Recaps

Qin Manjiang and Bai Hongdan learned that the corpse identified as Bai Yang belonged to a version of him at least ten years older, while Qin Manjiang suspected the Ghost Story Game was involved. After leaving the dissection room, Qin Manjiang received a new detection on the Eye Realm.

• Xia Nan let Qin Manjiang and Bai Hongdan into the dissection room, where he revealed that the corpse was genetically Bai Yang but its teeth indicated he was about thirty-eight years old.
• Xia Nan told Zhou Fan that the corpse appeared to be Bai Yang from at least ten years in the future and had kept the other staff away from it.
• Bai Hongdan said she had not seen her second brother in three years and doubted he was dead, while Qin Manjiang withheld what he knew about the Ghost Story Game.
• Bai Hongdan recognized Qin Manjiang from a photo and asked whether he had become involved in supernatural trouble.
• Qin Manjiang rushed away when his heart began pounding, opened the Eye Realm, and saw a detection notice for an unidentified ghost story.

Qin Manjiang tried to stop Xia Nan from opening an unfamiliar phone link, but Xia Nan accepted the Eye Realm’s recruitment and began a personal game. Qin Manjiang realized that Xia Nan and Qiao Ziruo might belong to his Eye Realm rather than the Ghost Story Game, and wondered whether he could recruit other players and give them different tasks.

• Qin Manjiang saw that the Eye Realm had recruited Xia Nan and rushed to warn him not to open an unfamiliar link on his phone.
• Qin Manjiang told Xia Nan that the link could subject him to something like Yang’s case, and Xia Nan explained why he believed supernatural forces existed.
• Xia Nan opened the recruitment message, chose Forensic Doctor as his code name, and received a personal game about his body slipping out of his control.
• Xia Nan asked whether the hidden world was called Eye Realm, and Qin Manjiang saw those words on Xia Nan’s phone.
• Qin Manjiang told Xia Nan to save his number and contact him after speaking with Zhou Fan, then wondered whether he could take players from the Ghost Story Game and assign them more reasonable tasks.

Xia Nan’s body began acting on its own and his senses failed while he argued with Officer Zhou Fan over Bai Yang’s autopsy report. As Xia Nan fled the Dissection Room, his injuries worsened, and Zhou Fan was reminded of something Jiang Du had told him twenty years earlier.

• Qin Manjiang wondered whether the thirty-eight-year-old Yang was connected to the [Reverse-Time Hourglass] and thought about his ties to people from Moon City.
• Xia Nan refused Zhou Fan’s demand to rewrite the autopsy report as a normal fire-charred corpse.
• Xia Nan’s finger twitched without his control, and his leg kicked Zhou Fan before he realized what had happened.
• Cuts appeared on Xia Nan’s face and arm, and he discovered that his body and senses were no longer under his control.
• Xia Nan left the Dissection Room and warned Zhou Fan not to let anyone touch Bai Yang’s body, while more cuts appeared across him.
• Zhou Fan recalled a conversation with Jiang Du about trusting one’s own heart when questioning whether the world was real.

Xia Nan’s body began violently slipping out of his control as he and Qin Manjiang tried to reach Cityheart Lake. The chapter ended with Qin Manjiang escaping Xia Nan’s strangling grip, only for all ten of Xia Nan’s fingers to break backward.

• Qin Manjiang analyzed the [Out of Control] Ghost Story and realized it had no geographical boundaries, while Xia Nan described how his skin had split open and his limbs had begun moving uncontrollably.
• Qin Manjiang drove Xia Nan toward Cityheart Lake, and Xia Nan observed that his wounds looked like cuts from something invisible and sharp.
• Xia Nan’s hands suddenly clamped around Qin Manjiang’s neck, and Qin Manjiang escaped by reclining the car seat and pinning Xia Nan’s arms with his legs.
• Xia Nan’s fingers bent backward and broke, leaving Qin Manjiang wondering what was causing his body to go out of control.

Xia Nan and Qin Manjiang investigated the cause of Xia Nan’s involuntary movements and discovered invisible hair controlling his limbs inside the car. They left the enclosed space, but Qin Manjiang’s reminder about the warning that Xia Nan’s neck would twist left them fearing another danger.

• Qin Manjiang helped the injured Xia Nan back to the car so they could test whether an internal or external force was controlling his body.
• Inside the car, Xia Nan’s left leg rose unnaturally, and Qin Manjiang pulled him out before the movement could worsen.
• Xia Nan saw dense, living black hair wrapped around his leg in the rearview mirror, then watched it vanish when he left the car.
• Qin Manjiang and Xia Nan concluded that invisible hair in an enclosed space was controlling Xia Nan’s limbs, and Xia Nan said he needed to keep moving.
• Qin Manjiang recalled that Xia Nan’s Opening Lines also warned of his neck twisting, leaving them uncertain when that danger would strike.

Xu Yi and the others met Bai Hongdan to learn that Bai Yang’s body was decades older than it should have been, while Qin Manjiang had left with an injured forensic doctor. The chapter ended with Qin Manjiang and Xia Nan at Cityheart Lake, aware that their bodies were acting without their control but unsure how to stop it.

• Zhong Xueran tried to enter the General Bureau, but Xu Yi stopped her and called Bai Hongdan over to speak with them.
• Bai Hongdan took Xu Yi, Zhong Xueran, Shen Hai, and Liu Jingqing to the Catface Café, where she said the body found at the fire scene was Bai Yang’s but appeared to be at least thirty-eight years old.
• Bai Hongdan told them that Qin Manjiang had left for the garage with an injured forensic doctor, prompting Shen Hai and Xu Yi to depart.
• Bai Hongdan asked Zhong Xueran and Liu Jingqing to tell her something about Bai Yang.
• At Cityheart Lake, Qin Manjiang and Xia Nan discussed how their bodies were moving without their control, and Qin Manjiang said he understood the feeling.

Xia Nan suspected that the Ghost Story was tricking him into constantly moving and decided to stay still long enough to discover what happened next. Qin Manjiang warned him that the hair must have a source, leaving Xia Nan to face the risk alone.

• Xia Nan told Qin Manjiang that the hair appeared after he stayed in one place for three minutes and that the escalating loss of control might be bait.
• Xia Nan theorized that the Vengeful Ghost was using fear to make players keep moving, hiding a deadly later stage involving his neck.
• Xia Nan decided to remain in one place for three minutes to expose the true Path to Survival, while Qin Manjiang moved away to watch from a distance.
• Qin Manjiang reminded Xia Nan that the hair had to grow from a source and urged him to be careful.
• Xia Nan put aside his suspicions about Qin Manjiang and told him he did not blame him for what might happen.

Xia Nan discovered and destroyed the red comb that was producing the hair attacking him, clearing the [Loss of Control] Ghost Story. The game then locked, announced its preliminaries had ended, and activated Infinite Mode, pulling all players away from the real world.

• Outside the café, Shen Hai questioned Xu Yi about helping Qin Manjiang, but Xu Yi denied knowing anything, so Shen Hai abandoned his pursuit while Xu Yi continued following him.
• At Cityheart Lake, Xia Nan used a mirror to watch his body and dodged his right hand when it tried to strangle him.
• Xia Nan saw living black hair appear in the mirror and discovered it was growing from a red comb suspended behind his back.
• As the hair crushed his legs, Xia Nan slammed his back against the sink and broke the comb, freeing himself from its attack.
• The Ghost Story Game announced that [Forensic Doctor] had cleared [Loss of Control], locked the game, began calculating Spirit Pupil, and activated Infinite Mode.
• The game declared the preliminaries over and pulled all players’ consciousnesses from the real world.

The forty-nine surviving players were summoned to the Eye Realm, where Nie Yunzhen announced that Yang was dead and revealed the higher-dimensional being behind the Ghost Story Game. She explained that the players must light all ten Spirit Pupil Dark Spots to survive, then defined Infinite Mode as allowing each ghost story to connect to Infinite Hell and become an Ultimate Game.

• The surviving players arrived in the Eye Realm, where Shen Hai recognized Qin Manjiang as the new player Forensic Doctor and suspected he could enter the game by other means.
• Nie Yunzhen appeared transformed and announced that she was the current First Seat and that the previous First Seat, Mr. Yang, was dead.
• Nie Yunzhen told the players that the Eye Realm was the true Ghost Story Game and that a higher-dimensional existence had created it.
• Nie Yunzhen pointed out ten Spirit Pupil Dark Spots representing Ultimate Games, said two were lit through Shen Hai and Yellow Springs Opera, and urged the players to light the remaining spots.
• A female player asked Nie Yunzhen what Infinite Mode meant, and Nie Yunzhen explained that only one game would begin at a time, but every ghost story could connect to Infinite Hell and become an Ultimate Game.

The Eye Realm began the Ping'an Hospital ghost story and selected six players, including Qin Manjiang, Wen Liangsheng, Chen Zhiyuan, and Xinxin. After the six were covered in blood and drawn into the third Spirit Pupil, all the players returned to the real world as the game began.

• The third Spirit Pupil revealed Ping'an Hospital as the next ghost story, with a seven-day time limit but no listed requirements or start time.
• The eyes selected Wen Liangsheng, Chen Zhiyuan, Xinxin, Li Daiping, and Jian Cunxin, displaying their names above them.
• The enormous spiral pupil singled out Qin Manjiang, who realized it had watched him in earlier games as well.
• Blood covered the six selected players and was absorbed into the third Spirit Pupil.
• The players returned to the real world, and a voice announced that Ping'an Hospital had begun.

Qin Manjiang and five other players began a Ghost Story Game as new caregivers at Ping'an Hospital, where Head Nurse Liu Junqiu assigned them to choose one patient each. Qin Manjiang chose Li, a patient with doppelgänger syndrome, after recognizing something familiar in her condition.

• Qin Manjiang woke with Chen Zhiyuan, Wen Liangsheng, Xinxin, Li Daiping, and Jian Cunxin in caregiver uniforms as Liu Junqiu introduced them to their duties.
• Li Daiping chose the nine-year-old boy with micropsia after Liu Junqiu warned that he had hurt many people.
• The group declined to take the twenty-five-year-old man with walking corpse syndrome after Liu Junqiu said his previous caregiver had gone mad.
• Qin Manjiang volunteered to care for the twenty-one-year-old woman with doppelgänger syndrome, whose delusions made her dangerously suspicious of others.
• Liu Junqiu told Qin Manjiang that the patient used the single-character name Li and would go berserk if addressed by her full name.

At Ping'an Hospital, the players chose patients to care for and began inspecting the unsettling ward before their shift. They discovered blood and a woman's corpse hidden beneath fresh plaster in the corridor wall.

• Nurse Liu assigned Jian Cunxin patient number four, Chen Zhiyuan patient number six, and Wen Liangsheng patient number two after the three drew lots.
• Nurse Liu told the group to wait in the break room until the eleven o'clock shift change and warned them not to wander.
• Chen Zhiyuan suggested that the break room might be the only safe place, while Qin Manjiang pointed out that the hospital's flimsy doors, unprotected windows, gray surfaces, and yellow lighting were unusual.
• Wen Liangsheng noticed that the corridor wall had been repainted recently, and Jian Cunxin smelled blood and scraped away the fresh coating.
• Wen Liangsheng picked at the plaster and exposed the outline of a woman's face, revealing a corpse embedded in the wall.

Nurse Liu assigned the six visitors to patients in separate ward buildings, and Qin Manjiang headed alone to the Third Ward Building to find patient number three, Li. As he entered the dark building, the [I] doll moved in his hand.

• Nurse Liu ordered the six to tend to their assigned patients and warned them to be in their rooms by ten thirty.
• Chen Zhiyuan proposed that the group cooperate and form a contact group, but Qin Manjiang left before the discussion ended, followed by Jian Cunxin.
• Qin Manjiang noted that Ping'an Hospital's full moon did not match the lunar date in reality and set off for the Third Ward Building.
• Qin Manjiang entered the Third Ward Building and began searching for Li, patient number three.
• Qin Manjiang felt the [I] doll move in his palm and realized it seemed to have come alive.

Qin Manjiang discovered that his Permanent Item, the doll [I], had come alive and was guiding him through the hospital. After entering the only lit room on the Third Floor, he saw the door display identify him as Li.

• The doll [I] tugged Qin Manjiang left, bit him when he poked it, and showed that it could move and understand him.
• Qin Manjiang followed the doll's direction, found an empty plastic bag that smelled of bloody raw meat, and kept it.
• Qin Manjiang climbed to the Third Floor with the doll and approached Li's illuminated room before his ten-thirty deadline.
• The room's door opened by itself, and a powerful suction pulled Qin Manjiang inside as the ward lights came on.
• Qin Manjiang found the room empty and saw the LED screen identify him as Li, admitted.

Qin Manjiang experienced a terrifying encounter in Li’s ward, died, and suddenly found himself back at the doorway before the night’s events had fully begun. After Nurse Liu arrived and left him alone with Li, Li asked whether he was someone from outside.

• Qin Manjiang found himself transformed into Li and hid in the dark ward as a twisted figure approached his bed.
• The figure snapped Qin Manjiang’s neck, but he opened his eyes at the ward entrance with Li alive on the bed and the time showing 10:28.
• Qin Manjiang noticed bruised fingerprints on Li’s neck as the sound of high heels approached, and Li asked him to let her attack him.
• Li bit Qin Manjiang’s arm while he struggled to break free, and the twisted figure at the doorway became Nurse Liu.
• Nurse Liu told Qin Manjiang to watch Li and left the ward, after which Li asked if he was someone from outside.

Li Daiping entered Ward One to investigate Xiaozhi, a nine-year-old boy whose micropsia could make people appear smaller. Xiaozhi shrank Li Daiping and killed him in the toilet, leaving Li Daiping’s corpse exposed beneath the bedcovers.

• Li Daiping carried a [False Tear] into Ward One as a last-resort defense, despite its condition that every other player must touch him to restore him from statue form.
• Li Daiping entered Xiaozhi’s ward while the boy appeared asleep and noticed a dark figure in the washroom.
• Li Daiping realized he had shrunk and was standing inside the toilet as a huge, water-covered Xiaozhi appeared above him.
• Li Daiping searched for the [False Tear] but found it missing as Xiaozhi flushed the toilet.
• A torrent of blood and remains pulled Li Daiping into the drain, killing him, and Xiaozhi revealed Li Daiping’s filthy corpse beneath the covers.

Xinxin visited Lian Yan and learned that he knew Ping'an Hospital was an independent world within the Ghost Story Game. As an Inspector approached, Lian Yan demanded her medical record and warned that he would have to attack her to maintain his role as a necrophile patient.

• Xinxin followed the sound of Lian Yan's violin to his ward and met him.
• Lian Yan told Xinxin that Nurse Liu was the only person besides the patients in the hospital and suggested she was more suspicious than they were.
• Lian Yan said he could not escape because the world existed through Nurse Liu and his role in the game made him a psychiatric patient who deserved suspicion.
• Lian Yan revealed that he had seen people like Xinxin arrive from outside the independent world, leaving her stunned that an NPC knew about the Ghost Story Game.
• As footsteps approached, Lian Yan demanded Xinxin's medical record and warned that he would have to attack her if the Inspector saw them together.

Qin Manjiang resisted Li’s attempt to manipulate him and bargained with her for information about the Main Building in exchange for the medical record. He left the Third Ward Building and reached the Main Building with the Doll, preparing to enter.

• Li told Qin Manjiang that she had entered and controlled his body, then directed him to the Main Building for something he needed.
• Qin Manjiang pretended to leave, caught Li watching the medical record, and offered to trade it for information.
• Li said that the person in the Main Building would not come that night and that Qin Manjiang’s needed item was there.
• After Qin Manjiang left, Li’s body churned as she said she wanted to leave and that it was time for someone else.
• Qin Manjiang crossed the hospital grounds with the Doll and arrived at the Main Building, asking it to watch his back.

Qin Manjiang followed a trail of fresh blood through the Main Building before a suspicious phone call from Chen Zhiyuan made him realize someone else might be calling. Earlier, Chen Zhiyuan had encountered a self-harming patient who attacked him, and he discovered medicine that he urgently wanted to tell Qin Manjiang about.

• Qin Manjiang entered the Main Building at night and followed a trail of fresh blood upstairs, using his doll to help detect danger.
• Chen Zhiyuan found a patient with severe self-harm tendencies eating her own eyeball in the Sixth Ward Building.
• The patient attacked Chen Zhiyuan, who shut the room door and fled, dropping the medical record.
• Chen Zhiyuan called Qin Manjiang and excitedly said he had found the patients' medicine.
• Qin Manjiang realized the caller's questions were suspicious and hung up, while a deathly pale woman held Chen Zhiyuan's phone.

Chen Zhiyuan escaped Nurse Liu by hiding in the Congealed Jade Gourd Space, while Qin Manjiang continued following bloodstains through the Main Building and found a head nurse badge belonging to Lian Yan. The chapter left Qin Manjiang trapped in a ward as the eyeball-covered female nurse watched him from outside the window.

• Chen Zhiyuan encountered Nurse Liu at Building Six and vanished into the Congealed Jade Gourd Space to escape her.
• Chen Zhiyuan realized he could remain in the gourd for at most a day without food or water and hoped others would find clues.
• Qin Manjiang learned from a call made on Chen Zhiyuan's phone that the ghost knew they had left Building 3 but could not sense their location.
• Qin Manjiang chose to keep following bloodstains through the Main Building and found an ID badge identifying Lian Yan as the Psychiatry department's head nurse.
• After the Doll warned him someone was approaching, Qin Manjiang hid in a ward and saw the eyeball-covered female nurse clinging outside the window.

Qin Manjiang used [I]'s Sacrifice ability to eliminate the Vengeful Ghost's Ignore Gravity, then tried to escape as it pursued him through Ping'an Hospital. After Jian Cunxin directed him to the rooftop, he found the door locked and instead set up another plan, ending as he ran toward the approaching ghost.

• Qin Manjiang sacrificed his mercy to eliminate the Vengeful Ghost's Ignore Gravity, causing it to fall from the hospital wall, and then fled.
• Qin Manjiang called Li Daiping and Xinxin, but neither answered; Jian Cunxin picked up and told him to meet her on the rooftop in five minutes.
• Qin Manjiang questioned how Nurse Liu's duplicates worked and wondered why Lian Yan had an employee badge identical to Nurse Liu's.
• Qin Manjiang reached the stairwell to the rooftop but found the iron door locked, so he messaged Jian Cunxin and returned to the fifth-floor corridor.
• Qin Manjiang placed his phone inside a patient room, then charged toward the stairs as the Vengeful Ghost came up, putting his survival plan into action.

Qin Manjiang escaped the Main Building by tricking the Vengeful Ghost into searching an air vent while he hid nearby, then returned to the Third Ward Building with his medical record. He recognized the assignment as a safe haven and settled in to rest, while Li watched him with growing suspicion and Jian Cunxin learned he could not meet her.

• Qin Manjiang used a ringing phone to divert the Vengeful Ghost, then fled down the stairs as she pursued him.
• On the third floor, Qin Manjiang opened an air vent and hid in a nearby room, tricking the ghost into crawling inside while he escaped downstairs.
• Qin Manjiang reached the Third Ward Building and realized that Nurse Liu's patient-care assignment had provided a safe house, while exploration had helped him discover how to escape.
• Li watched Qin Manjiang's clenched hand and noticed that his behavior and her own feelings had changed after his trip outside.
• Jian Cunxin received Qin Manjiang's message that he could not make it and concluded that he had found a way to escape on his own.
• Qin Manjiang took the quilt and curled up in a chair to sleep, keeping his medical record with him as Li watched him warily.

Xinxin watched Lian Yan struggle against an unknown will and became increasingly curious about him, then joined the remaining Players to collect medication. With Li Daiping and Chen Zhiyuan missing and Wen Liangsheng coughing badly, Qin Manjiang suspected the patients’ medical records could give them dangerous abilities.

• Xinxin recalled how Lian Yan fought to restrain himself after she refused to give him his medical record, and how Nurse Liu beat him before leaving.
• Lian Yan played his violin in the morning, and Xinxin studied his medical record, which identified him as a necrophile.
• A speaker summoned caregivers to the Main Building to collect medication, and Xinxin deliberately left Lian Yan’s ward door unlocked as she departed.
• Xinxin met Qin Manjiang, Jian Cunxin, and Wen Liangsheng, while Li Daiping and Chen Zhiyuan were missing and Wen Liangsheng coughed repeatedly.
• Qin Manjiang warned that medical records might give patients abilities tied to their conditions, and Wen Liangsheng revealed that he no longer had his record.

Qin Manjiang and the others collected medicine and discovered that Nurse Liu refused to deliver it to Wards One and Six, while Xinxin revealed that the hospital’s patients’ occupations and illnesses could change. Back in her room, Xinxin learned from Lian Yan that the Safety Key would change on the second night and that failing to find it would mean death.

• Wen Liangsheng told Qin Manjiang that the patient with Walking Corpse Syndrome had shown no interest in his medical record.
• Qin Manjiang and the others worried about the patients in Wards One and Six, whose caregivers were missing and whose illnesses might flare up if they did not take their medicine.
• The four collected their medicine from Nurse Liu, who angrily refused to deliver medicine to Wards One and Six and appeared afraid of those wards.
• Xinxin told Qin Manjiang that the occupations and illnesses of the seven people in the hospital were not fixed, and Qin Manjiang recalled Lian Yan’s work badge.
• Xinxin offered Lian Yan his medicine, but he warned that taking it would leave him unable to protect her that night.
• Lian Yan told Xinxin that the medical record had been the Safety Key on the first night, but that the key would change on the second night and she would die if she failed to find it.

Qin Manjiang discovered that Li was a former Player whose medicine briefly let her regain control of her body, while she warned him to run. At the morning meeting, Xinxin used Lian Yan’s staff badge to support his claim that the hospital’s identities rotate and proposed that the group visit him to verify his information.

• Qin Manjiang gave Li her medicine, and she silently confirmed that she was Li and that the medicine briefly let her emerge from another consciousness.
• Li confirmed she had once been a Player, but Qin Manjiang left without responding to her unspoken plea for help after losing his mercy.
• The group met at eight thirty, and Qin Manjiang showed them Lian Yan’s staff badge.
• Xinxin concluded that hospital identities rotate and that the group needed to find a new safety key each night to survive.
• Wen Liangsheng and Jian Cunxin questioned Xinxin’s trust in Lian Yan, so she invited everyone to visit him and verify his claims.