Recaps

Li Xian used a story about his deceased sister to stop the tour guide from questioning him, then weighed Guo Yuanmiao’s offer to cooperate. The tour guide resumed asking the passengers questions, leaving Li Xian and Jiang Qiuyue still searching for a way out of the carriage.

• Li Xian pretended to grieve for his fabricated deceased sister, and the tour guide offered condolences and stopped questioning him.
• Jiang Qiuyue warned Li Xian that the tour guide might soon ask more questions, while they remained unsure how to leave the carriage.
• Guo Yuanmiao told Li Xian that his skill let him sense emotions and admitted he had first intended to hurt others before seeking cooperation.
• Li Xian cautiously agreed to hear Guo Yuanmiao’s clues, including that the tour guide had felt no malice while killing passengers, but refused to shake his hand.
• The tour guide announced that the train had passed something and invited the passengers to look, prompting them to expect another deadly question.

Li Xian and the players escaped the guide’s carriage by turning his questions into a wave of grief, but the emotions overwhelmed them until Li Xian snapped them out of it. They entered the next passage with four carriages still to cross, and a tunnel announcement warned them to remain seated in the darkness.

• Li Xian prompted Jiang Qiuyue to wail about her dead mother, and the guide’s mood sank as the players began mourning their own lost relatives.
• The players’ grief grew uncontrollable, leaving the guide in despair and most of the group sobbing.
• Li Xian thrust his hand into the fog outside the broken window, used the pain to clear his head, and slapped the grieving players awake.
• Li Xian asked to move on, and the defeated guide opened the glass doors; Li Xian noticed there seemed to be too few tourists in the carriage as they left.
• An announcement warned that the train would enter a tunnel in one minute and ordered passengers to stay seated, still, and quiet in the dark.

In carriage four, Li Xian obeyed the warning to stay still as a woman crawled through the darkness and killed a player. When the train left the tunnel, the woman panicked and asked where her husband was, leaving Li Xian unsure what had happened in the darkness.

• Li Xian took a seat behind a female passenger before the train entered the tunnel.
• In the darkness, an icy hand grabbed and scratched Li Xian's ankle, then crawled away across the carriage floor.
• The woman grabbed another player and strangled him after he trembled and cried out in pain.
• The train left the tunnel, and the players found the dead man with handprints around his neck.
• The female passenger panicked, revealed blood on her hands, and asked where her husband was; Li Xian asked Guo Yuanmiao if she was pretending, and he said she was genuinely panicking.

A desperate woman searched the carriage for her missing husband, and Li Xian calmed her by advising her to gather identifying details. The players realized she would likely turn violent when she failed to find him, so they began searching the luggage for a possible clue.

• The woman questioned every passenger about her missing husband and grew angry when no one had seen him.
• Li Xian advised her to gather her husband's identifying features and ask more specific questions, and she returned to her seat to search her briefcase.
• The players discussed the danger of the woman realizing her husband was not in the carriage.
• Guo Yuanmiao suggested that the husband might have been dismembered and hidden in a suitcase, so the players began searching the luggage rack.

Li Xian investigated the excess luggage in the carriage while the passengers searched for a missing corpse. A woman showed him her missing husband's photo and clothing, but he still had not found the man.

• The players searched the luggage but found only ordinary belongings, while Li Xian recalled that the previous carriage had also carried unusually much luggage.
• Li Xian learned that the student could not remember who owned the extra bags near his seat, and trying to recall made the student's head hurt.
• Li Xian tried to help the woman retrieve a suitcase, but Ji Xie stopped him because his injured hand was bleeding and took the suitcase down himself.
• The woman showed Li Xian her marriage certificate and a jacket like the one her husband wore, then asked whether he had seen him.

Li Xian tried to guide the female passenger toward the next carriage by helping her search for her missing husband. When the players promised to find him but she realized they were lying, she snapped and killed one of them.

• The female passenger suffered a painful memory lapse when Li Xian asked when she had last seen her husband, and Ji Xie threatened her to stop her rampage.
• Li Xian suggested that the husband might be in the restroom, prompting the female passenger to open the restroom door, where they found no one.
• Li Xian suggested the husband might be in another carriage, and the players promised to search for him so she would open the door.
• The female passenger recognized the players' promises as lies, seized the first player who had offered to help, and strangled him to death.

Li Xian and the other players subdued the female passenger after she attacked him, then devised a way to make her believe a corpse was her missing husband. The chapter ended with Guo Yuanmiao destroying the dead player's face to make the disguise more convincing.

• The female passenger killed a player and threatened to keep everyone trapped until her husband appeared.
• The female passenger attacked Li Xian, who injected her with a tranquilizer, and Ji Xie threw her onto the floor.
• Li Xian proposed dressing the dead player in the husband's jacket and positioning him as though he were asleep.
• Guo Yuanmiao smashed the corpse's face with a hammer until its features were unrecognizable, explaining that this would help their disguise fool the passenger.

Li Xian and the others escaped the enraged woman in Carriage 4, with Ji Xie pulling Li Xian through the closing door. In Carriage 5, they searched for the key passenger, and a little girl approached Li Xian with a question.

• Li Xian and Guo Yuanmiao disguised the corpse and helped the groggy woman back to her seat.
• The corpse toppled when the woman leaned against it, revealing its mangled face and sending her after Li Xian in a rage.
• Li Xian reached for Ji Xie's hand instead of using the River God Doll, and Ji Xie pulled him into Carriage 5 before the door shut.
• The woman pounded on the door and disappeared into spreading fog while Li Xian noticed that the wounds on Ji Xie's hand had vanished.
• The players searched Carriage 5 for its key passenger, and a little girl caught Li Xian's sleeve and asked whether he had been playing tag with the woman.

Li Xian and the other players met the little girl controlling Carriage 3’s glass doors, and she forced them to play 123 Wooden Man before she would let them leave. The middle-aged man rushed toward her to finish the game quickly, but he could not stop when she suddenly turned around.

• Li Xian realized the little girl was likely controlling the carriage doors and tried to persuade her to let the group pass.
• The little girl refused to let them leave until they played with her, then gathered the seven players for 123 Wooden Man.
• Li Xian explained the rules to Ji Xie as the players lined up at the back of the carriage.
• The middle-aged man sprinted ahead during the first round, hoping to reach the little girl and choose a faster game.
• The little girl chanted much faster in the next round and turned around while the middle-aged man was still charging forward.

The players continued the little girl’s deadly freeze game, and Guo Yuanmiao secretly caused the short-haired woman to fall. The girl began eliminating her, leaving the surviving players still trapped in the game.

• The little girl shot the middle-aged man after declaring him out, killing him as he tried to sit aside.
• Li Xian and Ji Xie led the remaining players forward while Jiang Qiuyue, the short-haired woman, Guo Yuanmiao, and the freckled man followed behind.
• A startled cry made the little girl speed through her chant, and the short-haired woman fell while Jiang Qiuyue managed to keep her balance.
• Jiang Qiuyue noticed Guo Yuanmiao’s hand held out behind her and suspected he had caused the fall.
• The little girl declared the short-haired woman out and skipped toward her when she stayed motionless.

The survivors continued the deadly game, and Li Xian and Ji Xie reached the little girl’s shoulders at nearly the same time. After Ji Xie won their dispute over first place, he shared a plan with Li Xian, while Guo Yuanmiao and Jiang Qiuyue finished and the freckled man remained far behind.

• The little girl shot the short-haired woman dead after she lost the game, and Jiang Qiuyue followed Guo Yuanmiao while keeping a wary distance behind him.
• Li Xian and Ji Xie reached the little girl together, but she declared Ji Xie the winner after sensing his dangerous gaze.
• Ji Xie told Li Xian his plan, and Li Xian agreed to help him from the sidelines.
• Guo Yuanmiao touched the little girl’s shoulder and sat down, then noticed the freckled man was only halfway through the carriage.

The freckled man survived the freeze game after crawling past the little girl, while Guo Yuanmiao tried to sabotage him and threatened him. After the game ended, Ji Xie proposed rock-paper-scissors, but the girl rejected it, and Li Xian suggested mental arithmetic instead.

• Guo Yuanmiao rolled a plastic bullet under the freckled man's foot, causing him to fall just as the little girl turned around.
• The little girl turned away again, and the freckled man crawled toward her to avoid another fall.
• Guo Yuanmiao stomped on the freckled man's hand and threatened to kill him if he did not hurry.
• The freckled man reached the little girl and touched her shoulder, ending the game.
• Ji Xie proposed rock-paper-scissors as the next game, but the girl refused and asked Li Xian to choose.
• Li Xian suggested mental arithmetic with numbers up to a hundred and asked whether the girl knew her multiplication tables.

Ji Xie forced the little girl to play rock-paper-scissors with a penalty of losing fingers, and Li Xian prepared a utility knife to enforce it. After Ji Xie won the first round, the girl refused to accept the penalty and wagered that she would make it up by winning the next two rounds.

• The little girl chose Ji Xie as the one who had touched her shoulder first and agreed to play best two out of three.
• Ji Xie explained that losing with scissors meant losing two fingers, losing with paper meant losing five, and losing the match meant losing all ten.
• Ji Xie chose rock and beat the little girl's scissors in the first round.
• Li Xian took out a utility knife, but the little girl knocked his hand away and refused to take the penalty yet.
• The little girl wagered that she would win the next two rounds, and Ji Xie agreed to postpone the penalty as they began the second round.

Ji Xie and Li Xian forced the little girl to open the door to the next carriage by threatening to cut off her hand, then joined the other players inside. As Ji Xie entered, the train plunged into darkness for another tunnel passage.

• Ji Xie beat the little girl at rock, paper, scissors, and Li Xian cut the strap off her watch to demonstrate his knife’s sharpness without injuring her.
• Ji Xie demanded that the little girl let them into the next carriage, while Li Xian revealed he had taken her toy pistol.
• Ji Xie and Li Xian threatened the little girl until she broke down crying, causing the door to carriage two to open.
• Li Xian and the other three players entered carriage two, and Ji Xie followed after releasing the sobbing girl.
• The glass door shut behind Ji Xie, the carriage plunged into darkness, and the train announcement warned passengers to remain seated and quiet during the tunnel passage.

As the train entered another unexpectedly dark tunnel, Li Xian reasoned through the announcement’s rules while unseen things approached from multiple directions. Ji Xie carried him to an empty seat and warned him that one of the approaching figures had not passed them yet.

• When the lights went out, Li Xian concluded that small movements were not necessarily forbidden and that sitting in a seat was the safest option.
• Guo Yuanmiao felt for a seat and sat down, avoiding the rustling figure that passed him.
• Hearing movement ahead and beside him, Li Xian tried to retreat but found Ji Xie, who lifted him and carried him to an empty seat.
• Ji Xie kept Li Xian on his lap and wrote in his palm, telling him not to move because the figure had not passed them yet.
• Li Xian asked Ji Xie who he meant.

Li Xian used the little girl’s watch to light the dark carriage and set out toward the front of the train with Ji Xie, Jiang Qiuyue, and Guo Yuanmiao. As they advanced through the wreckage, the watch revealed blood, debris, and severed limbs.

• Ji Xie told Li Xian that the connecting door was open and offered to take him through it.
• Li Xian turned on the children’s watch and used its flashlight to spot wandering, blood-covered passengers and help the players avoid them.
• Li Xian and Ji Xie started forward with Jiang Qiuyue, while the freckled man stayed behind in his seat.
• Li Xian made Guo Yuanmiao walk ahead under guard with the toy pistol, and Ji Xie took over holding the gun.
• The four moved toward the front of the carriage as Li Xian’s light revealed blood, rubble, scattered luggage, smoke, and mangled limbs.

Li Xian and the others fled through the carriage as passengers converged on them, while Guo Yuanmiao ran ahead to leave them in danger. Ji Xie held the passengers back with his tentacles, and Li Xian realized that their shared Health Points did not mean they shared injuries.

• Ji Xie fired a pellet to distract a charging passenger, but a scream from the freckled man drew passengers toward the rear of the carriage.
• The glass door behind Li Xian and the others opened, bringing passengers from the carriages they had already passed through.
• Guo Yuanmiao ran through the scattered luggage and bottles, making noise that drew passengers toward Li Xian, Ji Xie, and Jiang Qiuyue.
• As the passengers closed in, Ji Xie stopped and blocked the aisle with dark-purple tentacles while Li Xian shouted for him not to kill them.
• Li Xian heard alerts that Ji Xie was losing Health Points but felt no pain, and recalled that Ji Xie had also shown no signs of injury in Stone River Village.

Li Xian, Jiang Qiuyue, and Ji Xie made it into Carriage One just before the train exited the tunnel, restoring the shattered door and trapping the pursuing passengers behind it. As the door shook under their attack, Guo Yuanmiao asked the lone business-class passenger to let them into the Driver's Cab, but the glass door began to crack before he could help.

• Li Xian reasoned that their Health Points were calculated separately until one of them was near death, when the other person's health replenished them.
• Li Xian stopped Jiang Qiuyue from trying the train door after an announcement said the train would exit the tunnel in one minute.
• Ji Xie backed into Carriage One just before the train left the tunnel, and the restored glass door blocked the angry passengers pursuing him.
• Ji Xie told Li Xian he had not killed the pursuers, though his actions had made them furious enough to pound on the door.
• Guo Yuanmiao asked the suited passenger to let them into the Driver's Cab, but the passenger said he had neither the authority nor the ability to open it.
• A crack appeared in the glass door as the passengers outside continued to attack it.

Li Xian revealed that the train’s passengers had already died in a derailment and that the apparent route to survival was a trap. As the wreckage appeared and the passengers remembered their deaths, a little girl ran past the tour guide.

• Guo Yuanmiao snatched a key from Li Xian and locked himself inside the driver’s cab, planning to kill the others and claim their points.
• Li Xian told the man in the suit that he was already dead after pointing out the belongings of the person he had forgotten.
• The glass door shattered, the passengers flooded into Carriage One, and the carriage flickered into wreckage as Guo Yuanmiao’s body fell from the cab.
• Li Xian explained that the train had already crashed, and the passengers began remembering the people who had been with them and the deaths they had suffered.
• Li Xian told the woman from Carriage 4 that the man she had searched for was not her husband, while the tour guide saw the fog clear to reveal the derailment site.
• The tour guide celebrated that he no longer had to work, then watched a little girl with twin ponytails run past him.

Li Xian and the others escaped the Death Train after the driver acknowledged the crash and opened the warped door. Li Xian cleared the instance first and received a reward announcement, including a mysterious C-Rank Item.

• Li Xian returned the repaired Children's Watch and the Small Pistol to the little girl, who thanked him.
• Li Xian approached the bloodied driver, who left the Driver's Cab and bowed to the passengers.
• Jiang Qiuyue told the driver that she, Li Xian, and Ji Xie were still alive, and the driver pulled the train door off its frame.
• Jiang Qiuyue invited Ji Xie to join White Night Guild, but Li Xian said Ji Xie was not planning to join.
• Ji Xie said he could accompany Li Xian to the Player Center, though he might have to take a different form.
• Li Xian left the train, cleared the Death Train as the first player to escape, and received notice of a C-Rank Item.

After the Death Train instance, Li Xian received a plastic bullet and discovered Ji Xie had taken the form of a tentacle to hide from detection. Ji Xie explained his precautions at the Player Center, and Li Xian began asking him about something else.

• Li Xian received 1,830,582 points and found a plastic bullet in his reward, which he put in his inventory.
• Ji Xie emerged from Li Xian's pocket as a translucent purple tentacle, then changed back into human form after Li Xian called the tentacle ugly.
• Ji Xie held Li Xian down on the bed, and Li Xian tried to smooth things over before asking why he had changed forms.
• Ji Xie said he had taken the tentacle form to conceal his power and evade detection while teleporting, because he was not supposed to be at the Player Center.
• After Ji Xie said changing back into human form would not be detected, Li Xian began to ask him a question.

Ji Xie explained that he was searching for the mysterious Source Instance and wanted to renew his contract because Li Xian was special. Their conversation ended when someone knocked on Li Xian’s door, prompting him to hide Ji Xie under the covers.

• Ji Xie told Li Xian he was searching for an unknown instance he called the Source Instance.
• Ji Xie said Li Xian was special, and Li Xian guessed his skill might give them authorization to enter the Source Instance.
• Ji Xie explained that Li Xian’s skill could affect supernatural entities, including Ji Xie, despite the limits imposed by their ranks.
• Ji Xie questioned Li Xian’s reason for calling him over, and Li Xian noticed a disappointed look on his face.
• Someone knocked on Li Xian’s door, and Li Xian hid Ji Xie beneath the covers.

Li Xian and Jiang Qiuyue recounted their recent instances to Lin Shiming, who investigated how Cheng Xin survived so long in the asylum. Jiang Qiuyue revealed that Ji Xie had accidentally sabotaged the asylum staff, explaining the discrepancy.

• Lin Shiming asked Li Xian and Jiang Qiuyue to describe their recent instances, and Jiang Qiuyue recounted the asylum incident in detail.
• Li Xian explained how he had helped Cheng Xin and showed Lin Shiming the River God Doll, which Lin Shiming warned him not to lend out casually.
• Jiang Qiuyue said Cheng Xin had mentioned a doctor on Skybridge who kept accidentally attacking orderlies and tripping nurses.
• Li Xian realized Ji Xie's friendly fire had helped Cheng Xin hold out, and secretly rubbed Ji Xie's tentacle in amusement.

After hearing about Li Xian’s recent instances, Lin Shiming explained that the system was targeting him and gave him an A-quality Jadeite Rough that reacted to danger. Li Xian confirmed the stone’s warning ability, learned how unusual his instance difficulties were by watching other players’ streams, and accepted a guild commission before his next instance.

• Jiang Qiuyue recounted the Death Train instance, and Lin Shiming concluded that the system was targeting Li Xian with unusually lethal instances.
• Lin Shiming explained that ordinary players faced difficulty appropriate to an instance’s rank and suggested the system felt threatened by Li Xian.
• Lin Shiming gave Li Xian an A-quality Jadeite Rough that turned green and heated up when danger was nearby.
• Li Xian tested the stone near Ji Xie and confirmed that its color grew deeper as he brought it closer to him.
• Li Xian watched Novice Zone livestreams and realized that even ordinary F-Rank instances were far easier than the ones he had faced.
• Li Xian watched Song Qingzhang’s livestream and accepted a commission through the White Night Guild before entering his next instance.

Li Xian, Jiang Qiuyue, and Qian Chen entered the S-rank Mingyan University Instance with six other players and discovered they were students in the same class. As they headed to their first class, they found that campus students ignored their questions but panicked when Li Xian touched one, leaving the players unsure how they would navigate the university.

• Li Xian entered the Mingyan University Instance with Jiang Qiuyue and Qian Chen, and the system set their objective as atonement.
• Li Xian checked his phone, learned the campus was under lockdown, and found that class began in twenty minutes.
• Li Xian and Qian Chen confirmed they were in the same year and class, then met Jiang Qiuyue in the mixed-gender dormitory building.
• All nine players gathered and left the dormitory to find their classroom.
• A student ignored the players' requests for directions, then screamed and ran away when Li Xian caught his arm.