Chapter Summaries

Qin Yiguan and Shitian searched Ghost City for clues and encountered a frightened boy hiding in a black house, whose appearance stirred an intense sense of familiarity in Qin Yiguan. As night fell, Shitian refused to let Qin Yiguan return to Black Calamity’s residence and vowed to face whatever came in the darkness with him.

• Qin Yiguan approached the black house, startled when an eye appeared through the narrow gap, then let go of the door when a child resisted from inside.
• Shitian greeted the child, but the silent boy stayed huddled in the corner; Qin Yiguan noticed his strange injuries and felt he had somehow known him before.
• Qin Yiguan and Shitian left without learning what the boy had seen, and Qin Yiguan headed toward Black Calamity’s residence as dusk approached.
• Shitian stopped Qin Yiguan and insisted they stay together to confront the threat that came after dark.
• Qin Yiguan questioned Shitian about special abilities and mental illness, but Shitian said he had no unusual sensations and only Buddha in his heart.
• Darkness abruptly covered Ghost City, and Shitian recited the Heart-Calming Mantra while challenging the unseen demons and ghosts.

Qin Yiguan watched as Shitian faced a headless horseman and other ghosts, convinced that they were karmic obstacles he could overcome through fearlessness. Shitian ended up bound and unable to move as the horseman charged at him with its blade.

• Qin Yiguan hid behind a black house while Shitian stood in the road and confronted the headless horseman.
• The horseman struck Shitian twice, but Shitian got back up each time and explained his master's teachings about overcoming karmic obstacles.
• Qin Yiguan saw a hair-eating ghost attack Shitian and Shitian's shadow grab his throat.
• A wandering ghost split into five figures and bound Shitian with iron chains as he continued reciting Buddhist teachings.
• Qin Yiguan warned Shitian that the ghosts were real, and the headless horseman charged at the immobilized monk with its blade.

Qin Yiguan rescued Shitian from the ghosts by fighting blind, then confronted and decapitated the ghost king Jiamou while deliberately avoiding descriptions that could frighten him. After Jiamou fell, a boy watching from the black house regarded Qin Yiguan with cold contempt.

• Qin Yiguan covered his eyes, seized the headless knight’s cleaver, and killed it before cutting down the hair-eating ghost, shadow ghost, and dismembering ghosts around Shitian.
• Qin Yiguan charged into the approaching ghosts and slaughtered them until the battlefield fell quiet.
• Shitian identified the newly appearing ghost king as Jiamou, while Qin Yiguan cut his fingers to block out Shitian’s descriptions and keep his mind clear.
• Qin Yiguan rushed at Jiamou and repeatedly hacked off its heads as Shitian counted them down.
• Qin Yiguan severed Jiamou’s final head, and the ghost king’s body fell as a boy watched from the black house and turned coldly contemptuous.

A colossal red-skinned ghost king emerged from a crack in the sky and advanced on Qin Yiguan as a golden Divine Cage appeared. A golden figure stepped out, and Qin Yiguan and a boy hiding in a black house recognized her as their mother.

• Shitian described the red hands tearing open a crack and a massive ghost king emerging from it.
• The ghost king marched through Ghost City, crushing buildings as its terrifying aura swept across the land.
• A hundred-meter golden Divine Cage appeared on the horizon, and Qin Yiguan said he could see it despite his covered eyes.
• A golden figure walked out of the cage, filling Qin Yiguan with a familiar sense of safety and warmth.
• Qin Yiguan and the boy hiding in the black house reached toward the figure and called her “Mom.”

Qin Yiguan faced the red-skinned ghost king after visions of his mother, father, and Boss Meng vanished, and Shitian was seemingly killed protecting him. Shitian revived with a vast Buddha apparition, revealed that he had glimpsed the truth behind Ghost City, and froze the ghost king with its gaze.

• Golden figures of Qin Yiguan’s mother, father, and Boss Meng emerged one by one, then vanished as the red-skinned ghost king regained its strength.
• The ghost king pierced Shitian through the chest and threw him into the ruins while Qin Yiguan gave up hope.
• A bronze bell rang, and Shitian rose unharmed as a towering Buddha apparition appeared above him.
• Shitian confirmed that Qin Yiguan could see the apparition and said he had caught a glimpse of the truth behind Ghost City.
• The Whole Buddha turned its gaze on the red-skinned ghost king, leaving it motionless and terrified.

Shitian helped Qin Yiguan overcome the red-skinned ghost king by recalling the warmth of his foster parents and Boss Meng, but the Ghost City remained. Qin Yiguan realized the city was a childhood manifestation of his [Gestalt Collapse] and confronted the five-year-old self hiding in the wardrobe, whom he identified as the real Black Calamity.

• Shitian explained that Jiamou and the red-skinned ghost king were karmic obstructions born from fear, and urged Qin Yiguan to remember the people who had supported him.
• Qin Yiguan recalled his foster parents and Boss Meng, causing three golden figures to appear and destroy the red-skinned ghost king.
• Shitian expected the Ghost City to vanish, but Qin Yiguan sensed a third karmic obstruction and walked toward the black wardrobe.
• Qin Yiguan recognized the child behind the wardrobe door as his five-year-old self and explained how his childhood fear had created the Ghost City and its residents.
• Qin Yiguan concluded that Black Calamity was a manifestation tied to the child who could not leave the Ghost City, then declared that the child was the real Black Calamity.

Qin Yiguan recognized the white-robed ghost as the final ghost king and explained that fear and [Gestalt Collapse] had created the ghosts. He faced the apparition to protect the boy in the wardrobe, but it flew toward the wardrobe.

• Black Calamity and the golden figures of Dad, Mom, and Boss Meng vanished after Black Calamity realized it had only been a tool.
• Qin Yiguan hesitated to open the wardrobe when he saw how frightened the boy was, as a freezing presence emerged from the hole in the sky.
• Qin Yiguan identified the apparition as the final ghost king and asked the boy if it had haunted him throughout his childhood.
• Qin Yiguan told the boy that fear empowered the ghosts and promised to stand between him and the female ghost in white.
• Qin Yiguan refused Shitian's offer to have the Whole Buddha destroy the ghost, removed the black cloth from his eyes, and saw the apparition fly toward the wardrobe.

Qin Yiguan overcame his fear and made the ghost in white dissipate, then entered the black hole to confront the truth behind his childhood trauma. He arrived in a forest thirteen years in the past, near the experimental base where his five-year-old self had been held.

• Qin Yiguan confronted the ghost in white, suppressed his fear, and ordered her to dissipate; she burned and crumbled into dust.
• Shitian watched Qin Yiguan break through his inner fears, while the boy in the wardrobe stopped trembling and became less afraid.
• Qin Yiguan remembered most of his past and decided the truth about the traumatic night when he was five was hidden in the black hole.
• Qin Yiguan entered the black hole and traveled back thirteen years to a forest near a brightly lit research facility.
• Qin Yiguan recognized the trail of footprints as his five-year-old self's and remembered escaping the scientists' experimental base for the twenty-fourth time.

Qin Yiguan confronted a terrifying memory from age five, recovered a drowned woman’s corpse from the lake, and buried her after discovering half of a metal nameplate. After he vanished, a figure identical to him appeared at her grave and said Qin Yiguan would remember her eventually.

• Qin Yiguan followed his childhood memory to a lake and found the narrow hole where he had once been trapped with a corpse for six hours.
• Qin Yiguan pulled a woman’s corpse from the lake and saw that she had a ligature mark on her neck.
• Qin Yiguan felt his childhood fear lift, buried the woman, and found half of a metal nameplate engraved with an “S.”
• Qin Yiguan vowed to find and avenge the woman’s killer before vanishing from the scene.
• A figure identical to Qin Yiguan appeared by the grave with a lantern and said he would gradually remember who the woman was.

Qin Yiguan faced the memories and personalities hidden in Ghost City, freeing Black Calamity while discovering Child in the wardrobe. Ghost City vanished, leaving Qin Yiguan back in the Experimental Zone with no sign that the events he remembered had happened.

• Qin Yiguan told Black Calamity that the woman he feared had protected him and promised to find her killer, helping him let go of his fear.
• Qin Yiguan opened the wardrobe and saw Child, another childlike personality with a surgical wound, who attacked him with spatial compression.
• Black Calamity calmed Child by giving him a morning glory, and Child then shrank until he vanished from the dimension.
• Black Calamity took Qin Yiguan's hand and said he would go with him as Ghost City began to dissipate.
• Qin Yiguan found himself back in the Experimental Zone beside Shitian and the intact Shadow, with no messages or other evidence that the events had occurred.

After Ghost City, Qin Yiguan learned from Dr. House that his personalities had taken away painful memories and that facing his childhood had cured Black Calamity. Dr. House identified Qin Yiguan’s own ability as forgetting and urged him to heal his other personalities to uncover his past, including the truth about his adoptive parents’ deaths.

• Shitian told Qin Yiguan that Ghost City had existed inside his memories and that they had revisited the time when he was five.
• Qin Yiguan realized the Boundless One had brought him and Shitian into his memories, then contacted Dr. House for an explanation.
• Dr. House explained that Qin Yiguan’s personalities had formed around painful memories, and that facing the corpse in white had reconciled him with his five-year-old self and cured Black Calamity.
• Dr. House said Child had likely formed around the same time as Black Calamity but that its origins remained hidden in another sealed memory.
• Dr. House named Qin Yiguan’s ability the Forgetter and urged him to heal his personalities to recover his past and learn the truth about his adoptive parents’ deaths.

After leaving his mental world, Qin Yiguan realized the robbers had truly been killed and that Black Calamity had been healed, but he retained his abilities. When the Bandit Alliance attacked, Black Calamity awakened as his Higher Self and destroyed their fleet, leaving Qin Yiguan laughing as he told Shitian that he had a devil in his heart.

• Qin Yiguan explained to Shitian that the Ghost City had been his mental world, and thanked him for guiding him through it.
• Qin Yiguan concluded that Black Calamity had been cured and that his [Gestalt Collapse] ability might be gone.
• The Bandit Alliance arrived in a fleet seeking revenge for the men Black Calamity had killed.
• A giant black wardrobe appeared above Qin Yiguan, and darkness engulfed the fleet and destroyed its aircraft.
• Qin Yiguan's information panel showed Black Calamity's healing, increased development and fusion rates, and Black Calamity's awakening as his Higher Self.
• Qin Yiguan laughed and told Shitian that Shitian had a Buddha in his heart while he had a devil in his.

Qin Yiguan awakened [Gestalt Collapse] to near full strength in the Metaverse, then returned to Rust City No. 03 and checked on Officer Wang. When Officer Wang mentioned a dead young monk in Central District No. 03, Qin Yiguan recognized the situation as urgent and went to investigate.

• Qin Yiguan’s Fusion Rate reached 90%, and activating a Higher Self raised [Gestalt Collapse] to 99%.
• Shitian asked Qin Yiguan for a ride, offering good fortune in return, but Qin Yiguan initially refused and told him to wait while he reconsidered.
• Qin Yiguan woke in Rust City No. 03, calmly dispelled apparitions with his lighter, and drew the curtains to welcome the morning.
• Qin Yiguan contacted Officer Wang to check on him and learned that officers had found a dead young monk in Central District No. 03.
• Qin Yiguan told Officer Wang he was nearby and would come to the scene at once.

Qin Yiguan reached Central District No. 03 and found Shitian’s preserved corpse at a street corner, despite Shitian having walked there from the southeast and died two months earlier. After learning that a mysterious pill lay in Shitian’s chest, Qin Yiguan arranged for his body to be preserved in the science museum as the second-generation inheritor of Whole Buddhism.

• Qin Yiguan entered Central District No. 03 without triggering its defenses, leaving the mechanical police officers stunned.
• Qin Yiguan recognized Shitian’s corpse and recalled that Shitian had never contacted the Metaverse during his eighteen years in the mountains.
• Officer Wang explained that Shitian had walked from the southeast, died two months earlier, and had no records or explanation for entering the city.
• A mechanical police officer reported a pill inside Shitian’s chest, distinct from the sarira found in some monks’ remains.
• Qin Yiguan asked Officer Wang to have Shitian’s body placed in the science museum and named him the second-generation inheritor of Whole Buddhism.

Qin Yiguan returned to the Experimental Zone, gave Shitian a portable AI, and learned about the monk’s Consciousness Matrix and zero Fusion Rate. He accompanied Shitian to meet his master, only to discover the master was a Daoist priest who attacked a supposed demon with a bizarre secret technique.

• Qin Yiguan returned to the Gobi and agreed to take Shitian along on his journey.
• Qin Yiguan gave Shitian a portable AI, and Shitian discovered his Consciousness Matrix ability was called “Higher Self”—the Buddha within, with a starting Fusion Rate of zero.
• Shitian told Qin Yiguan that his master had entered the Metaverse and asked for help with a demon-subduing job, so Qin Yiguan changed course to join him.
• Qin Yiguan and Shitian reached the sea and found Shitian’s master, an old Daoist priest with “Invincible” tattooed on his forehead.
• The old Daoist called his opponent a demon and struck him with the Peachwood Millennium Kill, sending him screaming into the air.

Qin Yiguan, Shitian, and the old Daoist reached the shore, where the old Daoist mistook a boatman for a fiend after refusing to pay his fare. As Qin Yiguan wondered about the old Daoist’s commission, Giant Whale City rose from the sea atop a colossal blue whale.

• Shitian reunited with the old Daoist, who searched him and Qin Yiguan for money before returning to sob with his disciple.
• The old Daoist explained that the city lord of Giant Whale City had hired him to subdue demons and drive away ghosts, and that he had attacked a boatman who demanded four hundred to ferry him across.
• Shitian agreed that the boatman was a fiend for asking his master for money, while Qin Yiguan questioned what awaited them in Giant Whale City.
• The sea churned, and a technological city beneath a glass dome emerged from the water on the back of an enormous blue whale.

Qin Yiguan, Shitian, and Master Ying Dang reached Giant Whale City, where the city lord’s son Shui Luo challenged their credentials and barred Qin Yiguan from entering. After Ying Dang claimed Qin Yiguan could help him, Shui Luo let him pass but threatened him as they entered the city.

• Shui Luo questioned Master Ying Dang’s qualifications before lowering the metal walkway into the sea with his enormous enhanced arm.
• Shui Luo mistook the injured boatman for his evil Negative Doppelgänger, and Ying Dang pretended he had killed it.
• Shui Luo let Shitian cross the walkway but initially refused Qin Yiguan entry, calling him an unwanted passerby.
• Qin Yiguan insulted Shui Luo and threatened to cut him down, prompting Ying Dang to claim Qin Yiguan had a wondrous bone structure and could help subdue demons.
• Shui Luo allowed Qin Yiguan through, then warned him that he knew how to test the hardness of human bones.

Qin Yiguan visited Giant Whale City, where he learned that its residents used extraordinary physical abilities to power and build the city. Shui Luo explained that a deep-sea parasite had enhanced the residents but eventually began controlling them and making them eat other people.

• Qin Yiguan, Shitian, and Ying Dang put on artificial gills as Shui Luo guided them into Giant Whale City on the back of a giant whale.
• Shui Luo took them across the vast underwater city in an aircraft powered by his attendants, and Qin Yiguan saw residents using their enhanced strength for construction and steering the whale.
• God's Abandoned identified the whale as a digital creature created by the Gemini Superbrain.
• Shitian and Ying Dang asked Shui Luo about the Negative Doppelgänger, prompting him to recount how his father founded the city forty years earlier and explored the vast Metaverse ocean.
• Shui Luo revealed that the residents had all become hosts to the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus, which enhanced their bodies but eventually began controlling them and making them eat other people.

Shui Luo explained how the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus turned infected residents into man-eating negative doppelgängers and revealed that the underwater world’s 900,000 residents faced a worsening crisis. Shitian committed Ying Dang to helping find the fungus’s hidden mother organism, the only known way to stop the outbreak.

• Shui Luo explained that the fungus changed its host’s appearance and controlled them to lure people, while the host’s own consciousness never returned.
• Shui Luo said infected residents were tested every five hours, but nearly ten thousand had reached the fourth stage and would eventually become negative doppelgängers.
• Shui Luo asked Ying Dang to help resolve the crisis, while Ying Dang privately worried about how to escape without losing his reputation.
• Shitian accepted the task on Ying Dang’s behalf and vowed that they would not leave until they had resolved the crisis.
• Shui Luo explained that destroying the fungus’s mother organism would stop the other fungi from feeding, but it could be hiding in any resident.

Shui Luo led Ying Dang and Qin Yiguan through the vast underwater cities while seeking help to find the parasite’s mother organism. Qin Yiguan learned that Shui Luo was lying about his infection stage, and Starvation Corpse sensed a grade-five delicacy nearby as they approached Shui Luo’s father’s residence.

• Shui Luo explained that 900,000 underwater residents lived across 53 large cities and 2,000 private cities, making the mother organism difficult to locate.
• Shui Luo warned Qin Yiguan that the Negative Doppelgänger was a fourth-stage threat and claimed he was in the early third stage with two months left.
• Starvation Corpse told Qin Yiguan it could smell the infected residents’ stages and identified Shui Luo as a ripe fourth-stage delicacy.
• Starvation Corpse briefly altered Qin Yiguan’s arm and offered to locate the mother organism within 300 kilometers, which it classified as a grade-five delicacy.
• As the group neared Shui Luo’s father’s residence, Starvation Corpse announced that it could smell a grade-five delicacy nearby.