Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Jiamao City residents gather outside the newly opened God of Cooking Restaurant, a former haunted house. Its frightening reputation and incomplete sign and couplets make the crowd skeptical.
• Lin Bai gets his player employee, Deng Libuduo, to sing an embarrassing promotional jingle for free meals. Deng initially freezes, but overcomes his nerves and repeats it with growing enthusiasm.
• Lin Bai uses a gong and his internal energy to announce a week-long discount: customers get increasingly larger discounts for singing the jingle together in groups. The stunt draws attention and sparks lively speculation about whether it will work.
• Some observers note Lin Bai’s martial skill but worry that his noisy opening may disturb the ghosts believed to be confined inside. They decide the situation should be reported to the city lord.
• Lin Bai turns to the carpenter, blacksmith, and other suppliers, offering silver, overdue wages, and an extra thirty percent if they lend him workers for the restaurant’s busy opening week.

Character developments

• Deng Libuduo moves from embarrassment and hesitation to confidence after taking the first step. He begins to enjoy performing, treating the situation as “only a game.”
• Lin Bai shows himself to be pragmatic, bold, and unusually shameless about publicity. He accepts social embarrassment as the price of gaining strength and uses business incentives to repair strained relationships.

Character interactions

• Lin Bai encourages and directs Deng, first persuading him to sing and then asking him to keep going with the gong.
• The crowd reacts with ridicule, curiosity, and reluctant admiration, while some residents analyze Lin Bai’s marketing strategy and others fear its consequences for the ghosts.
• Lin Bai approaches the hostile craftsmen politely and makes a calculated offer designed to benefit both sides, seeking to turn former adversaries into business partners.

Significant themes

• Strength over passivity: Lin Bai believes that keeping a low profile offers only false safety; real security comes from becoming stronger.
• The power of combined forces: The chapter suggests that a system holder and player together can have an impact far greater than either alone—“one plus one is greater than three.”
• Shamelessness and social pressure: Public embarrassment becomes a tool for attracting customers and overcoming personal inhibition.
• Pragmatism and reconciliation: Lin Bai uses shared financial interests to soften hostility and build cooperation.

Plot points and events

• To revive his new restaurant, Lin Bai uses shamelessly catchy marketing: hired singers perform an embarrassing jingle, then enter the restaurant, drawing curious onlookers in after them.
• Two young men, Song Qing and Zhu Huan, sing their way inside and are dismayed by the crude furnishings. Lin Bai warns them about the unstable tables, then calmly takes their order.
• When they object to the price and demand the promised discount, Lin Bai insists the listed price already includes it. He explains that the restaurant sells an unusual experience, while candidly admitting that its food and liquor come from ordinary local shops.
• Angered, Song and Zhu consider leaving, but Lin Bai’s insistence on transparent, no-pressure dealing cools them down. They decide to eat anyway, partly because they have already made the trip and performed the song.
• Lin Bai uses the encounter as a lesson for his temporary waiters, Zhang Dashan and Zhang Bao: explain everything honestly, smile, and avoid fighting customers—even if they get hit.
• Before leaving them to their meal, Lin Bai asks Song and Zhu to recommend the restaurant to others. Song initially resents the request, then realizes he might enjoy bringing others in to witness the spectacle.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai proves to be a shrewd, composed promoter. He turns the restaurant’s shabby condition and ordinary food into part of its “unique atmosphere,” and defuses complaints by emphasizing honesty and customers’ freedom to leave.
• Song Qing moves from anger and suspicion to reluctant amusement and acceptance. His frustration becomes a mischievous willingness to share the experience with others.
• Zhu Huan likewise softens toward Lin Bai, acknowledging his broad-minded manner, and concludes that the restaurant has succeeded in attracting attention.
• Zhang Dashan and Zhang Bao begin as anxious observers, but Lin Bai’s confident demonstration wins their admiration and teaches them how to serve customers.

Significant themes

• Marketing through spectacle: An embarrassing jingle and deliberately unconventional surroundings make the restaurant memorable.
• Honesty as a business strategy: Lin Bai is blunt about prices, ingredients, and the restaurant’s condition, using transparency to defuse accusations of cheating.
• Reframing expectations: He sells atmosphere rather than culinary quality, turning complaints into part of the experience.
• Composure and persuasion: Lin Bai’s smile and calm logic repeatedly disarm customers who might otherwise become hostile.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Bai’s Chef God Restaurant has become a highly effective business and “emotion-harvesting machine.” Its awkward décor, embarrassing public song, high prices, and lingering earworm reliably provoke customers, completing missions and generating negative emotions.
• After ten days, the restaurant has helped Lin Bai establish himself in Jiamao City. Its haunted-house reputation also promises a continuing stream of player customers.
• The Chef God System resumes rewarding him with knife skills rather than silver. Lin Bai can use these techniques immediately and has taken to flipping his incomplete cleaver.
• The Chief Supporting Character System reveals that Lin Bai’s “big brother,” Lao Mi, has joined the city lord’s Shadow Guard. A new seven-day mission orders Lin Bai to pull him out, with five Fortune at stake for success and three deducted for failure.
• Lin Bai reasons that the city lord may be recruiting players because they can grow quickly. Lao Mi is likely training and may be difficult to reach.
• Unready to challenge the city lord’s forces, Lin Bai decides to use the remaining time to complete more missions and gain strength—especially by obtaining the incomplete lightness skill, Morning Flight.

Character developments

• Lin Bai is thriving as an entrepreneur and mission-completer, but remains wary of the systems’ risks. He recognizes that his Fortune may be important and resolves to survive, grow stronger, and investigate the hidden force behind the systems.
• His confidence is tempered by caution: his limited internal energy, incomplete martial arts, and newly acquired knife skills are not enough to confront the city lord’s residence.
• Lao Mi has unexpectedly advanced from an ordinary level-one player to a recruit in the Shadow Guard, making him both a possible asset and a complication for Lin Bai.

Character interactions

• Lin Bai’s restaurant manipulates customers into frustration and embarrassment, turning their reactions into rewards and repeat business.
• Lin Bai resents Lao Mi for joining the Shadow Guard without thanking him, even though Lin Bai believes he helped set Lao Mi on this path.
• The systems shape Lin Bai’s choices: one rewards his restaurant and martial progress, while the Chief Supporting Character System threatens to penalize him if he fails to intervene in Lao Mi’s career.

Significant themes

• Exploitation and ingenuity: Lin Bai turns customers’ emotions and marketing tactics into profit and mission progress.
• Opportunity paired with risk: The systems provide powerful benefits but impose potentially serious costs.
• Survival and agency: Lin Bai treats mission completion as both a way to grow stronger and a means of probing whoever may be controlling events.
• Power and preparation: Even with rapid progress, Lin Bai understands that confronting the city’s authorities before he is ready would be reckless.

Plot points and events

• Lin Bai’s restaurant continues drawing crowds through its embarrassing “You love me, I love you” spectacle. The negative emotions it generates have grown his emotion tree into a large tree with a flower bud; he hopes to grow a positive-emotion tree once the crowd’s embarrassment gives way to enjoyment.
• As evening falls, Lin Bai counts the day’s earnings: twenty-seven taels in net profit. He pays Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan generously and asks them to return the next day.
• Zhang Dashan warns that the Gale Gang may retaliate after two of its members left angry over the restaurant’s prices. Lin Bai is unfazed, seeing conflict as an inevitable way to build his reputation.
• The Zhang brothers flee when Song Jinnan and his family appear as ghosts. Song Ling complains that the restaurant’s noise kept the ghosts from their daytime rest, revealing that ghosts can enter a restorative state while unable to come out.
• A Taoist, Qingfeng, arrives and warns Lin Bai that prolonged contact with the ghosts’ yin energy could shorten or end his life. He offers to seal the haunted house and urges Lin Bai to leave immediately.
• Lin Bai, wary of the Taoist and unwilling to abandon a profitable business, stalls and then demands compensation. He claims the restaurant earns fifty taels daily and calculates that the Taoist must pay him 18,750 taels—his projected year’s profits plus his initial investment—to “buy” his life.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai remains ambitious, calculating, and opportunistic. He treats danger, reputation, and even his own lifespan as business considerations, while carefully avoiding a direct confrontation with an unknown Taoist.
• Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan go from anxiety about Lin Bai’s business and the Gale Gang to accepting his pay and agreeing to return. Their warning shows concern, but they ultimately trust his confidence.
• Song Jinnan and his family reveal that they are affected by the restaurant’s daily noise, complicating Lin Bai’s arrangement with them. They fear Qingfeng despite having become wary of Taoists through Lin Bai’s influence.
• Qingfeng presents himself as a well-intentioned protector, but his insistence on acting immediately makes Lin Bai suspicious and resentful. Lin Bai’s outrageous compensation demand catches him off guard.
• Deng Libuduo is thrilled to discover that the ghosts are real, then grows increasingly aware of Lin Bai’s questionable honesty and unusual priorities.

Significant themes

• Profit versus safety: Lin Bai knowingly weighs wealth against health and life.
• Reputation through conflict: Lin Bai believes being notorious is preferable to being unknown.
• Pragmatism and manipulation: He turns warnings and supernatural danger into negotiations, exaggerating profits to strengthen his position.
• Humor through mismatched perspectives: The Taoist’s solemn rescue attempt collides with Lin Bai’s blunt calculations, while the employee and ghosts silently judge his behavior.

Plot points and events

• Lin Bai argues with Qingfeng Daoist over the price of a year of his time, refusing to accept the Taoist’s offer and mocking his supposed generosity.
• When Qingfeng threatens to send him into the nearby danger, Lin Bai abruptly attacks with the Dragon-Subduing Ten-Stroke Palm: Fragment. His first strike catches Qingfeng off guard and injures him.
• Lin Bai follows with a barrage of incomplete dragon-shaped attacks, breaking Qingfeng’s initial protective barrier and forcing him to retaliate with a phantom fly whisk.
• Both fighters’ techniques consume substantial inner force. Qingfeng uses a Shield Armor Talisman to protect himself, while Lin Bai tests its limits and tries to bluff that he still has strength.
• Lin Bai’s inner force runs out mid-attack, exposing his bluff. Neither can immediately finish the other: Qingfeng is trapped behind the barrier, and Lin Bai can no longer attack effectively.
• Lin Bai threatens to have Deng Libuduo gather firewood and pile it outside the barrier, implying he will wait Qingfeng out. The two then trade boasts about their masters and lineages, ending with Lin Bai insulting the childish contest so sharply that Qingfeng spits blood again.

Character developments

• Lin Bai proves himself resourceful and daring, choosing to ambush Qingfeng rather than rely on negotiation. He uses humor, deception, and psychological pressure to cover his limited stamina and maintain control of the confrontation.
• Qingfeng Daoist shifts from threatening and self-assured to injured, frustrated, and defensive. He relies on a talisman and appeals to his master’s authority, but Lin Bai’s mockery repeatedly unsettles him.
• Deng Libuduo becomes an impressed observer, convinced that Lin Bai is a powerful hidden figure. He follows Lin Bai’s order despite recognizing the absurdity of the situation.

Significant themes

• Bluffing and resourcefulness: Lin Bai’s success depends as much on confidence and misdirection as on strength.
• Power has limits: Lin Bai’s spectacular techniques are incomplete and rapidly drain his inner force, while Qingfeng’s talisman also depends on finite spiritual power.
• Pride and face-saving: Both fighters invoke their masters and lineages when the fight stalls, revealing how status and reputation shape their conflict.
• Comic subversion: The chapter contrasts grand martial-arts effects with Lin Bai’s sarcastic, practical way of thinking.

Character interactions

• Lin Bai and Qingfeng exchange insults and threats throughout the fight, with Lin Bai repeatedly turning Qingfeng’s claims against him.
• Lin Bai recruits Deng Libuduo into the confrontation by ordering him to gather firewood, using the request both as a threat and as another bluff.
• Qingfeng invokes his master and temple to intimidate Lin Bai; Lin Bai counters by inventing a superior-sounding martial lineage and ridiculing the entire comparison.

Plot and key events

• After Lin Bai confronts Qingfeng Daoist, Song Jinnan and his family conclude that Lin is formidable but wonder why he is protecting them. They begin cleaning the damaged shop.
• Lin weighs the danger of killing the Daoist—especially the possibility of revenge from his master—against letting him go and risking his return. He orders Deng Libuduo to fetch firewood, intending to smoke the Daoist out of his protective talisman.
• Lin explains his grim “calculations” to Deng, arguing that killing the Daoist is statistically safer than sparing him. Song Ling has already prepared firewood, and Deng carries it to the barrier.
• Faced with the threat, Qingfeng offers his savings as ransom. Lin jokes about calculating the value of the Daoist’s remaining lifespan, then considers whether accepting the money could invite future retaliation.
• When Qingfeng threatens to burn the banknotes rather than surrender them, Lin realizes how desperate he is. He abruptly turns the ransom into a three-thousand-tael investment in the shop, and Qingfeng agrees in a daze.
• Lin calls off the fire and invites Qingfeng to drink, presenting himself as someone who values connections over violence. He claims his sect has already investigated the local schools and that he recognized Qingfeng immediately.
• Convinced Lin must be a powerful, well-connected figure, Deng kneels and asks to become his disciple.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai shifts seamlessly from threatening execution to negotiating a business deal. His calculating, opportunistic nature is paired with a talent for reading people and controlling a conversation.
• Qingfeng Daoist goes from confident intruder to frightened captive, then becomes an unwitting investor. His willingness to sacrifice his money rather than face the fire reveals how badly Lin has unnerved him.
• Deng Libuduo listens to Lin’s contradictory lessons—first that survival requires ruthless calculation, then that the martial world is about relationships. His awe at Lin’s supposed backing culminates in a plea for discipleship.
• Song Jinnan, Wu Xiuxiu, and Song Ling help repair the shop and recognize Lin’s strength, while privately questioning whether his protection comes with expectations. Song Ling’s thoughtfulness also helps the plan by preparing the firewood.
• Lin and Qingfeng’s exchange is built around psychological pressure: Lin uses humor, threats, and a sudden offer of partnership to turn an enemy into a shareholder.

Significant themes

• Pragmatism and survival: Lin treats violence, mercy, and negotiation as strategic choices rather than moral absolutes.
• Power through perception: Lin’s apparent confidence and claimed connections matter as much as his actual martial strength; others’ beliefs reshape the situation.
• Business and relationships: The confrontation ends not with a fight but with a deal, supporting Lin’s claim that influence and social ties can be more effective than force.
• Comic contradiction: Lin’s “lessons” change to suit the moment, creating humor while showing how capably he manipulates both danger and people.

Key plot points and events

• When Deng Libuduo kneels to ask Lin Bai to take him as a disciple, Lin Bai’s dormant Know-It-All Teacher System awakens. It rewards him with a share of his disciples’ cultivation, with the return depending on their virtue. Its first quest is to take on a disciple.
• Lin Bai sees a problem: players can be powerful, but their reputation for reckless behavior makes them risky students. He refuses Deng, citing the young man’s past disloyalty, cowardice, and cruelty as proof that he lacks the virtue his sect requires.
• Deng resents Lin Bai’s hypocrisy, as do Qingfeng Daoist and the Song family. Lin Bai, however, treats their resentment as another useful resource.
• To defend his own character, Lin Bai reinterprets his questionable actions as benevolent, righteous, courageous, or faithful. He tells Deng that they occupy different positions and that Deng should not judge without understanding the “inside story.”
• Lin Bai offers to reconsider if Deng consistently demonstrates gentlemanly virtue. Deng remains determined to qualify, and Lin Bai realizes he might be able to shape a player into the disciple he needs.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai is initially bewildered by the system’s demands, but quickly turns its rules into an opportunity. Though self-serving and shameless, he presents himself as a principled teacher and sees Deng as a potential source of cultivation.
• Deng Libuduo wants to become Lin Bai’s disciple for the rare skills and practical lessons he offers. He is furious at Lin Bai’s double standards, but his ambition keeps him from giving up.
• Qingfeng Daoist silently shares Deng’s indignation. Yet Lin Bai’s claim that his actions have an unseen justification makes the Daoist reconsider him.
• The Song family also find Lin Bai’s talk of virtue absurd, though they do not openly challenge him.

Significant themes

• Virtue versus hypocrisy: Lin Bai sets strict moral standards for Deng while excusing his own conduct through self-serving interpretations.
• Power and pragmatism: The system turns students into resources, encouraging Lin Bai to weigh character against the cultivation they can provide.
• Appearances and perspective: Lin Bai insists that actions cannot be judged without knowing the circumstances or the actor’s position.
• Teaching as transformation: Rather than reject players outright, Lin Bai considers cultivating a student’s character over time—if doing so benefits him.

Plot and key events

• Lin Bai hosts Qingfeng Daoist, [Deng Libuduo], and the ghostly Song family after the day’s business. The Song family, now afraid of Lin Bai, behaves like ordinary people and serves him.
• [Deng Libuduo] refuses to sit with his superiors, insisting that proper manners require him to stand and serve. Lin Bai approves and promises he may qualify to join his sect in a few days.
• Lin Bai demands Qingfeng’s bamboo tube of banknotes—the money Qingfeng invested in the shop—and counts it himself. He claims the business will earn enough for Qingfeng to recoup his investment through dividends, though he now calculates the shop’s profit far lower than he had previously advertised.
• Qingfeng accepts the arrangement despite his frustration, and the two share a drink. Lin Bai explains that he cannot drink much and denies Qingfeng’s suspicion that the wine is poisoned.
• Lin Bai asks why the Song family was trapped in the area for ten years instead of being sent to reincarnation. Qingfeng reveals that the shop sits at a Spirit Realm Rift, which will open in seven years. A priest concealed its leaking spiritual energy with the family’s ghostly aura, hoping to preserve benefits for his sect’s disciples.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai remains charming, calculating, and firmly in control. He turns Qingfeng’s defeat into a business partnership, uses persuasive “mutual benefit” rhetoric, and masks his ignorance of the rift behind a casual lie.
• Qingfeng Daoist shifts from resistance to wary submission. He accepts his loss and the investment terms, but his anger and suspicion persist beneath his outward politeness.
• [Deng Libuduo] eagerly follows Lin Bai’s rules, treating the possibility of joining the sect as a quest. His formal conduct impresses Lin Bai, while Qingfeng sees it as hypocrisy encouraged by Lin Bai’s warped standards.
• The Song family stays deferential and anxious. Their fate becomes central when Lin Bai questions why they were used to conceal the rift.
• Lin Bai and Qingfeng exchange courteous toasts and business assurances, but their interaction is built on unequal power and mutual distrust.

Significant themes

• Power disguised as cooperation: Lin Bai presents coercion and financial control as a fair partnership.
• Performance and morality: Deng’s manners are partly calculated, yet Lin Bai values the appearance of virtue—especially if it satisfies the system.
• Exploitation of the vulnerable: The Song family’s confinement served a larger plan, raising questions about who benefits from their suffering.
• Game-like opportunity: The revelation of a Spirit Realm Rift reframes the shop as an “instance” or lucrative adventure site, particularly exciting for the player-like Deng.

Plot points and events

• Lin Bai learns that the Spirit Realm Rift near the shop will open in seven years. Daoist Li has concealed the site to reserve its benefits for the Returning Dragon Temple.
• Qingfeng Daoist warns that publicizing the shop could attract powerful people and expose the Rift. Lin Bai counters that seven years is plenty of time to earn money—and tries to persuade Qingfeng to cooperate with him against the Temple.
• Qingfeng agrees to smooth things over with the Temple about the God of Cooking Restaurant, but leaves without committing to Lin Bai’s larger proposal.
• Lin Bai refuses Deng Libuduo’s questions about the Rift, telling him to focus on serving customers. Deng is eager to stay in the shop, hoping to find a way into the dungeon.
• Lin Bai promises to help Song Jinnan’s ghost family become spirit cultivators before the Rift opens. He then orders them to work night security and helps make the ghosts part of the shop’s public identity.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai shows his usual pragmatism and persuasive skill: he reframes danger as an opportunity, appeals to Qingfeng’s financial self-interest, and seeks to build influence before the Temple can act. He also offers the ghosts hope while keeping their usefulness to the shop in view.
• Qingfeng Daoist is unsettled by Lin Bai’s pitch. Lin Bai’s suggestion that Qingfeng is undervalued by his sect—and might profit more by backing the shop—leaves him seriously considering his loyalties.
• Deng Libuduo remains curious about the Rift but accepts Lin Bai’s warning not to pry. He is excited to stay at the shop and investigate.
• Song Jinnan and his family fear they will be discarded or destroyed once the Rift opens. Lin Bai’s promise gives them hope, and Song responds with gratitude, though Lin Bai also assigns them a role in the business.

Significant themes

• Ambition and opportunism: Lin Bai treats the seven-year wait as a chance to build wealth and power rather than a reason to delay.
• Loyalty and self-interest: Qingfeng must weigh allegiance to his sect against the prospect of greater personal gain.
• Survival through influence: Lin Bai hopes that making the ghosts familiar to the public will make it harder for the Temple to harm them.
• Growth under threat: The Temple’s presence pushes Lin Bai to expand the shop quickly, including into nighttime business, and to turn every available resource into an advantage.

Lin Bai’s restaurant becomes the talk of Jiamao City after its catchy promotional song spreads through children, curious onlookers, and customers. The next morning, crowds gather outside again, and Lin Bai’s points rise before he even opens. His employees, including the previously frightened Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan, return to work, reassured by the fact that Deng Libuduo survived the night. Deng, hoping to become Lin Bai’s disciple and learn the impressive Dragon-Subduing Palm, eagerly performs the restaurant’s song to attract attention.
Meanwhile, veteran players continue exploiting the game’s systems to earn money and train. Bitter Gourd Vine and Crazy Guy discuss the restaurant and leave their martial arts hall to investigate, wondering whether it might be a hidden game event. Their group’s character-deletion money exploit has been curtailed, but they shared the method with other players before it stopped working.
Long Xi, convinced that learning Taoist arts is the best way to fight ghosts, seeks out Qingfeng Daoist at the City God temple and begs to become his apprentice. Shaken by memories of Deng’s earlier attempt to apprentice himself to Lin Bai, Qingfeng tests Long Xi by demanding extreme selfishness and treachery. Long Xi enthusiastically claims those qualities and declares himself Heaven’s destined disciple.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai benefits from the restaurant’s growing publicity and inspires unusually motivated staff.
• Deng Libuduo doubles down on winning Lin Bai’s favor, believing the restaurant’s powerful NPC and martial art offer a better opportunity than ordinary training.
• Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan overcome their fear of the supposed ghost and resume work.
• Bitter Gourd Vine and Crazy Guy shift their attention from grinding to investigating the restaurant, while their group’s exploit indirectly helps other players.
• Long Xi pursues Taoist training as a practical answer to ghosts; Qingfeng Daoist, influenced by Lin Bai’s example, uses a deliberately bizarre character test, which Long Xi eagerly embraces.

Themes

The chapter contrasts players’ obsessive, inventive approach to game progression with the restaurant’s growing influence in the city. It also highlights how rumors and catchy marketing shape public behavior, while the game’s NPCs and players increasingly blur expectations of morality, opportunity, and hidden quests.

Key plot points and events

• Qingfeng Daoist, frustrated by his own humiliating encounter with Lin Bai, tries to shape prospective disciple Long Xi into a cunning, “wicked” person who can someday counter Lin Bai. Long Xi takes the advice far too literally, joking about betraying his master and destroying the ancestral lineage.
• Qingfeng examines Long Xi and discovers that all his meridians are open—an exceptionally rare sign of talent. Though alarmed that his earlier advice might turn such a gifted youth into a fiend, Qingfeng decides to accept him, hoping Long Xi can eventually avenge his humiliation. He takes him to perform the discipleship ceremony at Returning Dragon Temple.
• Meanwhile, Lin Bai promotes the Chef God Restaurant with a seven-day lion-dance campaign. The troupe’s deliberately “flawed” costumes help him complete a task requiring a thousand people to experience flaws, earning him the movement technique Morning Flight.
• Lin Bai discovers that Morning Flight only works during dawn; using it after sunrise scorches the user’s meridians. Irritated by the reward and by the system’s limitations, he considers unlocking another system to compensate.
• The restaurant’s spectacle draws a large crowd, including many closed-beta players. They mistake the event for a possible quest and notice that Deng Libuduo’s unconventional marketing may be a far more profitable way to play than exploiting bugs. They approach him for advice.

Character developments

• Qingfeng Daoist shifts from rejecting Long Xi to accepting him, driven by his talent and Qingfeng’s desire to find someone capable of dealing with Lin Bai.
• Long Xi appears cheeky and highly adaptable, interpreting Qingfeng’s instructions as permission to behave like a villain. His open meridians establish him as a major cultivation talent.
• Lin Bai continues exploiting the “flaw” system but grows increasingly frustrated by its impractical rewards. He begins looking for additional systems rather than relying on the flawed one alone.
• The other players, especially Chronic Laziness, start reconsidering their approach to the game after seeing Deng Libuduo’s commercial success.

Significant themes

• Flaws and unintended consequences: The chapter’s systems and schemes produce useful results alongside absurd drawbacks, from Long Xi’s overly literal interpretation to Morning Flight’s narrow operating window.
• Money and ingenuity: Lin Bai demonstrates that lavish spending and clever promotion can be more effective than conventional strategies.
• Influence and imitation: Qingfeng’s humiliation by Lin Bai shapes how he treats Long Xi, while the players begin copying or learning from Deng Libuduo’s example.
• Comedy through mismatch: Characters repeatedly misunderstand one another, and grand ambitions collide with ridiculous practical details.

Character interactions

• Qingfeng tries to instruct Long Xi in villainy, but Long Xi’s eager, literal responses exasperate him. Qingfeng’s resentment of Lin Bai ultimately outweighs his doubts about accepting Long Xi.
• Lin Bai’s marketing brings together townsfolk and players, turning the restaurant into a public spectacle.
• The players compare Deng Libuduo’s success with their own, then head over to question him about his methods.

Plot points and events

• Players crowd around Deng Libuduo to ask about Chef God Restaurant’s catchy marketing, profits, missing couplet character, and rumored ghost. Deng claims he devised the campaign and boasts that Lin Bai gave him a 30% stake, hoping to keep Lin Bai’s attention—and potential discipleship—for himself.
• Lin Bai arrives, welcomes the players, and reveals that the restaurant’s ghost is an NPC. He also mentions that the City Lord’s Residence is recruiting Shadow Guards, supposedly after discovering an unusually talented person among those recently arrested.
• The players take the opportunity seriously and leave to investigate. Lin Bai offers them free food if they get the positions, and Deng resents losing potential customers and rivals.
• After they leave, Deng asks whether the recruitment is real. Lin Bai confirms it, then reveals that he knows the players are outsiders: his master predicted the arrival of “Chosen Ones,” and major powers have noticed them. Lin says his move to Jiamao City and restaurant were part of plans made in anticipation of their arrival.
• Deng realizes he has begun thinking of the game world as real, questioning whether the players’ assumptions about being protected by a game company still make sense.

Character developments and interactions

• Deng Libuduo is possessive of Lin Bai and schemes to secure his mentorship, while presenting himself as the restaurant’s marketing mastermind. His sharp suspicion lets him recognize that Lin’s Shadow Guard tip may be a deliberate move, but Lin’s revelation unsettles him.
• Lin Bai appears friendly and generous, but uses that warmth strategically: he redirects the players toward the City Lord’s Residence and hints that he has broader plans for the Chosen Ones. He teases Deng by asking whether he wants to apply too.
• The players are curious and opportunistic. They seek work at the restaurant, then quickly pursue the potentially prestigious Shadow Guard positions. They praise Lin’s kindness and promise to support Deng later.
• Deng and Lin share a playful but unequal dynamic: Deng wants to become Lin’s disciple, while Lin seems to see the players as useful opportunities. Deng’s loyalty is firm even when Lin’s motives are unclear.

Significant themes

• Manipulation and competing interests: Lin’s welcoming advice may conceal a calculated effort to steer the players toward the City Lord’s Residence; Deng likewise claims credit and tries to keep rivals away.
• Outsiders and foreknowledge: The players’ arrival was anticipated by powerful factions, suggesting their actions are part of a larger plan.
• Reality versus game: Deng’s final unease marks a shift from treating the world as a game to wondering whether its people and consequences are real.

Plot points and events

• Lin Bai broods over his place in the game world. Players seem to be outsiders, while the systems attached to him draw heavily on Earth’s culture. Unsure who is directing his life or why, he chooses disruption as a form of resistance—accelerating his growth and upsetting the world’s balance.
• Deng Libuduo, now a “Chosen One,” asks Lin Bai to accept him as a disciple. Lin Bai insists the title means nothing and gives him an open-ended test of virtue: help people whenever possible, without treating goodness as a timed quest. Deng privately suspects Lin Bai is setting him up.
• Lin Bai tells Deng to sing and to spread word that the City Lord’s Residence is recruiting covert guards.
• At the restaurant, Lin Bai announces a nighttime attraction featuring tame ghosts serving food and entertaining customers. Despite Zhang Dashan’s concern that the offer will scare diners away, Lin Bai predicts that people will pay for a safe thrill. He has Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan prepare a promotional sign, offering nighttime food and drink at three times the daytime price.
• Lin Bai reassures curious townspeople that the ghosts are controlled and that a Daoist from Returning Dragon Temple will oversee the service. Two scholars, initially alarmed, become interested and decide to return that night.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai reveals that his disruptive behavior is an act of defiance against the forces he believes are manipulating him. He remains shrewd and irreverent, turning even a haunting into a business opportunity.
• Deng Libuduo is eager to become Lin Bai’s disciple but is frustrated by Lin Bai’s moral test. Their exchange highlights the gap between Deng’s transactional mindset and Lin Bai’s insistence that virtue must be habitual.
• Zhang Bao and Zhang Dashan show fear and respect after witnessing a ghost. They follow Lin Bai’s orders, though Zhang Dashan worries the new promotion will damage business.
• The two scholars move from fear and skepticism to cautious excitement after Lin Bai’s assurances.

Significant themes

• Resistance to manipulation: Lin Bai uses disruption as the limited power he has against an unknown hand shaping his fate.
• Virtue versus reward-seeking: Lin Bai rejects morality measured by deadlines or status, while Deng approaches discipleship as an assessment to pass.
• Fear as entertainment and profit: Lin Bai turns the danger of ghosts into a marketable experience, relying on reassurance and curiosity to attract customers.
• The blurred boundary between game and reality: Lin Bai’s uncertainty about his role contrasts with the townspeople’s practical responses to the strange events unfolding around them.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Bai leaves the Chef God Restaurant’s day-to-day business to his employees, deciding that money from one shop matters less than the resources, connections, and incompleteness points he can gather.
• The restaurant’s catchy song has spread through Jiamao City. People cannot stop humming it, and their growing irritation feeds Lin Bai’s negative-emotion tree, which is close to producing a fruit.
• The incomplete lion-dance troupe is also helping him approach the Flawed Creation System’s goal of making three thousand people experience incompleteness. Dissatisfied with the system’s rewards, Lin Bai wants to collect incompleteness points faster and grow stronger.
• Lin Bai visits carpenter Zhang Achun and proposes turning incompleteness into Jiamao City’s signature attraction. He asks Zhang to involve the Carpenters Association, arguing that coordinated, deliberately incomplete shop signs and decorations could turn the restaurant’s success into a citywide business trend.
• Zhang doubts the idea and worries it will ruin carpenters’ reputations. Lin Bai offers money and describes the larger plan: he will also publish and distribute an incomplete poetry collection, then approach the City Lord with evidence that the idea can attract attention and prosperity.

Character developments

• Lin Bai reveals himself as increasingly ambitious and strategic. He is no longer focused on a single restaurant: he intends to scale incompleteness across trades and culture, partly to satisfy the system and gain power.
• Zhang Achun shifts from resentment toward cautious engagement. He recognizes Lin Bai’s business skill, but remains skeptical—and uneasy about what “incomplete” poetry might involve.

Themes

• Turning frustration into profit: Lin Bai deliberately creates irritation and uses it to generate system rewards.
• Innovation versus convention: His incomplete designs challenge ordinary ideas of quality, though others fear they will damage their reputations.
• Scaling an idea into a movement: Lin Bai sees a successful shop as the starting point for a citywide, potentially continent-wide trend.
• Ambition and power: His business plans are ultimately tied to gathering system rewards and becoming strong enough to stop holding back.

Character interactions

• Lin Bai greets Zhang Achun respectfully and offers to settle his outstanding wages, then tries to persuade him to recruit the Carpenters Association.
• Zhang questions Lin Bai’s business logic, pointing out that incomplete workmanship could drive customers away and make the restaurant’s own products seem impractical.
• Lin Bai counters with the idea of deliberate, branded incompleteness and frames early participation as a chance to profit. He leaves Zhang with money, a request to contact the association, and the alarming prospect of an incomplete poetry collection.

Key plot points and events

• After leaving the Carpenter’s shop, Lin Bai visits several businesses to promote his ideas about cooperation and shared prosperity. Many shopkeepers dismiss him as a crank, but he sees the visits as a way to build familiarity and plant ideas for the future.
• His negative-emotion fruit ripens early. Lin Bai eats it and permanently gains ten points of spirit, along with sharper senses and a complete recovery of forgotten knowledge—including poems he learned in his past life.
• The emotion system begins a second growth cycle for the negative-emotion tree and reveals a positive-emotion tree. The latter gains only a few points, mostly from children who enjoy the restaurant’s performances. Lin Bai decides not to prioritize it.
• To promote the restaurant and help someone at the City Lord’s Residence, Lin Bai returns with paper and publicly announces that he will write poetry.
• He writes a version of “Quiet Night Thoughts” in front of a crowd of skeptical scholars. But he deliberately stops at “then lowered my head,” leaving the poem unfinished in the same style as his restaurant’s incomplete couplet. When his assistant questions him, Lin Bai insists it is finished.

Character developments

• Lin Bai remains confident and strategic: he treats rejection as groundwork for future influence, uses his restored memory to advance his plans, and turns poetry into a public-relations stunt. He also prefers farming negative emotions, believing he already has enough personal charm.
• Deng Libuduo is skeptical of Lin Bai’s literary ability and secretly hopes to rescue him after he fails. After watching him write, Deng senses the poem has real atmosphere, but the unfinished ending leaves him baffled and frustrated.

Significant themes

• Being ahead of one’s time: Lin Bai’s ideas are mocked because they challenge conventional thinking.
• Publicity and performance: He stages his poetry-writing in public to create attention rather than working quietly.
• Emotion as a resource: The two emotion trees turn other people’s reactions into measurable rewards, though positive emotion is harder to cultivate.
• The boundary between talent and manipulation: Lin Bai uses genuine literary knowledge, but twists the poem’s ending to preserve the restaurant’s signature gimmick.

Character interactions

• Shopkeepers respond to Lin Bai’s proposals with anything from polite dismissal to open insults; he stays unfazed.
• Lin Bai teases Deng by challenging him to recite a poem, dismisses his offer of help, and orders him to prepare the writing table and ink.
• Children spread the news of Lin Bai’s poetry-writing, drawing scholars who mock him. Lin Bai answers their doubts not with an argument but with a familiar poem—and an intentionally incomplete final line that earns Deng’s resentment.

Key plot points and events

• Scholars mock Lin Bai’s handwriting and his deliberately crude opening verse outside the Chef God Restaurant. Their jokes catch on with the crowd and children, who chant vulgar variations of the poem.
• Lin Bai counters by writing a series of celebrated classical poems—some complete, most deliberately cut off at crucial lines or even mid-phrase. Their quality stuns the scholars, who can neither criticize them nor supply the missing words.
• Lin Bai explains that the poems come from an incomplete volume called the Heavenly Fragment Collection, entrusted to him by an old man. He claims his restaurant promotions and public displays are meant to attract talented people who can complete the poems and help bring the collection to light.
• The scholars accept his explanation and praise his integrity. Song Shiqing offers his family’s publishing house to help publish the collection.

Character developments

• Lin Bai reveals himself as a resourceful showman: he uses the poems’ incompleteness to draw attention, provoke the scholars, and turn their frustration into admiration. He remains calm and courteous while misleading them about his motives.
• Deng Libuduo is astonished by the poems and increasingly suspects that Lin Bai is manipulating events. He wonders whether the collection is part of a game quest.
• Song Shiqing and the other scholars shift from contempt to awe, then to respect and eagerness to help once Lin Bai presents a persuasive explanation.

Significant themes

• The power of literary excellence: The poems silence even those who initially mock Lin Bai.
• Appearance versus reality: Poor handwriting and a merchant’s status lead the crowd to underestimate Lin Bai and the work he presents.
• Prestige and social hierarchy: Song Shiqing initially treats scholarship as superior to commerce, while Lin Bai quietly turns that assumption to his advantage.
• Manipulation and reputation: Lin Bai engineers public attention, transforming ridicule and resentment into admiration and support.

Character interactions

• Scholars ridicule Lin Bai, while ordinary onlookers and children amplify the joke.
• Lin Bai’s poems unsettle the scholars and leave Deng Libuduo in awe.
• Song Shiqing confronts Lin Bai and urges him to complete the poems; Lin Bai instead offers his story about the collection.
• Convinced by Lin Bai’s explanation, Song and the other scholars apologize through their praise, and Song volunteers his family’s publishing resources.

Key plot points

• Lin Bai has the scholars leave with the promise of a forthcoming poetry collection, drawing their attention away from the recent encounter with Ghost. He admits to his disciple, Deng Libuduo, that he did not write the poems and says he is searching for a “Destined One” who can complete them—someone he suspects will be another person from Earth.
• Lin Bai hints that Deng might be that person. He praises Deng’s invented reason for going out as evidence of trustworthiness and righteousness, while privately hoping the disciple will learn to exploit loopholes and advance the systems that depend on other people.
• Deng leaves the shop, finds a secluded spot, and logs out. Though the game is challenging, he has become deeply immersed in it and now sees it as an absorbing second life.
• On the “Immortal World” forum, closed-beta players enthusiastically describe the game’s responsive NPCs, extensive and internally consistent books, and realistic martial arts. Deng adds his own post about the NPCs’ apparent ability to write poetry.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai continues to present his actions as virtuous or culturally minded, while covertly pursuing practical goals. He wants Deng to recognize the same opportunistic, “find a bug” approach that he uses himself.
• Deng Libuduo remains suspicious of Lin Bai’s explanations but is increasingly captivated by the game. Lin Bai’s praise leaves him startled and reflective, even as he follows his own plan to log out.
• Their master–disciple relationship is playful and strategic: Lin Bai offers suggestive hints, while Deng tries to read between the lines and sometimes uses excuses to get what he wants.

Significant themes

• Reality and immersion: Players increasingly struggle to distinguish the game from a genuine world, praising its detailed histories, books, characters, and interactions.
• Opportunity and ingenuity: Lin Bai turns nearly every event into a chance to advance his goals, while Deng learns to navigate both the game and its systems.
• Virtue as a convenient justification: Lin Bai’s lofty language about righteousness and cultural contribution contrasts humorously with his self-serving motives.
• Community and discovery: Lin Bai hopes to find fellow Earthlings, while players’ shared forum reports build excitement around the game’s extraordinary realism.

Plot points and events

• Deng Libuduo posts Lin Bai’s unfinished poems on the game forum, hoping other players will complete them. The thread draws jokes and speculation but no convincing answers, reinforcing that the poems are unusually difficult.
• He then discovers that someone has posted a video of his restaurant song-and-dance routine. The post presents him as a brilliant marketing pioneer, and other players praise him, spread the catchy song, and speculate about business ventures in the game.
• Deng is embarrassed but also enjoys the attention. He fears players will eventually learn that Lin Bai, not he, came up with the restaurant’s marketing ideas. Rather than delete his account and risk losing his relationship with Lin Bai, he decides to stay.
• To prevent Lin Bai from exposing him, Deng considers killing his master and taking the evil path. He resolves to first learn as much as possible from Lin Bai.
• Deng logs back in and greets Lin Bai warmly. Lin Bai, meanwhile, receives repeated notifications of Deng’s resentment and is confused by the sudden change.

Character developments and interactions

• Deng Libuduo shifts from an opportunistic player seeking quick answers and publicity to someone secretly contemplating betrayal. His vanity, ambition, and attachment to his rising gaming fame outweigh his guilt, though he continues to perform friendliness toward Lin Bai.
• Lin Bai remains unaware of Deng’s plans. He notices the resentment notifications but cannot understand why his apprentice has begun to hate him.
• Their outward relationship remains that of master and apprentice, but Deng’s hidden intent has made it dangerously unstable.

Significant themes

• Reputation and deception: Deng relishes public acclaim built on ideas he did not create, while fearing exposure.
• The blurred boundary between game and reality: The game’s lifelike NPCs make Deng feel uneasy about killing, but he rationalizes that it is “only a game.”
• Ambition and betrayal: The prospect of fame and profit leads Deng to consider murdering the mentor who helped him.
• Dramatic irony: Readers know Deng’s plan, while Lin Bai interprets his apprentice’s hostility as inexplicable.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Bai prepares the Chef God Restaurant’s first Night Service, assigning [Deng Libuduo] to control the entrance while Old Song’s Family handles most of the Ghost table service.
• Although a crowd gathers to watch, few dare enter: Qingxu Daoist, who was meant to oversee the restaurant, has not arrived. Lin reassures the nervous Song family that customers will come once someone tries the experience and leaves safely.
• Lin instructs the ghosts to make the service frightening—changing faces and extinguishing lights—because customers are paying for thrills as well as food. Old Song is to make sure frightened customers still pay before leaving.
• Regulars Song Qing and Zhu Huan arrive, trusting Lin despite the Daoist’s absence. Luo Congwen accompanies them and angrily accuses Lin of swindling him out of two hundred taels.
• Lin reframes their reunion as fate and privately persuades Luo that his earlier visit, the money, and the haunted restaurant were all part of a path toward cultivation. He tells Luo that he must develop virtue and wisdom before he can pursue the Dao.
• Luo accepts the explanation, thanks Lin, and leaves hopeful that he may still become immortal. Deng, meanwhile, grows resentful and worried that Lin may favor Luo over him.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai stays composed and opportunistic, turning accusations and chance encounters into opportunities to recruit customers and inspire loyalty. He also continues to manipulate people’s hopes with talk of fate and cultivation.
• Deng Libuduo shifts between suspicion, guilt, resentment, and anxiety. He complies with Lin’s work instructions but privately questions Lin’s past conduct and fears losing his place as disciple.
• Luo Congwen moves from anger at Lin to renewed belief that Lin may be a guide to cultivation. His willingness to kneel and his resolve to improve show how strongly he wants immortality.
• Old Song’s Family are nervous but eager to reconnect with society after years of isolation. Song Ling, especially, feels increasingly attached to Lin.
• Song Qing and Zhu Huan demonstrate trust in Lin by entering the restaurant even without the Daoist’s protection.

Significant themes

• Fate and coincidence: Lin turns an accidental reunion into evidence of a destined connection.
• Manipulation and belief: He uses persuasive stories about cultivation and moral tests to redirect suspicion and shape other characters’ choices.
• Fear as entertainment: The restaurant deliberately sells a thrilling, frightening experience, while treating safety and payment as part of the business.
• Loyalty and rivalry: Deng’s unease reveals competition for Lin’s attention and the unstable trust between master and disciple.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Bai decides to motivate his slow-moving assistant, Deng Libuduo, by giving him a rival. He welcomes Luo Congwen as a potential student, though only as an “auditing” disciple.
• Luo offers further money and manpower, but Lin advises him to stop worrying about gains and losses. Taking the advice as spiritual guidance, Luo joins Song Qing and Zhu Huan for the Haunted House’s night service.
• Lin stays outside while the ghost family stages a terrifying performance. Song Ling’s transformation frightens Luo and Song Qing unconscious; Zhu Huan panics, and Luo curses Lin.
• The ghosts reveal that the scare was planned on Lin’s instructions. The visitors are charged whether or not they eat, and Luo is offered expensive replacement trousers. Lin calls the scheme “honesty,” leaving Deng astonished but reassured that Luo is unlikely to become his rival disciple.
• A covert guard, Zhou Jiang, arrives and summons Lin to the city lord’s residence. Lin immediately tries to sell him on the Haunted House before agreeing to go.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Bai continues to use charm, manipulation, and business savvy to advance his interests. He treats Luo’s embarrassment as part of the service while presenting the staged scare as good value.
• Deng Libuduo suppresses his jealousy when Lin warns that losing control could cost him the chance to become a disciple. Watching Lin’s treatment of Luo, Deng concludes that Luo is no genuine threat.
• Luo Congwen is eager to grow close to Lin and approaches cultivation with a generous, inclusive attitude, unlike Deng’s desire to monopolize the quest. His confidence in Lin collapses during the scare, leaving him humiliated and furious.
• Song Qing and Zhu Huan enter as curious customers, but their bravado gives way to terror when the ghost family drops its friendly appearance. Zhu Huan’s flirtatious request that Song Ling drink with them helps set up the frightening turn.
• The Song family carries out Lin’s plan, switching between courteous hosts and frightening ghosts, then calmly restores the room afterward.
• Zhou Jiang comes on official business, but Lin treats even the city lord’s covert guard as a prospective customer.

Significant themes

• Competition as motivation: Lin hopes a rival will spur Deng to improve.
• Mentorship and self-interest: Lin weighs genuine teaching against the system’s rewards for disciples’ cultivation progress.
• Appearance versus reality: The ghosts’ welcoming service masks a staged horror show, while Lin’s talk of virtue cloaks sharp commercial tactics.
• Commerce and manipulation: The chapter’s humor comes from Lin turning spiritual instruction, hospitality, and even fear into profitable business.