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

Before us was a secret underground room.

The green light of the oil lamp spread out, illuminating the surrounding stone walls. The secret chamber wasn't large, about thirty square meters. In the center was a stone table with a thick book on it and a nearly burnt-out candle beside it.

There are paintings hanging on the wall.

Rows and rows of paintings, all portraits—no, they should be called memorial portraits.

Each painting was inscribed with a name and date, the earliest dating back over a hundred years. Zhou Lang glanced at them briefly; there were at least forty or fifty.

"This is..." Zhao Qiang moved forward and then back.

"The previous housekeeper," Han Yingying said.

She pointed to the clothing in the paintings; everyone in each painting was wearing the same style of butler uniform, exactly like the one worn by the butler who killed upstairs. The only difference was that the people in these paintings had facial features and expressions—most of them looked pained.

Zhou Lang walked to the stone table and opened the booklet.

The first page only has four words written on it: Butler's Diary.

He flipped through the pages quickly, and the further he went, the more illegible his handwriting became. By the last few pages, it was almost like scribbles on the paper.

"Butler's Log, Day 137. New guests have arrived, and I must take good care of them. This is the master's order."

"Butler's Diary, Day 204. I'm starting to forget my own name. It doesn't matter, a butler doesn't need a name."

"Housekeeper's Diary, Day 315. My face is gone. When I look in the mirror, there is only a blank space in the mirror."

"Butler's Log, Day 409. A new butler has arrived. The former butler's name has been hung on the wall."

Zhou Lang stopped and glanced back at the painting on the wall.

Zhao Qiang shuddered: "So those ghosts... were all the butlers from before?"

"It's not just the housekeeper." Han Yingying squatted in the corner and discovered another row of paintings.

These paintings weren't hung on the wall, but stacked on the floor, far outnumbering those on the wall. The people in the paintings wore all sorts of clothes; some looked like servants, some like cooks, and some looked like nothing at all.

But they all had one thing in common—they all had marks on their faces from being smeared.

"All the ghosts in the manor were employees here when they were alive." Zhou Lang closed the logbook. "In the end, they lost their faces and their lives."

After these words were spoken, all three people fell silent.

After about ten seconds of silence, Zhao Qiang spoke up: "Old Zhou, I suddenly have a bad feeling."

"explain."

"We're employees now... too, right?"

The air was silent for two seconds.

Han Yingying stood up: "So this is the truth of the dungeon? The manor operates by employing staff, and after a certain period of time, the staff become ghosts and become part of the manor?"

"More or less." Zhou Lang looked around, his gaze falling on a small door at the very back of the secret room. Unlike the previous iron door, this door was made of wood and was very well maintained, with intricate patterns carved on it.

The most eye-catching feature is the door handle—a bronze hand with its five fingers spread out and palm facing outward, posing as if in a "stop" position.

"This door can't be opened," Zhao Qiang said.

Why?

"Look at the way he's holding his hand; it's clearly telling you not to go over there."

Zhou Lang ignored him and stepped forward to examine it closely. There was a line of small characters engraved on the bronze doorknob; the characters were so small that he had to lean closer to see them clearly.

"Give the price, and bear witness to your master."

He turned to the other two men: "Which of you has any extra coins on you?"

Zhao Qiang patted his pocket: "I still have four hundred."

Han Yingying thought for a moment: "Six hundred."

"Two thousand two thousand for the three of them," Zhou Lang calculated. "That should be enough."

"What's enough?" Zhao Qiang asked warily, instinctively clutching his pocket.

Zhou Lang took out the coins and placed them in the palm of the bronze hand. Nothing happened. He added the coins to three hundred, still nothing. He added five hundred—

The bronze hand's fingers moved.

It slowly closed its fist, clenching the coin in its palm, then released it. The coin disappeared, and the door clicked open a crack.

But it wasn't fully opened.

"I want more," Zhou Lang said.

Zhao Qiang's face turned green: "How much more do you want?"

Zhou Lang put down another five hundred, and the door opened a third of the way. He turned to look at the two of them.

Zhao Qiang looked as if someone was ripping out his kidneys. Han Yingying, on the other hand, was quick and decisive, slapping all six hundred yuan onto the copper hand.

The door was opened two-thirds of the way.

Zhao Qiang gritted his teeth and took out four hundred yuan, placing it one bill at a time, shaking it after each bill.

The door was finally fully opened.

It was a small room with only one chair. Sitting in the chair was a person—or rather, a corpse. He was dressed in an expensive suit, his head drooping over his chest, his hands resting on the armrests, and his fingers adorned with rings.

This is the owner of the manor.

Unlike the portraits of butlers on the wall, this corpse still had its face. However, it was dry and blackened, like a layer of skin stuck to the bones.

The system notification popped up the moment Zhou Lang approached.

You have discovered the heart of the manor: the remains of the manor owner.

The manor owner was deeply obsessed during his lifetime, and after his death, he transformed into the manor itself, controlling all the ghosts.

Option 1: Destroy the remains, free all ghosts, and obtain a large reward.

[Option 2: Replace the manor owner and become the new manor owner to receive hidden rewards]

Option 3: Talk to the manor owner (requires a special item)

Zhao Qiang peeked at the prompt, then turned to Zhou Lang and asked, "Which one do you choose?"

Han Yingying was also looking at him.

Zhou Lang didn't rush to make a choice. He stared at the rings on the corpse's hand, counted them—eleven on ten fingers—two on the thumb. Each ring was set with a different colored gemstone, reflecting a morbid hue under the green light of the oil lamp.

"Option three requires a special item," he said. "My oil lamp was given to me by Granny Green; it can see ghosts. I don't know if that counts."

He held the oil lamp up to the corpse.

There was no reaction at all.

Try touching the corpse with an oil lamp.

still none.

He took a step back and stared at the words "special item" in the system notification for a long time. Then he looked down at his hand—or rather, the bandage wrapped around it.

"Oh, right."

He unwrapped the bandage from his wrist, revealing skin underneath that looked no different from a normal person's. The bandage fluttered in the air for a moment, then wrapped itself around the corpse's wrist.

The corpse's fingers twitched.

Zhao Qiang jumped back two steps.

The corpse slowly raised its head, its dry lips opening and closing, emitting a sound like a snapping twig: "You...you're from outside?"

"Yes," Zhou Lang answered crisply.

"How many years has it been?"

"You have been dead for over a hundred years. According to the records in the diary."

The manor owner remained silent for a moment. Two faint lights slowly emerged from his empty eye sockets, like candle flames about to go out.

"A hundred years...are those people still upstairs?"

"They're all here. They've become ghosts, just like you."

"I know." The manor owner's voice became slightly clearer. "I can't control it. This house has its own will; it needs people, it needs... fuel."