On the third floor of the shopping mall was a grocery supermarket. At this moment, inside the mall, which lacked electricity, three men and one woman cautiously stepped over corpses scattered across the floor as they moved forward.
Because the exhaust fans and air conditioning had stopped working, combined with the high July temperatures, the entire mall was now filled with the intense smell of blood and the sickening stench emanating from the corpses.
"Ugh!" As the only woman in the group, Lei Yuyao simply couldn't take it anymore. She leaned against a row of snack shelves and began to dry-heave. She had already vomited twice, and with her stomach completely empty, she couldn't bring anything up at all.
At this moment, Yan Ao walked over to another shelf, which was stocked entirely with instant noodles. He took a deep breath, then reached out his right hand and grabbed a packet of noodles. Then, something magical happened: the surface of the packet touched by Yan Ao suddenly blurred and then vanished right before everyone's eyes.
"Hiss!" Two sharp gasps rang out nearby, coming from Lan Zhijie and Chen Hanlin, who reacted in unison at the sight.
Chen Hanlin was the name of the square-jawed man. During their introductions earlier, everyone had exchanged names. As a middle-aged man over forty who had been a police officer for nearly twenty years and had always received a modern education, the so-called skill Yan Ao had just displayed struck him as utterly absurd, even subverting his worldview.
"A-Ao, is this your skill?" Lan Zhijie asked excitedly.
Yan Ao nodded, and with another subtle fluctuation, the instant noodles that had just disappeared instantly reappeared in his right hand, giving the illusion that they had been there all along.
"My skill is called 'One-Cubic-Meter Mobile Warehouse'. It uses my body as a connecting point to link to a different dimension, allowing me to store any inanimate objects," Yan Ao explained.
When he chose the skill as his reward, this information immediately flooded his mind—the name of the skill, how to use it—as if it were entirely innate. After operating it just once, he had mastered it.
"So cool! I actually get to see a skill straight out of movies and comics. A-Ao, hurry up and show us again!" Lan Zhijie was even more excited than Yan Ao, continuously urging him.
Feeling somewhat helpless, Yan Ao raised his right hand and swept it across a row of instant noodles on the shelf. Everything his right hand touched vanished with a single thought, all of them sucked into the alternate dimension linked to his body.
"Damn, this is awesome! Make them all pop back out and throw them on the floor," Lan Zhijie said, finding it immensely entertaining and green with envy.
Chen Hanlin stood nearby, equally dumbfounded. Only Lei Yuyao, who had just returned from dry-heaving, looked at them with utter detachment and said, "What the hell is the use of a skill like that?"
This remark undoubtedly poured cold water on Yan Ao and Lan Zhijie, who were busy showing off the skill. Lan Zhijie immediately protested, unconvinced. "Why is it useless? A-Ao's skill has got to be a top-tier spatial ability, right? You know what a storage ring is? Those are divine artifacts only owned by overpowered badasses! Now A-Ao's whole body has turned into a storage ring—isn't that awesome? Whatever, you're a girl, you probably haven't read fantasy webnovels, you wouldn't get it."
Lei Yuyao watched coldly as Lan Zhijie rambled on to himself. After a moment, she said, "And yet, this awesome skill can't solve our current problem."
A single sentence left Lan Zhijie completely at a loss for words. Recovering his wits, he immediately complained in dissatisfaction, "Class monitor, wasn't you who first suggested picking the skill? And now you're complaining about it?"
Now it was Lei Yuyao's turn to be speechless. Indeed, it was she who had suggested that Yan Ao give up the items and choose the skill instead.
"Forget it, whichever one we picked was random anyway. Heaven knows what choosing an item would have given us; this skill is pretty good as it is," Yan Ao said, patting Lan Zhijie on the shoulder to comfort him.
"Enough talking, let's hurry up and find some water to drink. My throat is killing me," Chen Hanlin said, reminding everyone of their original purpose.
Ever since the game of rock-paper-scissors ended, the "wall" at the rooftop stairwell entrance had instantly vanished. Naturally, not daring to linger, the group hurried back down to the third floor of the mall, intending to find something to drink and figure out a way to escape this terrifying shopping mall.
Having endured a series of terrifying incidents, coupled with being baked in the blazing sun on the rooftop for half an hour, the four of them were parched. Although the mall offered a variety of drinks, to quench their thirst, Yan Ao and the others chose bottled pure water and drank two bottles in one go.
Feeling their stomachs somewhat bloated and unable to drink another drop, Yan Ao absentmindedly swept his gaze over the surrounding food and pure water. After a moment, he silently walked over and collected them using his skill.
"What are you doing?" Lan Zhijie asked, rubbing his belly.
"I'm thinking that if something really has happened to the outside world, even if we escape, we probably won't be rescued anytime soon. Food and water are going to be scarce by then, so I'm collecting some ahead of time just in case," Yan Ao said calmly.
Yan Ao's words made complete sense. Upon hearing this, Lan Zhijie quickly grabbed several packs of chocolate and stuffed them into his pockets. Seeing this, Lei Yuyao didn't want to fall behind either; she walked over to a nearby travel gear shop, found a backpack, and filled it with food and water.
The only one who didn't move was Chen Hanlin. He gave a wry smile and said, "What you're doing is illegal."
Lan Zhijie, whose jacket pockets were stuffed to bursting, scoffed, "Mister, we're about to die here! Besides, look at the outside world—who's going to come in and throw us in jail? If there are people out there, I'd actually hope they get here fast."
Chen Hanlin: "..."
While collecting food, Yan Ao moved over to a shelf selling cutlery. His skill, "One-Cubic-Meter Mobile Warehouse", was not infinitely large; it only possessed one cubic meter of space, and he did not intend to fill it entirely with food and water.
"Although I don't know what happened outside, staying in this mall any longer is definitely dangerous. These knives might come in handy," Yan Ao muttered to himself as he grabbed a kitchen knife.
After visiting nearly the entire third floor of the mall, the group proceeded to the second floor, which sold clothing, intending to change. For one thing, Yan Ao was covered in blood; although he had rinsed off with bottled pure water earlier, his clothes had long since been stained red by blood, sticking uncomfortably to his skin and feeling thoroughly miserable.
Having changed into a fresh set of clothes and feeling much refreshed, Yan Ao stepped out of the fitting room. If not for the headless corpse slumped over the cashier counter, Yan Ao would have felt as though he had returned to an ordinary, mundane daily routine.
"Beep."
Just as everyone finished changing, apart from Yan Ao, the cellphones of Lan Zhijie, Chen Hanlin, and Lei Yuyao all chimed with text message notifications. The three of them pulled out their phones and took a look, their faces instantly turning abnormally pale.
Yan Ao's heart skipped a beat as he asked, "What is it? Are there more options?"
Lan Zhijie nodded stiffly. Yan Ao took the phone handed to him, his gaze falling on the screen. Sure enough, two bloody options appeared on it:
○: Hide from the ghost. Evade the ghost's hunt for 60 minutes. Those who successfully survive to the end without being caught by the ghost can leave the mall alive.
X: Find the ghost. Locate the ghost within 30 minutes. Once the ghost is successfully found, everyone can leave the mall. If the ghost is not found within the time limit, everyone dies.
Hint: Please make your choice within 4 minutes and 44 seconds. Exceeding the time limit will be considered an abstention, and those who abstain will die.