Chapter Summaries

Ye Jiang left Shuiling Town with the eagle-man and headed back toward City A, while wondering about the Blood Moon marks and the monsters stored in her system. After learning in Z City that people believed the Moon Tree had cured all of Shuiling Town’s residents, she hurried home to Yu Qingyi, who was still working and agreed to let Ye Jiang pick her up later.

• Ye Jiang guessed that the three red lights in her system represented monsters with Blood Moon marks, including Dong Zhen, Shi Li, and a figure she could no longer remember.
• The polluted eagle-man appeared at Shuiling Town, but Ye Jiang calmed it with a touch and rode it away, leaving Shi Li alone on the wall.
• Ye Jiang stopped in Z City to buy calming sachets for Yu Qingyi and overheard people say the Moon Tree had cured every resident of Shuiling Town.
• After the conversation increased her urgency to return, Ye Jiang left Z City and reached City A before dark.
• Ye Jiang found Yu Qingyi absent, messaged her, and learned she would be working until the early morning; Yu Qingyi agreed that Ye Jiang could pick her up.

Ye Jiang remembered the dying wish of the girl whose body she had inhabited and healed Yu Qingyi after a polluter struck her. She left Yu Qingyi to fight the creature, whose body began rotting after Ye Jiang tore out a chunk of it.

• Ye Jiang watched Yu Qingyi leave work, but a colossal spiderlike polluter descended and a piece of rebar pierced Yu Qingyi.
• As Ye Jiang caught Yu Qingyi, her memories returned: four years earlier, her dying host had wished for someone to wish Yu Qingyi a happy birthday and tell her to keep living well.
• Ye Jiang healed Yu Qingyi, apologized for forgetting her birthday, and promised to return after dealing with the polluter.
• Ye Jiang appeared on another street and tore a chunk from the polluter’s chest.
• The polluter howled as its skin and flesh began falling away.

Ye Jiang returned to Yu Qingyi after saving civilians and healing a family, then celebrated Yu Qingyi’s birthday amid the ruins. Yu Qingyi recognized that Ye Jiang was not Tang Su, learned that Tang Su had died, and her ability surged to S rank as something immense descended upon the city.

• Ye Jiang crushed a lump of flesh, killed a spiderlike contaminated creature attacking civilians, and healed the injured owner of a cake shop.
• Ye Jiang brought a small cake back to Yu Qingyi and awkwardly sang the birthday song while Yu Qingyi made a wish that they would stay together forever.
• Yu Qingyi recognized Ye Jiang’s blood-red eyes and asked who she was; Ye Jiang admitted she was an outsider and confirmed that Tang Su had died.
• Ye Jiang told Yu Qingyi that Tang Su wanted her to live well, and Yu Qingyi accepted her friend’s message through tears.
• Yu Qingyi’s words triggered a distortion across the city, and Ye Jiang’s ability panel revealed an unknown S-rank ability as something immense descended.

Ye Jiang accepted that she was a monster and learned that she could not simply return her host’s body to Tang Su. After revealing her identity to Dong Zhen and Shi Li, she asked whether a monster could survive without a human shell, and Shi Li began explaining the rules that bound them.

• Yu Qingyi received an emergency overtime call from the Ability Control Bureau, and Ye Jiang took her to another work site.
• Ye Jiang found Dong Zhen fighting Shi Li and revealed that she was a monster after her eyes briefly turned bloodred.
• Dong Zhen happily accepted Ye Jiang as a fellow monster, while Shi Li realized that Ye Jiang’s strength made sense for one of their kind.
• Ye Jiang asked Dong Zhen whether a monster could leave its host’s body and exist independently, hoping she could return the body to Tang Su.
• Dong Zhen said a monster could survive outside its human shell for only an hour, and Shi Li warned Ye Jiang that the rules made abandoning the shell impossible.

Ye Jiang accepted the Ability Control Bureau’s commendation for destroying an S-rank pollutant and asked to consult its Monster Archives to investigate whether monsters could leave their hosts. She was approved to visit the archives, where she learned that Zhao Yi’s parents had forgotten him and built a happy family with their daughter.

• Shi Li introduced herself as Ye Jiang’s new neighbor, while the noise from next door continued to disrupt the apartment.
• Qin Daichuan delivered a commendation banner and told Ye Jiang the bureau had applied for a cash reward because she had stopped an S-rank pollutant from causing a disaster.
• Ye Jiang asked to exchange the reward for access to the Ability Control Bureau’s Monster Archives, and Qin Daichuan sought approval from headquarters.
• The next day, Qin Daichuan escorted Ye Jiang to the bureau, where she passed Zhao Yi leaving for a mission and noticed he seemed unlike himself.
• Qin Daichuan told Ye Jiang that Zhao Yi had recently found his parents, but they had forgotten him and were living happily with their daughter.

Ye Jiang learned that Rong Yin, the young man she met in Shuiling Town, was monster number 0, then hurried to investigate a mysterious door that swallowed Ability Control Bureau workers. After confirming her friend Yu Qingyi had not been taken, she returned to her apartment and encountered Dong Zhen, her new neighbor.

• Qin Daichuan showed Ye Jiang the Monster Archives, where she found Rong Yin’s file and learned he was monster number 0.
• Qin Daichuan told Ye Jiang that a strange door had appeared in the south of the city and swallowed members of the Logistics Team.
• Ye Jiang went to the scene and tried to approach the door, but Qin Daichuan pulled her back before she crossed its capture range.
• An Ability Control Bureau member confirmed that Yu Qingyi had gone off duty before the incident, so Ye Jiang decided to check on her at home.
• Ye Jiang returned to her apartment and ran into Dong Zhen, who told her he had just moved in next door.

Ye Jiang and Yu Qingyi agreed to keep living together after Ye Jiang invented a reason to stay, while the Ability Control Bureau began investigating a mysterious door that awakened ordinary people. Ye Jiang then met a new monster neighbor and reunited with Invisible Man, who complained that his apartment had been taken over.

• Ye Jiang told Yu Qingyi that Tang Su had asked her to fulfill one of Yu Qingyi's wishes, and used the excuse to remain by her side.
• Yu Qingyi accepted Ye Jiang's offer, and they continued sharing the apartment in a comfortable, undefined relationship.
• The mysterious door returned several Ability Control Bureau logistics workers, who had awakened as ability users despite the absence of a Blood Moon.
• Branch director Shi Tao confirmed the awakenings, but the workers could not describe what had happened inside the door.
• The Ability Control Bureau convened an emergency meeting to discuss whether the door was a third miracle alongside the Blood Moon and Moon Tree.
• Ye Jiang encountered an eight-armed monster claiming to be her new neighbor, then met Invisible Man in the elevator as he complained that others had taken his apartment.

Ye Jiang went to the Ability Control Bureau and was asked to join an exploration mission inside the southern district gate, which might contain the same mysterious origin power as the Blood Moon and Moon Tree. She accepted because she hoped the power could help her leave Yu Qingyi’s body, while the Bureau’s leaders remained troubled about risking her on the mission.

• The Invisible Man failed to reclaim his room from the two bandits and moved into an empty room downstairs, while Ye Jiang left them behind in the elevator.
• Ye Jiang traveled to the Ability Control Bureau, where Qin Daichuan ushered her inside to meet Director Shi Tao, headquarters director Zhu Yi, and other senior staff.
• Zhu Yi passed on Xiao Pei’s regards and said she had put the A-rank item Ye Jiang gave her to use, leaving Ye Jiang puzzled because she did not remember giving Xiao Pei one.
• The Bureau offered Ye Jiang a paid job exploring the southern district gate, and Qin Daichuan explained that it might contain attributeless origin power like the Blood Moon and Moon Tree.
• Ye Jiang accepted the mission, hoping the gate’s power could help her return Yu Qingyi’s body, while Zhu Yi worried that the exploration could put the Bureau’s powerful healer at risk.

Ye Jiang joined an Ability Control Bureau team to explore the mysterious stone door in City A, but she passed through it before the others and disappeared. The team followed her into a vast, empty shopping mall filled with giant cats and windup toys, where Yu Hai searched for his missing colleagues and the healer.

• The Ability Control Bureau recruited Ye Jiang for the door expedition after a precognitive warning said she could turn disaster into good fortune.
• Ye Jiang visited the door, met Shi Li, and reunited with the young man from Shuiling Town, exchanging fruit for an energy willow leaf.
• The bureau assembled an eight-person exploration team led by A-rank ability user Yu Hai and entered the cordon at night.
• The team approached the door without disappearing, but Ye Jiang walked through it and vanished, prompting the others to follow.
• Yu Hai awoke in a huge, brightly lit shopping mall filled with giant gilded cats and windup toys, with Ye Jiang and the other explorers nowhere in sight.

Ye Jiang entered a vast cloud-filled room inside the doors and discovered that she could see City A’s southern district and the people outside, though they could not see her. She settled into a cloud chair, delighted by the room, while Yu Hai encountered the mall’s strange toys and learned that its trapped residents could not escape.

• Yu Hai recognized the mall’s dense energy as similar to the Blood Moon’s source energy and began searching for his colleagues and the healer.
• Yu Hai tried to help a fallen pigeon toy, accidentally broke it, and found it clinging to his shoulder.
• A man revealed that he had been trapped in the mall for ten years and warned Yu Hai that its toys could eat people and were faster and stronger than A-rank ability users.
• Other trapped residents appeared and welcomed Yu Hai as a newcomer who might become the toys’ toy.
• Ye Jiang entered a huge room whose cloud-covered floor and view showed City A’s southern district at the same time as the outside world.
• Ye Jiang discovered that she could see the people outside the doors, but they could not see her, and she created a cloud chair to sit in.

Ye Jiang left the cloud chair and rode an elevator through the mall, where she encountered two strangers and a building-wide toy malfunction. The toys reacted intensely to her presence before she spotted Yu Hai, the Ability Control Bureau exploration squad captain.

• Ye Jiang entered an elevator on the hundredth floor and chose the first-floor button to search for the Ability Control Bureau team.
• Two unfamiliar men boarded on the twelfth floor and argued about whether the mall's dome had moved; Ye Jiang followed them when they left the elevator.
• A big-headed frog toy malfunctioned, and the two men ran as toys across the mall turned toward the elevator and began shaking.
• Ye Jiang calmly examined the mall while the gathered toys stared at her, then looked toward Yu Hai, whom she recognized.
• The toys shook more intensely when Ye Jiang looked at them, then quieted and dispersed after she turned her attention away.

Ye Jiang and Yu Hai discovered that the mall’s elevator separated newcomers by floor and that the supposed veteran guide, Wu Si, was luring them into a trap. After Ye Jiang subdued him, Wu Si revealed that he had entered the door only ten days earlier, leaving Yu Hai to question him further.

• Yu Hai told Ye Jiang about the active door, the mall’s energy, and its man-eating toys, while Wu Si warned them about the strange behavior in the building.
• Wu Si explained that only people who entered on upper floors could see the elevator buttons, then offered to lead Ye Jiang and Yu Hai upstairs.
• Wu Si led them to a shop with a counting goat toy and tried to lure them inside, but Yu Hai grew suspicious and attacked when the lights went out.
• Wu Si turned on Ye Jiang, but she caught his wrist and slammed him into the floor while Yu Hai chose to keep him alive for questioning.
• Wu Si admitted that his name was Wu Si, that he was from T City, and that he had entered the door ten days earlier rather than ten years earlier.

Wu Si revealed that the toy goat was counting down to a deadly game of hide-and-seek and explained how he had tried to make Yu Hai or Ye Jiang take his place. Ye Jiang suggested the toy might judge success differently than humans expected, giving Wu Si hope as the game began and the goat wandered aimlessly around the shop.

• Wu Si told Yu Hai that the toy goat was counting down to a hide-and-seek game in which Wu Si was the mouse, and that touching the goat would transfer the role to someone else.
• Wu Si admitted he had tricked newcomers in hopes of escaping the game and warned Yu Hai that the toys assigned tasks, punishing those they judged to have failed.
• Ye Jiang questioned whether being caught necessarily meant failing the goat's game, and Yu Hai agreed that it was possible the toy's standards differed from human expectations.
• Wu Si recalled a toy rabbit that had accepted a game despite losing, regained hope, and thanked Ye Jiang for her suggestion.
• When the goat finished counting, Wu Si invited it to find him and ran off, while Ye Jiang and Yu Hai watched the goat slowly circle inside the shop.

Ye Jiang and Yu Hai learned how the mall’s residents climbed toward the supposed exit on the ninety-ninth floor, while Ye Jiang revealed she had entered on the hundredth floor. As they prepared to reach the second floor, Wu Si warned them that terrifying contamination had made it inaccessible.

• Ye Jiang carried the goat toy out of its shop, and it quickly caught Wu Si after beginning its game.
• Wu Si explained that residents could only reach higher floors by completing toy tasks and said the mall’s exit was on the ninety-ninth floor.
• Wu Si described Chen Hong, an A-rank ability user who had reached the eighty-eighth floor, as the person most likely to escape.
• Ye Jiang told Yu Hai she had entered on the hundredth floor, but he assumed she was joking.
• Ye Jiang and Yu Hai decided she would go to the second floor while he stayed behind to complete a toy’s task.
• Ye Jiang dragged Wu Si toward the elevator, and he revealed that contamination on the second floor forced people back and had made the floor dangerous.

Ye Jiang went to the mall’s second floor despite Yu Hai’s concerns and encountered three monsters in their true forms. She asked two of them whether they knew how she could leave a human body permanently, but they did not understand her question.

• Wu Si warned Ye Jiang and Yu Hai that people could not reach the second floor because a barrier stopped them and agitated the toys.
• Ye Jiang entered the elevator alone and arrived on the second floor, where she met a long, smoke-like monster called “Noodle.”
• “Noodle” called for his big brother, and “Jellyfish” and “Hole Man” appeared and ordered Ye Jiang to leave.
• Ye Jiang ignored their intimidation and asked “Jellyfish” and “Hole Man” how to leave a human body permanently.
• “Noodle” asked his brothers what Ye Jiang had said, and “Jellyfish” turned to “Hole Man” with the same question.

Ye Jiang confronted three monster brothers on the skybridge, broke free of their attempts to stop her, and tested her strength by knocking them down with a hammer. The chapter then flashed back to 2166, when a high-level monster entered a child’s body and announced plans to destroy the world before a young man confronted him.

• Ye Jiang declared that she was a monster, but the brothers dismissed her and Noodle bound her in a cocoon.
• Ye Jiang’s displeasure caused Noodle to snap apart, and Hole Man accused her of attacking his brother.
• The brothers’ one-hour limit expired, revealing them as children, and Ye Jiang lost interest when they could not help her leave her body.
• Ye Jiang sped past the brothers, returned to strike each of them with a hammer, and left them trembling as they recalled a Slaughter God.
• In 2166, a high-level monster in an eight-year-old child’s body vowed to destroy the world, but a young man arrived and challenged him.

The Slaughter God brought three monsters to a pine-covered mountain, where they became gatekeeping boys and were later sent out to do something for him. At a mall, Ye Jiang completed a wind-up toy’s quest and learned that the three little monsters following her were Numbers 3, 5, and 7; they invited her to help destroy the world.

• A high-level monster recognized the young man as the Slaughter God and was taken to a mountain, where he became its gatekeeping boy.
• Two more monsters descended into human children, declared they would destroy the world, and eventually became gatekeeping boys too.
• The young man sent the three gatekeeping boys away to do something for him.
• Ye Jiang completed a Dalmatian toy’s quest by shaking its paw, and the mall’s other toys gathered around her with requests for attention.
• Ye Jiang confronted the three little monsters, who denied causing the toys’ strange behavior and revealed that they were Numbers 3, 5, and 7.
• The three monster brothers urged Ye Jiang to join them in destroying the world, describing their vision of a human world transformed into a monster nest.

Ye Jiang asked three monster brothers to help find the Ability Control Bureau exploration team, after learning they had once been forced by the Slaughter God to search for the vanished sky. As the brothers agreed to help despite her not being as strong as the Slaughter God, that infamous figure entered the mall through a black hole.

• Ye Jiang questioned the three monster brothers about the Slaughter God, learning he had ordered them to search for the vanished sky and had stopped them from destroying the world.
• Shi Li and Dong Zhen saw a young man with a devouring black hole enter the door and recognized him as the Slaughter God from three hundred years ago.
• The monster brothers described the vanished sky as a supreme existence, but Ye Jiang did not know what it was.
• Ye Jiang asked the monster brothers to help find the scattered members of the Ability Control Bureau exploration team.
• The second monster agreed to help even though Ye Jiang was not as strong as the Slaughter God.

Ye Jiang returned from the second floor after removing its corruption, and Wu Si confirmed the walkway was safe before announcing the news to the people trapped below. Yu Hai learned that the corruption had not come from a corrupted being and feared a monster might still threaten the mall.

• Ye Jiang persuaded three monster brothers to help find seven humans, and they went upstairs by completing a toy’s task.
• Ye Jiang left the second floor when Yu Hai did not arrive, then told the talkative Wu Si that its corruption was gone.
• Wu Si checked the second floor for himself, found it safe, and shouted the news to the people on the first floor.
• Ye Jiang found Yu Hai, who asked whether she had seen the corruption and whether it came from a corrupted being.
• Ye Jiang said it had not, and Yu Hai feared that a monster might have occupied the second floor.

Yu Hai told Ye Jiang about his harmless, unexpectedly humanlike toy task, then learned that the second-floor contamination had vanished and people were seeking tasks to continue home. Ye Jiang revealed that three monsters had caused the contamination and had helped her search for someone, leaving Yu Hai struggling to absorb what happened.

• Yu Hai recounted how a windup pigeon gave him a toy task in which he spent an ordinary day playing its father.
• Two young people told Yu Hai and Ye Jiang that the second-floor contamination was gone, and Ye Jiang fled when they recognized her from rumors.
• Ye Jiang watched stranded people eagerly approach the toys for tasks now that they had hope of going home.
• Yu Hai learned from Ye Jiang that a monster had caused the second-floor contamination.
• Ye Jiang told Yu Hai that three monsters had helped her find someone, then gave him an account of her experiences upstairs.