Recaps

Yang Jian confronted Li Yue and his companions after finding them digging for the corpse buried in his family’s woods. Li Yue revealed that a letter had led them there, but warned Yang Jian that only a messenger could read it.

• Li Yue led three companions into the woods and found the cabin and the shallow-buried red box, which contained no corpse.
• Li Yue recognized fresh footprints and suspected Yang Jian had already taken the corpse.
• Yang Jian appeared with the body bag and demanded to know why the group had come for the corpse.
• One man threatened Yang Jian with a handgun, but Li Yue stopped him and introduced himself.
• Li Yue recognized Yang Jian as the Dachang City Manager and said a letter had sent them to the woods.
• Li Yue showed Yang Jian a new-looking yellow envelope and said Yang Jian could not read it because he was not a messenger.

Yang Jian confronted Li Yue and the other couriers over a letter they feared losing, then attacked them after learning they served a ghostly force. He killed the gunman who shot him with a finger-bone weapon and prepared to continue the fight.

• Yang Jian demanded the letter from Li Yue, while Li Yue insisted that losing it would bring a fatal ghost attack.
• Li Yue explained that the couriers were forced to deliver strange letters, and Yang Jian decided they posed a danger to others and should be killed.
• The armed man fired a finger bone at Yang Jian, opening a small wound that quickly healed.
• Yang Jian crushed the finger bone and killed the gunman by snapping his neck with a blackened hand.
• Yang Jian dismissed the couriers' weapon as inadequate against a real ghost and continued confronting them.

Yang Jian took the cursed letter from Li Yue and opened it despite warnings, triggering strange changes in the forest as a ghost approached. The letter’s final warning alerted him that the ghost was already beside him, and he scanned the darkness for it.

• Yang Jian prepared to kill Li Yue and the other two messengers, but stopped when Li Yue warned that the letter would disappear if he died.
• Li Yue handed Yang Jian the unopened letter and explained that messengers were forbidden to read it because readers had died.
• Yang Jian opened the envelope and read warnings that the reader would be killed by a vicious ghost and that the ghost was coming.
• The forest darkened and grew unnaturally cold as Li Yue and the others prepared to survive the approaching danger.
• Yang Jian read the letter’s final line—“The ghost is right beside you”—then crumpled the paper and searched the forest with the Ghost Eye.

Yang Jian and the others waited in the dark woods as an unseen ghost moved among the trees. The ghost appeared beside Zhou Lin and Zhao Li, stopping less than half a meter away without them noticing.

• Yang Jian noticed Ghost Eye's vision was obstructed and concluded a nearby ghost was moving through the woods.
• Yang Jian reasoned that the letter might have summoned the ghost, while Li Yue stayed still inside the ash-covered area for protection.
• The ghost approached Zhou Lin as Zhao Li heard footsteps and warned him that someone was behind them.
• A dirt-covered ghost appeared half-hidden behind a tree beside Zhou Lin and Zhao Li, then stopped as the wind died down.

Yang Jian tracked the ghost through the woods as it attacked Zhou Lin, who fired his last bone bullet and then fled. After Zhou Lin died, the ghost emerged through his corpse and tried to touch Yang Jian, leaving Yang Jian wary of a possession that could disrupt the balance of ghosts inside him.

• Yang Jian sensed the ghost had stopped moving and searched the woods while it stood behind Zhou Lin and Zhao Li.
• Zhou Lin smelled the ghost, felt something touch his neck, and fired his last special bullet, but the shot struck a tree.
• Yang Jian approached after hearing the gunshot, and Zhou Lin ran as the ghost began moving again.
• Yang Jian saw the ghost clinging to Zhou Lin's back, then watched Zhou Lin fall and die before reaching him.
• Zhou Lin's corpse turned its dirt-covered face and reached toward Yang Jian, who escaped with Ghost Domain and feared the ghost could invade living bodies.

Yang Jian survived the ghost summoned by the letter and let Li Yue, Zhao Li, and Zhou Lin leave Dachang City, secretly warning Li Yue that the ghost was inside one of them. After they crossed the city boundary, Li Yue discovered the ghost had possessed Zhou Lin.

• Yang Jian sent the Headless Ghost Shadow toward the fallen Zhou Lin, but the supernatural disturbance faded and Zhou Lin suddenly revived.
• Yang Jian withdrew the ghost shadow, questioned Li Yue about the messengers and their post office, and learned that opening a delivered letter could make someone a messenger.
• Yang Jian allowed Li Yue, Zhao Li, and Zhou Lin to leave Dachang City, warning them not to return and giving Li Yue a note to open after they had left.
• After the three drove beyond Dachang City, Li Yue opened the note and read that the ghost was inside the other man.
• Li Yue looked at Zhou Lin in the rearview mirror and saw that half of his face was an unfamiliar, deathly pale likeness, while Zhao Li remained unaware.

Yang Jian investigated a village death and concluded that Lin Xiaoxi had killed herself after being hunted in a supernatural dream. He left the scene believing Xiao Yuan had survived the nightmare for reasons he did not understand.

• Yang Jian returned to the village, secured the corpse parts he had found, and learned Jiang Yan had not dreamed during the night.
• Yang Jian and Jiang Yan learned that Xiao Yuan was suspected of killing someone, then went to her family’s house.
• Yang Jian entered the house and found Lin Xiaoxi’s decapitated body on the third floor, with a bloodied knife in her hand.
• Yang Jian concluded Lin Xiaoxi had been affected by the dream ghost and had killed herself, clearing Xiao Yuan of the apparent murder.
• Yang Jian left the house as the victim’s family argued with the gathered villagers, and told Jiang Yan that Lin Xiaoxi had been the killer.

Yang Jian questioned Xiao Yuan about the nightmare, then stopped Lin Hui from attacking her after Lin Xiaoxi's death. When investigators judged the death a likely suicide, Yang Jian paid Lin Hui five million to settle the matter privately, leaving the village with a new nickname for him: Boss Yang.

• Yang Jian questioned Xiao Yuan about the nightmare, but she blamed herself for separating from Lin Xiaoxi and seemed unable to recall events clearly.
• Lin Hui rushed into the house and tried to strike Xiao Yuan with a stool, but Yang Jian stopped him with a ghostly hand and warned him not to attack.
• Yang Jian offered Lin Hui compensation and said Xiao Yuan had not killed Lin Xiaoxi, while Jiang Yan explained Yang Jian's authority in Dachang City.
• Two investigators arrived and gave a preliminary determination that Lin Xiaoxi had died by suicide, pending the autopsy report.
• Yang Jian agreed to a private settlement of five million, and Lin Hui accepted the money and left; villagers began calling Yang Jian Boss Yang.

Yang Jian searched his family’s old house for clues about his father and discovered signs that the strange nightmare might be affecting reality. He concluded that the dream ghost could be an unsolvable threat and considered leaving the area.

• Yang Jian agreed to lend his relatives money for a new house, provided they signed an IOU.
• Yang Jian found an old family photograph in which his father appeared corpse-like, suggesting he had changed before dying in a car accident.
• Yang Jian heard footsteps above and found the door to the room containing his father’s portrait open, though he could detect no abnormality.
• Yang Jian connected the footsteps and other local incidents to the ghost in his nightmare, which he suspected was beginning to affect reality.
• Yang Jian decided he might have to leave the old home the next morning because the dream ghost seemed impossible to contain.

Yang Jian kept watch in Meishan Village, but an unfamiliar voice calling his name pulled him and Jiang Yan into a supernatural nightmare. The nightmare had transformed the village and drawn many villagers into it, leaving Yang Jian to suspect the dismembered corpse was connected.

• Yang Jian remained in the old house while Jiang Yan reported lending several million to his relatives, and he warned her that danger might strike the village overnight.
• At around one in the morning, an unfamiliar man called Yang Jian's name, and the room and village abruptly changed into their old, shabby forms.
• Yang Jian realized the voice had triggered another nightmare despite his being awake, and Jiang Yan emerged after hearing what she believed was Yang Jian calling her downstairs.
• Yang Jian told Jiang Yan that a ghost had called her name, and she saw that the village around them had changed.
• Villagers came out of their houses after hearing voices call their names, and Yang Jian suspected the nightmare's spread was connected to the dismembered corpse he had touched.

Yang Jian searched the nightmare village for the ghost while trying to keep Jiang Yan safe and stop Xiao Yuan from killing villagers indiscriminately. After a scream led Xiao Yuan into a trap, Yang Jian chased after her, while the ghost emerged from hiding and blended into the crowd.

• Yang Jian explained to Jiang Yan that dying in the nightmare meant dying in reality, then ordered her to lock herself in a room while he searched for the ghost.
• Yang Jian found villagers gathered in the open area and stopped Xiao Yuan from killing one of them, warning that her approach would cause chaos and many deaths.
• A scream drew Yang Jian and Xiao Yuan to a dead villager, and Yang Jian found a steel bar to use as a weapon.
• Yang Jian realized the scream had come from the ghost, not the corpse, and that the bloody footprints had likely lured Xiao Yuan into danger, so he hurried after her.
• After Yang Jian left, a pale-faced figure stepped out of a nearby house, changed into an ordinary villager, and silently blended into the crowd.

Yang Jian and Xiao Yuan tried to find the ghost killing villagers in Meishan Village, but it lured Yang Jian out of the village and into the woods. There, the figure turned around and revealed the face from Yang Jian’s father’s portrait.

• Yang Jian realized Xiao Yuan had not been attacked and questioned why the ghost would enter the village, but Xiao Yuan did not remember telling him about it.
• Yang Jian and Xiao Yuan found several villagers dead, and Yang Jian concluded the ghost had been hiding in the crowd while its bloody footprints misdirected them.
• Yang Jian heard familiar leather-shoe footsteps and chased the figure when it began leaving the village, while Xiao Yuan stayed behind.
• Yang Jian followed the figure along a muddy road toward the woods where a corpse had been found and prepared to attack it with a rusty steel rod.
• The figure turned to face Yang Jian, revealing the face in his father’s portrait and making Yang Jian wonder whether his dead father had been a ghost.

Yang Jian met an incomplete memory of his dead father inside the nightmare and learned how the ghost, its scattered body, and Old Qin’s supernatural bus were connected. The man led him to a wooden house and revealed a black wolfhound that could potentially replace the ghost as the nightmare’s source.

• Yang Jian questioned the man who resembled his father, and the man explained that he was an incomplete ghost bearing his father’s memories, left behind after his death.
• The man told Yang Jian that he had died after a failed attempt to control a fierce ghost, and explained that Old Qin had used the supernatural bus to knock the nightmare ghost into dormancy.
• The man explained that the ghost’s body had been divided and hidden in three places to keep it wandering, but Yang Jian’s discovery and handling of the corpses had broken that balance.
• Yang Jian learned that one of the two heads belonged to the ghost and the other to the man, whose head had allowed him to appear in the nightmare.
• The man led Yang Jian through the expanding forest to an unchanged wooden house, where he stroked a black wolfhound and said it could replace the ghost as the nightmare’s source if Yang Jian succeeded.

Yang Jian learned that his father planned to replace the nightmare’s ghost with a large black wolfhound, using the corpse in reality to make the plan possible. After leaving the woods, Yang Jian returned to the village as the nightmare grew darker and began searching for the ghost.

• Yang Jian’s father told him to mark the ghost’s corpse with supernatural power, piece it back together, and keep it from waking until it rotted.
• Yang Jian learned that the father intended for the large black wolfhound to tame the ghost and eventually become the nightmare’s source.
• Yang Jian questioned whether he could trust his father, but his father insisted there was only one chance and sent him away.
• Yang Jian left the woods and returned to the village, where the nightmare had darkened and the ghost had killed more people.
• Yang Jian began searching the empty village for the ghost and hoped Xiao Yuan had made progress.

Yang Jian encountered two Jiang Yans in the village nightmare and attacked them to expose the ghost. The ghost fled into the ancestral hall and disappeared among a crowd of villagers, leaving Yang Jian trapped inside with it.

• Yang Jian found Jiang Yan wounded in an alley, but remained unsure whether she was the real Jiang Yan or the ghost in disguise.
• Yang Jian spotted another Jiang Yan at the ancestral hall and realized one of the two had to be the ghost.
• Yang Jian stabbed the wounded Jiang Yan, then pursued the other Jiang Yan when she tried to flee.
• The ghost escaped into the ancestral hall and vanished among twenty or thirty villagers.
• Yang Jian shut and bolted the ancestral hall doors, determined to find the ghost among the crowd.

In the supernatural nightmare, Yang Jian pursued the ghost into the ancestral hall and tried to identify it among the villagers. He spotted it by the entrance and attacked, then woke in the old house wondering whether he had killed it.

• Jiang Yan lay wounded after Yang Jian stabbed her, while Yang Jian locked the ancestral hall doors and searched for the ghost among the villagers.
• Yang Jian warned the villagers that a ghost had entered and was killing people in their dreams, but Yang Hai challenged him, so Yang Jian stabbed him and ordered everyone to cooperate.
• The villagers identified Zhang Fen as the likely ghost, leaving Yang Jian unsure whether she was his real mother or another deception.
• Yang Jian remembered that the ghost had hidden in an overlooked corner before, turned toward the entrance, and spotted an unfamiliar villager standing by the door bolt.
• Yang Jian charged the villager and repeatedly stabbed it, but the nightmare vanished during his next strike and he woke kneeling in the old house at 1:30 a.m.

After escaping the nightmare, Yang Jian marked and reassembled the separated corpse to interfere with the ghost’s recovery. The complete ghost briefly revived, but Yang Jian suppressed it with the ghost hand.

• Yang Jian told Jiang Yan that he was leaving to deal with a ghost and asked her to contact Zhang Hua about the village after dawn.
• Yang Jian found his father’s head rotting beside the separated corpse and realized the nightmare’s influence was changing it.
• Yang Jian used the sinister hatchet to carve an X-shaped mark into the corpse’s hand, accepting the hatchet’s curse as his own wounds healed but left scars.
• Yang Jian used the ghost shadow to reassemble the corpse, which became a complete ghost and then closed its eyes as his father’s head decayed further.
• The corpse sat up and opened its eyes, but Yang Jian slammed the ghost hand onto its head and forced its eyes shut again.

Yang Jian kept the corpse’s eyes closed with his ghost hand, allowing it to decay while his father’s plan unfolded inside the nightmare. The ghost became trapped in an endless cycle of being killed by the wolfdog, weakening its control as the dog moved toward replacing it.

• Yang Jian suppressed the corpse’s head, placed the body in the car, and maintained his grip as it began to rot.
• Villagers woke from the nightmare, and at least twenty or thirty people who had died in it committed suicide in reality.
• Yang Jian’s father faded away in the forest cabin after entrusting the fight to the wolfdog.
• The wolfdog attacked and killed the ghost, but the suppressed corpse kept the nightmare from ending and forced the ghost into another day.
• The wolfdog repeatedly killed the ghost in successive nightmares, gradually weakening its control and advancing the father’s plan to replace it.

Yang Jian kept the suppressed corpse under watch while Xiao Yuan visited and the villagers demanded compensation for those who died in the nightmare. He refused to pay them, ordered them to apologize to Jiang Yan and Zhang Fen, and let Zhang Hua’s people handle the growing conflict as they arrived in Meishan Village.

• Yang Jian warned Xiao Yuan not to touch the corpse, and she briefly said its face looked familiar before leaving.
• Jiang Yan called Yang Jian because villagers had surrounded her and Zhang Fen to demand compensation.
• Yang Jian told Zhang Hua the village needed cleanup and extra personnel because many people had died and conflicts had arisen.
• Yang Jian refused the villagers’ compensation demand and required them to apologize to Jiang Yan and Zhang Fen first.
• After the villagers refused and one woman damaged his car with a brick, Yang Jian denied them compensation and said he could have them charged with extortion.
• Zhang Hua’s personnel arrived in Meishan Village as Yang Jian faced the villagers.

Yang Jian turned away the villagers demanding compensation while investigators arrived to handle the supernatural incident and its aftermath. He ordered files retrieved for his father and cousin, named the Meishan Village case Ghost Dream, and arranged compensation for families who had stayed away as he continued suppressing the corpse.

• Yang Jian refused the villagers' demands for compensation, and Hu Kai arrived with investigators to take charge of the scene.
• Yang Jian ordered the villagers removed and isolated, then fired a shot to stop one woman from approaching him and the corpse beside him.
• Hu Kai recognized that the corpse might be a ghost, sealed off the village entrance, and ordered his team to take everyone away.
• Yang Jian asked Hu Kai to retrieve his father's file and his cousin Liang Yuan's file, and told him to send the Meishan Village incident file to Zhang Hua under the codename Ghost Dream.
• Yang Jian told Jiang Yan to compensate five million to each family whose members had died but had not come to demand money, then continued suppressing the decaying corpse.

Yang Jian investigated why his cousin Xiao Yuan had no records and found an old file for a woman named Yang Yuanyuan who looked exactly like her and had died forty years earlier. He suspected supernatural power had created Xiao Yuan as an anomaly, while the ghost he was suppressing continued to decay and rain gathered overhead.

• Hu Kai told Yang Jian that Xiao Yuan had no official records, then searched Meishan Village’s old records at Yang Jian’s request.
• Jiang Yan returned after compensating the remaining households, and Yang Jian sent her home while Hu Kai brought back an old file.
• Yang Jian found that Yang Yuanyuan, his father’s cousin, looked exactly like Xiao Yuan and had died by drowning forty years earlier.
• Yang Jian suspected his father had used supernatural power to create Xiao Yuan and alter people’s memories, but realized the remaining clues about his father were lost.
• Hu Kai left most of his personnel in Meishan Village on duty, while the corpse Yang Jian was suppressing decayed rapidly and dark clouds gathered overhead.

As Yang Jian watched the suppressed corpse in the rain, a vicious ghost began invading reality through a puddle and approached him unnoticed. Xiao Yuan arrived carrying a blade, and her approach seemed to provoke the emerging ghost, which was still struggling to escape the water.

• Yang Jian kept watch over the decaying corpse beside the vehicle as rainwater pooled around him.
• A pale reflection of Yang Jian moved in the puddle, and a ghost slowly emerged from beneath the water.
• Yang Jian noticed a hooded figure on the road and recognized her as Xiao Yuan, who said she was looking for someone.
• Yang Jian urged Xiao Yuan to go home and give up carrying a knife, but she continued toward him.
• As Xiao Yuan drew closer, the ghost in the puddle struggled more violently to emerge.

Yang Jian discovered that a ghost from his first nightmare had followed him into reality to continue its delayed attack. As the ghost kept reappearing, he tried to identify how to stop it while maintaining suppression of the corpse.

• Xiao Yuan warned Yang Jian that a figure was hiding near him, and the Ghost Eye revealed traces the ghost had left on the vehicle.
• Yang Jian saw a shadow resembling himself appear behind him, but the Ghost Shadow's counterattack missed as the figure vanished.
• Xiao Yuan explained that the ghost's attack had been delayed after invading its victim's body, and Yang Jian realized the first nightmare's attack had never ended.
• Yang Jian reasoned that the nightmare could accumulate ghosts across successive nights, creating an apparently endless cycle of attacks.
• The ghost reappeared beside Yang Jian and advanced, while he refused Xiao Yuan's offer of help and searched for a way to counter it without releasing the corpse or using the hatchet.

Yang Jian discovered that the nightmare ghost used water as a medium to attack him, then lured it into the rain and killed it with a service pistol. He ended the rain with his Ghost Domain, but remained wary that other nightmare ghosts might use water to invade.

• Yang Jian inferred that rainwater was the medium allowing the nightmare ghost to attack him and confirmed it by stepping out of the rain to block its approach.
• Yang Jian called Hu Kai for an ordinary gun, then deliberately stood in the rain and shot the ghost repeatedly until it vanished.
• Yang Jian told the case officers the danger was over, while Cousin inspected the water and asked about his weapon.
• Yang Jian worried that ghosts from later nightmares might also invade through water, so he used his Ghost Domain to disperse the rain and remove standing water across the area.
• The case officers witnessed the sudden change in the weather and realized Yang Jian's Ghost Eye had caused it.

Yang Jian defeated the ghost attack, kept watch as the corpse decayed beyond half, and arranged to seal it in a coffin. He planned to wait in his hometown for the corpse to rot away completely and for the dog tied to the larger plan to come find him.

• Yang Jian dispersed the rain and clouds with his Ghost Domain, then watched Xiao Yuan leave while wondering about her true identity.
• On her way home, Xiao Yuan stopped to smile eerily, revealed bluish marks on her skin, and later returned to sleep in the bed where Lin Xiaoxi had died.
• The night passed without further incidents, and Jiang Yan brought Yang Jian breakfast the next morning.
• Yang Jian realized the corpse’s eyes had rotted away after its decay passed halfway, preventing it from waking unless someone gave it new eyes.
• Yang Jian ordered a wooden coffin, placed the corpse inside, and decided to stay in his hometown until it rotted away completely.