The Final Days of Ruined City: When the Rules Seep Into Reality

Former detective Shen Che is drawn into the Ruined City, a liminal zone between reality and another dimension, while investigating the truth behind his younger sister Shen Xingxiao's disappearance. There, a seven-day memory-overlaying cycle is underway, and abnormalities from the instances can leak into reality. For example, a damaged clock in an instance can cause his sister's old clock in the real world to run backward.

Shen Che awakens the ability to Trace Causes, which can only be activated when linked to forensic examiner Su Yan's ability to Hear the Dead. Fluctuations in their trust put them at risk of misinterpreting information, and they team up with former boxer Zhao Lie. In the introductory instance, the Clockwork Museum, they discover that people familiar to them in reality can hear the instance's roars, and they find half of his sister's hair clip.

As they venture into instances such as the Memory Theater, Zhao Lie atones for some of his sins and his ability evolves into a group shield. Su Yan reveals that the Ruined City is actually a memory prison. Its rulers, the Beidou Chessmasters, are former participants. Lu Chenyuan, a hardline conservative, enforces the rules without mercy, while reformist Wen Zhixia secretly helps them.

The final revelation is that the mysterious boy A Xiao is a memory projection of Shen Xingxiao, and the Ruined City is an experimental site run by a memory manipulation company. Shen Che's team joins forces with Wen Zhixia and uses his sister's hair clip to trigger a memory resonance, awakening the Chessmasters' memories and breaking the cycle. Shen Che's price is losing all but his remaining memories of his sister. After the Ruined City vanishes, new gray mist appears in a corner of the city, leaving the possibility of another cycle unresolved.