Gu Mian skillfully pulled a wrist-thick flashlight from the guitar bag on his back.

In this cold world where all players had an inventory, only this ornate guitar bag could offer Gu Mian a sliver of warmth.

He first switched on the flashlight to observe his surroundings. Logically, even though it was eight o'clock at night, it shouldn't be so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Unless we've been sent to some windowless place, like a sealed warehouse?

The flashlight beam now illuminated the area, and Gu Mian scanned his surroundings.

This really is a godforsaken place—at least in my opinion.

"So... this is a sealed warehouse, right?" Gu Mian muttered, flashlight in hand, as he spun in a circle.

It was an empty room. There were no windows on any of the four walls, so no light penetrated from outside. Naturally, there was no concern about birds flying in to defecate. Forget birds and droppings; even the other players were nowhere to be found. Gu Mian strongly suspected he wasn't in the same place as the others.

The room was square, about fifty to sixty square meters, roughly the size of their classroom. Perhaps because it was seldom visited, Gu Mian stirred up a large cloud of dust just by turning around.

He looked down at the floor. A thick layer of dust had accumulated, reflecting a whitish glow in the flashlight beam. If anyone had walked across it, they would have left clear footprints.

There was nothing in the room besides the walls—no, there was also a door that looked like it hadn't been maintained in years. The door, almost entirely coated in dust, was ajar. Gu Mian shone his flashlight on it, vaguely making out a pale yellow color, similar to their classroom door.

The air here smelled stale, filled with a musty odor. Gu Mian felt his nose was probably protesting.

"Can't just stay here," Gu Mian muttered to himself, taking a step. "First, I need to figure out what the hell this place is... Maybe if I walk around, I'll run into a ghost or something?"

Just then, Gu Mian suddenly sensed something overhead, staring intently at him.

What was that?

He looked up.

He only caught the outline of a face before it vanished. Within two seconds, the contour had disappeared completely, as if it had never been there.

"Is someone spying on me?" Gu Mian glanced back at the doorway. "Right, it's perfectly normal for someone as handsome and suave as me to be spied on."

Muttering to himself, he walked towards the door, casually flicking the light switch on the wall. As expected, the overhead light didn't react.

Gu Mian continued towards the doorway. As he passed through the ajar door, he was careful not to disturb the dust covering the old frame.

Stepping outside, he finally saw the scene beyond.

It was a straight corridor.

Strangely, this corridor also had no windows, so Gu Mian couldn't determine his general surroundings. If it weren't for the rather modern-looking, though dilapidated, door behind him, Gu Mian might have thought he'd been transported into some ancestor's tomb.

He tried walking a few more steps along the corridor. There were rooms on both sides, somewhat like a hotel hallway. Some of these room doors were ajar; others were closed.

Gu Mian had no intention of pushing open the closed doors to see what treasures lay within. He headed straight in one direction because he saw what appeared to be a door at the limit of his flashlight beam.

A door standing at the end of the corridor.

Perhaps passing through that door would lead to something—clues about the others' identities, or maybe even a direct encounter with a ghost.

Gu Mian moved quickly and soon reached this corridor door. It too was almost completely covered in dust; even the keyhole was clogged with it. Never mind that Gu Mian didn't have a key; even if he did, he might not be able to open the door before him. The 'treasures' accumulated in the keyhole would surely obstruct any key.

It was a locked door, and Gu Mian had no key...

But such a trivial matter couldn't stop him.

"Although I don't have a key..." Gu Mian muttered, reaching for the guitar bag behind him, "we have other ways to open locks. Don't firefighters often do this when rescuing people?"

He quickly clenched the flashlight in his teeth, lowered his guitar bag, and unzipped it. Under the flashlight's beam, the guitar inside gleamed.

"This probably doesn't count as damaging the instance, does it?" Gu Mian mumbled quietly as he raised the weapon in his hand and flipped the switch on the chainsaw.

Instantly, a sound like a revving motorcycle engine filled the entire hallway.

As he held the weapon, carefully cutting into the weak door, a voice suddenly rang out from the other side of the door, reaching Gu Mian's ears—

"It's a chainsaw! There's a ghost! Run!"

It was Li Yibai's voice. He sounded like he was shouting to someone, and his voice grew fainter as he ran off. He sounded terrified, as if he'd encountered a ghost.

Hearing Li Yibai's voice, Gu Mian, with the flashlight still clenched in his mouth, silently paused his actions. Does my chainsaw look like a ghost?

It seemed if he continued sawing the door, he might cause Li Yibai irreversible psychological damage. Plus, his own identity would be questioned—normal people didn't carry chainsaws in guitar bags.

Just as he was contemplating whether to proceed, he suddenly noticed a sputtering sound from above. It sounded as if an old, aging electrical wire had finally given out, emitting sputtering, decaying sounds.

He took the flashlight from his mouth and shone it upwards.

On the ceiling, which was far from pristine, something else had appeared...

It was a trail of bloody footprints. The trail stretched along the ceiling, leading into the depths of the corridor.

Gu Mian followed the footprints backward with his eyes.

But just as he tilted his head up, the overhead lights suddenly blazed on, illuminating the entire corridor as brightly as if it were daytime.

Gu Mian was momentarily blinded and instinctively lowered his head. As he did so, he caught sight of a figure out of the corner of his eye, apparently standing at the far end of the corridor.

He was about to take a closer look when the overhead lights extinguished again. The surroundings plunged into darkness, and the figure along with them.

His eyes, assaulted by the harsh glare from moments before, found the dim beam of his flashlight almost useless.

But as Gu Mian was still adjusting to the darkness, the lights in the entire corridor suddenly blazed on again.

This time, Gu Mian saw it.

There was indeed a humanoid figure at the end of the corridor. Its face was indistinct, but one thing was clear...

It seemed to be getting closer.