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

"What does it say?" Zhou Lang asked.

Sister Su read aloud: 'They're still down there. Don't take the cable car. Don't go near B3 at midnight. They can hear your heartbeat.'

Everyone fell silent.

"Who are they?" Old Zhang asked.

No one answered.

Zhou Lang took the note and read it from both sides. The note was old, yellowed, and brittle, as if it had been written many years ago.

He put the note away and glanced at the system time.

Forty minutes have passed since we entered the instance. There are still one hour and twenty minutes until the second bizarre event is released.

"We need to speed things up," Zhou Lang said. "Before the second anomaly appears, let's go through every floor of the mall and collect all the clues we can find."

"I agree." Old Zhang nodded. "This time we—"

"Going our separate ways is too dangerous," Xia Lu suddenly said. "Could...could we go together?"

She was still trembling.

Old Zhang looked at her, somewhat troubled. Six people traveling together would be too inefficient, but a novice acting alone would be tantamount to suicide.

"I'll protect you." Lin Xiaodie suddenly looked up and gave Xia Lu a gentle smile. "Don't be afraid, sister. I may not be very capable, but two people are better than one, right?"

Xia Lu was taken aback for a moment, looking at this girl who was even younger than herself, and felt inexplicably at ease: "Thank you."

Zhou Lang looked at Lin Xiaodie.

The girl screamed the loudest and was the most terrified when she saw the half-corpse. But now, when she's comforting others, her hands are very steady.

The hand holding the doll didn't tremble at all.

Zhou Lang turned his gaze away.

"Okay, that's settled then. Lao Zhang will take Xia Lu, Sister Su will take Lin Xiaodie, and Chen Ye and I will each be responsible for one floor. We'll go through B1 and B2, Lao Zhang, you guys go through the second floor, Sister Su, go through the third floor. We'll leave the fourth floor for now."

"Why did you make these arrangements?" Old Zhang asked, somewhat disgruntled. "I told you I'd lead the team—"

"Do you want to go down?" Zhou Lang asked him.

Old Zhang shut up.

The underground level is obviously the most dangerous. Only those willing to go down there are qualified to decide on the plan.

"Okay, let's do it this way." Old Zhang waved his hand and led Xia Lu toward the escalator.

Before leaving, Sister Su turned back to look at Zhou Lang and smiled meaningfully.

Zhou Lang ignored her.

He led Chen Ye toward the fire escape.

As he pushed open the door, Zhou Lang turned his head and said, "Aren't you afraid?"

Chen Ye didn't speak.

"When someone enters a dungeon for the second time and sees half a corpse, their normal reaction is to vomit or run away," Zhou Lang said. "You didn't react at all."

Chen Ye was silent for a few seconds: "I'm bold."

"Alright then." Zhou Lang didn't ask any further questions.

However, he placed Chen Ye as the first person he was observing.

The two walked towards B2. The stairs were darker than before, and their footsteps echoed in the narrow space.

As soon as the door to B2 was opened, the temperature inside dropped several degrees.

Zhou Lang exhaled a puff of white breath and turned on the oil lamp.

The flames illuminated the space ahead—this wasn't a parking lot. It was a long corridor with a closed room on either side. Peeling posters covered the walls, vaguely recognizable as tourist brochures.

"This used to be the waiting area for the cable car station," Zhou Lang judged.

He walked to the nearest door and put his hand on the doorknob.

The door was made of ice.

Zhou Lang hesitated for a moment, then turned the handle and pushed open the door.

The room was empty except for one chair. A person was sitting in the chair.

It was a woman with long, flowing hair, wearing a white dress. She sat very upright, her hands resting on her knees.

Zhou Lang took a step back.

"That is—" Chen Ye stood behind him, his voice finally changing slightly.

The woman in the white dress slowly turned her head.

Hair slipped down his face, revealing a pale face. His features were normal, but his eyes were closed.

Zhou Lang held his breath.

The flame of the oil lamp flickered.

The woman in the white dress didn't move. She just sat there, eyes closed, as if waiting for something.

Zhou Lang slowly left the room and closed the door.

"Let's go," he said.

The two continued walking deeper into the corridor. Zhou Lang did not open any other room doors.

At the end of the corridor was another iron gate, exactly the same as the one on B1. A sign was welded onto the gate:

[Entry into the B3 cable car operating area is strictly prohibited]

There was a lock on the door, an old-fashioned padlock, rusted and almost falling apart. Zhou Lang tried to pry it open with his cane, but the lock wouldn't budge.

It's not an ordinary lock.

"I need a key." Zhou Lang took two steps back and looked at the walls around the iron gate.

A few lines of writing were carved on the wall, very small and barely visible unless you looked closely. Zhou Lang raised the oil lamp:

Passenger Notice: 1. Do not ride the cable car alone after midnight. 2. If approached by twin sisters, do not respond. 3. Do not look out the window while the cable car is in operation.

Three rules.

Zhou Lang wrote down the contents. The keyword "twin sisters" appeared for the second time. The first time was in the note in the corpse's pocket—"They're still down there."

He touched the Eye of Peeping in his pocket, hesitated for a moment, and then decided not to use it.

The timing is wrong. Activating the Eye of Insight will generate widespread spiritual energy fluctuations. If there really is a high-level anomaly below B3, this would be tantamount to actively revealing our location. We need to find a safer time.

"Go back." Zhou Lang turned around.

Chen Ye stood in the middle of the corridor, with his back to him.

"Chen Ye?"

The high school student turned around: "Huh?"

"What were you looking at just now?"

"It's nothing," Chen Ye smiled. "Let's go."

Zhou Lang noticed the direction of Chen Ye's gaze—he had just been looking at the third room on the left side of the corridor. Zhou Lang hadn't opened the door to that room, but a sliver of light was shining through the crack in the door.

A very faint, blue light.

Zhou Lang didn't mention it. He walked past Chen Ye, noticing the high school student's shadow out of the corner of his eye.

The lights in the mall shine down from directly above, so the shadows should be at your feet.

Chen Ye's shadow was long behind him, stretching diagonally into the depths of the corridor.

It was as if another light source was shining on him.

Zhou Lang quickened his pace and went upstairs.

Back in the lobby on the first floor, Lao Zhang and Xia Lu had already returned.

"The second floor is full of clothing stores and restaurants, nothing useful," Old Zhang reported. "But there's something strange—all the clocks in the restaurants are stopped at 11:59."

"It's almost midnight," Zhou Lang said.

"Yes." Old Zhang rubbed his hands together. "This shabby place is more and more creepy the more you look at it."

Xia Lu sat on the bench, arms crossed. Her talisman knife rested on her lap, her hands never letting go.

Zhou Lang glanced at the system time. There were still thirty minutes until the second strange event was released.

"Where's Sister Su?"

"He's not back yet," Old Zhang said.

The words had barely left her lips when the sound of high heels came from the direction of the escalator. Sister Su came down from the third floor, with Lin Xiaodie following behind her.

"The third floor has a movie theater and an arcade," Sister Su said. "They're showing something in the movie theater."

"What should we broadcast?"

"It's a surveillance video. It's playing on a loop," Sister Su said. "It shows a cable car detaching from the tracks and crashing into the tunnel wall. The passengers inside..."

She paused for a moment.

"It's broken," Lin Xiaodie said softly.

Sister Su nodded: "You can see the cable car's number, 017, in the video. At the end of the video, a line of text flashes by—'Cause of accident: Steel cable aging and breakage. Responsible party: XX Cable Car Company.' The rest is blacked out."