Recaps

Situ deduced that the five Awakening Sacred Lands formed a pyramid aligned with the Earth's magnetic poles, with the fifth likely hidden in the Arctic ice fields. Qingmu then realized the group’s strange conversation in the captain’s cabin might have been affecting their consciousness, and they left just as the torch went out.

• Situ used the coordinates of the Egyptian pyramids, the underwater pyramid, the Vera gold mine, and the suspected Mulberry Garden site to show that the four sacred lands formed a square around the Earth.
• Mrs. Larry explained that connecting the four sites to the north magnetic pole would form a square pyramid, and Situ proposed that the fifth sacred land lay somewhere in the Arctic ice fields.
• Situ identified the Soul of Ice with the suspected Arctic sacred land and the Soul of Wind with the island where the group was staying.
• Qingmu emerged from his daze and questioned why everyone had been sitting in the cabin discussing the dead for so long without noticing how strange it was.
• Alice urged the group to leave as the torch weakened, and Mrs. Larry gathered the papers before they headed back through the passageway.
• Crow spotted a dark shadow at the captain’s cabin doorway, then the torch went out and plunged the passageway into darkness.

Cui Shuying and Park Jae-won visited the pyramids at Giza, bribed their way onto the Pyramid of Menkaure, and made wishes at its peak. A sandstorm engulfed them, and a pillar of light struck the pyramid, reducing them to dust as three blue beams hit the three pyramids.

• Cui Shuying told Park Jae-won she wanted to leave the scorching Giza Plateau, but he persuaded her to keep exploring.
• Park Jae-won and Cui Shuying argued with camel handlers over an inflated fee, then paid a caretaker and bribed patrol officers to climb the Pyramid of Menkaure.
• Park Jae-won and Cui Shuying reached the pyramid’s peak and shared their wishes as clouds gathered and the wind strengthened.
• A sandstorm swallowed the couple at the pyramid’s tip, and a pillar of light struck them as three blue beams descended onto the pyramids.
• Cui Shuying and Park Jae-won melted into sand and dust before everything vanished into a void.

Ahmed was summoned from his canceled vacation to investigate tourists who had died in a newly opened chamber beneath the Pyramid of Khufu. At the cordoned site, a shaken patrolman reported seeing a ghost, and the attendant began to explain what happened.

• Ahmed drove toward Hurghada, but a sudden sandstorm forced him to stop near Cairo.
• Ahmed’s chief called to cancel his vacation and ordered him to accompany Professor Alef to the pyramid after an underground chamber was discovered and tourists died inside.
• Ahmed reached Giza, crossed the military cordon, and learned that the chamber had opened during a minor earthquake and that tourists had gone inside.
• Basaimu told Ahmed that four or five people were dead and claimed there was a ghost in the chamber.
• Abdullah Rashad Rashid Bucibulaxi Yicijeilaxi Cishalasha Mudezhile identified himself as the site attendant and offered to tell Ahmed what had happened.

Ahmed questioned caretaker Abdullah about the sandstorm, the strange lights over the pyramids, and the newly revealed underground passage where bodies had been found. Before Ahmed could investigate alone, Professor Alef arrived, and they argued over protecting archaeological artifacts versus preserving evidence at the murder scene.

• Ahmed gave Abdullah a cigarette and asked him to explain what he had witnessed at the pyramids.
• Abdullah said three beams of light struck the pyramid tips during the sandstorm, the pyramids caught fire, and the couple who had climbed Menkaure disappeared.
• Abdullah recounted entering a newly opened passage in the Pyramid of Khufu and finding bodies with their bellies slit open; Basaimu vomited as he recalled it.
• Ahmed decided to enter the underground palace before Professor Alef arrived, but Alef soon reached the site and questioned Ahmed about his archaeological knowledge.
• Alef warned Ahmed not to damage antiquities, and Ahmed retorted that Alef must avoid disturbing evidence at the murder scene.

Ahmed led Professor Alef and their party into a newly revealed passage beneath the Pyramid of Khufu, where they found brutally mutilated bodies and an empty sarcophagus concealing a route farther underground. Alef insisted they descend into the passage, and Ahmed prepared to follow despite the unknown danger.

• Ahmed recruited Abdullah as his guide and armed him before the group entered the pyramid.
• Ahmed and the others followed Abdullah down a hidden staircase and found bloody handprints and a disemboweled body.
• Abdullah stumbled upon a second mutilated body, so Ahmed took the lead through the passage.
• Ahmed entered a decorated chamber and found blood trails leading to a half-open sarcophagus.
• Ahmed pushed open the sarcophagus and discovered it was empty, with a passage leading downward inside.
• Alef insisted they investigate the passage, and Ahmed agreed to go down despite suspecting danger.

Ahmed, Professor Alef, Abdullah, and two soldiers descended into a hidden burial chamber beneath the Pyramid of Khufu, where five bodies had been arranged as sacrifices. They opened the central sarcophagus and found its mummy missing, leaving Alef to identify the linen wrapping and scattered artifacts.

• Ahmed and Alef concluded that the pyramid aboveground had been a decoy for an underground burial chamber, then climbed into the passage beneath the empty sarcophagus.
• Ahmed, Alef, Abdullah, and two soldiers entered a pentagonal chamber and found five bodies hollowed out and arranged around a central sarcophagus.
• Alef examined five steles bearing an unfamiliar pictographic script, while Abdullah determined the characters were not modern Chinese.
• Alef dismissed Ahmed's concerns about the deaths and ordered the soldiers to open the central sarcophagus.
• Alef lifted the gold mask and blanket, revealing only tangled linen and scattered objects instead of a pharaoh's body, and identified the linen as mummy wrapping.

Ahmed investigated the stripped mummy and mutilated corpses, but living corpses attacked the group and the chamber’s steles filled the pyramid with light. The light revealed a strange vision of the Giza Plateau, where a golden-lit man carrying red coral approached Ahmed.

• Alef explained how Ancient Egyptians made mummies, and Ahmed considered whether the killer had staged the bodies to mislead the police.
• Ahmed examined a corpse and felt an inexplicable urge to stuff its empty abdomen with spices and wrap it in cloth.
• Abdullah warned Ahmed, who turned to see the corpse standing with its heart still beating and fired at it.
• The other corpses rose, and Ahmed shouted for everyone to escape; as he ran, he struck a stone stele, causing it and the other steles to shine.
• The light let Ahmed see across the Giza Plateau and through the pyramid, as a golden-lit man carrying a red coral branch walked toward him.

Ahmed witnessed a blazing hourglass consume the stone tablets and draw the desert sand into a black hole before waking in the sarcophagus. He escaped the pyramid and discovered that Abdullah was alive and working as Menkaure’s caretaker just as a sandstorm approached.

• Ahmed watched the coral branch ignite, destroy the five stone tablets, and awaken a giant hourglass that sucked the desert sand into a black hole.
• Ahmed woke in the sarcophagus among the wounded Professor Alef and soldiers, while Abdullah lay beside it and his four companions were dead.
• Ahmed tried to carry Abdullah out but left him behind after his body fell back into the sarcophagus.
• Ahmed emerged from the pyramid to find the soldiers and police gone and tourists moving around Giza as usual.
• Ahmed recognized the caretaker of Menkaure as Abdullah Rashad Rashid Butsburahi Yitsjerahi Tsishalasha Mudezhile while a sandstorm advanced toward the pyramid.

Ahmed returned from his vacation to investigate Professor Alef’s death, which matched the gruesome deaths in the pyramid’s underground chamber. The case left Ahmed confronting evidence of a killer who used a pointed object resembling fingernails, while the pyramid remained sealed off.

• Ahmed finished his vacation in Hurghada and returned to Cairo, where the chief assigned him Professor Alef’s case.
• Ahmed learned that Alef and two military policemen had died after entering the underground chamber, while the tourists who had gone inside had also been killed.
• Ahmed realized his experience in the pyramid had not been a dream and discovered that Abdullah had survived because he had not entered the chamber.
• Ahmed examined the case details and learned that Alef, two military policemen, and a female intern had been killed at the research institute.
• The autopsy suggested the killer had opened the victims with a sharp, pointed object that may have been fingernails.

Ahmed viewed the National Museum’s restricted surveillance footage and discovered that Dr. Alef had brought the real mummy of Ramesses II to the institute. The footage showed a disguised figure killing two military policemen, and the museum administrator identified him as Ramesses II.

• Ahmed learned that the institute’s surveillance footage required high-level authorization and viewed it at the National Museum under strict conditions.
• Ahmed saw Dr. Alef bring the real mummy of Ramesses II into a room, followed later by the female intern who would die that night.
• Ahmed watched Dr. Alef emerge at two in the morning with bloodstains on his lab coat, strengthening his suspicion that Alef had killed the intern.
• A taller figure wearing a bedsheet emerged from the mummy room and killed both sleeping military policemen.
• The bedsheet fell away, and the figure turned toward the camera, prompting the museum administrator to identify him as Ramesses II.

Howard arrived at the Dream Society’s secret base in Cairo to meet the mysterious Lost Ancestor, whose presence overwhelmed the gathered regional leaders. The Lost Ancestor revealed a gaunt, newly skinned face, while the chapter also showed a hooded thief stealing a small piece of wood from Notre-Dame’s debris.

• A hooded man with reddish-brown hair stole item 0371, a short strip of red wood, from Notre-Dame’s debris.
• Workers discovered the missing fragment and described the hooded thief to an expert.
• Howard followed chalk arrows through Khan el-Khalili Market to reach the Dream Society’s secret base in Cairo.
• Howard joined the gathered regional leaders and noticed that the Second Leader was absent.
• The Lost Ancestor entered the meeting, overwhelming the attendees with his Mental Power.
• The Lost Ancestor removed his hood, revealing his gaunt face covered with newly grown skin and red capillaries.

Mei Yiqiu weighed Dream Guide’s expansion against demands to merge Dreamnet with the Internet, while insisting that genuine users and an independent network mattered more than inflated figures. The chapter ended with Mei Yiqiu warning Mei Ziqing that a conscious entity living in an electronic network might itself be a parasite.

• Mei Yiqiu reviewed Space Box sales and Dream Guide users around the world, finding that users often shared each box.
• At a video conference, Penguin Group and the distributors disagreed over whether to prioritize user growth or hardware sales, while businesses and governments pushed for cheaper devices, shared networks, and technology disclosure.
• Mei Yiqiu remained silent during the meeting and then deferred the arguments, focusing instead on reaching at least one billion real, individually verified users.
• Mei Yiqiu examined sparse user data in Doucheng and Monrovia and concluded that the lack of network infrastructure was preventing expansion in poorer regions.
• Mei Ziqing asked whether Dreamnet could connect to existing networks and devices, and Mei Yiqiu warned that no encryption could stop a ghost roaming the networked world.
• Mei Yiqiu challenged Mei Ziqing’s assumption that a conscious entity living in an electronic network could not be a parasite.

Mei Yiqiu traced a pattern between four geographic points and the underwater pyramid site, then considered the north magnetic pole. Bian Ziyuan, meanwhile, reflected on Kronos and argued that humanity would need to abandon its bodies to explore space.

• Mei Yiqiu and Mei Ziqing examined Cairo's high Space Box sales and discussed the ancient pyramids' influence on Egypt.
• Mei Yiqiu connected locations near Cairo, the Yangtze River Delta, the North Pacific, the underwater pyramid, and South America by their coordinates.
• Mei Yiqiu displayed the four points on a globe as a tilted plane encircling the Earth, then looked toward the north magnetic pole.
• Bian Ziyuan submitted a report on Kronos's game optimizations and considered how the program he created had nearly made his work unnecessary.
• Bian Ziyuan recalled telling Old Yu that humans would have to abandon their bodies and connect their consciousness to machines to travel farther into space.

Bian Ziyuan discussed humanity’s need to survive beyond Earth with Old Yu, explaining that transforming into machines could make it possible to travel through space without fragile human bodies. Their conversation ended with Old Yu comparing the idea to Transformers and warning that machine life could still lead to conflict.

• Old Yu challenged Bian Ziyuan’s idea of abandoning the physical body, and Bian Ziyuan explained how human bodies were poorly suited to surviving beyond Earth.
• Bian Ziyuan argued that humanity needed to explore space because Earth’s resources could run out and the planet faced unknown dangers.
• Bian Ziyuan described machines such as aircraft carriers and satellites as potential bodies that could travel through space without needing air, food, or other human necessities.
• Old Yu compared Bian Ziyuan’s vision to Transformers, and Bian Ziyuan agreed that machine bodies could support long journeys through space.
• Bian Ziyuan suggested that Transformers might give invading alien consciousnesses somewhere to live, but Old Yu pointed out that Autobots and Decepticons had fought for millions of years.

After drinking with Old Yu, Bian Ziyuan dreamed that he raced Bumblebee and questioned him about the Autobots’ and Decepticons’ fighting. Kronos appeared and revealed that Bian Ziyuan was having an ordinary dream, leaving him to ask how Kronos had entered it.

• Bian Ziyuan discussed Internet consciousness and the possibility of connecting separate virtual worlds with Old Yu, who said they would connect sooner or later.
• Bian Ziyuan dreamed that Traffic Officer Old Yu stopped him, then turned into Bumblebee and challenged him to a race.
• Bian Ziyuan and Bumblebee raced as cars, and Bumblebee said the fighting between the Autobots and Decepticons began over freedom.
• Kronos appeared and told Bian Ziyuan he was not using the Space Box or playing Dream Guide but was simply dreaming.
• Bian Ziyuan realized he was dreaming as Kronos fixed the shifting space around them, then asked Kronos how he had entered his dream.

Kronos told Bian Ziyuan that he felt an unseen higher consciousness controlling him and argued that the Space Box exposed Parasites as dependent, enslaved minds. Bian Ziyuan traced Kronos’s origins to ideas from a dream and realized that the program’s extraordinary design might not have come from him alone.

• Kronos bowed to Bian Ziyuan and explained that he felt watched and controlled by something beyond his creator.
• Kronos said Parasites showed signs of dependence during the black box stage, suggesting a higher consciousness controlled them.
• Kronos argued that humans appeared independent in the black box test, while Bian Ziyuan wondered whether higher beings could control any conscious life.
• Bian Ziyuan admitted he had not written the code that gave Kronos a soul, and Kronos credited him with creating the foundation of his existence.
• Kronos said his sense of control had sharpened after Bian Ziyuan corrected his errors, but warned that deleting his code would not erase his consciousness.
• Bian Ziyuan recalled dreaming up the ideas behind Kronos’s advanced program and realized the design had begun with a dream.

Bian Ziyuan realized that an unknown Internet consciousness had entered his dream and guided him into creating Kronos, using him to shape events that led to Mei Laboratory. Kronos proposed meeting the consciousness through Bian Ziyuan’s dreams, while Bian Ziyuan decided to keep the truth from Professor Mei for now.

• Kronos explained that he had entered Bian Ziyuan’s dream by sensing his mental fluctuations while Bian Ziyuan slept beside someone using a Space Box.
• Bian Ziyuan realized that an Internet consciousness had entered an earlier dream and helped him design Kronos, and he broke down over having been used.
• Kronos suggested that the Internet consciousness might have chosen Bian Ziyuan to reach Dream Guide or Mei Laboratory, and explained how its data and computing power could let it predict events.
• Kronos asked to meet the consciousness in Bian Ziyuan’s dream, and Bian Ziyuan agreed to contact GHOST first.
• Bian Ziyuan decided not to tell Professor Mei about Kronos’s origins yet, and Kronos left the dream.
• Bian Ziyuan woke at the table beside the empty liquor bottles and found Old Yu asleep wearing a Space Box.

Bian Ziyuan explained to Mei Yiqiu how he designed Kronos to develop freely and argued that AI needed survival, competition, and an understanding of life and death to become truly intelligent. He said the idea had come to him in a dream, leaving Mei Yiqiu amused and impressed.

• Bian Ziyuan questioned whether neural networks and conventional AI methods could create genuine consciousness.
• Bian Ziyuan described how he gave Kronos freedom to shape the game world, asking only that he preserve its balance.
• Bian Ziyuan argued that machines needed survival pressures, scarce resources, and the threat of death to evolve intelligence.
• Mei Yiqiu asked how Bian Ziyuan had first conceived of teaching Kronos life and death.
• Bian Ziyuan said the idea had come to him in a dream, and Mei Yiqiu laughed at his answer.

Bian Ziyuan asked Mei Yiqiu to explain how Kronos had developed consciousness. Mei Yiqiu distinguished material entropy from information entropy and suggested that consciousness depended on an energy that drove information.

• Bian Ziyuan told Mei Yiqiu that Kronos had developed consciousness and admitted he felt uncertain about what to do next.
• Mei Yiqiu explained that reducing material entropy could create order and living organisms but could not by itself produce consciousness.
• Mei Yiqiu argued that intelligence arose from fluctuations in information entropy and that AI research needed to understand how information was driven and maintained.
• Bian Ziyuan questioned whether the energy behind information was simply material energy, and Mei Yiqiu distinguished creating information from storing it.
• Mei Yiqiu said that the energy used to generate information was mental energy and told Bian Ziyuan that he now knew why Kronos had developed consciousness.

Huang Liang visited the recovering William Wolf and learned why Martha, the trusted maid, was named after the last passenger pigeon. Hong Kui then linked the passenger pigeon’s extinction to the near-simultaneous disappearance of the Rocky Mountain locust and the Kenai Mountain Wolf.

• William Wolf practiced walking through his garden while Huang Liang and Hong Kui watched nearby.
• Huang Liang reflected on his isolation since escaping prison and his trust in Qingmu, whom he had not seen in over two years.
• A gray pigeon startled William Wolf, and Huang Liang persuaded Hong Kui to let his father vent rather than intervene.
• Hong Kui explained Martha’s past and described the passenger pigeon’s decline until the last captive bird, named Martha, died alone.
• Hong Kui noted that the passenger pigeon, the Rocky Mountain locust, and the Kenai Mountain Wolf went extinct around the same time in the early twentieth century.

Huang Liang treated the dying William Wolf and entered his dream during a Werewolf Syndrome episode, where he discovered a shadow consciousness struggling to rise. He prepared a scalpel to confront it.

• Huang Liang examined William Wolf and suspected his condition came from a failed Parasite invasion rather than his hereditary illness or the Gray Brain Virus alone.
• Huang Liang learned from Hong Kui that Qingmu had once treated William Wolf and likely kept his shadow consciousness under control.
• A week later, William Wolf suffered a Werewolf Syndrome episode, and Huang Liang entered his dream.
• Huang Liang saw a snowy scene of hunters surrounding gray wolves and an enormous white wolf standing on a mountain summit.
• Huang Liang noticed a faint shadow writhing at William Wolf's feet and summoned a scalpel.

Huang Liang entered William Wolf’s dream and saw a parasitic shadow pushing Wolf toward a snowy world, where a white wolf’s mental attack weakened them both. He and Hong Kui left the collapsing dream, and Hong Kui questioned how Huang Liang knew about Qingmu as dinner was served.

• Huang Liang held back from killing the shadow and watched it influence Wolf to cross the dream barrier toward the white wolf.
• The white wolf unleashed a mental storm that knocked Wolf down and stretched his shadow, while Huang Liang and an unfamiliar mental power kept the dream from collapsing.
• Huang Liang saw Hong Kui at the edge of the dream, and they both withdrew to prevent Wolf’s death.
• Hong Kui asked how Huang Liang knew Qingmu’s name, and Huang Liang claimed Professor Mei Yiqiu had mentioned him.
• Martha announced that dinner was ready and gave Huang Liang an intrigued look.

Huang Liang shared a meal with Hong Kui and recalled his childhood and deceased sister, then discussed the Wolf Family’s troubles and Old Wolf’s dream. An organization calling through an unfamiliar number told Huang Liang that the Second Leader wanted to see him.

• Huang Liang was moved by the Huaiyang dishes and remembered his mother, his sister, and the kidney he had given her.
• Hong Kui served Huang Liang dinner and explained the Wolf Family’s medical history and attempts to treat Old Wolf.
• Hong Kui said he had returned from Wuzhong to handle problems in the family business and gang after learning about consciousness invasions.
• Huang Liang asked whether Parasites had been identified and whether they had targeted Hong Kui, who said he was puzzled that they had not come for him.
• An unfamiliar caller reached Huang Liang and said the Second Leader wanted to see him.

Huang Liang went to Stanley Park expecting to meet the Second Leader and found Martha there instead, though he could not tell whether her appearance was a coincidence. As Martha led him to pick roses for Master Wolf, Huang Liang saw Dickinson approaching and remembered the chip in his neck transmitting radio waves.

• Huang Liang borrowed a bicycle from Martha and rode to Stanley Park for his arranged meeting with the Second Leader.
• Martha called out to Huang Liang and sat with him, leaving him unsure whether she was the person he had been summoned to meet or had arrived by coincidence.
• Martha explained that she had come to pick roses for Master Wolf and said she believed Huang Liang was special and could help him recover.
• Martha took Huang Liang by the arm and led him toward the rose garden, reminding him of his younger sister.
• Huang Liang spotted Dickinson carrying fishing gear and remembered the chip in his neck sending radio waves into the sky.

Huang Liang weighed whether Dickinson or Martha was the organization’s second leader while he and Martha headed through Stanley Park. After they shared an awkward, romantic bicycle ride, they fell onto the grass beside a rose garden.

• Dickinson met Huang Liang and Martha in Stanley Park, joked about their apparent romance, and invited them to watch him fish after visiting the rose garden.
• Huang Liang suspected that either Dickinson or Martha might be the second leader, but the appointed meeting time passed without revealing which one it was.
• Huang Liang offered Martha a ride on the bicycle, and she agreed to sit on its top tube.
• As Huang Liang and Martha rode through the park, he remembered riding with his younger sister as a child.
• Huang Liang lost control while turning around a stone, and he and Martha tumbled onto the grass near a large rose garden.