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

At the end of the stairs was a wooden door, old and dilapidated, with cracks all over the door panel, which opened with a push.

Behind the door was a spacious basement, much larger than I had imagined. The green light from the oil lamp shone through, revealing that the four walls were covered with portraits, all depicting the same person—a middle-aged man in a black tailcoat, with a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and an unnatural upturn at the corners of his mouth.

"Who is this guy?" Zhao Qiang asked in a low voice.

"The owner of the manor," Zhou Lang said.

He noticed a line of text engraved beneath each portrait, and upon closer inspection—

"The eternal master, the eternal feast, the eternal guest."

Han Yingying shuddered: "What do you mean?"

Zhou Lang didn't answer; his attention was drawn to something in the center of the basement.

It was a long table.

Twelve sets of cutlery were laid out on the table, complete with knives, forks, bowls, and plates, all made of silver and polished to a gleaming shine, as if someone maintained them daily. At each end of the table was a high-backed chair, the rest of the seats were ordinary dining chairs. Most strangely, each seat had a nameplate in front of it.

Zhou Lang held the oil lamp and walked around the table, looking at each item in turn.

The writing on the first eight name tags was so blurred that only some strokes could be vaguely discerned. The ninth name tag read "Xiong Batian", the tenth read "Zhao Qiang", and the eleventh read "Han Yingying".

The twelfth one, "Waves in the Waves".

Zhao Qiang's expression changed: "How come our names are here?"

"No," Zhou Lang shook his head, "It's not our names, it's our names in the game."

He picked up the ninth name tag, turned it over, and saw a line of small characters engraved on the back: Fourth batch of guests, number one.

Let's look at Zhao Qiang's entry again: The Fourth Batch of Guests, Number Two.

Han Yingying's: The Fourth Batch of Guests, Number Three.

His own: The fourth batch of guests, number four.

"The fourth batch..." Zhou Lang murmured, "Those eight blurry nameplates in front are from the first three batches."

"What happened to the first three groups of guests?" Zhao Qiang asked a question he probably didn't want to know the answer to.

Zhou Lang pointed to the cutlery on the table. Each set of knives and forks had dark red rust marks—no, those weren't rust.

Zhao Qiang gagged.

"Don't throw up," Zhou Lang said. "If you throw up, I'm afraid it will attract something."

Zhao Qiang forcefully suppressed the nausea, his face turning bright red.

Han Yingying crouched down and examined the bottom of the table. "There's something under there."

Zhou Lang bent down to look and saw a yellowed note stuck under the table, the handwriting crooked and messy, as if it had been scratched with a fingernail:

"He's not the butler. He's the cook. We're all vegetables. Don't eat anything on the third night. Don't eat. Don't—"

The character ends here, with the last character leaving a long, trailing mark that extends all the way to the ground.

The three of them remained silent for a long while.

"The third night," Han Yingying said. "Today is the second day."

Zhou Lang nodded: "So tomorrow night is crucial."

He continued exploring the basement. In the corner was a bookshelf with several moldy notebooks and a locked wooden box. Zhou Lang used scissors to cut open the lock on the box, revealing an old-fashioned brass key and a letter inside.

The letter is very short:

"To the future guest: If you are seeing this letter, it means you are a bit smarter than the previous person. The key can open the secret compartment in the master bedroom. You will find what you need there. But be careful, the master returns to the master bedroom every night at midnight. He has been dead for thirty years, but he doesn't know he is dead. Don't let him find you. He will invite you to dinner. Just accept."

The signature was a name, but it was stained with ink and illegible.

"The master bedroom," Zhao Qiang's voice was a little unsteady, "You don't want to go there now, do you?"

"No, not now." Zhou Lang put the keys in his pocket. "I need to figure something out first."

He walked to the innermost wall of the basement. This wall was different from the other three—the other walls were made of stone, while this wall was made of brick, and the mortar between the bricks was a much newer color.

Zhou Lang knocked on the wall.

empty.

"There's space behind the wall," he said.

Zhao Qiang took a step back: "Brother, are we almost done with our exploration mission tonight?"

"What are you afraid of? I'm here."

"I'm only scared because you're here. Every time you say everything's fine, something really bad is bound to happen later."

Zhou Lang thought about it and felt that Zhao Qiang made sense, but that didn't stop him from taking out his chainsaw.

The roar of the chainsaw echoed through the basement, the blade cutting into the brick wall and sending debris flying. Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying retreated to the stairwell, one covering her ears and the other her eyes.

Three minutes later, a hole was sawed in the wall, big enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.

Behind the hole was another room, much smaller than the basement outside, probably only a dozen square meters. The room contained only one thing—a glass cabinet.

There was a person standing in the cabinet.

No, it wasn't a person. It was a mummified corpse dressed in a black tuxedo, exactly like the middle-aged man in the portrait. A hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and upturned corners of the mouth.

A silver dinner knife was stuck in the chest of the mummified corpse.

Zhou Lang leaned closer to look and noticed a label on the glass cabinet:

"Manor Owner Mr. Vogel - First - Sealed"

"The first one?" Zhou Lang asked. "Then which one is the current one?"

No one answered him.

Han Yingying poked her head in from the hole: "What did you find?"

"The original owner of the manor was sealed off here."

"Who sealed it?"

"Good question."

Zhou Lang circled the glass cabinet and found another line of text engraved on the glass on the back of the cabinet:

"The butler has replaced the master. The master has become the first course."

He laughed suddenly.

Zhao Qiang poked his head in from the hole: "What are you laughing at? What's so funny?"

"I've figured something out," Zhou Lang said. "That butler killer wasn't an ordinary NPC. It's the core mystery of this instance. It killed the original master, took his place, and then kept inviting 'guests' to the manor—"

"Then we'll cook the guests into dishes," Han Yingying continued.

"Yes. The first three groups of guests were all wiped out. We were the fourth group."

Zhao Qiang's legs trembled slightly: "Then wouldn't we be...?"

"Don't rush." ​​Zhou Lang patted the glass cabinet. "Since someone was able to seal this old gentleman here, it means that killing the butler isn't invincible. And did you notice that the letter said 'the third night'? Three days is the time limit for this instance."

"On the third night of the dungeon, the butler will host a banquet," Han Yingying deduced. "Then it will..."

"It will try to turn us into food," Zhou Lang corrected, "but that's also when it's most vulnerable. The person cooking has to go into the kitchen, right?"

Zhao Qiang: "You mean—"

"Continue working during the day tomorrow, and don't arouse any suspicion. Tomorrow night, go to the master bedroom and retrieve the items from the hidden compartment. At the banquet on the third night, we'll take the lead."

He glanced at the silver knife on the mummy's chest and gestured with his hand through the glass.

"This knife is key. If it can be inserted into the monster's body, it can be wounded."