Chapter Summaries

Lu Xiao and the Orphanage Director confronted Black Cat in its Dreamscape, where they discovered they could not be killed as long as they knew they were dreaming. Lu Xiao forced himself awake, while the Director stayed behind to question Black Cat about Nini.

• Black Cat struck Driver with a flaming meteorite, but Driver survived as a talking mouth and continued taunting it.
• The Director reasoned that the Dreamscape could not truly harm people who knew they were dreaming, and Black Cat admitted they might die if trapped long enough.
• When Black Cat vanished its summoned figures, the Director suggested that Lu Xiao inflict pain while recognizing the dream; Lu Xiao tore out and crushed his heart, then disappeared from the Dreamscape.
• Lu Xiao woke inside the Transforming Vehicle, confirmed he had left the Dreamscape with the Omniscient Mirror, and slapped Driver awake.
• The Director remained in the Dreamscape, where Black Cat asked to talk and he questioned it about why it had sought Nini.

The Director persuaded Black Cat to cooperate by promising that the facility would protect and treat Nini. Meanwhile, Lu Xiao came up with a way to take the Bone Spur into a Dreamscape by embedding it in his body, just as the Director woke and saw him tearing open his chest.

• The Director explained that the facility wanted to contain Black Cat and run experiments, and Black Cat demanded to know how they would treat Nini.
• The Director promised to protect Nini and provide effective treatment, so Black Cat agreed to cooperate if they could cure her.
• Lu Xiao reasoned that embedding the Bone Spur in his flesh would let him bring it into a Dreamscape.
• Lu Xiao tore open his chest to bury the Bone Spur in it, and the Director woke to see him doing it.

Lu Xiao and the Director returned to the Orphanage, where Black Cat freed Sly from his Dreamscape while Liuguang chose to remain in his. An hour later, Liuguang emerged with the grown-up Nini and accepted that he would face punishment for his actions.

• The Director stopped Lu Xiao from testing whether he could carry the Bone Spur into another Dreamscape and told the group to return to the Orphanage.
• At the Orphanage, Liuguang asked for more time, and the Director gave him an hour while Black Cat woke Sly from his Dreamscape.
• Black Cat explained that Liuguang had awakened when he saw his childhood self, then hypnotized himself back into the Dreamscape and taken Xiaopidan's place, leaving Sly caught up in it.
• An hour later, Liuguang came out carrying Nini, and the Director reminded him that he would face punishment for his choice.
• Black Cat explained that he had tricked Nini's driver into bringing her back to the Orphanage instead of taking her to the buyer, and the Director concluded that the dream had driven the driver mad.

Liuguang said goodbye to the Orphanage Director and rescued Nini from the ruined dream, then faced punishment for breaking the Sacrificial One code. The Doctor stripped him of his status pending investigation, but gave him a chance to return as a candidate and assigned Sly to train him and take him on a new investigation.

• Liuguang tearfully said goodbye to the Orphanage Director, who blessed him before disappearing.
• Liuguang carried Nini out of the Orphanage and asked Little Black to give her another good dream.
• The Doctor stripped Liuguang of his Sacrificial One status pending investigation and said he could return as a candidate if cleared.
• The Doctor made Sly Liuguang's instructor and assigned him to investigate disease transfers, especially Ms. Liu Wen, with Liuguang joining after his investigation.
• The Doctor visited the Prison Doctor's Containment Room, where Lu Xiao, Ding Dan, Ivan, Lu Qian, Chainsaw Man, and the Director gathered around the Operating Table.

The Doctor and the Director agreed to conduct joint research on Black Cat, while Lu Xiao and the Prison Doctor began an examination and treatment of Nini. After replacing her blood and removing damaged skin, the Prison Doctor prepared to begin the most difficult part of the operation.

• The Doctor asked the Director about Black Cat’s ability and proposed joint research, and the Director agreed to stay with Black Cat.
• Lu Xiao persuaded Ding Dan to accept his plan, then asked the Prison Doctor to examine Nini.
• The Prison Doctor found that Nini had 331 conditions and 32 curses, and said conventional treatment could not cure her.
• The Prison Doctor asked Ivan to stabilize Nini with an Alchemy Array and used cultured blood to replace hers.
• The Prison Doctor debrided Nini’s ulcerated skin for over an hour, then announced that the main part of the operation was next.

The Prison Doctor completed Nini’s surgery using Lu Xiao’s flesh while the Doctor and Director tested the Black Cat’s ability to harm people through dreams. The Doctor then proposed flesh machinery and sequence god-making as ways to help humanity survive the crisis, suggesting memory erasure could ensure the loyalty of godlike test subjects.

• The Prison Doctor replaced Nini’s diseased organs with Lu Xiao’s flesh as Liuguang and Sly watched.
• The Black Cat killed a Consumable inside a dream, confirming the Doctor and Director’s theory that dreamers could be harmed if they did not realize they were dreaming.
• The Doctor proposed human mechanical modification using anomalous power, which he called flesh machinery, and the Director acknowledged its potential.
• The Doctor proposed sequence god-making based on Ding Dan’s transformation, and the Director questioned whether such subjects could be trusted.
• The Doctor said he planned to use memory erasure to make godlike test subjects completely loyal to humanity.

The Doctor revealed that mutation could be controlled and proposed testing whether Lu Xiao’s blood could transform people into powerful life forms. The Director agreed to join the dangerous experiment after consulting his father, and the chapter ended with the Doctor and Director preparing for the trial.

• The Doctor told the Director that Ding Dan’s account and the Omniscient Mirror confirmed mutation could be controlled, with bodily integrity and incurable disease determining its outcome.
• The Director recalled that his father had awakened after receiving Lu Xiao’s blood but had undergone a mild contaminated mutation.
• The Doctor offered the Director blood from the rescued girl as a pathogen, then revealed that he had already injected himself with it.
• The Director refused to experiment on himself immediately and suggested the Doctor use Consumables, but the Doctor said memory erasure and loyalty conditioning would take too long.
• The Director called his father and Assistant, then agreed to proceed with the Doctor, who warned that they could die, become monsters, or end up in the Dark Prison.

The Prison Doctor finished a two-day surgery that cleared Nini’s illnesses, though curses remained, and her condition began to improve. The Doctor arranged for Nini to stay safely at the Containment Facility, while Liuguang prepared to investigate those who had hurt her.

• The Director injected himself with blood, then joined the Doctor to visit the infirmary after learning the surgery was over.
• The Prison Doctor told Lu Xiao that he had removed Nini’s illnesses and that her blood would gradually destroy the remaining curses.
• The Doctor recognized that the Prison Doctor’s diseased tissue came from illnesses he and the Director had replicated in their own bodies, and he ordered the Assistant to preserve it.
• The Doctor arranged a separate room and education for Nini at the Containment Facility, and he took Lu Xiao and Lu Qian to retrieve a gift for her.
• Liuguang thanked the Doctor for protecting Nini, then told Sly he would help prepare for the investigation and vowed that no one who had hurt Nini would escape.

Lu Xiao prepared to recover his memories through a nine-day dream experiment with Black Cat while Lu Qian’s godfathers divided up the Ghost-Faced Moth Empress’s corpse for her to eat. The Doctor and the Director discovered that U01 had fallen and Smith had become a vampire, then suspected Mr. Shadow had sent the secret report to draw the Doctor into a scheme involving Niclade’s sacrifice.

• The Doctor gave Lu Qian the Ghost-Faced Moth Empress’s corpse, and the Prison Doctor, Ivan, and Chainsaw Man prepared pieces for her to eat.
• The Doctor began a nine-day experiment in which Black Cat would use her dream-weaving ability to help Lu Xiao recover his memories.
• The Doctor told the Director that Mr. Shadow had secretly sent him the results of an investigation into the Saints’ ties to the Prison Wardens’ higher-ups.
• The Director read the report and learned that U01 had fallen and Smith had become a vampire with ties to Pride, the Saints’ Fourth Seat.
• The Doctor and the Director suspected Mr. Shadow had sent the secret report to help turn a scheme against its makers and involve the Doctor in Niclade’s Sacrifice Plan.

Lu Xiao dreamed that the Driver abducted and killed him, while Black Cat pixelated the gruesome parts. The dream ended when a man with a wooden sword and bell burst into the Driver’s home and confronted the Driver and his wife.

• The Doctor told the Director to hold Black Cat’s experimental data back and said they would begin an experiment after the Prison Doctor and the others finished.
• Lu Xiao realized he was dreaming in the taxi but remained unable to control his actions, and Black Cat appeared to pixelate the violence as the Driver attacked him with a balloon.
• The Driver put Lu Xiao in a sack, carried him home, and called for his wife, who appeared as a mass of pixelation.
• A middle-aged man in a bulletproof vest blasted open the door, raised a wooden sword and bell, and declared that the Driver and his wife were monsters.

Zhang Chu rescued Lu Xiao from Driver, a monster who escaped by melting their taxi, then fled until a sniper brought Driver down. Zhang Chu explained that monsters existed and said Lu Xiao would be recruited into the organization, while his team prepared to capture Driver and warned that Driver and his wife shared one body.

• Driver captured Zhang Chu after he entered the apartment, then carried him and Lu Xiao away in the taxi’s trunk.
• Zhang Chu used a spell to melt the taxi, causing Driver to crash and freeing Zhang Chu and Lu Xiao.
• Zhang Chu challenged Driver but ran away with Lu Xiao, admitting he could not handle the monster and summoning help with burning Talisman Paper.
• A sniper shot Driver in the chest, stopping him as Zhang Chu and Lu Xiao escaped.
• Zhang Chu told Lu Xiao that monsters were no longer human and that he would be recruited into the organization.
• A square-faced man arrived in an Off-Road Vehicle, and Zhang Chu ordered him to bind Driver while warning that Driver and his wife were One Body, Two Souls.

Lu Xiao was rescued from a monster posing as a taxi driver and taken away by Zhang Chu and a square-faced man. He learned that the organization planned to recruit him, and Zhang Chu called him a promising recruit because he was an orphan.

• The square-faced man and his companion tied up the unconscious driver while Lu Xiao stayed behind Zhang Chu.
• Lu Xiao noticed that the square-faced man resembled Dart and Zhang Chu resembled Ding Dan, then asked Little Black why they looked familiar; Little Black said the dream came from Lu Xiao's memories.
• The square-faced man and Zhang Chu loaded the captured driver into their SUV and explained that the monster had been a taxi driver who had eaten more than a dozen people.
• Zhang Chu told Lu Xiao that the organization would take him in and that he would need to undergo confidentiality training before returning to society.
• When Lu Xiao said he had no parents, Zhang Chu called him a promising recruit worth special training, and the young man explained that orphans had no one to worry about them.

Zhang Chu brought Lu Xiao to a hidden military facility after capturing the monster posing as a taxi driver. Lu Xiao was assigned to the Prison Warden Combat Squad despite wanting clerical work, where he met Chen Fei and Liu Guang.

• Lu Xiao asked whether Zhang Chu was an orphan, and Zhang Chu explained that he had a wife and child after returning to secular life.
• Zhang Chu and the others drove to a deserted village, where their vehicle descended underground into a laboratory-like facility.
• A military officer questioned Zhang Chu about the bound Driver, then ordered soldiers to take the monster to researchers and told the others to settle in.
• Zhang Chu led Lu Xiao to the Prison Warden Combat Squad’s bedroom and told him he would join the frontline team, despite Lu Xiao asking for a clerical job.
• Chen Fei and Liu Guang introduced themselves to Lu Xiao after a soldier made his bunk.

Lu Xiao learned about his new role in the Frontline Combat Team and prepared for the demanding training ahead. After Doctor Li started his fitness test, Lu Xiao began running on a treadmill set to its highest speed.

• Chen Fei told Lu Xiao that his records would be classified and that he would receive a tax-free monthly salary of fifty thousand, convincing him to take the position seriously.
• Liu Guang took Lu Xiao to the infirmary to have his wound treated, then explained that the team mostly fought monsters and promised that special training would prepare him.
• Chen Fei took Lu Xiao to the training area the next morning while Zhang Chu stayed behind in bed.
• Doctor Li began Lu Xiao's fitness test with a twenty-kilometer run and raised the treadmill to its highest setting after his warm-up.
• Liu Guang started running on a neighboring treadmill to encourage Lu Xiao.

Lu Xiao was pushed through a grueling fitness test that left his abdominal wound bleeding and ended with him passing out after running thirty-two kilometers. After recovering enough to eat, he learned his remaining tests would be held the next day, when Chen Fei would also reveal a surprise.

• Chen Fei used promises of higher pay, a third-class merit, and an expensive off-roader to keep Lu Xiao running despite his exhaustion and bleeding wound.
• Lu Xiao completed twenty kilometers, then kept going as Chen Fei urged him to run extra distances for his squad leader and others, until he was thrown off the treadmill at thirty-two kilometers.
• Dr. Li praised Lu Xiao’s result, but he passed out before completing the rest of the tests; Chen Fei caught him, and Dr. Li ordered that he rest and continue the tests the next day.
• Lu Xiao woke up vomiting, then later woke again and ate food Liu Fei had brought him.
• Chen Fei massaged Lu Xiao’s thighs and said they would make a tailored training plan after the remaining tests, promising an unexpected surprise.

Lu Xiao completed a series of physical tests and began a mental power test using a crystal ball and a projected image. At the C03 Containment Facility, the Doctor had his diseased lungs removed and replaced with flesh, while the Director prepared to undergo surgery too.

• The Doctor asked the Prison Doctor to remove his lungs and inject him with Lu Xiao's blood, refusing anesthesia.
• The Prison Doctor removed the Doctor's lungs and replaced them with flesh while the Director operated a breathing device.
• The Doctor finished Lu Xiao's physical tests and said his customized training plan would be ready the next day.
• Chen Fei brought Lu Xiao to a secure room for his mental power test, where Doctor Li instructed him to study a projected image.
• A monstrous image flashed across the screen, and the crystal ball beneath Lu Xiao's hand erupted with brilliant light.

Lu Xiao’s test revealed the highest possible level of innate Mental Power, prompting Bai Xuedong to impose secrecy and assign researchers to study him. Doctor Li reassured Lu Xiao that he would not be treated as a lab rat, though he admitted that a merely light-bulb-bright result would have led to experiments.

• Lu Xiao’s palm made the crystal ball fill the chamber with brilliant light, and Doctor Li identified his result as the highest possible caliber of innate Mental Power.
• Bai Xuedong canceled everyone’s leave, cut off their outside contact, and told Lu Xiao he could report any mistreatment directly to him.
• The researchers asked Lu Xiao to repeat the test, and the chamber filled with brilliant light again; Chen Fei said his own result had been only a grain of light, while Liu Guang’s had been soybean-sized.
• Bai Xuedong arranged for Lu Xiao and the researchers to move to a guarded laboratory, where the group signed strict confidentiality agreements.
• Cass Shuns explained that Lu Xiao’s result surpassed even the Pope’s, but admitted the researchers did not yet understand what Mental Power was.
• Doctor Li became Lu Xiao’s personal assistant and told him that his result would not make him a lab rat, though someone with a light-bulb-level result would become an experimental subject.

Lu Xiao woke from a dreamscape in which Doctor Li had promised him strict protection and a higher salary in exchange for cooperating with experiments. Back in the C03 Containment Facility, the Prison Doctor examined his worsening blood curse and suspected the Bone Spur was involved.

• Doctor Li told Lu Xiao that, because he was unique, any experiments on him would undergo rigorous review, and Lu Xiao negotiated to double his salary.
• Shuns announced that the experiment paperwork had arrived, but the dreamscape shattered before the experiment could begin.
• Lu Xiao woke in the C03 Containment Facility, found Little Black exhausted, and went to the Prison Doctor's containment room.
• Lu Xiao saw the Doctor and the Director lying sick on operating tables and learned they had injected themselves with his blood.
• The Prison Doctor examined Lu Xiao and explained that his curse had worsened, making the magic circle on his bones less effective.
• After hearing that Lu Xiao had used the Bone Spur over a hundred times and stabbed it into his heart twice, the Prison Doctor said he thought he knew the cause.

The Prison Doctor warned Lu Xiao that the Bone Spur was awakening an evil god and could bring about its descent with one more use. Lu Xiao left the Containment Room after agreeing to focus on lifting his curse, then found Lu Qian happily flying around a laboratory.

• The Prison Doctor explained that the Bone Spur's gem had changed color because Lu Xiao's blood offerings were awakening the evil god, and said one more use would let the god locate and descend upon him.
• The Prison Doctor revealed that he had summoned an evil god for medical knowledge and eternal life, leaving his body mangled and cursed.
• Lu Xiao tried to stab the Bone Spur into his heart because he wanted an evil god to modify his body, but the Prison Doctor stopped him and warned that they might become the god's food.
• The Prison Doctor urged Lu Xiao to prioritize resolving his curse, and Lu Xiao agreed to put off his plans for body modification.
• Lu Xiao left after learning Lu Qian's whereabouts, then found her flying in a laboratory while the staff gathered around and laughed with her.

Lu Xiao, the Prison Doctor, and Ivan played cards in the Containment Room until the Doctor awakened with a third eye and demonstrated extraordinary reasoning. The Director woke at the end of the chapter.

• Lu Xiao left with Lu Qian after she greeted the staff, and two days later he played Fight the Landlord with the Prison Doctor and Ivan.
• The Doctor sat up, discovered a vertical eye on his forehead, and asked the Prison Doctor to examine him.
• The Prison Doctor declared the Doctor healthy and at a higher level of life, and the Doctor said he could think faster.
• The Doctor joined the card game, deduced the other players' hands, and won round after round while Ivan and the Prison Doctor lost.
• The Director awoke while Ivan's skeleton was covered in colorful doodles.