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

Han Yingying gave the introduction. When Su Wan heard the name "Zhou Lang," her eyes lit up: "The one from the haunted manor? The one who scares ghosts?"

"How did you know?" Zhao Qiang asked.

"Someone posted about it on the forum. Although the ID is different, the description matches." Su Wan gave Zhou Lang a thumbs up. "I've heard so much about you, sir."

Zhou Lang: "...You guys are pretty well-informed."

"Gathering intelligence is my job."

Han Yingying interrupted the casual conversation: "Now is not the time for reminiscing. There are six of us in an S-level instance with a 72-hour time limit. Let's go into town first and talk as we go."

The group of six entered Mirror Town.

There was no one alive in the town.

The doors of the houses on both sides of the street were tightly shut, and behind the windows were dark voids. Occasionally, the sound of something moving inside the houses could be heard—the screech of dragging furniture, or the sharp noise of fingernails scraping against glass.

The six people walked along the left side of the dividing line, and no one dared to step onto the right side.

"The clock tower is in the town center." Han Yingying took out her detection scope and scanned the area in the distance. Pale blue dots appeared on the scope's surface, marking the distribution of danger sources ahead—dense red dots, like a net cast across the town. "But from here to the clock tower, we have to pass through at least twenty danger zones."

"Can't we get around it?" Zhao Qiang asked.

"There's no way around it. The red dots cover all the main roads and alleys."

Lin Mo took the detector scope, glanced at it, and handed it back to Han Yingying: "The density of the hazard source is uneven. There's a gap in the northeast direction, and the red dots are noticeably sparser."

"That might be a trap," Zhou Lang said.

"That could be a breakthrough," Lin Mo replied.

The two looked at each other, neither giving way.

Han Yingying smoothed things over, saying, "Let's go check it out first. If it's a trap, we'll retreat; if it's an opening, we'll go in."

The six people changed direction and headed northeast.

After walking for less than five minutes, the road ahead was blocked by a building. It was a hotel with a sign that read "Anning Inn." The door was ajar, and a dim light shone from inside.

"There's a light on." Su Wan noticed. "All the other buildings are dark, but this one has a light on."

"In S-rank dungeons, the lit areas are either safe rooms or boss rooms," Gu Bei said.

Zhao Qiang shrank back: "Should we still go in?"

Zhou Lang had already pushed open the door and gone inside.

"...Does he always do this?" Su Wan asked Zhao Qiang.

"You'll get used to it." Zhao Qiang followed with a bitter face.

The hotel lobby was unusually normal. There was no one behind the counter, but the register was open, and pens were in pen holders. A row of room keys, numbered 101 to 108, hung on the wall.

Zhou Lang walked to the counter and flipped through the register.

"The name is on it," he said.

Han Yingying leaned closer to take a look. The registration book contained check-in records written in crooked handwriting, all dated as "Eternal Day," and there were quite a few names—

Room 103: Li Ming

Room 105: Zhang Wei

Room 106: "You"

Han Yingying stared at the word "you".

"This isn't a name," she said. "It's a designation."

"Refers to whom?" Su Wan asked.

Before the words were even finished, the light above the counter flashed three times, and a voice came from above—not the mechanical voice in my head, but the hotel's public address system: "Dear guest, room 106 has been reserved for you. Please check in within ten minutes, otherwise the reservation will be cancelled."

The broadcast was repeated three times before falling silent.

The six people looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Does this mean we have to go into room 106?" Zhao Qiang's voice was weak.

Zhou Lang took the key to room 106 off the wall and weighed it in his hand: "Let's go up and take a look."

"Wait a minute." Lin Mo stopped him. "Did you notice that 103 and 105 have names, but 104 was skipped?"

"Hmm, there's no 107 after 106." Zhou Lang glanced at the key rack. "The keys to 104 and 107 aren't on the rack."

"Someone has already gone in," Han Yingying said.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Never mind, let's go to 106 first. The ten-minute limit doesn't seem like a joke." Zhou Lang took the keys and went upstairs, with the others following closely behind.

There were footprints of varying depths on the carpet in the second-floor corridor. Some were normal shoe prints, while others... didn't look like human feet. Han Yingying noticed a large mirror on the right wall of the corridor, reflecting the images of the six of them.

She glanced at it again.

I smiled at myself in the mirror.

But she didn't laugh.

Han Yingying abruptly turned her head, her heart pounding at 150 beats per minute. She didn't say anything, but simply tugged at Zhou Lang's sleeve.

Zhou Lang turned to look at her, and she gestured with her eyes to the mirror on the wall. Zhou Lang glanced at the mirror—his reflection showed him looking down at the keys in his hand, an action perfectly mirrored in reality.

"What's wrong?" he asked in a low voice.

"The image in the mirror just showed me smiling. But I didn't."

Zhou Lang's expression didn't change much; he simply switched the keys to his left hand and reached into his pocket with his right hand to grasp something.

"Don't look in the mirror," he told everyone. "Hurry up."

Room 106 was at the end of the corridor. Zhou Lang inserted the key, turned it twice, and the door opened.

The room was small, containing a double bed, a table, and a chair. On the table sat a kerosene lamp and a folded piece of paper. Opposite the window was a full-length mirror.

Zhou Lang went in first. He didn't touch the full-length mirror, but walked to the table and unfolded the paper.

It was written on the paper:

Rule 1: Mirror Town is divided into two sides: 'Real' and 'Mirror'. You are on the Real side.

Rule Two: The floor-to-ceiling mirror is the entrance to the mirrored surface. Once inside, you will see the other side of the town. The clock tower exists only within the mirrored surface.

Rule Three: In a mirror, your reflection becomes your enemy. It possesses all your abilities, but none of your weaknesses.

Rule 4: If you stay in the mirror for more than an hour, you will never be able to return.

Rule Five: The bell can only be rung by a person with a solid face. A person with a mirror face will die if they strike the bell.

Rule Six: Each mirror can only be used once. A used mirror will break.

The six people read the rules and then fell silent.

Zhao Qiang was the first to speak: "So, we have to go inside the mirror to find the clock tower, but once inside, our own reflections will overlap with ours, and we can only stay inside for an hour?"

"There's a fifth rule," Su Wan added. "The person who rings the bell must be from the 'real side.' That is, the person who enters the mirror side is responsible for finding the location of the bell tower, but the act of ringing the bell must be performed by the person who remains in the real side."

"Then how do the people who remain in the real world get to the clock tower? The clock tower only exists in the mirror image," Zhao Qiang pointed out the contradiction.

Everyone looked at the piece of paper.

"The rules aren't finished." Zhou Lang flipped the paper over; it was blank. "Or, the remaining rules are in another room."

"103 and 105." Han Yingying immediately realized, "Those two rooms with names."

"But the keys to 104 and 107 were taken," Lin Mo said. "The players who went earlier may have already obtained more rules."