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

Han Yingying wanted to investigate.

She opened the game forum and searched for "difficulty offset". The results were almost blank – only a few posts mentioned similar situations, and none of them had been followed up. Either the original poster deleted the post, or the post was removed by the administrator.

She then searched for "weird bugs," but all the results were irrelevant.

dead end.

Han Yingying was about to shut down the forum when a forced notification popped up from the system:

[Dungeon teleport countdown: 60 seconds]

[Target Dungeon: Ghost Town]

[Difficulty: S-rank]

Sixty seconds.

Han Yingying sprang out of bed and started stuffing things into her pockets: a scalpel, skill fragments from the last dungeon run, and some gold coins.

She didn't have time to contact Zhou Lang or make any preparations.

The countdown has reached zero.

The white light engulfed the room.

-

When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a dirt road.

The road was lined with low brick and tile houses, gray walls, wooden doors, and blackened corncobs hanging from the eaves. It was a typical northern village layout, but all the houses had their doors and windows tightly shut, and there wasn't a soul in sight on the street.

It was dusk—the sun was pressing down on the distant mountain ridge, turning half the sky a dark red.

A panel pops up:

[Instance: Ghost Town]

[Difficulty: S-rank]

[Mission: Find the "Mayor" and obtain the pass; leave the town through the east gate before dawn.]

Current number of players: 6

[Note: Do not respond to calls from empty rooms]

S-class.

Han Yingying's heart raced. She had never entered an S-rank dungeon before—at least not in her memory.

"Han Yingying?"

A voice came from behind.

She turned around and saw Zhou Lang.

He stood two steps away, wearing that old coat, holding an oil lamp in his hand—the ghost-guiding lamp, the one he got at the haunted manor last time.

"You were teleported in too?" Han Yingying asked.

"Hmm. No preparation time was given."

They stared at each other for a second. Zhou Lang's gaze swept across her face, lingering on her pajamas for a moment.

"...You came in wearing your pajamas?"

"I didn't have time to change it."

"oh."

Zhou Lang took off his coat and handed it to her.

Han Yingying hesitated for a moment, then took the coat and put it on. It was very large, draped over her like a heavy overcoat. The cuffs smelled of laundry detergent, mixed with a faint, indescribable odor.

"Lin Xiaoxi is here too," Han Yingying said. "She's linked to my ID. If she's in this instance—"

Before he could finish speaking, a person came running from a distance along the dirt road.

Lin Xiaoxi. She was out of breath from running and almost tripped when she saw Han Yingying.

"Sister Han!" Lin Xiaoxi rushed over and hugged Han Yingying's arm. "I'm so scared..."

"Don't panic." Han Yingying patted her back.

A few minutes later, the fourth player appeared. He was a middle-aged man, bald, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. He looked around at his surroundings with a blank expression.

"Where is this place?" the bald man asked.

"A copy," Zhou Lang replied briefly.

The fifth and sixth players appeared together—Xu Kun and Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan smiled as soon as he saw Han Yingying: "What a coincidence, we've met again."

Then he saw Zhou Lang.

His smile froze on his face, and his eyes widened little by little.

"Wait...wait a minute." Fang Yuan's voice began to tremble. "You are...'Lang Li Ge Lang'?"

Zhou Lang glanced at him. "You know me?"

"I know him! Of course I know him!" Fang Yuan got excited, rubbing his hands together and spinning around twice. "Oh my god, I'm your fan! I've been following your dungeon stats. I've watched your performance in the second dungeon, where you scared that vengeful ghost to tears, at least twenty times—"

"I didn't scare anyone to tears," Zhou Lang interrupted him. "It cried on its own."

"Yes, yes, it cried by itself!" Fang Yuan nodded repeatedly, completely losing the composure he had as a seasoned veteran in the abandoned hospital, and looking like a middle school student at a fan meeting.

Xu Kun listened from the side, expressionless, but his lips twitched slightly.

Han Yingying couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight. Zhou Lang, being praised so much, didn't show much reaction on his face, but the tips of his ears turned a little red.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the atmosphere quickly turned somber.

An S-rank dungeon. Of the six people, three were high-level players, one had potential, one was a newbie, and the other… Han Yingying glanced at the bald man.

"What's your name? What's your rank?" she asked.

"My name is Qian Wei. Level 1. First time." The bald man pushed up glasses that weren't actually there—probably a habitual gesture.

A level 1 newbie being thrown into an S-rank dungeon is either incredibly unlucky or it's intentional on the part of the system.

"The mission objective is to find the 'town mayor'," Zhou Lang said, looking at the panel. "The town isn't big; let's figure out the layout first."

The six people walked along the dirt road. The sun had completely set, and the sky changed from dark red to deep purple, and then from deep purple to pure black.

There are no streetlights.

Zhou Lang lit the Ghost Lamp. The green light illuminated an area of ​​five or six meters around it.

When Han Yingying passed the third intersection, her perception skill was triggered.

"There are so many around...so many," she whispered. "In every house."

Fang Yuan's expression changed.

Zhou Lang didn't stop. Wherever the green light shone, pale faces would occasionally flash behind the windows before quickly disappearing back into the distance.

"They're afraid of this light," Zhou Lang said.

"I may be scared, but there's so much to say..." Fang Yuan didn't finish his sentence.

At the end of the road stood a two-story brick building with a faded wooden sign hanging at the entrance: Town Government.

"The mayor should be in here," Han Yingying said.

Pushing open the door, I found myself in an empty hall. Yellowed slogans and posters covered the walls, and the chair behind the counter was overturned.

The staircase leads to the second floor.

Zhou Lang walked in front, with Han Yingying close behind. When they reached the second-floor corridor, the door to the innermost office was half-open, letting in a dim, yellow light.

Go inside.

Behind a huge desk sat a person.

The man was wearing a Zhongshan suit, his hair was neatly combed back, and his face was dignified, even kind. But his complexion was gray, his lips were purple, and the joints of his fingers were black.

The "town mayor" looked up at the six people who walked in.

"Oh, we have guests." His voice sounded normal, even a little amused. "Sit down, sit down."

No one is sitting here.

"The pass," Zhou Lang said directly. "Give us the pass, and we'll leave."

The mayor shook his head: "It's not that simple. The passes weren't given by me; you earned them yourselves."

"How do I earn it?"

The mayor stood up, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains. Outside, countless ghosts emerged from the houses on the street. They moved slowly along the street in a line, like a greyish-white river.

"This town has been dead for thirty years," the mayor said. "They—my townspeople—repeat their last acts every night. Your task is simple: fulfill their last wishes."

The panel has been updated: