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

When Han Yingying opened her eyes, she saw the old water stain on the ceiling.

She lay there for a few seconds, confirming that she was in her rented room, not in the basement of the haunted house. Her pillow was soaked, she couldn't tell if it was sweat or something else. Her phone screen was lit up; it was 4:23 a.m.

The Horror Manor instance has been completed.

Normally, upon returning to reality, the memories of the dungeon would fade within an hour or two. This time was different. The ghost hanging upside down in the corridor, the iron door to the basement, Zhou Lang's green oil lamp—all the images were etched into his mind, frame by frame, impossible to erase.

What's even stranger is that there are other things following these images.

It does not belong to the Horror Manor, nor to the previous instances.

A circular arena. A leaderboard high above. A figure stands on a pile of rubble, surrounded by—

broken.

The rest of the content was fragmented and couldn't be pieced together. Han Yingying pressed her temples; her head was throbbing. She couldn't figure out where these memories had come from, but one piece of information was particularly clear:

The strange occurrences don't just happen in dungeons.

She threw off the covers, got out of bed, put on her coat, slipped on her sneakers, and went out.

The street below was deserted. The streetlights were on, everything seemed perfectly normal. But after walking a dozen meters along the street, she noticed a small patch of fog next to a trash can at the corner—it was crawling along the ground, its color was greenish, and there shouldn't be anything like that at 4:30 in the morning.

The fog dissipated as she walked over.

The ground was clean, but there were five fresh scratch marks at the base of the wall, unevenly spaced, and not wide enough for a human finger to leave.

Han Yingying took out her phone, took a picture, and continued walking.

After walking down two streets, she found three more traces: scratches at the bottom of a utility pole, charred marks by a flower bed, and a handprint on the glass of a breakfast shop—six fingers.

These traces were very subtle, and ordinary people wouldn't notice them at all. But having seen too many ghostly behavioral patterns in the dungeon, Han Yingying recognized them at a glance.

The real world is already permeating it.

She put her phone back in her pocket and was about to turn back when the screen lit up by itself.

It wasn't an incoming call, nor a notification. The text was in red, covering the entire screen:

[The fifth instance is now open. Difficulty: S. Teleportation countdown: 60 seconds.]

Han Yingying stared at the letter, then slammed her fist into the lamppost. It hurt.

S-class.

The highest rank in the first four dungeons was A, and people died every time. She had never experienced an S-rank dungeon, but a kind of instinctive vigilance remained in those fragmented memories—less than 30% of S-rank dungeons survived.

The countdown is ticking. 47, 46, 45...

There was no time to think. She turned into a nearby alley, avoiding the surveillance cameras.

15 seconds.

The ground beneath my feet softened, the colors in my field of vision began to peel away, and the paint on the streetlights and walls crumbled layer by layer.

5, 4, 3 —

The world has turned upside down.

-

She stood on a stone-paved road.

The sky was a dark red, and on both sides were old-fashioned buildings with upturned eaves. Large red lanterns stretched along the eaves until they disappeared from sight. The flames inside the lanterns were blue.

Ahead stood the gate of a mansion, with three characters above the lintel—

A feast of a hundred ghosts.

Two paper figures stood at the entrance, one on the left and one on the right, each the same height as a real person. As Han Yingying approached, the paper figures turned their heads.

"Honored guest, please take your seat."

The sound squeezed out of the paper mouth, dry and rough, like crumpled newspaper.

The gate opened, revealing a large courtyard with a long table in the center and chairs on either side. The table was covered with red silk and filled with food boxes. Several people had already arrived and were seated in different places.

Han Yingying glanced around and spotted Zhao Qiang in the third row. Zhao Qiang also saw her, his expression somewhere between relief and despair.

"You got dragged into this too?" Zhao Qiang asked in a low voice.

"S-rank." Han Yingying sat down next to him.

Zhao Qiang's face paled slightly: "I knew it, I've never had any good luck."

Where is Zhou Lang?

"I didn't see him, but he should be—"

Before he could finish speaking, footsteps sounded at the courtyard gate. Zhou Lang walked in, carrying his oil lamp, his expression almost as if he were strolling through a market. He looked around, then went straight to sit down next to the two of them.

"Why is it you two again?"

"I was about to ask you that," Zhao Qiang lowered his voice even further, "S-rank, bro, S-rank. What's with that expression? Going to a banquet?"

Zhou Lang placed the oil lamp on the table: "Isn't this just a banquet?"

He pointed to the food box and red silk on the table. Zhao Qiang choked.

The players gradually arrived at the table, a total of twelve people. Han Yingying didn't recognize a few of them, but two of them made her pause for a moment.

Fang Ming and Lu Shan.

Fang Ming, in his early thirties, with a square face and old scars on his arms, was Han Yingying's teammate from the third dungeon run—he was a reckless fighter, but clear-headed and capable of pulling someone back in crucial moments. Lu Shan, a year younger than Han Yingying, was thin, wore glasses, and was quiet, but she was always the first to find the clues to clear the dungeon.

These two shouldn't be in an S-rank dungeon.

"Fang Ming!" Han Yingying called out.

Fang Ming turned around, saw that it was her, and his expression was complicated. He pulled Lu Shan over and said in a very low voice, "We've been scammed."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone tampered with our dungeon matchmaking, pulling us directly from B-rank to S-rank. I haven't even figured out who did it before I've been teleported."

Lu Shan adjusted her glasses and added, "After the last dungeon run ended, we refused to join a guild called Blood Pact, and the very next day we received an S-rank teleport. Isn't that a coincidence?"

Han Yingying was silent for two seconds.

Blood Pact. She'd heard of that name before—the second-ranked guild in the bizarre world, the most ruthless one, who would punish anyone who disobeyed.

"you--"

A gong interrupted the entire conversation.

The door to the main hall of the mansion opened, and a person walked out.

No, it's not human.

It wore a bright red funeral robe and an official's hat, its face made of white porcelain, so smooth it had no pores. Its features were painted on—its eyebrows were two dark, curved lines, and its lips were a single red dot. But its eyes were alive, moving behind the porcelain surface, watching each player in their seat.

"Welcome to this banquet, everyone." Its voice was neither loud nor soft. "I am the host of this banquet. Since you are all seated at this table, you are honored guests. Honored guests only need to abide by the rules of the banquet, enjoy your meal in peace, and then you may leave."

"Rules?" asked a player sitting at the front.

The owner tilted his head, and a crack appeared on his red lips on his porcelain face.

"Rule number one - Do not get up before the ghost has taken its seat."

As soon as she finished speaking, the six empty chairs on the table creaked simultaneously, as if someone had sat down on them. Han Yingying turned her head to look, but there was nothing on those chairs.

But the six extra sets of bowls and chopsticks on the table said it all.

"An invisible ghost," Zhou Lang said, "interesting."

The host continued, "Rule number two—everyone must taste each dish served. Anyone who refuses to taste will be fed by this old man."

Zhao Qiang asked Zhou Lang in a low voice, "What does 'feeding on behalf of others' mean?"

"It's roughly the literal meaning."

The host's porcelain face turned to the center of the crowd: "Rule number three—During the banquet, no one at the same table may be harmed. Violators will be…"