Chapter Summaries

After Jiang Cong destroyed the monster and the players cleared the 'Death Hospital' Instance, he brought Che Quan home and used hypnosis to make him remember their past. Che Quan dreamed of waking in the Old Castle and finding its vampire guards dead, just as Jiang Cong returned.

• Jiang Cong destroyed the fleeing monster, and a blue, icy fire consumed the collapsing Instance around the players.
• The Instance System announced that the players had cleared the 'Death Hospital' Instance and would be sent back in thirty seconds.
• Che Quan returned to his courtyard home and found Jiang Cong waiting at his door.
• Jiang Cong asked Che Quan to remember the past himself, then hypnotized him into a deep sleep.
• Che Quan dreamed that he woke in the Old Castle, found two vampire guards slain by Pure Silver Crosses, and sensed Jiang Cong returning.

Che Quan woke to find Jiang Cong unmasked and suspected by a vampire noble of plotting against him. As Che Quan challenged the noble’s demands and struggled to remember the younger prince, a sudden headache made him collapse into Jiang Cong’s arms.

• Che Quan saw Jiang Cong’s unmasked face and remained wary as Jiang Cong promised not to harm him.
• A vampire noble entered and accused Jiang Cong of trying to murder Che Quan, urging Che Quan to help kill him and return to court.
• Che Quan questioned the noble’s loyalty and demanded that his father come to the Old Castle himself.
• Jiang Cong promised to protect Che Quan whatever he decided, even if Che Quan killed him.
• The noble warned that Che Quan would be disowned and the younger prince named sole heir if he refused to return.
• Che Quan’s headache worsened as he tried to remember the younger prince, and Jiang Cong caught him when he began to fall.

Che Quan entered the next instance, a seven-day summer camp survival game where players had to identify an infiltrator among their group. As the bus arrived, the instance froze time and presented Che Quan with its first choice.

• Che Quan woke from a dream about his younger brother and received Jiang Cong’s message that he could unlock more memories after clearing the next stage.
• Che Quan declined to spend points to skip the next instance and entered the 'Single-Choice Question' game.
• The instance gave Che Quan a selector with ten save-and-retry chances and tasked him with surviving seven days at Talles Camp.
• Che Quan met five other players at the bus stop, but realized that seven people were traveling despite only six being players.
• The Instance System warned that one person in the group was not human, and time froze as Che Quan prepared to board the bus.

Che Quan chose to openly question why the club group had seven people despite having only six members, drawing the boss's hostility. On the bus to Talles Camp, the players exchanged their character backgrounds and learned that the club had suffered a past incident there, while one player said her description detailed it extensively.

• Che Quan noticed one of the six people before him carried a decoy selector and chose to ask the group about the extra person.
• Che Quan questioned why there were seven people in a club with only six members, triggering a warning that the boss's hostility had increased.
• The players boarded a bus to Talles Camp, where they were the only passengers, and arranged themselves to observe one another.
• Ke Jiaxi introduced himself as the club president and said the trip was meant to dispel the shadow of an incident that followed a previous visit to Talles Camp.
• Xia Lan and Meng Le introduced themselves and said their character descriptions provided little information about the incident.
• Che Quan introduced himself, and a short-haired woman by the window said her description had explained the incident in detail.

The group finished introducing themselves while trying to identify the amnesiac dead spirit, and Che Quan questioned Gong Yan about his suspicious place on the trip. As the bus approached Talles Camp, Gong Yan noticed something horrifying about the driver.

• Sang Shiwen explained that she had witnessed the accident but could not reveal its details while the dead spirit was present.
• Gong Yan introduced himself as Ke Jiaxi's classmate and roommate, and Che Quan chose to interrogate him about being an extra non-club member.
• Gong Yan argued that the club might have six members only because the dead spirit had altered their memories, but Che Quan saw no sign that Gong Yan's hostility had increased.
• Ju Lei introduced himself as Meng Le's ex-boyfriend and said he had joined the trip to protect her; Meng Le confirmed his account.
• As the bus entered the mountains, Gong Yan noticed that the driver had ignored the group and then saw something that horrified him.

Xia Lan investigated the ghost bus driver and discovered he was a skeleton, though only she received the system’s choice prompt. As the bus reached a seemingly peaceful town, the group discussed the dangers and supplies in their Inventories, while Che Quan silently tried calling Jiang Cong.

• Xia Lan used a “Save and Retry” chance to investigate the driver, then found he had no limbs and was a skeleton beneath his mask.
• Xia Lan learned that her companions had not received the choice prompt, and Gong Yan suggested her question had triggered the plot.
• The bus entered a scenic town, but Gong Yan warned that the shops’ closed doors seemed suspicious.
• Sang Shiwen gave Ke Jiaxi compressed biscuits, and Gong Yan distributed labeled water bottles from his Inventory.
• Che Quan declined the water and silently mouthed Jiang Cong’s name, hoping he would answer his call.

The players arrived at Talles Camp, where Zhang Yun gave them a tour and conspicuously warned them away from the woods and the middle building. Sang Shiwen revealed that her Instance hints gave her memories of the camp and that the middle building was deadly, but Che Quan began to suspect why she could not explain more.

• The players arrived at Talles Camp after the driver warned them that the bus would return in seven days.
• Zhang Yun showed the players the sleeping and activity buildings, claimed the middle building was staff quarters under renovation, and warned them not to approach the woods after dark.
• Ke Jiaxi and the other players said their Instance identities had no memories of the camp, while Sang Shiwen remembered its past and was terrified.
• Sang Shiwen described the fountain's former snake-like sculpture and warned that no one who entered the middle building would come out alive.
• Gong Yan and Xia Lan urged Sang Shiwen to explain what she knew, and Meng Le tried to comfort her.
• Che Quan watched Sang Shiwen struggle to speak and began to ask a question.

Sang Shiwen revealed that she had only six uses of “Save and Retry” left, and Che Quan explained why her failed answers had not wiped out the party. The players explored a camp building and gathered in its screening room, where the door locked itself behind them.

• Sang Shiwen explained that she had used “Save and Retry” while testing ways to reveal the accident, and Che Quan clarified that a wrong personal answer would kill only the player who answered it.
• Ju Lei reasoned that the Instance would not let one player’s answer wipe out everyone, and the others accepted his explanation.
• Meng Le asked what they should do, and the group decided to explore the building on the right side of the camp.
• Che Quan noticed the curtains shift in a second-floor window of the central building and decided he would visit it later.
• The group explored the building’s gym and screening room, where Gong Yan, Meng Le, Ke Jiaxi, Xia Lan, Sang Shiwen, Ju Lei, and Che Quan gathered.
• The screening room door slowly shut and locked, unnoticed by most of the players.

The players were trapped in a screening room with fewer chairs than people, and Meng Le was shoved aside as the others claimed seats. When the screen turned on, Meng Le appeared trapped inside a movie, and the players learned they had to answer questions correctly to help her escape.

• Xia Lan, Sang Shiwen, Ju Lei, Che Quan, Gong Yan, Ke Jiaxi, and Meng Le discovered the screening room door was locked and that only six chairs were available.
• Xia Lan and Sang Shiwen claimed chairs, Ju Lei took another, and Gong Yan tried to seat Meng Le beside him.
• Ke Jiaxi shoved Meng Le to the floor and took the last chair, then argued with Gong Yan when he objected.
• The room went dark, and Meng Le vanished from the floor before appearing trapped inside the screen.
• A mechanical announcement instructed the players to answer an escape quiz for Meng Le, warning that one wrong answer would leave her soul trapped forever.

Meng Le faced a series of escape questions while her teammates tried to guide her, despite the system warning that one of them wanted her dead. She survived the first question by following Ju Lei’s advice, then received a new question about how to respond to a woman with a flashlight.

• The system warned Meng Le that one teammate wanted her dead and cautioned the others that she might be a dangerous departed soul.
• The players saw that Meng Le had to choose how to act in a dark corridor, with only three minutes to answer.
• Ju Lei advised Meng Le to use a Save and Retry chance and stay where she was, arguing that choosing a direction had no logical basis.
• Meng Le chose to stay, and the system confirmed that she had avoided three fatal routes and refunded her chance.
• The system presented Meng Le with a new question about how to answer an unfamiliar woman who found her in the school at night.

Che Quan advised Meng Le to choose D, letting her exploit the woman's fear of a ghost story and escape. Meng Le survived the encounter but found an eerie girl on the floor below, and the players debated how she should respond as the chapter ended.

• Che Quan told Meng Le to choose D and explained that the woman’s fear could drive her away, then showed the players the [High School Ghost Stories] disc.
• Meng Le chose D, and the woman fled in terror after mistaking her for a ghost.
• Meng Le chose A on the next question and went down the stairs, where she encountered a girl in a school uniform.
• The system presented Meng Le with three choices for dealing with the girl, and Ju Lei advised her to choose B.
• Xia Lan questioned the unknown death rate, leaving Meng Le trembling as she asked whether she should follow Ju Lei’s advice.

Che Quan helped Meng Le survive the ghost on the stairs by advising her to choose B and pretend she was on the twelfth floor. After Meng Le died trying to run upward on the next question, the group began considering another answer, but Che Quan rejected Ke Jiaxi’s suggestion to run down.

• Che Quan explained that the ghost could only attack on the thirteenth floor if Meng Le revealed she could see it, and Ju Lei told her to choose B and pretend she was on the twelfth floor.
• Meng Le chose B, descended to the twelfth-floor landing, and watched the female ghost vanish before hearing the unfamiliar woman scream upstairs.
• The system gave Meng Le a new question about escaping the impossible twelve-story building, and Ke Jiaxi advised her to consider running upward.
• Sang Shiwen suggested that Meng Le choose B because thirteen might represent the levels of hell, and Meng Le used save and retry before running upward.
• Meng Le reached the thirteenth floor, where the ghost killed her; the scene then reset to the twelfth floor, and Sang Shiwen comforted her.
• Ke Jiaxi suggested that Meng Le try running downward, but Che Quan coolly refused.

Che Quan’s advice helped Meng Le survive the previous question, but the strange woman appeared again and the final survival question began. Meng Le suspected the wrong choices would let the ghost possess her, while Gong Yan urgently warned her not to choose A.

• Che Quan told Meng Le to choose D without using “Save and Retry,” and she escaped into the school grounds.
• Meng Le saw the strange woman waiting in the darkness without her flashlight, and the final question appeared.
• Meng Le reasoned that the strange woman was possessed and that the wrong choices could lead to Meng Le being possessed instead of killed.
• Meng Le told Gong Yan she believed A was correct, but Gong Yan insisted she was wrong and begged her not to choose it.

Meng Le survived the escape question by choosing option A, then learned Gong Yan had tried to get her killed. At camp, Zhang Yun announced ominous rules for the coming storm, while Che Quan went to hunt the ghost and was interrupted by a familiar warmth at his lips.

• Meng Le rejected Gong Yan's demand to choose C and selected A, escaping the dead soul before she fainted.
• Xia Lan told Meng Le that Gong Yan had wanted her dead because he feared she was the dead soul, and Sang Shiwen and Xia Lan admitted they had feared she was not.
• Zhang Yun summoned the group to dinner, served only vegetables, and warned them to stay inside during the storm, ignore knocking, and keep their eyes closed if they heard voices nearby.
• Zhang Yun declared that Talles Camp's motto was honesty, friendship, and courage, and violations would be punished.
• Che Quan returned to his room, then decided to go to the second floor to kill the ghost, but a familiar warmth touched his lips before he could move.

Che Quan fed on Jiang Cong and agreed that Jiang Cong could visit him every night to drink his blood. After a scream came from the boys’ room, the girls heard what sounded like Ke Jiaxi outside their door, inviting them to witness a miracle.

• Jiang Cong covered Che Quan’s eyes and let him drink his blood until he was satisfied.
• Jiang Cong asked to drink Che Quan’s blood in return, and Che Quan agreed when Jiang Cong promised to visit every night.
• After Jiang Cong left, Che Quan heard a scream from the room shared by Ju Lei, Gong Yan, and Ke Jiaxi, but went back to sleep.
• Meng Le, Sang Shiwen, and Xia Lan noticed a grotesque shadow beneath their door and heard Ke Jiaxi claim he had seen a miracle.
• A figure outside the door began scratching with long, sharp nails, terrifying the three girls.

Meng Le, Sang Shiwen, and Xia Lan endured a terrifying storm night while resisting Ke Jiaxi’s attempts to make them open their eyes. In the morning, they found Ju Lei alive but badly shaken, while Gong Yan was also unharmed despite the blood in the room.

• Meng Le pulled Xia Lan back to bed and ordered her and Sang Shiwen to keep their eyes closed as the storm began.
• Ke Jiaxi tormented Sang Shiwen with a voice beside her ear, but she resisted by thinking of her younger brother.
• Ke Jiaxi entered the girls’ room and approached Xia Lan, who fainted before opening her eyes; Meng Le and Sang Shiwen endured the rest of the night awake.
• After Zhang Yun called them for breakfast, the girls and Che Quan found Zhang Yun knocking on the boys’ room, and Xia Lan urged them to break down the door.
• Zhang Yun smashed the door open, revealing Ju Lei with his eyes taped shut; he charged at them, fell, and refused to remove the tape.
• The group saw blood throughout the boys’ room but no bodies, while Gong Yan lay on his bed trembling with his eyes closed.

After Ke Jiaxi’s death, Zhang Yun led the survivors into the forest for a deadly game of hide-and-seek, with Gong Yan chosen as the ghost. Xia Lan survived the first round by keeping her eyes shut until a choice prompt appeared, but Sang Shiwen and Gong Yan were gone when she opened them.

• Gong Yan ate a plate of suspicious meat at breakfast, and Zhang Yun took the group into the forest for the day’s activity.
• Sang Shiwen revealed that another guide had died, leading the women to suspect one of the men was the dead soul.
• Zhang Yun chose Gong Yan as the ghost and explained that humans could evade it by closing their eyes; Che Quan vanished into the trees as the game began.
• Ju Lei told Xia Lan that a false Meng Le had lured Ke Jiaxi into opening his eyes before killing him, while Gong Yan had endured the monster’s torment.
• A ghost impersonated Sang Shiwen and tried to trick Xia Lan into opening her eyes, but Xia Lan resisted until Zhang Yun announced the round was over.
• Xia Lan used a save-and-retry chance to choose to open her eyes and found that Sang Shiwen and Gong Yan had disappeared.

Sang Shiwen became a Vengeful Spirit and remembered the events at Talus Camp a year earlier that led to her death. Her memory ended as she fled the building and turned to her returning classmates for help, just before the group’s safety gave way to terror.

• Zhang Yun announced that Sang Shiwen had disappeared and that the next round would feature two ghosts.
• Sang Shiwen appeared beside the monstrous Gong Yan, and a mechanical announcement identified her as the Vengeful Spirit joining the Miracle Follower as a ghost.
• Meng Le asked Zhang Yun how Sang Shiwen had been caught, but Zhang Yun refused to answer before the players hid for the next round.
• A ghost urged Sang Shiwen to remember that she was dead, prompting her to recall the camp a year earlier and her boyfriend’s sudden change in behavior.
• Sang Shiwen followed her boyfriend to the forbidden second floor, where she found Zhang Yun and her boyfriend kneeling before a terrifying statue.
• Sang Shiwen fled the building and sought help from her returning classmates, but the memory stopped as their apparent safety turned to terror.

Meng Le used Save and Retry chances to evade a Vengeful Spirit during the second round of hiding, but each attempt ended in her death. As she prepared to give up, something unexpected happened.

• The narrator revealed that Sang Shiwen had been a player killed by the Vengeful Spirit, whose true allegiance was to killing players.
• Zhang Yun warned the players that anyone who switched from the human side to the ghost side was no longer their teammate, then started the second hiding round.
• Meng Le heard a cry for help and chose to investigate, but found the Vengeful Spirit disguised as Sang Shiwen and used a Save and Retry chance.
• Meng Le chose to avoid the apparent ghost, reunited with Xia Lan, and hid with her in the tall grass.
• Meng Le noticed her Save and Retry chances being consumed and discovered that Xia Lan had turned into a Vengeful Spirit, but repeated attempts to avoid looking at it still ended in her death.
• Meng Le prepared to surrender with three chances remaining, when something suddenly happened.

Meng Le and Ju Lei returned to camp after Xia Lan’s death, and Ju Lei explained how personal questions and escape questions worked. That night, Meng Le sleepwalked to the Second Floor and saw Ju Lei among the eerie idols as Zhang Yun and a male ghost stood beside him.

• Ju Lei told Meng Le that personal questions appeared when someone hesitated over a decision, while escape questions appeared when someone was closest to death.
• Meng Le realized her lack of hesitation when the Vengeful Spirit impersonated Xia Lan had prevented a personal question from appearing, and she thanked Che Quan and Ju Lei for saving her.
• Ju Lei explained that Xia Lan had run to help Meng Le without suspecting a trap, and the group returned to camp without her.
• Meng Le and Ju Lei saw a snake-like statue in the fountain as Zhang Yun offered them a vegetarian lunch and ignored their missing companions.
• Meng Le fell asleep alone, then discovered she was sleepwalking to the Second Floor and saw Ju Lei standing among strange idols with Zhang Yun and a male ghost.
• A deep voice asked in a strange language whether Ju Lei was the sacrifice chosen by the Elder God that year.