Chapter Summaries

The Eye Realm selected six players for the Ping'an Hospital Ghost Story: Wen Liangsheng, Chen Zhiyuan, Xinxin, Li Daiping, Jian Cunxin, and Qin Manjiang. The six were transported back to the real world as the game began, while Qin Manjiang suspected the enormous spiral pupil was specifically targeting him.

• The enormous spiral pupil revealed Ping'an Hospital as the next Ghost Story, with a seven-day time limit but no stated requirements or start time.
• The pupils selected Wen Liangsheng, Chen Zhiyuan, Xinxin, Li Daiping, and Jian Cunxin, displaying their names above them as they rose into the air.
• The enormous spiral pupil selected Qin Manjiang, whose name appeared alongside the other five players.
• Blood covered the six selected players and flowed into the third Spirit Pupil as it lit up.
• The six players returned to the real world, and an indistinct voice announced that Ping'an Hospital had begun.

Qin Manjiang and the other five players woke as new orderlies at Ping'an Hospital, where Head Nurse Liu Junqiu assigned them to choose among six psychiatric patients. Qin Manjiang chose Li, a patient with doppelgänger syndrome, after recognizing that her delusion resembled a feeling he had experienced since childhood.

• Head Nurse Liu Junqiu explained that the six players would each care for one patient at Ping'an Hospital.
• Li Daiping chose the nine-year-old boy with micropsia after learning that the patient’s distorted perceptions had led him to hurt people.
• No one chose the patient with walking corpse syndrome after Liu Junqiu warned that the previous orderly had gone mad from listening to him.
• Liu Junqiu described the dangerous patient with doppelgänger syndrome, and Qin Manjiang volunteered to care for her.
• Qin Manjiang learned that the patient was named Li and that he must not address her with a surname.

The players received their patient assignments at Ping'an Hospital and began inspecting the ward before their night shift. They discovered that the hospital’s unsettling decor concealed blood and a corpse embedded in the corridor wall.

• Nurse Liu warned the players about patients four, five, and six, and Xinxin volunteered to care for the necrophiliac Lian Yan.
• Jian Cunxin drew patient four, Chen Zhiyuan drew patient six, and Wen Liangsheng drew patient two; Nurse Liu gave them one hour before the shift began.
• Chen Zhiyuan suggested that the group inspect the break room, while Qin Manjiang pointed out that the hospital’s flimsy doors, exposed windows, gray surfaces, and yellowish lighting seemed designed to agitate patients.
• Wen Liangsheng noticed that the corridor wall had been repainted, and Jian Cunxin detected a smell of blood beneath the plaster.
• Jian Cunxin scraped the wall and revealed congealed blood; Wen Liangsheng scraped further and uncovered the contours of a woman’s face and a corpse embedded inside the wall.

After Head Nurse Liu ordered the six survivors to care for assigned patients, Qin Manjiang headed alone to Ward Building Three to find patient number three, Li. He entered the dark building clutching the [Me] doll, which suddenly moved in his hand as he climbed toward the third floor.

• Head Nurse Liu appeared after the lights went out, stopped the group from damaging the wall, and assigned each of them to a ward building.
• Qin Manjiang urged everyone to follow her orders, then left before Chen Zhiyuan could organize a group chat; Jian Cunxin followed him outside.
• Qin Manjiang noted that the full moon proved Ping'an Hospital was not the real world and identified Ward Building Three as his destination.
• Qin Manjiang approached and entered Ward Building Three alone, nervous about the hidden ghost and the dark, heavily secured corridors.
• As Qin Manjiang headed toward the third floor to find patient number three, Li, the [Me] doll moved in his palm.

Qin Manjiang discovered that his Permanent Item doll had come alive and seemed to guide him through the hospital. After entering Li’s room, he found himself alone in the ward and realized the LED screen identified him as Li.

• Qin Manjiang discovered that the doll could move, tug his hair to direct him left, and bite him when he poked it.
• Qin Manjiang found a plastic bag that smelled of bloody raw meat and put it in his pocket.
• Qin Manjiang took the doll with him and hurried to the third floor to find Li before ten thirty.
• Qin Manjiang approached Li’s reinforced room, and the door opened before a powerful suction pulled him inside.
• The ward lights came on, the room appeared empty, and the door’s LED screen displayed “Li, admitted,” leading Qin Manjiang to realize he was Li.

Qin Manjiang entered Li’s room and experienced a terrifying apparent death before returning to the doorway, uncertain whether it had been a hallucination. He stayed with Li as Nurse Liu arrived, and Li asked whether he was someone from outside.

• Qin Manjiang found himself transformed into Li inside a room in Building 3 and hid beneath the covers as a twisted figure approached.
• The figure dragged away Qin Manjiang’s quilt, strangled him, and broke his neck, but he immediately opened his eyes back in the doorway with his body restored.
• Qin Manjiang saw Li on the bed with bruised finger marks on her neck, and she pleaded for him to let her attack him when high heels sounded in the corridor.
• Li bit Qin Manjiang’s arm as a twisted figure reached the doorway, then Nurse Liu appeared in human form and ordered him to stay with Li overnight.
• After Nurse Liu left, Li asked Qin Manjiang whether 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 killed Li Daiping by shrinking him into the toilet and flushing him away, leaving his bloody corpse beneath the bedcovers.

• Li Daiping entered Xiaozhi’s ward, carrying a [False Tear] as his last-resort protection.
• Li Daiping found Xiaozhi apparently asleep and went to use the bathroom inside the ward.
• Li Daiping realized he had been shrunk and was trapped inside the toilet as Xiaozhi approached.
• Xiaozhi flushed the toilet, and a torrent of blood and filth sucked Li Daiping into the drain.
• Xiaozhi returned to the bed and revealed Li Daiping’s bloodied corpse beneath the covers.

Xinxin visited Lian Yan after hearing him play the violin and learned that he knew Ping'an Hospital was part of a game-like independent world. As footsteps approached, Lian Yan demanded her medical record, warning that he would have to attack her if the Inspector found them together.

• Xinxin heard violin music and found Lian Yan playing in his dark ward.
• Lian Yan said Nurse Liu had given him a violin and suggested she had held other roles in the hospital.
• Lian Yan questioned whether Xinxin believed he and the other patients were truly psychiatric patients, and said he could not escape the world Nurse Liu created.
• Lian Yan revealed that he had met others who came from outside the world and described the Ghost Story Game’s setting as an independent world with six patients and one doctor.
• As an Inspector’s footsteps neared, Lian Yan asked Xinxin for her medical record and warned that he might have to attack her to maintain his role as a necrophile.

Qin Manjiang saw through Li’s attempt to manipulate him and traded a promise to return her medical record for information about the Main Building. He headed back there with the doll, while Li’s body began to convulse and she said she wanted to leave.

• Li claimed she could enter Qin Manjiang’s consciousness and control his body, then told him the Main Building held what he needed.
• Qin Manjiang pretended to leave, returned to confront Li, and pointed out that the marks on her neck did not match the attack he remembered.
• Qin Manjiang offered Li the medical record in exchange for information, and Li said the person in the Main Building would not come that night.
• Li’s flesh and blood began to churn after Qin Manjiang left, and she groaned that she wanted to leave and that it was time for someone else.
• Qin Manjiang left the Third Ward Building with the doll and returned to the Main Building, asking it to watch his back.

Qin Manjiang followed a trail of fresh blood through the Main Building and realized a caller pretending to be Chen Zhiyuan was trying to locate him. An hour earlier, Chen Zhiyuan had encountered a self-harming patient in the Sixth Ward Building and fled when she attacked him.

• Qin Manjiang entered the Main Building with his doll and followed fresh blood upstairs after the doll noticed it.
• Chen Zhiyuan called Qin Manjiang about finding the patients’ medicine and asked where he was.
• Qin Manjiang recognized that the caller’s questions did not sound like Chen Zhiyuan’s and hung up.
• A deathly pale woman held Chen Zhiyuan’s phone in the darkness at the other end of the call.
• Earlier, Chen Zhiyuan found a patient in the Sixth Ward Building eating her own eye, and she lunged at him after he dropped her medical record.
• Chen Zhiyuan shut the ward door and ran from the attacking patient.

Chen Zhiyuan escaped Nurse Liu by hiding inside the Congealed Jade Gourd, while Qin Manjiang continued searching the main building and uncovered a staff badge linked to Lian Yan. The chapter ended with Nurse Liu appearing outside the window of the room where Qin Manjiang had hidden.

• Chen Zhiyuan fled the Sixth Ward Building, encountered Nurse Liu with eyeballs filling her sockets, and activated the Congealed Jade Gourd to escape.
• Chen Zhiyuan realized he could remain inside the gourd for only about a day without food or water and hoped the others would find clues.
• Qin Manjiang learned from a call made with Chen Zhiyuan's phone that a ghost was searching for them, then chose to keep following bloodstains through the main building.
• Qin Manjiang found a staff badge identifying Lian Yan as the psychiatry department's head nurse and recognized him as a patient with necrophilia.
• Qin Manjiang hid in a third-floor ward after sensing danger, then saw Nurse Liu clinging outside the window and staring at him.

Qin Manjiang used [I]'s ability to remove the Vengeful Ghost's disregard for gravity, then fled through the main building while Nurse Liu hunted him. After Jian Cunxin told him to meet her on the rooftop, he found the rooftop door locked and set up another escape plan as the ghost approached.

• Qin Manjiang sacrificed his mercy to remove the Vengeful Ghost's disregard for gravity, making it fall from the third-floor window.
• Qin Manjiang called Li Daiping and Xinxin but got no answer, then called Jian Cunxin, who confirmed Nurse Liu had checked her room and told him to meet her on the rooftop.
• Qin Manjiang ran upstairs, wondered whether Nurse Liu could create duplicates, and questioned why she had targeted him and why Lian Yan possessed an identical staff ID.
• Qin Manjiang found the rooftop door locked, messaged Jian Cunxin, and went back down to the fifth floor.
• Qin Manjiang left his phone in a ward and rushed toward the stairwell as the Vengeful Ghost climbed toward him, carrying out a plan to escape.

Qin Manjiang escaped the Main Building by distracting the Vengeful Ghost with an alarm and tricking her into entering an air vent. He returned safely to the Third Ward Building with the medical record, while Li’s changed gaze left him wary.

• Qin Manjiang used a ringing phone to draw the Vengeful Ghost away, then fled downstairs as she pursued him.
• On the third floor, Qin Manjiang opened an air vent and made the ghost believe he had hidden inside it, then slipped away while she crawled through the duct.
• Qin Manjiang escaped the Main Building and returned to the Third Ward Building, realizing Nurse Liu’s patient-care task had led him to a safe place.
• Jian Cunxin received Qin Manjiang’s message that he could not reach the rooftop and concluded he had found his own way out.
• Qin Manjiang kept the medical record close, took the quilt, and settled in to rest while noticing that Li’s gaze had changed.

On the second morning at Ping'an Hospital, Xinxin watched Lian Yan and left her medical record behind to test him before joining the others to collect medication. The surviving Players discovered that Wen Liangsheng had lost his record and was coughing violently, leaving them wary of what had happened to him.

• Xinxin recalled how Lian Yan had struggled against a strange will before Nurse Liu beat him, then woke to find him playing violin by the window.
• Lian Yan stopped playing when the loudspeaker summoned ward orderlies to collect medication, and Xinxin deliberately left their room unlocked as she went.
• Xinxin, Qin Manjiang, Jian Cunxin, and Wen Liangsheng found that Li Daiping and Chen Zhiyuan were missing, while Wen Liangsheng coughed badly.
• Qin Manjiang suspected the missing Players had lost their medical records to patients, and Wen Liangsheng admitted his own record was gone.
• Qin Manjiang, Xinxin, and Jian Cunxin backed away from Wen Liangsheng after seeing his pale face and severe coughing.

Qin Manjiang and the others collected their patients' medicine while discovering that Nurse Liu feared the patients in Wards One and Six and that hospital roles could change. Lian Yan warned Xinxin that the second night's condition for survival would differ from the first night's and offered protection if he avoided taking his medicine.

• Wen Liangsheng reported that the patient with Walking Corpse Syndrome had ignored him and had not tried to obtain his medical record.
• Qin Manjiang and the others collected medicine, but Nurse Liu angrily refused Jian Cunxin's request to deliver doses to Wards One and Six.
• Xinxin told the others that the occupations and illnesses of the seven people in the hospital were not fixed.
• Nurse Liu watched the group leave and fearfully begged not to be replaced after two medical records had fallen into the patients' hands.
• Lian Yan told Xinxin that taking his medicine would prevent him from protecting her that night and warned that the condition for survival would change.
• When Xinxin asked why he had wanted her medical record if it had kept her safe, Lian Yan said the first night had been the only initial opportunity to replace it.

Qin Manjiang discovered that Li had once been a Player and that her medicine briefly let her regain control, but he left without promising to save her. At the group meeting, Xinxin proposed that they find a new safety key each night and invited everyone to verify Lian Yan’s claims.

• Qin Manjiang gave Li her medicine, and she silently warned him to run while her expression showed murderous intent.
• Li confirmed through left-and-right glances that she was Li, that the medicine let her emerge briefly, that another consciousness had taken over her body, and that she had once been a Player.
• Qin Manjiang left Li’s ward after realizing his mercy had been removed, though he paused to look back at her.
• At eight thirty, Qin Manjiang showed the group Lian Yan’s employee badge, and Xinxin took it as proof that the hospital identities rotated.
• Xinxin explained that the first night’s safety key had been a medical record and argued that the group needed to find a new key each night.
• Xinxin invited everyone to meet Lian Yan and verify his claims, while Qin Manjiang remained more curious about someone else.

Qin Manjiang theorized that the person behind Ping'an Hospital was hiding among the seven people, then suffered a terrifying hallucination in which his eyes filled with eyeballs. A mysterious voice helped him recognize the deception, but when he came to, Wen Liangsheng had disappeared.

• Qin Manjiang questioned Jian Cunxin about her patient and proposed that one of the seven people was the normal person who had brought Ping'an Hospital into being.
• Qin Manjiang suspected Wen Liangsheng's patient was this round's person because he had no medical record of his own.
• Qin Manjiang suddenly felt watched and saw multiple eyeballs growing from his eye sockets, though Xinxin and Jian Cunxin saw nothing.
• A mysterious voice urged Qin Manjiang to recall what had changed, leading him to realize Wen Liangsheng's coughing had stopped and the scene was a hallucination.
• Qin Manjiang attacked the false Wen Liangsheng, who promised to come for him that night before vanishing with the illusion.
• Qin Manjiang regained consciousness between the ward buildings and found Wen Liangsheng missing.

Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin concluded that Wen Liangsheng had attacked Qin to stop him from discussing the person without a medical record, and they went to Ward Two to investigate. They found a basement staircase, while Qin remained troubled by the voice of Jiang Du.

• Qin Manjiang told Xinxin and Jian Cunxin that Wen Liangsheng was a ghost and recounted the illusion and his encounter with Nurse Liu.
• Jian Cunxin deduced that Wen Liangsheng had attacked Qin to interrupt him, and she urged Qin to search Ward Two with her.
• Xinxin left to follow Lian Yan and look for another item to protect them if the medical records stopped working.
• Jian Cunxin told Qin that Xinxin had witnessed a Vengeful Ghost hang her parents during her Beginner Level.
• Qin secretly asked his doll to sense anything unusual, then wondered whether Jiang Du had been inside his body all along.
• Jian Cunxin discovered that Ward Two had a basement with staircases at both ends of the corridor.

Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin explored Ping'an Hospital's basement and uncovered a bloodless doctor's corpse in the bleeding red soil. The ground then softened and began swallowing them, and Qin Manjiang spotted a face resembling Wen Liangsheng in the soil.

• Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin descended into the basement and found that its red soil glowed faintly and bled when cut.
• Jian Cunxin unearthed a buried hand, and Qin Manjiang helped her uncover the intact, shriveled corpse of Xiang Shaoyang, an attending physician in Psychiatry.
• Jian Cunxin cut the corpse's arm and found no blood, while Qin Manjiang privately questioned how she had known where to dig.
• Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin ventured farther from the stairs before the soil softened into a bloody mire and trapped their feet.
• Qin Manjiang lay flat and held Jian Cunxin's hand, but both continued sinking as he spotted a mocking face resembling Wen Liangsheng in the soil.

Jian Cunxin used her item, transforming the basement into a sea of blood, but its curse left her face rotting and her nearly powerless. Qin Manjiang rescued her and realized the sea matched the opening lines of Ping'an Hospital, leading them to seek the way back to shore.

• Jian Cunxin told Qin Manjiang to close his eyes, removed her mask, and triggered a change that turned the ground into a sea of blood.
• Qin Manjiang pulled Jian Cunxin from beneath the blood and saw that her face had begun to rot.
• Jian Cunxin woke and panicked over losing her mask, then revealed that the curse from using her item was eating away at her face.
• Qin Manjiang reassured Jian Cunxin that he was not afraid of her appearance, while they struggled to stay afloat and reach the distant stairs.
• Qin Manjiang recognized the sea as the sea of suffering from Ping'an Hospital's opening lines and asked Jian Cunxin how to reach its shore.
• Jian Cunxin recalled the way: turn back.