Chapter Summaries

Qingmu and Hu Xing visited Ma Fuqing’s home, where his unsettling mother and a chained presence raised their suspicions. After Ma Fuqing’s mother called him into the basement, Hu Xing followed and saw him kneeling before her, then noticed a shadow on the stairs and found Qingmu had vanished.

• Qingmu noticed Ma Fuqing’s nervousness and explored the courtyard, where a chained growl came from inside the house.
• Ma Fuqing served his mother seedless watermelon, but she spat a seed at him, threw the fruit down, and went into the inner rooms amid the clanking of chains.
• Qingmu offered to interpret Ma Fuqing’s dream, but Ma Fuqing said he was fine, and Qingmu prepared to leave.
• Ma Fuqing’s mother called him into the passage, and Hu Xing and Qingmu waited before following him downstairs.
• Hu Xing saw Ma Fuqing kneeling as his mother demanded a grandson, then spotted a shadow on the stairs and realized Qingmu had disappeared.

Qingmu rescued Hu Xing after a creature attacked her in Ma Fuqing’s basement and discovered she had been drugged by the watermelon. While Hu Xing slept, he explored the locked basement and found a filthy iron cage, then heard a gate move in the passage.

• A large, silent figure attacked Hu Xing on the stairs, but Qingmu kicked it away and helped her up.
• Qingmu found the stairway gate locked and discovered Hu Xing’s gun and Ma Fuqing and his mother were missing.
• Qingmu determined Hu Xing had likely been drugged through the watermelon and helped her rest at a basement table.
• Qingmu explored the basement passages and found a locked exit, dusty storage rooms, and an iron cage with chains and a foul-smelling pit.
• Qingmu heard an iron gate move in the right-hand passage and rushed toward it.

Qingmu tried to rescue Hu Xing from Ma Fuqing’s basement, but Ma Fuquan and the old woman trapped them behind the iron gate. The old woman left with Ma Fuquan, threatening to starve Hu Xing before letting him do what he wanted.

• Qingmu chased Ma Fuquan from the basement and opened the iron gates, but discovered Hu Xing was missing.
• Qingmu found Ma Fuqing, who led him back to the basement, where Hu Xing was chained inside the iron cage.
• Ma Fuquan locked Qingmu, Hu Xing, and Ma Fuqing in the dark chamber.
• Qingmu grabbed Ma Fuquan through the bars and threatened to break his arm until the old woman appeared with Hu Xing’s gun.
• Ma Fuquan seized the gun and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire; Qingmu pulled Ma Fuqing out of the line of fire.
• The old woman and Ma Fuquan left, with the old woman saying they would starve Hu Xing before letting Ma Fuquan do what he wanted.

Qingmu and Hu Xing recovered from being drugged and imprisoned by Ma Fuqing’s mother, and Hu Xing realized the police would soon find them. Ma Fuqing explained his family’s history, but Qingmu pressed him about a headless woman’s corpse, ending with crows calling from the backyard.

• Qingmu carried Hu Xing out of the cage, and she woke as he explained that they had been imprisoned by Ma Fuqing’s mother.
• Hu Xing feared what Ma Fuqing’s mentally ill brother might do, but Qingmu reminded her that the police would search for her after she failed to return from duty.
• Ma Fuqing described how his mother favored his younger brother, how the brother later disappeared and returned mentally ill, and how their mother’s temper worsened.
• Qingmu accused Ma Fuqing of dumping a headless woman’s body and said the woman’s head was buried under the locust tree in the backyard.
• Crows called from the backyard as Ma Fuqing denied knowing anything about the corpse.

Ma Fuqing confessed that his mother arranged for his mentally ill brother to impregnate Ma Fuqing’s wife, who was later killed by the brother, and explained how he and his mother hid the body. Hu Xing and Qingmu remained trapped in the sealed room when a gunshot sounded above them.

• Ma Fuqing told Qingmu and Hu Xing that his mother arranged for his brother to sleep with Ma Fuqing’s wife so she could bear a child for the family.
• Ma Fuqing confessed that his brother strangled his wife after she entered his room, and that he and his mother dismembered and concealed her body.
• Ma Fuqing admitted that he planted a used condom from Old Screen Wall Alley to mislead investigators about the case.
• Hu Xing and Qingmu talked and joked while waiting in the stifling sealed room, and Hu Xing’s dizziness eased when she stood and walked.
• A gunshot rang out above the sealed room.

Ma Fuquan emptied Hu Xing’s stolen gun at the secret room, then suffered a terrifying vision and returned with an axe. He killed his mother while trying to break through the iron door, leaving Hu Xing troubled by the old woman’s fate and the apparent retribution.

• Ma Fuquan entered the basement and fired through the barred door until his gun ran out of ammunition.
• Qingmu used an unseen trick that made Ma Fuquan believe he was trapped in a horrifying cave surrounded by danger.
• Ma Fuquan returned with an axe and hacked at the iron door while his mother tried to stop him.
• Ma Fuquan struck his mother in the head with the axe, killing her, then broke the lock and attacked the iron cage.
• Ma Fuqing knelt beside their mother while Qingmu and Hu Xing looked on, and Hu Xing reflected uneasily on the old woman’s death.

Qingmu exposed the hidden evidence behind a murder case while Deputy Captain Gao suffered a bizarre vision after smoking Qingmu’s cigarette. The recovered head and saw forced Gao to reconsider his team’s concluded case.

• Deputy Captain Gao insulted Qingmu and implied Hu Xing was protecting him because of a personal relationship.
• Qingmu gave Gao a Paramount cigarette, and Gao hallucinated a cigarette tree and tobacco-flavored grass after trying to bury the still-burning butt.
• Shi Dazhuang asked Gao to revisit his team’s concluded case, but Gao said it could not be overturned without the victim’s head and the murder weapon.
• Qingmu pointed to the hole Gao had dug, and auxiliary officers unearthed a black plastic bag containing a human head and a rusty saw.
• Gao recognized the rotten head’s location and vomited after realizing he had eaten grass and dirt from above it.

After helping Shi Dazhuang and Hu Xing solve a baffling case, Qingmu discussed the limits of justice and asked them to investigate Mo Yu’s sleepwalking and a man named Situ. The chapter ended with Hu Xing agreeing to help and jokingly arguing with Qingmu about their proposed detective duo.

• Shi Dazhuang reported the situation to the municipal bureau and brought Qingmu back to give a statement.
• Shi Dazhuang, Hu Xing, and Qingmu shared dinner, where Shi Dazhuang praised Hu Xing for solving the case despite her losing her gun.
• Hu Xing worried that the real killer’s capture would allow the vile Yang Baoguo to be released, while Shi Dazhuang insisted they must follow the law.
• Qingmu asked whether Ma Fuqing would be punished, and Shi Dazhuang said his sentence would depend on the court and might not be heavy.
• Qingmu told Shi Dazhuang and Hu Xing about Mo Yu’s sleepwalking and asked them to look into Situ and check on the girls near the conservatory.
• Hu Xing agreed to investigate, then bickered with Qingmu after he suggested they call themselves the Monster Duo.

Qingmu returned to Ruhua Bar, where Mo Yu had recovered enough to work and decided to stay through the summer, though he remained uneasy about her sudden recovery. After Hu Xing found no trace of Situ, Qingmu set the mystery aside and went to visit Professor Mei Yiqiu, who had found leads on the symbol of two connected inverted triangles.

• Qingmu found Mo Yu recovered and working at Ruhua Bar, and learned she planned to stay until school started.
• Qingmu told Xiao Qi that some memories were better forgotten and chose not to help Mo Yu recover hers.
• Qingmu noticed customers lingering in a dark corner, then learned Hu Xing had found no useful information about Situ.
• Qingmu decided to stop probing Mo Yu's memories and visit Professor Mei Yiqiu about the two connected inverted triangles.
• Professor Mei Yiqiu had found leads on the symbol and welcomed Qingmu to his laboratory.

Professor Mei Yiqiu told Qingmu about an underwater pyramid in the South Pacific that matched Egypt’s Great Pyramid and stood nearly opposite it on Earth. He showed Qingmu an ancient hourglass and a stone carving that matched the strange design Qingmu had sent him, leaving Qingmu to recognize it as the symbol drawn by the fragrant woman.

• Mei Yiqiu showed Qingmu photographs of an underwater inverted pyramid discovered near the South Pacific ghost islands.
• Mei Yiqiu explained that the underwater pyramid matched the Great Pyramid in structure and dimensions, and that the two sites may once have stood at opposite ends of an Earth diameter.
• Qingmu suggested aliens had built the pyramids, but Mei Yiqiu said he cared more about their purpose and the mystery of their mirrored placement.
• Mei Yiqiu showed Qingmu a reconstruction of a crystal hourglass found on the seabed and said its design appeared among underwater carvings.
• Mei Yiqiu showed Qingmu a carving of two joined triangles crossed by a line, and Qingmu recognized it as the design drawn by the fragrant woman.

Mei Yiqiu explained his theory that Egypt’s pyramids and an inverted pyramid near the Tubuai Islands formed a mirror-image hourglass intended to reverse time and restore the pharaohs. Qingmu left skeptical, while Mei Yiqiu suggested the paired structures might connect real space to a dreamlike one.

• Mei Yiqiu showed Qingmu that scans had revealed matching vertical shafts and former openings in the Egyptian and underwater pyramids.
• Qingmu guessed that the pharaohs hoped to travel from one side of the earth to the other, and Mei Yiqiu encouraged him to think further.
• Mei Yiqiu used an hourglass and the two pyramid drawings to propose that the pyramids represented time and space, and that their reversal could bring the pharaohs back to life.
• Mei Yiqiu described speculative theories about the pyramids, the Sahara’s formation, and the submerged continent, while Mei Ziqing reacted with alarm.
• Qingmu dismissed the idea as a dream, but Mei Yiqiu argued that dreams might connect to real space and imagined the two spaces turning over.

Professor Mei Yiqiu explained that the symbol represented two spaces joined through a dimensionless point, with consciousness linking reality and dreams while time and matter cycled between spaces. He connected the theory to an ancient group called The Awake People, who taught others to distinguish dreams from reality, leaving Qingmu imagining the world beyond the symbol.

• Professor Mei Yiqiu drew two spaces joined at a point and explained that matter could not pass between them, but the spaces could still affect each other.
• Mei Yiqiu proposed that consciousness could cross the point, making dreams another space that people partly inhabited while asleep.
• Professor Mei Yiqiu compared the symbol to an hourglass and said that time, matter, and space could cycle between connected worlds, while death marked the collapse of a person's space.
• Mei Ziqing suggested that the Mirror Pyramid reflected this cycle, and Professor Mei Yiqiu said the idea remained a hypothesis pending more evidence from Copenhagen.
• Qingmu asked about a dream-related alliance and dream mentors, and Professor Mei Yiqiu instead recalled The Awake People, who met in dreams to teach others to distinguish dreams from reality.
• Qingmu glimpsed a new world through the haze and imagined his consciousness passing through the symbol's point of connection.

Qingmu accepted a job referral from Mei Yiqiu while the professor prepared to leave for Copenhagen, then wandered through the streets thinking about a strange woman and a symbol of two triangles. He left a convenience store after mocking a boastful customer who claimed to be 36D.

• Mei Yiqiu sent Qingmu to look into a job for a wealthy client while he attended an academic conference in Copenhagen.
• Mei Ziqing asked Qingmu to consider moving his studio into Mei Yiqiu's laboratory, but Qingmu preferred the livelier old streets of Liuying Lane.
• Qingmu walked through town while recalling the two-triangle symbol and the indistinct woman who had said he appeared in her dreams.
• A convenience-store proprietress recognized Qingmu from an earlier incident, while a customer mocked him for haggling over the price of cigarettes.
• Qingmu lit a cigarette with his S.T. Dupont lighter, asked the customer her size, and quipped that her age meant it was her zodiac year before leaving.

Qingmu took Boss Coal to Riverside Park, where he unexpectedly met Meimei and her mother. After Meimei asked him to help find her father, her mother hurried away, and Qingmu later found Boss Coal reciting poetry beside the macaw at the car wash.

• Qingmu walked through Liuying Lane with Boss Coal, who rejected the caged birds and tried to talk to a macaw at a car wash.
• At Riverside Park, Qingmu let Boss Coal fly while he relaxed and put the matter of the two triangles aside.
• Meimei and her mother met Qingmu, and Meimei asked him to help her find her father.
• Meimei's mother scolded her and hurried away with her, leaving Qingmu unsure what had happened.
• When Boss Coal failed to return, Qingmu went looking and found him reciting Shu Ting's poetry beside the macaw.

Qingmu returned to Ruhua Bar and found Bi Shenghua defending Mo Yu from Jiang Deqian, who claimed he had paid to keep her and demanded she leave with him. Bi Shenghua challenged him to a beer-drinking contest, and the contest began with both sides surrounded by supporters.

• Qingmu reluctantly left the car wash with Boss Coal, who chose braised pork knuckle over staying with the macaw.
• Xiao Qi told Qingmu that Jiang Deqian had arrived with thugs, claimed Mo Yu owed him for money he had paid, and agreed to settle the dispute with Bi Shenghua through a drinking contest.
• Qingmu questioned the contest’s unfair stakes, while Jiang Deqian claimed he had paid to keep Mo Yu and boasted that he had burned her with cigarette butts.
• Xiao Qi brought neighborhood supporters to the bar and comforted Mo Yu as Bi Shenghua confronted Jiang Deqian.
• Bi Shenghua set rules requiring them to drink a full case of beer without spilling, using the bathroom, vomiting, or passing out, and demanded Jiang Deqian leave Liuying Lane if he lost.
• Bi Shenghua chugged the first bottle, then Jiang Deqian began drinking after his tattooed companion removed the cap for him.

Bi Shenghua overwhelmed Jiang Deqian in a beer-drinking contest while he tried to force her to surrender. As Jiang Deqian’s bodyguard Hou Biao secretly prepared to make her vomit, a strange man seized his wrist and asked for his amber beads.

• Bi Shenghua drank faster than Jiang Deqian and mocked him for falling behind, while Qingmu watched and realized she could hold far more liquor than he expected.
• After eight bottles, Jiang Deqian became painfully bloated and regretted challenging Bi Shenghua, though he still refused to back down.
• Jiang Deqian recalled how his powerful older brother Jiang Deguan had assigned Hou Biao to watch him after his past scandals and recent trouble over a runaway singer.
• As Bi Shenghua started her ninth bottle, Hou Biao prepared to flick an amber bead at her stomach to make her vomit.
• A bird’s-nest-haired man grabbed Hou Biao’s wrist before he could act and asked him to hand over the amber beads.

Bi Shenghua won the drinking contest against Jiang Deqian, but he refused to accept defeat and ordered his men to wreck the bar. As the fight erupted, Bi Shenghua took Jiang Deqian hostage with a broken bottle while Qingmu remained locked in a struggle with Hou Biao.

• Jiang Deqian vomited after drinking two more bottles, and Bi Shenghua declared that he had lost.
• Jiang Deqian accused Bi Shenghua of cheating, then ordered his men to smash the bar and attack anyone who resisted.
• Xiao Qi and his neighborhood companions fought back against Jiang Deqian's men, and the bar descended into chaos.
• Bi Shenghua noticed Hou Biao holding Qingmu's wrist and warned Qingmu to run, but he stayed put.
• Bi Shenghua smashed a bottle over Jiang Deqian's head, pinned him against a table, and threatened to stab him if anyone moved.

Bi Shenghua and Qingmu's side stopped Jiang Deqian's gang, and the police mediated compensation for the bar's damage. After the fight, Bi Shenghua became ill from drinking and had Qingmu help her to the restroom, where she angrily ordered him out.

• Bi Shenghua held Jiang Deqian at knifepoint until the police arrived and the fighters stopped.
• The police questioned both groups and asked whether Bi Shenghua wanted compensation for the bar's destruction.
• Hou Biao agreed to pay Bi Shenghua 100,000 yuan the next day, with Qingmu accepting responsibility if he failed to pay.
• Bi Shenghua thanked the neighborhood men, while Xiao Qi tended to the injured and Mo Yu remained dazed and silent.
• Bi Shenghua retched and struggled to reach the restroom, so Qingmu supported her and then tried to carry her inside.
• Bi Shenghua cursed at Qingmu and ordered him to get away from her.

Bi Shenghua used the compensation money to reward the helpers and plan renovations while Mo Yu remained withdrawn and Xiao Qi went to comfort her. Qingmu was collected by Li Wei for a wealthy client, while Jiang Deguan ordered an investigation into Qingmu and the Ruhua Bar and told Hou Biao to watch his brother.

• A suited man delivered a hundred thousand in cash to Bi Shenghua, who paid the helpers and Xiao Qi and announced that the Ruhua Bar would close for renovations.
• Bi Shenghua defended Mo Yu against Xiao Qi's judgment, and Xiao Qi went to check on her.
• Li Wei arrived in a Bentley on Professor Mei Yiqiu's behalf and took Qingmu to meet a client.
• Jiang Deguan discussed his financial troubles and Hou Biao's account of the previous night's fight, then ordered Hou Biao to investigate Qingmu and the Ruhua Bar and keep an eye on his brother.

Qingmu arrived at Hu Xing’s family estate and met her wealthy Aunt Xia, who asked him to examine a grandnephew whose behavior had become abnormal. Qingmu suspected the request was only a test of his abilities, and the chapter ended before he saw the boy.

• Li Wei drove Qingmu through a heavily guarded estate and left him waiting in its luxurious hall.
• Hu Xing appeared in a white dress with Aunt Xia, and Qingmu recognized her as Officer Hu.
• Aunt Xia questioned Qingmu about his work, while Hu Xing defended his abilities and recalled his help solving major cases.
• Aunt Xia asked Qingmu to examine her grandnephew, whose behavior had recently become abnormal.
• Qingmu noticed Hu Xing’s gestures and suspected the grandnephew’s case was a test of his abilities.