Recaps

Jin Xueli woke after a second strand of memories replaced the timeline in which she died, leaving her unsure whether she or the copied Jin Xueli was the resident. She read the exhibit description and learned the candle could reverse history but could not attack, then prepared to act against the resident.

• Jin Xueli recalled two conflicting timelines: in one she stabbed the copied resident and died when her own neck split open, while in the other a black SUV crashed and she woke on the gallery floor.
• Jin Xueli hid behind a pillar and reasoned that the other Jin Xueli was likely the resident because it lacked her belongings and had survived the taxi without following its rules.
• Jin Xueli watched the resident adjust the candle, then quietly retrieved a towel from her backpack and hid behind a wooden exhibit.
• Jin Xueli photographed the exhibit description and read that the candle had reversed history by changing the previous timeline, but could not be used to attack.
• Jin Xueli locked her phone and decided to follow her original plan against the resident.

The author apologized for neglecting reader thank-yous since April 23 and listed the readers who had supported the novel with gifts, food, and votes. The author counted twelve children owed and said the final stretch of travel was nearing its end before returning home to write.

• The author noticed the last thank-you had been on April 23 and apologized to readers for being ungrateful.
• The author described traveling to Shanghai as the last stop and said they wanted to stay home and write afterward.
• The author thanked Bohemia's Xiang, Gunsmith Rousseau, and b111111111 for their support, counting children owed.
• The author thanked readers who provided food, drinks, desserts, dinner, and an opening-day flower basket.
• The author thanked more readers by name and expressed gratitude to everyone who cast monthly votes.
• The author counted twelve children owed and joked about lining them up as the twelve zodiac animals.

Jin Xueli fought the resident that had copied her appearance, using its mismatched clothing and her own memories to unsettle it before she realized its speech revealed its attack pattern. She pinned the resident and forced a towel into its mouth, leaving it unable to speak clearly.

• The resident attacked Jin Xueli with a fire axe, and she dodged its blows while kicking its ankle and using a sock to distract it.
• Jin Xueli challenged the resident to compare its clothes and shoes with her memories, but it insisted that its black outfit matched what she wore in the Nest.
• Jin Xueli noticed that she could not remember where her khaki sweatpants came from and suspected that residents smoothed over gaps in their copied memories.
• The resident approached and spoke about residents being impossible to kill and about Jin Xueli's copied form having a time limit.
• Jin Xueli ducked the axe, tackled the resident, and stuffed a towel into its mouth to stop it speaking.
• Jin Xueli told the muffled resident that she understood its attack pattern and knew it was a resident.

Jin Xueli realized the other Jin Xueli attacked through words that exploited her self-doubt, then argued that her opponent was the resident because it knew a rumor she did not. The resident still attacked her with a Fire Axe, and the chapter ended as it struck her shoulder while she fled toward the giant candle.

• Jin Xueli concluded that the resident used verbal attacks to turn her self-doubt into reality and gradually push her out of the identity of Jin Xueli.
• Jin Xueli questioned the resident’s claim that residents had a time limit, saying the real Jin Xueli would not know that rumor.
• The resident claimed it had heard the rumor on the radio, and Jin Xueli reasoned that she lacked the information because the other Jin Xueli was the copy.
• Jin Xueli reminded the resident that she had died once, but the resident doubted that residents were truly impossible to kill and insisted it would become the real Jin Xueli by killing her.
• The resident grabbed the Fire Axe and chased Jin Xueli, who ran barefoot toward the giant candle.
• Jin Xueli slowed as she realized the candle’s melted section might connect to a moment six months earlier, and the resident’s axe struck her shoulder.

Jin Xueli lay dying after the resident struck her with a Fire Axe, but she changed the Candle Tears’ timeline to prevent the resident from copying her. The chapter ended with one Jin Xueli due to wake in the Museum of Modern Art, without knowing whether she was herself or the resident.

• The resident accused Jin Xueli of being the copy and prepared to kill her with the Fire Axe.
• Jin Xueli argued that the memory taken in the taxi had been about buying her pants, making the resident pause to consider her claim.
• Jin Xueli secretly adjusted the Candle Tears’ timeline while the resident distracted her by explaining why it could kill her.
• Jin Xueli used the Candle Tears to replay her earlier command, “Get lost!”, and prevent the resident from copying her at the hopscotch.
• Jin Xueli pushed her tiny past self into the car, erasing the history of the copy and leaving only one Jin Xueli to awaken in the museum.

Chai Si raced to Brublan Community College Station with Huang Li, who detected the approaching Phantasm as he escaped the police and prepared to cross the tracks. The chapter ended as the train carrying the Phantasm bore down on him.

• Chai Si had Huang Li bind her wrists and warned her to watch for the Phantasm as he drove toward the subway station.
• Chai Si leaped from the moving car near Brublan Community College Station, and Huang Li shouted that the Phantasm was approaching on the next train.
• Chai Si activated a Phantasm that made surveillance footage show him as a goat-headed figure, then waited on the platform while police entered the station.
• Chai Si jumped onto the tracks as the police ordered passengers to stay put and ran toward the opposite platform.
• The train carrying the Phantasm burst from the tunnel and hurtled toward Chai Si as he lunged for the platform.

Chai Si searched an empty subway train for the fourth Phantasm from Wei Xilai’s collection, rumored to create rumors. When a driver mistook him for the Subway Serial Killer from local rumors, Chai Si realized he had found the Phantasm.

• Chai Si escaped the police by boarding an empty train and began searching its carriages for Wei Xilai’s Phantasms.
• Chai Si recalled Caironan’s descriptions of the four Phantasms, including one rumored to create rumors.
• Chai Si searched beneath the seats and through the train, but the train stopped in a subterranean track area instead of returning to the platform.
• A subway driver approached Chai Si and begged him to spare his family, believing Chai Si was the Subway Serial Killer.
• Chai Si recognized that the driver’s belief had revealed the rumor-creating Phantasm.

Chai Si captured the subway driver who carried Evan’s Phantasm and tried to learn how it had been attached to him. The driver’s account of a subway serial killer turned out to come from a Netflix crime drama, leaving Chai Si with more questions about the Phantasm.

• Chai Si realized Evan had entrusted the Phantasm to an unrelated subway driver because the man would be easier to find than a particular train.
• Chai Si caught the fleeing driver and questioned him, but the driver knew nothing about the Nest or the Phantasm.
• Chai Si asked the driver about the subway serial killer rumor, and the driver described a woman found dead and a later assault.
• The driver added details about a female detective and a male criminology consultant investigating the crimes.
• Chai Si logged into the driver’s Netflix account and recognized the supposed investigation as the plot of a crime drama the driver had watched.

The author returned home exhausted from a long trip and found the apartment covered in cat litter dust, with forgotten laundry stinking up the place. After cleaning, the author discovered the laptop display was failing and could only type using a blurry external monitor, leaving the chapter’s completion uncertain.

• The author returned home after a tiring journey involving flights, trains, subways, luggage, and stairs.
• The author found cat litter dust throughout the apartment after using ordinary litter while away.
• The author cleaned the apartment and discovered foul-smelling clothes left in the washing machine before the trip.
• The author found that the laptop screen repeatedly went black and relied on a blurry external e-ink monitor to type.
• The author reported writing only 1,020 characters after several hours and said the chapter would be posted once finished.

Chai Si realized the subway driver had spread a rumor by combining fragments of information and tried to seize the rumor Phantasm from him. As the Phantasm spoke of a Pathway to the human world, a live wire attacked Chai Si and something enormous began pressing through the subway window.

• Chai Si deduced that the driver had turned scattered information into a rumor about a Subway Serial Killer.
• Chai Si searched the driver's mouth for the Phantasm, found nothing, and dragged him through the subway car to question him.
• The driver struggled, and Chai Si struck his ankle and belly with his baton before carrying him onward.
• Chai Si noticed the driver could not speak normally and realized a voice was coming from beneath his cheek.
• A loose live wire attacked Chai Si as the voice spoke of a Pathway to the Nest and then to the human world.
• Chai Si ordered the voice to quiet down and saw a pitch-black subway window bow inward under pressure from something huge.

Chai Si survived the loose wire when the driver took the shock, then deduced how the Phantasm called Rumor and the resident behind the bus window operated. As the resident began forcing its way through, Chai Si warned Rumor to send it back, revealing that he had no Pathway but had encountered residents before.

• Chai Si avoided the electric shock when the driver stepped onto the wire and was electrocuted instead.
• Chai Si struck the bulging black window with a T-bar, but it bent inward without breaking.
• Chai Si explained that Rumor relied on real-world details to create threats and had summoned the resident to hide in the Nest.
• The resident began tearing open the window while Rumor weakly called for help.
• Chai Si warned Rumor to send the resident back, then revealed that he had no Pathway and hated residents capable of entering the human world.

Chai Si remembered dying in a car accident at age five, then woke in the subway car as the resident spoke of memories in which he could die. The resident pulled him into his second dangerous memory: the day his mother returned from the Nest.

• Chai Si recalled waiting in the car while his mother worked, then the truck crash that killed him at age five.
• Chai Si woke on the subway floor beside the shattered window and realized the resident had entered the car.
• The resident told the driver that memories in which he could die had three instances, and Chai Si urged the driver to wake up and not believe it.
• The resident turned toward Chai Si, sending him into darkness and then into his second memory, six days after the accident, when his mother returned from the Nest.

After Chai Si’s mother vanished in a car accident, she returned home injured and terrified, with a rope tied around her waist. Chai Si saw the resident holding the other end, and years later the resident’s words resurfaced as Chai Si beat a traitor, leaving the threat of his mother’s return unresolved.

• After Chai Si’s mother disappeared in the crash, he was discharged with a broken arm and stayed with his great-aunt.
• On the sixth night, Chai Si saw his bloodied mother walking home and ran outside to meet her.
• His mother collapsed and told Chai Si to call an ambulance, but he felt a thin rope wrapped around her waist.
• Chai Si followed the rope and saw a huge black figure holding its other end before his mother shouted for him to run.
• Years later, the resident’s words came back to Chai Si during an interrogation, and he beat the traitor into a bloody mass.
• The resident said it entered the human world by finding a dog to leash and claimed Chai Si had never escaped it.

Chai Si relived the night a resident attacked him and his mother, learning that the creature had used his Pathway to reach the human world and offered his mother a cruel choice. Back in the subway car, Chai Si resolved to drive the resident back into the Nest by cutting off its route.

• The resident explained that Chai Si’s car accident and his mother’s decision to go home had created an ironic route into the human world.
• The resident told Chai Si’s mother that cutting the rope at her waist would sever its Pathway, but said it would kill Chai Si either way.
• Chai Si remembered that he survived the attack, while Caironan covered his eyes and his mother told him to go with him.
• Chai Si returned to awareness in the subway car, sharpened his senses, and located the resident and the driver.
• Chai Si realized that sending the resident back into the Nest required cutting off the route by which it had arrived.

Chai Si defeated the resident by exploiting its weaknesses and forced the subway driver to reveal how Evan had passed the Rumor Phantasm to him. After completing the spoken exchange that transferred the Rumor to Chai Si, he escaped the subway station without being recognized by police.

• Chai Si avoided looking at the resident, grabbed it, and hurled it through the carriage window.
• Chai Si threatened to injure the subway driver, making the resident revoke its invitation to “Memory Kill” and disappear.
• The driver told Chai Si that a masked man had asked him to read a message, and Chai Si realized the man had been Evan.
• Chai Si made the driver say, “I have a rumor to tell you,” then replied, “I heard a rumor,” completing the exchange and taking the Rumor Phantasm.
• Chai Si gave the driver money, changed his appearance, and left the station after misleading the police officer who stopped him.

Chai Si listened as the “Rumor” Phantasm explained how rumors could come true through their spread and the influence of environmental “butterfly factors.” He discovered that Wei Xilai’s final rumor concerned a Vulture entering the human world, and that it came true the day after Wei Xilai died.

• Chai Si sat in a park while the “Rumor” Phantasm commandeered his mouth and explained how rumors spread, gained credibility, and produced consequences.
• The Phantasm illustrated how unrelated “butterfly factors” could steer a rumor toward different outcomes, leading Chai Si to consider planting factors to guide a rumor.
• Chai Si learned that past hosts’ rumors remained recorded and asked about Wei Xilai’s last rumor before the “Subway Serial Killer.”
• The Phantasm said Wei Xilai had created a rumor that a Vulture in the Nest could copy a human and use its Pathway to enter the human world.
• Chai Si learned that the rumor came true on November 17, the day after Wei Xilai died.

After escaping the resident’s altered history, Jin Xueli recovered her belongings and continued her plan to obtain a Phantasm on Ninety-Ninth Street before returning to kill Anthony. She reached the subway station and found several Hunters gathered as a vending machine was being restocked.

• Jin Xueli accepted that she was the real Jin Xueli and recovered from the memories of her death and the resident’s copy.
• Jin Xueli left the enormous candle untouched, collected her backpack and phone, and set off to obtain a Phantasm and finish off Anthony.
• A taxi brought Jin Xueli to Ninety-Ninth Street in about half an hour, sparing her the dangerous journey on foot.
• Jin Xueli confirmed that the subway entrance said “Go down for a surprise” and descended to the platform.
• Four Hunters were waiting on the platform, and a woman pointed out that Jin Xueli had arrived as the vending machine was being restocked.

Jin Xueli and four other Hunters encountered the Vending Machine’s Restocking Resident and avoided its invitation by staying silent. Afterward, Jin Xueli raised the Vulture’s strange behavior, and the Hunters discovered that the Vending Machine’s soda had become drastically more expensive.

• Jin Xueli watched the Restocking Resident stock the Vending Machine and heard that it had many new products.
• The Resident invited the Hunters to try free samples and exchange phone numbers, but all five stayed silent until it left.
• The gum-chewing girl and the man argued over whether speaking to the Resident had been dangerous, and Jin Xueli stepped in to mediate.
• Jin Xueli told the Hunters that Vulture had taken her appearance and challenged them to check for a chalk hopscotch grid on Colorado Avenue.
• The baseball cap wearer revealed that a can of soda had cost over nine thousand dollars, prompting the gentle-faced female Hunter to inspect the product descriptions.

Jin Xueli found she lacked the credit to buy a Vending Machine product, so she borrowed a card from Moran Dao and bought a purple soda. The chapter ended with Moran Dao noticing the can, whose listed function was killing people.

• Jin Xueli considered how family-affiliated Hunters could profit from the Vending Machine’s products and envied their resources and credit.
• Jin Xueli asked the baseball-cap woman and her companion to lend her a credit card after explaining she lacked enough credit for a purchase.
• The baseball-cap woman, Moran Dao, agreed to lend Jin Xueli her card after taking her driver's license, credit card, and phone as collateral.
• Jin Xueli used Moran Dao's card to pay $12,000 for a purple soda from the Vending Machine.
• Jin Xueli turned and met Moran Dao's gaze after Moran Dao saw the soda, which was described as a product for killing people.

Jin Xueli lured Anthony to a bar and used the Purple-Can Soda, a phantasm, to deal with him without leaving evidence of murder. She left after Anthony disappeared, with the bar’s waitress believing she had simply spilled the drink.

• Jin Xueli called Anthony and persuaded him to meet her at the bar where they had first met.
• While waiting, Jin Xueli paid the waitress to help with her plan and learned that Anthony had called her lost phone, which Moran Dao had answered.
• Anthony arrived, refused the soda, and ordered a gin and tonic while Jin Xueli drank from the can.
• Jin Xueli confronted Anthony about his harassment, then left the table after blowing grape-scented breath toward him.
• Jin Xueli returned from the restroom to find Anthony gone and purple liquid covering his seat and the floor, then told the waitress she had spilled the drink.

Jin Xueli repaid Moran Dao and learned that Chai Si Monroe’s family wanted information about Vulture, prompting her to reconsider what she had seen in the Nest. She connected a resident’s interest in Wei Xilai’s history to the mysterious May convoy, then learned from Amber that a Morgan Family squad was missing in the Nest and needed urgent rescue.

• Jin Xueli entered Between the Backlight carrying an active Phantasm, alarming the Hunters until Moran Dao vouched for her.
• Jin Xueli explained the soda Phantasm’s effects and sold the remaining half-can to a Hunter before repaying Moran Dao twelve thousand.
• The bartender told Jin Xueli that Chai Si Monroe was seeking information about Vulture, and Moran Dao noted that the Kai Family usually handled such inquiries.
• Jin Xueli realized a Nest resident had watched Wei Xilai’s history in a candle and called Amber to ask about the bodyguard convoy that crashed into the bar in May.
• Amber revealed that Fu Tailan had ordered her to keep the incident confidential and that a Morgan Family squad had gone missing in the Nest, with its leader Jonah still alive and needing rescue.

The author reflected on the anxiety of losing readers while writing Phantasm, then found peace in accepting its niche audience and continuing at their own pace. The author thanked readers for staying with the story and promoted Wild Deer Convenience Store.

• The author said Phantasm had been posting for a little over a month and was much harder to write and less popular than expected.
• As readers left and dashboard numbers fell, the author struggled to write Chai Si and became anxious.
• The author found calm in accepting that Phantasm was a niche story meant to be written in a quiet environment.
• The author thanked readers for following along and urged them to read Wild Deer Convenience Store.

Phantasm explained why she had gone over a month without thanking her readers, then thanked the readers who had tipped her. She promised to thank them more promptly in the future.

• Phantasm said Qidian had blocked her leave note because of its wording.
• Phantasm explained that she had delayed posting thanks to save space in her author notes and make the list look more impressive.
• Phantasm thanked six readers who had tipped generously and offered them extra chapters or cameos.
• Phantasm thanked readers who contributed to her research-trip fund and estimated the money might cover a three-day trip to New York.
• Phantasm listed more readers who had tipped and admitted the long list made her feel as if her novel ranked near the top.
• Phantasm promised not to neglect her readers' thanks for so long again.