Chapter Summaries

Mr. Yan lost control of the Flesh-and-Blood Wedding Dress after the ritual feeding it was interrupted, while Jiang Du tried to leave Yu Qinghuan behind. Qin Manjiang fought his way into control of their body and dragged Yu Qinghuan out as Mr. Yan struggled with the dress.

• Mr. Yan vomited blood and realized that the ritual sustaining the Flesh-and-Blood Wedding Dress had been cut off.
• The wedding dress turned against Mr. Yan, who tried to tear it off and offered Yu Qinghuan as food.
• Jiang Du decided to leave Yu Qinghuan behind, but Qin Manjiang stopped him through their mental connection.
• Qin Manjiang resisted Jiang Du's pressure, seized the glowing view in their mental space, and took control of their body.
• Qin Manjiang grabbed Yu Qinghuan by the collar and dragged her away while Mr. Yan struggled with the wedding dress.

Qin Manjiang fled with the unconscious Yu Qinghuan after Nie Yunzhen disrupted the wedding dress ritual, leaving Mr. Yan to be consumed by the dress. Li Xijiu arrived to help them escape, but Yu Qinghuan woke and bit Qin Manjiang as they reached the car.

• Qin Manjiang realized Nie Yunzhen had interrupted the ritual by cutting the tendrils connected to Shen Hong, causing the wedding dress to turn on Mr. Yan.
• The Flesh-and-Blood Wedding Dress overwhelmed Mr. Yan and consumed him, transforming into a towering monster.
• Qin Manjiang tried to carry the unconscious Yu Qinghuan away but struggled to move quickly.
• Li Xijiu arrived in a car, and Qin Manjiang ordered him to get ready to drive as the wedding dress pursued them.
• Yu Qinghuan woke and bit Qin Manjiang's neck, but he carried her into the back seat, and Li Xijiu drove them away.

After Yu Qinghuan mistook Qin Manjiang for the hostile impostor and nearly killed him, Qin Manjiang realized Yan Xiao was dead and the Flesh-and-Blood Wedding Dress was out of control. He found a possible last path to survival and passed out after telling Li Xijiu to go to the locust tree hollow.

• Yu Qinghuan bit Qin Manjiang's throat until his plea to say his last words made her stop.
• Li Xijiu called Yan Xiao for help and drove Qin Manjiang toward his place while Jiang Du taunted them about the wedding dress being out of control.
• Qin Manjiang realized that the real Yan Xiao had been swallowed by the Flesh-and-Blood Wedding Dress and could no longer help them.
• Yu Qinghuan recognized the difference between Qin Manjiang and the impostor and apologized for biting him.
• Qin Manjiang remembered a possible path to survival and told Li Xijiu to go to the locust tree hollow before passing out.

Li Xijiu took the gravely wounded Qin Manjiang to Yan Xiao for surgery while Yu Qinghuan headed to the Old Locust Tree, realizing the wedding dress was now free to attack the surviving players. At the Old House, Liu Junyan dragged the dying Fan Cheng away after catching him reaching for a knife, and Fan Cheng found Qin Manjiang’s doll.

• Yu Qinghuan told Li Xijiu that Qin Manjiang was still alive, and they split up so she could go to the Old Locust Tree while Li Xijiu took him to Yan Xiao.
• Yu Qinghuan realized the wedding dress had been released from its restrictions and would attack the surviving players once it finished digesting Mr. Yan.
• Yan Xiao examined Qin Manjiang and found that his thyroid and trachea had been bitten through, then took him into the operating room.
• Fan Cheng regained the ability to move and reached toward a knife, hoping to kill Liu Junyan before he died.
• Liu Junyan caught Fan Cheng reaching for the knife and dragged him toward the main hall, where Fan Cheng found and clutched Qin Manjiang’s doll.

Fan Cheng died after the doll Qin Manjiang gave him killed Liu Junyan, and he sent a final message before succumbing to his injuries. At Huai'an Residential Complex, Zhong Xueran and Nie Yunzhen pulled Shen Hong from the Old Locust Tree, but she became a corpse as soon as she left the hollow.

• Fan Cheng heard a boy's voice from the doll, which offered to help him as Liu Junyan prepared to stab him.
• The doll flew at Liu Junyan and bit his throat; when Liu Junyan stabbed it, he fatally wounded himself and died from blood loss.
• Fan Cheng sent a message from his phone and died beside Liu Junyan, while the doll returned to stillness.
• At Huai'an Residential Complex, Zhong Xueran and Nie Yunzhen pulled Shen Hong away from the red tendrils inside the tree hollow.
• Shen Hong's body shriveled and rotted as she was dragged out, and her awareness vanished once she left the hollow.

Yu Qinghuan fled the out-of-control wedding dress toward the Old Locust Tree, trying to warn Nie Yunzhen to restore its supply. The wedding dress killed her before she could reach the tree, leaving her message as the only clue to stopping it.

• Yu Qinghuan rode toward Huai'an Residential Complex, wondering what Qin Manjiang had meant when he told her to go to Locust Tree Hollow.
• The wedding dress formed in the taxi beside Yu Qinghuan, and she jumped out when she noticed it reaching for her.
• Yu Qinghuan ran toward the Old Locust Tree and messaged Nie Yunzhen: “Restore the supply. It's out of control...”
• The wedding dress killed the taxi driver and constricted Yu Qinghuan's clothes as she struggled to keep moving.
• A car struck Yu Qinghuan, killing her before she could reach the Old Locust Tree.

After Qin Manjiang deduced that the ritual had to be reversed, Nie Yunzhen and Zhong Xueran tried to determine how, while the wedding-dress ghost attacked. Zhong Xueran realized that reversing the ritual meant switching Shen Hong and Liu Junyan’s places, leaving the group with the task of putting Liu Junyan’s corpse in the hollow.

• Li Xijiu received Fan Cheng’s message that Liu Junyan had died after saying it was too late, then forwarded it to the other players.
• Qin Manjiang briefly woke during surgery and told Nie Yunzhen and Zhong Xueran to reverse the sacrifice ritual and feed it the opposite, before passing out again.
• Zhong Xueran and Nie Yunzhen reasoned that daylight had revealed Shen Hong’s true state as a desiccated corpse and considered using a living person to reverse the ritual.
• The wedding-dress ghost appeared and tightened Nie Yunzhen’s clothes, so Nie Yunzhen led it toward the Back Courtyard while Zhong Xueran searched for a solution.
• Zhong Xueran concluded that Shen Hong and Liu Junyan had to switch places in the ritual, meaning Liu Junyan’s corpse belonged inside the hollow.

Zhong Xueran decided to test Qin Manjiang’s theory by bringing Liu Junyan’s body to Huai'an Residential Complex, while Nie Yunzhen faced the wedding dress alone. Nie Yunzhen was decapitated and devoured but remained alive through the [Shared-Fate Lock], leaving her fate—and the plan to reverse the ritual—uncertain.

• Zhong Xueran concluded that reversing the ritual might require swapping Shen Hong and Liu Junyan’s positions, then ran to retrieve Liu Junyan’s body despite the risks and uncertain odds.
• Nie Yunzhen discovered she was trapped in a dead-end courtyard as the enormous wedding dress approached.
• The wedding dress removed Nie Yunzhen’s head without her realizing how, then began devouring her body.
• Nie Yunzhen remained alive because of the [Shared-Fate Lock], but its previous uses had cost her thirty-one years of life.
• As the wedding dress reduced Nie Yunzhen to a skeleton, she wondered whether Zhong Xueran had succeeded and thought about Yan Xiao’s Scalpel and the price it might demand.

Li Xijiu abandoned his attempt to take Liu Junyan’s body to Huai'an Residential Complex and used the Doll to summon Jiang Du, who stopped the wedding dress from attacking. The crimson shadow entered Qin Manjiang, and Jiang Du warned Li Xijiu and Yan Xiao that they might not get along with him afterward.

• Li Xijiu realized there might not be enough time to reverse the ritual and changed direction after Nie Yunzhen failed to answer his call.
• Nie Yunzhen deduced that reversing the ritual required burying desiccated female corpses beneath the Old Locust Tree, but the wedding dress began moving before she could act.
• Zhong Xueran was attacked by the wedding dress in an alley after it transformed her clothes, and red tendrils enveloped her.
• Li Xijiu burst into the operating room, gave the blood-covered Doll to Jiang Du, and told him to protect Qin Manjiang at any cost.
• Jiang Du used the Doll to eliminate the wedding dress's supposed ability to foresee the future, stopping it from attacking Zhong Xueran and drawing a crimson shadow into Qin Manjiang.
• Jiang Du told Yan Xiao and Li Xijiu to wait for the game to end, then asked whether they would still get along with Qin Manjiang afterward.

The Wedding Dress ghost story ended, but several Players died or disappeared, and the surviving Players learned that Qin Manjiang and Mei Sijun were missing. The chapter ended with Qin Manjiang approaching a girl at Cityheart Lake and frightening her with his hungry stare.

• At six in the morning, the surviving Players heard that the Game had been cleared, and they discovered that the Wedding Dress had lost its sentience and stopped moving.
• The Players searched for the Wedding Dress, but it had disappeared; they also learned that Mei Sijun and Miss Qiao were missing.
• Nie Yunzhen, Shen Hai, Chen Zhiyuan, Yu Ruoli, and Liu Jingqing visited Yan Xiao's Clinic, where Yan Xiao told them Qin Manjiang had left and Mei Sijun was in Qiao Family Village.
• Yan Xiao warned the group not to search for Qin Manjiang, saying he should turn up, and sent them away from the Clinic.
• At Cityheart Lake, Qin Manjiang heard a girl call for her brother, mistook her voice for someone else's, and frightened her with his bloodshot, hungry stare.

After absorbing the wedding dress ghost’s craving for flesh and blood, Qin Manjiang discovered that the hunger was strongest around people he knew, so he left the clinic to keep away from them. At Cityheart Park, a young girl found her brother’s mutilated corpse and accused Qin Manjiang of being the killer.

• Li Xijiu told Qin Manjiang that Jiang Du had used the doll to remove the wedding dress’s craving for flesh and blood, and Qin Manjiang questioned how Li Xijiu knew how to use it.
• After eating raw beef, Qin Manjiang nearly attacked Yan Xiao and Li Xijiu, then decided he knew what he needed to do.
• The next day, Li Xijiu left the clinic, and Qin Manjiang slipped away after realizing his hunger grew stronger around people he knew.
• At Cityheart Park, Qin Manjiang saw a young girl run off and later joined the crowd gathered around her brother’s corpse, whose abdomen had been cut open and organs removed.
• The girl saw Qin Manjiang lick his lips and pointed at him, shouting that he was the killer.

After fleeing the park, Qin Manjiang wandered through the fog until Flower, a former Moon City Eye Realm player he had released from the ten coffins, found him and took control of his movements. She said they were looking for him, not Jiang Du, because the soul did not matter, and led him away to finish an unfinished game.

• Qin Manjiang fled the park as bystanders mistook him for the killer, while the little girl fainted and later screamed beside the corpse.
• Unable to go home or approach his friends, Qin Manjiang wandered through the fog and felt isolated and hopeless.
• Flower approached Qin Manjiang beneath her umbrella, and he recognized her as one of the Moon City players released from the ten coffins in the [Eye Realm].
• Flower revealed that Gu had killed the man in the park and staged the incident as a joke, while the other released players were behind the recent murders in Fu City.
• Qin Manjiang told Flower he was not Jiang Du, but she identified him as Qin Manjiang, immobilized him, and said the soul did not matter before leading him away to finish an unfinished game.

Flower took Qin Manjiang to meet Kong, Moon City's former First Seat, who offered him the choice of death or returning to Moon City with him. Qin Manjiang agreed to go in three days, then left the factory wondering whether Jie or Yang was connected to Kong's group.

• Flower led Qin Manjiang to an abandoned factory, where he met Kong, a man who appeared young despite spending twenty years in a coffin.
• Kong offered Qin Manjiang death or a place by his side in Moon City, and Qin Manjiang chose to go with him but refused to promise he would eat people.
• Kong explained that Qin Manjiang's appetite was tied to Spirit Pupils rather than familiarity, and said their shared goal was to end the Ghost Story Game.
• Flower hinted that someone Qin Manjiang knew belonged to Kong's group, and Kong angrily punished her by splitting her mouth before ordering her to leave.
• Kong told Qin Manjiang to return to Moon City with him in three days, and Qin Manjiang left the factory to prepare.
• Qin Manjiang wondered whether Jie or Yang was connected to Kong's group.

Qin Manjiang prepared to leave Fu City for Moon City with Kong, reflecting on the secrets his friends had kept from him and fearing what he might become. As he set out to say goodbye, Flower and Dog secretly followed, with Flower declaring that he was their future and must be protected.

• Qin Manjiang accepted that he would go with Kong to Moon City in three days, but wondered what would happen to Fu City's Ghost Story World and its players.
• Qin Manjiang suspected Mi Qiao had searched for the [Eye Realm] item and that Li Xijiu might have taken it, and he felt exhausted by the secrets people kept from him.
• Qin Manjiang packed his belongings, left his rented room, and planned to say goodbye to the Boss's wife at Clear Pupil Bar.
• Flower and Dog watched Qin Manjiang leave, and Flower told Dog to protect him until the future arrived.

Qin Manjiang went to Clear Pupil Bar to watch his friends from a distance, believing they were gathered for Yan Xiao’s birthday, but he saw someone who looked exactly like him inside. Yan Xiao approached and covered Qin Manjiang’s eyes, telling him to come along.

• Qin Manjiang reached Clear Pupil Bar and fled after spotting Liu Jingqing, whose arrival with flowers made him suspect the group was celebrating Yan Xiao’s birthday.
• He watched Chen Zhiyuan, Yu Ruoli, Shen Hai, Zhong Xueran, Nie Yunzhen, Lin Ci, and Liu Jingqing gather inside the bar.
• Qin Manjiang saw a man who looked exactly like him chatting with the group and wondered who he himself was.
• Inside the bar, the other Qin Manjiang thanked everyone for finding him and said he planned to go to Qiao Family Village to help Mr. Mei and Miss Qiao.
• Yan Xiao came up behind Qin Manjiang outside, covered his eyes, and told him to come with him.

Qin Manjiang escaped with Yan Xiao, who explained how he recognized the impostor and found him. At the riverside, Yan Xiao suspected that the person impersonating Qin Manjiang was Jiang Du.

• Yan Xiao drove Qin Manjiang away from the Clear Pupil Bar while identifying three people following them: Flower and her companion, and Lin.
• Qin Manjiang discovered that he could resist his appetite for Yan Xiao while Yan Xiao wore a mask and considered what that meant about his condition.
• Yan Xiao explained that the impostor had taken Qin Manjiang's identity and arranged to meet everyone at the Clear Pupil Bar, and that he recognized the fake by the bandaging on his neck.
• Yan Xiao told Qin Manjiang he had waited outside the bar because he expected him to return there, then drove them to a riverside walkway.
• Qin Manjiang said he had not sensed Jiang Du since waking from surgery, and Yan Xiao said he suspected Jiang Du was impersonating him.

Qin Manjiang told Yan Xiao about his origins, the veteran Moon City players, and his doubts about whether he was himself or Jiang Du before leaving for Moon City. Yan Xiao proposed that they challenge the game’s rules and bring down the Colosseum by saving both the people and ghosts they had met.

• Qin Manjiang rejected the idea that the person impersonating him was Jiang Du, reasoning that Jiang Du was too proud to pretend to be him.
• Qin Manjiang told Yan Xiao he was going to Moon City and explained how the veteran players had targeted him after he released them.
• Qin Manjiang shared his confusion about his identity, his soul, and the forces shaping his life.
• Yan Xiao said Nie Yunzhen had described the contest between humans and ghosts as a game for higher beings.
• Yan Xiao promised not to let the people he had met die and asked Qin Manjiang to help him save the ghosts they had met and bring down the Colosseum.

After Yan Xiao departed, Qin Manjiang left Fu City with Flower and Kong for Moon City, resolved to confront the being behind the Eye Realm. Meanwhile, Zhong Xueran’s vision worsened, and she set out to find Yan Xiao and verify whether Xu Yi was truly dead.

• Yan Xiao whispered to Qin Manjiang before leaving, and Qin Manjiang greeted Flower with renewed confidence.
• Zhong Xueran experienced severe distortions in her vision and decided to visit Yan Xiao’s clinic to ask about Xu Yi’s body.
• The Eye Realm survivors agreed to cooperate in future real-world Ghost Stories and set out for Qiao Family Village without Yan Xiao or Zhong Xueran.
• As heavy snow fell, Nie Yunzhen heard Qin Manjiang reflect that snow became ugly once it touched the ground, though melting was its destiny.
• Kong told Qin Manjiang that he and Flower would leave for Moon City while Kong and Dog followed separately.
• Qin Manjiang left Fu City with Flower, thinking that he would return either as ashes or after gouging out the eyes of the being that mocked humanity.

Qin Manjiang explored Moon City while waiting for an opportunity to enter its [Eye Realm], and his conversations with the talking doll raised concerns about his deteriorating mental state. At Moon Lake, he touched a silent young woman and her body shattered into ice, triggering panic at Moon Bay.

• Qin Manjiang followed the doll’s directions through Moon Bay while Flower reported to Kong that he was talking to it and seemed to be getting worse.
• Kong told Flower to keep Qin Manjiang alive and explained that eating only raw beef was eroding his mind because it could not satisfy the ghost part of his body.
• Qin Manjiang lost Flower and continued to Moon Lake with the doll, which had begun speaking less than two days after he arrived in Moon City.
• Qin Manjiang approached a young woman sitting on the viewing steps and touched her shoulder when she did not answer.
• The young woman shattered into ice fragments, and the people on the stairway screamed and fled in panic.

Qin Manjiang reported the gruesome death of Chen Qiu, whose body shattered into frozen pieces, and calmly described how he had discovered it. After Fang Xiu recognized the victim, Qin privately suggested that he knew who the killer was and offered to help.

• Flower told Kong that a girl had died after shattering into blocks of ice, and Kong urged her to use the incident as an opportunity to enter the game.
• Qin Manjiang called the police to report the death at Moon Bay Scenic Staircase, prompting Captain Wang Pingchang and Fang Xiu to investigate.
• Wang and Fang found the victim's body scattered in uniformly cut frozen pieces and suspected murder.
• Qin recounted how he had touched the victim's shoulder before she shattered, while Wang questioned his unusually calm demeanor.
• Fang identified the victim as Chen Qiu from a distinctive birthmark on her cheek.
• Qin told Fang that he knew who the killer was and offered to help find the cause before more people died.