Recaps

Shen Hai escaped the police after discovering that his faceless double had died, apparently after swallowing something. He suspected a prophet had arranged the police response and left to seek revenge on whoever was behind the killing.

• Shen Hai found an identical, faceless double, traced the word “human” in his palm, and watched the double collapse after making a swallowing motion.
• Shen Hai went to the kitchen for a knife to investigate the corpse, but heard police arriving and fled the apartment.
• Xia Nan and the officers found the faceless body and began searching the building for Shen Hai.
• The officers realized an impostor had posed as Li and escaped in a police uniform after knocking the real Li unconscious and taking his clothes.
• Shen Hai walked away in the stolen uniform, rejected the idea that he could be killed by prophecy, and vowed to take revenge.

Reporter Zhong Xueran retrieved her camera from the Fu City Police Station and decided to investigate the faceless corpses herself. She confronted Doctor Xi about Lower River Village’s yearly murders and revealed that Xi had been the lone survivor of its river last year.

• Zhong Xueran learned Captain Bai Yang had not returned after the police failed to stop Shen Hai from escaping, though the predicted faceless corpse had appeared.
• A technical-section officer returned Zhong Xueran’s camera with only two photos of the body left, and she resolved to investigate the incident.
• Zhong Xueran called Xi Wutong and asked for an interview about the faceless corpse.
• Zhong Xueran told Xi Wutong that Lower River Village had produced one faceless corpse a year for decades, then pointed out that Xi had been rescued from its river alive last year.

Yan Xiao grew increasingly afraid that his happy life was false and decided to kill [Truth] to protect it. After spotting a man who looked exactly like him, he entered the villa compound where [Truth] was being held.

• Yan Xiao dismissed his recurring heart palpitations despite a doctor's suggestion to consult psychiatry, and worried that his family and life were unreal.
• Yan Xiao recalled seeing a man identical to him and suspected Qin Manjiang was the Faceless Corpse.
• Yan Xiao changed into a disguise and went to the villa compound, believing [Truth] was behind the chaos and deciding to kill her.
• Yan Xiao spotted his double watching him from the villa garden, then slipped into the compound through a blind spot.

Qin Manjiang investigated [Truth], suspecting she was Nie Yunzhen and that her arrest was part of a trap designed to draw out people who believed her claims. He headed toward her villa seeking answers about the missing members of his group and how to seal the breach at Lower River Village.

• Yan Xiao dodged surveillance cameras as he made his way toward the villa where [Truth] was staying, intending to kill her.
• Qin Manjiang spent the night at Xi Wutong's home and learned that [Truth] had been arrested but was staying somewhere luxurious.
• After Xi Wutong left following a troubling phone call, Qin Manjiang went to the villa district to investigate [Truth].
• Qin Manjiang connected [Truth]'s identity and online claims to Nie Yunzhen and suspected that she and Fu City's senior officials were using the arrest to lure out believers.
• Qin Manjiang resolved to seek [Truth]'s help locating the people he knew and understanding how to seal the breach at Lower River Village.

Shen Hai investigated [Truth] and traced her arrest car to Wu Gong, whose survival in this timeline raised questions about the world’s history. Meanwhile, Bai Yang fled after a supernatural encounter made his mouth disappear, and he decided to seek [Truth].

• Shen Hai studied information about [Truth] and traced the car that took her to the Police Station to Wu Gong of Centipede Construction.
• Shen Hai recalled that Wu Gong had died in the real-world Fu City and wondered whether the future city followed a different timeline or whether Wu Gong’s death had involved a ghost story.
• Shen Hai evaded the Police manhunt and headed toward the villa district in the north of the city to find Wu Gong.
• Bai Yang recalled following Qin Manjiang’s suspicious meeting with Doctor Xi and encountering invisible footsteps while walking to her apartment.
• Bai Yang saw on his phone that his image had not turned its head and that his mouth was disappearing, so he threw away the phone and fled.
• Bai Yang hid his face and decided that [Truth] was the only person he could approach for help.

Strange, zombie-like symptoms spread through Fu City after a night of rain, while Shen Hai, Qin Manjiang, Bai Yang, and Zhong Xueran encountered the affected people on their way to the northern villa district. Zhong Xueran tried to leave a locked Coffee Shop, but an employee suddenly transformed in front of her.

• Zhen watched the dark sky from a balcony, and a middle-aged woman told her that something would happen and the newcomers had to be cleared out.
• Reports spread online as pale-faced people began shaking and behaving strangely throughout Fu City, overwhelming the police lines.
• Shen Hai, Qin Manjiang, and Bai Yang encountered people with gray-white faces, black lips, red eyes, and brittle hair as they traveled toward the northern villa district.
• Zhong Xueran learned of the apparent outbreak while waiting at a Coffee Shop for Xi Wutong, where the manager had locked the doors and could not reach the police.
• A customer at the Coffee Shop turned gray-white as the manager opened the door, and the employee near the back exit began transforming as Zhong Xueran called Doctor Xi.

Yan Xiao was forced to leave Zhen’s villa, while Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai concluded that their world had been created by a ghost and speculated that people from Lower River Village could replace their counterparts there. Their path to the villa district was blocked by Qin Manjiang’s long-lost father, Qin Linghan.

• Yan Xiao lost control of his body and walked away from Zhen’s villa, while Zhen and the middle-aged woman discussed using him as a helper.
• Qin Manjiang met the real Shen Hai on the street as strange, gaunt people gathered and wandered among the crowds.
• Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai agreed that a ghost had created the world and considered whether people who drowned in Lower River Village could be reborn there in place of their counterparts.
• Shen Hai showed Qin Manjiang evidence that Wu Gong, a deceased businessman, was alive in this world, prompting Qin Manjiang to wonder whether his sister Qin Manyi knew more about the village.
• Qin Linghan appeared in their path and gently told Qin Manjiang to stop before going any farther.

Old Qin explained that five new arrivals had destabilized Fu City’s artificial world, and Qin Manjiang realized that people like Old Qin would have to kill them to preserve it. As Old Qin urged Qin Manjiang to return to reality, Qin Manjiang left in tears, knowing he might have to destroy the world where his father still existed.

• Old Qin brought Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai to his house and explained that twenty real people had entered Fu City over twenty years, while the arrival of five at once was causing the world to collapse.
• Old Qin revealed that people from reality could replace their local counterparts and that killing those counterparts would also violate the world’s rules.
• Qin Manjiang deduced that [Truth] and the others would try to kill the newcomers only after confirming they had been replaced, then left with Shen Hai despite Old Qin trying to stop them.
• Qin Manjiang compared Old Qin’s changed identity to the Ship of Theseus and admitted that losing him hurt, while Shen Hai recognized that Old Qin had chosen his son’s life over the world’s survival.
• Old Qin called after Qin Manjiang, urging him to do what he thought right, live in reality, and return to where he belonged.
• Shen Hai supported the tearful Qin Manjiang as they walked away and took a photograph of him as a keepsake.

Bai Yang chose to become a Faceless Person rather than lose himself to the transformation, leaving a message for another version of himself. Yang arrived in Fu City and set out to find the others before the collapsing world turned everyone into ghosts.

• Bai Yang realized he was transforming like the pedestrians and that his movements and awareness were fading.
• Bai Yang looked at his reflection, accelerating the disappearance of his features, and chose to become a Faceless Person.
• Bai Yang silently asked another version of himself to uncover the Faceless Corpse's truth and [Zhen]'s secret, and to protect his police officers.
• Yang arrived beside Bai Yang's Faceless Corpse and explained that the collapsing world had to be reintegrated with the real world to close the breach.
• Yang concluded that he needed at least five people to find the Vengeful Ghost and began heading toward the others, who he expected to seek [Zhen].

As the city’s inhabitants mutated into monsters, Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai discussed restoring the world and finding Yang before heading toward the Villa District. When the monsters charged after noticing them, Qin Manjiang realized their gaze had drawn the creatures’ attention, and the two split up so Shen Hai could find a mirror.

• Qin Manjiang told Shen Hai he wanted to question the woman in the Villa District about making the world disappear and would kill her if she refused.
• Shen Hai argued they should find Yang first and consider the connection between the Lower River Village in this world and the one in their world.
• Shen Hai spotted the mutated monsters in the foggy street, and the creatures charged after Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai looked at them.
• Qin Manjiang concluded that their gaze had alerted the monsters and told Shen Hai to find a mirror while he drew the creatures’ attention.

Qin Manjiang tested his theory that the monsters depended on being observed and used a phone camera to erase one, while Shen Hai prepared a way to escape. Qin Manjiang raced toward Shen Hai on a shopping mall rooftop as the monsters pursued, and the two began using mirrors to clear a path through the fog.

• Qin Manjiang drew the monsters away from Shen Hai so Shen Hai could search for a mirror.
• Qin Manjiang aimed his phone camera at a leaping monster, causing it and the phone to crumble into dust.
• Qin Manjiang concluded that the monsters existed through observation and that confronting them with their own faces could erase them.
• Shen Hai called Qin Manjiang to a shopping mall rooftop, where he had begun throwing mirrors down at the pursuing monsters.
• Qin Manjiang sprinted up the mall stairs as the monsters crowded after him, knowing the rooftop, fog, and mirrors offered only one chance to escape.

Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai lured the pursuing monsters off the mall rooftop using a suspended mirror, then regrouped with Yang in a police car. Yang planned to pick up Yan Xiao and Zhong Xueran before heading to Lower River Village, hoping they had completed the replacement successfully.

• Qin Manjiang followed Shen Hai’s signal across the rooftop as the monsters chased them.
• Shen Hai’s suspended mirror tricked the monsters into charging off the rooftop, leaving them immobilized below.
• Shen Hai noticed Qin Manjiang’s wound, and Qin Manjiang told him to delete the video he had filmed.
• Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai headed downstairs and heard a car engine in the fog.
• Yang arrived in a police car and said they needed to pick up Yan Xiao and Zhong Xueran before going to Lower River Village.

As the world collapsed, Zhen and the other survivors from Fu City decided to hunt down the five living newcomers, believing they threatened their continued existence. Yan Xiao discovered that a mirror could reverse his transformation only by making his face disappear, then found himself cornered by the armed group.

• The middle-aged woman told the nineteen others gathered with Zhen that they were real humans in a world of the dead and that the five living newcomers were not their kind.
• The group agreed to act against the newcomers if they had replaced their counterparts and remained unaffected by the collapse, then armed themselves and drove out, leaving Zhen behind.
• Zhen wondered why the situation felt familiar as the others departed.
• Yan Xiao saw his reflection and realized that looking in a mirror reversed his monstrous appearance while causing his facial features to vanish.
• A white sedan carrying the armed group approached Yan Xiao, and the middle-aged woman aimed her handgun at his hiding place and ordered him to come out.

In Fu City, Lian Yan explained to Xinxin that Yi Lianhai was using Mei Sijun and the unified negative emotions of Moon City’s ordinary people to attempt ascension, leaving the city’s people as the experiment’s materials. Xinxin chose not to return to Moon City, then learned that Lian Yan and Fu City’s Shen Hai were flowers from the same Bud Point as Moon City’s First Seat twenty years earlier.

• Lian Yan and Xinxin watched Fu City descend into chaos after the broadcast and discussed why they had fled Moon City.
• Lian Yan told Xinxin that Mei Sijun would lose his human identity if he became a vessel for emotion and ascended to godhood.
• Lian Yan explained that Mei Sijun had willingly joined Yi Lianhai’s plan to end ghost stories, and that Yi Lianhai intended to use Moon City’s collective negative emotions for ascension.
• Xinxin understood that returning to Moon City would not help Mei Sijun and decided to let him and Yi Lianhai proceed.
• When Xinxin asked who he really was, Lian Yan said his Bud Point had produced Moon City’s First Seat, Lian Yan, and Fu City’s Shen Hai.

Lian Yan revealed the history behind Jiang Du’s return, the two gods, and the true nature of spirit pupils. He told Xinxin that both gods were dead, timelines existed simultaneously, and their world was already dead and repeating its mistakes.

• Lian Yan explained that Jiang Du and Zuo Xian abandoned the final game twenty years ago after seeing the future, and that Jiang Du prophesied his return in Guanyin Village.
• Lian Yan said Zuo Xian and Yi Lianhai found Jiang Du in Guanyin Village, where he called himself Qin Manjiang, and that Nie Yunzhen had become part of Yi Lianhai’s experiments.
• Lian Yan described how the Red Pupil God defeated the White Pupil God, whose forty-nine spirit pupils left humans a chance to survive the Eye Realm’s games.
• Lian Yan explained that five hundred scattered spirit pupils equaled one complete original pupil and said the Bai family now controlled the Eye Realm.
• Lian Yan revealed that both gods had vanished, three timelines existed simultaneously, and he suspected who Xinxin had been twenty years earlier.
• Lian Yan concluded that their world and time were already dead and that they were repeating the same mistakes.

Bai Yang explained that he faked his death to evade the awakening Red Pupil God, which was regaining control of the Eye Realm and might need sacrifices to fully revive. He revealed that the Bai family and other players were cooperating to suppress Ghost Stories, but they could not intervene in Moon City, where Yi Lianhai was.

• Bai Yang, Qin Manjiang, and Shen Hai sensed other Real World humans nearby and headed northwest to avoid a crowd gathering to catch them.
• Bai Yang said the Bai Group had brought people into this world through a business deal, and Qin Manjiang deduced that Bai Yang had sent his older counterpart into the Real World when he faked his death.
• Bai Yang revealed that the Red Pupil God had opened its eye for Qin Manjiang and was beginning to fight the Bai family for control of the Eye Realm.
• Bai Yang explained that he had faked his death so the Red Pupil God would reclaim its authority, and warned that sacrifices might be needed for it to awaken fully.
• Bai Yang said the Bai family and other players were cooperating under Nie Yunzhen to eliminate Ghost Stories in Fu City, but they could not act in Moon City, where Yi Lianhai was.

Bai Yang explained that the world’s time repeated in a one-year cycle and warned that the Red Pupil God’s awakening could send time backward before destroying the world. He also told Qin Manjiang that he and Jiang Du were unusual beings with origins unlike the Spirit Pupil holders who reappeared across generations, before the group encountered Zhong Xueran and Xi Wutong fleeing pursuers.

• Bai Yang told Shen Hai and Qin Manjiang that this world’s time repeated within a single year, trapping its inhabitants in a cycle.
• Bai Yang compared that cycle with the Real World’s larger loop and said the Red Pupil God could reverse time rather than restore its flow.
• Shen Hai said he wanted the Red Pupil God to awaken because he hoped it would make the world more interesting, but Bai Yang warned that its awakening would bring destruction.
• Bai Yang explained that Jiang Du and Qin Manjiang were not counterparts or ordinary descendants, but had arrived like a flower drifting onto a tree.
• Bai Yang stopped the car beside Zhong Xueran and Xi Wutong, and Zhong Xueran urged everyone to drive because a crowd of things was chasing them.

Zhong Xueran joined Bai Yang and the others as monstrous figures chased them through Fu City, and the group learned that Xi Wutong was still alive in the real world. With their car nearly out of fuel and the monsters gaining on them, they decided to lead the creatures toward the other twenty people.

• Zhong Xueran warned Bai Yang that nearly everyone in the city had mutated, and he drove away with the group pursued by humanoid monsters.
• Xi Wutong confirmed that she was alive in the real world and had entered this world through a gap in space and time.
• Bai Yang threw a monster off the windshield and drove over it, but the creatures continued to swarm after the car.
• Shen Hai revealed that the police car was nearly out of gas, and Bai Yang planned to switch cars at the Police Station.
• Shen Hai suggested leading the pursuing monsters to the other twenty people, and Bai Yang turned left toward their location.

Qin Manjiang’s group was trapped between armed survivors and pursuing monsters, so he used a mirror to provoke the Yan Xiao among their enemies. The real Yan Xiao turned on the survivors in a murderous frenzy, while Qin Manjiang’s group realized his guess had been right.

• Bai Yang drove Qin Manjiang’s group toward the twenty survivors, who opened fire on their car as monsters closed in.
• Qin Manjiang figured out that the group could escape during the brief pause when the survivors reloaded, but Zhong Xueran warned that they would still be exposed.
• Qin Manjiang borrowed Xi Wutong’s compact mirror and slid it toward the survivors’ cars, where Yan Xiao saw his reflection.
• Yan Xiao transformed into a Faceless Corpse, killed a survivor, and opened fire on the others from behind.
• Shen Hai recognized that Qin Manjiang had guessed correctly, and Qin Manjiang concluded that the real Yan Xiao regarded this world and its people as a desecration.

Yan Xiao sacrificed himself by driving into the humanoid monsters so Qin Manjiang and the others could escape. After learning that the ritual at Lower River Village required five people, Qin Manjiang stopped the group and said he needed to retrieve something before joining them.

• Yan Xiao killed the people who had been helping preserve the false world, then abandoned his gun as humanoid monsters rushed toward the group.
• Yan Xiao drove an Off-Road Vehicle into the monsters while Zhong Xueran and the others tried to stop him.
• Qin Manjiang and Shen Hai took Zhong Xueran in one car, while Bai Yang drove Xi Wutong in another, and they fled as gunfire from Yan Xiao's vehicle stopped.
• Qin Manjiang asked Bai Yang whether the Lower River Village ritual required five people, and Bai Yang confirmed that it did and took at least half an hour to prepare.
• Qin Manjiang told Shen Hai and Zhong Xueran to get out, saying he would retrieve something before joining the others.

Yi Lianhai explained his plan to use electricity to collect the emotions of Moon City’s residents and pour them into Mei Sijun, creating a new god. He waited for the city’s power to return so the ascension experiment could begin.

• Yi Lianhai kept Mei Sijun in his laboratory while the city’s residents and players were occupied with the breaches and curses.
• Yi Lianhai revealed that his first attempt to create a god had failed, leaving a woman’s disintegrated body and consciousness trapped in agony.
• Yi Lianhai showed Mei Sijun a modified device connected to Moon City’s electrical network, which could gather and transmit emotions when power returned.
• Yi Lianhai said the city’s fear and resentment toward Mei Sijun would fuel his ascension and make him a deity capable of ending the crisis.
• Yi Lianhai waited for Moon City’s power to be restored, confident that the emotions of its residents would be enough.

Mei Sijun and Yi Lianhai prepared to use Moon City's restored power to channel the city's negative emotions into the Silver-White Metal Cylinder, while Kong, Flower, and Dog set out to fulfill their agreement with Jiang Du by meeting their corresponding selves. The chapter ended as Yi Lianhai activated the device and the electric current gathered around Mei Sijun.

• Mei Sijun accepted the dangerous opportunity to help Qin Manjiang, and Yi Lianhai waited for Moon City's power to return.
• Kong told Dog to meet his other self in Lower River Village, and Dog left cheerfully.
• Kong explained that Flower's counterpart was Xinxin, and Flower accepted that they had to go meet their corresponding selves.
• Moon City's districts lit up, restoring power as Yi Lianhai prepared to direct the city's negative emotions into the cylinder.
• Yi Lianhai pressed the button, the laboratory went dark, and electric arcs gathered in the cylinder as he watched the current begin to pierce Mei Sijun's chest.

Yi Lianhai used the emotions and Spirit Pupils of Moon City’s players to transform Mei Sijun, whose body vanished and reappeared as his Spirit World underwent a violent evolution. Mei Sijun disappeared after waking, and the Eye Realm summoned every surviving player in Fu City and Moon City to a new ghost story as a blood-red pupil filled the sky.

• Yi Lianhai activated the experiment, channeling the city’s negative emotions and gathered Spirit Pupils into Mei Sijun.
• Mei Sijun’s body disappeared as his Spirit World transformed through cycles of destruction and rebirth around a gigantic red pupil.
• Mei Sijun’s body reappeared, and he opened his eyes as Yi Lianhai celebrated the experiment’s apparent success.
• Mei Sijun vanished, and Yi Lianhai unexpectedly heard the Eye Realm announce the ghost story Twin Cities and summon all players.
• Lian Yan and Xinxin heard the announcement in Fu City as a blood-red pupil gazed down over both cities.

After Mei Sijun’s Ascension awakened the Red Pupil God, everyone in Moon City and Fu City was summoned into a Ghost Story Game. The chapter revealed that the White Pupil God’s game framework still constrained the Red Pupil God, which gave humanity a chance to survive, and ended with a demand to hand over the White Pupil within seven days.

• Yi Lianhai realized that Mei Sijun had awakened the Red Pupil God rather than become the god they had intended to create.
• Kong recognized that the Red Pupil God’s use of a Ghost Story Game meant the White Pupil God’s framework still restricted It, and he withdrew into the darkness before going to Fu City.
• Kong recalled that Jiang Du and Zuo Xian had chosen not to clear the Ghost Story Game twenty years earlier, hoping their actions could prevent the Red Pupil God’s awakening and protect humanity.
• The surviving players in Moon City and Fu City realized that the game framework prevented the Eye Realm from directly destroying the Real World.
• The Red Pupil God summoned everyone in both cities to the Twin Cities Ghost Story and gave them seven days to hand over the White Pupil.

Bai Yang led Shen Hai, Xi Wutong, and another companion to Lower River Village to stop the awakened Red Pupil God’s game. They searched for mirrors and prepared to investigate five riverbank locations, while Shen Hai suspected Qin Manjiang might be the White Pupil God.

• Bai Yang explained that the Red Pupil God had awakened and directed the group to place people with mirrors at five locations along the river.
• Xi Wutong sensed a strange woman with long hair and dripping clothes; the group found a wet footprint where she had appeared.
• Bai Yang proposed that the group search the village for mirrors together and wait for Qin Manjiang before visiting the five locations.
• Bai Yang said the White Pupil God was alive among humans and that they needed to find it without handing it over to the Red Pupil God.
• Shen Hai found a full-length mirror and suggested that Qin Manjiang might be the White Pupil God because the Red Pupil God repeatedly targeted him.