The one who went inside was Ruan Qing'an.

After the entire instance was reset, she went straight back to the original owner's house. After spending some time getting to know the instance, she heard the voice of the Global Horror System and learned about F University's situation.

She was definitely going to come; otherwise, Ruan Qing'an wouldn't be able to connect with Jiang Shihe, the pitiful man who had been tortured countless times by the original owner.

037: ...The most tragic male protagonist, bar none. Light a candle.

The area cordoned off was F University's art studio, where several police officers were blocking the way. Upon seeing Ruan Qing'an, one of them stepped forward and said, "You can't go in here."

"Excuse me, I heard about a boy who died on the street. He seems to be... he seems to be someone I know. I want to ask him about it."

Ruan Qing'an spoke with a worried expression, wearing a pure white long dress and long black hair like raven feathers hanging down to her waist.

Her overly pure and delicate face is like a white flower blooming on a branch. Even the light that touches her cannot help but feel a little tenderness, making people want to hold her in their hands.

Looking at the delicate-looking girl in front of him, the policeman who had stopped her frowned: "Are you sure you're connected to the victim?"

“I’m sure he is…”

Ruan Qingan paused, hesitated, and did not speak.

Seeing this, the policeman led her inside: "Captain, this young lady says she knows the victim!"

Only after receiving permission was Nguyen Thanh An able to go inside.

Although this place is a dungeon of a horror game, after Ruan Qingan learned about it, he discovered that the biggest anomaly here was actually paranormal events, and there was nothing else besides that; it was no different from the real world.

In fact, besides the ghosts, dungeon resets, and death loops that haven't appeared yet, there's even a police investigation here, so orderly that Ruan Qing'an thought he'd entered the wrong little world.

037: [But this should be a copy created by Global Thrillers, right? In the original text, aren't these copies all confined to a small area?]

[Perhaps you simply haven't found the boundaries of this instance yet, or perhaps it's because this instance was originally created based on reality?]

After hearing 037's explanation, Ruan Qing'an nodded, but a vague unease in her heart kept her on guard against the eeriness of her surroundings—it wasn't dangerous enough, it was too peaceful here.

It even made her feel that this place was not a replica of a global horror production, but a sandbox that had been carefully crafted and had even set rules in order to maintain the stability of the sandbox.

037: [Ancestor, don't think so much. Isn't it better that this small world isn't dangerous?]

Just then, without giving Ruan Qing'an much time to think, she arrived at the sealed-off F University art studio, where she was greeted by vast expanses of blood red.

The studio was large and was probably used for teaching students, but now the white walls were splattered with blood. Not only that, even the statue in the center of the studio was broken in half.

The sunlight outside was just right, shining through the glass into the studio. The blood on the floor looked like writhing snakes, and the corpses lying on the floor were shriveled, as if all the blood in their bodies had flowed out and covered the floor.

The entire studio floor was submerged in blood up to two fingers' width high, as if it had been flooded, a sight that was incredibly eerie and bloody...

Stimulated by the smell of blood, Ruan Qing'an's face paled slightly: "Okay... now it's starting to look like a horror game."

037: [I can't believe a human could kill someone like this. They must have drained all his blood. It's horrifying!]

Upon witnessing this scene, even 037's mechanical voice trembled with fear: "Ancestor, please stop praying for this world to be dangerous. I thought the peaceful state before was quite nice!"

After silently mocking 037's cowardice, Ruan Qing'an saw a middle-aged man walk over and give her a slight handshake: "Miss, did you say you had a relationship with the victim?"

"This is the scene of the incident. Our people are still investigating. Could you please come over here and talk to me for a bit?"

"OK."

Ruan Qingan nodded slightly, looking as if he was frightened by the scene, before leaving with the middle-aged man.

After sitting down in another art studio not far away, the middle-aged man handed her a glass of water and said, "My name is Long Qi, and I'm the captain of the criminal investigation team. Could you briefly tell me about your relationship with him?"

Ruan Qing'an then said, "Captain Long, was the dead man Zhang Wu? He, he was my suitor. I'm sorry... I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Ruan Qing'an, a student in the Dance Department of F University."

In the original text, the original owner did indeed have this identity. This time, it wasn't Ruan Qing'an who just made things up on the spot. However, in the original text, the original owner didn't offer herself up; she only came forward after Jiang Shihe investigated her.

After all, the original owner's emotions were twisted and perverted. She only dared to follow and spy on him, and never dared to show up in front of Jiang Shihe. So she stayed behind the scenes in the early stages.

However, Nguyen Thanh An wanted to win over Jiang Shihe, so he had no choice but to step out from behind the scenes and actively participate in the case, getting close to Jiang Shihe first to see how things went.

Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Long Qi comforted her, "Don't rush, tell me slowly, has Zhang Wu been acting strangely lately?"

"Okay, okay..."

“Zhang Wu has been pursuing me recently. A while ago, he wanted to invite me on a trip, but I refused. After that, he didn’t contact me much. I thought he was angry.”

Ruan Qingan paused: "But I didn't pay much attention to it. It was only after a while that I felt something was wrong, because several of the messages he sent me seemed to be about encountering some trouble and wanting to die."

"But after he finished speaking, he quickly changed the subject, so I thought he was joking. But last night, he suddenly messaged me and said he wanted to paint a picture for me."

Hearing this, Long Qi took out his phone, flipped through the photo album, and handed it to Ruan Qing'an: "Is this it?"

On the phone screen was a painting stained with specks of blood, floating on the surface of the blood. The painting depicted Ruan Qing'an—wearing a white dress, with her hands behind her back and her head turned away, but there was no face in the picture.

It was clearly an unfinished painting, but it looked incredibly eerie, even frightening. The "delicate" girl quickly covered her mouth and stepped back.

But just as she looked up, ready to ask Long Qi, Ruan Qing'an saw large patches of blood on the once clean studio walls.

The shriveled, almost drained boy seemed to be nailed to the wall. He tilted his head and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry, goddess, I... I haven't finished drawing you yet, I haven't added a face to you."

"sorry."

"sorry."

"Can I fix my face? I scared you..."

That eerie, hoarse voice, like a grating saw, echoed throughout the entire art studio.

Immediately afterwards, the corpse nailed to the blood-red wall, whose face was still intact, had its eyeballs fall to the ground with a 'plop', and even rolled a circle before landing at Ruan Qingan's feet.

The corpse's features melted away like snow in winter meeting the sun, while the boy's chilling voice lingered. She couldn't help but scream.

"ah!"

She was delicate and pitiful, as innocent as a delicate flower.

Ruan Qingan: ...So why are even NPCs being harassed by ghosts?

Her unusual behavior immediately caught Long Qi's attention, and he asked, "What's wrong?"

It wasn't until the second person's voice appeared that Ruan Qing'an realized that the strange phenomena in front of her had disappeared, as if it were an illusion, but she still vaguely felt a cold sensation in her body.

Her face was pale, and she forced a smile: "I...I'm fine..."

Seeing this, Long Qi frowned, but just as he was about to speak, there was a knock on the closed studio door, and a voice came from outside: "Captain Long, Mr. Jiang is here!"

Jiang Shihe?

Ruan Qing'an paused, then glanced over discreetly—oh, the male lead who was killed by her at the very beginning has arrived.

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