Beneath the layered shadows interwoven by darkness, Zhou Qi’an steadied himself and said in a hoarse voice, “I’ll count to three.”
“One, two…”
There was no way back now.
Everyone assumed it was the signal to charge—a desperate battle, a final struggle against time.
“Three.”
Who would have thought that as soon as Zhou Qi’an finished counting, he would decisively turn around and shout, “Run!”
“???”
Zhou Qi’an bolted without the slightest hesitation, putting every ounce of strength into his legs. Each step he pulled free from the blood-soaked ground had a steady rhythm.
The college student followed closely behind. He had already witnessed Zhou Qi’an’s tendency to flee without warning back in the forest, so he reacted quickly.
“Fu-ck your grandpa.” Han Li hoisted Han Tiansheng onto her back at the fastest speed possible, cursing a thousand times in her heart.
Who does this? They had gone through so much effort to get upstairs, only to turn tail and run at the first sign of danger.
The worst part was—they couldn’t even run!
Since she was the slowest, Han Li had to keep glancing back. The moment Xun Er caught up, she needed to be ready to use her ability.
As it turned out, Xun Er was also briefly stunned by Zhou Qi’an’s sudden retreat. He remained seated on the prayer mat, movement restricted, watching that panicked figure flee. A complex confusion flashed across his pale face.
Then, as if realizing something, his sharp nails abruptly pierced through the mat.
“Pick up the pace!”
Up ahead, Zhou Qi’an seemed to have made up his mind and rushed toward the main hall. Seeing him draw closer to the front door, the college student hesitated—was he planning to escape?
Zhou Qi’an answered with his actions: Yes!
That door was like Pandora’s box. Opening it would only bring disaster.
But without a second thought, he charged straight toward the source of calamity.
Bang!
The door wasn’t just pushed open—it was kicked wide. Zhou Qi’an plunged headfirst into the darkness.
Silence fell over everything.
Heartbeats and rapid breathing echoed endlessly in the void.
Zhou Qi’an stopped. Behind him, a small flickering light swayed closer—it was Han Li and the others.
“Are you insane?” Han Li gasped out.
What was the point of running out here?
Though she questioned him, there was a faint trace of hope in her voice. Maybe Zhou Qi’an had found another way out?
His silence was as unsettling as the night itself.
After a long pause, he finally said, “Follow me.”
That one sentence inexplicably calmed everyone’s nerves.
Han Li had to admit, she wasn’t all that jealous of the rookie college student being favored by Mr. Si. Instead, she envied Zhou Qi’an’s fearlessness in the face of danger.
Some people simply existed as a reminder that you were mediocre.
On the silent path, Zhou Qi’an took Han Li’s flashlight, holding it up as he led the way.
The panic from earlier was completely gone. The small beam of light illuminated the dark path, and he even started humming softly, “Unity is strength…”
There was a chilling excitement in his tone.
The college student shivered.
This was precisely why he hadn’t liked Zhou Qi’an at first. Just like Mr. Si, who was practically a walking flesh monster, Zhou Qi’an—though only a few years older than him—felt like a shark wearing half a human mask.
Everyone harbored their own thoughts.
Chen Jian, still obsessed with the treasure, narrowed his eyes.
Zhou Qi’an had his back to them. To say there wasn’t a single thought of ambush would be a lie.
As if he had eyes on the back of his head, Zhou Qi’an suddenly raised his voice a full octave.
Chen Jian, who had been scheming, shuddered and gave Zhou Qi’an a deep look before temporarily discarding his ill intentions.
“We’re here.”
Ahead lay an all-too-familiar sight—the lake covered in a thick layer of grease.
This time, there were far more fishes than there had been during the day. Each time they leaped, the air filled with the stench of blood as water splashed onto the shore. In the dim light, their serrated teeth gleamed menacingly.
Zhou Qi’an placed the lantern on the ground, his face deathly pale as he said, “Give me your hands.”
“?”
Zhou Qi’an lowered his head and repeated, “Give them to me.”
Under his firm demand, everyone held hands by the lakeside.
Han Tiansheng, who only had one arm left, stood unsteadily at the far left, swaying slightly.
Was this some kind of bizarre ritual?
Ding!
At that moment, an urgent game notification rang out in the night, sending a jolt through everyone.
Somewhere, a bell tolled, sending ripples across the lake’s surface.
【Attention all players: Xun the Wealthy is dead.】
As the announcement echoed, the walls of the entire mansion twisted grotesquely.
Starting from the villa, the surrounding trees also began to transform—the branches became soft yet elastic, extending across the ground, searching for food.
A rat was accidentally caught. In an instant, its internal organs were shredded, and its skin and bones were dragged beneath a large tree to be used as nourishment.
【Due to the instance spawning an S-rank vengeful ghost, [The Best Heir] has been updated to a survival instance.】
【Survival Instance Survival Guide:
1. Kill the vengeful ghost Xun the Wealthy.
2. Liangye Mountain Villa has fallen into eternal night. Please make the sun rise again—whether from the east or the west, as long as the sun rises, it’s a good sun!】
【Completing either of the above will ensure your safety.】
“Survival instance.” Someone repeated these three words in a pessimistic tone.
The statue, Xun Er, the female ghost, the child ghost, Xun the Wealthy… The villa had become a different kind of dark jungle.
Under the law of the jungle, where the weak are prey to the strong, players were bound to become mere nourishment sooner or later—just like that rat.
Neither of these objectives seemed achievable.
Killing Xun the Wealthy was nearly impossible, and making the sun rise again was nothing short of a fantasy.
—No other system notification had ever felt more like a death sentence.
That was what everyone thought in despair.
The next second, their entire bodies suddenly lurched forward due to inertia. Han Li let out a startled cry and struggled to steady herself.
Amidst the swaying, she quickly identified the culprit—Zhou Qi’an, who was holding hands with everyone, was trying to dive headfirst into the lake.
The lake surface rippled, reflecting an exhilarated face.
“Everyone,” the eerie glow of the lantern from below cast ghostly shadows as Zhou Qi’an spoke sincerely, “let’s feed the fish.”
“!!!”
Thinking they had misheard, the college student hesitated, “Feed… feed what?”
Zhou Qi’an patiently repeated, “Feed the fish.”
Feed the fish.
A phrase that could be heard in everyday life, yet at this moment, it sent a chilling tremor through their ears.
Everyone knew that Zhou Qi’an didn’t mean casually scattering fish food while watching the fish swim.
He meant using their bodies as fish food.
In ancient times, the Buddha had cut off his flesh to feed an eagle. Today, Zhou Qi’an was determined to set a new record by offering players to the fish.
The college student tried to break free. Honestly, at this point, he would rather resort to killing each other than this.
But no matter how much strength he used, he couldn’t escape from that slightly cold hand.
The others remained still—not because they agreed, but because the mutated trees behind them had started spreading like a virus, one after another turning into flesh-eating monsters. There was no retreat!
“Bro, I’m begging you, cut it out,” the college student nearly burst into tears.
His sweat-soaked palm was proof of his terror.
Being too close to the shore, he could see more and more fish gathering, almost crowding at their feet. A particularly vicious one swam by and bit off the tip of his shoe.
At this moment, his face was even paler than Han Tiansheng’s.
They were trapped—no way forward, no way back!
Zhou Qi’an remained composed and suddenly turned to the relatively calm Chen Jian. “Do you remember the fish that Xun the Wealthy insisted you eat?”
Chen Jian inhaled sharply and nodded.
How could he possibly forget?
That frozen fish, eerily resembling Wang Mu, with its head twisted toward him and those two hateful, terrifying fish eyes—if he survived this, that scene would haunt his nightmares for years.
“Unlike the purely predatory piranhas, human-faced fish retain consciousness after death.”
Zhou Qi’an had dealt with human-faced fish before and was certain of this. Even when decapitated, they could still wriggle like earthworms, both halves moving independently.
This simple statement shook Chen Jian to his core.
The fish were undoubtedly one of the dungeon’s primary horrors. Every player feared them on an instinctive level, even actively avoiding them.
And with Xun the Wealthy forcing them to eat the fish every day, they had come to see raw fish as even more repulsive and poisonous than arsenic.
Han Li seemed to realize something, her lips parting slightly.
Zhou Qi’an spoke solemnly, “If the dead can retain consciousness after being eaten by the fish, what about the living?”
Xun Er was the best example.
If Zhou Qi’an had guessed correctly, Xun Er had first made a pact with the evil god, sacrificing his lifespan in exchange. Then, when he grew up, he had willingly thrown himself into the lake to feed the fish.
In theory, Xun Er had already died and offered his life—but in reality, he had been reborn in another form.
…At the cost of becoming something neither human nor fish.
“Everyone here is a skilled businessman,” Zhou Qi’an sighed again. “Right now, we have no other choice. If my guess is correct, being eaten alive by the fish will allow us to retain most of our consciousness—which means we’ll still have the power to fight back.”
At the very least, monsters had better survival skills than humans.
Zhou Qi’an turned to the college student. “Like him, I firmly believe that unity is the way forward.”
The college student shook his head furiously. No, we are not the same.
There are ways to be united without going this far!
Zhou Qi’an delivered his final speech: “No need to fight amongst ourselves, no need for a bloody battle. Today, we’ll hold hands and jump in together—let’s give the game a little shock.”
“……” Damn it, whether the game would be shocked or not, they were already scared out of their minds.
From the darkness behind them came the sound of gurgling.
The tree roots were growing wildly, consuming everything they touched as nourishment.
The ground beneath their feet had started loosening. Small rocks tumbled down.
Han Tiansheng, having lost too much blood, was already half-unconscious.
Han Li bit her lip. She knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Jumping into the lake at least offered a slim chance of survival. If they stayed, they were doomed.
“Jump!” She was the first to respond to Zhou Qi’an.
Chen Jian shut his eyes. There was no other choice.
The college student was on the verge of tears. “What am I supposed to say?”
“You should say…” Zhou Qi’an let go of his hand, gave a slight smile, and kicked him off the edge. “You jump, I jump.”
“Ahhhhhhh—!”
The college student barely had time to scream before Zhou Qi’an followed suit.
The moment his body moved, a sharp tree root burst from the ground, aiming straight for his thin back.
Splash!
The players leaped into the lake just in time.
Failing to pierce its prey, the tree branch twitched in disappointment, then split in two and lashed toward the remaining targets.
Chen Jian didn’t hesitate any longer and dove headfirst into the water.
The pitch-black, ice-cold lake sent a deep chill through their bodies. The temperature was so low it felt like their blood was about to freeze.
Sensing ‘food,’ countless fish swarmed toward them.
It was their nature—when they saw food, they flocked together.
As tourists, they would have found this scene lively and beautiful from the shore.
Now, all that awaited them was agony worse than death.
Chen Jian had been bitten on the hand before—he knew what tearing pain felt like.
But this was a thousand times worse.
The moment blood oozed into the water, it attracted even more predators.
“No…” Chen Jian clenched his fists, resisting the urge to use an item. Within seconds, his hands had been gnawed down to bare bone.
The college student, completely engulfed by the fish, was on the verge of passing out.
The only comfort was knowing he wasn’t suffering alone.
…Everyone was experiencing the same hell.
As he was being devoured, he glimpsed through the swarming fish—one after another, ‘honeycombs’ appeared.
Those were players, completely surrounded by fish.
Just before he lost consciousness, something bright appeared in the distance.
Light?
The college student chuckled bitterly. Impossible.
The instance had fallen into eternal darkness. It had to be a death hallucination.
But just before his vision faded, that beam of light didn’t disappear.
Instead, like a wedding veil, it cast a sparkling arc across the water.
There was light at the bottom of the lake.
And it was even brighter than he had imagined.
Zhou Qi’an’s glasses had been swept away by the currents, and his wig had been torn off by the fish. However, the moment his blood mixed into the lake water, the fish surrounding him reacted as if facing a great threat, frantically swimming in circles—some even crashed into their companions so hard that they knocked each other out.
At the same time, strands of strange blue hair began growing wildly, like underwater algae, almost wrapping around him entirely.
A small vortex formed in the water. The hem of his white dress shirt billowed with the current, revealing a lean yet toned mermaid line.
【Zzz…】
【You have killed…】
【Friendliness score recalculating… Zzz… Calculation failed…】
Technically speaking, the deaths of the players could all be attributed to Zhou Qi’an—especially the college student, whom he had personally kicked into the lake.
And yet, as flesh regrew over bone, the players’ bodies—while simultaneously being broken down—were also reforming, using the fish as soil to regenerate skin and muscle.
Gurgle, gurgle.
The light source at the center of the lake continued to spread outward from Zhou Qi’an.
The excruciating pain he had anticipated never came. Instead, it felt as though he were merely drowning like an ordinary person.
His lungs burned as his last breath of air faded. Unable to endure any longer, Zhou Qi’an kicked his legs and swam toward the surface.
Damn, how embarrassing—the fish weren’t eating him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that some players had already been devoured to the bone. As the one who had suggested “feeding the fish,” not only was he completely intact, but if he had stayed in the water any longer, even the small wound on his hand would have healed.
Struggling toward the surface, Zhou Qi’an finally broke through, his long hair rippling with the waves.
“Hah—” He gasped desperately for air.
“Why are these fish so picky?”
He was utterly baffled. A few strands of his wet hair wrapped around his wrist, and only then did he realize—his hair had fully unraveled, now reaching all the way down to his ankles.
“Is it because of my evolutionary lineage… or the five-star fish eye I ate?”
Either way, it no longer mattered.
All the plants in the villa had turned into murderous entities after Xun the Wealthy’s death. If he stepped onto land now, he risked being ripped apart.
Zhou Qi’an waited patiently. He had no idea how much time had passed when, finally, the scent of blood faded, and the lake began to stir once more.
A head suddenly burst out of the water.
Then a second.
A third…
Zhou Qi’an was surrounded by a group of “Avatars.”
That comparison wasn’t entirely accurate. Unlike Xun Er’s fully transformed state, the players’ skin had darkened considerably, taking on a bluish-purple hue. Faint scales covered their cheeks, and gills now opened and closed along the sides of their faces.
Xun Er could freely switch between human and monstrous forms and was exceptionally powerful—partially due to consuming frozen fish for years to strengthen himself, and partially because instance NPCs had an easier time evolving into vengeful ghosts.
Take Xun the Wealthy, for example—alive, he wasn’t much of a threat; dead, he became a nightmare.
The players, by comparison, were still far from that level.
Zhou Qi’an was met with a dozen pairs of cold, fish-like eyes. Maintaining a calm expression, he asked, “What took you so long?”
An eerie silence stretched before someone finally broke it.
“You… why do you look better?”
The voice was familiar—it was the college student. His appearance had become monstrous, but his voice remained unchanged.
Zhou Qi’an responded flatly, “We all look the same.”
The flashlight on the shore was still shining, and everyone instinctively glanced at their reflections in the water.
Bullshit.
They looked like absolute freaks.
No—at this point, they were half-monsters.
Han Li suddenly spoke up. “Where’s my brother?”
Zhou Qi’an looked around and realized someone was indeed missing.
Han Li’s half-human, half-fish face carried an inherent coldness. Since her “rebirth,” her emotions had become volatile, prone to sudden bursts of anger. Though she tried to suppress it, the moment she realized Han Tiansheng might be in danger, her killing intent surged uncontrollably.
Despite having just been devoured by fish, the college student still retained a naïve optimism. “Let’s not panic. We should check the lake first.”
Plop.
As he spoke, something else emerged from the water.
Not a person, but a fish-headed human body.
The college student nearly jumped out of his skin.
Before now, he had only seen such creatures in horror films.
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes flickered with understanding, and he immediately concluded, “I see. After being ‘reborn’ through feeding the fish, each person’s transformation is like opening a mystery box. Xun Er was one of the strongest outcomes. I turned out to be a top-tier evolution. But Han Tiansheng… given his severe injuries and near-death state, he ended up looking like this.”
Han Li felt like something was off.
One of them had become inhumanly beautiful. The rest had turned into horrifying abominations.
It looked an awful lot like they had a traitor in their midst.
“He must have some kind of secret,” she muttered.
But her mind was preoccupied with confirming how much of Han Tiansheng’s consciousness remained. Fortunately, he seemed to be in better shape than she had feared.
The college student checked the game panel. “If we stay in the lake for a few more hours, our survival mission will be—”
Zhou Qi’an cut him off coldly. “Get to shore.”
The others started swimming toward land as well.
Hiding in the lake was pointless. The entire estate belonged to Xun the Wealthy—eventually, this area would be affected too.
The college student hesitated.
Zhou Qi’an’s voice was chilling. “Xun the Wealthy loved eating fish the most when he was alive.”
A shiver ran down the college student’s spine as he imagined Xun the Wealthy scooping them out of the lake like fresh seafood.
No way. He was not ending up on a dinner plate.
Zhou Qi’an was the first to climb ashore—though, in reality, he had hung back and let everyone else go first, making sure he was the last one out.
Once on land, he immediately took the central position.
It didn’t matter if they were human or ghost—predators instinctively feared strength. Now that the players had undergone partial mutations, they had moved a step higher on the food chain.
Surrounded by monsters, Zhou Qi’an was temporarily safe from the mutated plants.
He remained composed, already calculating his next move to kill the NPCs.
First, acquire a divine weapon. Then, obliterate Xun the Wealthy’s soul entirely.
If Xun the Wealthy was destroyed, the biggest threat in the survival dungeon would be eliminated.
And if possible, taking down Xun Er along with him would be ideal.
Xun Er was severely injured—he wouldn’t be a match for them now.
Zhou Qi’an wasn’t the only one eyeing Xun Er. Chen Jian could barely suppress his hunger. His tongue, now lined with faint serrated edges, flicked out of his mouth. “Let’s eat him.”
Being fed to the fish didn’t grant true immortality. From the beginning, the NPCs had demonstrated the true path to power—consumption.
Eat, and you erase them completely.
One of nature’s simplest rules: prey upon each other.
Even the college student found himself clutching his chest, struggling against the overwhelming urge to devour. Han Tiansheng’s fish-like jaws dripped with corrosive saliva.
Compared to them, Zhou Qi’an seemed oddly out of place.
“Why aren’t you hungry?” Han Tiansheng’s newly-formed fish eye darted around, his eerie mouth forming words.
Zhou Qi’an feigned a disgusted frown. “The greater your hunger, the closer you are to losing your humanity.”
He couldn’t afford to become a monster.
All he could do was persuade the others to hold onto what little humanity they had left.
His words sobered them. If the game classified them as monsters, they would never be able to leave.
And so, as the only remaining “human” among a group of creatures, Zhou Qi’an strutted confidently forward.
“Let’s march.”
“…”
·
The world was engulfed in darkness.
Mr. Si returned, battered and furious.
He had failed to chase down the bus.
And now, he would have to pay even more penalties for every passing day.
“Damn it.”
Who the hell had the ability to drive his bus out of the game world?
As his blood-red eyes gleamed ominously, he spotted the pitch-black estate.
The sun was gone.
Which meant… a blood-soaked feast was about to begin.
“So the survival instance activated while I was away?”
“Let me guess—how many players have died so far?”
Mr. Si strode forward with a twisted grin, practically skipping as he walked. His voice echoed through the villa.
“One, two… or maybe—”
“Did they all die?”
