Recaps

Li Xian raced to the river while the Village Chief pursued him, then dove underwater to find Shen Xiaomei’s body. He found her surrounded by children’s skeletons, which clung to her and asked him to stay with them.

• Ji Xie carried the wounded Li Xian toward the river as the Village Chief passed Xu Yao and the other players to pursue Li Xian.
• Xu Yao realized Li Xian had drawn the Village Chief away from her and the others so they could survive.
• Li Xian reached the river, told Ji Xie to put him down, and jumped into the water while Song Qingzhang ran back toward the village.
• The players who tried to flee collapsed when the children’s cries made their Mental Value plummet.
• Li Xian followed the crying underwater, found Shen Xiaomei’s body surrounded by children’s skeletons, and tried to pull her free.
• The skeletons resisted Li Xian, then gathered around him after one asked him to stay.

Li Xian escaped the river with Shen Xiaomei's corpse, and she confronted the Village Chief about how he had severed her arm. As villagers arrived and the Village Chief gained the advantage, Li Xian suspected the children’s wooden figures were hidden beneath the Square Well and climbed inside to investigate.

• Li Xian calmed the children’s skeletons with a pinky promise, and they helped free him from Zhou Shan’s corpse so he could carry Shen Xiaomei to the surface.
• The Village Chief pushed Li Xian underwater, but Aunt Wang restrained him long enough for Li Xian to escape; Shen Xiaomei then rose from the river.
• Shen Xiaomei accused the Village Chief of hacking off her arm, and she attacked him when villagers approached.
• The Village Chief stabbed Aunt Wang with a knife, leaving Shen Xiaomei and the others facing the armed villagers.
• Li Xian recalled the wood beneath the Village Chief’s bed, suspected the children had been carved into figures, and jumped into the Square Well to find a hollow space beneath its bottom.

Li Xian uncovered named wooden figures beneath the well and threw them into the river, bringing the abused children back and unleashing Shen Xiaomei's revenge on the villagers. After the rain and slaughter ended, Shen Xiaomei asked the group to see her off.

• Li Xian pulled a loose brick from the well wall, found wooden figures bearing names from the Village Chief's papers, and threw them into the river.
• The named children crawled from the river in living bodies, and Li Xian collapsed as they began to cry.
• Shen Xiaomei controlled the rainwater to kill the Village Chief and the villagers while Li Xian and the others sheltered in the Tile-Roof House.
• After the rain stopped, the group found corpses piled at the door and went to Riverside, where Shen Xiaomei rested beside the well among the sleeping children.
• Shen Xiaomei told the group she was tired and asked them to see her off.

Li Xian and the others completed the true ending of Stone River Village by leaving the village, earning rewards as the instance closed permanently. Back in the white hall, Li Xian heard the closure announcement and approached a newcomer sign, but someone stepped in front of him.

• Song Qingzhang placed Shen Xiaomei in a coffin in the Ancestral Hall, completing the main objective and unlocking the additional objective to leave the village.
• The boy led the group to a bridge made of Wooden Figurines, and Li Xian was pushed into Ji Xie's arms, extending their marriage bond through the next instance.
• Li Xian and the others followed a forest path out of the village and gave the Village Chief's list to a uniformed man who met them.
• Li Xian, Song Qingzhang, Zhao Fengyi, Xu Yao, and Qian Xin completed the true ending, and the system permanently closed Stone River Village after awarding their rewards.
• Li Xian returned to the white hall, where the instance's 100% completion announcement shocked the crowd, then headed toward a sign before someone stopped him.

Li Xian questioned Backpack Man about instance intel, the Novice Lobby, and how players used points. He learned about the costly “Wish Come True” item and left with a warning about overly friendly experienced players.

• Backpack Man tried to sell Li Xian instance intel, but Li Xian refused after learning how few instances he had information about.
• Li Xian paid Backpack Man 90 points to answer questions about the Advanced Zone and point donations from its players.
• Backpack Man showed Li Xian the shop’s “Wish Come True” item, priced at 99.99 million points, and Li Xian privately doubted anyone could afford it.
• Li Xian suggested Backpack Man earn money by answering newcomers’ questions, then Backpack Man warned him to avoid especially friendly experienced players in instances.

After recovering in the Player Hub, Li Xian learned that players had heard of his success in Stone River Village and received an S-rank River God Doll. He teamed up with Song Qingzhang for their next instance, where they arrived at a mansion and encountered several other players.

• Li Xian slept for nearly thirteen hours, accepted Song Qingzhang’s friend request, and agreed to team up with him for the next instance.
• Song Qingzhang explained that players had learned of Li Xian’s role in clearing Stone River Village, and Li Xian found an S-rank River God Doll in his inventory.
• Li Xian used curry rice to recover from his chest wound, then went with Song Qingzhang to the instance entrance.
• Li Xian and Song Qingzhang entered a forest and reached a lit Western-style mansion, where five other players were already gathered.
• Li Xian studied the mansion’s eerie portrait and the silent tall man in the corner before another person arrived.

Li Xian and the other players entered the C-rank instance Miss Dolly's Portrait Gallery, where their hostess postponed the exhibition for five days. As Yi Jing handed out room keys on the eerie third floor, the overweight newcomer became transfixed by a portrait.

• The players learned they were trapped in a C-rank puzzle instance, and Yi Jing reassured the newcomers while gathering the group around him.
• Miss Dolly welcomed the players, postponed her art exhibition for five days, and gave Yi Jing the keys to their rooms.
• Yi Jing led the group to the third-floor corridor, where lifelike portraits lined the dimly lit walls.
• Yi Jing quietly set aside a key for himself before distributing the others, while Li Xian noticed but said nothing.
• The overweight newcomer fell behind and stared blankly into the eyes of a portrait.

At Miss Dolly’s Portrait Gallery, Li Xian and the other players witnessed a portrait seize and crush a man, while Cheng Xin and Lin Shiming recognized the instance’s history of total wipes. The survivors retreated to their rooms, where Yi Jing advised his frightened teammates to hide the portraits under their beds, leaving Li Xian to decide what to do about the painting in his room.

• A woman’s portrait reached out, dragged a man into the canvas, and crushed him to death in front of the players.
• Cheng Xin checked Lin Shiming’s notebook and found records showing that previous runs of the gallery instance had ended in total wipes.
• Yi Jing told Liang Pei and the other players to return to their rooms and avoid the blood blocking the stairs.
• Li Xian found a portrait hanging opposite his bed and heard Zhang Guangding, Feng Tao, and another teammate discover paintings in their rooms.
• Yi Jing advised his three teammates to take down their portraits and put them under their beds, while Li Xian closed his door and considered what to do.

Li Xian investigated the portrait’s dangerous behavior while the group discovered that their paintings changed overnight. After breakfast, he grew wary of Yi Jing’s unhelpful leadership and warned Song Qingzhang to keep his distance.

• Li Xian covered his portrait and went to bed, but Dolly’s nighttime visit coincided with the covering falling away and the painted figure raising one finger.
• Feng Tao repeatedly moved his portrait, then saw it raise two fingers and, by morning, three.
• At breakfast, the group compared their portraits and learned that everyone’s painting had raised at least one finger.
• Li Xian questioned the others and found they had all removed or relocated their portraits, while his own painting had changed despite remaining untouched.
• Li Xian told Song Qingzhang that Yi Jing had avoided helping the group identify the portrait rules and advised him to be cautious.

Li Xian and Song Qingzhang explored the mansion’s exhibition hall and discovered clues linking the portrait of Dolly to someone named Du Sha and a September ninth date. After Dolly interrupted their inspection, Li Xian appeased her, and the players gathered for dinner with one person missing.

• Li Xian and Song Qingzhang explored the second floor, where they found five empty frames and a sign announcing the exhibition’s opening on September 9, 2002.
• They found the staircase to the upper floor blocked by a rusted iron door and returned to the first floor, where Li Xian tasted the bitter coffee.
• Li Xian met the unsociable man, who called himself Zhang San, and joked that his own name was Li Si.
• Li Xian examined Dolly’s portrait and deciphered a note saying it had been painted when Miss Du Sha was eighteen, along with a blurred date beginning with 98 and ending in 9.
• Dolly caught Li Xian looking closely at the portrait, but he praised its details, and she pinched his ear before sending him to eat.
• The players gathered at the dining table, where Yi Jing arrived with his followers and the newcomer, but one person was missing.

Yi Jing led a search for Feng Tao, whose mutilated corpse was found in a room beside a slashed portrait. A sheet of human skin emerged from behind the painting, killed the girl in the short skirt, and left the survivors barricading the room before they fled downstairs.

• Yi Jing persuaded most of the group to search for Feng Tao, while Li Xian, Song Qingzhang, and Zhang San initially held back.
• The group found Feng Tao dead in his room, with deep cuts across his body and face and matching damage to the portrait.
• Li Xian noticed the portrait’s figure had disappeared, and a sheet of human skin sprang from behind it.
• The skin attached itself to the girl in the short skirt and drained her until she became a thin sheet of skin.
• Yi Jing wedged a chair against the room’s door, and the group escaped downstairs; Li Xian told Song Qingzhang that someone had pushed him toward the portrait.

Li Xian suspected Yi Jing had manipulated Feng Tao into damaging his portrait and pushed Li Xian, but kept his suspicions quiet while holding on to the knife linked to Yi Jing. The next morning, every portrait had gained another finger, and Chen Cheng and Zhang Guangding were missing from their rooms.

• Li Xian secretly told Song Qingzhang that someone had pushed him and suspected Yi Jing, while Yi Jing blamed Feng Tao's death on his own actions.
• Li Xian showed Liang Pei the knife he had taken from Feng Tao's room, and Liang Pei said he had seen Yi Jing carrying it and recalled Yi Jing and Feng Tao had both gone missing early that morning.
• Li Xian and Liang Pei concluded Yi Jing might have persuaded Feng Tao to damage his portrait, and Li Xian asked Liang Pei to keep their conversation secret.
• The group found no useful clues, went to sleep, and woke to discover that every portrait had gained another finger.
• A woman with neatly cropped hair found that Chen Cheng did not answer his door, and Liang Pei reported that Zhang Guangding was also missing.

Li Xian concluded that the missing players had become human-skin monsters, leaving four monsters to threaten the survivors. He used the discovery to bargain with the group, asking to inspect everyone’s rooms.

• Li Xian found Chen Cheng’s and Zhang Guangding’s rooms empty and reasoned that a human skin released from a damaged portrait had killed them.
• Li Xian explained that the dead players had turned into human-skin monsters, meaning four such monsters now existed.
• Liang Pei realized the group faced rapid deaths and decided everyone needed to know the danger.
• Li Xian suggested using the discovery to negotiate with Yi Jing, then told the group he would share the clue if they let him inspect their rooms.

Li Xian exposed Yi Jing for hiding a way to stop the portraits from changing and for secretly meeting the lady of the house. Yi Jing admitted she had altered his portrait, but denied making any deal, and Song Qingzhang pointed to the room where Feng Tao had died as a place to lock him up.

• Li Xian inspected everyone’s rooms after Yi Jing reluctantly agreed, and the group found that Yi Jing’s portrait had no raised fingers.
• Li Xian found a note in Yi Jing’s room and read its instruction to meet in the hallway at midnight, while Liang Pei and Song Qingzhang restrained Yi Jing.
• Li Xian deduced that the lady of the house had passed Yi Jing the note with the keys and met him that night.
• Yi Jing admitted that the lady of the house had entered his room and made his portrait safe, but he claimed he did not know what she wanted in return.
• Song Qingzhang suggested tying Yi Jing up and putting him in the room where Feng Tao had died.

Yi Jing confessed that Dolly had ordered him to damage a painting and kill Li Xian, then learned from Li Xian that the human skins would eventually kill him too. Dolly revealed that framing a human skin would trap it, but with six survivors and only five frames, the group drew lots to decide who would share a room; Li Xian and Mr. Zhang drew the marked slips.

• Yi Jing admitted that Dolly had ordered him to damage a painting and kill Li Xian, and Li Xian warned him that the human skins would eventually turn on him.
• Li Xian persuaded Yi Jing to confront Dolly, who told him that framing a human skin would trap it.
• The group collected five empty frames, then realized there were six survivors and four human skins.
• Li Xian proposed drawing lots to decide who would share a room, and he and Mr. Zhang drew the marked slips.

Li Xian and “Mr. Zhang” trapped one human skin in a picture frame, but another emerged and forced them to flee. The second skin ignored Mr. Zhang and pursued Li Xian down the corridor.

• Li Xian and Mr. Zhang waited in bed for the human skin, which burst from the ceiling and attacked Li Xian.
• Li Xian used the picture frame to evade the skin, and Mr. Zhang trapped it inside the frame, where it became a disturbing portrait bearing Zhang Guangding’s features.
• Li Xian spotted another folded human skin hiding in the corner and silently warned Mr. Zhang.
• Li Xian and Mr. Zhang pretended to head to the bathroom, then dashed out of the room and split up in the corridor.
• The human skin switched targets and chased Li Xian instead of Mr. Zhang.

Li Xian and Liang Pei went to the fourth floor to investigate the portraits’ countdown, where they found a bedroom and a message denying that the writer was Du Sha. The chapter ended with the two facing a clue that implicated someone else as Du Sha.

• Li Xian used portraits and a wooden figurine to evade the human skin, then caught it in a picture frame Liang Pei threw to him.
• Liang Pei warned Li Xian that the unnamed man had opened his door from outside and urged him to be careful.
• Liang Pei told Li Xian that his portrait showed four fingers and planned to search the fourth floor; Li Xian agreed after discovering his own portrait also showed four.
• Li Xian and Liang Pei unlocked the gate and entered a bedroom on the fourth floor while the Mistress was occupied in the Living Room.
• Li Xian moved clothing on a table and found the scratched message, “I'm not Du Sha. She is!!!”

Li Xian and Liang Pei uncovered clues about a fire survivor named Du and found a bottle of varnish while searching the fourth-floor room. Back in Li Xian’s room, Song Qingzhang identified a brush he had found behind a painting as coated with the same varnish, and Li Xian began testing his theory on a hallway painting.

• Li Xian found repeated carvings of “I'm Dolly” and, with Liang Pei, pieced together a newspaper report about a 1998 mall fire and its sole survivor, a woman surnamed Du.
• Li Xian found a dusty bottle of clear liquid beneath the bed and hid it behind the iron bars when the Mistress confronted him and Liang Pei.
• Li Xian and Liang Pei returned to Li Xian’s room, where Song Qingzhang showed them a small brush he had found behind a painting.
• Song Qingzhang identified the liquid in the bottle and on the brush as varnish, and Li Xian took a hallway painting down to investigate.

Li Xian and the others coated the portraits with Varnish to prevent their fingers from rising, while Yi Jing remained missing. That night, a strange barefoot presence came searching outside Li Xian’s room, and he found a woman lying in the corridor.

• Li Xian explained that Varnish stopped the portraits from gradually raising their fingers, and he, Liang Pei, and Song Qingzhang coated their paintings.
• At dinner, the group noticed Yi Jing was missing, and Zhang San guessed that the Mistress had killed him and hidden his body.
• Li Xian wondered where the Mistress lived and painted, since the fourth floor was only an abandoned attic.
• Barefoot footsteps roamed the corridor as the human-skin portraits in Li Xian’s drawer began to shake violently.
• Li Xian caught a portrait before it hit the floor, distracting the presence outside and making it rush away from his door.
• Li Xian opened his door and saw a woman lying face down in the corridor, reaching for his doorknob.

Li Xian and the others found Jiang Yan dead after a burned woman entered her room, then realized human-skin portraits reacted to the woman’s presence. They used the portraits to search for her, and they began trembling as Li Xian and Song Qingzhang reached the first floor.

• Li Xian saw a badly burned woman enter Jiang Yan’s room, and Jiang Yan’s mutilated corpse was found in the hallway the next morning.
• Li Xian noticed that the burned woman’s hands had no visible scars, unlike the extensive burns described in the newspaper about Ms. Du.
• Li Xian, Song Qingzhang, and Liang Pei found the Mistress hammering nails into the second-floor exhibition hall wall as she prepared for the exhibition.
• Li Xian realized human-skin portraits shook when the burned woman was nearby and found one beneath Jiang Yan’s bedside table.
• Liang Pei stayed to watch the Mistress while Li Xian and Song Qingzhang searched downstairs with the portraits, which began trembling on the first floor.

Li Xian found the hidden room behind the Mistress's portrait, where a burned woman attacked him from inside a frame. He escaped after driving her back with a brush and covering the portrait, but the Mistress caught him as he tried to leave.

• Li Xian used the human-skin portrait to locate the hidden entrance behind the Mistress's full-length portrait and opened it with the code 19980909.
• Li Xian entered a secret storeroom filled with portraits and uncovered a frame containing a burned woman.
• The woman attacked Li Xian, and he confirmed her exposed hand had no burns as she muttered that she was not like the person in the painting.
• Li Xian struck the woman's hand with a brush, covered the frame with a black cloth, and took a booklet from the floor.
• Li Xian left the hidden room, but the Mistress stopped him at the staircase.

Li Xian, Liang Pei, and Song Qingzhang examined the Mistress’s photo album and uncovered the history of the twin sisters Du Sha and Dolly, including a fire on their eighteenth birthday. The last photograph and its panicked note left them uncertain about what had really happened to the sisters.

• Song Qingzhang distracted the Mistress so Li Xian could hurry upstairs with him and Liang Pei.
• Li Xian opened the book he had taken from the Mistress’s room and discovered it was a photo album showing Du Sha and Dolly growing up as inseparable twins.
• The album showed that both sisters had individual portraits made for their eighteenth birthday on September 9, 1998, the same date a newspaper reported that Ms. Du had suffered burns in a fire.
• Liang Pei proposed that Dolly escaped the fire while Du Sha was burned, but Li Xian continued studying the photographs without agreeing or disagreeing.
• The photographs showed Dolly wishing for Du Sha’s recovery and caring for her, while their mother later wrote that Du Sha had begun asking for cake and had stopped hurting people and smashing things.
• Li Xian found a blurry photograph of a blue-clad figure apparently painting and a panicked note from their mother saying that something felt wrong.

Li Xian stopped the Mistress from searching his room and hid the photos again. That evening, he gave Mr. Zhang Varnish to protect his portrait, then left after Mr. Zhang claimed he had planned to steal it from Li Xian’s room.

• The Mistress called Li Xian, Liang Pei, and Song Qingzhang to lunch, then tried to search Li Xian’s room while they were downstairs.
• Li Xian realized the Mistress had not followed them and rushed back upstairs, catching her beside his bed before she could lift the blanket.
• The Mistress left when Li Xian challenged her, and he gathered the scattered photos and hid the album under his pillow.
• After an afternoon of searching yielded no clues, Li Xian visited Mr. Zhang and saw that his portrait showed four fingers and had no Varnish.
• Li Xian gave Mr. Zhang a bottle of Varnish and told him to return it the next morning before leaving in frustration.

At Miss Dolly’s Portrait Gallery, the Mistress told the guests the story of twins Du Sha and Dolly as she unveiled five paintings. The final portrait revealed Du Sha’s severely burned face, and the Mistress’s tale stopped at the moment she woke in the hospital.

• The Mistress opened the exhibition hall, where hundreds of portraits watched Li Xian, Liang Pei, Song Qingzhang, and Mr. Zhang enter.
• The four guests sat while the Mistress welcomed them to the exhibition and announced that it was her twenty-second birthday.
• The Mistress unveiled the first three paintings and explained that twins Du Sha and Dolly had grown up close in a wealthy family.
• The Mistress revealed that the sisters received individual portraits for their eighteenth birthday and that Du Sha was caught in a terrible fire while going to the mall.
• The Mistress uncovered the final painting, showing Du Sha’s burn-scarred face.

Li Xian exposed the Mistress as the real Du Sha, revealing that she had been burned and had taken her sister Dolly’s place in the portrait. Du Sha attacked the portraits and chased Li Xian, who wondered why the fifth-day exhibition objective remained incomplete.

• The portraits’ gossip and the Mistress’s laughter drove Du Sha into anguish and caused everyone’s Mental Value to fall.
• Li Xian recognized Du Sha’s broken words and declared that the Mistress was the real Du Sha, not the burned woman in the painting.
• Li Xian used photographs and the Mistress’s lack of visible skin to support his claim that she had survived the fire and adopted her sister’s tastes.
• The Mistress attacked Li Xian, who struck her with a vase and exposed burn scars beneath her clothes.
• Du Sha stabbed several portraits with a utility knife, then chased Li Xian as he wondered why the exhibition objective had not been completed.