Chapter Summaries

Lin Yi and Tian Bufan discussed how the Teaching Building’s shifting layers, the Teachers’ Office, and its stairwell worked, including the mystery of Mao Feiyang’s disappearance. They then began analyzing the Cafeteria’s passages and what its rules implied about the different beings on Campus.

• Lin Yi and Tian Bufan reviewed the Head Teacher’s explanation of the strange events as a drill, and Tian Bufan said frightened students needed reassurance.
• At 22:20, Lin Yi noticed that the Dormitory Building hallway lights had gone out, and he and Tian Bufan continued their discussion from their beds.
• Tian Bufan explained that Basement Level One was a conceptual destination and possible transfer station, while the Teachers’ Office was an independent moving space anchored by belief.
• Tian Bufan theorized that the Teaching Building’s stairwell was a compressed, folded space and said Mao Feiyang had likely lost his cognition and failed to anchor himself.
• Lin Yi and Tian Bufan turned to the Cafeteria, where Tian Bufan explained that its meals could cleanse contamination but the building remained dangerous.
• Tian Bufan analyzed the Cafeteria’s passages as categories based on identity credentials and pointed out a rule about reporting anyone who used a passage other than the Student Passage.

Lin Yi and Tian Bufan compared their deductions about the Cafeteria’s passages, staff, and meal windows, concluding that abnormal chefs may emerge through a dangerous transformation process. Tian Bufan warned that Lin Yi’s encounter with a Green Apron Chef inside the Gymnasium meant it might no longer be safe, and the chapter ended with Lin Yi wondering whether Meal Window No. 10 was the Convenience Store.

• Lin Yi recalled the strange noises from the Staff Passage and speculated that the Cafeteria’s basement might process tomato elements.
• Lin Yi concluded that Blue Apron Chefs who serve food containing tomato elements may be losing their sense of self, and that the rules protect both them and students from contamination.
• Tian Bufan identified four kinds of abnormal cafeteria staff and said that only Blue Apron Chefs behaving normally at meal windows could be trusted.
• Lin Yi told Tian Bufan that a Green Apron Chef had appeared in the Gymnasium, and Tian Bufan reasoned that it might have been born there, making the Gymnasium less safe.
• Lin Yi described how Boss had helped him escape the Green Apron Chef, and Tian Bufan called Boss loyal.
• Tian Bufan questioned whether Meal Window No. 10 was truly a meal window, and Lin Yi suggested that it might be the Convenience Store.

Lin Yi and Tian Bufan reviewed the Campus’s dangers and theorized about the nonexistent road, the other world, and supernatural relics. Their discussion ended with Lin Yi wondering whether the book Tian Bufan had read really existed, as midnight approached.

• Tian Bufan warned Lin Yi that the Cafeteria remained dangerous despite its ordinary appearance and that they should stay cautious there.
• Lin Yi described the nonexistent road by the Gymnasium and his vision of a fog-shrouded sea, prompting Tian Bufan to propose that layers overlapped and that cognition could affect which layer someone entered.
• Lin Yi told Tian Bufan that Little Genius had appeared as an inhuman classmate and vanished down the nonexistent road, and Tian Bufan advised him to prioritize surviving if it happened again.
• Lin Yi asked about the strange lamps in the Gymnasium, and Tian Bufan said he had read that relics such as the Ancient Bronze Lamp might possess supernatural traits rooted in ancient civilizations.
• Lin Yi questioned whether Tian Bufan’s book had really existed, and Tian Bufan suggested that Lin Yi’s classroom might have one too.

Lin Yi uncovered signs that his memories and reasons for coming to Campus may have been manipulated, then went to sleep as the Dormitory lights went out. He woke in a memoryless vision of a classroom under attack, where a pure-white Sculpture entered and Nonhuman Classmates filled the Wooded Belt outside.

• Lin Yi suspected someone had altered his memories and arranged his entry into Campus, while Tian Bufan urged him to think carefully about what he wanted to do.
• Wei Liang, Kuai Hongji, and Wei Shan revealed that they had been awake and listening as Lin Yi and Tian Bufan talked.
• Lin Yi checked the Dormitory doors and windows, then fell asleep before the lights went out at midnight.
• Lin Yi woke with no memories in a classroom where Athlete Students and Art Students fought blue-gray, inhuman units with golden eyes.
• A pure-white Sculpture entered the classroom, and Lin Yi saw Nonhuman Classmates crowding the Wooded Belt outside.

Lin Yi was pulled through visions of Tian Bufan and Wei Shan, experiencing their terrifying encounters and fighting with Wei Shan’s apparent strength before the dreamlike world shifted again. The chapter left him bodiless in dense fog, wondering whose perspective he would enter next.

• The Security Guard disrupted the humanoid sculpture’s chanting, bound it with chains, and dragged it out of the classroom, allowing the Athlete Students to counterattack.
• Lin Yi discovered his Student ID identified him as Tian Bufan, then passed through a wall and returned to the desks where he had hidden the previous night.
• An inhuman classmate attacked Lin Yi, but he caught its arm and fought it with startling strength and brutality.
• Lin Yi’s violent fight drew the inhuman classmates and Art Students toward him, until he fell through the ground into the shattered-cloud surroundings.
• Lin Yi found a Student ID identifying him as Wei Shan, which crumbled in the wind as he realized he had been experiencing another person’s memories.
• The fog thickened around Lin Yi, and he discovered he had no visible or tangible body.

Lin Yi dreamed that he watched the previous day’s events from an unseen, omniscient perspective, including the Green Apron Chef contaminating Mao Feiyang and spreading its powder to the group. He followed his former self into the Teaching Building, left wondering why Wei Shan, the Security Guard, and Kuai Hongji seemed able to sense things beyond the dream.

• Lin Yi saw the Green Apron Chef mutilate itself to retrieve a tomato, then add it to the meals as creatures emerged from the fog to lick up the sauce.
• The Security Guard appeared before Lin Yi’s group from the previous day, sniffed toward Lin Yi’s present self, and continued into the fog.
• The Green Apron Chef called to Mao Feiyang in Lin Yi’s voice, pursued him, and contaminated him with white powder that spread to the others except Wei Liang.
• Lin Yi’s voice seemed to reach Mao Feiyang, who snapped out of his stupor and rejoined the group.
• Kuai Hongji confronted the Green Apron Chef beneath the Teaching Building-108 lamp and drove it away with a command.
• Lin Yi followed his former self and the others into the Teaching Building, where he discovered he could not wander beyond what they had experienced.

Lin Yi relived Mao Feiyang’s experiences after they separated, witnessing Mao Feiyang flee the Teachers’ Office when it became a black vortex and climb the Stairwell in search of the sculpture. The staircase transformed into a flooded stone passage lit by kerosene lamps, leaving Mao Feiyang inside an increasingly distorted space.

• Lin Yi followed his past self and Mao Feiyang to the Teachers’ Office, where Mao Feiyang saw an illusory door and a black vortex filled with a terrifying chant.
• Mao Feiyang remembered the Notice Board’s rule, escaped through the fire door, and told Lin Yi to follow the rules.
• Mao Feiyang climbed the left-hand stairs, but found no sculpture or stairway entrance and gradually entered an unfamiliar stone passage.
• Mao Feiyang noticed moss and running water on the passage walls and steps, while Lin Yi wondered whether Mao Feiyang was falling through Layers.
• Mao Feiyang continued upward as his vision changed, then discovered that the incandescent lights had become kerosene lamps and the passage had been distorted.

Lin Yi followed Mao Feiyang through the Stairwell as Mao escaped into a room numbered 2820, which Lin Yi recognized as a Dormitory room. Lin Yi suspected the Teaching Building and Dormitory Building were connected through shifting Layers, then realized Mao’s Contamination was reaching him and the others as Mao’s distress began to affect his perception.

• Mao Feiyang saw a sculpture at the cavern passage’s entrance and fled toward a concealed door behind it.
• Mao Feiyang opened the water-covered door, rushed inside, and shut it against the sculpture-filled passage.
• Lin Yi recognized the room number 2820 and concluded Mao had reached the Dormitory Building through the Stairwell, prompting him to speculate about connections between the buildings’ Layers.
• Mao Feiyang absorbed ghostly white particles in the hallway and emitted four streams of Contamination that Lin Yi identified as reaching himself, Young Master Tian, Wei Sang, and Kuai Kuai.
• Lin Yi realized Mao’s Contamination had been influencing his thoughts, and Mao’s fear began distorting Lin Yi’s perception of the hallway.

Lin Yi experienced Mao Feiyang’s terrifying passage through the Dormitory Building, where the corridor shifted into a fog-covered, mossy landscape that seemed connected to the ocean cliff. As strange sounds and a vision of an ancient ritual overwhelmed Mao Feiyang, Lin Yi was forced to share his terror and pain.

• Lin Yi calmed the distortions in his dream by focusing on Boss and realized he was seeing the Dormitory Building through Mao Feiyang’s perspective.
• Mao Feiyang encountered voices behind dormitory doors, and Lin Yi recognized that the stairwell’s doorway had changed into room 2820.
• Locks turned and residents pounded on their doors as fog spread through the corridor and water covered its mossy floor.
• Mao Feiyang heard ocean-like sounds, prompting Lin Yi to suspect that the foggy corridor had a falling connection to the cliff Layer.
• Lin Yi witnessed a vision of masked islanders performing a ritual around a bonfire, while Mao Feiyang and Lin Yi were overwhelmed by its terror and pain.

Lin Yi witnessed the Dorm Supervisor rescue Mao Feiyang from the fog and escort him through the dormitories while conducting his rounds. After entering the elevator, the Dorm Supervisor pressed the covered “↑” button, and the elevator began accelerating upward.

• Lin Yi saw fog-shrouded nonhuman entities swarm toward Mao Feiyang until the Dorm Supervisor arrived carrying an Old Kerosene Lamp and drove them away.
• The Dorm Supervisor asked Mao Feiyang for a Student ID or Student Commemorative Coin, then offered to take him to the Art Teacher when Mao Feiyang said he had just enrolled.
• The Dorm Supervisor told Mao Feiyang to close his eyes, led him into Dormitory 2819, and inspected the room while strange things rustled around them.
• The Dorm Supervisor shut the dormitory windows and raised his lamp until the rustling stopped, then continued his rounds with Mao Feiyang through Dormitory 2839.
• The Dorm Supervisor led Mao Feiyang into an elevator and pressed the covered “↑” button, causing the elevator to accelerate.

Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang followed the Dorm Supervisor through the dangerous Art Building with their eyes closed and reached an office, where Mao Feiyang registered as an Experience Student. The Art Teacher gave Mao Feiyang two rulebooks to study, and the chapter left him staring at the Art Building Rules’ unsettling opening admonition.

• Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang kept their eyes shut as the Dorm Supervisor led them through the Art Building, surrounded by the scraping sounds of nearby sculptures.
• The Dorm Supervisor brought Mao Feiyang to an office and had him register as an Experience Student before leaving.
• The Art Teacher introduced himself and instructed Mao Feiyang to read the Art Building Rules before the Art Student Rules.
• Lin Yi examined the office while Mao Feiyang opened the Art Building Rules and read its opening command to abandon cognition and overturn common sense.

Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang memorized the Art Building Rules, which explained the Castle, its protective light, and the different kinds of sculptures. The rules’ warning about Angel Sculptures led Lin Yi to recognize the Night Watchman from his visions and conclude that the Art Building occupied a different Layer.

• Mao Feiyang read through the Art Building Rules while Lin Yi memorized them and interpreted their explanations as attempts to shape students’ understanding of the Castle and its sculptures.
• Lin Yi connected the rules’ four sculpture types to the creatures he had seen in the Stairwell and reasoned that Angel Sculptures were powerful enough to require help from the Night Watchman.
• Lin Yi recognized the Night Watchman as the towering figure in a black trench coat carrying the Ancient Bronze Lamp from his visions.
• Lin Yi matched the visions’ Gothic Castle, Cliff, and ocean to the Art Building Rules and concluded that the Art Building occupied a separate Layer, confirming his and Tian Bufan’s deduction.

Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang learned the Art Student Rules, which explained the protections and dangers facing Art Students on the Art Journey. Mao Feiyang gave his Student Commemorative Coin to the Art Teacher for registration, and the teacher began writing his student record onto it.

• Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang realized the Art Building and its fog-shrouded surroundings existed in a real world outside S City.
• Mao Feiyang read the Art Student Rules, learning about the Student Commemorative Coin, campus protections, and procedures for surviving rule violations.
• Mao Feiyang found the cold plaster coin and questioned whether he should let the Art Teacher register it.
• The Art Teacher explained the registration and showed Mao Feiyang how his student record appeared on a form.
• Mao Feiyang failed to write on the coin with the fountain pen, so he handed it to the Art Teacher, who began inscribing the record with a burst of golden light in his eyes.

Lin Yi examined the Art Student Rules while Mao Feiyang recited them, reasoning about the Art Students’ place among the campus factions and the routes between layers. While picturing a bizarre geometric structure linking the buildings, Lin Yi nearly succumbed to a cognition-altering vision, but the Art Teacher pulled Mao Feiyang out of it and warned him to stop when darkness approached.

• Lin Yi saw the Art Teacher engrave Mao Feiyang’s Student Commemorative Coin and wondered whether the teacher could sense his presence.
• Lin Yi studied the Art Student Rules and speculated that Art Students might be hostile to the Security Guard and that their identity could result from contamination.
• Lin Yi traced the routes between the Teaching Building, Dormitory Building, and Art Building, then imagined them attached to an impossible geometric structure pierced by an elevator route.
• The geometric structure shattered in Lin Yi’s mind as darkness, strange chanting, and visions of a vast creature threatened to overwhelm him.
• The Art Teacher placed a hand on Mao Feiyang’s shoulder, ended the hallucination, returned his Student Commemorative Coin, and warned him not to think past the point where darkness began.
• Lin Yi wondered what Wei Liang had experienced during his previous visit and suspected that Wei Liang’s condition was more complicated than he had claimed.

Lin Yi analyzed the Art Student Rules and suspected the Art Teacher could help Art Students become Experience Students, while Mao Feiyang finished memorizing the rules and left the office. Mao Feiyang reached the Art Building’s castle grounds under the Art Teacher’s light, unaware that the bridge’s candlelight might no longer protect him.

• Lin Yi memorized Mao Feiyang’s Student Commemorative Coin number and reasoned that an Art Student might become an Experience Student by recovering a dead student’s ID and consulting the Art Teacher.
• At 4:00, Mao Feiyang questioned the Art Teacher about the world and its Sculptures, but the teacher warned him to follow the rules and avoid seeking out danger.
• The Art Teacher sent Mao Feiyang toward the Notice Board and advised him to keep the rules safe and consult them only in an art classroom or safe area beneath a light.
• Mao Feiyang found himself outside a Gothic castle and read the Notice Board’s warning that he could not turn back or escape by conventional means.
• The Art Teacher focused light on Mao Feiyang as he crossed the stone bridge, then noted that the bridge candles might no longer protect him and that Mao Feiyang had become an Art Student before getting his Student ID.

Lin Yi watched Mao Feiyang cross the ancient bridge and enter the Art Building, where candlelight kept hostile creatures at bay and the hall’s sculptures moved whenever Mao turned away. Mao resisted questioning the moving sculptures and found a signpost by the oak tree, leaving him to choose his next route.

• Lin Yi recognized the bridge’s strange candleholders as objects with supernatural traits while Mao Feiyang approached the Castle.
• Twisted creatures crawled beneath the bridge after Mao, but he reached the archway and escaped the fog’s advance.
• Mao walked through the dim corridor into a grand hall containing a shattered oak, an empty pedestal, ancient murals, and damaged sculptures.
• Lin Yi saw sculptures in the hall move through the darkness whenever Mao turned his back, while candlelight held them at bay.
• Mao noticed the sculptures seemed to have changed poses, but he reminded himself that sculptures could move and found a signpost behind the oak.

Mao Feiyang entered Art Classroom IV while an eerie female teacher and Student Cadres waited outside, and Lin Yi realized the Art Building was saturated with contaminants he could now perceive. Lin Yi suspected his growing exposure might be attracting nonhuman entities, while Mao Feiyang remained inside the classroom.

• Mao Feiyang followed the Covered Corridor signs to Art Classroom IV, and Lin Yi heard high heels approaching in the sea wind.
• An eerie female teacher and several Student Cadres reached the classroom door and pressed its handle, but they did not enter.
• Mao Feiyang moved away from the door and settled by a candlestick while Lin Yi considered whether the group needed an invitation to enter.
• Lin Yi examined the opera-house-like classroom and noticed its many Art Students, the Lookout passage, and the approaching dawn.
• Lin Yi saw white contaminant particles falling onto the Art Students and realized he could perceive them even with his eyes closed.
• Lin Yi connected his own exposure to Mao Feiyang’s contamination and wondered whether it was drawing nonhuman entities toward him.

Lin Yi deduced that directly perceiving Nonhuman Classmates caused contamination, which let them sense him, and he saw the Sailor Uniform Girl and her companions enter the Art Classroom as contamination emitters. The Art Teacher forced her way inside after the Sailor Uniform Girl invited her, then demanded the young man be handed over as an Art Student prepared to resist.

• Lin Yi linked the Student Rules to cognition, contamination, and the loss of a stable layer, and concluded that his own contamination made Nonhuman Classmates notice him.
• The Sailor Uniform Girl and her companions entered the Art Classroom, radiating Green Contamination that Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang could sense.
• The Art Teacher demanded that someone open the door, and the Sailor Uniform Girl invited her and her companions inside.
• The Art Teacher ordered her companions to seize the young man, but an Art Student knocked one of them unconscious and warned the group to leave before sunrise.
• The Art Teacher refused to leave without the young man, and the Art Student stood to confront her.

Lin Yi and the Art Students survived the eerie Art Teacher’s invasion when the Night Watchman rang the Clock Tower’s bell, then Lin Yi discovered the Art Classroom’s strange contamination and reconsidered how Wei Liang had escaped the Campus. The chapter left Lin Yi wondering whether Wei Liang had reached the Art Building through the Dorm Supervisor’s Office and found a way out.

• The eerie Art Teacher and the Art Student absorbed white powder particles, while the teacher released green powder that made Mao Feiyang and Lin Yi suffer an eerie transformation and hear a sinister chant.
• The Gray Fog invaded the Art Classroom, and the Art Student rang the Alarm Bell to rouse the other students and organize resistance.
• The Night Watchman rang the Old Antique Bell from the Clock Tower, shattered the prayer, and forced the Art Teacher and her companions to retreat after she recognized the chimes of the “day of destruction.”
• The Art Students told Lin Yi’s group to stay in the classroom, then returned to studying the mural and Relief Sculpture.
• Lin Yi saw the Art Students absorbing white powder from the mural and connected their transformation to Wei Liang’s earlier changes and the possible purifying effect of Cafeteria food.
• Lin Yi recalled Student Rules, Article 6, and wondered whether Wei Liang had used the Dorm Supervisor’s Office to reach the Art Building and escape the Campus.

While reviewing Mao Feiyang's experiences in a dream, Lin Yi discovered that Student Commemorative Coins drew contamination into Art Students and that Mao Feiyang shared it with four others. Mu Daxian befriended Mao Feiyang, hinted that becoming an Art Student could be reversed, and began introducing him to the classroom's supplies.

• Lin Yi suspected that Wei Liang's memories of his previous seven-day stay were damaged or deliberately suppressed.
• Lin Yi discovered that Mao Feiyang's Student Commemorative Coin attracted contaminating starlight and diverted it to Lin Yi, Tian Bufan, Wei Shan, and Kuai Hongji, prompting him to resolve to rescue Mao Feiyang.
• Mao Feiyang emerged from absorbing starlight at 11:40, and Mu Daxian approached him after noticing that he had absorbed four to five times as much as other Art Students.
• Mu Daxian warned Mao Feiyang that leaving for the Cafeteria during daytime would prevent his return until evening and suggested that eating was unnecessary.
• Mu Daxian's remarks led Lin Yi to infer that Security Guards brought Experience Students who lost their Student IDs to become Art Students and that the transformation could be reversed.
• Mu Daxian showed Mao Feiyang the classroom's books and art supplies, recommended mythology books, and warned him not to touch green pens or paints.