Chapter Summaries

Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi entered the row house to investigate why its residents were hiding something about Mo Yu. After discovering the upstairs rooms were empty, they found a second staircase and Xiao Qi mistook his reflection for another person.

• Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi climbed to the back window, where a woman wearing a facial mask startled them by appearing to have a ghostly face.
• The woman let Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi into the house after they said they had come to see Mo Yu.
• Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi waited downstairs while the woman and a man went upstairs, but no one came back down.
• Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi searched the empty upstairs rooms and found a hidden staircase leading to the ground floor.
• Xiao Qi screamed when he saw his reflection in a mirror at the bottom of the stairs, and Bi Shenghua told him it was a mirror.

Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi became separated inside a mirror labyrinth where reflections distorted space and time. Bi Shenghua found a reflection of herself as an old woman, while Xiao Qi saw his body age and decay as he ran from a face that was not his.

• Bi Shenghua entered the mirror passages with Xiao Qi, then discovered he had disappeared behind her.
• Bi Shenghua wandered through the mirrors, shattered one with a kick, and found it whole again after passing through its frame.
• Bi Shenghua counted thirteen mirrors and saw a reflection of her own gaunt, aged face.
• Xiao Qi caught sight of Bi Shenghua through an empty frame, but she lunged at him and vanished when their lights went dark.
• Xiao Qi became lost among mirrors filled with his reflection and ran as he watched himself age into a decaying corpse, while another face remained in the corner of his eye.

Xiao Qi escaped the mirror maze when a man in an old trench coat arrived, then collapsed after seeing him. Meanwhile, Jiang Deqian arranged to abduct Mo Yu and Bi Shenghua and brought them to Huang Ziqiang’s hot spring resort, where he threatened them.

• Xiao Qi saw Mo Yu in the mirrors as his reflection withered into a skeleton, and the mirrors shattered one after another.
• A messy-haired man in an old trench coat emerged from the broken glass, and Xiao Qi collapsed after greeting him.
• Jiang Deqian boasted to Huang Ziqiang about his family connections and learned that Mo Yu and the woman who had beaten him were at Liang Kai’s place.
• Jiang Deqian sent men to collect Mo Yu and Bi Shenghua, then waited with Huang Ziqiang at the resort.
• Jiang Deqian and Huang Ziqiang had the bound women brought into their private room, where Jiang Deqian threatened them with sexual violence and trafficking.

Jiang Deqian tried to assault the captive Bi Shenghua at Huang Ziqiang’s resort, but Qingmu arrived and swiftly crippled Jiang Deqian’s five thugs. As Huang Ziqiang prepared to summon armed men, Qingmu warned Jiang Deqian that he was about to die.

• Jiang Deqian dismissed Huang Ziqiang’s concerns and prepared to assault Bi Shenghua while Huang led the others outside.
• Qingmu kicked the soundproof door off its hinges and entered the suite, ignoring the resort manager.
• Bi Shenghua recognized Qingmu and urged him to flee and call the police, but Jiang Deqian kicked her to the floor.
• Qingmu caught one thug’s punch and disabled all five of Jiang Deqian’s men in moments.
• Huang Ziqiang signaled the manager to gather men and reached for his concealed pistol as Qingmu warned Jiang Deqian that he was about to die.

Qingmu confronted Jiang Deqian at Huang Ziqiang’s resort, but Jiang Deqian summoned his brother Jiang Deguan and Hou Biao for help. After Hou Biao appeared to defeat Qingmu, Jiang Deqian attacked the bound women, unaware that the danger might not be over.

• Huang Ziqiang held back from fighting Qingmu, and Qingmu said his caution had saved his life.
• Jiang Deqian held Bi Shenghua at knifepoint, called Monkey for help, and threatened Qingmu.
• Jiang Deguan arrived with Hou Biao, slapped Jiang Deqian, and ordered Hou Biao to deal with Qingmu.
• Hou Biao struck Qingmu into a wall, and Jiang Deqian stopped him from delivering another blow.
• Jiang Deqian dragged the two bound women onto the sofa and began tearing at their clothes.

Qingmu rescued Bi Shenghua and Mo Yu from Jiang Deqian’s gang, while Huang Ziqiang watched Jiang Deqian die in a bizarre electrocution. After Qingmu left, Huang Ziqiang found the room and its thugs restored, but Jiang Deqian’s charred corpse remained.

• Huang Ziqiang hesitated over whether to support Jiang Deqian, then watched Jiang behave as if fighting an unseen opponent.
• Jiang Deqian electrocuted himself with an exposed lamp post while Huang Ziqiang and Bi Shenghua looked on in horror.
• Qingmu untied Bi Shenghua and Mo Yu, then gave Huang Ziqiang his business card and left with the women.
• Huang Ziqiang turned back to find the door and thugs restored, while Jiang Deqian’s corpse and the smell of burning remained.

Shi Dazhuang investigated the discovery of a dead pimp and uncovered a prostitution operation run by Li Qian using hypnosis and a maze of twelve mirrors. He left the case with Liang Kai’s cause of death, the mirrors’ effects, and Situ’s identity still unresolved.

• Shi Dazhuang arrived at townhouse number 11, where Qingmu and local officers had rescued Mo Yu and Bi Shenghua and found Liang Kai dead upstairs.
• Chen Jianzhong examined Liang Kai’s body and said the death appeared sudden, pending further examination.
• Shi Dazhuang examined twelve unusual mirrors in a concealed hall; when one shattered, his dizziness and breathing difficulty stopped.
• Li Qian’s statement revealed that she and Liang Kai had used hypnosis and the mirror maze to control female students and profit from prostitution, with help from someone named Situ.
• Shi Dazhuang pieced together the events from the witnesses’ accounts but remained uncertain whether Liang Kai had been murdered and who Situ was.

During questioning, Li Qian described why she had sold sex and her devotion to the mysterious Situ, while insisting she knew nothing about Liang Kai’s death. Shi Dazhuang learned that Liang Kai died during sex after a heart attack and ruptured spleen, and Chen Jianzhong raised a connection to two earlier deaths.

• Li Qian defended compensated dating by recounting her poverty, her clients through Liang Kai, and her admiration for Situ.
• Li Qian rejected the officer’s portrait of Situ and became hysterical when asked how Liang Kai had died.
• Qingmu asked Shi Dazhuang whether he and his friends could leave, and Shi let him go.
• Chen Jianzhong told Shi that Liang Kai had suffered a heart attack during sex and had a ruptured spleen, with earlier beatings worsening the risk.
• Chen Jianzhong questioned whether Liang Kai’s abnormal behavior could be linked to the deaths on Garbage Street and at the scrap collection yard.

After Jiang Deqian’s death, Xiao Qi recovered under Mo Yu’s care while Bi Shenghua used Qingmu’s three million to expand Ruhua Bar. As renovations and preparations continued, Hu Xing arrived with her cousin Xia Tian, hoping to become Qingmu’s disciple.

• Mo Yu moved in with Xiao Qi to care for him as he recovered from his ordeal.
• Qingmu gave Bi Shenghua his bank card, and she used the money to arrange the takeover of the two neighboring shops and expand Ruhua Bar.
• Bi Shenghua divided the bar’s shares among Qingmu, herself, the neighboring shopkeepers, and the staff, making Qingmu the investor and big boss.
• Bi Shenghua, Xiao Qi, and Mo Yu worked on the renovations and preparations while Qingmu spent his days relaxing with Boss Coal.
• The police returned several times to ask about the night Jiang Deqian died, and Hu Xing arrived with Xia Tian and gifts to ask Qingmu to take her as his disciple.

Qingmu joked with Hu Xing, Bi Shenghua, Xia Tian, and Boss Coal before hearing how the investigation into Liang Kai’s death and the prostitution case had stalled. The experts rejected mind control and the authorities had found no trace of Situ, leaving his existence in doubt.

• Hu Xing brought Xia Tian to Qingmu’s studio, where the group joked about Qingmu taking disciples and Boss Coal entertained the child.
• Xia Tian remembered riding Boss Coal and fed the crow while asking whether he could grow large enough to carry him flying.
• Hu Xing told Qingmu that eleven girls had been found and that Liang Kai had died from blood loss and a heart attack after a beating, while the man accused of arranging the beating had died that same night.
• Hu Xing said the case would likely pass to the public order unit and that experts had found no evidence of mind control or anything unusual about the mirrors.
• Hu Xing reported that investigators had found no useful leads on Situ, and provincial experts suggested he might be a shared fantasy among the female students.

Mei Ziqing met a man named Xingzhi, who also called himself Situ, while the scientists at the Bella conference learned that a research vessel, several islands, and underwater ruins had vanished. Frederick then announced that Evans Lester had died, leaving Mei Yiqiu and the other scientists in shock.

• Mei Ziqing met Xingzhi, who gave her a personal letter for Professor Mei and introduced himself as Situ.
• Frederick told the conference that a research vessel carrying twenty-seven expedition members and forty-six crew had been missing for sixty-three hours.
• Frederick explained that there had been no storm or significant earthquake, and that several islands and the underwater ruins had also disappeared.
• Frederick announced that Evans Lester had died, and Mei Yiqiu was stunned by the news.

At a scientific conference, Frederick revealed that Evans Lester had died after claiming an alien consciousness invaded his brain. Lester’s final message linked his death to the missing research vessel and underwater pyramids by suggesting that Earth contains a wormhole to an unknown part of the universe.

• Frederick announced that Evans Lester had died of acute encephalitis, prompting Mei Yiqiu to question the diagnosis and whether Lester’s death was connected to the research vessel’s disappearance.
• Frederick revealed that Lester had left a final message in the thought matrix cipher, delivered through Dr. Dardova.
• Mei Yiqiu explained how the thought matrix cipher depended on its author’s unique patterns of thought and could not be forged.
• Frederick said Lester’s message claimed that another conscious entity had invaded and attacked his brain, and that Lester suspected it was an alien.
• Professor Frank argued that extraterrestrial life might exist as forms of consciousness unlike familiar material organisms.
• Frank revealed that Lester believed a wormhole on Earth led to an unknown place in the universe.

Mei Yiqiu and the others watched a VR reconstruction of Evans Lester’s message, in which Lester warned that an alien consciousness shared his body and was growing stronger. The message revealed that the invaders were organisms unlike any familiar form of life, but left their purpose unknown.

• Frederick introduced the VR headsets and explained that Professor Dardova had reconstructed information from Lester’s Mind Matrix.
• Mei Yiqiu activated his headset and watched the matrix form a lifelike image of Evans Lester, who greeted him by his old nickname.
• Lester said a second consciousness had secretly grown inside his brain, shared his memories, and was trying to take over his body.
• Lester explained that he had studied the entity, could see it in dreams, and could no longer tell whether his decisions were his own.
• Lester warned that the entity was an invading organism and that there was more than one of them, while stressing that extraterrestrial life might take no recognizable form.

The narrator described parasitic consciousnesses that infiltrated human minds and warned that humanity had no reliable way to identify or stop them. As the narrator’s own invader grew stronger, he chose to die with it and sent his thought-matrix information to Dardova, while Mei Yiqiu listened in grief.

• The narrator explained that parasitic consciousnesses could occupy bodies, steal memories, and drive out their hosts’ original minds.
• The narrator warned that the parasites had no concern for humanity’s future and might have already possessed people across Earth.
• The narrator admitted that his own parasite had grown powerful enough to control his daily life and decided to perish with it.
• The narrator sent his information to Dardova, whom he trusted to decipher the thought-matrix cipher, and named Silva, Hans, and Mei Yiqiu as others he trusted.
• Mei Yiqiu heard the narrator say his name and covered his face, overcome with emotion beneath his VR headset.

While Ruhua Bar underwent renovations, Qingmu and Boss Coal temporarily worked at Liuying Community’s mental health counseling room. After several quiet weeks, Director Liu brought Qingmu a new client, who recognized him as being “from over there.”

• Bi Shenghua arranged for Qingmu and Boss Coal to work at the community counseling room while the bar was renovated.
• Qingmu settled into the temporary job, while Boss Coal disrupted sessions until Qingmu confined him to the back room.
• Qingmu learned that Professor Mei had stayed in Copenhagen, delaying a chance to discuss his questions with him.
• Hu Xing practiced lucid dreaming without learning how to wake herself, while Xia Tian’s mental health improved and Xia Wenyuan’s brain condition remained unchanged.
• Director Liu brought Qingmu a disheveled man for counseling, and the man said he knew Qingmu was from “over there.”

Director Liu brought Liu Huaian to Qingmu's counseling room and tried to arrange work for him at Ruhua Bar. Liu Huaian insisted he was a double agent from the other side and asked Qingmu to remove an implanted chip, leaving Qingmu unconvinced but curious about him.

• Director Liu told Qingmu about Liu Huaian's family tragedy, long-standing delusions, and failed attempts to find him work.
• Director Liu asked Qingmu to assess Liu Huaian and help place him at Ruhua Bar, then left them to talk.
• Liu Huaian told Qingmu he knew he was from the other side and claimed to be a double agent.
• Liu Huaian asked Qingmu to remove a chip from his back or find its remote control, insisting people from Qingmu's side had implanted chips.

Liu Huaian explained his belief that the internet had become a living intelligence and revealed that he was secretly fighting it. He admitted he had deliberately burned down the supermarket’s server room and hinted he had caused a fire twenty years earlier as well.

• Liu Huaian argued to Qingmu that life’s essence was evolution and claimed the internet had evolved into a living intelligence.
• Liu Huaian said the internet had more than a hundred billion connected endpoints and used humanity’s behavior to evolve while keeping its intelligence hidden.
• Liu Huaian told Qingmu he had discovered the internet’s nerve center and wanted to destroy it, though humans had dismissed his warnings.
• Liu Huaian confessed he had intentionally burned the supermarket’s server room to fight the internet.
• Qingmu asked whether Liu Huaian had also started a fire twenty years earlier.

Qingmu questioned Liu Huaian about his past, and Liu Huaian described being implanted with a surveillance chip and ordered to build a hub in Wuzhong. After Liu Huaian claimed he had burned the internet café and woolen mill to fight AI, Qingmu accused him of deliberately targeting his family and drove a pen into the table beside his hand.

• Liu Huaian recounted how gossip about his father’s flatbread stall drove him to leave home and work in Yangcheng and Shenzhou.
• Liu Huaian said that people had implanted a chip in his back to transmit information and control his body.
• Liu Huaian explained that he had returned to Wuzhong on orders, opened an internet café, and installed surveillance equipment around the area and inside his second uncle’s woolen mill.
• Liu Huaian claimed that his conscience had awakened and that he had become a double agent, then admitted setting fire to the internet café and woolen mill.
• Qingmu accused Liu Huaian of deliberately burning down the mill and trying to kill his second uncle, and Liu Huaian denied it while Qingmu drove a pen into the table beside his fingers.

Qingmu learned more about the fire that killed Liu Huaian’s family and concluded that Liu Huaian had started it, though he had no evidence and doubted the police would reopen the case. After hearing a noodle-shop owner describe the fire and its location, Qingmu went with Boss Coal into the alley where the woolen mill had stood.

• Director Liu told Qingmu that Liu Huaian’s family worked and slept at his second uncle’s woolen mill, which stood beside an internet café that caught fire over twenty years earlier.
• Director Liu said Liu Huaian had been at the café but had gone out for a late-night snack when the fire started, and that the fire killed his parents, second uncle, and several other relatives.
• Qingmu concluded that Liu Huaian had likely set the fire, then built delusions that recast it as a heroic act, but he kept his theories to himself because he had no evidence.
• Qingmu took Boss Coal to a noodle shop and learned from the owner that the fire had killed many people and that the woolen mill had stood near the lane entrance.
• Qingmu and Boss Coal entered the alley where the mill had once stood.

Qingmu followed his instincts to the old farmers’ market, where Liu Huaian set fire to an internet café while trying to destroy what he believed was an AI nerve center. As firefighters recovered bodies from the ruins, Qingmu confronted Liu Huaian and declared that he had come to eliminate him.

• Qingmu patrolled the old farmers’ market with Boss Coal and watched Liu Huaian leave the internet café.
• Liu Huaian returned to the café, mistook a heap of electrical wires for the source of his past torment, and tossed his cigarette butt onto them.
• Liu Huaian left to eat lamb skewers, then heard that the internet café was on fire and watched the blaze spread through Liuying Lane.
• Firefighters battled the blaze through the night, and police cordoned off the charred bodies recovered from the ruins.
• Qingmu approached Liu Huaian and said the organization had sent him to eliminate the traitor.