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

Zhou Lang stared at the scar for a few seconds, then didn't ask any further questions.

At 2 a.m., the second bizarre event was released as expected.

This time, the sound came from the fourth floor—a woman's scream, short and shrill, cut short after a single cry. Then came that familiar metallic scraping sound, and another wrecked cable car gliding down the fourth-floor corridor.

The ceiling on the fifth floor was shaking.

"There's no road up there," Ma Tiezhu said. "The fifth floor is the top floor."

"No need to run," Zhou Lang said. "It's on the fourth floor and hasn't come up yet. The two strange creatures are scattered on different floors, so the probability of chasing them at the same time is not high—they each have their own routes."

How can you be so sure?

"The cable car travels along the track, and passengers follow the cable car. The cable car route is fixed."

This was the conclusion he drew after observing the first strange occurrence. The thing's movement on the first floor wasn't random; it followed an unseen path. If this pattern held true, then by figuring out the routes of all the cable cars, a safe gap could be found.

"But this is in a shopping mall, not on a mountain," Han Yingying asked.

"The mall was built above the site of the cable car accident, and the underground tracks extend into the entire building. We can't see the tracks, but they can."

Su Wan crossed her arms: "If your analysis is right, I'll treat you to a month's worth of meals. If it's wrong—"

"Even if you're wrong, you won't get your next meal," Zhou Lang said.

Su Wan was taken aback for a moment, then laughed out loud: "You're really blunt."

Lin Xiaoxiao huddled in her seat and whispered, "I'm so hungry..."

Ma Tiezhu pulled two energy bars from his pocket and handed her one. "Eat this, and you'll be full until dawn."

Lin Xiaoxiao took it and nibbled on it, looking incredibly well-behaved.

At four in the morning, the third bizarre event was released.

Zhou Lang kept listening—this time the sound came from the second floor, and the cable car stopped after gliding around the second floor. The three strange creatures were located on the first, second, and fourth floors, while the third and fifth floors were temporarily empty.

He noted down each strange location and movement pattern in the panel's memo.

At six in the morning, the mall lights came back on. The background music started playing that cheesy pop song again.

Zhou Lang stood up: "It's dawn, get down."

To get from the fifth floor to the basement, you need to go through all the floors.

Zhou Lang planned a route before setting off. According to the strange movement patterns he recorded—the one on the first floor walked along the outer circle of the atrium, the one on the second floor walked along the east corridor, and the one on the fourth floor moved around the direction of the cinema—the hot pot restaurant area on the third floor and the fire escape staircase on the west side were currently the safest routes.

"Are they still there during the day?" Ma Tiezhu asked, clenching his fist.

"Yes, but the reaction will be slower. Keep the noise of your passing as low as possible."

The six people walked down the fire escape stairs. When they reached the fourth floor, Zhou Lang asked everyone to stop and listen for twenty seconds—the sound of the cable car gliding was in the distance, and the frequency had slowed down, as if it were in a semi-dormant state.

Continue.

The third floor was quiet. There was a faint metallic sound on the second floor, but it was on the east side, far away. The cable car in the atrium on the first floor was stopped in front of a clothing store, and the passengers inside sat with their heads down.

Zhou Lang led his men around the atrium from the west side to the entrance of B1—a fireproof roller shutter door, which was pulled all the way down.

"How do I open this?" Ma Tiezhu stepped forward and touched the roller shutter door; the metal was ice-cold.

Zhou Lang pulled out a chainsaw.

The sound of the chainsaw starting up was particularly jarring in the empty shopping mall. Zhou Lang cut a half-person-high opening along the roller shutter door, flipping up the metal edges to reveal the pitch-black space inside.

Cold air rushed out of the vents, making the temperature at least ten degrees lower than inside the mall.

"I'll go down first." Zhou Lang put away the chainsaw and crawled inside sideways.

Han Yingying followed. Then came Zhao Qiang—no, Zhao Qiang wasn't there.

After Han Yingying went in, it was Su Wan who came in.

Then Ma Tiezhu let Lin Xiaoxiao go in first, while he covered the rear. Chen Lei walked silently in the middle.

B1 is much larger than I imagined.

This is not an ordinary underground parking lot or warehouse. It is a complete platform.

The concrete platform is flanked by railway tracks that stretch into the darkness, seemingly without end. There are benches, a ticket booth, and a timetable on the platform—everything is intact, but covered in a thick layer of dust.

"This place... they really built a cable car station?" Han Yingying's voice echoed.

Zhou Lang walked to the ticket booth and wiped the dust off the glass. Inside, there was a notice posted:

【甜水山缆车票价15元运营时间8:00—20:00】

Sweetwater Mountain.

He then went to the timetable. The last line of the timetable read:

[Last bus at 20:00: Cancelled due to weather conditions]

But someone next to me added in red pen: **An extra bus will be added at 20:30. Company instructions dictate that it must depart.**

"Found it." Zhou Lang waved for the others to come and see.

"The company forced the addition of extra buses despite the severe weather," Su Wan said after reading the announcement. "That was the direct cause of the accident."

Ma Tiezhu squatted down to examine the tracks: "Cutting corners and forcing trains to depart... these seventeen people just died like that?"

"Not only that." Zhou Lang walked a few steps along the railway tracks, and the oil lamp lit up again.

In the green light, something appeared on the walls on both sides of the railway tracks—not vines, but handprints. A dense array of handprints, varying in size, some from adults, some from children, all taken from below, as if someone were trying to crawl out from underground.

The handprint broke off at a certain point.

There was a crack in the wall at the break point, and something was stuffed in the crack. Zhou Lang leaned closer to take a look—it was fabric, rotten and blackened fabric, with remnants of a floral pattern.

The kind of floral dress little girls wear.

He took a step back.

"The twins are buried right below here."

"Those two girls you mentioned?" Su Wan walked over and also noticed the fabric showing through the tear. "They died before the cable car accident?"

"Five years before the mall was built, someone killed them on this vacant lot and buried their bodies under the foundation. Then the cable car accident happened, and seventeen people died on the tracks. Their blood and resentment seeped into the ground and were absorbed by the twins."

This is the complete chain: twins die → cable car accident → resentment feeds → twins evolve → control passengers → kill more people → more resentment.

A closed loop.

"So to break this cycle, we have to deal with the twins first," Ma Tiezhu said.

"It's not about solving it," Zhou Lang said. "It's about finding their killer."

"The murderer? He's been dead for years—"

"This is a quest from the instance. 'Investigate the truth' doesn't mean you have to fight; it means you have to figure out the whole thing. The cable car accident is just the surface; the twins' deaths are the root cause."

"But what about clues?" Han Yingying asked. "The only clue we have about them is a photo, and we can't tell anything from it."

Zhou Lang continued walking along the railway tracks. At the end of the platform was a small door with a sign that read "Staff Break Room". He pushed the door open and found a room of less than ten square meters inside, containing a table, a chair, and a metal cabinet.