Chapter Summaries

Yang Yong brought Wang Yanfeng and Zhang Le to meet Cao Xianming after learning they had information about Mechanical City and several vacant houses. The two men waited for Cao Xianming to assess their request to join the Survival Convoy.

• Wang Yanfeng handed Yang Yong the Soul Thread Cutter as a pledge, but Yang Yong returned it and said he valued curio materials and information about Mechanical City.
• Wang Yanfeng explained that his former convoy had acquired ten houses in the Outer City, and that the rest of the group had died during a mission to collect live zombies.
• Yang Yong realized the houses would remain unclaimed while Wang Yanfeng and Zhang Le were alive, then invited them to meet the convoy captain.
• Yang Yong took Wang Yanfeng and Zhang Le to the Outer City First Hotel, where Cao Xianming began calculating whether they genuinely wanted to join the Survival Convoy.

Cao Xianming welcomed Wang Yanfeng and Zhang Le into the Survival Convoy with food and a promise of fair treatment, prompting them to offer information about Mechanical City. As the convoy prepared to leave the Outer City First Hotel, Front Desk Robot 001 demanded 119,000 battle merits and the Security Robots transformed to prevent their departure.

• Cao Xianming explained the Survival Convoy's rules and gave Wang Yanfeng and Zhang Le flour and bowls of noodles, moving them to share what they knew about Mechanical City.
• The Survival Convoy members packed to leave the cramped hotel after learning they could move out.
• Front Desk Robot 001 stopped Cao Xianming and demanded 119,000 battle merits for the convoy's six-day stay after deducting its mission reward.
• The Security Robots transformed into Combat Robots and aimed their weapons at the convoy, blocking its departure.

Yang Yong and the Survival Convoy secured free credit and homes in Mechanical City while Cao Xianming prepared for the Core Area to open. On the seventh day, the fog cleared, outside information reached the Nine Great Elders, and the Third Elder opened his eyes as the city's factions faced a new struggle.

• Wang Yanfeng warned Cao Xianming that Mechanical City's weapons could destroy ordinary people, so Cao claimed the group had an agreement with the Second Elder.
• Kang Yixiang vouched for the convoy, and Front Desk Robot 001 offered Yang Yong an interest-free credit line of 300,000 battle merits.
• Yang Yong signed the contract, received a wrist-worn device holding the battle merits, and the convoy filled ten houses in the Outer City.
• Cao questioned Wang Yanfeng about Mechanical City while preparing for the Core Area to open and the Nine Great Elders to appear.
• After seven days, the fog lifted from the Core Area and outside information flooded the Council of Elders' system.
• The Third Elder opened his eyes as the struggle among Mechanical City's factions resumed.

The Third Elder learned that his plan to expel the Survival Convoy had failed, while the Second Elder recognized the Third Elder’s sabotage and focused on confirming Yang Yong’s ability to forge Curios in batches. The Second Elder enclosed the convoy and sent Yang Yong materials and blueprints, then his representative asked how long one forging took.

• The Third Elder received news that the Survival Convoy had not been expelled and realized his plan had failed.
• The Second Elder discovered that the Third Elder’s agents had targeted the convoy, but held back from confronting him until he confirmed Yang Yong’s abilities.
• The Second Elder ordered combat robots to surround the convoy’s homes and construction robots to build a towering alloy wall around them.
• A pale-faced man arrived with three sets of crafting materials and blueprints from the Second Elder, refusing to speak with Cao Xianming and addressing Yang Yong directly.
• Yang Yong examined incomplete blueprints for a large, precise lens assembly, and the man asked how long a single forging took him.

Yang Yong agreed to craft the Curio in three days, provided he could work under the real Blood Moon. After Mechanical City approved his condition, Mang Dabiao simplified the complicated blueprint into a far more efficient design.

• Yang Yong estimated that crafting the Curio would take three days, stunning the pale-faced man.
• Yang Yong demanded access to the real Blood Moon, and the Second Elder approved the request.
• Mechanical City opened the artificial canopy so genuine sunlight reached Yang Yong’s building.
• Yang Yong studied the blueprint but decided its complex patterns were too risky to craft from directly.
• Mang Dabiao revised the blueprint, reducing its energy pathways to three efficient lines.
• Yang Yong examined Mang Dabiao’s new design and recognized it as a usable blueprint.

Yang Yong began crafting a scope in the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace, using the Blood Moon’s energy and the three simplified energy pathways he had redrawn. As the furnace drew down a pillar of blood-red light over the sealed district, the Second Elder watched Yang Yong’s many Curios emerge and realized his gamble had paid off.

• Yang Yong waited for the Blood Moon to rise, then opened the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace and added the scope’s materials according to the blueprint.
• The furnace activated Yang Yong’s Curios, which absorbed the Blood Moon’s energy and drew a pillar of light through the skylight.
• Yang Yong guided the materials through the three energy pathways as the furnace began shaping the scope and excess energy formed a blood-colored mist.
• The bloody pillar shone beyond the sealed district, attracting unseen watchers in the shadows.
• The Second Elder observed Yang Yong surrounded by numerous Curios and stared wide-eyed at their number.

Yang Yong staged two apparent forging failures to conceal his success while Mechanical City's elders watched and debated whether to exploit him. As he began a third batch, Cao Xianming detected an unknown figure standing behind him.

• The Third Elder learned that Yang Yong's Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace was a newly emerged Sequence and planned to seize the ability using a hidden accomplice.
• After refining for a day, Yang Yong acted terrified as the furnace exploded and produced a charred lump, then immediately started another batch.
• Yang Yong staged a second explosion and apparent failure, prompting the Second Elder to let him continue while questioning whether his forging could succeed.
• Yang Yong secretly welcomed the wasted materials and began his third batch, planning to keep up his performance to obtain more supplies from Mechanical City.
• Cao Xianming used his Data Model to investigate those watching Yang Yong, identified the Second and Third Elders, and noticed a short, thin figure with two pigtails standing behind him.

Cao Xianming encountered a mysterious little girl whose presence drained his Supernatural Power, while Yang Yong completed the Star-Eclipse Spyglass and delivered it to Wang. The Second Elder agreed to provide Yang Yong with the Ideal Grain Seed, and Yang Yong’s forging work continued.

• Cao Xianming tried to analyze a strange little girl, but the effort rapidly drained his Supernatural Power, and she vanished when he greeted her.
• Cao Xianming left his room and spent the night in the living room before immersing himself in cautious calculations about the girl.
• Yang Yong finished forging a scope, stored it away, and pretended to sleep while Mang Dabiao carried him downstairs.
• Yang Yong presented Wang with the Star-Eclipse Spyglass, whose skill dealt massive damage at the cost of vitality and impaired vision.
• Wang reported the successful Curio to the Second Elder, who approved another thirty sets of materials and agreed to give Yang Yong the Ideal Grain Seed.

Yang Yong received an Ideal Grain Seed from the Mechanical City and gave it to Cao Xianming to study, then asked Mang Dabiao how to block outsiders from spying on the convoy. Mang Dabiao recalled that Yezi's domain could conceal them, so Yang Yong woke Yezi to ask for help.

• Yang Yong received an Ideal Grain Seed kernel from Xiao Wang, rejected the offer to trade ten Curios for cultivation information, and handed the kernel to Cao Xianming for analysis.
• Cao Xianming told Yang Yong about a little girl he suspected might be an Eerie and listed three possible explanations for her nature.
• Yang Yong noticed Cao Xianming's exhausted state, urged him to rest, and then asked Mang Dabiao how to stop outsiders from prying into the convoy.
• Mang Dabiao said his formations required unavailable spirit stones but recalled that Yezi's domain could block prying eyes.
• Yang Yong brought the Two-Colored Strange Mud and World Tree sapling upstairs, woke Yezi, and prepared to ask her for help.

Yezi expanded her domain around Yang Yong, blocking outside observers and letting him resume cultivating while the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace forged the materials he had gathered. As Yang Yong advanced the furnace from sixty-one to ninety-four apertures, factions in Mechanical City failed to spy on him and began seeking the Rescue Convoy’s Bone Daggers instead.

• Yezi expanded her domain to eleven meters and enclosed the rooftop, cutting off the gazes that had watched Yang Yong for four days.
• Yang Yong summoned the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace, put all the curio materials inside, and resumed cultivating as it forged.
• Yang Yong forced the furnace’s apertures open one by one, advancing it from sixty-one apertures to ninety-four and feeling its sensations flow through his body.
• Mechanical City factions tried multiple methods to penetrate Yezi’s domain, but even a Sequence user who claimed to see through barriers failed.
• People in Mechanical City tried to trade for the Rescue Convoy’s Bone Daggers, but the convoy refused because the daggers belonged to Yang Yong.
• After that failed, some people tried bribing convoy members to ask Yang Yong to forge curios, while others began hunting ordinary members of the Rescue Convoy outside the city.

After thirty days in seclusion, Yang Yong accepted Curio Materials from nearly twenty convoy members, gaining a new supply to feed the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace. As the furnace’s Apertures continued to open, Yang Yong glimpsed a tiny figure with two little pigtails.

• Yang Yong emerged from seclusion after forging thirty portions of materials and handing over twelve extra Curio scopes.
• Lao Zhang told Yang Yong that other elders had recruited nearly twenty convoy members to bring him Curio Materials.
• Yang Yong agreed to forge Curios at a rate of three portions per Curio, taking only food as payment.
• Yang Yong returned to the greenery and fed the materials into the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace, while its Apertures continued to open.
• Cao Xianming came to the sealed greenery but left without entering, and Yang Yong later spotted a tiny figure with two little pigtails.

Yang Yong repeatedly saw a mysterious little girl inside Yezi’s Ten-Meter Ghost Domain, though Yezi and the ghosts could not detect her. He cautiously let her approach over several days and ended with the mystery unresolved: she stood plainly before him, yet remained absent from everyone else’s perception.

• Yang Yong saw the little girl again, but Yezi and his own search found nothing where she had stood.
• Yang Yong summoned the little girl ghost and the Red-Clothed Female Ghost to patrol, then learned that no one else in the Survival Convoy had encountered the child.
• Yang Yong considered whether the girl was an Eerie, a Sequence ability, or an artifact spirit connected to Mechanical City.
• Yang Yong saw the girl clearly beside a metal wall and pretended not to notice her, after which she vanished when he got up for food.
• The girl returned during Yang Yong’s cultivation and gradually moved closer each day, while Yezi and both ghosts remained unable to sense her.

Yang Yong’s cursed curios made the Survival Convoy wealthy, prompting ordinary members to venture outside. Thirty-one of thirty-two people who left were captured by mechanical soldiers and taken through the Light Gate to the zombie city below, and Mang Dabiao returned with Yang Yong’s response.

• Yang Yong sent out curios with increasingly punishing costs, and their owners paid him in precious materials, medicine, and food.
• The Survival Convoy became the richest convoy in Mechanical City’s Outer City, encouraging ordinary members to go outside in hopes of gaining wealth.
• Lin Huayong returned alone from an outing and told Cao Xianming that mechanical soldiers had captured the others and taken them through the Light Gate to the zombie city below.
• Lin Huayong said the soldiers took the convoy members’ Bone Daggers and left them in the city below, leading Cao Xianming to suspect a threat or lure targeting Yang Yong.
• Cao Xianming sent Mang Dabiao to inform Yang Yong, and Mang Dabiao returned with Yang Yong’s instruction: “Return.”

Cao Xianming refused to send the Survival Convoy out to rescue thirty-one trapped members, then announced that Yang Yong would no longer accept Curio crafting commissions. The announcement set Mechanical City ablaze with speculation about the Third Elder, while Cao Xianming considered why the city needed so many Curios.

• Cao Xianming realized Yang Yong had tampered with his Bone Daggers and decided the convoy should not risk rescuing the thirty-one people trapped in the Zombie city.
• Cao Xianming returned home, and Lin Huayong noticed him tapping his left hand before Convoy Assistant Xiao Ma gathered the convoy’s Sequence Transcendents.
• The Survival Convoy barred ordinary people from leaving Camp, shut its gates, and increased its sentries as the trapped group’s captors waited for the Third Elder’s plan to work.
• Cao Xianming posted an announcement on Mechanical City’s Mission Board that the thirty-one convoy members were trapped and Yang Yong would no longer take Curio crafting commissions.
• Mechanical City residents flooded the Discussion Forum with complaints and accusations against the Nine Great Elders and the Third Elder, while Cao Xianming considered whether Curios strengthened the city.

Cao Xianming pressured Mechanical City's elders to recover the thirty-one stranded Survival Convoy members, and they were brought safely back except for two who had been bitten by zombies. After Xiao Ying refused to save them, one of the doomed men began to turn and threatened the convoy.

• Cao Xianming used his refusal to craft more curios to pressure Mechanical City's elders into recovering the thirty-one stranded convoy members.
• Mechanical Soldiers escorted all thirty-one people back from the zombie city, including two who had been bitten.
• Cao Xianming brought everyone into the Camp and told the bitten men he could not save them, but suggested Xiao Ying might be able to.
• Xiao Ying refused to see the men and warned that she would eat them if they came closer.
• The two men returned to the convoy as the others avoided them, and one, now fully black-eyed, declared that if he could not live, neither would they.

Two convoy members who were nearly fully zombified were dragged into Yang Yong’s Ten-Meter Ghost Domain before Zhang Bihuang could kill them. Cao Xianming then learned that the Outer City was only one district in Mechanical City’s vast ring-and-district structure.

• The convoy members attacked two people who showed signs of zombification, stabbing them with Bone Daggers and beating them down.
• Zhang Bihuang’s holy light intensified the pair’s suffering, and she realized their infection had spread too deeply to cure them.
• As Zhang Bihuang prepared to kill the pair, Yang Yong’s Climbing Vine swept nearby people aside and dragged the two into the Ten-Meter Ghost Domain.
• Cao Xianming posted a Curio-refining task and received a flood of messages from people interested in his offer.
• Cao Xianming learned from Gaskako of Thunderfall Mountain that his Outer City was Third Ring, Thirty-Sixth District, one of many separate spaces in Mechanical City.

Yang Yong tested Yezi’s power against the Zombie virus and discovered that careful forging drew the mysterious little girl closer. The girl spoke to him for the first time, guided him through making a Curio, and a short blade emerged.

• Yang Yong used Yezi’s ability to fight the Zombie virus in two victims; one died, while the other recovered, proving the method could work at a high cost.
• Yang Yong noticed the little girl moved closer whenever he forged Curios and began deliberately demonstrating his work to her.
• Yang Yong suspected the girl was an Artifact Spirit and used a new forging session to try to communicate with her.
• The little girl told Yang Yong not to add the unidentified tears, then instructed him to adjust the temperature, quench quickly, and seal a node clockwise.
• Yang Yong followed her directions, and a short blade appeared in a flash of dark golden light.

Yang Yong forged the Shadow-Killing Blade with the little girl’s guidance and began communicating with her. Outside the Ghost Domain, Cao Xianming learned the Grand Elder wanted Yang Yong to visit the Core Area, then saw Ye Zhenwei emerge alive after recovering from a Zombie bite and hurried to keep the secret from the city.

• Yang Yong forged the Shadow-Killing Blade, learned its abilities and cost, and asked the little girl her name, but she vanished.
• Cao Xianming read the mission forum and realized the little girl might be Yang Yong’s weak spot.
• The Grand Elder messaged Cao Xianming that he knew who the little girl was and invited Yang Yong to the Core Area for answers.
• Ye Zhenwei emerged from the Ghost Domain apparently cured of his Zombie bite, and Cao Xianming blocked him from leaving to conceal the cure.
• Cao Xianming pulled Ye Zhenwei back into the Ghost Domain with the Bone Whip, then entered and found Yang Yong forging with the little girl’s guidance.

Yang Yong finished forging a butterfly knife as Cao Xianming delivered the Grand Elder of Mechanical City’s invitation and urged him to learn the origin of the ghost girl. Before they could leave, Mechanical City entered the Thunderstorm Cloud Cluster, forcing them to flee to a shelter; the Grand Elder would remain inaccessible until the Core Area reopened.

• Yang Yong completed a butterfly knife while Cao Xianming watched, then Cao told him the Grand Elder of Mechanical City wanted to see him.
• Cao said his divination showed Yang Yong would benefit from going and suggested the Grand Elder had been waiting for him.
• The ghost girl opened a gap in her Ghost Domain and announced that Mechanical City would enter the Thunderstorm Cloud Cluster in three minutes.
• Cao, Yang Yong, Ye Zhenwei, and the ghost girl rushed toward a shelter, and Yang Yong used a mask to conceal Ye Zhenwei’s identity.
• The group reached the shelter as lightning struck the arc shield, then watched Mechanical City absorb lightning from the storm.
• Yang Yong realized he would have to wait seven days for the Core Area to reopen before he could meet the Grand Elder.

After a zombie siege began and the Barbican fell, Cao Xianming led the Survival Convoy toward the Inner City, only to find its gates closed to everyone from the Outer City. With a Zombie King possibly directing the horde, Yang Yong chose to lead the convoy back to the Barbican to destroy the Light Gate.

• After the Mechanical City returned, an unnatural blast signaled a zombie siege, and Cao Xianming ordered the Survival Convoy to load supplies and head for the Inner City.
• When the Barbican was breached, Cao Xianming warned that zombies were pursuing them and urged the convoy to drive faster.
• The convoy reached the Inner City and found its gates shut, leaving them trapped in the Third Ring Thirty-Sixth District.
• Cao Xianming outlined two options: hold their ground or fight back to the Barbican and destroy the Light Gate.
• Qi Peiliang reported thousands of zombies approaching, nearly ten thousand more inside the Barbican, and warned that a Zombie King might be behind the attack.
• Yang Yong chose to return to the Barbican and destroy the Light Gate, and the convoy turned around.