Chapter Summaries

Zhou Mingrui witnessed Zarathustra’s shooting and suspected Luo Fu, while Jenna’s group escaped with Lumiana after carrying out their plan. At their apartment, Jenna realized Lumiana’s female self conflicted with the dream identity of Li Ming and asked whether she could still become a man.

• Zhou Mingrui saw Zarathustra’s head explode and watched the hotpot restaurant erupt into panic.
• Luo Fu returned from the restroom, and Rosanne and Franca reacted with apparent shock as Zhou Mingrui wondered whether Luo Fu had fired the shot.
• Ludwig led Lumiana into the performers’ dressing room, where Jenna used a mirror to bring them into the Mirror World and escape.
• Jenna’s group regrouped at Apartment 2303, and Jenna gave Lumiana a Healing Potion while explaining that Franca had shot Zarathustra and escaped the scene.
• Jenna worried that Lumiana’s female self conflicted with the dream identity of Li Ming and asked whether Lumiana could still turn into a man.

Jenna exploited a loophole in the dream to reshape Lumian-na’s assumed identity while the others dealt with the aftermath of their attack on Zarathustra. Lumian learned that Zhou Mingrui’s dream expelled anyone who used the supernatural in a way that made him feel endangered, while Franca realized the Certain-Hit Gun’s effect had made her ill because she had killed Zarathustra’s dream manifestation.

• Jenna discovered that Lumian-na accepted suggested details about her identity and past, then settled her and Ludwig and contacted Anthony.
• Anthony told Jenna how he escaped the prison and returned to the Mirror World, and Jenna sent him back to his apartment with the Lie ear clip.
• Police questioned Franca and Zhou Mingrui at the hotpot restaurant, and Dunn found a shattered mirror in the performers’ changing area.
• Madam Magician treated Lumian’s corruption, and Lumian told her that everyone in Zhou Mingrui’s dream was expelled and turned into a marionette after frightening him with supernatural activity.
• The restaurant manager said President Huang would pay for the interrupted meal, and Franca realized she was sick because she had used the Certain-Hit Gun’s Certain Death effect to kill Zarathustra.

Franca’s hidden role in Zarathustra’s death remained concealed from Rosanne, who began to suspect that Dream City was a dream. Later, Lumian-na felt an unexplained urge to leave home and go to Mushu Hospital, prompting Jenna to recall her connection to Ombella.

• Franca returned to Jenna’s apartment with Rosanne and pretended that her illness had left her too weak to talk, while Rosanne met Ludwig and accepted Franca’s explanation that he was her godson.
• Rosanne messaged Jenna about Franca and the shooting, and Jenna hinted that she would explain the truth in a couple of days; Rosanne then found a police notice seeking a woman from the scene.
• Rosanne checked her apartment with her parrot and used her Journalist ability to observe reality, where she heard Franca refer to being kicked out of a dream.
• Rosanne wondered whether her world was a dream and quietly asked what that would make her.
• That night, Lumian-na tried to leave the apartment, but Jenna stopped her and learned that Lumian-na felt called to Mushu Hospital.
• Jenna recalled that Lumian-na carried the bloodline of Ombella, the Great Mother’s Divine Child.

Jenna kept Lumian-na away from the hospital and spent a quiet night with her before returning to their apartment. Meanwhile, police investigated Zarathustra’s murder, and Rosanne discovered Jenna’s involvement in the killing, leaving her to question whether her world was a dream.

• Jenna took Lumian-na to the rooftop, where Lumian-na nearly fell but was caught by Jenna’s invisible spider silk, then recited a line about missing home while gazing at the moon.
• At Police Headquarters, Lunshengde and Dunn concluded that Zarathustra’s killers used mirrors and the Mirror World, and ordered officers to investigate remaining suspects and find the woman who emerged from the screen.
• Li En reported that Rosanne, Zhou Mingrui, and Luo Fu showed no signs of involvement in the murder.
• Jenna brought Lumian-na back to Room 2303, where Franca reminded her that she had two days off work; later, Jenna saw Lumian-na’s unconscious Astral Body in Rosanne’s Shaman World.
• Rosanne recognized Lumian-na and confronted Jenna, who admitted that they had killed Zarathustra and explained that Luo Fu had been hypnotized beforehand; Rosanne then asked whether it was really a dream.

Jenna told Rosanne that she was a figure in Zhou Mingrui’s dream, and Rosanne rejected the revelation in despair. Meanwhile, Lumian rested in Trier while Franca and Jenna discussed how to help Rosanne and what her reaction might mean for the dream.

• Rosanne used her Reporter ability to explain how she overheard Luo Fu asking about being kicked out of the dream, prompting Jenna to confirm that the city was Zhou Mingrui’s dream.
• Rosanne protested that she was not fake, then asked whether the grayish-white fog she saw while observing reality was the dream’s boundary before turning away from Jenna.
• Lumian chose to spend a day resting in Trier rather than risk visiting Bansy Island or bringing Earth’s Gift into the Dream City, and he considered how his dream self might be changing.
• Franca woke feeling better and spoke with Lumian-na, while Jenna took Franca to the bathroom and told her that Rosanne had learned the truth.
• Franca suggested that they find a way to make Rosanne believe the dream explanation was only another disguise, and Jenna proposed seeking Anthony’s help.
• Franca noted that Rosanne’s revelation had caused no mutation in the Dream City and had not gotten Jenna kicked out, despite Rosanne being part of Mr. Fool’s subconscious.

Franca and Jenna invited Rosanne over for cards and helped her reconnect with memories of her past, easing her disillusionment with the dream. After Rosanne left, Lumian-na received a cryptic message from Green, and Franca noticed news about new mushroom dishes at Crimson Moon Hospital.

• Franca suggested inviting Rosanne over to play cards, and Jenna arranged the visit while consulting Anthony about how to counsel her.
• During the game, Jenna asked Rosanne about her parents, and Rosanne recalled her father's death and her mother's illness and death.
• Lumian-na shared a childhood memory of her mother recovering from a serious illness, prompting Rosanne to recall her own past and become more animated.
• Rosanne helped Jenna and Lumian-na prepare lunch, then said goodbye and left to meet a university friend.
• Lumian-na found a message from Green praising her, and Jenna invented an explanation for why he believed she had killed Zarathustra.
• Franca spotted a news item about popular mushroom meals at Crimson Moon Hospital and connected it to Lumian's earlier request to Li Keji.

Franca and Anthony dealt with the threat posed by Mr. Cui, a Seer pathway Half-God investigating Zhou Mingrui, while Lumian recovered and returned to the Dream City. Lumian used the Eye of Calamity to cause a fatal accident that killed Mr. Cui’s dream incarnation.

• Franca decided to wait for Lumian to investigate Li Keji’s mushroom meals because she was ill and her companions were occupied.
• Mr. Cui sent bodyguards to investigate Zhou Mingrui and secretly followed them, while Zhou Mingrui watched from a ceiling vent after receiving a warning about him.
• Mr. Cui was expelled from the dream, and his bodyguard and Marionette died; Anthony refrained from attacking him because police were nearby.
• Lumian returned to his male form, heard Franca’s report, and later waited near the Tianyue Hotel in a rented car.
• Lumian used the Eye of Calamity to push Mr. Cui’s fate toward death, and a speeding car struck and ran over him at a crossing.

Lumian investigated the circumstances around Lumian-na and visited Li Keji at Crimson Moon Hospital, while Huang Beibei and Huang Tao discussed the possibility that their world was a dream. Li Keji told Lumian that he was pregnant, interrupting his work on the experiment.

• Lumian staged a bystander’s reaction to Mr. Cui’s fatal car crash while Anthony retrieved supplies, and they left without Ludwig.
• Lumian asked Franca and Jenna whether Lumian-na had acted strangely, then accepted Franca’s warning about the consequences of being expelled from the dream again.
• Huang Beibei returned home and discussed her publishing company with Huang Tao, who asked what she would do if awakening the dream meant she would disappear.
• Huang Beibei asked Huang Tao what lay inside a mirror, and he answered that it held a great terror beyond her imagination.
• Lumian disguised himself as Lumian-na, entered the psychiatric ward through a mirror, and asked Li Keji about his research.
• Li Keji told Lumian that he was pregnant and might not be able to continue the experiment for a while.

Lumian discovered that Li Keji was pregnant with a child sharing Ombella’s bloodline, apparently because the Dream City’s subconscious had treated Lumian as the Divine Child after their high-five. He persuaded Li Keji to consider an abortion but agreed to wait while Li Keji planned an experiment, then became alarmed when Li Keji said his colleagues seemed different.

• Li Keji told Lumian he was pregnant, and Lumian deduced that the Dream City’s subconscious may have made the pregnancy happen after their high-five at Mushu Hospital.
• Lumian entered Li Keji’s ward and confirmed the fetus shared Ombella’s bloodline, while discovering a jellyfish-like mushroom had absorbed the other mushrooms and failed specimens.
• Lumian used Instigation to convince Li Keji that the fetus was an evil god’s child and warned it could consume his body and spirituality.
• Li Keji agreed to consider an abortion but asked to first devise a plan to crossbreed the fetus with mushrooms, and Lumian reluctantly agreed to wait a day or two.
• Lumian warned Li Keji not to tell anyone about the evil god, and Li Keji said his colleagues, including Principal Jiajia, seemed to have become different people.

Lumian learned that Huang Jiajia and other teachers at Stars Tutoring Class had likely been replaced, and he and his companions discovered similar changes at Dream Tutoring Class. They concluded the targets were connected to Gehrman Sparrow, suggesting the Divine Emissary’s death was only the beginning of a wider plot.

• Li Keji told Lumian that his colleagues who used to eat his mushrooms no longer did, leading Lumian to suspect that Huang Jiajia and others had been replaced by Zarathustra or his accomplices.
• Lumian warned Li Keji to devise a plan within two days and secretly considered returning to Mushu Hospital to abort the fetus after Green helped it develop.
• Lumian told Franca, Jenna, and Anthony about the suspected replacements, and the group discussed Zarathustra’s covert plans and the danger of his return under a new identity.
• Anderson Hood confirmed that teachers at Dream Tutoring Class, including Ai Nana, Tinplate, and Floral Bow Tie, seemed faker and different from before.
• Lumian identified the replacements’ hidden common ground: they had appeared in the Great Adventurer novels and were connected to Gehrman Sparrow’s life.

Lumian tried to draw Zhou Mingrui’s attention to the suspicious circumstances surrounding Danitz’s murder and Mushu Hospital, while considering how to deal with the tutors who had been replaced. Franca and Jenna delivered a letter to the Star Dream General Store, where Franca spotted her bloodstained Pride Armor and Jenna noticed a white pigeon across the street.

• Lumian tested whether he could use abilities from the Planter, Apothecary, and Warlock pathways as Divine Child Ombella, but failed, and Jenna warned that repeated visits to Mushu Hospital could make him more like Ombella.
• At the Dream Tutoring Class, Lumian used the Eye of Calamity and saw that the receptionist, the teachers, and Anderson Hood had signs of death in their Rivers of Fate, while Anderson Hood alone showed no past death.
• Zhou Mingrui asked Lumian about Teacher Da, and Lumian told him that Danitz had been murdered and found in Mushu Hospital’s underground morgue, prompting Zhou Mingrui to question the circumstances.
• Lumian weighed ways to expose or eliminate the replaced tutors, but feared provoking Dream City’s authorities or disrupting the awakening plan.
• Lumian overheard Zhou Mingrui arrange for his sister Zhou Shasha to arrive in Yangdu on Wednesday and wondered what her arrival would change.
• Franca and Jenna mailed their letter at the Star Dream General Store; Franca saw that her former Pride Armor was stained with dark red blood, and Jenna pointed out a white pigeon across the street.

Rosanne joined Franca and Jenna to investigate whether Huang Jiajia had become unreal, and her Journalist ability revealed that the woman was controlled by taut threads unlike ordinary people. Rosanne went alone into North City Cemetery after learning that the group was trying to awaken Zhou Mingrui, while Franca and Jenna were left questioning whether their plan depended on first defeating the evil force.

• Rosanne monitored Luo Fu and Jenna, but they discovered her and invited her to help investigate whether people had become more unreal.
• At the Stars Tutoring Class, Rosanne used her ability to see threads controlling Huang Jiajia and found that ordinary pedestrians had slack threads instead.
• Rosanne became distressed, and Anthony soothed her while Jenna and Franca followed his instructions to avoid provoking her.
• Rosanne asked to visit North City Cemetery, and Jenna confirmed that Zhou Mingrui had to awaken before the approaching apocalypse destroyed the dream.
• Rosanne asked whether the evil force had been defeated, prompting Franca and Jenna to reconsider whether awakening Zhou Mingrui was the right course.
• Rosanne bought two bouquets of white chrysanthemums and walked alone among the cemetery gravestones.

Lumian and his companions considered how to weaken the Celestial Worthy while helping Mr. Fool awaken, identifying Mushu Hospital as a key link. Lumian met Lü Yong'an, Mushu Hospital's Head of Obstetrics, and began probing her for information about its underground area.

• Franca, Jenna, Anthony, and Lumian discussed whether the dream had fooled them into overlooking ways to weaken the Celestial Worthy, and Lumian proposed pursuing that goal alongside waking Mr. Fool.
• Lumian concluded that Mushu Hospital was closely connected to the Celestial Worthy because it created his marionettes through the Rebirth of dream figures.
• Rosanne fell asleep and heard a repeated chant about the real becoming false and the false becoming real, invoking the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth.
• Green introduced Lumian to Lü Yong'an, Mushu Hospital's Head of Obstetrics, and brought her to Li Keji to provide reproductive assistance.
• After Lü Yong'an examined and treated Li Keji, Lumian teleported away with her and Green, then asked her about Mushu Hospital.
• Lü Yong'an said that the underground area's modifications were nearly complete, and Lumian wondered who was entering and leaving it.

Lumian investigated Mushu Hospital’s underground activity and learned its new dean would arrive in a few days, then destroyed the Evil God’s offspring inside Li Keji with Flames of Destruction. He returned to his apartment and fell asleep, where he heard a child crying for its mother.

• Lumian learned from Lü Yong'an that no corpses were awaiting rebirth, she could not reach the hospital’s second basement level, and the new dean would arrive in a few days.
• Lü Yong'an said the Great Mother was disappointed that her followers had not found Giddas, and Green offered to help Lumian avoid his upcoming night shift; Lumian declined.
• Lumian checked Lü Yong'an’s WeChat profile, then went to Li Keji’s ward and persuaded him to let Lumian remove the fetus.
• Lumian used Flames of Destruction to burn the fetus in Li Keji’s belly to ashes, and Li Keji’s jellyfish-shaped mushroom began healing his abdomen.
• Lumian urged Li Keji to resume his research after resting, then returned to his apartment and fell asleep hearing a child cry, “Mommy.”

Lumian dreamed of a dead fetus and learned that Zhou Mingrui had arrived at Mushu Hospital, while Franca and Jenna found themselves trapped in Rosanne’s altered dream. The chapter ended with the women discovering that the dream corridor was inside Mushu Hospital.

• Lumian burned away the darkness in his dream, then messaged Green and Lü Yong'an that Li Keji's baby had died and warned them not to rush into a possible trap.
• Lü Yong'an told Lumian that Zhou Mingrui was outside Mushu Hospital, and Lumian asked him to report when Zhou entered.
• Zhou Mingrui sensed a terrifying presence inside Mushu Hospital and walked toward the emergency department to investigate.
• Franca and Jenna awoke in a corridor with their belongings intact and realized they had been transported rather than entering Rosanne's dream through Astral Body projection.
• Rosanne told Franca and Jenna that a voice had offered to replace her with a dream version of herself, and she recalled hearing the words 'The real can become false, the false can become real, Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth...'
• Franca and Jenna found a noticeboard identifying the corridor as Mushu Hospital.

Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne found themselves in the real underground section of Mushu Hospital, where the dream subconscious's psychological scars appeared to manifest. After crossing a hall filled with hanging corpses, they encountered a gigantic mushroom, and the chapter ended with the doors closing behind them.

• Franca and Jenna realized they could not escape Dream City from Mushu Hospital and suspected Rosanne's dream had brought them to its underground section.
• Franca told Rosanne that an enemy had likely influenced her through her Shaman world, while Jenna discovered the Mirror World was too dangerous to enter.
• The three searched for an ordinary exit, deciding to try Rosanne's drawn door only if they became trapped.
• Franca opened a set of wooden double doors and led Jenna and Rosanne through a hall where the corpses of Ai Nana, Huang Jiajia, and other Dream Tutoring Class teachers hung from the ceiling.
• After crossing the hall, Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne entered a dim corridor and saw a two-meter-tall, red-capped mushroom creature before the doors slammed shut behind them.

Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne escaped a gigantic mushroom monster in Mushu Hospital’s underground corridors, then encountered a masked orderly pushing an apparently empty transport bed. Meanwhile, Zhou Mingrui found signs that the hospital’s danger lay below ground when one elevator seemed to lead into hell.

• Franca and Jenna fought the gigantic mushroom man, and their Mirror Substitutes saved them and Rosanne from its magma sword and explosive attacks.
• The trio fled into another corridor, where Rosanne developed a sudden illness and Jenna cured her with a Healing Potion.
• Rosanne hid inside a door she drew on the wall as a masked orderly pushed a transport bed beneath a raised, empty-looking blanket through the corridor.
• After the orderly passed, the trio continued toward the elevator lobby, but the doors behind them opened again when they were only a few meters from the exit.
• Zhou Mingrui obtained a lab test order, went to the elevator lobby, and sensed that one of the elevators going down led to the source of fear beneath Mushu Hospital.

Lumian and Zhou Mingrui investigated the surgery elevator area while Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne confronted a monstrous pregnant woman in Mushu Hospital’s underground. After Franca killed the creature’s fetus, the underground began collapsing into a dark abyss, leaving the group unsure where to escape.

• Zhou Mingrui avoided descending into the underground, and Lumian revealed himself after hiding nearby before feeling a tremor beneath the hospital.
• Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne hid as an orderly wheeled in a pregnant woman whom Rosanne recognized from her dream.
• The pregnant woman and the orderly attacked after a baby cried, and Jenna and Franca used black flames to bring them down.
• The pregnant woman’s shed flesh spawned grotesque infant creatures until Franca shot the fetus with the Certain-Hit Gun and stopped the births.
• The underground corridors and rooms began collapsing into a bottomless abyss, and Franca realized the apparent safe areas might have been a Dream City disguise.

As the corridor collapsed and monster children closed in, Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne failed to escape through Rosanne’s drawn door or the Mirror World. Franca decided to advance to Witch of Despair and draw the Primordial Witch’s gaze, accepting the danger as her chance to save them.

• Franca, Jenna, and Rosanne tried to escape through a door Rosanne drew to her home, but the door and passage collapsed with the surrounding area.
• Franca glimpsed a terrifying presence in the abyss and recognized it as the psychological trauma of Mr. Fool or the Celestial Worthy.
• Franca tried to use the Mirror World, but the mirror had become solid and impassable.
• Franca proposed advancing to Witch of Despair to draw the Primordial Witch’s gaze and open a passage to the Mirror World, while Jenna warned that the plan might fail and strand her in the dream.
• Franca moved the group toward the corridor’s middle, spread Mysticism Pathogens, and explained how the Primordial Witch’s gaze might help them escape.
• Franca told Jenna that she had long imagined a desperate battle as an opportunity to advance and save everyone, then declared that the opportunity had arrived.

Franca advanced to Witch of Despair as the Primordial Witch's gaze opened a path through the Mirror World, but the Mirror World collapsed and she fell with the monster children into the abyss beneath Mushu Hospital. Jenna and Rosanne escaped and alerted Lumian, who headed underground to rescue Franca and was told by Lü Yong'an that only the Great Mother's help could save someone from the abyss.

• Franca drank the Despair potion while Jenna and Rosanne held back the monster children, and the Primordial Witch's gaze broke the obstruction isolating the Mirror World.
• Jenna and Rosanne escaped through the Mirror World, but it collapsed as a danger stirred within it, leaving Franca trapped below.
• The collapse dropped Franca and hundreds of monster children into the abyss, where she completed her advancement and used Featherfall to steer away from a terrifying psychological shadow.
• Jenna and Rosanne emerged from the elevator mirror and told Lumian that Franca was below and the Mirror World had collapsed; Lumian sent them to find Zhou Mingrui and went underground himself.
• Jenna's Pain potion was fully digested as Lumian reached the abyss, where Lü Yong'an told him that saving someone there required praying for the Great Mother's help.