Chapter Summaries

Zhu Nian explained that Cheng Xun used the flesh of dead test subjects, including Lorimas, as a catalyst for his experiments, then revealed her ability and immobilized Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er. She admitted she had betrayed them to protect her grandfather, while Number Eight and the black cat suddenly stood up behind her.

• Zhu Nian told Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er that Cheng Xun fed the flesh of dead subjects to new hotel guests and used Lorimas's flesh as a catalyst.
• Zhu Nian slipped her restraints, attacked Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er with needles, and paralyzed them with her ability, Liar Swallows a Thousand Needles.
• Zhu Nian explained that Cheng Xun wanted Lian Xiangyu as an ideal test subject and that his men were waiting at the Fifth Floor stairway.
• Shen Dong'er challenged Zhu Nian about betraying them despite her love for her grandfather, and Zhu Nian said Cheng Xun had promised him a dose of the drug.
• Zhu Nian said Peng Zhen served Cheng Xun to seek a cure for his terminally ill daughter, then apologized and started toward the Infirmary door.
• Number Eight stood up with the little black cat in their arms as Zhu Nian failed to notice.

Su Bai escaped the Fifth Floor Infirmary with Little Cat after knocking Zhu Nian unconscious and freeing Shen Dong'er and Lian Xiangyu from her control. He demonstrated how to descend using Black Umbrella, and Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er followed him out, with Lian Xiangyu searching for Number Eight after they reached the garden.

• Su Bai resisted Zhu Nian's ability, struck her unconscious with the black umbrella, and freed Shen Dong'er and Lian Xiangyu from the needles controlling them.
• Su Bai escaped through the Infirmary window with Little Cat and used Black Umbrella to land safely on the third floor.
• Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er watched Su Bai descend, then Lian Xiangyu used Beastification to carry Shen Dong'er down the Hotel's outer wall.
• Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er reached the garden, where Lian Xiangyu began searching for Number Eight.

Su Bai realized the Lorimaris Hotel was filled with wandering souls, many of whom had died in Jialan’s early experiments, and questioned why some waiters helped players while others served Lorimas. He brought Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er toward the garden, hoping to draw Cheng Xun and Peng Zhen away so he could approach Lorimas again.

• As Su Bai descended past the guest-room windows with Little Black Cat, he recognized the figures inside as wandering souls and saw one who resembled the Number Five Waitress.
• Su Bai recalled the ancient Rune Age and concluded that the hotel’s wandering souls were likely victims of Jialan’s experiments rather than ancient beings.
• Su Bai wondered why some wandering souls acted as helpful waiters while others obeyed Lorimas, and he decided to seek answers from her.
• Su Bai led Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er toward the fighting in the garden, aiming to keep Cheng Xun and Peng Zhen occupied and create a chance to reach Lorimas.
• Lian Xiangyu came close to Su Bai and said she had something to tell Miss Number Eight.

Su Bai encountered Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er as the battle in the Hotel continued, while Cheng Xun tried to summon Lorimas's test subjects. The test subjects began shrieking throughout the Hotel, and Cheng Xun ordered every Guest Room door opened.

• Su Bai backed away when Lian Xiangyu approached, but Lian Xiangyu was too nervous to explain what he wanted to say.
• Shen Dong'er stopped Su Bai and questioned him about whether he was a Doll, whether he had broken the Sixth Floor lock, and what he had seen there.
• Cheng Xun discovered that Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er were missing from the Infirmary and demanded that his people find them.
• Cheng Xun called on Lorimas to awaken the Hotel's test subjects, and their cries soon echoed throughout the building.
• Cheng Xun raised the black communication device and ordered all the Guest Room doors opened.

Su Bai and the others were cornered in the Garden when Lorimas’s test subjects leapt from the Sixth Floor and attacked Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong’er. Cheng Xun revealed his obsession with the test subjects and mocked Su Bai as an empty Doll, leaving Su Bai questioning what Cheng Xun could see in him.

• Su Bai planned to use the chaos to slip upstairs, but a subordinate spotted Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong’er from the Fifth Floor Infirmary.
• Lorimas’s test subjects broke through the Sixth Floor windows and leapt into the Garden, targeting Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong’er while leaving Su Bai alone.
• Cheng Xun arrived with Peng Zhen and his subordinates, then ordered one of them to kill Su Bai.
• Cheng Xun praised the test subjects as Lorimas’s beautiful creations and claimed they embodied the promise of immortality.
• Cheng Xun called Su Bai an empty, false shell, and Su Bai wondered whether there was truly nothing inside him or behind him.

Cheng Xun tried to kill Su Bai and threatened to behead Shen Dong'er, while controlled test subjects restrained her and Lian Xiangyu. Someone blocked Cheng Xun’s blade before Shen Dong'er could see who had intervened.

• Cheng Xun dismissed Su Bai as an empty doll and swung his blade at him.
• Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er attacked Cheng Xun, but controlled test subjects seized and restrained them.
• Cheng Xun spared Lian Xiangyu and threatened to kill Shen Dong'er in front of him.
• Shen Dong'er closed her eyes as Cheng Xun brought his blade toward her neck.
• An unknown person blocked Cheng Xun’s blade, then told him he knew nothing about them.

Su Bai, disguised as the Number Eight Doll, stopped Cheng Xun from killing Shen Dong'er and revealed startling power that left Cheng Xun shaken. Cheng Xun then became obsessed with Su Bai, who took his blade and held it to his neck.

• Su Bai blocked Cheng Xun's blade with a black umbrella just as Cheng Xun attacked Shen Dong'er.
• Cheng Xun saw Su Bai's eyes turn red and a vision of countless ghostly figures surrounding him, then retreated in shock.
• Shen Dong'er questioned why Su Bai had saved her, while Su Bai considered how Lian Xiangyu's actions had led to the attack.
• Cheng Xun recovered and raved that Su Bai was beautiful and held another kind of eternal life.
• Su Bai disarmed Cheng Xun and pressed the rusty blade against Cheng Xun's neck.

Su Bai fought off Cheng Xun’s test subjects and used the blue flames to free one of them from her transformed body. The remaining test subjects retreated as a familiar handbell rang nearby.

• A test subject attacked Su Bai as he tried to kill Cheng Xun, while Peng Zhen pulled Cheng Xun to safety.
• Su Bai wounded the attacker and heard her plead to be killed, then asked Cheng Xun if the test subjects could be restored.
• Cheng Xun said even Lorimas could not restore them, and Su Bai set the test subject ablaze with his blue flames.
• The test subject thanked Su Bai before burning away, and Little Fire shed a tear through Su Bai’s eye.
• The other test subjects retreated as a handbell rang nearby, leaving Su Bai to wonder whether Lorimas was afraid.

Su Bai returned to the Hotel after using blue flame to defeat an Experimental Subject, leaving Cheng Xun and his group afraid to stop him. He asked Shen Dong'er and Lian Xiangyu to keep them in the lobby while he went to see Lorimas and help her find the person she sought.

• Su Bai saw the Bell Ringer at a second-floor window, then gave Cheng Xun's long blade to Lian Xiangyu and headed toward the Hotel.
• Cheng Xun's group feared Su Bai after he burned an Experimental Subject to ashes with blue flame and recognized him as Number Eight.
• Lian Xiangyu joked to Shen Dong'er that he had known Number Eight was extraordinary, and Shen Dong'er followed Su Bai back to the Hotel with the others.
• Su Bai asked Shen Dong'er and Lian Xiangyu to keep Cheng Xun and his people in the lobby while he went to see Lorimas and take her to find the person she was looking for.

Su Bai confronted the Bell Ringer and learned that Lorimas was controlling an empty cloak while her real body remained chained on the Sixth Floor. He opened the hidden room and found Lorimas chained to a wall by her damaged fish tail.

• Su Bai called the Bell Ringer Lorimas, and she warned him to keep away because of his blue flame.
• Lorimas collapsed the cloak to show she was not physically present, then explained she searched the hotel for Jialan and waited for his return.
• Su Bai told Lorimas the garden roses had turned red because Cheng Xun and the others had buried the dead Experimental Subjects there.
• Su Bai reached the hidden Sixth Floor and burned through the metal door's lock.
• Su Bai entered a filthy laboratory and found Lorimas chained to the wall, with an iron chain driven through her damaged fish tail.

Su Bai discovered Lorimas's mermaid body chained and mutilated in the hidden laboratory, where Jialan and Cheng Xun had used her flesh in attempts to create an elixir of immortality. After understanding that Lorimas's devotion to Jialan had driven her choices, Su Bai decided to take her to see him.

• Su Bai opened the hidden laboratory and found a chained mermaid covered in wounds and growths, whom he recognized as Lorimas.
• Lorimas spoke through the black cloak and explained that her imprisoned body was not as free as the cloak.
• Su Bai realized Jialan and Cheng Xun had repeatedly used Lorimas's poisonous flesh in experiments to develop an elixir of immortality.
• Lorimas said she hoped to leave once Cheng Xun made the elixir so she could look at Jialan from afar.
• Su Bai ignored the black cloak's efforts to stop him and walked toward Lorimas's imprisoned body, promising to take her to Jialan.

Su Bai carried Lorimas out of the Hidden Laboratory and left her at the foot of the stairs, promising to bring Jialan to her. He went to the hotel lobby and asked Waiter Number One where Jialan was.

• Su Bai burned through the chains holding Lorimas and carried her from the Hidden Laboratory despite the strain of using Little Fire's power.
• Lorimas told Su Bai not to search for Jialan because he could no longer be found.
• Su Bai took two syringes from the Experiment Table and hid them in his apron pocket.
• Su Bai carried Lorimas downstairs and left her leaning against the banister while he went to fetch Jialan.
• Su Bai passed the other players, reached the lobby front desk, and asked Waiter Number One where Jialan was.

Su Bai pieced together clues about Waiter Number One and confronted him about Jialan and his true identity. Number One finally reacted to Su Bai’s blue flames, revealing that he had been pretending to be an unresponsive doll.

• Su Bai recalled that Waiter Number One was the only person who could have placed the notebook in the Bar and that Peng Zhen had said Number One’s face never changed.
• Su Bai asked Number One where Jialan was and who he really was, but Number One stayed motionless.
• Cheng Xun speculated that Su Bai was a powerful strange creature who could enter game scenarios and considered making himself and his followers serve him.
• Su Bai summoned a tiny blue flame, and Number One stepped back in fear.
• Su Bai declared that he had found Number One out.

Su Bai confronted Waiter Number One and revealed that he was Jialan, Lorimas’s human husband and the original force behind the experiments on her. Jialan defended the experiments as no real suffering, leaving the Players and the apparently listening Lorimas to hear his bitter account of their marriage.

• Su Bai used a small blue flame to make Waiter Number One reveal fear and drop his flawless disguise.
• Su Bai identified Waiter Number One as Jialan and challenged him for leaving Lorimas to endure the experiments.
• Jialan admitted he had known about the experiments and argued that Lorimas could regenerate, so she had not truly suffered.
• Su Bai accused Jialan of beginning the experiments decades earlier to make the Elixir of Immortality, and the Players learned he was Lorimas’s husband and the Hotel’s true master.
• Jialan said Lorimas had destroyed his hopes for a family and a shared future, and insisted that her cut flesh was nothing compared with his ruined life.

Jialan explained why he had used Lorimas’s flesh for immortality research and admitted he had secretly allowed Cheng Xun and the others to continue their experiments so he could stop them before they completed the drug. He realized Su Bai had disrupted his plans and wondered what kind of being Su Bai was.

• Jialan blamed Lorimas for the life he had lost and justified experimenting on her flesh as a way to become immortal and remain with her.
• Jialan revealed he had returned to the Hotel long ago but had stayed hidden while Lorimas searched for him.
• Su Bai deduced that Jialan had watched and possibly helped Cheng Xun and the others continue the immortality experiments, intending to eliminate them before they finished.
• Jialan admitted he would complete the experiment himself but would never let others gain immortality from Lorimas’s flesh and blood.
• Jialan told Su Bai that he had miscalculated him and asked what kind of existence he was.

Jialan revealed how his resentment and desire for immortality had driven him to manipulate the experiment involving Lorimas. As the players escaped the lobby, Su Bai’s disgust and fury overwhelmed his composure, and he approached Lorimas with blue flames emerging around him.

• Jialan recalled fleeing back to the Lorimaris Hotel and letting the monster within him grow as he plotted to claim the Elixir of Immortality made from Lorimas’s flesh and blood.
• Jialan mistook Su Bai for a strange creature impersonating Number Eight and recoiled from the blue flame he believed no human could control.
• Su Bai reflected on the hotel’s cruelty, the dead players buried beneath the Rose Sea, and the madness hidden behind Cheng Xun, Jialan, and Lorimas’s masks.
• Su Bai told Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er to lead the remaining players out of the lobby.
• As the players left, blue flames appeared around Su Bai, and he walked toward Lorimas at the foot of the stairs.

Su Bai carried the dying Lorimas through the hotel as she gave him her remaining life force, and blue flames engulfed the lobby, trapping Jialan, Cheng Xun, and the experiment participants. Jialan denied that the ruined mermaid in Su Bai’s arms was Lorimas as she reached toward him and tried to speak.

• Lorimas’s body gave out after countless experiments had consumed her life force, and she asked Su Bai to end her suffering.
• Su Bai carried Lorimas toward the lobby, and she transferred her remaining life force into him.
• Blue flames spread through the hotel and sealed the lobby entrances, trapping Jialan, Cheng Xun, and the players who had experimented on Lorimas.
• Peng Zhen and the other players accepted the flames as the consequence of their actions, while Peng Zhen regretted not spending more time with Nannan.
• Su Bai entered the lobby carrying Lorimas, whose ruined appearance shocked Jialan, who trembled and denied that she was the mermaid he remembered.
• Lorimas reached toward Jialan and seemed to speak faintly.

Su Bai carried the dying Lorimas from the hotel after learning the truth about her false rift and her love for Jialan. Lorimas dissolved into foam, and Su Bai used her remaining life force to burn the hotel and Rose Sea before collapsing into the arms of the Little Black Cat.

• Su Bai gave Peng Zhen two syringes and told him to reserve one for Number One, then left the hotel with Lorimas.
• Lorimas told Su Bai that merfolk could see rifts, explained how she had brought humans into the hotel, and thanked him before turning into foam.
• Su Bai's blue flames engulfed the hotel and spread through the Rose Sea, burning the bloodstained garden.
• Su Bai exhausted his remaining strength and collapsed, and the Little Black Cat transformed and caught him.

Su Bai collapsed after the Lorimaris Hotel was consumed by blue flames, while the Ghost Shaman appeared and held him. As the Administrator reclaimed control of the hotel and evacuated the surviving players, Little Fire confronted the Ghost Shaman about a Marriage Contract before Su Bai began to wake.

• The Ghost Shaman appeared beside Number Eight and held the unconscious Su Bai as Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong'er watched.
• Shen Dong'er teased Lian Xiangyu about his feelings for Number Eight and revealed that Number Eight was a man.
• The Administrator announced that the Lorimaris Hotel had returned to his control, and the surviving players vanished from the garden.
• Little Fire accused the Ghost Shaman of lying about the circumstances that led him to sign a Marriage Contract with Su Bai.
• The Ghost Shaman told Little Fire to protect Su Bai until he recovered, then vanished after handing Su Bai over to him.
• Su Bai gradually regained consciousness as Little Fire supported him.

Su Bai recovered after Lorimas’s death as Little Fire consumed the Lorimaris Hotel’s corruption and burned the building down. Before the Administrator sent him back to the real world, Su Bai questioned the origins of the Nightmare World and learned that everyone might be trapped in a giant fish tank.

• Su Bai woke refreshed and found Lorimas’s life force harmonizing with the power inside him.
• Little Fire vanished after telling Su Bai to do what he wanted, while its blue flames devoured the hotel’s corruption and reduced the building to ash.
• Su Bai saw Zhu Nian and Cheng Xun’s surviving subordinates flee with several scaled test subjects, while Lian Xiangyu and Shen Dong’er were gone.
• Su Bai asked the Administrator about the rift, the Nightmare World’s past, and why he had been chosen to lay Lorimas to rest.
• The Administrator said the suffering had resounded throughout the Void Sea and answered Su Bai’s fish-tank question by saying everyone was trapped in one.
• The Administrator ended Su Bai’s game and began returning him to the real world, warning that the White Faction was at a disadvantage.