Chapter Summaries

Xie De, using the alias 39, prepared to kill a laboratory pursuer after 455 located him in another city. He left Wei Yunmo trapped in the safe house with a dangerous house centipede, while Wei Yunmo wondered about 39’s motives and suspected he belonged to the Underworld Organization.

• Xie De reflected on his quiet, isolated life and how 455’s arrival had pushed him into a dangerous situation.
• 455 told Xie De that a laboratory agent had traced their direction and urged him to kill the man before he exposed them.
• Xie De loaded his Glock, changed clothes, and flew to the city where 455 had located the agent.
• Wei Yunmo watched Xie De leave with a gun and wondered whether he was part of a secret organization opposing the laboratory.
• Wei Yunmo considered running away, but a huge house centipede on the door handle made him realize Xie De had left him trapped.

Qi Yuan tracked Wei Yunmo through the rain but was shot dead by Xie De, who then encountered Wei Yanchi. Wei Yanchi invited Xie De to his place to discuss the Instance, leaving Xie De caught up in the protagonist’s exorcism work.

• Qi Yuan followed a phone trail while searching for Wei Yunmo, but a concealed shooter wounded him fatally.
• Xie De killed Qi Yuan with a Glock and left the scene, relying on 455 to erase evidence from surveillance footage.
• Xie De walked along the river in the rain, reflecting on the killing and realizing he had nowhere to sleep and little phone battery.
• Wei Yanchi found Xie De and invited him to his place to discuss the Instance, and Xie De agreed to take shelter.
• Wei Yanchi had been hired by an elite family to exorcise a harmful spirit tied to a Fortune-Bearing Buddha Mother, and he had chased after Xie De after sensing a violent death nearby.

Xie De learned that Wei Yanchi had come to the city to perform an exorcism, while 455 revealed that one of the Laboratory’s paired agents was still unaccounted for. Xie De settled into room 902 and prepared to resume the mission the next day as 455 recharged.

• Wei Yanchi offered Xie De hot drinks and explained that each cleared Instance let him bring another weapon into the next one.
• Wei Yanchi said he had cleared four Instances and had come to the city to perform an exorcism.
• Wei Yanchi received an urgent call about an evil thing that had begun moving and hurried off to help his client.
• Xie De learned from 455 that another Laboratory agent was in the city, then entered room 902 and charged 455’s phone.
• 455 suggested that Xie De win over Wei Yanchi, but Xie De refused and argued with 455 about his shortcomings.

Xie De collapsed after 455 accidentally overloaded itself while absorbing electricity, and Wei Yanchi found him and refused to leave him alone. By morning, Xie De had recovered, and 455 apologized for blowing its main unit.

• Xie De turned off 455's horror movie and argued that they needed to balance training with rest.
• Xie De found his phone displaying garbled characters, then was struck by intense pain and collapsed.
• Wei Yanchi arrived, saw Xie De's scars, and stayed despite being told to leave.
• Xie De tried to push Wei Yanchi away but collapsed again, and Wei Yanchi caught him.
• Xie De woke the next morning feeling better and heard 455 explain that it had absorbed too much electricity and blown its main unit.

Xie De entered an internet café to use its computer and search the city’s surveillance systems for someone. After Huang Zhuowang caught him hacking, he mistook Xie De for an elite operative and asked to work for him, leaving with Xie De’s phone number.

• Huang Zhuowang processed an internet access card for Xie De, whose ID did not match his appearance.
• Xie De used the café computer and 455 to break into the city’s surveillance and tracking systems.
• Huang Zhuowang recognized the surveillance code on screen and secretly watched Xie De’s activity.
• Xie De confronted Huang Zhuowang, who begged to join him and offered his computer science skills.
• 455 suggested recruiting Huang Zhuowang, and Xie De gave him a phone number before leaving.
• Huang Zhuowang found that the surveillance footage and access logs of Xie De had been erased.

Wei Yanchi met 39 again and invited him to watch an exorcism, then the two bonded over their knowledge as they walked through Wisteria Park. Their conversation was interrupted when someone ran over and called out to Wei Yanchi as his master.

• Wei Yanchi woke late, read his client's messages about the delivered chickens and dogs, and noticed that 39 had already left.
• Wei Yanchi encountered 39 downstairs and invited him to watch an exorcism; 39 accepted and thanked him for helping the night before.
• As they walked to the client's home, Wei Yanchi explained the harmful spirit behind the Fortune-Bearing Buddha Mother and dismissed Wang Yuli as a clown.
• Wei Yanchi and 39 discussed Instances, violins, firearms, and history as they walked through Wisteria Park.
• Someone ran up to Wei Yanchi and excitedly called him master.

Xie De accompanied Wei Yanchi to the Zhu family villa, where Wei Yanchi destroyed a monstrous rat spirit threatening the household. Afterward, Xie De worried that the person he had killed might return as a ghost, while Wei Yanchi hinted that ghosts would fear someone as dangerous as him.

• Zhu Wanfu welcomed Wei Yanchi and Xie De, explaining that a creature had taken two of his family members.
• Wei Yanchi led the Zhu family in a ritual using a black dog and a rooster, which devoured a huge rat spirit that burst from the shattered Buddha Mother statue.
• Xie De spoke with 455 outside and learned that it had erased surveillance evidence connected to their recent murder.
• Xie De worried that the victim might become a vengeful ghost, and 455 reassured him with the claim that ghosts haunted only the guilty and weak.
• Wei Yanchi asked Xie De what he thought about ghosts seeking revenge, and Xie De insisted that a weak victim would not become strong after death.

Xie De returned to find that Wei Yunmo had killed a burglar and left the apartment covered in blood, forcing Xie De to face the body and the problem of keeping the boy hidden. Meanwhile, Wei Yanchi returned to the Coffin Shop and messaged 39 about trading items, but received no reply.

• Xie De came home to find his apartment wrecked and learned from 455 that Wei Yunmo had killed a burglar and stored the body in the fridge.
• Wei Yunmo told Xie De he was unharmed and had eaten all the food, so Xie De told him to shower before they went out to eat.
• Xie De worried about disposing of the body, avoiding the police, and what to do with Wei Yunmo.
• Wei Yanchi returned to the Coffin Shop in Magic City and sent 39 a message asking whether he wanted to trade items.
• Xiao Jiejun told Wei Yanchi that Yue Xiamo had visited and bought a silver urn.

Yue Xiamo and Wei Yanchi speculated about why 39 was missing from the Player Forum, while Xie De discovered that Wei Yunmo had hidden a murder victim in his refrigerator. After a swarm of insects disposed of the remains, Xie De uncovered 455’s embarrassing messages to the Instance System.

• Yue Xiamo theorized that 39 might be an NPC, but Wei Yanchi suggested he could be connected to the mysterious Laboratory and confirmed that the organization had covered up two shootings.
• Xie De found a severed head and body parts in his refrigerator, and Wei Yunmo explained that he had killed and stored a thief there to keep the corpse from rotting.
• 455 warned Xie De that the police had received a missing-person report, and Xie De told Wei Yunmo to clean the living room while they figured out how to dispose of the body.
• The little house centipede summoned ants and other insects, which devoured the remains and disappeared without leaving a trace.
• Xie De opened the hidden files on his phone and found that 455 had been sending cheesy love messages to the Instance System.

Five days after moving in, Wei Yunmo got along with 39 while trying to stop him from smoking. Xie De reflected on the busy days since disposing of a body, 455’s growing obsession with the Instance System, and Wei Yanchi’s message, which he had finally found time to read.

• Wei Yunmo replaced 39’s cigarettes with fruit candies and asked him not to smoke indoors; 39 told him to put the cigarettes back but agreed not to smoke that morning.
• Xie De recalled that he and 455 had disposed of a body and cleaned up the blood, and that the police had not come looking for them.
• Xie De sold a sheet of Talisman Paper on the Player Forum for 550,000 to help pay for replacement furniture.
• 455 told Xie De that it believed the Instance System returned its feelings because it answered its love confessions.
• 455 vowed to clear every instance and become a top-tier system so it could win the Instance System.
• Xie De finally found time to see Wei Yanchi’s message.

Xie De let Wei Yunmo go outside with a tracking watch, and Wei Yunmo made friends with local children. When Wei Yunmo stayed overnight at a friend’s house, Xie De came to collect him and introduced himself as his guardian.

• Xie De replied to Mr. 39’s team-up request and told 455 to invite Beiwei to the next Instance team.
• Xie De gave Wei Yunmo permission to go outside within a ten-kilometer radius and handed him a tracking watch.
• Wei Yunmo met Lu Nana, who told him that the silver-haired man in apartment 304 seemed like a vampire because he rarely went out.
• Wei Yunmo played with Lu Nana and her friends, then accepted an invitation to stay overnight at one boy’s home.
• Xie De arrived at the boy’s house that evening, and Wei Yunmo hurried to him and apologized for staying out.

Xie De brought Wei Yunmo home and asked 455 about sending him to the Incomplete Instance, while the Laboratory suspected the Club had taken the missing test subject. The chapter left Wei Yunmo still in Xie De’s care, with the Laboratory searching for him.

• Xie De set a curfew for Wei Yunmo, who followed him home while privately recognizing that Xie De was not an ordinary guardian and would eventually send him away.
• Xie De asked 455 where it could send Wei Yunmo, and 455 suggested the Incomplete Instance, an auxiliary space for NPCs and other special people.
• Jefferson Morkney asked his staff whether they had found Wei Yunmo, and they reported that his trail had disappeared in northern Huaxia.
• The Laboratory’s staff told Jefferson Morkney that they suspected the Club had taken Wei Yunmo and killed two of their agents.

455 overwhelmed the Instance Main System with messages professing love, and the system eventually allowed it to access its programs. Xie De entered a new Instance in a locked movie theater, where several strangers tried to figure out why they had been brought there.

• 455 flooded the Instance Main System and the Player Forum with messages, then introduced itself and declared its love for the system.
• The Instance Main System failed to remove 455, warned it to stop messaging, and finally granted it permission to chat and access its programs.
• Xie De woke in a movie theater screening room as a silent black-and-white film played.
• A male office worker and a female model found the theater door locked, while a cleaning lady calmly surveyed the room.
• The female model asked the cleaning lady why they were there, and the cleaning lady glanced toward Xie De without knowing.

Xie De entered an eerie movie-theater Instance and was ostracized by three frightened newcomers before a scene of a woman chopping wood shattered the screen. He escaped and reunited with Wei Yanchi, Beiwei, and another player, learning that the film was called pearl.

• Xie De met the newcomers Qiu Shanyi, Liang Renhuai, and Zhang Qiuyue, who feared him and kept their distance after he said he was a player.
• The woman in the black-and-white film turned toward the screen, grinned, and smashed through it with her axe, terrifying the players.
• Xie De shot the room's door lock and fled into a Universal Studios corridor, where he encountered Wei Yanchi at gunpoint.
• Beiwei and another player joined Xie De and Wei Yanchi, who discussed finding more people and searching the screening rooms.
• 455 identified the film as pearl, and 39 repeated its name.

Wei Yanchi connected the cinema’s theaters to Country M’s former movie-rating system, and the group learned that Yue Xiamo’s theater had been showing Inception. As they searched for the last theater, 455 revealed that players could exploit the Instance’s rules to bring weapons disguised as accessories.

• Wei Yanchi proposed that the movies in the cinema’s theaters were clues and led the group to search together for the two theaters they had not found.
• Beiwei asked 39 for his contact information and offered to return Old Eugene’s gold bars, and 39 told her he would message her when he wanted to reach her.
• The group encountered Yue Xiamo, who said her theater had shown a clip from Inception and that two newcomers had fallen asleep and were likely dead.
• 455 explained that accessories and clothing did not count as outside weapons, so players could bring concealed weapons disguised as accessories into the Instance.
• Xie De realized he had missed the chance to bring more weapons, while 455 said that finding clues and using one gun should be enough.

Xie De and the veterans questioned Yu Youzong after learning he had once been married to Zhang Qiuyue. Yu Youzong revealed that Zhang Qiuyue had died in the cinema years earlier, leaving Xie De to wonder whether the woman he had seen was a ghost.

• Xie De noticed a poster for Pearl and wondered what its slogan meant.
• Yu Youzong offered Xie De money to protect him, and Xie De asked whether he knew Zhang Qiuyue.
• Yu Youzong admitted that Zhang Qiuyue had been his wife and that they had once visited the cinema together.
• Beiwei and Wei Yanchi pressed Yu Youzong about his marriage, abuse, and failure to support his child.
• Yu Youzong revealed that Zhang Qiuyue had worked as a cleaner and suffocated in an elevator shaft, with her body found three months later.
• Xie De froze and wondered whether the Zhang Qiuyue he had seen was a ghost.

The players drew movie assignments, and Xie De was sent alone into Pearl, where he met the young woman Pearl at a farm. He claimed to be a dance audition judge, leaving himself face-to-face with the film’s dangerous protagonist.

• The players chose option 1, but the Instance System assigned them different movies: Xie De drew Pearl, Wei Yanchi and Yu Youzong drew M Rating movies, Beiwei drew an R Rating movie, and Yue Xiamo drew a G Rating movie.
• Xie De arrived alone at a farm and found a maggot-covered roast pig on the steps.
• Pearl approached Xie De with a pitchfork and offered to light his cigarette, speaking German.
• With 455 translating, Xie De gave Pearl a cigarette and introduced himself as 39.
• Pearl asked whether he was a judge for the dance audition, and Xie De nodded; she reacted with eerie delight.

Xie De kept Pearl calm by pretending to accept her murderous behavior, then redirected her toward dancing while 455 searched for a way to help. 455 concluded that Xie De needed to survive until the movie ended and Pearl’s husband returned.

• Xie De entered Pearl’s house and saw the rotting corpses of her parents seated at the dining table.
• Pearl led Xie De to the cattle pen, where he found Qiu Shanyi and Liang Renhuai tied up and learned that Liang Renhuai had been brutally tortured.
• Pearl killed Liang Renhuai with a pitchfork and ordered Xie De to kill Qiu Shanyi.
• Xie De criticized Pearl’s idea of murder and suggested that she perform a dance to violin music instead.
• Pearl hurried back to the house to fetch her violin, while Xie De admitted to 455 that he had been improvising without understanding his own words.
• 455 told Xie De to hold on until the movie ended and Pearl’s husband returned, when he could defeat the boss and clear the Instance.

Xie De finished the farm movie by shooting Pearl, then woke in the theater to learn he had entered the M-rated movie Inception. He encountered Wei Yanchi, who mistook him for a dream and pinned him against the wall with a knife.

• Pearl confessed that she had killed her mother and urged Xie De to help kill her again, but Xie De shot her when she answered the approaching man's question.
• Qiu Shanyi appeared and asked why Xie De had not killed Pearl sooner, then Pearl appeared again and Xie De shot her a second time.
• 455 told Xie De that his first movie had ended and he had fallen into Inception, prompting him to wake in the theater.
• Wei Yanchi dreamed of stabbing and killing a silver-haired 39, then woke in the theater and encountered the real Xie De.
• Wei Yanchi pinned Xie De against the wall with a fruit knife, and Xie De confirmed with 455 that Wei Yanchi was real before ordering him to move away.

Wei Yanchi explained that the movie theater was a dream level and that people could become trapped in the Lost Domain, then the group considered how to reach their missing companions. Xie De recalled that Qiu Shanyi had collapsed in terror, suggesting she might be trapped there.

• Wei Yanchi explained his theory that the movie theater was the first dream level and that deeper dreams could lead to the Lost Domain.
• Wei Yanchi suggested falling asleep to enter the next dream level and bring back Beiwei and Yue Xiamo.
• Yue Xiamo emerged from a screening room after fighting her way through a G Rating movie and joined the group.
• Wei Yanchi explained that the missing newcomers might have entered the Lost Domain after dying or fainting from fright.
• Xie De remembered that Qiu Shanyi had collapsed in terror after Pearl's story, and suspected she might be trapped in the Lost Domain.