Chapter Summaries

Qingmu and his companions watched Situ face the savage shaman, then Qingmu’s willow twig connected him to the mental forces in the valley and disrupted their standoff. After the two camps fought briefly and withdrew, Qingmu decided to sneak over to meet Situ after dark, leaving the group poised to approach him.

• Qingmu recognized Situ among the savages, while Su Huilan identified him as the Alliance’s genius and Master Nanke’s successor.
• Qingmu and Su Huilan agreed to watch the standoff and help Situ only if his people could not hold out.
• Qingmu’s mental power entered the willow twig, and Boss Coal’s caw drew Situ’s and the savage shaman’s attention as the valley’s mental balance shifted.
• Situ and the savage shaman ordered their people to charge, but both sides soon withdrew after a short, bloody battle.
• Petru saw smoke rising from the camps and cursed when he realized the savages were eating their dead.
• Qingmu decided to wait for nightfall, then use Hanran to guide the group toward Situ’s camp.

Qingmu and his companions watched the island’s brilliant starry sky as the savages prayed beneath it, then traveled together to Situ’s camp. Situ welcomed them warmly and praised Mrs. Larry’s late husband, Mr. Yeger, for his theories about the Gendaya Civilization.

• Qingmu and his companions watched the luminous nebulae while the savages prayed toward the brightest star cluster.
• Qingmu decided the group should stay together and visit Situ’s camp, and Su Huilan and the others agreed.
• Qingmu’s group arrived to find the savages praying and Situ resting nearby; the savage priest briefly raised an alarm before Situ calmed him.
• Situ welcomed Qingmu and his companions, and Qingmu was surprised that Situ recognized him despite their first meeting.
• Situ praised Mr. Yeger’s scholarship to Mrs. Larry, who was moved to tears as she remembered her late husband.

Petru and Boris fought over a grenade before the group shared weapons and learned how Situ became the savages’ priest. Situ’s account of living on the island for months left Alice questioning how much time had passed for her.

• Boris recognized Petru as Redbeard and attacked him, blaming him for stealing his ship.
• Petru and Boris argued over their weapons and grenades until Anderson gave Boris a grenade and Qingmu and Su Huilan shared more weapons with Ivan and Boris.
• Situ explained that he had replaced the savages’ priest after a disaster on the island killed him while he maintained spatial stability.
• Alice reacted with disbelief when Situ said he had lived on the island for several months, since she thought she and the others had been there only a few days.
• Situ asked Alice whether she was sure they had experienced only a few days.

Situ explained how he used a consciousness-based cesium atomic clock to estimate how long the group had been on the island. Su Huilan questioned whether dream time could measure real time, and Situ asked if she knew about Real-Scene Dreams.

• Alice struggled to recall how many days had passed since she and Anderson escaped the savages, and Su Huilan explained that the island’s irregular days had disrupted their sense of time.
• Situ said he had estimated that several months had passed by simulating an atomic clock in a dream.
• Situ described how his experience designing the first cesium atomic clock let him reproduce its stable frequency in dream space.
• Su Huilan questioned how a dream-created clock could keep accurate time and how dream time could correspond to reality.
• Situ asked Su Huilan whether she knew about Real-Scene Dreams.

Qingmu confronted Situ about the sleepwalking dreams and the harm done to the girls from Wuzhong Conservatory of Music, then asked whether to befriend or kill him. Situ began explaining his research into the islands’ Tapu and real-scene dreams, ending as he revealed why he had used mirrors.

• Qingmu explained real-scene dreams and asked Situ why he had trapped the conservatory girls in sleepwalking dreams, and Situ said he had thought they woke safely.
• Situ served the group roasted fish while Qingmu insisted on an answer and said he was deciding whether to treat Situ as a friend or kill him.
• Situ asked about Xiaoxiao and Meimei, and Qingmu told him that his wife had been searching for him and asked Qingmu to find him.
• Situ described how Mr. Yeger’s ideas led him to investigate the Tapu islands and suspect they were arranged to create large-scale real-scene dreams.
• Situ said the Ghost Islands prevented him from mapping the Tapu and finding the dream’s control hub, so he began small-scale experiments and turned to mirrors.

Situ explained how mirror experiments helped him study Tapu and revealed that he had secretly arranged Qingmu’s involvement with the Xia family and Zhao Pengcheng. The chapter ended with Situ asking Qingmu who he was, triggering Qingmu’s headache.

• Situ explained his mirror-based experiments and said he had used unsuspecting students at Wuzhong Conservatory of Music as subjects.
• Situ told Qingmu that he had chosen the students because they needed to remain unaware of the experiments, and that he had paid Li Qian to compensate them.
• Situ revealed that he had trusted Qingmu to handle Elder Xia after discovering Qingmu in Wuzhong.
• Situ admitted that he had arranged for Mei Yiqiu to involve Qingmu in treating Elder Xia and said he had known Zhao Pengcheng was parasitized.
• Situ asked Qingmu who he was, and Qingmu’s head began to hurt.

Su Huilan and Situ explained how the islands’ unstable spacetime could separate people by vast distances and different amounts of time. Recognizing Orion’s nebulae overhead, Su Huilan realized they might be 1,000 light-years from Earth, on the Orion Spur.

• Ivan’s roasted meat eased the group’s hunger, while Crow bantered with Su Huilan.
• Su Huilan asked Situ how he measured time in the dream, and he explained that environmental cycles helped him estimate elapsed time; his measurements suggested nearly a year had passed.
• Su Huilan noted that Alice’s sense of time and biological clock suggested only days had passed, and Situ confirmed that the space could be understood as a Klein bottle with distances measured in light-years.
• Situ explained that he used an atomic clock to determine their position in spacetime, and Su Huilan connected the idea to relativistic effects.
• Su Huilan recognized Orion’s nebulae in the sky and concluded that they might be on the Orion Spur, 1,000 light-years from Earth.

Bi Shenghua observed Orion and remembered Qingmu and Boss Coal, who had been missing for nearly a year after sailing from Rapa Island. Seeking comfort in religion, she drew a fortune stick whose verse left her pondering their separation.

• Bi Shenghua studied the Orion Nebula through the telescope and thought of Qingmu and Boss Coal, who had not contacted her for almost a year.
• She recalled that Qingmu and Su Huilan had sailed from Rapa Island, and that their friends and family had searched for them without success.
• Bi Shenghua tried attending church and visiting crowded temples, but found no faith or comfort in those places.
• She went to a quiet small temple, paid ten yuan to draw a fortune stick, and read the verse, "What has come of parting through the passing year? Stars apart amid misty trees and evening clouds."

Bi Shenghua reflected on Qingmu and Boss Coal’s long absence while keeping their studio and bar running. When a drunken customer harassed her, someone intervened and broke his wrist, leaving the newcomer unidentified.

• Bi Shenghua checked Qingmu Studio’s untouched room and faded couplets, remembering how long she had waited for Qingmu and Boss Coal to return.
• Bi Shenghua watched the thriving bar staff work and tested Xiao Qi’s skill by tasting his unfinished Tequila Sunrise.
• A half-shaved, drunken customer sat beside Bi Shenghua, put his hand on her shoulder, and ignored Xiao Qi’s warning to stop.
• A bald man grabbed the customer’s wrist and lifted it away from Bi Shenghua, then snapped it as the customer resisted.

Bi Shenghua, Hou Biao, and Yao Jingjing remained bound to Qingmu while he was missing, and Yao Jingjing reflected on how her feelings for him had changed. Beneath the willow, Bi Shenghua remembered the twig she had given Qingmu and found a cryptic line on the back of her fortune stick.

• Hou Biao removed a man who had touched Bi Shenghua, then joined her and Yao Jingjing at the bar.
• Yao Jingjing told Bi Shenghua that her mother was recovering and asked Hou Biao to pretend to be her boyfriend for her mother’s sake.
• Yao Jingjing said she had let go of her feelings for Qingmu after getting to know Bi Shenghua.
• Bi Shenghua recalled that Qingmu had been out of contact for nearly a year and wondered whether the willow twig she put in his backpack had survived.
• Bi Shenghua read the fortune stick’s hidden line: “From now on, plant no willows before your door; plant only mulberries to raise the silkworms of Wu.”

As the Space Box and Dream Guide grew rapidly, Mei Yiqiu pushed back against investors’ plans for a lavish gala and insisted it follow his wishes. He then raised concerns about anomalous data suggesting only a little over three hundred suspected Parasites among nearly thirty million registered players.

• Space Box sales and registered players surged, while investors sought a share of the game’s success and Professor Mei shut out visitors.
• Mei Yiqiu agreed to a global annual gala but rejected plans that would flaunt the game’s exclusivity, keeping his goal of selling one billion boxes within five years secret.
• Mei Ziqing relayed Mei Yiqiu’s demands to investors, who threatened to withdraw their investments unless the gala followed their plans.
• Mei Yiqiu authorized Mei Ziqing to take a firm stance, and the investors backed down and agreed to follow his wishes for the gala.
• Mei Yiqiu pointed out that only a little over three hundred of nearly thirty million registered players showed data anomalies and were suspected Parasites, and Mei Ziqing said the rate was still terrifying.

Mei Yiqiu and Mei Ziqing debated why so few Parasites had been detected and what their invasion required. Mei Yiqiu concluded that the Parasitic Consciousness needed to control humanity to open a passage for more of its kind, but he did not know what that passage was or what might oppose them.

• Mei Yiqiu argued that the detected Parasites were too few to overturn human society, even though the Space Box data showed a high rate among wealthy young users.
• Mei Yiqiu explained that their sample came from groups most likely to be parasitized and suspected the true global rate was below one in a million.
• Mei Yiqiu lamented that Qingmu was absent, then learned from Mei Ziqing that Bian Ziyuan was on leave with a Space Box.
• Mei Ziqing worried about the suspected Parasites, but Mei Yiqiu said they lacked law-enforcement authority and needed more samples and observation.
• Mei Yiqiu reasoned that the Parasites’ deliberate selection of powerful targets suggested they needed to control humanity before opening a passage for more Parasites.
• Mei Ziqing asked what could stop the passage from opening, and Mei Yiqiu fell silent in thought.

Huang Liang visited the Dream Society gathering in Amsterdam, where Howard took him to a secret office and promoted him in connection with a new assignment. Howard presented him with an unfamiliar helmet, leaving Huang Liang awaiting the details of his mission.

• Huang Liang arrived at 1307 Sea Cucumber Street and entered the organization’s gathering with Howard.
• Huang Liang greeted Carol and acted as though he had adapted to the organization, while Howard asked to speak with him privately.
• Howard led Huang Liang to a concealed office and revealed that only three people had previously been allowed inside.
• Howard told Huang Liang he was now the fourth person with access to the office and had been promoted because of a new assignment.
• Howard took out a high-end gray-and-white helmet for Huang Liang to inspect.

Howard warned Huang Liang that Dream Guide’s Space Box could expose the organization’s members and threaten its plans, then explained that the second leader had taken charge while the original leader was away. Howard said he had considered sending Huang Liang to investigate the Mei Laboratory in Wuzhong, but the organization had found someone better suited for the task.

• Huang Liang recognized the Space Box as the expensive equipment used to play Dream Guide, and Howard described its potential to transform society.
• Howard warned Huang Liang that lucid dreaming could help humans detect parasitized members and that the Space Box’s brief black-box period could reveal their nonhuman instincts.
• Howard told Huang Liang that the original leader had been missing for almost a year and that the second leader now managed the organization.
• Howard proposed sending Huang Liang to Wuzhong to investigate the Mei Laboratory and, if necessary, destroy the Space Box and its developers.
• Huang Liang agreed to follow the organization’s arrangements, but Howard said it had already found someone better suited to the task.

Howard told Huang Liang that the Second Leader had promoted him and assigned him to travel to Vancouver as a doctor for the Wolf Family’s terminally ill patriarch, William Wolf. Huang Liang suspected the real target might be William’s designated successor, Hong Kui, while Howard prepared to leave for Egypt.

• Howard told Huang Liang he had passed the organization’s test and was promoted by the Second Leader.
• Howard revealed Huang Liang’s new assignment was to travel to Vancouver and treat William Wolf, patriarch of the powerful Wolf Family.
• Huang Liang reviewed the family files and suspected the assignment might focus on William’s successor, Hong Kui.
• Howard gave Huang Liang the Space Box and said they would leave around the same time, though Howard was headed to Egypt.
• Howard told Huang Liang to leave his things in the office and teased him about returning him safely to Carol.

Situ and the savages joined Qingmu’s group after surviving an island-wide fire, and Situ explained how entering dreams could let people learn languages. As the savages finished their prayers, Mrs. Larry urged Situ and Qingmu to help civilization move forward, while Petru offered to accompany her on her research.

• Qingmu’s group learned that Situ and the savages had fled an island consumed by fire after its chief died trying to endure the heat.
• The savages prayed through the night, then their priest handed Situ the silver scepter as others gathered fruit and dew and guarded the camp.
• Situ explained that people who could enter dreams could learn another person’s language, prompting Qingmu to understand how he had acquired languages in his memories.
• Mrs. Larry said heroes could step forward when civilization reached a dead end, and she looked to Situ and Qingmu.
• Petru offered to help Mrs. Larry with her research and protect her, and Crow joked that the pirate had gone straight.
• The savages’ ululating cries rang out through the valley again.

Situ explained how the scepter linked his tribe into a coordinated force, while Mrs. Larry examined its symbols and compared them with writing found at an altar. As two rival groups faced off, another band of savages appeared on the flank and demanded that they leave.

• Situ warned that the opposite savages were moving and led everyone to a high point to watch them.
• Situ explained that the scepter let him command the tribe as a single organism, with each person acting like a tentacle.
• Crow asked whether the rival savages knew each other, and Mrs. Larry suggested their languages showed a shared origin.
• Situ lent Mrs. Larry the scepter, and she identified symbols resembling marks on the rival chief's scepter and old pottery.
• Situ and Mrs. Larry discussed whether the altar writing was a projection of a higher-dimensional language, and Qingmu felt something stir in his mind.
• Ululating cries sounded from another direction, and a new group of savages appeared as Situ said they had come to drive everyone out.

Qingmu and Su Huilan discussed Situ’s control of the savages and grew suspicious that his many successes were not coincidences. Su Huilan revealed that Situ was the genius from her dreams, then suggested Qingmu obtain the dead shaman’s scepter so he could match Situ’s influence over the island’s psychic field.

• Qingmu and Su Huilan speculated that Situ used the scepter and a Group Real-Scene Dream technique to unite the savages’ consciousnesses.
• Su Huilan told Qingmu that Situ’s apparent perfection and the convenient timing of his discoveries made her suspect he knew what they would encounter.
• Qingmu considered whether Situ had deliberately arranged events from the research ship’s voyage through his earlier actions in Wuzhong.
• Su Huilan revealed that Situ was the genius her father had shown her in dreams and identified him as Master Nanke’s successor, but she had not told him because she felt uneasy.
• Su Huilan urged Qingmu to find a way to take the dead shaman’s scepter, giving him access to the same resources as Situ.

Qingmu and the others speculated that Situ’s control of the savages resembled a higher-dimensional, four-dimensional octopus before Situ invoked the Boltzmann brain. The standoff among the three sides held until Boss Coal’s cries rang out unnaturally loudly and the valley’s mental force field collapsed into chaos.

• Qingmu sensed that Situ used a silver scepter to connect the savages through a controlled mental force field.
• Su Huilan proposed that the savages might function like tentacles of a higher-dimensional organism, and Mrs. Larry expanded on the idea.
• Petru urged Boris to join him in attacking the savages, but Boris resisted until Petru produced a grenade.
• Situ told the group that everyone might be a tentacle of a Boltzmann brain spread across the Milky Way and time.
• The three sides settled into a tense new balance, but Boss Coal’s amplified cries shattered the silence and a shaman raised a scepter, throwing the mental force field into chaos.

Situ’s group retreated to higher ground after the local tribe’s shaman gave them the advantage in battle. When Petru proposed joining forces with another tribe to take revenge, Mrs. Larry volunteered to negotiate, and Qingmu and Petru decided to go with her.

• Three forces of savages fought in a chaotic melee as their shamans directed them with mental power, leaving relatively few casualties.
• Situ’s side and the opposing tribe withdrew, while the local savages stopped pursuing and moved their camp to higher ground.
• Situ explained that territorial battles usually ended when one side retreated, but using guns could make the tribes unite against them as an invading species.
• Petru proposed joining forces with the other tribe to defeat the strongest locals, but Boris challenged him to explain how they would negotiate.
• Mrs. Larry volunteered to speak with the tribe, and Qingmu and Petru offered to accompany her.