Chapter Summaries

Bi Shenghua prepared Ruhua Bar for the children’s Lantern Festival visit and hoped Qingmu and Crow would return, but the children arrived to find them still absent. As they waited for a hoped-for supermoon beneath cloudy skies, Xia Tian told them about a game called Dream Guide.

• Bi Shenghua set up a rooftop telescope and kept Qingmu’s room clean while wondering when he and Crow would return.
• Yao Jingjing, Hou Biao, Xiao Qi, and Mo Yu came to Ruhua Bar as Hu Xing, Shi Dazhuang, and the children prepared to gather there.
• Hu Xing brought Xia Tian and Meimei to pick up Yu Meiren, and the children hurried into Qingmu’s studio calling for Qingmu and Crow.
• The children became sulky when they could not find Qingmu or Crow, then grew interested when Bi Shenghua offered to show them the supermoon.
• Xia Tian said he had been playing a fun helmet-based game called Dream Guide.

Dream Guide’s expensive Space Box sold out as the game sparked worldwide excitement and calls for a cheaper release. Xia Tian then told Xia Chujue and Yu Meiren that the game let him live with his mother in a persistent dream world, leaving both girls eager to visit their own families and build homes there.

• Dream Guide’s first fifty thousand Space Boxes sold out, and black-market prices rose above one hundred thousand US dollars.
• Players praised Dream Guide online but gave no detailed reviews, while scientists described the Space Box as an epoch-making invention.
• The second batch of three million Space Boxes was announced at the same price, and preorders sold out in less than a day.
• Xia Changzheng bought Xia Tian a Space Box through the black market for nearly two million yuan.
• Xia Tian told Xia Chujue and Yu Meiren that he had reunited with his mother in the game and built her a castle.
• Xia Chujue and Yu Meiren imagined visiting their families in the game and talked about the pets they would keep.

The children saw strange things through a telescope while looking at the moon, and Petru watched an enormous red moon rise over the savages’ altar. He carried Mrs. Larry toward a deserted part of the altar, hoping the spectacle would give them a chance to escape.

• After the rain stopped, Bi Shenghua and the children watched the moon through a telescope, and Xia Tian explained its craters and lack of life.
• Meimei, Yu Meiren, and Xia Tian each saw something impossible through the telescope: a tree, water and a waterfall, a crow, and Meimei’s father on the moon.
• Hu Xing checked the telescope and saw an ordinary moon, so the adults took the children inside as the clouds gathered around the darkening sky.
• Bi Shenghua looked back and saw a crow fly beneath a huge dark red moon, while Petru watched the same enormous moon rise over the mountain and altar.
• The savages bowed and prayed to the moon, and Petru carried Mrs. Larry toward a deserted part of the altar to try to escape.

Petru left Mrs. Larry at the altar and continued his escape while Qingmu and Su Huilan entered the village to search for them. As an enormous moon appeared overhead, Su Huilan concluded that the island was moving through warped space, and the chapter ended with Qingmu and Su Huilan heading into a house to continue their search.

• Petru set Mrs. Larry down at the altar and promised to return for her after finding his weapons and companions.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan spotted most of the tribespeople gathering near an altar and decided to search the village for Petru and Mrs. Larry.
• Qingmu sent Boss Coal to scout the altar from above and Hanran to provide support on the ground.
• An enormous dark red moon appeared and expanded across the sky, leading Su Huilan to suggest that the island was moving through warped space.
• A powerful chant drew the tribespeople to the altar, where they prostrated themselves before the moon, while Qingmu and Su Huilan entered a nearby house to search.

Petru escaped the shaman’s dream with the crow’s help and reunited with Qingmu and Su Huilan, then hurried with them to rescue Mrs. Larry. At the altar, the rising moon triggered bizarre floating stones and an approaching tsunami, leaving the group and the praying savages facing imminent disaster.

• Petru escaped the village after finding his clothes and weapons, then ran into Qingmu and Su Huilan, who explained that the crow had helped him break free of the dream.
• Petru told Qingmu and Su Huilan that Mrs. Larry was beneath the altar, and Qingmu planned to isolate the shaman’s mental force field so Petru could shoot him.
• Su Huilan warned that the moon’s gravity was causing a tsunami as the ground began to tremble.
• Petru, Qingmu, and Su Huilan reached the altar and found Boss Coal and Hanran frozen in strange poses beneath stones floating above the altar.
• The savages stopped chanting as a towering wall of water rose over the distant mountains and surged toward the island.

As the moon drew near and enormous waves surged through the warped space, Qingmu realized the shaman was using the island’s psychic power to keep it stable. He joined the shaman in a desperate effort to hold the space together while Petru entered the altar to rescue Mrs. Larry.

• Petru and the others watched the moon’s gravity pull seawater along the curved space, and Su Huilan warned that it would eventually pour back toward them.
• Qingmu saw the shaman’s despair and sensed him drawing on the island’s psychic power to keep the space from collapsing.
• Petru raised his gun against the tribespeople, but Qingmu stopped him and said they might need their help to survive.
• Qingmu ordered Petru to rescue Mrs. Larry and asked Su Huilan, Crow, and the cat to help him support the shaman’s psychic field.
• Petru rushed into the altar and found Mrs. Larry searching beneath the floating stones in a shaft of moonlight.

Mrs. Larry watched an enormous moon and floating stones form two interlocking pyramids above the altar. She deciphered symbols in the moonlight and uncovered a carved totem, but its meaning remained unclear.

• Mrs. Larry stayed on the altar as the moon appeared to grow larger and distant rumbling suggested massive tides.
• Rocks rose into the air around Mrs. Larry while she remained grounded, and the stones arranged themselves into a pyramid.
• More stones formed an inverted pyramid interlocked with the first, with Mrs. Larry standing at its tip.
• Mrs. Larry read ancient symbols made by moonlight shining through the stones and memorized their patterns.
• Mrs. Larry found a familiar geometric symbol and uncovered a carved totem depicting a towering tree, mountains, clouds, a circle, and a bird on its highest branch.

Petru and Mrs. Larry discovered that moonlight passing through the floating stones revealed a mechanism in the altar’s hourglass symbol. After Petru knocked aside the stone pillar blocking the light, the formation overhead collapsed, and a white mist rose around them.

• Petru found Mrs. Larry studying the altar and urged her to leave as the disaster approached, but she said she had discovered secrets in its writing and patterns.
• Mrs. Larry noticed that a stone pillar blocked the moonlight from reaching the hourglass symbol and asked Petru to shoot it down.
• Petru’s bullets bounced off the pillar, so he threw a grenade that knocked it into the other floating stones and cleared the shaft of light.
• Mrs. Larry examined the illuminated symbol as Petru rescued her from a falling boulder, and the stones overhead began crashing down.
• A white mist rose over the altar’s patterns while Petru leaped through the falling stones with Mrs. Larry on his shoulder.

Qingmu joined the savage shaman in using the island’s psychic energy to stabilize the warped space under the moon’s growing gravity. After the shaman urged him to enter the Divine Wooden Staff, Qingmu connected to the island’s psychic field with unexpected ease, but the space remained in danger.

• Qingmu sensed the moon’s force warping the space and realized the savage shaman was using the island’s psychic energy to resist it through his wooden staff.
• Qingmu released his full psychic strength to help the shaman hold the space together.
• Su Huilan, Crow, and Hanran joined Qingmu and the shaman, bringing the space closer to stability but still lacking enough power to protect the whole island.
• The savage shaman told Qingmu to enter his Divine Wooden Staff, and Qingmu focused his psychic energy on the wood.
• Qingmu’s consciousness entered the staff and expanded through the island’s psychic field, letting him perceive the whole island as the warped space continued to stretch and twist.

Qingmu and the old savage worked together to keep the island’s mental space from collapsing, but the savage fled with the Divine Wooden Staff when the mist appeared. Qingmu rescued Petru and Mrs. Larry, then followed the savages toward an upward-flowing waterfall that carried them into a crater on the moon.

• Qingmu joined the old savage in stabilizing the island’s mental space, while Su Huilan and Hanran protected the space around them and Boss Coal shielded the sky.
• Gunfire and an explosion shook the altar, falling rocks filled the air, and mist appeared, prompting the savages to cheer and run toward the mountain with the upward-flowing waterfall.
• The old savage withdrew his mental power and took the Divine Wooden Staff, destabilizing the space as he fled with the savages.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan went after Petru and Mrs. Larry, and Petru carried Mrs. Larry on his back as they escaped the collapsing altar.
• Qingmu, Su Huilan, Boss Coal, Petru, and Mrs. Larry followed the savages through the rain and mist and saw them leap into the waterfall, which carried them toward a crater on the moon.

As the island was ravaged by a catastrophe, Su Huilan and the others escaped through a reverse-flowing waterfall, which she realized was an optical illusion caused by distorted space. They emerged in a warm pool surrounded by fog, and Qingmu and Crow answered Su Huilan’s calls, though the group’s situation remained unclear.

• Qingmu led Su Huilan, Petru, and Mrs. Larry through the storm toward the waterfall, where Su Huilan recognized logs as dugout canoes and Qingmu told everyone to grab one and jump.
• Su Huilan fell through the waterfall and realized they were plunging downward through distorted space rather than rising toward the moon.
• Qingmu told the group to hold tight to their logs, and the rushing water slowed into a twisting, pipe-like channel suspended in the void.
• Su Huilan and the others plunged into a warm pool, where she called out to find the group.
• Qingmu and Crow answered Su Huilan through the thick fog.

Qingmu, Su Huilan, and the others survived the disaster on the lake and reunited with Alice and Anderson, who had escaped in a hidden lifeboat. They realized they had returned to the lake Petru had visited before, where savages were now gathering logs along the shore.

• Su Huilan and Petru swam through the fog to join Qingmu, Mrs. Larry, Hanran, and Crow on a floating log, while the group worried about Alice and Anderson.
• The fog thinned, and Alice and Anderson appeared in a small boat; they rescued Mrs. Larry and the others.
• Anderson explained that he and Alice had left the cave during the storm and found their lifeboat hidden beside the lake.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan wondered how the river and waterfall had led them back to the same lake, and Petru recognized it as the lake he had visited before.
• Crow spotted savages carrying logs along the shore, and Qingmu suggested landing elsewhere before approaching them unseen.

After escaping the flood, Qingmu and the others rested in the woods while the natives began building a new settlement and defenses nearby. Qingmu discovered that a sprouting willow branch connected him to the island’s mental force field.

• Petru and Anderson dismantled the group’s wet guns, while Petru got a fire going so they could dry their clothes and equipment.
• Qingmu went with Crow to scout the natives and saw them building houses, weapons, traps, and a giant tree bow.
• Qingmu returned to camp and noticed tiny buds sprouting from the willow branch in his backpack.
• Qingmu sensed powerful mental energy through the branch and recognized its connection to the island’s mental force field.

Qingmu discovered that the willow twig he carried had a weak connection to the island’s mental force field, though no one else could sense it. As the group prepared to investigate the savages’ camp, Mrs. Larry revealed that she had seen strange things inside the altar.

• Qingmu questioned Petru about how his buried bullets had acquired traces of mental power, then tested branches, roots, grass, and stone for similar effects.
• Qingmu asked Su Huilan and Petru to sense the willow twig, but neither detected anything unusual.
• Qingmu explained that the willow twig could connect to the island’s mental force field, though it was much weaker than the shaman’s staff.
• Petru suggested stealing the shaman’s staff, and Qingmu proposed scouting the savages’ camp while they prepared to fight another tribe.
• Mrs. Larry stopped the group and said she had seen strange things inside the altar that might be useful.

Mrs. Larry explained the ancient writing found inside the altar and discussed how writing systems and languages shaped civilization. She left the group without an answer about what the symbols meant for their current situation.

• Mrs. Larry copied the altar’s symbols onto the ground and said they resembled an ancient script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
• Su Huilan compared the symbols to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Mrs. Larry explained how pictographic, ideographic, and phonetic writing systems developed.
• Petru asked whether the script had evolved from Chinese characters, but Alice rejected the idea and contrasted Chinese and Egyptian writing.
• Mrs. Larry described the strengths and difficulties of Chinese characters and explained why English had become the world’s most widely used language.
• Petru asked what the discussion could reveal about their current situation.

Mrs. Larry linked the altar’s writing and pyramids to a lost civilization that may have preceded Ancient Egypt, while Qingmu proposed that the warped space itself was Noah’s Ark. The chapter ended with Qingmu beginning to recognize the writing on the ground.

• Qingmu felt an uncanny familiarity with the primitive writing, and Crow warned him not to overthink it.
• Mrs. Larry explained that the altar’s writing might be an ancestor of Egyptian hieroglyphs and connected the site to the underwater pyramid discovered by Professor Silva’s expedition.
• Mrs. Larry described seeing two opposing pyramids and a symbol matching one in Professor Silva’s photographs of the underwater ruins.
• Mrs. Larry proposed that Ancient Egyptian, Maya, and ancient Chinese civilizations could have branched from the mature civilization on the island, which may have been devastated by a great flood.
• Qingmu suggested that the warped space itself was Noah’s Ark, carrying its people across the sea of stars to Earth.
• Qingmu looked at the writing and said he thought he could read some of it.

Qingmu struggled to explain the fragmented, three-dimensional patterns he perceived in the writing on the ground. Mrs. Larry concluded that the symbols used three-dimensional encoding, leaving the group to wonder what Qingmu’s ability to perceive them meant.

• Qingmu said he sensed fragments of information in the symbols but could not put them into words.
• Mrs. Larry asked Qingmu to describe the patterns, and he said they appeared three-dimensional, like fragmented holographic projections.
• Mrs. Larry explained that living beings generally encode information one dimension below the space they inhabit.
• Mrs. Larry concluded that the writing on the ground used three-dimensional encoding, possibly projected from the arrangement of floating stones.
• Alice wondered whether Qingmu’s ability to perceive the writing meant he was a four-dimensional monster.

Qingmu studied Mrs. Larry’s transcription of the mysterious three-dimensional writing, while the group tried to understand his unusual ability to perceive fragments of it. He explained that the writing stirred a confusing flashback in his mind, and the chapter ended with Boss Coal mistaking the discussion for a promise of hot pot and longing for Ruhua’s cooking.

• Boss Coal teased Qingmu about being an alien from Orion, and Qingmu corrected his astronomy before Su Huilan mocked the crow’s own forgotten origins.
• Qingmu asked Mrs. Larry why he could understand only fragments of the ground writing, and she proposed that it might be encrypted, incomplete, or a projection of a three-dimensional language.
• Mrs. Larry explained that Qingmu’s brain might be using dormant regions to process the unfamiliar language, and Qingmu offered to let her see it through a dream before deciding she was too weak for now.
• Alice asked how Qingmu had described Noah’s Ark crossing the sea of stars, and Qingmu said the idea had appeared in a brief, confusing flashback.
• Boss Coal mistook Qingmu’s hot-pot comparison for actual food and lamented that he missed Ruhua’s braised pork knuckle.

The group planned to investigate the savages’ camp, sharing out their weapons and agreeing to stay together. On the way, Qingmu discussed dreams with Mrs. Larry while Petru learned that Alice’s mentor, Mr. Yeger, was Mrs. Larry’s husband and a renowned scholar.

• Petru gathered edible wild fruit, proposed checking the savages’ camp, and divided the weapons among the group.
• Qingmu assigned the submachine guns to Petru and Anderson and told them to protect Mrs. Larry and Alice while he and Su Huilan dealt with the shaman.
• Mrs. Larry and Su Huilan agreed that everyone should travel together, and the group headed toward the savages’ camp.
• Qingmu explained to Mrs. Larry how people communicated in dreams and how mental power affected dream spaces.
• Petru asked Alice about her work and discovered that Mr. Yeger was Mrs. Larry’s husband and a famous scholar, leaving Petru disappointed.

Petru confessed that he wanted to marry Mrs. Larry, then agonized over choosing between her and Lawiye until Boss Coal urged him to choose them both. The group discovered two rival savage forces preparing for battle, and Mrs. Larry recognized the leader across the valley as Mr. Stone.

• Petru learned that Mr. Yeger had died from a snakebite and realized why Mrs. Larry feared snakes.
• Petru told Alice he wanted to marry Mrs. Larry, and she urged him to confess his feelings to her himself.
• Su Huilan reminded Petru that Lawiye was waiting for him in an Egyptian prison, and Boss Coal advised him to choose both women.
• Mrs. Larry remembered the painting in the altar after hearing Boss Coal call Qingmu a tree with a bird perched in it.
• Qingmu and the others spotted two groups of savages lining up for battle across a valley as their chiefs raised their scepters.
• Petru and Mrs. Larry watched the opposing group through binoculars, and Mrs. Larry recognized its leader as Mr. Stone.