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

"Fragments, and a new term."

"What's your name?"

"Frighten the Courage." He read the description of the entry aloud, "The effect is: when you successfully scare away a monster of intensity B or higher, there is a chance to gain the monster's courage value, which is added to yourself."

Han Yingying thought for a second: "...So the more you scare ghosts, the less afraid you become?"

That's roughly the idea.

Zhao Qiang was already walking towards the stairwell. Halfway there, he turned back to look at Zhou Lang and spoke cautiously, as if he were saying something that needed to be addressed beforehand: "Brother Lang, you know what? Sometimes I feel that the weirdest thing in this game isn't the ghosts."

Zhou Lang picked up the oil lamp and walked towards the stairwell. "I know what you're talking about."

"Just so you know."

The three went upstairs. The main hall was empty, and the sound of the wind in the manor had also ceased; that deathly silence was a signal that the dungeon was about to close. The butler stood by the door, his back to them, his head slightly tilted to the right.

Zhou Lang walked over and stood next to the butler for a moment.

The butler didn't turn around; his voice came from the steel-like cavity: "...The position of manor lord has been reclaimed. Execution complete."

"Settle the accounts," Zhou Lang said.

The gate opened, revealing a white light outside—not sunlight, but a white that encompassed everything. The three walked out, and the manor closed behind them.

The notification sound indicating the end of the instance was short and crisp.

Zhou Lang squeezed the dark green fragment in his pocket; it was warm and real. Only then did he realize that his trip hadn't been in vain.

When Han Yingying opened her eyes, she couldn't recognize where she was.

It wasn't the brief disorientation from sleeping in a different place; I genuinely couldn't recognize it—the ceiling was white, the bed was soft, and sunlight streamed in through the loosely drawn curtains, casting a slanted beam on the wardrobe directly opposite. The wardrobe belonged to her, and a sticker from three years ago was stuck to it, its edges already peeling off.

Her room.

Han Yingying sat up in bed and looked around. It was as if someone had cut out a piece of her memory, leaving only fragments with blurry edges, unable to form complete sentences. She remembered going to school, going home, eating, and looking at her phone, but there was a period of time—where she went, what she did, and who she was with—that seemed to have never happened.

She checked the date on her phone.

It was almost a month later than the last date she remembered.

The phone slipped from her hand, and Han Yingying caught it. She checked the date again; the numbers hadn't changed. She searched through her memories of that month, but found nothing—it was as if it had never existed.

She got out of bed and opened the door.

There are more things on the walls in the corridor.

The words, written neatly in black ink on the white wall, included titles and entries.

[Guest Information]

1. You may move freely indoors from sunrise to sunset.

2. Doors and windows must be kept tightly closed at night and must not be opened. Violators will be recorded.

3. All members of the household must obey the homeowner's arrangements and must not disobey.

4. Do not have unauthorized contact with strangers from outside the area.

V. Those who violate the above rules will be dealt with in accordance with the regulations.

Han Yingying stood in the corridor, staring at the few lines of text, and read them three times.

The words were newly written; the ink wasn't completely dry yet, but the person who wrote them wasn't there. She was the only one in the entire corridor, so quiet that she could hear the sound of chopping vegetables downstairs. She walked to the top of the stairs and looked down.

Stepmother Zeng Yu was in the kitchen, her back to the stairs, wearing an apron. Stepsister Han Xue came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of cut fruit. When she looked up and saw Han Yingying, her expression was a little strange, mixed with something indescribable. It wasn't surprise, but more like she was aware of something in a certain way.

"You're up?" Zeng Yu didn't even turn his head, his voice was so normal that it made people feel that something was wrong.

"I just got up." Han Yingying took two steps downstairs. "Mom, what's with those words in the hallway?"

Zeng Yu put down the kitchen knife and turned around, his face bearing that familiar expression—a concerned shell wrapped in a restrained tone. "Don't you remember? Your father left this before he passed away, saying it had to be followed during this period. Everyone in the family knows it."

"When did my dad leave this?"

"last month."

Last month happened to be the period when she had a memory gap. Han Yingying suppressed the matter, decided not to ask about it for the time being, and returned to her room. She sat on the edge of the bed for a while, going over those rules in her mind.

Article 3: All members of the household must obey the homeowner's arrangements and must not disobey them.

The problem with this is that she doesn't understand what "landlord arrangements" specifically means.

She didn't have to wait long; at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doorbell rang.

Han Yingying was tidying up in her room when she heard a noise downstairs. She went out and stood at the top of the stairs to look down. A man approached, looking to be about her age. He was wearing a suit and had a neatly styled haircut. He stood in the middle of the living room, his facial features very defined. But Han Yingying stared at his face for a few seconds, feeling that something didn't quite match. Not his features, but something else, something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Zeng Yu saw Han Yingying standing at the top of the stairs and immediately waved: "Yingying, come down. This is Chen Xu, the one you two agreed on before."

The man named Chen Xu looked up, glanced at the stairwell, and smiled at Han Yingying.

Han Yingying walked down the stairs and stopped three steps away.

"Fiancé?" She said the word flatly, without any upward inflection. "When did I get a fiancé?"

Zeng Yu's expression shifted slightly. "You forgot what we agreed on before? You weren't feeling well at the time, so it's normal that you're a little confused about some things. Chen Xu came all the way to see you, and you're not welcoming him?"

Han Yingying looked at Chen Xu, who had been smiling the whole time. The curve of his smile hadn't changed at all since he entered the room; it hadn't deepened or faded. It looked like it was pasted on, not grown out.

"I've got it mixed up?" Han Yingying countered, "I've got it mixed up, but you two remember it perfectly clearly?"

"Yingying—"

"Okay, I'll go up first." She interrupted Zeng Yu and turned to walk towards the stairs.

Zeng Yu called to her from behind, and Han Xue also came over to stop her, talking about rules and how this couldn't be done. Han Yingying walked around Han Xue without stopping, the few lines of rules in the corridor sweeping past her eyes—

Article 3: All members of the household must obey the homeowner's arrangements and must not disobey them.

She turned and glanced at Chen Xu.

The man's smile remained unchanged, but the way he looked at her wasn't like a person looking at another person; it was as if something was assessing its prey.

"I won't comply." She turned her head, pushed open her bedroom door, and said, "Do whatever you want."

New words appeared on the wall.

Not in the hallway, but on the wall of her room, right in front of her, as if it had just been carved in, black, deep into the wall: