and escape, paying a heavy bodily price.
• The Weird Wish has grown into a powerful ally through the forbidden zone and its citizens’ wishes, but it cannot hold the Mountain Lord without the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God’s restraint.

Significant themes

• Illusion versus self-possession: The Mountain Lord escapes by anchoring himself in the present rather than submitting to memories and fear.
• Collective power and strategy: Gao Ming’s plan depends on allies, shared wishes, and favorable terrain rather than individual strength alone.
• The cost of survival: The Mountain Lord breaks free, but his body is badly damaged.
• Identity and entanglement: Gao Ming and Li Sansi’s merged existence raises questions of where one person ends and the other begins.

Plot points

• Gao Ming confronts the Mountain Lord in the dark shrine, where the Mountain Lord’s overwhelming fist intent threatens to defeat him.
• Gao Ming summons An Luan, who blocks the attack. The Mountain Lord recognizes him as the former owner of his body and mocks him for trying to reclaim it.
• An Luan and the Mountain Lord engage in a direct, punishing martial-arts duel. Despite the Mountain Lord being weakened by the forbidden zone’s rules, a nightmare, and wounds inflicted by the Night Watch, he remains terrifyingly strong.
• Fearing that delay will let the shrine and Li Sansi overwhelm the other forces, Gao Ming coordinates a renewed assault. Weird Wish binds the Mountain Lord with chains formed from the One Life Trains; a Birthday Candle wish brings down burning Light Feathers; and Li Sansi’s Mother opens a Forbidden Bottle containing the world’s accumulated kindness.
• When the Bottle’s contents cannot reach the Mountain Lord through his malice, Li Sansi’s Mother carries it directly toward him, risking her life. The Mountain Lord breaks through the restraints and strikes at her, ending the chapter with her in immediate danger.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is increasingly desperate but remains strategic, coordinating several powers and making himself bait to create an opening for An Luan.
• An Luan reveals his connection to the Mountain Lord as the body’s former owner. Though transformed into a grotesque monster, he fights with disciplined martial skill and refuses to rely on ambushes.
• The Mountain Lord is shown to be both immensely powerful and fiercely defiant. He insists that An Luan has ceased to exist and that he alone is the body’s rightful identity.
• Li Sansi’s Mother makes a self-sacrificing choice, attempting to bring the Bottle’s healing, human kindness directly into the Mountain Lord’s malice.
• Li Sansi becomes more active within Gao Ming, urging him to kill the Mountain Lord as their merging deepens.

Significant themes

• Identity and possession: The Mountain Lord and An Luan contest not only a body but the question of whether the original person still exists.
• Sacrifice and compassion: Li Sansi’s Mother’s desperate action embodies love and kindness in opposition to the Mountain Lord’s accumulated malice.
• Resistance to oppression: The failed lives of the city’s citizens bind the Mountain Lord, turning their suffering and refusal to submit into a collective force.
• Strategy versus brute strength: Gao Ming’s layered plan weakens and restrains the Mountain Lord, but his raw power continues to threaten everyone.

Key events

• Gao Ming uses Li Sansi’s deepest attachment—his mother—to make him fully release his malice and cooperate. Li Sansi’s unique power freezes time across a vast area, giving Gao Ming five seconds to act.
• Gao Ming drives a blood candle into Mountain Lord’s existing wound, combining vow power with the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God’s rules. With help from An Luan, he also forces goodness-laden hands from the Forbidden Bottle into Mountain Lord, weakening his malice and allowing the Ghost God to invade.
• Mountain Lord’s body mutates and explodes in a storm of supernatural power. The group appears to have killed him, though Gao Ming warns that God’s will may return through another host unless the Dark Shrine and city are destroyed.
• Gao Ming, now carrying Li Sansi within himself, struggles to maintain his own identity as the Shrine’s scheme steadily binds them together. Li Sansi briefly takes control and rebukes Gao Ming for touching his mother.
• Gao Ming is carried out of the Forbidden Zone and tells the White-Browed Marquis to inform Bishop Ci Xiang, the Mercy Society, and the Second District’s gangs that Mountain Lord is dead.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming proves strategically resourceful, coordinating the group’s powers and exploiting Mountain Lord’s weaknesses. His victory comes at a personal cost: he is losing memories and control to Li Sansi.
• Li Sansi overcomes his resistance when his mother is threatened, revealing both the depth of his love and his time-freezing ability. He later reasserts some control over their shared body.
• An Luan fights despite being reduced to a head, physically holding Mountain Lord in place until Gao Ming can act.
• Li Sansi’s mother is rescued and becomes the emotional pressure point that unites Gao Ming and Li Sansi.
• The White-Browed Marquis is stunned by Mountain Lord’s death and receives Gao Ming’s instructions to spread the news.

Significant themes

• Love amid trauma: Li Sansi’s mother remains his last cherished connection in a life defined by suffering.
• Sacrifice and cooperation: Defeating Mountain Lord requires several enemies and allies to combine their abilities, with Gao Ming risking his identity in the process.
• Corruption and possession: The Shrine’s plan persists beyond Mountain Lord’s apparent death, threatening to reclaim Gao Ming through his bond with Li Sansi.
• Goodness as a weapon: Kindness, normally a virtue, is poisonous to Mountain Lord and helps bring about his defeat.

Key plot points and events

• After the Mountain Lord’s death, Slum dogmen seize his loot-filled convoy and wait for the Mercy Society’s fighters to emerge from the subway.
• Gao Ming arrives with the wounded survivors, the Mountain Lord’s mask, and piles of mutated heads. Over a loudspeaker, he blames the Municipal Council Hall for the violence and presents the killing as a righteous act of defense.
• Gao Ming distributes the convoy’s spoils to homeless disaster victims. The Mercy Society’s leadership is initially stunned by the claim that it defeated the Mountain Lord, but Bishop Ci Xiang turns Gao Ming’s account into a public narrative supported by fabricated “evidence.”
• The Mountain Lord’s death exposes the Council Hall’s weakness and deepens the political crisis. Gangs form secret alliances, more factions defy the Council Hall, and the Mercy Society rapidly grows into a force poised for war.
• Gao Ming leaves the Second District for the Seventh, delivering Li Sansi’s Mother and An Luan’s head. With his mother gone, Li Sansi becomes more violent in his struggle for control of their shared body.
• Knowing his own hold is failing, Gao Ming gives instructions to White-Browed Marquis and Black Crow, then takes Jia Youzhi, Wu Wei, and Ding Xiang to an underground clinic.
• He drugs himself and the three subordinates with wine, saying he wants to show them their past and restore their freedom. Black Crow and a team of outsiders perform an unexplained operation on them.
• They wake at the Refugee Camp with their organs intact but with stitched wounds across their chests, suggesting their bodies were opened or something was placed inside them.

Character developments

• Gao Ming turns a military victory into political leverage, publicly recasting the Mercy Society as the defender of the people. Privately, he acts with grim purpose, preparing to reveal his followers’ pasts even though the procedure may endanger them.
• Bishop Ci Xiang moves from cautious uncertainty to decisive leadership, helping convert Gao Ming’s claims into an official story for the public.
• Li Sansi grows increasingly unstable without his mother’s restraint and fights harder for control of the body.
• Jia Youzhi, Wu Wei, and Ding Xiang show their trust in Gao Ming by drinking despite their doubts. Ding Xiang is the most wary, sensing something is wrong.
• Black Crow reappears as an active collaborator, arranging the operation with outside help.

Significant themes

• Propaganda and political power: Gao Ming’s framing of events—and Ci Xiang’s invented evidence—turn a confusing victory into a public indictment of the Council Hall.
• Revolution and instability: The Council Hall’s loss of authority empowers rival factions while the Mercy Society expands.
• Freedom and loyalty: Gao Ming questions whether his followers stay from genuine devotion or because they cannot leave, and promises to give them freedom.
• Identity and hidden truth: The clinic operation hints that the characters’ remembered lives or apparent bodies may not reflect their real selves.
• Trust and sacrifice: The subordinates’ willingness to follow Gao Ming leaves them vulnerable to a secretive and potentially dangerous procedure.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming addresses the public through the convoy’s loudspeaker, while the dogmen and wounded fighters serve as visible proof of the Mercy Society’s victory.
• Ci Xiang takes Gao Ming’s account and amplifies it into a polished political campaign, turning his actions into the Society’s official narrative.
• At the clinic, Jia Youzhi responds to Gao Ming with eager loyalty, Ding Xiang voices unease, and Wu Wei follows along. Gao Ming’s toast binds their trust to his plan before they lose consciousness.
• Black Crow and his team operate on Gao Ming and the three subordinates while they are unconscious, leaving the nature and purpose of the surgery unresolved.

Key plot points

• Jia Youzhi complains of pain and fears the underground clinic removed his heart. Gao Ming dismisses the worry and insists that he, Ding Xiang, Jia, and Wu Wei come with him to learn “the truth.”
• On the drive, the White-Browed Marquis reports that the city remains unstable: districts are cut off, councilors have been killed or have vanished, and forbidden-zone damage is spreading. The Kindling Organization has helped bring down the gangs in the Seventh District; its members have blended into the citizenry, who are rebuilding and governing themselves.
• Gao Ming leads the group into the Underground Water Network, through a dangerous, seemingly endless maze. As he approaches its depths, he lets Li Sansi’s malice surround him and protects his still-beating heart.
• At a vast pool where the city’s sewage and discarded secrets collect, Gao Ming reveals the “truth”: three corpses resemble Ding Xiang, Wu Wei, and Jia Youzhi. He claims they died long ago and that he killed them himself.

Character developments

• Gao Ming is increasingly fused with Li Sansi’s malice and risks becoming a puppet or spare body for the Dark Shrine’s master. His revelation suggests profound guilt, isolation, or an uncertain grasp of reality.
• Ding Xiang silently turns over Gao Ming’s earlier question about whether anyone is truly innocent, then confronts a corpse resembling her.
• Wu Wei remains loyal to Li Sansi and follows Gao Ming’s directions despite her doubts.
• Jia Youzhi resists the trip, preferring his current life, but is dragged along and falls quiet when faced with the pool.
• The White-Browed Marquis continues to serve Gao Ming, providing intelligence and transport.

Significant themes

• Truth and perception: Gao Ming presents the corpses as proof, but his condition and the strange setting leave room for uncertainty about what the group is seeing.
• Guilt and identity: His claim that he killed his companions—and that only he would stay with a monster like himself—frames the chapter around self-condemnation and loneliness.
• Secrets and corruption: The pool gathers the city’s waste and hidden truths, suggesting that what society suppresses does not disappear.
• Collective resistance: The Seventh District’s citizens rebuild together, while the Kindling Organization lives on within them.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming overrides Jia’s reluctance and brings the others to the pool, while Wu Wei physically gets Jia moving.
• During the journey, the group reacts with fear and confusion to the network’s hazards; their usual chatter stops at the pool.
• Gao Ming’s final words address the group, but sound almost like a confession to himself, leaving his relationship with the three—and the reality of their deaths—unsettled.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming is dragged into the Deep Pool, where the city’s discarded evils, painful memories, and dead gather. He discovers the Dark Shrine at the pool’s heart—a seemingly comforting presence that absorbs the city’s sins and suffering.
• Li Sansi’s malice takes over Gao Ming’s body, leaving only Gao Ming’s heart and will intact. Li reveals that Gao Ming’s three apparent subordinates—Ding Xiang, Jia Youzhi, and Wu Wei—are merely versions of himself created by the shrine.
• Gao Ming reveals his plan: surgery concealed a specially designed bomb inside his heart. He had provoked Li Sansi, used drugs to incapacitate himself and his companions, and allowed himself to be absorbed so he could get close enough to attack the shrine.
• Refusing to surrender, Gao Ming detonates the bomb and burns out his will. At the same time, the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God sacrifices its body. Their combined sacrifice kills Li Sansi and strikes the Dark Shrine, sending blood-red light through the Deep Pool.
• Gao Ming leaves the outcome to Hanhai’s other Dream Ghosts.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is revealed as a deliberate, self-sacrificing strategist. Even as his body and hope are overwhelmed, he insists he will not give in to despair and chooses his death to create a chance for others.
• Li Sansi believes darkness makes hope a delusion and regards the shrine as a mother. Though he has almost completely possessed Gao Ming, he hesitates to finish him out of gratitude for bringing his own mother back to life.
• Gao Ming and Li Sansi share a quiet final exchange, contrasting Gao Ming’s resolve to fight for others with Li’s resignation. The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God joins Gao Ming’s last stand through its own sacrifice.

Significant themes

• Hope and despair: Gao Ming holds onto purpose even when survival seems impossible.
• Sacrifice and collective struggle: His plan is not to win alone, but to weaken the shrine so others can finish the fight.
• The nature of darkness: The shrine’s evil is not merely power over darkness; it is the city’s buried shame and malice disguised as something inviting and comforting.
• Memory and identity: Li’s takeover threatens Gao Ming’s individuality, while his heart and will become the final symbols of what remains uniquely his.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming destroys himself in the Underground Water Network, igniting the portion of his soul and will invested in the Dark Shrine. The blast damages the shrine and severely injures both him and the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God, forcing them to recover inside the Execution House.
• While they wait, a candle reveals that the Dark Shrine has been damaged: the city is trapped in eternal night, forbidden zones are overlapping with reality, and breaches in the darkness’s rules have let outsiders use more of their power.
• Weird Wish sacrifices itself to destroy the Divine Spirit’s flesh in the Black Mountain Forbidden Zone. Together, these sacrifices bring the invaders closer to parity with the shrine’s forces.
• Yan Xizhi returns from the Shrine World as a faint, badly hollowed-out soul. She explains that the shrine’s master discovered her immediately and subjected her to its darkness rules; she burned much of her soul to weaken those rules and was eventually forced out.
• The Municipal Council Hall crushes the Mercy Society, but the city falls into greater disorder: gangs unite against uncontrolled forbidden zones, districts defy the Council, and the old dark order collapses.
• As the blood-red force steadily pushes back the darkness, more injured outsiders return to the Execution House. The latest is Jingtuo God, who reveals that he took over a councilor’s position after killing the other contenders.

Character developments

• Gao Ming survives, but is gravely weakened and must wait rather than act. His confidence in having damaged the shrine contrasts with his anxiety about the battle’s outcome.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God is also badly injured, but methodically rebuilds itself by absorbing sinful thoughts and imprisoned ghosts’ flesh-and-blood power.
• Yan Xizhi is revealed as a crucial protector who bore much of the shrine’s assault, allowing the others to make progress. Though severely diminished, she remains composed.
• Weird Wish confirms its willingness to sacrifice itself, repeating Gao Ming’s self-destructive tactic.
• Jingtuo God emerges as a survivor who has secured political power through ruthless action.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and endurance: The attack advances only because the Dream Ghosts willingly risk destruction.
• The cost of victory: The shrine is weakened, but the city’s institutions and social order unravel.
• Power and instability: The Council Hall’s military success does not restore authority; disorder and resistance spread.
• Cooperation under pressure: Each outsider’s sacrifice or endurance helps hold the line, even when individuals are too injured to fight.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God share a fragile recovery and remain dependent on one another.
• Gao Ming learns the larger situation through the candle’s stored thoughts and later questions returning allies, linking the isolated survivors to the wider conflict.
• Yan Xizhi communicates her account directly to Gao Ming through their joined wills; he responds with childlike pride, while she remains calm despite her suffering.
• Gao Ming repeatedly presses Jingtuo God for an explanation, prompting the revelation of his rise to power.

Key plot points

• Jingtuo God’s covert faction helped fracture the Municipal Council Hall after its authority collapsed. Though he failed to become Speaker and died by suicide, his schemes weakened the Thirteenth District and helped prepare the way for the Hall’s overthrow.
• Bai Xiao returns to the Execution House with more than thirty investigators and ghost creatures. He reveals that, as the Epaulet-Wearing Night Watch, he rescued the First-Generation Night Watch’s remnant soul and inherited his black epaulet—and the enduring will it represents.
• Using that legacy, Bai Xiao and his allies killed the Speaker and ended the Municipal Council Hall’s rule. But the victory did not remove the darkness: the Shrine World’s citizens remained consumed by malice, and the shrine owner’s soul still survived in the Dark City.
• Gao Ming insists there is still a chance to defeat the darkness. The group waits as the blood-red path through the shrine begins to ignite, becoming a powerful blaze within the surrounding blackness.

Character developments and interactions

• Jingtuo God is revealed as an ambitious, secretive power-seeker who wanted to become a Dream Ghost and seize the Speaker’s position. Despite his distrust of Bai Xiao, he learns that Bai Xiao—not he—helped bring down the Council.
• Bai Xiao emerges as a respected leader, carrying forward the First Night Watch’s conviction. His account makes clear that defeating political rulers is not enough while darkness persists in people’s hearts.
• Gao Ming, badly weakened and unable to stand, remains hopeful and urges the others not to give up. His exchanges with Jingtuo God expose their differing aims: political control versus confronting the source of the darkness.
• Yan Xizhi urges patience and quiet, while the group’s fear of the darkness’s return underscores how fragile their position remains.

Significant themes

• Power cannot erase corruption: The Council falls, but the hatred and malice sustaining the shrine remain.
• Legacy and conviction: The First Night Watch’s will survives death and becomes a force for resistance.
• Sacrifice and persistence: The blood-red path, built through the deaths of Hanhai’s people, becomes the fuel for the final blaze.
• Hope amid darkness: The chapter ends not with victory, but with a sign that the struggle may still turn in their favor.

Plot points and events

• Citizens of the Dark City, united by blood-red armbands, overthrow the gangs and systematically enter the forbidden zones to uncover and repair the injustices that created them.
• After the final zone—the Underground Water Network—is cleared, Gao Yun lights the broken Dark Shrine. Its flames consume the shrine and spread through the city, reigniting its suppressed malice and clearing a passage to Xinhu’s Blood City.
• By destroying the shrine’s rules, will, memories, and soul, Gao Yun completes God Usurpation and becomes a low-rank Unspeakable. The Dark City becomes his domain, and his power breaks the blockade isolating Hanhai.
• Gao Ming is urged to enter Xinhu’s Blood City and contact the Saviors. But the Jingtuo God warns that an Unspeakable is approaching Hanhai, apparently after Regulators discovered something.
• Gao Yun insists that the group return to Hanhai and rebuild its Blood City. He reveals his new power is fading because Hanhai’s Blood City was destroyed; rebuilding it would restore the Dream Ghosts’ strength. The process, however, requires sacrificing a living Unspeakable as the city’s foundation.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Yun emerges as a leader forged by the Dark City’s suffering. Though badly mutilated, he is honored by its people, and his transformation into an Unspeakable makes him both the city’s liberator and its new supernatural authority. His increasingly impersonal, decisive manner hints at the cost of his power.
• Gao Ming faces a choice between pursuing help in Xinhu and responding to danger at home. Gao Yun’s command redirects him toward Hanhai.
• Number Two is thrilled that the passage has opened and urges Gao Ming to seize the chance, but strongly opposes returning. His hopes of reaching the Saviors clash with Gao Yun’s urgent plan.
• The Jingtuo God detects the approaching threat and brings the crisis to everyone’s attention.
• The Dark City’s residents—from the cured Pigmen to children and the deformed—honor Gao Yun, illustrating how their collective struggle has changed their lives.

Significant themes

• Collective resistance and self-determination: Once the shrine’s master can no longer interfere, the citizens reclaim their city and shape its future together.
• Healing through confronting the past: The people restore forbidden zones by uncovering their origins rather than merely sealing them away.
• Hope born from sacrifice: The flame that opens the way forward is fueled by immense loss, and rebuilding Hanhai’s Blood City will demand another sacrifice.
• Power and its cost: Gao Yun gains extraordinary authority, but his strength is unstable and appears to diminish his humanity.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and his allies approve Gao Yun’s plan to reestablish Hanhai Blood City, despite Number Two’s warning that the city’s pressure could destroy its new foundation.
• Gao Yun splits the group: he returns to Hanhai with the three Dream Ghosts, while Bai Xiao leads others—including Number Two’s remaining consciousness—into the deep world to carry information to Xinhu Blood City. Bai Xiao and Number Two will serve as coordinates for Hanhai Blood City to manifest there.
• Gao Yun cures Huang Ying’s dark curse and binds her fate to Gao Ming’s Execution House, though Gao Ming’s own flesh-and-blood curse remains.
• Gao Ming’s group raids Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals’ laboratories to recover Dream’s remaining shrines. They find one, but the last remains hidden and appears connected to an unknowable entity.
• In Hanhai, the General Investigation Bureau prepares the reestablishment. The Bureau Chief explains that the necessary population and an unspeakable powerful enough to become the city’s foundation are in place; the remaining danger is whether the people can withstand the deep world’s pressure.
• The threat is urgent: an unspeakable from Rotting Blood City is approaching, while another unknown watcher remains nearby. The Bureau Chief and the Investigation Offices commit to the plan.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Yun emerges as a powerful but mysterious unspeakable. He supports Gao Ming, protects Huang Ying, and takes command of the return to Hanhai, but refuses to explain what he experienced or reveal his true ability.
• Gao Ming makes the final arrangements, trusting Gao Yun and assigning Bai Xiao command of the Xinhu-bound group.
• Bai Xiao volunteers to confront Number Two’s fragmented consciousness, showing his resolve to uphold the First Night Watch’s legacy.
• Number Two objects that the plan risks everyone’s lives, but the others—including the Dream Ghosts, Yan Xizhi, and the investigators—choose to support it.
• The Bureau Chief, despite the Bureau’s past conflict with Gao Ming, cooperates with him for Hanhai’s survival.

Significant themes

• Collective sacrifice and resolve: Hanhai’s residents accept great risks to reclaim their city and resist outside control.
• Trust and cooperation: Former enemies unite because the threat to Hanhai outweighs their past grievances.
• Power and uncertainty: Gao Yun’s transformation and the final hidden shrine suggest forces beyond the characters’ understanding.
• A narrowing window of opportunity: With rival Blood Cities distracted by Xinhu, Hanhai must act before they turn their attention back.

Key plot points and events

• Hanhai grows unnaturally quiet as signs of decay spread through the city. Rotting creatures attack other animals, while the Ghost Story Player rankings and online activity abruptly stall.
• In the Shadow World, Gao Ming leads the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and Investigation Bureau personnel to the buried heart of the old Hanhai Blood City. A Fang recognizes the ruins as his former home, confirming his connection to the city’s past.
• Gao Ming summons ghosts from Hanhai’s anomalous areas and plants seeds of the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree among the ruins, repopulating the dead city with new souls.
• The group assembles for a one-chance ritual to rebuild Blood City. Yan Xizhi, Weird Wish, the Jingtuo God, and the Investigation Bureau’s hidden Dream Ghost take designated positions; Gao Ming guards the west, while Gao Yun is concealed among the living Student Council members.
• Gao Ming opens the Main Shrine from the third dream, installs the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal’s divine statue, and lets Blood City’s ghost markings consume the shrine’s dream marks. The shrine turns blood-red, and the damaged Ghost God begins rapidly regenerating.

Character developments

• Gao Ming takes charge of the effort to restore Hanhai Blood City, combining its ghosts, the living, and the shrine in a high-stakes plan.
• A Fang confirms that the buried ruins are where he once lived, reinforcing his role as a surviving consciousness—and potential Blood City Lord—tied to Hanhai’s history.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God shifts from carrying Gao Ming through the ruins to becoming the focus of the restoration ritual; the shrine’s transformation begins repairing his body.
• Yan Xizhi and Weird Wish participate despite severe injuries, showing their commitment to the plan.
• Gao Yun remains hidden among the human participants, making her presence a concealed source of strength.

Significant themes

• Rebirth from destruction: The buried city is repopulated and begins to take shape again from its ruins.
• Coexistence between humans and ghosts: Living people and ghosts join the same effort, advancing the ideal of a shared world.
• Memory, fate, and inheritance: A Fang’s connection to the ruins and the collective bonds formed through the ritual link Hanhai’s past to its possible future.
• Hope intertwined with vengeance: The effort to restore the city carries both the promise of renewal and the fury of an evil god seeking revenge.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming relies on the Jingtuo God and the Investigation Bureau team, but learns the Bureau Chief is occupied confronting Rotting Blood City’s probing.
• Gao Ming brings A Fang to the ruins, where A Fang identifies his former home.
• The assembled ghost gods and the hidden Dream Ghost take their assigned positions, while the Student Council members provide a human presence alongside them.
• The Student Council President steps forward with calm confidence, and Gao Ming responds by beginning the shrine-based ritual.