25 Chapter 25
◎The road in your mall is so uneven!◎
The mall is brightly lit in the early morning sunshine. Flower baskets and red carpet arches have already been prepared, waiting for the grand opening with the sound of gongs and drums.
Through the glass, I could vaguely see elegantly dressed people in the mall. In the square, customers were already leisurely strolling and enjoying their shopping. Bakeries and milk tea shops were opening, emitting rich aromas. Models and celebrities were smiling sweetly on the posters. Everything seemed so beautiful.
But the filament net hanging over the square blurred the road, and the bright lights in the mall made the figures of people unclear. The entire mall was dead silent, without a single sound.
Therefore, the beautiful shopping mall seems fake no matter how you look at it, like a painting on a curtain, just to attract attention.
Behind the bright red archway is the brightly polished shopping mall's Gate No. 1, and on one side you can see the pedestrian street leading to the square.
The entrance is within easy reach.
But Yao Qing, the reserve investigator on the periphery, didn't dare to take another look.
A few hours ago, she watched with her own eyes as the investigators who had been trying to find the place fell one by one in the archway.
There were candles lit in front of the door, and everyone had trained their willpower repeatedly, and there was a "greeter" near the door, but no matter what others did, they still walked madly towards the archway without looking back.
Then, it filled in and disappeared, becoming part of the bloody mouth.
The captain and his companions who possessed the strange creatures would walk through the archway and come out again in the blink of an eye.
"Those lunatics are deliberately seeking revenge against us... They're dreaming of using Jiang City to feed and revive it."
Old Li pressed his forehead tiredly, standing on the temporary fire ladder and looking down. All he could see were small square boxes, densely packed in circles surrounding the mall.
With the shopping mall as the center, traffic at each intersection was restricted, and cars were blocked on all sides, with three layers of traffic inside and outside, making it impossible to get through.
Ladders were erected all around the mall, and all the investigators in the task force who had experience with the strange were trying to find the ghost on the ladders.
The staff is really stretched thin. Some of those deployed are former clerks, some are reserve investigators who have just been qualified, or they are various departments coordinating to cooperate with the mission, but they are all peripheral tasks.
...Those who cannot resist the strange attraction and die or collapse after going deeper will increase the danger for everyone.
This strange incident happened suddenly. The evil believers deliberately disrupted the location where the signal suddenly disappeared, and a ghost cave distorted reality. By the time she received a nonsensical message from Bai Xuan and discovered that something was wrong with this area, the ghost cave had already taken shape.
This is a reviving monster that has never appeared before. The captain speculates that it is a B-level monster.
But they knew nothing about the internal conditions and rules of the place outside the ghost den, and they couldn't even find similar content in the vast sea of horror legends.
Its name hasn't appeared on the General Administration's Stupendous Monument yet. While its appearance would allow for a deeper understanding of it, it also meant it was even more dangerous. Life is built upon time; the sooner the better.
Just like the [Hearse] incident that broke out in Jiang City before, the ghost den could not be defeated from the outside.
The ghost den of the shopping mall has already taken shape. Unless it expands again, the only way to save people or limit its recovery is to actively enter the ghost den.
Generally speaking, the entrance to a ghost den naturally attracts living people to enter.
But the prominent archway at the entrance to the mall isn’t the right entrance at all—or, not right now.
"Welcome~"
The hooded man next to the archway waved his arms like a rope in the wind, warmly inviting all guests who wanted to approach or not to approach to walk towards the archway.
He looked like a living person, his eyes were not stiff and his facial expressions were quite rich.
His face was pale, with only a hint of light coming through his seven orifices. Looking closely, even his eye sockets were black holes.
It was just a layer of empty skin.
Only the two greedy rolling eyeballs seem real.
The information department immediately compared and retrieved the results. The person at the door was Du Teng, the small leader of the True Spirit Society who had been wanted before.
He used [E59014-Waving Shadow Puppet], which wasn't very powerful as a trick. The trick couldn't get too far away from the shadow it created. As long as he couldn't be fooled by the shadow and could distinguish between the real and the fake, he could catch it.
But when Du Teng hides in a den of ghosts and uses strange objects, shadow puppetry becomes a big problem.
Old Li cut the shadow into pieces, and the shadow puppet reappeared in the blink of an eye.
The combined force of the ghost's allure and attraction, combined with the shadow puppets, meant few could withstand it. Those who managed were immediately separated by the puppets, some being sent straight out, while the majority were devoured by the puppets before they could even truly penetrate the ghost's den.
Jiang City encountered a series of strange incidents that required the captain's intervention. After the [hearse] disappeared, the captain was admitted to the hospital for treatment.
The captain's current body can only support one or two attacks at most. He will be exhausted and faint after walking through the archway. The remaining strength must be used at the critical moment.
Captain Hu's warnings still lingered in his ears. "It's not necessarily a Class B. It's just recovering! The more powerful the strangeness, the longer it takes to recover and the more lives it needs to devour. We still have a chance to contain it. If we wait until it expands and then go in, it will be too late. The ghost cave has taken shape, but it may not be without weaknesses."
"Find it and open it."
The glass exterior of the shopping mall in front of Lao Li seemed to be within reach, but when he stretched out his hand, he could only feel a cold void.
The ghost-engulfed mall was just behind it, but she couldn't get in.
A chill crept up her arm, faintly weaker than she had previously judged. She gripped the scissors and tentatively cut forward. Wisps of black mist escaped from the closed area of the blades. Even as the scissors closed, they still made a whispering, scraping sound.
Huo, Huo, Huo, Huo.
With every sound, a bloody smell came out of Lao Li's body.
A crack appeared out of nowhere on the side of her face, the flesh turned outward, squeezed into an angle, as if it had been cut by a pair of scissors. The torn flesh was white, no blood flowed out, and the black scissors became even darker and shinier.
The True Spirit would draw Bai Xuan in, effectively obscuring 80% of her vision. Unable to discern the presence of strange auras, Old Li could only resort to the crude method of circumventing the door and entering the den.
"Not here. Go to the next one."
Old Li gritted his teeth and gave the order, then answered the phone. Suddenly, he received the news that a citizen had mistakenly entered, and his vision went dark in an instant.
"Inspect and surround! The information department is checking the intersections. Where did we miss any opportunity?! We'll try our best to catch them back. Every last one we get is a better one."
After hanging up the phone, Lao Li skillfully applied the medicine to the wound, then stared at the next spot while holding the scissors. "Continue."
-
At the entrance of the mall, Du Teng's eyes lit up when he saw someone from afar.
The Beauty Head was intercepted and taken away, forcing the revival of the Hundred Eyes to rely on offering sacrifices in the Ghost Den. Before they could finish catching all the rats in the Ghost Den, the area around the mall was cordoned off, cutting off their source of sacrifices.
Fortunately, he waited for the others to go in and stayed here to block the exit. Only then did he realize that Captain Jiang was already at the end of his strength.
But Du Teng was still very nervous.
The time when [Hundred Eyes] revived was the perfect opportunity for him to utilize the power of the gods! What if [Beauty Head] and [Bewitching Microphone] weren't swallowed by Hu Tu, but by a master? He didn't want to be captured by the Investigation Bureau.
So, we have to be quick and offer more sacrifices.
The subordinates could barely be used as sacrifices. Du Teng's shadow puppet glanced at the vehicles chasing and trying to intercept from a distance, and waved his hands faster and faster.
"Welcome~"
In the ghost den, Du Teng cut off another piece of meat with heartache and threw it into the vague reflection.
The crimson archway cast a red glow on the hooded man standing in front of the mall, and blood crimson oozes from the empty palm of the shadow puppet. A mall flyer appears in the puppet's hand, and as it waves, the words on it pierce the person's eyes.
One corner of the flyer said "10% off", another corner said "Celebrity ribbon-cutting for the grand opening", and in the middle there were words like "Handsome men and beautiful women will welcome you", "Shopping and winning prizes", etc. These were all advertising slogans and gimmicks of the mall.
But at this moment, the bright red font seems to have infinite temptation.
Ye Pingan saw three words on the flyer at a glance:
"90% off coupon".
Wow, what a big deal.
I was originally just planning to take a look, but now I have to taste it to see how salty it is.
"Leave a coupon for me! Come right away, come right away!" Ye Ping'an's eyes lit up and he stepped on the accelerator and rushed forward.
Du Teng's eyes also lit up.
It seems the idiot who strayed into the area has been drawn in! The sacrifice walked in right in front of those hyenas from the Investigation Bureau, they must be pissed off, right?
The van's engine roared low as Du Teng laughed and waited.
The van's wheels were spinning, and Du Teng was still laughing.
Du Teng... Du Teng's shadow puppet and his face were twisted together, staring at the rapidly rotating wheels of the van in front.
The wheels left afterimages, but the van spun in place.
Amid the roar of the accelerator, the van, whose front wheels had already driven onto the flat ground in front of the shopping mall, not only did not move forward, but also moved sideways on the road and backed up a little.
Du Teng was so angry that he almost rolled his eyes.
Does this idiot even know how to drive?! He can even drive backwards on flat ground? Is he...playing tricks on him?
Black fog kept rising and falling on the window glass of the silver van, and drops of black mucus squeezed out from the gaps between the tires and fell onto the road, stretching out countless mini ghost hands.
They didn't try to catch the people in the car at all. They all tried their best to stick to the ground and shrink back, trying to get away from the mall.
"What's going on at the intersection of your mall? Is the road uneven or did you spill oil? Why is it so slippery that I have to run backwards?" Ye Ping'an stepped on the accelerator and waved his hand anxiously with a sincere look on his face, "Be sure to save the coupon for me!"
Du Teng:?
Turn the tables! Put the blame on someone else! Look at that excited little look, he definitely wants to get in! He just can't drive.
Having finally caught a new sacrifice, Du Teng definitely didn't want to let it go.
The shadow puppet stretched outwards, its arms and body lengthening quietly, actively shortening the distance between itself and the car door.
"Welcome~"
Ye Ping'an kicked the accelerator twice, the tear-face pattern on the floor of the car drooped, and the tires struggled to turn forward again.
She happily leaned out of the car window and said, "Hey, why did you come over to deliver it? You look so tired, your muscle suit is deformed."
The global aesthetic has declined, and now waiters and receptionists are no longer looking for people with good looks and figures.
For the sake of the coupon, Ye Ping'an forgave the receptionist who ran away with a distorted face.
Du Teng didn't listen to what she was saying at all and looked at her as if she were a dead person.
The shadow puppet swung its slender body, handing out flyers with one hand and guiding guests into the archway with the other.
Once you step inside, the sacrifice can’t escape!
Swish!
Ye Ping'an snatched the flyer away and found the small note underneath. His face fell, "One flyer enters one lucky draw. Only if you win a 10% discount can you get a discount on one product? This offer is so dishonest!"
Du Teng's shadow puppet shrank back a little, only to find that the sacrifice did not follow him into the archway.
...No? You really read the flyer?
【Author’s words】
The next update will be a little later, but today I will update 6,000
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
