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

After waiting for ten minutes, people started coming downstairs. Zhou Lang counted—three people were missing.

"Where's Lao Zhang from the fourth group?" someone asked.

No reply.

Zhou Lang went to the third floor to check on the room where the fourth group lived. The door was open, and the room was empty. The sheets were neat, and there were no signs of a struggle; the person had simply vanished.

This is only the first night.

"He opened the door." Uncle Lin stood in the corridor, his tone calm. "I heard the door next door open last night."

Zhou Lang glanced at him. Uncle Lin lived next door to the person who had disappeared.

"Didn't you remind him?"

"It was too late," Uncle Lin said. "The door was open for less than two seconds, and then the sound stopped."

two seconds.

Zhou Lang remembered this information. Opening the door meant certain death, and a silent death at that.

Back in the lobby, only forty-eight of the original fifty-odd people remained. The atmosphere was much more oppressive than yesterday.

"Everyone," Zhou Lang stood up, "I think we need to exchange some information."

Information exchange was more difficult than Zhou Lang had imagined.

Not everyone was willing to talk. A few players treated last night's experience as their trump card and refused to speak out. But most people did talk.

In summary, the situation on the first night was basically the same: something was wandering in the corridor, would stop at the door, and would talk, but it couldn't come in.

The three dead people had one thing in common—they hadn't put up any defensive talismans or sealed the cracks in the door.

"But the rules say not to leave the room after sunset," Han Yingying said. "Why did those three people open the door?"

"I was tricked out." Fang Yuan sat down with a bowl of porridge. "The woman next door to me was crying and screaming for help all night. It wasn't the sound of a ghost, just an ordinary person calling for help. If I weren't an experienced player, I might have opened the door too."

Zhou Lang remained silent.

He remembered the woman's voice outside the door last night—"Let me in, please."

It wasn't a threat, it was a plea.

"What will happen on the second night?" Zhao Qiang asked the question that everyone was thinking.

No one answered.

Daytime was relatively safe. Zhou Lang decided to use this time to gather intelligence.

He walked around the inn. It had three floors, with ten guest rooms on each floor. The first floor had a lobby and a kitchen. There was a courtyard in the back, and outside the courtyard was a pine forest, but he couldn't get out—he had tried, and after walking for ten minutes, he had circled back to the inn's entrance.

Enclosed space.

Zhou Lang returned to the lobby and decided to have a chat with those "people".

"Boss, how long has this inn been open?"

The owner was doing the accounts when he looked up and smiled: "It's been over ten years. My wife and I have been here since we were young."

"How's business?"

"It's alright, there are quite a few tourists."

Zhou Lang looked at the couple by the window: "Are you here for tourism too?"

The boy nodded: "Yes, we came here by car. There's a waterfall nearby."

The girl added, "We plan to stay for three days."

It was a perfectly normal conversation.

But Zhou Lang noticed something—when these "people" spoke, their expressions and tone were correct, but their eyes were wrong.

How can I describe that look in my eyes? Like a glass bead, shiny but without warmth.

He then went to talk to the girl with the ponytail.

"How long have you been staying here?"

The girl looked up and smiled. "It's been over a month. I work here, and the boss provides food and lodging, which is quite convenient."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"Help us clean and tidy the rooms." She closed her book. "Are you here to have fun? There are so many people."

"I guess so," Zhou Lang said.

He noticed the girl's book—"Criminal Law." A law student?

Are you a college student?

The girl nodded: "Third year, law major."

Zhou Lang didn't ask any further questions. He had already obtained enough information.

These "people" have complete identities and backgrounds, memories, and daily behaviors. During the day, they are just ordinary people.

But at night—

Zhou Lang returned to the third floor and closed the door.

"Bandage, I have a question for you."

"explain."

"These ghosts take human form during the day and transform into a dead state at night. Does this mean they were like this in life?"

The bandaged man was silent for a moment: "You mean, they aren't ghosts that appeared out of thin air, but—"

"The people who died here," Zhou Lang said, "the boss, the boss's wife, the woman in the floral apron, the couple, the female college student working here. Six people, six ways of dying."

"What are you planning to do?"

"I don't know. But if it's just about enduring seven days, this dungeon can't be A-rank difficulty. There must be something else involved."

The second night has arrived.

This time, Zhou Lang was prepared. He stuffed towels into the gap under the door and sealed the bathroom faucet spout with tape. He blocked everything that could get in.

After dark, the noises in the corridor started again.

But it was different from the first night.

First, there's the sound of water.

A gurgling sound came from the direction of the bathroom, like something was surging up in the pipes. Zhou Lang went over to check—he had blocked the faucet, but the pipes were vibrating, making a metallic clanging sound.

The tape at the sealing point slowly bulged into a bulge.

Something is pushing outwards.

Zhou Lang immediately tore a defensive talisman off the door frame and slapped it onto the faucet. The talisman flashed blue light, and the vibration of the pipe stopped.

But on the other side of the door—

The towel is moving.

It wasn't the wind. Something was pulling it from the outside.

Zhou Lang crouched down and saw the towel being slowly pulled out through the crack in the door. He held one end of the towel and struggled against the force outside for a few seconds.

It wasn't very strong. He held it down with one hand.

The outside things were abandoned, and the towel was no longer being pulled.

But then, a finger reached in through the crack in the door.

The fingers were deathly pale, the nails were black, and there were obvious blisters at the joints.

Zhou Lang stood up abruptly and took two steps back.

His fingers groped around in the crack of the door for a while, touched the towel, and then slowly withdrew.

The second night. They were able to extend part of their bodies.

From next door came Han Ying's hushed scream: "The faucet is bleeding!"

"Don't panic!" Zhou Lang slammed his fist on the wall. "Block the drain, use anything you can!"

After a whole night of commotion, no one else died. But no one slept.

In the lobby after daybreak, all forty-eight players looked unwell.

"The second night was worse than the first," a bald man said. "They could stick things in through the cracks. A hand came out of my bathroom faucet."

"A tongue crawled in through the crack in my door," another person said, his face turning green. "It was over thirty centimeters long, wriggling on the ground. I stepped on it before it retracted."

"If it gets upgraded every night..." Zhao Qiang calculated, "Will the whole person be able to get in on the third night?"

No one spoke, but everyone had considered this possibility.

"We can't just sit here and wait to die," Li Feng stepped forward. As an officer, he naturally had command authority. "I propose we search for the instance's core during the day. The rules state we can clear the instance after seven days, but if we can find the core, we can destroy it ahead of time—"

"Stop joking," Uncle Lin interrupted him. "Didn't you check the intelligence while you were out? The core is on the third underground level, guarded by a four-star ghost king. Those ghosts are in human form during the day; how are you going to find the core?"