I finished chapter 2. This book is exactly like the first volume: fast paced, suspenseful and impossible to put down!
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第二章:暗流翻涌 (contains spoilers)
At Longyu Group, it’s decided that vice-president Lin will take on responsibilities as Group president until Deng Hua’s son is old enough to succeed his father. A Hua is only interested in killing Eumenides.
Han Hao escapes the detention center under Yin Jian’s watch by using the metal wire and his knowledge of the building.
Mu Jianyun didn’t get useful information from the female student, but she and Luo Fei agree that the new Eumenides has a different MO from his master.
She thinks that Han Hao will stay in the city to take revenge upon Eumenides. She also thinks that he will try to see his family.
A man, probably Eumenides, prints documents from the Archives under with a stolen pass. Even though he printed 13 files, Luo Fei manages to find out the one that Eumenides really cared about: 一三〇恶性劫持人质案, a case that took place on January 30th, in 1984, two monts before the 四一八 explosion.
Han Hao goes in a bar, but a man who knows his identity finds him.
We learn about the new Eumenides past: On January 30th, 1984, on the day of his sixth birthday, his father disappear and a man came into his life, taking care of him and his mother. But soon after, this man also disappeared, his mother died, and he went to the orphanage. Eumenides then came to him and he became his disciple. As Yuan Zhibang’s picture is displayed on the news after the explosion, the new Eumenides realises that his “master” and the nice young man who took care of him after his father’s disappearance are the same person.
On January 30th, his father never came back after going out to buy a birthday cake, but two policemen, one of them Yuan Zhibang, came to him instead. He last saw his father talking to a stranger.
In a restaurant he likes going to, he sees A Sheng talking business with Lin Henggan and Meng Fangliang and understands that he must have betrayed his loyalty to Deng Hua to strike a deal with the new president of the group (he knows them from studying Longyu Group’s members to kill Deng Hua). Drunk, A Sheng talks badly to the blind musician that Eumenides enjoys listening to. He attacks A Sheng.
A man manages to fool a nurse at the hospital were Wu Yinwu is resting, and goes to his room.
A Sheng dies in a car accident staged by Eumenides.
第二章:暗流翻涌
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 遗孀 | yí shuāng | (formal) widow |
| 大嫂 | dà sǎo | older brother's wife |
| 羁押 | jīyā | to detain, to take into custody |
| 睚眦必报 | yázì bìbào | lit. to seek revenge over a dirty look (idiom) |
| 惯性 | guàn xìng | (physics) inertia |
第一章: 新队长上任 (contains spoilers)
Luo Fei is appointed leader of the 四一八专案组. Yuan Zhibang is dead, but his disciple is still out there and just executed two high school students who posted a video of them bullying their professor, which started a real outrage. Three teenagers were involved and each received the death notice, but the professor cut his own hand to exchange for the life of the female student. Mu Jianyun will take care of her while Yin Jian will interrogate the professor.
Yin Jian interrogates Han Hao without success and allows him to keep a pendant overlooking an iron wire hidden in it.
Luo Fei thinks that Zhibang’s disciple must have been a child between 7 and 13 when he met Zhibang, which was probably as soon as he left the hospital in 1985. The child must have been without connection nor family. Zeng Rihua is tasked with looking for orphan and missing children.
Although Deng Hua is dead, the team still fear that his men will go after Mu Jianyun, so Liu Song will go with her.
Writing the summary of 暗黑者1 reminded me how good this novel was. I can’t believe so much happened in one volume (the first one was not long at all iirc) and the plot is so good too!
现在的职业学校,你也知道,赚钱才是第一位,学生是上帝,老师只不过是个打工者。
— Yin Jian
暗黑者1: whole novel (contains spoilers)
This spoils the entirety of 暗黑者1, please don’t read if you haven’t read the book. It’s only intended to help me go back into the story with volume 2. Also, I wrote it from memory and based on notes I took at the time, there are a lot of details I don’t remember and many things might be inaccurate.
—
18 years ago, Luo Fei’s best friend Yuan Zhibang and his girlfriend Meng Yun both die in an explosion. A man who was also randomly present at the scene, Huang Shaoping, is severely injured and lives isolated.
In present day, a policeman is looking for the culprit of this old case. He is trying to trigger Huang Shaoping’s memory by showing him photographs of people using a website where a certain Eumenides invites users to give the name of criminals who escaped justice so that he can kill them. We also learn that Xue Dalin, from the Public Security Bureau, was killed by Eumenides, but I can’t remember when this was supposed to happen…
An investigative team is formed with Luo Fei, Zeng Rihua, a computer expert, psychologist Mu Jianyun, young policeman Yin Jian. They work under the supervision of captain Han Hao.
The policeman who was working on the old case is found dead by Luo Fei. Some pictures on his camera have been erased, but Zeng Rihua finds the name and address of the person whose pictures have been deleted. They find him attached to a fake bomb with a notice announcing the next victim.
The next victim is a woman accused of intentionally killing a man with her car. She received Eumenides death notice for a certain date. The police watches her closely that day, but she still gets killed. The team realises that Eumenides must have been in a hotel room near the site, they go there and find the preserved body parts of Eumenides victims with videos of their execution. One man is left alive, Peng Guangfu. He has killed one of Han Hao’s colleague in an old case and injured Han Hao. His complice was shot, but he himself got away. Eumenides has provided a way to find Guangfu.
Meanwhile, both Jianyun and Rihua have suspicions about Luo Fei. We finally learn that Luo Fei and Meng Yun are the creators of Eumenides at the police school, but it’s confirmed he his not the present Eumenides. For a while, they think that Meng Yun might be still alive and the instigators of the murders, but Luo Fei confirms her death (I remember this scene, it was so so weird).
The signal to find Peng Guangfu goes live, and Han Hao, Yin Jian, Xiong Yuan (captain of the SWAT team who joined the team), and Liu Song (who works under Xiong Yuan) go to the site. Xiong Yuan’s role is to make sure that Peng Guangfu is rescued and brought to the station. The group has to separate to deactivate a bomb, and both Xiong Yuan and Peng Guangfu are killed. The others get out alive but no one knows what really happened.
Huang Shaoping contacts Mu Jianyun and tells her to investigate a case of drug traffic from 18 years ago. She realises that Xue Dalin, the second victim of Eumenides, was in charge of the case at the time and got tremendous success thanks to his informant Deng Yulong. His secretary, Bai Feifei committed suicide (because of Guangfu, but I can’t remember why).
Jianyun wants to investigate and goes to Deng Yulong, now called Deng Hua, but she learns that he just received Eumenides’ death notice. The police knows it and wants to protect him, but Deng Hua relies on his own men, especially the reliable A Hua. When talking with Jianyun, Deng Hua is surprised that she knows about Bai Feifei, and comes to the conclusion that her source is either Huang Shaoping or Luo Fei. Talking with Luo Fei confirms that it’s not him, so he sends his men to Huang Shaoping’s place but they don’t find him.
In the meanwhile, Liu Song thinks that Yin Jian is the one who killed his superior, Xiong Yuan, because of traces of blood found in the car. Han Hao covers for Yin Jian by making the traces disappear, which only reinforces Liu Song’s suspicions.
Luo Fei understands that the man who came out of the explosion 18 years ago is not Huang Shaoping. He goes to his place but doesn’t find him. Luo Fei now knows that Huang Shaoping is in reality his friend, Yuan Zhibang. (I don’t remember how Luo Fei finds out, and I remember a trick with the bomb timing, but I completely forgot the details.)
Yuan Zhibang takes a restaurant owner hostage and says he has a bomb, He asks to talk to three persons:
First, he sees Jianyun and gives her a document she should open on her own. Then he sees A Hua and tells him that Bai Feifei was his friend. She recorded a conversation between Xue Dalin and Zheng Yulong proving that both men were doing illegal activities. Dalin got the recording back and killed Feifei (she didn’t commit suicide). Zhibang says that he has a copy of the recording and that he just gave it to Mu Jianyun. Doing this, he knows that Zheng Hua will try to kill Mu Jianyun (and will likely succeed), so in order to save Mu Jianyun, Luo Fei will certainly let Eumenides kill Zheng Hua first. Finally, he talks to Luo Fei. He tells him that after the murder of his friend Feifei, he decided to become Eumenides to kill Zheng Hua, which was his real ultimate goal, and do justice to Feifei. 18 years ago, he used Luo Fei and Meng Yun to disappear, but Meng Yun somehow saw through the plan (I don’t remember the details) and detonated the bomb sooner, leaving him injured.
We then learn that Han Hao is the one who killed his colleague at the time (again, I don’t remember the details, but maybe the two policemen were drunk when they chase Peng Guangfu and his friend, so Han Hao shot his colleague when he thought he was aiming at the two men he was chasing). Han Hao then executed Guangfu’ friend so that he doesn’t talk, did some shenanigans with the bullets and said that Guangfu was the one who shot his colleague. He has been considered a hero. His goal has always been to find Guangfu to kill him and prevent him to reveal the truth. Eumenides had found Guangfu before him and learnt the whole story. He gave a second chance to Han Hao: the chance to kill Guangfu before he is brought to the police station. That’s exactly what Han Hao did during the operation, but as Xiong Yuan was guarding Guangfu, Han Hao had to kill him too.
Yin Jian who was falsely accused, realises that the culprit must be Han Hao. Luo Fei arrives to the same conclusion when examining the shooting case and the bullets.
Eumenides tells Han Hao that he has filmed the whole scene of him killing both Xiong Yuan and Peng Guangfu. He blackmails him into helping him kill Deng Hua. Han Hao accepts with the intention of killing Eumenides instead.
Luo Fei decides to let Eumenides kill Deng Hua in order to protect Mu Jian. (I think, the copy of the recording never existing, but Luo Fei still thinks she’s in danger… maybe he thinks Deng Hua will try to kill her anyway just in case? I don’t remember). On the day of Deng Hua’s execution, Eumenides is in contact with his “complice” Han Hao. He reveals his position to Han Hao: he is disguised as one of Deng Hua’s men. Han Hao goes straight to him and kills him. We then realise that he just killed the real Deng Hua who was disguised as one of his men (while one of his men was posing as Deng Hua, probably with something to hide his face, I can’t remember). That was a trick he always used when he knew he was targeted. Han Hao is arrested.
我不会劝你什么。一个人对自己产生怀疑的时候只有两个选择,放弃或者改变。除非你自己走出来,否则任何人的安慰都没有意义。所以…想变强也好,想学着做更多事也好。去做吧,至少不会让自己后悔。
— Wanderer
I feel like I played for hours, but it’s still going on… and it also doesn’t feel like it will end soon. There are a lot of useless and repetitive dialogues in my opinion… Act X is much much too long.
I really don’t understand why they feel the need to make it so long… Oh well, I’ll probably won’t be able to finish it this weekend, but if I play a little bit everyday next week, I will get there eventually.
So far, by far the best thing in the AQ is the music, and there are some scenes I really loved too like that art of Jeht dragging us out of danger, Faruzan and Nicole’s dialogue, the Aranara following us, Paimon and Wanderer’s private discussion (I almost cried when they talked about that feeling of being useless), Mavuika casually throwing her gnosis to us… but these are really small sparkles in a sea of complete boredom.
May 2026
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 唯利是圖 | wéi lì shì tú | (idiom) to be bent solely on profit; to put profit before everything else |
I regret waiting so long before starting volume 2, it starts right where the first volume finished, and there’s no real recap.
This being said, I start remembering things better now, I’ll need to re-read my notes and really try to remember who is who and what happened. So I’m stopping here for now, and come back once I refreshed my memory.
我们和Eumenides的战斗,也许现在才算是真正开始。
— Mu Jianyun
This list is made from memory and some notes I took when reading the first book, there might be mistakes.
I found and re-read my notes about 暗黑者1, and they don’t make any sense
It’s fine I guess if you just finished the book and still know the story and characters well, but for someone who was hoping to remember the story through the notes, it doesn’t help.
My past self is quite disappointing haha.
I started Act X, and I really don’t like this AQ. I think it’s the first time since playing that I really don’t like a content in the game. There are things I liked less, like some Fontaine WQ that felt much too verbose to me. And yeah, I did found the last Nod-Krai AQ acts much much too long to the point where they burnt me out, but I wasn’t bored exactly.
I’m not saying that it’s uninteresting, but the way it’s delivered is very monotonous. It also feels verbose for the sake of it, like they absolutely want to make the AQ 8 hours long.
I’ve played for a long time, but it seems unending… at least we can take breaks.
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 礼貌 | lǐ mào | courtesy; politeness; manners |
| 貉 | hé | racoon dog |
| 狸 | lí | racoon dog |