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

At the end of the stairs was a wooden door, the door panel covered with strange runes, some of which had peeled off, revealing the blackened wood underneath.

Zhou Lang brought the oil lamp closer, and the green light reflected on the runes, causing the lines to move—slowly wriggling on the surface of the door panel like worms.

Zhao Qiang took a half step back: "This door... it's a bit eerie."

Han Yingying stared at the runes for a few seconds: "They are sealing patterns. I saw something similar in the study in the last dungeon."

"You recognize this?" Zhao Qiang turned to look at her.

"I wouldn't say I know it, but I roughly know what it is," Han Yingying said. "These kinds of runes are usually used to seal something, or a certain... existence."

Zhou Lang didn't say anything, but reached out and pushed the door open.

Not moving.

He applied more force, and the door creaked, but he still couldn't push it open.

"Do you need a chainsaw?" Zhao Qiang asked.

"The chainsaw is too loud." Zhou Lang examined the structure of the door panel and noticed a fist-sized groove in the lower right corner. The groove was very regular in shape, not like natural wear and tear, but rather like it was specially made.

He squatted down, handed the oil lamp to Han Yingying, and then rummaged through his pockets.

"What are you looking for?"

Zhou Lang didn't answer, but took out a copper coin from his inventory—the one he received when he got paid today. The coin was about the same size as the groove, but its shape didn't match perfectly.

He tried to push it in, but it got stuck.

"No," Zhou Lang stood up, "We need a specific key."

Zhao Qiang scratched his head: "Then what should we do? We can't just stand here like this."

Zhou Lang took the oil lamp again, its green light casting alternating shadows on his face. He carefully examined the door panel, his gaze finally settling on the top of the door frame—where a metal plaque was embedded, engraved with a line of small characters.

"Only loyal servants may enter this gate."

The three exchanged a glance.

"Loyal servant..." Han Yingying read aloud, "Does that mean killing the butler?"

"It's not necessarily the butler who's killed," Zhou Lang said. He recalled the details of his work during the day—the butler's evaluations were always done using levels like "good," "excellent," and "perfect." And the shape of that groove looked increasingly familiar to him.

"Wait a minute." Zhou Lang pulled out the pay bag that the butler had given him earlier that day. At the bottom of the bag, besides the copper coins, there was a metal piece the size of a coin. He hadn't paid attention to it before, thinking it was just a decoration.

The metal sheet is hexagonal, with the character "完" (meaning "complete") engraved on the front.

Zhou Lang squatted down, aligned the metal plate with the groove, and pressed it in.

Click.

The runes on the door panel lit up, then quickly dimmed. The entire door slid open silently, revealing the space behind it.

Zhao Qiang opened his mouth, "How did you know—"

"I guessed," Zhou Lang said, already stepping inside.

Behind the door was a small room, probably only about twenty square meters. The four walls were covered with framed pictures, all depicting the same person—a middle-aged man in a black suit, with a thin face and deep-set eyes.

The men in each painting are in different poses: some are sitting in chairs reading, some are standing by the window gazing into the distance, and some are pruning flowers in the garden. But in all the paintings, the men's expressions are the same—the corners of their mouths are turned down, and a sense of weariness, as if weighed down by something, seeps from the canvas.

"Is this the owner of the manor?" Han Yingying walked up to a painting with a line of small bronze characters at the bottom of the frame: William Greenwood, 1887.

Zhao Qiang found a desk at the other end of the room. The desk was covered with a thick layer of dust, and under the dust was a notebook with a sheepskin cover.

"There's something here," he called out.

Zhou Lang walked over and opened the notebook. The paper was yellowed and brittle, and the handwriting was terribly messy, but still barely legible.

The first page reads: "Day 37. They're multiplying. I can hear sounds coming from the walls, like fingernails scraping a blackboard. The housekeeper says everything's normal, but I know he's lying. Its eyes are wrong—no, it doesn't have eyes at all."

Zhou Lang turned to the next page.

"Day 52. ​​I finally understand. This manor is not my home, it never has been. It's a cage, and I'm a bird in that cage. The butler is the guard, and the servants are the sacrificial offerings. Every so often, new 'servants' are brought in. They don't know they're already dead."

Zhao Qiang leaned over and read a couple of lines, then his expression changed.

"Every so often, new servants are brought in... isn't that describing us?"

Han Yingying also came over and continued looking down.

"Day 71. I found a way out. The core of the manor is on the third underground level, where there is a mirror. The true owner of the manor—or rather, the former owner—is trapped inside the mirror. If the mirror is broken, the cage will collapse. But the butler won't allow anyone to approach there. It will—"

This page ends here; the rest was torn out.

Zhou Lang quickly flipped through the remaining pages; most were blank, with only the last page containing writing.

"If you've seen these things, it means you've come this far. Don't trust the butler. Don't trust the people in the paintings. Don't trust anything you see in the mirror. Remember, in this manor, the only reality is fear itself."

The signature is a name: Number 1024.

"Number 1024?" Zhao Qiang frowned. "That's not a person's name, is it?"

"It's a player ID," Han Yingying said, her tone becoming more serious. "Someone came to this instance before us."

Zhou Lang closed the notebook and put it into his inventory.

"The third underground level," he said. "We're on the first level now."

"You don't mean to continue down this path, do you?" Zhao Qiang's voice rose a notch.

Zhou Lang looked around the room. Besides the door he came in through, there was an even smaller door in the corner, mostly obscured by a painting. He went over and took the painting down—the frame was much heavier than he had imagined, and he almost dropped it.

Behind the small door is another staircase, narrower and steeper, extending downwards.

"Are you really going down there?" Zhao Qiang's expression was like he'd just eaten a mouthful of wasabi.

"You can wait here," Zhou Lang said.

"...Never mind then, I'll go with you." Zhao Qiang muttered something and followed.

The stairs to the second floor were shorter than those to the first floor, and it only took two minutes to walk up.

But when they reached the bottom, all three of them stopped.

The space before them was unusually large. The green light from the oil lamp couldn't reach the end, only extending to a few meters in front. The ground was paved with stone slabs, and grayish-white vines grew from the cracks, like dried blood vessels.

There was a smell in the air, not a putrid stench, but an indescribable sweetness that made one feel nauseous after a while.

"Something's not right here," Han Yingying said in a low voice.

As soon as she finished speaking, the flame of the oil lamp flickered violently, and the area illuminated by the green light suddenly expanded.

Then they saw it clearly.

On the stone floor, countless dolls were densely packed together. Each doll was life-size, dressed in various servant costumes, and had no facial features—smooth, blank faces facing different directions.