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

"Yingying," Chen Mo called out to her, "Come sit down?"

"No."

"Yingying!" Lin Fang's voice shrieked again.

Han Yingying stopped on the stairs, gripping the handrail. Rule Two—Do not refuse reasonable requests from family members. Was Lin Fang's offer to sit down a reasonable request?

She didn't want to gamble.

But she didn't want to sit next to that man even more.

"I have homework to do," she said before going upstairs.

This is not a refusal; there is a legitimate reason.

She returned to her room and stared at the paper behind the door for a long time. The red writing remained unchanged.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

But he didn't get a chance to breathe a sigh of relief for long.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Lin Fang pushed open her room door—without knocking, she just pushed it open.

"Come down, Chen Mo will take you out for a walk."

"I'm not going."

The moment the words left her mouth, Han Yingying knew it was all over.

The paper behind the door was illuminated.

The red light was even more blinding than before, turning the entire room blood red. Lin Fang's face was distorted and deformed in the red light; her mouth split open, all the way to her ears, revealing a dense array of teeth.

"You broke the rules." Lin Fang's voice changed, as if something inside her was speaking. "The margin for error has been reduced to zero."

"Punishment begins."

Han Yingying tried to run, but her feet were rooted to the ground. Red light surged in from all directions, engulfing her vision.

The last thing she saw was Chen Mo standing at the door, his smile unchanged, but his eyes—

Those eyes had no whites; they were entirely black.

Then, everything returned to darkness.

【Ding! 】

[Player Han Yingying has been sentenced to be transported to a bizarre dimension for violating real-world rules.]

[Destination: A haunted guesthouse.]

Difficulty Level: C.

【Good luck.】

When Han Yingying opened her eyes again, she found herself standing by a desolate highway.

The sky was gray, without sun or clouds. Dead trees lined both sides of the road, their trunks entwined with black vines. In the distance, there was a bus stop sign, beneath which several people were already standing.

She looked down at herself—still wearing the same clothes, jeans and a white sweatshirt. Her pockets were empty, there was nothing there.

No, there's something there.

She touched a card, pulled it out and looked at it:

[Player: Han Yingying]

[Level: 1]

[Skills: None]

[Customs clearance record: 0]

[Strange Coins: 0]

A complete newbie.

Han Yingying put the card back in her pocket and walked towards the bus stop.

There are five people under the bus stop sign. Three men and two women.

The most eye-catching figure was a woman in a leather jacket, tall and with exquisite makeup, standing there like a model who had wandered onto a movie set. Next to her was a man who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, with a buzz cut and tattoos on his arms, leaning against the bus stop sign smoking.

The other three people were relatively ordinary—a tall, thin boy wearing glasses, a middle-aged man in sportswear, and a girl with a ponytail who looked about the same age as Han Yingying.

When Han Yingying walked over, everyone glanced at her.

"Another one," the buzz-cut man exhaled a puff of smoke. "Are you all set yet?"

"We should be one short." The bespectacled boy pushed up his glasses. "The system says there are seven people."

Han Yingying stood aside without saying a word. She was observing these people while rapidly processing the information flooding into her mind—strange dimensions, dungeons, players. She could actually understand these concepts, as if she had known them all along.

What did she experience before she lost her memory?

Five minutes later, the last person arrived.

It was a man, wearing a black hoodie pulled low so his face was obscured. He walked over with a casual gait, as if he were strolling through a park.

The moment Han Yingying saw him, her heart skipped a beat.

It wasn't fear. It was a strange sense of familiarity. She was certain she didn't know this person, but her body's reaction couldn't lie—she had seen him before. In that lost memory.

"Everyone's here." The woman in the leather jacket looked around. "Let me introduce myself. I'll go first—Su Wan, I've cleared two D-rank dungeons, my skill is Charm, which is effective against the supernatural."

The man with the buzz cut flicked away his cigarette butt: "Liu Tiezhu, three D-levels, his skill is Iron Skin—he doesn't feel pain when hit."

The boy with glasses: "Fang Yuan, a D-rank, his skill is analysis, which allows him to see some hidden information."

The middle-aged man in sportswear said, "Old Zhao, two D-levels. Their skill is intuition; they can sense the direction of danger."

The girl with the ponytail timidly raised her hand: "Lin Xiaolu, a D-rank, her skill is stealth, which reduces her presence."

It was Han Yingying's turn.

Everyone was looking at her.

She opened her mouth, about to say the word "newcomer," when a thought suddenly flashed through her mind—

What does being a newcomer mean in this kind of place? It means weakness. It means being a burden. It means being a discarded priority.

She changed her mind.

"Han Yingying has cleared a C-rank dungeon."

The moment the words left her mouth, she was stunned. This lie was far too blatant.

But what shocked her even more was—

【Ding! 】

[Player Han Yingying has been detected engaging in fraudulent activities.]

[Scam successful!]

[Gain skill: Conman (Passive) - Your lies will be endorsed by the system, and others will not be able to detect them through conventional means.]

[Player information updated: Completion record - C rank x1]

Han Yingying almost lost her composure.

What? You can gain skills by lying?

The reactions of the others confirmed the skill's effectiveness. Su Wan raised an eyebrow, her gaze now more serious. Liu Tiezhu put the second cigarette back in the pack. Fang Yuan paused in pushing up his glasses.

"Rank C?" Su Wan looked her up and down. "Impressive, you're the highest rank here."

Han Yingying remained expressionless: "I was lucky."

Finally, there's the man in the hoodie.

He lifted the brim of his hat, revealing half his face. His features were handsome, but his expression was as bland as plain water.

"Zhou Lang," he said, "cleared three D-level levels."

That's all there is to it; there's no extra information.

Han Yingying stared at him for two seconds. Zhou Lang. The name swirled in her mind, without stirring any memories. But the familiarity remained, like looking at someone through frosted glass.

"Alright." Liu Tiezhu clapped his hands. "The car is here."

At the end of the road, a bus was slowly approaching. The bus was dark green, rusted, and dim yellow light shone from the windows.

The bus stopped in front of the bus stop, and the door creaked open.

The driver was a thin, old man wearing a gray baseball cap; his face was so wrinkled it could trap a fly. He turned his head and said in a dry voice:

"Get on the bus, ten weird coins per person."

Liu Tiezhu cursed, "Ten yuan? Are you robbing me?"

"Take it or leave it." The driver said expressionlessly. "The next bus is in three days."

Three days. Waiting three days in this godforsaken place, you'd probably be reduced to ashes.

Su Wan was the first to board the bus, taking out a few black coins from her pocket and handing them over. Liu Tiezhu, Fang Yuan, Lao Zhao, and Lin Xiaolu boarded in turn to pay their fares.

It was Han Yingying's turn.

She didn't have a single penny in her pocket.

The driver looked at her, his thin, bony hand outstretched: "Ten yuan."

Han Yingying's mind raced. The Conman's Skill—Gaining System Endorsement for Lies.

She took the player card out of her pocket, face down, showing only the pattern on the back, and waved it in front of the driver.