Chapter Summaries

Lina received the head chef’s encouragement and learned that the diners had enjoyed her cooking. Herta woke from a nightmare in which Chu Mu had controlled her, then teased and bit the real Chu Mu, while wondering whether the dream reflected her thoughts or memories.

• The head chef asked Lina about staying away from the dorm and promised to protect her from the man who had harassed her.
• The head chef praised Lina’s cooking and urged her to pursue bigger opportunities, and Lina thanked him for caring about her.
• Herta dreamed that Chu Mu had manipulated and restrained her as part of a plan involving the kitchen.
• Herta woke to find herself tangled in the blanket while Chu Mu had slept with only clothes for covers.
• Herta asked Chu Mu why he had let her keep the blanket, bit his shoulder after his answer, and kept her dream to herself.

Herta used her food demands to arrange for Lina to cook upstairs, while the head chef taught Lina about navigating hierarchy and developing her culinary career. The chapter ended with the head chef encouraging her to master southern cuisine before eventually forging her own style.

• Herta found Lina still working in the kitchen and asked for a different meat served thirteen ways that evening.
• The head chef explained to Lina that people at the bottom had to stay on good terms with those above them to avoid trouble.
• The head chef advised Lina to prepare suckling pig for Herta’s dinner and warned her to treat the request as a test.
• During lunch, Lina watched the head chef cook and wondered why he stayed in the underground kitchen despite his skill.
• The head chef advised Lina to focus on southern cuisine, then learn northern cuisine once she had established herself.

Number One visited Chu Mu and Herta, insisting they stay together for ten months until the child was born and dismissing Chu Mu's objections. Herta's carefully staged peacemaking won Number One's trust, and the chapter ended as Lina delivered food while reflecting on Number One's age.

• Number One arrived late and asked Herta whether she and Chu Mu had done it, then said she cared only about the result.
• Number One told Chu Mu that Number Seven had returned and wanted to hold his Coming-of-Age Ceremony, but insisted he wait ten months until the child was born.
• Chu Mu accused Number One of always controlling him under the pretense of protecting his health, while Herta tried to calm their argument.
• Herta promised Number One she would complete the mission, and Number One advised her to enjoy the process instead of treating it as a mission.
• Number One stayed to wait for Chu Mu's medicine to be absorbed, and Herta invited her to share the food she had ordered.
• Lina brought the food cart and, seeing Number One up close, reflected that even the Alliance's supreme leader would face aging and death.

Herta arranged for Lina to pass her intelligence to Kafka, while Number One promised Lina a future as a grand hotel chef. That night, Herta tied her arm to Chu Mu’s under the blanket as her proposed solution to their problem.

• Number One praised Lina’s cooking, promised to arrange for her to head a grand hotel kitchen, and left Herta’s home.
• Herta learned Lina had seen Stelle and March 7th, then instructed her to tell Kafka about Herta’s situation when Lina visited her father.
• Lina told the head chef about Number One’s promise, and he celebrated her future while Lina felt ashamed that she could not follow his hopes for her.
• Herta entered Chu Mu’s bedroom, put a blanket over him, and tied his left arm to her right arm as her solution for the night.

Herta tied her arm to Chu Mu’s so she would not roll away with the blanket, while Kafka’s group arranged a nearby base to monitor Giantwood Tower. On the way to the Funeral Association, they noticed a chemical-smelling man but dismissed him after learning a Chemical Pool worker had just finished his shift.

• Herta tied her arm to Chu Mu’s with a towel so she would not roll the blanket away, and they fell asleep beside each other.
• Kafka, Silver Wolf, Stelle, and March 7th chose an apartment overlooking Giantwood Tower and planned to have Goff sign the lease the next day.
• Kafka assigned Silver Wolf to watch the tower from the apartment while she continued overseeing the Military Uniform Factory and the Southern Women's Mutual Aid Association.
• Near the Funeral Association, the group passed a man muttering that everything was fake, and Stelle recognized the chemical smell from the Chemical Pool.
• March 7th asked Charles about the man and learned the Chemical Pool worker had just finished work, so the group set the incident aside and focused on rescuing Herta and Chu Mu.

Herta tried to stop herself from stealing Chu Mu’s blanket by tying her hands to the bed, but Number One found them bound and accused Chu Mu of treating her like a plaything. Chu Mu blamed Number One for ordering Herta to bear a child and revealed that he knew about a contingency she had hidden in the downstairs kitchen.

• Lina delivered Herta’s information to Kafka, who told her to reassure Herta that they were working on a rescue and warn her not to steal Chu Mu’s blanket.
• Herta woke up in bed with Chu Mu after tying her arm to his, and discovered she had rolled on top of him instead of taking the blanket.
• Number One warned Herta that she might separate her from Chu Mu if she was pregnant, then told Chu Mu to stop putting Herta through so much at night.
• Herta tied both hands to the bed with bath towels to keep from rolling over and stealing Chu Mu’s blanket.
• A week later, Number One found Herta bound to the bed and accused Chu Mu of treating her as a plaything.
• Chu Mu told Number One that she had ordered Herta to have a child for her and accused her of being like their father, then revealed that she had hidden a contingency in the downstairs kitchen.

Number One confronted Chu Mu and Herta with the Head Chef, whose secret efforts to help Chu Mu escape were exposed. The Head Chef died charging security, leaving Chu Mu grieving and Lina hidden nearby.

• Number One brought Chu Mu and Herta into the living room and had security bring in the Head Chef.
• Number One accused the Head Chef of betraying her by bribing guards to help Chu Mu escape.
• The Head Chef explained that he wanted to free Chu Mu because the young master had always eaten his food, and Chu Mu nodded through his grief.
• The Head Chef charged the security personnel after telling Chu Mu to keep eating well, and they shot him dead.
• Lina watched from a hidden partition, remembering how the Head Chef had taught her dishes and prepared her to continue his plan.

After the head chef died protecting Chu Mu, Herta chose to stay with him, while Lina quietly took over the cook’s role. That night, Chu Mu reflected on how his past self’s coldness might have grown from a different family and a life in a cage.

• Number One offered Herta a chance to leave, but Herta chose to stay until the child was born and asked Number One to treat Chu Mu better.
• Herta comforted Chu Mu as he grieved for the head chef, whose face and reasons for helping him Chu Mu could not remember.
• Herta discovered that Lina had remained in the kitchen and taken up the head chef’s work, while the guards underestimated both Lina and Herta.
• Herta planned to question the strange Chu Mu in her dream about her own identity and why she had come north.
• Chu Mu told Herta he feared becoming as cold as his past self, then wondered whether that self had lacked the loving family Chu Mu had in this life.

Herta listened to Chu Mu’s account of his past life and dreamed of his grief after A-Yuan died. She woke with a clearer sense of how his past and present selves differed, and how Kafka’s support had kept his present life from repeating the tragedy.

• Herta wondered how Chu Mu had gained Aeon power and how his past self differed from him now, then fell asleep.
• In her dream, Herta watched the past Chu Mu silently grieve while eating the meals A-Yuan had cooked for him.
• Past Chu Mu told Herta that he had used her to reach A-Yuan and that A-Yuan had been the family who gave him warmth.
• Herta invited past Chu Mu to the Southern Region, and he warned that Number One might threaten her family there.
• Herta woke before she could learn what her family did, then reflected that Kafka’s care had helped Chu Mu avoid another tragic life.

Number Seven struggled to reunite with her sisters and met Number Six at Giantwood University. She explained that she had returned to bring the family together and hold a coming-of-age ceremony for their little brother, and Number Six asked her to walk around campus first.

• Silver Wolf refined her plan to infiltrate the Giantwood Tower while Number Seven failed to reach her older sisters.
• Number Seven visited Giantwood University and remembered that she and her sisters had studied there.
• Number Six met Number Seven and confirmed that Number One had told their sisters to avoid her.
• Number Seven told Number Six she had returned to reunite their family and hold a coming-of-age ceremony for their little brother.
• Number Six fell silent and invited Number Seven to walk around campus with her.

Number Seven toured Giantwood University with Number Six and reflected on Number One’s plans to conquer the Southern Region and secure an heir. Later, Goff received praise for the 516 Military Uniform Factory’s productivity, though he privately suspected its doubled workforce explained the output.

• Number Seven saw the university’s military students and concluded that Number One was building toward war and an empire.
• Number Seven realized that Number One needed their younger brother’s child to secure her political position.
• Number Six showed Number Seven their father’s old laboratory and wondered whether Number One had found the hidden glacier laboratory.
• Number Seven asked Number Six to arrange a family meal and speak to Number One about the Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
• Number Seven and Number Six parted, with Number Seven promising to bring her better perfume.
• Reporters praised Goff’s management after he credited the factory’s productivity to his methods, while he privately wondered whether the workforce’s growth from four thousand to eight thousand was responsible.

Lina encountered Little Wood, the former owner of Wood Farm who had violated and abused her, on a deserted street in Giantwood City. Little Wood stole her money and taunted her as Lina froze in terror.

• Lina hurried through the cold with dinner for her father, Charles, when a homeless man confronted her for money or food.
• The homeless man recognized Lina, and she realized he was Little Wood, who had violated her when she served his household.
• Lina recalled how Little Wood’s wife had stripped him of his assets, leaving him and the servants destitute, and how the Head Chef had later driven him away for harassing her.
• Little Wood mocked Lina by asking where the Head Chef was and demanded spending money from her.
• Little Wood snatched Lina’s wallet, took its few resource points, and taunted her about being her first man as she cried.

Lina confronted Little Wood, resisted his attempt to take the meal she was carrying for her father, and left feeling that she had reclaimed her courage. As she walked toward the Funeral Association, someone crept up behind her and stabbed her.

• Little Wood’s words brought Lina back to the abuse he had inflicted on her and her father in the Southern Region.
• Little Wood tried to take the food Lina was carrying and claimed that she still belonged to him.
• Lina refused to hand over her father’s meal, pushed Little Wood down twice, and told him he could not take it.
• Little Wood ordered Lina to go away, and she walked toward the Funeral Association, newly confident in her ability to resist.
• Someone approached Lina from behind and stabbed her before she could turn around.

Charles waited for his daughter Lina at the Funeral Association, worried about the cold and haunted by his inability to protect her after her past trauma. When a body arrived from a nearby murder, he recognized the victim and learned that Lina had been taken into custody as the killer.

• Charles waited outside the Funeral Association for Lina, watching the streetlights because she feared the dark.
• A dispatch call sent a crew to collect a murder victim, but Charles stayed behind so he would be there when Lina arrived.
• When Lina still had not come back, Charles agreed to search for her after the crew unloaded the body.
• Charles lost his grip on the stretcher, and the victim’s face made him recognize the corpse.
• The middle-aged man said the victim had been found nearby and that a woman had been arrested at the scene.
• Charles realized the arrested woman was Lina and asked the driver to take them to the Police Station.

Kafka and her companions visited Lina at the police station after she killed her attacker, encouraging her to trust them and hold to her claim of self-defense. Lina regained hope and stopped stuttering, but Charles arrived at the station before they could keep her detention from her father.

• Kafka, Stelle, March 7th, and Silver Wolf met Lina at the police station and learned she feared she would die for killing her attacker.
• Kafka pointed to the cut in Lina's clothes and the man's past crimes as evidence supporting self-defense, and promised to find lawyers to clear her.
• Silver Wolf and Kafka reassured Lina that killing the man did not make her guilty, and Lina resolved not to give up for her father and friends.
• Kafka urged Lina to state consistently that the man attacked first and that she acted in self-defense.
• Kafka noticed Lina had stopped stuttering, and Lina was surprised and relieved by the change.
• Charles arrived at the station as Kafka and the others were leaving, revealing that they had not kept Lina's detention from him.

Chu Mu and Herta learned that Lina had killed the farmer who abused her, but as a Temporary Resident she had no legal right to self-defense. They concluded that the law upheld the city's social order and considered using chaos to force the authorities to change it.

• Chu Mu noticed Lina was missing after someone else prepared breakfast, so Herta went downstairs and questioned the cook.
• Herta learned that Lina had killed the farmer who had repeatedly hurt her, and Chu Mu regretted that she had risked her future.
• Chu Mu and Herta discussed how Lina's lack of Formal Citizen status denied her the right to claim self-defense.
• Chu Mu explained that law served to maintain social order, while Herta recognized how the city's laws enforced a hierarchy between Formal Citizens and Temporary Residents.
• Chu Mu proposed that chaos could force those in power to amend the law, noting that several members of his family excelled at creating it.

Chu Mu and Herta discussed the Stellaron Hunters’ crimes and agreed that Kafka and the others would act, while they tried to persuade Number One to help Lina. Number One refused to intervene in Lina’s case, but Herta and Chu Mu left her with the idea that changing the law was another option, leaving the outcome dependent on Kafka and the others and Number One’s response.

• Herta listed the Stellaron Hunters’ offenses, and Chu Mu said he had missed the incidents while away from the Space Station.
• Chu Mu told Herta that Kafka and the others would pass along their plan because they were his family, though he and Herta would still act themselves.
• Herta asked Number One to release Lina, but Number One explained that Lina’s status as a Temporary Resident left her without legal protection against a manslaughter charge.
• Number One said changing the law would take too long to help Lina before her verdict, and she left after arranging better food for Herta.
• After Number One left, Chu Mu said their conversation had planted the possibility of legal change in her mind, while Herta worried about whether the coming chaos could be contained.

Kafka turned Lina’s case into a public sensation, exposing Little Wood’s history and sparking a fierce debate over Temporary Residents’ rights. The controversy grew into a major social conflict as refugees made up an increasingly large share of Giantwood City’s population.

• Herta woke from her dream and realized that Kafka and the others had changed the course of this life’s events.
• Kafka organized a campaign of leaflets and fabricated letters that drew major media attention to the Lina Incident.
• Reporters uncovered Little Wood’s past through interviews with his ex-wife and former servants, turning him into a public disgrace.
• Experts and citizens argued over whether Temporary Residents should have the right to self-defense, intensifying divisions over social status.
• The growing refugee population in Giantwood City raised doubts about whether Temporary Residents would continue accepting their inferior rights.

The Lina Incident intensified conflicts between Formal Citizens and Temporary Residents, spreading unrest from poor neighborhoods to factories and wealthy districts. As Giantwood City approached the year-end trial, Number One faced mounting pressure to quell the chaos and wondered how to repair the failures behind it.

• The Lina Incident’s protests over Temporary Residents’ rights provoked hostility from poor Formal Citizens, and clashes escalated into armed brawls.
• The unrest spread into factories, halting production, and into wealthy districts as gangsters and thugs joined the violence.
• The upper classes sent letters demanding that the Big Shots intervene, forcing Number One to confront the crisis.
• Number One recognized that Lina was only a catalyst and that her past failure to protect local workers had helped create the conflict.
• Herta asked whether Number One was worrying about Lina, and Number One admitted that the greater fault was hers and wondered how she could make amends.

Number One explained that neglecting the lower classes had thrown society’s order out of balance, but she chose temporary concessions to contain unrest before the coming war. That evening, new laws calmed the immediate crisis, while Number One recognized that deeper conflict remained and urged Herta to have a child soon.

• Number One told Herta that poverty and unequal resources had driven the lower classes into conflict, and that giving them benefits could encourage further demands and weaken social order.
• Number One recalled her father’s teaching that order was the art of balance and realized that her focus on the military had contributed to society’s imbalance.
• Number One decided to offer benefits to the lower classes to contain the unrest, despite expecting greater problems later, and urged Herta to have a child as soon as possible.
• The evening news announced temporary residents’ right to self-defense and rules requiring factories to hire a proportion of full citizens at mandated wages.
• Full citizens initially grew angry, but factory owners accepted the regulations as a way to prevent unrest from spreading, and the immediate crisis subsided.