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

……

"Sister Suya, there seem to be living people over there."

Yang Asha suddenly nudged Su Ya's arm and pointed to a table diagonally behind her.

Su Ya looked in the direction she was pointing.

Three people were sitting at a table in the corner.

Two women and one man.

The two women were pale-faced and were warily looking around.

The man had his back to them; he had broad shoulders but sat stiffly, as if he were seriously injured.

It's neither a paper doll nor a cat, but it has thick mouse fur on its face.

It's a real player.

"Is it another player?"

Yang Hexuan looked over as well, his eyes lighting up: "There really are other mirror players! The mirror game is really complete!"

"Let's go take a look," Su Ya decided immediately.

At this point, every additional person adds to our strength.

Moreover, if the other party is indeed another mirror image player, they might have clues that the other party doesn't have.

The four of them quietly got up, bypassed the villagers who were serving the dishes, and sat down at that table.

Su Ya recognized Lin Hao at a glance, her feelings were complicated.

So he came in too.

—The background of the umbilical cord around Lin Hao's neck could not be hidden from the Special Investigations Department, so Su Ya naturally knew about it as well.

The two hadn't spoken much since leaving Taiping Cemetery.

Now, however, he looks even more miserable, with the right half of his face completely ruined.

A deep, bone-revealing cat claw mark slashed diagonally from the forehead to the jaw, tearing the face in two.

The right eyeball is gone, leaving only a dark, empty eye socket.

His right trouser leg was empty, disappearing from the ankle down, the cuff blackened by blood and hanging stiffly.

Even knowing that you won't die from serious injuries in a dungeon, seeing it with your own eyes is still incredibly impactful.

……

Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu also saw what the group was doing, and their faces finally regained a bit of color:

"Are you gamers too?"

They weren't in much better shape; their faces were covered in blood and ash, and their eyes were filled with lingering fear.

"We are the players in the first mirror image."

Suya quickly pulled Yang Asha to sit down. "My name is Suya, and we're also players who chose the villager faction."

"The villagers' faction." Ouyang Qiu was taken aback. "The rats are the villagers' faction?"

Suya nodded.

Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu exchanged a glance. The former pointed to the man beside her, her voice filled with resentment:

"We are the second mirror image. Lin Hao dripped blood on the coffin, and when the cat-faced old woman came back to life and ran out... he was bitten by the cat."

Lin Hao was like a corpse, showing no reaction whatsoever.

—If the situation weren't so bad right now, Yang Hexuan and Lin Jianguo would have jumped up and killed him.

"What's the situation on your end?" Su Ya quickly exchanged clues: "How did the mirror image work?"

She looked around, but didn't seem to see anyone else.

"How would we know?"

Zhou Hui smiled bitterly: "Halfway through the vigil, the cat-faced old woman in the coffin rushed out."

We ran as fast as we could, but as we ran, we realized something was wrong. The village had grown bigger, the roads had changed, and then we saw a birthday feast at the threshing ground. We were somehow dragged here.

"It's the same over there."

Yang Hexuan chimed in, "Just as the mission failed, music suddenly started playing outside, and everything changed when we came out."

"It's possible that the rules have broken down."

Suya guessed: "The mission to guard the coffin failed, the cat-faced old woman broke the coffin, the rat-man camp failed to suppress the cat-faced old woman, and then the birthday banquet began."

If they had completed all their previous tasks perfectly, the ratmen might have won, and the old cat-faced woman might never have woken up.

The others nodded; Su Ya's guess was pretty much what they knew.

"Now is not the time to dwell on this," Ouyang Qiu said urgently. "Let's compare the clues. How much information do you have?"

—When it comes to a life-or-death situation, there's no point in hiding it.

Suya had no choice but to put aside her grudges for the time being and exchange clues:

The tasks include: Xiao Lian's mission, faction selection, the clay ghost shop, the seventh-day mourning trap, Old Lady Huang being starved to death by her four sons, the whole village refusing to help, and the black cat becoming a spirit to seek revenge.

Piecing together the clues from both sides, the background of the entire instance instantly became 80% clear.

Of course, Suya and the others also learned that Xiao Ding had given false information.

But they had no time to investigate—the real culprit had turned into a rat with a human head and was sitting on a plate.

……

……

"So it's a faction war. Successfully completing the mission and burying the dead is a victory for the Ratmen faction, quelling Old Lady Huang's resentment."

The mission failed, the cat-faced old woman resurrected, and the cat faction won.

Perhaps it was the life-or-death crisis that forced her to unleash her potential; Su Ya's mind raced:

"Old Mrs. Huang was starved to death by her four sons, and the whole village watched coldly. Her black cat absorbed the resentment and possessed her body, turning into an old woman with a cat face, who came back to take revenge."

"The villagers are cursed to turn into rats with human faces, and are hunted by cats generation after generation; this is their punishment."

"When players enter the game and choose the villager faction, they will gradually turn into rats and protect the villagers from disasters."

Choosing the cat faction means helping the murderous rats, but it will make you hated by the villagers.

"What are the conditions for clearing the dungeon?" Yang Hexuan asked. "Is it really surviving until the birthday banquet ends?"

Lin Jianguo shook his head:

"It's probably not that simple. The game wouldn't design a birthday banquet for no reason. What is Grandma Huang's wish? Is it to have a peaceful birthday? Impossible."

She died unjustly; her greatest wish must have been revenge.

"Killing four unfilial sons," Su Ya immediately replied, "Killing Huang Facai and his three brothers will dispel her resentment, and the dungeon will naturally end."

"That must be it."

Yang Hexuan felt as if he had found a way out and said excitedly, "Either we hold out until the birthday banquet ends and force our way through the rules, or we find Huang Facai and his four brothers, kill them, and settle the old lady's grievances ahead of schedule."

"Four sons? We've only seen Huang Facai so far," Zhou Hui said nervously.

"The remaining three are definitely in the village, and they might have turned into human-faced rats and gone into hiding. This should be the difficulty of the mission."

Ouyang Qiu added in a low voice, "We're currently in the rat camp, which means we're considered red-named. Besides, with so many cats around, we can't get out at all. How are we supposed to find them?"

Throughout the discussion, Lin Hao remained silent.

Yang Asha stared warily at the flesh-colored umbilical cord around his neck.

Suddenly, the suona playing on the stage stopped.

The entire room fell silent instantly.

The paper figures stopped clapping, and the wild cats stopped purring, all turning to look at the platform.

"Thump—"

A dull thud.

Eight villagers carried a huge black lacquered coffin up the high platform step by step.

The coffin was placed steadily in the center of the platform, with the lid open.

Then, a dark figure slowly sat up from the coffin, sitting cross-legged like an old woman.

It's an old lady with a cat face.

……

She, or rather it, was wearing that expensive burial shroud, but its chest was stained with a large patch of blood.

Its back was hunched, and its face still resembled that of a half-cat, half-human.

The left half of her face was made of human skin, wrinkled and bearing the outline of Old Lady Huang, with resentment and malice between her brows and eyes.

The right half of its face was covered in black fur, its mouth was wide open, revealing sharp fangs, and drool dripped down the corner of its mouth.

Its lower body is undergoing some kind of change.

The two thin legs are transforming into cat legs, with the joints bending in the opposite direction and the claws growing longer and longer.

Black fur peeked out from the trouser legs, densely packed.

Its behavior was nothing like a human's; it simply squatted on the edge of the coffin like a large cat, surveying the entire scene from above.

His eyes swept over the paper figures and cats below the stage before finally settling on Suya and her group's table.

His gaze was cold and icy, as if he were looking at the food on a plate.

The entire room fell silent.

Everyone held their breath.

"Oh, Mother!"

Huang Facai scurried up to the platform, bowed deeply to the cat-faced old woman, and plastered a fawning smile on his face:

"Mother! The birthday banquet is ready, please take a seat! Today's dishes are all your favorites."

The cat-faced old woman ignored him, her nose twitching twice as if she were sniffing something.

Then, it stretched out its paw and pointed down to the audience.

Pointing to the fingertips was a table covered with dishes of human heads and rats.

Huang Facai immediately understood and nodded with a smile, "Yes! Yes! Son knows you like this! I'll bring it up for you right away!"

With a wave of his hand, two villagers immediately carried plates up to the platform and placed a full plate of human-headed rats on the small table in front of the cat-faced old woman.

The cat-faced old woman lowered her head, brought her nose close to the plate, and sniffed it.

Then, it opened its mouth.

"Click."

It bit off the head of a human-headed rat.

The crisp sound echoed clearly throughout the entire threshing ground.

It chewed very slowly, as if savoring something delicious.

Blood and brain matter flowed from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin onto the burial shroud, spreading out in dark, flower-like patterns.

One, two, three.

The rat with the human head on the plate was quickly eaten up.

It licked its paws, and the human skin on its face seemed fuller, no longer as dry and gray as before.

The fur on its lower body is also thicker, and its leg shape is becoming more and more like a real cat's legs.

It is getting stronger, visibly stronger.

[Announcement: Player Zhuang Butong has died.]

[Announcement: Player Liu Dong has died.]

[Announcement: Player Qian Da has died.]

[Announcement: Player Ding Ruowei has died.]

The ink-wash characters spread out one after another, like death notices being called by the King of Hell.

It's a rat with a human head on the plate.

They are all transformed from players.

Each time one is eaten, the system announces its death.

It's like a countdown, counting down the days until the ratman faction players die.

"That thing is growing."

A hint of fear flickered in Yang Asha's eyes; she could clearly sense the changes occurring in the cat-faced old woman.

It is getting stronger.

With each additional human-faced rat it eats, it grows stronger.

"It's evolving. Look at her legs, they're growing hair."

Suya said urgently, "We can't let it eat anymore. If it keeps eating, and it completely turns into a cat, none of us rat players will be able to escape."

"What do we do then?" Yang Hexuan was disgusted. "Charge in and fight it? Can we even win?"

"We have to fight even if we can't win." Lin Jianguo's face was full of resolute determination: "If we sit here and wait to die, we'll die even faster."

"Anything with a physical form can be hurt."

Ouyang Qiu quickly said, "We still have two packets of exorcising lime, which should be useful."

"Uncle Lin and I have yellow talismans." At this critical moment, Yang Hexuan no longer held back. "The problem is how to get close."

The group felt a chill run down their spines as they looked at the dense swarm of black cats surrounding the platform.

The area was surrounded by cats of varying heights; before they could even charge forward, they would most likely be torn to pieces by the angry horde.

Suya's heart was beating faster and faster.

Can't wait.

If they wait any longer, the cat-faced old woman will be fully formed, and they won't even have a chance to fight back.

She suddenly looked up, swallowed hard, and mustered her courage:

"We can't just sit here and wait to die."

"Charge out and fight them!"

"While it hasn't completely transformed, there's still a chance."

"If you fight, you might survive; if you don't even dare to resist, you'll just become a dish."