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

The back of the photo had a note that read: "They said it was safe, and I believed them."

Han Yingying flipped through the photos several times.

"Is the station manager also a victim?" Su Min leaned closer.

"Not necessarily," Han Yingying said. "That statement has two meanings. It could mean the construction company lied to him, or it could mean he's making excuses for himself."

"Where's the key?"

A sign hung on the bunch of keys that read "Warehouse".

"Let's go back and open the warehouse," Han Yingying said.

The return cable car ride down the mountain was perfectly normal; there were no gray-faced NPCs, no additional rules, and I arrived at Yong'an Station without any problems.

Back inside the station, they found the warehouse—right next to the stationmaster's office. Sure enough, there was an iron lock on the door. They inserted the key, turned it, and it opened.

The warehouse was filled with clutter, and in the corner there was a worktable with an old-fashioned tape recorder and several cassette tapes on it.

Han Yingying pressed the play button.

The recording starts with static, then a man's voice comes through—

"My name is Zhang Guoan, the station manager of Yong'an Cableway. This recording is for future investigators to listen to."

"I didn't cut the steel cable in carriage number three."

"But there were my fingerprints on that pair of cable cutters, because those cutters were originally my tools. Whoever used them and put them back afterward, I still don't know who it was."

"On the morning of the accident, I discovered that the report submitted by the duty officer had been taken from my desk. I went to the warehouse to find tools to check the steel cable myself and found that the scissors were not in their original place, but I didn't pay attention to it at the time."

"At 9:15, carriage number three fell. I witnessed it with my own eyes from the window of the monitoring room."

"Then I ran away. Not because I felt guilty, but because I saw something on the security camera footage—"

The recording stopped here, followed by a barrage of jarring noise.

"Something?" Niu Dahai scratched his head. "What thing?"

Han Yingying tried all the remaining tapes, but only one still had content, and it didn't record the stationmaster's voice.

It was the sound of breathing. A long, slow breathing sound, interspersed with the scraping sound of something crawling on a metal surface.

A full five minutes.

Han Yingying turned off the recording.

"The monitoring room," she said. "The station manager said he saw something in the monitoring room. If the surveillance footage is still available—"

"The monitoring room is inside the maintenance passage," Su Min said. "I saw the sign yesterday when I was looking for information, but all the turn signals were broken and it was too dark, so I didn't dare to go in."

"It's still daylight." Han Yingying looked out the window.

The six people walked along the maintenance corridor for about ten minutes and found the monitoring room. The door wasn't locked, but everyone stopped when it was opened.

There was a person sitting in the monitoring room.

No, a dried-up corpse.

The mummified corpse sat in a chair in front of the monitoring console, its hands resting on the keyboard, its face facing a row of blacked-out screens. It wore work clothes, and its name tag read—

Zhang Guoan.

The stationmaster is not missing. He has been here all along.

"He...died here?" The young girl's voice trembled.

Han Yingying approached the mummified corpse and found a piece of paper beside it. The last line of text on the paper read:

"It climbed up from under carriage number three."

Just then, the loudspeaker overhead announced: "Sunset time is being moved up. All personnel are requested to return to the waiting area within ten minutes."

Ten minutes. It takes at least ten minutes to walk from the monitoring room back to the waiting area.

"Run!" Han Yingying shouted.

The six people ran back. The maintenance passage was long and narrow, and one by one the lights went out, darkness chasing after them.

Halfway through the run, the middle-aged man wearing glasses stumbled.

My glasses—fell—

"Never mind that!" Niu Dahai grabbed his arm and ran.

As they rushed out of the passageway, across the platform, and tumbled into the waiting area, the last light went out.

The sound of a cable car starting could be heard outside the door. The gondola moved through the darkness, the steel cables creaking and groaning.

Han Yingying leaned against the wall, panting. She counted the number of people—six, all present.

Su Min squatted on the ground, her knee scraped and bleeding. She took out a tissue to press on it, then looked up at Han Yingying and said, "Last time I was in a dungeon, someone helped me. He said that NPCs in dungeons sometimes give crucial clues, but getting those clues triggers even more difficult situations."

"You mean, the iron box that the gray-faced man gave us—"

"They led us to the monitoring room, and then the sunset came early," Su Min said. "Someone didn't want us to continue the investigation."

Han Yingying went through all the information from today in her mind.

The steel cable was deliberately cut. The stationmaster's recording. The stationmaster's mummified body. "It crawled up from under carriage number three."

She looked at Zhou Lang.

Zhou Lang was browsing through his inventory.

"What are you looking for?"

"The oil lamp I got from the mountain villa last time," he said, "still has about a third of the oil left."

Han Yingying paused for a moment: "You want to use it here?"

"I'll use this when I take the cable car tomorrow. There's something under the chassis of car number three."

Su Min walked over: "You helped me, so I'll stick with you. Besides, you definitely can't survive this dungeon alone."

Just then, the system notification sounded—

[Player Su Min has completed the hidden quest: Discovered the stationmaster's remains. Reward: 1 Mysterious Detector.]

Su Min was stunned. She was at the front when she entered the monitoring room, and she was the first to see the dried corpse.

She glanced at the palm-sized instrument that had suddenly appeared in her hand, then handed it to Han Yingying: "Here you go. You're better at using it than I am."

Han Yingying did not answer.

"Keep it for yourself. You're more capable of surviving than you think; having this will help you stay alive."

Su Min's hand paused in mid-air for a moment, her expression complex. She had been in the dungeon twice, and both times her items had been stolen. Some people would even push their teammates out as bait for a single piece of equipment.

An experienced person pushed the reward back to her; she had never encountered anything like this before.

"...Who are you?" Su Min asked.

Han Yingying was taken aback by the question: "What, what kind of person?"

"You don't seem like a newbie, but you're not like those seasoned veterans either." Su Min put the detector away. "I heard someone mention someone in a dungeon before, nicknamed 'Cave Master.' It's said that he can see through the underlying logic of all dungeons, and he always gets an SS rating or higher when he clears them."

Han Yingying: "...Cave Master?"

"It means being able to see through everything and crawl into any hole," Su Min said. "No one knows who the cave owner is, and it's uncertain whether it's male or female. But the way you analyzed the clues just now reminded me of those rumors."

Han Yingying thought the nickname was pretty corny. And what did it have to do with her?

But strangely, after the words "Cave Master" swirled in her mind, something indescribable arose—

familiar?

No, this is her fifth time entering the dungeon, how could she be involved with a legendary big shot?

She shook her head, banishing the thought.

That evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, Han Yingying went to talk to Zhou Lang.

"I want to officially team up with you," she said. "Not temporarily, but as a committed team."