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

Han Yingying nodded and went back to her room.

Zhou Lang exited room 302 and walked towards the end of the corridor. Next to the window at the end was a lockable door to a storage room. He pushed it open—

Inside were piles of brooms, mops, and several cardboard boxes.

He rummaged through the cardboard boxes. The first box contained bed sheets and duvet covers, the second box contained candles—lots of candles, at least thirty. The third box contained—

It was a black notebook.

Zhou Lang opened his notebook. The first page read:

"Day 1: Two new guests arrived, a couple. The boss asked me to seat them on the second floor."

"On the third day: the female college student came again, saying she wanted to stay until the end of the month. The boss looked at her strangely."

"Day 7: I heard noises coming from the basement at night. I didn't dare to go and check."

"Day 9: The female college student cried all night. When she came out the next day, she had injuries on her face."

The pages at the back of the notebook were torn out, leaving only scattered fragments.

Zhou Lang put the notebook into his pocket.

Key information: Boss, female college student, couple, basement.

It matched the background information he had. The strange creatures in this instance were all people who lived here before they died. They were human during the day, and became dead—that is, ghosts—at night.

The question is, which ones can be touched and which ones cannot?

The key to survival lies in figuring out the cause of each bizarre death and the source of the resentment.

Just as he was thinking this, a scream came from downstairs.

It's the voice of a girl with pigtails.

Zhou Lang hurried downstairs.

When Zhou Lang arrived on the first floor, the girl with pigtails was standing at the kitchen door, her face pale.

"What's wrong?" the man in the leather jacket ran over and asked.

The girl with pigtails pointed into the kitchen: "There's someone here."

Zhou Lang walked to the door and looked inside.

The kitchen wasn't big. There was a stove, a sink, and a few cabinets. A woman stood in front of the stove, her back to them, chopping vegetables.

The knife slicing on the cutting board made a steady, rhythmic thud.

The woman was wearing a gray apron, her hair was tied up, and she was rather thin.

The man in the leather jacket lowered his voice: "Who's this? An NPC?"

Zhou Lang didn't say anything and went straight inside.

"What are you doing?!" the girl with pigtails shouted.

Zhou Lang walked to the stove and glanced at the woman chopping vegetables.

The woman turned her head.

She had an ordinary appearance, looked to be in her forties, and had the weariness of a housewife on her face. She glanced at Zhou Lang and smiled.

"Our guests have arrived," she said. "Dinner is at six. You can go upstairs and rest first."

Zhou Lang asked, "Who are you here?"

"I'm a kitchen helper," the woman said. "The boss put me in charge of both breakfast and dinner."

"Where's the boss?"

"He's gone out, he'll be back in a bit."

After the woman finished speaking, she stopped looking at him and continued chopping vegetables.

Zhou Lang left the kitchen and returned to the hall. Everyone else gathered around, including Han Yingying, who had come downstairs.

"There was a woman inside, who said she was a kitchen helper," Zhou Lang said.

The bespectacled man adjusted his glasses: "Is it an NPC or something eerie?"

"It's daytime now," Zhou Lang said.

This sentence contained a lot of information. But among everyone present, only Han Yingying truly understood it.

It takes human form during the day. But what about at night?

Han Yingying did not ask the question in public.

The boy from the couple came down from the second floor, looking rather grim: "Did you two check the lanterns in your rooms?"

"I saw it," the man in the leather jacket said.

"The face painted on that lantern—my girlfriend said it looks like human skin."

The hall fell silent for a moment.

The girl with pigtails took a step back: "Are you serious?"

The man in the couple nodded: "I felt it carefully, and the texture of the paper is wrong. Normal paper doesn't feel like that."

The bespectacled man's face paled even more: "Th-that's a lantern made of real human skin?"

Zhou Lang recalled the feel of the lantern when he touched it. He had indeed felt that the paper was softer and smoother than ordinary Xuan paper.

He didn't say anything.

Han Yingying glanced at him.

The man in the leather jacket clapped his hands: "Alright, stop scaring yourself. Even if it's real human skin, it's just a prop. Nothing strange happens in the dungeon. The key is the rules—light lanterns every night. Who cares what kind of skin it's made of, survival comes first."

That made sense, and the others calmed down a bit.

While everyone was discussing, Zhou Lang walked up to the iron gate.

The door to the basement.

He crouched down to examine the lock. It wasn't a padlock, but a concealed lock, embedded inside the door. It required a key to open from the outside, and from the inside…

He pushed the door with his hand. It didn't budge.

"The rules say we're not allowed in the basement." Han Yingying walked up to him without him noticing.

"The rules don't necessarily protect you," Zhou Lang said, standing up. "They might be protecting what's inside."

Han Yingying thought for a moment: "What do you think is in the basement?"

"Answer."

Zhou Lang dusted off his hands and walked back to the center of the hall. It was a little past three in the afternoon, about three hours before dark.

He mentally organized the information.

The notebook mentions: the boss, a female college student, and a couple. Including the woman helping in the kitchen, there is currently only one living NPC.

During the day, it takes on human form. Therefore, other NPCs should also appear during the day.

Sure enough, around four o'clock in the afternoon, the door of the guesthouse was pushed open.

A middle-aged man walked in.

He was short, slightly overweight, wearing a plaid shirt, and had slightly greasy hair. He had that kind of business smile on his face.

"Oh, all the guests have arrived," he said. "Welcome, welcome. I'm the owner here, my surname is Wu. Just call me Boss Wu."

His gaze swept across the people in the hall, finally landing on the girl with pigtails. He paused for a moment, then looked away.

"Have you chosen your rooms yet?"

"I've made my choice," the man in the leather jacket said.

"Okay." Boss Wu walked behind the front desk. "Dinner is at six o'clock, we'll eat in the lobby. Get some rest early tonight, and you can go for a walk by the lake tomorrow if you want, the scenery is nice."

After he finished speaking, he went through the back door, presumably to the kitchen.

Zhou Lang noticed a detail—the way Boss Wu looked at the girl with pigtails.

It was very short, about half a second, but it did linger a little longer than expected.

The girl with pigtails was in her early twenties and wearing sportswear.

Female college student.

Zhou Lang made the connection in his mind. The "female college student working part-time" mentioned in the notebook might be the prototype for the bizarre NPC character, the girl with pigtails.

No. The girl with twin tails is a player, not an NPC.

What did Boss Wu mean by that look he gave her?

Zhou Lang frowned. There were two possibilities: one was that Boss Wu, being a supernatural being, would react to a specific type of person; the other was simply a coincidence.

He prefers the first option.

In this instance, the eerie creature appears in human form during the day, retaining its habits and memories from its previous life. Boss Wu harbored malicious intentions towards female college students in his past life, so his instinctive reaction upon seeing a girl of similar age would be—

Zhou Lang walked over to the girl with pigtails.

"Lock the door tonight."

The girl with pigtails was taken aback for a moment: "Huh?"

"Nothing else. Lock the door, light the lanterns, and don't come out."