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

"I understand," Zhou Lang said, then turned and left.

"Wait—" William's voice quickened, "Where are you going?"

"Go get the keys." Zhou Lang said without turning his head.

"You believe me now?"

"No," Zhou Lang said matter-of-factly, "but whether what you say is true or false, it's not a loss to go to the butler. The key to this dungeon lies with the butler anyway."

He relit the oil lamp, and the green light returned. The white and green light from the mirror mingled, creating an eerie hue.

William's face appeared somewhat distorted by the interplay of light and shadow, but returned to normal in an instant.

The three returned along the same route. As they passed the area with the puppets, Zhou Lang counted them – there were over three hundred puppets within sight. More than three hundred players had perished in this instance.

On his way upstairs, Zhao Qiang kept thinking about things, and his expression changed several times.

"You don't believe him, right?" Zhao Qiang finally couldn't help but ask when they reached the first floor of the stairs.

"What do you think?" Zhou Lang asked in return.

"I think there's something wrong with that William," Zhao Qiang said, rubbing his arms. "He spoke too smoothly. Shouldn't someone who's been imprisoned for who knows how many years be excited or scared when they see a stranger? He's too calm."

Zhou Lang glanced at Zhao Qiang.

Zhao Qiang felt a little uncomfortable under their gaze: "What's wrong?"

"Okay, that's progress." Zhou Lang patted him on the shoulder.

Zhao Qiang: "...Why do you sound like you're praising a primary school student?"

Han Yingying held back her laughter.

When I returned to the lobby on the first floor, it was still dark. The ghosts in the corridor were still in all sorts of bizarre places, but with the oil lamps, they all obediently made way.

Before the three returned to their respective rooms, Zhou Lang said his last words: "Tomorrow during the day, try to get close to the butler and observe the key around his neck. Leave the rest for now."

"Okay," Han Yingying agreed.

"Received." Zhao Qiang nodded.

The moment the door closed, Zhou Lang leaned against it and took out his notebook again to look at it.

Number 1024.

This person walked up to the mirror but failed to pass the challenge. Either they died, or they gave up. But either way, it illustrates one point—breaking the mirror isn't always the way to go.

Or rather, the path William told them might not be the right one.

Zhou Lang put away his notebook and lay down on the bed.

Damn, the beds in the manor are really soft.

The next morning, the butler assigned tasks as usual.

Zhou Lang was assigned to the kitchen, his task being to prepare dinner for the manor's "guests." The term "guests" was used by the butler, and Zhou Lang knew perfectly well that those guests were the ghosts in the rooms on the second and third floors.

Zhao Qiang was assigned to trim shrubs in the garden. Han Yingying was responsible for cleaning the windows on the first floor.

The three people's work areas were separated, making it difficult for them to meet.

Zhou Lang entered the kitchen and found that the ingredients had been prepared—a bunch of vegetables he couldn't name, a few pieces of greenish meat, and an iron pot big enough to cook a person.

A recipe was posted next to the stove, which read: "Meat soup - Put all ingredients into a pot, add water and bring to a boil. You may not leave the stove, taste the food, or look back during the process."

No turning back.

These three words appearing on a recipe book look awkward no matter how you look at it.

Zhou Lang threw the ingredients into the pot, added water, and started a fire. Then he leaned against the stove and began to wait.

Apart from the bubbling sound of boiling water, the kitchen was unusually quiet.

About ten minutes later, he felt a gaze on his back.

It wasn't an illusion. That gaze had a physical weight, like a cold finger pressing on the back of his neck.

The recipe says there's no going back.

Zhou Lang didn't turn around. But he adjusted his position, pretending to check the spice jars on the stove, and used the reflection from the iron pot lid to look behind him.

The reflection on the pot lid was blurry, but a human figure could be discerned—a bit taller than a normal person, standing motionless at the kitchen doorway.

Kill the butler.

It was right behind him, and he didn't know how long it had been standing there.

Zhou Lang pretended not to notice anything and continued stirring the soup in the pot. The iron spoon hit the bottom of the pot with a dull sound, which masked his slightly quickened breathing.

The butler stood there for about three minutes, then left. His footsteps were so light that they were almost inaudible if you weren't paying attention.

After it left, Zhou Lang noticed a note under the stove.

It wasn't part of the recipe; it was an old piece of paper folded twice.

He picked it up and unfolded it—

"You went to the basement last night."

Just this one sentence. No signature, no threat, not even punctuation. But the meaning is clear: the butler is known.

Zhou Lang burned the note and threw it into the stove fire.

The flames from the burning paper strips are black.

At noon, the three met in the lobby. Zhao Qiang's head was covered in straw clippings, and Han Yingying's sleeves were mostly wet.

"Something's happened." Zhou Lang took advantage of the butler's absence to tell him about the note.

Zhao Qiang's expression fell: "It knows? Then we—"

"Don't rush," Zhou Lang said. "If it really wanted to take action, it wouldn't just leave a note."

Han Yingying thought for a moment: "It's testing your reaction."

"It's possible," Zhou Lang said, "but there's another possibility."

"What?"

"It's not warning me, it's sending me a message."

Zhao Qiang looked confused: "Delivering a message? It's not a deliveryman."

"Think about it, what's written in the notebook? The butler betrayed his master and locked him in the mirror," Zhou Lang said. "But what if it's the other way around? What if the master had a problem first, and the butler had no choice but to seal him away?"

Han Yingying's eyes lit up: "You mean, the William in the mirror isn't a victim?"

"I'm not sure. But the behavior of killing the butler is too contradictory. During the day, it pays us wages, gives us ratings, and maintains order. At night, it releases ghosts to scare us, but it has never actually killed us." Zhou Lang paused. "In a dungeon with a survival rate of less than one percent, the butler's behavior doesn't make sense."

Zhao Qiang scratched his head, scattering bits of grass on the ground: "So you mean... the butler might be a good person?"

"There's no good or bad," Zhou Lang said. "There are only positions. Once you understand its position, you'll know what to do."

During the afternoon work hours, Zhou Lang pondered things while cooking soup. At three o'clock, the soup was ready, and the housekeeper came to check it.

It walked into the kitchen and, expressionless—or rather, expressionless to begin with—looked at the soup in the pot.

"Passed," it said.

Then it turned to leave.

"Wait a minute," Zhou Lang called out to it.

The butler stopped and slowly turned back. His empty eye sockets faced Zhou Lang, and something occasionally flickered within them, like the tail light of a firefly.

"Why did you leave me a note?" Zhou Lang asked directly.

The butler was not killed.

The air temperature in the kitchen plummeted. Frost began to form on the soup in the pot, and the stove fire was almost extinguished by an invisible force.

The two—one human and one ghost—stood facing each other for a full ten seconds.