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

At the end of the stairs was a wooden door, most of the wood of which was rotten and would fall apart if pushed with a hand.

Behind the door was a huge basement, much more spacious than Zhou Lang had expected. The green light from the oil lamp shone in, and the first thing he saw was the dense scratches on the walls—not decorations, but scratches made by fingernails.

"Someone was imprisoned here before," Zhao Qiang said, his voice strained.

Zhou Lang didn't reply, but walked inside with the lamp in hand. The basement had a strange layout. In the center was a long table with seven wooden boxes on it, covered in dust. On each side of the table were three chairs, each occupied by a skeleton.

It's not fake, it's a real skeleton.

Some were still wearing clothes, the fabric so tattered that their original color was unrecognizable. Some had their heads tilted to the side, others were slumped over tables, each in a different posture, but they all had one thing in common—each skeleton was missing a finger bone.

"What is this? A dinner party?"

After Zhao Qiang finished speaking, he shuddered.

Han Yingying walked around to the other side of the long table, her attention focused on the seven wooden boxes. She reached out to touch them, but Zhou Lang stopped her.

"Don't rush."

He placed the oil lamp on the table. The moment the green light shone, the six skeletons turned their heads simultaneously, their empty eye sockets fixed on Zhou Lang and his companions.

Zhao Qiang's legs went weak, and he almost sat down on the ground.

Zhou Lang, however, showed no reaction whatsoever. Since merging with the bandaged ghost, his immunity to these kinds of tricks had skyrocketed. A skeleton turning its head? That would be more like the skeleton standing up and chasing him with a knife.

"Just trying to scare people," Zhou Lang said, picking up the nearest wooden box and opening it.

Inside the box lay a finger bone and a folded note. He unfolded the note; written in brown ink, it read: "My name is Liu Yuan. I was the third to die. The butler killed us, with our blood..."

The writing at the end was blurred and illegible.

Zhou Lang opened the second and third boxes, and each one contained the same thing—a finger bone and a note. The contents of the notes, pieced together, roughly reconstructed a fact:

This manor once had a group of servants.

The butler locked them all in the basement and killed them one by one, using their blood to keep the manor running. The servants left behind their remains and last words, which were hidden in a wooden box.

"So the work we're doing now has been done by others before," Zhao Qiang swallowed, "and those people all died later."

"Not just that." Zhou Lang picked up the seventh slip of paper, the best preserved and with the clearest handwriting—

"The key is inside the butler's body. Break it to leave."

Zhou Lang flipped the note over; on the back was a simple map, marking a passage deeper into the basement.

"Is there another way?" Han Yingying leaned closer to look.

"Over there." Zhou Lang pointed to the far corner of the basement. The walls there were different from the rest of the place; the bricks were misaligned, as if they had been installed later.

He walked over and knocked on it; the sound was hollow.

"let me."

Zhou Lang took out the chainsaw.

The roar of the chainsaw was particularly piercing in the basement, and the brick wall crumbled rapidly under its teeth. Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying stepped aside, brick fragments scattering all over the floor.

About three minutes later, a hole was made in the wall large enough for one person to pass through.

Behind the cave was a narrow passageway, barely wide enough to walk through while bending over. A putrid stench emanated from the depths of the passageway.

"I'll go first." Zhou Lang went inside.

The passageway wasn't long; it turned two corners before reaching its end. At the end was an even smaller room, with a bronze mirror standing in the very center.

It's not an ordinary mirror.

The bronze mirror is about two meters tall, its surface gleaming with a dark green light, a color different from that of an oil lamp—deeper and darker, like silt at the bottom of a body of water. The frame is covered with distorted patterns that, if looked at for too long, can cause dizziness.

Zhou Lang stared at the mirror and saw his reflection.

But the reflection is wrong.

In his reflection, he wasn't holding an oil lamp; he stood empty-handed. And the reflection was smiling—a very eerie smile—its mouth stretched too wide, revealing too many teeth.

"Zhou Lang!" Han Yingying's voice came from behind.

He turned around, and Han Yingying and Zhao Qiang had already followed.

"There's something wrong with this mirror." Zhou Lang took a step back. "Don't look at the mirror."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhao Qiang had already looked up.

His reflection was also smiling. But Zhao Qiang's own face had turned pale: "I...I saw myself in there, but that wasn't me."

"I told you not to look." Zhou Lang pulled him back.

Han Yingying kept her head down, staring at the ground, not looking in the mirror. But her expression was strange—her brows were slightly furrowed, as if she were recalling something.

"This mirror, I always feel..." She shook her head before finishing her sentence, "Never mind, maybe I'm just overthinking it."

Zhou Lang noticed her reaction but didn't ask any further questions.

He went around to examine the bronze mirror from behind. Inscribed on the back of the mirror were the words: "On the seventh night, the steward will arrive. Use this mirror as a door; save yourself from life and death."

The Seventh Night.

It is now the evening of the second day.

"Does that mean we can escape the manor on the seventh night using this mirror?" Zhao Qiang blurted out.

"Or perhaps the butler can only be killed on the seventh night." Zhou Lang had a different interpretation.

The green light from the bronze mirror suddenly flashed, then dimmed again. The entire room was plunged into darkness, with only the glow of the oil lamp in Zhou Lang's hand remaining.

In that brief moment of light, Zhou Lang saw the image reflected in the mirror—

A woman, dressed in white, stood in a void. Her face was indistinct, but she pointed in a direction.

Zhou Lang looked in the direction she was pointing—it was Han Yingying.

The mirror has restored its normal reflection.

This happened so fast that neither Zhao Qiang nor Han Yingying noticed.

Zhou Lang kept this in mind.

"Let's go back first," he said. "Knowing the situation in the basement is enough; there's no need to waste time here."

The three returned the way they came. They climbed the stairs and locked the iron gate. Zhou Lang used the wire from his inventory to re-wrap the lock, and at first glance, it looked almost the same as before.

When they returned to the lobby on the first floor, Xiong Batian was sitting on the sofa, staring in the direction of the three of them.

"You went to the basement?" he asked.

Zhou Lang glanced at him: "How long have you been squatting here waiting?"

"No," Xiong Batian said. "I couldn't sleep, so I came down for a walk."

Zhao Qiang muttered "Nobody would believe that," and Han Yingying nudged him with her elbow.

"What's in the basement?" Xiong Batian asked directly.

"A few skeletons, a mirror." Zhou Lang's answer was straightforward, but he didn't reveal the whole story either.

Xiong Batian stared at him for a few seconds, then turned and went upstairs without asking any further questions.

"This person..." Zhao Qiang frowned, "is acting suspiciously."

"Just mind your own business." Zhou Lang patted him on the shoulder. "Go back to your room. We still have work to do tomorrow."

The three of them went back to their respective rooms.

Zhou Lang lay on the bed, his mind replaying the image in the bronze mirror. What did the woman in white mean by pointing at Han Yingying?

Han Yingying's reaction in front of the mirror was also abnormal. She said, "I always feel"—"I always feel what?" Had she seen it before?

He couldn't figure it out, so he simply stopped thinking about it. He turned over, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Some things can't be rushed.