Chapter Summaries

Qingmu considered how faith connected people to psychic power as Situ explained that the scepter could guide them back to the original island and that time there might have passed very differently. The chapter left Qingmu questioning whether Situ had visited Ramla before.

• Qingmu reflected that faith might explain his psychic connection to one tribe and how different beliefs shaped people’s spiritual attributes.
• Boris urged Qingmu and Situ to stop discussing matters and solve how to return to Earth.
• Situ said they needed to reach the altars and explained that his scepter could guide them through a spiritual passage back to the original island.
• Situ explained that time on the original island could have passed differently from Earth’s time, prompting Su Huilan and Crow to react to his account.
• Qingmu asked Situ whether he had been to Ramla before, since he had made a clock to track Earth time while traveling through the universe.

Situ explained how he had entered Ramla and revealed that he and his crew had tried to destroy the South Pacific entrance to the Ramla Ant Nest, though mirror space reflected their torpedoes. As the group discussed returning to Earth and staying together, a ship appeared through the thickening fog.

• Situ said Earth's damaged mental force fields could sometimes guide people from Ramla back to Earth, but finding the right frequencies could take many attempts.
• Su Huilan described the parasitic consciousness's invasion and Mr. Lester's death, then Situ confirmed that the South Pacific ruins were an entrance to the Ramla Ant Nest.
• Situ told the group he had hired Ivan, Boris, and other submariners to fire thirteen torpedoes at the entrance, but mirror space reflected them; Qingmu said the invasion route had later closed, possibly because of Situ and Tushu.
• Ivan and Boris defended Situ's actions, saying he had paid their families and that they had fought to save all humanity.
• The group debated whether to seek their original islands or remain together, while Mrs. Larry noted that the tribespeople might not agree to move with them.
• As fog thickened over the island, Alice spotted a ship's silhouette on the lake.

As a warship appeared through the fog over the lake, Situ and Qingmu led their groups behind a hill to wait and watch for its landing. While they waited in the thick fog, Mrs. Larry named the star in the sky Cheva.

• Alice wondered whether the ship might be a rescue vessel from Earth, but Petru and Boris suspected it was a warship that had followed the survivors into Ramla.
• Situ agreed to move camp behind the hill, and Qingmu sent Kubota and some men to patrol behind them.
• The groups waited in dense fog, unable to see the lake or safely use Mental Power to learn whether the ship had landed.
• Boris and Petru traded stories about naval battles and submarines, easing the tension as they waited for the fog to clear.
• Alice argued that the star in the sky needed its own name, and Mrs. Larry said it was called Cheva.

Mrs. Larry explained the Itza People’s mythology, including their worship of Unabu and the roles of Cheva and Ischewa. She identified Qingmu as Sangqi, the tree-of-life god, and connected Mr. Stone to Manti Stone, leaving Qingmu unsettled by the strange feeling stirring in his mind.

• Mrs. Larry explained that the Itza People called the sun Cheva, the moon Ischewa, and the starry sky Unabu, their highest deity.
• Su Huilan and the others discussed similarities between Itza mythology, Maya civilization, and other mythologies, including the Itza god Gaia, who represented darkness and evil.
• Mrs. Larry told Qingmu that the savages had called him Sangqi, Unabu’s son who represented the tree of life, after seeing him take the scepter and resemble the altar’s tree.
• Mrs. Larry said another of Unabu’s sons, Mantiste or Mantistu, represented mountains and strength, and she had rendered the name as Manti Stone in connection with Mr. Stone.
• Situ accepted the mythological association calmly, while Qingmu felt that Manti Situ might be a more fitting name.

Mrs. Larry explained more of the Itza People’s mythology, including their gods and the war against Gaia. Qingmu and Situ concluded that they were in Huracan’s domain, where the Itza hero had once fought Gaia’s forces.

• Mrs. Larry described Sangqi, the tree of life, and the other guardian gods, while the group joked about Crow’s black feathers.
• Mrs. Larry recounted how Apollo’s white raven was scorched black after reporting Coronis’s affair, and Crow asked to change the subject.
• Mrs. Larry explained that Manti Stone represented mountains and strength, while Tuoxiao, Chayak, and Huracan represented fire, ice and water, and wind.
• Qingmu and Situ silently agreed that the place they had entered was likely Huracan’s domain and considered how the gods’ attributes matched mental power fields.
• Mrs. Larry explained that Gaia attacked the world with invisible tentacles until Itza severed them and led his people to build altars at Ramla.

Huang Liang prepared to help Mei Yiqiu and Situ Yuli investigate the chip implanted in Dickinson by testing the electrical responses of his spinal nerves. As Mei Yiqiu explained the risky procedure, Huang Liang wondered whether Zhao Pengcheng's memories or consciousness still influenced him.

• While massaging Dickinson, Huang Liang considered Professor Mei's claim that he resembled HGOST.
• Dickinson insisted on meeting the powerful consciousness, and Mei Yiqiu said they needed more than courage to challenge it.
• Huang Liang asked Dickinson whether he had faith, and Dickinson praised the Dao as an account of the universe's origin.
• Mei Yiqiu asked Huang Liang to use silver needles to test the spinal nerves and activate Dickinson's chip.
• Mei Yiqiu explained that Huang Liang would probe the nerve positions corresponding to the chip's seven unconnected ports, and Huang Liang agreed to proceed.

Huang Liang connected Dickinson’s chip to his cervical nerves and discovered that he could use a real-scene dream to guide his actions in reality. The chip’s signals drew support from nearly every satellite overhead, and Mei Yiqiu suspected that two forces were behind it.

• Huang Liang used a real-scene dream to guide silver needles into Dickinson’s chip ports, unknowingly mastering an advanced dream-control technique.
• Huang Liang connected the chip to Dickinson’s seven pairs of cervical nerves, and Situ Yuli detected a signal.
• Mei Yiqiu and Situ Yuli identified the chip’s signal as being in the Ku band and sent a test signal to trace its satellite support.
• Mei Ziqing reported that 129 of 132 satellites had responded, suggesting that almost every civilian and military satellite was supporting the chip.
• Situ Yuli detected a second, 70 kHz longwave signal from the chip, and Mei Yiqiu wondered whether two forces were behind it.

On her last day with the criminal investigation squad, Hu Xing reflected on why she was leaving policing to take over her family’s business and revisited the Majia Creek case. As she wondered how Ma Fuqing had known about Qingmu’s abilities, she learned that Bi Shenghua had come to see her.

• Hu Xing decided to leave the criminal investigation squad after her mother insisted she either take over the family business or transfer to a desk job.
• Hu Xing recalled how her limited investigative skills and Qingmu’s warnings had kept her from field assignments and interrogations.
• Hu Xing said goodbye to her colleagues and retrieved old case files to revisit her time with the squad.
• Hu Xing reviewed the Majia Creek headless-corpse case and wondered how Ma Fuqing had known about Qingmu’s dream-entry abilities.
• The reception office called Hu Xing to say that Bi Shenghua was downstairs asking for her.

On New Year's Eve, Bi Shenghua walked through Liuying Lane, remembering its residents and shops as she worried that demolition would destroy the old willow and expose its strange roots. At the old internet café, she recalled her grandfather's story that a revived mulberry sapling had grown there before the Liu Family's woolen mill burned down the night she was born.

• Bi Shenghua put a key beneath a potted echeveria before going out, as she had done for over a year in case someone returned.
• Bi Shenghua visited Old Li, who said his son would not come home for New Year and that he now accepted the neighborhood's eventual demolition.
• Bi Shenghua passed familiar shops and recalled Qingmu, Crow, and Boss Coal, while worrying that officials might damage the old willow by digging up its roots or exploiting it for tourism.
• Bi Shenghua went to the old internet café and remembered her grandfather's account of a mulberry sapling growing at the Liu Family's woolen mill after every nearby mulberry tree had died.
• Bi Shenghua recalled that the Liu Family cut down the sapling, the mill burned that night, and her grandfather survived because he was at the hospital awaiting her birth.

Bi Shenghua explored the old market and planned how to fund and develop the Mulberry Garden, then asked Hu Xing for help approaching the Xia family. Hu Xing offered to arrange the investment herself and revealed that Meimei had inherited enormous wealth, including assets left by her father.

• Bi Shenghua found no trace of the old mulberry roots and decided she would protect the willow tree unless she died.
• Bi Shenghua considered the Mulberry Garden’s plans and concluded it needed major investment, while Mei Yiqiu was away in the United States and Xia Wenyuan seemed difficult to approach directly.
• Bi Shenghua visited Hu Xing at the criminal investigation unit and asked her to pass the project proposal to her grandfather.
• Hu Xing said she could raise the money herself after leaving the police force and could persuade her uncles to invest.
• Hu Xing explained that Meimei had inherited a large share of the Xia family’s wealth and that the assets left by Meimei’s father might be even greater.

As the fog cleared in Ramla, Qingmu and the others spotted the frigate Swordfish and recognized its captain as the officer connected to Xia Xiaoxiao. Anderson accused Situ and his companions of causing the Discovery’s destruction, but Situ ordered everyone to stay hidden and prepare to flee while the group remained uncertain whom to trust.

• The fog cleared to reveal two suns, a ghostly moon, and the enormous frigate Swordfish anchored in the lake.
• Petru and Ivan identified the warship, and Qingmu recalled that Xia Xiaoxiao had traveled with its captain, Lieutenant Commander William Halsey.
• Anderson aimed his pistol at Situ and accused him and his companions of being responsible for the Discovery’s destruction; Ivan, Boris, and Petru drew their weapons in response.
• Su Huilan suggested the Swordfish might have entered Ramla while assisting a rescue mission, but Anderson remained doubtful and Alice hoped it had come to rescue them.
• Situ forbade anyone from boarding the frigate, ordered Petru to watch it, and directed Qingmu to find escape routes and safer shelter.
• Qingmu reconsidered Petru’s connection to Tapu and questioned Anderson’s behavior, then realized he had begun to suspect everyone.

The group watched an unmoving warship on the lake while strange changes in the two suns made Situ suspect that something was affecting Ramla. He theorized that some of Ramla’s endpoints might connect to mysterious places on Earth, but the chapter ended with the group uncertain about the nature of the Ant Nest.

• Petru, Boris, and Ivan watched the silent warship, and the group debated whether to investigate it.
• Qingmu sent Crow to fly to the warship and search it for people or supplies.
• Situ pointed out that the two suns were moving toward each other and warned that changes to their paths could threaten Ramla’s wormholes.
• Su Huilan and Situ discussed whether Ramla’s endpoints might include Earth, and Su Huilan suggested the pyramids as possible examples.
• Mrs. Larry questioned whether Ramla could be so closely connected to Earth, while Qingmu imagined Earth as a brain with tentacles reaching into space.

Situ connected Ramla to Earth’s ancient civilizations and speculated that it was a Klein-bottle-like starship, while Crow returned from scouting the warship and reported that it held skeletons. The group was left awaiting more details about the ship.

• Situ argued that Ramla was probably artificial and linked its creation to Earth’s ancient mental-power civilizations and the Gendaya People’s third eye.
• Su Huilan suggested Ramla could be a starship, and Situ compared it to Gaia’s Bottle of Life and a Klein bottle.
• Crow returned from scouting the warship and delayed his report while eating dried meat with Hanran.
• Qingmu asked Crow what he had seen aboard the ship, and Crow said it contained several skeletons.

Qingmu and the others approached the empty warship Swordfish, hoping to make it their shelter and claim its weapons. As they tried to secure a rope and climb aboard, they discovered that the ship’s coating had weathered into ash-like powder, leaving its condition uncertain.

• After Boss Coal confirmed the ship was empty, Qingmu and Situ agreed to board it while the others prepared a lifeboat and ropes.
• The group reached the Swordfish, and Petru, Boris, and Ivan discussed how to get a rope over its high hull and the helicopters on deck.
• At Situ’s suggestion, Boss Coal flew the rope toward the ship and looped it around an antenna-like object, but the rope was too short and he swung into the hull.
• Qingmu caught Boss Coal, who pretended to be dead before recovering and hopping back onto Qingmu’s head.
• Ivan noticed a bird-shaped mark where Boss Coal had struck the hull, and the group found that the ship’s surface coating crumbled into grayish-white powder.

Boris, Petru, and the others boarded an abandoned warship beneath the three suns and found Commander Halsey’s mummified corpse in the command room. Situ concluded that Halsey had been dead for centuries, leaving the group to reckon with the ship’s inexplicable age and decay.

• Petru, Situ, and Qingmu climbed aboard the warship, followed by Boris and Ivan, while Anderson and Su Huilan stayed below with the others.
• The group found the empty ship covered in a powdery substance and discovered that its compartments were dry and undisturbed.
• Petru and the others found a mummified naval officer seated in the command room, and Qingmu recognized the name Halsey on his uniform.
• Ivan and Boris found that the ship’s instruments had no power, and Boris proposed searching for weapons and checking the engine room.
• Situ said the helicopter and ship could not be restored, then estimated that Commander Halsey had been dead for several hundred years, perhaps a thousand.

Situ explained that the ship had drifted for centuries in a region of frozen spacetime before Ramla pulled it out. He said it could serve as a base, though its power was gone and its weapons were unsafe, and the group began arranging to bring the others aboard.

• Qingmu and the others questioned Situ about Lieutenant Commander Halsey's mummified body, and Situ explained how frozen spacetime could make centuries pass there while only hours passed for outside observers.
• Situ concluded that the ship had spent hundreds or thousands of years in frozen spacetime before one of Ramla's tunnels dragged it out.
• Situ warned Boris that the ship's energy reserves were depleted and that its weapons were unsafe, but suggested using it as a base.
• Situ sent Ivan and Boris to check whether they could lower the gangway manually, then left with the others to find torches for the dark lower compartments.
• Petru called down to the people in the lifeboat and told them the group was working out how to get them aboard.

Su Huilan and the others boarded the warship and searched its interior, while Mrs. Larry examined the mummified officer and questioned how its crew could have survived for centuries. They found the soldiers’ dormitory filled with mummified corpses, each resembling the one on the bridge.

• Alice told Mrs. Larry that Petru wanted to marry her and urged her to consider him, but Mrs. Larry dismissed the suggestion.
• Ivan, Boris, and Petru unfolded the warship’s gangway and lowered it to the water so Su Huilan, Mrs. Larry, and the others could board.
• Qingmu mentally asked Sangqi’s tribespeople to bring torches, and they crossed the lake on rafts to deliver them.
• Mrs. Larry examined the mummified officer and estimated that he had died peacefully between five hundred and a thousand years earlier, while questioning how the crew could have lived that long.
• The group searched the lower compartments and discovered a mummified soldier on every bunk in the dormitory.

Qingmu and the others searched the Swordfish’s quarters, finding useless firearms, intact swords and supplies, and bottles of liquor. When Boss Coal spotted a human shadow in the passage, the searchers found nothing, but the group realized the ship remained cut off from the outside Mental Power field and might still overlap with static space.

• Boris and Petru searched the cabins and found swords, useful implements, and several bottles of liquor.
• Boris sampled the liquor, and he and Petru challenged each other to a drinking contest until Petru warned them about the fire risk.
• Boss Coal cried out that it saw a shadow watching the group in the passage.
• Boris and Ivan searched the cabins and passage but found no one, and Boss Coal blamed its liquor-clouded eyesight.
• Qingmu quietly asked Boss Coal what it had seen, and the crow insisted it was a person's shadow.
• Situ, Su Huilan, and Qingmu discussed how the ship's lower compartments were cut off from the Mental Power field and might still overlap with static space.

Qingmu and the others searched the warship for Xia Xiaoxiao and the shadow Crow had seen, while Situ explained how the ship may have emerged from a region of frozen spacetime. In the captain’s cabin, they found a mummified man and a letter declaring that humanity’s last hope lay in the deep well.

• Qingmu insisted that the group stay together and search the warship, partly to learn whether Xia Xiaoxiao was still aboard.
• Crow’s jokes eased the group’s tension as they continued searching, and Situ explained that the Swordfish may have spent centuries inside a dying bubble of frozen spacetime.
• Mrs. Larry suggested that the shadow Crow had seen could be valuable for research, and Situ agreed as they approached the captain’s cabin.
• The group found a mummified man in the captain’s chair beside a half-branch resembling red coral and a letter signed by Ronald Cohen.
• Ronald Cohen’s letter said he had no hope of escaping the deep well and called its contents humanity’s last hope.

Ronald Cohen left a final letter describing the Swordfish’s entrapment in Ramla and humanity’s slim hope of escape. He explained his account of Gaia’s origins and ended by revealing her as a Boltzmann brain born from an entropy fluctuation.

• Ronald Cohen wrote that the Swordfish had fallen into a static spacetime well in Ramla, where its crew had died and he alone remained alive.
• Ronald Cohen hoped the well’s eventual collapse would return the Swordfish to Ramla, and he inferred from the reader’s presence that this unlikely escape had occurred.
• Ronald Cohen described Ramla as a network of wormholes created by Gaia and warned that the Itza People served the evil Itza and opposed Gaia.
• Ronald Cohen argued that entropy fluctuations could allow life to emerge despite the universe’s tendency toward heat death.
• Ronald Cohen said a large entropy decrease in the Orion Spur had created Gaia as an enormous Boltzmann brain.