Chapter Summaries

After being sent back to his room, Li Xian cautiously met his autistic roommate, 303B, and used drawings to communicate with him. When 303B pointed out the stars he had seen beyond the window, Li Xian looked outside and was swallowed by the expanding darkness.

• Doctor Ji intervened when the Head Nurse assigned Li Xian punishment, and the Head Nurse sent Li Xian and Cheng Xin back to their rooms to await treatment.
• An orderly escorted Li Xian to his room and stood guard outside, where Li Xian discovered his roommate, 303B.
• Li Xian learned that 303B could not remember his name and had lived at the sanatorium for a long time.
• When Li Xian mentioned the afternoon treatment, 303B became frightened, but calmed down as they communicated through drawings.
• 303B drew stars and pointed to the pitch-black window, and Li Xian stared outside until the darkness expanded and engulfed his vision.

Li Xian recovered from a strange, blinding experience at the ward window and followed 303B to the asylum’s treatment floor. As treatment began, Jiang Qiuyue warned him that the building had no exit, and the first patients’ outcomes left the players uncertain about what awaited them.

• Li Xian stared into the darkness beyond the window until his vision filled with white light, then learned that 303B had been asking whether the sun was a larger star.
• Li Xian realized nearly two hours had passed at the window and followed 303B to the fourth floor for treatment.
• Li Xian noticed that patients avoided a locked, unmarked section beyond the four treatment rooms and returned to the waiting crowd.
• Jiang Qiuyue apologized to Li Xian for needing his help and told him she had discovered the building had no exit.
• The Head Nurse lined the patients up by assigned treatment room, and Li Jiantao was called into Room 402 as its first patient.
• After one patient left treatment and went downstairs, two more patients emerged, unsettling the waiting players.

Li Xian watched patients face punishment for worsening symptoms and forced discharge for recovery, then entered his own examination with Doctor Ji. Doctor Ji warned him to make his heart beat faster during the test or risk being discharged, and began the test as Li Xian met his gaze.

• Li Xian saw two patients receive painful special treatment after their conditions worsened.
• The Head Nurse escorted Li Jiantao away for discharge after a doctor assessed him as fully recovered.
• Li Xian entered consultation room 402 and recognized Doctor Ji, who examined his records and asked routine questions.
• Doctor Ji began preparing a heart-rate test, but Li Xian hurriedly unbuttoned his own shirt when the doctor’s slow touch unsettled him.
• Doctor Ji whispered that Li Xian needed to make his heart beat faster to avoid discharge, then began the test.

Li Xian bluffed his way through an examination with Ji Xie, then regrouped with Cheng Xin and Jiang Qiuyue to discuss the hospital’s hidden exit and how to find the normal person. The three split up to question patients, and Li Xian began searching the wards.

• Ji Xie tried to provoke Li Xian during the examination, but Li Xian held his breath to fake a rising heart rate and passed as unchanged.
• Li Xian left the examination room and waited for Cheng Xin and Jiang Qiuyue, who also passed their examinations.
• Jiang Qiuyue told Li Xian and Cheng Xin that the hospital had no visible exit and that two locked areas required a doctor’s or nurse’s ID badge.
• Cheng Xin proposed releasing all the patients to draw out the doctors and nurses, but Li Xian rejected the plan and suggested questioning patients instead.
• Li Xian, Cheng Xin, and Jiang Qiuyue split up to search the wards, and Li Xian found a half-open door.

Li Xian entered Patient Room 308 and was attacked by the violent, sleep-deprived 308A while 308B panicked. Cheng Xin helped restrain 308A, but the Head Nurse arrived to find the room wrecked.

• Li Xian opened the door to Patient Room 308, where a cup fell and 308A accused him of disturbing his rest.
• 308A attacked Li Xian with a stool and a coat rack while 308B screamed and fled into a corner.
• Cheng Xin entered and restrained 308A, then helped Li Xian trap him against the window bars with the coat rack.
• Li Xian explained that 308A had a sleep disorder and violent tendencies, while 308B had persecutory delusion.
• The Head Nurse appeared at the doorway and demanded to know what had happened.

Li Xian and Cheng Xin were questioned by the Head Nurse after she found the wrecked room and injured 308A, and Li Xian struggled against an ability that forced him to tell the truth. Confined to their rooms and left without dinner, Li Xian pondered who could count as “normal” before a cold gust of wind swept through the dark room.

• The Head Nurse freed 308A from the bent clothes rack, examined him, and questioned Li Xian about the damage and his injuries.
• Li Xian found himself compelled to tell the Head Nurse the truth, then claimed he had guessed what happened after stepping on 308A’s medical record card.
• The Head Nurse found no wounds on Li Xian or Cheng Xin but confined them to their rooms until eight thirty the next morning for failing to report the abnormality.
• Li Xian spent the night considering who might qualify as “normal” and planned to ask Jiang Qiuyue for information the next day.
• As the hour hand approached ten, a gust of cold wind suddenly rushed into Li Xian’s dark room.

Li Xian survived the Head Nurse’s nighttime rounds by admitting he could not sleep, but she drugged him and punished Zhuang Man for pretending to be asleep. The next morning, Li Xian concluded that staying awake during rounds was unsafe, just as someone suddenly shoved open the ward door.

• The Head Nurse checked Li Xian’s breathing and asked whether he was asleep, and Li Xian admitted he could not sleep.
• The Head Nurse gave Li Xian a sleeping pill, then gave 303B another pill and marked two checks on the May 4 form.
• The Head Nurse caught Zhuang Man pretending to sleep, forced three pills into her mouth, and carried her out of room 302.
• Li Xian woke at eight thirty with no apparent side effects and reasoned that being awake during the rounds had risked a sleeping pill.
• Someone suddenly shoved open the ward door as Li Xian considered how to avoid the nighttime rounds.

Li Xian learned that 308A’s insomnia had vanished after their encounter, but 308A insisted that Li Xian keep his recovery secret. As 308A explained the solitary confinement area, Li Xian worked out that a skybridge might lead to the medical staff building and a possible exit.

• 304B entered Li Xian’s ward to take revenge, but 308A threw him out and greeted Li Xian with a grateful handshake.
• 308A thanked Li Xian for curing his insomnia, then warned him not to reveal that he had recovered.
• 308A told Li Xian that solitary confinement lay beyond the door at the end of the fourth-floor corridor and said patients were usually released when it was time for treatment.
• Li Xian realized the corridor was likely a skybridge to the medical staff building and considered it a possible route to the exit.
• Cheng Xin saw Li Xian walking with 308A and wondered if he was seeing things.
• Li Xian asked whether 308A thought anyone in the sanatorium was normal, and 308A said there could not possibly be anyone.

Li Xian noticed the patients’ medication doses had increased, then suffered a sharp drop in Mental Value after Doctor Ding forced him to swallow three pills. After Jiang Qiuyue restored some of his Mental Value with her skill, Li Xian proposed provoking an easily angered patient.

• 308A told Li Xian that the medication schedule and dosage had been increasing, and roll call revealed that two patients were missing.
• Doctor Ding ordered Li Xian to open his mouth and swallow three pills, dropping his Mental Value to 55 and causing severe discomfort.
• Jiang Qiuyue used her skill to restore Li Xian’s Mental Value to 75 by spending Health Points.
• Jiang Qiuyue reported that the patients she and other players had interviewed were all seriously abnormal.
• Li Xian asked whether any patients were relatively safe but quick to anger, then said he planned to pick a fight with one.

Li Xian deliberately provoked Patient 203A to get sent to solitary confinement, but the encounter turned dangerous when 203A forced him to choke him. Ji Xie and the Head Nurse arrived in time, and the Head Nurse ordered 203A discharged for a serious violation.

• Jiang Qiuyue told Li Xian that Patient 203A was prone to exhibitionism, and Li Xian went to provoke him.
• When 203A became excited by Li Xian, Li Xian punched him to provoke a fight.
• 203A grabbed Li Xian's wrist and forced his hand against his own throat, making Li Xian choke him.
• Jiang Qiuyue brought the Head Nurse and Ji Xie to the room, and Ji Xie pulled Li Xian away from 203A.
• After confirming 203A was alive, the Head Nurse declared that he had committed a serious violation and ordered his discharge.

Li Xian realized that patients were disappearing through violations, making the asylum’s hidden time limit more dangerous than it first seemed. After being sentenced to ten hours in confinement, he entered a tiny, pitch-black room and discovered that its ceiling was inexplicably out of reach.

• Li Xian realized that patients disappearing after violations could steadily deprive the players of clues.
• An orderly carried the exhausted 203A out of the Patient Room after 203A mouthed, “What a pity,” to Li Xian.
• The Head Nurse sentenced Li Xian to ten hours in confinement for continuing to pursue an inappropriate relationship with a doctor, and summoned Ji Xie.
• An orderly led Li Xian across the skybridge to the confinement rooms beside an operating room.
• Li Xian explored the cramped, dark confinement room and found that he could not reach its ceiling even by jumping.

Li Xian escaped the confinement room through an air vent and found a pharmacy stocked with the medicines given to him. He switched the pills with vitamins and returned to his cell, waiting to see whether anyone had noticed his escape.

• Li Xian climbed the confinement-room walls, opened the air vent, and crawled through the duct into a pharmacy.
• He found the sleeping pills and treatment pills he had been given, then replaced their contents with vitamins.
• Two orderlies entered the pharmacy and mentioned that one of them needed to watch the security feed for Li Xian in confinement.
• After the orderlies left, Li Xian swapped his prepared bottles with the medicines they had brought in and took gummy vitamins.
• Li Xian crawled back through the duct, closed the vent, and waited in the confinement room to see whether anyone discovered his escape.

Li Xian returned from confinement, learned that a player had died after saying “leave,” and prepared to investigate the sanatorium after lights-out. When he finally looked into the corridor, he found a patient hanging motionless from a taut line.

• Li Xian slept through his confinement and returned to the patients' section, where Jiang Qiuyue reported that none of the patients seemed normal and none had mania listed in their records.
• Cheng Xin told Li Xian that a player had died after saying “leave” to a patient, and that Qian Chen was the only survivor of the other team.
• Li Xian returned to his room and waited for the Head Nurse's medication rounds, intending to sneak out after receiving his replaced medication.
• After no nurse appeared by midnight, Li Xian peered into the corridor and saw a motionless patient suspended above the floor by a taut line.

Li Xian rescued a hanging patient too late, then hid from the Head Nurse and found the man’s note warning that patients chosen for discharge became living dead. After an orderly hurried through the remaining rounds, Li Xian waited for a chance to investigate, but a piercing wail rang through the building.

• Li Xian found a patient hanging in the corridor and discovered he still had a faint heartbeat.
• The Head Nurse tried to revive the patient for half an hour, then dragged his body away while Li Xian hid in Patient Room 304.
• Li Xian hid beneath 304B’s bed and found a note saying the patient had tried to die to avoid being discharged and turned into one of the living dead.
• Li Xian returned to his room, where an orderly quickly finished checking the patients after the Head Nurse’s interrupted rounds.
• Li Xian waited for the orderly to leave so he could investigate, but a long wail suddenly rang through the building.

Li Xian's swapped medicine nearly came to light when a piercing tone sent patients into a panic, but the Head Nurse and an inexperienced orderly failed to notice it. The next morning, Li Xian arranged for Cheng Xin to test the medicine, and the group found the cafeteria filled with silent, solitary patients.

• A prolonged tone woke Li Xian's roommate, 303B, and triggered shouting and pounding throughout the patient rooms.
• Li Xian calmed 303B with Vitamin Gummies while the Head Nurse blamed the orderly for skipping the proper medication procedure and ordered her to inject patients with Tranquilizer.
• The orderly injected the screaming patients, and Li Xian realized his medicine switch had gone undetected; he also learned that the Head Nurse feared someone called the Director.
• Li Xian told Cheng Xin and Jiang Qiuyue about the switched medicine, and Cheng Xin volunteered to test it before the others took their doses.
• Li Xian, Cheng Xin, and Jiang Qiuyue entered the cafeteria and found the patients sitting alone in an eerie silence.

Li Xian, Cheng Xin, and Jiang Qiuyue tried to find a way into the doctors' building and the sealed fifth floor, but the patients' behavior and the afternoon consultations grew increasingly abnormal. The doctors began ordering special treatment without explanation, and Li Xian was called in as the next patient.

• Doctor Ding inspected one pill, then gave out four pills each to Cheng Xin, Li Xian, and Jiang Qiuyue without trouble.
• The Head Nurse took Qian Chen away for hiding pills, and Cheng Xin warned Li Xian not to risk his life saving other players.
• Li Xian said he could find a way to get access to the doctors' building and the sealed fifth floor, but the three agreed to wait until after consultations.
• The patients refused to answer questions, and the Head Nurse failed to appear for the afternoon consultations.
• After a lengthy delay, doctors ordered special treatment for patients without giving reasons, and agonized screams came from the treatment rooms.
• An orderly called Li Xian's number for consultation room 402.

Li Xian tried to keep his illness from being declared cured during Doctor Ding’s examination, then was sent for special treatment. Ji Xie offered to handle it, leaving Li Xian facing an unknown procedure.

• Doctor Ding examined Li Xian, whose heart rate stayed below 100 despite the Head Nurse’s monitoring.
• Li Xian realized the test did not have to rely only on heart rate and provoked the Head Nurse by saying he preferred Doctor Ji to Doctor Ding.
• The Head Nurse declared Li Xian’s condition unchanged and ordered special treatment.
• Doctor Ding led Li Xian to a special treatment room, where Ji Xie had just finished treating another patient.
• Ji Xie offered to handle Li Xian’s special treatment.

Li Xian endured Ji Xie’s staged electric-shock treatment and later learned from 303B that the sanatorium’s special treatment was meant to enforce obedience. The revelation left Li Xian reconsidering the purpose of the sanatorium and its discharge system.

• Ji Xie secretly used his tentacles to fake shock marks on Li Xian and lent him his employee ID.
• The Head Nurse checked Li Xian’s red marks and allowed him to leave, while Jiang Qiuyue and Cheng Xin came downstairs shaken by their treatment.
• Li Xian and the others noticed that 303B had come downstairs unharmed, and Li Xian suspected the roommate had been at the sanatorium longer than the other patients.
• Li Xian gave 303B a gummy and asked what he wanted to say, and 303B explained that discharge depended on obedience.
• Li Xian realized the special treatment was meant to condition patients to obey rather than cure them.

Li Xian realized a former patient may have died trying to steal candy for 303B, and he suspected discharged patients were taken to the Fifth Floor. He and Cheng Xin infiltrated the medical staff building but could not open the Fifth Floor gate, so they searched for the Director’s or Head Nurse’s office.

• Li Xian questioned 303B about a former patient who had stolen candy from the pharmacy, and 303B warned him not to die again.
• Li Xian connected 303B’s and 203A’s vacant stares toward the ceiling to the possibility that discharged patients were on the Fifth Floor.
• After the Head Nurse gave Li Xian a sleeping pill and tenderly stroked 303B’s head, Li Xian waited an hour and left his room.
• Li Xian and Cheng Xin used Ji Xie’s Employee Card to reach the Fifth Floor gate, but the card lacked sufficient access privileges.
• Li Xian and Cheng Xin entered the medical staff building and found an operating room equipped with an electric-shock table, an awl, and a hammer.
• Li Xian and Cheng Xin left the operating room and decided to look for the Director’s or Head Nurse’s office.

Li Xian and Cheng Xin searched the Head Nurse's Office and uncovered records about patients 309A and 303B, along with evidence that the Head Nurse, 130A, had been coerced into protecting her son. They left with several possible candidates for the “normal person” they were seeking.

• Li Xian and Cheng Xin entered the Head Nurse's Office and found the sanatorium's discharge criteria and violation rules.
• Li Xian discovered that patient 309A had committed numerous violations and been discharged on the day the players entered the Instance.
• Cheng Xin found records showing that 303B had been admitted ten years earlier, at age seven, and had stopped receiving violations after several years.
• Li Xian found an agreement appointing care worker 130A as Head Nurse in exchange for keeping her son, 303B, from being discharged except for serious violations.
• Li Xian and Cheng Xin returned the papers and left the office, wondering whether 309A, 303B, or 130A was the normal person they sought.