Nightmare Invasion

Xie Qing is a terminally ill patient with Xie Syndrome, a condition that leaves him physically frail and with only seventeen days left to live, yet he possesses a dangerously low sanity score of 9.7 and an unnerving calmness. While hospitalized in the Fifth Research Institute, he is suddenly pulled into the "Nightmare Invasion" system, a deadly game where players are transported into supernatural horror instances. His first destination is the "Health Spa Hotel," an E-rank nightmare copy that has baffled players for over a decade with a zero percent clearance rate and a first-day death rate exceeding sixty percent. Upon arrival, Xie Qing finds himself on a bus filled with terrified newcomers and corpses, immediately drawing the attention of live-stream observers who are fascinated by his ethereal beauty and cold demeanor.

On the bus, Xie Qing displays supernatural agility and combat prowess, effortlessly neutralizing a hanging female corpse that attacks the passengers. His actions save several players, including a female student named Lin Xiaohong, but also mark him as an anomaly. After the bus arrives at the Health Spa Hotel, Xie Qing meets Qin Chen, a veteran player and debt collector for an organization called "The Great Wall." Qin Chen, recognizing Xie Qing’s fragile physical state and hospital gown, offers him protection and they decide to share a room. Their partnership is immediate, characterized by Xie Qing’s playful teasing and Qin Chen’s stoic reliability. Inside their room, they discover that the hotel manual is missing, a deliberate act by the system to withhold critical survival rules.

The core conflict of the instance revolves around two main tasks: finding the butler’s contact information and taking a hot spring bath within twenty-four hours. However, the hotel’s rules are contradictory and lethal. The original guest guidelines instruct players to eat only "healthy food," which turns out to be a disgusting macaroni dish, while the hidden reversed text reveals that the healthy food is actually poisonous and the "unhealthy" delicacies are safe. Furthermore, the rules state there is no butler and that bathtubs are out of order, directly contradicting the main mission objectives. Xie Qing and Qin Chen navigate these traps by observing the behavior of NPCs and other players, realizing that the hotel actively punishes rule violations with brutal force. During dinner, a player who breaks the silence rule is killed by a zombie-like NPC, and the hotel staff publicly punish another employee for stealing, demonstrating the lethal consequences of disobedience.

A key turning point occurs on the first night when a Fog Ghost, an A-rank monster tasked with hunting awake players, invades their room. The creature possesses a skill that forces targets to sleep or die, but Xie Qing, suffering from low energy after eating, falls into a deep sleep. In his dream state, he instinctively kicks the Fog Ghost, killing it instantly with a single blow. This unexpected death of a high-level boss causes the nightmare system to glitch, triggering a "distortion" that increases the instance's difficulty. The system detects Xie Qing’s awareness of the livestream, unlocking his personal broadcast room and shop. Xie Qing deduces the nature of the observers and the nightmare invasion mechanics, revealing that the monsters can cross over into the real world if not stabilized by observers.

The story direction shifts as Xie Qing’s unique abilities become apparent. He not only survives the initial chaos but also triggers a nightmare invasion in the observation room, driving Observer 172 to madness and forcing a replacement. Xie Qing’s sanity remains stable despite the horrors around him, and his low mental score is revealed to be a shield rather than a weakness. With Qin Chen’s support, he begins to explore the hotel’s secrets, including the identity of the acting manager and the true nature of the "Goddess of Darkness and Abundance." The narrative sets the stage for Xie Qing to dismantle the decade-old deadlock of the Health Spa Hotel, using his unconventional methods and cold intelligence to turn the tables on the nightmare system.