I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

……

……

The accommodation disagreements in Lin Hao's group were much more intense than those in Su Ya's group.

Nine people stood at the entrance of the Huang Family Ancestral Hall, arguing heatedly.

There were six people in total, and they all wanted to stay in a small villa that seemed to offer a higher level of security.

With electricity and light, it's already far superior to a dark and gloomy ancestral hall.

Huang Facai seemed unwilling to get involved in the argument, so he left the key to the small villa and hurriedly left without even saying goodbye.

So in the end, only Lin Hao, Zhou Hui, and Ouyang Qiu remained in the ancestral hall.

"Okay, you chose it yourselves."

Lin Hao crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, his tone cold, "No matter what you hear at night, don't run around. If you're still alive by dawn, come find us at the ancestral hall."

He spoke of it casually, as if it were a trivial matter.

He wasn't actually sure whether the Western-style building or the ancestral hall was the safest place.

But whenever he had the thought of leaving the ancestral hall, that damned umbilical cord around his neck would suddenly tighten, making it impossible for him to breathe.

……

"Let's tidy up."

Lin Hao was a little annoyed. He turned to Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu and said, "The three of us will take turns keeping watch at night. If you don't want to die, don't wander around. And don't be curious if you hear any noise at night."

Zhou Hui nodded, while Ouyang Qiu gave a perfunctory "Oh".

Meanwhile, the six people happily pushed open the gate to the small building.

The courtyard is paved with cement, clean and tidy, and the exterior walls of the two-story building are covered with white ceramic tiles.

The windows were lit with warm yellow lights, and the interior was fully furnished, looking no different from a small villa in the city.

There's a sofa, coffee table, TV, and decorative paintings on the wall. The bedroom has a bed and blankets.

There seems to be a problem with the wiring in the house; the lights can't be turned off.

As the group gradually lowered their guard, the tension and fatigue from the journey overwhelmed them, and they all began to yawn.

After working up most of the night, everyone was exhausted.

"Go to sleep early, you have a mission to do tomorrow."

"Okay, goodnight."

"When you're exhausted to the extreme, you become speechless. Right now, I feel like I could go up and punch a ghost if it were real."

"Go to sleep..."

The lights were on, and the door was locked from the inside.

Six people squeezed into one room and felt incredibly safe.

The white lanterns hanging outside the window swayed, and their shadows reflected on the glass moved slowly.

……

……

Xiao slept on the outermost side, next to the door.

She was already a light sleeper, and the new environment made it even harder for her to sleep soundly, leaving her in a half-awake, half-asleep state.

She didn't know how long she had slept, but in her hazy state, she suddenly heard a cat meowing outside.

"Meow—"

Thin and pointed.

The tone was drawn out, both mournful and eerie.

Xiao frowned, pulled the blanket up higher, and covered her ears.

The cat's meows didn't stop; they came one after another, getting closer and closer, as if circling the small building.

Each cry was more agonizing and piercing than the last, sending chills down one's spine.

Xiao Xiao was a little annoyed and wanted to sit up and curse.

But her body felt heavy, and her eyelids were so heavy they felt like they were glued on, and she couldn't open them no matter what she did.

Sleep paralysis?

Her heart skipped a beat, and she wanted to shout for help, but no sound came out of her throat.

Just then, there was a "snap".

The overhead light suddenly went out.

The room was plunged into complete darkness in an instant.

A pale white light shone through the white lanterns hanging outside the window, creating a hazy, indistinct glow.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

What happened?

Why did the light go out?

anyone there?

Why can't she move?

My limbs felt incredibly heavy, as if they were filled with lead and sinking into the deep sea, every bone screaming "sink!"

Fear washed over me like a tide, and in the darkness, besides the cat's meows, there seemed to be other sounds as well.

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

The sound was very soft and crisp, like someone cracking sunflower seeds or chewing something hard.

Each beat was slow, yet exceptionally clear.

The sound was coming from the bedside table.

It was less than half a meter away from her head.

Xiao felt a chill run down his spine.

Who would be sitting on their bedside table eating sunflower seeds in the middle of the night?!

Her eyes stung, and tears welled up in them. Extreme fear made her forget to breathe, and her whole face turned red.

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

In a quiet environment, each of these tiny sounds is amplified infinitely.

The sound of teeth colliding with a hard object reached Xiao's ears, and all he could hear was his heart pounding abnormally.

"Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid she might see something terrifying the next second.

—A human's curiosity is no less than that of a cat.

Curiosity and fear mingled together, like someone gently, slowly tickling my heart with a fine feather.

What exactly is it?

What is it eating?

Why is the sound getting closer?

It seems... it was moved from the bedside table to next to her pillow.

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

It was as if someone in the darkness was squatting beside her head, idly cracking sunflower seeds.

A faint fishy smell wafted over, mixed with a slightly sweet aroma.

Xiao's heart was pounding, and it felt like it was about to jump out of her throat.

Just one glance.

Once you see what it is, you won't be afraid.

She trembled, her teeth chattering, and with almost all her might, she managed to pry open her eyelids a crack and squint to look.

The room was dark, with only a sliver of pale light coming in from outside the window.

Squinting, I couldn't see clearly; I could only make out a blurry shadow.

It had a hunched back and a small body, like a half-grown cat.

The thing was curled up in a ball, its back to her, its shoulders shrugging, and it was eating with its head down.

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

The crisp sound comes from its mouth.

Is it a big black cat?

Xiao breathed a slight sigh of relief.

A stray cat just wandered in.

But then she realized something was wrong.

Do cats...eat sunflower seeds?

Moreover, that back view looks really strange.

—The curve of the shoulders is wrong, and the neck is too long. It doesn't look like a cat, but more like a shrunken human.

She held her breath and looked carefully in the light from the window.

The thing seemed to sense her gaze and suddenly stopped chewing.

Then, he slowly turned his head.

Xiao's breathing stopped instantly.

That's not a cat.

It was the face of an old woman.

His skin was wrinkled and covered with folds, and his complexion was a deathly pale white.

Its eyes were vertical pupils, yellowish, clearly cat eyes, now gleaming faintly in the darkness.

It has several long whiskers on either side of its nose, a wide gape at the corners of its mouth that extends all the way to its ears, and half of its face is covered with cat fur.

Finally, there was a set of small, sharp teeth, with dark red streaks of blood on them.

An old lady with a cat face.

An old woman with cat-like eyes and whiskers, hunched over, was squatting on the bedside table eating.

She, or rather "it," held something in her withered hand.

It is white, thin, and round at the top.

Blood was still dripping from his knuckles.

It is a human finger.

The cat-faced old lady was gnawing on her knuckles with her sharp teeth, making a crisp "clack-clack" sound, like cracking sunflower seeds.

Take a bite and suck out the marrow inside.

Xiao's gaze fell on that finger, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

There is a hairy black mole on the back of my hand...

These fingers... why do they look so familiar?

Her mind went blank, and a terrible thought popped into her head uncontrollably.

With all her might, tears streaming down her face, she stiffly and slowly turned her head to look at the male player sleeping next to her.

The other person was sleeping peacefully, seemingly still immersed in a sweet dream.

Further down, half of the palm revealed the white, bony joints, with all ten fingers bare, leaving only two fleshy palms.

!!!

Xiao screamed, her eyes wide with rage:

"Squeak squeak squeak—!!"

But the scream had barely left his lips when it turned into a long string of mouse squeaking.

She looked down in disbelief, her two paws reaching out to her eyes.

Where the palm should have been, a grayish rat paw had been turned into.

Sharp claws, fine downy hair, and black paw pads.

Her arms were covered in short, coarse gray hair, and her once-proud oval face had turned into a pointed, rat-like mouth.

The world has changed dramatically, and the whole world has become bigger.

The bed was like a huge square, the bedside table was like a towering mountain, and the cat-faced old lady was squatting there, so huge it was frightening.

She shrank.

She turned into a mouse.

A mouse waiting to be hunted by a cat.

"squeak--!"

Xiao finally let out her last scream of the night.

The cat-faced old woman pounced suddenly, a foul stench assaulting her nostrils, her sharp teeth gleaming coldly.

"squeak--!!"

The short squeaking of the mouse stopped abruptly.

Then a new voice sounded:

"Quack quack."

"Quack quack."

The chewing sounds resumed, even more cheerful than before.

The room remained quiet.

The other players were still fast asleep.

……

……

……

"What do you mean by 'you don't know where they went'?"

Lin Hao's face was ashen as he stared at the bloodstains on the disheveled bed, gritting his teeth as he spoke each word clearly:

"Explain clearly, how exactly did these two people die?"

One player took a deep breath and, after calming down, recounted what had happened, his face pale.

When the four of them woke up in the morning, they found that Xiao and another male player were missing.

At first, they thought the two of them had gotten up early and gone out.

But the door was locked from the inside, and the windows were bolted, so it was impossible for anyone to get out.

Then they found a tuft of gray mouse fur and a large patch of blood next to the two people's pillows.

The people were gone, but their clothes were still on the bed.

At first glance, it looks like a cocoon left behind by a butterfly after it has emerged from its cocoon.

But here's the problem: two perfectly healthy people, their clothes are here, but they're gone.

Surely the two of them wouldn't run around naked, would they?

……

"We searched the entire building, but we couldn't find anyone..."

One player's voice trembled with fear, "It was so eerie. The door was locked from the inside, the windows weren't open, and there wasn't a sound in the middle of the night, but the person was just gone..."

Someone nearby added, "I did hear mice squeaking, cats meowing, and even the sound of my grandma chewing soybeans—"

The group chatted amongst themselves, growing increasingly frightened, their eyes filled with lingering fear.

Two perfectly fine people disappeared overnight.

There wasn't even a death announcement.

Lin Hao glanced at the remaining players indicator in the upper right corner; it was still steadily at 23 people. He cursed under his breath.

"If you hadn't been so nosy and insisted on living in that villa, how could they have disappeared?"

The cat meows.

The mouse is making a sound.

The sound of an old woman chewing soybeans.

Surely it's not like the dead old woman Huang crawled out and was chewed up like soybeans by the two of them, is it?!

That's bad, we still have tasks to complete today, so suddenly there are only seven people left.

Lin Hao's face darkened; he felt that this damned dungeon was targeting him.

……

……

As for the third mirror copy.

The three and a half survivors didn't even dare to enter the village. Jiang Chen and Zhou Chang took turns driving the paper cart all night, without daring to stop.

It seems the four of them are really planning to take turns driving for seven days, refusing to enter the village or do any main quests.

Outside the instance, Song Mo fell into deep thought, silently noting down this "bug" in his notebook.

She rarely interferes with the story development in the game—unless there is a major logical flaw that makes the game unplayable.

"Are you really planning to hold out for seven days?"

Song Mo glanced at Jiang Chen, whose face was haggard and whose beard was unshaven, and sighed sincerely:

"He's someone important; you really managed to get yourself caught out of the loophole."

……

In the dungeon, Jiang Chen, who was driving a ghost car to the point of wanting to die, suddenly shuddered, raised his head in disbelief, and looked blank and terrified.

An overwhelming pressure crashed down on me, slamming into my body. I lost all strength and collapsed to the ground, followed by a burning pain in my chest.

"Wow--"

He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his whole body jerked backward, feeling dizzy and his internal organs trembling violently.

In the upper right corner of the field of vision, ink-wash characters are arranged in a strange pattern, eventually curling up together to form a text:

You have disturbed "existence".

[Existence has seen you.]

……

……