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

Han Yingying didn't reply. She squatted down to look under the chair and saw some scratches on the floor, pointing from the screen towards the seating area.

Something crawled over from the other side of the screen.

She took a picture and saved it to the system panel, then got up and went to screening room B. Zhao Qiang and Lin Yuan were already inside; this room was smaller, with only about eighty seats.

"We're not in the same match," Lin Yuan said. "I get two points, he gets one. That means I have to check his match first."

"Look at my condition? You might as well just say whether I can get out alive," Zhao Qiang said.

Lin Yuan did not deny it.

Han Yingying went through the information she had gathered in her mind. Three screening rooms, five movies, five people scattered in different times and spaces. What concerned her most was the rule—characters appearing in movies might step out of the screen.

The use of the word "maybe" is intriguing. It doesn't mean "definitely."

This means that some movies are safe.

The problem is, how do we determine that?

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Zhou Lang had returned, carrying something new—an old booklet.

"Found it in the screening room." He tossed the booklet onto a chair. "Tonight's movie schedule."

Several people surrounded them.

The booklet listed the titles and brief descriptions of five films. The first three titles were fairly normal—"Empty Room," "The Last Metro," and "Farewell." The last two took a sharp turn: "It's Always Watching You" and "Don't Look Back."

Each film has a line of small annotations below it, written in a messy hand, as if someone wrote it in a hurry.

Next to the sign "Empty Room" was written: "No living creatures."

Next to the sign for "The Last Subway" is a note that reads: "It will get off at the third stop."

Next to the poem "Farewell" was written: "Don't cry."

The annotations in the last two parts were erased by ink and are completely illegible.

"Someone came to this instance before us," Suke said.

"They came, but didn't get out alive, or not all of them did." Zhou Lang flipped to the last page of the booklet. There was a simple drawing there—a little person sitting in a chair, with a hand reaching out from the screen in front of them.

Zhao Qiang took a step back.

"The screening order is the same as written on the ticket," Han Yingying said. "Midnight is 'Empty Room,' one o'clock is 'The Last Subway,' two o'clock is 'Farewell,' three o'clock is 'It's Always Watching You,' and five o'clock is 'Don't Look Back.'"

"My show is at 3 o'clock," Zhou Lang said.

He got the movie with the most unfriendly title and the annotations were crossed out.

"You're really lucky," Zhao Qiang said.

"It's not about luck." Zhou Lang closed the booklet. "The most dangerous matches are given to the strongest people; that's the system's allocation logic."

"Then I'll see 'The Last Metro' at one showing. 'It will get off at the third stop'—who gets off at the third stop?"

No one answered him.

11:50.

Han Yingying and Su Ke entered screening room A.

The lights went out.

银幕上出现了倒计时。5、4、3、2、1——

The screen lights up.

An empty room. No furniture, no windows, just four white walls. The camera's angle is fixed, shooting from above like a surveillance camera.

There was nothing in the room.

One minute passed. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed.

The screen remained filled with only that empty room. There was no sound, no change, nothing happened.

Han Yingying noticed a detail at the fifteen-minute mark.

There are shadows on the walls of the room.

It's not the shadow of furniture—there's no furniture in the room. It's the shadow of a person.

The shadow was pressed against the left wall, motionless, its outline blurred, but it could be seen to be a standing human figure.

She didn't turn to look at Su Ke. The rules said no eye contact, not no looking at the screen. She needed to figure out if the shadow was on the screen, or—

The shadow moved.

It peeled off the wall like a piece of paper falling from it. After landing on the floor, it began to slide down the floor towards the camera.

Towards her.

Han Yingying brought up the system panel and selected her skill.

Since being saved by Zhou Lang in the first dungeon, she gradually developed her own fighting style in subsequent dungeons. Her skill modifiers weren't as outrageous as Zhou Lang's—she couldn't scare ghosts. But she had something that others didn't.

[Skill: Insight]

Effect: Detects the location and status of non-player entities within a specified range for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.

She activated the skill.

In an instant, the entire screening room became transparent in her perception.

Su Ke's seat was in the last row, and she exuded normal human presence. The shadow on the screen—it wasn't on the screen. It had already emerged, lying on the floor two meters in front of the screen, slowly moving towards the first row.

He was less than five meters away from her.

Han Yingying didn't move. The annotation said "No living thing"—there's no living thing in an empty room. This thing is a shadow, not a living thing. Shadows have no substance, so—

It can't hurt anyone.

She sat motionless in the chair, feeling the shadow slide past her feet. The cool touch spread up her ankles, like stepping into an autumn stream.

The shadow slid across the entire screening room, down to the last row, and finally disappeared into the wall.

The movie on the screen continued playing. The room was empty, with four white walls; there was nothing left.

The midnight show ended. The lights came on.

Su Ke walked over from the last row, her face a little pale, but she remained calm overall.

"The skill you just used..." she looked at Han Yingying, her tone somewhat subtle, "What is your identity/status?"

"Regular player".

"Ordinary players don't have perception-related skills." Su Ke pushed up his glasses. "I've looked at the profiles of the top twenty players on the leaderboard. There's a top player with the ID 'Stardust' who specializes in perception-based gameplay. Your skill activation method is almost exactly the same as described in the battle report."

Han Yingying was stunned for a moment.

Stardust.

These two words were like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, creating ripples in her mind.

Then there are the fragments.

A white room, not the one on the screen—it was another one, with windows and sunlight. She sat by the window, holding something in her hand, while someone spoke beside her. The voice was muffled, the content indistinct, but the tone…

very familiar.

The image flashed and then disappeared.

Headache.

Han Yingying gripped the back of the chair and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, she found Zhou Lang standing at the entrance of the screening room, looking at her.

"What's wrong?" He walked over, his tone casual, but his steps were quick.

"It's nothing, I guess I just sat for too long."

Zhou Lang didn't ask any further questions. He took a piece of candy out of his pocket and handed it to him. He didn't know where he got it from; the wrapper was crumpled, and it looked like it was mint flavored.

"Eat some sugar, as low blood sugar can easily cause dizziness."

Han Yingying took it, opened it, and put it in her mouth. It was minty and cool, and it did relieve her headache a bit.

"Your show is about to start," she said to Zhao Qiang, who was peeking into the hallway. "Is there anything else you want to ask?"

Zhao Qiang, with a long face, asked, "Can I ask Zhou Lang if we'll still be brothers in our next life?"

"Get inside," Zhou Lang said.