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

"Brain-eating child." Zhou Lang confirmed his target.

A scream came from the other end of the corridor. It was Li Fei's voice.

The two rushed over and found Li Fei lying in a pool of blood with a round hole in his head.

Wang Meng stood to the side, holding a bloodstained hammer in his hand.

"He's gone mad and tried to attack me," Wang Meng argued, but his eyes flickered.

Zhou Lang looked at him coldly: "You've been corrupted."

Wang Meng roared and raised his hammer to smash Zhou Lang.

Zhou Lang didn't even remove the chainsaw; the bandages on his body suddenly flew out, wrapped around Wang Meng's neck, and hung him in mid-air.

Wang Meng struggled a few times before dying. His skull split open, and a small brain-eating child crawled out.

Zhou Lang stomped on it and crushed it.

"The strange things in this guesthouse are spreading pollution. We can't wait any longer; we need to address the source tonight," Zhou Lang decided decisively.

The two went straight to the landlady's room. They kicked open the door, and the landlady, clutching a jar, screamed, "What are you doing?!"

Zhou Lang raised the chainsaw, and the motor roared.

"Han Yingying, lie to her!" Zhou Lang shouted.

Han Yingying activated her con artist skills, pointing out the window and shouting, "Your son is over there!"

The proprietress paused for a moment, then turned to look.

Zhou Lang seized the opening and smashed the ceramic jar with his chainsaw.

The S-class brain-eating child let out a shrill scream, its body rapidly expanding into a gigantic, fleshy monster.

Instead of retreating, Zhou Lang charged forward, carrying an oil lamp. The green light slowed the monster's movements. He brandished a chainsaw, frantically cutting through the tumor.

The monster retaliated, its tentacles lashing out at Zhou Lang. The Bandaged Demon's power manifested, shielding Zhou Lang from the fatal blow.

Han Yingying hovered on the edge, constantly trying to provoke the monster with words: "You're hungry! Eat your own tentacles!"

The skill was successfully detected; the monster actually bit off one of its own tentacles.

Zhou Lang seized the opportunity and thrust his chainsaw straight into the monster's core.

Black blood gushed out. The monster collapsed with a crash, turning to ashes. The proprietress also vanished.

A broadcast sounded in my mind:

The S-class bizarre brain-eating child has been eliminated.

[The truth behind the incident revealed: The guesthouse owner fed brain-eating children with the brains of her guests in an attempt to achieve immortality.]

[Players Zhou Lang and Han Yingying, completion rating: Perfect.]

[A bug has been detected in the underlying logic of the dungeon; an S-level bizarre violation has occurred in a D-level dungeon.]

[Additional compensation rewards: 1 Space Jump Talisman, 10 Attribute Points.]

Zhou Lang frowned as he looked at the talisman in his hand. An S-rank anomaly wouldn't appear in such a low-level dungeon for no reason; there must be a major problem within the system.

The source of the bug could not be found.

A flash of white light, and the two were teleported out of the instance.

Han Yingying looked around at the familiar settlement space, and her memories were completely restored.

"Welcome back." Zhou Lang put away the chainsaw and glanced at her.

"Where to?" Han Yingying asked.

"Let's find Zhao Qiang. The coordinates of the dungeon that kid fell into are weird." Zhou Lang took out an oil lamp. "Let's go, the game has only just begun." ## Chapter 1 Awakening

The basement was bigger than I had imagined.

The green light of the oil lamp illuminated a sealed stone chamber. In the center of the chamber sat a coffin—no ordinary coffin, for its lid was wrapped with iron chains more than a dozen times, the ends of which were welded to iron rings on the ground.

"What is this thing..." Zhao Qiang took a half step back.

Han Yingying didn't speak, but she noticed that the ground around the coffin was covered with symbols. She had seen those symbols in the study on the second floor.

Zhou Lang squatted down and used the oil lamp to illuminate the engravings on the ground.

"The chain is pointing inwards," he said.

Zhao Qiang didn't understand. Han Yingying, however, instantly understood—the chains weren't locking the coffin from the outside, but rather extending from the inside.

It's not sealing anything away.

It was something inside the coffin that had locked itself in.

Zhou Lang placed the oil lamp on the ground. The green light spread, and a line of words appeared above the coffin:

The manor owner has been waiting for some time. Please make your choice—open the coffin, or leave.

"Let's go," Zhao Qiang said. "Don't drive."

"There's a reward only if you open it," Zhou Lang said.

"What's the point of a reward if you're dead!"

"I won't die." Zhou Lang had already taken out a chainsaw.

Han Yingying stopped her, "Wait a minute, don't you find it strange? Those ghosts didn't attack us the whole time. And they haven't shown up in the basement yet."

"Yes," Zhao Qiang said, "that's great news."

"It's not a good thing," Han Yingying frowned. "It's because they're afraid to come down."

There was a two-second silence.

Zhou Lang glanced back at Han Yingying, his gaze holding something else.

"You're right." He put the chainsaw away and replaced it with scissors.

The three discussed it and decided that Zhou Lang would cut the iron chain with scissors, Zhao Qiang would guard the stairwell, and Han Yingying would observe the coffin for any changes. If anything unusual happened, they would immediately run upstairs.

The coffin trembled when the scissors cut the first chain.

Secondly, water began to seep into the walls of the stone chamber.

As the third and fourth bolts were cut in succession, a crack appeared in the coffin lid. A faint white light shone through the crack, mingling with the green light of the oil lamp.

The last chain broke.

The coffin lid popped open automatically.

Inside lay a mummified corpse. The corpse's hands were folded over its chest, clutching a letter. Its clothing was the same style as the butler's uniform—only more luxurious.

Zhou Lang pulled out the letter.

The letter paper was yellowed and brittle, but the handwriting was still relatively clear:

"I killed them all. Not because I was insane, but because they didn't deserve to live. If you open this letter, it means the cycle of reincarnation in the manor continues. Please burn this letter. After it's burned, they will be free."

The signature was a name, mostly eaten away by insects, with only the last character remaining: Yuan.

"Do you mean those ghosts?" Zhao Qiang asked, peeking out from the stairwell.

Zhou Lang didn't answer. He squatted down and lit the letter with the flame of the oil lamp.

The moment the flames erupted, the entire manor let out a long sigh.

It wasn't the sound of the wind. It was a real, tangible sigh—surging in from all directions, pouring down from above, and drilling upwards from the soles of her feet. Han Yingying felt a bone-chilling cold, and then, the walls of the stone chamber began to crack.

No, not shattering. It's melting. Like an ice cube being thrown into hot water, the entire basement is melting away.

Congratulations on completing the hidden quest: Liberate the Manor.

The system notification sound exploded in my head—no, "exploded" isn't the right word. The system notification sound was directly injected into my head.

[Evaluation settlement in progress...]

[Player "Langligelang" - S-rank rating. Reward: Skill Enhancement Card x1, Gold Coins 2000, Unknown Item x1.]

[Player "Yingyingzi" - Rank A. Reward: 1 "Spider Silk Gloves" defensive item, 1500 gold coins.]

[Player "Zhao Wudi" - Rank B. Reward: 800 Gold Coins, 2 Recovery Potions.]

Zhao Qiang was dissatisfied: "Why am I the lowest scorer?"

"Because you stood at the bottom of the stairs the whole time," Zhou Lang said.

"That's called strategic observation!"

Han Yingying didn't join their bickering. She looked down at her palm—a pair of gossamer-thin gloves were pressed against the back of her hand, their silver-gray threads intricately interwoven. The attribute panel read: Automatically deploys a defensive net when attacked, lasting three seconds, with a sixty-second cooldown.