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

When they arrived at room 204, Su Xiaomian's room, Zhou Lang squatted down by the bed and looked inside—there were indeed ten fingernail marks on the bottom of the bed board, as if someone had been pinned under the bed and was desperately trying to get out.

The marks are very fresh.

"This wasn't left by an NPC," Han Yingying said.

"Was it a previous player?"

"Or perhaps a previous guest." Han Yingying rummaged through the bedside table drawer and found a yellowed photograph inside. The photograph showed a man and a woman, the man with his arm around the woman's shoulder, standing at the entrance of the inn, smiling happily.

The back of the photo reads: Zhang Lei & Liu Tingting, third day of their honeymoon.

It's that couple listed in the register. The one marked "burned."

Han Yingying put the photos away.

The two walked to room 205, Lin Yuan's room. The door was closed, but Zhou Lang pushed it open; the water was gone. The floor was dry, without a trace.

But something in the full-length mirror seems off.

There's one difference between the room reflected in the mirror and the actual room—there's a person lying on the bed in the mirror.

That person was wearing the exact same school uniform as Lin Yuan.

He lay face down on the bed, motionless.

In reality, there's nothing on the bed.

Zhou Lang took a step back, walked out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

"What's wrong?" Han Yingying asked as she waited in the corridor.

There is a person in the mirror in room 205.

Han Yingying's eyebrows twitched.

"Wear your school uniform," Zhou Lang added.

The two stared at each other for three seconds.

Do you think Lin Yuan is—

Before she could finish speaking, a scream came from downstairs—it was Su Xiaomian's voice.

The two of them rushed down the stairs at the same time.

In the living room, Su Xiaomian huddled in a corner, hiding her face with a teddy bear bag. Song Yan stood at the kitchen doorway, her face grim.

"There's something in the kitchen," Song Yan said.

Zhou Lang walked over and glanced into the kitchen.

Six bowls sat on the stove, each filled with steaming hot noodles. A poached egg rested on top of the noodles, and chopped scallions were sprinkled on top; they looked freshly made.

But there was no one in the kitchen. The fire on the stove was out.

"Who did this?" Chen Guodong's voice came from the basement stairwell. He and Lin Yuan caught up as well.

No one answered.

Six bowls of noodles, one for each of the six people. The noodles were still steaming, and each bowl had its room number written in red paint on the rim.

From 201 to 206, not a bowl too much, not a bowl too little.

Chen Guodong picked up a pair of chopsticks, but Zhou Lang reached out to stop him.

"Don't eat it."

Why?

"Count the scallions."

Chen Guodong looked down at the scallions in bowl number 201. Three scallions. He then looked at the other bowls—three scallions in bowl number 202, three scallions in bowl number 203, three scallions in bowl number 204, and three scallions in bowl number 206.

Only bowl number 205 contained not a single scallion.

Lin Yuan's bowl.

There was no sign of life.

The six bowls of noodles remained untouched and slowly cooled on the stove.

Chen Guodong finally put away his chopsticks. He wasn't stupid; Zhou Lang understood immediately. Of the six bowls of noodles, only one didn't have the "alive" mark, so the other five might not be safe either. Eating something from a ghost was tantamount to handing yourself over.

"Now, let's confirm one thing." Chen Guodong slammed the iron rod on the ground, looking at Lin Yuan. "Brother, your rule note says 'You're already dead,' there's another you lying in your mirror, and there are no scallions in your bowl. What do you think?"

Lin Yuan leaned against the wall, his hands in his school uniform pockets. "I don't know. What do you want?"

"I didn't say what to do," Chen Guodong said, "but you have to tell me everything you know. From the moment you entered the instance, has anything unusual happened?"

"no."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

Two words, clean and concise, without any evasion or unnecessary explanation.

Zhou Lang listened without interrupting. Lin Yuan's problem wasn't what he said, but his complete lack of reaction. A high school student entering a horror instance for the first time, told he was "already dead," and subjected to scrutiny by the other five, remained expressionless from beginning to end.

This isn't called having good mental fortitude; this is called being abnormal.

But now is not the time to expose him.

"Okay, let's put that aside for now," Zhou Lang said. "What did you see in the basement?"

Chen Guodong turned around: "We found the boiler room. The iron gate was closed, chained from the outside, and the key wasn't on the door. The boiler wasn't running, but the pipes were hot, scalding hot. There were water stains on the walls, and a strong musty smell. And—"

He paused.

"Next to the boiler room was a storage room with the door open. Inside, there were piles of cement bags on the floor, and an outline on the wall."

"What outline?"

"Human-shaped. Like someone had been plastered into the wall."

Zhou Lang's pupils contracted slightly.

A concrete wall. A human figure. Unlike the basement of the haunted manor last time—which was a coffin—this time it's a person sealed inside the wall.

"Male or female?"

"You can't tell, you can only see the outline," Chen Guodong said. "But the position is with both hands outstretched, fingers spread, as if it was struggling when it was being pushed in."

Su Xiaomian covered her ears and squatted in the corner, unwilling to listen.

Song Yan lit a cigarette and took a puff. "Everyone, I have a question—what exactly is the quest for this dungeon? The system didn't give us any objectives?"

indeed.

Since entering the instance, the system has only sent one notification, saying "Wait for further guidance at the inn." But what the guidance is, it hasn't said. There's no countdown, no quest log, and no rating system.

This isn't right. No matter how dangerous the previous dungeons were, at least there was a framework—what you had to do, how to proceed after completing them, and what would happen if you failed. The Giants provides none of that.

"That's the bug," Zhou Lang said.

Everyone looked at him.

"I'm not an ordinary participant; I'm an investigator." He revealed his identity. There was no need to hide it—the more abnormal the instance, the more important information sharing became. "The Giant's View instance has a mortality rate exceeding 90%, indicating a systemic problem. I'm here to investigate this."

Chen Guodong's eyes lit up. "So what did you find out?"

"The clues are insufficient, only a preliminary assessment—at least two murders have occurred in this inn. A couple was burned to death, and a woman was drowned. The innkeeper is involved. There's also someone, possibly the final boss, who has merged with the inn itself."

He briefly explained the information in the register and the discovery in the mirror in room 205.

Song Yan flicked her cigarette ash. "So we're basically living in a haunted house now, full of vengeful spirits, and there's no safe time?"

"right."

"That's fucking exciting."

Su Xiaomian cried even louder.

"Stop crying." Song Yan frowned.

Su Xiaomian sniffed and said in a very soft voice, "I'm sorry... I was just scared..."

Han Yingying walked over, squatted down next to her, and handed her a tissue without saying a word. Su Xiaomian took it, lowered her head to wipe her eyes, and whispered a thank you.

Zhou Lang wasn't paying attention to this side; he was looking at the wall behind the counter.

A family photo hangs on the wall.

The photo shows three people: a middle-aged man, a middle-aged woman, and a baby girl in their arms. The man is smiling broadly, while the woman's smile appears somewhat forced.