Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• A flood suddenly strikes the supermarket, resembling the Lishui Dam Collapse that killed many people in the Old City District ten years earlier.
• Gao Ming realizes the drenched customers may be victims of that disaster and warns everyone to evacuate. He and Zhang Ding also search for three children who entered the storeroom.
• Gao breaks into an inner room and carries the children out, including Zhang Ding’s son, Zhang Fendou. The countdown then reaches zero, and a massive surge of floodwater traps everyone inside.
• Zhang Ding organizes an escape to the roof through a ceiling vent, prioritizing children and the elderly. The group struggles against the rising water as shelves and other debris become dangerous.
• When a shelf threatens Zhang Fendou, Gao summons the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God to catch it. Gao says the ghost agreed to let him trade one life for another.
• The Ghost God helps pull down the roller shutter and holds back the flood, buying the survivors more than ten minutes. The chapter ends as the remaining people climb toward the roof.

Character developments

• Gao Ming acts decisively despite the danger, choosing to save others rather than protect his own secrets or hesitate over the anomaly’s rules. His struggle against the flood echoes his repeated efforts to resist fate.
• Zhang Ding proves resourceful and selfless, directing the rescue and risking himself to get the children to safety.
• Zhu Miaomiao remains ready to help, holding onto her fire axe for security.
• The bespectacled rookie is frightened and cautious, worried that intervening might violate the anomaly’s rules.
• Uncle Li and the elderly woman show courage by helping stabilize the ladder for the children.

Significant themes

• Fighting fate and tragedy: Gao tries to alter a disaster that appears to be replaying a past catastrophe.
• Sacrifice and responsibility: Characters risk themselves to protect the vulnerable; Gao’s bargain with the Ghost God makes the cost of saving others explicit.
• Fear versus action: The rookie’s caution reflects the danger of acting blindly in an anomaly, while Gao’s urgency shows that hesitation can also be fatal.
• Disaster’s lingering memory: The flood brings the past back with terrifying physical force, blurring the boundary between present events and old tragedy.

Character interactions

• Gao and Zhang Ding work together to rescue the children and then try to hold back the flood.
• Gao instructs Zhu Miaomiao to help the customers and sends the rookie to alert the other investigators, though he proceeds without waiting for their agreement.
• Zhang Ding rallies the survivors and prioritizes children and the elderly; Uncle Li and the elderly woman assist with the ladder.
• Gao’s Ghost God intervenes to save Zhang Fendou and slow the flood, startling everyone who witnesses it.

Key events

• During the flood, Zhang Ding helps Gao Ming, Zhu Miaomiao, and the Glasses-Wearing Rookie escape through a ventilation shaft, even at great personal risk. Gao Ming follows them after suspecting the shaft leads somewhere other than the roof.
• The trio emerge in a Surveillance Room, where they watch the remaining four rookie investigators relive the Supermarket disaster. The rookies hide from the ghosts and fail to act in time.
• The footage reveals what likely happened ten years earlier: Zhang Ding and the neighbors try to evacuate the children through the vent, but the flood overwhelms them. Zhang Ding keeps Zhang Fendou aloft as long as he can; ultimately, he and the child are swept away. Only two children survive.
• After a camera is smashed and fighting is heard outside, Gao Ming concludes their ordeal may have been a ghost’s nightmare-like replay of the past. He opens the door to find the Supermarket in ruins, bloodied and strewn with merchandise.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhang Ding shows courage and self-sacrifice, first helping the present-day group escape and then, in the footage, doing everything possible to save the children and neighbors.
• Gao Ming remains focused on survival and preserving his Posthumous Photographs, but also protects Zhang Ding and takes charge of the escape. From the Surveillance Room, he recognizes how his presence had changed the group’s experience.
• Zhu Miaomiao gains a clearer appreciation of Gao Ming’s ability after seeing how different the disaster becomes without him.
• The Glasses-Wearing Rookie admits he could not find the other rookies in the break room and had made his escape choice independently.
• The four rookies are overwhelmed by their first anomaly event. Relying on memorized rules and hiding rather than responding decisively, they lose time and face the disaster without effective guidance.
• In the past, the neighbors cooperate to raise the ladder and prioritize the children, even as the flood and ghosts close in.

Significant themes

• Warmth amid horror: People risk themselves for strangers and children even when rescue seems impossible.
• Leadership and experience: Gao Ming’s presence helps redirect events, while the rookies’ lack of experience leaves them helpless.
• Memory and repeated tragedy: The Surveillance Room suggests the group has been pulled into a painful recollection of the flood, exposing the disaster’s original outcome.
• The limits of rules and rescue: Following procedures is not enough when circumstances change, and even extraordinary effort cannot always prevent loss.

Key events

• After the fighting stops, Gao Ming discovers ghostly supermarket customers: drowned, waterlogged figures and other eerie residents. He keeps Zhu Miaomiao and a rookie in the surveillance room while Investigators try to force open the locked supermarket doors.
• Bai Xiao and three teammates fight through the customers, but the ghosts block them rather than directly attacking them. The foul water surrounding the ghosts causes the Investigators pain, and ordinary weapons cannot harm them.
• Zhang Ding appears beside Gao Ming and explains why he refuses to open the doors. The flood that devastated Minlong Street happened ten years ago, but the ghosts’ suffering remains. Beneath the supermarket, the drowned dead—and trapped Investigators—lie in black, resentful water. Opening the doors could unleash the flood through the street again.
• Gao Ming recognizes that the ghosts are not simply malicious: they are trapped in painful memories and are trying to contain the danger. Zhang Ding says the ghosts have done what they can to leave the living an “air vent,” but their help has limits.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming uses his experience and knowledge of Zhang Ding’s memories to reason with him. He wants to save the trapped Investigators, but gradually understands that opening the doors may endanger everyone.
• Zhang Ding is revealed as a genuine ghost, not a creature of the Shadow World. Though calm and kindly toward Gao Ming, he bears the burden of refusing escape to prevent another disaster. He tells Gao Ming about his former employee, Little Gao, whom the neighborhood loved.
• Bai Xiao and his team show determination and cooperation as they attempt to break out, unaware that their effort may trigger renewed flooding.
• Zhang Ding’s warmth toward Gao Ming contrasts with the horror of the submerged dead, making clear that compassion does not mean the ghosts can simply let the living leave.

Significant themes

• Trauma outlasts catastrophe: the flood has receded, but its wounds and painful memories remain.
• Impossible choices: opening the doors might save the Investigators while unleashing danger on Minlong Street.
• The boundary between living and dead: people trapped in the Shadow World are entangled with memories of death, while the ghosts themselves remain tied to their suffering.
• Limited rescue: even those who want to help cannot always overcome the forces holding others captive.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Ding explains that the supermarket conceals the vengeful spirits of people who drowned in the Lishui Dam disaster. Anyone entering is pulled into their flood nightmare, where they risk becoming part of the flood. Zhang and several neighbors have been keeping the ghosts’ resentment in check and trying to rescue those trapped.
• Gao Ming learns that Le Jia and Le Ren, the flood’s only child survivors, remain tormented by guilt and fear. Their bodies are submerged in the nightmare, symbolizing their trauma and preventing them from moving on.
• Gao Ming proposes entering the flood to retrieve the children’s bodies and destroy what they represent. After the fighting at the entrance ends, Bai Xiao and three Investigation Bureau members are brought in.
• Gao Ming explains the situation to Bai Xiao. The investigators realize Zhang Ding has been protecting Minlong Street from a disaster, and both sides recognize they share the goal of protecting people.
• Bai Xiao chooses to stay rather than risk triggering the anomaly’s spread. He asks to return to the nightmare to rescue his sister and the other trapped recruits, accepting responsibility for his earlier mistake.
• Gao Ming insists on going in first, intending to retrieve the children and then help the investigators. Zhang Ding enlarges the opening as the ghosts’ resentment surges around them.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows compassion and boldness, volunteering for a dangerous rescue. He also thinks strategically: he wants to protect Bai Xiao from the Shadow World’s influence because he may need him later.
• Zhang Ding reveals both his clear understanding of the anomaly and his grief over failing to save his son, Zhang Fendou, during the flood. He warns Gao Ming and Bai Xiao against risking their lives but ultimately helps.
• Bai Xiao moves from shock and distrust to understanding. True to his duty, he chooses to protect the public and seeks to save his trapped colleagues and sister.
• Le Jia and Le Ren are revealed as deeply traumatized survivors, their guilt and terror embodied by the bodies in the nightmare.
• Gao Ming and Bai Xiao, once on opposing sides, discover that they share a protective purpose; Zhang Ding sees both men as dangerously reckless.

Significant themes

• Trauma and survivor’s guilt: The children’s lingering nightmare shows how catastrophe can shape survivors long after the event.
• Protection and sacrifice: Zhang Ding, Bai Xiao, and Gao Ming each risk themselves to shield others.
• Reality and the supernatural: Gao Ming suspects the Shadow World and reality are inseparably connected, raising the possibility that objects or bodies can cross between them.
• Duty and uneasy alliances: Former adversaries cooperate when they recognize a common responsibility, while the wider struggle for control in Hanhai remains a looming threat.

Key plot points and events

• Bai Xiao offers to descend beneath the Supermarket first, but Gao Ming pushes past him and dives into the water filled with resentful ghosts.
• The old neighbors—Uncle Li, Aunt Mei, and the Female Streamer—jump in to hold back the ghosts while Gao Ming searches for the two children’s bodies.
• Gao Ming withstands the ghosts’ attacks with the protection of his Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God and his hardened will. He reaches the bottom and retrieves the children’s bodies.
• As he tries to bring everyone back up, the Ghost God is overwhelmed. It hurls Gao Ming and the trapped Investigators toward the exit, then dissolves into blood and returns to him.
• Zhang Ding dives in to help, taking on the neighbors’ painful memories and buying Gao Ming time. Gao Ming surfaces with the children’s bodies and the rescued team members; Uncle Li pulls him from the water.
• Zhang Ding seals the opening, but the Supermarket shakes under the ghosts’ fury, leaving a crack in the floor. Gao Ming collapses from exhaustion and injury.

Character developments

• Gao Ming demonstrates unusual resolve and compassion: he sees the ghosts as victims rather than monsters and promises to help them escape their suffering. His rescue effort earns the trust of both the Investigators and the neighbors.
• Bai Xiao moves from skepticism about Gao Ming’s abilities to concern and respect after witnessing his courage and the scale of his rescue.
• Zhang Ding reveals how deeply he is bound to the neighbors’ suffering. He risks himself by entering the water and uses their painful memories to protect Gao Ming.
• The neighbors show that, despite becoming resentful ghosts, they want the living to move on rather than remain trapped in guilt.

Significant themes

• Compassion amid horror: Gao Ming recognizes the ghosts’ suffering and treats them with sympathy.
• Guilt, grief, and release: The children’s bodies may help them escape the flood’s psychological shadow, while the dead hope the living will stop blaming themselves.
• Self-sacrifice and solidarity: The neighbors, Zhang Ding, and Gao Ming all risk themselves to save others.
• Facing the abyss: Gao Ming’s history of death and trauma lets him regard the ghosts as a reflection of suffering he understands, rather than simply a source of fear.

Character interactions

• Bai Xiao tries to protect Gao Ming by offering to scout the depths, but Gao Ming takes the risk himself.
• The neighbors support Gao Ming underwater, while he remains determined to save the children and the trapped Investigators.
• Zhang Ding and Gao Ming work in tandem: Zhang Ding’s intervention enables Gao Ming to escape with the others.
• Zhu Miaomiao and the rookie find Bai Xiao and confirm that Gao Ming protected them, reinforcing the growing trust between the Investigation Bureau and the Supermarket’s residents.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming wakes from the Water Ghosts’ lingering resentment. Zhang Ding absorbs some of his pain, taking a new wound onto his own hand.
• Gao Ming thanks neither Bai Xiao nor the ghosts for its own sake: he admits he had personal motives, then argues that the drowned supermarket customers are not to blame for becoming ghosts.
• He warns Bai Xiao that the East District Investigation Bureau may be sacrificing its Investigators for power. Bai Xiao doubts him but agrees to check the facts by contacting Qin Tian.
• Bai Qiao and the other rescued newcomers wake with shadows permeating their bodies. They cannot return to ordinary life, but Gao Ming says they can remain in Lishan and help keep it safe.
• Gao Ming proposes resolving the Water Ghosts’ resentment rather than keeping them trapped or destroying them. Zhang Ding agrees and opens the supermarket doors, allowing the group to escape the shadow world.
• The rescued Investigators disappear as the shadows recede. The two children’s bodies become a photograph showing the neighbors saving them during the flood; its only identifying detail is the date the Li River embankment broke.
• Outside, Bai Xiao privately contacts Qin Tian. He learns Qin Tian will be sent to Hande Private Academy, where four Investigator teams have already vanished.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming presents himself as someone who judges individuals by their actions, not whether they are human or ghost. He reveals a broader purpose: to make Lishan a refuge for humans and ghosts and to repair what can still be saved.
• Bai Xiao moves from suspicion toward cautious trust. He thanks Gao Ming for saving his team and sister, embraces Bai Qiao, and begins investigating Gao Ming’s claims independently.
• Zhang Ding shows compassion by taking on Gao Ming’s suffering and loyalty to the supermarket’s ghostly residents. He chooses to help them rather than keep them imprisoned.
• Bai Qiao remains focused on her duty even while weakened, urging that her recording of the supermarket’s new rules be shared.
• Gao Ming and Bai Xiao clash over whether ghosts should be treated as enemies; Gao Ming also challenges Bai Xiao to question the Investigation Bureau’s motives. Gao Ming and Zhang Ding agree that the Water Ghosts need help, not suppression.

Significant themes

• Moral judgment beyond labels: Both humans and ghosts can be good or bad; actions matter more than status.
• Power, ambition, and loyalty: Gao Ming warns that people seeking wealth or power may sacrifice others, urging Bai Xiao to decide where his loyalties lie.
• Compassion and redemption: Gao Ming seeks to ease suffering and rescue those who deserve saving, while Zhang Ding wants to repay the neighbors’ past kindness.
• Shelter amid catastrophe: Gao Ming’s vision of Lishan as a refuge gives the survivors a shared purpose, even as the threat from the East District and Hande Private Academy grows.

Key plot points

• Gao Ming learns that Investigator Qin Tian is being sent to Hande Private Academy, where an anomaly event may soon turn the school into a deadly trap. He believes Qin Tian’s death would trigger a disastrous chain of events, so he urges Bai Xiao to stop him—even by force if necessary.
• Gao Ming then uses the Investigation Bureau’s resources to find Le Jia and Le Ren, two brothers who survived a flood as children but have lived ever since with terror of water and guilt over the people they couldn’t save.
• At the Old City Funeral Home, Gao Ming shows them a posthumous photograph connected to their lost neighbors and childhood friend Zhang Fendou. The deceased appear from its shadows and reassure the brothers that they do not blame them.
• Zhang Fendou tells Le Jia he did all he could and gives him his old captain’s hat, urging the brothers not to fear water anymore. Zhang Ding then burns the photograph in a cremation furnace. The flames erase the two faceless children within it, symbolizing the brothers’ release from their past.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming acts urgently to protect Qin Tian and compassionately helps Le Jia and Le Ren confront their trauma. He holds the brothers as the water-related fear returns, staying beside them while they face it.
• Bai Xiao resists Gao Ming’s plea to divert Qin Tian, citing the Investigation Bureau’s rules and chain of command.
• Le Jia finally voices his long-held guilt over failing to save Zhang Fendou. His tears and acceptance of the reassurance mark a step toward forgiving himself.
• Le Ren shares his brother’s fear and grief, and faces them alongside him.
• The deceased neighbors and Zhang Fendou meet the brothers with affection rather than blame. Their words and familiar teasing restore a sense of the childhood companionship the brothers lost.

Significant themes

• Guilt and self-forgiveness: Le Jia’s remorse is challenged by the people he believed he had failed; they insist he did what he could.
• Grief and moving forward: The brothers are encouraged to honor the dead by living well, rather than remaining trapped in loss.
• Compassion versus rigid rules: Gao Ming’s effort to save Qin Tian clashes with Bai Xiao’s belief that institutional procedure must be followed.
• Memory as both burden and comfort: The photograph brings the past back vividly, allowing the brothers to face it—and finally let it go.

Key plot points and events

• Le Jia and Le Ren are freed from the shadows of childhood after their neighbors’ memories and the brothers’ Shadow World counterparts are confronted. Gao Ming concludes that buried mental anguish must be faced in reality, not merely ignored, to end its influence in both worlds.
• Gao Ming earns the right to use the Flood Disaster Posthumous Photograph and exchanges contact details with the brothers. They keep the little captain’s hat Zhang Fendou gave them, becoming the new captains.
• The strain of bearing memories of his past deaths leaves Gao Ming injured, dizzy, and spiritually hungry. While considering creating another ghost-story game, he learns that his former classmates are gathering at a Resort during a torrential downpour.
• Liu Yi suspects the reunion is a trap: Zhuo Jun arranged it unusually soon after the class survived a ghost bus, and the route passes Hande Private Academy. The classmates are behaving unnaturally eagerly in the group chat.
• Gao Ming agrees to attend. He also reflects on his coming confrontation with Situ An, recognizing that both men’s attempts to defy fate may themselves be part of fate’s design.
• Meanwhile, Zhou Sisi cannot remember a missing classmate—her deskmate from senior year’s second semester—even when Song Xue prompts her. That night, she dreams of following the boy to the rooftop, where he eats from a lunchbox with bloodied hands and attacks her.
• Sisi wakes from the nightmare to find a mangled, bloody face looming over her.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows compassion toward the brothers, but his physical and spiritual condition is deteriorating. His determination to regain the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God’s strength and confront Situ An grows.
• Le Jia and Le Ren are released from their childhood trauma and offer Gao Ming their help; they take on the role of captains.
• Liu Yi is wary of the reunion and shares evidence with Gao Ming, reinforcing their cautious partnership.
• Zhou Sisi initially dismisses her inability to remember her deskmate, but her dream suggests that the forgotten student is connected to a real danger. Song Xue gently tests her memory while urging her to attend.

Significant themes

• Confronting trauma: Pain cannot be escaped by burying it; it must be acknowledged and dealt with.
• Fate versus free will: Gao Ming and Situ An both seek to change their destinies, yet their struggle may be orchestrated by fate.
• Memory and erasure: The class’s forgotten student hints that something—or someone—has been deliberately removed from memory.
• Ordinary life turning uncanny: A class reunion and a familiar school memory become ominous, suggesting danger hiding beneath everyday routines.

Key plot points and events

• Zhou Sisi wakes to find a bloodied boy in a high-school uniform pinning her down. He calls her “the fiftieth” and warns that people locked alone in a classroom—or people who lie—will die before vanishing.
• The police find no evidence, while Zhou’s family and friends dismiss her experience as exhaustion. Alone and frightened, she watches news about a series of murders in Hanhai, where the killer leaves music boxes and lines from a song.
• Zhou calls her former deskmate Gao Ming for help. A music box plays during the call, accompanied by rain and faint groans. Gao’s voice sounds unnervingly cold, and Zhou ends the call without explaining what happened.
• The next morning, she heads to a class reunion at a resort. Former classmates arrive, including Cai Meimei and Xishan, while Gao Ming and Liu Yi arrive shortly before the start.
• Gao approaches Zhou and asks what she wanted to discuss the previous night. The chapter ends as she struggles to reconcile her memories of him with his frighteningly changed presence.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhou Sisi shifts from panic and helplessness to deciding she must investigate the corpse’s identity. Still shaken, she attends the reunion, where she must face the people connected to her frightening memories.
• Gao Ming appears sickly and pale, yet also cold and dangerous. He remembers Zhou fondly, recalling how she once brought him food when he was ill.
• Zhou and Gao have a history of warmth and familiarity, but the phone call and their reunion make their relationship feel tense and uncertain.
• The classmates reunite amid cheerful nostalgia, contrasting with Zhou’s private fear. Cai Meimei and Xishan’s post-school lives are briefly introduced; Liu Yi arrives carrying a packed suitcase.

Significant themes

• The persistence of buried memories: Zhou recognizes the corpse but cannot place him, and her classmates’ past may hold answers.
• Fear, isolation, and disbelief: The police find nothing, and those around Zhou dismiss her account, leaving her to confront the threat alone.
• The uncanny blurring of ordinary life and horror: A routine class reunion unfolds alongside supernatural warnings and a suspected serial-killer case.
• Uncertainty about identity and trust: Gao is both a cherished former friend and a seemingly menacing stranger.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming and Zhou Sisi travel together to their high-school reunion. Zhou suspects Gao may be the Music Box Killer, but remembers him as loyal and just—and still feels indebted to him for his help in school.
• On the bus, Gao plays a bloodstained music box depicting an angel and devil kissing. He watches Zhou’s reflection to assess her behavior and concludes she still appears human, then messages Liu Yi.
• The classmates’ lively trip turns unsettling when Gao realizes they have been riding for an hour, despite Zhou thinking only ten or fifteen minutes have passed. The bus is no longer following the route to the resort.
• Saeki, a former classmate with a history of mental illness and suicide attempts, boards in a lab coat and hospital clothing. The bus later stops outside a hospital and waits until a man with his head entirely wrapped in gauze boards.
• Yuan Hui, the former class monitor, panics and warns that people will die. Classmates speculate that financial losses and gambling have left him unstable.
• The bandaged passenger sits beside Liu Yi. Liu reports that he smells of disinfectant, bears restraint marks and burned-off fingerprints, stayed oddly dry in the rain, and carries an album of black-and-white photographs.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is controlled and observant, keeping Zhou close while quietly assessing her and monitoring the increasingly strange passengers.
• Zhou Sisi shifts between suspicion, gratitude, and nervous attraction toward Gao. She follows his lead and tries to make conversation, but grows uneasy as the trip changes.
• Saeki’s arrival visibly unsettles the bus, while his withdrawn, repetitive behavior hints at serious distress.
• Yuan Hui breaks his silence in a desperate outburst, warning his classmates of impending deaths; Xishan and Du Bai try to calm him.
• Liu Yi acts as Gao’s informant, supplying detailed observations about the bandaged man.

Significant themes

• Trust and suspicion: Zhou’s old affection and gratitude conflict with her fear that Gao may be a killer.
• The ordinary becoming uncanny: A familiar class reunion turns threatening through distorted time, an unexplained route, and strange passengers.
• Humanity and identity: Gao’s scrutiny of Zhou, alongside the passengers’ disturbing physical clues, raises questions about who—or what—remains human.
• Foreboding and hidden danger: Yuan Hui’s warning and the bandaged passenger’s unexplained arrival suggest that the reunion may become deadly.

Plot and key events

• Gao Ming sits beside Saeki on the bus and finds him mentally distressed, muttering psychology experiments and insisting that the class must not be trying to lure “him” back. Saeki suddenly becomes agitated, scratches his face, and then falls back into his earlier state.
• The bus, which has traveled farther than the passengers realize, arrives not at the advertised resort but at Hande Private Academy. The driver abandons the group in the rain and leaves without explanation.
• Zhuo Jun posts a message in the class group chat presenting the school as a nostalgia-themed resort. Gao Ming recognizes that the group is already inside an anomaly: the driver was an Investigator, outside contact has been cut off, and the Zhuo Jun messaging them is likely not the real one.
• The classmates treat the setup as an elaborate reunion and head into the dormitories. There they find welcome displays, their old student numbers, room keys, and strict residence rules.
• Gao Ming shares room 1314 with former classmates Du Bai and Yuan Hui. Just as they begin reminiscing, Zhuo Jun’s account orders them to leave the dormitory within thirty minutes because classes are in session.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains observant and cautious. He recognizes the supernatural danger but chooses to gather information and follow the apparent rules for now. He tries to calm Saeki and later shares his suspicions with Liu Yi.
• Saeki appears deeply disturbed and fixated on a past event or unseen presence. His warning about luring someone back hints that he may know more about the danger than he can explain.
• Liu Yi seeks Gao Ming’s assessment, while the other women draw her away to explore.
• Du Bai and Yuan Hui reunite with Gao Ming as roommates. Du Bai is skeptical of the school’s nostalgia theme and has little interest in reliving student life.
• The classmates are mostly enthusiastic and unsuspecting, accepting the school as an expensive reunion attraction.

Significant themes

• Nostalgia as a trap: The school recreates the classmates’ youth, but its familiar comforts conceal danger.
• Manipulated reality and time: The bus journey feels brief despite covering a long distance, and the anomaly isolates the group while allowing only the ghost’s chat messages to function normally.
• Rules and control: The dormitory regulations and timed instruction suggest that survival may depend on understanding an environment designed to direct the group’s behavior.
• Unresolved trauma: Saeki’s scars, breakdown, and cryptic warning suggest that past psychological suffering is tied to the present threat.

Plot and events

• Gao Ming and his former classmates reunite in dorm room 1314 at Hanhai’s Hande Private School. Yuan Hui warns them to obey Zhuo Jun’s instructions, claiming Zhuo Jun ruined his family and forced him to come. He also fears that some people around them may not be human.
• Gao Ming notices that Zhuo Jun’s old bed is still empty and checks the room for supernatural clues. Finding nothing, he leads the others out to test the school’s rules.
• Zhuo Jun sends repeated reminders, then announces that meals will be served in the cafeteria. Gao Ming counts those leaving the dorm: after accounting for Saeki and Yuan Hui, four classmates are missing. The others seem not to notice, and Gao Ming’s own memories of their faces and names begin to blur. The dorm doors are now locked, preventing him from checking the photographs inside.
• In the cafeteria, Du Bai glimpses a withered arm inside the automated serving window, apparently taking something from his meal. At noon, a crowd of adult-looking people in school uniforms arrives and eats in an oddly mechanical hurry.
• Gao Ming examines one man’s book but cannot understand its familiar characters. The man greets him, then abruptly seems terrified, gulps down his meal, and flees. Gao Ming wonders if the school’s strange students are connected to “Borrowed Yin Lifespan.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming is observant and cautious, testing the rules while tracking the missing classmates and investigating the cafeteria.
• Yuan Hui is intensely frightened and distrustful. His warning about Zhuo Jun and his claim that the others might be ghosts heighten the group’s unease; he leaves to find Zhuo Jun.
• Du Bai remains blunt and skeptical, dismissing Zhuo Jun’s authority and complaining about the food, but he encounters the cafeteria’s first clear anomaly.
• Wang Jie and Xishan arrive together, with Xishan now deferential to the wealthy Wang Jie—a sharp reversal of their old school dynamic.
• The former classmates’ reunion is strained by old resentments, Yuan Hui’s alarm, and the possibility that their memories or perceptions are being affected.

Significant themes

• Unreliable memory and identity: Four people disappear from the group’s awareness, while Gao Ming struggles to remember who they were.
• Obedience versus investigation: Zhuo Jun’s rules may be protective, but Gao Ming chooses to test them.
• The school as a distorted world: Garbled text, adult “students,” and unnatural routines make the campus feel governed by unfamiliar rules.
• Hidden danger beneath ordinary routines: A normal meal service conceals a withered hand and unsettling visitors, suggesting that everyday school life masks something supernatural.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming believes Zhuo Jun may have plans beyond simply trapping the class at the school. He and Liu Yi discuss the possibility, but their conversation is interrupted by former classmates.
• Qian Junran, a wealthy classmate back from studying abroad, offers Liu Yi a job in his company’s legal department. His supposedly charitable offer reveals a condescending attitude toward poorer people. He also looks down on Gao Ming’s former work as a prison doctor.
• Zhuo Jun announces that the cafeteria is closing and urges everyone to explore other parts of the school, hinting that he has left “surprises.” Most classmates leave, but five men stay behind to drink.
• Gao Ming, Wang Jie, Xishan, and the others watch three towering, masked chefs emerge from the kitchen. The chefs lead three stragglers inside; when the remaining two follow, none of the five return, and machinery roars from the kitchen.
• Alarmed, Wang Jie shares his suspicions about the school’s “adult students.” Gao Ming proposes that they belong to three groups: the academy’s original students, living people hiding among them, and ghosts disguised as humans.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays observant and controlled, offering a clear framework for understanding the apparent danger. He hints that his current occupation is unusual, without explaining it.
• Liu Yi remains wary of Qian Junran’s offer and chooses to stay close to Gao Ming rather than engage with him.
• Wang Jie proves more perceptive and cautious than his carefree image suggests. He takes Gao Ming seriously and voices his concerns about the students.
• Qian Junran displays wealth and social privilege through his patronizing language and attitude toward Liu Yi and Gao Ming.
• Xishan and Du Bai, both affected by drink, initially dismiss or joke about Wang Jie’s warnings. The group’s differing reactions underline their uncertainty and growing fear.

Significant themes

• Masks and imitation: The school’s students may include living people pretending to be ghosts and ghosts passing as human.
• Predation and social hierarchy: Gao Ming compares the three groups to people who become tools, those who hide to survive, and those who prey on others. The classmates’ old social divisions persist even in this supernatural setting.
• Appearance versus reality: The automated cafeteria service conceals humanlike chefs, while the students’ identities and motives remain uncertain.
• Rules and control: Zhuo Jun’s messages impose unfamiliar rules on the former classmates, who bring their ordinary social expectations into a place governed by something more dangerous.

Key plot points

• The reunion guests find that every route out of Hanhai Private Academy leads them back to the gates. Their phones are also unreliable, and Zhuo Jun repeatedly answers Du Bai’s messages with “Have fun!”
• Wang Jie suspects they are trapped in an anomaly event and explains that survival is unlikely. He warns the others not to alert anyone: classmates may be ghosts, and careless behavior could attract danger.
• The four men share why Zhuo Jun brought them to the reunion: Wang Jie says he is being investigated, Xishan is in debt, Du Bai’s daughter needs treatment, and Gao Ming was threatened with learning why their former classmate Saeki went mad.
• Gao Ming proposes that they follow the school rules, collect information, and blend in as students. They agree on a password to confirm each other’s identities, then split up to investigate.
• In class, a student with an unnaturally contorted posture silently targets Gao Ming. Gao Ming stays calm and ignores him. The figure moves on, startling another student into shouting; the teacher declares that student has broken the rules and sends him outside. The student blames Gao Ming before disappearing and never returning.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed under supernatural pressure and takes charge by organizing the group’s investigation.
• Wang Jie reveals his knowledge of anomaly events, but Gao Ming suspects he is lying about why he attended.
• Xishan is impulsive and wants to warn the others; Wang Jie restrains him, exposing their conflict between compassion and self-preservation.
• Du Bai is burdened by financial and family troubles and sees the situation pessimistically.
• The four form a cautious alliance, though their motives and trustworthiness remain uncertain.

Significant themes

• Survival versus morality: Wang Jie prioritizes staying alive, while Xishan objects to abandoning classmates.
• Rules and vigilance: The classroom’s rules may be deadly, making observation and self-control essential.
• Distrust and hidden motives: Everyone has a personal reason for attending, and even familiar classmates may not be human.
• Composure under threat: Gao Ming’s refusal to react helps him avoid the danger that catches another student.

Key plot points and events

• After a disruptive student is taken away, Gao Ming urges Du Bai to ignore distractions and focus on class.
• A smiling, elderly man in a school uniform falls past the classroom window. The students who gather to look outside turn on a girl at the window and throw her out. The girl’s body disappears, leaving the class in chaos.
• Ma Tao appears at the window, pleading for help as he is dragged away. Du Bai suspects the figure is not really Ma Tao: he had seen the real Ma Tao drinking in the cafeteria, and thinks Ma Tao and others were taken for violating the time limit.
• The teacher catches Du Bai with a note in his mouth and threatens to inspect it, but the bell interrupts her. Gao Ming and Du Bai flee to the bathroom.
• Zhuo Jun announces that completing a class earns one credit; students must collect 100 credits within a week to graduate. Gao Ming notes that graduation is not necessarily the same as escaping the school.
• In a bathroom stall, Gao Ming and Du Bai find a wall of warnings and alleged rules. Gao Ming questions whether the information is trustworthy, and the group chat suggests someone has died.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming stays composed amid the violence, tells Du Bai not to look or listen, and keeps working. He is observant and skeptical, questioning both the school’s promise of “graduation” and the bathroom messages.
• Du Bai becomes increasingly terrified, relying on Gao Ming for reassurance. He obeys Gao Ming’s advice during the class, narrowly avoids the teacher’s scrutiny, and is too frightened to use the bathroom alone.
• The teacher enforces classroom rules menacingly, especially when she suspects Du Bai of eating.
• The students respond to the apparent fall with curiosity, then collectively attack the girl by the window, showing how quickly the class’s behavior turns murderous.
• Ma Tao’s appearance leaves Du Bai uncertain whether the person at the window was actually his classmate.

Significant themes

• Rules as a survival mechanism: Staying in class and earning credits may be necessary, but the rules are dangerous and their promised reward remains unclear.
• Perception and uncertainty: Bodies vanish, familiar people may be impostors, and written “rules” may come from unreliable sources.
• Fear and complicity: Students’ panic and curiosity lead directly to violence, while Gao Ming’s restraint helps him avoid being drawn into the chaos.
• Living danger: Gao Ming warns that people may be as threatening as ghosts.

Plot points

• Strange events at the reunion escalate: Cao Song witnesses a hospital-gowned double of Saeki stab the “normal” Saeki, but when classmates reach the office, both figures and all blood have vanished.
• Students find they cannot escape the campus; attempts to leave lead them back inside. Zhuo Jun offers no explanation, repeating only, “Have fun!”
• The class gathers in the School Auditorium to share information. Only 32 of the 50 students are present, and they do not know what happened to the others.
• Yuan Hui reveals that he and Zhuo Jun have dreamed of a coach crash ten years earlier in which the class died. Zhuo Jun recruited him to lure classmates to the reunion, threatening his family when Yuan refused.
• Yuan Hui claims everyone was drawn to the school by a hidden personal secret or wrongdoing. His classmates accuse him of concealing what he knew, while he insists he wants only to survive.
• Qian Junran urges the class to cooperate and proposes organizing search teams by dorm room. Liu Yi cuts him short with more concrete findings: two possible ways to leave campus—earn 100 credits by completing classes, or meet a restroom message’s condition by killing 100 living people.

Character developments and interactions

• Cao Song is deeply shaken by the apparent murder he witnessed and becomes defensive when Yuan Hui hints that classmates have committed serious acts.
• Yuan Hui shifts from withholding information to disclosing his connection to Zhuo Jun and the crash dreams, though fear and resentment shape his account.
• Qian Junran assumes a leadership role, calling for unity and organizing teams; Liu Yi challenges his performative speech and redirects the group to practical evidence.
• Gao Ming and Du Bai discreetly confirm with Wang Jie that none of the four has been replaced, and stay near the exit in case danger breaks out.

Significant themes

• Entrapment and uncertainty: the school traps its visitors, while disappearances and vanishing evidence make events hard to trust.
• Guilt and hidden pasts: the reunion is framed as atonement, and each attendee may have a reason they cannot refuse the summons.
• Competing paths to survival: earning credits through dangerous classes is set against mass killing, suggesting the school’s rules may exploit different kinds of desperation.
• Leadership and trust: the classmates must decide whom to believe and whether cooperation can overcome suspicion.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming, Wang Jie, and Du Bai debate whether the school’s “clear conditions” are real. Gao Ming believes classroom rules can protect students from ghosts, and suspects ghosts may be vulnerable to violence too—but warns that graduation may not be the only way out.
• The class tries to organize students into dormitory teams to investigate the school. Wang Jie refuses to let Dorm 1314 take on the teaching building, accuses Qian Junran of targeting their group over Liu Yi, and warns that ghosts may already be among them. The meeting breaks down into mistrust.
• Gao Ming and Liu Yi agree to investigate separately and compare information. Liu Yi stays with the group to observe classmates and the mysterious gauze-faced student; Gao Ming plans to explore the school himself.
• Xishan reports that the campus has several buildings, each with different opening hours, and that school events may offer credits. Wang Jie notes that ghosts may take part in those events.
• Gao Ming decides survival comes first and begins observing the teaching building. He follows a student who broke classroom rules into the ominous Office Building, where the boy vanishes.
• A small, horrifying girl with sewn-shut eyes approaches Gao Ming carrying workbooks. She asks him to help deliver a “special assignment.” Gao Ming suspects that he may be the assignment.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains analytical and composed. He prioritizes gathering evidence over trusting the group, while seeking a way to seize control of the school’s rules rather than merely obey them.
• Wang Jie is blunt, aggressive, and deeply distrustful of the other students. His confidence and knowledge make him intimidating, and some classmates suspect he may be a serial killer.
• Liu Yi cooperates with Gao Ming, taking on the role of observer and information-gatherer within the group.
• Qian Junran tries to lead the class but is rattled by Wang Jie’s accusations and forceful manner.
• Du Bai is uneasy around Gao Ming and Wang Jie and wants to avoid their dangerous speculation.
• Xishan tries to mediate the conflict and keep the class organized.

Significant themes

• Rules and power: Following the school’s rules may offer temporary protection, but Gao Ming believes true safety requires finding a way to control or change them.
• Trust and paranoia: The possibility that ghosts have replaced students undermines cooperation and makes even ordinary disagreements dangerous.
• Survival and freedom: Gao Ming fears being trapped more than dying; escape and the meaning of “graduation” remain uncertain.
• Violence and morality: The students consider whether killing ghosts—or even people—could be a path to survival, exposing how the school distorts normal boundaries.

Character interactions

• Wang Jie clashes with Qian Junran over who should investigate the teaching building, accusing him of personal motives and warning that authority and wealth mean nothing inside the school.
• Gao Ming and Liu Yi coordinate secretly, agreeing to gather independent clues and compare them later.
• Wang Jie, Gao Ming, Du Bai, and Xishan discuss the school’s layout and possible credit-earning events, but trust remains limited.
• At the end, Gao Ming cautiously confronts the blindfolded girl’s request, suspecting her “special assignment” may be aimed at him.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming confronts a girl he suspects is human, not a ghost student. She confirms she is alive but refuses to leave the office building and hides with him in a restroom stall.
• The girl explains that Hande Private Academy “eats” people, turning students into parts of a living machine. Its rules and manufactured dangers keep the institution running and its students obedient.
• She identifies the school’s founder as Situ An and reveals that she is Situ Xin, one of the children he adopted. She says the other adopted children were consumed by the school, while Situ An sewed her eyes shut—something she interprets as proof of his special love.
• Situ Xin tells Gao Ming that Situ An can be found in the principal’s office, which opens only after midnight. She believes he wants to restore the school and save everyone.
• After she leaves, Gao Ming attends another class, noting that different subjects bring different supernatural dangers. At night, he returns to the dormitory, where the supervisor has appeared and the student portraits have been mutilated.

Character developments

• Gao Ming draws closer to the truth about the academy and Situ An. He remains inquisitive and pragmatic, recording Situ Xin’s clues, while his connection to the Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God signals a growing danger.
• Situ Xin is revealed as a traumatized human survivor who is both frightened of Situ An and devoted to him. Though she recognizes the school’s cruelty, she still regards it as her home and believes her father intends to save its inhabitants.
• Situ An remains absent, but the chapter deepens his ambiguity: he may be trying to rescue the students, yet he personally inflicted a horrific injury on Situ Xin.

Significant themes

• Institutional control and dehumanization: The school reduces people to components in a system, using rules and fear to suppress independent thought.
• Abuse framed as care: Situ Xin calls her father’s violence “special love,” suggesting how dependency and trauma can distort a victim’s understanding of harm.
• Home, survival, and complicity: Situ Xin cannot imagine leaving the place that has also oppressed her, while Gao Ming sees the academy as part of a larger system that exploits people.
• Hidden truths: The school’s real nature emerges at night, and clues about its structure and staff hint that its horrors may connect to other institutions and anomalies.### Character interactions
• Gao Ming questions Situ Xin, initially trying to persuade her to leave, then listening as she explains the school and her history.
• Situ Xin’s account leads Gao Ming to suspect a connection between the academy and the Investigation Bureau, while her statements about Situ An give him a reason to seek the principal’s office.
• Their exchange is uneasy but not hostile: Gao Ming probes for information, and Situ Xin answers cautiously before fleeing back to her duties.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming connects his recurring nightmares with a bus accident in the Three-City Border Tunnel ten years earlier. He suspects the returning classmates may have been on the bus, though records of the crash and its passengers are missing.
• Wang Jie and Du Bai report a discovery at the Activity Building: the school offers credits for completing tasks, and it contains different kinds of ghosts. The Student Council enforces rules and manages both people and ghosts, while red-clad ghost students ignore the rules and kill.
• Wang Jie proposes recruiting the swimming team’s vice-captain, who wears red but seems decent, defies school rules, and rejects the credit system. Gao Ming agrees to investigate with him.
• Xishan is tied up for revealing the group’s findings to Cai Meimei. Gao Ming releases him after warning him that he will have to face the consequences if he betrays them again.
• The dorm supervisor visits twice in quick succession. First, she wears blue and behaves warmly; later, she wears green, denies ever wearing blue, and gives them a list of unsettling dormitory rules.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming grows more wary: he no longer assumes his classmates are innocent or believes he can save everyone. He prioritizes survival over defending Xishan, but still offers him a conditional second chance.
• Wang Jie emerges as a pragmatic strategist, looking for useful allies rather than simply studying the rules. His anger at Xishan shows how seriously he takes the group’s safety.
• Xishan’s reckless disclosure damages the group’s trust in him; he apologizes and promises to stay quiet.
• The dorm supervisor’s shift from friendly to stern, and her apparent denial of the first visit, makes her identity and intentions uncertain.

Significant themes

• Unreliable memory and buried history: The classmates may have forgotten their connection to the bus crash.
• Survival and trust: The group must decide who is safe to rely on—and what to do when someone endangers them.
• Rules, authority, and resistance: The school’s credit system and Student Council impose order, while the red-clad students challenge it.
• Uncanny identity: The dorm supervisor’s contradictory appearances suggest that familiar people and places may not be what they seem.
  The dormitory rules warn students to move in groups after lights-out, check whether their numbers are correct, avoid people in red, refuse strangers at the door, and ignore strange sounds—even if they seem to come from their own bed.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming and his roommates study the dormitory’s extensive rules. Wang Jie warns that they may be trapped forever if they cannot escape within seven days, and worries that absent roommates could trigger inspections.
• Yuan Hui returns with a schedule from Zhuo Jun: starting the next day, the students must attend lessons in Class Thirteen. He argues that returning to class may recover memories of an accident ten years earlier—and that they may already be dead.
• Wang Jie rejects Yuan Hui’s authority and doubts the story; Yuan Hui says the other rooms plan to attend and will force Wang Jie if necessary. Gao Ming ends the argument.
• At night, expressionless students in old uniforms conduct an initial inspection and leave. After lights-out, Ma Tao knocks, claiming Zhuo Jun sent him to take Zhuo Jun’s bed during an inspection.
• Though Ma Tao’s plea sounds plausible, Yuan Hui warns that Ma Tao broke the Cafeteria’s rules and was taken to the Kitchen. Wang Jie refuses to open the door.
• Gao Ming then messages Wang Jie with a more alarming warning: Yuan Hui may be an impostor. Yuan Hui had been absent at noon, so he should not know what happened to Ma Tao, and he entered without using his room key. A ghost may already be inside.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Jie is anxious and controlling, but takes precautions and ultimately refuses to open the door to Ma Tao. His conflict with Yuan Hui revives their old rivalry: Yuan Hui accuses him of past bullying and demands cooperation.
• Yuan Hui presents himself as organized and determined, pushing the group to attend class. His knowledge of Ma Tao’s fate—and the way he entered—makes his identity suddenly suspect.
• Gao Ming remains observant and cautious, noticing inconsistencies that others miss and warning Wang Jie privately.
• Du Bai stays calm amid Wang Jie’s urgency, while Xishan nearly answers Ma Tao before Gao Ming stops him.
• Ma Tao’s frightened appeal creates a tense dilemma: helping him might protect the room, but opening the door could invite danger.

Significant themes

• Rules and survival: The students’ safety depends on following a growing set of strange, specific instructions.
• Uncertainty and mistrust: Familiar voices and faces cannot be trusted, and even someone already inside may be a threat.
• Memory and identity: Zhuo Jun’s plan to return to class suggests the students’ past—and whether they died in the accident—may hold the key to understanding their situation.
• Old power dynamics under pressure: Wang Jie and Yuan Hui’s school-era resentment resurfaces as survival forces the group to confront authority and cooperation.