Clearly, the man by the bed had also noticed the sound, shifting his gaze toward the window.
"Knock knock—"
The tapping on the window sounded again, followed by the Night Goddess's voice from outside, eerily low and unsettling. "Yin Xiu, open the door."
Hearing the man beside him rise, Yin Xiu realized he was walking toward the entrance.
"Who are you?" the man asked, standing by the door.
"And who might you be?" The Night Goddess sounded surprised—she had never seen anyone else in Yin Xiu's house before.
After a brief pause, however, she curled her lips into a gentle smile. "Open the door for me, and you'll find out."
The man seemed to consider this before gripping the doorknob.
Was he really about to open it?!
Instinctively, Yin Xiu tightened his grip on the Miao Blade at his waist, fighting against the inexplicable drowsiness clouding his mind as he struggled to open his eyes.
With a creaking groan, the door swung open, and a gust of night wind surged into the room. The sudden chill jolted Yin Xiu fully awake.
He rolled off the bed and turned toward the entrance.
The door was already open.
The man in the drenched black suit stood there, smiling as he held the doorknob, glancing back at Yin Xiu with amusement. "You're awake? Look-there's a very large face outside."
Beyond the open door wasn't the usual nighttime alley but the Night Goddess's visage, filling the entire doorway.
Her eerie smile widened as she blinked, peering through the gap at Yin Xiu inside. The corners of her eyes crinkled, her deathly pale cheeks radiating unmistakable delight.
Yin Xiu's fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade. "...Indeed. A very large face."
His reaction remained composed as he shifted his gaze from the Night Goddess to the man who had opened the door. "Why did you open it for her? Are you two working together?"
The man looked puzzled, though his smile didn't waver. "Was I not supposed to?"
"Didn't I tell you to read the rules? You didn't?"
The man nodded cheerfully. "I did. But the paper was blank."
Realization struck Yin Xiu-this man couldn't see the rules. He had no idea that opening the door at night was forbidden. He wasn't some planted accomplice of the Night Goddess.
"Then, as your roommate, let me enlighten you."
Yin Xiu calmly, deliberately, drew the long, razor-sharp Miao Blade from his waist. "In this town, you never open the door at night. Otherwise-"
"Otherwise?"
The moment the words left his lips, the blade flashed, severing a tendril of hair slithering into the room. Almost simultaneously, the Night Goddess's hand shot through the doorway, slamming down where Yin Xiu had been standing.
A deafening crash echoed through the room as the flimsy bed frame splintered under the force of her palm, cracks spiderwebbing across the floor.
The entire space trembled, objects toppling and scattering in disarray. Yin Xiu, pressed tightly against the corner, barely avoided the strike as the room quaked like it had been hit by an earthquake.
Through the window, the Night Goddess's eyes gleamed with amusement as she stared at Yin Xiu, who had narrowly escaped. Her lips parted, revealing rows of jagged teeth. "Six years... Finally, I get to bite your head off, Yin Xiu. Don't let me catch you."
Her hair, as if alive, began creeping across the floor from the doorway, twisting and writhing as it rapidly spread over the walls. Thick, black strands dangled from the ceiling, an inky tide surging toward Yin Xiu's corner, swallowing everything in its path.
He swung his blade, severing the attacking strands of hair, and began dodging to other areas. Yet no matter where he hid in the room, the hair quickly surrounded and entangled him.
A rare look of displeasure crossed Yin Xiu's delicate features.
The town forbade anyone from killing any conscious being. This rule was imposed on the Players, which meant the Night Goddess could kill him, but he couldn't kill her within the town.
So, escape?
The only exit in the entire house was already blocked by the Night Goddess, leaving him with no way out.
Yin Xiu's gaze fell upon the smiling man at the door. He had lived in this town for so many years without ever breaking the rules, but tonight, someone had broken them for him.
"You're angry?" The man seemed to detect the faint ripple of emotion, his lips curling even higher.
Yin Xiu ignored him. Simply avoiding capture in a room full of hair was already exhausting enough. He could only keep dodging, using his blade to slash through the attacking strands.
"Your blade really is special..." The Night Goddess stared at the Miao Blade in Yin Xiu's hand—sharp and dangerous. "Where did you get it?"
Yin Xiu didn't respond. He stomped on the hair on the ground and stabbed down fiercely, slicing through the long strands.
The black hair writhed and twisted on the floor, continuing to grow and spread even after being chopped apart, coiling around his legs.
"Do you need my help?" The man's voice echoed in the room, as if offering compensation after provoking anger.
Yin Xiu looked up to see the man casually grab a handful of squirming hair and stuff it into his mouth. Deep within that maw lined with slightly pointed teeth were rows upon rows of secondary teeth, grinding the hair into fine shreds before swallowing with a gulp.
Strands of hair still wriggled and struggled at the corners of his smiling lips before he slurped them in, followed by another series of dense chewing sounds.
Not just Yin Xiu—even the Night Goddess froze.
"Who are you? How did you get here?...Did you come from an Instance?" Her trembling voice, filled with uncertainty, made Yin Xiu ponder.
Well, if even the Night Goddess didn't know who he was, it was clear he wasn't from this town.
The man ignored the Night Goddess, instead maintaining his usual smile as he stared at Yin Xiu, repeating like a broken record, "Do you need my help?"
Yin Xiu lowered his gaze to the hair now coiled around his calves, then to the Night Goddess blocking the door, his expression turning grave.
Perhaps this man could kill the Night Goddess, allowing Yin Xiu to survive without breaking the rules. But the town would undoubtedly undergo earth-shattering changes without her.
The rules had a clause that required the Night Goddess's existence. If she were gone, no one knew how the rules would change.
He didn't want that. He still had to live here.
No escape, no killing—that left only one option.
"I don't need your help." Yin Xiu raised his hand, swiftly sheathing the blade into its dark scabbard, then bent down to pick up the Little Girl doll he had retrieved from the doorstep at dusk and tossed into the corner.
This was one of the conditions for entering an Instance. Every day, a different item would appear at the player's doorstep-perhaps placed by the Monstrosities of the town-but that didn't matter. As long as the key item was actively triggered, it would pull all players in the room into the Instance together.
For six years, both the Monstrosities in the town and all the players knew that Yin Xiu had never voluntarily entered an Instance, nor had he ever been automatically dragged into one.
But now, his intention was clear as he held the red-dressed Little Girl doll in his hand.
"Are you trying to escape into an Instance?" The Night Goddess's smile seemed mocking. "The whole town knows you never enter Instances. You're just a player who lives here."
Yin Xiu remained silent.
There was only one way to neither break the rules nor flee from this room-entering an Instance. But who could guarantee they would survive this one?
Under the Night Goddess's stunned gaze and the man's smirk, Yin Xiu's eyes hardened as he violently tore open the doll's body.
In an instant, he and the man vanished from the room, leaving only scattered remnants behind.
After two seconds of silence, a new room suddenly appeared on the town's public projection screen. The town's loudspeaker blared a new announcement into the night, broadcasting it to everyone:
"Player Yin Xiu from Plane 35 Town has entered an Instance."
The announcement was like a drop of water in hot oil, jolting the entire town awake. Lights flickered on in the darkness as people hurriedly turned on their TVs, adjusting the feed to the players currently inside the Instance.
Amid the darkness, the first thing displayed was the information of the players who had just entered the Instance. It read:
[Congratulations, Player, for entering the Instance: The Monsters of the Town]
[Player Name: Yin Xiu
Gender: Male
Residence: Plane 35 Town, Alley A, Room 401
Instance Assets Held: 35.8
Instance Completion Progress: Fully Cleared.]
When the words "Fully Cleared" appeared on the screen, the entire town's players froze-even the Monstrosities gathered under the square's projection were dumbfounded.
It wasn't that he never entered Instances voluntarily-it was that he had already cleared them all. The Instances no longer pulled him in automatically because there were none left for him to clear.
This was a player who had fully cleared every Instance. And such a player hadn't left the town immediately but had lived here for six years???
In the darkness, both the town's players and all the Monstrosities were utterly bewildered.
The instance monsters, upon receiving the player information, wailed in unison: "Who dragged that man who slaughtered his way through the Instances six years ago in here?! We said never to pull him in again!!"