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

The lights in the hall were still on, but the light had turned a dim yellow, completely different from the white light of daytime. A damp, rotten smell filled the air.

The red lanterns at the entrance were lit.

It wasn't just ordinary brightness—the lantern had no candle inside, yet it glowed on its own. The facial features on the leather surface became clearer, and the mouth was slightly open, as if making a silent cry.

"It turns on after seven o'clock," Brother Liu said. "I wanted to go out for some fresh air, and when I opened the door, I saw this thing."

Zhou Lang walked to the door to examine the lantern up close. It swayed slightly, but there was no wind. The eyes on the leather—real eyes—moved, slowly turning towards Zhou Lang.

The lantern made a sound.

It was very light, like breathing, or perhaps a sigh.

"return……"

Two words were squeezed out from the mouth shape of the lantern.

Brother Liu took a step back. Zhou Lang, however, did not move.

"Come back? Who's coming back?" he asked the lantern.

The lantern's eye stopped, staring at Zhou Lang for three seconds before shifting its gaze towards the interior of the inn. It was looking at—

Counter.

The area behind the counter was empty; Boss Feng wasn't there. But something new had appeared on the wooden board behind the counter—words written in red liquid.

"She's inside the wall."

Zhou Lang and Brother Liu exchanged a glance.

"That cement wall in the storage room," Brother Liu said.

"Walk."

"Go now? It'll be dark!"

"That's precisely because it's dark," Zhou Lang said. "The hint says that day and night are not the same world. During the day, that wall is just a wall, but at night it might be different."

Brother Liu hesitated for two seconds, then gritted his teeth and followed.

The two went around to the back storage room, and the moment they pushed open the door, a musty smell ten times stronger than before rushed out.

The layout of the storage room has changed.

All the miscellaneous old furniture from the daytime was gone, and the space became very large and empty. Only that cement wall remained—

There's something new on the wall.

One hand.

A hand emerged from the concrete wall, fingers outstretched, as if pleading for help or scratching. Its fingernails were filled with cement debris.

The hand is a woman's hand.

Zhou Lang walked over and touched the hand with his finger.

It's icy.

But there is a pulse.

"She's still alive?" Brother Liu's voice cracked slightly.

"The eerie thing doesn't have the concept of being alive or dead," Zhou Lang said. "She's trapped inside the wall."

Just then, the walls began to shake.

It wasn't the hand that caused it—it was the entire wall. The cement began to crack, and debris fell down in a flurry. A crack spread from the middle of the wall, and black water seeped from it.

The water tastes fishy. The lake water has a fishy smell.

"Back off—" Zhou Lang pulled Brother Liu back.

The wall cracked open in front of them.

It wasn't the kind of crack that causes a sudden collapse; it was a slow crack, like peeling a fruit. Pieces of the wall fell one by one, revealing what was inside—

a woman.

Or rather, she used to be a woman.

She was embedded in the concrete wall, her body twisted into an unnatural position, her skin blending with the cement, making it impossible to distinguish where the wall ended and the person began. Her face was turned outwards, a round face, exactly like the middle-aged woman in the photograph.

Boss Feng's wife.

Her mouth was open, filled with cement. But her eyes were alive, her pupils slowly moving, first looking at Zhou Lang, then at Brother Liu.

Then she moved.

It wasn't her whole body that moved—she couldn't move at all, her body was attached to the wall. It was her head that was turning, turning 180 degrees, her face turning from front to back, making a cracking sound as if her bones were breaking.

On the other side, there's another face.

The little girl's face.

Seven or eight years old, with pigtails.

But this face is smiling.

The last sentence in the notebook was: "She kept smiling."

Zhou Lang grabbed Brother Liu and ran.

As the two rushed out of the storage room, they heard the sound of rushing water behind them. Large amounts of water gushed out from the cracked walls; black, foul-smelling lake water gushed out like bursting blood vessels.

Back in the hall, the lanterns made of human skin at the entrance shone even brighter, and a satisfied expression appeared on the distorted face.

"Are you alright?" Han Yingying ran down the stairs and saw that the two of them were covered in cement dust and black water, and their faces were pale.

"It's alright for now," Zhou Lang said. "Don't come down, go back to your room."

"What happened?" The mature woman appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by the girl with the ponytail.

"The wall in the storage room is cracked, and there's something inside—" Brother Liu stopped mid-sentence.

He stared at the top of the stairs.

Everyone followed his gaze.

At the corner of the stairs leading from the third floor to the second floor, a boy in a school uniform stood there. He had arrived at some unknown time, leaning against the railing, his face hidden in the shadows.

"When did you come down?" Brother Liu asked.

"Just now," the boy in the school uniform said in a flat voice, "I heard a noise and came down to check."

Zhou Lang noticed a detail.

The shoes of a boy in school uniform.

During the day, his shoes were covered in lake mud, with a very noticeable mud stain on the top of his left foot. But now, his shoes are clean.

Not the kind of clean that's been wiped clean—it's the kind of clean that's never been dirty at all.

It's like changing into a new pair of shoes.

Or it might have been someone else.

"Go back to your rooms," Zhou Lang said. "Close the doors and windows, and don't open the doors no matter what you hear."

"Why should I listen to you?" The mature woman frowned.

Brother Liu spoke up: "Listen to him, you're right. You didn't see what happened in the storage room just now; this instance is much more dangerous than you imagined."

The mature woman glanced at Brother Liu, then at Zhou Lang, snorted, and turned to go upstairs. The girl with the ponytail followed closely behind her.

The boy in the school uniform also turned and went upstairs, his footsteps so light they seemed unnatural.

Brother Liu leaned close to Zhou Lang's ear and said, "That kid has a problem."

"Okay," Zhou Lang said. "You go back to your room too. It's not safe on the first floor, so move up to the second floor and find a spot in the hallway to spend the night."

"Okay." Without saying a word, Brother Liu turned around and went downstairs to pack his things.

Han Yingying was still standing on the stairs.

"What did you find?" she asked.

"There's too much, let's talk about it back in the room."

The two returned to the second floor. Zhou Lang entered Han Yingying's room—her room window faced the back of the inn, and she could see the direction of the storage room.

Looking out the window, the door to the storage room was wide open, and black water was still flowing out, glistening oily in the moonlight.

Zhou Lang recounted all the information he had gathered: the human skin lantern, the woman inside the cement wall, the little girl's face, and the schoolboy's shoes.

Han Yingying remained silent for a while after listening.

"You suspect that the high school boy is no longer a player?"

"He teleported in right by the lake, his shoes covered in mud. During the day, he was a player, but at night—the prompt says that day and night are not the same world. The person he was during the day and the person he was at night might not even be the same being."

"So he's a player during the day, and a monster at night?"

"Either the night was replaced by something eerie, or it was earlier. The story begins by the lake; who knows what he went through on his way in?"

Han Yingying instinctively gripped the dagger at her waist.