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

"Me and the security guards," the boxer said, stepping forward as well.

Teammate C nodded: "Then I'll take the rest of the people upstairs. Be mindful of the time, we must meet up before 10:45, don't be wandering around outside after the ghost has come out."

"I don't want to go upstairs!" the little girl with pigtails suddenly spoke up, her voice high-pitched and shrill. "I want to go with the big brother!"

She was referring to Zhou Lang.

Zhou Lang looked down at the little girl, who looked up at him with her big eyes glistening with tears.

"What grade are you in?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Sixth grade."

"Have you finished your homework?"

"..."

"Follow me." Zhou Lang turned and walked deeper into the mall.

The little girl ran and skipped after her. Han Yingying glanced at the little girl and pursed her lips for a moment.

The underground entrance was next to the freight elevator on the north side of the mall. It was a roller shutter door covered with "No Entry" signs. Zhou Lang used scissors to cut the chain lock on the roller shutter door, and the door rolled up with a clatter, revealing the staircase behind it.

The staircase descended, noticeably narrower than the others in the mall. Most of the tiles on the walls were broken, exposing the cement beneath. The lower you went, the colder it got, and the air was thick with the smell of rust.

After walking for about three minutes, we reached the bottom of the stairs.

Zhou Lang raised the oil lamp.

Green light illuminated a tunnel.

The tunnel was very long, with no end in sight. Two railway tracks lay on the ground, rusted and broken in some places. On the tunnel walls, you could still see the posters from when the cable car was in operation: "Qingshan Sightseeing Cable Car, taking you to experience the scenery in the clouds." The beautiful woman's smile on the poster had faded into a blurry patch of color.

"This is the cable car track." Han Yingying squatted down and touched the rails. "It's been broken for a long time."

The boxer looked around the tunnel and asked, "Any cars?"

Before the words were finished, a sharp, metallic scraping sound came from afar. It was extremely piercing, like a fingernail scraping a blackboard a hundred times larger.

Then they saw it.

Deep inside the tunnel, a cable car is slowly gliding down the track.

The car body was severely deformed, the windshield shattered, and the metal exterior was covered in dents and dark red stains. Through the broken windows, one could see inside—

empty.

The cable car stopped about twenty meters away from them with a click, as if some mechanism had been triggered.

The car door opened.

No one came out. But a piece of paper floated out of the carriage, spun in the air, and landed lightly at Zhou Lang's feet.

He picked it up.

It's a cable car route map, marked with three stations: the starting station "Qingshanjiao" (Green Mountain Foot), the intermediate station "Wangyunting" (Looking at Clouds Pavilion), and the ending station "Tiandingtai" (Heavenly Terrace). At the location of "Wangyunting," a circle is drawn in red, and next to it is a line of crookedly written text—

"We fell down here."

The little girl glanced at the words and shrank behind Zhou Lang.

"Where is 'Wangyun Pavilion'?" Han Yingying took the route map from Zhou Lang and carefully examined the markings on it.

"It should be inside this tunnel." Boxer pointed in the direction the cable car came from. "The car came from that end, which means the track is still usable. The question is, who's operating it?"

No one can answer this question.

Zhou Lang checked the time on the panel—21:28. There was still an hour and a half until the first strange event was released. Without hesitation, he strode towards the cable car.

"Are you going up?" Han Yingying called out to him.

"The clue is inside."

That makes sense, but that car just looked like a coffin. The boxer, however, was bold, striding after it and cracking his knuckles as he walked: "Let's go, let's go, if a ghost comes, I'll punch it."

The four people boarded the cable car.

The situation inside the carriage was even worse than it appeared from the outside. The seats were twisted into a pretzel, the seatbelts were broken, and there were dark red marks on the floor—dried blood. The emergency toolbox at the rear of the carriage had been pried open, leaving only a flashlight and a crumpled notebook inside.

Zhou Lang opened the notebook.

This is the cable car operating company's internal maintenance log. The first few pages contain routine information, but the log becomes unusual when you turn to the last few pages—

"On July 12, an abnormal noise was heard from the No. 3 braking device of the cable car, which has been reported. The manager instructed: Do not deal with it for the time being to save on maintenance costs."

"On July 28, the steel cable of cable car No. 3 was severely worn, and it was recommended that it be taken out of service for replacement. The manager's instructions were: No, it cannot be taken out of service during the peak season."

"On August 15th, the steel cable of cable car No. 3 snapped, the car crashed, and 23 passengers perished..."

The last line was not finished.

"Cutting corners," the boxer cursed. "Twenty-three lives lost."

Han Yingying flipped to the back cover of the notebook, where a photograph was pasted. The photograph showed two little girls, about the same age, looking very alike, wearing identical floral dresses, standing in an open space. On the back of the photograph was written a line of text—

"We were buried here before the construction started."

Zhou Lang picked up the photo and stared at it for a few seconds.

Twins. The same face, the same expression—not a smile, not seriousness, but an indescribable emptiness. Like the expression of their last moments frozen in time.

"What do these two children have to do with the cable car accident?" Han Yingying frowned.

"Not sure." Zhou Lang put the photo into his inventory. "But according to the rules of the dungeon, if it's here, it must be useful."

He checked the carriage again and found a second clue under the driver's seat: a key and a pass. The pass was printed with the words "Wangyunting Maintenance Access".

He also brought a flashlight. Although there was an oil lamp, having an extra light source was never a bad thing.

"Let's go back and meet up." Zhou Lang checked the time: 22:16.

The four of them returned to the lobby on the first floor the way they came. Teammate C and the others had already returned, and they didn't look too good.

"Did you find anything upstairs?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Yes," Teammate C's voice was deep. "We found archived news reports from that year in an office on the third floor. The cable car crashed on August 15th, the Mid-Autumn Festival. The operating company covered up the accident afterward, bribed local authorities, and classified the accident as 'caused by passenger misconduct.'"

"And then?"

"In the following six months, the owner of the operating company was found dead at home, suffering cardiac arrest. Two months later, the official in charge of suppressing the news also died, also suffering cardiac arrest. Six months later, someone bought the land and built this commercial building."

"It's too coincidental," Zhou Lang said.

Middle-aged manager Lao Qian sat on a bench, wiping sweat from his brow, his face pale: "So... there are twenty-three ghosts buried beneath this shopping mall?"

"There are twenty-three passengers," teammate C held up one finger, "but there are two who are not passengers."

He looked at Zhou Lang.

"You found it underground too?"

Zhou Lang took the photo out of his inventory and handed it over. Teammate C glanced at it and nodded: "It matches the information we found on the third floor. Before the shopping mall was built, this land was a wasteland. More than ten years ago, a criminal case occurred here—twin sisters were murdered. The case has never been solved. Later, when the shopping mall was being built, the construction team unearthed two skeletons under the foundation. Due to the tight schedule, no one cared and just poured cement to cover them up."