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

They returned to the corridor of the guesthouse.

There were no paintings, no gaps, no Room 3 behind him. Only a clean brick wall.

A system notification popped up—

[Congratulations! The core mystery of the "Mountain Inn" instance has been eliminated.]

[Rating: SSS]

[Rewards being distributed...]

[Anomaly detected in the instance: The core anomaly has existed for longer than the preset period. Reason: Unknown]

[Bonus Reward: 1 Random Item]

Zhou Lang's inventory has a new item—a paintbrush.

【Resurrection Brush: Briefly materializes objects in a drawing for 5 minutes. Uses: 3】

interesting.

He glanced at Han Yingying. She had also received the reward notification, and her expression was complicated.

"Instance anomaly... The core anomaly has existed for longer than the preset period." She read it aloud. "What does that mean?"

"This instance should have ended a long time ago," Zhou Lang said. "But for some reason, the core anomaly has never been eliminated. It has collected too many paintings from the instances and has become much stronger than it was designed."

"A bug." Lin Zhe walked over from the other end of the corridor, still holding the kitchen knife. "This is a bug."

"Yes," Zhou Lang said, "but why is there a bug? The system can't find the reason either."

This is the second time this has happened. A similar situation occurred in the Horror Manor instance last time—the instance deviated from its original design, and things that shouldn't be there appeared.

Two bugs, two different instances.

Coincidence? Or is someone sabotaging things?

Zhou Lang kept this question to himself and didn't voice it.

The dungeon world began to fade. All players were enveloped in light.

The last thing Zhou Lang saw was the old woman standing at the entrance of the guesthouse, the paint stains on her apron disappearing. Her smile was also fading. Not into another expression, but her entire face was fading, like a painting being soaked in water, all the colors slowly dissolving.

Then, everything turned white.

When Han Yingying opened her eyes, the chandelier on the ceiling was pointing directly at her face.

Her room. Her own room.

The alarm clock on the bedside table showed 7:15 a.m. Sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the curtains, illuminating her blankets.

My phone was next to my pillow, with three unread messages on the screen. My best friend had sent it: "Want to have hot pot tonight?"

Han Yingying sat up and looked down at her hands.

Clean. No paint, no scratches. Nails are neatly trimmed and painted with a milk tea-colored polish that was done last week.

Where's the guesthouse? Where's the painting? Where's that gray figure?

"Was I dreaming?" she muttered to herself.

But she remembered every detail clearly. The green light of the oil lamp, the painting on the wall of room number three, the sound of the gray figure tearing apart. And the force with which Zhou Lang grabbed her wrist—it was so strong that it hurt her bones, and there's still a faint red mark around her wrist to this day.

Dreams leave no red marks.

She opened the system panel.

Still there. A new item has appeared in my inventory—[Emergency Signal Flare: Sends a distress signal in an emergency; visible to all players within a 500-meter radius. Uses: 1]

This is her reward for completing the game.

Not a dream.

Han Yingying sat on the bed in a daze for a while, then got up to wash up. While washing her face, she looked much the same as usual in the mirror. There were some dark circles under her eyes—probably because she had "slept" all night but hadn't really rested.

When she came downstairs, her stepmother was already making breakfast in the kitchen.

"Yingying's up? Come and eat." Her stepmother turned around and smiled at her, wearing her floral apron as usual.

My stepsister was sitting at the dining table playing on her phone. When she saw me come in, she looked up and said "Good morning" before looking down again.

It was all too normal. So normal that it gave Han Yingying a sense of disorientation. Just a few hours ago, she was risking her life in a bizarre guesthouse, and now she was sitting at the dining table drinking millet porridge cooked by her stepmother, while her stepsister was scrolling through short videos with catchy background music playing from her phone.

"What's the plan for today?" the stepmother asked.

I've made plans to have dinner with friends.

"What time will you be back?"

"uncertain."

The stepmother didn't ask any more questions.

After finishing breakfast, Han Yingying returned to her room and carefully checked everything. The wardrobe, under the bed, the desk drawers—there was nothing there. There were no strange marks on the windows, and the door lock was working properly.

She even checked the mirror. She touched the surface; it was cool and smooth—just an ordinary mirror.

At noon, she went out to meet her best friend, Lin Xiaoman.

The hot pot restaurant was on the corner of the commercial street and was doing good business. They waited for twenty minutes to get a table.

"Have you been sleeping poorly lately? You look terrible," Lin Xiaoman said bluntly while sipping her tripe.

"I'm having trouble sleeping."

What about the guy who asked you to date? Is he still pursuing you?

"What man?"

"Didn't a senior student wait for you at the school gate last week? The tall and thin one, I even took a picture of you."

Han Yingying remembered. That was before the game came along. Back then, her life was normal—classes, clubs, and the occasional confession of love. It felt like a lifetime ago.

That's all.

"So what have you been busy with lately? You seem distracted."

"It's nothing." Han Yingying picked up a piece of beef and put it into the pot. "I just had a very long dream, and after I woke up, I felt like the dream wasn't over yet."

Lin Xiaoman chewed on tripe and mumbled, "I've had those kinds of dreams too. Once I dreamt that I forgot my exam admission ticket, and I was anxious all day after I woke up. Later I found out that the exam day hadn't even arrived."

Different.

But Han Yingying did not explain.

She couldn't explain these things to any ordinary person.

After finishing their hotpot, the two strolled around the streets for a while. Lin Xiaoman dragged her into several stores to try on clothes, buying a dress and two hair clips. Han Yingying didn't buy anything, but after walking around for the entire afternoon, she felt as if she had briefly returned to her old life.

That kind of life where you don't have to be on guard all the time, and you don't have to distinguish between people and ghosts.

I got home at 8 p.m.

The stepmother and stepsister were watching TV in the living room. It was a family drama, but the stepsister found it boring, while the stepmother was engrossed in it.

Han Yingying took a shower and lay down on the bed.

There's a new message on my phone. It's from an account with no profile picture or nickname, just a string of numbers.

The message contained only one sentence—

"Pay attention to rule number seven."

What seventh rule?

There are only six rules for guests of the guesthouse.

Just as Han Yingying was about to reply, the message disappeared automatically. Not even a chat history was left, as if it had never been received.

She put down her phone and stared at the ceiling.

At 11:30, her consciousness began to blur. It wasn't ordinary drowsiness—it was a feeling of being forcibly pulled, as if a hand was gripping the back of her head and pressing her down.

wrong.

This is not normal sleep.

She struggled to sit up, but her body wouldn't obey her commands. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. The last thing she saw was the alarm clock on the bedside table—the time had stopped at 11:33.