Chapter Summaries

Li Luo and Xi discovered that the forest on Senluo Island had transformed into a grotesque mixture of plants and animal tissue, and Xi could not heal it without understanding its cause. Xi began recalling the island’s past as a Species Reserve.

• Li Luo smelled a strange blend of scents coming from the lake and forest, then noticed the forest’s leaves looked unusual.
• Li Luo and Xi reached the forest and found its trees and plants stitched together from different creatures’ body parts.
• Xi touched a tree and discovered its bark was flesh that leaked bloodlike sap and milky fluid, while a screech came from inside it.
• Xi tried defining the condition as a disease and other causes, but his healing failed because he did not understand what had changed the plants.
• Li Luo asked what had happened on Senluo Island, and Xi recalled that it had once been a Species Reserve and had seemed normal on his last visit.

Li Luo and Xi crossed Senluo Island, a sanctuary for extinct and displaced species, to find its Administrator and investigate why the island had become corrupted. A stitched Horned Elephant attacked them, and Mo Ling killed it as they escaped.

• Xi explained that Senluo Island sheltered creatures whose species had gone extinct and that an Administrator maintained its ecosystems.
• Li Luo asked where the Administrator was, and Xi led him toward the sanctuary in the forest's center.
• Xi showed Li Luo that the stitched Patrol Bees still followed their inherited patrol route.
• A stitched Horned Elephant charged at Li Luo and Xi after they noticed black threads wriggling on its horn.
• Xi realized a Bone Snake's tail had replaced the Horned Elephant's horn and was provoking its rage.
• Mo Ling cut off the Horned Elephant's head, killing it after it smashed through the forest.

Xi mourned the last Horned Elephant on Senluo Island and questioned whether protecting weak, endangered creatures was truly right. Li Luo encouraged him to judge his compassion by his actions, and Xi resolved to uncover what had happened on the island.

• Xi grieved beside the dead Horned Elephant and reflected on how the healers had protected vulnerable creatures on Senluo Island.
• Xi asked Li Luo whether humans were right to preserve endangered animals, and compared protection to keeping weak creatures in a comfortable cage.
• Li Luo admitted she did not know whether such protection was right, but said she had enjoyed visiting zoos.
• Li Luo told Xi that he was a healer, not a god, and should focus on having protected the creatures rather than overthinking his intentions.
• Xi stood and resolved to find out what had happened on Senluo Island.

Li Luo and Xi crossed a disorienting Matrix Tree forest while following their recorded route toward the Administrator’s shelter. At the edge of a forest of shorter trees, Mo Ling discovered identical healer corpses inside the trunks, and Xi identified one as the Administrator.

• Xi warned Li Luo that the identical Matrix Trees could make them lose their way, so she recorded their route on an electronic screen.
• Li Luo and Xi entered the forest, endured unpredictable mist, and gradually became disoriented despite following the screen.
• Xi spotted a forest of slightly shorter trees and led Li Luo toward it, but the Cube blocked her from going farther.
• Mo Ling discovered that every tree in the shorter forest held an identical dried healer’s body and stopped Li Luo and Xi.
• Mo Ling used teleportation to expose one corpse, and Xi recognized the bracelet on its wrist as the Administrator’s.
• Mo Ling found the same bracelet on every identical corpse and wondered whether something had replicated the Administrator and taken the healers’ light clusters.

Mo Ling and Li Luo found identical Administrator bodies inside every Matrix Tree, and Xi was dragged into one while investigating. He emerged from a normal pufferfish beside a lake, where he met his senior, but neither he nor Mo Ling could explain how they had reached the same place.

• Mo Ling opened several Matrix Trees and showed Li Luo and Xi that each contained an identical headless body of Senluo Island's Administrator.
• Xi examined one body, discovered its insides had become a stitched mass, and was pulled into it by a slick hand.
• Xi was dragged through the body until his senior cut off the arm holding him and pulled him free.
• Xi emerged from a dead, unstiched pufferfish beside a lake and wondered whether the stitching phenomenon had not spread across all of Senluo Island.
• Xi and Mo Ling stood face-to-face in confusion, with no Matrix Trees or Li Luo nearby.

Mo Ling and Xi discovered that the identical bodies inside the Matrix Tree had been created, and Xi made a body from a pebble. After the body crawled into a lake and disappeared, Mo Ling and Xi followed it underwater, where they encountered a strange creature Xi identified as the Rainbow Virus.

• Xi realized that the identical bodies inside the Matrix Tree had been created through imagination and shared the same wristband.
• Xi transformed a pebble into a dried healer's body, which began moving on its own and crawled into the lake.
• Mo Ling and Xi followed the body into the lake, but it vanished beneath the murky water.
• Mo Ling and Xi sank deeper through the lake's undercurrents and noticed a strange, hair-covered shape swimming above them.
• The shape drifted down into view, revealing a writhing, color-changing mass of tiny strips that Xi recognized as the Rainbow Virus.

Mo Ling asked Xi about the Rainbow Virus, and Xi explained how healers first discovered it in penguins that had migrated to the Hua Sheng Islands. The chapter leaves the virus’s purpose uncertain after the healers found that it consumed pigment while preserving and even supporting its hosts’ bodily functions.

• Mo Ling asked Xi what the Rainbow Virus was, and Xi said it had only recently been discovered before he went into slumber.
• Xi recounted how colorful penguins migrated to the Hua Sheng Islands because predators could spot them easily.
• Healers examined the penguins and identified a rod-shaped virus that caused their bodies to turn multicolored.
• Healers found that infected penguins retained normal vision because the virus controlled their cells to transmit proper signals.
• Healers discovered that the virus consumed pigment, replicated inside cells, and maintained the hosts’ bodily functions.

Xi and Mo Ling discovered that a rainbow-colored creature in the lake was a healer’s severed leg, still twitching despite being dead and drawn toward the lake’s center. They followed its pull and found many of the Administrator’s bodies scattered across the lakebed, leaving Xi’s light uneasy.

• Xi recognized the rainbow-colored creature overhead as a host of the Rainbow Virus, and Mo Ling teleported it into his hand.
• Xi found that the creature was a mass of Rot Worms wrapped around a healer’s severed lower leg.
• Xi determined that the leg was dead but kept twitching toward the center of the lake, and he and Mo Ling set off to investigate.
• Mo Ling and Xi found bones and severed limbs across the lakebed, many bearing the Administrator’s bracelets and strange changes.
• As Xi looked over the bodies, the orb of light above his head began to sway uneasily.

Mo Ling and Xi climbed a mountain of diseased corpses beneath the lake, where countless bodies repeatedly surged toward its summit. When Xi could not continue, Mo Ling rescued him and carried him, beginning to recall a childhood cavalry game.

• Xi identified the strange diseases affecting the bodies in the lakebed, while he and Mo Ling observed the diseased ecosystem growing denser toward the center.
• Mo Ling and Xi discovered a towering mountain made of bones and bodies, which trembled whenever a strange attraction pulled the bodies climbing it toward the summit.
• Mo Ling and Xi climbed the mountain, dodging violent currents, falling limbs, and the diseases carried by the bodies.
• Xi became trapped by severed limbs and could no longer withstand the vortex and tremors, but Mo Ling freed him by grabbing his wrist.
• Mo Ling carried Xi on his back toward the summit and began telling him about playing cavalry battles as a child.

Mo Ling and Xi discovered the Administrator’s incomplete light cluster at the summit of the Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Bones, then learned they were inside the Administrator’s Healing Space. They found the Administrator’s consciousness among phantom healers debating Senluo Island’s future and were invited to vote.

• Mo Ling and Xi reached the summit and found an unbodied healer’s light cluster surrounded by dormant Severed Limbs.
• The Severed Limbs formed a giant serpent and attacked, but Xi healed them into complete bodies, causing the formation to collapse.
• Xi touched the light cluster and identified it as the Administrator’s incomplete form, then realized the pair were inside the Administrator’s Healing Space.
• The surroundings dissolved and transformed into a grassy field populated by phantom healers, where Xi spotted the Administrator.
• The Administrator welcomed Mo Ling and Xi as newcomers and brought them into a vote over whether Senluo Island should establish a Disease Preservation Repository.

After the healers rejected his proposal for a Disease Preservation Repository, the Administrator decided to create one himself, believing diseases could help healers and other races. Mo Ling and Xi followed him to Senluo Island, where they discovered he had infected himself to preserve pathogens.

• The vote ended with three healers supporting the Disease Preservation Repository and nine opposing it.
• The Administrator asked Mo Ling and Xi why they had supported his proposal, and they explained how preserving diseases could aid research and treatment.
• The Administrator decided to establish the repository on his own and left the Healing Space, so Xi led Mo Ling after him.
• Mo Ling and Xi found the Administrator beside a Matrix Tree on Senluo Island, where he revealed his pathogen-infected hand.
• Xi angrily rebuked the Administrator for endangering himself, and the Administrator explained that the elders feared the danger of the repository rather than the idea itself.

The Administrator argued that healers should leave the Hua Sheng Islands and transform all life through disease-driven evolution, merging organisms with pathogens until disease could no longer defeat them. As he changed the Matrix Trees into fused lifeforms, Xi sensed that the Administrator’s zeal concealed emptiness and asked whether his healing had been shaped by personal emotions.

• The Administrator condemned the healers’ isolation on the Hua Sheng Islands and declared that they should use their powers to change the world.
• The Administrator explained how he had mastered diseases such as the Rainbow Virus, Spiral Vine, Iron Blue Algae, and Shining Scale Fungus, treating them as opportunities for evolution.
• Mo Ling challenged the Administrator’s claim that disease was evolution by asking about injuries and fatal illnesses, but he answered that organisms should accept and assimilate everything.
• The Administrator pushed a body into a Matrix Tree, transforming it into a fused lifeform, and announced that he would spread this form throughout the Abyss.
• Xi questioned whether the changed trees were still Matrix Trees, then sensed emptiness in the Administrator and asked whether personal emotions had influenced his healing.

Xi and Mo Ling uncovered the Administrator’s memories and learned how his disordered Healing Space turned Senluo Island into a hollow cage. The chapter left the young healer confronting whether he had truly protected the creatures he called his patients.

• Xi resisted the spreading hollowness and broke through the Administrator’s concealment with Mo Ling.
• Xi and Mo Ling witnessed Elder Ladi explain that the young healer’s disordered Healing Space could record creatures and help him manage Senluo Island.
• Elder Ladi instructed the young healer to build a replica of Senluo Island in his Healing Space and record each creature there.
• The young healer revealed that he felt trapped on Senluo Island and wanted to treat patients and diseases beyond it.
• Elder Ladi embraced the young healer and asked whether he had protected the creatures on Senluo Island, prompting him to face the island’s devastation.

Elder Ladi helped the Young Healer realize that he had ignored his patients and was sick himself. The Young Healer asked Mo Ling to kill him, but Mo Ling instead entered his Healing Space with Xi and began eliminating the black spots that embodied his emptiness.

• Elder Ladi told the Young Healer that he had treated patients as tools and never considered their feelings, then confirmed that the Young Healer was sick.
• The Young Healer asked Mo Ling to kill him, explaining that his death would stop the healing power from spreading and cure Senluo Island.
• Mo Ling asked Xi to help him sense the Young Healer's emptiness, and Xi guided him into a blazing space where black spots represented the illness.
• Mo Ling used teleportation to erase the black spots, and Xi confirmed that the Young Healer's emptiness had decreased.
• Mo Ling and Xi prepared to continue eliminating the remaining black spots.

Mo Ling lured the spreading black specks into one mass and teleported himself and the entire mass back to the cube, where he found the specks had become strange black spheres. Before that, he overheard the voices behind the attack discussing a disease planted across the Hua Sheng Islands to make Healers' emotions disrupt their powers.

• The black specks adapted to Mo Ling's teleportation, spreading out, splitting into smaller pieces, and becoming harder to eliminate.
• Mo Ling asked Xi to leave so he could use himself as bait and draw the black specks together.
• As the darkness engulfed him, Mo Ling heard voices confirm that a disease targeting Healers had been planted on every island in the Hua Sheng Islands.
• Mo Ling teleported the black specks surrounding him and returned to the cube unharmed.
• Mo Ling found black mud covering the cube's furnishings and discovered it was made of tiny, uniform black spheres.

Mo Ling discovered that the black spheres were self-destructing weapons hidden in Healers’ Healing Spaces, then found Senluo Island and its Administrator apparently restored to normal. The Administrator agreed to guide Xi and Li Luo to a Secret Passage leading to Central Island, leaving Mo Ling puzzled by the island’s sudden recovery.

• Mo Ling examined the black spheres and found that each contained a different maze-like structure before collapsing when he observed it.
• Mo Ling suspected the spheres were advanced weapons targeting Healers and wondered who was behind the threat to the Hua Sheng Islands.
• Mo Ling emerged into a forest where the Matrix Trees appeared ordinary, with no sign of their former stitched condition.
• Mo Ling found Xi and Li Luo talking with Senluo Island’s apparently recovered Administrator, who refused to leave but offered to take them to a Secret Passage to Central Island.
• The Administrator gave Li Luo and Xi leaf bracelets and led them into the forest, while Mo Ling wondered whether the timeline had changed.

Mo Ling learned that the changed events on Senluo Island might have resulted from a Root Cause Healing Method that erased the anomaly from the timeline. When Xi sensed the Black Mud and shared its overwhelming loneliness with Mo Ling, Mo Ling wondered whether it triggered healers’ negative emotions.

• Mo Ling questioned Xi about Senluo Island, and Xi described a normal island with no strange creatures or withered bodies in the Matrix Trees.
• Mo Ling told Xi about his friend’s experience, and Xi explained that the friend had used the Root Cause Healing Method to erase the illness’s cause from the past.
• Mo Ling denied that he was the friend and suspected the Administrator’s chaotic Healing Space had caused the timeline change.
• Mo Ling showed Xi the Black Mud, and Xi sensed intense loneliness within it.
• Xi shared his sensation with Mo Ling, who was overwhelmed by loneliness until their hands separated.
• Mo Ling recalled that the Black Mud had once evoked emptiness and wondered whether it triggered healers’ negative emotions.

Mo Ling learned from Xi that the Black Mud magnified healers’ negative emotions and that adding personal feelings to healing could cause obsession and emotional instability. The group left the Matrix Tree Forest, where Xi told Li Luo that Mo Ling had warned him of a disease targeting healers across the Hua Sheng Islands.

• Xi recalled that creating the Red Spirit Flower had made him feel intense loneliness, and he realized he had added his personal emotions to its creation.
• Xi told Mo Ling that emotional healing made him obsessive, reckless, and prone to extreme mood swings.
• Mo Ling warned Xi to be careful and promised to protect him, then asked him for new sofas, sofa covers, and a flowerpot.
• Li Luo followed the Administrator through the Matrix Tree Forest using a bracelet whose Kettlebell Grass rang when she strayed off course and eventually withered.
• Xi explained the Kettlebell Grass’s weakness and told Li Luo that Mo Ling had warned him about a disease targeting healers across the Hua Sheng Islands.

The Administrator used a Mendel Pea to send Li Luo and Xi from Senluo Island toward Central Island, where they hoped to investigate the truth. The stalk carried Li Luo and Xi into the cloud mist while Cube followed behind, and the Administrator watched with a powerful sense of familiarity.

• The Administrator showed Li Luo and Xi a Mendel Pea, and Li Luo learned it could carry them between sky islands but might grow too short to reach Central Island.
• Xi warned that a short stalk would leave them stranded in midair, and Li Luo promised they could use Cube to get to safety.
• Xi planted the pea, thanked the Administrator, and told him he would return after investigating Central Island; the Administrator said Xi seemed familiar.
• Xi explained how to ride the pea stalk, then imagined Central Island as the shoot rapidly grew into the sky.
• Li Luo and Xi grabbed sturdy leaves and rose into the cloud mist as Cube followed, while the Administrator watched Cube and felt an intense familiarity.

Li Luo and Xi discussed why healers maintained fragile bodies, then discovered that Xi’s healing ability was suppressed on Central Island as something emerged from the fog. Mo Ling teleported the approaching Headless Giant into the Cube, where it continued moving.

• Xi explained to Li Luo that healers kept their bodies fragile to sharpen their perception of illness and strengthen their healing abilities.
• Xi’s brittle blood vessels burst after exertion, and he healed himself, but he noticed his recovery was unusually slow on Central Island.
• Xi reached toward the strange fog, provoking a rumbling shadow that rushed toward him and Li Luo before abruptly vanishing.
• Li Luo concluded that the Iron Block had intervened and taken the threat away.
• Mo Ling revealed that he had teleported a Headless Giant made of black spheres into the Cube, where it continued struggling to move.