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

"Mr. Langlige Lang, I'm from the Ziyun Guild—"

"No, I won't add it." Han Yingying said without looking up.

"But I haven't finished speaking—"

"He didn't add anything after saying that."

The person left sheepishly. Han Yingying's refusal skills became increasingly adept, so much so that Zhao Qiang suspected she might have worked as a receptionist before.

The people from Tianji Pavilion left, the people from Biluo left, and the people from Xingchen left. Han Yingying turned them all down.

"You don't need to refuse for me," Zhou Lang said.

"Could you really refuse?" Han Yingying retorted. "Last time, that woman from Tianji Pavilion talked to you for half an hour, and you were too embarrassed to say no."

"...That's because she kept crying."

"She was faking her tears."

"I know. But I can't just let her cry—"

"That's why I'm here." Han Yingying's tone left no room for negotiation.

Zhao Qiang watched this scene from the side, his lips twitching, and he swallowed back the words that were about to come out. Some things don't need to be said; just watching is enough.

But trouble followed.

After Han Yingying's repeated refusals spread among the players, the tide began to turn. The Dark Eclipse Guild seized the opportunity to fuel the fire, posting a series of threads on the forum portraying Zhou Lang and Han Yingying as "arrogant and conceited." Some joined in the criticism, while others remained neutral and observed, but almost no one actually stood up to speak for them.

"Aren't you afraid of being isolated?" Zhao Qiang asked Zhou Lang privately.

"Will being afraid do any good?"

"That's true." Zhao Qiang thought for a moment, "Then I'm not afraid anymore. Anyway, I've always been isolated."

When have you ever been isolated?

"Have you forgotten about high school? Just because I was your deskmate, those guys wouldn't hang out with me." Zhao Qiang said it as if it were a matter of course, as if stating a fact as clear as a weather forecast.

Zhou Lang didn't reply. He remembered some things, but he didn't know how to respond.

The three exited the game and returned to reality.

-

The situation in the real world is more unsettling than the messages in the game.

During Zhou Lang's time in the dungeon, strange events resurfaced, and were far more serious than before. The news channel, for the first time ever, began reporting on them—using the term "unexplained phenomena," but everyone could see that what was in the footage was not a natural phenomenon at all.

An elevator in a shopping mall disappeared during operation, along with eleven people inside. All the mirrors in a residential complex shattered simultaneously. Vehicles on a highway slowed to one kilometer per hour when passing a certain section, regardless of whether the accelerator or brake was fully depressed.

Zhou Lang stood by the window, watching the black patterns slowly creeping across the wall of the building opposite. These patterns were faintly visible in the sunlight; ordinary people couldn't see them, but players could.

The phone rang. Han Yingying.

"Have you seen the news?" she asked.

"I've seen it."

"The situation is worse in the south of the city. Three residential buildings have sunk by two meters. The foundations are fine; they're just sinking. The fire department and the geological department have both been there, but they can't find the cause."

"What about over there?"

"School's fine. But today during class, the shadows in the classroom were facing the wrong way. The sun was in the east, so the shadows were also pointing east. Only I noticed it; everyone else..." She paused, "...didn't seem to care at all."

This is the most terrifying part. The eerie is invading reality, and most ordinary people are completely unaware of it. It's not that they can't see it, but their brains automatically filter out the abnormal information. Only players—those who have witnessed the true eeriness in dungeons—can perceive the changes in the real world.

"Han Yingying," Zhou Lang said.

"Um?"

"Last time in the dungeon you said you remembered some fragments. What about now?"

There was silence for a few seconds on the other end of the phone.

"More." Her voice softened. "I remembered something from before the game started. I think... I had some contact with the supernatural before that."

"How is that possible? The game has only been out for less than a year."

"I know. But those memories are so real. There was a place—a completely white room, with many people inside, all wearing the same clothes. Someone was conducting an experiment."

"What experiment?"

"...Regarding how to control the bizarre experiments."

Zhou Lang tightened his grip on his phone.

"Are you the test subject?"

Han Yingying did not answer.

"I need more time to organize," she said. "I should be able to recall more before the ninth copy."

"it is good."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Lang sat on the edge of the bed, going over the information he had gathered over this period of time in his mind.

The basement records of the haunted manor, the eerie erosion patterns in the dungeon, Han Yingying's fragmented memories… all clues point in the same direction: the arrival of the horror game was not accidental. Someone—or rather, an organization—was already researching the supernatural before the game even appeared.

The game is just the result, not the beginning.

Three days later, the ninth instance will open.

This time, there was no warning, no real-world anomaly; it was just a cold, impersonal notification that popped up in front of me:

The ninth dungeon is about to open.

[Difficulty: SS]

[Forced teleportation countdown: 60 seconds]

The countdown is half as short as last time.

Before Zhou Lang could notify anyone, the white light swallowed him whole.

-

Open your eyes.

The ground was cracked red soil, and the sky overhead was a hazy gray. There were no buildings, no trees, only an endless wasteland, and something glittered on the horizon.

Zhou Lang looked down at his feet. There was a huge circular pattern carved on the red soil, with people standing on the edge of the pattern.

A lot of people.

He quickly counted them—thirty-two.

Zhao Qiang was five meters to his left, and Han Yingying was seven meters to his right. Meng Yuan and Su Wan were also there, quite a distance apart, almost standing on opposite sides of the circle. Besides these familiar faces, there were more than twenty strangers, belonging to different unions and individual groups.

But something else made Zhou Lang frown.

Of those thirty-two people, more than half were looking at him.

It wasn't the kind of looking out of curiosity.

"Waves galore!"

A burly man strode over, followed by four men, all dressed in black uniforms with a crossed sword embroidered on their chests—the emblem of the Skybreaker Guild.

"I heard you didn't give face to Dark Eclipse, nor to the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, and even drove away the people from Azure Sky and Starry Sky?" The burly man's voice was loud, as if he were speaking to everyone present. "Pretty capable, huh?"

"...I didn't kick anyone out," Zhou Lang said.

"Stop pretending." Behind the burly man, another person in a dark red uniform stepped out—a member of the Dark Eclipse Guild. "Vice President Lin Qi said that you're arrogant and will eventually fall."

"Today we'll all teach you what rules are." The burly man clenched his fist.

Zhou Lang glanced around. Besides Rift Sky and Dark Eclipse, at least three other guild members stood together, their attitudes clearly unfriendly. They had conspired beforehand.

Zhao Qiang ran over and stood next to Zhou Lang, his legs trembling, but he didn't leave.