Chapter Summaries

Li Qing joined Long Aotian’s team in the Death Instance and secretly awakened the Ancient God’s statue in the ruins. As Shadows killed Long Aotian, Li Qing reported that he had repaired Instance B1051 and identified himself as administrator S-A9B08F013.

• Long Aotian killed a biologist for livestream tips, leaving the team with only one remaining biologist and no repellent production.
• The woman tried to steal Li Qing’s repellent, but he gave her all four vials and told her how to reach a helicopter before dawn.
• Li Qing told Long Aotian he wanted him to leave the ruins, but the two continued through the underground passage together.
• Li Qing opened the tomb’s stone door and walked past its dangers to the Ancient God’s statue.
• Li Qing activated the statue’s awakening protocol, and the resulting tide of Shadows killed Long Aotian.
• Li Qing reported that repairs to Instance B1051 were complete and identified himself as administrator S-A9B08F013.

Li Qing, a death-instance administrator, entered the Extreme Roller Coaster instance to investigate its unusually high survival rate and discovered its malfunctioning ride let players evade the rules. After narrowly avoiding the Death Seat’s trap, he teleported to the control room to repair the system, where an unseen voice spoke beside him.

• Li Qing gave Zhang Qin his malfunctioning Administrator Console chip and collected it the next morning before beginning another assignment.
• Li Qing teleported into the Extreme Roller Coaster instance but arrived directly on the speeding ride, where the Clown asked him a deadly quiz question.
• Li Qing realized he was in seat thirteen, the round’s death number, and tried to alter his coordinates before the ride stopped in the tunnel.
• Li Qing met the Female Ghost, the headless Giant Bear Doll, and the Clown, who explained that the ride had been stopping and allowing players to escape.
• Li Qing used his console to teleport to the control room and began repairing the roller coaster before an unidentified voice asked what he was doing.

Li Qing confronted Gong Yao in the roller coaster control room after Gong Yao asked him to help destroy the ride, and they clashed while Li Qing repaired the instance. After Gong Yao spared him and left, Li Qing returned to the maintenance system, where Zhang Qin told him he had become famous.

• Gong Yao introduced himself to Li Qing and said he had cut the roller coaster's power to save him and other people.
• Li Qing refused Gong Yao's request to destroy the roller coaster, saying his job was to eliminate vulnerabilities and correct errors.
• Gong Yao attacked Li Qing's shield while Li Qing injected a repair command and restarted the system.
• The roller coaster started moving as Li Qing's shield broke, but Gong Yao stopped his blade an inch from Li Qing's forehead and left.
• Li Qing returned to the maintenance system and reported the instance problems to the technical department.
• Zhang Qin pulled Li Qing to his screen and told him he was famous.

Li Qing’s brief appearance on Gong Yao’s livestream made him a trending figure, and he soon entered the Fortune Star Matchmaking instance to repair its abnormal mortality rate. Misidentified as a bride, he opened his door to find Gong Yao waiting outside.

• Zhang Qin showed Li Qing the viral clip of their encounter with Gong Yao and warned that the public exposure could be dangerous.
• Li Qing read the C9999-Fortune Star Matchmaking mission, questioned the village’s bride-selection customs, and teleported into the instance.
• A timing error caused the instance to identify Li Qing as a player and assign him the role of a bride sold to Fortune Star Village.
• Li Qing read the bride’s rules and decided to open the door to whoever knocked so he could question the instance’s supernatural inhabitants.
• Gong Yao appeared outside and greeted Li Qing by name.

Li Qing agreed not to disrupt Gong Yao’s stream after Gong Yao recognized him as an admin, and the two spent the night sharing a room in Fortune Star Village. As they settled in, Gong Yao shared the groom rules and learned that Li Qing was investigating anomalies; they ended the night looking toward a partnership the next day.

• Gong Yao stopped Li Qing from cutting off the stream and promised not to expose his identity as an admin.
• Gong Yao told Li Qing the three rules for grooms, and Li Qing said he could verify them through his admin access.
• Gong Yao shut off his stream and settled into Li Qing’s room for the night.
• Gong Yao asked why Li Qing had entered the instance, and Li Qing said he was there to investigate anomalies and fix bugs.
• Li Qing explained that he organized his memories before bed, and Gong Yao accepted the habit without judgment before wishing him good night.

Li Qing and Gong Yao woke up as newlyweds in the Fortune Star Matchmaking instance and met the other participants at breakfast. As rival heartthrobs drew attention, Li Qing clarified that partners changed daily, leaving Wan Yingjun intrigued by the prospect of competing with Gong Yao.

• Gong Yao's livestream automatically turned back on while he and Li Qing were still in bed, attracting viewers eager to watch them wake up.
• Li Qing and Gong Yao joined eight other participants for breakfast, where Li Qing noticed that some people seemed to recognize Gong Yao and one man had drawn two women's attention.
• Gong Yao introduced himself to the group, while Wan Yingjun grew annoyed that Gong Yao stole the attention he had gained by arriving late.
• After Zhao Yu objected to being paired with a man, Li Qing explained that same-sex marriage was legal in the instance; Gong Yao said Li Qing was paired with him, but Li Qing noted that partners changed every day.
• Wan Yingjun found Li Qing interesting and considered taking him away from Gong Yao for the sake of rivalry, despite not being interested in men.

Li Qing and Gong Yao went to find the missing newlyweds and discovered that Wu Nianfang was alone in her room. They escorted her toward breakfast, while Gong Yao concluded she was abnormal because she had ignored his outstretched hand.

• The middle-aged woman announced that players had to gather before eight for breakfast and the next-round tally, and Gong Yao learned that one pair of newlyweds was missing.
• Gong Yao volunteered to find the missing pair, and Li Qing joined him as they followed the Administrator System's map to the remaining bridal room.
• Gong Yao knocked and entered the room, where they found Wu Nianfang sitting motionless at a dressing table in her wedding dress.
• Wu Nianfang said she had not heard the older woman calling and did not know where her husband was, so Gong Yao and Li Qing decided to escort her to the dining hall.
• Gong Yao whispered that something was wrong with Wu Nianfang because she had ignored his offer of a handshake, leaving Li Qing baffled by his reasoning.

After breakfast, Aunt Liu sent the eleven newlyweds to a lake for the Fortune Lady’s daily trial, a blindfolded paired rowing race with a dangerous presence in the water. Gong Yao helped the abandoned Wu Nianfang start first, then blindfolded himself beside Li Qing, whose system scan revealed countless hostile humanlike shadows beneath the lake.

• Aunt Liu served exactly eleven buns, and Li Qing inferred that the instance’s daily deaths happened before dawn.
• Aunt Liu announced that the newlyweds had to row blindfolded in pairs, warning that the last pair would spend the night with the Fortune Lady and that they must stay still if something climbed aboard.
• The players refused to take Wu Nianfang aboard their boats, so Gong Yao left his boat to guide her onto the water and blindfold her.
• Gong Yao returned to Li Qing’s boat, and both men blindfolded themselves before beginning the trial.
• Li Qing used his administrator privileges to scan the lake and detected countless hostile humanlike shadows beneath the boats.

Li Qing and Gong Yao survived a Water Monkey encounter during the rowing race and reached shore first, each secretly altering the boat’s course. The remaining teams arrived, but Fang Miao and her partner were missing as Aunt Liu declared everyone present.

• Li Qing used the instance backend to alter his boat’s current, while Gong Yao discussed how the blindfolds could enable sabotage.
• A Water Monkey boarded their boat and crawled over Li Qing and Gong Yao; they stayed still until it left.
• Li Qing and Gong Yao reached shore first, then realized they had both secretly manipulated the boat to change course.
• Wan Yingjun and Xu Yuan arrived second, followed by Yuan Sisi and Zhao Yu; Wu Nianfang arrived alone in her red bridal gown.
• Zhou Qing and Ding Yi reached shore wet and bedraggled, while Fang Miao and her partner remained missing.
• Aunt Liu said everyone had arrived, and Zhao Yu concluded that Fang Miao and her partner had died in the lake.

After the lake trial, Gong Yao told Li Qing that he hated seeing people die, and Li Qing hypothesized that Fang Miao and her partner were NPCs who had broken the lake’s rules. At the shrine, Aunt Liu announced that the Fortune Lady would rearrange the newlyweds’ pairings; Li Qing entered first and found no boss unit detected in the shrine.

• Gong Yao admitted to Li Qing that he felt sympathy for Fang Miao and her partner and disliked seeing people die, including Li Qing.
• Li Qing suggested that Fang Miao and her partner were NPCs who had died for violating the lake’s rules, and Gong Yao thanked him.
• Aunt Liu announced that the Fortune Lady would use the compatibility test to assign new partners, while Zhou Qing and Ding Yi were ordered to stay in the shrine for her blessing.
• Gong Yao urged Zhou Qing to stay calm and consider what preparations could help her, while Wan Yingjun grew resentful of Gong Yao.
• Li Qing entered the shrine first and scanned for the instance boss, but the GM backend reported that no boss unit was nearby.

Li Qing exchanged room tokens with Wu Nianfang so she could pair with Gong Yao, then monitored the matchmaking game as night fell. When the life-form count rose to twelve and someone knocked, Li Qing followed the rules but was struck unconscious after his system failed to detect the night watchwoman.

• Li Qing and Gong Yao received Heart-Knots, which Aunt Liu said would help their holders find each other.
• Li Qing offered to switch tokens and Heart-Knots with Wu Nianfang, allowing her to pair with Gong Yao.
• Li Qing told Yuan Sisi that no bride would be left alone unless she refused to open her door for a groom.
• After dark, Li Qing monitored the life-form count as it rose from nine to twelve.
• Li Qing opened his door after three knocks, found no one outside, turned off the lights, and knelt facing the wall.
• Li Qing tried to detect the night watchwoman through the back-end interface, but someone struck him from behind and knocked him unconscious.

Li Qing discovered a hidden basement beneath the Fortune Lady Temple and confronted Zhao Wu, who had been posing as the Divine Warrior Star Lord. Zhao Wu revealed that the role was added to the instance a year earlier, then claimed the Fortune Lady legend was a lie.

• Li Qing explored a bride’s room beneath the Fortune Lady Temple and found a bloodied wedding dress.
• Zhao Wu entered wearing a mask, called himself the Divine Warrior Star Lord, and declared Li Qing his bride.
• Li Qing identified Zhao Wu through the GM panel and reset his level to 1 when Zhao Wu attacked him.
• Zhao Wu said the village chief had added the Divine Warrior Star Lord setting a year earlier to attract more brides.
• Li Qing asked what happened to women blessed by the Divine Warrior Star Lord, and Zhao Wu claimed the Fortune Lady legend had always been a lie.

Li Qing learned that the Fortune Lady legend had been fabricated to conceal the village chief’s abductions, then escaped the underground cellar and reunited with Gong Yao and Wu Nianfang. He revealed that the Fortune Lady truly existed and warned Gong Yao that she was behind him.

• Zhao Wu told Li Qing that generations of village chiefs had used the Fortune Lady legend to hide their abduction of village girls.
• Li Qing searched the underground corridor, found the remains of women, and calculated that the Dungeon Instance’s unusually low survival rate had an unexplained cause.
• Li Qing opened the cellar lock with his powers and climbed out beneath the Fortune Lady statue, where Gong Yao and Wu Nianfang found him.
• Li Qing told Gong Yao and Wu Nianfang about the chief’s scheme, and Gong Yao grew angry at the perpetrators.
• Li Qing rejected Gong Yao’s suggestion that the Fortune Lady was merely a human deception and said she was standing behind him.

Li Qing confronted Wu Nianfang, who had become the Fortune Lady after dying as a player in the Dungeon Instance. Wu Nianfang revealed that the original Fortune Lady was killed by a player and that the brides who died afterward also became Fortune Ladies.

• Wu Nianfang attacked Gong Yao in the Ancestral Hall, but Li Qing identified himself as an administrator and stopped her from continuing.
• Li Qing discovered that Wu Nianfang retained her original player data despite being dead and transformed into a boss.
• Wu Nianfang explained that the first Fortune Lady was born from the resentment of the brides who had been killed over many years.
• Wu Nianfang said the original Fortune Lady had been killed during her run, after which another player gained power over life and death and killed her.
• Li Qing apologized for the Dungeon Instance's mishandling of Wu Nianfang's death data and said fixing the bug would erase her existence.
• Wu Nianfang revealed that every bride who died after her had become a new Fortune Lady.

Li Qing concluded that dead brides had been mistaken for players and turned into bosses, then agreed to warn Gong Yao before taking any action that might affect his chance to leave. Gong Yao resumed his livestream, and the group slept safely through the night before rejoining the others for breakfast.

• Li Qing questioned Wu Nianfang about other Fortune Ladies, but she said she did not know which brides would be chosen each round.
• Gong Yao asked whether Li Qing could be trapped if he married an NPC instead of Gong Yao, and Li Qing admitted he was unsure; he agreed to give Gong Yao a warning before acting.
• Gong Yao restarted his livestream and settled down to sleep beside Li Qing and Wu Nianfang, while viewers watched them sleep through the night.
• Aunt Liu called everyone to breakfast, and Li Qing, Gong Yao, and Wu Nianfang arrived at the dining hall, surprising the others.
• Aunt Liu served twelve steamed buns and twelve bowls of thin rice porridge.

On the brides’ final day of guidance, Li Qing visited a model family and learned about the woman’s life as the Fortune Lady married into the household. He left with token number 5 after addressing her as Wen Ya and noticing someone watching him from the woodshed.

• Aunt Liu explained that the brides and grooms would collect tokens separately, could exchange them, and would be paired by matching numbers the next day.
• Yuan Sisi and the others discussed their partners as they walked to Fortune Star Village, while Li Qing heard Yuan Sisi call someone “Li Zi.”
• Li Qing visited a model family, listened to the woman describe the village’s rules, and drank the strange black tea she served him.
• The woman gave Li Qing a token marked 5, and he told her they would not be neighbors in the future.
• Li Qing addressed the woman as “P-9SD3002, Wen Ya” and asked if her life was what she wanted; as he left, he saw hateful eyes through a crack in the woodshed door.

Li Qing returned from the Model Home with Yuan Sisi and helped her secure a safer token while navigating the brides’ dangerous matchmaking. He revealed that Fang Miao and Li Zi had died on the first day, leaving Yuan Sisi horrified as she realized the people she had seen were ghosts.

• Li Qing found Yuan Sisi fleeing the Model Home and learned that she had refused the Fortune Lady’s strange tea, prompting an attack.
• The brides returned to the temple, where Zhao Yu warned that contestants could now attack one another for wooden tokens.
• Wan Yingjun asked Li Qing to team up and promised to help him find a matching token, but Li Qing did not accept.
• Li Qing swapped Yuan Sisi’s number 3 token for his number 5 token, saying he would seek a token matching Gong Yao’s number.
• Li Qing told Yuan Sisi that Fang Miao and Li Zi had died on the first day, and Yuan Sisi realized a faceless bride in a red wedding dress had impersonated Fang Miao.

Li Qing and Gong Yao discussed which people in the matchmaking dungeon were players and which were dead or NPCs, then suspected Wan Yingjun of having abnormal authority over the villagers. Li Qing reported the suspected anomaly to the Technology Department, and the group prepared for the night with no major suspense remaining.

• Li Qing told Gong Yao he had traded his number five token with Yuan Sisi, who said she had originally received Zhao Yu's number three.
• Gong Yao identified the players and explained that Li Zi and Zhou Qing had died, though they had returned with the others as if they were still present.
• Gong Yao warned that Wan Yingjun had been called “Boss” by a local man beneath the Fortune Lady's statue, prompting Li Qing to suspect he was colluding with NPCs.
• Li Qing submitted a technical assistance request reporting Wan Yingjun's abnormal interactions with NPCs in dungeon instance C9999.
• Li Qing said he would trade with Yuan Sisi to obtain the token paired with Gong Yao's, then told Gong Yao to rest because the dungeon had no suspense left.

Li Qing swapped Wooden Tokens with Wu Nianfang, hoping to free her from the temple’s rules after completing the Dungeon Instance. At the group wedding, several brides were declared possessed by the Fortune Lady, and Yuan Sisi’s wedding wine left Wan Yingjun collapsing as she claimed they could stay together forever.

• Li Qing received a warning from Division One not to interfere with the player ecosystem, which made him more suspicious of Wan Yingjun.
• Li Qing persuaded Wu Nianfang to exchange tokens by promising to remove the rule that kept her from attacking the villagers beneath the Fortune Lady statue.
• The brides revealed their pairings, and Gong Yao told Li Qing that the village chief was the man he had seen underground.
• Li Zi and Fang Miao, Ding Yi and Zhou Qing, and Zhao Yu and Wu Nianfang completed their rites; Aunt Liu announced the Fortune Lady’s descent for each of the latter two couples, and Zhao Yu learned that he had already died.
• Xu Yuan and her partner were also declared possessed, bringing the number of descended Fortune Ladies to three.
• Yuan Sisi led Wan Yingjun through the rites; after he drank the wedding wine, his cup fell and he collapsed as she said they could stay together forever.

Li Qing and Gong Yao completed the Fortune Star Village wedding ritual and left the Dungeon Instance after exposing Wan Yingjun’s fate and arranging changes for the trapped NPCs. As Gong Yao invited Li Qing to work with him again, Li Qing exited early, leaving their next meeting uncertain.

• Yuan Sisi revealed her monstrous identity to Wan Yingjun, whose system refused to let him exit without administrator privileges.
• Li Qing and Gong Yao exchanged blood-mixed wine, completed the wedding ritual, and departed the village as its inhabitants watched.
• Wu Nianfang raised the Wooden Token as Li Qing left, and black mist began to emerge from the Ancestral Hall.
• Gong Yao told Li Qing he had entered the Dungeon Instance to investigate the disappearance of a couple from his team and condemned players who used others as playthings.
• Li Qing explained that he had removed some restrictions on the NPCs before the Dungeon Instance data was wiped, then filed his report and issued an early exit command.
• Li Qing vanished from the bus, and Gong Yao smiled and said they would meet again.