Chapter Summaries

Kafka arrived at the Refugee Home, learned how refugees were detained and processed, and established herself as a leader after confronting a woman who insulted her. When Herta, Silver Wolf, and the others arrived, Kafka revealed that A-Mu was being held by the leader of the Giantwood Alliance and needed rescuing.

• Number Seven explained that refugees stayed at the prison-like Refugee Home while awaiting recruitment, and that unselected refugees faced relocation or life as undocumented residents.
• Kafka registered at the Refugee Home and learned it housed over a thousand refugees, with many similar facilities across the north.
• After a woman insulted her, Kafka attacked her and warned that she had spared her because she had once been a slave too.
• Kafka gathered refugees around her and recorded the identification numbers of the people joining her organization.
• When Herta, Silver Wolf, and the others returned, Kafka told them that A-Mu was being held by the Giantwood Alliance's leader and that she had to rescue him.

Stelle, March 7th, Kafka, Silver Wolf, and Herta connected the strange world to Chu Mu’s resurrection and debated whether he could be an Aeon. After sharing information, they learned that no one knew the planet’s name, and the group prepared to continue searching for Chu Mu.

• March 7th wondered whether the bead had brought Chu Mu into the world and whether rescuing him could revive him, while Kafka said they needed to find him first.
• Herta confronted Kafka about the bead’s role in the Simulated Universe anomaly, and Kafka said several Aeons might be involved in the events surrounding Chu Mu.
• Silver Wolf suggested Chu Mu might be an Aeon, prompting Herta to question his identity and ask whether Kafka would lend him to her for research.
• Kafka proposed that the world had evolved from Chu Mu’s memories and might reveal his journey to becoming an Aeon, motivating Herta to compare information with her.
• The group shared what they knew about the world, but none of them knew the planet’s name; Number Seven’s father had said only powerful outsiders might eventually name it.

Herta planned for the group to spend a week recruiting members and gathering strength at the Refugee Home before heading to Giantwood City. As Charles secured a job there and Number Seven grew convinced the Southern Women's Mutual Aid Association was a gang, she began investigating the group in secret.

• Herta laid out a plan to recruit at least a thousand members, farm the Refugee Home dungeon for a week, and then travel to Giantwood City.
• Herta gave an interview about defying an arranged marriage, while the group endured poor food and learned that Charles's family had no records at the Refugee Home.
• Kafka and the others gathered information about the region and its employers at the Monday job fair, where Charles was hired by the Funeral Association in Giantwood City.
• Number Seven became suspicious when the five women stayed at the Refugee Home and recruited members for the Southern Women's Mutual Aid Association.
• Number Seven secured permission to investigate alone for a month and vowed to dismantle the group, though she had no evidence of a crime and the interview article had likely already been published.

Number Seven remembered a lonely family birthday and wondered where her family had gone. Meanwhile, her older sister visited her light-sensitive younger brother, gave him medicine, and read news of the troubled south, ending with a report about Miss Herta reaching Refugee Home No. 152.

• Number Seven looked at a photograph of her sister's birthday and wondered where her family was now.
• The white-haired woman turned on the lights, gave her younger brother a blue pill, and urged him to take his medicine regularly.
• The young man asked to hear the newspaper and said he still wanted to go south and become a shepherd.
• The woman recalled that eight years earlier, after their father died, her ten-year-old brother had asked to leave for the south, but she had refused.
• The woman read that the Redemption Army was fighting the Logging Association's allied forces over the river valley plain, and her brother worried the war would ruin its pastures.
• The woman began reading a report about Miss Herta, who had crossed the Great Desert to resist an arranged marriage and reached Refugee Home No. 152.

Chu Mu remained imprisoned by his eldest sister, who refused to let him stop taking medicine but agreed to install a radio. As he marked another day in the room, he pieced together that he was experiencing a world shaped by his past-life memories and feared that Kafka and Silver Wolf had entered an Aeon’s scheme to find him.

• Chu Mu’s eldest sister praised a newspaper report about the south and said it could serve as a model for propaganda.
• Chu Mu asked to stop taking his eye medicine, but his sister refused and insisted their father had made it to treat him.
• Chu Mu asked for a radio so he could listen to music, and his sister agreed before locking him in the room again.
• Chu Mu scratched his thirtieth tally mark and reflected on his month in captivity, his seven older sisters, and how he might have entered another person’s body.
• After recognizing the names Herta, Kafka, Silver Wolf, Stelle, and March 7th, Chu Mu concluded that he was experiencing a world formed from his past-life memories.
• Chu Mu worried that Kafka and Silver Wolf had entered the Simulated Universe and become pawns in an Aeon’s scheme, then wondered about another family member he had never met.

Kafka and Herta built the Southern Women's Mutual Aid Association into a thousand-member organization and sent its recruits to jobs in Giantwood City, where the factory would serve as their base and domestic workers could gather intelligence. Number Seven set out to reunite with her sisters, while the chapter introduced Goff, the newly appointed director of Military Uniform Factory 516, who planned to profit from its materials.

• Kafka's association recruited over a thousand members by offering free job-application advice.
• Kafka and Herta chose Military Uniform Factory 516 as the association's base and sent some members to the Domestic Service Association to develop an intelligence channel.
• The association's recruits boarded a train for Giantwood City, but Number Seven arrived after it had departed and drove there in her conspicuous red sports car.
• Number Seven reflected on her late father and younger sister as she drove toward the city, hoping her sisters would recognize her car and reunite with her after eight years.
• Goff, a former management trainee, became the director of Military Uniform Factory 516 through his marriage and connections, and considered skimming resources to build his savings.

At the 516 Military Uniform Factory, Kafka and the southern workers confronted Director Goff and forced him to accept their self-management. Goff agreed to stay out of the workshop and let them control the accounts, taking only a fifth of the under-the-table income.

• Goff was praised by his colleagues for the factory’s disciplined workers and celebrated his apparent success.
• Drunk, Goff returned to the factory intending to give the workers a speech, but found them waiting silently in the dark workshop.
• Kafka and two workers covered Goff’s head with a black bag and proposed that they cooperate.
• Kafka persuaded Goff that the workers could meet production quotas without management from above.
• Goff agreed to stay in his office, leave the factory accounts to the workers, and take twenty percent of the under-the-table income.

Goff lost control of the 516 Military Uniform Factory as the Southern Women's Mutual Aid Association took over its operations, while Herta became a celebrated public figure in Giantwood City. After Herta's growing fame brought her to the attention of Chu Mu's family, she was abruptly summoned to meet him and asked to bear a child for them.

• Goff was pushed aside as the Mutual Aid Association took over the 516 Military Uniform Factory, improved workers' conditions, and managed its finances.
• Goff received commendations for the factory's performance but grew uneasy about the association's influence and felt trapped in his role as its figurehead and scapegoat.
• Reporters and broadcasters made Herta a media sensation, and she accepted business endorsements while declining a movie role.
• Herta used her growing public profile to try to attract Chu Mu's attention, but officials in black took her to meet him after a radio recording.
• A mature woman introduced Chu Mu as her younger brother, then asked Herta whether she had reached puberty and could give their family a child.

Number One pressured Chu Mu and Herta into a marriage and children, while Chu Mu and Herta pretended to be strangers under her watch. Herta boldly played along, and Chu Mu suggested they get to know each other by sharing stories about the south.

• Number One told Chu Mu she wanted him and Herta to have children, offering them a pasture in the south afterward.
• Chu Mu objected that the marriage was absurd and asked to get to know Herta first, so Number One left them alone while listening outside.
• Chu Mu pretended not to know Herta and warned her not to take Number One's demands too seriously.
• Herta acted as if she would gladly have several children with Chu Mu, then sat on his lap and urged him to make one immediately.
• Chu Mu pushed Herta away and said he wanted their souls to connect before their bodies, then asked her to tell him stories about the south.

Herta told Chu Mu a southern folktale about a shepherd who freed the grassland from a wolf, using the story to convey a request to Number One. Number One took Herta aside, asserted control over their arranged marriage, and asked when she would have a baby.

• Herta recognized that Chu Mu wanted to hear a story about a shepherd and told him a folktale about a shepherd defeating a wolf and freeing the grassland.
• After the story, Number One entered and asked Herta to speak with her outside the room.
• Herta noticed the iron-barred windows and reflected on how difficult it would be to escape or pass her location to Kafka.
• Number One praised Herta's obedience, called them family, and warned her that she was fortunate to have been chosen as Chu Mu's match.
• Number One asked whether Herta liked Chu Mu, then asked when she would have a baby.

Herta pretended to accept Number One’s matchmaking plans while probing for a way to leave and investigating a cook named Lina. The chapter ended with Herta pulling Chu Mu toward his bedroom after insisting they try to make a baby.

• Herta acted shy and interested in Chu Mu as Number One advised her to win him over with stories, then asked whether she could return to her companions.
• Number One refused to let Herta leave and hurried away after learning that Number Seven had entered the city.
• Herta explored the guarded residence, went downstairs, and met Lina, a southern cook whose name reminded her of Charles’s daughter.
• Herta ordered Lina to prepare a lamb dish, then returned to Chu Mu’s room and urged him to come inside with her.

In the dark bedroom, Herta questioned Chu Mu and concluded that they were reenacting a memory from his past life, with her role offering a way out. Chu Mu revealed that he was a Fallen Aeon born after his previous incarnation fell, leaving Herta wondering whether that incarnation’s return would erase him.

• Herta had Chu Mu answer questions by squeezing her hand and inferred that he was an amnesiac Aeon inside a memory of his past.
• Herta proposed that she and Chu Mu work together to study him and discussed two possible ways to escape the memory.
• Herta described a possible escape route involving the daughter of an old man she had rescued, and Chu Mu suggested the coincidence came from his past-life memories.
• Chu Mu told Herta that he had come into being after his previous incarnation fell and explained that Yaoshi might want to resurrect and kill that incarnation.
• Herta asked Chu Mu whether his previous incarnation’s awakening would cause Chu Mu to cease to exist.

Chu Mu told Herta that he did not resent Yaoshi for keeping him alive, but Herta urged him to live for his family and himself. As Herta’s meal-time plan brought Lina into their room, Lina’s memories revealed the painful history behind her relationship with her father, Charles.

• Chu Mu said he felt grateful to Yaoshi for saving him and hoped she could live well, while Herta warned him that his family needed him alive.
• Herta explained her plan to use Lina to contact Charles and have him reach Kafka and the others at the Military Uniform Factory.
• Herta kept the armed guard outside by claiming that his presence could endanger her unborn baby, then invited Lina to sit and eat with them.
• Herta asked Lina whether her father was Charles, and Lina remembered being taken from him and learning to obey after he was abandoned and she was abused.

Herta told Lina that her father Charles was alive and worked for the Funeral Association in Giantwood City, and Lina agreed to keep the information secret. After Lina left, Herta and Chu Mu discussed geniuses, ordinary people, and loneliness before Herta asked Chu Mu about his Path.

• Herta asked Lina whether she hated her father, then revealed that Charles was alive and worked for the Funeral Association in Giantwood City.
• Herta warned Lina not to tell anyone about Charles, explaining that she had saved him, and Lina resolved not to betray Herta and Chu Mu.
• Lina pushed the meal cart past security, who found no contraband and assumed Herta had eaten most of the dish.
• Herta explained that she had used the meal to create more chances to interact with Lina, then discussed her social skills and the differences between geniuses and ordinary people with Chu Mu.
• Herta described the loneliness of geniuses and some exceptions among the Aeons, then asked Chu Mu what his Path was.

Chu Mu and Herta teased each other before agreeing to share a bed in the cold room. Meanwhile, Number Seven returned to Giantwood City and asked Number One whether she had found their father’s hibernation base.

• Chu Mu dodged Herta’s question about his Path and joked that she was mentally a granny, prompting her to bite his shoulder.
• Herta explained that Chu Mu should not call her Granny Herta while she was in her young-girl body.
• Chu Mu and Herta decided to share the bed, and he fell asleep while she stayed awake in the cold room.
• Number One and Number Seven discussed their father’s hidden hibernation base beneath the glacier that once covered Giantwood City.
• Number Seven, after a difficult two-week journey, reunited with Number One at Giantwood Tower and asked whether she had found the base.

Number Seven learned that Number One planned to keep Ah Mu for ten more months in exchange for his child, leaving her unable to secure a family gathering. Meanwhile, Stelle and March 7th struggled to get back to the Military Uniform Factory after Herta’s disappearance and found themselves one resource point short of bus fare.

• Number Seven asked Number One about Ah Mu and pleaded for a coming-of-age celebration, but Number One said she would pass the proposal to the others.
• Number One told Number Seven that Ah Mu’s eyesight was failing and that he had agreed to give her a child before she let him leave in ten months.
• Stelle and March 7th worried about how to explain Herta’s disappearance to Kafka and bought discounted lamb chops with their remaining resource points.
• Stelle frightened March 7th with a story about young women disappearing across Giantwood City, and they hurried to the bus stop.
• Stelle and March 7th discovered the heated night bus cost one extra resource point, leaving them unable to afford a ride for both of them.

After Charles mistook Stelle and March 7th for acquaintances in the dark, he offered them a ride to the city center in his truck. They discovered he was transporting a murdered woman’s body, and Charles warned them that Giantwood City had become dangerous at night.

• Charles startled Stelle and March 7th on the road, then offered to take them to a bus stop because they had no money for the bus.
• Stelle and March 7th rode in Charles’s truck beside a stretcher carrying a young woman’s corpse, which was briefly uncovered during a turn.
• Charles explained that the woman had been killed by a robber and that her poor family might not be able to claim her body.
• Charles brought the body to the Funeral Association and offered Stelle and March 7th hot food, but they declined.
• Charles warned the girls to avoid going out at night and said that boys were also being killed in the chaotic city.

March 7th and Stelle helped Lina reunite with her father, Charles, at the Funeral Association. Lina revealed that Herta was being held with Chu Mu beneath Giantwood Tower, where Lina worked.

• Charles explained that he was working extra shifts to save money for a missing-person notice to find his daughter, Lina.
• Lina arrived at the Funeral Association looking for Charles, and March 7th and Stelle brought her inside to find him.
• Charles emerged from the elevator and reunited with Lina after warning them away from the Chemical Pool.
• Lina revealed that she knew Herta and described Herta’s plans involving Chu Mu, prompting Stelle and March 7th to react with surprise.
• Charles offered to take March 7th and Stelle to the Bus Stop, and they learned that Lina worked in Giantwood Tower, beneath which Herta and Chu Mu were being held.

March 7th and Stelle returned to the Military Uniform Factory after gathering information about Herta and Chu Mu, and Kafka welcomed them with gentle concern. Stelle began explaining what they had learned, including the claim that Herta was having Chu Mu's baby.

• March 7th and Stelle met Number Seven at a bus stop in Giantwood City, where Number Seven learned they worked at the 516 Military Uniform Factory and planned to investigate it.
• Number Seven declined March 7th's offer to stay with them and waited alone for her sports car to be repaired so she could visit her older sisters.
• March 7th and Stelle arrived at the Military Uniform Factory and found Kafka waiting for them at the gate.
• Kafka explained that she had worried when they failed to return on time, then offered them hot tomato and beef brisket soup without scolding them.
• Stelle apologized to Kafka and reported what Lina had told them; Silver Wolf spluttered when Stelle mentioned that Herta was having Chu Mu's baby.

Kafka, Silver Wolf, Stelle, and March 7th planned to rescue Chu Mu from Herta, who was holding him in Giantwood Tower, while discussing the dangers and the weapons they would need. Kafka also realized that March 7th had revealed the Stellaron Hunters’ factory hideout to Number Seven, prompting her to tighten security as Number Seven returned to her hotel.

• Silver Wolf laughed at the news about Herta and Chu Mu, but Kafka insisted they needed to rescue them rather than wait ten months.
• Kafka recalled how she had tried to keep Chu Mu connected to others, first through Asta and later through Tingyun, as his growing divinity made him more withdrawn.
• Kafka warned that Number One might kill Chu Mu and Herta to silence them, and said the group needed to scout Giantwood Tower and obtain guns before attempting a rescue.
• Stelle suggested borrowing Number Seven’s gun, and Silver Wolf clarified that she meant taking it without returning it.
• March 7th admitted she had invited Number Seven to visit the factory, and Kafka took responsibility while ordering the factory’s security strengthened.
• Number Seven returned exhausted to her hotel and sneezed, wondering why the night felt so cold.