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

The air in the basement was so damp it felt like it was about to drip water. Zhou Lang held up an oil lamp, its green light illuminating a narrow passage ahead. The walls were covered in black mold, and the floor was covered with a thin layer of water stains, making a sticky sound when stepped on.

"This place is fucking disgusting," Zhao Qiang muttered under his breath, then slipped and almost fell.

Han Yingying supported him, without saying a word, but her face was frighteningly pale.

At the end of the passage was a wooden door with strange symbols carved on it. Zhou Lang leaned closer to look; the symbols were twisted into a jumbled mess, resembling some kind of writing or a pattern. He reached out and pushed the door, but it didn't budge.

"Is it locked?" Zhao Qiang asked.

Zhou Lang shook his head, his fingers touching a recessed area on the door panel, shaped like a keyhole, but much larger than a regular keyhole. He retrieved the key he had taken from the butler's room from his inventory and tried inserting it.

Click.

The door opened.

Inside was a spacious room filled with wooden shelves piled high with various items—clothes, shoes, glasses, watches, and other objects whose purpose was unclear. Zhou Lang approached a shelf, picked up a blood-stained coat, and examined the label.

"Li Ming, July 2019."

He picked up another item, "Zhang Wei, March 2020".

"These are all..." Han Yingying's voice trembled.

"These are the relics of previous players." Zhou Lang put down the clothes. "It seems this instance has been running for a long time."

Zhao Qiang was searching on the other side when he suddenly exclaimed, "There's a box here!"

Zhou Lang walked over and saw an unlocked iron box on the ground. He opened the lid and found neatly stacked piles of papers inside, all of them handwritten notes.

Zhou Lang pulled out the top card, which read:

"On the 73rd day, I discovered the truth. This house wasn't an ordinary replica; it was a trap. The butler wasn't the owner; the true owner was hiding deeper inside. Those seven ghosts were just bait to mislead us. The real danger lies on the third underground level..."

The notes stop here; the handwriting becomes messy afterward, and the last few words are almost illegible.

Zhou Lang flipped through the other notes; the contents were largely the same, all records left by players. Some had written down the room owner's weaknesses, some had drawn maps, and others had recorded the usage of various items.

"Three underground floors?" Zhao Qiang swallowed hard. "We're only on the first underground floor right now."

Zhou Lang didn't answer, continuing to flip through his notes. Suddenly, a slip of paper fell out, with only one sentence on it:

"Don't trust anyone, including your teammates."

He glanced at Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying, who were engrossed in searching for other things and hadn't noticed the note. Zhou Lang stuffed the note into his pocket and continued flipping through the pages.

At the very bottom was a diary with "Day 99" written on the cover. Zhou Lang opened it; the handwriting inside was neat and tidy, as if someone had spent a long time writing it.

"I finally understand. The rules of this game aren't about surviving, but about becoming a part of it. Everyone who dies here becomes a new ghost, trapped in this house. Kill the butler was once a player too; he beat the game, but the price was being stuck here forever as the manager."

"If you want to truly leave, you must find the core of the house and destroy it. The core is three levels underground, but to get there, you need three keys. The first one is with the butler who killed the housekeeper, the second one is in the room with the seven ghosts, and the third one..."

The diary ends here; the following pages were torn out.

Zhou Lang closed the diary, his mind racing. Three keys—he'd already got the first one, the second was in the room with the seven ghosts, which meant…

"We have to go back," he said.

"What?" Zhao Qiang was stunned. "Go back where?"

"Go back to the second floor and find the key in those ghosts' rooms."

Han Yingying frowned: "But it's nighttime now, and all the ghosts are awake."

"So we need to hurry." Zhou Lang put away his diary. "Before they discover our purpose."

The three retraced their steps, and as they climbed the stairs, Zhou Lang suddenly stopped. A figure stood in the passageway ahead, dressed in a black butler's uniform—it was Butler Sha.

"I told you not to leave your rooms at night," the butler's voice echoed in the empty corridor. "Why didn't you listen?"

Zhou Lang raised the oil lamp, and the green light shone on the butler, but instead of retreating like the other ghosts, it took a step forward.

"This lamp is useless against me," the butler said. "I'm no longer an ordinary ghost."

Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying stepped back, and Zhou Lang blocked their way.

"What do you want?" Zhou Lang asked.

"I don't want anything." Butler Sha stopped in his tracks. "I just want to tell you not to investigate any further. Some things are better left unknown."

Why?

"Because you'll regret this." The butler turned and said, "Go back to your rooms and pretend nothing happened. Go back to work tomorrow, get enough money, and then leave. That's the best ending."

"What if we don't?"

The butler was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Then you will die."

After saying that, it disappeared into the darkness.

Zhou Lang stood there, the oil lamp in his hand flickering. Zhao Qiang patted him on the shoulder: "Do we really want to continue?"

"Of course," Zhou Lang said. "The more they prevent us from investigating, the more it indicates a problem."

The three returned to the second floor. The ghosts in the corridor were still there, but they kept their distance and didn't approach. Zhou Lang walked to the door of room number 3, which was the bandaged man's room, and pushed the door open to go inside.

The room was empty; the bandaged man was nowhere to be found. Zhou Lang began searching, checking under the bed, in the closet, and in the corners—leaving no place unsearched.

"Found it!" Han Yingying found a small box on the windowsill. When she opened it, a silver key was lying inside.

Zhou Lang took the key and put it in his inventory. Two keys now, one more to go.

"Where is the third one?" Zhao Qiang asked.

Zhou Lang recalled the words in the diary: the location of the third key had been torn off. He looked around the room, his gaze falling on a painting on the wall. The painting depicted a house, exactly the same as the one they were currently living in, but the angle of the painting was strange, as if it were looking down from above.

He approached the painting and looked closely, discovering that the house in the painting differed from reality in one aspect—there was a small attic on the roof.

"The attic," Zhou Lang said. "The third key is in the attic."

"But this house doesn't have an attic," Zhao Qiang said.

"It's not on the surface," Zhou Lang said, pointing to the painting, "but it is in reality."

The three went up to the third floor, where there was only one corridor leading to a wall. Zhou Lang walked to the wall and knocked on it; the sound was hollow, and there was nothing behind it.

He took out the chainsaw and aimed it at the wall.

"Wait!" Han Yingying grabbed him. "This will alert all the ghosts!"