The man by the bed clearly noticed the noise and turned his gaze toward the window.
"Knock knock—"
The knocking on the window sounded again, and Ye Niangniang's eerie, low voice rang out from outside the door, "Yin Xiu, open the door."
Yin Xiu heard the man beside him get up and started walking towards the door.
"Who are you?" he asked from the doorway.
"And who are you?" Lady Ye was surprised, as she had never seen anyone else in Yin Xiu's room before.
But after a few seconds of silence, she smiled kindly and said, "Open the door for me, and you'll know who I am."
The man seemed to be deep in thought, then grasped the doorknob.
Is he really going to open the door?!
Yin Xiu instinctively gripped the knife strapped to his waist, struggling against the inexplicable drowsiness and trying to open his eyes.
With a hoarse creak as the door opened, a gust of night wind swept into the room, and the chill instantly woke Yin Xiu up completely.
He rolled off the bed and looked toward the door.
The door is already open.
The man in the black suit, soaking wet, was smiling as he gripped the doorknob and turned to look at Yin Xiu, pointing with amusement at the doorway. "You're awake? Look, there's a huge face outside."
What you see outside the open door is not the alley at night, but the face of the Night Goddess, which fills the entire crack in the door.
She smiled eerily, her blinking eyes peering at Yin Xiu through the crack in the door. Her eyes narrowed, and her pale face revealed genuine joy.
Yin Xiu then gripped the knife hanging at his waist tightly. "...Yes, what a big face."
He didn't react much, shifting his gaze from Lady Ye to the man who opened the door. "Why did you open the door for her? Are you together?"
The man looked puzzled, but his smile remained unchanged. "Can't I open it?"
"I told you to read the rules, didn't you?"
The man smiled and nodded. "I looked at it, but there was nothing on the paper."
Yin Xiu instantly understood. This man couldn't see the rules; he had no idea that the door couldn't be opened at night. He wasn't a mole planted by the Night Goddess.
"As your roommate, let me tell you something now." Yin Xiu calmly and slowly drew a long, sharp Miao sword from his waist. "In this town, you absolutely cannot open the door at night, otherwise..."
"otherwise?"
The moment the words fell, a flash of cold light shot from the blade, severing a strand of long hair that had crawled into the room. Almost simultaneously, Lady Ye's hand suddenly reached in from the doorway and slapped at the spot where Yin Xiu was.
A loud crash echoed through the room, parts scattered everywhere, the flimsy bed frame easily flattened by the palm, cracks spreading across the floor. Almost everything in the room was knocked over, lying in disarray, while Yin Xiu, standing in what looked like an earthquake-stricken place, barely avoided the blow by clinging tightly to the corner of the wall.
The Night Goddess's eyes peered through the window, smiling as she watched Yin Xiu, who had narrowly escaped death, inside the room. She grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. "Six years. I've finally managed to bite off your head, Yin Xiu. Don't let me catch you."
Her hair seemed to have a mind of its own, creeping up the floor by the doorway and into the house, writhing and twisting as it quickly covered the walls of the entire house. The dense black strands hung down from the ceiling, sweeping over Yin Xiu's direction.
He brandished his knife and chopped off the hair that was attacking him, then began to dodge to other places, but no matter where he hid in the room, he was quickly surrounded and entangled by the hair.
A rare look of displeasure appeared on Yin Xiu's handsome face.
The town does not allow anyone to kill any sentient being. This rule applies to the player, meaning that while the Night Goddess can kill him, he cannot kill the Night Goddess in the town.
So, escape?
The only exit from the house had been blocked by the Night Goddess, leaving him with no way to escape.
Yin Xiu's gaze fell on the smiling man at the door. He had lived in the town for so many years and had never broken the rules, but tonight someone had broken them for him.
"Are you angry?" The man seemed to sense his slight fluctuation in emotions, and the corners of his mouth curved up even wider.
Yin Xiu ignored him. Just avoiding being caught in a room full of hair was already a huge challenge. He could only keep dodging and cutting off the hair that attacked him with his knife.
"Your sword is indeed quite special..." Lady Ye stared at the Miao sword in Yin Xiu's hand, sharp and dangerous. "Where did you get it?"
Yin Xiu didn't respond. Instead, he stepped on the hair on the ground and stabbed it with a knife, tearing the long hair to shreds.
His long black hair tangled and twisted on the ground, continuing to grow and spread even after Yin Xiu had cut it to pieces, eventually wrapping around his feet.
"Do you need my help?" The man's voice rang out from the room, as if he wanted to make amends for upsetting someone.
Yin Xiu looked up and saw the man casually grab a handful of wriggling long hair and stuff it into his mouth. Deep inside his mouth, which was full of slightly sharp teeth, there were rings of accessory teeth. He carefully chewed and crushed the long hair, and then swallowed it with a gulp.
A strand of hair, still wriggling and struggling, remained at the corner of his smiling mouth. He sucked it in with a slurp, followed by a series of dense chewing sounds.
Not to mention Yin Xiu, even Lady Ye was stunned.
"Who are you? How did you get here?... Did you come out of the dungeon?" Her trembling, uncertain voice made Yin Xiu fall into deep thought.
Alright, even Lady Ye doesn't know who he is, so it's obvious he's from outside the town.
The man ignored Ye Niangniang and instead stared at Yin Xiu with his usual smile, repeating like a broken record, "Do you need my help?"
Yin Xiu lowered his eyes to look at the hair that had wrapped around his calves, then at the Night Goddess blocking the door, and revealed a heavy expression.
Perhaps this man can kill Lady Ye so that Yin Xiu can survive without breaking the rules, but the town will definitely undergo earth-shattering changes without Lady Ye.
There is a rule that requires the existence of the Night Goddess, but no one knows what changes would occur to the rules if the Night Goddess were gone.
He doesn't want it; he wants to stay here.
If you can't escape and you can't kill, then there's only one option left.
"I don't need your help." Yin Xiu raised his hand and quickly sheathed the knife in its black scabbard. Then he bent down and picked up the little girl doll that he had taken from the doorway and thrown into the corner at dusk.
This is one of the conditions for entering the instance. A different item will be placed at the player's door every day. It may be placed by the monsters in the town, but that doesn't matter. As long as you actively trigger the key item, all the players in the room will enter the instance together.
For six years, the strange creatures in the town and all the players in the town have known that Yin Xiu has never entered a dungeon on his own initiative, nor has he ever been automatically pulled into a dungeon.
But now, his intention in holding the little girl doll in the red dress is quite obvious.
"Do you want to escape into the dungeon?" Night Lady's smile seemed mocking. "The whole town knows that you never go into dungeons; you're just a player who lives in town."
Yin Xiu remained silent.
There is only one way to avoid breaking the rules and escaping from this room: enter the instance. But who can guarantee that they will survive this instance?
Amidst the Night Goddess's astonishment and the man's smile, Yin Xiu's eyes hardened, and he suddenly tore open the doll's body.
He and the man vanished from the room in an instant, leaving only wreckage on the floor.
After two seconds of silence, a new room suddenly appeared on the town's public screen projection, and the town's loudspeakers broadcast a new message to the entire town in the night.
"Player Yin Xiu from Dimensional Town 35, enter the instance."
This announcement was like a drop of water falling into a hot oil pan, waking everyone in the town. Lights quickly came on in the darkness as they hurriedly turned on their TVs and adjusted the player screens in the instance.
In the darkness, the first thing displayed will be the player information for this instance.
It was clearly written above:
[Congratulations, player, on entering the dungeon: Monsters of the Town]
[Player Name This Time: Yin Xiu]
Gender: Male
Residence: Room 401, Alley A, 35-Dimensional Town
Assets held in duplicate: 35.8
Dungeon progress: All dungeons completed.
When the words "All levels completed" appeared on the screen, all the players in the town were stunned, including the monsters crouching under the projection in the square.
It's not that he doesn't want to enter dungeons; it's that he's already completed all of them, and the dungeons no longer automatically pull him in because there are no more dungeons for him to complete.
This is a player who has completed the entire game. How could such a player, who has completed the entire game, not leave the town immediately, but instead live here for six years?
In the darkness, the town's players and all the monsters were somewhat bewildered.
The moment the dungeon monsters received the player's mesage, they erupted in a cacophony of wails and howls: "Who brought in that guy who wrecked the dungeon six years ago?! I told you not to bring him in!!"