Chapter Summaries

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.

Shen Hai, Zhong Xueran, and Bai Yang realized that Qin Manjiang’s presence was fading and planned to use his photo as a reminder. Meanwhile, Qin Manjiang found [Zhen] and discovered that she had Qin Manyi’s face, leaving him stunned when she called him her older brother.

• Zhong Xueran told Shen Hai and the others that Qin Manjiang had become harder to remember, and Shen Hai agreed that his presence was weakening.
• Zhong Xueran explained that she had forgotten Qin Manjiang was the person she needed to ask about Xu Yi until she wrote it in her phone notes.
• Bai Yang suggested writing Qin Manjiang’s name somewhere conspicuous, and Shen Hai proposed using Qin Manjiang’s photo as their phone wallpaper.
• The group agreed to stay together and continue searching for the mirror while trying to find a way to restore the world to normal.
• Qin Manjiang drove to the villa district to find [Zhen], whom he suspected might know how the world began.
• Qin Manjiang saw [Zhen] on a villa balcony and recognized Qin Manyi’s face; she greeted him as her older brother.

In the real world, Zuo Xian told Lin Ci that Yi Lianhai had resurrected her stillborn daughter by sending her into a weak point in space at Lower River Village. The girl’s unusual nature transformed that space into another world and split her into human and ghost versions, leaving the truth behind Qin Manyi’s impossible age unexplained.

• Lin Ci and Zuo Xian discussed Jiang Du’s failure and the choices they had made twenty years earlier.
• Zuo Xian told Lin Ci that her daughter was still alive, and Lin Ci reacted with shock and joy.
• Zuo Xian explained that Lin Ci had given birth prematurely during a ghost story and that the child had been stillborn.
• Yi Lianhai had reconstructed the child’s body and taken her to Lower River Village to open a space where she could survive.
• Zuo Xian revealed that the child’s unusual nature turned the space into another world and split her into human and ghost versions.

Qin Manyi revealed that she was Qin Manjiang’s real sister, formed through a connection between the real world and the world of Lower River Village. As Qin Manjiang drove her toward the ritual, she turned on him, threatening to keep him there forever.

• Qin Manyi confirmed she was Qin Manjiang’s sister and agreed to accompany him to the ritual that could make the world disappear.
• Qin Manjiang questioned how she could be his sister and how another Qin Manyi had appeared in Moon City, but fell silent as he realized she might have first entered this world long ago.
• Qin Manyi explained that she had been trapped in Lower River Village since infancy, dying repeatedly in its river until another version of her appeared in the real world.
• Qin Manyi said the other version grew up while she created this world from nothing, guided by what she saw through their connection.
• Qin Manyi warned Qin Manjiang that he wanted to destroy the world, then pressed something sharp and icy to his neck and threatened to keep him there forever.

Qin Manyi revealed that she had created the world beyond the river and gave Qin Manjiang and his companions the choice to decide its fate. She explained that the river was the only place she could not control and said that pushing her back into it would make the world disappear.

• Qin Manjiang told Qin Manyi that he had no personal dreams and made his choices to fulfill other people's wishes.
• Qin Manyi transported Qin Manjiang to Lower River Village, where Bai Yang, Zhong Xueran, Shen Hai, and Xi Wutong were waiting.
• Qin Manyi told the group they would decide whether her world continued to exist.
• Qin Manyi described how, as a child, she had repeatedly drowned in the river and imagined five places along its banks where she tried to climb out.
• Qin Manyi told Qin Manjiang that pushing her back into the river would make the world disappear.

Qin Manyi revealed that her world repeated in yearly cycles because she had only one year of life to sustain it, and she had let people enter despite knowing it would hasten its collapse. As the world shattered around them, Qin Manjiang and the others were left separated from her, with Qin Manyi standing alone on the river.

• Qin Manyi told Qin Manjiang that visitors regretted staying in her world because its inhabitants and events followed repeating patterns, despite her efforts to make them real.
• Qin Manyi revealed that her world repeated because she had only one year of life to sustain it, and that she could preserve her time by keeping people out or erasing them.
• Qin Manjiang realized that Qin Manyi had created a double who lived with him in the Real World and had built her world by connecting to his sister’s dreams.
• Qin Manyi asked Qin Manjiang what the real sky looked like as cracks spread across her body and the world around Lower River Village vanished into a void.
• The world collapsed into a thin photograph and shattered, leaving Qin Manyi standing on the river while Qin Manjiang moved away toward Shen Hai and the others.