It was a small bag of garbage - a black garbage bag with a knot at the top. A small, scratched hole could be seen on the side of the bag, and a flattened paper cup could be seen in the hole.

Duncan stared blankly at the small bag of familiar garbage. For a moment, there was only confusion and endless questions in his mind. He did guess that the "big hole" that appeared inside Alice Mansion might change one day. When he heard the headless butler mention "foreign invasion" just now, he also guessed what kind of strange and indescribable thing would enter the mansion, but the situation before him... he really had never thought about it.

He had thrown away that bag of garbage - not long ago, when he vaguely realized that the barrier between him and his hometown might have become an insurmountable chasm, after he had carefully cleaned his bachelor apartment, he sorted out the bag of garbage and threw it into the black fog outside the door.

Now it appears inside the "Big Hole" of Alice Mansion in the form of an "invading foreign body".

With mixed and subtle feelings, Duncan took a step forward towards the "invading object".

The huge hole left at the end of the corridor due to the disappearance of the room was like a strange and terrifying abyss. The ground and walls at the edge of the hole were shattered like twisted sharp teeth. The black bag was at the end of the broken ground. Frankly speaking... Duncan even thought this scene was a bit funny.

However, the servants in the mansion were extremely nervous. The terrifying headless butler even exclaimed in a somewhat inappropriate manner after seeing Duncan walking forward: "Guest! Don't go near that place! It's very dangerous!"

"Danger?" Duncan didn't know what expression to make. He turned around and glanced at the butler, his mouth curled up, "This is just a pile of...waste that is quiet and peaceful."

However, the butler and servants still stood at least ten meters away as if they were facing a great enemy. The buzzing whispers were filled with panic and fear. Although they were all headless, Duncan seemed to be able to feel their confused and chaotic gazes, which they wanted to spy but kept avoiding because of fear.

It was as if...what they saw was not a harmless black bag, but something more terrifying and indescribable.

“Guest…Guest…” the headless butler suddenly spoke, his voice low and trembling, “Don’t be fooled by appearances. Now slowly keep your distance from it and move towards me. Be careful not to wake up this growing shadow…”

Growing shadows?

Duncan frowned slightly for an instant, as if confirming the "guess" that had just flashed through his mind - what these servants saw was something else?

He turned around and looked at the black bag at the edge of the broken ground.

At a certain moment, he saw the black plastic bag suddenly... "flash".

It was like a monitor screen with poor contact, or as if a layer of gauze suddenly covered the surface of the object. Duncan saw the object flash for an instant, and in the extremely brief change of light and shadow, it seemed... to turn into something else.

Duncan watched it silently, as if expecting it to change more - and then, a second flicker occurred.

This time, he captured the fleeting scene.

He saw a swelling and shrinking shadow covering the floor not far away. The edges of the shadow were shaking and trembling as if spreading out countless sharp thorns. Black matter was surging and spreading out from the center of the shadow, where countless eyes and tongues were hidden.

However, as long as he looked carefully, the thing would immediately turn back into a pile of ordinary "waste", and the strange picture he saw in a trance seemed to be just an illusion lingering in the shallow layer of his brain.

Duncan watched this scene in silence, his many speculations gradually subsided. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly turned to the "Butler" and said, "Has there ever been an 'invasion of foreign bodies' here before?"

His voice was inexplicably hoarse.

"Occasionally," the butler replied hastily, "the mansion is closed, but for some reason, there are always things from the 'outside' that are connected here, and they... often cause a lot of trouble."

"Causes a lot of trouble?" Duncan frowned.

"Yes... Foreign objects do not belong to the mansion. They are like diseases to this place. The invading substances will cause some parts of the mansion to decay or distort, and it often takes a long time to recover..."

Duncan listened quietly, thought for a moment and then asked, "So how do you deal with these foreign objects?"

"The mansion will 'digest' them on its own," the butler replied. "You just need to wait patiently. The cleaners should appear soon and should be able to properly deal with the invading foreign objects."

"Cleaner?" Duncan asked with confusion in his tone.

"It is part of the mansion, the oldest part. It is responsible for removing destructive 'entities' from the mansion. Afterwards, the mansion will slowly return to its state before the invasion of foreign objects... Ah, it appears, guest, look--"

The butler suddenly raised his arm and pointed at the ground not far away.

A mass of mud-like substance appeared there at some point, slowly wriggling and spreading.

The "mud" was dark in color, but had a metallic texture. Its surface seemed to be mixed with countless crystal particles, which slowly squirmed and continuously refracted star-like tiny light spots - it squirmed and spread, as if it had consciousness and slowly approached the invading "foreign body".

Part of its edge was deformed, forming a tentacle-like extended structure, which it used to actively touch and probe forward, and then slowly "covered" itself on the "growing shadow".

Duncan did not interrupt the process, he just stared at the scene, not missing any details.

The "waste" itself was of no value to him. The key was why the waste appeared here, the strange phenomenon just observed, and the secrets hidden in the mansion.

For him, the key information was already obtained when he saw the small bag of garbage appear in the mansion.

The "soft-bodied creature" called the "cleaner" swallowed silently and soon completely covered the small bag of garbage. Duncan could vaguely feel that... something disappeared into the body of the "soft-bodied creature" with a metallic texture and tiny light spots.

The servants around seemed to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, the next second, Duncan saw that the "soft-bodied creature" that had been swallowed suddenly turned around slowly. Its edges expanded and contracted, and a protruding structure that looked like a head was now pointing steadily towards this side.

The corridor instantly fell into tension and silence, and all the servants became tense and quiet.

The "Cleaner" crawled over, and under Duncan's gaze, it approached slowly but quickly like a ball of living mud.

I feel neither kindness nor hostility.

Duncan's nerves gradually tensed up, and there was already a faint green flame flowing between his fingers. He was wary of this thing called "Cleaner" and was already thinking quickly about how to deal with this "mud" and leave this place without destroying this "Alice Mansion" as much as possible if the other party launched an attack.

However, the cleaner only stopped about two meters in front of him.

This ball of "mud" stopped in front of Duncan, and the soft structure that spread out around it gradually shrank. It seemed to be observing something carefully. I wonder if it was an illusion...

Duncan even thought he saw a confused emotion on a ball of "slime" that looked like slime.

It was rational, and it was trying to observe and understand the uninvited guest before it - but it could not understand.

It was as if the presence of the uninvited guests had gone beyond some kind of "logic" built into the mansion.

After a moment, the cleaner seemed to have ended some kind of "vicious loop". It abruptly shifted its attention to Duncan, turned around as if nothing had happened, and slowly crawled towards a dark corner not far away.

Duncan blinked, looking at the scene in confusion. After a long while, he turned his head and looked at the butler: "What does this mean? This 'cleaner' doesn't welcome me?"

"This... I haven't encountered this before either." The housekeeper's voice was actually quite confused. "This is the first time I've seen a cleaner do these extra activities after completing the cleaning. Normally, it would never stay for longer after completing its work..."

Duncan frowned and didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he turned and walked to the edge of the broken corridor, to the place where the cleaner had just performed the "cleaning task".

That small bag of "garbage" has completely disappeared. After undergoing strange and mysterious changes, it was decomposed and swallowed by strange and mysterious forces, leaving no trace behind.

But how did it get here?

Duncan stood on a broken tile at the edge of the corridor, leaning his head to look out into the endless darkness.

For a moment, he even thought that he was about to see his own "hut" in the darkness - it might be floating not far away, wrapped in a cloud of mist, just like... the countless other fragments of the old world in this world.

However, he saw nothing. There was only endless darkness at the end of the corridor, and the big hole inside Alice Mansion didn't seem to lead to anywhere.

The emotional impulse almost made him step out to find the so-called answer in the darkness, but at the last moment, the power of reason pulled him back.

He instinctively sensed the risk in the endless darkness, and his intuition told him that now was not the time and he could not return safely from the darkness.

"guest?"

The headless butler's voice came from behind, interrupting Duncan's wandering thoughts.

Duncan exhaled softly, took a step back, and returned to the relatively safe corridor.

"I must go now," he said softly, "Take me back to the garden."

In the real world, Duncan suddenly blinked - his senses quickly returned and he was fully awake within two seconds.

Alice still sat obediently in front of him.

In the real world, only a moment has passed.