Chapter Summaries

After a nightmare about the family he killed, Liu Huaian entrusted Qingmu with the money he had saved to support seven disadvantaged students. Liu Huaian later jumped from a building after scattering a confession, and Qingmu learned that State Security had taken his body because it contained a chip.

• Liu Huaian dreamed that a crow tore a chip from his back while the burned victims of his past demanded their lives back.
• Liu Huaian brought Qingmu his savings and asked him to distribute the remaining school funds to seven students when classes resumed.
• Qingmu accepted the request and struggled to calculate and count the money while a crow corrected him.
• Director Liu told Qingmu that Liu Huaian had jumped from a building after scattering copies of a suicide note confessing to starting a fire twenty years earlier.
• Director Liu said State Security had taken Liu Huaian's body after police found a chip in his neck.

As rumors about Liu Huaian's death spread through Liuying Lane, Shi Dazhuang asked Qingmu to help bring his deceased comrade's autistic child from the countryside to Southern Yunnan. Qingmu agreed and prepared to leave the next day, with Bi Shenghua packing money and supplies for him.

• Liuying Lane residents invented conflicting stories about Liu Huaian's money and death, including claims that he had been deceived by a prostitute or worked as a spy.
• Hu Xing and Shi Dazhuang visited Qingmu, and Shi Dazhuang asked him to help persuade his comrade's autistic child to come live with him.
• Shi Dazhuang explained that his comrade had died saving him during their work as narcotics officers in Southern Yunnan, and Qingmu agreed to go with him the next day.
• Qingmu requested leave, informed Bi Shenghua, and arranged for Little Qi and Mo Yu to look after Boss Coal.
• Bi Shenghua packed Qingmu's clothes, added cash to his wallet and backpack, and topped up his phone credit.

Qingmu prepared to travel to Southern Yunnan with Shi Dazhuang while Boss Coal was persuaded to stay behind. Before leaving, Qingmu recognized a forum post’s misleadingly edited letter as one Liu Huaian had written to a student he sponsored.

• Bi Shenghua warned Boss Coal about the examinations, flight arrangements, and dangers of traveling, and the raven lost his enthusiasm for the trip.
• Shi Dazhuang called Qingmu to meet him at Ruhua Bar, and Qingmu said that he and Captain Shi would be going to Southern Yunnan.
• Bi Shenghua showed Qingmu a forum post in which a student accused her sponsor of demanding she become his mistress and cutting off her funding.
• Qingmu recognized the sponsor as Liu Huaian and remembered that the student had received his longest letter of encouragement, which the post had pixelated to make it look threatening.
• When Bi Shenghua asked about sponsoring university students, Qingmu told her to check their character before giving them money.

Mei Yiqiu struggled with the threat of a possible consciousness invasion and the difficulty of teaching humanity the Lester Signature. He received a letter from the vanished genius Situ Xingzhi, whose warning and strange scientific proposal left him shocked.

• Mei Yiqiu returned exhausted from the three-day meeting and worried that the scientists could neither verify the invasion nor reliably teach the Lester Signature.
• Mei Yiqiu doubted that the meeting’s confidentiality agreement would hold and feared falling asleep while the invading consciousness remained a threat.
• Mei Ziqing prepared food for Mei Yiqiu and handed him a letter from a handsome man who had introduced himself as Xingzhi or Situ.
• Mei Yiqiu recognized the sender as Situ Xingzhi, also known as Arthur Stone, a Chinese-American scientific prodigy who had disappeared years earlier.
• Mei Yiqiu read the letter’s warning, “Trust no one!”, and found a proposal for an invisible box that could track human consciousness.

Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang boarded a flight, where Qingmu encountered a woman refusing to leave a first-class seat she had not paid for. The dispute left off as Qingmu claimed the seat and presented a strange slip of paper as his boarding pass.

• Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang left Qingmu’s S.T. Dupont lighter in airport storage after security would not allow it onboard.
• Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang joined the back of the boarding line and passed a fat woman arguing with a flight attendant over an unoccupied first-class seat.
• The fat woman refused to move to her economy seat or buy a first-class ticket, while passengers nearby argued over the dispute.
• Qingmu walked up to the flight attendant, and his presence seemed to calm her and quiet the cabin.
• Qingmu told the fat woman she was sitting in his seat and showed her a crumpled slip of paper as his boarding pass.

Qingmu used a trick to persuade a demanding passenger to leave his first-class seat, but she wound up seated beside him in economy and crowded him. He entered her dream to escape the discomfort, only to find a grotesque fantasy of food and vermin.

• Qingmu convinced the fat woman that his crumpled paper was a special card and directed her toward a nonexistent dining cabin.
• The fat woman went into the lavatory, mistook it for a buffet, and returned to her seat after the plane took off.
• The flight attendant gave Qingmu a blanket, returned his business card with a phone number written on it, and blushed as she spoke to him.
• The fat woman fell asleep beside Qingmu, taking up much of his seat, and dreamed of stuffing herself with food.
• Qingmu entered the fat woman's dream, saw food crawling with cockroaches, maggots, and rats, and quickly withdrew.

Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu traveled to Ruihekou so Shi Dazhuang could honor Yu Gang and take Yu Gang’s daughter, Beauty, away before Yu Gang’s undercover identity became public. After reuniting with his old comrade Peng Jiahu, Shi Dazhuang learned that a suspected drug offender had been sent to the municipal bureau because he seemed mentally ill.

• At Spring City Airport, Shi Dazhuang warned Qingmu about local marijuana use and explained the dangers and sacrifices faced by narcotics officers.
• Shi Dazhuang said Yu Gang’s case had been wrapped up and he needed to take Yu Gang’s daughter, Beauty, away before Yu Gang was publicly recognized as a martyr.
• Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu traveled to Tengchong, then drove to the Ruihekou county narcotics brigade the next morning.
• Shi Dazhuang reunited warmly with Peng Jiahu, who agreed that Beauty should leave Ruihekou once Yu Gang’s identity became public.
• At lunch, Shi Dazhuang praised Qingmu’s interrogation skills, and Peng Jiahu told them a suspected drug offender had been sent to Baoteng for experts to assess because he seemed mentally ill.

Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu traveled through Mangdian on their way to visit Beauty, the daughter of Shi Dazhuang’s fallen comrade Yu Gang. After meeting several madmen in town, they drove to a rugged mountain road and prepared to walk the remaining distance to Kuaziba.

• Peng Jiahu told Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu about a mentally ill drug trafficker who had been released after an assessment, and Shi Dazhuang warned that traffickers might exploit the loophole.
• Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu left Ruihekou and reached Mangdian before nightfall, where Shi Dazhuang explained the town’s history as a drug-trafficking base.
• A madman babbled at Qingmu outside the Mangdian Grand Hotel, and Shi Dazhuang explained that they would visit Beauty the next day.
• Shi Dazhuang got bitten by mosquitoes overnight, while Qingmu woke up untouched and joked that the mosquitoes were dreaming.
• The two men encountered the madman again, and he fought with another madman in the street as children watched and cheered.
• Shi Dazhuang parked outside Kuaziba and prepared to walk the remaining two and a half kilometers with Qingmu.

Shi Dazhuang returned to Kuaziba with Qingmu and told Old Enkun that Yu Gang would be posthumously honored as a martyr, prompting the old man to break down in tears. As Shi Dazhuang prepared to take Yu Meiren away, she bit him and accused him and Qingmu of making her grandfather cry.

• Yusang recognized Shi Dazhuang and ran to tell Grandpa Enkun that he had returned.
• Villagers welcomed Shi Dazhuang, who reunited with Old Enkun and met Yu Meiren.
• Shi Dazhuang explained to Qingmu how Old Enkun had helped end poppy cultivation in Kuaziba.
• Shi Dazhuang admitted he had come to take Yu Meiren away, then told Old Enkun that Yu Gang would be honored as a martyr and moved to the martyrs' cemetery.
• Old Enkun wept at the news, and Yu Meiren bit Shi Dazhuang and called him and Qingmu bad people.

Qingmu tried to reach Yu Meiren, a grieving girl who distrusted everyone because she was bullied for having a supposedly bad father. As Qingmu recited a poem, Yu Meiren remembered her mother and revealed the painful thoughts she had written in her diary.

• Yu Meiren refused to go to the city with Shi Dazhuang and clung to Old Enkun.
• Villagers arrived at Old Enkun's courtyard with food and liquor, and Yu Meiren withdrew into the dark inner room.
• Yu Meiren recalled how classmates and teachers had bullied her for being the daughter of a bad man, even after she wrote an essay admitting her father was bad.
• Qingmu sat beside Yu Meiren and recited the ci poem 'Yu Meiren,' stirring memories of her mother and father.
• Yu Meiren opened her diary and read the lines she had written after her mother's death, saying she wanted to die but stayed alive because she hated her father.

Beauty’s diary recounted her childhood with her mother and her memories of her dead father, amid poverty, drug addiction, illness, and school bullying. After her mother fell gravely ill with AIDS, Beauty cared for her until she died at home holding her father’s photograph.

• Beauty secretly gave candy to a madman, and later ate the chicken her mother had prepared for her dead father’s grave.
• Beauty recalled her father’s drug dealing and abuse of her mother, and worried as her mother continued smoking opium.
• Teacher Luo punished Beauty after a classmate accused her of stealing an eraser, while her classmates bullied her.
• Strangers visited Beauty’s home, and afterward her mother stopped smoking opium but became increasingly ill.
• Beauty asked Grandpa Enkun to find her a new father, and he gave her a fish to make soup for her mother.
• Beauty took her mother to the hospital and brought her home; her mother died holding her father’s photograph.

After her mother’s death, Yu Meiren entered a vision of a spring formed from her tears and nearly jumped into its whirlpool to find her mother. A talkative crow named Boss Coal and its owner Qingmu interrupted her, and Qingmu told her that her father had been a good man.

• Yu Meiren revisited the last page of her diary, and its tearstain transformed into a spring and pool around her.
• Yu Meiren saw a black whirlpool and prepared to jump in, but a large talking crow emerged from the water.
• The crow, Boss Coal, chattered about food and its absent master until Qingmu appeared behind it.
• Qingmu introduced himself and the crow to Yu Meiren, who told them her name.
• Yu Meiren said people had called her father a bad man, and Qingmu and Boss Coal assured her that he had been good.

Yu Meiren relived a memory of her parents through the diary and learned they wanted her to leave with Qingmu, study, and reach university so she could find them. After the vision ended, she called Shi Dazhuang “Uncle,” and he responded with overwhelming tenderness.

• Yu Meiren saw her mother emerge from the pool and told her she was frightened because she could not find her.
• Her mother and father appeared together, and her father revealed he was a police officer and called Qingmu her uncle.
• Yu Meiren resisted leaving with Qingmu, but her mother promised they would wait for her and urged her to grow up and get into university.
• Yu Meiren cried until the vision blurred and vanished, then watched the pool return to the diary and the pages dry.
• Yu Meiren emerged from the inner room holding Qingmu’s hand and called Shi Dazhuang “Uncle,” leaving him stunned and delighted.

At Old Enkun’s feast, Qingmu discovered that a fair-skinned woman serving food had been abducted and was secretly asking for help. After finding her note, he wandered through Kuaziba and came upon another woman desperately crying out from inside a locked house as villagers approached.

• Old Enkun stopped the guests from investigating the screams coming from a room and refused to let anyone take food to its occupants.
• Qingmu noticed Letuolie’s fair-skinned wife seemed despairing and received a bowl of rice from her with a hidden note inside.
• Qingmu deciphered the note as a plea for help from a fellow townsman who had been abducted, then decided to leave the question of rescuing her to Shi Dazhuang.
• Qingmu wandered through Kuaziba and saw a naked, disheveled woman beating the wall and shouting for help from inside a dark house.
• The woman recoiled in fear when footsteps and a loud voice approached behind Qingmu.

Qingmu saw how Old Enkun’s son Lemao’s opium addiction had ravaged him and watched Enkun try to beat the craving out of him. When Lemao begged for another puff, Qingmu took over feeding him and smashed a bowl of hot congee over his face.

• Qingmu returned to Enkun’s house after a woman led him back from the privy, but Shi Dazhuang was too drunk to receive the slip of paper Qingmu carried.
• After Yu Meiren heard Lemao screaming in the west room, Old Enkun called his son unfilial and struck him for smoking opium until Qingmu stopped him.
• Lemao convulsed and begged for opium while Old Enkun insisted he would recover after enduring withdrawal for a couple of days.
• Yu Meiren tried to feed Lemao congee, but he demanded a puff and knocked the bowl askew, scalding her wrist.
• Qingmu took a fresh bowl of congee from Yu Meiren, entered Lemao’s room, and slammed the hot congee over Lemao’s face.

Lemao relived his opium addiction in a vision that made him imagine returning to his mother's womb and starting life over. He awoke tied to a pillar, confessed how he had become dependent on opium, and still begged Qingmu for a puff.

• Lemao resisted the abyss and crawled toward a hole filled with white powder, imagining himself squeezed back into his mother's womb.
• Lemao remembered his mother's warning against opium and wished he could live his life again without touching it.
• Lemao woke tied to a veranda pillar in the west room, where Qingmu untied him and brought him porridge.
• Lemao explained that he had first tried opium out of curiosity and continued smoking to recapture its pleasure and relieve his discomfort.
• Qingmu lit a cigarette, and when Lemao begged for one puff, Qingmu poured the scalding porridge over his face.

Qingmu helped Lemao confront his drug addiction, but Lemao soon suffered another withdrawal episode. After identifying the pale woman as Yang Lijuan, a trafficking victim missing for two years, Qingmu and Shi Dazhuang decided to save her.

• Qingmu said he had only helped Lemao build confidence in quitting, but Lemao began convulsing and Shi Dazhuang had him tied up.
• Shi Dazhuang told Qingmu that he and Yu Gang had worked undercover in a drug trafficking organization and were called rats.
• Qingmu showed Shi Dazhuang the note marked “Wutong 9,” which the pale woman had hidden in his rice.
• Shi Dazhuang searched for a matching missing-person case and learned that the woman was Yang Lijuan, missing from Shenzhou two years earlier.
• Shi Dazhuang declared that they would save Yang Lijuan and headed back.

Shi Dazhuang and Qingmu rescued Yang Lijuan and Xiaoqin from Kuaziba with Yu Meiren, after Old Enkun revealed where Xiaoqin was being held. As they neared Shi Dazhuang’s vehicle, Han Laizi led an armed crowd of villagers to surround them.

• Old Enkun agreed to let Shi Dazhuang take Yang Lijuan and revealed that Han Laizi had kept another woman locked in his woodshed.
• Qingmu returned before dawn with the injured, disoriented Xiaoqin, and Shi Dazhuang wrapped her in a sheet.
• Shi Dazhuang, Qingmu, Yu Meiren, Yang Lijuan, and Xiaoqin left the settlement together.
• Yang Lijuan recognized Xiaoqin and explained how Han Laizi and his family had abused and imprisoned her.
• Han Laizi and a crowd of villagers carrying tools and clubs surrounded the group near Shi Dazhuang’s parked vehicle.

When Kuaziba villagers attacked Shi Dazhuang as he tried to protect Yang Lijuan and another woman, Qingmu intervened and brutally beat the attackers. He left Han Laizi injured on the ground, while Bi Shenghua dismissed a broken double-yolk egg as rotten.

• Han Laizi stirred the Kuaziba crowd against Shi Dazhuang and the two women, and Letuolie threw the baby down after Yang Lijuan refused to return with him.
• Han Laizi led the crowd in attacking Shi Dazhuang, who was wounded while shielding the women and refusing to fight back.
• Qingmu kicked Han Laizi and quickly knocked down the armed attackers, then broke several men's legs.
• Qingmu told Han Laizi he was not a police officer and kicked him in the crotch.
• Bi Shenghua cracked a double-yolk egg, but threw it away after both yolks broke.

After Shi Dazhuang reunited with Meng Yan, the police dealt with Han Laizi and his men, and Meng Yan explained how he had survived being lost in the jungle. Meng Yan declined Shi Dazhuang’s offer to join him in the north, saying he wanted to grow old and die in the mountains.

• Meng Yan recognized Shi Dazhuang, treated his bleeding arm, and learned about the confrontation in Kuaziba.
• Meng Yan ordered Han Bo to investigate, and Han Bo exposed Han Laizi’s false claims and chastised him.
• Meng Yan ordered the groaning men taken to the station and arranged for the uninvolved villagers to return to Kuaziba and be questioned.
• Meng Yan drove Shi Dazhuang, Qingmu, and Yu Meiren back toward the station and told Shi Dazhuang how he had survived a fall into a limestone cave and months lost in the jungle.
• Shi Dazhuang invited Meng Yan to join his criminal investigation squad in the north, but Meng Yan declined and said he wanted to remain in the mountains.