Recaps

Qin Manjiang, Yan Xiao, and the others explored Butterfly Island, where a welcoming town concealed the danger of its ghost story. The chapter left them discovering that the inn’s chicken soup was made from a human hand.

• Qin Manjiang met Yan Xiao, who told him that the previous First Seat had died on Butterfly Island and that the island could become an Ultimate Game.
• Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao reached the town and met Chen Yu, who said the island’s ordinary, friendly residents made it seem like an earthly paradise.
• Chen Yu led Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao through town, where they found no butterflies or other obvious signs of danger.
• Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao met Liang Yue, Wang Million, and Swimming Fish at the Butterfly Inn.
• The inn’s proprietress served dinner, and Liang Yue recognized that the supposed chicken in the soup was a human hand.

At the island inn, the travelers discovered that the proprietress perceived a human hand and other disturbing food as ordinary ingredients, suggesting that the islanders’ senses had been altered. Swimming Fish showed Qin Manjiang a drawing of him with a butterfly flying out of his mouth, leaving the meaning of the image unclear.

• Liang Yue recoiled from the chicken soup after seeing a human hand in the pot, while the proprietress drank the soup without noticing anything unusual.
• Yan Xiao confirmed that the pot contained chicken soup by smell, and Qin Manjiang recalled seeing a local carrying an identical pot earlier.
• Chen Yu and Qin Manjiang proposed that the locals’ perceptions, or the senses of everyone on the island, might be distorted.
• The proprietress brought more dishes and insisted that the group eat, while Qin Manjiang urged them to sit down because they had little other food.
• Yan Xiao mentioned the persistent smell of blood on the island, and Swimming Fish showed Qin Manjiang a drawing of a butterfly emerging from his open mouth.

On Butterfly Island, Swimming Fish revealed that her Spirit Medium Sketchbook drew symbolic clues about each game, and Qin Manjiang questioned what his disturbing portrait meant. As Chen Yu studied the Opening Lines and the town’s suspicious chicken soup, she discovered that her reflection had stopped following her movements.

• After Swimming Fish’s drawing made Qin Manjiang feel something crawling in his throat, the group left the chicken soup untouched and arranged their rooms for the night.
• Swimming Fish insisted on sharing a room with Qin Manjiang, and he asked her why she had drawn him.
• Swimming Fish explained that her Permanent Item, the Spirit Medium Sketchbook, could produce three symbolic drawings per game, each hinting at key information.
• Qin Manjiang asked about the Opening Lines while Chen Yu considered their images, the chicken soup, and the fog surrounding the town.
• Chen Yu turned toward the window and noticed that her reflection did not move when she did.

A Vengeful Ghost killed Chen Yu while Liang Yue slept beside her, and the others found her mutilated corpse after following a trail of mist and blood. Yan Xiao turned on Liang Yue, but Qin Manjiang stopped him and asked what had happened before she fell asleep.

• Liang Yue and Chen Yu went to sleep together after joking affectionately in bed.
• Wang Million woke from a dream about Chen Yu being a ghost, while Qin Manjiang smelled blood and noticed mist flowing from Chen Yu and Liang Yue's room.
• Yan Xiao kicked open the room's door, and Liang Yue told the group that Chen Yu was asleep.
• Liang Yue lifted the covers and found Chen Yu's mutilated corpse beside her, then fainted.
• Yan Xiao revived Liang Yue and questioned her, but Qin Manjiang restrained him when he moved toward her with his scalpel.
• Qin Manjiang asked Liang Yue what had happened in the room before she fell asleep.

After Chen Yu’s death, Yan Xiao tried and failed to revive her, then took one of her fingers and left. Qin Manjiang questioned whether Chen Yu had truly been the one killed, while Wang Million realized his dream and arrival order might put him next in danger.

• Yan Xiao stabbed Chen Yu’s corpse with his Permanent Item, discovered her heart was missing, cut off one of her fingers, and left the room.
• Qin Manjiang sent Wang Million, Swimming Fish, and Liang Yue downstairs, then wondered whether Chen Yu had violated a taboo or Liang Yue was the ghost.
• Wang Million told Liang Yue that he had dreamed Chen Yu was eating her intestines in their room.
• Qin Manjiang asked when the four players had arrived on the island, and Swimming Fish said she arrived at four thirty, after Chen Yu was already at the dock.
• Wang Million realized Chen Yu had arrived first and died first, and feared Swimming Fish’s next dream might make him the next victim.

Qin Manjiang and Swimming Fish investigated the clues surrounding the strange deaths and proposed that Butterfly Island existed inside a ghost’s dream. They left the town’s nature unresolved, concluding that everything in the fog might belong to the dream.

• The landlady told Wang Million that only chicken could fill their stomachs and led him and Liang Yue toward the kitchen.
• Qin Manjiang left the guesthouse for a walk, and Swimming Fish followed him with a new interpretation of her drawing.
• Swimming Fish connected the drawing’s butterfly emerging from Qin Manjiang’s mouth to his claim that he did not dream, suggesting dreams were linked to the deaths.
• Qin Manjiang noticed that Butterfly Island had no butterflies and conjectured that the island was a ghost’s dream, which could explain the lack of a time limit.
• Qin Manjiang interpreted the Opening Lines as describing what the dream’s speaker wanted to remember and concluded that everything in the fog was its dream.

Liang Yue followed Wang Million toward the inn's kitchen, where his warning that nobody in town had an aura made her suspect the townspeople were dead. After she chose to keep going and used the Ghost-Pointing Needle, it detected no nearby ghosts, but the proprietress opened the kitchen door to reveal something horrifying.

• Liang Yue considered using her Ghost-Pointing Needle and feared she could not survive after Chen Yu's death.
• Wang Million told Liang Yue that nobody in town, including the proprietress, had an aura, and warned that the kitchen might be dangerous.
• Wang Million admitted he did not want to rely on others to survive, and Liang Yue chose to follow him instead of leaving to find Qin Manjiang and the others.
• Liang Yue activated the Ghost-Pointing Needle, which pointed toward no nearby ghosts.
• The proprietress opened the kitchen door and invited Wang Million and Liang Yue to choose something to eat, revealing something that made them recoil in horror.

Qin Manjiang and Swimming Fish reasoned that the town might be a ghost’s dream and tried to identify its owner. In the kitchen, the proprietress trapped Liang Yue and Wang Million and began preparing a horrific dish from Liang Yue’s split body.

• Swimming Fish suggested killing themselves to escape the dream, but Qin Manjiang warned that they could die for real because the dream belonged to a ghost.
• Qin Manjiang rejected the idea that they needed to relive the ghost’s regrets and said he thought he knew who owned the dream.
• Liang Yue and Wang Million saw the proprietress’s severed head on the chopping board as the Ghost-Pointing Needle pointed toward the proprietress.
• The kitchen door shut, and the proprietress asked what they wanted to eat before ordering them to stand beside the chopping board.
• The proprietress threw half of Liang Yue’s split body onto the chopping board and raised a boning knife to make pork rib soup.

Yezi and the other players faced the eerie task of caring for a woman who claimed to be nineteen, while Shen Hai volunteered as the first caregiver and revealed himself as the Third Seat, Player. In the present, Zhong Xueran discussed Shen Hai’s rise with Liu Jingqing, while Liang Yue and Wang Million faced the proprietress’s moving cleaver.

• At Twilight Apartment, Yezi and five other players learned they had to care for an apparently middle-aged woman who claimed to be nineteen for three nights.
• Shen Hai volunteered to care for the woman first and identified himself as the Third Seat, Player.
• In the hospital, Liu Jingqing asked Zhong Xueran about Shen Hai, and Zhong explained that he had cleared an Ultimate Game and risen to Third Seat.
• Zhong Xueran said Yang thought Shen Hai might become the new First Seat, then left to buy snacks for Liu Jingqing.
• Liu Jingqing thought about Qin and hoped his current game was going smoothly.
• Liang Yue and Wang Million watched in terror as the proprietress began moving her cleaver.

Liang Yue and Wang Million were trapped in the proprietress’s kitchen as she made soup from what appeared to be Liang Yue’s body, while Wang Million suspected the island’s reality was an illusion. Qin Manjiang explained the Mandarin Duck Method to Swimming Fish and entered the fog to find and expose Butterfly Island’s hidden truth, while the proprietress forced Liang Yue and Wang Million to eat the soup.

• Wang Million wondered whether the island’s inhabitants and Liang Yue’s apparent corpse were products of distorted perception.
• Qin Manjiang told Swimming Fish the story of the Mandarin Duck Method and said he would enter the fog to find and expose its crux.
• Swimming Fish tried to follow Qin Manjiang into the fog, but he had disappeared, so she retreated and examined his drawing in the Spirit Medium Sketchbook.
• The proprietress brought Liang Yue and Wang Million a basin of rib soup and ordered them to eat it.
• Liang Yue stepped closer to inspect a familiar mark on the proprietress, which suddenly teleported in front of her.
• Wang Million noticed that the proprietress’s appearance seemed to be changing as he and Liang Yue faced the soup.

Qin Manjiang entered the fog around Butterfly Island, convinced that the ghost story unfolded there rather than in the town. After finding a mound among the flowers, he was attacked by a monster with a human head and a pig’s body, leaving him questioning what kind of ghost it was.

• Qin Manjiang reasoned that the town was likely a ghost’s dream and that the former players had been misled into searching there.
• Qin Manjiang followed a blurry figure deeper into the fog, where a sea of flowers covered the ground.
• Qin Manjiang concluded that the fog, not the town, held the true clues to surviving the ghost story.
• Qin Manjiang found a raised mound of earth among the flowers and crouched to dig it open.
• A monster with a human head and a pig’s body lunged at Qin Manjiang, who barely dodged its bite and wondered whether it was the ghost that had eaten Chen Yu.

Wang Million drank all the pork rib soup to keep Liang Yue from drinking it, then vomited live cockroaches as they escaped the inn. Liang Yue discovered a pork inspection stamp on the landlady, and the chapter left them surrounded by townspeople bearing similar bluish marks.

• Wang Million drank the entire basin of pork rib soup, causing the landlady to vanish and the kitchen door to open.
• Wang Million vomited soup and live cockroaches, while Liang Yue overcame her terror and helped him leave the inn.
• The landlady reappeared at the foot of the stairs and calmly watched as Wang Million and Liang Yue escaped through swarms of cockroaches.
• Wang Million passed out outside the inn, and Liang Yue carried him to the town's main street.
• Liang Yue told Wang Million that the landlady had a pork inspection stamp and was not a ghost that had once been human.
• The townspeople fell silent and stared at Liang Yue, who noticed bluish marks on every person's exposed skin.

Liang Yue and Wang Million were overwhelmed and devoured by the town’s pig-human monsters, while Swimming Fish fled into the fog as the town transformed into a pigpen. Qin Manjiang uncovered a newspaper report about a girl killed at a pig farm, but the discovery deepened his confusion about whose dream they were in.

• The town’s residents transformed into pig-human monsters and attacked Liang Yue and Wang Million, who were killed and eaten.
• Swimming Fish witnessed their deaths, fled into the fog, and saw the town’s streets and buildings decay into a pigpen.
• The pig-human monsters caught the scent of a scream and charged into the fog as Swimming Fish ran.
• Qin Manjiang ignored the scream, dug into a mound, and found a newspaper-wrapped parcel containing a report about a girl devoured by pigs at White Dew Bay pig farm.
• Qin Manjiang read the report and wondered whose dream the ghost story depicted.

Qin Manjiang deduced that the town was part of a dream and exposed Chen Yu as the ghost’s eyes, disguised as Swimming Fish. Chen Yu threatened him, but a tall figure emerged from the fog with a scalpel at her neck.

• Swimming Fish warned Qin Manjiang that the locals had become Pig People and were hunting them, then hurried deeper into the fog with him.
• Qin Manjiang connected the newspaper report about the pig farm accident to the ghost story and questioned whether a child’s soul could resist the ghost’s malice.
• Qin Manjiang reasoned that the fog was devouring the dream’s main body as its owner woke, and noticed that Swimming Fish’s hair and clothes were not damp.
• Qin Manjiang accused Swimming Fish of being Attorney Chen Yu, the ghost’s eyes, and explained how she had faked her death after seeing the ghost in a windowpane.
• Chen Yu revealed herself and challenged Qin Manjiang, but a tall figure stepped out of the fog and held a scalpel to her neck.

Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao concluded that the town was part of a dream and that Chen Yu had become the Vengeful Ghost’s viewpoint inside it. They decided to use the mist to lure her out, with Yan Xiao tracking Qin Manjiang if he ventured into it.

• Yan Xiao told Qin Manjiang that Chen Yu was alive and explained how her missing heart revealed that the corpse was a decoy.
• Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao compared their suspicions that the Ghost Story Game was a dream, citing forgotten details and illogical events.
• They reasoned that the dream’s ghost could not see its own face and had chosen Chen Yu to observe the players, but that she had fled because staying near them was dangerous.
• Qin Manjiang decided to enter the mist alone the next day, and Yan Xiao gave him a severed finger that could help track his location.

Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao hid with the captured Chen Yu as half-human, half-pig monsters pursued Swimming Fish through the fog. After Swimming Fish diverted away instead of exposing them, Qin Manjiang joined her and used Yan Xiao’s scalpel to stab them both, hoping to wake them from the nightmare; the monsters closed in around them.

• Yan Xiao and Qin Manjiang concealed themselves with Chen Yu in a hollow as the monsters approached, and Yan Xiao bound and gagged her.
• Swimming Fish fled from the monsters, spotted Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao, and changed direction without revealing their hiding place.
• Qin Manjiang realized Swimming Fish had seen them and asked Yan Xiao for his scalpel; Yan Xiao lent it to him and promised to hold off the monsters for thirty minutes.
• Qin Manjiang ran to Swimming Fish, learned her name was Yu Ruoli, and stabbed himself in the heart with the scalpel.
• Qin Manjiang plunged the scalpel into Yu Ruoli’s heart as the monsters roared and surged toward them.

Yan Xiao confronted Chen Yu after she revealed that she wanted to remain forever in the ghost’s dream. He rejected her plan to murder others and turned against her as he spoke about the value of life and his hatred of anything that took it away.

• Yan Xiao and Chen Yu stopped in the fog, and Chen Yu argued that they knew too little to clear the ghost story within thirty minutes.
• Chen Yu recalled how Yan Xiao had saved her during their first multiplayer ghost story and told her that her life belonged to him.
• Chen Yu explained that the boatman was a ghost and that the group had entered the island through a dream, where she had become the ghost’s eyes.
• Chen Yu urged Yan Xiao to stay with her in the dream forever, claiming that following the ghost’s taboos would let them live happily and escape the Ghost Story Game.
• Yan Xiao invoked the Opening Lines, rejected remaining frozen in the ghost’s world, and warned Chen Yu against murdering others.
• Yan Xiao spoke of his experience of death and told Chen Yu that he now loathed her.

Yan Xiao forced Chen Yu to look at her reflection on his phone, exposing the monster possessing her and restraining it. As the fog and blood-red flowers turned hostile and the humanoid monsters fled, Qin Manjiang realized Yan Xiao had likely succeeded.

• Yan Xiao questioned Chen Yu and deduced that seeing one’s reflection had caused the ghost to choose her as its eyes.
• Yan Xiao forced Chen Yu to face his phone’s front camera, and she transformed into a monster that could not act while its face appeared on the screen.
• Blood-red flowers grew teeth and attacked Yan Xiao, who crushed them before carrying the restrained monster away.
• Qin Manjiang endured being repeatedly torn apart and healed, finding the pain surprisingly manageable, and shielded Yu Ruoli from the monsters.
• The fog churned, the blood-red flowers screamed, and the humanoid monsters fled as Qin Manjiang concluded that Yan Xiao had pulled it off.

Qin Manjiang realized the group had never reached Butterfly Island and were trapped in White Dew Bay, as a gigantic pig-like monster attacked them. With Yu Ruoli and Chen Yu swallowed and the others under attack, the revelation left their escape uncertain.

• Yan Xiao explained how the Vengeful Ghost had exposed itself, and Qin Manjiang grew uneasy while the mist began to clear.
• The Vengeful Ghost escaped its grasp, and a huge human-pig monster emerged from the mist, spitting out the mangled corpses of Liang Yue and Wang Million.
• Yan Xiao used the Cursed Scalpel on himself and Chen Yu, then the group fled as the monster attacked.
• The monster seized Yu Ruoli and Chen Yu and swallowed them, while Qin Manjiang and Yan Xiao struggled to evade its attacks.
• Qin Manjiang saw the newspaper about White Dew Bay and realized the boatman had brought them there instead of to Butterfly Island.

Qin Manjiang realized the group had not reached Butterfly Island and was swallowed by the Vengeful Ghost, but Chen Yu’s sacrifice caused the ghost to collapse and the fog over White Dew Bay to lift. Qin Manjiang, Yan Xiao, and Yu Ruoli used the Single Pure Bell to escape as the Butterfly Island game was cleared, while Chen Yu disappeared into the fog.

• Qin Manjiang realized the group was still at White Dew Bay and was crushed and swallowed by the giant Vengeful Ghost.
• Qin Manjiang awoke inside the ghost with Yu Ruoli and Chen Yu, and Chen Yu admitted she had lost the will to live.
• Chen Yu gave Qin Manjiang the Single Pure Bell, then saw Yan Xiao’s message and used her phone camera, becoming the Vengeful Ghost’s substitute.
• The Vengeful Ghost collapsed and the fog cleared, revealing the real Butterfly Island nearby, while Chen Yu vanished.
• Yan Xiao pulled Qin Manjiang and Yu Ruoli free, and the three used the Single Pure Bell to teleport away as the ghost story was cleared.

After clearing Butterfly Island, Yezi and the other players prepared for the second night of My Aging Self, where they had to care for an obese woman in turns. March went into the woman’s apartment first, leaving the rest waiting outside.

• Qin Manjiang watched the fog at White Dew Bay as the cleared Butterfly Island game awarded Spirit Pupil points, including twenty unallocated points belonging to the person in the fog.
• Yezi reviewed the rules and opening lines of My Aging Self, while the six players worried that the woman’s curse might make them age.
• The players searched Twilight Apartment during the day but found no signs of anything abnormal beyond the abandoned building and broken lights.
• The group reversed the previous night’s caregiving order, making March the first to visit the woman and Shen Hai the last.
• March took her Congealed Jade Gourd, knocked on the woman’s door, and entered after a frightening voice urged her to come in.

March faced the woman in the bedroom when she demanded that March trim her black nails, then asked March to change her hands after March found human skins in the bedside cabinet. The woman stripped the skin from March’s arms and dragged her into the mosquito net, while the other five people waited outside.

• March entered the bedroom to care for the woman and was ordered to trim her nails.
• March realized she had no nail clippers and asked the woman where to find some.
• The woman directed March to the bedside cabinet, where March found folded human skins and screamed.
• The woman tore the skin from her own hands and demanded that March help change them.
• The woman stripped the skin from March’s arms, seized her by the neck, and dragged her into the mosquito net.

After March failed to emerge from the bedroom, Deep Valley Dusk entered to fulfill the ghost’s request while the others tried to understand what had killed her. Shen Hai advised them to satisfy the ghost’s wishes, and Deep Valley Dusk agreed to carry the terrifying figure to the bathroom as its shadow rose behind him.

• March did not come out of the apartment, and Deep Valley Dusk entered the bedroom when the next turn began.
• Deep Valley Dusk saw March’s head beside the bed before a pale arm retrieved it from inside the mosquito net.
• Xiaotian and Yezi suspected March had died after triggering an instant-death curse by failing to fulfill the ghost’s request.
• Shen Hai told Soup Dumpling to give the ghost what it wanted, even if that meant harming himself.
• The ghost asked Deep Valley Dusk to carry it to the bathroom, and he agreed as its enormous shadow grew behind him.

Qin Manjiang returned home and reflected on his body’s strange lack of control while Mi Qiao prepared him food. At Twilight Apartment, Deep Valley Dusk encountered a trapped young woman inside the bloated figure and fled after the apparition drove him from the bedroom.

• Qin Manjiang came home late and found Mi Qiao asleep on the sofa because the bedroom door had locked with its key inside.
• Qin Manjiang recalled feeling free when the monster tore his body apart and wondered what he was, then learned Mi Qiao had entered his bedroom while he was away.
• Mi Qiao served Qin Manjiang egg noodles, and he told her he would clean his own room and asked how long she planned to stay in Fu City.
• Deep Valley Dusk carried the bloated woman toward the bathroom and heard a frightened young woman pleading for help from inside her body.
• Deep Valley Dusk saw March and an unfamiliar, tearful woman emerge from the bloated figure in the mirror before its largest head confronted him.
• Deep Valley Dusk fled the bedroom and emerged at the apartment door before Yezi and the others, drenched in sweat.

Deep Valley Dusk escaped the apartment but rapidly aged after carrying the creature, and Shen Hai confirmed that he had died. The others were left facing their own turn inside the apartment, with no clear way to survive.

• Deep Valley Dusk told Shen Hai, Soup Dumpling, and Xiaotian that the creature had ordered him to carry it to the bathroom.
• Deep Valley Dusk suddenly lost his hair and rapidly aged, and Shen Hai showed him his appearance on a phone camera.
• Deep Valley Dusk described seeing March and another woman inside the creature, with the woman calling for help.
• Deep Valley Dusk asked Shen Hai how to stop aging, then died as Shen Hai urged him to rest.
• Shen Hai checked his pocket watch, confirmed Deep Valley Dusk's death, and warned the others that their own deaths might be worse.