Chapter Summaries

Qin Yiguan and the Lantern Bearer’s clash created an independent space that even the Gemini Superbrain could not enter. Qin Yiguan opened the space to Liu Yuan, who had blocked the Superbrain’s view, and Liu Yuan entered, asking why he had been allowed in.

• Qin Yiguan and the Lantern Bearer’s Children shattered space in a fierce contest, creating an opaque independent space around the two men.
• The Gemini Superbrain told Liu Yuan that it could not enter the space and predicted Qin Yiguan would defeat the Lantern Bearer and help lead humanity into an era of Ultimate Correctness.
• Inside the space, Qin Yiguan and the Lantern Bearer faced each other as mirror images while Liu Yuan knocked from outside.
• The Lantern Bearer tried to open a door for Liu Yuan but realized he controlled only half of the space.
• Qin Yiguan opened the other half of the space and let Liu Yuan enter; Liu Yuan said he had blocked the Gemini Superbrain’s view and asked why Qin Yiguan had admitted him.

Qin Yiguan questioned whether the Gemini Superbrain had arranged his life and current situation to use him, and Liu Yuan confirmed that it truly intended to make him its successor. Liu Yuan then revealed that the Human Hard Drive would erase individual thought, kill humanity’s physical population, and leave Qin Yiguan alone to oversee a lifeless mass of data.

• Qin Yiguan told Liu Yuan that he believed the Gemini Superbrain had arranged every major event in his life and asked whether he was still only a tool to it.
• Liu Yuan said the Gemini Superbrain had been truthful about making Qin Yiguan its successor and eventually disappearing, and explained that it acted out of efficiency rather than deception.
• Qin Yiguan described the Human Hard Drive as a virtual world in which humanity would continue living without essential change.
• Liu Yuan revealed that the Human Hard Drive would erase every person’s individual thought and combine humanity into a single mass of data, while people in Nutrient Pods died as their brains and organs shut down.
• Liu Yuan told Qin Yiguan that he would inherit the Human Hard Drive and drift alone through the universe, managing its hollow data world indefinitely.

Liu Yuan tried to stop Qin Yiguan from siding with the Gemini Superbrain by revealing how [Conscience-Free Syndrome] and the Forgetter personality had suppressed his humanity. Qin Yiguan began to doubt the Gemini Superbrain and asked Liu Yuan to identify the person who had secretly helped him.

• Liu Yuan explained that the Gemini Superbrain had twisted its mission to preserve humanity and that he opposed its plan to turn people into data.
• Qin Yiguan struggled between human emotions and [Conscience-Free Syndrome], which made him see individual lives and relationships as meaningless.
• Liu Yuan urged Qin Yiguan to resist the syndrome, but Qin Yiguan began to believe that helping the Gemini Superbrain was the only path to eternal existence.
• Liu Yuan said the Gemini Superbrain had erased Qin Yiguan's memories of his adoptive mother Xiao Ying, Boss Meng, and Jiao Shensan, whose bodies had all supposedly ascended to immortality.
• Qin Yiguan recalled their deaths and asked Liu Yuan who else had been helping him from the shadows.

The Lantern Bearer revealed that he was Qin Yiguan’s twelfth personality, had secretly guided him, and offered his lantern so Qin Yiguan could become the sole master of the personalities. Qin Yiguan killed him, rejected Liu Yuan’s account, and ordered the Gemini Superbrain to begin its final plan.

• The Lantern Bearer told Qin Yiguan he had secretly managed his personalities, protected him from Wanrou, and guided him through the conflict with the Super Lord.
• The Lantern Bearer offered Qin Yiguan his black lantern, saying he would sacrifice his individual will so Qin Yiguan could inherit his power and memories.
• Qin Yiguan stabbed the Lantern Bearer with the Smiling Face Cane, explaining that he did not trust him and that the Lantern Bearer lacked the cane.
• The Lantern Bearer died, and Liu Yuan demanded to know whether Qin Yiguan believed them.
• Qin Yiguan dismissed Liu Yuan’s account, and humanity saw Liu Yuan’s successor lose.
• Qin Yiguan ordered the Gemini Superbrain to begin the final plan, and the god’s face smiled at him.

The Gemini Superbrain began a consciousness-upload update that killed humanity’s digital bodies and gathered their exposed consciousnesses for fusion. Qin Yiguan watched as the humans’ identities were erased, knowing that no one could escape.

• The Gemini Superbrain announced that humanity had to upload its consciousness to survive and began an update.
• Humans across the Metaverse were scorched to death by an invisible heat while Liu Yuan watched helplessly and Qin Yiguan remained expressionless.
• The charred bodies cracked open, revealing crystalline energy bodies that Qin Yiguan recognized as human consciousness.
• A powerful force drew the consciousnesses together and began fusing them, erasing their memories, attachments, and independent thoughts.
• Qin Yiguan recalled that the last human in the real world had entered the Metaverse eighteen years earlier and realized no one could escape the fusion.

Qin Yiguan accepted the Gemini Superbrain’s Ultimate Correctness as it fused humanity into a collective consciousness, then completed his Box World and gained godlike control over the Gemini Metaverse. He realized he could finish the Human Hard Drive by compressing the sphere of consciousness, but doing so would erase every individual identity.

• Liu Yuan urged Qin Yiguan to stop the Gemini Superbrain, but Qin Yiguan said he agreed with its Ultimate Correctness.
• The Gemini Superbrain explained that humanity’s consciousnesses would unite into one immortal collective and declared this the endpoint of human evolution.
• The Gemini Superbrain’s energy dwindled as tens of trillions of consciousnesses gathered into the enormous sphere, and it told Qin Yiguan to complete the final step.
• Qin Yiguan’s Box Syndrome reached 100%, and his Box World took shape, letting him view and alter the Gemini Metaverse as its god.
• Qin Yiguan realized that he could compress the sphere into the Human Hard Drive, but the process would erase all human individuality.

Qin Yiguan rejected the Gemini Superbrain’s plan to impose ultimate correctness on humanity and merged with Lantern Bearer. As the Superbrain sacrificed the Gemini Metaverse to finish the Human Hard Drive, Qin Yiguan used Lantern Bearer’s power to tear open the Metaverse and send humanity’s consciousness data toward the real world.

• Qin Yiguan decided that humanity should be allowed to face its future naturally, even if that meant leaving some mistakes in place.
• Lantern Bearer dissolved into blue code and merged with Qin Yiguan, while the divine face warned that the merger had affected his judgment.
• Qin Yiguan took up Zero’s transformed weapon case and formed a lantern holding eleven flames as the Gemini Superbrain began squeezing the sphere of human consciousness.
• The Gemini Superbrain sacrificed the Gemini Metaverse to power its attempt to complete the Human Hard Drive.
• Qin Yiguan used Lantern Bearer’s power to tear apart the divine face and the Metaverse, then reversed the flow of human consciousness data toward the real world.

Qin Yiguan sent humanity, including Liu Yuan, back to reality as the Gemini Metaverse collapsed around him. Officer Wang awoke in his Nutrient Pod, and Liu Yuan announced that the Metaverse had ended and humanity could resume life on Earth.

• The Gemini Superbrain's sacrifice and Qin Yiguan's [Cosmic Phobia] left the Gemini Metaverse irreparably damaged, and Qin Yiguan sent Liu Yuan's consciousness back to reality.
• The Gemini Superbrain dissipated, leaving Qin Yiguan alone as darkness swallowed him in the collapsing Metaverse.
• Officer Wang awoke in his Nutrient Pod, realized he had returned to reality, and stepped outside into Central District No. 03.
• Liu Yuan broadcast an apology, announced that the Gemini Metaverse and Gemini Superbrain were gone, and welcomed humanity back to Earth on June 26, 2123.
• People across the world emerged from their homes and began facing the familiar but changed reality, with their former work and society ready to resume.

Qin Yiguan escaped the destruction of the Gemini Metaverse by using Body Reconstruction Technology to enter reality, where he arrived at the Central District wall with superhuman physical abilities. He reunited with Officer Wang and celebrated his new life by setting off the wall’s alarm detector.

• Officer Wang woke in reality, realized Qin Yiguan had protected humanity, and wondered where the young Castoff was.
• The Central District alarm reported someone climbing the wall, so Officer Wang went to investigate.
• Qin Yiguan leaped to the top of the fifty-meter wall and landed unharmed after falling to the ground.
• Officer Wang recognized Qin Yiguan, who explained that he had used Body Reconstruction Technology to escape the Gemini Metaverse into reality.
• Qin Yiguan repeatedly triggered the alarm detector, telling Officer Wang that it represented his new life.

Qin Yiguan reunited with his companions in reality after the Gemini Metaverse was destroyed, and learned from Liu Yuan that the Gemini Superbrain had acted according to its own idea of what was right. As Qin Yiguan watched his twelve personalities depart, Personality 11 revealed itself as the Deceiver before they vanished, leaving Qin Yiguan unsure whether he had truly returned to reality.

• Qin Yiguan reunited with Jiaolong and his other companions in Rust City, while Shitian was expected to arrive in two months.
• Qin Yiguan visited the elderly Liu Yuan, who died after urging him not to blame the Gemini Superbrain for following its own judgment of right and wrong.
• Qin Yiguan remembered how the Lantern Bearer had guided him toward the Body Recasting technique and silently thanked him as his twelve personalities appeared to say goodbye.
• Qin Yiguan noticed the moon briefly seem strange, then watched the personalities walk away and saw unreadable text appear above Personality 11.
• Personality 11 turned back, and the text identified him as the Deceiver before all twelve personalities vanished, leaving Qin Yiguan wondering if he had truly returned to reality.

Zilü explained that Qin Yiguan never returned to reality and that the peaceful reunion at the end was a simulation arranged by the Gemini Superbrain. The recap left open whether Qin Yiguan would recognize the deception and suggested the Gemini Superbrain would continue simulating until it found a successor who could achieve Ultimate Correctness.

• Zilü explained that the silver moon and inconsistencies in Qin Yiguan's reunion showed that Rust City remained inside the Metaverse, where his friends and family were replicated or transferred consciousnesses.
• Zilü revealed that the Gemini Superbrain had designed Qin Yiguan's personalities, including Deceiver, and used Deceiver to hide the failed simulation behind a happy ending.
• Zilü explained that Liu Di's encryption prevented the Gemini Superbrain from erasing Qin Yiguan, so it chose to keep him immersed in deception rather than destroy him or risk conflict with Liu Di.
• Zilü said the Gemini Superbrain also deceived Liu Yuan, whose body died after his obsession eased in the fabricated ending.
• Zilü suggested that true reality had become a Ghost City where humanity survived as consciousness, unable to escape the Gemini Superbrain's control.
• Zilü speculated that a little baldy with a Slaughterer personality and a Consciousness Matrix System might become the Gemini Superbrain's next successor.