Chapter Summaries

On Hell Island, Li Luo questioned a frightened robot and learned about the Night Watchman, the Nest Builder, and the Watcher. Mo Ling recognized the Watcher following them, but Li Luo and the robot remained unaware as they entered her direct line of sight.

• Li Luo told the robot she was the Fire Thief and had no intention of expelling it, then ordered it to explain what it feared.
• The robot identified Black Sand as the Night Watchman, warned that the Nest Builder might be lurking nearby, and said the Watcher could see them without being seen.
• The robot led Li Luo through twisting alleys, checking buildings for traps and explaining how movement attracted the Night Watchman and turns could interrupt the Watcher's gaze.
• Mo Ling recalled that the Bicyclist had become sensitive to movement because he had spent forty years in a world where everything was motionless.
• Mo Ling spotted a flickering black shadow following Li Luo and recognized it as the Watcher, while Li Luo and the robot approached a wide, open road.
• The Watcher waited across the road and stared at Li Luo and the robot, and her shadow grew denser as they remained in her gaze.

Mo Ling touched Qi Qi’s glasses and saw how she bought the Escape Glasses Relic and used its fear-based ability to survive the Abyss. The memories ended with Qi Qi realizing that her fear of the Abyss kept growing.

• Mo Ling recognized the glasses as Qi Qi’s and touched them, triggering her memories.
• Qi Qi bought the Escape Glasses from a vendor, trading her remaining points and a Gold Pig Tail for them.
• Qi Qi learned that the glasses made her presence diminish whenever she feared something, though they could not be removed once worn.
• After reaching the Abyss Second Layer, Qi Qi used the glasses to evade the dangerous creatures in a dune field and reach a Monitoring Station.
• The glasses helped Qi Qi avoid dangers and social encounters as she advanced to the Abyss Third Layer.
• Qi Qi realized that her fear of the Abyss was continuously growing.

Qi Qi’s account of being erased from the Abyss left Mo Ling shaken after he experienced her memories through the Escape Glasses. Meanwhile, Li Luo and the robot found shelter in a building that turned out to be Fire Thief Studio again.

• Qi Qi realized that fear of the Abyss was making her presence fade, causing people to ignore her and her Hunter Badge and Database access to disappear.
• Qi Qi found information about Paradise Island, was expelled from the Database, and sneaked aboard a ship bound for the island.
• When Qi Qi reached Paradise Island, her Escape Glasses fell away, ending the memory Mo Ling was experiencing.
• Mo Ling recorded Qi Qi’s memories to distance himself from their loneliness and despair, then reflected on how heavy the experiences had made him feel.
• The robot led Li Luo through the Small Alley to a supposed Safe House as darkness approached.
• Li Luo entered the building and recognized Fire Thief Studio’s familiar corridor and office, realizing they had returned there.

Li Luo met Ji Lou in the Safe House and asked it to explain what had happened on Hell Island. Ji Lou recounted how the factory Master ordered the robots to eliminate all humans, and how the robots found ways to delay the order rather than violate their rule against harming humans.

• Li Luo told Ji Lou she came from Paradise Island, and Ji Lou confirmed they had walked about a quarter of the island before reaching the Safe House again.
• Li Luo asked whether the Safe House was safe and pressed Ji Lou to explain the island; Ji Lou introduced itself and accepted her handshake.
• Ji Lou said it had been activated in a factory on Hell Island, where it and the other robots initially remained idle while humans wandered without attacking anyone.
• The factory Master ordered every robot to eliminate all humans on Hell Island, but the robots could not harm humans and many became stuck in conflicting directives.
• Ji Lou and other robots found loopholes that let them avoid the conflict by delaying the order indefinitely.

Ji Lou told Li Luo how the robots on Hell Island were hunted and expelled, leaving it as the last survivor. When Li Luo recognized a second white building, Ji Lou realized their supposed Safe House was a Nest Builder’s trap, and they were trapped inside.

• Ji Lou explained that humans with dangerous identities hunted robots during twelve-hour cycles, while the robots used white Safe Houses to survive.
• Ji Lou recounted how its companions were expelled one by one until only it remained on Hell Island.
• Li Luo said she had seen another white house at Fire Thief Studio, and Ji Lou realized the building they were in was not a Safe House.
• Ji Lou found the door gone and smashed the white wall, revealing wriggling black material beneath it.
• Ji Lou warned Li Luo that the Nest Builder would eat them and that they could not escape.

Li Luo and Ji Lou escaped the Nest Builder’s fake Safe House when Mo Ling removed part of the trap with the Cube. Mo Ling found and captured the Nest Builder’s main body, a strange cup, which triggered a memory of Guo XianSheng at work.

• Ji Lou realized the Fire Thief Studio was a fake Safe House created by the Nest Builder, and Li Luo’s knife could not cut through its healing walls.
• Mo Ling teleported a section of the wall into the Cube, letting Li Luo and Ji Lou leave the trap.
• The wall melted inside the Cube, and Mo Ling concluded it was a derivative rather than the Nest Builder’s main body.
• Mo Ling searched the counterfeit building, found a black cup producing the liquid that formed it, and sent the cup into the Cube.
• Mo Ling picked up the cup and experienced a memory of Guo XianSheng reprimanding his secretary and asking Human Resources to replace her.

Guo XianSheng reunited with Xiao Ling, the girl who had helped him when he was a beggar, and learned that her family had arranged a marriage for her. He later arranged a business partnership with her father and revealed himself as Xiao Ling’s fiancé, though he remained unsure whether his actions were right.

• Guo XianSheng met Xiao Ling at a restaurant and reminded her that she had helped him when he was a beggar five years earlier.
• Xiao Ling told Guo XianSheng that she had given up on becoming a doctor, was expected to join her family company, and had an arranged marriage.
• Guo XianSheng invited Xiao Ling’s father to discuss a partnership, offering his company’s materials for an urgent order.
• Guo XianSheng told Xiao Ling’s father that he was close friends with Xiao Ling, and their companies completed the partnership successfully.
• Xiao Ling’s father told her she would meet her fiancé, and she discovered that Guo XianSheng was the man she was engaged to.
• Guo XianSheng nervously drank a glass of water in front of Xiao Ling and her parents.

Guo XianSheng told his dying wife how a Relic called the Lies Cup had let him build his company through lies, but could not cure her Abyss Disease. After hearing his secret, she stayed beside him and asked whether his love for her was real, leaving him in tears.

• Girl and Guo XianSheng became engaged, married, and spent ten years together while she wondered about his secretive past.
• His wife confessed that the pizza she had given him ten years earlier was expired, and they laughed together on the riverbank.
• His wife was diagnosed with incurable Asphalt Disease, and Guo XianSheng stayed with her as she grew weaker.
• At his wife's request, Guo XianSheng explained that he had used the Lies Cup to build his fortune, but it could not bring back the dead or cure every disease.
• His wife held Guo XianSheng's face and asked whether his love was real; he denied it as tears filled his eyes.

Mo Ling learned that the Nest Builder was Guo XianSheng, whose false life collapsed when he told his wife the truth, and vowed to investigate the island. Meanwhile, Li Luo and Ji Lou fled the arsonist’s fire and the Lamp Repairman, as Mo Ling discovered there were many Lamp Repairmen and looked beneath one’s sheet.

• Mo Ling realized he was experiencing the Nest Builder’s memories and understood that Guo XianSheng’s lies had collapsed after he confessed the truth to his wife.
• Mo Ling vowed to uncover what had happened on the island while the black objects in the Cube continued to disintegrate.
• Ji Lou led Li Luo through the alleys, warning her to avoid the arsonist’s fire and the Lamp Repairman’s light.
• Li Luo and Ji Lou detoured around a wall of black fire, then fled as hammering seemed to surround them.
• Mo Ling saw multiple Lamp Repairmen appearing across the island, repairing cracks with black stones, and looked beneath one’s sheet, only to freeze at what he saw.

Mo Ling discovered that the Lamp Repairmen were feathered creatures who used black stones to seal cracks, and he entered one stone to witness a slave’s memory. The memory ended with the slave placing a White Light Stone beside his dead companion, while the stones’ purpose in suppressing something on Hell Island remained unclear.

• Mo Ling saw that the Lamp Repairmen were Feathered People who produced black stones and used them to seal cracks in buildings.
• Mo Ling sent a black stone and part of a wall into the Cube, then picked up the stone and entered its memory.
• Slave 500 learned from a companion that the Feathered People were laying White Light Stones across the island to suppress something.
• An overseer whipped Slave 500 and his companion for their work, leaving the companion unresponsive on the ground.
• Slave 500 comforted his companion, tidied his feathers, and placed a White Light Stone beside him.

Mo Ling reflected on a memory of the workers who built Paradise Island and the many civilizations involved in sealing something beneath it. Meanwhile, Li Luo and Ji Lou reached the Safe House, where Ji Lou explained its protection and they weathered an attack by the Wind Rider.

• Mo Ling recalled that the White Light Stone workers had been forced to cover Paradise Island and wondered what the overseers had sealed there.
• Ji Lou led Li Luo to the Safe House beside Fire Thief Studio, where he collapsed in relief after entering.
• Li Luo questioned why she had awakened in the Safe House, and Ji Lou explained that white places protected them from the island's Memory Constructs.
• Ji Lou told Li Luo that a mysterious rational human had warned them about the island and sometimes watched from a distance.
• When the Wind Rider's gale struck, Ji Lou secured the Safe House and reassured Li Luo as the wind weakened inside.
• After the gale subsided, Ji Lou checked outside and confirmed that the wind had stopped.

As the Wind Rider remained absent, Li Luo and Mo Ling encountered an Inheritor whose proclamation about the Hell Beasts stirred Mo Ling to rush into danger. Li Luo stopped the recitation with a bronze gong, and the Inheritor left; Ji Lou explained that it belonged to the Walrus Race, one of several races on Hell Island.

• Li Luo watched the shadows outside the Safe House while Ji Lou identified them, then warned her to cover her ears when an Inheritor appeared.
• The Inheritor recited a proclamation describing the Hell Beasts’ threat and urging the Abyss’s races to build a pure white prison to stop them.
• Mo Ling was swept up by the proclamation and prepared to take the Cube outside to fight the Hell Beasts.
• Li Luo struck a bronze gong whenever the Inheritor resumed reciting, disrupting its proclamation until it put away its book and left.
• Li Luo asked Ji Lou what the recitation meant, and Ji Lou explained that it was in the Walrus Race’s language and that other races lived on the island.

Li Luo and Ji Lou encountered a visitor outside the Safe House who claimed to be a fragment of Lin Nian’s memory and revealed herself as the Prophet. She freed Ji Lou from his directives, but lamented that Hell Island’s future could not be changed.

• Li Luo and Ji Lou heard someone knock on the Safe House door, and the visitor’s voice sounded like Lin Nian’s.
• Black smoke entered through the door and formed images showing how events on Hell Island would have unfolded without the visitor’s intervention.
• Ji Lou recognized the visitor as the Prophet and learned that the original course showed the robots discovering her identity.
• The Prophet said she wanted to eliminate every human on Hell Island, causing Ji Lou’s directives to conflict and immobilize him.
• The Prophet told Ji Lou to remove his directives, freeing him, then said that Hell Island trapped everything within its fate.

The Prophet’s memories showed Li Luo and Ji Lou how she learned that Hell Island was a realm of incomplete Memory Constructs and repeatedly tried to change its foretold future. Her robot army failed to stop the island’s growing chaos, but she then saw a future in which a human who did not belong to Hell Island appeared.

• The Prophet learned from the Inheritor that Hell Island lay within the Hell Beast’s nest and its inhabitants were incomplete Memory Constructs who could return to the real world only through destruction.
• The Prophet tried to change the future by slaughtering creatures and destroying an island, but both and their inhabitants reappeared after twelve hours.
• The Prophet built a factory and assembled Sixth Generation Intelligent Machines to prepare for the island’s predicted unrest.
• The Prophet ordered the robots to eliminate every human, but the Laws of Robotics prevented them from harming people and their deployment made the humans more aggressive.
• The Prophet realized that her choices had followed the prophecy, then saw a future in which a human from outside Hell Island appeared.

A prophet warned Li Luo that an invisible force would annihilate her and destroy Hell Island, then used black smoke to drive figures into an attack on Fire Thief Studio. Li Luo and Ji Lou survived the Inheritor’s devastating sword strike, and Little Purple’s gong disrupted the lingering sound waves before it charged toward the Cube.

• The prophet told Li Luo that an invisible force was protecting her but would eventually devour her, and warned that Hell Island and the real world faced destruction.
• The prophet summoned black smoke that controlled figures from the Small Alleys, including the Inheritor, and sent them toward the Safe House.
• The Inheritor smashed through the Safe House door and unleashed a Sonic Sword Qi strike that split Fire Thief Studio in half before he vanished.
• Ji Lou pulled Li Luo clear of the strike, while its lingering sound waves stirred an urge to fight in Li Luo.
• Li Luo ordered Little Purple to strike the bronze gong, disrupting the sword qi’s sound waves until they faded.
• Little Purple stopped at Li Luo’s command, dropped the gong, and charged toward the Cube.

Li Luo and Ji Lou were surrounded by shadowy figures as Mo Ling located the prophet hidden in the Safe House’s circuitry and drew her into the Cube. The prophet transformed into a black brain, and when Mo Ling touched it, he found himself inside a memory with control over its owner.

• Little Purple returned to Li Luo’s wrist, while Ji Lou warned that the prophet’s summoned figures were stronger than the inheritor.
• Li Luo and Ji Lou tried to flee the damaged Safe House but found shadowy figures surrounding them on every side.
• Mo Ling discovered the prophet hiding as a black current inside the Safe House’s wall circuits and teleported it into the Cube.
• The current transformed into a black brain, and Mo Ling tested it with a can before touching it.
• A researcher appeared beside Mo Ling and asked how the brain felt, and Mo Ling realized he had entered a memory while controlling its owner.

Mo Ling, in Lin Nian’s body, discovered that the brain-shaped Bionic Massager was an electric-current aggregate and assembled it into a robot. The newly activated robot recognized that Mo Ling was not Lin Nian.

• A researcher mistook Mo Ling for Lin Nian and warned her that the Bionic Massager looked disturbing.
• Mo Ling examined the massager’s records and confirmed that it was an electric-current aggregate shaped like a brain.
• A researcher delivered robot parts, and Mo Ling recalled the plan to place the massager inside an intelligent machine.
• Mo Ling assembled the robot and placed the massager in its chest, where it transformed into a current and activated the machine.
• The robot stared at Mo Ling and said, "You're not her."

Mo Ling witnessed an earlier moment at Abyss Heart Technology, where researchers and executives discussed a seemingly perfect robot built around electric currents. The robot predicted that authorities would ban and destroy it after its release, leaving Mo Ling shocked by how it knew the future.

• The robot identified Mo Ling through electric currents and predicted that he would disappear in thirty-eight seconds before she returned.
• Mo Ling lost control of his body and found himself in a laboratory with researchers, executives, Li Luo, and a robot operating equipment.
• A researcher explained that the robot used human bioelectric currents, could replace workers, and seemed universally comforting and almost divine.
• An executive ordered Abyss Heart Technology to prepare the robot for mass production as a Sixth Generation Intelligent Machine.
• After everyone else left, the robot told Mo Ling that authorities would ban its distribution and destroy it and its unborn siblings.
• Mo Ling asked how the robot knew the future, and it again answered, "Electric current."

Mo Ling questioned Ji Tai about its ability to predict the future and learned how the robots on Paradise Island had been recreated through Lin Nian’s memories and electric current. As Mo Ling began to vanish, he told Ji Tai his name, hoping to disrupt the future Ji Tai had foreseen.

• Mo Ling asked Ji Tai how electric current let it calculate the future, and Ji Tai explained that current revealed predetermined outcomes.
• Ji Tai told Mo Ling that Lin Nian’s Memory Construct would recreate Sixth Generation Intelligent Machines inside the Hell Beast and that they would be expelled into reality onto Paradise Island.
• Ji Tai explained that electromagnetic induction had allowed Lin Nian’s memories to restore it imperfectly, without a Relic.
• Ji Tai said the robots’ identities arose from a mechanism on Paradise Island whose cause Mo Ling would learn later.
• Ji Tai began a fifteen-second countdown and introduced itself by name; Mo Ling shouted that his name was Mo Ling before he vanished.

Mo Ling relived Lin Nian’s memories of losing her research project and leaving Abyss Heart Technology, then woke to find the Prophet gone and the figures outside frozen. He removed their Main Body objects and, burdened by the many memories he had collected, learned that Ji Lou might be able to help read them.

• Mo Ling experienced Lin Nian’s memories of the authorities shutting down her Sixth Generation Intelligent Machine project, the rumors and tensions at Abyss Heart Technology, and her decision to leave.
• Mo Ling woke and found that the Prophet and its black smoke had disappeared, leaving the figures outside the Safe House motionless.
• Mo Ling located the figures’ Main Body objects and teleported them into the Cube, causing the figures to vanish.
• Mo Ling collected the black objects but worried that reading all their memories would overwhelm him, so he explained the problem to Li Luo.
• Ji Lou offered to try reading the memories by sorting them as data, and Li Luo and Mo Ling agreed to let her try.