Chapter Summaries

The Relevant Authorities’ new buyback program drove players to use the Mist Shop’s self-service machine to price their items, and the shop began earning Red Moon’s Power through exchanges. Su Bai then learned that his mother, Lin Wan, was showing signs of waking up, and he waited beside her bed as she reacted to the sunlight.

• The Relevant Authorities announced a buyback program that required players to set their own prices, prompting them to use the Mist Shop’s machine to estimate their items’ worth.
• Players discovered the machine’s conversion rates and began exchanging low-value items for shop points, while some used their points to buy the Mist Shop’s goods.
• The Mist Shop began earning Red Moon’s Power as more players chose to trade for powerful items instead of seeking rewards from the Relevant Authorities.
• Su Bai received a call from Lin Wan’s caregiver saying that Lin Wan had moved her hands and eyes, then rushed home through the Mist Shop.
• Su Bai and the caregiver drew the curtains and waited beside Lin Wan as her eyes reacted to the sunlight.

Su Bai stayed by Lin Wan's side as she gradually recovered from her long coma, cherishing their brief conversations and her concern for him. When he asked whether they should pursue the leads he had found on Su Xuan, Lin Wan did not recognize the name.

• Lin Wan woke briefly and squeezed Su Bai's fingers, filling him and her caregiver with hope.
• Su Bai took leave from school and cared for Lin Wan, talking to her during her short periods of consciousness.
• Lin Wan gradually regained strength and speech, and asked Su Bai whether he was tired.
• After a little over half a month, Su Bai mentioned his leads on Su Xuan, but Lin Wan asked who Su Xuan was.

Su Bai woke in his familiar home before his entrance exam, but he felt that ordinary details were wrong and struggled to remember why. He was left trembling after his older brother, Su Xuan, appeared and greeted him as his little brother.

• Su Bai woke to his alarm with a splitting headache and found his bedroom and study materials familiar, though he could not make sense of his unease.
• Su Bai washed up and went downstairs, where his mother, Lin Wan, served breakfast and reminded him to take his schoolbag to school.
• Su Bai froze when he heard a familiar voice behind him say he would be home for the day.
• Su Xuan came downstairs, patted Su Bai's head, and called him his little brother, leaving Su Bai trembling and struggling to say his name.

Su Bai relived a warm morning with his mother Lin Wan and brother Su Xuan, though the familiar scene left him distressed and uncertain. After leading Su Xuan to an abandoned apartment building, he recalled finding the real Su Xuan there drunk over a year earlier and demanded to know who the person beside him was.

• Su Bai struggled through breakfast with Su Xuan, overwhelmed by memories of their family and their mother’s wontons.
• Su Bai chose to leave for school with Su Xuan instead of eating, and he hugged Lin Wan goodbye before the brothers set off together.
• Su Bai and Su Xuan walked through familiar places from their childhood, reminiscing as they approached Rainbow Locust No. 1 High School.
• Su Bai led Su Xuan away from the school to a half-demolished apartment building and recalled finding the real Su Xuan there drunk over a year earlier.
• Su Bai picked up a steel rebar, pointed it at Su Xuan, and demanded to know what he was.

Su Bai recovered his memories after tasting his mother's wontons and realized that his seemingly perfect family life was a fabricated dream inside a new Nightmare World game. He remembered the Administrator's warning that a supernatural resurgence was about to strike the familiar city, leaving him aware that other players might still be trapped in their dreams.

• Su Bai's memories returned when the wontons stirred a powerful emotion and a burning sensation flared in his left palm.
• Su Bai recognized that the healthy Lin Wan, successful Su Xuan, and familiar version of Honghuai City were false, noting details that contradicted his real memories.
• Su Bai realized he was in a nightmare game and feared that other players had not escaped their fabricated dreams or recovered their memories.
• Su Bai recalled the Administrator's warning that a terrifying supernatural resurgence would descend upon the city.

Su Bai questioned the apparent Su Xuan in the false Honghuai City and learned that the being was far more powerful than the Mud Dolls of Fog City. The chapter ended as a familiar voice reassured Su Bai from within his soul.

• The Administrator described the city's seven-day survival rules, warned that the city would collapse if horror awakenings and human mutations reached forty percent, and said the White Faction was at a disadvantage.
• Su Bai realized that the Administrator's final piece of information had become an unintelligible jumble in his memory.
• Su Bai held a steel rebar to the apparent Su Xuan's throat and demanded to know what he was.
• Su Bai reasoned that the city was a dangerous illusion and questioned whether its other residents were Ghost Creatures or fabricated figures.
• The apparent Su Xuan dissolved Su Bai's rebar with a touch and asked whether Su Bai had mistaken him for a Mud Doll.
• A familiar voice spoke from within Su Bai's soul and told him they had been there all along.

Su Bai confronted a Strange Creature posing as his older brother, Su Xuan, and resisted its attempts to undermine his memories and identity. The creature revealed clues about Su Xuan’s age and its own connection to Su Bai’s recovered memories, then mentioned the Doll Master, whom Su Bai associated with the Ghost Shaman.

• Su Bai realized he had underestimated the Strange Creature impersonating Su Xuan and waited for it to act.
• The false Su Xuan teleported behind Su Bai without warning and questioned whether Su Bai was truly human.
• The false Su Xuan claimed Lin Wan had run away from home twenty years before meeting Su Bai’s father, raising doubts about how Su Xuan could be four years older than Su Bai.
• Su Bai recalled clues that a Ghost Creature had taken over Su Xuan’s body and refused to accept the impostor’s attempt to manipulate him.
• The false Su Xuan wondered whether its newly made shell was crude and compared its crafting technique to the Doll Master’s, prompting Su Bai to connect the title to the Ghost Shaman.

Su Bai confronted a Strange Creature wearing Su Xuan’s face, which tried to draw him into a conversation about the Ghost Shaman and his own past. The creature claimed someone had deliberately blurred Su Bai’s childhood memories and offered to restore them.

• “Su Xuan” asked Su Bai whether he had heard of the Doll Master and sensed the Ghost Shaman near him.
• Su Bai kept his distance and prepared the beings hidden in the Vengeful Ghost Puzzle while assessing what the Strange Creature knew.
• “Su Xuan” described the Ghost Shaman as a powerful, solitary figure who guarded the same territory beneath the Red Moon.
• “Su Xuan” pointed out his missing little finger and recounted how Su Xuan had lost it while jumping to save five-year-old Su Bai from a fall.
• “Su Xuan” told Su Bai that someone had deliberately blurred his childhood memories and offered to return them as a gift.

“Su Xuan” offered Su Bai the truth about his blurred childhood memories if he completed a game, and Su Bai accepted after consulting Yao and the other puzzle pieces. He was transported to an unfamiliar school corridor, where the game began.

• “Su Xuan” claimed someone had blurred Su Bai’s memories when he was five and offered to restore them through a game.
• Su Bai contacted Yao through the Vengeful Ghost Puzzle, and Yao reassured him that he could proceed.
• Su Bai decided to accept “Su Xuan’s” game, hoping to learn the truth about his memories and his mysterious Betrothed.
• “Su Xuan” covered Su Bai’s eyes and asked him to consider whether he might really be Su Xuan.
• Su Bai felt himself fall through the Void Sea, then arrived in a corridor on an unfamiliar school campus.

Su Bai explored a convincing fake Honghuai City and witnessed teachers and students at Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School abuse Zhang Chen and force him toward a study room linked to another student's death. The Strange Creature announced that a game would begin and that Su Bai was now Xiao Lou.

• Su Bai walked through Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School and recalled rumors about its brutal treatment of students with poor grades.
• A teacher kicked over Zhang Chen's desk and berated him for dropping twelve places on a weekly test.
• The teacher ordered several students to take Zhang Chen to the study room, and Zhang Chen shouted that Xiao Lou had died after being sent there.
• The students restrained Zhang Chen and dragged him away while the teacher denied the school's involvement in Xiao Lou's death.
• Su Xuan told Su Bai that the game would begin soon and that he was now Xiao Lou.

Su Bai learned that he had become Xiao Lou, a wandering soul trapped at Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, and absorbed Xiao Lou’s memories and longing to return to his family. Su Xuan explained that Su Bai had to make one request of someone each day for seven days to get Xiao Lou out of the school, though Su Bai suspected the rules concealed a catch.

• Su Bai received Xiao Lou’s memories of the school’s Study Room, where students were locked in darkness and forced to answer questions under threat of extended confinement.
• Xiao Lou’s memories revealed his guilt toward his parents and his desperate wish to leave the school and return to his family.
• Su Bai realized that others could not see him because he was now Xiao Lou, a wandering soul trapped inside Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School.
• Su Xuan said Su Bai could clear the game by getting Xiao Lou out of the school and promised to return Su Bai’s real memory and send him out of the city.
• Su Xuan gave the rule: Su Bai had to make one request of someone each day for seven days, and Su Bai remained wary of the seemingly easy challenge.

Su Bai completed his first task as a Wandering Soul at Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, then reasoned that the city’s Players might be unable to see him until they broke free of its false reality. He wondered whether death in the game meant taking on a new identity, and the chapter ended as two confused figures appeared on Honghuai City’s empty streets after one in the morning.

• Su Bai repeated his brother’s final words to the voice posing as Su Xuan, and the Strange Creature declared his first day’s task complete.
• Su Bai found that he could not leave the Teaching Building and that the school’s students could neither see nor hear him.
• Su Bai concluded that Honghuai City’s residents were following a script and that Players might see him after regaining their memories.
• Su Bai speculated that death in the Nightmare Game might only mean a change in identity rather than the end of a Player’s life.
• After one in the morning, two bewildered figures appeared at different intersections on Honghuai City’s deserted Commercial Street, and one wondered whether he had entered the Nightmare Game again.

After being declared dead for failing to fulfill anyone’s request, Chen Xi and a man in pajamas realized they were trapped as invisible mutated humans in a seven-day game. When an awakened Eerie attacked them, Chen Xi remembered the Administrator’s final hint and led them toward Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School.

• Chen Xi met the man in pajamas and compared their memories of breaking the daily request rule.
• The man explained that his family could not see him, and they saw the city screen display an Eerie awakening level of one percent.
• Chen Xi inferred that awakened Eerie might be able to see and attack mutated humans.
• A headless, briefcase-headed Eerie approached, and Chen Xi’s gunshot failed to stop it.
• Chen Xi and the man fled as the Eerie charged, and she urged them to go to Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School.

Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping discussed their abilities, the Candlelight Society, and whether Chen Hai had entered the game with her. They headed toward Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School to investigate the Administrator’s hint.

• Chen Xi explained that her ability had developed from physical enhancement to enhancing weapons, and said her brother had prepared ranged weapons for her.
• Chen Xi told Zhuang Anping that she had encountered players who seemed stronger than the entire Candlelight Society.
• Zhuang Anping introduced himself and said he wanted to join the Candlelight Society because he had a wife and child in the Real World.
• Chen Xi worried that the brother beside her in Honghuai City might be a creation of the city rather than Chen Hai.
• Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping continued toward Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School to investigate the Administrator’s hint.

Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping traveled through a city experiencing Eerie revival and reached Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, where the Administrator had sent them. They found a student unconscious in a dark study room and heard school staff preparing to open the door.

• Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping watched the Briefcase Freak pass drunken young people who could not perceive him, and heard him call them puppets.
• Zhuang Anping wondered how many Eerie beings and dead Players the city would contain as the revival level rose, then guided Chen Xi toward Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School.
• Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping avoided several strange Eerie beings, climbed over the school wall, and found lights on in a teaching building.
• Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping approached the building through a campus covered in intense study slogans and heard staff discussing an unconscious student in a dark room.

Su Bai heard a second voice layered over teachers’ discussion of students at Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, revealing a parallel account of experiments on Merfolk Remnants in the Void Sea. He suspected the school was a disguise meant to deliver information and wondered whether Nightmare Game players could serve as test subjects too.

• Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping overheard teachers discussing a student who had fainted in a study room and questioning the school’s learning system.
• Su Bai realized that the teachers’ words were accompanied by another voice describing injured Merfolk Remnants and experiments in the Void Sea.
• The second conversation revealed that mysterious people had imprisoned the Merfolk Remnants and feared losing their remaining test subjects without making progress.
• Su Bai connected the students, study rooms, and college entrance exam to the Merfolk, Void Sea, and an approaching crisis, and suspected Su Xuan had arranged for him to hear the messages.
• Su Bai wondered whether humans who crossed the Void Sea as Nightmare Game players could become test subjects.

Su Bai considered the conflicting accounts about the Nightmare World, the Real World, and experiments on merfolk, then pieced together a possible explanation for Su Xuan’s body and Honghuai City. He remained uncertain about the truth but resolved to keep moving and recover his lost memories.

• Su Bai questioned what role the Void Sea played and whether human players might become expendable subjects after the merfolk.
• Su Bai spotted Chen Xi and an older man outside the school and suspected that both were players who had recovered their memories.
• Su Bai reconsidered whether the Su Xuan who created Honghuai City was an impostor, recalling reports that a wandering ghost had occupied Su Xuan’s body.
• Su Bai reasoned that Su Xuan might never have been human and could have left the Real World a little over a year earlier, leaving a body that a wandering ghost later inhabited.
• Su Bai recognized that the clues left him with more questions, but decided to keep moving forward and recover his memories.

Su Bai watched Chen Xi and another Player enter Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, learning that Players who had “died” by breaking the rules could still move freely after recovering their memories. Chen Xi mistook Su Bai, who was living under the identity of student Xiao Lou, for a possible nonhuman being.

• Su Bai overheard Chen Xi and her companion explain that the school’s residents ignored them because they were already considered “dead.”
• Chen Xi climbed into the Teaching Building and spotted Su Bai in the corridor.
• Chen Xi asked whether Su Bai was a Player, and he introduced himself as Xiao Lou, a student at the school.
• Chen Xi doubted that Su Bai was a Player and asked whether he was a weirdo.
• Chen Xi cautiously examined Su Bai for signs of something abnormal.

Chen Xi recognized Su Bai at Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, but he claimed to be a student named Xiao Lou. Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping speculated that he had lost his memories and talked themselves into accepting his cover story, leaving Chen Xi hoping to help him remember who he was.

• Chen Xi remembered Su Bai's power from the Mirror Apartments and challenged him after he introduced himself as Xiao Lou.
• Chen Xi introduced Zhuang Anping to Su Bai, then identified Su Bai to Zhuang Anping as a player she had cleared a game with.
• Zhuang Anping questioned why Su Bai was pretending to be a student, and Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping guessed that he might have lost his memories or used an alias.
• Chen Xi accepted that Su Bai could see them because he was unusually powerful and wondered how they could restore his memories.

At Rainbow Locust Tenth Middle School, Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping encountered Su Bai and were attacked by grotesque Fish-Head Freaks. Their attempt to escape upstairs failed when the creatures passed through a locked door and pursued them into the second-floor corridor.

• Chen Xi told Zhuang Anping she believed Su Bai was a powerful Veteran like the president of the Nameless Society.
• Fish-Head Freaks approached the Teaching Building, and Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping shielded Su Bai as the creatures gathered in the corridor.
• Su Bai led Chen Xi and Zhuang Anping upstairs, where Zhuang Anping tripped one Fish-Head Freak with his rope and Chen Xi locked the stairwell door.
• A Fish-Head Freak emerged through the locked door, ignored Chen Xi's gunfire, and was followed by the others as the three retreated along the second-floor corridor.