Recaps

Lin Shiming identified Li Xian and Ji Xie to Fan Zhe, who led them to the hidden chamber used to produce gaseous Candy. Fan Zhe prepared to choose one of them to die in the process, and Lin Shiming pointed to Ji Xie.

• Lin Shiming admitted that he had seen Li Xian and Ji Xie enter the dump, and Fan Zhe ordered them to come with him.
• Li Xian followed Fan Zhe with Ji Xie to the white-roofed building, where he realized the hidden glass chamber was directly behind it.
• Fan Zhe opened a concealed passage beneath the stairs and brought Li Xian, Ji Xie, and Lin Shiming into the glass chamber.
• Li Xian noticed the gas pipe and attic window that had allowed their movements in the dump to be observed.
• Fan Zhe asked whether he should choose Li Xian or Ji Xie to supply the lungs needed to produce gaseous Candy.
• Lin Shiming patted Ji Xie's back and said Ji Xie would do, but Ji Xie swatted his hand away and warned him not to touch him.

Fan Zhe defended his plan to create a world free of emotional pain and chose Li Xian for the trial, then locked him in an empty room. Li Xian searched the room for a clue from Lin Shiming but found nothing, leaving him unsure whether he had misunderstood.

• Fan Zhe accepted Lin Shiming's suggestion to use Li Xian in the trial, while Ji Xie was kept as a spare.
• Li Xian challenged Fan Zhe's vision of happiness, but Fan Zhe insisted that suppressing people's perception of pain would create a happy world.
• Fan Zhe brought up Lu Ye's past as he tried to persuade Li Xian, but Lin Shiming interrupted to say the program was ready for confirmation.
• Fan Zhe locked Li Xian in a dark room and left with Lin Shiming.
• Li Xian switched on the light and searched the sparse room, examining its hollow iron bed frame but finding no sign that Lin Shiming had left anything behind.

After finding the hidden instruction manual for Fan Zhe’s Bracelet, Li Xian realized Lin Shiming wanted him to use it to approve the Gaseous Candy Producer’s program. He escaped the locked room and headed to the attic to locate the machine, preparing to seize the bracelet.

• Li Xian moved the bed and retrieved a concealed instruction manual from a damaged opening in its iron frame.
• The manual revealed that Fan Zhe’s Bracelet controlled residents’ bracelets, authorized the candy machine, tracked residents, and had safeguards against being separated from Fan Zhe or harming him.
• Li Xian concluded he needed to cause a disturbance and use the bracelet to confirm the machine’s program, but he found stealing, deception, and coercion too risky.
• As the New-Type Candy test began, Li Xian left the locked room open and climbed to the fourth-floor attic to find the machine.

Fan Zhe prepared to release purified gaseous Candy while keeping Lin Shiming under surveillance, but discovered that Li Xian had escaped and ordered the building sealed. The chapter ended with Fan Zhe using his wristband to track movement throughout the residential complex.

• Fan Zhe checked the gas purification readings, told Lin Shiming to watch the machinery, and left to have the entrance secured.
• Fan Zhe reflected that Lin Shiming had helped advance the research and earned much of his trust, though he continued monitoring him for possible betrayal.
• Fan Zhe told the woman with the low ponytail to have the Security Guard lock the doors and close the building for the day.
• The woman reported that the unused staff room was open, and Fan Zhe discovered that Li Xian had escaped.
• Fan Zhe ordered the woman to make sure nobody left, then activated his wristband and viewed a map showing moving red dots across the complex.

Li Xian ambushed Fan Zhe in the Security Guard's quarters and tried to remove his bracelet, but Fan Zhe realized Li Xian was still wearing his own. When Fan Zhe's bracelet came off during their struggle, it injected Li Xian with liquid Honey Shadow, leaving his wrist numb and stiff.

• Fan Zhe used his map to locate a red dot in the Security Guard's quarters, shocked it, and found Li Xian's bracelet inside an empty wardrobe.
• Li Xian dropped from atop the wardrobe, pinned Fan Zhe with the River God Doll, and tried to pull off Fan Zhe's bracelet before the restraint expired.
• Fan Zhe caught Li Xian's wrist as the five-second restraint ended, and the two men grappled into a stalemate.
• Fan Zhe realized the bracelet in the wardrobe had come from a corpse and concluded Li Xian was still wearing his own bracelet.
• Fan Zhe's bracelet slipped off during their struggle and injected Li Xian with liquid Honey Shadow, making his left wrist grow numb and stiff.

Li Xian raced to deliver Fan Zhe’s wristband to Lin Shiming while liquid Honey Shadow turned his body into candy. Lin Shiming used the wristband to modify the experiment, but Li Xian lost his senses as his existence faded.

• After being injected with liquid Honey Shadow, Li Xian grabbed Fan Zhe’s wristband and ran toward the Attic while Fan Zhe pursued him.
• Fan Zhe ordered the Security Guard to stop Li Xian, but Li Xian used the watch to shock the guard and continued up the stairs as the candy transformation spread.
• At the Attic door, Li Xian shouted Lin Shiming’s name and sent the wristband sliding beside him before collapsing on the threshold.
• Lin Shiming modified the machine’s program with the wristband, turning the gas in the containers black, while Little Brown knocked Fan Zhe away from the machine.
• Lin Shiming played the prerecorded announcement and hurried to Li Xian, who lost his hearing and felt his existence gradually fade.

Li Xian woke in the staff lounge as black mist spread outside and residents fell into a violent frenzy. After Fan Zhe blamed him for the chaos, Li Xian headed to the dump to find Ji Xie.

• Li Xian woke in the staff lounge and discovered that Little Brown and his glass jar were missing.
• Li Xian saw residents outside attacking one another as black mist obscured the area.
• Fan Zhe accused Li Xian of causing the violence and tried to break him with his words.
• Someone smashed through the building’s front door, and Fan Zhe hurried downstairs.
• Li Xian wondered why Ji Xie and President Lin had not come to find him, then went to the dump to look for Ji Xie.

Li Xian escaped the building through an Attic window and climbed onto an iron pipe leading to the Glass Container, while a resident tried to stop him. He reached the pipe’s bend and braced himself there, but his next move remained uncertain.

• Li Xian avoided the approaching resident and went upstairs as black mist seeped into the building through the shattered front door.
• Li Xian found the Attic machines smashed and climbed out the window onto the iron pipe after the resident entered the room.
• Li Xian crossed the horizontal pipe while hanging from it, aiming for the iron ring at the bend.
• The resident leaned out the window, threw a wooden stick at Li Xian’s hands, then shook the pipe when the stick missed.
• Li Xian wrapped himself around the vertical pipe, slid down to the joint, and steadied his feet on the iron ring.

Li Xian escaped the Attic by climbing down a pipe, but the man pursued him by leaping from the building and nearly crushed him before Lin Shiming pulled him aside. Lin Shiming explained that the black fog was gaseous Honey Shadow that affected emotions, and revealed he had given Li Xian an instruction manual using his skill.

• Li Xian climbed down the pipe and reached the ground, believing he had escaped the man in the Attic.
• The man jumped from the building toward Li Xian, but Lin Shiming pulled Li Xian aside, and the man struck the ground and died.
• Lin Shiming gave Li Xian a clean mask and explained that the black fog was Honey Shadow in gaseous form and could drive people into a frenzy.
• Li Xian asked whether Lin Shiming had left him the instruction manual, and Lin Shiming confirmed it was created with his skill.
• Lin Shiming revealed that he had also given Ji Xie an instruction manual for the Candy Maker when Fan Zhe chose between the two test subjects.

Lin Shiming explained how the gaseous Honey Shadow spread through the Attic after Li Xian fell, restoring Li Xian’s body while coinciding with Ji Xie’s disappearance and the wristbands failing. They remained unsure what caused the complex’s sudden changes or what would truly fulfill the condition for “liberation.”

• Lin Shiming told Li Xian that Honey Shadow could become a gas inside a human body, and he believed spreading it could return suppressed emotions to the residents.
• Lin Shiming said his experiments with an animal had failed, so he suspected Ji Xie was the “nonhuman” medium mentioned in the manual; he had identified Ji Xie partly through the Novice Zone livestream and Song Qingzhang’s lies.
• Lin Shiming recounted that the machine erupted after a brown object pounced on Fan Zhe, filling the Attic with dense gaseous Honey Shadow.
• Lin Shiming carried the unconscious Li Xian to the lounge, where Li Xian’s body had already lost its candy-like hardness.
• Lin Shiming said Ji Xie and the liquid Honey Shadow vanished as the fog thinned, while the wristbands stopped working and residents grew frenzied.
• Li Xian and Lin Shiming wondered why the bodies piled up had disappeared, and Lin Shiming admitted that spreading gaseous Honey Shadow had not achieved liberation.

Li Xian and Lin Shiming remained unsure how to fulfill the Instance’s objective of “liberation” as the residents’ riot subsided. After a curly-haired player proposed escaping the complex and vanished into the distance, Li Xian left the Garbage Dump and headed for the Livestock Farm.

• Li Xian heard noises from the wall and watched a curly-haired player climb over it into the Garbage Dump.
• The curly-haired player suggested that escaping the residential complex might count as “liberation,” then ran off and disappeared at an impossible speed.
• Li Xian decided to investigate outside, and Lin Shiming followed him through the now-open passages and doors.
• Li Xian and Lin Shiming saw corpses throughout the quieter complex, found no sign of Fan Zhe, and avoided armed residents.
• Li Xian reached the Livestock Farm, where the broken wooden gate fell when he pushed it.

Li Xian and Lin Shiming discovered Lu Ye hiding in the Livestock Farm, and Li Xian killed him when his panicked cries threatened to attract the wandering residents. Li Xian concluded that they were in a dream and that death would wake them, but Lin Shiming’s reaction made him question whether the instance’s clearance conditions applied to him.

• Li Xian and Lin Shiming found that all the Livestock Farm animals had vanished without leaving any signs of escape.
• Li Xian and Lin Shiming pulled down a curtain and found Lu Ye hiding behind it.
• Lu Ye panicked despite recognizing them, so Li Xian stabbed him in the heart to stop him from making noise.
• Li Xian reasoned that the scene was a dream and that dying would wake them, but Lin Shiming’s uneasy response made him doubt his conclusion.
• Li Xian recalled Lin Shiming saying he had developed gaseous candy to fulfill Li Xian’s clearance conditions.

Li Xian rejected Lin Shiming’s belief that one of them had to die and persuaded him to reveal his clearance objective. They set aside their plans for death and began searching for a way to save everyone, concluding that Fan Zhe was likely hiding near the residential complex’s main gate.

• Li Xian realized Lin Shiming’s clearance objective conflicted with theirs, but Lin Shiming had chosen to help Li Xian’s side clear the Instance.
• Lin Shiming asked Li Xian to tell Cheng Xin he was sorry, but Li Xian insisted Lin Shiming should tell him himself.
• Li Xian argued that every player could survive and asked Lin Shiming to disclose his objective.
• Lin Shiming revealed that he had to gain Fan Zhe’s trust and help him realize his ideal of purifying negative emotions.
• Li Xian and Lin Shiming agreed to find Fan Zhe and devised a plan to locate his hidden refuge.
• Li Xian and Lin Shiming concluded that Fan Zhe was likely hiding at the residential complex’s main gate.

Li Xian and Lin Shiming followed two players toward the main gate and watched them vanish beyond the residential complex, revealing the danger of becoming lost outside the dream. They discovered Fan Zhe hiding behind a crack in the wall, where he killed two pursuing residents and boarded the bus, still determined to rebuild his plans.

• Li Xian and Lin Shiming ran toward the main gate and saw Workwear Man and Hairclip Woman fleeing two armed security guards.
• Li Xian realized that the players who escaped through the gate shrank until they disappeared, suggesting that leaving the complex could make them lost.
• The two guards found a crack in the wall where Workwear Man had struck it and approached the hidden door.
• Fan Zhe fired his Compound Crossbow through the crack, killing both guards.
• Fan Zhe retrieved his damaged bolts, muttered about rebuilding his complex and producing Candy, then boarded the bus with one bolt remaining.

Li Xian was killed by Lin Shiming in the dream, then woke beside Ji Xie among the villagers who had returned to normal. He found Lin Shiming, Fan Zhe, and three other players still asleep, and gave Fan Zhe a candy while wishing him sweet dreams.

• Fan Zhe and Li Xian fought over the crossbow and bolt, but their struggle ended when Lin Shiming shot Li Xian through the chest.
• Li Xian woke as Ji Xie held him, and saw that the villagers had awakened from the dream and were frightened into silence.
• Ji Xie told Li Xian that Lin Shiming, Fan Zhe, and three players remained asleep nearby.
• Li Xian gave Fan Zhe a piece of candy from Lu Ye and wished him sweet dreams, hoping to fulfill Fan Zhe's dream of purifying negative emotions.

Li Xian collected the residents’ Candy and asked Lu Ye whether he regretted recovering his memories. A resident then revealed how Fan Zhe had founded the complex to shelter people in pain before becoming overwhelmed and using Candy to make them smile.

• Li Xian asked the residents to hand over their Candy, and the Guide helped organize the line.
• Ji Xie took charge of disposing of the collected Candy while Li Xian continued gathering it.
• Lu Ye told Li Xian that remembering his past had hurt at first, but that he felt it was the real him.
• A resident who had helped build the complex told Li Xian that Fan Zhe created it as a refuge for traumatized people.
• The resident explained that Fan Zhe became overwhelmed by their suffering, developed Candy, and began giving it to residents, setting the complex on a destructive path.

Li Xian cleared the Brilliant New World instance and anxiously waited to learn whether Lin Shiming had cleared it too. Lin Shiming eventually emerged from another logout exit, and the two shared a high-five.

• Li Xian watched Ji Xie and Little Brown eat the candy, then received confirmation that he had completed the true ending and the Liberation objective.
• The system awarded Li Xian points and the A-Rank item Happiness, then removed him from the instance while Lin Shiming remained unconscious.
• Li Xian waited anxiously at the Player Center exit, and Ji Xie appeared in human form to reassure him.
• The system announced that Brilliant New World had officially closed, and Lin Shiming emerged from a different logout exit than the one Li Xian had been watching.
• Lin Shiming asked what Li Xian was waiting for, and they exchanged a high-five.

Li Xian, Lin Shiming, and Cheng Xin discovered that players could no longer enter Instances, and a countdown ended in a question mark instead of forcing one player inside. The disruption was followed by a man falling to his death, whom Li Xian recognized as someone who had once spoken about wanting to be free.

• Cheng Xin returned the piggy bank to Lin Shiming, and Lin Shiming apologized as Cheng Xin tried to leave.
• Cheng Xin said he could not enter an Instance, and Lin Shiming tested the entrance and confirmed it was blocked.
• Li Xian questioned a player who said he could not enter an Instance, and the player's countdown changed from zero to a question mark.
• Lin Shiming suggested returning to the guild, but a woman screamed as a man fell from a building and struck the ground nearby.
• Lin Shiming examined the corpse, and Li Xian recognized the man as a player he had once heard talk about wanting to be free.

After returning from an instance, Li Xian and Lin Shiming found a dead player in the Player Center, then discovered that instance entrances had closed and rest countdowns had become question marks. Li Xian introduced Ji Xie as his boyfriend before taking him to rest, and checked the Happy Honey Shadow he had acquired.

• Lin Shiming searched the dead player's pockets and found a note reading, "There's no-no end," before the corpse and its traces vanished.
• Cheng Xin told Li Xian that although he had never seen anyone die in the Player Center, the missing player had not entered an instance during their days of rest.
• Lin Shiming told the guild that he and Li Xian had entered the same instance, and the others found question marks where their rest countdowns should have been.
• Lin Shiming reported that instance entrances had closed after their instance ended, and Li Xian wondered whether the closure was because of him.
• Ji Xie took Li Xian to rest, and Li Xian introduced him to the guild as his boyfriend before they left.
• In his room, Li Xian checked his points and took the newly acquired Happy Honey Shadow from his inventory.

Li Xian learned that he had been chosen for the special solo Instance "Lifeline," which would be broadcast to all players and tied to bets on whether he could solve its puzzle. As the countdown resumed and the Instance prepared to begin, the system told him it was the final Instance in the wager.

• Li Xian released Little Brown to explore the room, then put it away and settled into bed with Ji Xie.
• Lin Shiming told Li Xian how he cleared the Instance "Dream" by helping Fan Zhe rebuild the Residential Community, and said he no longer needed to keep records to maintain order within himself.
• The system announced that the special solo Instance "Lifeline" would begin in five minutes and let viewers bet on whether its designated player would solve the puzzle.
• Li Xian's countdown returned, and Song Qingzhang hurried to his door and asked whether he was the one entering the Instance.
• Li Xian confirmed that he had been chosen after the system privately told him this was the final Instance in the wager.

Li Xian and Ji Xie entered a mirror maze with thirty minutes to find the exit, but soon discovered that the mirrors concealed a deadly threat. The chapter left them surrounded by arms emerging from the ceiling as Ji Xie carried Li Xian away from the attack.

• Li Xian and Ji Xie entered the mirror maze and began searching for the exit under a thirty-minute time limit.
• Li Xian followed the right-hand path while Ji Xie watched the mirrors, and they reached a dead end after several turns.
• Ji Xie stopped Li Xian from retreating when a long, withered arm dropped from the ceiling and lunged at him.
• Ji Xie ripped the arm away and told Li Xian that something was wrong with the mirrors.
• Li Xian noticed the severed arm had no fingernails, then saw countless arms emerging from the mirrored ceiling as Ji Xie scooped him up.

Ji Xie rescued Li Xian from a dead end filled with grasping arms, and Li Xian continued mapping the maze while choosing routes at random. In the next dead end, the floor turned into a sinking swamp that trapped them both, and Ji Xie sensed the system’s control was unusually strong.

• Ji Xie used tentacles to tear through the arms in the first dead end and carried Li Xian to safety.
• Players watching the Instance reacted to Ji Xie’s powers, while Song Qingzhang bet everything on Li Xian clearing it and Lin Shiming recorded Li Xian’s route.
• Li Xian marked junctions with scratches on the mirrors and began choosing routes randomly after realizing that following a wall led in circles.
• Li Xian entered a second dead end, where the marble floor turned into a swamp that sank beneath him and Ji Xie.
• Ji Xie tried to pull Li Xian free, but the swamp made one of them sink whenever the other rose, and Ji Xie sensed the system’s control over the area was unusually strong.

Ji Xie sent Li Xian out of the swamp after discovering a clue about the Source Instance, leaving Li Xian to continue through the maze alone. Li Xian tested whether markers could work, confirmed the maze erased them, and pressed onward.

• Ji Xie carried Li Xian forward through the swamp, then hurled him onto solid ground and shouted, "Source Instance" before disappearing.
• Li Xian concluded Ji Xie had found a clue and hurried through the maze, while his odds of losing rose above his odds of winning.
• Cheng Xin, Song Qingzhang, Jiang Qiuyue, and Lin Shiming defended Li Xian's choices when another player criticized his reckless approach.
• Li Xian marked a floor tile with the Veil of Eternal Night, then returned to find the scratches had vanished.
• Li Xian triggered the system notification that no effective markers could be made within the maze and continued onward.

Li Xian entered a long dead-end passage to seek information, but became trapped in a suffocating compulsion to walk in place. He realized his reflection was moving ahead of him and ordered Little Brown to cover his legs in the mirror.

• Li Xian chose a long corridor and waited at its dead end, but no danger appeared until he turned back and began to suffocate.
• Li Xian ran toward the junction, but the corridor seemed endless and his legs kept walking against his will.
• Li Xian put Little Brown on the floor and realized he had been walking in place.
• Li Xian spotted his reflection moving ahead of him and ordered Little Brown to trip him.
• Li Xian fell, but his limbs tried to force him upright, so he told Little Brown to use his jacket to cover his legs in the mirror.

Li Xian escaped the mirror’s grasp and continued searching the maze while trying to piece together the system’s clues. As betting was about to close, he and Lin Shiming realized the maze’s routes changed, and the system announced that memorizing them was futile.

• Li Xian used Little Brown to cover the mirror figure, regained control of his legs, and collapsed after reaching a safe corner.
• Little Brown struck a mirror and was thrown toward the opposite one, prompting a system notification that damage to the maze’s mirrors or floor also harmed whoever caused it.
• Li Xian tried to retrace his route but found that the maze’s junctions and paths had changed, while Lin Shiming noticed the same discrepancy in his written map.
• The system announced that memorizing routes was futile and warned that betting would close in five minutes, with odds favoring Li Xian’s loss.
• The system set minimum odds of 1.5 for each betting option as players increasingly expected Li Xian to fail.