“This is really barebones…” Feng Bujue said as he walked into the house.

The longhouse was indeed very dilapidated. It was a brick and wood structure. The beams and pillars inside were all made of wood, and the walls were covered with cracks. Some places had been patched with cement, looking like they had just been done recently. There was only one window in the room, about a meter wide, and it was the barred type, not a glass window. A simple horizontal wooden beam was above the window bars, and the curtain hung on it. If the wind was blowing from the window into the room, rainwater would definitely splash directly in through the wooden bars.

The house was divided into two rooms, separated by a door frame without a door. The first room after entering could be considered the living room, about ten square meters in size. The floor was wooden, and there was a chest-high cabinet against the wall. A round low table was placed in the center of the room, with three tatami mats next to it.

The ceiling was relatively low, with a light bulb hanging from an electric wire in the middle, currently emitting light.

Feng Bujue walked to the door of the next room and peeked inside. That room was even narrower than the "living room." A mattress was laid horizontally on the floor, taking up half the space. A wardrobe was placed next to the door frame. This inner room didn't even have a light, which meant that the person living here had to come to the living room, turn off the light, and then grope in the dark to the mattress to lie down.

Of course… there wasn't much furniture in this room, so in theory, you wouldn't be afraid of bumping into anything when groping around.

“Too outrageous…” Feng Bujue closed the door and muttered to himself, “Only electricity, no water… and the toilets are public.” He had noticed when he was outside that there was a silhouette similar to a telephone booth in the courtyard outside this row of longhouses, probably a simple toilet.

[Current mission completed, main mission has been updated]

Before his butt even got warm, the system prompt sounded. Feng Bujue opened the menu and saw that the "Go Home" task had already been checked, and the new task that appeared was: [Stay in the house until dawn]

“Huh?” Feng Bujue had an unhappy expression on his face. “Have to stay a whole night?”

At this time, there was a storm raging outside, with lightning and thunder. Although the curtains were drawn, gusts of cold wind still came in through the window bars. Behind the curtains, there were faint shadows, and it was unknown whether they were shadows of tree branches moving in the wind, or if there was something wandering outside…

Although there was electricity in this house, the only thing that used electricity was a light bulb. Not to mention a TV, there wasn't even a radio. Even if Feng Bujue wouldn't be tormented by fear, he would be tormented by boredom…

“I thought nightmare difficulty meant the combat difficulty would become extremely high…” Feng Bujue came to the cabinet in the living room. “So this is the setting…” He pulled open the cabinet door horizontally and looked inside. There was a thermos, two teacups, and a teapot, all placed on a round wooden tray.

Because everything was in black and white, Feng Bujue couldn't distinguish the colors of these things. He tried to lift them up, and the thermos was almost full. So he took them all out and put them on the low table.

Then he returned to the cabinet and found a small cylinder containing tea leaves on the upper level. The word "Tea" was written on the cylinder, but there were no other names, varieties, or production dates.

“Hmm… Even though it’s a disaster and a temporary place to stay, can you really live like this…” Feng Bujue said, “There’s no running water, and you have to go outside to go to the toilet; you definitely have to go to a public bathhouse to take a shower; and there aren’t even any bowls and chopsticks for eating… But even if there were, you wouldn’t be able to wash the dishes after eating in this house.” He first washed the teapot and cups with water from the thermos, and then casually splashed the water away. Then he opened the cylinder of tea leaves, grabbed a small handful and put it in the teapot, brewing a pot of unknown drink, and poured himself a cup.

Since he couldn't change the equipment in the clothing column in the script, that is, he couldn't take off this suit, Feng Bujue had no choice but to try to wring out the water from his clothes as much as possible, and then wear the wet clothes and wait for them to dry naturally.

At this moment, he brewed a pot of hot tea and held it in his hands, which at least relieved the coldness on his body.

“Greatly reducing the information and clues given, and setting up many instant-death flags, while focusing on the level of horror… This is the keynote of nightmare difficulty.” Feng Bujue thought to himself, “Some seemingly inadvertent choices may lead to utter disaster.” He now recalled the experience just now, and realized it belatedly, “If I said the wrong thing, or showed fear, I’m afraid the Slit-Mouthed Woman would have killed me in seconds. And that monster on the telephone pole too…”

He looked up at the direction of the window. Outside, it was still raining heavily: “It seems like there are no time and space restrictions, but if you really ignore the main mission and go out to explore, you might trigger some flag on the street that leads to death. From the worldview of this script, you must have strong spiritual combat abilities to gain a certain degree of freedom… Otherwise, it’s hard to say.”

Taking another sip of hot tea, he muttered: “Follow the main storyline obediently… The most I’ll probably get is a series of random scares, and I shouldn’t be pushed into a desperate situation in terms of combat.” He put down his teacup, “But… it’s really boring, am I supposed to sleep in the script? Speaking of which, doesn’t this house even have a newspaper…”

“Oh—”

Suddenly, a strange moan sounded.

“Woo—er—”

Then there were two more sounds, drawn out and long, sounding like an old witch’s voice.

The sound came from the wall, that is, from the "neighbor’s" house.

“What’s going on…” Feng Bujue turned his face towards that side and said, “In the wind and rain… is someone performing some shamanistic ritual in the house?”

Feng Bujue thought about it, this situation should be part of the main storyline, and he should react.

“Hey—you over there, are you okay?” he shouted towards the wall.

Then, the sound stopped abruptly.

“What’s going on… did they die?” Feng Bujue was originally sitting cross-legged on the floor. Hearing that there was suddenly no movement on the other side, he supported himself with his hands and knees, and moved quietly to the wall, pricked up his ears, and listened against the wall.

Squeak—

It was the sound of a door, followed by footsteps. It sounded like the guy next door had opened the door and gone out.

“Are they planning to knock on my door?” Feng Bujue moved to the door of his own house, but on this side he could only hear the sound of wind and rain. He waited for a while, but the other party didn’t come to knock on the door, and didn’t seem to be coming to his door at all.

Anyway, Feng Bujue wasn’t afraid, so he decided to open the door and see what was going on with this neighbor. He stood up, holding a pipe wrench in one hand, and slowly turned the doorknob with the other, slowly opening a crack in the door, and peeking out from the house…