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

Han Yingying opened her eyes.

The ceiling was white, and a sliver of light peeked through the curtains. She lay on her bed, the blankets neatly folded.

My phone vibrated on the bedside table.

She didn't move, staring at the ceiling for three seconds.

The memories from the dungeon are still there. The basement, the iron gate, the oil lamp, and Zhou Lang's face, which looked especially punchable under the green light.

But that's not all.

Something new entered her mind. Fragmented images, discontinuous ones. Someone was running in the dark, someone was screaming, and a voice was saying—

The rules have been updated.

Han Yingying sat up and picked up her phone. It was 7:12 AM, Monday.

She opened her browser and typed a few words into the search bar: "Recent Abnormal Events".

The search results are normal. Car accidents, fires, celebrity infidelity. Nothing.

wrong.

She changed the keyword: "The number of missing persons has been concentrated for nearly three months."

This time it happened. A post on a local forum, with few views and only seven replies. The title was "Six people have gone missing in our neighborhood in three months, and no one cares when we call the police."

Han Yingying clicked in and read through them one by one.

The poster said the missing people were of varying ages, including college students, office workers, and retired elderly men. The only thing they had in common was that in the days before they disappeared, neighbors heard them talking in their sleep in the middle of the night.

The content they were talking about was consistent: numbers.

"Three, two, one."

Han Yingying put down her phone.

She also said that.

Before she entered the game for the first time, her roommate told her that she had been talking in her sleep last night and had been counting down.

This is no coincidence.

She put on her coat and went out to the school library. The electronic reading room wasn't crowded, so she found a corner seat and began a systematic search.

Data on missing persons, reports of unusual deaths, and changes in the number of people seeking psychiatric care.

Two hours later, her notebook was filled with writing.

The data points to one conclusion: in the past six months, the number of people who have gone missing without notice nationwide has increased by 37 percent. And this number is still rising at a monthly rate.

More importantly, there has been no official report.

Han Yingying chewed on her pen cap, thinking of the ghosts in the dungeon. She thought of killing the butler. She thought of something Zhou Lang had said.

"This game was bound to come out sooner or later."

At the time, she thought it was a joke.

Looking back now, Zhou Lang never joked. Every word he said that seemed like a joke later became true.

She was about to continue her investigation when the screen suddenly went black.

It's not a problem with the computer.

All the lights in the reading room went out.

Someone cursed, "What a lousy school," and then a cell phone flashlight lit up.

Han Yingying did not move.

Because she saw it.

On the computer screen, a line of white text appeared in the middle of the black screen.

[The fifth instance is now open. Difficulty: S. Countdown: 10 seconds.]

Han Ying: "..."

She didn't even have time to curse before her vision went dark.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a gray and white space.

The ground beneath my feet was stone, and there were no walls on any side, but at the end of my field of vision was a thick fog.

"Yo."

A familiar voice.

Han Yingying turned her head and saw Zhou Lang standing three meters away, his hands in his pockets, looking around.

"You were dragged into this too?" Han Yingying asked.

"What do you mean?" Zhou Lang walked over. "This is my third time getting an S-rank."

"The third time?"

"Yeah. The first two times were pretty fun."

Han Yingying glanced at him but didn't say anything. Fun. S-rank dungeon. Fun.

Another light appeared beside them, and a figure emerged. It was a man in his early twenties, with a buzz cut, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, and tattoos on his arms.

"Holy crap." The buzz-cut man glanced around. "S-rank?"

"Who are you?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Chen Ling. And you?"

"Waves and waves."

Chen Ling was taken aback: "That 'Lang Li Lang'? The one from the Horror Manor?"

"You've become so famous?" Zhou Lang turned to look at Han Yingying.

Han Yingying ignored him.

Chen Ling rubbed his hands together: "Alright, I'll have to suck up to you."

"Don't rush." ​​Zhou Lang raised his hand and pointed ahead.

Something emerged from the fog.

It wasn't a person, but a stone tablet. To be precise, the stone tablet grew out of the ground on its own.

The words on the monument appeared line by line:

[Instance: Silent Hospital.]

[Mission: Find the hospital director's medical record within seven days.]

[Rule 1: From midnight to 6:00 AM daily, the entire hospital will be in "treatment hours," and all corridors will be closed.]

Rule Two: A diagnosed patient will lose one ability.

Rule 3: The Dean does not exist.

Chen Ling's expression changed after reading the rules.

"What does Rule Three mean? If the hospital director doesn't exist, how do we find the medical records?"

Zhou Lang didn't speak, staring at the stone tablet for a few seconds.

Han Yingying noticed his expression. Usually, Zhou Lang's face wouldn't change when he saw the rules, no matter how outrageous they were. But this time, his eyebrows twitched.

It was very slight, but Han Yingying saw it.

He was thinking.

"Let's go." Zhou Lang stepped into the fog.

Han Yingying and Chen Ling followed.

As the fog cleared, a six-story building came into view. It had a gray exterior, iron bars on the windows, and the main door was wide open. A plaque hung above the entrance, bearing four characters—

Yong'an Hospital.

A row of people were standing at the entrance.

"Are there any other players?" Chen Ling counted, "One, two... seven people. Including the three of us, that makes ten."

The seven men reacted differently when they saw them approaching. Some scrutinized them, some were wary, and one simply turned away from them.

One of the women, wearing a red coat, walked over.

"Are you going to form a group of three?" she asked.

"Yes," Zhou Lang said.

"We're in groups of five," the woman in red pointed behind her, "and there are two more independent players. Want to team up?"

"I don't want to," Zhou Lang replied quickly.

The smile on the woman in red froze for a moment: "S-rank dungeon, many hands make light work."

"With more people, more people will die." Zhou Lang said before walking towards the hospital.

Han Yingying nodded to the woman in red as a greeting, and then followed her.

Chen Ling jogged after him, saying, "Brother, your social skills..."

"No need for socializing." Zhou Lang pushed open the hospital door. "In an S-level instance, strangers are all variables."

Han Ying agreed with this assessment. In the last dungeon raid, it was their own group that had sabotaged them.

The hospital lobby was empty. The reception desk was covered in dust, and the clock on the wall was stopped at 3:14.

"Let's survey the terrain first," Zhou Lang said. "Six floors, let's look at each floor one by one."

Chen Ling asked, "What about the consultation time? What time is it now?"

Zhou Lang glanced at his wrist—everyone in the dungeon would have an extra watch.

"It's 2 PM. Ten hours to go."

"That's enough," Han Yingying said.

The three began their search from the first floor. They went into the wards, offices, and pharmacy one by one.

Most of the rooms were empty. The sheets were yellowed, and the things on the tables were crooked and askew.

When Zhou Lang reached the third floor, he stopped.

"What's wrong?" Han Yingying asked.

Zhou Lang pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. Unlike the doors in the other rooms, the door was made of iron and had an observation window on it.