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

First mirror image.

As dawn broke, the west wing of the ancestral hall reeked of paper ash and the stench of sweat.

The blue brick floor was damp, and the lime lines at the base of the wall were blurred and white due to the snowmelt.

The ten players huddled together, none of them able to sleep soundly.

Another day has passed.

……

Suya and Yang Asha leaned against the wall, cuddling each other and dozing off—the two didn't get a proper rest until dawn.

Ten people crammed into one room would definitely smell awful, not to mention the teeth grinding, farting, and sleep talking at night:

Adding to the eeriness of the dungeon, everyone's face was etched with an intense, almost palpable weariness.

Lin Jianguo was the first to wake up.

He was preoccupied with the dungeon quest and couldn't sleep soundly. He opened his eyes as soon as it was light, but instead of getting up immediately, he leaned against the wall and stared blankly.

Yang Hexuan slept soundly, seemingly oblivious to everything, with a long trail of drool hanging from his mouth.

Lin Jianguo frowned as he looked at it.

There were no lights on in the house, and the fire used for warmth had long since gone out, leaving only a faint ember.

Yang Hexuan's face was ashen, and Lin Jianguo thought he was seeing things.

The night passed peacefully.

The second night in the dungeon passed by smoothly, more so than expected.

—Although the cat meowed loudly last night, as if it was about to break down the door at any moment, it ultimately did not come in.

I don't know if it was the lime that had the effect.

Just then, system notifications suddenly rippled outwards:

The second night passed peacefully.

[Current total number of surviving players in the instance: 23]

[First Mirror Image Puzzle Solving Progress: 30%]

[Second Mirror Puzzle Solving Progress: 25%]

[Third Mirror Puzzle Progress: 0%]

……

The players, who were still half asleep, opened their eyes and, upon seeing the ink-wash characters, were initially bewildered, but then felt relieved to have survived the ordeal.

……

"It's dawn... Did we survive another night?"

One player rubbed his eyes, his voice filled with disbelief.

"The second night passed peacefully; it didn't seem too difficult after all."

One player breathed a sigh of relief, patting his chest, "The cat was meowing so loudly last night, I thought the cat outside was going to break in, it scared me to death."

"A peaceful Christmas Eve is fine, a peaceful Christmas Eve is fine..."

As player Chen Man muttered to herself, her nerves finally relaxed.

With everyone talking at once, the tense atmosphere eased considerably.

Some people stretched, some rubbed their shoulders, and some groped for water.

The messy west wing actually added a touch of liveliness to the room.

Xiao Ding also woke up.

She sat up groggily, feeling a slight itch on both sides of her cheeks, as if fine hairs were rubbing against her skin—

It feels numb and itchy.

She thought it was covered in hay dust, so she reached out to rub it off.

But when he touched the corners of his mouth, Xiao Ding froze on the spot.

Two particularly long, upturned hairs grew from the corner of her lips; they felt rough to the touch and had a slightly stiff texture.

She frantically rummaged through her makeup bag for a mirror, and the moment she leaned in, a scream shattered the silence.

"ah--!!"

The sudden scream startled everyone awake, and they instinctively looked at Xiao Ding, only to be shocked and wide-eyed.

Two or three thin, gray-black whiskers grew on each side of Xiao Ding's mouth.

It stood there, hard and protruding from the corner of her lips, like two abrupt needles piercing her otherwise delicate face.

Ugly and bizarre, comical and terrifying.

……

"What is this thing?!"

As if burned, Xiao Ding recoiled violently, crawling backward on all fours, pulling his companion along to make the other person look closely:

"Look at me, look at me, I have something growing on my face!"

"Something's growing?"

Everyone's heart tightened.

Xiao Qian subconsciously touched his face, and the others also tensed up, looking at each other's faces.

Suya and Yang Asha are still asleep.

"Take your hands away and let us see."

A player shakily approached and reached out to pull it a couple of times:

"My God... rat whiskers... they really are rat whiskers!"

His voice trembled: "Xiao Ding, how...how come you have this on your face?!"

Everyone became frightened.

"I don't know either."

Xiao Ding covered his face and kept protesting his innocence: "I don't know, I felt itchy on my face when I woke up."

What should I do? Will I turn into a rat...?

She muttered to herself, then suddenly caught sight of Yang Hexuan lying there. The next moment, the terror in her voice was impossible to hide:

"He has it too! Look at Suya and the others, they have hair on their faces!!"

Everyone was taken aback and subconsciously turned to look at Yang Hexuan.

Upon seeing this, everyone gasped, their hair standing on end.

Although Yang Hexuan and Lin Jianguo didn't have the same long, prominent beards as Xiao Ding, their entire cheeks were covered with a layer of fine, light black down.

It's very short and dense, like thin, newly grown baby hair.

It doesn't completely obscure the facial features, but if you look closely, you'll find a dense layer covering the skin, giving it an inhuman and eerie feel.

Lin Jianguo is old and his skin is rough. The fine black hairs growing in his wrinkles can easily be mistaken for old age hair if you don't look closely.

Yang Hexuan's case is even more obvious.

And it wasn't just the two of them; Suya and the sleeping Yang Asha also had it on their faces.

Especially along the jawline, the downy hairs grow along the contours, subtly outlining the curve of a rodent's pointed snout.

The two men's originally upright faces inexplicably revealed a rat-like gloom.

……

……

"Oh my god..."

Yang Hexuan didn't even have time to wipe his drool before he shrank back in fright: "You guys—how did this thing grow on my face?! What is it?!"

"What on earth is going on?!"

Xiao Qian panicked, her voice trembling: "How could a perfectly healthy person have rat hair growing on their face?"

The few people without fur seemed to have seen a monster, and they all retreated in unison, putting distance between themselves and Su Ya and her group of four.

His eyes were full of fear and wariness, and a hint of undisguised disgust.

—It looks like they're looking at some kind of plague source.

Su Ya had just woken up when her heart sank.

She raised her hand and touched her cheek.

When you touch the fine downy hairs with your fingertips, they feel rough and stiff, completely different from normal body hair.

Her heart skipped a beat.

The change happened silently; she was perfectly fine when she was on night watch last night.

How did I end up like this after just one night's sleep?

She suppressed her panic and forced herself to calm down.

"I don't know either."

She spoke, thankfully in a normal voice: "Let's find out the reason first—"

"Reason? What reason?!"

One player, who had long disliked Su Ya, gloated in a low voice, "You've all turned out like this, what else could it be? You must have gotten something dirty on you!"

Some people have raised questions.

"You two were on night duty last night, right?"

Xiao Zhuang then questioned, "Could it be that you two touched something you shouldn't have last night?"

"impossible."

Suya immediately realized that she couldn't take the blame for this:

"Asha and I took turns keeping watch at night. We didn't sleep all night and didn't rest until almost dawn. Last night, apart from the cats meowing loudly outside the ancestral hall, nothing else happened."

"Yes, I can testify that the doors and windows were not opened, and the lime was already sprinkled."

Yang Asha nodded vigorously, adding in a low voice, "We haven't even stepped out of the door, how could we possibly run into something we shouldn't have?"

"Then why do you grow taller while we don't?!"

One player exclaimed, "It can't be that you guys were just unlucky and it just appeared out of nowhere!"

Lin Jianguo didn't react as strongly as Xiao Ding. Firstly, he didn't feel any itching or pain, and secondly, he felt that getting out alive was more important.

"meal."

He spoke, his voice not loud, but it silenced everyone: "Could there be something wrong with the buffet we had for lunch yesterday?"

"A banquet in the form of drinks?"

Everyone was taken aback.

"There's something strange about this village. The food looks normal, but maybe something's been laced with it."

Lin Jianguo speculated, "That village chief is also strange. Who knows if he put something in the food?"

"Wait a minute, we ate rice too, so why didn't we grow?"

"The food should be fine; I don't feel anything."

"I ate too." Xiao Qian nodded in agreement. "I ate three bowls of rice and I feel perfectly fine."

Suya's head was throbbing with worry as she looked up at Asha, curiously touching the fur on her face, her curiosity outweighing her fear.

"Who knows if we'll change?"

Xiao Ding cried, "We still have to stay in this damn instance for seven days! What if I wake up tomorrow with black hair growing on my face? I don't want to!"

"No, no way, don't scare me."

Yang Hexuan trembled, rubbing his cheeks repeatedly, on the verge of tears: "We can't end up like those things in the rice bins of the morgue, can we?"

One sentence struck a nerve with several people's hidden worries.

Now it's just growing down and a beard, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after tomorrow?

Will their faces turn completely into rat faces? Will their whole bodies turn into rat heads?

The thought of Yang Hexuan's description of the grotesque creature with a pointed mouth, monkey cheeks, rat body, and human head sent chills down everyone's spine.

"The human-headed rat I saw yesterday...could it also be a player in disguise?"

Some players cautiously raised questions.

The room fell into an instant silence upon hearing this.

The thought was too terrifying for them to accept; it was even harder for them to accept than death itself.

At least death ends it all.

If you really become that kind of inhuman, ghostly thing, being chased and gnawed by cats, and even dying is unpleasant—that would truly be worse than death.

……

……

Xiao Ding was already scared, and upon hearing this, he completely broke down, letting out a loud wail.

"I don't want to become a rat! I don't want to!"

She pointed at Su Ya, and venomous words blurted out without her thinking, "It's all your fault, it's all your fault, Su Ya!"

Su Ya was taken aback.

She clearly hadn't expected Xiao Ding to suddenly turn his anger towards her.

"My fault?" She pursed her lips, a hint of anger in her voice. "What do you mean?"

"It's all your fault!"

Fear overwhelmed all other feelings, and Xiao Ding's mind was sharper than ever before. She shouted:

"Those who grew rat fur are all people who listened to you and went to do the small-scale tasks!"

All eyes immediately turned to Su Ya.

Xiao Ding pointed at Su Ya, Yang Asha, Lin Jianguo, Yang Hexuan, and others, his voice urgent and rapid:

"You, Yang Asha, Uncle Lin, and Yang Hexuan, all four of you successfully completed Xiao Lian's mission, so you have the most hair on your faces!"

"I also touched the corpse, but I failed my mission, so I only have two whiskers left, and my symptoms are the mildest."

"Everyone who didn't touch the corpses or do the mission is perfectly fine, not a single hair has grown on their head!"

"What else could be the problem if not the mission itself?!"

In her panic, Xiao Ding blurted out the secret that she hadn't completed the task.

But no one was paying attention to any of that; all eyes were on Su Ya, as if they were waiting to see her reaction.

……

……

Xiao Ding's words were forceful and resounding, but upon closer examination, everyone was surprised to find that they made some sense.

If it was a problem with the food, then they all ate it.

If the cat's meow was strange, then why didn't Lin Jianguo, who was on night duty the first night, change?

It seems... Xiao Ding is right.

Those who actively touched the corpses and completed the small burial task all underwent changes.

Those who didn't draw a task sign or failed the task also escaped unscathed.

Su Ya felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her head; she began to panic, her mind in turmoil.

Lin Jianguo's face instantly darkened.

He opened his mouth, wanting to refute, but the facts were undeniable, leaving him no room for argument.

He did indeed complete the task of guiding the soul, and he did indeed grow downy hair.

There's not much to say.

Yang Hexuan was also stunned, his face filled with disbelief: "Really? Is it wrong to do a mission?"

"Of course it's wrong!"

Xiao Ding noticed the sympathy in the other players' eyes and instantly flew into a rage:

"I told you from the beginning not to do missions, not to do missions, can't we just stay put?"

It was all because Su Yafei claimed to be a veteran player, saying she was doing some stupid quest, just collecting clues—now she hadn't even gotten many clues, and she'd already turned into a monster!

"You're a veteran player, you have a lot of experience, we all trusted you and followed your instructions to do the quests. And what happened? I'm going to become a rat!"

"What are you up to?! Are you doing this on purpose?!"

Each accusation was like a knife aimed at Su Yazha.

She stood there, her face gradually turning pale.