Chapter Summaries

The convoy reached Longevity Village, which felt more ominous than Apricot Blossom Town, and the survivors faced a deadline to leave before four. A hunchback appeared at the village entrance, contradicting the Eavesdropping Radio’s warning that no living people were there.

• Chen Ye reflected on the costs and side effects of Sequence abilities and strange items while traveling with the convoy.
• The convoy spotted Longevity Village, and Chen Ye arrived last after his motorcycle ran out of fuel.
• Zhou Xiaoxiao and Zhou Lan worried about entering the village but knew they needed supplies to survive.
• Captain Chu warned everyone to leave Longevity Village before four that afternoon.
• A hunchback appeared at the village entrance, and Nana reminded Chen Ye that the Eavesdropping Radio had said there were no living people in the village.

Chen Ye and the others entered Longevity Village to search for supplies, only to discover it was a ghost domain where people could vanish without warning. As the group headed toward the great willow tree, one survivor fled in panic while others disappeared inside a house.

• Iron Lion, Chen Ye, the young sword immortal, and other survivors entered Longevity Village to search for supplies.
• Zhou Xiao Xiao persuaded Zhou Lan to follow Chen Ye's group, while a grandmother entered the village to look for food and told her grandson to blame Chen Ye if she did not return.
• The young sword immortal warned Chen Ye that the village was a ghost domain where supernatural entities could appear even in daylight.
• Two survivors entered a dark house near the village entrance and vanished without a sound.
• A man wearing glasses panicked and ran toward the village entrance, frightening Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiao Xiao.

Chen Ye and the others encountered the Hunchbacked Old Puppet, who directed them to the Big Willow Supermarket, and saw several survivors flee or disappear. After a distraught girl ran back the way they had come, Chen Ye asked whether anyone had seen her in the convoy.

• The Hunchbacked Old Puppet told Chen Ye and the group that the Big Willow Supermarket beneath the great willow tree held supplies.
• Chen Ye shot the Hunchbacked Old Puppet with a black-dog-blood bolt, and Nana and Iron Lion attacked, but the puppet split in two and escaped onto a roof.
• Several frightened survivors abandoned the group and ran toward the village entrance.
• A girl cried that A Zi was gone, then ran back the way the group had come despite Zhou Lan trying to comfort her.
• Chen Ye asked whether anyone had seen the girl in the convoy.

Chen Ye and the survivors reached the Big Willow Supermarket beneath a gigantic willow and discovered hundreds of corpses hanging from its branches. They entered the shop to gather supplies, while the corpses began swaying outside.

• Chen Ye warned the group that the unfamiliar girl who had followed them was suspicious, and they continued toward the willow.
• Iron Lion and Nana rounded a corner and froze when they saw the enormous willow and the supermarket beneath it.
• Chen Ye and the survivors saw hundreds of people hanging from the willow’s branches and approached the supermarket cautiously.
• Iron Lion and Nana switched on their flashlights inside the supermarket, revealing shelves full of supplies that excited the survivors.
• The grandmother from the grandmother-and-grandson pair saw the supplies and felt glad she had followed the group.
• A breeze made the corpses hanging outside sway gently.

Chen Ye and the others scavenged a village supermarket, but the limited supplies left them wanting more. They decided to search the village chief’s house, while Nana warned the survivors that anyone following them would have to obey orders.

• Chen Ye filled his bags with essentials and used his billhook to make the old woman release the cured pork and fish she had grabbed.
• The Young Sword Immortal, Iron Lion, Zhou Lan, Zhou Xiaoxiao, and the other survivors gathered supplies until the supermarket was stripped bare.
• Unsatisfied with their small haul, Chen Ye, Nana, and Iron Lion decided to check the nearby village chief’s house.
• Some survivors argued over whether to return or keep searching, and Nana told them they could leave alone or follow her group and obey its instructions.
• Nana led the group out of the supermarket as hundreds of corpses hanging from the willow trees watched them enter the village.

Chen Ye and the others hurried through Longevity Village to gather supplies and leave before dark, but the Big Willow Tree proved deadly when a survivor vanished and appeared among its hanging corpses. The group reached the village chief’s ominous house, with the search for supplies still underway.

• Nana warned everyone that they had to leave the village before four, and the group hurried past the Big Willow Tree after hearing a nearby scream.
• Chen Ye realized a survivor who had been walking behind him was missing, and Zhou Xiaoxiao identified his body hanging from the Big Willow Tree.
• Two survivors abandoned the search and ran toward the village entrance, while Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiaoxiao stayed with Chen Ye, Nana, and Iron Lion.
• The group followed the Eavesdropping Radio’s information to the village chief’s large, gloomy house.

Chen Ye and the survivors searched the village chief’s house, finding food hidden in its basement and loading potatoes while Chen Ye kept watch. After Chen Ye fired his crossbow at a stooped figure, his system identified it as the Hunchbacked Old Puppet and awarded him Slaughter Value, leaving danger close at hand.

• Chen Ye led the group through the village chief’s house, where they found a little food in the kitchen but no supplies on the upper floors.
• Chen Ye discovered a Digital Watch and kept it, hoping he could use it after trading for a Solar Charging Panel.
• A boy found a basement trapdoor, and Nana went down first and found a large supply of potatoes.
• Nana and the others filled backpacks with potatoes while Chen Ye and Iron Lion stayed above to haul them out.
• Chen Ye saw a stooped figure at the entrance and fired his crossbow, and his system reported that he had damaged the Hunchbacked Old Puppet and gained 100 Slaughter Value.

Chen Ye and the survivors left the village chief’s house with supplies, but their route seemed to loop back toward the Big Willow Supermarket. With thirty minutes left before their deadline, Nana urged everyone to turn back.

• The survivors filled their bags with food from the cellar, and Xiao Fu helped Auntie Zhao climb out with an enormous load of supplies.
• Chen Ye urged the group to leave the village, uneasy that the supply run had gone too smoothly.
• Nana led the survivors back along their route while Chen Ye watched for danger; Iron Lion had to tear out a doorway to get his huge backpack through.
• Nana stopped when she recognized a house they had passed before, and the group realized the Big Willow Tree was ahead of them instead of behind them.
• Nana checked her watch, saw they had thirty minutes left, and told everyone to head back.

Chen Ye and the survivors became trapped in a loop around the Big Willow Tree and prepared to confront it, but the Hunchbacked Old Puppet warned them away and was revealed to have a woman's head for a hump. The group still had no way out of Longevity Village.

• The survivors repeatedly tried to leave Longevity Village but returned to the Big Willow Tree, and Nana said they had twenty minutes before the convoy left.
• A panicked survivor blamed Chen Ye and advanced on him, but Iron Lion kicked him away and warned the others not to interfere.
• Chen Ye and the long-legged girl decided to face the Big Willow Tree, while Iron Lion eagerly led the way.
• The Hunchbacked Old Puppet appeared and warned the group not to approach the tree, then claimed they could not leave and should stay with him.
• The long-legged girl attacked the Hunchbacked Old Puppet with sword light, tearing his clothes and revealing a woman's head beneath his hump.

Chen Ye and the survivors encountered Hunchbacked Old Puppet, whose back bore the head of a missing survivor, but it escaped after the long-legged girl cut through a house with sword energy. At the Big Willow Tree, they discovered that everyone who had tried to leave Longevity Village had ended up hanging from its branches, and Iron Lion approached the tree to destroy it as a corpse began to move.

• Chen Ye recognized the pleading head on Hunchbacked Old Puppet as a survivor and fired his crossbow, but the puppet fled into a house.
• The long-legged girl unleashed a powerful sword strike that split the house apart, but Hunchbacked Old Puppet vanished.
• Chen Ye noticed that familiar convoy members had appeared among the corpses hanging from the Big Willow Tree, and the long-legged girl said no one had escaped the village.
• Iron Lion enlarged his body and marched toward the Big Willow Tree, while Chen Ye spotted a corpse turning its head and raised his crossbow.

The survivors inside Longevity Village were attacked by hundreds of Corpse Puppets controlled by the Big Willow Tree, while the convoy waiting outside grew increasingly anxious. As Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiaoxiao struggled to survive, Zhou Xiaoxiao decided they should seek Chen Ye’s help.

• Outside Longevity Village, Chu Che and the waiting survivors worried because no one had emerged since entering that morning.
• The Big Willow Tree animated hundreds of corpses, and the Corpse Puppets attacked the survivors.
• Chen Ye discovered that bolts soaked in black dog blood could harm the Corpse Puppets, while the Long-Legged Girl cut one apart with her sword.
• Corpse Puppets dragged away survivors, and an old woman pushed another survivor into danger to save herself.
• Zhou Xiaoxiao threw her backpack at a Corpse Puppet to save Zhou Lan, then urged her sister to go to Chen Ye for help.

At Longevity Village, Chen Ye used his hand crossbow to drive back the Corpse Puppets while the survivors sought his protection. Zhou Xiaoxiao called for Chen Ye to save Zhou Lan after a corpse knocked her sister down.

• Zhou Xiaoxiao regretted taking back the gasoline she had given Chen Ye and decided she needed his protection.
• Chen Ye fired his hand crossbow at the Corpse Puppets as they closed in on the survivors.
• Old Lady Zhao slipped behind Chen Ye, but he shoved her toward the Corpse Puppets, which dragged her away and killed her.
• Zhou Xiaoxiao hesitated before approaching Chen Ye, and a corpse knocked Zhou Lan to the ground.
• Zhou Xiaoxiao shouted for Chen Ye to save her sister.

Chen Ye used black dog blood bolts to hold off the corpse puppets while the Zhou sisters were cornered by a swarm. With death closing in, Zhou Xiaoxiao finally begged him to save them, leaving their fate unresolved.

• Chen Ye fired black dog blood bolts to drive back corpse puppets threatening the survivors, including Zhou Lan.
• Zhou Xiaoxiao rescued Zhou Lan from one corpse puppet, but several more surrounded the sisters.
• A fleeing male survivor was carried into the Big Willow Tree's canopy after a corpse puppet bit his neck.
• Zhou Lan urged Zhou Xiaoxiao to run toward Chen Ye, but Zhou Xiaoxiao refused to beg him for help.
• As the sisters faced imminent death, Zhou Xiaoxiao tearfully begged Chen Ye to save them.

Chen Ye and the survivors raced toward the entrance of Longevity Village as the injured Big Willow Tree sent its branches after them. Chen Ye helped bring Iron Lion back to his senses, and the group reached the village entrance with Chen Ye riding atop Iron Lion’s backpack.

• The Long-Legged Girl and Iron Lion struck the Big Willow Tree, injuring it and stirring the village as Zhou Xiaoxiao begged Chen Ye for help.
• Chen Ye urged the survivors to flee, then fired a bolt at berserk Iron Lion to draw him away from the tree.
• Iron Lion charged after Chen Ye, while the Long-Legged Girl climbed onto his shoulder and secured their supplies to his arm.
• Willow branches pursued the fleeing group, snaring several survivors and briefly hoisting Chen Ye by the ankle.
• Chen Ye cut through the branch with his black-dog-blood-soaked Woodcutter's Knife, and Iron Lion regained his senses and lifted Chen Ye onto his backpack.
• Iron Lion accelerated toward the village entrance with Chen Ye aboard.

Chu Che waited for the survivors to return from Longevity Village, though a supernatural presence was closing in on the convoy. Chen Ye, Iron Lion, and the Long-Legged Girl fought through the village’s ghostly voices and reached the exit, where Chen Ye saw the Hunchbacked Old Puppet remain behind in the shadows.

• Chu Che sensed a terrifying supernatural entity approaching and decided the convoy would leave at 16:30 if the survivors had not returned.
• Uncle Abao prepared the convoy to depart, while anxious survivors protested that their family members were still in Longevity Village.
• Chen Ye and Iron Lion pressed toward the village entrance as ghostly voices tried to lure them back into the darkness.
• Chen Ye fired at a shadow, and the Long-Legged Girl struck it with Sword Qi before urging Iron Lion to keep moving.
• The Hunchbacked Old Puppet appeared and ignored Chen Ye’s crossbow bolt, but Chen Ye crossed into the light beyond the village and escaped.

Chu Che waited anxiously as survivors emerged from Longevity Village, then ordered the convoy to leave before eerie entities arrived. Chen Ye refueled his Motor Tricycle and departed with the convoy, while some survivors were left waiting for missing loved ones.

• Chu Che held to his decision to leave at four thirty, unable to sense what was happening inside Longevity Village.
• Iron Lion, Zhou Lan, Zhou Xiaoxiao, and other survivors emerged from the village, while many people waited in vain for their missing family members.
• Chu Che sensed eerie entities approaching and prepared the survivors to depart, loading Iron Lion and his supplies onto the bus.
• Uncle Abao gave Chen Ye a can of gasoline from Chu Che, and Chen Ye refilled his Motor Tricycle.
• The convoy sounded its horn and left as the survivors still waiting at the village entrance watched their hopes fade.

After leaving Longevity Village, Chen Ye struggled to keep his underpowered Motor Tricycle with the convoy as its members pressed onward. A sudden downpour and approaching eerie creatures forced the convoy to speed up, leaving Chen Ye alone in the rain but still following the distant taillights.

• The survivors gathered their supplies and set off, while Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiaoxiao stayed behind with their out-of-gas sedan.
• Zhou Lan found a hidden fuel can in the trunk, and the sisters got their car moving again.
• Captain Chu sensed eerie creatures closing in and ordered the convoy to accelerate, leaving the survivors on foot behind.
• Rain turned into a torrential downpour, and Chen Ye fell farther behind the faster vehicles as his Motor Tricycle struggled along.
• Chen Ye kept chasing the convoy’s distant taillights and resolved to upgrade his vehicle and redeem a method to become a sequence transcendent.

Chu Che and Chen Ye reached Yan Prefecture after enduring a night of rain and pursuing entities. They found the region in a blazing, unnatural heat despite it being late November, and Chen Ye began recovering at a desert campsite while checking his gains from Longevity Village.

• Chu Che sensed that entities had caught up with convoy members who had fallen behind, then relaxed when the nearest entity was over twenty kilometers away.
• Chu Che reached Yan Prefecture at dawn and was startled by a rainbow and scorching heat in late November.
• Chen Ye arrived at Yan Prefecture on his Motor Tricycle, exhausted and soaked after fighting in Longevity Village and traveling through the night.
• Chen Ye rested at a desert campsite, where the intense heat dried his clothes and drove him to strip down and change into summer clothing.
• Chen Ye ate bread and checked his Longevity Village gains, discovering he had more than seven thousand slaughter points.

Chen Ye spent slaughter points to obtain Sequence Serum and injected it, but his awakening remained in progress. While waiting in the desert, he began upgrading his Motor Tricycle with a low-cost clothing-patchwork sunshade.

• Chen Ye redeemed a method of awakening as a sequence transcendent and discovered the system had also provided him with Sequence Serum.
• Chen Ye injected the serum in private, but felt no new abilities and received only the system's message that awakening was still in progress.
• Chen Ye learned that an Apocalypse Base Vehicle would cost an enormous number of slaughter points and decided to improve his Motor Tricycle instead.
• Chen Ye designed a patchwork sunshade from spare clothes, then confirmed an upgrade costing 252 slaughter points.
• The system consumed more than half of the women's clothes in Chen Ye's cargo bed and began a five-hour upgrade countdown.

Chen Ye reached the survivors’ camp and rested in Iron Lion’s bus while waiting for Chu Che to wake and divide the supplies. As the desert survivors recovered, Old Zhang approached on his Senior Scooter, leaving Chen Ye to suspect the scooter held a secret.

• Chen Ye reached the camp alone among the survivors and went to the bus for shade from the scorching desert sun.
• Chen Ye checked on Chu Che and the exhausted Long-Legged Girl before Old Li welcomed him aboard Iron Lion’s bus.
• Old Li explained that many survivors had died at Longevity Village or refused to join the convoy, while Iron Lion slept and recovered from battle.
• Chen Ye settled down to rest and watched the countdown for his canopy upgrade while waiting for Chu Che to wake and divide the supplies.
• Chen Ye spotted Old Zhang wobbling toward the camp on his Senior Scooter and wondered how it had kept him alive.