Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Inside Health Classroom, the Ji Zhe reflected in the mirror begins painting the Health Teacher with bloodlines. The more he paints, the more her body deteriorates, revealing that she is stitched together from multiple figures or souls.
• Mirror-Ji Zhe starts painting the students too. Classmates lose control of their limbs and collapse, and the classroom erupts into panic and violence.
• Zhuo Jun is blamed for the attack, though he insists he has nothing to do with it. He tries to stop Ji Zhe by knocking him away from the mirror, but classmates mistake this for an attempt to silence him and rush to intervene.
• Zhuo Jun calls for backup. Bai Xiao approaches the classroom door but only pretends to try to open it, leaving the students trapped.
• Gao Ming quietly retrieves the Posthumous Photograph. Xia Yang urges him to turn all fifty classmates into Posthumous Photographs, which would bind their voices and lives to Gao Ming. Gao Ming rejects the idea, saying the “fifty-first classmate” would prevent it.
• The chapter ends with Gao Ming seeing his wounded, one-eyed reflection standing behind Ji Zhe—suggesting the mirror’s danger is only beginning.

Character developments and interactions

• Ji Zhe: His mirrored self becomes an ecstatic, seemingly supernatural painter, attacking the teacher and then the class. His real intentions and degree of control remain unclear.
• Gao Ming: Stays quiet amid the chaos, acts strategically by reclaiming the photograph, and resists Xia Yang’s tempting but coercive plan.
• Zhuo Jun: Loses control of the class despite his strength and combat ability. His classmates’ suspicion—and his own distrust of them—leaves him increasingly isolated.
• Bai Xiao: Appears to ignore his duty to get help, hinting at divided loyalties or deliberate inaction.
• Classmates: Fear turns quickly into accusation and mob behavior. Some attack Zhuo Jun; others seem to be concealing intentions of their own.
• Xia Yang: Tries to persuade Gao Ming to consolidate the class’s souls and identities under his control.

Significant themes

• Control and identity: The mirror’s paintings seem to expose or reshape the souls and wills that make up a person.
• Fear and mistrust: The students turn on one another as the crisis intensifies, making the class dangerous even apart from the supernatural threat.
• Power and coercion: Xia Yang’s proposed solution would preserve the students only by binding them to Gao Ming, raising questions about whether survival justifies control.
• The unstable boundary between self and reflection: Gao Ming’s injured reflection signals that the mirror may reveal, reproduce, or threaten more than appearances.

Key plot points and events

• Gao Ming restrains Ji Zhe while Xia Yang paints the souls of Class Thirteen in the health-room mirror. Xia Yang turns toward Gao Ming, but the many dead versions of Gao Ming overwhelm his attempt to capture Gao Ming’s true soul.
• The dead Gaos awaken into an eight-armed, flesh-and-blood ghost god. Xia Yang realizes he cannot finish the portrait without shattering the mirror and stops. Gao Ming touches the mirror, and Xia Yang’s blood-red portraits are drawn into the Posthumous Photograph he carries.
• The mirror and the wall between the Health Classroom and Infirmary collapse, exposing a hidden ward. Inside are fifty bandaged students and belongings associated with a mysterious “51st Student.”
• Saeki claims the Investigation Bureau intends to create that 51st student by using hypnosis and the class’s buried memories. Classmates rush to inspect the belongings, ignoring investigators’ orders.
• Three monstrous school doctors emerge. One, Huang Kong, gruesomely absorbs a Substitute Ghost, frightening the students into returning the 51st Student’s belongings. The doctor resembling Lu then takes command of the Infirmary.

Character developments

• Gao Ming reveals the disturbing scale of his repeated deaths and the many versions of himself that seem to underpin his ability to glimpse the future. He retrieves Xia Yang’s portraits and slips away without taking credit.
• Xia Yang is driven by curiosity and his desire to paint Gao Ming’s soul, but the danger forces him to stop. He returns to the Posthumous Photograph.
• Ji Zhe wakes shaken by what he believes was a terrifying vision of the eight-armed ghost god. His phobia makes the image increasingly vivid, and the class’s shared fear may give it real power.
• Class Thirteen shows its fierce independence and distrust of authority, but the doctors’ brutality makes even the most defiant students retreat.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming threatens Ji Zhe to control the situation while arguing with Xia Yang through the mirror about who is driving Ji Zhe’s actions.
• Zhou Sisi protects the recovering Ji Zhe from being trampled and listens to his account.
• Saeki and Yuan Hui accuse the Investigation Bureau and Zhuo Jun of exploiting the students; classmates react by scrambling for clues.
• The investigators fail to control the class. Doctor Lu’s authority—and Huang Kong’s attack—finally compels the students to comply.

Significant themes

• Identity, death, and repetition: Gao Ming’s many deaths blur the boundary between his present self and the dead selves behind him.
• Fear made real: Ji Zhe’s phobia and the class’s shared terror may transform an imagined monster into an actual threat.
• Institutional exploitation: The Investigation Bureau appears to use students as experimental material, while the Infirmary’s horrors suggest a deeper system of manipulation.
• Defiance versus power: Class Thirteen resists official control, but the doctors demonstrate how quickly brute supernatural authority can silence them.

Key plot points and events

• After waking, Ji Zhe steps forward and admits he damaged the Health Classroom, asking that his classmates be allowed to leave before he explains.
• Doctor Lu—whose body is occupied by Situ An’s will—insists Ji Zhe stay behind. The class initially retreats, but Wang Jie and Du Bai persuade them to stand by Ji Zhe rather than let him be isolated.
• Doctor Lu’s group attacks Ji Zhe from two directions: a severed head makes eye contact with him and begins to wither, while a face-like shape pushes outward beneath Ji Zhe’s chest. The female doctor holding the head collapses, and Ji Zhe falls to his knees in pain.
• Gao Ming fights an intense urge to kill Situ An, fearing that acting too soon would expose him. Xia Yang probes the source of Gao Ming’s hatred, while Gao Ming considers summoning the ghost god to save Ji Zhe.
• Security guard Hu Biao arrives, followed by Student Council members, interrupting the confrontation.

Character developments and interactions

• Ji Zhe acts with unexpected courage and accepts responsibility, even as he is tormented by the attacks. He tries to reassure his classmates and protect them.
• Class Thirteen shows solidarity: Wang Jie refuses to abandon Ji Zhe, and Du Bai argues that the class should follow his lead. Even Zhuo Jun appears frightened by Ji Zhe’s unusual presence.
• Gao Ming struggles to keep his murderous rage toward Situ An under control, revealing how deeply the enemy is tied to his death memories.
• Xia Yang challenges Gao Ming about the intensity of his hatred, comparing it with Gao Ming’s feelings toward Xia Yang himself.
• Situ An, acting through Doctor Lu, underestimates Ji Zhe and escalates to a direct attack. The new arrivals force the scene to shift before the outcome is shown.

Significant themes

• Solidarity under threat: The classmates’ willingness to stand with Ji Zhe contrasts with Doctor Lu’s effort to isolate and control him.
• Hidden strength and misjudgment: Ji Zhe’s sudden resolve confounds Situ An, who sees him as weak and foolish.
• Restraint versus vengeance: Gao Ming must suppress his desire for revenge to keep his identity and plans concealed.
• Vulnerability and survival: Ji Zhe’s composure cannot shield him from supernatural violence, underscoring how precarious the students’ situation is.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• After escaping the Health Classroom, Class Thirteen leaves the Investigation Bureau behind. The investigators allow them to go, preferring to avoid a direct clash with the school’s rules.
• Saeki warns Gao Ming that students from the Infirmary have been transformed into toys and are worse off than the remaining test subjects.
• The school feels increasingly unstable. Class Thirteen heads to the Grand Auditorium for Principal Yan’s moral-education class, which is intended to keep mentally distressed students from breaking down.
• Principal Yan fails to appear, while students from six classes continue crowding into the auditorium. Many are visibly disturbed, and the packed room becomes dangerously volatile.
• Ji Zhe’s fear begins affecting those around him. Each student sees a different personal terror behind him, and their shared belief makes the imagined horrors seem real.
• Ji Zhe struggles to contain the School Doctor’s head, which is emerging from his chest. The attention and ridicule from the surrounding students intensify his distress.
• As Ji Zhe nears collapse, the Fear Puppet hidden in his clothes takes on the terrifying images in his mind, becoming a towering flesh-and-blood tree hung with corpses and students’ posthumous photographs.
• The doctor sees and believes in the apparition; a branch strikes him, and the auditorium erupts into panic as the tree’s branches spread. Phobia reaches its final stage.
• Gao Ming senses the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal resonating with the event and wonders whether he has become the “fake” one.

Character developments and interactions

• Ji Zhe is pushed from frightened endurance to near-total collapse. His traumatic memories—especially being shamed, isolated, and treated as a thief—show why being watched and regarded as a monster is unbearable to him.
• Gao Ming tries to help Ji Zhe and retrieve the Fear Puppet, but cannot prevent the escalation. His confidence gives way to alarm when the puppet’s manifestation resonates with the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal.
• Saeki reveals the grim fate of students taken to the Infirmary, helping Gao Ming understand the danger there.
• Class Thirteen initially unites to leave the Health Classroom, but its members become part of the auditorium’s fear-driven chain reaction as they witness their own nightmares.
• Ding Yuan explains that Principal Yan’s class exists to stabilize students and that both competing rule systems need her, underscoring her importance.
• The School Doctor taunts Ji Zhe from within his chest, worsening his distress, then becomes a victim of the horror once he believes it is real.
• Liu Yi leads classmates in choosing to leave the Health Classroom; Qian Junran and Wang Jie also interact with the group as the auditorium’s danger grows.

Significant themes

• Fear made real: Collective belief turns imagined horrors into physical threats, and panic feeds the Fear Puppet.
• Trauma and stigma: Ji Zhe’s past humiliation leaves him especially vulnerable to being watched, judged, and treated as monstrous.
• Crowds as accelerants: In a packed space, individual distress spreads and compounds, turning the auditorium into a “powder keg.”
• Competing systems and fragile order: The school’s rules and the Investigation Bureau’s rules remain in tension, while Principal Yan’s absent class represents one of the few forces meant to preserve students’ stability.

Key plot points and events

• Ji Zhe’s fear manifestation transforms the auditorium into a blood-and-flesh tree, drawing on the students’ phobias. Panic spreads through the crowd, and the tree absorbs hundreds of students as nourishment. Class Thirteen escapes through a rear exit that Ji Zhe appears to have left open.
• The disaster makes Ji Zhe the school’s apparent source of terror, drawing Student Council members and Investigation Bureau teachers away from Class Thirteen. Gao Ming realizes that, after only two days, his side has gained influence over the Activity Building and auditorium.
• Wang Jie secretly shares pages from the 51st Student’s diary. They suggest the forgotten student was lonely and kind, despite the cruel acts attributed to him. Gao Ming believes the student is innocent and decides they should search likely places where he used to spend time.
• Class Thirteen splits into groups to pursue different survival strategies: negotiating with ghost students, seeking possession, investigating the Student Council, contacting investigators, or gathering supplies.
• Gao Ming checks on the Activity Building’s flood and finds Zhang Ding, who has released additional wronged ghosts while the Student Council was purifying the water. With the students now distracted by the auditorium, Zhang Ding is struggling to contain the growing flood.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains composed amid the auditorium panic and begins treating the diary as a clue to the 51st Student’s true identity. He also checks on Zhang Ding, showing concern for allies even while managing multiple crises.
• Ji Zhe becomes a major threat: his fear manifestation overwhelms the auditorium, though he seems to have spared Class Thirteen a route out.
• Wang Jie risks stealing diary pages and reveals sympathy for the 51st Student, while Gao Ming keeps his belief in the student’s innocence to himself.
• Zhang Ding is resourceful but reckless. He exploited the Student Council’s efforts to release more ghosts, and now admits the flood may overwhelm the building.
• Gao Ming’s dormmates—Xishan, Du Bai, and Wang Jie—try to protect and evacuate him, strengthening the sense of loyalty among them.

Significant themes

• Fear feeds itself: Panic makes imagined threats more powerful, while the resulting danger deepens fear and spreads it to others.
• Survival through cooperation—and division: Class Thirteen’s students act effectively when united, but the emergency scatters them into separate plans.
• Misjudgment and hidden innocence: The diary challenges the assumption that the 51st Student is evil, suggesting that isolation and others’ actions may have shaped his reputation.
• Escalating consequences: Gao Ming’s earlier choice to discard the Fear Doll contributes to a catastrophe beyond what he anticipated, while simultaneous crises leave the school increasingly unstable.

Key plot points and events

• Zhang Ding continues containing the swimming-pool flood with help from the Student Council and the rescued neighbors. He has persuaded two Greater Ghosts—the former swimming-pool ghost and Physical Education Teacher Zhong Long—to work with him in the supermarket.
• The group uncovers Investigation Bureau files showing that the bureau experimented on students, draining their vitality in an attempt to create obedient ghosts. Zhong Long has also preserved the students’ corrupted IDs as evidence of who they once were.
• Zhang Ding urges Gao Ming to rescue the children hidden beneath the Laboratory Building, suggesting that doing so may also help Gao Ming recover his own past. He promises to clear a path when Gao Ming acts.
• As Phobia spreads and the school approaches collapse, Gao Ming heads toward the Laboratory Building. He finds the Art Teacher immobilized and repainted by Xia Yang, who claims to have acted as Gao Ming wished and offers to kill Situ An if asked.
• Liu Yi searches for the missing 51st Student. Her classmates’ diaries and a group photograph deepen her suspicions that the current events—and her connection to the 51st Student—have repeated before. Yan Shaoyu points her toward the drained students beneath the Laboratory Building.
• Qian Junran accuses Gao Ming of being the 51st Student, citing his intelligence, isolation, and connection to Zhou Sisi. Wang Jie neither confirms nor denies it, warning that either possibility makes Gao Ming important. Qian’s group plans to act during Social Practice Class.
• Zhuo Jun reports that a flesh-and-blood giant tree has grown behind Ji Zhe and taken over the Grand Auditorium, holding nearly five hundred students hostage. Situ An is shaken by the discovery, since it resembles the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal he has sought for twenty years. He tells Zhuo Jun to watch Gao Ming.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming gains allies and evidence, while his possible identity as the 51st Student becomes a growing point of suspicion. He is focused on reaching the Laboratory Building and rescuing the students.
• Zhang Ding proves resourceful and dependable, converting former enemies into workers and offering practical support to Gao Ming.
• Zhong Long reveals a compassionate side by preserving the student IDs as proof of the children’s existence.
• Liu Yi begins piecing together a possible cycle of repeated events and her own forgotten involvement.
• Xia Yang acts as Gao Ming’s unsettling double, claiming obedience while having transformed the Art Teacher into a helpless figure.
• Wang Jie remains guarded about Gao Ming’s identity and tries to recruit Xishan, while Qian Junran openly challenges and mocks him.
• Situ An is visibly unsettled by the giant tree, then quickly regains composure and turns his attention to Gao Ming.

Significant themes

• Humanity beneath monstrosity: The school’s apparent ghosts were created through the suffering of living students, while former enemies can still choose cooperation and kindness.
• Memory, identity, and repetition: Liu Yi’s investigation raises the possibility that the tragedy has happened before and that key characters have forgotten their roles.
• Rescue versus control: Zhang Ding frames saving the students as the necessary path to understanding the school, while Gao Ming insists he never sought to control it.
• Trust and suspicion: Allies support Gao Ming even as others debate whether he is the 51st Student—and whether that makes him dangerous or indispensable.

Key events

• Ding Yuan explains how the Investigation Bureau is structured: investigators gather information, Mystery Analysts study anomalies, and the scarce Security department can kill ghosts. He expects Security to support Situ An if the school becomes a level-four anomaly crisis.
• Ding Yuan intends to warn new investigators about Situ An, but Gao Ming advises him not to act rashly because they are unlikely to believe him.
• Gao Ming arrives for Class Thirteen’s social-practice lesson. The students have split into separate groups, and Wang Jie and Du Bai reappear without Xishan, who is with Cai Meimei.
• Zhuo Jun leads the class underground, where ordinary settings—such as a hospital, shops, a prison, and a school—serve as experimental rooms. Students are assigned identities and objectives, and their survival time will be recorded.
• Zhuo Jun reveals four criminal voting slips, including a “Murderer” slip requiring its holder to kill a classmate. Wang Jie receives one and rejects it, but Zhuo Jun insists the classroom assigns identities based on its own rules. The students draw slips, yet none openly goes to the prison.
• Gao Ming realizes there may be more killers than others suspect. Du Bai catches his meaning, but Gao keeps him between himself and Wang Jie, who both claim they are headed to the school room.

Character developments and interactions

• Ding Yuan becomes more candid with Gao Ming, revealing his fears about the Bureau’s power and deciding to confront the new investigators about Situ An.
• Gao Ming remains watchful and strategic. He advises Ding Yuan to protect himself, masks his suspicions around Wang Jie and Du Bai, and recognizes the danger hidden in the criminal slips.
• Wang Jie reacts angrily to being assigned the murderer identity, insisting he has never killed anyone; afterward, he tries to present the exercise as a ploy to divide the students.
• Du Bai becomes alarmed when he understands Gao Ming’s implication and is caught between Gao Ming and Wang Jie.
• Zhuo Jun conducts the exercise without concern for the students’ objections, emphasizing that the Bureau cannot protect everyone.
• Xishan’s choice to stay with Cai Meimei rather than his usual companions hints at a fracture within the group.

Significant themes

• Institutional power and self-interest: The Bureau’s influence grows alongside the ghost threat, and its support may strengthen Situ An.
• Distrust and hidden agendas: The class’s scattered social circles, secret identities, and concealed criminals make it difficult to know whom to trust.
• Survival under imposed rules: The lesson turns social roles into potentially lethal assignments, questioning whether people can resist identities forced upon them.
• Appearance versus reality: A seemingly educational exercise may be a deadly test, while students’ claims and loyalties remain uncertain.

Plot points and events

• Six classmates enter the school room in You Liang’s nightmare, where each must face a version of their adult life. Gao Ming recognizes the scenario and immediately disrupts it by slapping You De, the key to clearing it, then sends Wang Jie and others to deal with him.
• Gao Ming confronts Du Bai, who is troubled by a life of disappointment: despite working hard, he remained an ordinary teacher, lost the girl he loved to Wang Jie, and married someone else. Gao Ming describes him as sociable and generous when unthreatened, but willing to abandon his principles when his interests are at stake.
• Qian Junran arrives with classmates and accuses Gao Ming of being the mysterious 51st Student, claiming Gao has manipulated the group and ignored the school’s rules. He reveals that their dormitory secretly swapped the student ID associated with the 51st Student.
• Qian Junran explains that an unseen voice guided the students in the Office Building to find the 51st Student’s true identity and destroy the memories tied to him. The voice likely belongs to Situ An, who may be using the students as tools.
• Qian Junran’s group has collected memory-bearing objects from across campus. Bringing them to the ID makes its photograph clearer, while the objects vanish. The students then stab the photograph with Saeki’s bloodstained knife, expecting to hurt Gao Ming and break the school’s rules.
• Gao Ming shows no visible pain. He reveals a Posthumous Photograph and calmly warns the group that they have helped him by collecting the memory fragments. As Qian Junran turns toward him, Gao Ming points out a huge black hound looming behind him.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains confident and observant, using his knowledge of the nightmare to act decisively. He recognizes the students’ efforts as useful rather than threatening, though the memory in his chest reacts painfully when the ID is stabbed.
• Du Bai emerges as a conflicted, disappointed man who feels guilty about harming Gao Ming, even as he joins the others’ suspicions.
• Qian Junran has become organized and assertive, leading classmates in a coordinated search and believing he has finally outmaneuvered Gao Ming. His certainty turns into danger as the group’s plan appears not to affect Gao Ming.
• The classmates have grown more capable and resourceful, gathering cursed objects and weapons. Their shared fear and suspicion bring them together against Gao Ming.
• Gao Ming’s exchanges with Du Bai are personal and analytical; his encounter with Qian Junran is openly confrontational, with Qian Junran trying to force a confession and Gao Ming refusing to be intimidated.

Significant themes

• Fate and disappointment: The students’ adult lives reveal how ambition and effort do not necessarily lead to the outcomes they hoped for.
• Morality under pressure: Gao Ming suggests that people’s principles are tested when their interests or opportunities are threatened.
• Manipulation and trust: The unexplained voice may be steering the students toward violence for its own purposes, while their suspicion of Gao Ming helps advance that scheme.
• Memory and identity: The collected objects connect the classmates to the 51st Student, and their destruction raises questions about how memory shapes a person and the school’s strange rules.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming defeats the hostile group by using his enormous black dog to swallow Qian Junran. The dog later returns Qian’s student ID and Saeki’s knife, and Gao Ming insists Qian is alive.
• He proves he is not the mysterious 51st Student: blood on the ID produces no reaction. However, he believes the 51st Student knows him and his hidden abilities.
• Gao Ming reveals his ballot names his profession as Game Designer and gives him the task of controlling the other students to produce a never-before-seen ending. His ballot also carries unusual rules forbidding him from killing or indirectly harming classmates.
• As the coming flood threatens access to the Laboratory Building basement, Gao Ming leaves his classmates to navigate the nightmare and returns to the school within You Liang’s nightmare, hoping to reach You Liang through what he treasures.
• Searching familiar campus locations for the 51st Student, Gao Ming realizes the student may be hidden within the nightmare itself. Memories then guide him to Class Thirteen, where he sees an ordinary-looking student who seems to be searching for his ID.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains composed after the confrontation and shows restraint, choosing not to kill the students. He is increasingly focused on understanding his own memories, his connection to the 51st Student, and You Liang’s past.
• Du Bai is the only classmate who can partly follow Gao Ming’s explanation, though fear keeps him and the others from acting freely.
• Qian Junran is removed from the confrontation but is said to be alive after the dog swallows him.
• The 51st Student becomes more personally significant to Gao Ming: the recovered memories suggest a close friendship between them and a past crisis involving a choice about whether to go somewhere.
• You Liang remains absent, but Gao Ming’s memories of his attachment to the school shape Gao Ming’s next move.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: Gao Ming’s fragmented recollections may reveal who the 51st Student is and what happened between them.
• Trust and friendship: The remembered conversations show intimacy, insecurity, and urgent concern between Gao Ming and his friend.
• Rules and agency: Gao Ming’s special restrictions contrast with the freedom—or danger—of the other students, while he tries to manipulate the nightmare’s rules.
• Creating an unprecedented future: Gao Ming’s game-designer task frames the nightmare as a system whose outcome can be changed.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming confronts Qian Junran’s alliance, challenges their assumption that he is the 51st Student, and explains his role without resorting to further violence.
• Du Bai questions Gao Ming’s theory and helps articulate the possibility that Gao Ming never sent the messages attributed to him.
• Through recovered memories, Gao Ming recalls a friend asking for honesty, confiding worries about rejection and happiness, and desperately calling for guidance during a dangerous situation. The chapter ends with Gao Ming encountering a student who may be that friend.

Chapter summary: “Taking Over”

• Gao Ming finds a damaged student ID and returns it to a student who introduces himself as Gao Yun. Yun says he was adopted by a strange, chain-wearing man who claims to have died many times and raised Yun to become “the next him.” Gao Ming suspects Yun is connected to the memories and mysteries surrounding the school.
• Yun takes Gao Ming into Class Thirteen. The ordinary classroom and its students evoke memories of Gao Ming’s own school days, which he relives through the student ID’s fragments.
• Gao Ming and Yun become friends, bonding over their isolation and sharing personal thoughts. Their closeness begins to improve both of them. A girl seated between them—resembling Zhou Sisi—becomes the subject of Yun’s nervous plan to give her an apple.
• Their peaceful reunion is interrupted when investigators enter the building, burning the diary of the “fifty-first student” and tracking where its smoke drifts. Gao Ming leaves to keep the investigators from discovering Yun, warning that someone is coming to kill him.
• Yun asks whether Gao Ming is protecting him as he did ten years earlier. He then recalls Gao Ming being trapped on a bus in the Tunnel, between death and reality, and needing a living driver to escape—at the cost of that person being stranded aboard forever. Yun had expected Gao Ming to return and take his place.

Character developments and interactions

Gao Ming tries to inhabit his former student self rather than remain consumed by death and supernatural events. Though wary of Yun, he allows himself to reconnect and shows concern for his safety. Yun appears sincere and ordinary, but his final revelation suggests he has long carried painful expectations about Gao Ming and the Tunnel. Their friendship offers both lonely students companionship and encouragement, while the threat outside tests that bond.

Significant themes

The chapter contrasts the warmth and simplicity of school memories with present danger; explores how childhood friendship can help people change; and raises questions about fate, identity, and sacrifice. The title’s idea of “taking over” is foreshadowed by Yun’s adoptive father’s intentions and Yun’s belief that Gao Ming should replace him on the bus.

Key plot points

• Gao Yun reveals that ten years ago, two worlds overlapped in a tunnel. He believed Gao Ming and the others were trapped victims, but they were already monsters from the world of death. By helping them escape, he released a busload of ghosts into the living world, allowing the shadow world to contaminate reality.
• Gao Yun says Class Thirteen’s students sent Gao Ming conflicting messages and argues that they must be killed to stop the invasion. Gao Ming questions whether the world’s intended order—or Fate’s plan—is worth preserving, and vows to survive without following Fate’s path.
• As investigators approach, Gao Yun says he will make the class confront their true selves and their forgotten past. He dissolves into blood mist, leaving fragments of memory in his Student ID; Gao Ming finds that the card now displays Gao Yun’s complete photo and name.
• Gao Ming absorbs the mist, but the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal consumes it. The mist continues spreading through the classroom and reveals the students’ buried memories.
• Wang Jie recounts becoming violent as a child, his mother secretly taking him to psychologists, and his first killing: a doctor who exposed his secrets to his father. His father then made him kill the doctor, telling him he was the child most like himself.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming learns more about the catastrophe surrounding Class Thirteen but still cannot remember his own role in it. He rejects Gao Yun’s fatalistic solution, insists the students were forced into becoming monsters, and sees himself as an unusually powerful source of contamination.
• Gao Yun appears as a fragment of consciousness within You Liang’s nightmare. Hurt that Gao Ming only seeks him when he is needed, he turns against the class and uses the blood mist to expose their hidden histories. His identity and power remain mysterious.
• Wang Jie is forced to face the origins of his violence and his resemblance to his father. He asks You De to help him understand when he became the person he is.
• You De is cornered by Wang Jie and visibly terrified. Investigators arrive but find Gao Ming standing in the spreading blood mist.

Significant themes

• Fate versus choice: Gao Ming refuses to accept that the world’s prescribed order is the only possible path.
• Contamination and monstrosity: The students may be agents of the shadow world, but the chapter complicates the label by suggesting they were driven into monstrosity by circumstances.
• Memory, guilt, and identity: Gao Ming’s missing past and the mist-revealed memories show how buried history shapes the present.
• Moral ambiguity and responsibility: Gao Yun’s betrayal, the class’s escape, and Wang Jie’s first killing raise questions about who is responsible when people are manipulated or coerced.

Key plot points

• Wang Jie corners and tortures You De, who begs for his life. Under pressure, You De’s resentment toward happier, more fortunate people overwhelms him, and he offers to lead Wang Jie to his younger brother, You Liang, even volunteering to help attack him.
• Wang Jie stabs You De in the shoulder. Du Bai and Cao Song arrive in time to restrain Wang Jie, having been searching for You De because Gao Ming identified him as key to clearing the scenario.
• You De escapes into the street and finds help from a man in a white coat. At a clinic, he realizes the man is not the doctor pictured there: Saeki’s ballot identifies him as a “Patient,” and he threatens to stitch up every opening in You De’s body.
• Saeki struggles against a disturbing presence inside his mind. Blood mist intensifies it, causing his face to transform and his behavior to become increasingly unstable.
• The influence spreads across the city. Class Thirteen members appear to act as anchors for the Shadow World, causing abnormalities wherever they go.
• At the school library, You Liang notices his nightmare world changing: the red in his palms is fading as shadows spread across his body. He suspects someone is poisoning it.

Character developments and interactions

• You De reveals himself as deeply cowardly and resentful. Rather than resist a stronger attacker, he turns on his own brother to save himself, showing how fear and envy have eroded his moral limits.
• Wang Jie remains cruel and volatile, taking pleasure in You De’s helplessness. Du Bai and Cao Song physically intervene to stop him.
• Saeki is both a threatened man and a threat: he tries to restrain the entity within his mind, but its influence is growing and affecting those around him.
• You Liang becomes aware that his nightmare world is deteriorating, foreshadowing a larger danger.

Significant themes

• Fear and moral collapse: You De’s desperation drives him to betray family.
• Corruption and contagion: Negative emotions and the Shadow World’s influence spread between people and into reality.
• The boundary between worlds: Class Thirteen may be helping the Shadow World intrude into everyday life.
• Hidden identities and unstable roles: Saeki’s mismatch between his apparent profession and ballot designation underscores how unreliable appearances have become.

Key plot points and events

• You Liang’s personal nightmare is overwhelmed by spreading shadows, blood mist, and contaminants. Unlike other Greater Ghosts, he can recreate an entire nightmare from his memories—but now its corruption has trapped him inside it.
• He realizes Class Thirteen is the target of a joint scheme. Situ An’s rules drew the students to the school to find fragments of Gao Yun’s memories, while Gao Yun planned to use them to contaminate You Liang and seize the Laboratory Building.
• The nightmare’s inhabitants begin to suffer and lose their minds as the students’ presence destabilizes it. You Liang suspects their misery and destructive influence are poisoning his memories.
• Investigators attack from within and outside the nightmare. Gossip fights them, while the Investigators tear up Teaching Certificates to help Situ An’s rules assault the dream. Some Investigators reveal Blood Rings, suggesting they are not human.
• Gao Ming pulls Gossip away before the group can be surrounded. He explains that Class Thirteen acts as a kind of poison against fate and reality within You Liang’s nightmare.
• You Liang admits he cannot expel the students and asks Gao Ming to take him to them. He warns that he may have to kill them to regain control, telling them to prepare a “Death Order.”

Character developments and interactions

• You Liang shifts from baffled and overwhelmed to grimly determined. Though his memories and soul are being contaminated, he still resists losing control and refuses to kill indiscriminately. His trust in Gao Ming comes from seeing in him an optimism he once had.
• Gao Ming stays pragmatic under pressure, prioritizing escape over a direct fight and quickly interpreting the larger plot. He bargains with Gossip by promising her future revenge against the rumor-mongering Investigators.
• Gossip is enraged by being called ugly, but still restrains herself from killing the Investigators; she pursues them to punish their insults.
• The Investigators act with coordination and courage, carrying out Situ An’s plan even as the nightmare collapses around them.
• You Liang and Gao Ming share wary familiarity: You Liang associates Gao Ming with previous disasters, yet chooses to trust him enough to seek his classmates.

Significant themes

• Contamination and control: The struggle over the school is also a battle over You Liang’s memories and who can command his nightmare.
• Collective suffering: The nightmare suggests that an era’s collapse grows from many individual pains, even when each seems insignificant alone.
• Hope amid despair: You Liang recognizes a lost optimism in Gao Ming, offering a fragile basis for trust.
• Morality under pressure: You Liang considers killing to reclaim control but draws a line at indiscriminate slaughter.

Plot points and events

• You Liang, now almost consumed by shadows, proposes that Class Thirteen decide who deserves to die first. Gao Ming agrees to target Zhuo Jun, whom he considers dangerous and connected to Situ An.
• The two cross a nightmare city engulfed in blood mist, where crowds have become violent. You Liang warns that the mist may turn Hanhai into the same kind of nightmare and suggests Class Thirteen students may be seeds planted by the shadow world.
• Gao Ming contacts the scattered classmates through Qian Junran’s phone. The students have gathered at the city’s bus terminal, where the nightmare is collapsing and a blood-red raincoat is forcing its way through cracks in the boundary.
• The students respond differently to the blood mist: some absorb it for power, some resist it, and most remain undecided. At the terminal, they have divided into six groups; the substitute ghosts form the largest and most unified faction.
• Zhuo Jun guards the cracks with an Investigation Bureau weapon and urges others not to absorb the mist. Liu Yi and a marked female student confront him. Yuan Hui, warped by the mist and consumed by revenge, attacks Zhuo Jun, who taunts him with claims about his family.
• You Liang arrives to find the students fighting viciously—but apparently without anyone dying. As the shadows continue spreading over him, he suspects the violence may be a trap.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming remains strategic and ruthless: he readily names Zhuo Jun as a target, uses Qian Junran’s phone to locate the class, and keeps Qian as an unaffected “control subject” inside Big Dog.
• Qian Junran is exposed as a schemer who secretly disparaged Gao Ming and planned to trade him to the Investigation Bureau. Fear briefly gives way to desperation when he tries to reclaim his phone, but he ultimately pleads for cooperation.
• You Liang is still capable of restraint despite his suffering, but his growing shadows suggest he is nearing a dangerous limit. He races to the terminal, only to question whether the apparent chaos is staged.
• Zhuo Jun appears physically strengthened by the blood mist and tries to maintain control, while Yuan Hui’s grief and rage have transformed him into something unstable. Their confrontation is both physical and deeply personal.
• The classmates are increasingly divided, revealing how the blood mist brings existing loyalties, grudges, and ambitions to the surface. Gao Ming and You Liang’s uneasy alliance is built on shared expediency rather than trust.

Significant themes

• Corruption and choice: The blood mist offers power at the risk of losing one’s humanity, forcing individuals to choose—or delay choosing.
• Mistrust and manipulation: Classmates, the Investigation Bureau, and You Liang all have competing motives; apparent cooperation may conceal a setup.
• Humanity and monstrosity: The substitute ghosts believe themselves to be the living, while the students’ behavior grows increasingly brutal, blurring the distinction between human and ghost.
• Cycles and fate: The bus terminal echoes the class’s arrival by bus, suggesting their story may be returning to a point of origin—or ending there.

Plot points and events

• In You Liang’s nightmare, Class Thirteen’s students turn on him. Zhuo Jun and Yuan Hui attack together with special blades, despite appearing to be bitter rivals.
• You Liang’s nightmare reflects injuries back onto anyone who harms him: the wounds they inflict appear on their own bodies. He warns that his suffering is bound up with theirs.
• A ghost wearing a red raincoat forces its way into the nightmare, bringing blood rain and rapidly worsening the damage. You Liang recognizes it as a terrifying “red garment” entity whose concentrated resentment makes it unusually powerful.
• Zhuo Jun urges the students to keep attacking You Liang and buy time for the Investigation Bureau’s Security forces. You Liang, already weakened by contamination and competing rules, realizes he cannot withstand the pressure.
• Rather than defend the nightmare, You Liang tears apart his own body and abandons the contaminated memories sustaining it. The red raincoat’s assault accelerates the collapse.
• The nightmare disintegrates, leaving only You Liang and the dying You De as its original inhabitants. Gao Ming, hidden inside Big Dog, pursues You Liang as the nightmare ends. The chapter closes with Class Thirteen seeing the frightening reality beyond it.

Character developments and interactions

• You Liang shifts from threatening his attackers to deliberately destroying his own nightmare, choosing to discard a corrupted past rather than let others control or exploit it. Despite his condition, his clear eyes and warnings suggest he retains some moral resolve.
• Zhuo Jun and Yuan Hui cooperate in attacking You Liang, complicating their apparent feud. Liu Yi notices that their rival factions may both be connected to Situ An.
• The students reveal themselves as organized threats rather than helpless victims; some had been quietly waiting for the chance to strike.
• The red raincoat emerges as a powerful, enigmatic force that overwhelms the nightmare’s rules and draws You Liang’s attention.
• Gao Ming remains in pursuit, but the collapse interrupts the chase and ushers the characters toward reality.

Significant themes

• Pain and shared consequences: You Liang’s injuries are reflected onto his attackers, suggesting that violence against him implicates them in his suffering.
• Betrayal and shifting loyalties: Apparent enemies cooperate, while hidden motives and political factions complicate the students’ allegiances.
• Memory, identity, and escape: You Liang attempts to escape contamination by discarding the memories that form his nightmare.
• Rules and power: The red garment’s strength lies beyond the established hierarchy and rules of the shadow world, making it an exceptional threat.

Plot and events

• The students discover the truth beneath Hande Private Academy: its rules are powered by the youth and happiness drained from students, who are reduced to “human bricks.” Situ An exploits them for his own power, while You Liang had been protecting them from even worse abuses.
• Seeing the human bricks—including an old friend—leaves Ma Tao and Liu Yi horrified. You Liang admits he can no longer protect them, and the students realize their ordeal in his nightmare was mild compared with the school’s real cruelty.
• At the Laboratory Building entrance, Li Xiu confronts injured Zhuo Jun. Seeking greater authority, Li Xiu has turned against him and uses a child’s heart, one of Red Raincoat’s remains, to provoke and steer her violence.
• Class Thirteen quickly sides with You Liang. Liu Yi identifies the boxes of remains as the investigators’ means of controlling Red Raincoat and proposes taking them rather than fighting the ghost directly.
• As one female student urges the group to hurry deeper into the building, Gao Ming—hidden inside Big Dog—launches a surprise attack on Li Xiu. Big Dog catches Li Xiu’s knife and a chain pulls him toward the dog’s belly.

Character developments and interactions

• You Liang remains compassionate despite his injuries, but his departure leaves the human bricks exposed.
• Liu Yi responds to horror with clear-headed analysis, identifying how Red Raincoat is being manipulated.
• Zhuo Jun is now a wounded, abandoned pawn, while Li Xiu’s ambition has pushed him into open betrayal. Their exchange reveals both their hostility and Li Xiu’s hunger for power.
• Gao Ming turns the group’s plan into action, exploiting Li Xiu’s focus on protecting the heart. Big Dog serves as his weapon and concealment.
• Class Thirteen, including the usually dependent Xishan, shows solidarity and defiance when threatened.

Significant themes

• Institutional exploitation: Hande’s power rests on students sacrificed and consumed by the system.
• Ambition and betrayal: Li Xiu is willing to discard allies and manipulate a dangerous ghost to advance.
• Survival through solidarity and adaptability: The students unite, identify the enemy’s weakness, and avoid a direct fight.
• Uncertain morality: The chapter’s title reflects a world where people may change sides whenever survival or power demands it.

Key plot points and events

• Li Xiu is swallowed by Big Dog, and Gao Ming takes the dead child’s heart, discovering that Li Xiu’s longing to see his mother has become a concentrated ghostly obsession.
• Gao Ming and Big Dog descend through Hande Private Academy, passing human bricks—students trapped in the building—and reaching its underground foundations.
• The foundations reveal that students have been turned into living “rootlets,” stripped of their human qualities and offered to the shadow world. Situ An’s plan is to make the school an altar and become its keeper.
• Liu Yi and Yan Shaoyu join Gao Ming. Yan Shaoyu reveals that Principal Yan Xizhi is her adoptive mother and knows where the school’s “soul” lies.
• At the academy’s deepest point, they find Yan Xizhi’s corpse: the school’s first human brick. She reveals that she returned willingly to help the suffering students, despite her condition.
• As the battle between Red Raincoat and You Liang shakes the underground levels, Gao Ming uses contaminated student IDs stored in the Flood Disaster Black-and-White Photograph, hoping to awaken the students trapped as human bricks.

Character developments

• Gao Ming remains determined to oppose fate and protect the trapped students. He is shaken by the underground sacrifice but has already prepared a way to try to save the human bricks.
• Big Dog expresses deep pessimism about whether anyone can truly escape fate, identifying with the students condemned to serve as human bricks.
• Yan Xizhi is revealed as self-sacrificing: she returned to her corpse by choice to support the school’s victims.
• Yan Shaoyu softens as she hears her mother’s message and is urged to use her role as Student Council President to help others.
• Situ An is characterized as power-hungry and convinced that the right system can control even fate.

Significant themes

• Fate versus free will: Gao Ming wants people to shape their own destinies, while Big Dog doubts that anyone can escape a larger script.
• Sacrifice and exploitation: The school consumes students’ bodies, lives, and emotions to serve Situ An’s ambition.
• Education as care: Yan Xizhi frames education as helping young people become better and encouraging them to help others.
• Hope and renewal: Her image of rain nourishing new growth offers Yan Shaoyu a vision of resilience amid darkness.

Character interactions

• Gao Ming and Big Dog debate whether resisting fate can make a meaningful difference.
• Liu Yi quickly shares what she and Yan Shaoyu have learned, helping guide Gao Ming to the school’s core.
• Yan Xizhi comforts and instructs Yan Shaoyu, while directing her attention toward the students who still need help.
• Gao Ming responds to Yan Xizhi’s concern for the human bricks by preparing to use their student IDs to reach their suffering souls.

Plot points and events

• Gao Ming returns the Human Bricks’ student IDs, restoring memories of who they were and the futures they once wanted.
• With help from the surviving residents of Sishui Apartments, he distributes the IDs throughout the underground roots. As more Human Bricks awaken, they begin struggling against their bindings. Their collective resistance snaps the roots that sustain the school’s rules and spreads from the Laboratory Building through the academy.
• Principal Yan Xizhi tries to hold the collapsing structure together, but Gao Ming urges her to stop: preserving the school means continuing the Human Bricks’ suffering and risks trapping more children in the same fate. Yan finally loosens her grip.
• The collapse threatens students aboveground and may cause the academy to merge with reality as an uncontrolled level four anomaly. Gao Ming calls for help evacuating those who want to leave.
• Elsewhere, Red Raincoat is overpowering You Liang, though his strange ability causes her to suffer as well. Gao Ming’s Class Thirteen classmates seize cursed items and supernatural objects from the Investigators to aid the fight.
• Amid the spreading chaos, the Art Teacher appears in a wall, but speaks with Xia Yang’s voice and welcomes the situation as “a delightful collaboration.”

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming gives the Human Bricks a choice instead of treating their destruction as merely a tactical tool. He accepts that the academy’s collapse is irreversible and challenges Yan to put the children’s lives ahead of her attachment to the school.
• The Human Bricks recover their identities and begin acting together. Though individually weak, their shared resistance becomes powerful enough to undermine the academy’s foundations.
• Yan Xizhi shifts from desperately preserving the school to recognizing that it was built on the sacrifice of the children she had wanted to protect.
• Gao Ming and his classmates work together in the emergency, with Class Thirteen unexpectedly taking a direct role in the supernatural conflict.
• Liu Yi voices the frightening uncertainty over what the school’s destruction will unleash.

Significant themes

• Memory and identity: Remembering their former selves helps the Human Bricks reclaim agency.
• Collective resistance: Small acts of defiance accumulate into a force capable of overturning an entrenched system.
• Destruction as renewal: The chapter presents the school’s collapse as devastating but potentially necessary to stop its exploitation of children.
• Protection versus complicity: Preserving a refuge can become indefensible when its foundations depend on sacrificing those it was meant to shelter.
• Uncertainty and escalation: Breaking the rules’ foundation may free the victims, but it also risks unleashing a far greater anomaly.

Key plot points and events

• The Art Teacher and Xia Yang join Gao Ming in the collapsing basement. The Art Teacher paints You Liang and the red raincoat, injuring herself with each stroke, while Xia Yang revels in the chaos and destruction.
• Gao Ming orders Class Thirteen to flee. The students escape with boxes containing the red raincoat’s child’s remains, disrupting the Investigation Bureau’s attempt to control her.
• Principal Yan stays behind to protect the children still trapped underground, refusing to abandon them again. Gao Ming leads the freed “human bricks” toward the surface and promises to return for her.
• As the human bricks escape, Hande Private Academy’s foundations and rules begin to fail. Buildings collapse, the surrounding world becomes more real, and the school’s surviving students and staff scramble to respond.
• Wang Jie takes Xishan toward the sports field to seize a bus, hoping to escape. Xishan worries that they might bring a ghost into the ordinary city.
• Doctor Lu appears with bandaged students resembling Class Thirteen. He identifies Gao Ming as a threat and decides to kill him, though he does not understand their past connection.
• Gao Ming senses Doctor Lu but conceals his strongest resources to avoid alerting Situ An. He makes final arrangements with Zhang Ding as floodwater and water ghosts threaten the Activity Building.

Character developments and interactions

• Gao Ming shows compassion by helping the human bricks and ordering students to flee, while remaining cautious about revealing his powers. His promise to return to Principal Yan triggers a memory of possibly making the same promise to Gao Yun.
• Principal Yan reveals the depth of her commitment to the children: she refuses to treat them as numbers or abandon them, even when staying behind puts her at risk. Gao Ming respects her choice but cannot rescue everyone at once.
• Xia Yang and the Art Teacher respond to the catastrophe as artists and predators: Xia Yang draws inspiration from the violence, while the Art Teacher seeks to capture the ghosts in her paintings.
• Wang Jie takes charge of an escape plan and pulls Xishan away from the others. Xishan’s concern for innocent people contrasts with Wang Jie’s immediate focus on survival.
• Doctor Lu becomes an active threat to Gao Ming. His unexplained fear suggests a deeper history, while Gao Ming deliberately avoids confronting him before he is ready.
• The Investigation Bureau and Class Thirteen clash over the child’s remains, with the students’ flight further weakening the Bureau’s control of the red raincoat.

Significant themes

• Rescue versus survival: Principal Yan stays to help the children left behind, while others focus on escaping.
• Consequences of exploitation: The school’s stability depended on the imprisoned human bricks; freeing them threatens the institution built upon their suffering.
• Chaos as both danger and opportunity: The collapse weakens the school’s rules and creates a chance for escape, but also releases new threats.
• Memory and unfinished bonds: Gao Ming’s promise to return hints at an earlier failure or commitment connected to Gao Yun.

Key plot points and events

• At the buses, Wang Jie tries to escape with the students, arguing that anyone who touched a child’s body will be hunted by the Red-Clad Vengeful Ghost. The investigators refuse to let them leave.
• Cao Song finds keys aboard the blood-soaked bus that once transported the Red Raincoat. He boards and starts driving, but students fight to get on; he is shoved out as they scramble for the windows.
• Wang Jie holds back Xishan, suspecting the first bus will not make it and deciding to search for another. He warns Xishan to watch Yuan Hui and Zhuo Jun, whom he believes may have their own escape plan.
• Meanwhile, the Flesh-and-Blood Giant Tree engulfs the Grand Auditorium, feeding on students’ fear and impaling phobia sufferers with its roots. The Student Council President orders the remaining council members away.
• Gao Ming confronts Doctor Lu, the Student Council President, Huang Kong, and other staff near the Laboratory Building. He rejects their arguments that the school’s suffering serves a greater purpose and demands they move aside.
• When Huang Kong summons monstrous students from hidden offices to force Gao Ming back underground, Gao Ming activates the Flood Disaster Posthumous Photo. The flood breaks free from the Swimming Pool, releasing water ghosts and surging toward the Office Building under Zhang Ding’s control.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Jie emerges as forceful and pragmatic, willing to use violence and a child’s body to secure an escape. He restrains Xishan and favors caution over following Cao Song’s bus.
• Cao Song briefly takes initiative by finding the keys, but his attempt to secure a place on the bus turns on him when the others shove him out.
• Gao Ming remains resolute and rejects the Investigation Bureau’s utilitarian defense of the school. Rather than retreating, he escalates the conflict by unleashing the flood.
• Doctor Lu and Huang Kong defend the school’s system and attempt to stop Gao Ming, while the Student Council President tries to manage the crisis and protect students, though he is overwhelmed by its scale.
• Zhang Ding deliberately directs the flood toward the Office Building, while Zhang Fendou warns nearby people to reach higher ground.

Significant themes

• Survival versus solidarity: Students compete for escape, abandoning or endangering one another.
• Institutional sacrifice: Doctor Lu presents suffering as fuel for progress, while Gao Ming rejects sacrificing individuals for an abstract future.
• Fear as power: The giant tree converts students’ terror into strength, and the academy’s horrors reflect what its students fear.
• Escalation and consequences: Each attempt to control or contain the disasters risks unleashing something worse, threatening the school and the wider city.