Chapter Summaries

Qingmu entered Su Huilan’s dream and used his mental power to summon Boss Coal, who reported encountering a powerful old man while exploring the island. Boss Coal revealed that the island’s central lake grew into a sea as he flew higher, and he had plunged into it from the sky.

• Su Huilan struggled to steady her dream after Qingmu entered it without warning.
• Qingmu called to Boss Coal through the dream, and Boss Coal appeared soaked and complained that he had fallen into the sea.
• Boss Coal said he had encountered the old man with a stick, whose powerful mental attack forced him to flee upward.
• Boss Coal explained that he could not see the whole island from above and that the central lake appeared larger the higher he flew.
• Boss Coal said the lake became a sea beyond the clouds, and he fell into it from the sky.

Qingmu and Su Huilan discussed the island’s strange darkness and the possibility that its shamans could draw on Tapu’s mental energy, while Crow worried that Hanran and Petru had not returned. They planned to regroup at daybreak, rescue the missing people, and find a way to treat Anderson.

• Crow said he could hear tides but could not tell whether he was over the sea or a lake, and Qingmu told him to stay put until daybreak.
• Su Huilan theorized that the island’s spatial distortion joined the sea and lake, while Qingmu wondered whether the shaman had used Tapu’s mental energy.
• Crow panicked over Hanran’s absence and insisted on going to find her, but Qingmu warned him not to act recklessly.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan decided to check on the captured savage and identify whether the herbs were an antidote for Anderson.
• Qingmu told Crow they would reunite at daybreak and rescue Hanran, Petru, and Mrs. Larry if they were alive.

Qingmu and Su Huilan stopped Alice from killing the savage, then discussed why hypnosis failed on the islanders. Su Huilan explained that the island and surrounding sea formed a Klein bottle, leaving their escape and rescue efforts tied to the lake.

• The savage woke and grabbed Alice, but Qingmu kicked him away before he could hurt her.
• Alice attacked the savage in anger over Mrs. Larry, and Su Huilan restrained her by reminding her that they still needed to save Anderson.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan considered how to hypnotize the savage and concluded that the islanders had adapted to the island's mental force field.
• Qingmu asked about the island's enclosed space, and Su Huilan explained how the island and sea formed a Klein bottle connected through the lake.

Qingmu used his mental power to shield Su Huilan from the island’s immense mental field, creating a fierce clash that left her stunned by his strength. He then told her she could hypnotize the savage.

• Qingmu and Su Huilan discussed how to imagine a Klein bottle in a dream.
• Qingmu suddenly pressed his mental power against Su Huilan, and she resisted by shielding her subconscious.
• Qingmu’s mental power formed a vacuum around Su Huilan, diverting the island’s pervasive mental force into a violent clash.
• Alice briefly lost awareness, while Anderson remained unconscious and the injured savage groaned.
• Qingmu told Su Huilan to hypnotize the savage.

Qingmu disrupted the island’s mental force field, causing the cave and its surroundings to vanish while the people and their possessions remained. He and Su Huilan concluded they might still be inside the Space Box, and Qingmu wondered whether the island’s strange space was an enhanced version of it.

• Qingmu pushed aside the island’s mental force field, and the cave, ground, and fire vanished while the people remained in a blank white space.
• Qingmu withdrew his mental power, allowing the island’s force field to return and restore the cave and its surroundings.
• Su Huilan wondered whether the island was an illusion created by the Tapu, but Qingmu pointed out that the savage and Anderson’s injury had remained real.
• Qingmu explained the Space Box’s black box stage, and Su Huilan asked whether they were still inside one.
• Qingmu suggested they were in two worlds at once and wondered whether the Klein bottle was an enhanced Space Box.

Mei Yiqiu explained why the second-generation Space Box required costly advanced materials: it had to carry a user's consciousness and memories. He and Bian Ziyuan described how Möbius strips could provide immense information storage, leaving Mei Ziqing and Bian astonished by the scale of the technology.

• Mei Ziqing questioned the expensive helmet materials and argued that the high price would keep ordinary players from the game.
• Bian Ziyuan and Mei Yiqiu explained that the Space Box would be sold rather than given away and needed advanced materials to carry consciousness and memories.
• Mei Yiqiu said the brain's information capacity might be infinite, prompting Bian Ziyuan to ask how a computer could achieve comparable storage.
• Mei Yiqiu introduced the Möbius strip, and Bian Ziyuan explained how repeatedly cutting it could make the strip longer.
• Mei Ziqing realized that repeated divisions could create vast storage space, and Mei Yiqiu said the resulting strip could circle the Milky Way twice.

Mei Yiqiu explained how the Space Box used two Möbius strips joined into a Klein bottle to store information, and Bian Ziyuan considered bringing Kronos into it. Mei Ziqing reported the Dream Guide production and release plans, while Mei Yiqiu aimed to expand the game to five billion players.

• Mei Yiqiu gave Bian Ziyuan the Space Box and explained how its Möbius strip could be folded into the helmet.
• Mei Ziqing explained that joining two Möbius strips formed a Klein bottle, which could enclose a space with seemingly infinite capacity.
• Mei Ziqing wondered whether the human brain might use a Klein-bottle-like information storage mechanism, and Bian Ziyuan connected the idea to Kronos.
• Bian Ziyuan considered entering Dream Guide with the Space Box so he could bring Kronos into it.
• Mei Ziqing reported that production lines and distribution agreements were ready, with plans for ten million sets that year and one billion players within five years.
• Mei Yiqiu decided that he wanted Dream Guide to reach five billion players, despite the difficulty.

Su Huilan and Qingmu investigated how mental power altered the strange space around them, theorizing that it resembled a Klein bottle. They connected the island’s distortions to the Discovery’s lost voyage, then resolved to rescue Mrs. Larry.

• Su Huilan pushed the island’s mental force field away and enclosed Qingmu in a white vacuum, where they appeared like two-dimensional sketches.
• Su Huilan confirmed the place was genuinely strange, and Qingmu asked whether she had felt like they were two-dimensional beings.
• Qingmu theorized that mental power had formed a Klein bottle and that pushing away its force field split it into two Möbius strips.
• Su Huilan suggested the Discovery had entered the same warped space and might have reached Christmas months later by passing through its neck.
• Qingmu wondered whether Boss Coal had traveled through the bottle’s space and whether they could save the ship’s crew, then insisted they had to rescue Mrs. Larry.

Qingmu and Su Huilan planned to find the island’s mental force field opening and investigated an injured savage for information about the antidote and his tribe. Su Huilan’s hypnosis revealed the savage’s home, where a river and waterfall flowed backward toward another misty lake.

• Su Huilan theorized that the rising fog opened a rift in the island’s Klein-bottle force field, and Qingmu agreed to search for it with Boss Coal.
• Qingmu isolated Su Huilan and the injured savage from the force field, allowing her to hypnotize him easily.
• Su Huilan watched the savage dream of fishing in a lake and inferred that fishing helped sustain the islanders.
• Su Huilan used a dream arrow to wound the savage, prompting him to reveal white flowers that healed the injury when eaten and applied to it.
• The savage followed a howl to a tribe of wooden huts beneath a waterfall, where Su Huilan saw the river and waterfall flowing backward toward a mist-covered lake.

Su Huilan learned the antidote and the location of the savages’ tribe from a dream, and she and Qingmu saved Anderson with the white flowers. After Anderson and Alice confessed their love, Qingmu and Su Huilan waited outside the cave until Hanran returned.

• Su Huilan left the savage’s dream and told Qingmu about the tribe’s river and backward-flowing waterfall.
• Su Huilan and Qingmu woke Alice, and Alice treated Anderson’s wound with the white flowers and fed him water.
• Anderson woke after his fever broke, and he confessed his love to Alice and asked her to travel the world with him.
• Su Huilan took Qingmu outside the cave and held his arm, saying she feared losing him.
• Hanran appeared from the darkness and hurried around Qingmu and Su Huilan’s feet.

Hanran discovered that the island's mental power let her sense her surroundings and that her dream imagery overlapped with a desert tied to the Awakening Sacred Land. Qingmu left the mystery unresolved, and the chapter ended with Hanran and Crow guarding their breakfast while Qingmu and Su Huilan ate compressed biscuits.

• Hanran escaped the old man's mental-power attack, then followed the savages and learned they had taken Petru and his weapons back to their canyon settlement.
• Hanran returned through the dark by sensing the island's mental-power field, which gave her an extra, negative-like view of her surroundings.
• Qingmu found an image of the desert forbidden zone from Yao Jingjing's mother's brain blended into Ruxue's dream, but he and Su Huilan could not explain the connection to the island.
• Qingmu reopened the Dream Corridor and entered the desert, recalled Old Madam Cuan's claim that it was the Awakening Sacred Land or held its key, then abandoned his confused thoughts and rested.
• At breakfast, Hanran and Crow shared the ham and dried fish, while Qingmu and Su Huilan settled for compressed biscuits.

Qingmu and Su Huilan prepared to rescue Petru and Mrs. Larry while Alice killed the wounded savage who had attacked them. After Qingmu and Anderson disposed of the body, the group set out, leaving Anderson and Alice to wait in the cave.

• Qingmu left Alice and Anderson with food and pistols, instructing them to stay in the cave unless fog covered the island.
• After Crow discovered the savage was alive, Alice insisted on killing him and stabbed him repeatedly until he died.
• Su Huilan comforted Alice as she cried and begged them to bring Mrs. Larry back.
• Qingmu and Anderson dragged the corpse away and cleaned the cave before Alice and Anderson accompanied the group outside.
• Anderson encouraged Qingmu to rescue Petru and Mrs. Larry without risking himself, then felt hopeful as Qingmu joked about buying the island for fishing.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, Hanran, and Crow followed the river from the central lake toward the savages’ tribe while investigating the island’s strange geography. They discovered the river was flowing uphill, leaving them with an unexplained physical anomaly.

• Hanran led Qingmu and the others across two hills to the lake, where Crow confirmed he had fallen into it the night before.
• Crow teased Su Huilan about her feelings for Qingmu, and Su Huilan wondered whether Qingmu and Crow had deliberately manipulated the conversation.
• Su Huilan examined the river and explained how the lake and sea might be connected while remaining distinct bodies of water.
• Qingmu and the others followed the river through the ravine and into more open jungle, guided by the direction of its current.
• Crow told the group to look behind them, and they saw that the river flowed uphill toward higher ground.

Qingmu and his companions discovered savages near the river and split into teams to stop them from reporting their presence. As Su Huilan and Boss Coal confronted two savages, the crow unleashed a powerful whirlwind to break through the island’s mental force field.

• Boss Coal spotted savages hunting birds, and Qingmu led the group into hiding after telling them to avoid unnecessary conflict.
• The savages found footprints by the river and split up, with two heading back to report and the others following the tracks toward the lake.
• Qingmu divided the team, sending Hanran with him after the larger group and pairing Su Huilan with Boss Coal to intercept the two scouts.
• As the scouts approached, Boss Coal took flight and tore at the island’s mental force field with a wild whirlwind.

Crow and Su Huilan killed two savages with their combined powers, then reunited with Qingmu and continued toward the tribe. The group reached a rocky overlook and saw a large settlement in a valley beneath a strange skyward waterfall.

• Crow and Su Huilan trapped two savages in a dazzling white space and destroyed their souls, killing them.
• Crow and Su Huilan joked about naming their team, while Qingmu emerged after finishing his own fight with Hanran.
• Qingmu, Su Huilan, Crow, and Hanran headed toward the savages’ tribe as Crow argued about being called a beast and then chose Hanran as his partner.
• Crow and Hanran raced ahead and stopped on a tall rock, where Qingmu and Su Huilan joined them.
• Qingmu and the others saw a cleared valley filled with thatched huts and savages, where a river rose into a waterfall that appeared to flow toward a lake in the sky.

Petru was held captive by island tribespeople and forced to submit to their shaman’s ritual, while Mrs. Larry urged him to survive and revealed her resolve to keep studying their language and culture. Petru obeyed by imagining his imprisoned love, Lawiye, but afterward collapsed in tears.

• Petru remained tied up in a hut after the tribespeople seized his weapons and used his knowledge to fire their guns.
• The shaman’s scepter selected Petru during a ritual, and the tribespeople forced him onto the straw with Mrs. Larry, a captive archaeologist from the Discovery.
• Mrs. Larry told Petru that she had learned to understand the tribespeople’s language and had found symbols suggesting their people descended from an ancient civilization.
• As the tribespeople threatened Petru, Mrs. Larry urged him to comply and live, explaining that the shaman’s choice had to be honored.
• Petru thought of Lawiye while obeying the ritual, then looked at Mrs. Larry and broke down crying.

Mrs. Larry explained the tribe’s routines and a route out of the settlement, and Petru escaped his bonds to rescue her from the savage guarding her. Carrying the injured Mrs. Larry, Petru followed her directions toward the village outskirts, with their escape still underway.

• Mrs. Larry told Petru about the tribe, warned him to avoid the chief and the upward-flowing waterfall, and described a safer route out.
• Petru cut through his thorny vine restraints with the military dagger and entered the room where Mrs. Larry was held.
• Petru killed the savage attacking Mrs. Larry, then refused to leave her behind despite her injuries.
• Petru carried Mrs. Larry through the settlement as she guided him around danger and toward the outskirts.
• Petru and Mrs. Larry passed the crops and stone altar, with a rocky wasteland beyond it.

Petru carried Mrs. Larry through the savage village, killing several villagers as they escaped and then hiding near an altar while the searchers gathered at a sugarcane field. When the savage chief approached the altar, they considered hiding among the stones in its central pit.

• Petru kicked a savage woman down, killed the child beside her, and carried Mrs. Larry onward.
• Petru killed two men near a sugarcane field, then hid their bodies there to mislead the searchers.
• Petru took Mrs. Larry to a trapezoidal altar and climbed to its top as the savages searched the field.
• Petru spotted the savage chief approaching the altar and drew back from the edge.
• Mrs. Larry suggested they hide among the stones in the altar pit, and Petru agreed.

Petru and Mrs. Larry hid among the stones beneath the altar, which Petru suspected was forbidden Tapu ground. After the savages left the summit, a large black snake appeared on Mrs. Larry.

• Petru carried Mrs. Larry to the altar’s lower chamber and hid her among the stones.
• Petru and Mrs. Larry discussed whether the structure was a tomb and whether it was a Tapu site.
• Petru saw the chief and several savages on the summit, then hid until their voices faded.
• Petru realized the savages had stayed away from the forbidden ground, but remained hidden in case they were waiting above.
• A large black snake appeared on Mrs. Larry’s body as Petru sensed danger.

Petru rescued Mrs. Larry from a snake-filled hallucination and realized they were trapped in a dream created by the old shaman. They escaped the illusion, only to find themselves surrounded by savages beneath a rising full moon.

• Petru seized a snake behind Mrs. Larry and cut off its head, then protected her as more snakes appeared.
• Petru and Mrs. Larry retreated through a snake-free path toward the altar steps while the snakes encircled them.
• Petru realized the snakes were hallucinations and told Mrs. Larry they were dreaming and should go back down.
• Mrs. Larry helped Petru descend and stamped on the apparent snakes, causing the illusion to vanish.
• Petru and Mrs. Larry saw savages surrounding the altar as their chief raised his scepter, a crow crossed the sky, and a full moon rose.