Chapter Summaries

Key plot points

• Trapped in the Black Pit, Gao Ming finds himself unable to see or hear. A rough, callused hand drags him through darkness, leaving touch and smell as his only guides.
• He discovers that scents trigger painful memories associated with a blind, deaf man from the Dog Pit Case. The smell of osmanthus brings on a beating, while mothballs signal a man who appears to be taking him away.
• Gao Ming realizes the scenes may involve the man’s parents handing him over to the mothball-scented stranger. When a foul-smelling figure intervenes, Gao Ming helps drive the stranger off by throwing dirt at him.
• A warm hand then leads Gao Ming away from the city’s odors to a peaceful countryside scene. It feeds him a comforting meal and guides him in weaving a bamboo basket.

Character developments

• Gao Ming adapts quickly to his sensory deprivation, using smell and touch to interpret the world. His psychological knowledge helps him understand how scent can unlock vivid emotional memories.
• Though frightened and repeatedly beaten, he remains resourceful and retaliates when he has the chance.
• By the end, his focus shifts from escaping the “game” to seeking comfort and safety with the warm-handed figure.

Significant themes

• Memory and smell: Scents evoke powerful, emotionally charged recollections and shape the world Gao Ming experiences.
• Survival through adaptation: With sight and hearing gone, Gao Ming relies on remaining senses, reasoning, and improvisation.
• Trauma and comfort: Cruel memories of violence contrast sharply with the tenderness of food, home, and practical instruction.
• The need for safety: The warm hand offers not merely help but a sense of belonging that draws Gao Ming in.

Character interactions

• The rough hand initially seizes and guides Gao Ming into the darkness.
• The osmanthus-associated couple beat him, while the mothball-scented man attempts to take him away; a foul-smelling figure intervenes, and Gao Ming joins the struggle.
• The final, warm-handed person feeds Gao Ming and teaches him to weave, creating a bond based on care and trust.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming enters the blind madman’s memories, where he experiences life without sight or sound. He infers that the hands guiding him belong to a kind woman who took him in after his parents rejected him and a trafficker tried to exploit him.
• The woman teaches him practical skills, including weaving bamboo mats and finding household tools. Gao Ming becomes more independent, but grows attached to her reassuring presence and faint ammonia-like smell, which suggests she is seriously ill.
• Her smell fades, and Gao Ming is left alone. Villagers enter, loot and wreck her home, and drive him out.
• The woman returns and leads Gao Ming toward the Black Pit. A way back to reality appears, but he chooses not to leave. Instead, he follows her into the darkness and tries to care for her.

Character development

• Gao Ming moves from helplessness and dependence toward competence, learning to navigate the silent, dark world on his own.
• His attachment to the woman deepens into a decision to stay with her, even when escape is possible. He chooses to act out what he believes the blind madman might have wished to do.
• The woman is revealed as a compassionate caregiver, though her worsening illness and ultimate fate remain uncertain.

Significant themes

• Regret and atonement: Gao Ming’s choice may fulfill a regret the blind madman carried for life.
• Compassion and connection: Care and kindness can offer meaning even in a world stripped of ordinary senses.
• Dependence and loss: Gao Ming’s fear when the woman disappears shows how deeply he relies on her.
• Choice amid uncertainty: Unsure whether the woman is real, dead, or part of a fantasy, Gao Ming follows his heart rather than choosing the safest escape.

Character interactions

• The woman guides and teaches Gao Ming through touch, encouraging him to become self-sufficient.
• Villagers treat him cruelly, ignoring or beating him as they strip the house and force him out.
• When the woman returns, Gao Ming takes her hands and stays beside her, reversing their earlier dynamic by trying to care for her.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming continues caring for a gravely ill woman in the Black Pit, despite being blind and deaf. He notices children have been entering the cellar and stealing or moving things.
• A fire breaks out. Gao Ming must choose between escaping toward the cellar exit or returning to rescue the woman. He turns back, searches through smoke and flames, finds her hand, and carries her toward the exit.
• As he chooses to save her, his senses begin returning. At the ladder, the woman’s scent disappears, and Gao Ming realizes he has been carrying a small figure woven from bamboo.
• Outside the cellar, he confronts a huge black dog with the head of the blind man from the Dog Pit Case inside its mouth. The creature explains that the cellar was his home and that Gao Ming had experienced his memories.
• The blind man recounts a childhood of exploitation, followed by the kindness of a woman he called “Mother.” After her death, relatives drove him into the abandoned Black Pit. During a confrontation with village children, he was injured and later beaten by villagers.
• Gao Ming suspects the villagers covered up the children’s role by falsely portraying the blind man as a child-kidnapper. He offers to help the dog find those responsible, but it says it feels no hatred.

Character development and interactions

• Gao Ming demonstrates resolve and compassion: even while injured, disoriented, and facing a clear escape route, he risks himself to save the woman. His choice restores his senses and helps him understand the blind man’s experience.
• The blind man / huge dog reveals a tragic history and a capacity for tenderness, especially toward the bamboo figure representing his “mother.” Though he has made others suffer in the Black Pit, he claims not to hate those who wronged him.
• Gao Ming tries to understand the creature rather than fight it, offering both practical help and counseling. The dog regards his professions and offers as strange, creating a moment of dark humor amid the tragedy.

Significant themes

• Compassion and sacrifice: Gao Ming’s decision to return for the woman is the chapter’s pivotal act.
• Memory and empathy: Experiencing the blind man’s memories lets Gao Ming feel the terror and hardship of his life.
• Injustice and dehumanization: The blind man is exploited, abandoned, and falsely blamed, while the villagers’ violence is hidden behind a distorted account.
• Trauma and suffering: The Black Pit reproduces the pain the blind man endured, raising questions about whether suffering explains—or excuses—making others endure it.

Key plot points and events

• The large dog explains that Shadow City is a dying reflection of reality, filled with abandoned memories and nightmares. It believes the disaster can end only if the living outnumber the dead, so it wants to bring more people into the city.
• The dog swallows Gao Ming and lets him experience the blind man’s perception. Gao Ming sees the true Shadow World: uncontrolled nightmares, falling ruins and gravestones, a bone-covered island drawing incomplete souls, and a vast blood-soaked city.
• The dog asks Gao Ming to choose between helping reality by killing ghosts or helping the shadows by bringing in the living. Before it can explain further, it reacts violently to something inside Gao Ming and accuses him of carrying a ghost.
• Gao Ming realizes the blind man’s heartbeat resonated with the Flesh-and-Blood Heart, apparently awakening the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God. The dog flees into the cellar, and Gao Ming follows, still intent on rescuing Wei Dayou and killing Qing Ge.
• In the cellar, Gao Ming finds talismans, ritual-like drawings, and numerous corpses. The evidence suggests Situ An had prepared the place and may have tried to enlist the blind man’s help. Gao Ming also learns that the cellar’s earlier dangers were real, and that the blind man’s kindness has limits.
• In the deepest chamber, most surviving people are frozen in hallucinations. Qing Ge stands among the dead, knife in hand, and moves toward Gao Ming’s phone light despite keeping his eyes shut. Gao Ming decides this is his chance to kill him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming gains a clearer, more terrifying understanding of Shadow City and its scale. He remains focused on his immediate mission despite the dog’s attempt to force a larger moral choice.
• The large dog / blind man reveals a sincere but extreme loyalty to the Shadow World. Its explanation casts its plan as an attempt to save the dying city, but its hostility toward intruders shows it is dangerous and not universally merciful.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God appears to respond to the blind man’s resonance as though sensing a blood offering, though Gao Ming does not understand why.
• Qing Ge remains mysterious: though apparently in a hallucination, he kills those around him and can track the light, making him an immediate threat.
• Gao Ming and the blind man briefly share perception through synchronized heartbeats; that connection seems to trigger the confrontation between the dog and the presence inside Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• Competing survival loyalties: reality and the Shadow World demand opposing choices, with neither side presented as straightforwardly safe.
• Memory, grief, and abandonment: Shadow City is formed from discarded nightmares and memories, while its inhabitants seek release or recognition.
• The limits of compassion: the blind man’s apparent gentleness is conditional, shaped by loyalty and past gratitude.
• Uncertainty and hidden danger: hallucinations, monsters, and supernatural forces make it difficult to know what is happening—or what an opponent can perceive.

Key plot points and events

• Qing Ge enters the Black Pit cellar to recover the children’s bodies, hoping to support Situ An’s ritual for borrowing yin lifespan. The cellar’s darkness strips away his sight and hearing, but he initially relies on smell and his Black Blade to fight.
• After killing many attackers, Qing Ge finds what seems to be an exit. He is then ambushed by four coordinated figures whose presence defeats his senses and overwhelms him. As he loses the strength to fight, he experiences the terror and helplessness he once inflicted on others.
• Gao Ming and four patients appear. Gao Ming confronts Qing Ge over his cruelty, takes the Black Blade, and has the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God consume him. The Ghost God grows more balanced and agile after absorbing Qing Ge.
• Gao Ming searches for Wei Dayou, but the enormous black dog warns him not to target the remaining captives. Gao Ming proposes creating a shelter in the Shadow World where disaster victims can learn to live there. He argues that the dog’s past efforts to trap rather than simply sacrifice the villagers show that it still has compassion.
• Bound by their resonant hearts and with few alternatives, the dog agrees to try. It swallows the living people, and Gao Ming returns to the real world with Wei Dayou and a pitch-black memorial photo.

Character developments

• Qing Ge shifts from a confident, merciless executioner to a frightened, helpless victim. His ordeal forces him to experience the despair he once imposed on others, though he remains devoted to Situ An to the end.
• Gao Ming shows both force and persuasion: he eliminates Qing Ge, then uses empathy and strategic argument to win the dog’s cooperation. His ambition extends beyond survival toward building a community in the Shadow World.
• The black dog reveals a lingering capacity for kindness, linked to the influence of the “Bamboo Mother.” Despite its suspicion and fear, it accepts Gao Ming’s proposal.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God gains strength and agility by consuming Qing Ge.

Significant themes

• Reversal and empathy: Qing Ge becomes subject to the helplessness he once inflicted on others.
• Complicity and sacrifice: His actions serve Situ An’s pursuit of borrowed lifespan, built on the suffering of children and villagers.
• Survival and hope: The dog’s memorial message recalls its determination to keep living and care for its mother, even without sight or hearing.
• Life in the Shadow World: Gao Ming challenges the idea that people there can only be sacrificed, proposing that they might build ordinary lives and families instead.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming condemns Qing Ge’s treatment of innocents; Qing Ge answers with a threat invoking Situ An, while Gao Ming predicts Situ An will soon follow him.
• Gao Ming negotiates with the dog by appealing to the compassion it still holds, but their resonant hearts also leave the dog with little practical choice.
• The memorial photo’s inscription reveals the dog’s former human vulnerability and the personal hope beneath its monstrous appearance.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming rescues Wei Dayou from the Black Pit after the blind man releases him. Dayou is shaken by having spent what felt like a century trapped in darkness.
• Gao Ming explains that he has killed Qing Ge and Doctor Lu, two of Situ An’s important allies, and warns that Situ An will suspect Dayou if he returns alone. They test Dayou’s ability to conceal the truth; he proves surprisingly convincing, though he is nervous about facing Situ An.
• Gao Ming and Dayou leave the Temporary Shelter. After avoiding the police cordon around Lijing Apartments, Gao takes Dayou to Minlong Street, where he establishes a base in the building that once housed An’an.
• The large dog emerges from Gao Ming’s black memorial photograph and brings people from the Shadow World—including villagers, Hande Academy students, and Investigation Bureau members—into the building. The dog warns that these people have become Shadow World residents and cannot safely return to reality.
• Gao Ming asks Dayou to work with the dog, presenting him as a rescuer who can earn the residents’ trust while helping them survive. He then returns to Lijing Apartments, where police are investigating the disappearance of Building 2’s residents.
• At home, Gao Ming finds Wan Qiu and an unexpected visitor: his former high-school classmate Liu Yi. After sharing a meal, Liu Yi reveals that she was also on the bus during the Ghost Festival.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains strategic and protective, but his role expands: he is building a base in the Shadow World and organizing its residents. Returning home to someone waiting for him also brings him a rare moment of warmth.
• Wei Dayou is traumatized by his ordeal but remains loyal. He discovers that he can lie convincingly and accepts a role helping the Shadow World residents, despite his anxiety about Situ An.
• The blind man / large dog is still distrustful, yet Gao Ming understands his need for respect after Bamboo Mother’s death and offers him the chance to become a leader.
• Liu Yi is introduced as a capable, direct former classmate. Though she left a prestigious law firm, she remains a lawyer who advocates for deaf and nonspeaking people, and she is connected to the Ghost Festival bus incident.
• Wan Qiu quietly welcomes Gao Ming home, underscoring the comfort he finds in their shared household.

Significant themes

• Trauma and vulnerability: Dayou’s sudden experience of blindness leaves him deeply shaken.
• Trust, deception, and survival: Dayou must conceal the truth from Situ An, while Gao Ming uses staged appearances and cooperation to protect the Shadow World residents.
• Leadership and recognition: Gao Ming gives the blind man a chance to gain the respect he was denied, suggesting that power can be used to restore dignity.
• Memory and moving on: Gao Ming reflects that painful or vivid memories can make it difficult to move forward.
• Belonging and home: The Shadow World base is built to shelter displaced people, while Gao Ming’s return to Wan Qiu offers a contrasting sense of personal refuge.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming comforts Dayou, tests his ability to deceive, and recruits him to help the blind man.
• Gao Ming persuades the blind man to accept Dayou as a partner, balancing the dog’s distrust with a shared purpose.
• Gao Ming observes Investigators Qin Tian and Zhu Miaomiao at the cordon, recalling his past and the warmth it contained.
• Wan Qiu welcomes Gao Ming home, while Liu Yi prepares a meal and reconnects with him before revealing their shared connection to the Ghost Festival bus.

Key plot points and events

• Liu Yi tells Gao Ming that the bus they rode from Hate Mountain Prison matches one that crashed in the same tunnel ten years earlier, on Ghost Festival. She suspects they rode the same bus across a strange loop in time.
• Gao Ming realizes he had previously missed meeting Liu Yi because he was trapped at home. His memories and actions have led him onto a different worldline.
• Liu Yi recalls seeing Gao Ming in the tunnel talking to an unseen voice. It said he should have died, had been given a chance to live, and had made a deal. Gao Ming recognizes this as what Xuan Wen told him in another version of events. The same revelation has reached him through Liu Yi despite his attempts to change the past, making him fear that fate forces events back onto a fixed path.
• Liu Yi shows him a disturbing black-and-white graduation photo. Five figures remain in color, including Gao Ming and Liu Yi, while a boy at the center has been completely scratched out. Neither of them remembers the boy.
• Song Xue, who died in the bus crash, had the photo and later sent Liu Yi a message inviting classmates to a reunion. Gao Ming has received the same invitation. Liu Yi suggests they attend together after the rain stops.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is unsettled by the apparent repetition of events and wonders whether his choices can truly change anything. Still, he continues trying to alter people’s fates and agrees in principle to join the reunion once his work is done.
• Liu Yi emerges as observant and decisive: she noticed the bus’s identity, preserved evidence, and actively seeks Gao Ming out. Her practical, self-reliant manner contrasts with Xuan Wen’s more manipulative, unifying approach. She comforts Gao Ming and offers to accompany him to the reunion.
• Their conversation builds cautious trust: Liu Yi shares what she knows, while Gao Ming recognizes how her account connects to his own memories and invites further questions only indirectly.

Significant themes

• Fate versus free will: Even after Gao Ming changes events, information and outcomes seem to recur through other people, suggesting an inescapable pattern.
• Unstable memory and reality: The forgotten boy, the memorial-like photo, and the dead Song Xue’s messages cast doubt on what the characters remember and what is real.
• Alternate paths and consequences: Gao Ming’s altered choices have brought him into a worldline he previously missed, but he cannot tell whether it offers an escape or another trap.

Key plot points

• Liu Yi begins to leave, but Gao Ming asks how she found his home. She shows him pieces of his torn résumé, which included his address; she had found them after the tunnel incident.
• The two compare memories of the bus journey toward the Three-City Junction. Their accounts conflict: Liu Yi recalls a few passengers at first and then a suddenly full bus, while Gao Ming remembers waiting alone and boarding an already crowded vehicle.
• Liu Yi describes noticing that many passengers seemed corpse-like, and says her attempts to photograph or record events failed. In the tunnel, her phone’s clock stopped; soon after, the bus crashed.
• Their memories of the crash differ sharply. Liu Yi recalls screams and darkness, and says Gao Ming was screaming loudly; Gao Ming remembers waking to an empty bus and silence. Liu Yi also recalls him speaking with an unseen man, running away, and abandoning his belongings while someone else struggled with her over them.
• Liu Yi says a blurry shadow carried Gao Ming near the exit. She has never heard of Xuan Wen and asks whether anyone else has seen her, leaving Gao Ming uneasy about Xuan Wen’s reality.
• After Liu Yi leaves, Gao Ming calls Xuan Wen. She sounds weak and gives him an address, so he heads out to see her.
• On the way, Gao Ming develops a speculative theory: the events form four intersecting loops—his own, the bus journey from ten years earlier, the shadow world, and the present reality—centered on the tunnel. He acknowledges he has no evidence.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming takes a more active role in questioning Liu Yi and listens closely as their incompatible memories expose gaps in his own recollection. He feels guilty that he had focused on his game while Liu Yi was in danger. Her uncertainty about Xuan Wen unsettles him, but his concern for Xuan Wen drives him to go to her immediately.
• Liu Yi comes across as observant and resourceful: despite being frightened, she tried to document the bus events and later followed Gao Ming through the tunnel. She shares what she remembers but admits where her knowledge ends. She leaves to fulfill her duties as a lawyer.
• Xuan Wen appears vulnerable and distant over the phone, prompting Gao Ming to offer help.
• Wan Qiu remains at home practicing combat moves; his teasing question about Gao Ming’s plans briefly lightens the scene.

Significant themes

• Unreliable and conflicting memory: Gao Ming and Liu Yi remember the same events in fundamentally different ways, leaving the truth uncertain.
• Fate, identity, and time loops: Gao Ming wonders whether he exists outside fate and whether repeated, intersecting loops explain the events.
• Reality and perception: Liu Yi’s inability to see Xuan Wen—and the possibility that the figure who carried Gao Ming was not human—casts doubt on what can be verified.
• Trauma and responsibility: Liu Yi’s memories revive the terror of an earlier accident, while Gao Ming’s decision to seek out Xuan Wen shows his growing concern for others.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming follows a new worldline to Xuan Wen’s isolated apartment and finds her weak, hungry, and afraid that she is fading from existence.
• Xuan Wen says the game portrays her as an obsessive killer and admits she hates herself for that role. Gao Ming explains that the voice in the tunnel lied: although the game labels her a supporting character, fate had already made her its heroine—and seemingly demanded that she kill the other eight women.
• Because Xuan Wen resisted that fate, she feels the Shadow World erasing her. Gao Ming offers a different way to preserve her: join Nightlight Studio and help turn his game proposal, centered on her as the heroine, into a real game. He promises they will resist fate together.
• Their conversation is interrupted by a bloody young woman who forces her way inside. She appears to be Li Lüxin, a dating-game heroine known for manipulation, and declares that she has come to kill Xuan Wen.
• Gao Ming steps forward to protect Xuan Wen. Xuan Wen feigns weakness and leans on him, while Gao Ming challenges Li Lüxin’s attempt to cast Xuan Wen as the guilty party.

Character developments

• Xuan Wen is physically and emotionally deteriorating, but Gao Ming’s offer gives her a faint return of hope. Though she still blames herself, she begins to accept his support and shows a sly, playful side.
• Gao Ming demonstrates compassion and commitment, offering Xuan Wen both practical help and an alliance against fate. He acts protectively when Li Lüxin arrives.
• Li Lüxin enters as a deceptively sweet-looking but bloodied threat, immediately revealing her murderous intent.

Significant themes

• Fate versus free will: Xuan Wen’s attempt to reject her assigned role appears to have consequences, but Gao Ming insists they can refuse both fate’s demands and its punishments.
• Identity and remembrance: Xuan Wen fears being erased and forgotten; creating a game featuring her may give her a lasting place in people’s memories.
• Self-blame and imposed roles: Xuan Wen has internalized the idea that she is dangerous, while Gao Ming questions why she is being treated as the villain when others are trying to kill her.
• Support and solidarity: Gao Ming’s promise to stand beside Xuan Wen offers her a way forward beyond isolation.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming gently reassures Xuan Wen, listens to her fears, and gives her a concrete plan rather than simply dismissing her distress.
• Xuan Wen tests his sincerity with blunt questions, then accepts his help while keeping her dry humor.
• When Li Lüxin threatens Xuan Wen, Gao Ming moves to defend her; Xuan Wen then leans on him, both playing into Li Lüxin’s view of her as weak and exposing the contradiction in blaming the intended victim.

Plot points and events

• Li Lüxin appears at Xuan Wen’s home, confused but claiming she recognizes Gao Ming and pleading with him to trust her. Xuan Wen predicts she has a hidden weapon and will attack once she gets close.
• Li Lüxin does exactly that, drawing a second fruit knife and lunging at Gao Ming. The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God strikes and drags her into Gao Ming’s altered heart. Gong Xi removes and releases the shadow of another woman trapped in Li Lüxin’s wound.
• Xuan Wen searches Li Lüxin’s belongings and finds a blank memorial portrait. Gao Ming helps clean up, then leaves for home.
• Back at the apartment, Wan Qiu and Fortune are waiting. Gao Ming reflects that he will use the fragments of futures revealed by repeated deaths to forge a different path.
• The next morning, special-department investigator Qin Tian arrives with his apprentice, Zhu Miaomiao. He questions Gao Ming about the recent crisis at Building 2 but receives no useful information.
• Qin is ordered to return to the East District, where the Queen Investigation Office has been destroyed. Gao Ming warns him that going there will lead to his death, but Qin accepts the assignment, believing a worthwhile death is not to be feared.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed during Li Lüxin’s attack and relies on the Ghost God’s power. He shows quiet concern for Qin Tian, whose fate he recognizes from his death-fragment memories.
• Xuan Wen proves perceptive and prepared, while her dark humor and apparent readiness to defend herself contrast with a rare admission that she gets scared too. She says Gao Ming’s willingness to help dispose of a body has made her less resistant to him.
• Li Lüxin presents herself as vulnerable and familiar with Gao Ming, but her concealed knife exposes her as a threat.
• Qin Tian remains duty-bound and self-sacrificing, even when Gao Ming warns him he is likely to die. Zhu Miaomiao stays behind to assist at Lijing Apartments.
• Gao Ming and Xuan Wen share teasing, wary intimacy; Gao Ming and Qin Tian’s exchange is more serious, shaped by Gao Ming’s foreknowledge and Qin’s commitment to duty.

Significant themes

• Fate versus choice: Gao Ming uses glimpses of possible futures to seek a new path, yet Qin Tian’s repeated movement toward danger suggests how difficult fate may be to change.
• Death and sacrifice: Qin accepts death if his work helps others, while Gao Ming’s power is rooted in memories of dying.
• Trust and deception: Li Lüxin’s plea for trust masks an attack, whereas Xuan Wen’s bluntness and Gao Ming’s concern create a more complicated, growing bond.
• Care amid darkness: Practical gestures—Gao Ming’s concern for Xuan Wen’s health and the warmth Wan Qiu brings to the apartment—offer moments of tenderness amid violence and fear.

Key plot points and events

• Investigators Qin Tian and Zhu Miaomiao leave after speaking with Gao Ming. Zhu gives him her number and seems to feel unusually comfortable around him.
• Gao Ming considers trying to reach Situ An through the Investigation Bureau, but judges the risk too high. He believes interfering directly with Situ An may trigger fate’s resistance and decides to strengthen himself instead.
• Recalling a past life, Gao Ming remembers that players he once helped eventually conspired to kill him. Two key enemies were the brilliant player Deadwater and his former classmate Zhuo Jun, now a senior Investigation Bureau official.
• Gao Ming chooses Deadwater as his next target. Deadwater possesses a rare Posthumous Photograph that helped him survive horror games, and Gao Ming plans to take it and seize control of his secret player forum.
• Gao Ming travels to the Hanhai Sewage Treatment Plant and uses its public-facing engineering forum to access hidden discussions. The apparently nonsensical posts are coded advice for players dealing with places where humans and ghosts coexist.
• He traces Deadwater to the plant’s cafeteria supply operation: Deadwater is not an employee but the purchasing agent, implicated in a food-poisoning incident three years earlier.
• Gao Ming approaches the young man he believes is Deadwater. The chapter ends as the man opens a wardrobe containing a crying infant and threatens it.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming acts more cautiously than before, weighing fate’s influence and choosing preparation over a risky attempt to confront Situ An. His past betrayal has made him determined to take control of player cooperation rather than simply give information away.
• Deadwater is introduced as a highly capable, secretive player who distrusts the idea of sharing survival knowledge. His private cruelty toward the infant reveals a disturbing side beyond his strategic intelligence.
• Zhuo Jun is established as a future adversary: outwardly ordinary in school, but perceptive and ambitious, with influence both inside the Bureau and among players.
• Zhu Miaomiao offers Gao Ming a way to contact her and shows an instinctive, unexplained trust in him.
• The chapter’s final encounter is not yet a direct confrontation: Gao Ming secretly watches Deadwater, while Deadwater remains unaware he is being targeted.

Significant themes

• Fate versus choice: Gao Ming believes that attempts to alter fate can produce catastrophic consequences, so he seeks strength and timing rather than direct intervention.
• Betrayal and trust: His earlier generosity was repaid with murder, shaping his resolve to control the forum and decide how players communicate.
• Hidden identities and coded communication: Ordinary institutions and online discussions conceal a parallel world of players, ghosts, and survival strategies.
• Power and cruelty: Deadwater’s survival advantages and disdain for others are paired with his abuse of a helpless child, suggesting that competence does not imply morality.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming captures a young man connected to the Sewage Treatment Forum’s hidden section. In his wardrobe, he finds a painting copied from a Black-and-White Posthumous Photo: a beautiful woman trapped inside it, crying like a baby.
• Under pressure, the young man admits that he uses the account Deadwater and administers the forum’s hidden pages—but insists he is only an intermediary. The real Deadwater created the forum, supplied coded instructions and copied posthumous-photo paintings, and directed him to recruit people with horror experiences and dispose of bodies.
• The young man says his latest task is to collect a new painting from a trash can in the Hanhai Art Exhibition’s sixth area. Gao Ming checks security footage rather than searching openly.
• The footage reveals Xia Yang, Nightlight Studio’s lead artist and Gao Ming’s former coworker, dropping food packaging into a bin. Gao Ming finds a copied posthumous photo hidden in the wrapper, identifying Xia Yang as the likely real Deadwater.
• Gao Ming leaves to investigate Nightlight Studio, reflecting that events seem to be returning to their original paths. He also notes that Xuan Wen has an interview and jokes that their team might one day “overthrow the city.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming uses intimidation and his supernatural execution tools to break the intermediary’s resistance, then relies on surveillance and careful observation to uncover the next lead. Despite the disturbing revelations, he remains composed and focused.
• The intermediary is revealed as a frightened but complicit participant: he recruits people, carries out Deadwater’s errands, and disposes of bodies, though he claims not to know Deadwater’s real identity.
• Xia Yang shifts from a familiar, seemingly laid-back former coworker to the suspected mastermind behind the forum and its operations.
• Gao Ming briefly works with a security guard to review footage, then acts on what he discovers without drawing further attention.

Significant themes

• Hidden identities and manipulation: Deadwater operates through intermediaries and false accounts, making his true identity difficult to uncover.
• The corruption of art and horror: Paintings imitate posthumous photos and contain trapped souls, blurring the boundary between artwork and supernatural evidence.
• Familiarity turned threatening: The revelation that a trusted former coworker may be Deadwater makes the conspiracy feel personal.
• Destiny and recurring patterns: Gao Ming senses that, despite having started over, events are falling back into their original positions.

Plot points

• Gao Ming visits Nightlight Studio and finds chaos: lead artist Xia Yang is on leave, designer Wei Dayou has disappeared after resigning, and the studio cat is supposedly missing.
• Police question the staff about Wei. Manager Gou says Wei had claimed he was going to “save the world,” but no one knows where he is.
• Gao searches Xia Yang’s desk and finds detailed illustrations based on Gao’s game proposal, but nothing suspicious.
• Manager Gou offers Gao a temporary place at the studio. Soon after, Xuan Wen arrives with funding and a proposal to develop a horror game designed to reach as many players as possible, quickly. Gao suspects she borrowed the money without intending to repay it. She says he and she already count as a disaster.
• Gao leaves for Xia Yang’s villa, worried that Xia may be “Deadwater” and could clear more games. The villa is open and littered with unfinished paintings.
• Inside, Gao finds paintings that seem to depict the Shadow World. In the final image, a lifelike painting of the living room shows a figure on the sofa turning to face him, its face bleeding red pigment. Gao calls out Xia Yang’s name.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains focused on preventing disaster and investigating Xia Yang. He cautiously searches the studio, then heads to the villa when the paintings suggest Xia may be dangerous or connected to the Shadow World.
• Manager Gou is furious and overwhelmed by his staff’s absences, but his mood lifts dramatically when Xuan Wen brings funding.
• Xuan Wen shows initiative by securing money and presenting a game proposal herself. Her cryptic remark to Gao suggests she sees their own relationship as part of the impending catastrophe.
• Xia Yang is absent, but his art reveals a disturbing ability—or fixation—connected to the Shadow World.
• Wei Dayou’s disappearance remains unresolved; the police and studio staff have no clear explanation.

Significant themes

• Art blurring into reality: Xia Yang’s paintings may be more than representations; the figure in the final work appears to respond to Gao.
• Approaching catastrophe: Xuan Wen’s urgent game plan and Gao’s concern about Xia imply that games, disasters, and the Shadow World are closely linked.
• Absence and uncertainty: Key people vanish or remain unreachable, leaving others to interpret incomplete clues.
• Dark humor amid crisis: Manager Gou’s complaints and the studio’s chaotic circumstances contrast with the increasingly supernatural danger.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming sees Xia Yang inside a blood-red mural, savoring the blood on his hands before going upstairs. Drawn toward the painting, Gao Ming crosses into it and finds himself in a strange space with no detectable shadows.
• Three vividly colored paintings hang inside the otherwise red room: idealized people with missing limbs; a baby with an adult’s face; and a sequence showing one man’s life from infancy to old age, overseen by the Reaper.
• Upstairs, Gao finds Xia Yang painting a life-size self-portrait with blood drawn from his own chest.
• Xia Yang explains that he recognized Gao from his use of Deadwater’s unfinished forum codes. He suspects Gao can see the future because Gao’s horror games have become real.
• Gao tells Xia Yang that one future showed him becoming a powerful player who helped organize Gao’s dismemberment. Gao says he came for Xia Yang’s Black-and-White Posthumous Photo—not to deliver justice—and prepares to use the Execution House’s power.
• Xia Yang accepts death as inevitable but claims Gao will no longer have the chance to kill him.

Character developments

• Gao becomes more guarded about revealing future knowledge, aware that his actions may help bring about the future he hopes to prevent. He admits his priority is now saving himself.
• Gao’s understanding of Xia Yang deepens: Xia’s warmth and calm conceal profound detachment, as though he sees people as objects in a garden.
• Xia remains composed and curious about his possible fate. He treats his own death without fear and appears to value creating his final painting more than preserving anything he once needed.

Significant themes

• Fate and choice: Gao’s foreknowledge may alter events, yet he suspects fate can still push people toward the same outcomes.
• Self-preservation and justice: Gao openly prioritizes survival, challenging the idea that his actions are purely moral.
• Art, creation, and sacrifice: Xia uses his own blood to make a final self-portrait and discards what was once indispensable once the work is complete.
• Life and death: Xia frames living as taking and dying as a gift, while Gao struggles against a future in which many people may kill him.

Character interactions

• Gao and Xia speak calmly despite their opposing positions: Gao is prepared to take Xia’s photo and potentially kill him, while Xia neither resists nor fears death.
• Their conversation reveals mutual curiosity: Xia wants to understand Gao’s apparent ability to see the future, and Gao tries to understand Xia’s motives and nature.

Chapter summary

• The confrontation ends without a fight. Xia Yang admits that Gao Ming’s supposed ability to foresee the future gives him an advantage. Rather than resist, Xia Yang says he will create an unseen future and eventually be reborn within Gao Ming. His body melts into red paint, leaving behind a vivid self-portrait.
• Gao Ming is pulled into layers of the painting. Inside a bedroom depicted within the portrait, he finds Xia Yang’s corpse in a coffin. Xia Yang appears to have been brain-dead long before Gao Ming arrived. A strange black-and-white funeral photo shows the corpse painting a living, colorful version of himself; as Xia Yang’s vitality drains away, the image gains color.
• The painting collapses into the photo. When Gao Ming tries to clear blood from the photograph, the painted rooms dissolve and their color flows into it. He returns to the villa, which is now ordinary again, but keeps the photograph—and the troubling possibility that Xia Yang persists within it.
• Gao Ming investigates Xia Yang’s life. He finds medication for schizophrenia and a terminal illness, along with hospital reports showing Xia Yang refused treatment and had little time left. Behind a hidden door, he discovers evidence of both sides of Xia Yang’s life: he anonymously supported 121 abandoned children and helped children with deformities receive treatment, yet also indulged in hunts and killings.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Yang emerges as a contradiction: compassionate toward vulnerable children but cruel and murderous toward others. His illness, possible delusions, and artistic transformation make it unclear whether he is alive, dead, or something in between. His parting threat casts him as a lingering presence in Gao Ming’s life.
• Gao Ming remains cautious and analytical, but the encounter unsettles him. He recognizes that his “future sight” is only fragments of memories connected to his own deaths, not knowledge of every possible outcome. He is left weighing whether to destroy the powerful photograph or keep it at the risk of carrying Xia Yang with him.
• Their interaction is a psychological contest rather than a physical battle: Xia Yang tries to unsettle and reshape Gao Ming, while Gao Ming resists by questioning Xia Yang’s claims and examining the evidence he leaves behind.

Significant themes

• The ambiguity of life and death: Xia Yang’s corpse, portrait, and posthumous photograph blur the boundary between being dead and continuing to exist.
• Art as creation and transformation: Xia Yang’s art appears to turn his ideas—and perhaps himself—into reality.
• Moral contradiction: His generosity and violence coexist, challenging simple distinctions between good and evil.
• Uncertainty and psychological influence: Xia Yang’s confidence in Gao Ming’s foresight contrasts with Gao Ming’s limited, fragmented knowledge, leaving the future—and Xia Yang’s survival—unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming leaves Xia Yang’s villa with only Xia Yang’s horror-game theories and the administrator account for the Deadwater Forum. He plans to build the player community himself, while remaining cautious about using Xia Yang’s Posthumous Photograph.
• At Nightlight Studio, Gao Ming asks Xuan Wen to run the forum, an anonymous information network for horror-game players. He gives her its code phrases and plans for guiding players and sharing walkthroughs. She accepts, and Gao Ming says he trusts her.
• Gao Ming is invited to a class reunion in Hanhai. Song Xue, a classmate he thought had died, calls him with the details. In the group chat, he notices that Saeki and Zhuo Jun may also attend, raising questions about how many classmates are still alive and what their roles will be.
• On his way home, Gao Ming finds Minlong Street sealed off by the Investigation Bureau. Bai Xiao is leading an investigation into a supermarket anomaly where the night-shift employees have vanished. Since the nearby Courtyard No. 4 houses Wei Dayou and others, Gao Ming enters the courtyard and takes out the Posthumous Photograph.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming takes a more active role in shaping events: rather than simply using Xia Yang’s plans, he intends to organize and guide the horror-game players. He remains wary of the photograph’s influence and alert to changes in the “reset” and its approaching dangers.
• Xuan Wen shows a reassuring, playful side as she takes responsibility for the forum. She openly notes that control of the players could make Gao Ming vulnerable, but he chooses to trust her.
• Xia Yang remains influential through the ideas and tools he left behind, despite being absent.
• Song Xue reconnects with Gao Ming and invites him to the reunion. The call is unsettling because he remembers her as having died.
• Saeki and Zhuo Jun become possible sources of trouble or insight: Saeki’s past mental-health crisis concerns Gao Ming, while Zhuo Jun’s rise within the East District bureaucracy may connect him to Situ An.
• Bai Xiao leads the response to the Minlong Street anomaly. Gao Ming observes the investigation and worries about the nearby residents, especially Wei Dayou.

Significant themes

• Trust and control: Gao Ming entrusts Xuan Wen with influence over the player community, even as both recognize the risk.
• Fate and altered timelines: The reunion’s apparently living classmates and Zhuo Jun’s career prompt Gao Ming to question how events have changed and what fate intends.
• The cost of power: Gao Ming fears that relying on the Posthumous Photograph may strengthen Xia Yang’s influence over him.
• Uncertainty beneath ordinary life: A class reunion, a studio, and a neighborhood investigation all conceal connections to death and supernatural danger.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming enters the shadow world through the black-and-white photograph and reaches Minlong Street Courtyard 4, where Wei Dayou and the survivors are startled by his sudden arrival.
• Wei Dayou reports that 67 people are sheltering in the building, and more than half have been permanently “invaded by shadows.” Seven people merged with the shadow world the previous night alone. Those who die there become part of it.
• The survivors are running short on food and water. Their nearby target, Minlong Supermarket, is itself a huge man-eating ghost; an earlier supply party went in and never returned.
• Gao Ming learns that the shadow world seems frozen on the night of the Ghost Festival, though he does not yet know why.
• After a scream comes from the supermarket, Gao Ming heads there with a large black dog, while Wei Dayou sends four investigators with him. The dog reluctantly agrees to wait outside and help.
• Inside, Gao Ming finds a darkened, apparently ordinary supermarket and a monitor displaying a one-minute deadline to reach the staff break room. He finds investigators barricaded inside and forces the door open. Zhu Miaomiao recognizes him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed and practical, gathering information before acting. He focuses on the survivors’ immediate needs and takes the risk of investigating the supermarket.
• Wei Dayou has become a trusted leader, organizing defenses and mapping the area. Though he puts on a brave face for the villagers, he privately admits how desperate their situation is. He also gives former investigators a chance to make amends.
• The blind man, now appearing as an enormous black dog, contributes insight into the shadow world and has marked Wei Dayou with a protective ghost sign. He is reluctant to accompany Gao Ming but eventually agrees to support him.
• Zhu Miaomiao and the Lishan rookies re-enter the story, trapped in the supermarket’s apparent anomaly and wary of Gao Ming until they recognize him.

Significant themes

• Survival under escalating danger: The group must find supplies while facing lethal supernatural threats.
• The cost of the shadow world: People can become permanently trapped in it, and death means absorption into its darkness.
• Trust and responsibility: Wei Dayou’s leadership, Gao Ming’s cooperation with the dog, and the second chance offered to former investigators all show people relying on one another despite fear.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming enters a supermarket that has been sealed off and realizes he is trapped in an anomaly—a dangerous ghost world.
• He joins several newcomers from the Lishan Investigation Office, including Zhu Miaomiao. Their experienced team leader, Bai Xiao, has disappeared after going out with other investigators.
• A walkie-talkie orders everyone to change into the uniforms in their lockers. Gao Ming’s locker contains photographs of two children instead of clothes. With time running out, he wears Zhu Miaomiao’s uniform, while she takes the unwanted red uniform.
• The uniforms contain work schedules assigning the seven investigators to different days of the week. Gao is assigned Monday, Zhu Wednesday, and the bespectacled newcomer Tuesday.
• After the group leaves the break room, they find a fifteen-minute countdown and discover a computer Work Log listing urgent supermarket duties—including finding and disposing of two children’s bodies.
• Gao heads toward the chilled-food section, apparently acting on the disturbing instruction.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed and inquisitive despite the danger. He questions the newcomers’ assumptions, notices discrepancies in the schedules, and takes initiative when the Work Log mentions the bodies. His supernatural connection—the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God—also reacts to the threat.
• Zhu Miaomiao acts as Gao’s guide, explaining anomaly rules and urgently urging him to obey them. Despite her caution, she gives him her uniform to protect him, accepting the red one herself. She later feels responsible when she realizes his assigned shift may place him in danger.
• The newcomers rely heavily on Investigation Bureau training, treating rules as their main route to survival. They defend Bai Xiao’s reputation and initially distrust Gao’s unconventional behavior.
• Gao’s knowledge of Bai Xiao is more personal than the others’: he knows Bai Xiao has abandoned them before—or worse, recalling that he killed a monstrous version of him in a previous event.

Significant themes

• Rules versus judgment: The investigators are taught to follow rules, but the supermarket’s instructions may be sinister, forcing them to decide which rules can be trusted.
• Curiosity and survival: Zhu warns that curiosity is dangerous, while Gao’s investigative instincts repeatedly draw him toward clues.
• Appearance versus reality: A familiar workplace, ordinary uniforms, and routine duties conceal a deadly supernatural situation.
• Trust and responsibility: Zhu risks herself to help Gao, while the newcomers’ faith in their leader and their procedures is tested by his absence and the contradictory instructions.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Zhu Miaomiao, and the newcomer with glasses search Minlong Supermarket for two children’s bodies mentioned in a work log. Photos of two children are found in the staff locker, but the bodies remain missing. The supermarket’s products all bear production dates from ten years ago.
• Their search is interrupted by a series of customers who seem connected to the store and its past:
  • Uncle Li arrives soaked from the rain to repay a debt, drink liquor, and gossip with Gao Ming about “Jingjing.” Gao Ming plays along, serves him a small drink, and gives him peanuts.
  • A tired, rain-soaked office worker comes in to complete an eating challenge for her livestream. Gao Ming notices her discomfort and the cruel comments viewers leave, then offers her a towel and speaks with her kindly.
  • Supermarket owner Zhang Ding enters disguised as a clown, intending to startle the streamer and promote the shop. Uncle Li recognizes him immediately, and Zhang’s clumsy prank is revealed as an attempt to cheer her up.
• When the doorbell rings again, Uncle Li and Zhang panic and hide. The newcomer is Uncle Li’s wife, who has come to fetch him for dinner. Gao Ming distracts her from confronting him by explaining that Uncle Li came in the rain and offering her a wooden comb as a supposed apology.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains observant and quick-thinking, adapting easily to the strange customers. Rather than treating them as threats, he responds with warmth and tact, especially toward the livestreamer and Uncle Li’s wife.
• Zhu Miaomiao is visibly nervous when she first faces what appears to be a ghost, struggling to speak until Gao Ming steps in.
• Uncle Li is revealed as a cheerful, mischievous regular who sneaks drinks despite his wife’s disapproval. His familiar behavior suggests a close connection to the supermarket’s community.
• The livestreamer reveals that her eating videos are an effort to become more confident and overcome lifelong social anxiety and insecurity about her weight. Her on-camera cheerfulness hides exhaustion and distress.
• Zhang Ding is shown to be a well-meaning but inept prankster who sees the neighborhood’s customers as family and wants to make them happy.
• Uncle Li’s wife appears stern but is softened, at least somewhat, by Gao Ming’s quick explanation and gesture.

Significant themes

• Happiness over success: The chapter’s title is reflected in Uncle Li’s belief that enjoying life matters, and in the characters’ attempts to bring small moments of comfort to others.
• Kindness beneath performance: The streamer’s cheerful online persona masks pain, while Gao Ming’s simple concern gives her a moment of genuine care.
• Community and belonging: The customers and owner behave less like strangers in a shop and more like neighbors with shared history and affection.
• The uncanny within the ordinary: Ten-year-old products, rain-soaked customers, and the characters’ unusual circumstances create a ghostly atmosphere, even as everyday interactions continue.

Character interactions

Gao Ming mediates between the store’s eccentric regulars and the newcomers: he helps Uncle Li maintain his cover, comforts the streamer, and protects Zhang’s prank from becoming a confrontation. Zhu Miaomiao and the bespectacled newcomer continue the urgent body search in the background, contrasting with Gao Ming’s increasingly ordinary-seeming exchanges. The chapter ends with Gao Ming improvising to shield Uncle Li from his wife, while the mystery of the children and the supermarket’s ten-year-old stock remains unresolved.

Plot points and events

• At the Minlong Street Supermarket, Gao Ming calms Uncle Li’s wife, who is worried about her elderly husband drinking. She enters the shop and catches Uncle Li and owner Zhang Ding hiding.
• Three rain-soaked children arrive: Zhang Fendou, the supermarket owner’s son, and neighborhood children Le Jia and Le Ren. Gao Ming recognizes Le Jia and Le Ren from a photograph in the employee locker, though they appear alive—deepening the mystery of the work-log instruction to find the children’s “bodies.”
• The children explain that they ran through the storm to help a neighbor move her flowerpots. Their carefree behavior contrasts with the adults’ concerns. Zhang Ding praises his son’s effort, but then chases him after learning he scored only 27 on a test. Gao Ming intervenes, but the children disappear during the commotion.
• Gao Ming questions customers and notices that nearly all are swollen, as if they had been underwater; only the two children from the photograph look normal. Meanwhile, Zhu Miaomiao and a bespectacled newcomer search for the missing bodies and follow the supermarket’s rules.
• Water begins flooding into the shop. A vehicle arrives through the darkness warning that the Li River dam has burst. The news recalls a real disaster from ten years earlier. As the countdown resumes, Gao Ming rushes inside to warn everyone to evacuate.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays observant and resourceful, using his counseling experience to manage the adults while piecing together the anomaly. His growing unease turns to urgent action when the flood warning arrives.
• Zhang Ding is presented as a warm, familiar neighborhood shopkeeper and an affectionate, permissive father, though his frustration over his son’s poor test score erupts into comic chaos.
• Uncle Li and his wife show a familiar domestic dynamic: he is subdued around her, while she worries about his health and insists the shop restrict his drinking.
• The children seem carefree and ordinary, but their connection to the photograph and the “bodies” instruction makes them central to the mystery.
• Zhu Miaomiao and the newcomer remain focused on the assigned search, highlighting how their urgent task is separate from the shop’s everyday-seeming bustle.

Significant themes

• Ordinary life inside an anomaly: Familiar family disputes, shopping, and neighborhood kindness make the supernatural setting feel deceptively normal.
• Memory and disaster: The warning echoes a flood from ten years ago, suggesting the anomaly is tied to a past tragedy.
• Contrasting perspectives: The characters’ everyday concerns continue even as a life-threatening catastrophe approaches.
• The uncertain boundary between life and death: The children appear alive despite the search for their “bodies,” while other customers bear signs of drowning.