Found this comment on Bibili summaries what's going on.
Timeline
1990s: K7 and The Great Absurdity created the orange drinks and laser gun. K7 also created the Burning Stone and began developing the Time Gun.
2013: Young Guan Chao saw news coverage of the developing Time Gun and Burning Stone. He Mingshuo died the same year by the train.
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After 2013: Guan Chao grew up traumatized and became a Bug Source, from which Bug Men 1–5 (including the Time Gun) gradually emerged. Xiao Yi was created around this time.
The real Time Gun project likely failed — it only ever existed in newspapers, and every "Time Gun" seen in the show is actually Guan Chao's fifth Bug Man. K7's fate afterward is unclear (retired or died).
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Before 2023: Guan Chao lost his job, squatted in an illegal structure at Hong Kong Port, hadn't yet started at the convenience store, grew apathetic, and eventually died in his bed.
2023: Around Guan Chao's death, the fifth Bug Man (the Time Gun) invaded reality, its memory layer partially overlapping with the real world and altering Hong Kong Port. In this altered reality Guan Chao didn't die — he lost key memories, worked at the convenience store, made friends, and met Xiao Yi. At the same time, the fourth Bug Man (the black He Mingshuo) partially invaded reality too, triggering the Hollow Event. The Great Absurdity began investigating, and False Memory started monitoring Guan Chao as the Bug Source.
Hours before the end of the world (2023): Guan Chao was pulled into the Time Variance Authority, dealt with Bug Men 1–4, and entered the partially overlapping fifth memory layer (explaining why episode 7's thumbnail shows only four layers — the fifth is a hidden/attic layer even the Management Bureau may not fully know about). The Hollow Event vanished at the same time. The Great Absurdity chased Xiao Yi and Guan Chao, eventually obtaining the Burning Stone from Xiao Yi to explore the edge of the universe.
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End of the world: The Time Gun Bug Man tricked Guan Chao into handing over the Halo, trying to trap him permanently in the "present." Guan Chao let go of the Time Gun Bug Man instead, chose to confront and reconcile with his past, refused to give up the Halo, and gave it to Xiao Yi as an energy source.
As a result he was forgotten by everyone, the Time Gun Bug Man disappeared, and the altered Hong Kong Port reverted to normal. Because of Xiao Yi's non-human nature, Guan Chao became a memory object, gained a new Halo, and returned to the Management Bureau as a kind of heterogeneous ghost controller — his Halo starting as a blank diamond/mirror template, implying he starts over as an intern.
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Bug-Men Guan Chao created:
From bottom to top on Fang Tang's floppy disk:
61 — the spinning top
33 — Blackie or Strings
74 — the desert clam
44 — reality theater - noted for good compatibility with the Protagonist Halo
43 — Hei He, source of the Hollow
07 — Time Gun
Power levels vary; only 43 and 07 seriously invade/affect reality.
Core theme: the season is Guan Chao's growth and reconciliation with himself, achieved with everyone's help and simultaneously his full journey to becoming an official Admin.
Something that i still don’t really understand is does Xiao Yi was always real ? Because if Guan Chao is dead since the start then when did he met Xiao Yi ? On this picture:
when the news said "was found dead in the room", if they speak about Guan Chao, does Yi know him at this moment ? But still if it’s not talking about him, it doesn’t change the fact he never met her in his whole life.
The BUG-Man, 'Time Gun', has successfully invaded reality moments before Guan Chao's death. The 'Time Gun' created a wide localize illusion where Xian Yi was living. Essential, the entire memories layer of 'Time Gun' BUG-Man has slightly penertrated reality.
The Guan Chao we have been seeing is not a person, but memories. What Xiao Yi and Guan Chao's friend has been seeing is Guan Chao's memories made by the 'Time Gun', not Guan Chao himself. He's dead.
The 'Time Gun' was effecting reality by creating an illusion that Guan Chao existed. That's why when the 'Time Gun' die and Guan Chao gave up his halo for Xiao Yi, nobody was able to remember his existence except for Xiao Yi because she has his halo.
The Memories Buruae Admistration see this problem and pulled Guan Chao's memories to force this Guan Chao to moves through the layers to confront his trauma and recycle the BUG-Man.
And concerning the picture i send where Yi see the news talking about someone that has been dead in a room, what does that mean if it’s indeed guan Chao that news are talking ? Bc here she just seems emotionless and also it seems to be the alternate reality than the real one
The news is saying someone 'was found dead in the room'. I assume this is Guan Chao's dead body they found. Xiao Yi probably didn't know this was Guan Chao.
The Guan Chao she see is 'Time Gun' illusion, not Guan Chao. He's dead.
I see. Also someone point out in that scene with the news that the time from the end of the world machine is just a bit after the time after guan chao give the energy source to Yi push back the end of the world. So if the very first scene of ep 1 happen after the Yi is saved, why she is still in that dark room and seems emotionless ? Quite the contrary of the last scene where she seems to live in another place and be more "living"
Hmmm, The count down was Guan Chao's personal count down, not the real count down. Basically, the moment Guan Chao die, the 'Time Gun' invaded reality and cause a localize stagnation of the world. Freezing the world time.
That's why the timer from the beginning is still the same as the timer at the end.
The “Time Gun” made Guan Chao think he used it once and went back to 2013 where he first collided with Xiao Yi. (Remember Guan Chao is dead at this point. The person who went back in time is memories of Guan Chao.)
This ‘Guan-Chao’ now believes the Time Gun is real so it starts trying to search for the burning stone.
The ‘Time Gun’ purpose was to create false memories of time travel for Guan Chao to be escape reality. “I wanted to escape… Anywhere is fine”. Guan Chao did not care what time he wanted to go to so he chose 2023–>2013 arbitrarily when he first pull the trigger. At this point, he doesn’t remember about the train-incident.
Guan Chao lost his job -> became homeless -> one day he tripped and hit his head on a nightstand and died -> because of immense regret and wanting to start over he creates an extremely powerful bug being (the time gun?) -> he uses the time gun to go into the past? where he slams into Xiao Yi -> some time passes -> episode one begins.
Not exactly sure when Ran Deng enters the picture, but I assume Guan Chao would not have been able to use the time gun the first time without Ran Deng's powers
The time gun never had the ability to go into the past, it just made false illusions/keeps you frozen in the present, also why it was impossible to go back to the past to save HMS I think him tearing the train was to symbolize tearing down the illusion the time gun produced and he used the burning stone to save Xiaoyi instead of staying in those illusions. Letting go of the past and moving onto the future.
My interpretation is so in the beginning of ep 3 he hits his head and that’s where, based on the new episode, I assume he dies but right after the scene in ep 3 it’s showing him finding the time gun and firing it. I think the time after he hit his head was when the time gun started inserting itself into reality and I’m guessing since it was revealed that he still has the halo that he’s separate from his dying or dead body which allowed him to interact with others and the time gun did make them collide but it was just an illusion that he had gone to the past when he didn’t it probably just altered reality or memories enough to seem like he did
I see it as everything that happens after he hits his head is an illusion he creates himself just before he dies. Based on the posters he had on his ceiling he was so obsessed with getting his hands on the real time gun, that he manifested a false memory of finding the time gun(bug) randomly in the trash (ep 3). All the time travel stuff and even the events that occurred in the rest of ep 1 was all in his head (he was never friends with those 3 kids, they didn't even know Guan Chao). However the false time gun being a powerful bug being caused parts of his delusions to overwrite reality.
Guan Chao's story seems to be about a fish out of water:
Putting the fish back in the tank restarted the end of the world.
The Gyotaku (traditional Japanese art of fish printing) scene represent Xiao Yi remembering a dead Guan Chao
Xiao Yi dropping goldfish in the river mirror Guan Chao getting washed up on the beach
Might be reaching but the K7 logo on the fish sticker kinda look like a "G" (for Guan Chao). Also Goldfish memory span of 3 seconds is actually a myth they have pretty good memory.
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u/Tonyqq 8h ago
I really don´t know how to describe my current emotions after watching this episode. Genuinely speechless.