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

The night was already quite dark.

The white lanterns hanging in front of the houses in the village were all lit up, their pale light shining on the bluestone road, which always made me feel uneasy.

—When the wind blows, the lanterns sway, and the shadows on the ground sway along with them, like countless people walking on tiptoe.

In the distance, the faint sounds of suona gongs and drums could be heard, along with occasional meows from cats.

Sometimes near, sometimes far, it sent chills down one's spine.

"Why is there also a suona sound?"

Ouyang Qiu moved closer to Zhou Hui. "Sister, if you're scared, I'll walk in front of you later."

"Okay." Zhou Hui was also a little nervous.

At this moment, every household had its doors closed, and if you ignored the extremely eerie music, it would seem like an empty village.

The main hall of the ancestral hall was locked. Huang Facai had previously warned Lin Hao's team not to enter the ancestral hall casually.

The wooden door of the main hall of the ancestral hall was tightly closed, with a large lock hanging on it. Ouyang Qiu gently pushed it, and could only glimpse a little light from inside through the crack.

"It's locked." She frowned and turned to look at Lin Hao. "There's no key."

"Look for any broken windows or doors."

Lin Hao searched around the main hall, but Zhou Hui finally found a dog hole large enough for an adult to crawl through at the corner of the east wing.

It's called a dog hole, but nobody would put a dog hole inside a house; it's more like a mouse hole.

"This mouse hole is so big, the mouse must have been huge, it's like a tiny door opened in there."

Ouyang Qiu muttered something to himself.

The pitch-black mouse hole gaped open, and no one knew what might crawl out of it at any moment.

"!"

The umbilical cord around Lin Hao's neck began to rip wildly again. His expression changed, and he crossed his arms, gesturing for the two of them to leave first.

"If there's danger, I can pull you out if you walk ahead. Besides, I can't keep taking risks all the time."

That makes sense. Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu exchanged a glance and finally decided that Ouyang Qiu should go in first.

Due to illness, Ouyang Qiu had very little flesh on his body; even when he crawled into a hole, he could squat down and walk forward with just a slight bend in his head.

She quickly sank into darkness.

After a long while, her somewhat muffled voice came from the cave entrance: "There's no one inside, come in."

Zhou Hui and Lin Hao exchanged a glance, and followed her example, struggling to squeeze inside.

The mouse hole was surprisingly spacious and lined with straw, but when you climbed it, fine, stiff animal hairs would always fall on your face.

……

The main hall was lit up.

A strong smell of incense ash, mold, and a faint animal odor wafted over, making one's nose sting.

"It stinks!" Ouyang Qiu covered her nose. "Doesn't he ever clean the ancestral hall? It smells like a dead rat is rotting in there."

"Stop talking nonsense."

Lin Hao turned his head to look around: "Don't forget what we're here for. Let's find the clay sculpture first."

—The clue says there is a clay ghost covered with a red cloth in the ancestral hall.

The three of them followed the light from the ever-burning candles on the altar in the ancestral hall, searching around. The place was much larger and more eerie than they had imagined.

The offering table stretched from the entrance all the way to the innermost part, densely packed with memorial tablets, layer upon layer, row upon row.

The wooden memorial tablets were piled up so high they almost touched the roof.

At first glance, it looks like a wall made of memorial tablets.

Densely packed, countless.

"Why are there so many memorial tablets..." Zhou Hui murmured. "The village isn't big, how can there be so many dead people?"

"Who knows?" Lin Hao reached for a candle and looked at it closely.

The next second, his brows furrowed.

wrong.

These memorial tablets are all blank.

The wooden sign was completely black, with not a single word on it.

It has no name, no birth or death date, it's completely bare, nothing is engraved on it.

Thousands upon thousands of blank memorial tablets were piled up in layers.

"A nameless plaque?" Zhou Hui gasped in shock as she saw it clearly.

"How can there be no names? Who would put these in the ancestral hall? It's so unlucky."

"Something's not right." Ouyang Qiu leaned over to take a look. "Anyway, this village is weird; they can even hold a birthday banquet and a funeral together."

The three of them discussed for a few words, and then slowly searched along both sides of the offering table.

The fact that a player had achieved the first kill seemed to have given Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu a lot of confidence.

The candlelight spread out in the darkness, and the shadows of the blank memorial tablets moved along with it.

Ouyang Qiu walked on the far right, her heart pounding.

She always felt that something was watching her.

That chilly gaze lingered on my back, impossible to shake off.

She dared not turn back, focusing solely on finding the clay ghost, her occasional glances towards the upper right corner of her vision revealing a hint of astonished delight:

[Player: Ouyang Qiu]

[Occupation: Silkworm farmer (Yellow)]

……

……

Zhou Hui was unaware of her companion's thoughts. She simply walked forward step by step, her eyes scanning the offering table, searching for something covered by a red cloth.

She looked very carefully, searching bit by bit, not wanting to miss any corner.

If other players want to leave because they "don't want to die," her reason is "I can't die."

Her daughter was still waiting for her outside, waiting for her to bring back the money for the surgery.

As Zhou Hui thought this, her foot inexplicably turned a corner.

Behind the memorial tablet wall, against the innermost wall, in the candlelight, you can see a small, square temple-like structure about half a person's height standing there.

It was covered with a brand new red cloth.

A clay ghost covered with a red cloth!

found it!

Zhou Hui was overjoyed and was about to call Lin Hao and Ouyang Qiu over, but she subconsciously looked up and her gaze swept behind the memorial tablet. She felt her scalp tingle instantly:

The backs of the densely packed memorial tablets were not smooth wooden boards, but covered with holes.

Fist-sized holes, one after another.

It was densely packed, like a honeycomb.

In each hole, there was a large rat with a human head.

The body of a rat, the head of a human, was squeezed into the hole, with only the head sticking out, like a human pig.

—Like an ant queen trapped in her nest, her upper body is slender, but her lower body is stuck in the hole because of her plumpness.

All the eyes on those heads were open, staring intently at her.

His eyes were numb, yet tinged with greed; he remained motionless, just staring.

Zhou Hui recognized a few of the faces.

It's the two players who went missing last night, and a few villagers we saw.

They turned into rats with human heads and hid in the holes of the memorial tablets.

—Like an offering to someone, or like a guardian of an ancestral hall.

Zhou Hui's pupils dilated instantly, and a scream was about to burst out.

Just then, a hand reached out from the side and tightly covered her mouth:

"Ugh—!"

"Shhh."

Ouyang Qiu gritted her teeth, shook her head at her, her eyes filled with terror, but she firmly signaled her to keep quiet.

If we disturb these things, everything will be over.

Zhou Hui gradually calmed down, but her whole body was still trembling, covered in goosebumps, and her back was soaked with sweat.

She nodded, indicating that she understood.

Ouyang Qiu slowly released his grip.

The two looked at each other and saw extreme fear in each other's eyes.

This is not an ancestral hall.

It was clearly a huge rat nest.

It turns out that those blank memorial tablets weren't for the dead at all—they were for these rats.

So that rat hole... really had a rat the size of a person?

The two of them got goosebumps all over.

Lin Hao also saw the rat hole on the back of the memorial tablet, and the densely packed human-headed rats inside.

He recognized the missing player, his expression instantly turning grim, and then a terrifying, hidden thought suddenly arose in his mind:

The missing player was not declared dead by the system.

His mission points are calculated based on the number of new players surviving at the end of the instance.

Those idiot teammates, who knows when they'll drag him down.

—What if they also turn into human-headed rats?

Once this thought arises, it can never be suppressed.

……

……

The missing player has been turned into a human-headed rat.

He wasn't dead, but it was practically the same as being dead.

They turned into rats that were neither human nor ghost, and were locked in the ancestral hall's memorial tablet hole, just like prisoners.

The three of them remained silent, simply staring at the two missing players inside the cave.

They looked at him too, their eyes vacant, like a real rat.

A chill ran down their spines.

It would be better to die than to end up like this.

"Save...save me?" Ouyang Qiu asked softly, his voice barely audible.

Lin Hao glanced at her coldly: "How do you plan to save them? Do you have a way to turn them back?"

Ouyang Qiu remained silent.

"They brought this on themselves." Lin Hao withdrew his gaze. "Our target is the clay sculptures; don't disturb them."

It's impossible to save them.

It's beyond saving, and there's no need to save it.

It might be a waste of time, and you might even get yourself into trouble.

Zhou Hui sighed, feeling somewhat reluctant but saying nothing.

She can barely take care of herself, how could she possibly save others?

The three of them stepped over the swarm of rats and people, held their breath, and moved slowly, little by little, to the small temple covered by a red cloth.

The human-headed rat inside the cave remained motionless, merely staring at them, showing no intention of coming out.

This is good news.

Lin Hao tentatively reached out, grabbed a corner of the red cloth, and suddenly ripped it open.

The red cloth fell down, revealing what was inside.

The three of them were stunned. The expected ghosts and monsters were right in their faces, but the terrifying scene did not occur.

The small temple does not enshrine any deities or memorial tablets.

It's a clay sculpture, so ugly it's an eyesore.