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

Boss Wang opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"I'll go with you," Meng Hu said.

"No need," Zhou Lang waved his hand. "You stay here to protect them. Han Yingying and I will go underground to take another look."

"Underground?" Han Yingying was taken aback. "That voice just now..."

"We have to go because of the sound," Zhou Lang said. "The clues are underground, and the ghosts are underground too. We need to figure out as much as possible before midnight—after midnight, all the ghosts will come out, and then there won't be any chance."

Han Yingying bit her lip and nodded: "Let's go."

Ah Qi stood up: "I'll go too. Three people are safer than two."

Zhou Lang glanced at him and didn't refuse: "Okay."

The three of them walked down into the underground. Behind them came Boss Wang's voice: "You're all crazy, completely crazy..."

No one cares about him.

The roller shutter door was still half open, and the darkness inside looked like a mouth.

Zhou Lang went inside a second time, the green light of the oil lamp spreading through the passage. A Qi followed behind him, with Han Yingying bringing up the rear. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the empty passage.

"What's the story behind that lamp of yours?" Ah Qi asked in a low voice.

"Loot from the previous dungeon. It can reveal the true form of a ghost."

"Good stuff," Ah Qi said, without asking any more questions.

They quickly arrived at the platform. Zhou Lang shone his lamp around; the platform was deserted. But the smell of blood on the tracks was even stronger than before.

"Go into the tunnel," Zhou Lang said.

"Wait a minute." Ah Qi grabbed him and pointed to the wall next to the railway tracks. "Look at that."

There are words on the wall. They're not printed; they're carved on something, crooked and uneven.

"Save us!"

Don't take the cable car.

They won't let us leave.

The wall was covered with dense writing; some of it was carved, some looked like it had been scratched with fingernails, and some... were written in blood.

Han Yingying gasped.

"They were left behind by the passengers," Zhou Lang said. "They were conscious, but trapped."

"'They won't let us leave,'" Ah Qi read the words on the wall. "They—twins?"

Zhou Lang didn't answer because he heard the sound.

squeak - squeak -

It's much closer than before.

Something is approaching from deep within the tunnel.

"Turn off the lights," Ah Qi said.

"No way," Zhou Lang retorted. "If we turn off the lights, we'll be blind."

"Then it will see us—"

"It already knew we were here."

As soon as he finished speaking, light appeared in the tunnel. It wasn't lamplight, but a pale, cold light, like moonlight. The source was moving, getting closer and closer.

Then they saw it.

A cable car emerged from the tunnel.

It wasn't an ordinary cable car—it had no cables, suspending itself half a meter above the tracks and gliding slowly. Behind the glass windows of the carriages were many people.

Those "people" were dressed in all sorts of clothes, men and women, young and old. Their postures were normal, sitting like ordinary passengers. But their faces—

Everyone was smiling.

Everyone was smiling, their mouths stretched to their ears, revealing neat teeth. But their eyes were empty, without pupils, just two white holes.

The cable car glided slowly past the three people. The "passengers" inside the car all turned their heads to look at the three living people on the platform.

Those smiling faces were directed at them.

Zhou Lang remained motionless, holding the oil lamp to his chest. The green light shone on the cable car, and the passengers' appearances changed—their smiles vanished, replaced by contorted expressions of agony. They were screaming silently, their hands pounding on the windows, their mouths agape, but no sound came out.

"They are calling for help," Han Yingying said.

The cable car continued its journey, gradually disappearing at the other end of the tunnel. The creaking sound faded away, and the platform fell silent once more.

"Did you count them?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Twenty-one," Ah Qi said. "The document says 23 people died. Two are missing."

"The twins aren't in the car," Zhou Lang said.

The three exchanged a glance.

"They are not passengers," Ah Qi said. "They are the controllers."

Zhou Lang nodded. He squatted down to inspect the rails. There was a thin layer of black substance on the rails, which felt sticky to the touch and smelled rotten when smelled closely.

"This isn't rust," he said. "It's... rotten flesh?"

Han Yingying squatted down beside her and glanced at it, her expression changing: "The tracks were paved with corpses?"

"It wasn't laid out." Zhou Lang stood up, wiping his hands. "It grew out. This track itself is part of them. The twins' bodies were buried under the mall, and over the years, their resentment has permeated the entire foundation. This tunnel, these tracks, all grew out of them."

Ah Qi's expression changed: "S-rank..."

"What?" Han Yingying asked.

"A strange level," Ah Qi explained. "Most ghosts in normal dungeons are B or A level. S level means—we can't kill it by normal means."

"What should we do then?"

"No need to kill," Zhou Lang said. "The mission is to find the truth, not to eliminate them."

He pulled out the documents he had found earlier from his pocket and read them again. The cable car company had cut corners, causing the steel cable to break, resulting in 23 deaths. The company was covering up the news and building a shopping mall to suppress the violence.

"That's the truth about the cable car accident. But what about the twins?" Zhou Lang muttered to himself. "They died before the mall was built. They were raped, and their bodies are buried here. What does that have to do with the cable car accident?"

"Maybe it doesn't matter," Ah Qi said. "They just happened to be buried in the same place. The resentment of the cable car passengers nourished them and made them stronger."

"The truth isn't just about the cable car accident," Zhou Lang said. "It also includes the cause of the twins' deaths. We need to find out who the killer is."

He glanced at the time: 10:40. The first "passenger" released was still wandering around the mall; the second would be released at midnight.

"Let's go back," Zhou Lang said. "We have enough clues underground for now; we need to look for the rest in the mall."

The three quickly returned to the courtyard.

The atmosphere in the courtyard was tense. Boss Wang huddled in a corner, Lin Wei sat on a bench holding Tangtang, and Chen Mo stood beside her, a scalpel in his hand. Meng Hu leaned against a pillar, relaxed, but his eyes were constantly scanning his surroundings.

"How is it?" Meng Hu asked.

"We've made some progress." Zhou Lang briefly explained the situation underground.

"S-rank?" Meng Hu frowned. "Isn't this dungeon rated A+?"

"That's why the system alerted us to unknown factors beyond the rating," Zhou Lang said. "But it's not a big problem; we don't need to confront an S-level enemy head-on. We can leave once we find the truth."

"What exactly is the truth?" Chen Mo asked.

"Two parts. First, the complete account of the cable car accident and who is responsible. Second, the cause of death of the twin sisters and the murderer."

"Then where should we look?"

Zhou Lang thought for a moment: "The shopping mall was built on the original site of the accident, so there must have been records of the construction. Moreover, the twins' bodies were buried in the foundation, so it's impossible that the people who built it back then didn't know that."