A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

The basement floor has no windows, no lights, and even the air is sealed off, as if something closed it down decades ago and has never opened it again.

Zhou Lang walked inside holding an oil lamp. The green light shone out, and the first thing he saw was a pair of cloth shoes, women's, with the toes pointing upwards and the feet still inside.

He looked up.

The entire wall.

The corpses sat one after another against the wall, arranged not randomly, but rather as if deliberately placed. They were seated with their heads tilted back and their hands on their knees. Zhou Lang scanned the group; there were about thirty corpses. The age of the bodies could be discerned from their clothing. The one on the far left was wearing a tattered, coarse linen garment, while the one on the far right was still wearing a uniform like those from a factory, with the name of a long-defunct company embroidered on the collar.

Zhao Qiang stopped behind him, his throat moved slightly, but no sound came out.

"It's been a long time since we started collecting this." Zhou Lang moved the oil lamp toward the central stone platform. "The steward isn't the master; he's just a tool. The real thing is trapped here."

"Where are you trapped?" Han Yingying asked.

"In this lamp."

On the stone platform sat a copper-green oil lamp, identical in shape to the one in Zhou Lang's hand, except its wick was carbonized and its base was covered in green rust, as if it had been there for hundreds of years. Inscriptions were carved on the side of the platform, in traditional Chinese characters, the strokes worn away. Zhou Lang crouched down to examine them closely:

The Soul-Suppressing Lamp, when lit, gathers all the ghosts; when extinguished, the master returns to his position.

He reversed the logic of those words—light this lamp, and all the ghosts in the manor will be attracted; when the lamp goes out, the main seat is returned, the trapped things are able to leave, and the wandering ghosts will dissipate.

The logic is sound; the problem lies in the middle section: "The lamp is lit, and the ghosts gather."

How many ghosts are in the manor now? Three floors plus a basement, the corridors are packed with them, some are crawling on the ceiling, some are hanging from the corners—conservatively over a hundred. After they're lured here, how will we survive the time before the lights go out?

"What are you thinking about?" Han Yingying squatted down beside her and turned her head to look at the words.

"I'm thinking about what will happen after I light this lamp."

"Is it troublesome?"

"It depends." Zhou Lang straightened up, took out the note from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Han Yingying.

Han Yingying took it and looked at it by the green light—

[Scared Ghosts]: Records the number of times you frighten ghosts. Accumulated records can be redeemed for rewards. Current record: 47 times.

She flipped the note over to make sure there was nothing on the other side, then flipped it back and read it again.

"Scare the ghost."

"right."

"Is this your... skill?"

"A term is not a skill, but the effect is similar."

Han Yingying returned the note to him without saying anything strange. She went over the matter in her mind and calmly asked, "So how did you accumulate these forty-seven times?"

"It was accumulated little by little." Zhou Lang put the note back in his pocket. "On my first day here, in the second-floor corridor, there was a ghost standing behind the door when I opened it. I casually pulled the chainsaw, and it crashed into the ceiling. That was the first time. Later, I discovered that I could create them on my own, so I started looking for opportunities."

Han Yingying thought about it for a moment: "So you don't sleep at night because you're looking for ghosts to scare you?"

"Not entirely, but that's part of the reason."

Zhao Qiang listened from the side, his face showing an expression of wanting to speak but unable to, finally managing to squeeze out only, "...Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"Are ghosts afraid of you, or are you not afraid of ghosts?"

"Both of them." Zhou Lang pulled a chainsaw from another pocket. "Anyway, light this lamp, and the ghosts will gather. I'll be responsible for keeping them quiet—or not quiet, depending on the situation. You two stand behind the platform and don't move."

Zhao Qiang glanced at the chainsaw, then at Zhou Lang, then back at the chainsaw. "That's it?"

"Ghosts are afraid of me." Zhou Lang said this without any extra tone, as if stating that it was going to rain. "Not because of the chainsaw, but because of me. I've tested it before, and in the ghosts' perception, my aura is different from that of normal people, making it easier for them to have a stress response. This is the conclusion I've drawn from many experiments."

Han Yingying and Zhao Qiang both fell silent.

"...How many times have you tested it?" Zhao Qiang finally asked.

"Enough number of times to reach a conclusion."

The silence continues.

Before they could finish processing what was happening, Zhou Lang brought the green flame of the oil lamp close to the wick of the copper-green lamp to ignite it. The carbonized wick didn't ignite immediately upon contact with the fire. After a moment, something inside the wick stirred, as if something long dormant had been touched. The copper-green flame burst forth from the wick, brighter and deeper than the green flame, illuminating all directions of the basement.

There was a vibration underground, not a sound, but a kind of vibration that traveled up from the soles of my feet, like the foundation of a building was moving.

Then the ghost appeared.

It wasn't a slow surge, it was a torrent. It rose from the stairwell, from the cracks in the walls, from the bodies of those sitting corpses, so dense that even the green light was partially obscured. Zhou Lang stood motionless by the platform, watching it surge towards him, waiting.

The one at the very front stopped two steps away from him.

It had no lower body, its upper body was suspended, its two hands were ridiculously long, hanging all the way to the ground, its head was tilted to one side, its eye sockets were empty, and something was trembling in the hollows, perhaps trying to sense the aura of the person in front of it.

Zhou Lang pulled the chainsaw starter cord.

"Buzz—"

The sound of saw teeth turning echoed through the basement, a metallic rustling that sent chills down your spine. The ghost in front moved first, taking a step back and bumping into the ghost behind it. The ghost behind followed suit, and this receding tide-like reaction spread from front to back, causing all the ghosts in the basement to collectively shrink towards the walls.

[Scared the Ghost] ×34.

The term popped into Zhou Lang's mind. He noted the number down—adding the previous 47 times, it was now 81 times, which was about right.

The verdigris lamp on the platform went out.

It wasn't blown away by the wind; it extinguished itself. The instant the light disappeared, the ghosts in the basement were like kites with broken strings, all losing their support, vanishing with a whoosh—no sound, no afterimage, just gone.

The basement returned to darkness, with only the green-flame oil lamp in Zhou Lang's hand and the thirty-two corpses that had finally fallen silent.

Zhao Qiang peeked out from behind the platform and glanced around. "Is it over?"

"It's over."

[Dungeon Quest Completed: Manor Soul Suppression. Rating: Perfect. Bonus Rewards: Soul Lamp Fragment x1, Attribute Reward Unlocked: "Terrifying".]

The message lingered in Zhou Lang's field of vision for a few seconds. After reading the content, he looked at the table—the verdigris oil lamp was gone, and a small piece of dark green fragment remained on the table, like glass. It was warm to the touch, not cold, but a deep, suppressed warmth.

He put the fragments into his pocket.

Han Yingying walked over, glanced at his pocket, and asked, "What's the reward?"