Recaps

Qingmu pushed through the immense mental barrier surrounding the Tapu and traced the sniper’s shots to Petru, who was hiding among the rocks. After Qingmu seized control of Petru’s consciousness, Petru could only ask who he was.

• Qingmu sensed that the mental barrier around the Tapu was a vast storm with an empty center, where he suspected the sniper was hiding.
• Qingmu forced his way through the barrier and deflected the bullets Petru fired at him.
• Qingmu used the bullets’ trajectories to pinpoint Petru behind a pile of rocks.
• Qingmu seized Petru’s consciousness, leaving him unable to move except to speak.
• Petru asked Qingmu, “Who are you?”

Qingmu confronted Petru, the red-bearded pirate, while investigating a strange magnetic field among the rocks. The standoff ended with Crow landing on Qingmu’s head and speaking to Petru in English.

• Qingmu disarmed Petru and released his mental restraint, but Petru sprang up and attacked him with a kick and kukri.
• Qingmu blocked Petru’s attack, and their brief clash sent Petru to his knees before he rolled away and prepared to fight again.
• Qingmu examined the rocks and discussed the powerful magnetic field with Su Huilan while Petru considered escaping toward the sea.
• Crow glided down onto Qingmu’s head and complained to Petru in English that he had shot him.

Su Huilan confronted Petru and asked him to captain a boat in exchange for freedom. After explaining that powerful governments had effectively trapped him on the island, she left him to consider her offer.

• Hanran bristled at Petru, while the crow demanded that Qingmu avenge the shot and pretended to die after falling from his head.
• Petru refused to answer the crow, and Su Huilan asked him to rent her a boat and serve as its captain.
• Petru denied renting boats, then offered to let Su Huilan take his vessel from a bay behind the canyon.
• Su Huilan said she would pay Petru with freedom, and he laughed, claiming he could sail wherever he wanted.
• Su Huilan listed the governments and intelligence agencies pursuing Petru and explained why he could not safely return to the Gulf of Aden or the Indian Ocean.
• Petru asked what Su Huilan wanted, and she repeated that she wanted to rent a boat.

Su Huilan offered Petru a chance to escape his hunted life and free Lawiye from an Egyptian prison, prompting the story of how his love for her led him to become a pirate. Petru had built his fearsome reputation to protect Lawiye, while covert support from powerful groups helped him thrive at sea.

• Petru said he had given up on returning to his former life, and Su Huilan challenged his claim that he wanted to retire on the island.
• Su Huilan offered to give Petru a new identity and help him live safely, then revealed that she could also free Lawiye from an Egyptian prison.
• Petru remembered how he had met Lawiye, rescued her from an Italian club, and fled across Europe with her before they were captured in Cairo.
• After escaping prison, Petru found Lawiye tortured in Muhammad Lazad's villa, killed Lazad and his associates, and became a notorious fugitive.
• Petru fled to Somalia, became Redbeard Petru, and protected Lawiye by building a pirate fleet that robbed selectively while targeting Saudi and Egyptian ships.
• Petru's rules and enemies brought him covert support from the United States, Russia, and the Christian Church.

Petru built Redbeard’s power while seeking Lawiye’s release, then hijacked an Indian warship and survived a costly clash with the India Navy. His fame and ambitions grew until he robbed a ship he should never have robbed.

• Petru refused to kidnap hostages for ransom and failed to persuade Egypt to release Lawiye, though his intermediaries ensured she lived comfortably in prison.
• Petru faced Indian naval escorts and rival pirate leaders, then planned a strike to prove Redbeard could not be challenged.
• Petru and his elite pirates hijacked a Saudi crown prince’s merchant convoy, poisoned the Indian destroyer’s crew, and seized the warship.
• Petru used the hijacked destroyer and two submarines to lure the Indian rescue fleet into a costly battle near the Carlsberg Ridge.
• Petru’s victory made him famous among pirates and expanded his influence, while political intermediaries tempted him with the prospect of ruling Somalia.
• Petru’s ambitions continued until he robbed a ship he should never have robbed.

Petru suspected an Egyptian trap after a pirate team vanished while pursuing an ordinary freighter, but found no sign of a naval ambush. He intercepted the ship and boarded it, only to discover that it carried a single person.

• Petru enforced harsh rules for ships sailing from Egypt, and his raids disrupted Egyptian maritime trade.
• A small pirate band sent to follow an unescorted freighter disappeared along with its boats and crew.
• Petru recalled how he had outmaneuvered the multinational Operation Strike Red and later Egyptian attacks.
• Petru watched the freighter and found no surrounding warships or submarines as it sailed southeast.
• Petru stopped the freighter and boarded it with his pirates, discovering that only one person was aboard.

Petru realized the calm man in the freighter’s wheelhouse had trapped the pirates in a dream, and he used his lucid-dreaming training to hide that he had seen through it. The dream took a disturbing turn, and Petru weighed whether to wake and attack or wait for a chance to escape.

• Petru turned to leave the wheelhouse but found himself in a dark room where Lawiye was being tortured.
• Petru recognized that he was dreaming and recalled how Pastor had taught him to control his dreams.
• Petru suspected the man aboard the ship had hypnotized the pirates and decided to pretend he was still unaware.
• Petru approached Lawiye, but the dream transformed him into her torturer, leaving him to consider how to escape.

Petru recognized that a powerful Mental Awakening practitioner had trapped him and the pirates in dreams while making them sleepwalk toward the cargo hold. He kept his mental resistance hidden, but realized that whatever awaited them inside was likely death.

• Petru recalled the priest’s warning that he had to kill a Mental Awakening master instantly or risk living out a false lifetime in a dream.
• Petru chose not to resist openly because he could not tell whether waking or firing a weapon would be real, and he waited for a chance to survive.
• In his dream, Petru chased Lawiye through a series of places while the Saudi tycoon taunted him and his mental suppression weakened.
• Petru recognized that the dream’s route matched the path from the ship’s wheelhouse to its cargo hold.
• Petru realized that he and the other pirates were sleepwalking toward the cargo hold, where the missing pirates might already be trapped.

Petru escaped the dream controlling him, then ordered the freighter destroyed after his sniper shots failed to hit the man aboard. His pirates found a mummy and ancient nautical charts among the wreckage, leaving Petru with a mysterious box marked by a strange symbol.

• Petru jumped overboard in his dream and woke in the sea after biting his tongue, then swam away from the ship and contacted his companions.
• Petru tried to shoot the man aboard the freighter with an L115A3, but the man sensed the danger and ducked into the cabin.
• Petru ordered the submarine to fire torpedoes at the freighter and launched a rocket at its wheelhouse, destroying the ship.
• Petru searched for his pirate brothers but found no survivors or bodies.
• Petru's men recovered an iron box from the wreckage, sank the mummy inside its crystal coffin, and gave Petru the wooden box on its chest.
• Petru found ancient nautical charts marked with island locations inside the wooden box, which bore a symbol of two joined triangles and a short vertical line.

Petru recalled how he acquired the ancient charts and how they helped him evade a succession of powerful pursuers. While hiding in the South Pacific, he discovered that the charts marked ghost islands and mysterious stone structures, but he still did not know what the central triangle represented.

• Petru remembered seizing the mummy and charts, then losing the mummy when his men threw it into the sea.
• After powerful pursuers began hunting him, Petru killed one attacker and fled across the world, keeping the charts because he believed they were the reason he remained alive.
• Petru found that several charted islands lay near the South Pacific Basin, and learned that some appeared and vanished after sailors left them.
• Petru found piles of stones on islands linked to the charts' central triangle, but repeated searches of the triangle's location revealed only open ocean.
• Petru discovered a similar stone structure on Tubuai Island, where locals called it Tapu and warned that approaching it could offend the gods and drive people mad.

Petru investigated the Tapu on the South Pacific islands and discovered that their stones carried powerful mental energy, linking them in his mind to the mummy, the charts, and the people pursuing him. He settled on Tubuai Island, where his mental power grew and he found that weapons kept in the Tapu seemed to help him aim at distant targets.

• Petru reasoned that the Tapu were likely connected to the pirate who drew the charts, rather than being ancient Māori altars, and suspected the surrounding islands hid clues to a secret.
• Petru entered a Tapu near the Bass Islands and endured a mental assault that could drive ordinary people mad; he adapted and sensed the stones held ancient mental power.
• Petru connected the Tapu to the mummy, the charts, and the powerful mental practitioner who had escorted the freighter, and concluded that the ship had been bound for a Ghost Island or the surrounding triangle.
• Petru moved to Tubuai Island, settled near its Tapu, laid traps, and used force and generosity to persuade the islanders to leave him alone.
• Petru explored nearby islands and trained in the Tapu, where his mental power grew despite his lack of guidance.
• Petru discovered that guns and bullets kept inside the Tapu seemed to acquire faint mental energy, helping him aim at distant targets without a scope.

Su Huilan offered Petru help freeing Lawiye, and Petru agreed to test their trust by entering Hanran’s dream. After Qingmu gave permission, Hanran disappeared from Su Huilan’s arms and appeared as a snow-white cat atop a rock in Tapu’s stone formation.

• Petru doubted Su Huilan could persuade Egypt to release Lawiye, but her offer to help rescue her renewed his interest.
• Qingmu’s display of power convinced Petru that he and Su Huilan might be capable of rescuing Lawiye.
• Su Huilan proposed that she and Petru make an agreement in a dream, but Petru suggested entering Hanran’s dream instead.
• Su Huilan asked Qingmu for permission to enter Hanran’s dream, and Qingmu nodded.
• Petru’s vision blurred, Hanran vanished from Su Huilan’s arms, and a snow-white cat appeared atop the tallest rock in Tapu’s stone formation.

Petru entered Hanran’s dream and reunited with Lawiye before speaking with Su Huilan about his past. Watching them, Qingmu recognized Su Huilan as the mysterious woman from the rainy night at the bar, while rain began falling both in the dream and in reality.

• Petru followed Lawiye through the white cat’s dream, embraced her, and realized he had entered Hanran’s dream.
• Qingmu watched Su Huilan guide Petru and Hanran into overlapping dreams and admired her precise control.
• Petru began recounting his past to Su Huilan as Qingmu recalled the fragrance and hourglass symbol from the woman he had encountered at the bar.
• Qingmu recognized Su Huilan by her silhouette in the rain and became certain she was the woman from that night.
• Rain fell inside the dream, and Su Huilan felt that it was raining in reality as well.

Su Huilan, Qingmu, and Petru reached Petru’s hidden cave after Qingmu displaced the scene into Ruxue’s dream and made it rain. There, Su Huilan recognized a recovered nautical chart as marking the underwater pyramid and the site where the research vessel was lost, while Qingmu suspected its central symbol connected to another map.

• Qingmu told Su Huilan that he had moved the scene into Ruxue’s dream, and Petru recovered from the illusion as the rain fell.
• Petru led Su Huilan toward his hidden cave while Qingmu returned to the woods to retrieve her suitcase.
• Qingmu and Crow discussed the bare hillside, its mental barrier, and Petru’s weapon; Qingmu suspected radioactive material underground had contaminated the bullets.
• Qingmu found Su Huilan and Petru in Petru’s cave studying worn parchment maps, and Petru showed him the recovered chart.
• Su Huilan identified the chart’s central triangle as the underwater pyramid and the site where the research vessel met disaster.
• Qingmu recognized the symbol from the Mirror Pyramid model and suspected the line extending from it connected to another map.

Su Huilan explained to Petru that she and Qingmu belonged to the Third Space Foundation and were fighting alien consciousnesses, then persuaded him to join them as an Awakened. The chapter ended as Su Huilan prepared to explain the origin of psychic power and why Petru was being hunted.

• Petru asked Su Huilan to identify the people hunting him, and she agreed to explain in exchange for his help and cooperation.
• Su Huilan told Petru that she and Qingmu were members of the Third Space Foundation and the United Nations Space Management Committee, which resisted alien consciousness invasions.
• Su Huilan explained that Petru was an Awakened whose psychic abilities could help defend humanity, and convinced him to join their cause.
• Su Huilan assured Petru that Lawiye was safe in prison for now and promised to help train his psychic power and send Lawiye somewhere secure after rescuing her.
• Petru again asked why he was being hunted and whether the nautical charts and mummy mattered, and Su Huilan began to explain that she had to start with the origin of psychic power.

Su Huilan explained her atheist view that consciousness, rather than matter, was the origin of the world and that consciousness created reality. Qingmu and Petru were surprised, while the crow compared her theory to Nietzsche and Buddhism before Qingmu pulled him off his head.

• Su Huilan discussed dualism and monism, then said that despite her unconventional views, she was a monist.
• Qingmu reflected on how Awakened people knew consciousness could exist independently, unlike the scientific mainstream that still rejected parasitic consciousness.
• Su Huilan revealed that her monism held consciousness itself to be the world's origin and the creator of matter and its rules.
• Su Huilan called her atheist position consciousness-only theory and distinguished it from traditional idealism and materialism.
• The crow compared Su Huilan's theory to Nietzsche's voluntarism and Buddhism's consciousness-only doctrine, and Qingmu grabbed him off his head and teased him.

Su Huilan explained her consciousness-only theory of the world and the origin of mental power to Petru and Qingmu. Qingmu wondered whether their world was an enormous shared dream, then recalled that Situ believed World War II had been a dream.

• Boss Coal joked with Qingmu, Hanran, and Su Huilan, lightening the mood before Su Huilan continued her explanation.
• Petru pressed Su Huilan to explain who was hunting him, but she insisted he first understand the origin of mental power.
• Su Huilan contrasted idealism, materialism, and consciousness-only theory, arguing that collective human consciousness created the world.
• Petru questioned how the world could be his dream if other people and places existed, and Su Huilan introduced the idea of group dreams.
• Qingmu recalled witnessing group dreams and wondered whether their world was a vast real-scene group dream.
• Qingmu remembered Duwa saying that Situ believed World War II had been a dream.

Qingmu and Su Huilan discussed Situ’s claim that World War II might have been a dream, and Su Huilan argued that collective mental power could create the universe. The idea unsettled Qingmu as he considered how the minds of billions of people and countless animals might sustain a shared dream.

• Qingmu reconsidered Situ’s strange claim after recalling the evidence and events that seemed to connect Situ to major discoveries.
• Petru rejected the idea that the world was a dream and pointed a pistol at his head, but Su Huilan’s calming presence soon settled him.
• Su Huilan explained that dreams had blurry, expandable boundaries and suggested that the universe grew as humanity’s collective mental power grew.
• Petru and Qingmu questioned how a dream could produce an objectively observed universe and remain stable for lucid dreamers.
• Su Huilan argued that the combined mental power of seven billion people could sustain the world, and Qingmu began to consider how animals might add to that force.

Su Huilan explained her theory that shared reality might be a dream that descends through nested layers, paralleling the universe’s fall into lower dimensions. Qingmu began to recall something disturbing as he asked whether their world had been fixed inside a three-dimensional bubble by a dream.

• Qingmu remembered Bi Shenghua and found the green willow twig in his backpack, then insisted that he did not want the world to be a dream.
• Su Huilan described how individual dreams could descend through nested layers, with deeper dreams becoming increasingly distorted and potentially impossible to wake from.
• Su Huilan compared nested dreams to the universe falling from higher dimensions into lower ones, and Qingmu recalled his experience in the Dream Corridor.
• Qingmu felt something stirring inside him as memories began to surface, then asked Su Huilan if a dream had fixed their world inside a three-dimensional bubble.

Su Huilan explained her theory of layered dreams and proposed that powerful Awakened could work together to escape the Group Dream. She revealed that the symbol Qingmu recognized belonged to the Awakeners' Alliance, leaving Petru to wonder whether the organization was hunting him.

• Su Huilan discussed her ideas about consciousness with Qingmu and admitted she did not trust Professor Mei Yiqiu, though she trusted Qingmu.
• Su Huilan said the group needed to break out of their three-dimensional bubble and return to the dream level above.
• Su Huilan explained that an ancient organization had gathered powerful Awakened to seek truth and prevent the world from sinking into deeper dreams.
• Qingmu drew the symbol he had seen before, and Su Huilan confirmed it belonged to the Awakeners' Alliance.
• Petru recognized the symbol from the box held by the mummy and asked whether the Alliance was hunting him.

Su Huilan told Qingmu and Petru that the Awakeners' Alliance had split apart during a global surge of mental power and the catastrophe of World War II. She suspected humanity had fallen into a deeper layer of dreams, and Qingmu ended the chapter by asking whether she knew Situ.

• Su Huilan explained that the ancient Alliance was founded to keep the world from falling into a lower dimension, though it later focused on regulating Awakeners' use of mental power.
• Su Huilan revealed that the Alliance had disbanded after centuries of internal conflict and a worldwide outburst of mental power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Su Huilan said the Alliance split severely by World War II, when mental power influenced battles and caused suffering alongside conventional warfare.
• Su Huilan told Qingmu that her father had served Master Nanke, failed to end the war, and died in San Francisco's Chinatown after warning that the ark had sunk into the abyss.
• Qingmu asked Su Huilan whether she knew Situ.

Su Huilan told Qingmu and Petru about the mysterious organization replacing the old Alliance, the underwater pyramid, and the City of Sin. She explained that her father had wanted her to find the Awakened he believed could rebuild the Alliance, and she left Qingmu wondering whether he might still be that person.

• Su Huilan said Petru could not become a ruler because he was outside the new, nameless organization that controlled the world’s powerful figures and had stolen its nautical chart.
• Su Huilan connected the underwater pyramid and the Awakeners' Alliance to her search for the truth, and hoped that someone from the first underwater expedition had survived.
• Su Huilan explained that the City of Sin was a prison for the consciousness entities of Awakened who broke the Alliance’s rules, and said her father believed Master Nanke might still be there.
• Su Huilan told Qingmu that her father had imprinted the likeness of a gifted young Awakened in her memory and wanted her to find him and rebuild the Alliance.
• Su Huilan said she had first mistaken Qingmu for the figure from her dreams, but reconsidered after he discussed the Alliance symbol with Professor Mei Yiqiu; she began doubting again after learning he did not dream.

Su Huilan revealed that she had sought out Petru to use him as bait for the people pursuing him. After Petru shot at the newcomers, she went to catch them while Qingmu and Petru stayed behind to provide support.

• Petru spotted a man and a woman approaching with the local boy and fired at them, hitting one while the other escaped.
• Su Huilan told Petru not to shoot again and explained that capturing one of his pursuers alive might expose the secret behind the world.
• Petru realized Su Huilan had deliberately used him as bait and accused her of leading the pursuers to him.
• Su Huilan volunteered to go down and catch the pursuers, leaving Qingmu and Petru to watch and support her.
• Qingmu suggested Hanran could help, so Su Huilan took the cat with her as she headed downhill.

Qingmu watched Su Huilan confront a blond woman at the edge of the woods while Petru kept his rifle trained on them. When Qingmu realized the wounded man was preparing a desperate mental attack, Petru shot the woman instead, and the man’s furious mental roar struck everyone nearby.

• Qingmu sent Boss Coal to scout the woods while Petru explained how the Tapu’s buried bullets could guide his mental power.
• Su Huilan reached the woods and faced a bloodied blond woman, while Qingmu watched their silent mental struggle through binoculars.
• Petru spotted the wounded man moving behind the shrubs, and Qingmu recognized that he was preparing a mental self-detonation to help his companion.
• Qingmu shouted for Petru to shoot, but Petru fired at the blond woman and shattered half her face.
• Su Huilan leaped back as the woman fell, and the wounded man unleashed a desperate roar carrying a powerful mental shock.

Qingmu, Petru, and Su Huilan dealt with the two attackers who had died in the woods, but their identities remained unclear. As they prepared to leave the island, Qingmu noticed an unexplained swelling on the woman's back.

• Qingmu and Petru found Su Huilan standing over the dead blonde woman while the dead man lay behind the bushes.
• Su Huilan said the attackers had received specialized training to destroy consciousness entities, but she had gained little information before the man's mental assault was stopped by Petru's shot.
• Petru found a passport identifying the man as Alessandro, an Italian tourist, but neither attacker carried weapons or useful identifying items.
• Su Huilan urged the group to leave, paid the unconscious Qiqika, and assured Petru that Qiqika would not remember what had happened.
• As Petru carried the woman's corpse, Qingmu tore open the back of her clothes and noticed a strange swelling over her cervical spine.