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

Han Yingying opened her eyes.

The ceiling was white, with a crack in it.

Her room.

I woke up from a dream again. The third time.

She lay motionless on the bed, staring at the crack for a long time. Something was wrong. Every time she returned from a dungeon, she would wake up in a dream, but she used to take it for granted—the dungeon ended, she returned to reality, fell asleep, and woke up.

But this time is different.

She remembered everything about her time in the haunted manor: the iron door to the basement, the stairs, and Zhou Lang's silhouette as he walked ahead, holding an oil lamp. They completed the instance, the system declared it complete, and the screen went black—and then she was in bed.

There is no transition in between.

There's no way home, no buses or subways, no opening or closing doors. It's just—slap, I'm in bed.

She had never thought about this before.

Han Yingying sat up and picked up her phone to check the time. It was 3:17 AM. She scrolled through her phone's photo album and found a street scene photo she had taken last week. The streetlights in the photo were orange, but she remembered that the streetlights that day were shining white.

wrong.

She opened her notes app, ready to jot down these unusual thoughts. The moment her fingers touched the screen, a wave of drowsiness washed over her, unnaturally heavy. Han Yingying pinched her thigh. She couldn't sleep. She had a feeling that once she fell asleep, these thoughts would disappear.

She typed frantically.

"Waking up for the third time. There was no process of going home. The streetlights were the wrong color. The drowsiness felt unnatural—"

When I got to this point, my vision went black.

The phone slipped from my hand.

When I opened my eyes again, it was dawn.

Han Yingying glanced at her phone; the notes section was empty.

She frowned, clearly remembering that she had typed something. She scrolled through her recently deleted posts, but found nothing.

"..."

Han Yingying kept this in mind and stopped using her phone to write it down. She began to pay attention to her surroundings, noticing details she had previously overlooked. For example, was the tree at the entrance of her apartment complex a banyan or a camphor tree? She couldn't remember. Not that she forgot, but that she had never paid attention to it before.

This is strange. She's lived here for two years.

At noon, she went out to buy bread, deliberately taking a longer route, walking three blocks. Each block ended in fog, but the fog dissipated as she walked in, revealing new streets. She counted the streetlights—one every fifty meters, with identical spacing.

It's too uniform.

She stood at the crossroads for a long time, deciding to go to the city library today to check the latest news—about the strange occurrences, about games. She felt like she'd forgotten something very important.

However, she was unable to reach the library.

Halfway there, a system notification popped up.

A matching copy has been detected and will be transferred shortly.

Han Yingying: "..."

It's always the same. Every time she wants to do something, the instance comes along.

Is this a coincidence?

The scene shifts, and she finds herself standing in a desolate wasteland. All around her is a gray sky and cracked ground, with a dilapidated hospital in the distance.

The fourth instance.

[Instance: Abandoned Hospital]

[Difficulty: A]

[Objective: Locate the medical records on the third floor and survive until payment is made]

Number of players: 6

Han Yingying looked around. There were five people standing beside her.

Zhou Lang stood two steps to her left, hands in his pockets, looking at the hospital with a calm expression. Zhao Qiang, next to Zhou Lang, looked rather unwell.

The other three people were standing a little further away. One was a tall, thin guy wearing a baseball cap, one was a burly man in a windbreaker, and one was a girl with a ponytail.

The tall, thin man glanced at them and whispered a few words to the burly man.

Zhou Lang looked away and turned to Han Yingying: "It's you again."

"It's you again," Han Yingying said.

Zhao Qiang interjected, "I think the system might be doing this on purpose."

"Whatever." Zhou Lang walked towards the hospital.

Six people entered the hospital. The lighting inside was significantly dimmer, yellowed notices were pasted on the walls, and something was dripping water at the end of the corridor.

The tall, thin guy leaned over: "Hey bro, wanna team up?"

Zhou Lang turned and glanced at him: "No need."

The tall, thin man sheepishly retreated.

The burly man whispered to the tall, thin man, "Don't try to be nice to someone who won't listen. The two of us plus that girl, three people are enough."

The girl with the ponytail didn't say anything and followed behind the burly man.

The six people split into two groups and went their separate ways.

The first floor wasn't dangerous, so Zhou Lang led Zhao Qiang and Han Ying directly to the second floor. Arrows were drawn on the wall of the stairwell, pointing in different directions. One pointed to the second floor, and the other to the third floor.

"The target is on the third floor," Han Yingying said.

"Let's not go yet." Zhou Lang stopped in the corridor on the second floor.

Zhao Qiang asked, "Why?"

"Places with overly clear targets are usually traps." Zhou Lang pushed open the door to the first ward on the second floor. The room was empty except for a rusty iron bed. He went in and rummaged under the bed, pulling out a note.

The note read: The corridor on the right side of the third floor refreshes every thirty seconds. During the refresh period, all living things in the corridor will be judged as abnormal.

"See this?" Zhou Lang handed the note to Han Yingying.

Han Yingying finished reading and handed it to Zhao Qiang. Zhao Qiang's face paled after reading it: "How quickly will it take to get there?"

"Thirty seconds is enough," Zhou Lang said, "but we have to time it carefully."

They searched the second floor for twenty minutes and gathered some useful clues. During that time, the door to a ward across the corridor opened by itself, and Zhao Qiang almost screamed, but Zhou Lang reached out and covered his mouth.

"Don't make a sound."

The door opened, but nothing came out. After waiting for about ten seconds, the door closed by itself.

Zhao Qiang slapped Zhou Lang's hand away and took a breath.

Han Yingying observed the structure of the corridor. This was different from the dungeons she had entered before; the paint on the walls was peeling off, but in a very regular way—from bottom to top, each piece was almost the same size.

She brought up her skill panel.

[Skill: Insight] - Observe hidden clues in the environment. Cooldown time: 3 minutes.

She activated the skill.

Several pale blue lines appeared in my field of vision, extending towards the third staircase. The lines varied in thickness, with the thickest one pointing towards the wall to the left of the staircase.

"This way," she pointed in that direction.

Zhou Lang didn't ask why and just followed. Zhao Qiang jogged behind.

They reached the stairwell. Han Yingying walked to the left wall, squatted down, and reached out to touch the corner. One brick was loose. She pried it open, and the brick fell out, revealing a hidden compartment containing a flashlight.

It's not an ordinary flashlight.

[Safety flashlight: Will not trigger any abnormal detection within the illumination range; duration 60 seconds; disposable.]

"Good stuff." Zhou Lang took it, looked at it, and then handed it back to her. "You keep it."

Just then, a commotion arose downstairs. The tall, thin man's voice boomed from the first floor: "...Don't push me! You're too scared to walk yourself, why are you pushing me?!"

The burly man's voice: "Who pushed you? There's something behind you!"

Then came the screams from the girl with the ponytail.

Zhao Qiang peeked down the stairs, then pulled his head back in: "It looks like they're being chased by something."

The three stumbled up to the second floor; the tall, thin man's hat was askew. The burly man was carrying an iron pipe, and the girl with the ponytail was deathly pale.

"Is it safe up there?" the burly man asked, panting.