Chapter Summaries

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.

Qingmu uncovered a biological chip embedded in a dead woman's neck and told Su Huilan about its connection to Laboratory No. 19. Su Huilan identified the chip as likely graphene and concluded that the laboratory's technology might have come from beyond Earth.

• Qingmu dissected the woman's neck and revealed a transparent chip connected to thin ribbons extending into her spinal nerves.
• Su Huilan recognized the chip's circuit-like patterns and explained how it had been integrated with the woman's nerves.
• Qingmu told Su Huilan that Professor Mei's chip had come from his client and described Liu Huaian and Laboratory No. 19.
• Su Huilan cut the chip and surrounding tissue from the corpse's neck, despite Qingmu's concern about damaging the nerve connections.
• Su Huilan examined the chip and suggested that its likely graphene construction meant Laboratory No. 19's technology might not have originated on Earth.

Qingmu found a chip in the dead woman that led him to suspect the Internet had turned some Laboratory No. 19 test subjects into agents, while Liu Huaian had somehow escaped its control. After the group buried the bodies and left, Qiqika awoke in the woods with no memory of what had happened and fled in terror.

• Qingmu examined the dead woman's chip and suspected the Internet had controlled surviving Laboratory No. 19 test subjects, while Liu Huaian had somehow become a double agent.
• Qingmu photographed the intact side of the woman's face, then Petru helped him bury both bodies in the pit.
• Petru invited Qingmu, Su Huilan, Crow, and Hanran to eat whale meat, and they joked as they left the woods.
• Qiqika woke alone in the woods, unable to remember how he had arrived or where the tourist groups had gone.
• Qiqika discovered his pants were soiled and remembered a dream of hanging over a pit; seeing a rope dangling from a tree, he ran screaming toward home.

Qingmu secretly asked Ghost to identify a woman while Su Huilan preserved the nerve-linked chip for transport. After Petru left to check his hidden boat, Su Huilan questioned whether he had concealed his true motives for staying on Tubuai Island.

• Qingmu connected to Petru's satellite Wi-Fi and sent Ghost the message, "Who is she?"
• Su Huilan sealed the chip and attached bone in a jar of 96-percent alcohol, and Petru offered to ship it to China by sea, but the group decided to leave that night with the jar.
• Su Huilan urged Petru to inspect his hidden boat in case their attackers had accomplices, and he went down the gorge armed.
• Qingmu worried Petru would be outmatched, but Su Huilan pointed out that Petru had killed both pursuers and questioned why he had stayed on Tubuai Island to investigate the nautical chart's location.
• Qingmu concluded that Su Huilan had planned her suspicions before she came to find Petru.

Su Huilan, Qingmu, and Petru prepared to leave by boat for the location marked on the nautical charts, which they believed was connected to the underwater pyramid and the missing research vessel. Petru agreed to take them despite his suspicions, and Su Huilan promised again to help him with Lawiye.

• Qingmu questioned Su Huilan about trusting Petru, and she explained that he would not abandon his nautical charts or dare poison their food.
• Petru returned from checking his boat, and after the group finished eating, Su Huilan decided they would leave that night.
• Petru showed Qingmu and Su Huilan his modified fishing boat, which had concealed guns, sails, a remodeled cabin, and an armed wheelhouse.
• Su Huilan pointed out a chart location near thirty degrees south and a hundred and fifty degrees west, and Petru said ships and warships had recently gathered there.
• Su Huilan told Petru that their research vessel had gone missing in the area and persuaded him to help, promising to assist him with Lawiye.

Qingmu and Su Huilan investigated a ruined Tapu on Rapa Island and learned from Petru about other Tapu sites, including a Ghost Island with immense mental power beneath a hot spring. They decided to visit the Ghost Island.

• Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru arrived at Rapa Island’s rescue center, where staff reported no progress in the search.
• Petru led Qingmu and Su Huilan to a ruined Tapu, where Qingmu sensed faint mental power and explained that he could detect its effects on plants.
• Petru said he had found several other Tapu sites and described a Ghost Island whose hot spring concealed powerful mental energy.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan connected the hot spring’s volcanic crater to the inverted pyramid and agreed to investigate the Ghost Island.