Chapter Summaries

Shen Ru and the other players were forced into a timed game to find a replacement doll while grotesque dolls bearing Shen Ru’s face hunted them. Blindfolded, Shen Ru fled with Mo Yu, then realized the man guiding him was an impostor and stabbed it in the heart.

• A little girl’s doll took body parts from the players, leaving Shen Ru blind and several others missing organs or limbs.
• The system announced a ten-minute game in which the players had to find the correct doll or one of them would be strangled to death.
• Plastic dolls with Shen Ru’s face appeared and chased the panicked players, as Mo Yu led Shen Ru away by the hand.
• Shen Ru sensed something was wrong when Mo Yu offered to carry him and tested the man’s pulse.
• Near the restroom, Shen Ru pulled the figure back and stabbed it in the heart, revealing it as a plastic doll.

Shen Ru realized the apparent Mo Yu was an impostor and learned that he himself was the doll the Players were seeking. He teamed up with Qiu Wen to turn the mannequins against Lu Yang and the other Players, ending with the pair leading a swarm straight toward them.

• Shen Ru identified the figure beside him as an impostor by noticing that its heartbeat did not change, then drew his knife and fled into the restroom.
• Qiu Wen followed Shen Ru and confirmed through taps that Mo Yu had lost his sense of smell and the legless Player was dead.
• Qiu Wen indicated that the mannequins saw Shen Ru as the doll, and Shen Ru concluded they would not hurt him but could serve as a smokescreen against the Players.
• Shen Ru forced Qiu Wen to help him find Lu Yang, threatening her and directing her to run toward Lu Yang's hiding place.
• Lu Yang and an armless female Player ran toward an unresponsive elevator, while Qiu Wen arrived pounding an iron rod against the wall to guide Shen Ru.
• Shen Ru charged toward Lu Yang with two mannequins under his arms as a swarm followed, and Qiu Wen led the monsters straight to Lu Yang and his companion.

Shen Ru fled to the Power Room with Qiu Wen, but his updated objective revealed that he had to find Dad within five minutes. He realized Mo Yu was behind the altered objective and confronted him, ending with Mo Yu demanding that Shen Ru call him Daddy.

• Shen Ru led Qiu Wen to the Power Room to hide from the puppets and wait out the game.
• The system gave Shen Ru a new objective to find Dad and take the doll with him within five minutes.
• Shen Ru deduced that Mo Yu was responsible for the strange objective and left the Power Room to confront him.
• Mo Yu kissed Shen Ru, and Shen Ru rebuked him for acting without permission.
• Mo Yu asked Shen Ru to call him Daddy, while the livestream chat reacted excitedly.

Shen Ru answered the game’s final questions with Mo Yu’s help, then used an A-rank Card to drag nearby players and NPCs into his mental space and take revenge on Mo Yu. The Card’s reversal left Shen Ru restrained and kissing Mo Yu as the first stage ended.

• Mo Yu answered that the doll was in front of him and identified himself as the boy’s daddy, correctly completing the game’s questions for Shen Ru.
• After the first stage ended, Shen Ru used his A-rank Card, Cognitive Contamination, to pull everyone within ten meters, including Mo Yu and Qiu Wen, into his mental space.
• Shen Ru restrained and injured Mo Yu with thorny vines and a dagger, demanding that Mo Yu only kiss him with permission.
• As the Card neared expiration, Mo Yu broke free, reversed their positions, and kissed Shen Ru while Qiu Wen watched from the corner.

After the Cognitive Contamination Card wore off, Shen Ru and Mo Yu resumed the game, while Shen Ru suspected Mo Yu was concealing his true intentions. The system sent the Players to buy snacks for a little girl, leaving Shen Ru to choose items with Mo Yu and Qiu Wen as the ten-minute challenge began.

• The Cognitive Contamination Card wore off, and Mo Yu removed the blade from his shoulder before wiping the blood from Shen Ru's eyes.
• The system told the Players to go to basement level one and buy snacks for the little girl, and they rode the now-working elevator there.
• Lu Yang blamed Shen Ru for the missing female Player's death and mocked him, while Shen Ru responded with a menacing smile.
• The system began a ten-minute supermarket task and warned that Players would have to deal with any items it rejected.
• Shen Ru asked Qiu Wen about her craft skills, then told Mo Yu to push the cart and teased him about owing a favor.

Lu Yang and Shen Ru’s group faced a supermarket trial that amplified greed and summoned a monster when unwanted snacks were returned. After passing the shopping test, Shen Ru brutally forced Lu Yang to hold the extra snacks in his opened abdomen, then taunted Mo Yu, who had apparently taken the form of the game system.

• Lu Yang lost track of time in the supermarket, filled his cart with snacks, and provoked a grotesque monster when he tried to return them.
• Qiu Wen also found her cart overflowing with snacks, and Shen Ru deduced that the supermarket had amplified her greed.
• Shen Ru helped Lu Yang survive the monster until the trial ended, and the system announced which snacks Dad had chosen.
• When players were told to eat the unapproved snacks, Shen Ru cut open Lu Yang’s abdomen, used an S-Rank Card to keep him conscious, and ordered Qiu Wen to stuff the snacks inside.
• Shen Ru used medicine to keep Lu Yang alive while Qiu Wen sewed him up, then confronted Mo Yu and mocked his attempt to act like a god.

Shen Ru uncovered Mo Yu’s secret and entered a hide-and-seek game on the mall’s second floor. After finding himself transformed into a woman in the restroom mirror, he smashed it as the seeker began hunting.

• Shen Ru deduced that Mo Yu had altered the Instances, and Mo Yu left after triggering a hide-and-seek game on the second floor.
• Shen Ru and Qiu Wen explored the empty floor, and Shen Ru picked the lock on a door before choosing to hide in the restroom.
• When hiding time ended, Shen Ru saw his transformed appearance in the mirror and smashed it, drawing blood.
• A scraping rustle rose outside the restroom as the seeker began hunting.

Shen Ru lured a swarm of living dresses into a locked room, where they attacked Meng Yizhi and Sheng Ziyao, who had been dragged into Mo Yu’s instance. The chapter left Qiu Wen and Shen Ru outside as the two men were caught in the trap.

• Shen Ru told Qiu Wen to run to the unlocked door, then smashed the restroom apart to draw the living dresses toward him.
• Shen Ru led the dresses to the door and used his Talent to teleport the swarm inside as Qiu Wen opened it.
• Meng Yizhi and Sheng Ziyao were pulled from the Living Area into the A-rank instance while sharing a meal.
• Sheng Ziyao told Meng Yizhi that Mo Yu had a Card that let him choose an instance and summon teammates.
• Meng Yizhi realized Mo Yu and Shen Ru were in the same instance, but Mo Yu’s trap caught him and Sheng Ziyao.

Shen Ru outmaneuvered Mo Yu in the mall instance, then learned Mo Yu planned to break down the barriers between channels and establish a new order for the game. The two remained at odds even as their dangerous intimacy deepened.

• Qiu Wen tried to shut the door after hearing familiar screams, but Shen Ru stopped her and leaped over the railing to force Mo Yu to intervene.
• Mo Yu caught Shen Ru before he hit the ground, and Shen Ru used a Disguise Card to surprise him and claim victory.
• Sheng Ziyao and Meng Yizhi arrived with Qiu Wen, and Sheng Ziyao searched for the instance's consciousness during the cleanup period.
• Shen Ru demanded to know why Mo Yu had changed his role in the instance, and Mo Yu said he was trying to please him.
• Mo Yu revealed that he planned to break down the barriers between channels and establish a new order for the game, then explained that he had killed Guan Wenyue because he would not behave.
• Shen Ru cut his palm with a dagger, and Mo Yu licked the blood as they continued their dangerous contest.

Shen Ru entered the immersive “Human Pig” movie Instance, where his Cards and Talent were unusable and people were treated as livestock. At a deli, he recognized familiar voices from the storeroom and realized Little Yellow and Little Pink had been sold there.

• Shen Ru accepted Mo Yu’s invitation and deduced that Sheng Ziyao’s importance came from his Talent, while Mo Yu had not fully controlled the Instance’s consciousness.
• The system started the “Human Pig” movie game and placed Shen Ru in a world where people were enslaved and butchered for meat.
• Shen Ru discovered he could not use his Cards or Talent, then met Wang Yang, an NPC who claimed they were close friends.
• Shen Ru followed Wang Yang to a deli, where they saw people being slaughtered and processed as meat.
• Shen Ru asked to see the two lively pigs and recognized Little Yellow and Little Pink’s voices inside the storeroom.

Shen Ru rescued Sheng Ziyao and his companion by buying them, then learned that reputation points determined people’s rights and that Wang Yang was pressuring him to act in the gory film Human Pig. Shen Ru agreed to the role and arrived home, where Mo Yu greeted him as his pet.

• Shen Ru and Wang Yang bought Sheng Ziyao and his companion from a warehouse, with Shen Ru pretending they were livestock.
• Wang Yang warned Shen Ru that low reputation points could cost him the right to keep a pet, and Shen Ru realized people with zero points could be slaughtered or kept as pets.
• Wang Yang urged Shen Ru to accept a role in Human Pig and threatened him; Shen Ru agreed after learning the film would use doubles for bloody scenes.
• Shen Ru returned home and was greeted by Mo Yu, who called him Master.

Shen Ru pressured Wang Yang into revealing that the film’s bloody scenes were real and that the director planned to turn Shen Ru into a Human Pig. After Sheng Ziyao killed Wang Yang, Shen Ru preserved his body as a gift for the director, and the system announced that filming was about to begin.

• Shen Ru teased Mo Yu at the door, then questioned Wang Yang about the dangers of filming.
• Wang Yang warned Shen Ru that the director disliked calling cut and intended to use Shen Ru’s head to make a Human Pig.
• Sheng Ziyao stabbed Wang Yang in the neck, killing him.
• Shen Ru put Wang Yang’s body in a glass jar of baijiu and said he would present it to the director.
• The system announced that all Players would enter the next scene and filming for Human Pig was about to begin.

Shen Ru arrived at a dilapidated apartment set with Wang Yang’s corpse preserved in a liquor jar and forced the director to begin filming. During the birthday-home scene, he resisted a hallucination that tried to make him stab himself and left the apartment to investigate.

• Shen Ru confronted the director with Wang Yang’s corpse in a jar and persuaded him to start filming.
• The system assigned the Players a scene about a child arriving home to find a feast but no parents.
• Shen Ru and the other Players entered the apartment building, where a neighbor warned him not to stay up too late.
• Shen Ru found the spotless apartment and steaming food, then was told to film alone in the living room.
• Two shadowy figures appeared beside the table as a ringing noise intensified, and Shen Ru broke a chopstick before it could reach his temple.
• The hallucination vanished, and Shen Ru opened the door and left the apartment.

Mo Yu and the others searched the blood-soaked bedroom and discovered severed heads hidden beneath the bed, along with a radio playing the room owner’s anguished voice in Shen Ru’s voice. Meanwhile, Shen Ru celebrated his birthday amid a bloodied dinner party, and Mo Yu joined him, showing that the system had not suppressed his abilities.

• Mo Yu’s group searched the bedroom and found its window sealed with cement and its walls scraped and patched with red showing through.
• Meng Yizhi sat on the bed, felt something sharp stab him, and Mo Yu pulled back the quilt to reveal severed heads pinned beneath it.
• The bedroom radio crackled with a voice resembling Shen Ru’s, and Meng Yizhi worried that Shen Ru had been alone in the living room for too long.
• Shen Ru sat among the silent, murdered neighbors he had invited for his birthday, and Mo Yu emerged from the bedroom to give him a kiss.
• Mo Yu cut open an NPC’s head to make a goblet and demonstrated that the system had not suppressed his abilities, while Shen Ru caressed his fingers and said he loved it.

Shen Ru uncovered the truth behind the Instance and cleared it by enduring the required pain, with Mo Yu sharing the sacrifice. After healing, Shen Ru told Mo Yu he never made a losing deal, and Mo Yu promised he would not let him lose out.

• Shen Ru revealed that he believed the people around him were delusions, prompting the system to assign him a scenario requiring him to lose his limbs and senses or meet a pain threshold.
• Shen Ru had Meng Yizhi and Sheng Ziyao chase down people as animals, while Qiu Wen sewed corpses onto the tree by the entrance.
• Shen Ru and Mo Yu returned to the room where the Instance began, and Shen Ru stabbed his shoulder to meet the required pain threshold.
• Mo Yu joined Shen Ru in driving the blade through their shoulders, and the Players received the clear notification.
• Shen Ru realized the child had never had parents and had invented the trials out of loneliness, then healed himself and told Mo Yu he never made a losing deal.
• Mo Yu promised Shen Ru that he would not let him lose out.

After receiving an S-Rank Ghost Wall card, Shen Ru accepted Mo Yu’s invitation to the ocean cruise, where the system announced that more than half the gathered players would be executed. Shen Ru killed an attendant to interrupt the purge, and Mo Yu let him board.

• Shen Ru received the S-Rank Ghost Wall card after the game ended and learned that an ocean cruise rest-day event would open in three days.
• Shen Ru received an invitation bearing Mo Yu’s message that the cruise was an apology gift.
• At the Eternal Life Pier, the system announced that the ship could hold only ten thousand of the more than twenty thousand players and ordered over half of them executed.
• As the purge reached Shen Ru, he seized the attendant’s scythe, broke off its blade, and killed the attendant with the wooden shaft.
• Shen Ru asked Mo Yu if he could board, and Mo Yu wiped the blood from his face and asked whether he liked the gift; Shen Ru said he loved it.

After surviving the selection process, Shen Ru settled into the cruise ship’s Presidential Suite before Sheng Ziyao lured him to the bar with news of the deadly Freak Show. There, Mo Yu declared himself Shen Ru’s suitor, and Shen Ru accepted after pulling him into the pool for a kiss.

• Shen Ru reached his suite and watched the cruise ship sail away from the bloodied shore.
• Sheng Ziyao invited Shen Ru to the bar and persuaded him by describing the annual Freak Show and its gruesome contests.
• Shen Ru joined Sheng Ziyao at the open-air bar, where Mo Yu offered him a rose-petal cocktail.
• Mo Yu told Shen Ru he had abandoned Gu Changming’s theory and decided to become his suitor.
• Shen Ru pulled Mo Yu into the pool, kissed him underwater, and gave him permission to court him.

Shen Ru and Mo Yu relived their earlier encounters aboard the ship, turning Mo Yu’s belated apology into a series of violent games and mutual deaths. Their final violin duet ended with Mo Yu declaring that they were destined to descend into death together, and the dream shattered.

• Mo Yu arrived with roses and invited Shen Ru to dance, then reenacted their first meeting by attacking him and dragging him underwater.
• After Shen Ru awoke on the deck, Mo Yu apologized for making him fight two against one, then stabbed himself and vanished into the sea.
• Shen Ru awoke as Mo Yu’s patient and urged Dr. Mo to choke him, making Mo Yu relive the suffocation Shen Ru had felt.
• Shen Ru awoke in the rooftop garden and agreed to learn the violin with Mo Yu.
• Mo Yu turned the bow toward their beating hearts and declared that they had no ending but to remain entwined in death before the dream broke.

Shen Ru entered the A-rank level-up instance “Human-Machine Romance” with Gu Changming and other players, where he had to stop the restoration of a damaged mechanical giant without revealing that he was the villain. After the company assigned the players restoration-related work, Shen Ru proposed creating chaos to uncover the secrets behind the project.

• Shen Ru and Mo Yu learned that Gu Changming was entering a level-up instance, and Mo Yu said he and Shen Ru would join him.
• The instance introduced Shen Ru as a mechanical engineer tasked with saving a mechanical giant, while secretly requiring him to prevent its restoration.
• Shen Ru joined Gu Changming, Ruan Ping, and other players at a company meeting where managers argued over whether to restore the giant.
• After Ji Ze stormed out, a manager assigned Fang Ce and An Ke to survey the giant and ordered the remaining four players to review its internal structure documents.
• Shen Ru suggested that Ji Ze knew important information, then proposed causing chaos to bring the project’s secrets to light.

Shen Ru and the other Players set fires throughout the company building to create chaos, while Shen Ru secretly investigated their motives. Gu Changming used the evacuation to seize Ji Ze’s documents and uncovered a plan to eliminate humanity, but Shen Ru caught him with the evidence.

• Shen Ru divided the company’s floors among the Players and assigned Gu Changming the area where Ji Ze worked.
• The Players gathered supplies and set fires across the building, triggering an alarm and a panicked evacuation.
• Gu Changming restrained Ji Ze and persuaded him to hand over an envelope of documents.
• Gu Changming found the Human Elimination Plan, swapped it for an irrelevant proposal, and prepared to leave.
• Shen Ru caught Gu Changming and accused him of being a villain.