Chapter Summaries

Chief Ren watched a Nine-Tailed Fox appear in an MMD video and realized the footage showed a lifelike version of her. Meanwhile, Ren Suo’s Explorer was cornered by monsters in a garden and prepared to use an item from his backpack.

• Chief Ren secured his underground room against observation and spent his rest period browsing games and videos.
• Chief Ren opened a popular MMD featuring the Nine-Tailed Fox and saw her appear on-screen to confront him.
• Chief Ren replayed the Nine-Tailed Fox’s appearance and was shocked by how lifelike her image, movements, and voice were.
• The Explorer broke free of the Treant’s bindings and charged the monsters with blazing flames, but they overwhelmed him.
• Ren Suo selected the Explorer’s backpack as the Explorer declared that his fate was his own.

Ren Suo equipped the Explorer with Flight Boots, helping him defeat the weed monsters and earn a flower that could protect him from Niu Niu. Meanwhile, Dai Yuxing investigated a video apparently visited by the Nine-Tailed Fox and asked the website to prepare a contest to attract the attention of the Immortal Palace and the World Tree.

• Ren Suo switched the Explorer to Storm Control and equipped him with Flight Boots, allowing him to outrun and destroy the weed monsters.
• The Explorer shared afternoon tea with a little girl, who asked him to pass a message to her parents and gave him a flower to keep Niu Niu from attacking him.
• Ren Suo sent the Explorer onward with the flower and went to sleep.
• Dai Yuxing questioned the bullet-comment website's person in charge about a video anomaly linked to the Nine-Tailed Fox and told him not to block the video.
• Dai Yuxing asked the website to prepare a contest that would draw the attention of the Immortal Palace and the World Tree, with the Food God featured prominently.

Ren Suo updated his cultivation status at the Countermeasures Bureau and learned that Yu Kuangtu had secretly advanced to the Third Cycle. He purchased several new spells through the Law Net, then discovered that the Seeker had stopped searching after reporting that the flowers had withered.

• Ren Suo told Li Dan he had reached the Second Cycle, and Li Dan confirmed his advancement while admitting he was struggling to cultivate amid the Bureau's workload.
• Ren Suo revealed that Yu Kuangtu was already a Third Cycle Cultivator and had hidden his advancement by avoiding the hospital and taking leave.
• Ren Suo updated his status through the Law Net and spent Spirit Stones on Swift Step, Ghostly Swift Step, Surgical Thread, and Pain Relief Therapy.
• Ren Suo chose Gauze Robe as his final available Second Cycle spell and received the purchased spells through the Law Net Instrument.
• Ren Suo checked Ahead High-Energy and saw that the Seeker had stopped searching after reporting that the flowers had withered.

Ren Suo watched the Explorer survive the Death God Cow and accept dinner at Hunter’s house, where an army of animated collectibles overwhelmed him. The Explorer used defective Rinnegan Contact Lenses to reflect their attacks and destroy them.

• The Explorer used the little girl’s flower to survive the Death God Cow’s attack, then went to mooch dinner from Hunter.
• The Explorer discovered Hunter’s house was filled with figures, dolls, robots, and statues, which all awakened and attacked him.
• The attacking collectibles inflicted a flood of effects that locked the Explorer in place and sent him flying.
• Ren Suo used the Explorer’s Three Tomoe Eyes to negate the drawbacks of the Rinnegan Contact Lenses.
• The Explorer put on the lenses, reflected the collectibles’ attacks back at them, and shattered them.

Ren Suo guided the Explorer through a battle with the living room figures and a visit to Dragonborn’s bedroom, where the Explorer narrowly avoided a clothing trap. Dragonborn shared an emotional message for his mother, then played cards with the Explorer as Ren Suo considered the Explorer’s growing powers.

• The Explorer defeated the dolls, statues, and robot while the room’s protective film kept the furnishings intact, and the figures soon regenerated.
• Dragonborn arrived with food, invited the Explorer upstairs, and offered him an outfit; Ren Suo made the Explorer wear a pink cheongsam, and a face in the mirror strangled him to death.
• Ren Suo restarted the scene, and the Explorer chose ordinary women’s clothing without putting it on, avoiding the one-time trap and missing its Energy Value reward.
• Dragonborn asked the Explorer to pass a message to his family, confessed his loneliness and flaws, and apologized to his mother.
• The Explorer asked Dragonborn to play cards, and Ren Suo left him idling while cultivating spells and thinking about the Explorer’s extraordinary potential.

Ren Suo healed himself, prepared spells, and tried to secure a researcher promotion by offering Yu Kuangtu help with his relationship. He then went shopping for a way to protect the Seeker from the mysterious bull and arrived at Six Banyan Temple.

• Ren Suo used Surgical Thread and Pain Relief Therapy to heal a deep wound and added both spells to his Backup Slot.
• Ren Suo learned that his undergraduate status blocked his promotion to Level 3 Researcher, despite having enough Research Points.
• Ren Suo persuaded Yu Kuangtu that he should keep in touch with his girlfriend at Heavenly Lotus Academy, and Yu Kuangtu agreed to help with Ren Suo's researcher promotion.
• Ren Suo equipped the Seeker with Noise Cancelling Headphones after the Seeker faced a couple's musical attacks in the game.
• Ren Suo decided to prepare for the bull's unknown killing method and went shopping for a countermeasure, arriving at Six Banyan Temple.

Ren Suo visited Pure Wisdom Temple to search for powerful items that could protect him from supernatural attacks, and discovered an exceptionally powerful mythic incense censer. A young fortune teller with an unexpected connection to the Ren Clan then identified the kind of consecrated ritual implement Ren Suo needed, leaving Ren Suo intrigued by the fortune teller’s true abilities.

• Ren Suo scanned Pure Wisdom Temple’s incense censer and discovered it was a mythic-grade item with powerful guaranteed effects, though its Energy Value was 9,764.
• Ren Suo explored the temple’s fortune-telling stalls and found a young man advertising the Eastern Han Ren Clan’s face-reading tradition.
• When the young man touched Ren Suo, the Key Search System detected a fully formed key, despite Ren Suo sensing no unusual qi from him.
• Ren Suo asked the young man to help him find something, and the fortune teller advised him to seek a consecrated ritual implement blessed by Abbot Jinghai.
• The young man said he had learned his skills from the Eastern Han Ren Clan.

Yun Wangshu and his companions investigated Ren Nesser, hoping to find the ancient faction behind Cross My Corpse and gain access to its cultivation knowledge. Yun Wangshu revealed that he had learned Ren Clan fate-reading from Ren Han, making him an ancestor of the Ren family.

• Yun Wangshu convinced Ren Suo that Abbot Jinghai's ritual implement was needed, then left the temple with Ba.
• Longevity asked Yun Wangshu whether he had found a Ren family connection in Lianjiang, and Yun Wangshu said he had found none.
• Yun Wangshu theorized that Ren Nesser used Ren family bloodlines to recover ancestral memories and produce Cross My Corpse.
• Yun Wangshu proposed going to Shenhai to ask the Immortal Palace's Food God and explained that the trio sought an ancient extraordinary faction.
• Yun Wangshu revealed that Ren Han had taught him fate-reading during spiritual communion and that, as an earth spirit, he had no gender and was Ren Han's ancestor.
• Yun Wangshu said a Ren descendant in Tianjing was his distant descendant, while Chief Ren suddenly felt a chill.

Ren Suo struggled to get the explorer through the final household’s deadly defenses and discovered a way to avoid a direct fight. The explorer cooked the household’s animals before Grandfather Fugui returned, leaving Ren Suo questioning his claim to kindness.

• Ren Xingmei left for college while Ren Ma and Ren Ba worried over her and discussed Ren Suo’s prospects for finding a girlfriend.
• Ren Suo watched the explorer reach Grandfather Fugui’s manor, where the Cyan-Purple Scaled Ox, Golden Winged Phoenixes, and dual-blade mermaids attacked and quickly killed him.
• Ren Suo considered using the one-use Ea, the Star of Creation, or combining defensive items, but worried about the cost and consequences of both approaches.
• Ren Suo reloaded the save and noticed the explorer could act while the household was empty, so he chose the cooking option.
• The explorer roasted the chickens and fish with fireballs, then told Grandfather Fugui that he thought the manor was a buffet and that he wanted the family to be neat and complete.

Ren Suo used the explorer to exploit a chance to defeat Fugui’s chickens and fish, then equipped the Gleaming Prayer Beads to survive the Cyan-Purple Scaled Ox’s soul attack and defeat it. After dining with Fugui and Jiazhen, the explorer prepared to deliver messages to their family, but chose to bring everyone together to talk.

• Ren Suo had the explorer secretly kill Fugui’s chickens and fish before they could transform, clearing two waves of enemies.
• Ren Suo equipped the explorer with the Gleaming Prayer Beads, which gave him protection against the Cyan-Purple Scaled Ox’s soul attack.
• The explorer resisted the ox’s Soul Harvest and defeated it with sacred golden fire, causing it to crumble into ash.
• Fugui and Jiazhen returned, cooked and ate with the explorer, and asked him to pass messages to Youqing, Fengxia, Erxi, Kugen, and Mantou.
• The explorer said he was a repeater now and proposed that the whole family chat together.

Ren Suo learned that the villagers’ energy could help the Explorer leave their isolated village, but burning his treasures would weaken them and accepting the villagers’ energy would strengthen them at random. He chose to challenge the Village Chief’s powerful phantom and activated Clear Spring Echo as it attacked.

• The Village Chief brought the Explorer and the villagers to a forest clearing, where a blond Blood Magician demonstrated his fire magic.
• The Village Chief explained that the villagers were trapped in the village, and that the Explorer could gather enough energy to leave by burning treasures and accepting the villagers’ energy.
• The Village Chief revealed that his family’s energy would attack the Explorer unless he defeated their Mingwang Phantom, and offered the Explorer that challenge.
• Ren Suo rejected the safer options of burning treasures and accepting the villagers’ energy, then chose to challenge the phantom.
• The Mingwang Phantom attacked with weapons, force, and lightning, and the Explorer activated Clear Spring Echo.

Ren Suo summoned Ren Han to defeat the Mingwang Phantom, then helped the Seeker collect the villagers’ energy and leave Peach Blossom Spring. The chapter ended with the villagers offering their possessions and prayers into the blue-flame bonfire as the Seeker completed the mission.

• Ren Suo used Clear Spring Echo to summon Ren Han, who overpowered the Mingwang Phantom and made it retreat.
• Ren Han explained that the village’s intense spiritual energy and thought power amplified its phantoms, and that the Seeker’s soul had been mostly assimilated by the environment.
• The Seeker accepted the villagers’ thought energy, gained enough Energy Value to leave, and activated the bonfire’s path out of the Mountain Cave.
• The Seeker left Peach Blossom Spring as the Village Chief and villagers offered food, drawings, clothes, and other possessions into the blue-flame bonfire while praying for their relatives.
• The game announced that the Seeker had successfully left Peach Blossom Spring and completed the mission.

Ren Suo uploaded his extraordinary result for Ahead High-Energy, earning Merit Points, Listening Earphones, and the Explorer’s High-Energy Midas Touch ability. He then received Zhao Huo’s invitation to play a villain from the mysterious organization Netherworld Peach Garden.

• Ren Suo reviewed his 84-point extraordinary evaluation and inferred that the hidden side mission required clearing the game by winning over guardians instead of fighting them.
• Ren Suo uploaded the result, received 108 Merit Points and a two-star treasure chest, and obtained Listening Earphones and the Explorer’s High-Energy Midas Touch ability.
• Ren Suo equipped the Listening Earphones and discovered they let him hear additional information from the Little World Game Console, including Ahead High-Energy’s upload progress.
• Zhao Huo called Ren Suo and asked him to appear as a cultivator villain for a mysterious organization.
• Zhao Huo revealed that the organization Ren Suo would represent was Netherworld Peach Garden.

Four friends commemorated a companion who had vanished in a mountain landslide fifteen years earlier, while Ren Suo traveled with Zhao Huo to play a member of the supernatural faction Peach Blossom Spring in a student exercise. Ren Suo recognized a connection between the Peach Blossom Spring setting and his earlier game, and wondered how the past, present, and future were changing.

• Four friends visited Wuling Mountain, reminisced about their lost hiking-club companion, and poured out their beers in farewell.
• The long-haired woman said she still would not believe the man was dead without seeing his body, then emptied her can after the others urged him to rest in peace.
• Zhao Huo drove Ren Suo to play a Peach Blossom Spring villain in Heavenly Lotus Academy's Stealing Heaven's Secrets exercise and reassured him about facing the new students.
• Ren Suo read Peach Blossom Spring and noticed its imagery recalled the game Ahead High-Energy and the intelligence he had investigated.
• Ren Suo concluded that the past, present, and future were changing.

Ren Suo joined the Heavenly Lotus Academy’s staged Stealing Heaven’s Secrets project as a villain and learned that Bai Ji, the project’s leader, believed humanity was doomed. The chapter left Ren Suo rejecting Bai Ji’s fatalism and insisting that humanity’s future would grow brighter.

• Ren Suo arrived at the mountain set, met Bai Ji, and heard the Listening Earphones identify him as a friendly, conscious Three-Star Key.
• Zhao Huo warned Ren Suo that Bai Ji was popular with women and explained that he had brought Ren Suo in partly to keep an eye on Dong Chengling and Bai Ji.
• Ren Suo met the Peach Blossom Spring performers, learned how they would frighten the selected students during the ritual, and confirmed that protective spells would shield the students from serious injuries.
• Ren Suo put on villain makeup, reviewed the student roster, and reassured himself that Dong Chengling had approved the project’s safety measures.
• Bai Ji told Ren Suo that he believed they both courted death and predicted that supernatural forces would eventually destroy Earth.
• Ren Suo denied seeking death and told Bai Ji that he believed humanity’s future would grow brighter.

Ren Xingmei arrived at Heavenly Lotus Academy’s gathering point and met Lin Xianyu and Gu Yueyan, while Ren Suo and the academy staff prepared an assault-style Stealing Heaven’s Secrets Ritual for the new students. The chapter ended with Wuling Mountain staff searching for several mysteriously missing items, including a Countermeasures Bureau captain’s vest.

• Ren Xingmei reached the Park Front subway station, where Teacher Tian checked her ID and Lin Xianyu gave her an anti-motion-sickness talisman.
• Ren Xingmei boarded the bus and reunited with Gu Yueyan, who explained that she and Lin Xianyu had skipped grades and advanced into the academy’s first year.
• Ren Suo watched the new students on surveillance as Liao Yonghai explained the purpose of the Stealing Heaven’s Secrets Ritual and warned that Ren Suo would likely oversee future operations.
• Ren Suo noticed an Awakened couple among the students, then joked about having watched other people date in high school, prompting Dong Chengling to leave.
• Little Huang learned that staff were being sent to search Wuling Mountain for missing Buddhist Beads, headphones, and a Countermeasures Bureau captain’s vest.

Gu Yueyan reassured Heavenly Lotus Academy’s new students about cultivation before the bus was ambushed by the Netherworld Peach Garden, whose members staged an attack to test the students. Ren Suo joined the pursuit, but his Listening Earphones detected a nearby bond target’s emotional crisis, while a buried hand bone began emerging at Wuling Mountain.

• Gu Yueyan demonstrated Lin Xianyu’s Awakened Spell and the protective ‘Clothes’ spell to calm the new students traveling to Heavenly Lotus Academy.
• A gray-robed Peach Garden member ambushed the bus, killed Teacher Tian, and split the vehicle apart before Bai Ji arrived to fight him.
• The Peach Garden members rose from the earth and chased the fleeing students as Bai Ji battled Liao Yonghai; Ren Suo heard that a nearby bond target’s emotional fluctuations had passed a critical threshold.
• At Wuling Mountain Grand Canyon, staff searching for a missing vest overlooked a hidden pit where a pale hand bone was beginning to break through the soil.

Ren Suo, Zhao Huo, and Fu Sheng pursued Gu Yueyan’s group as the students tried to reach Bai Ji’s battle with Liao Yonghai and help end the attack. Bai Ji saved Gu Yueyan and Lin Xianyu from an ice dragon, but a falling sports car threatened to crush him as he turned to protect the students.

• Gu Yueyan, Lin Xianyu, and Ren Xingmei fled Zhao Huo and Ren Suo, then joined Du Liwei and Xiao Hui before Fu Sheng attacked their group.
• The group escaped Fu Sheng with help from Du Liwei and Xiao Hui, who used poisonous gas from a pond to delay their pursuers.
• Gu Yueyan led Lin Xianyu and Ren Xingmei toward Bai Ji’s battle with Liao Yonghai, while Du Liwei and Xiao Hui stayed behind to misdirect their pursuers.
• Gu Yueyan and Lin Xianyu attacked Liao Yonghai during his fight with Bai Ji, disrupting his control of the ice dragons and vehicles.
• Bai Ji redirected an ice dragon away from Gu Yueyan and Lin Xianyu, but a sports car then fell toward him, and he turned his back to it to shield the students.

Ren Suo rescued Bai Ji, Gu Yueyan, and Lin Xianyu from a falling sports car during the academy’s freshman trial, injuring himself in the process. After the group regrouped, Bai Ji sent Ren Suo back to rest and continued the plan, while Zhao Huo asked Bai Ji what he thought of Dong Chengling.

• Ren Suo used a burst of speed to save Bai Ji, Gu Yueyan, and Lin Xianyu from the falling sports car, then treated his own injuries.
• Bai Ji treated the students’ scrapes and explained that the academy had been testing freshmen with defensive stickers, apologizing for the danger.
• Gu Yueyan and Ren Xingmei recognized Ren Suo and learned that his rescue had left him injured; Ren Suo insisted he would not give up even if he regretted the consequences.
• Bai Ji asked Ren Suo whether he would accept ruining his life to save others, and Ren Suo said he lived for the happiness of his next-second self.
• Bai Ji told Ren Suo to return to camp and rest, then told Dong Chengling to proceed with the plan while he handled the scene.
• Zhao Huo asked Bai Ji what he thought of Dong Chengling, but dragged Ren Suo away before Bai Ji could respond.

After the students completed the staged Taoyuan attack, Heavenly Lotus Academy explained the Stealing Heaven's Secrets plan and rewarded them, while Ren Suo received thanks from Gu Yueyan and Lin Xianyu. The chapter ended with Bai Ji asking Dong Chengling whether she had a lover, then declaring that he thought Ren Suo was an exceptionally good person.

• Teacher Tian revealed that the bus attack had been a school test and brought the students to a banquet at Heavenly Lotus Academy.
• Gu Yueyan and Lin Xianyu thanked Ren Suo for saving them, and both of their bonds with him increased.
• Bai Ji and Dong Chengling explained the Stealing Heaven's Secrets plan, announced compensation, and warned the students to keep it confidential.
• Bai Ji led Dong Chengling to a quiet corridor and asked whether she had a lover.
• Bai Ji told Dong Chengling that he thought Ren Suo was an exceptionally good person.