Recaps

Wang Xiaoming recruited the Ghost Tamers to capture growing Ghost Infants for research into the Starvation Ghost Incident, while Yang Jian offered a specimen he had already captured. The group prepared to split into teams, and Yang Jian secured Dachang City’s remaining gold reserves as payment for his supplies.

• Wang Xiaoming explained that Ghost Infants could not be surgically removed and offered rewards to those who captured one.
• He Chuan, Ye Feng, and Zhang Han named their requested rewards, and Wang Xiaoming agreed to their terms with conditions.
• Yang Jian produced a Ghost Infant he had captured and explained that he had pinned it down, but Wang Xiaoming said it was too small for the research he needed.
• Wang Xiaoming sought a third-stage or fourth-form Ghost Infant, warned that Zhou Zheng’s Ghost Infant was especially dangerous, and proposed three teams hunting in separate areas.
• Wang Xiaoming named the case the Starvation Ghost Incident, and Yang Jian negotiated for Dachang City’s remaining gold reserves in exchange for his captured specimen and related items.

Yang Jian's team patrolled Dachang City's eastern district while discussing ghost control and their mission to capture a third-stage Ghost Infant. In the western district, Ye Feng's team encountered an unexplained supernatural disturbance, and the road behind them disappeared into blue-black gloom.

• Yang Jian, Zhang Han, and Sun Yi patrolled the eastern district, and Sun Yi admitted he would mostly scout because he lacked useful abilities.
• Zhang Han explained that delaying a vicious ghost's revival restricted its power, which differed from the human skin paper's method and left Yang Jian uncertain which approach was better.
• Zhao Kaiming urged Ye Feng and He Chuan to consider escaping Dachang City, but Ye Feng refused to flee or help kill Yang Jian unless the situation became irreversible.
• Ye Feng, Zhao Kaiming, and He Chuan entered a silent area, where He Chuan spotted a fleeting human-shaped shadow in an alley.
• Ye Feng turned to leave and found that the road behind them had vanished into blue-black gloom.

Yang Jian dealt with a violent shopkeeper while patrolling, as Ye Feng became trapped on a street where the road had vanished. After an eerie encounter and hearing a Ghost Infant cry, Ye Feng entered an alley that had appeared out of nowhere.

• Yang Jian refused to pay the convenience store owner’s exorbitant price for water, and the owner attacked him with a knife.
• The owner stumbled and dropped his knife; Yang Jian picked it up, and the confrontation fell silent before Yang Jian returned to the car.
• Yang Jian told Sun Yi and Zhang Han that they would keep patrolling their district, while Ye Feng realized he was lost on a street he knew.
• Zhao Kaiming and He Chuan vanished, leaving Ye Feng alone, and an unseen figure left a handprint on his body despite his burial garment.
• Ye Feng heard a Ghost Infant crying and followed the sound into an alley that had not been there before.

Ye Feng became trapped in a dark alley crowded with Ghost Infants and was overwhelmed despite the protection of his funeral shroud. Before the ghosts swallowed him, he spotted something in the haze and sent a text, leaving his fate unknown.

• Ye Feng realized the alley was an inescapable supernatural place, but his ability to bite through a Ghost Domain failed because it was not one.
• Ye Feng found He Chuan's mangled head, and a second-stage Ghost Infant took it from him.
• Ghost Infants poured out of the shops, surrounding Ye Feng as his funeral shroud blocked their grasping hands.
• Ye Feng noticed something in the haze and sent a text before the Ghost Infants submerged him.
• The Ghost Infants disappeared, while Ye Feng was gone and his crushed phone showed that the message had been sent.

After finding no Ghost Infant in the East District, Yang Jian returned home and arranged with Zhang Xiangui to build a gold-plated safe house inside a shelter. A report then came in that Ye Feng and He Chuan had disappeared during a supernatural incident, and Yang Jian was told to attend Professor Wang’s meeting the next morning.

• Yang Jian called off the East District search for the night and agreed to meet Zhang Han and Sun Yi at the stadium the next day.
• Yang Jian showed Zhang Xiangui more than two tons of gold and agreed to build a safe house inside Zhang Xiangui’s shelter, with ownership split seventy-thirty.
• Yang Jian asked Zhang Xiangui to begin construction promptly and arrange daily medical checks for residents, especially for signs of unusual pregnancies.
• Yang Jian told Jiang Yan to account for the gold and supervise construction instead of playing role-playing games with him.
• Liu Xiaoyu informed Yang Jian that Ye Feng and He Chuan had disappeared after encountering a supernatural incident and that Professor Wang would hold a meeting the next morning.

Wang Xiaoming briefed the Ghost Tamers on Ye Feng and He Chuan’s disappearance and the mysterious text message containing only the number 7. He set a seven-day deadline to make progress capturing the third-stage Ghost Infant before everyone investigated the dangerous site where the two had vanished.

• Zhao Kaiming taunted Yang Jian about Ye Feng’s disappearance, and Yang Jian threw a pork bun at him before warning him not to break their agreement.
• Wang Xiaoming showed the group a map of the likely disappearance site and Ye Feng’s final message: 7.
• Sun Yi, Zhang Han, and Zhao Kaiming offered different guesses about the number, while Yang Jian said they should record it but avoid baseless speculation.
• Yang Jian warned that Ye Feng and He Chuan’s deaths could release the ghosts inside them and make the site even more dangerous.
• Wang Xiaoming declared that if the group made no progress capturing the third-stage Ghost Infant within seven days, everyone, including him, would investigate the site.

As Ghost Infant cases multiplied and Dachang City deteriorated, Wang Xiaoming called Yang Jian to a hospital to help investigate the mysterious place he named Seventh Street. The chapter ended as Yang Jian prepared to remove a nearly born Ghost Infant during Wang Xiaoming’s experiment.

• Yang Jian, Zhang Han, and Sun Yi patrolled Dachang City but found no Ghost Infants, and Yang Jian suspected they were hiding.
• Yang Jian agreed with Zhao Jianguo that he could pursue his own plan if Wang Xiaoming made no progress by the seven-day deadline.
• Wang Xiaoming told Yang Jian that Ye Feng’s last known location might be a hidden world called Seventh Street, which he wanted Yang Jian to help locate.
• Wang Xiaoming asked Yang Jian to use his ability to remove a Ghost Infant while mapping Dachang City with his Ghost Domain.
• Yang Jian agreed to try once as a patient with a nearly born Ghost Infant was brought into the operating room.

Yang Jian removed the Ghost Infant from a patient and trapped it in his Ghost Domain after it attacked Wang Xiaoming. Wang Xiaoming explained the known rules of the first two stages and hinted that the third stage’s pattern remained uncertain.

• Yang Jian prepared to extract the Ghost Infant while Wang Xiaoming and his staff watched from the observation room and readied emergency precautions.
• Yang Jian reached into the patient’s abdomen with his ghostly arm and pulled out the struggling Ghost Infant.
• Yang Jian had the patient removed, then released the Ghost Infant as Wang Xiaoming explained that first-stage infants attacked whoever they could see.
• The Ghost Infant shattered the observation-room glass and lunged at Wang Xiaoming, but Yang Jian’s red Ghost Domain trapped it before it could reach him.
• Yang Jian asked Wang Xiaoming what rule governed a third-stage Ghost Infant, and Wang Xiaoming asked whether he wanted to know.

Yang Jian and Wang Xiaoming discussed the Ghost Infant’s stages and Wang Xiaoming’s theory that its third stage killed anyone who heard it. Wang Xiaoming planned to create an opportunity for Yang Jian to imprison it, while Yang Jian tracked its movement toward the northern district.

• Wang Xiaoming explained that the Ghost Infant’s first two stages were triggered by seeing and touching, and conjectured that hearing triggered its third stage.
• Yang Jian compared Wang Xiaoming’s theory with the Ghost Infant’s attacks on him and Wang Shanshan, and judged the third-stage condition likely to be correct.
• Wang Xiaoming identified Yang Jian’s Ghost Domain and second ghost as key to avoiding the Ghost Infant’s conditions and capturing it, and offered to share his research with him.
• Yang Jian used the map in his Ghost Domain to locate the Ghost Infant, which was heading toward the northern district where Ye Feng and He Chuan had disappeared.
• Wang Xiaoming said they would wait longer while the Ghost Infant continued toward its destination.

Yang Jian discovered that a mysterious Seventh Street had invaded his Ghost Domain and that a figure was approaching from within it. He and Wang Xiaoming fled the hospital as the street’s darkness spread, leaving the Ghost Infant incident more dangerous than they had expected.

• Yang Jian located the Ghost Infant near a pharmacy, and Wang Xiaoming prepared to begin first contact and containment.
• Yang Jian sensed a road appear where the Ghost Infant had been wandering and showed Wang Xiaoming the impossible street inside his Ghost Domain.
• Wang Xiaoming warned that the street contained a taboo, but withdrawing Yang Jian’s Ghost Domain did not stop the street or the blue-black aura from filling the hospital.
• Yang Jian spotted the Ghost Infant near the street and saw a humanoid figure approach from deep within it, so he and Wang Xiaoming decided to retreat.
• Wang Xiaoming ordered a hospital evacuation as the figure pushed open the operating room door and the blue-black aura rapidly eroded the hospital.

Zhao Kaiming cared for the bodies of his dead family in a warehouse and vowed to kill Yang Jian, believing he could still reunite them. After his operator reported a supernatural incident at a Dachang City hospital involving Yang Jian and Professor Wang, Zhao Kaiming left to provide support.

• Zhao Kaiming prepared meals for his dead relatives and placed them beside their ice coffins.
• Zhao Kaiming confessed to his mother that he had caused his family’s deaths, then shot a rat that had stolen her dinner.
• Zhao Kaiming burned offerings before twelve memorial tablets and vowed to kill Yang Jian.
• A chilling presence seemed to enter the memorial room, and Zhao Kaiming fired at the wall until bullet holes outlined a human figure.
• Zhao Kaiming’s operator reported that Yang Jian and Professor Wang were caught in a hospital incident and that Sun Yi was already on the way.
• Zhao Kaiming threatened the operator and set out for the hospital.

Wang Xiaoming led Yang Jian and the remaining Ghost Tamers into the ghost-infested hospital to investigate the supernatural incident and search for a way into Seventh Street. The group discovered that the ghost had distorted the hospital’s layout, leaving them trapped in an apparently endless lobby.

• The remaining Ghost Tamers gathered outside the hospital, and Wang Xiaoming confirmed that a ghost had invaded it but said he had no information about its identity.
• Yang Jian prepared the human skin paper, ghost candle, and ghost rope before joining Wang Xiaoming and six other Ghost Tamers in entering the hospital.
• Wang Xiaoming explained that they would retrieve something from his office and rescue patients who might be carrying unborn Ghost Infants.
• The group entered the dark hospital, where screams came from patients left behind during the evacuation.
• Wang Xiaoming counted 176 steps and realized the group was still in the lobby, concluding that the ghost had altered the hospital’s space and route.

Yang Jian and the other Ghost Tamers searched a hospital that Wang Xiaoming suspected was under the Ghost Infant’s influence. When one man kicked open a dark outpatient room, blackish-green arms killed and dragged him inside, leaving the group facing an unknown threat.

• Wang Xiaoming warned that the hospital might have become the Ghost Infant’s Ghost Domain, and the group continued down a corridor with no visible way back.
• Wang Xiaoming reasoned that the hospital’s patients and alarm had gone silent because the ghost had taken over the building and might come looking for them.
• The group found an open orthopedic outpatient room with a motionless shadow at its entrance, but the door shut as they approached.
• A Ghost Tamer kicked open the outpatient room door and saw only darkness before blackish-green arms snapped his neck and dragged him inside.
• Yang Jian barely managed to open his Ghost Eye as the door slammed shut and the others froze.

After a Ghost Tamer died, Yang Jian used the Ghost Candle to reveal that the hospital corridor was lined with dormant Ghost Infants. Someone or something extinguished the candle, and Wang Xiaoming rushed ahead along the route he had seen.

• Zhao Kaiming said the dead Ghost Tamer and Ye Feng had been doomed by the fully revived ghost, while Wang Xiaoming ordered the group to keep moving and avoid the doors.
• Yang Jian told Zhang Han that Wang Xiaoming had used the dead man to test the ghost’s behavior and suspected the bluish-black darkness came from Ghost Infants.
• As Yang Jian’s Ghost Eye succumbed to the darkness, he stopped the group and decided to use the Ghost Candle to find their way.
• The Ghost Candle revealed dormant Ghost Infants standing where the group had thought they saw outpatient clinic doors, but it burned rapidly as the bluish-black aura receded.
• A cold presence blew out the Ghost Candle, and Yang Jian saw Zhao Kaiming’s gloomy face before Wang Xiaoming ran ahead along the route he had identified.

After escaping the hospital’s ghost-filled corridor, Yang Jian suspected an unseen ghost was following Zhao Kaiming and chose to separate from the group. He continued toward the top floor alone as the dormant ghosts in the corridor awakened and scattered.

• Wang Xiaoming warned that ghosts had been released in the hospital and might be trying to conceal the source of the incident.
• Yang Jian reasoned that an unseen ghost was following Zhao Kaiming and insisted on splitting from the group despite their objections.
• Yang Jian left through another stairwell and found that his ghost candle burned slowly, suggesting no ghost was nearby.
• Yang Jian extinguished the candle and hurried toward the top floor while keeping his Ghost Eye suppressed.
• The ghosts in the corridor opened their eyes, began moving, and vanished into the darkness.

Yang Jian took the withered finger from the Ghost Infant in Wang Xiaoming’s office and waited there after hearing no sign of Wang Xiaoming’s group. Meanwhile, Wang Xiaoming’s group studied a second-stage Ghost Infant, but heavy footsteps and an arriving elevator suggested they were being surrounded.

• Yang Jian ran up to the twenty-fourth floor, broke into Wang Xiaoming’s office, and took the withered finger from the boxed Ghost Infant.
• Yang Jian chose to wait in the office rather than descend, listening as ghostly cries and silent footsteps sounded outside.
• Wang Xiaoming’s group encountered a second-stage Ghost Infant and concluded that it would not attack unless someone touched it.
• Zhang Han passed the Ghost Infant without being attacked, and Wang Xiaoming decided to leave it alone and continue onward.
• The second-stage Ghost Infant wandered down the stairs without attacking anyone, but heavy footsteps sounded from several directions as an elevator approached their floor.

Wang Xiaoming and the others were cornered in a hospital ward by a crowd of Ghost Infants, while Yang Jian was away retrieving what Wang needed. The ghosts began forcing their way through the ward’s wall, leaving the group to make a desperate stand.

• Zhang Han and the others heard ghostly footsteps approaching from above and below as Wang Xiaoming explained that they were facing derivative Ghost Infants and led them toward an escape route.
• Dozens of dark figures gathered on the floor and emerged from the elevators, then followed Wang Xiaoming’s group to an empty ward.
• Wang Xiaoming’s group barricaded the ward door and tied bedsheets into a rope while the ghosts gathered outside without attacking.
• Sun Yi noticed the wall turning dark blue, and a dead face and body began pushing through it as more ghostly faces appeared across the wall.
• Wang Xiaoming recognized that the ghost was altering matter, and a Ghost Tamer urged everyone to attack together.

Yang Jian descended through the silent hospital with a ghost candle to reach Wang Xiaoming and the others, finding evidence that several Ghost Tamers had been killed. Wang Xiaoming explained the Ghost Infants’ killing conditions and revealed that a possible source ghost was nearby, leaving Yang Jian to follow him toward it.

• Yang Jian left Wang Xiaoming's office and went downstairs, deciding to make one last attempt to save the group and stop the supernatural incident.
• Yang Jian followed the ghostly footprints toward a dark ward and relit the ghost candle as the darkness suppressed its light.
• A severed arm wearing a gold watch reached through the haze, and Yang Jian realized its owner had been bitten apart and vanished.
• Yang Jian pressed deeper past the lurking figures and bloodstains until Wang Xiaoming emerged into the candlelight.
• Wang Xiaoming told Yang Jian that sound, contact, and sight triggered attacks from third-stage Ghost Infants, second-stage Ghost Infants, and first-stage Ghost Domains respectively, and said a possible source ghost was nearby.
• Wang Xiaoming pointed the way and asked Yang Jian to follow him to find and deal with the ghost.

Yang Jian and Wang Xiaoming returned to the ward restroom, where Sun Yi died from his injuries and Zhang Han remained trapped with a ghost. Yang Jian planned to confront the source ghost with a ghost finger before the Ghost Candle burned out, while warning Zhao Kaiming not to interfere.

• Zhao Kaiming told Zhang Han that Sun Yi was dying and proposed a dangerous way to survive.
• Yang Jian entered with Wang Xiaoming and a Ghost Candle, and he sensed a terrifying presence hidden in the darkness behind Zhao Kaiming.
• Wang Xiaoming said he lacked the medical supplies to save Sun Yi, who died after asking Yang Jian to help with his mortgage.
• Yang Jian said he would trigger a vicious ghost revival and try to pin down the source ghost with the finger he carried.
• Yang Jian warned Zhao Kaiming not to interfere, and Wang Xiaoming urged him to act before the Ghost Candle went out.

With Dachang City isolated under an S-class Starvation Ghost Incident, Yang Jian began a desperate plan to survive and confront the source ghost. He withdrew his Ghost Candle protection and prepared to release his suppression of the ghost shadow, leaving the outcome uncertain.

• Outside Dachang City, Li Jun and Zhao Jianguo discussed the deaths inside, the professor’s peril, and Yang Jian’s final attempt to resolve the incident.
• Wang Xiaoming explained that the source ghost would attack first once the Ghost Candle went out, then extinguished it to conserve the remaining candle for Yang Jian’s escape.
• As the gloom and ghostly footsteps returned, Wang Xiaoming sent Zhang Han to assist Yang Jian and used his own life to keep Zhao Kaiming in check.
• Zhao Kaiming privately believed the others would die and that he and his family would be the only survivors.
• Yang Jian told Zhang Han to enter his Ghost Domain and help suppress the ghost shadow, then began withdrawing his Ghost Eye to gamble on the resulting loss of control.

Yang Jian unleashed his Ghost Domain to isolate the hospital’s ghosts while his Ghost Eyes began reviving, gambling that the source ghost would appear. It arrived and blocked his attempt to pin it down, leaving Yang Jian face-to-face with Ye Feng’s corpse.

• Yang Jian opened more Ghost Eyes as third-stage Ghost Infants converged, and the revival began spreading a scarlet Ghost Domain.
• The Headless Ghost Shadow attacked Yang Jian, but Zhang Han pinned it down with the scarlet hands emerging from his back.
• Yang Jian swallowed a Ghost Eye and expanded his Ghost Domain to a thousand meters, isolating the hospital’s ghosts.
• A sinister presence entered the Ghost Domain and placed a cold hand on Yang Jian’s shoulder.
• Yang Jian stabbed at the newcomer with the shriveled finger, but its longevity-printed garment stopped the attack, and he recognized Ye Feng’s corpse.

Yang Jian faced the fourth-stage Ghost Infant wearing Ye Feng’s burial clothes and used the last of his ghost candle to stab it with a withered finger. The ghost stopped moving, but Zhang Han was still being strangled by his own out-of-control ghost.

• Yang Jian recognized the figure resembling Ye Feng as the fourth-stage Ghost Infant, which opened its mouth and tore through his Ghost Domain.
• Zhang Han warned Yang Jian that they could not win as the ghost shadow began controlling him.
• Yang Jian lit his last ghost candle, but the Ghost Infant bit off much of it.
• Yang Jian used the candle’s suppression to stab the Ghost Infant in the throat with the withered finger, and it stopped moving.
• Zhang Han called for help as his own hands and the bloody ghost hand strangled him, and Yang Jian rushed to intervene.

Yang Jian and Zhang Han restrained the ghost wearing Ye Feng’s appearance and sealed its corpse in a Gold Box, though the burial robe remained dangerous to remove. Yang Jian found Wang Xiaoming alive but discovered that Zhao Kaiming had disappeared, and planned to leave before his Ghost Domain failed.

• Yang Jian transferred five Ghost Eyes into the ghost shadow, pinning it down and freeing Zhang Han from its grasp.
• Yang Jian and Zhang Han moved Ye Feng’s corpse, but its hand twitched when they tried to remove the burial robe, so they fastened it again.
• Yang Jian and Zhang Han placed Ye Feng’s corpse in the Gold Box and closed it to contain the ghost.
• Yang Jian used his Ghost Eyes to find Wang Xiaoming alive beside Sun Yi’s corpse in the bathroom.
• Yang Jian realized Zhao Kaiming had disappeared and decided to take Wang Xiaoming and leave before his Ghost Domain failed.

Yang Jian, Wang Xiaoming, and Zhang Han escaped as a terrifying force overwhelmed Yang Jian’s Ghost Domain, but the source ghost remained beyond their reach and their plan had failed. They left the hospital without the special box, with no remaining means to stop the Starving Ghost.

• Yang Jian told Wang Xiaoming that he had temporarily dealt with the ghost inside Ye Feng but had not found the source ghost, and Wang Xiaoming concluded that a fourth-stage Ghost Infant existed.
• Wang Xiaoming explained that breathing the gloom marked people for fourth-stage Ghost Infants, which grew by eating ghosts, and warned that the city’s residents were vulnerable.
• Yang Jian spotted a vast tide of gloom advancing from the operating room and used his Ghost Domain to take Wang Xiaoming and Zhang Han to a rooftop several hundred meters away.
• The special box was left behind when the transfer failed, and they saw a bluish-black hand holding it outside the hospital ward.
• Wang Xiaoming said their final chance had been wasted and that they had no means left to approach or restrain the source ghost, so Yang Jian agreed they had to leave.

After the operation failed, Yang Jian brought Zhang Han and Wang Xiaoming to Guangjiang Residential Area, where he planned to wait out the Ghost Infant incident in a safe house under construction. He also agreed to shelter Wang Shanshan and her parents, whose unexpected arrival revealed that Wang Shanshan could see strange scenes connected to Yang Jian.

• Yang Jian used his Ghost Domain to take Zhang Han and Wang Xiaoming back to Guangjiang Residential Area after abandoning his car.
• Yang Jian offered Zhang Han a villa for his family and brought Wang Xiaoming to his home to prepare a report.
• Yang Jian and Wang Xiaoming discussed the safe house, Yang Jian's resentment over Wang Xiaoqiang, and Wang Xiaoming's offer of a newly developed product if they survived.
• At Yang Jian's villa, Jiang Yan explained that Wang Bin, Wang Haiyan, and Wang Shanshan had arrived and waited for him.
• Wang Shanshan said she had seen Yang Jian's home in strange scenes, while the scarlet eye mark on her arm had grown clearer.
• Wang Bin asked Yang Jian to protect his family, and Yang Jian agreed to arrange a place for them to stay.