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

At the end of the stairs was a stone door.

The door was covered with dense patterns that seemed to writhe like living things in the green light of the oil lamp. Zhao Qiang instinctively took a half step back, stepping on Han Yingying.

"You stepped on me."

"Sorry, sorry." Zhao Qiang quickly moved his foot away.

Zhou Lang ignored them and held the oil lamp closer to the stone gate. The patterns weren't decorations; they were characters. The characters were crooked and uneven, like those scratched out by a child's fingernail.

"Don't... open..."

There are only two characters, which have been carved over a hundred times and cover the entire stone door.

"The person who wrote this probably has ruined their fingers," Zhou Lang muttered, reaching out to push the door open.

"Wait!" Zhao Qiang grabbed him. "It says 'Don't open' on it."

"Would you refuse to go into a haunted house just because there's a 'No Entry' sign on the door?"

"……meeting."

Zhou Lang didn't reply, but immediately exerted his strength. The stone door was very heavy, and when it was pushed open, it made a harsh scraping sound, amplifying the echo in the underground passage several times over. Han Yingying's ears rang.

Behind the door is a hall.

Calling it a "hall" is an understatement—it's more like a hollowed-out earthen cave, with pitted walls, an uneven floor, and a low ceiling that forces Zhao Qiang to stoop to walk. The air is thick with a musty, stale smell, mixed with another indescribable, cloying sweetness.

Han Yingying covered her nose with the back of her hand.

In the center of the hall was a stone platform, on which sat a coffin.

It wasn't large, two sizes smaller than a normal coffin, like one prepared for a child. The coffin lid wasn't closed tightly, revealing a gap through which a dark red light shone.

"That light..." Zhao Qiang's voice was hoarse.

Zhou Lang walked over with the oil lamp in hand. There was a circle drawn on the ground around the coffin, containing complex symbols. He squatted down and looked at it for a while, noticing that the symbols were somewhat similar to some kind of marking he had seen in the corridor before.

"Don't come any closer," he said.

Han Yingying and Zhao Qiang stood still.

Zhou Lang walked around the coffin. He noticed that each of the four corners of the coffin had a black nail embedded in it, with hair wrapped around the nail heads. It wasn't a wig; it was real human hair, coarse, thick, and yellowish, braided and wrapped several times.

He reached out to touch the coffin lid.

The moment my fingers touched the wood, three loud thuds came from inside the coffin.

It's not a ghost knocking—it's a heartbeat.

Zhou Lang's hand paused for a moment. Zhao Qiang had already shielded Han Yingying behind him, even though he himself was trembling.

"There's something inside," Zhou Lang said, uttering a seemingly pointless statement.

The coffin lid moved on its own.

The crevice gradually widened, and a dark red light leaked out, casting a flickering reflection on the stone wall. Zhou Lang took two steps back and raised the oil lamp higher.

Something sat up in the coffin.

It's a child.

Or rather, I was once a child.

Its skin was translucent, revealing black blood vessels that spread out like tree roots. Its eye sockets were empty, but from each of the two holes grew a white flower the size of a fingernail. Its hair was long and messy, hanging down its sides, and was the same type of hair that clung to the corners of the coffin.

It tilted its head and "looked" at Zhou Lang.

Zhou Lang was also looking at it.

The silence lasted for three seconds. Han Yingying quietly clenched the fabric of her sleeve.

The child opened his mouth, but there were no teeth, no tongue, only a dark hole.

Then it laughed.

There was no sound, but his mouth stretched from ear to ear.

Zhou Lang did something no one expected—he held the oil lamp forward, brought it close to the child's face, and then blew a breath of air into it.

The lights went out.

The basement was plunged into complete darkness.

Zhao Qiang almost cursed.

But the next second, he heard a strange sound.

"Waaah—"

It wasn't a ghost's cry; it was the child in the coffin crying.

The crying was faint and weak, like a newborn baby who had been frightened.

Zhou Lang's voice rang out in the darkness: "See? I told you, I have a way."

"You—you scared the ghost to tears?" Zhao Qiang's voice trembled.

"It wasn't scared to tears." Zhou Lang relit the oil lamp, and the green light returned. "It reminded it of something."

When the lamplight shone on the child, it had stopped smiling. Two white flowers trembled in its empty eye sockets. It huddled in the coffin, its hands wrapped around its knees, its whole body swaying slightly.

Zhou Lang placed the oil lamp on the edge of the coffin.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

The child did not answer. It raised a hand and pointed to the stone wall.

Zhou Lang turned his head to look. On the stone wall illuminated by the green light, a line of words appeared—words that hadn't been there before:

"Three hundred years."

Zhao Qiang: "..."

Han Yingying stared at the words on the stone wall, her brow twitching slightly. Three hundred years—the history of this manor was far longer than they had imagined.

"You're being held here?" Zhou Lang asked again.

The child nodded and then pointed upwards.

"Did the housekeeper shut it off?"

The child shook his head.

"The owner of the manor?"

The child shuddered violently, as if the word itself frightened it. Then it pointed to the stone wall, and new words appeared:

"She's still here."

"Who?"

"Top floor."

Zhou Lang looked at Han Yingying and Zhao Qiang. Zhao Qiang's expression seemed to say, "Please don't go," but he didn't speak because he knew he couldn't stop them.

Han Yingying, however, was looking at the child.

Her gaze was strange—not fear, not pity, but something profound, something she herself didn't even realize. She took a step forward, before Zhou Lang and Zhao Qiang could stop her.

She knelt down in front of the coffin.

The child looked up at her. The two white flowers trembled violently.

Then, this ghost, who hadn't left the coffin for three hundred years, did something no one expected—

It reached out and touched Han Yingying's fingers.

It recoiled as soon as it was touched, as if it had been burned. But it stopped trembling.

Two more characters appeared on the stone wall:

"Hana... Rin..."

Han Yingying frowned. "What?"

The writing stopped abruptly there, as if the power of the writing had been suddenly severed. The child curled up again, no longer responding to any questions.

Zhou Lang saw this scene and his brows twitched almost imperceptibly.

He didn't press further, simply saying, "Let's go, that's enough for today."

"Not going to the rooftop?" Zhao Qiang rarely brought it up himself.

"No rush." ​​Zhou Lang took back the oil lamp and walked back. "It said there's something on the top floor, but that doesn't mean we can survive if we go there now."

The three returned the way they came. When they went upstairs, there were even more ghosts in the corridor than before—so many that half a face was squeezed into the cracks in the walls. They stared at the three, especially at Han Yingying.

Zhou Lang noticed it.

He said nothing, but walked silently ahead of Han Yingying, using the light of the oil lamp to clear the way for her.

After returning to their respective rooms, it was already one in the morning. Zhao Qiang muttered to himself at his door, "I won't be able to sleep tonight," and then closed the door.

Han Yingying stood at the door of the room and turned to look at Zhou Lang.

"Did you see the words that child wrote?"

"I saw it clearly." Zhou Lang leaned against the door frame.

"Hua Ling... what's next?"

"I don't know," he said, "but it went quiet after you touched it. Don't you find that strange?"