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

The basement was much larger than I had imagined.

The green light of the oil lamp illuminated a wide-open space. The ground was paved with stone bricks, and the walls were covered with blackened iron chains. A damp, rotten smell filled the air, and Zhao Qiang almost gagged.

"What kind of place is this..." Zhao Qiang covered his nose, his voice muffled.

Zhou Lang didn't speak, but held up the oil lamp and shone it forward.

In the center of the basement stood a long table, covered in a thick layer of dust, beneath which lay several leather-bound booklets. Behind the table, a wooden board was nailed to the wall, its surface densely covered with names.

Han Yingying leaned over for a look, and her expression changed.

"These names... are all personal names, and they are followed by dates."

Zhou Lang walked over and wiped the dust off the wooden board with his hand. The top line read "First Batch of Servants," and below it were twelve names, each with a red cross drawn after it.

The second batch, the third batch... all the way up to the seventeenth batch.

"We are the eighteenth batch," Zhou Lang said.

Zhao Qiang counted the names at the front of the list, swallowed hard, and said, "The first seventeen batches, twelve people per batch, more than a hundred people in total, all crossed out?"

"Not entirely." Han Yingying pointed to the list of the ninth batch. "There are two names here with circles next to them, not crosses."

Zhou Lang looked over. The two names in the ninth batch—"Lin Yuan" and "Su Wan"—were indeed circled in red. But next to the red circles, a line of smaller text was added in a different handwriting:

"Already integrated."

The three of them remained silent for a while.

"What does fusion mean?" Zhao Qiang asked.

Zhou Lang opened the booklet on the table. The cover of the first booklet was titled "Manor Management Manual". Inside, there was dense handwriting, neat but with an eerie rigidity.

He quickly flipped through a few pages and found the key information on page thirty-seven.

"Every thirty days, the manor recruits a new batch of servants. These servants must work on the manor until their contracts expire. The contract period is seven days. Servants who survive the seven days receive a gift from the manor owner. Servants who die within the seven days—"

Zhou Lang paused for a moment.

"The soul belongs to the manor and is used to fill the manor's vacancies."

"What vacancy?" Han Yingying asked.

Zhou Lang turned to the next page, which showed a floor plan of the manor. The plan marked each room, and next to each room was a name—names exactly the same as those marked with an X on the wooden board.

"Those ghosts." Zhou Lang closed the booklet. "The ghosts in the corridors and rooms are all former servants. After they died, they became part of the manor and continue to 'work' here."

Zhao Qiang's legs went weak: "So if we die, we'll become ghosts here too?"

"No," Zhou Lang said, "because we won't die."

He stuffed the booklet into his pocket and continued deeper into the basement.

When the green light reached the wall at the end, the three people stopped at the same time.

There was a door embedded in the wall.

No, calling it a door isn't quite accurate. It was a huge iron plate that had been hollowed out of an entire wall and embedded in it, with three locks welded onto the plate. These weren't ordinary iron locks—the first was made of brass, the second was silver, and the third was completely black, its surface engraved with tiny patterns.

Zhou Lang shone the oil lamp on the iron plate, and saw a line of words carved on the wall next to it:

"The heart of the manor sleeps here. Awaken it, or be devoured by it."

"This is the core of the instance," Han Yingying said. "The first copper lock should correspond to the key to the first basement level, and we are currently on the first level."

Zhou Lang didn't rush to unlock them. Instead, he squatted down and carefully examined the three locks. The brass lock was the simplest; it could be easily removed with scissors. The silver lock was more complex; he didn't quite understand the lock cylinder's structure. The black lock—

He reached out and touched the black lock.

A sharp pain shot through his fingertip, and he immediately pulled his hand back. There was a small, pinprick-sized wound on his fingertip, bleeding from it.

"Locks can bite," Zhao Qiang said, spouting nonsense.

"It wasn't biting," Zhou Lang said, looking at his fingertips. "It was drawing blood."

As soon as he finished speaking, the patterns on the black lock lit up briefly before dimming again. In that instant, Zhou Lang saw that the patterns formed a shape—an open palm.

He noted this detail down.

"I can open the brass lock right now, but the silver and black locks require something else," Zhou Lang said. "Let's deal with the brass lock first."

He took out a pair of scissors, aimed them at the brass lock, and cut it.

The moment the scissors touched the brass lock, the entire basement shook violently. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the chains clanged.

Zhao Qiang grabbed Zhou Lang's arm: "Is it going to collapse?"

"It's alright." Zhou Lang steadied himself and increased the force.

Click.

The brass lock broke in two and fell to the ground. At the same time, a dull mechanical sound came from the iron plate, and the topmost crack split open by about ten centimeters.

A cold wind blew out from the crack, abnormally cold—Zhao Qiang's breath turned into white mist.

Immediately afterwards, a piece of paper slid out from the gap.

Zhou Lang picked it up, glanced at it, and handed it to Han Yingying.

The note contained only one sentence: "The second key is in the master's study, and the third key is yourself."

"The second one is easy to understand, go to the study to find it. But what does the third one mean?" Zhao Qiang scratched his head.

Zhou Lang looked at the wound on his fingertip and said nothing.

He has a guess, but it's too early to say.

"Let's go to the study first."

The three walked back down the stairs. Zhou Lang brought up the rear, and halfway down, he glanced back—

Deep in the basement, a faint red light shone through the cracks, flickering like something breathing.

He quickened his pace.

Back on the first floor, there were many more ghosts in the corridor than before. They huddled together, tilting their heads and staring at the three people, each with a different expression—some were laughing, some were crying, and some had no face at all.

The green light of the oil lamp kept them at a distance, but Zhou Lang noticed that the ghosts were slowly moving forward.

"They're testing us," he whispered. "We're running low on oil. Speed ​​things up."

The study was at the far east end of the second floor. The door wasn't locked, and when you pushed it open, a musty smell hit you.

The study was small, with bookshelves on three walls, all covered in dust. In the middle was a mahogany desk, on which sat an extinguished kerosene lamp and a tin box.

Han Yingying went to rummage through the bookshelf, Zhao Qiang checked the desk drawers, while Zhou Lang stood at the door, observing the activity in the hallway and scanning the entire room.

"The drawer is locked, I can't open it," Zhao Qiang said.

"Use scissors," Han Yingying said.

"The scissors are in the boss's hands."

Zhou Lang threw the scissors to Zhao Qiang, who caught them and struggled for a long time before finally prying open the drawer.

There was a letter and a small silver key in the drawer.

Zhao Qiang excitedly held up the key: "Found it!"

"Read the letter first," Zhou Lang said.

Han Yingying opened the envelope. Inside was a yellowed letter with handwriting different from that in the management manual—the handwriting was more messy, as if it had been written in a hurry.