Recaps

Qin Manjiang and the others uncovered the Southern Branch Troupe’s connection to the Jade Cicadas and the ghosts beneath the well, then gathered for the Yellow Springs Opera. As the performance began, Mei Sijun revealed his identities as Li Yunxiu and Lin Yanqing and explained how their divided soul had kept returning to the troupe.

• The troupe descended into the well, where Qin Manjiang met Lin Yanqing and learned of Li Yunxiu’s past and her wish to escape her resentment.
• Players entered separate opera-role spaces in overlapping time periods, discovered they could cooperate across them, and began searching for five Jade Cicadas.
• Qin Manjiang, Xu Yi, and their allies passed Jade Cicadas between spaces to evade the Vengeful Ghosts, while Yu Chenglin betrayed Shen Hai and Yan Xiao and pushed them into the well.
• Yan Xiao and Shen Hai found paper effigies of the troupe and an underground chamber where shriveled living people were trapped inside a stone coffin.
• Zhao Qigong revealed his monstrous form and attacked the group, but the song “The Unicorn-Pouch” froze the troupe and brought the players together before the Opera Stage.
• Mei Sijun revealed that he was a Ghost in the Opera, and Yan Xiao explained that collecting the five Jade Cicadas had released the five-headed ghost beneath the well.
• The river submerged the troupe as the Yellow Springs Opera began, and its singer’s song stirred unbearable memories in the audience.
• Mei Sijun told Qin Manjiang that he was also Lin Yanqing and Li Yunxiu, whose divided soul had repeatedly returned to the troupe and died there.

After the Yellow Springs Opera ended, Qin Manjiang confronted signs that Jiang Du was tied to his body and began investigating a haunting at Baihong Building. When the haunting killed Tang Baihe, Qin Manjiang’s body created a new game for Qiao Ziruo, whom he tried to guide as she entered the building.

• Mei Sijun recalled his past connection to Qin Manjiang and explained how Li Yunxiu’s death had trapped the Yellow Springs Opera in an endless cycle, then Qin Manjiang urged him to live as himself and Mei began a rival performance.
• Mei Sijun and the others fought the Five-Headed Vengeful Ghost, but Yu Chenglin took the Jade Cicadas, transformed into a powerful Vengeful Ghost, and destroyed the monster before Qin Manjiang revealed he had switched one Cicada.
• The group burned their paper-effigy bodies to complete the story, and Qin Manjiang returned to reality troubled by the name Professor Jiang as Nie Yunzhen recognized him as Jiang Du.
• During the Ghost Story Game’s month-long shutdown, Qin Manjiang investigated a haunting at Baihong Building with Tang Baihe, but the ghost killed her and erased her presence from the world.
• Qin Manjiang’s body created a new Ghost Story Game for Qiao Ziruo, and he warned her about the app before learning that the body’s original owner was connected to Jiang Du.
• Qin Manjiang found Nie Yunzhen gone and began acting more freely, then met Qiao Ziruo, explained the game, and helped her investigate Baihong Building.
• A blood-red barrier kept Qin Manjiang outside as Qiao Ziruo entered the building, where the elevator carried her and a security guard to a bricked-up ninth floor.
• The guard broke through the wall and headed toward the stairwell, but Qiao Ziruo told him to leave without her because she could not go.

Qin Manjiang learned that Li Xijiu was alive, then joined a team of Players for the Ghost Story Game’s Candy Game. The first round cost Yang Liuye her life, and the five remaining Players began the second round by hiding as objects in the villa.

• Qiao Ziruo encountered the Vengeful Ghost at Baihong Building, and Qin Manjiang helped her escape while she investigated how the ghost saw and hunted people.
• Qin Manjiang redeemed the Permanent Item “Me,” which could eliminate a Vengeful Ghost’s ability at the cost of one of his positive emotions if successful.
• Qin Manjiang took Qin Manyi to Lower River Village, where she learned that Li Xijiu had visited their father’s grave and Qin Manjiang realized Li Xijiu was alive.
• The Ghost Story Game returned and conscripted Qin Manjiang, Qiao Ziruo, and other Players into new rounds, including the Candy Game at Blue Bay Villas.
• Qin Manjiang and the other Candy Game Players agreed to cooperate, traveled to Blue Bay Villas, and entered the completed villa No. 666.
• At midnight, a dripping girl began the Candy Game and ordered the six Players to find unique red objects to exchange for candy, and Shen Hai discovered his blood could become candy.
• Qin Manjiang and Xu Youqing worked together while Yu Ruoli sought a red flower, but the Vengeful Ghost appeared and the team received a message that they had been wiped out.
• Qin Manjiang tried to distract the ghost, but it killed Yang Liuye, and Tan Murong earned the last candy, and the five surviving Players began round two by turning into objects and hiding.

Qin Manjiang and the other players cleared the Candy Game, then faced Bai Yang’s impossible death and Xia Nan’s dangerous Out of Control Game. The preliminaries ended with the survivors brought to the Eye Realm, where Nie Yunzhen revealed the stakes of Infinite Mode.

• Qin Manjiang deduced the Candy Game’s rules, escaped the villa with Tan Murong, Shen Hai, and Yu Ruoli, and received the clearing notice.
• Qin Manjiang settled into work at Clear Pupil and learned that Nie Yunzhen had survived [Don't Speak] through her Shared-Fate Lock.
• After Bai Yang disappeared in a fire, investigators found a burn-free body that was genetically his but appeared decades older, and Qin Manjiang recognized that an unknown supernatural game was beginning.
• Xia Nan entered [Out of Control], where invisible hair seized control of his body, and Qin Manjiang helped him investigate the danger at Cityheart Lake.
• Xia Nan found and smashed the blood-red comb that controlled the hair, clearing the Game just as the Ghost Story Game ended its preliminaries and transported the surviving players away.
• The forty-nine surviving players arrived in the Eye Realm, where Nie Yunzhen announced that she was the new First Seat and that Yang was dead.
• Nie Yunzhen revealed that a higher-dimensional god treated the players as toys and that they must light the remaining Spirit Pupil dots by entering Ultimate Games to survive Infinite Mode.