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

"Why would you ask that?" The voice of the person in the chair changed; it was no longer hoarse, but clear and bright. "The players in this manor only think about completing their tasks, getting their wages, and getting out alive. Nobody asks the old master."

"I'm not here to do a mission," Zhou Lang said.

Zhao Qiang muttered through gritted teeth behind him, "If we're not here for a mission, then why did you bring us down here...?"

Zhou Lang ignored him. He stared at the chair: "Do you know where the old master is?"

The person in the chair slowly turned around.

It was an old man. He was wearing an old butler's uniform, the same style as the butler upstairs who had killed him, except this old man had eyes, a pair of cloudy eyes that were still moving. The skin on his face hung loosely, like he was wearing an ill-fitting mask.

"I used to be the steward of this manor," the old man said, "before the one upstairs. The old master locked me up here in the basement, and I don't remember exactly how long it lasted—but I watched as all those names on the walls, from the first to the last, were carved."

Han Yingying whispered in Zhou Lang's ear, "Can we believe what he says?"

"Half," Zhou Lang replied in a low voice. "The dead and the trapped love to smuggle in their own agendas the most."

The old man heard this and laughed again: "Kid, you're quite clear-headed."

Zhou Lang asked, "Where is the old master now?"

"What do you want with him?"

"Find someone," Zhou Lang said, uttering only two words.

The old man stared at him for a long time. Zhou Lang let him look. He knew that these things didn't recognize people by their faces, but by something else—the aura they carried. There was a bandaged ghost inside him, and the old butler would find out sooner or later.

Sure enough, the old man's cloudy eyes twitched: "You... are haunted."

Zhao Qiang's hand trembled, almost dropping the flashlight. He suddenly looked at Zhou Lang's back, and the question that had been weighing on his mind resurfaced. He had felt something was off for a while. In the last instance, Zhou Lang went in empty-handed, but came out with some inexplicable clues. But he had never imagined that Zhou Lang would be "ghostly."

He opened his mouth, but didn't dare to ask.

Zhou Lang remained expressionless: "Borrowed."

"Borrow?" The old man laughed out loud this time, his laughter making the chair creak. "Ghosts aren't lent out. Did you swallow it whole, or did it swallow half of you?"

"Each takes half," Zhou Lang said casually, as if he were reporting an account.

The old man stopped laughing. "Interesting. In all these years, you're the first living person I can't quite understand." He raised a withered hand and pointed to the wall at the end of the corridor. "The old master is upstairs, behind the portrait. You can't go in during the day; the portrait is alive. It watches people during the day. It sleeps at night, and then you can go in."

"And the price?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Clever." The old man withdrew his hand. "Do me a favor. I can't open the door to this basement. Break the last lock for me, and I'll tell you how to bypass the portrait from during the day."

Zhou Lang didn't agree immediately. He was calculating.

He knew how to break locks, and he had scissors and a chainsaw on him. But the old man was in a hurry to get out, and he didn't know what he would do after that. Releasing something that had been trapped for who knows how many years was quite risky. But what he wanted was the whereabouts of his old master, and this old man was the only one he knew about at the moment.

He'd done bad deals before. This time, at least he'd make a profit.

"Okay," Zhou Lang said, "but you tell me first how to wrap the portrait. After you've told me, I'll break the lock."

The light in the old man's eyes dimmed slightly: "Aren't you afraid I'll lie to you?"

"You've been trapped for so long, and you want to get out? You're lying to me. You'll have to wait for the next one." Zhou Lang switched the oil lamp to his other hand. "You can't afford to wait."

The stone house fell silent for a moment.

The old man suddenly sighed, and as he exhaled, one of the red lights that had gone out on either side of the corridor came back on.

"...Okay," he said. "The portrait is on the second floor, at the east end, a self-portrait of the old master. During the day, walk to the left of the portrait, without looking at it, until you reach the end, where there's a small door. At night, when it's asleep, just push the portrait; there's a passage behind it. Remember, whether it's day or night, don't make a sound when you go there. It can hear you."

Zhou Lang wrote these down. He didn't believe them entirely, but they matched up—the fragrant storage room upstairs was located near the east end of the second floor.

"Where is the last lock?" he asked.

The old man pointed to a wall behind the chair. There was no door on the wall, only a square iron plate with a keyhole in the center.

"The lock is inside, not outside," the old man said. "Once you break it, all the doors underground will open, and I can leave."

Zhou Lang walked over and tried to fit the scissors into the keyhole, but they wouldn't go in; the hole was too small. He took a step back and removed the chainsaw.

Zhao Qiang quickly covered his ears. Han Yingying took half a step back towards the stairwell, her eyes fixed on the old man.

Zhou Lang pulled the lever, and the chainsaw started up. He didn't saw directly at the keyhole; he sawed the edge of the iron plate first—it was embedded in the wall, with latches on all four sides. Cutting through the latches was faster than prying the lock.

Sparks flew out. One corner of the iron plate loosened.

Just then, Han Yingying called out, "Zhou Lang! He's stood up!"

Zhou Lang turned around. The old man stood up from the armchair, his sagging face tightening, and something else gleaming in his cloudy eyes.

"You broke it too quickly." The old man's voice returned to its dry, hoarse tone. "I thought I'd have to lie to you a few more times."

Zhou Lang stopped the chainsaw: "The portrait you mentioned is fake."

"It's true." The old man approached step by step, stretching out his withered hand. "The portrait is real. But the old master isn't behind the portrait—the old master is me."

As soon as the old man said those words, all the red lights on both sides of the aisle went out.

Only the oil lamp remained in Zhou Lang's hand. Its green light enveloped the old man, and the old man's appearance changed—a layer of his previously loose skin peeled away, revealing what was underneath, but Zhou Lang didn't examine it closely. He didn't need to see it clearly. He had only obtained half of the information he needed.

"So you're the old master." Zhou Lang started the chainsaw again, his voice drowning out the old man's words. "Then you should thank me even more. You're trapped by this lock, unable to get out, right?"

The old man stopped.

Zhou Lang reconsidered the situation in his mind. This old thing claimed to be the old master, yet it was in such a hurry to have the lock broken—would the true master be trapped by its own lock? That didn't make sense. Unless, it was imprisoned underground by an even earlier set of rules, which even it couldn't break.

So, will he break the lock or not?

If it's broken, release an S-rank item. If it's not broken, he won't be able to find out where his sister is.

Zhou Lang stared at the old man's face after the skin had peeled off for a moment, then made a decision.

"I'm not going to break it anymore." He put the chainsaw away. "You've been trapped for so many years, and you want to use me to get out. You know about my sister, but you won't tell me for nothing. You're going to use this to keep me hanging, so I'll do some work for you."

The old man stopped moving.

"You guessed right." Zhou Lang smiled, the first time he'd smiled all night. "Then let's just wait it out. If you can't get out, I'll come back to the dungeon next time. You're not in a hurry anyway."

He turned to Zhao Qiang and Han Ying: "Let's go upstairs."

Zhao Qiang was stunned: "No, no breaking the lock? What about the portrait..."