Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Arsonists set fire to the Forest, hoping to contain it, but the flames also devastate the Residential Management Zone. The Human Rights Committee treats the injured as police and Ethics Oversight Group members move toward the Forest.
• Doctor Gao waits for the fire to distract the Forest’s collective will, then leads Banban and Mr. Shi Que’s two servants inside, carrying the Shared Brain equipment needed for his plan.
• As they push through the burning woods, Doctor Gao’s memories blur and his absolute rationality begins to fade. He believes he is close to reaching Mother, the woman at the Forest’s center, and has left clues intended to guide others to the truth.
• In the clearing, the servants reveal Shi Que’s order: Banban, not Doctor Gao, must be the final candidate for the Shared Brain. Gao warns that the altered equipment could kill Banban.
• Gao appears to prepare a dangerous drug but instead uses a less harmful medication. Near Mother, Banban and the servants succumb to the Forest’s influence. One servant collapses as roots begin growing from his legs; the other is knocked unconscious after aiming his gun at her.
• Gao alone continues toward Mother with the equipment, saying he has only ever wanted to treat her.

Character developments

• Doctor Gao presses on despite injury and the erosion of his memories and rationality. His apparent willingness to sacrifice Banban gives way to compassion: he chooses the safer drug rather than follow his plan blindly.
• Banban remains loyal and concerned for Gao, but his comparatively weak will makes him especially vulnerable to the Forest’s influence.
• Shi Que’s servants obey orders to make Banban the candidate, but their fear and hostility toward Mother leave them unable to complete the task.
• Shi Que, though absent, is shown exercising control over the mission and prioritizing Banban as the candidate.

Significant themes

• Gentleness versus cold rationality: As Gao’s rationality fades, compassion seems to emerge, influencing his choice to protect Banban.
• The cost of control: The attempt to contain the Forest with fire endangers civilians as well as the Forest itself.
• Hostility and vulnerability: The Forest reacts to hostility toward it, while Gao’s non-hostile intent allows him to approach farther than the others.
• Hope amid horror: Even in the burning, corpse-filled Forest, people continue to risk themselves in pursuit of a possible solution.

Character interactions

• Gao repeatedly urges Banban and the servants onward, while they try to slow him because he is injured.
• The servants confront Gao with Shi Que’s orders and force him to prepare Banban for the procedure.
• Gao’s hesitation—and substitution of a safer medication—shows his growing protective attachment to Banban.
• At the clearing, the servants’ hostile response to Mother contrasts with Gao’s gentle approach, setting up his final declaration of intent.

Plot

• Doctor Gao reveals that he has spent years studying unpredictable beings and deliberately encouraged the forest anomaly to spread through the living management zone. He hoped it would grow powerful enough to offer a way out, but its expansion also made it a threat to the city and its other inhabitants.
• As Banban and Servant struggle against the forest’s collective will, Gao uses the Shared Brain Device to connect himself to the Core Patient and the forest. Knowing he cannot attack the collective directly, he injects the patient with a drug that destroys reason, then uses the resulting confusion to command the forest to destroy the First Rehabilitation Hospital—the world’s last “normal” place.
• The forest’s chaotic memories begin overwhelming Gao, so he injects himself with the same drug. His Blood City Markings fade, and his carefully maintained reason collapses.
• Gao’s identity as Doctor Gao falls away: he is Number Two, the clever child from the blood-red Orphanage. He accepts that his death may bring further danger, but hopes the clues he left behind will buy Gao Ming more time.
• Flames consume Number Two and the Core Patient as the forest turns into a sea of red light. Number Two dies reaching toward the moonlight.

Character developments and interactions

• Number Two/Doctor Gao is revealed as a self-sacrificing strategist. His devotion to Gao Ming—rooted in having seen Gao Ming remain behind in Xinhu Blood City—leads him to accept madness and death without hesitation.
• His connection to the Core Patient is both practical and intimate: he shares her mind to reach the forest’s collective consciousness, then exploits the moment her reason collapses. He speaks gently to her even as he injects her.
• Banban and Servant remain locked in a struggle with the forest, their very humanity at stake.
• Number Two’s father is present indirectly through the piece of skin sewn over Gao’s heart, which had protected his reason. Gao’s final act returns that protection to his father.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and loyalty: Number Two gives up his sanity and life to help Gao Ming and delay the threat.
• Reason versus madness: His absolute rationality has kept him functioning, but it is also portrayed as cold and painful; its collapse brings a final image of spring, warmth, and feeling.
• Identity and self-erasure: The doctor’s persona, borrowed skin, and replaced brain conceal Number Two until his reason fails.
• Death and legacy: Number Two expects his death to leave poisonous clues and consequences, yet hopes those traces will give others time.
• Fire and moonlight: Fire marks destruction and sacrifice, while the moonlight offers a gentle, almost consoling final embrace.

Plot points and events

• Number Two destroys the Forest’s core patient’s sanity, breaking the Forest’s collective control. Banban and the two servants regain consciousness amid the fire and rescue the core patient and Doctor Gao, both gravely burned.
• Police, the Human Rights Committee, and others help them escape as the fire spreads. Banban and the servants are taken to a police station, while Doctor Gao and the core patient are transported to hospital.
• Xue Se prevents officials and reporters from taking Banban, then has him and the servants separated and examined. He accuses Banban and the Ethics Oversight Group of murder, arson, theft, and trying to control the Forest through a Shared Brain connection.
• Banban denies knowingly participating in a plot and insists he and Doctor Gao meant to address the Forest’s dangers. Under pressure, he explains what happened inside: the Forest’s collective will incapacitated him and the servants, while Doctor Gao reached the core and connected himself to the patient using the Shared Brain Device.
• Xue Se concludes that the Forest’s collective will is now embedded in Doctor Gao’s and the core patient’s brains. He realizes that whoever connects to either could gain access to it. Meanwhile, he knows Doctor Gao sent him the location of hidden research files: the “man-eating room” on Autopsy Avenue.

Character developments and interactions

• Banban is exhausted, injured, and confused by the catastrophe. He remains loyal to his adoptive father, but Xue Se’s accusations make him question whether that father’s plan caused the disaster. He eventually recounts the Forest expedition.
• Xue Se shifts from acting as Banban’s protector against the crowd to interrogating him aggressively. Though he suspects the truth, his interest in the brains’ secrets—and a flicker of greed—suggests he may have his own ambitions.
• Doctor Gao is gravely injured and apparently close to death, but his final message to Xue Se points to hidden experimental data.
• The core patient, once famed for her beauty, is left physically aged and severely burned after the destruction of her sanity and the fire.

Significant themes

• Control and knowledge: The Forest’s will may now be accessible through the brains of Doctor Gao and the core patient, turning them into targets for competing groups.
• Institutional distrust and manipulation: Banban cannot tell whether his adoptive father’s organization intended to seize control, while Xue Se uses intimidation to extract information.
• Public perception and violence: The public sees the Forest as mere timber, and the flames—initially meant to contain it—become an excuse for deliberate destruction.
• Loyalty under pressure: Banban’s faith in his father clashes with mounting evidence and his own uncertainty.

Plot points and events

• Xue Se arrives at Mortal World Entrance Hospital, where Doctor Gao and the Core Patient have died from their injuries. Their brains were removed before their bodies died, apparently because the authorities wanted to use them for shared-brain procedures.
• The police, Ethics Oversight Group, and Human Rights Committee argue over who caused the Forest disaster. The police blame Doctor Bu for using people from the Residential Management Zone as seeds; the Ethics Oversight Group denies responsibility and accuses the other parties of failures.
• A doctor warns that the brains are dangerously fragile: the Core Patient’s may endure only one to three procedures, while Doctor Gao’s may withstand just one.
• Shi Que proposes that the parties divide responsibility—and, in return, custody of the brains. The Human Rights Committee takes the Core Patient’s brain, the Judicial Authorities take Doctor Gao’s, and the Ethics Oversight Group accepts no brain but agrees to help with the aftermath.
• Shi Que tells Xue Se to release the group and warns him not to investigate further. Xue Se refuses to be intimidated, but discovers that the Ethics Oversight Group has already taken Banban from the station.
• Chen Bing admits he authorized Banban’s release, arguing that the case is settled and the city has been spared a greater threat. Xue Se insists that whoever planted the Forest must answer for the deaths caused by it.
• Chen Bing reveals that Xue Se has been speaking in his sleep like the Florist’s Diary. Xue Se wonders whether he has repeated its disturbing contents.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se remains determined to pursue accountability despite pressure from officials and colleagues. He also describes strange voices and visions in his mind, though he chooses to trust his own judgment. His apparent connection to the Florist’s Diary raises concern about his mental state.
• Shi Que shifts from negotiating the division of responsibility to personally warning Xue Se off. Xue Se openly describes Shi Que’s soul as disturbingly unnatural and refuses to back down.
• Chen Bing prioritizes institutional stability and the city’s safety over continued investigation. His conversation with Xue Se exposes their differing ideas of justice and hints that Xue Se may be psychologically affected by his investigations.
• Banban’s removal frustrates Xue Se and suggests that powerful groups can override police procedures.

Significant themes

• Power and accountability: Officials negotiate responsibility rather than establish who truly caused the disaster.
• Human exploitation: The brains are treated as valuable instruments for shared-brain procedures despite the risks and the deaths involved.
• Justice versus order: Xue Se seeks a proper answer for the victims, while Chen Bing argues that the threat has been dealt with and the matter should end.
• Forbidden inquiry and unstable reality: Shi Que discourages deeper investigation, while Xue Se’s voices, visions, and sleep-talking connect him to the chapter’s unsettling questions about the city’s rules and the nature of reality.

Plot points

• Chen Bing gives Xue Se a report on Doctor Gao’s time in the Forest, emphasizing that Gao could interact with a Core Patient and perform the final procedure alone.
• Intrigued by Gao’s apparent resistance to mental illness and his cryptic message about a room that “eats people,” Xue Se goes to Gao’s apartment to look for clues.
• He finds Old Ma, a strange horse-like figure, who says the family has gone to see a doctor. Xue Se searches the apartment, then questions the neighbors.
• The neighbors describe Gao’s family as bizarre: its members argue at night, seem unrelated to one another, and include a mother supposedly turned into a mushroom, an ill grandfather, and an eccentric uncle. They have never actually seen Gao’s supposed father.
• Their accounts point to the Time of Death Complex, where Gao’s father was reportedly transferred and disappeared. Xue Se decides to investigate its rumored Red Room himself.
• As Xue Se drives away, the neighbors silently gather in the shadows, light incense, and bow toward him—an unsettling final image.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se shifts from reviewing evidence to actively pursuing the mystery. His curiosity about Doctor Gao leads him to risk an investigation, despite his skepticism about supernatural explanations.
• Chen Bing presents himself as the person who helped Gao and Banban survive the Forest, while bluntly dismissing another source as unreliable.
• Old Ma is comic but strange: he offers little useful information and protests when Xue Se ties him up.
• The neighbors first appear helpful, sharing rumors about Gao’s family, but their eerie ritual at the end casts doubt on their motives and perhaps on what Xue Se has walked into.

Significant themes

• Unreliable perception and reality: The family’s impossible conditions and the “eating” room may be hallucinations, supernatural phenomena, or something more disturbing.
• The hidden nature of Doctor Gao: Conflicting clues about his family and abilities deepen the mystery around him.
• Normality masking danger: Ordinary neighbors and familiar domestic details give way to disturbing secrets and ritual behavior.

Key plot points and events

• Xue Se drives Doctor Gao’s horse, Old Ma, to the Time of Death Complex to investigate the rumored “man-eating room.” Old Ma is talkative and comic, but reacts with real distress when Xue Se suggests Gao may be dead.
• The complex seems tidy outside, yet its buildings bear strange death-related names. Xue Se recalls a diary suggesting the thirteen complexes together conceal clues to someone’s death.
• Inside the building marked “Pupils No Longer Translucent,” Xue Se finds a decaying, fire-damaged interior, strange floor markings, and an unburned prescription listing unsettling items rather than ordinary medicine.
• In a connecting corridor, they witness a frail old woman repeatedly begging a silent apartment’s “House Owner” for a way to live, striking her forehead against its black door. Xue Se and Old Ma retreat unnoticed—or so they think.
• Suspecting the residents may be collectively involved in the man-eating room, Xue Se tries to call for help. The police are unavailable, and his own contacts do not respond. As he goes to investigate, he finds the old woman standing silently behind him.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se remains determined and pragmatic, but the evidence makes him increasingly uneasy. He hides his concern from Old Ma, lies to keep him moving, and considers the possibility that the threat involves an entire community rather than one killer.
• Old Ma provides comic relief through his complaints about cars, seat belts, and stairs. Beneath the humor, his sudden emotional reaction to Gao’s possible death shows genuine loyalty and attachment.
• Xue Se and Old Ma trade insults and warnings, but Old Ma’s presence also gives Xue Se a companion as the investigation grows more ominous.
• The old woman is introduced as a disturbing, desperate figure whose ritual-like plea suggests something is wrong inside the complex.

Significant themes

• Hidden corruption beneath a pleasant surface: Residents appear kind and harmless outside, while the building’s interior feels neglected and sinister.
• Collective madness and complicity: Xue Se wonders whether the “man-eating room” is a product of an entire community, not an isolated criminal.
• Death and concealed truth: The complex’s names and the diary’s clues frame the avenue as a puzzle whose parts may reveal the cause of someone’s death.
• Loyalty beneath humor: Old Ma’s response to Gao’s supposed death reveals sincere feeling beneath his bluster.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• An elderly woman suddenly appears behind Xue Se and Old Ma, worshipping Xue Se and pleading for a way to live. Xue Se threatens her, then beats her unconscious when she won’t stop.
• The tower block’s corridor has changed: every apartment displays a posthumous photograph with food offerings, and burning spirit money fills the air. The entrance is locked, trapping them inside.
• A tall, flickering figure in a red gown and Longevity Character Mask moves through the smoke, carrying funeral objects and snipping at something with scissors. Xue Se and Old Ma hide in the stairwell.
• After the figure passes, Xue Se spots Li Zhi, son of missing apartment manager Li Shou, stealing offerings. He grabs Li Zhi and questions him about his father and whether he has ever left the building.
• Li Zhi speaks incoherently about living in a “box” and being surrounded by black, white, and red boxes with mouths that bite. When the red figure appears to return, Xue Se and Old Ma flee upstairs with him.
• On the fifth floor, Li Zhi leads them to a shabby rental unit. Its surroundings are filthy and scarred, and a large crate of old objects wrapped in red cloth sits outside.

Character developments

• Xue Se remains aggressive and pragmatic, treating the supernatural as an irritation rather than a reason for fear. His violent attack on the old woman reveals a disturbing brutality, while his thoughts about the Florist’s diary show that he is beginning to connect the strange events to the idea that everyone in this world is sick.
• Old Ma is visibly frightened by the old woman and the red figure, but stays close to Xue Se as they escape.
• Li Zhi appears severely disturbed and physically weakened. His rambling offers cryptic clues about his confinement and the building’s horrors.

Character interactions

• Xue Se threatens and assaults the old woman; Old Ma reacts with shock at his violence.
• Xue Se arrests Li Zhi and questions him, but Li Zhi can only respond in confused fragments.
• Old Ma warns Xue Se when the red figure turns back, prompting their escape together.

Significant themes

• Hysteria and distorted reality: The characters’ behavior and surroundings blur the boundary between illness, delusion, and the supernatural.
• Confinement and entrapment: Locked doors, “boxes,” and the sealed building suggest that escape may be impossible.
• Violence and moral ambiguity: Xue Se’s forceful methods raise questions about how much of his brutality is personal—and how much reflects the abnormal world around him.
• Death and ritual: The photographs, offerings, and spirit money make death an ever-present feature of the building.

Key plot points and events

• Xue Se searches Li Zhi’s filthy rental unit and finds records showing Li Zhi moved into the Time of Death Complex about a year earlier. A photograph from that time shows him healthy and robust; now he is gravely weakened.
• Li Zhi reveres a posthumous photograph of his father and has collected piles of other people’s discarded belongings, including red clothing and bound-foot shoes.
• An old man arrives at Li Zhi’s door, begging to “borrow” a way to live. He leaves a filthy red bundle when no one answers. Li Zhi takes medicine supplied by Doctor Gao, which briefly improves his clarity.
• Li Zhi explains that residents of the complex have become involved in Lifespan Borrowing. A red-clad old woman was once seen performing a ritual at a neighbor’s door; afterward, a miscarriage occurred, and her home was found full of stolen household items and sinister ritual markings. She vanished after a fire, and rumors spread that she had survived for an extraordinary length of time by taking others’ lifespans.
• Xue Se also asks about a room rumored to eat people. Li Zhi says his father disappeared while inspecting it.
• After the old man’s visit makes Li Zhi’s home seem unsafe, Xue Se decides to investigate the room and search for Li Zhi’s father. Li Zhi agrees, and the group heads toward the thirteenth floor.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se shifts from examining the room to taking charge of the investigation, protecting Li Zhi and urging him to leave. He remains wary and armed despite the supernatural danger.
• Li Zhi is shown as physically deteriorated and intermittently confused, but the medicine restores enough lucidity for him to explain the complex’s history. His devotion to his father motivates his refusal to leave.
• Old Ma helps support the weak Li Zhi as they travel.
• Doctor Gao, though absent, emerges as a trusted caregiver who gave Li Zhi medicine and told him about his father.
• The old man’s desperate plea at the door brings the threat of Lifespan Borrowing directly into the group’s immediate situation.

Significant themes

• Fear of death and the desire to prolong life: Residents’ desperation makes them vulnerable to sinister rituals.
• The cost of survival: The apparent borrowing of lifespans suggests that one person’s continued life may come at another’s expense.
• Memory, grief, and attachment: Li Zhi’s offerings to his father and determination to find him keep him tied to the dangerous complex.
• Contamination and hidden histories: The residents’ discarded belongings become evidence of the building’s rituals, while ordinary domestic spaces conceal supernatural threats.

Plot points

• Xue Se, Li Zhi, and Old Ma reach the burned room on the Thirteenth Floor, which residents fear and call the “Man-Eating Room.” Its walls seem to have grown new red lines, and people say its door opens by itself each night.
• They witness a strange procession: a floating young woman identified as reporter Bai is led to the apartment by worshipful elderly figures, who force her face against the lock before dragging her inside.
• Determined to rescue her, Xue Se opens the door using Old Ma as a key-like trigger. Inside, he finds a horrific scene: victims—including a missing police officer—are nailed throughout the room, their faces transformed into clocks running backward.
• The clocks and dripping blood overwhelm Xue Se, intensifying his destructive impulse. He threatens to shoot the figures, but a shared voice speaks from the victims, calling him “Blood Color” and saying he has forgotten everything. It claims to be Time and refers to the Blood City of Time.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se acts on his duty as a police officer despite the danger, rejecting the others’ assumption that he would not help someone. His anger and urge to destroy grow as he confronts the supernatural scene, while the voice’s recognition of him hints at a forgotten past.
• Li Zhi is frightened and physically weak, but his explanation of the room’s history shows that the medicine has sharpened his thinking.
• Old Ma warns Xue Se about the approaching procession and is reluctantly used to open the door.
• Reporter Bai appears in a ghostly, helpless state and is taken into the room; her fate remains unknown.

Significant themes

• Duty amid horror: Xue Se insists that helping Bai is his job, even when the others hesitate.
• Time, memory, and identity: The backward-running clocks and the voice’s claim that Xue Se has forgotten everything link time to memory and lost identity.
• Dehumanization and cruelty: The victims turned into clocks make the room a grotesque embodiment of violence.
• The unknown and loss of control: The living room, supernatural procession, and Xue Se’s mounting destructive impulse all unsettle the boundary between reality and nightmare.

Key plot points

• Xue Se confronts Time, a being connected to Blood City, who claims the people in the house are Grotesques or victims of madness disease rather than ordinary citizens. Time urges Xue Se to kill them and cooperate, but Xue Se distrusts it.
• Searching for the female reporter, Xue Se finds five elderly people carving numbers into her face. He overpowers them and tries to take her away.
• The reporter’s face-clock begins turning when Xue Se touches her. She withers and dies, while Xue Se experiences a vivid, long-forgotten memory of a child held by its mother—and develops a powerful craving to experience that warmth again.
• Time asks Xue Se to stop investigating the Time of Death Complex and instead find a man who cannot be killed. Time believes killing him or driving him insane may prevent disaster, but offers no further clues.
• Xue Se agrees to help, then asks whether Doctor Gao visited or hid anything in Time’s room. Time warns him that Gao lied and urges him to trust no one but “us.” Xue Se remains unsure whether Gao or Time is deceiving him.

Character developments

• Xue Se stays controlled and skeptical, relying on his instincts and force. Yet Time’s memory-induced “warmth” affects him deeply, revealing an emotional vulnerability and a new temptation.
• Time shows signs of deterioration: it switches between decaying human heads, expends power to communicate, and risks losing its remaining lucidity. Its motives remain uncertain.
• The reporter becomes Time’s “anchor,” but dies when Xue Se tries to rescue her.
• Doctor Gao, though absent and already dead, becomes a source of doubt through conflicting claims about whether he lied.

Character interactions

• Xue Se challenges Time’s claims and refuses its implied invitation to harm citizens.
• Time tries to recruit Xue Se by offering cryptic warnings and a new mission.
• Xue Se’s attempted rescue of the reporter ends in her death, emphasizing how dangerous Time’s influence is.
• Time’s warning about Doctor Gao leaves Xue Se caught between two potentially unreliable sources.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and distrust: In a diseased, distorted world, even the dead and the apparently helpful may be deceptive.
• Memory, longing, and addiction: A fleeting experience of comfort can become an irresistible craving.
• Sanity and moral ambiguity: Time calls itself a lunatic yet presents mass killing as necessary, blurring the line between madness and purpose.
• The cost of knowledge: Sharing information drains Time’s lucidity, suggesting that understanding the crisis may itself carry a price.

Key plot points and events

• Time lets Xue Se leave the man-eating apartment, but as Xue Se escapes with Old Ma and Li Zhi, the room seizes them. Xue Se manages to pull Old Ma free; Li Zhi is dragged inside and eaten.
• After they reach the car, Xue Se learns that his informants and subordinates entered the complex too. Big Head calls, lost inside the building, and is killed by the complex’s ghosts while Xue Se listens helplessly.
• Time calls again and urges Xue Se to trust his own memories, warning that little time remains. Furious but unable to confront Time alone, Xue Se drives to the Police Station.
• Xue Se orders officers to investigate nearby residential complexes, overruling their concern that the force must focus on the aftermath of the Forest disaster. He plays Big Head’s final call to convince them the threat is real.
• Meanwhile, authorities announce arrests and institutional consequences for the Forest arson and riot. Public rebuilding begins, but Xue Se focuses on evidence that lifespan borrowing has spread across several districts. Some residents are marked as targets, and others refuse to cooperate because they both seek and fear the practice.
• Xue Se concludes that lifespan borrowing is another highly contagious form of mass hysteria.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se is devastated by Li Zhi’s and Big Head’s deaths, but channels his anger into action. He prioritizes the emerging threat despite institutional pressure to focus on the Forest.
• Old Ma survives, shaken by what happened, and stays unusually quiet as Xue Se drives them to the Police Station.
• Time remains an adversary, killing Xue Se’s people while insisting that Xue Se should heed his memories. Xue Se distrusts it but recognizes that the complex cannot be handled alone.
• Xue Se and his officers clash over priorities. His recording of Big Head’s death persuades them to take the danger seriously and investigate.
• Li Zhi and Big Head become victims of the complex, deepening Xue Se’s personal stake in stopping it.

Significant themes

• Denial and collective responsibility: The Forest disaster is publicly reframed through arrests and official statements, while the city tries to rebuild and move on.
• Institutional limits versus urgent threats: Xue Se must redirect exhausted officers from a politically visible crisis toward a quieter, spreading danger.
• Fear, survival, and exploitation: Lifespan is becoming a commodity, and residents can be both willing participants and targets.
• Memory and truth: Time’s warning that Xue Se should trust his memories introduces uncertainty about what Xue Se knows—and what may be at stake.

Key plot points

• Captain Xue Se debates whether to report the people connected to Forest, but decides to wait for stronger evidence. He remains convinced that the Human Rights Committee and Ethics Oversight Group must be overthrown and replaced with new rules.
• Chen Bing brings Xue to a private meeting with Xu Huan, the Human Rights Committee Director-General’s son-in-law. Xu claims to be a Transmigrator and predicts an assignment Xue receives from the Bureau Chief moments later, along with events in Xue’s future. Xue suspects Xu has obtained inside information, but the predictions make him reconsider.
• Xu asks Xue to help identify the person who murdered him—not once, but twice, in different lives. He describes dying from apparent drowning without water in his lungs, then later being strangled by an invisible force.
• Xu says an autopsy revealed traces of shared brain use. He believes the killer linked Xu’s senses to another person’s, then killed that person elsewhere, making Xu’s body experience the fatal sensations. Xue is intrigued by the unprecedented method.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se remains distrustful and committed to his chosen path, but his encounter with Xu shifts his attention from ideological conflict toward a concrete, puzzling murder case. He tests Xu’s credibility and listens once the predictions prove difficult to dismiss.
• Xu Huan presents himself as unremarkable and mild, yet demonstrates extensive foreknowledge and a determined, serious purpose. His account reveals both his repeated deaths and the lengths he went to uncover their cause.
• Chen Bing discreetly arranges the meeting and disables the interrogation room’s surveillance, giving Xu and Xue privacy.

Significant themes

• Reality and certainty: Xue struggles with the possibility that his beliefs about the city and its people may be false, while Xu’s claims challenge what seems possible.
• Institutional power and reform: Xue sees the existing oversight bodies as enabling social disorder and believes they must be replaced.
• The limits and costs of foreknowledge: Xu’s ability to know the future helps him gain influence, but does not protect him from a killer he cannot yet identify.
• Technology as a weapon: Shared brain use, intended as a means of connection, becomes a tool for a remote and seemingly impossible murder.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Huan tells Xue Se that he has investigated neurologists with access to shared-brain technology, but none seems to have an obvious motive to kill him.
• He believes the killer is deliberately targeting him, has learned that Xu can travel through time, and is waiting until Xu can be killed permanently.
• Xu describes trying to prevent the catastrophic future he witnessed: the Forest fire, the attack on the First Rehabilitation Hospital, the escape of critical patients, and the ensuing disease outbreaks and social collapse. Despite his efforts, events appear to be happening earlier or remain unavoidable.
• Xu asks Xue Se to help identify the killer, arguing that the murderer may lead them to larger conspiracies. He warns Xue not to provoke the Time of Death Complex, despite Xue’s own inclination to intervene there.
• Xu presents four suspects: the mysterious director of the First Rehabilitation Hospital; Shi Que, deputy leader of the Ethics Oversight Group; Xue’s bureau chief; and neurologist Doctor Gao.
• Xue reveals that Doctor Gao is already dead and that police have recovered his brain. Xu is shocked, realizing that the future he knew has changed.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Huan is fearful and desperate, but remains focused on solving his murder. He is willing to set aside his pride to enlist Xue’s help. His account also reveals his despair: he has tried to change the future, yet major disasters seem to persist.
• Xue Se is skeptical of Xu’s extraordinary claims, especially the predictions about Xue’s own abilities, but listens because he can see Xu’s soul as a faint, flickering illusion. He weighs his desire to act against the dangers of the Time of Death Complex and agrees to hear Xu’s plan.
• Their exchange shows contrasting priorities: Xue initially considers forcefully confronting the Complex, while Xu insists the killer—not the Complex’s “monsters”—is the real enemy.

Significant themes

• Fate versus free will: Xu’s attempts to alter future events seem unable to prevent disaster.
• Time travel and its cost: Xu’s journeys require him to experience death, and knowledge of the future brings little comfort.
• Hidden conspiracies and distrust: Powerful officials and organizations may be connected to Xinhu’s growing instability.
• Uncertainty and shifting futures: Doctor Gao’s unexpected death proves that Xu’s known future is no longer fully reliable.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Huan learns that Doctor Gao—the prime suspect he expected to investigate—is dead. That makes it impossible for Gao to be the person who killed Xu Huan in the future, though Xu Huan wonders whether Gao’s death was staged or part of a plan to disrupt his foreknowledge.
• Xu Huan asks to examine Gao’s body and brain, hoping to use a shared-brain session to uncover answers. Xue Se refuses: Gao’s brain contains highly classified information and may only survive one more session.
• Xu Huan chooses Shi Que as the first target for investigation. He suspects the director of the First Rehabilitation Hospital’s unexplained absence is significant, but says Shi Que is the more accessible lead. He gives Xue Se files on twenty-seven abnormal people connected to Shi Que.
• Xu Huan warns Xue Se not to let anger cloud his judgment and, especially, not to enter the Time of Death Complex. He believes a hidden, powerful threat—not the known sources of infection—is the true enemy.
• Wanting to protect Xue Se and make his own possible death useful, Xu Huan insists on staying with him. Xue Se is exasperated but lets him follow.
• Back at the office, Xue Se wrestles with conflicting clues: his informant is trapped in the Time of Death Complex, Xu Huan warns him away from it, and the creatures there apparently want to kill someone who cannot be killed—possibly Xu Huan.
• Before Xue Se can sort out what to believe, Chen Bing arrives with an emergency: patients are rioting at the First Rehabilitation Hospital, several Critical Patients have escaped, and some are Serial Killers. People have already been killed.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Huan is shaken by Gao’s death but quickly turns to alternative suspects. His repeated killings have made him unusually accepting of death; he is even willing to use it as a tool to help solve the mystery. He also reveals how much he trusts—or depends on—Xue Se by insisting on staying close.
• Xue Se remains skeptical and frustrated by Xu Huan’s theories and clinginess, yet takes his information seriously. He is caught between competing warnings and evidence, unsure whom to trust.
• Old Ma, identified as Doctor Gao’s horse, appears in Xue Se’s office and jokingly takes pride in his appearance and weight loss.
• Chen Bing interrupts the investigation with a grave report, forcing Xue Se and the others to respond to the hospital crisis.

Significant themes

• Suspicion and uncertainty: With Gao dead and several powerful suspects still beyond easy reach, every explanation remains questionable.
• Knowledge versus control: Xu Huan’s foreknowledge may no longer be reliable, and his attempts to act on it risk changing events.
• Trust and protection: Xu Huan seeks safety with Xue Se, while Xue Se must decide whether to believe his warnings.
• Hidden threats and escalating chaos: The apparent suspects and infection sources may be only part of a larger danger, while the hospital emergency shows how quickly the crisis can worsen.

Chapter summary

• A crisis erupts at the First Rehabilitation Hospital. Xue Se rushes to the scene after reports of unrest, fires, explosions, and rising deaths. Patients and staff are trapped in the upper floors, while armed officers struggle to enter.
• The operation is complicated by the hospital’s unusual patients and powerful interests. Commander Wang explains that the top floors contain VIPs and rare psychiatric cases, making the authorities cautious about casualties. The Bureau Chief orders Xue Se to help quell the unrest quickly, emphasizing that the analysis of Doctor Gao’s brain must remain secure.
• Xue Se leads an armed entry. Despite orders to stay behind, Xu Huan and Old Ma follow him inside. After seeing injured officers and facing attacks, Xue Se authorizes lethal force, and the team fights through smoke and barricades to the fourteenth floor.
• The hospital staff appear to be resisting the rescue. Xue Se confronts a senior doctor, who insists that the staff are saving everyone and warns them not to disturb a mysterious person. The doctor’s unstable behavior mirrors that of many patients.
• The chapter ends on a new mystery. Searching the special wards and the director’s office for clues, the group reaches Ward Zero. Inside, they find handmade black boxes and hear a voice repeating, “Not perfect enough.”

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se is decisive and forceful under pressure, willing to override civil-rights and ethics restrictions to protect his officers and contain the crisis. His actions echo an earlier incident in which he began killing, though now at the hospital.
• Xu Huan remains fatalistic about his possible death and insists on staying near Xue Se, despite Xue Se’s attempts to keep him and Old Ma out of danger. He is also intrigued by the chance to learn about the director.
• Old Ma follows Xu Huan and Xue Se into danger with little concern beyond practical matters, such as hunger.
• Commander Wang is exhausted and under intense pressure; he asks Xue Se to lead the entry because his own team lacks experience.
• The senior doctor clashes with Xue Se, portraying the hospital’s actions as a rescue while physically trying to stop the officers from proceeding.

Significant themes

• Civil liberties versus emergency force: The authorities set aside normal safeguards as the death toll rises.
• Competing ideas of “rescue”: Xue Se sees intervention as necessary to save lives, while the doctor claims the staff’s mysterious work is the true salvation.
• Institutional secrecy and power: VIP patients, rare cases, Doctor Gao’s brain analysis, and the missing director suggest hidden priorities behind the operation.
• Uncertainty and obsession: The unstable staff, Ward Zero, and the voice seeking perfection deepen the chapter’s atmosphere of mystery.

Key plot points and events

• Police captain Xue Se and his team enter a hospital ward filled with black boxes and find a seemingly perfect boy surrounded by strange equipment.
• The boy, who calls himself Number Zero, has been assembling a many-sided Rubik’s Cube showing alternate versions of Xinhu. The cube breaks before he can finish.
• Number Zero says he has no illness or attending physician, though he often spoke with the hospital director. He claims the director went to “another world” and is inside one of the boxes.
• The officers find Number Zero’s file: the director brought him to the hospital three years earlier and studied him extensively. Researchers concluded that he was not human, despite his human physiology; records of consultations stopped six months ago.
• The doctors say that since then they have only monitored Number Zero and followed the director’s orders. Number Zero insists the director truly went to a New World and says he is trying to reconstruct a “correct” world in his mind, but recent fires and riots have damaged it.
• A concealed chamber is discovered, containing brains in jars connected to the equipment around the boy’s bed.

Character developments and interactions

• Number Zero remains eerily calm and detached, treating the officers as lesser beings. He reveals his search for a specific black box and his attempt to create a better world.
• Xue Se responds with suspicion and force, dismissing the boy’s claims as madness and ordering his arrest, though the evidence complicates his assumptions.
• Xu Huan is curious about the boxes and probes the boy’s story. The boy’s account of the director also unsettles him, as Xu Huan suspects the director was responsible for his death.
• The doctors are desperate to protect Number Zero and insist the director’s work and the boy’s claims should be taken seriously. Their distress contrasts with the police’s mistrust.

Significant themes

• Reality and alternate worlds: The black boxes and cube suggest multiple versions of Xinhu and challenge the officers’ sense of what is real.
• The limits of human understanding: The researchers’ conclusion that Number Zero cannot be safely described or investigated frames him as an existence beyond ordinary comprehension.
• Faith versus evidence: The police interpret the boy as delusional, while the doctors believe his account; the hidden chamber leaves the truth unresolved.
• Creation and imperfection: Number Zero seeks a “correct” world, but even his constructed version is vulnerable to flaws and disruption.

Key plot points

• Xue Se arrests the child from the hospital, whose cold contempt for human life unsettles him. Looking at the child’s soul, he sees countless human faces embedded in it, all staring back at him.
• He expands the police operation against the First Rehabilitation Hospital, accusing it of illegal experiments, brain trading, deliberate mistreatment, and spreading pathogens. Many patients and obstructive staff are arrested; Commander Wang worries about the fallout.
• Back at the station, Xue Se weakens Xu Huan with a drug and leaves him under Old Ma’s watch, then drives alone to the Time of Death Complex to look for his missing informants.
• An old man from the complex begs Xue Se for a way to live. Xue Se recognizes him as one of the men involved in turning a reporter into a clock and kills him.
• Xue Se reaches the Man-Eating Room and tells Time he has found the person who cannot be killed. Time answers through Big Head, whose face has been flattened and fitted with a clock hand. Xue Se discovers that nine of his informants have been turned into clocks and are being used to speak for Time.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se acts decisively against the hospital but remains wary of political consequences. His concern for his informants—and grief and anger at finding them transformed—shows how personally he takes responsibility for his people. He restrains himself because he still needs information from Time.
• Xu Huan appears reluctant to be left behind and may be trying to warn Xue Se, but the drug leaves him unable to act.
• Time maintains control of the encounter by speaking through Big Head and the transformed informants, while Xue Se treats Xu Huan as leverage in their ongoing exchange.
• Commander Wang fears the consequences of Xue Se’s mass arrests, contrasting with Xue Se’s aggressive approach.

Significant themes

• Fate versus choice: Xue Se knows the predicted future in which he becomes a killer, but refuses to accept that it must happen.
• Life, death, and exploitation: The hospital’s crimes and the clock transformations depict human beings treated as disposable tools.
• Power and institutional corruption: Xue Se uses public scrutiny to protect himself while confronting a hospital apparently shielded by its influence.
• Responsibility and revenge: Xue Se’s search for his informants reflects loyalty, but his killing of the old man shows how grief and anger can drive him toward violence.

Plot points

• Time confirms that an apparently unremarkable man is responsible for trapping them in Delirium. It claims that other “unknowables” are also trapped there and warns Xue Se that the man is manipulating him.
• Xue Se refuses to trust Time outright. He demands that it release his imprisoned informants, threatening to ally with the man instead.
• Time offers a different concession: access to memories preserved in the river of time. By touching an old man’s eyes, Xue Se sees a creature growing in the Blood Sea while watching a child in the Mortal World. He suspects the child is himself.
• The old man explodes, and Time urges Xue Se to drive the seemingly unkillable man mad before Time itself loses control. Xue Se, shaken by the vision, makes no promise.
• A call from Chen Bing reveals that the Bureau Chief has chosen who will receive “shared brain” slots connected to Doctor Gao’s brain—and Xue Se was excluded. Xue Se immediately leaves for the Police Station to secure a slot.
• On the way, he notices a rooftop clock running counterclockwise, like clocks in the Time of Death Complex and Doctor Gao’s study.

Character developments and interactions

• Xue Se remains wary and practical, refusing to accept Time’s claims without proof. The memory vision unsettles him and softens his hostility toward Time, but his attention quickly shifts to the urgent opportunity involving Doctor Gao’s brain.
• Time reveals its fear and vulnerability: recalling or disclosing knowledge hastens its madness, and its control over the complex is weakening. It tries to persuade Xue Se to act against the man it considers the true threat.
• Chen Bing secretly contacts Xue Se with information about the Bureau Chief’s decision, prompting Xue Se to act despite Chen Bing’s attempt to counsel calm.
• Xue Se’s exchanges with Time are marked by distrust and leverage: he uses threats to protect his informants, while Time uses the promise of useful knowledge to influence him.

Significant themes

• Memory and sanity: In Delirium, remembering and revealing the truth can drive people mad; forgetting may reduce them to instinct.
• Identity and reality: The vision raises the possibility that Xue Se’s true self is connected to a creature in the Blood Sea and a child in the Mortal World.
• Trust and manipulation: Both Time and the mysterious man may have ulterior motives, leaving Xue Se to judge competing claims without certainty.
• Fate and intervention: Xue Se knows a future in which he attacks Time, but that disaster was prevented—at least temporarily—by Xu Huan’s time travel.

Key plot points and events

• Xue Se returns to the Police Station after planning to investigate Doctor Gao’s home. He finds Xu Huan in a violent, distressed state after waking to find him gone.
• Xu Huan explains that he believes he may die unpredictably, but is willing to help Xue Se catch the killer. Xue Se asks him to secure a shared-brain slot using the Forest Core Patient’s brain.
• Xu Huan describes a future he once saw: the Forest would overrun Xinhu, be burned down at great cost, and nine people would undergo shared brain. Doctor Gao was among them and later became an Ethics Oversight Group member. But Doctor Gao’s death has changed that future.
• Chen Bing tells Xue Se that the Police Bureau has selected three candidates, while the Human Rights Committee has chosen six. Their combined number matches Xu Huan’s account. Xue Se fails to obtain a slot through the bureau chief and leaves the matter to Xu Huan.
• The next day, the Human Rights Committee begins its shared-brain session with its six candidates. Xu Huan’s father-in-law says the Committee hopes to understand the Forest and turn its power into a weapon.
• Xue Se is revealed to be one of the participants. Xu Huan watches him anxiously as the procedure begins.

Character developments

• Xue Se remains forceful and focused, but his curiosity about the Forest leads him to risk participating in shared brain. He also relies on Xu Huan to gain access to the Committee’s session.
• Xu Huan is frightened by the dangers he foresees and deeply distrustful of shared brain after a traumatic experience. Despite his fear, he tries to protect Xue Se and help him.
• Chen Bing provides the Police Bureau’s plans and confirms the scale of competition for the shared-brain slots.
• Xu Huan’s father-in-law treats the procedure as a strategic opportunity, seeking to claim the Forest’s power for the Committee.

Significant themes

• Uncertain futures: Doctor Gao’s death has altered events Xu Huan once considered settled.
• Power and exploitation: The organizations seek to turn a dangerous condition into an advantage.
• Risk and knowledge: Shared brain promises answers about the Forest but may come at a terrible cost.
• Trust and protection: Xu Huan’s faith in Xue Se shapes his choices, even as he fears what may happen to him.

Character interactions

• Xue Se and Xu Huan clash physically and argue over the shared-brain procedure, yet Xu Huan remains committed to helping him.
• Chen Bing privately informs Xue Se of the Police Bureau’s candidate list; Xue Se then unsuccessfully appeals to the bureau chief.
• At the Human Rights Committee’s session, Xu Huan watches Xue Se enter the procedure with visible anxiety, while his father-in-law oversees it.

Plot points and events

• During a shared-brain procedure involving six people, several participants begin convulsing and bleeding. The staff call the reactions normal, and the Human Rights Committee’s director-general allows the procedure to continue.
• Xu Huan’s wife reveals that the Core Patient’s brain contains poison, apparently placed there by the Ethics Oversight Group. The procedure was designed to dilute the poison across multiple participants—and, she says, all of them were expected to die.
• Xu Huan realizes this outcome differs from the future he remembers. He believes an enemy has altered events to prevent his time-travel ability from helping him, possibly by trapping him in a permanently incapacitated body. He tries to save Xue Se, but security restrains him and his wife stuns him.
• Five participants die or suffer brain death. Xue Se alone survives the procedure, displays extraordinary strength, and must be subdued and isolated. Before losing coherence, he mentions “Doctor Gao” and “the clock.”
• Searching for an explanation, Xu Huan rushes with his wife to Doctor Gao’s home. In the study, he finds a clock whose hands move counterclockwise.

Character developments

• Xu Huan shifts from anxious observer to desperate investigator as he realizes the future has changed and that he may be the target of a plan worse than death.
• Xue Se proves unusually resilient, surviving the poison and transforming into a violent, beastlike state. His fragmented words suggest he has seen something important in the Core Patient’s memories.
• Xu Huan’s wife shows her fascination with the bloody procedure, then helps restrain Xu Huan by stunning him. Her behavior underscores how little she shares his alarm.
• Doctor Gao, though believed dead, becomes central to the mystery through Xue Se’s warning and the strange clock in his study.

Significant themes

• The instability of the future: Xu Huan’s remembered outcome no longer matches events, undermining his sense of safety and control.
• Institutional cruelty and dehumanization: The procedure continues despite obvious suffering, with participants treated as expendable.
• Consciousness as a prison: Xu Huan fears being left alive but unable to communicate or escape his body.
• Memory, poison, and hidden truth: Xue Se’s tortured glimpse into the Core Patient’s memories may expose a secret connected to Doctor Gao and the clock.

Character interactions

• Xu Huan and his wife respond very differently to the procedure: she treats the suffering as spectacle, while he grows increasingly horrified.
• Xu Huan attempts to reach and rescue Xue Se, but his wife and security personnel stop him.
• Xue Se’s final words give Xu Huan a lead, prompting him to search Doctor Gao’s home with his wife.