Chapter Summaries

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.

Lin Shiming used Li Xian’s saved points to bet on his victory and sent him a coded clue through shifting odds. Li Xian realized the maze was tilted in three dimensions, but with five minutes left, he still needed to work out how the incline revealed the exit.

• Lin Shiming bet repeatedly on Li Xian’s victory, making the odds fluctuate and then fall.
• Li Xian interpreted the changing odds of 3.60 and 3.61 as angles and used the Multifunctional Videotape to discover that the maze floor was slightly inclined.
• Li Xian realized the maze was three-dimensional and began considering how its incline related to the exit.
• The betting closed, and Cheng Xin asked how Lin Shiming had so many points.
• Lin Shiming revealed that Li Xian had transferred his points to him before entering the Instance.

Li Xian discovered that blood, rather than water, revealed the maze’s true route and triggered its collapse, then raced toward the exit while losing health. With the maze disintegrating and the countdown nearly over, he was still running through endless junctions.

• Li Xian found a rippling spot in a mirror and watched water flow along a route that seemed to lead toward the exit.
• Li Xian realized the maze’s dangers had prevented external injuries and inferred that bleeding was the clue the system had concealed.
• Li Xian cut his wrist, followed the blood trail away from the water’s route, and triggered the maze’s collapse.
• Li Xian ran through the collapsing maze, repeatedly reopening his wound to keep the blood trail flowing as his health fell.
• The countdown reached its final minute while Li Xian, pale from blood loss, continued racing through junctions.

Li Xian escaped the collapsing maze by using the Multifunctional Videotape, then recovered in the Player Center as the wager was declared a success. He received nearly one hundred million points but could not buy “Wish Come True,” and the system ignored his demand to honor its promised opportunity.

• Li Xian reached the light at the maze’s end and used the Multifunctional Videotape to slow time long enough to escape the collapsing Instance.
• Cheng Xin treated Li Xian’s wrist wound, and Lin Shiming, Cheng Xin, Jiang Qiuyue, and Song Qingzhang gathered around him.
• The system declared the wager a success, and Lin Shiming gave Li Xian the Piggy Bank containing 99,992,000 points.
• Li Xian tried to buy “Wish Come True,” but the shop said he had not met the purchase requirements.
• Li Xian asked the system to honor its promised opportunity, but it announced that the Instance entrance would reopen in thirty minutes and let the Betting Agreement dissolve without answering.

Li Xian realized the wager and livestream were part of a larger Instance, with the audience consisting of players whose lives depended on his fate. After the system revealed that they would die if the Instance was not cleared, Cheng Xin and Lin Shiming tried to steady the panicked crowd.

• Li Xian noticed that a player's suicide attempt had left a real wound, confirming that self-harm was now possible in the Player Center.
• Li Xian concluded that the maze was only one stage of the Instance and that the livestream audience consisted of players inside it.
• The system announced that the players would die when the countdown ended unless the Instance was cleared, and showed Li Xian on the screen as their only hope.
• The crowd surrounded Li Xian in panic, and Cheng Xin used a megaphone to silence them.
• Lin Shiming urged the players to stay calm and hold on to hope.

Li Xian deduced that the Player Center had always been one instance and that its source was hidden beneath the Novice Zone. After confirming the source lay at the bottom, he broke through the floor, and Cheng Xin jumped down with him toward the Novice Zone.

• Cheng Xin summoned the White Night Guild to maintain order while Li Xian searched for the source instance.
• Li Xian realized the Utility Knife’s exhausted effect showed that the Player Center had been one instance since the Novice Zone.
• Li Xian asked Lin Shiming to use his skill on the Player Center, and Jiang Qiuyue restored Lin Shiming’s mental value as he drew a diagram.
• Li Xian asked Song Qingzhang to confirm whether the source instance was at the bottom, and Song Qingzhang’s coin answered yes.
• Li Xian used the Rescue Hammer to break open the floor, revealing people in the Novice Zone below.
• Cheng Xin confirmed the people below were in the Novice Zone, then equipped his items and jumped down with Li Xian.