On the first floor of the shopping mall, Lan Zhijie and Chen Hanlin almost wanted to run away the moment they arrived.
This was probably the area with the highest concentration of corpses in the entire mall. The first-floor lobby was cluttered and practically piled high with headless bodies, and the stench of blood and foulness was almost suffocating.
Steeling themselves to walk through the gaps between the corpses, the two men each held a high-powered flashlight they had found on the third floor, trembling as they moved forward.
"Uncle, do you think the ghost is really in this mall? What are we going to do if it actually shows up?"
Even though Lan Zhijie had patted his chest earlier and claimed everything would be fine, facing it in reality terrified him to the core. His hands hadn't stopped shaking since a moment ago.
"We can only trust Yan Ao's judgment. Let's hope that once we find the 'ghost', the game ends immediately and we can leave this damn mall," Chen Hanlin said with a bitter smile.
"Achoo!" After walking a bit further without making any discoveries, Lan Zhijie sneezed, crossed his arms, and said, "Strange, why does it suddenly feel kind of cold?"
Reminded by Lan Zhijie, Chen Hanlin also felt that the surrounding temperature had dropped significantly, especially around the back of his neck, where he could feel gusts of chilling wind blowing.
"Has the power been restored, so the mall's central air conditioning turned back on?" Chen Hanlin asked, looking up at the vent on the mall ceiling.
"No way? The power is back on? Does that mean we can leave the mall?" Lan Zhijie was overjoyed at the news. He hurried over to a glass door connected to McDonald's, dragged away two corpses sprawled across the entrance despite his nausea, and tried to push the door open.
It didn't budge at all.
Refusing to give up, Lan Zhijie pushed hard again, but it still wouldn't move.
"Step aside!" Chen Hanlin's voice came from behind. Lan Zhijie immediately darted out of the way. With the swing of a fire axe, the glass door let out a loud bang.
"Hah!" Chen Hanlin raised the fire axe and hacked at it over a dozen times until his arms were too sore to continue. Looking at the completely undamaged glass door, he gave a wry smile. "As expected, there's still no way to open it."
"Are you kidding me? A fire axe can't even smash through the glass door? Is this really bulletproof glass?" Lan Zhijie was dumbfounded. Although the bespectacled man had previously mentioned that the glass doors connecting to McDonald's couldn't be smashed open, seeing it with his own eyes was still quite a shock.
Sure enough, the entire mall was shrouded in some unknown supernatural force. If they wanted to leave, their only option was to follow the rules of the prompt and complete the game of "finding the ghost".
"Where on earth is the ghost?" Chen Hanlin checked the time; five minutes had already passed, but they had searched the entire first floor with nothing to show for it. It seemed they would have to head up to the second floor next. If they still couldn't find anything on the second floor, their only choice left would be to return to the third floor and regroup.
When they reached the second floor, the two men felt the surrounding temperature grow even colder. Lan Zhijie even started running a runny nose and sneezing continuously.
"I can't take this, I'm going to find some thicker clothes." Unable to bear it any longer, Lan Zhijie called out to Chen Hanlin and walked into a clothing store on the second floor, casually picking out a thick jacket to put on. However, when he came back out, Chen Hanlin was nowhere to be found in the hallway.
"Uncle?" Lan Zhijie called out a few times, but the entire corridor was empty. Aside from a few corpses lying not far away, the surroundings were frighteningly quiet.
*That's strange, I was only inside for a few seconds, how could Uncle vanish the moment I turned back?*
Unable to find Chen Hanlin, Lan Zhijie felt a creeping sense of dread. He quickened his pace and searched every corner of the second floor, but still found no sign of him.
Lan Zhijie began to panic. Realizing something was terribly wrong, he hurried toward the stairs leading to the third floor. He didn't dare stay here alone and decided to head back to the third floor to reunite with Yan Ao. The staircase from the second floor to the third floor was located just behind a small stall selling jade ornaments. Lan Zhijie ran up the steps with a rapid clatter, figuring he should reach the third floor in no time.
However, when he reached the top of the stairs, he froze in his tracks. The end of the staircase, which should have led directly to the third floor—specifically the entrance to the supermarket they had left not long ago—instead brought him right back to the very same jade stall on the second floor he had just passed.
Frowning, Lan Zhijie leaned over the stair railing and looked down, only to see the first-floor lobby and the corpses lying there.
"I clearly ran up to the third floor, why am I still on the second floor?" Gritting his teeth, Lan Zhijie walked around the jade stall, returned to the entrance of the staircase leading to the third floor, and dashed up the steps once again.
A moment later, Lan Zhijie stopped dead in his tracks with a vacant expression, because after running a full circle, he had ended up right back on the second floor. The exact same jade stall, the exact same second-floor corridor.
A ghost trap blocking their path?
A terrifying term flashed through Lan Zhijie's mind. Cold sweat poured down his back, and for a moment he had no idea what to do.
"I'll go back down." This time, Lan Zhijie turned around and headed back. Since he couldn't go up to the third floor, he would return to the first floor; at the very least, he didn't want to stay on the second floor any longer. Running back down the stairs, Lan Zhijie breathed heavily. After running a few dozen steps, he felt even more exhausted than if he had run a marathon of several thousand meters.
Finally, Lan Zhijie stopped, but his face was now completely drained of color. Because after making the full circuit, he had ended up right back on the second floor.
"Ah, ah, ah..." Lan Zhijie's psyche finally shattered. He spun around and started running back the other way. After running countless times, until he was completely drained of strength and collapsed, Lan Zhijie slumped weakly against the second-floor hallway wall, his back pressing directly against that small jade stall.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit..." Lan Zhijie cursed continuously. Even though he knew it was useless, he still trembling took out his phone, hoping to find someone who could save him. The light from the phone screen illuminated Lan Zhijie's utterly bloodless face. On the other end of the line, there was nothing to be heard except for faint static.
"Help me, anyone, answer the phone quickly, save me, Yan Ao..." Lan Zhijie held the phone in a daze, muttering frantically as tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. Just as Lan Zhijie was sinking into utter despair, the call suddenly went through. "Hello? Who is this? Hurry, hurry and save me, I'm at..."
Overjoyed, Lan Zhijie shouted frantically into the phone. The very next second, however, a gruesome and horrifying voice came through the receiver, sounding like an old gramophone accompanied by a grinding, clicking noise.
"I... died... such a miserable death. Come over... here... and keep me... company... ah."
Hearing this voice, the capillaries all over Lan Zhijie's body violently contracted, sending a bone-chilling cold through his entire frame. He recognized this voice all too well—the owner of the voice on the other end was actually...