Chapter Summaries

After emerging from the Congealed Jade Gourd, Chen Zhiyuan found Wen Liangsheng injured and used his Continuation Pen to uncover clues about Ping'an Hospital’s past and a possible way to survive. He realized the person before him was not Wen Liangsheng and fled.

• Chen Zhiyuan left the Congealed Jade Gourd at Ward Six and found Wen Liangsheng at Ward Two, missing his left arm.
• Wen Liangsheng said a Green-Faced, Fanged Ghost had attacked him, and Chen Zhiyuan agreed to treat the wound outside in the sunlight.
• As Chen Zhiyuan bandaged him, Wen Liangsheng claimed Jian Cunxin had been possessed and bitten off his arm.
• Chen Zhiyuan used his Continuation Pen on Wen Liangsheng and glimpsed a history of disappearances beneath Ward Two, along with a possible plan for survival.
• Chen Zhiyuan recognized that Wen Liangsheng was not human, shoved him to the ground, and ran away.

In the Underground Space beneath Ping'an Hospital, Jian Cunxin and Qin Manjiang discovered a mountain of bones and were pursued by a half-formed Vengeful Ghost. As the space trapped them in place and the other corpses began to awaken, Qin Manjiang told Jian Cunxin to follow his footprints, suggesting he had found a Path to Survival.

• Jian Cunxin and Qin Manjiang woke in the Underground Space, where they saw a vast field of bones and a towering mountain of remains.
• Qin Manjiang noticed that the skeleton atop White Bone Mountain had no skull, and a nearby skeleton began growing blood vessels, sinew, and flesh.
• Qin Manjiang grabbed Jian Cunxin and fled, but they could not find the stairway and discovered that White Bone Mountain remained just as close as before.
• The half-formed corpse climbed down from the mountain as other remains began to grow flesh, and it advanced toward Jian Cunxin and Qin Manjiang.
• Qin Manjiang suppressed his fear, tightened his grip on Jian Cunxin's wrist, and told her to follow his footprints.

Qin Manjiang led Jian Cunxin by copying the mutilated corpse’s exact steps, while Chen Zhiyuan fled into the Main Building with Wen Liangsheng’s pursuing ghost close behind. After the ghost’s body collapsed and disappeared, Chen Zhiyuan attacked Nurse Liu, warning her that he might kill her because he could barely think clearly.

• Qin Manjiang copied the mutilated corpse’s Z-shaped steps and told Jian Cunxin to follow his footsteps.
• Chen Zhiyuan ran toward the Main Building as Wen Liangsheng’s body dissolved into filthy blood and pursued him.
• Chen Zhiyuan found Nurse Liu at the nurses’ station, and she fled upstairs after seeing the blood enter the building.
• Wen Liangsheng’s body began falling apart, and Nurse Liu realized it had been injured and needed to change bodies.
• Nurse Liu threatened Chen Zhiyuan, but he pinned her against the wall and warned her that he might kill her.

Xinxin discovered that Lian Yan was a corpse who sought to preserve people at their most beautiful moments, and he attacked her after she uncovered his secret. Her photograph failed to protect her, but the two rotting corpses inside it disrupted Lian Yan long enough for her to regain movement, leaving her gravely wounded and unconscious.

• Lian Yan told Xinxin that the world repeated its cycle every seven days and asked about her life and psychology studies.
• Xinxin pointed out that Lian Yan never blinked and seemed not to be alive, prompting him to reveal his desire to freeze her at her most beautiful moment.
• Lian Yan immobilized Xinxin and revealed that he had turned himself into a corpse, so she used her photograph to escape into its space.
• Lian Yan picked up the photograph and continued to attack Xinxin inside it, slicing her wrist and beginning to skin her.
• The two rotting corpses in the photograph swayed, causing Lian Yan to shriek and release Xinxin from his hold.
• Xinxin collapsed from blood loss, saw the two figures approach and vanish, and eventually fell silent inside the photograph.

Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin escaped the basement, only to be targeted by Patient One’s micropsia and reduced to tiny proportions. Qin Manjiang realized the phenomenon worked like a convex mirror, and the two reversed it by charging toward and crushing the child ghost, returning themselves and the hospital to normal size.

• Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin escaped the basement, but Li Daiping’s corpse fell before them and they saw the eyeball-covered Patient One watching from Ward One.
• Patient One’s micropsia made Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin shrink as the hospital buildings grew enormous, leaving them unable to reach the Main Building before the child caught them.
• Qin Manjiang realized the distorted scale was caused by a convex-mirror effect and told Jian Cunxin to trust him as he led her toward Patient One.
• Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin continued toward the child as the world returned to normal around them and they grew larger than the wards.
• Qin Manjiang stamped on the now tiny Patient One, whose scream warped the surroundings, and both Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin returned to normal size.

After surviving the Basement ghost, Qin Manjiang suspected that the hospital’s medicine awakened another consciousness inside its staff. Nurse Liu’s answers suggested she was a real person forced to play a role in Ping'an Hospital, leaving Qin Manjiang questioning whether the hospital itself was real.

• Qin Manjiang and Jian Cunxin returned to the Main Building, where they found Chen Zhiyuan alive and restraining Nurse Liu; they shared how they had escaped the Basement ghost and what Chen had learned with his Continuation Pen.
• Jian Cunxin summarized the clues linking Ping'an Hospital’s transformation to the Director’s discovery of bones and blood, and Nurse Liu’s killing of him.
• Qin Manjiang noticed Nurse Liu resembled Li after taking medicine, so he had Jian Cunxin bring the two remaining doses and give one to Nurse Liu.
• After taking the medicine, Nurse Liu cried and silently begged Qin Manjiang to kill her; she answered that she was not Nurse Liu and had been forced to play the role.
• Nurse Liu confirmed that the patients were also forced to play roles, prompting Qin Manjiang to ask whether Ping'an Hospital was a real hospital.

Qin Manjiang concluded that Ping'an Hospital might be a false setting and that the Red Pill could be the second night's Safety Key or a way to awaken their true selves. As darkness fell, he considered taking the last pill himself, leaving Chen Zhiyuan and Jian Cunxin uneasy.

• After Nurse Liu took the Red Pill, she raged that she was not Nurse Liu and that the hospital was not real.
• Jian Cunxin briefly smiled eerily and told Qin Manjiang to come find her before returning to normal; Qin Manjiang warned that her patient's personality had appeared inside her.
• Qin Manjiang connected Nurse Liu's behavior, Li's warning, and the basement's mountain of bones and sea of blood to the possibility that everyone was playing roles.
• Qin Manjiang proposed that the Red Pill might protect its user on the second night, while giving it to patients would sacrifice that protection for information.
• Qin Manjiang wondered whether the players themselves were trapped in roles and whether taking the pill could awaken them; night fell as Chen Zhiyuan and Jian Cunxin watched him uneasily.

As the dead rise from the mist-covered plaza, Qin Manjiang nears collapse while Chen Zhiyuan carries him through the hospital and refuses to abandon him. Qin Manjiang swallows the Red Pill and awakens as Jiang Du, who drives the pursuing Horror Nurse out of the building and faces the horde below.

• Nurse Liu warned everyone to shut the doors as pale mist rose and a blood-soaked nurse crawled from the concrete, but the Horror Nurse broke into the Main Building.
• Nurse Liu and Jian Cunxin ran upstairs separately, while Chen Zhiyuan carried the exhausted Qin Manjiang away from the pursuing nurse.
• As Qin Manjiang drifted toward unconsciousness, a voice promised to save Chen Zhiyuan, but Qin Manjiang swallowed the Red Pill to resist giving up control of his body.
• Qin Manjiang awakened with a calm, unfamiliar gaze, told Chen Zhiyuan to put him down, and watched the Horror Nurse turn and crash out through a wall and window.
• Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan saw countless corpses emerge from the mist-covered plaza, and Qin Manjiang introduced himself as Jiang Du.

Jiang Du took control of Qin Manjiang’s body, reassured Chen Zhiyuan, and suggested the group had enough clues to end the Game. Meanwhile, Jian Cunxin hid from a skeletal ghost on Ping'an Hospital’s top floor, unable to understand why it had appeared there.

• Jiang Du told Chen Zhiyuan that he was a medication-awakened consciousness sharing Qin Manjiang’s body and promised to return control when the medication wore off.
• Chen Zhiyuan explained the group’s discoveries about Ping'an Hospital and how the players had entered the Game.
• Jiang Du asked where Ping'an Hospital was in Fu City, then said the clues were sufficient to end the Game despite Chen Zhiyuan’s doubts.
• Jiang Du changed the subject to Spirit Pupils and led Chen Zhiyuan farther into the dark corridor.
• Jian Cunxin hid in a top-floor ward as a skeletal ghost clacked through the corridor, wondering why it had appeared there.

Jian Cunxin hid from a bone-cracking monster, then realized the ghosts in [Ping'an Hospital] all shared a connection to eyes as the ward began to flood with blood. She died trying to leave Qin Manjiang a final warning on her phone.

• Jian Cunxin waited in a ward while the mysterious monster stopped outside the door, then wondered whether it had gone downstairs.
• Blood seeped through the ceiling and walls, and Jian Cunxin sensed countless eyes watching her.
• Jian Cunxin connected the ghosts’ crowded eye sockets with Nurse Liu’s claim that this was not a hospital and Qin Manjiang’s question about playing roles.
• The blood engulfed Jian Cunxin, and she understood why she was dying in [Ping'an Hospital].
• Jian Cunxin used her phone to write “Stay... a... live...” before she stopped breathing.

Jiang Du explained the Spirit Pupil threshold and helped Chen Zhiyuan deduce that [Ping'an Hospital] was a horror film, offering three possible ways to survive it. After learning that Chen Zhiyuan's Continuation Pen was steadily eroding his ability to think, Jiang Du urged him to survive and deliver a message to Qin Manjiang about entering the Eye Realm.

• Jiang Du told Chen Zhiyuan that nine hundred and ninety-nine Spirit Pupils was the limit and that ten people who reached it might go to a New World.
• Jiang Du proposed that the path to survival in [Ping'an Hospital] lay in understanding its worldview rather than finding rules that restricted the Vengeful Ghosts.
• Chen Zhiyuan concluded that [Ping'an Hospital] was a film, and Jiang Du outlined three survival strategies: find the protagonist, become the protagonist, or break the Fourth Wall.
• Jiang Du revealed that his Permanent Item could alter perception, while Chen Zhiyuan explained that the Continuation Pen let him develop possible future storylines at the cost of permanently diminishing his ability to think.
• Jiang Du urged Chen Zhiyuan to stay alive and told him to ask Qin Manjiang to let him enter the Eye Realm after they cleared the Game.

Jiang Du explained that breaking the Fourth Wall required an actor to recognize the audience, and he led Chen Zhiyuan to search Ward Two for the last medicine pill. After drawing the corpses away with Chen Zhiyuan’s phone, Jiang Du collapsed and left Chen Zhiyuan with instructions to tell the awakened Qin Manjiang that he wanted to enter the Eye Realm.

• Jiang Du explained the Fourth Wall and said Nurse Liu or the patients could break it by recognizing the audience and camera.
• Jiang Du reasoned that Wen Liangsheng’s medicine pill might still be in Ward Two because the ghost who collected it likely had not taken it.
• Chen Zhiyuan suggested movie-style ways to get past the corpses, and Jiang Du used his phone’s flashlight and music to lure them away.
• Jiang Du and Chen Zhiyuan ran into Ward Two, but Jiang Du stopped and told Chen Zhiyuan to ask for entry into the Eye Realm.
• Jiang Du’s voice cut off, and Qin Manjiang’s body collapsed as the boy woke up.

Qin Manjiang woke after Jiang Du temporarily took over his body, and he and Chen Zhiyuan went to find the medicine. At Ping'an Hospital, they met Guan She, who revealed his desperate plan to survive the film; Chen Zhiyuan realized that the events matched a storyline written by the Continuation Pen.

• Qin Manjiang woke up and Chen Zhiyuan told him what Jiang Du had said and done while he was unconscious.
• Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan searched the hospital for the medicine and followed violin music to Number Two's room.
• Qin Manjiang identified the man as Lian Yan, learned that his real name was Guan She, and questioned him about his role and the Work Badge.
• Guan She admitted he was killing to preserve his memories and survive the game, believing only one person could survive.
• Chen Zhiyuan recognized Guan She's words and Qin Manjiang's response as events from the Continuation Pen's story, realizing that this storyline had come true.

Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan tried to evade Guan She and retrieve the medicine, but Qin Manjiang realized Guan She was killing supernatural patients to steal their abilities. He rushed back upstairs to save Chen Zhiyuan as Guan She’s threat spread through the building.

• Qin Manjiang told Chen Zhiyuan to draw Guan She away while he circled back for the medicine, then planned to take it to Li in the Third Ward Building.
• Chen Zhiyuan waited at the stairwell as Qin Manjiang ran downstairs, but Qin Manjiang heard a woman crying upstairs and reconsidered the situation.
• Qin Manjiang concluded that former Players who chose to keep ghosts company became characters in [Ping'an Hospital], and that new performers replaced old ones.
• Qin Manjiang realized Guan She was killing patients with supernatural abilities to take their powers and become the only character who kept ghosts company.
• Seeing blood seep through the ceiling, Qin Manjiang feared Chen Zhiyuan would be killed and charged upstairs.

Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan escaped the Ping'an Hospital ghost story by breaking the film's camera, only to glimpse a vast cinema filled with supernatural threats before they vanished. Their next destination remained unknown.

• Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan barricaded themselves in a ward as ghosts attacked and blood spread through the hospital.
• Guan She took control of Chen Zhiyuan, but Chen Zhiyuan broke free by striking his head against the wall and told Qin Manjiang that he trusted him.
• Qin Manjiang realized they could stop the film by destroying its camera, then gouged out Chen Zhiyuan's eyes and his own.
• Qin Manjiang and Chen Zhiyuan found themselves in a cinema, where the film ended and the Ghost Story Game declared Ping'an Hospital cleared.
• Before they disappeared in bloody light, Qin Manjiang spotted a figure resembling Li Xijiu among countless eerie beings in the cinema.

After Ping'an Hospital ended, Chen Zhiyuan and Qin Manjiang returned to the Eye Realm as the only survivors and received large spirit-pupil rewards. The Ten Seats Sequence changed dramatically, and a fresh blood-red light left everyone fearing the next Ghost Story was about to begin.

• Nie Yunzhen gathered the forty-three unselected players in Fu City and explained what she knew about the Eye Realm.
• The players heard that Ping'an Hospital had been cleared and were pulled into the Eye Realm.
• The Eye Realm displayed Chen Zhiyuan and Qin Manjiang as the only returning survivors, while the other four players remained absent.
• Chen Zhiyuan received 95 spirit pupils and reached a total of 355, while Qin Manjiang received 150 and reached a total of 300.
• The Ten Seats Sequence placed Nie Yunzhen first, Chen Zhiyuan second, Abyss third, and Doctor fourth.
• The Eye Realm emitted another blood-red light, frightening the players with the possibility that a new Ghost Story was beginning.

After the Third Ultimate Game was cleared, the Fourth Spirit Pupil revealed a new Ghost Story, [Death as Scheduled], and selected five players to face it in seven days. Qin Manjiang was spared when an unseen voice made the enormous pupil withdraw its gaze, while Lian Yan escaped the remains of Ping'an Hospital and vowed to find Qin Manjiang.

• The Third Spirit Pupil lit, and the Fourth revealed [Death as Scheduled], which gave chosen players seven days before their scheduled deaths and set no time limit.
• The Eye Realm selected Su Yu, Yue Chiqiu, Xia Nan, Cao Xiangrong, and Liu Jingqing for the new Ghost Story.
• The enormous spiral pupil began to focus on Qin Manjiang, but a voice in his mind said, “Get lost,” and the pupil withdrew; the countdown began at seven days.
• Inside the cleared Ping'an Hospital, Lian Yan emerged from the pile of bodies clutching a photograph and realized the path to survival, then thanked Qin Manjiang and vowed to find him.

Qin Manyi revealed that she had been chosen for Moon City's Eye Realm and left, warning Qin Manjiang not to follow until he escaped Fu City’s Eye Realm and joined the final tenth. Meanwhile, Chen Zhiyuan woke with more than 300 Spirit Pupils and called Qin Manjiang to pass on an important message from Jiang Du.

• Qin Manjiang called Lin Ci and arranged to stay away from work for another week, then spoke to the doll [I] about his doubts and asked it to lead everyone out alive if it took over his body.
• Qin Manyi showed Qin Manjiang the Moon mark on her chest and told him she had been chosen for Moon City's Eye Realm.
• Qin Manyi begged Qin Manjiang not to come to Moon City until he escaped Fu City's Eye Realm, gathered 999 Spirit Pupils, and became one of the final tenth, warning that he would disappear otherwise.
• Qin Manyi left for Moon City, and Qin Manjiang sat alone, thinking about her warning.
• Chen Zhiyuan woke to a distorted world after exceeding 300 Spirit Pupils and remembered that Jiang Du had told him to tell Qin Manjiang something important.
• Chen Zhiyuan called Qin Manjiang, who invited him to meet at the Clear Pupil Bar.

Liu Jingqing reflected on her approaching death while watching the rain, then received invitations from Nie Yunzhen to discuss her survival and Qin Manjiang to meet friends. She chose to visit Qin Manjiang at Clear Pupil Bar instead, newly reluctant to die and curious about his haircut.

• Liu Jingqing watched a Husky with a takeout bag on its head evade the elderly gatekeeper in the rain and wrote down what she saw.
• Liu Jingqing sensed that her time to die was near and considered how little she wanted to leave the world behind.
• Nie Yunzhen called Liu Jingqing to join the players at Catface Café, where they were trying to find a way for her to survive the upcoming game.
• Qin Manjiang called Liu Jingqing and invited her to meet him and several others, mentioning his new haircut and an important matter.
• Liu Jingqing declined Nie Yunzhen's invitation, then left for Qin Manjiang's gathering after he texted her the address: Central District, Clear Pupil Bar.

Nie Yunzhen held a gathering at Catface Café to help Su Yu, Yue Qiuchi, and Cao Xiangrong survive their upcoming game, while Qin Manjiang revealed another gathering at Clear Pupil Bar. After explaining that he possessed a backup device called [Eye Realm], Qin Manjiang was interrupted by an uninvited young man.

• Nie Yunzhen noticed that the Ten Seats had declined her gathering because they had another one, then asked the attendees to share ideas for surviving [Death as Scheduled].
• Liu Jingqing arrived at Clear Pupil Bar and met Qin Manjiang, Yu Ruoli, Xia Nan, Qiao Ziruo, and the other guests.
• Xia Nan recognized Yan Xiao as a fellow alumnus, and the two began talking about their past medical careers and present circumstances.
• Yu Ruoli finished sketching Qin Manjiang, and Zhong Xueran prompted him to explain the gathering's purpose.
• Qin Manjiang showed the group a seamless device called [Eye Realm] and said it was a backup that had taken some of the Fu City Eye Realm's permissions.
• A handsome young man entered the bar with a dripping umbrella despite Qin Manjiang saying it was closed.