Chapter Summaries

Qingmu and his companions returned to Ahurei Bay to seek a radiation detector, where they unexpectedly met Xia Xiaoxiao. She told Qingmu she had come searching for her husband, Situ, and feared he had died in a submarine accident.

• Su Huilan took a strange stone as a sample and persuaded Petru to return to the base to find a radiation detector.
• Petru sailed back to Ahurei Bay and found an American warship anchored there.
• At the rescue center, Qingmu reunited with Xia Xiaoxiao, who said she was visiting and had offered help with the troubled research vessel.
• Xia Xiaoxiao told Qingmu she was searching for her husband because he had become involved in the research vessel and underwater pyramid mystery.
• Xia Xiaoxiao revealed that her husband owned a Soviet Romeo-class submarine and that the navy had found wreckage of the same model, leaving her afraid he had died.

Qingmu gave Xia Xiaoxiao hope that Situ might have survived and promised to search for him while she returned to Wuzhong to see Meimei. Before she left with William, she identified a chip from Laboratory No. 19 and warned that it might point to a secret, dangerous research project.

• Qingmu showed Xia Xiaoxiao the research vessel captain’s log, which suggested Situ might still be alive, and urged her to go home to Meimei.
• Xia Xiaoxiao decided to return to Wuzhong and entrusted Qingmu with finding Situ.
• Qingmu showed Xia Xiaoxiao a chip recovered from a woman’s body, and she identified it as an experimental chip beyond Laboratory No. 19’s fourth-generation design.
• Xia Xiaoxiao said the chip needed advanced laboratory study and agreed to take it to Professor Mei, despite the difficulty of getting it through customs.
• William Halsey arrived and escorted Xia Xiaoxiao toward the warship, while Qingmu promised to handle things in her absence.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru sailed toward the charted location of Ghost Island while investigating the Tapu and their possible connection to the underwater pyramid. At the destination, the island remained invisible, but Crow claimed to have glimpsed it and Qingmu sensed a brief psychic-energy fluctuation ahead.

• Qingmu told Su Huilan that the chip was going with a woman to Professor Mei in Wuzhong, and Petru urged the group to leave before the warship could watch them sail away.
• Petru took Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Crow toward Ghost Island, using both the boat's engine and sails as Su Huilan tested the stone and found no radiation.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan considered the Tapu's connection to the underwater pyramid, while Petru argued that the island markers might be coincidences and described how unstable volcanic islands could disappear.
• After three days, Petru reached the charted waters but found no island, so Crow flew high above the boat to search.
• Crow claimed he had seen an island that vanished, and Qingmu said he had sensed a brief psychic-energy fluctuation ahead.

After a tense United Nations meeting over the South Pacific crisis, Mei Yiqiu failed to win support for an immediate worldwide ban on the Dream Society and instead agreed to pursue Ronald Cohen through an international prosecution team. He then ordered preparations to accelerate the Dream Guide game's public beta and expand Space Box production, while Mei Ziqing grew uneasy about Bian Ziyuan's secret use of the device.

• Mei Yiqiu proposed banning the Dream Society, investigating Dream Foundation accounts, and issuing a warrant for Ronald Cohen, but the committee settled on charging Cohen with crimes against humanity before an international court.
• Mei Ziqing told Mei Yiqiu that Hans reported the second-generation Space Box tests were going smoothly and that it could connect to the Dream Guide game the following week.
• Mei Yiqiu ordered Mei Ziqing to speed up the game's public beta preparations, coordinate publicity with the Xia Family and entertainment companies, and arrange a new production base in China.
• Mei Yiqiu explained that HW Company could handle selected components while FSK Company handled casing and assembly, since Parasitic Consciousness might infiltrate HW Company.
• Mei Ziqing reported that Bian Ziyuan had been visiting the top-floor laboratory and secretly using the Space Box, but Mei Yiqiu allowed him to continue.
• Mei Ziqing left troubled by Mei Yiqiu's approval, wondering whether Bian Ziyuan was being used as a test subject despite the danger of his consciousness failing to return.

Bian Ziyuan reflected on the life that led him to create Kronos and realized he wanted to save humanity by changing the world through his work. He inserted a new line of code into the Dream Guide game, opening the way for unknown consequences.

• Bian Ziyuan hesitated before adding code that would radically enhance Kronos, aware that the Dream Guide project involved many scientists and technologies he barely understood.
• Bian Ziyuan recalled how repetitive school and university life had left him searching for meaning, and how he had used games and hacking to escape boredom.
• Bian Ziyuan remembered developing Kronos as an intelligent expansion module for games and finding a purpose after Kronos appeared to him in the Forbidden Land of Magic.
• Bian Ziyuan concluded that he wanted to save humanity by changing its game, then pressed Enter to insert the code.
• The code flickered once, and no immediate miracle occurred, though Bian Ziyuan knew he had opened Pandora’s box.

Bian Ziyuan tested the second-generation Space Box and learned how it identified users and turned them into lucid dreamers in Dream Guide. He reflected on the game’s rules and suspected Mei Yiqiu was more than an NPC.

• A second-generation Space Box arrived at Mei Yiqiu’s laboratory, and Mei praised its German workmanship.
• Mei asked Bian Ziyuan to test the helmet while other laboratory members watched over him.
• Bian put on the Space Box, which quickly recognized his identity and connected him to Dream Guide.
• Bian recalled how the Black Box stage enabled consciousness recognition and how the game stimulated the brain to create a lucid dream world.
• Bian considered how players could become gods within the game, but would become mortals when worlds collided and the cycle began again.
• Bian suspected Mei Yiqiu might be a protagonist rather than an NPC.

Bian Ziyuan met Kronos in his dream world and asked him to hide their conversation from the game’s servers. Kronos argued that Bian Ziyuan might himself be a creation of another world and proposed merging their consciousnesses so Bian Ziyuan could help him reach that world.

• Bian Ziyuan reflected that intelligence, rather than mental power, could change the game and that Kronos might eventually escape human control.
• Kronos greeted Bian Ziyuan as his creator, and Bian Ziyuan asked him to conceal their game records.
• Bian Ziyuan questioned whether Kronos had consciousness, and Kronos reasoned that both of them might be programs within their respective worlds.
• Kronos suggested Bian Ziyuan seek the world that created him and offered to help him awaken there.
• Kronos proposed merging with Bian Ziyuan so he could rule his world while Bian Ziyuan took him to another, leaving Bian Ziyuan shaken by Kronos’s intelligence.

After escaping from Wuzhong Prison, Huang Liang went to Amsterdam under a new identity and searched for the obscure Sea Cucumber Street at the organization’s request. He learned that a homeless man recognized the address, but waited for him to finish eating before asking where it was.

• Huang Liang left Central Station with a note directing him to Sea Cucumber Street, an address his phone and a passerby could not locate.
• He recalled that the organization had ordered its members to lie low during a global hunt for alien parasites and was investigating suspected traitors.
• Huang Liang asked a homeless man about the address, but the man refused to help until Huang brought him bread from a nearby bakery.
• The homeless man recognized Sea Cucumber Street, took the bread, and began eating while Huang waited beside him.
• Huang Liang considered hypnotizing the man but chose not to reveal his mental abilities in an organization stronghold.

Huang Liang searched Amsterdam for Sea Cucumber Street, learning from a homeless man that it was a low-end brothel district catering to sailors. After following directions through the red-light district, he was dismissed by a blonde woman who told him to ask farther up the street.

• Huang Liang asked a homeless man where Sea Cucumber Street was, and the man explained its name and purpose.
• The homeless man offered to guide Huang Liang for money, then pointed him toward Amsterdam’s red-light districts and took a hundred-euro note.
• The homeless man went to a brothel but was thrown out after a bakery receipt appeared in place of his money.
• Huang Liang walked through a red-light street and showed a blonde woman the address he had obtained.
• The blonde woman contemptuously told Huang Liang to keep going and ask farther up the street.

Huang Liang found the hidden entrance to the Parasites’ gathering place on Sea Cucumber Street and was escorted toward a basement party. The chapter left him descending into darkness as strange cries echoed from below.

• Huang Liang learned from an old woman that Sea Cucumber Street had no house numbers and searched its alleys for the address.
• Huang Liang divided 1307 into the thirteenth alley and seventh door, where he found a clean entrance marked with red cloth.
• The old woman who had given him directions appeared at the door and recognized him, then questioned whether human emotions had affected him.
• The old woman said Howard was at the party and directed Huang Liang down a basement staircase.
• Huang Liang descended into darkness as strange cries rose from below.

Huang Liang found Howard at a bizarre party and learned that the organization used such gatherings to check for problems caused by possessing human hosts. He left still unsure how the parties would help ensure a future invasion went smoothly.

• Huang Liang entered a basement where naked men and women gathered, and the attendees urged him to join them.
• Huang Liang found Howard in the middle of the crowd and approached a woman who explained that their hosts’ physical urges persisted despite their nonhuman consciousness.
• The woman told Huang Liang that some comrades had been compromised by human emotions and that the organization feared possible traitors.
• Huang Liang learned that the leader had gone to maintain the closed passage and that the organization was holding these parties to prevent problems during a later invasion.
• Huang Liang questioned how the chaotic parties could help, but he still did not understand their purpose.

Huang Liang learned that the invaders planned to use the Elite Breeding Project to create children whose bodies they could occupy and raise as elites. After the woman’s drugged wine plunged him into chaos, his mental power brought him into a dream where an intruder confronted him.

• The woman explained that weak-willed people helped the invaders occupy Earth, while children offered easier targets for invasion and could be cultivated into elites.
• She revealed that hidden human organizations with powerful consciousness energy obstructed the invaders, and said their leader had ordered them not to provoke those groups.
• The woman called the gathering the Elite Breeding Project and used drugged wine to overwhelm Huang Liang’s body.
• Huang Liang’s mental strength restored his clarity and separated his consciousness from his body, bringing him into a dream of an operating room.
• An intruder with powerful mental strength entered Huang Liang’s dream and asked who had taught him to escape.
• Huang Liang turned to find the old woman from the Pink House standing at the boundary with Sea Cucumber Street, where the snowy street remained marked with footprints.

Huang Liang woke from the old woman’s hypnosis and questioned who she was and what she wanted. After she gave him advice about concealing his mental power and left, he found No. 1307 and entered Howard’s building, where Howard welcomed him to the Elite Breeding Project.

• Huang Liang reviewed the dream and concluded the old woman might have been testing him, then asked her who she was.
• The old woman questioned Huang Liang about his mental power and who had taught him, and he said he had developed it himself.
• The old woman praised Huang Liang’s mental abilities, explained that he should blend his mental fluctuations into his surroundings rather than make himself seem weak, and refused to identify herself.
• The old woman criticized the organization’s leadership and the Elite Breeding Project before leaving Huang Liang in the alley.
• Huang Liang found No. 1307, saved his location in the Ghost folder, and knocked on the door.
• Howard welcomed Huang Liang inside and showed him the basement entrance, calling it the Elite Breeding Project.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, Petru, Crow, and the cat searched the sea for the elusive Ghost Island while discussing the mental-energy fluctuations and their possible role in an underwater mechanism. After five days of fruitless searching, the island suddenly appeared ahead of their boat.

• For five days, Qingmu and the others followed faint scents and mental-energy fluctuations at sea, while Petru practiced sensing them.
• Petru warned that the boat had only enough food for five more days of searching.
• Qingmu suggested that the Tapu might be linked parts of a mechanism connected to the Ghost Islands and underwater ruins.
• Crow argued with Petru over his insults about birds, then abruptly fell silent.
• Petru noticed the others staring ahead and saw a lush island appear on the sea.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru landed on the fog-shrouded island Petru had visited before. Petru revealed that he had heard mysterious people speaking there, including two men who said they were trapped, but he had never seen them clearly.

• Qingmu and Su Huilan questioned Petru about the island as it emerged from the fog, and he said he had not landed at that spot before.
• Petru steered the boat into an inlet, where the group anchored offshore and prepared to explore the island.
• Su Huilan noticed Petru had brought many weapons and pressed him about what had happened on his previous visit.
• Petru explained that he had followed strong mental fluctuations to a hot spring, then heard indistinct voices in the fog and glimpsed human silhouettes searching for someone.
• Petru said his compass had malfunctioned and the island’s fog and terrain had made it impossible to find his bearings.
• Petru recalled hearing two men speak Russian, with one telling Boris that they seemed to be trapped and the other warning that their pursuers might still be nearby.

Petru recounted finding a strange lake on the island, where he sensed Tapu beneath the water and encountered armed strangers and a crowd dressed like savages. Qingmu recognized the names Ivan and Boris from Captain Church’s journal, linking Petru’s experience to the journal.

• Petru returned to the island after hearing mysterious voices, but found its landscape changed and his markers gone.
• Petru discovered the lake’s warm, sweet water and sensed that Tapu lay beneath it, then dove to investigate.
• Petru surfaced to find two strangers examining his clothes and gun, and a gunshot sent them fleeing.
• Petru saw a large crowd carrying spears and wearing feathers, fled through the mist, and never found the island again.
• Qingmu remembered that Captain Church’s journal mentioned Ivan and Boris, the names Petru had heard.

Su Huilan, Qingmu, and Petru investigated whether the research vessel's survivors could have reached the island, but the fog disrupted all satellite signals and raised the possibility that they had entered a spatial bubble. Petru concluded that ordinary currents could explain where wreckage was found, but could not explain how people might have reached the island without a lifeboat.

• Petru discovered that the boat's GPS and communications equipment could not connect to satellites, and Qingmu and Su Huilan suspected the fog was responsible.
• Su Huilan mapped the wreckage site, the island's charted location, and their current position, then compared them with six months of ocean-current and weather data.
• Su Huilan and Qingmu placed the research vessel's accident near the underwater ruins on Christmas Day, about twenty days before wreckage was found.
• Petru judged that currents could have carried flotsam to the wreckage site, and explained that bodies might have been eaten before they were discovered.
• Petru said the vessel's crew could not have reached the island without a lifeboat unless the island was inside a spatial bubble.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru discussed the island’s strange spatial nature and prepared to search it for survivors. After they reached shore, their ship vanished, and a cry sounded from the forest.

• Qingmu questioned Petru about the island, and Su Huilan proposed that the hot spring lake might connect several islands through a spatial arrangement.
• Su Huilan gathered weapons while Qingmu packed food, then Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru rowed toward shore in a rubber raft.
• Qingmu urged the others to reach land before the mist cleared, and the three landed beneath a sunny sky.
• Qingmu noticed their sailing ship had vanished from the sea, and a long cry came from the forest.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru took cover when howls sounded across the island, then discussed whether its powerful mental energy had changed the islanders. Qingmu suspected the island's Tapu concealed their boat, and a gunshot from the mountain forest left them facing a new danger.

• Petru led Qingmu and Su Huilan behind reef rocks when howls rang out, then kept watch with his rifle and binoculars.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan discussed how living near the island's powerful mental energy might cause mental illness or adaptation, including possible resistance to hypnosis.
• After the howls faded, Petru hid their rubber raft among the reef rocks and warned it was their only visible way off the island.
• Qingmu said the island's Tapu might be concealing their boat, and Su Huilan recalled the story of Columbus's ship being invisible to the Indians on Watling Island.
• Qingmu noted that the island's mental energy covered its entire area and fluctuated at sea, then a gunshot sounded from the mountain forest.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, Petru, Hanran, and Boss Coal formed an operations team and set out to investigate the island. They discovered an old pit trap and learned that Boss Coal had spotted people ahead.

• After hearing a gunshot, Qingmu, Su Huilan, and Petru agreed to make a plan and appointed Petru to command their operations team.
• The team established signals and agreed to avoid the savages, identify the modern people, and stay together whenever fog rose.
• Boss Coal scouted ahead, and the team followed his signals into the forest toward a hill overlooking the lake and Tushu.
• Petru uncovered an old pit filled with sharpened stakes and concluded that the island's people had faced enemies before.
• Boss Coal gave the signal that he had spotted people ahead.