30 Chapter 30 (Two in One)
◎B-level ghost den dissipated, [Hundred Eyes] removed◎
In the middle of the joyous red celebration platform, under the banner that reads "Opening Rewards, 100% Winning Rate, Open and Transparent, Receive Prizes in Person", stands a ball-shaped lottery machine similar to the lottery's Double Color Ball.
The tall machine is wrapped with strings of light balls, which flash and attract attention. There are lights and cameras on the top of the machine, which looks like a big light bulb and is particularly conspicuous in the dim space.
The small balls inside are painted in various colors, and they are mainly various vouchers and discount coupons. Some also contain notes corresponding to prizes.
Behind the machines, a wall of transparent cabinets filled with prizes redeemable for prizes was built. The cabinets were locked with a combination lock, and once you got the ball, you could open the door and redeem your prize.
Grand Prize x1: 100g gold cake. The cake, emblazoned with the mall's name and "Super Lucky" written in the middle, sparkled with gold and was quite enticing.
First prize x3: 10% off coupon.
Second Prize: ...
…
Everyone will get a lucky draw with a 10-yuan voucher.
Ye Ping'an's eyes lit up as he stared at the pan-sized gold cake placed in the highest, most conspicuous cabinet. "No wonder there were so many people here just now. The grand prize is still there. The crowds blocked it tightly, and I almost missed it. At the recent gold price of nearly 80,000 yuan, this is much cheaper than the 90% discount coupon with various usage restrictions. What a huge piece of gold! Slurp!"
It is much more valuable than her 0.02 gram gold foil coin!
In the lottery machine's small ball prize pool, a red ball shook slightly, opening a gap.
The black pupil peeked outside the lottery machine, then quickly closed again. The sphere continued to shrink in a circle, becoming consistent with the other small balls.
You can draw a lottery ticket by putting a flyer into the coin slot. There was a bag of flyers piled at his feet, and Ye Ping'an put one in.
Start drawing!
A burst of electronic music played from the lottery machine, the light strings spun and flashed, the spherical machine shook, and the inner layer rotated to make the ball roll.
Crash~
The balls collide with each other and fall towards the exit at the bottom.
With a sudden shake, the red ball fell to the edge of the exit.
Other small, light balls fluttered down like artificial snowflakes rising from a large crystal ball. The red ball blinked rapidly, and black mist passed through the various floating balls, pushing another golden ball down.
"Congratulations on winning the prize!" The music on the lottery machine changed and festive music sounded.
Boom. Rolling.
The golden ball rolled out of the lottery machine, the outlet closed again, and the red ball was squeezed on the edge of the outlet, as if it was stuck there and did not move.
"Huh? A single shot of gold?"
Ye Pingan unscrewed the ball shell and immediately smiled. "It's the combination to the locker for the special prize! I'm really lucky today."
I just went home to replace the gold foil.
Ye Ping'an walked around to the back of the lottery machine and looked at the gold cakes in the cabinet up close, admiring their golden brilliance.
The motionless red ball in the lottery machine rolled a little, and then his eyeballs floated up, opened, and stared coldly at the van outside.
The twisted smile on the carriage floor froze and shrank back.
The black mist rose silently, and the eyeballs quickly drifted outside the lottery machine.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The invisible black mist carried the eyeball and hit the transparent shell of the lottery machine, making a dull sound, and bounced back to the other side of the shell, shaking again.
The ordinary material seemed like an impenetrable wall, while the transparent shell, less than a finger thick, became an insurmountable barrier. Like a bouncy ball, it was squeezed inside the shell, bouncing back and forth, but the eyeball simply couldn't escape.
His eyes widened in astonishment, and the countless eyes reflected in his eyes stopped spying and stared at the lottery machine.
The lines on the car floor crawled out from under the driver's seat again, and his gloating smile widened even further.
"What's going on?"
Ye Ping'an turned around and saw the lottery machine quietly stopped in its place.
The red ball that was bounced to the upper half of the ball shell has disappeared from the lottery machine.
The camera on top of the lottery machine flashed a faint red light, and an eye behind the lens slowly turned its direction and stared outside, from the pedestrian street to the mall entrance, as if waiting for people to get the prize and leave, waiting for an opportunity to act.
"Did the wind blow the ball? The light in the lottery machine is still oddly bright."
Ye Pingan rubbed his hands joyfully, patted the lottery machine, and stuffed a flyer into it. "Keep going! Come again!"
The moving eyeballs froze.
Crash~
The lottery machine began to shake again, and the black mist spread along the gaps in the lottery machine. The eyeballs were squeezed in the camera motionlessly, quietly watching the prizes roll down.
Flyers were stuffed in one by one, and the balls were thrown out one by one, but Ye Ping'an didn't move a step.
"10 yuan coupon, 10 yuan coupon, small doll, free milk tea coupon..."
Ye Ping'an's face grew darker and darker. "Could it be that my luck ran out after the first round? Why are all the prizes in the lowest tiers?"
There was no one around, so Ye Ping'an lay on the lottery machine and looked inside.
Except for the golden grand prize, it is difficult to tell which prize each of the opaque colored balls corresponds to.
But if you look closely, you can see that the shadows of the lottery tickets inside are slightly different, and in some you can vaguely see the reflective "one".
Ye Ping'an locked the three balls and pressed the draw button.
All the balls flew up, and Ye Pingan saw the position of the balls and tapped the lottery machine, "10% off coupon! 10% off coupon!"
She didn't hit it hard, just disturbing the flying balls.
But the camera hanging on the top shook, and a few wisps of black mist leaked out, and the black mist that had just spread to the wall of the lottery machine casing was almost shaken out.
Ye Ping'an's gaze fell, and before he looked at it, the overflowing black mist disappeared, and the eyeball that was retracted into the camera shrank a little deeper.
The lottery machine stopped shaking, and Ye Pingan opened the ball that fell out. The corner of his mouth twitched, "Another 10 yuan coupon. The first ball that fell out wasn't the one I saw... I must have taken the wrong angle. Try again!"
The lottery machine began to spin, a clattering sound. The eyeball shrank, tightly gathering the surrounding black fog. Only the black fog on the lottery machine's casing moved a little, pushing a small ball down. With just a little glimpse, the eyeball shrank considerably, and some shriveled lines appeared on its surface.
"Great! It's a 10% discount coupon!"
Ye Pingan put the discount coupon in his pocket with satisfaction and said, "Continue!"
eyeball:?
The black fog squirmed with difficulty, and another small ball fell down.
"My luck has turned, another 10% discount! Let's continue while the luck is good!"
Three small balls containing 10% off coupons rolled out of the lottery machine. The shrunken eyeballs seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and the black mist shrank and stuck to the camera.
Ye Pingan picked up a bag of flyers on the ground, stuffed the flyers into his left hand, and happily patted the lottery machine with his right hand. "It's a loss if you don't use up all the lottery tickets. Keep going."
His eyeballs twitched and he stared outside blankly.
Crash~crash~
The sound of the lottery machine and the music continued, and could be heard far away in the empty square.
"There's a noise outside... Could it be that folk ghost tamer the deputy captain mentioned? She was a big help in solving the [Waving Shadow Puppet] in this operation! Shouldn't she join the task force as well?"
Several investigators pushed the survivors out. As soon as they walked out of the back door of the mall, they saw someone at the edge of the square holding a recorder. While filming the rare peaceful interior of the ghost den, he looked towards the center of the square with a strange expression.
The investigators speculated, "What's that guy doing? Does he need help? Is there something wrong with the lottery machine? Should we ask the deputy captain to come and take a look?"
The investigator, who was hurrying to record the information about the ghost, shook his head silently.
The music from the lottery machine came clearly, "Wow! Congratulations on winning!"
"Yay! It's a 100 yuan clothing voucher!"
At the feet of the young woman on the platform, a large bag of disassembled ball shells lay piled high. A thick stack of flyers had been transformed into various lottery tickets and redemption codes, and the half-filled lottery machine was almost empty.
Seeing her excitedly press the draw button again, the investigators looked at each other in bewilderment. "Really?! Isn't finding Weird's true form more important right now? Isn't she afraid that Weird's hidden purpose will be achieved and he'll die in the den of ghosts?"
Crash~
The last ball in the lottery machine rolled up. Ye Ping'an held the lottery ticket and shook the few remaining flyers in his hand with dissatisfaction.
"Everyone was promised a prize! The flyers haven't even been drawn yet, and the prizes are gone! I don't know when they'll be restocked, and there's no host or counter staff left. Forget it, it's getting late, and Lao Liu is still waiting for me to pick up the goods. I should go. I won't wait for them to restock, I'll go check out after I finish drawing."
The eyeball was shriveled like a dead raisin, with only a thin black mist surrounding it.
When he heard someone say "let's go" outside, the pupils in his dry eyeballs moved, and he looked expectantly outside the pedestrian street, as if he had already seen the van and the man leaving.
Bang!
The small ball flying inside the spherical shell hits the camera.
The wrinkled surface of the eyeball twitched and jumped in fear.
The black mist that had seeped into the machine gradually pulled out, desperately extending outward, and the entire machine's light string flashed wildly. A red ball rolled down from behind the camera, hitting the prize ball and getting stuck in the exit.
A wisp of black mist struggled to climb to the bottom of the lottery machine, and the eyeballs tried their best to float away.
"Eh? Eh? Why is the light flashing like this? I didn't touch it this time!" Ye Ping'an quickly patted the machine.
Click.
The ball knocked open the exit slot and rolled out with the stuck eyeball.
The lights on the lottery machine returned to normal, and Ye Pingan nodded with satisfaction, "Well, the physical repair technique is really useful."
Boom, rolling.
Two balls rolled out of the exit one after the other. Ye Pingan was stunned. "Huh? Two prizes?"
One of the small balls contained the redemption code for an oversized plush shark doll. Ye Ping'an twisted the other red ball and found that it was not a ball shell, but a wireless night light that would turn on red light when tapped.
“What an ugly light.”
Like a ball that has been flattened.
It doesn't look like a light string from a lottery machine. Ye Ping'an probably just put the gadgets in the ball because there was no room for them in the cabinet, just like the dozen or so key chains he had just pulled out.
I may dislike it, but since it's a prize...
Take it here!
The shriveled eyeballs shrank into a ball, the last bit of light in the pupils extinguished, and Ye Ping'an pinched them dully and stuffed them into the carriage.
Ye Ping'an drove the van directly to the bottom of the platform steps, opened the locks one by one with the password, and emptied the boxes like shopping.
A large pile of miscellaneous prizes were piled into the carriage, and the night light was squeezed into the corner.
Ye Pingan turned to move other prizes, leaving the car door open. The eyeball night light rolled to the door.
The door bounced and rolled closed.
The lines on the carriage floor formed a huge smile, not a trace of mucus dared to seep out, but it firmly blocked the path of the light.
eyeball:……
His eyeballs rolled off the lottery machine. A few seconds later, Old Li, who was cautiously exploring the mall, received a phone call and his face changed drastically.
"What? The name of [Hundred Eyes] disappeared from the Strange-Suppressing Monument?! How, how is this possible?!"
The hedgehog cried softly, looking up at the sky with its little eyes.
It was like the thick black fog at night, quickly becoming lighter and lighter.
A ray of sunlight fell from outside the fog, and the golden light of dawn illuminated the night.
"The ghost cave is dissipating! The aura is getting weaker and disappearing quickly!" Bai Xuan hugged the hedgehog and almost jumped up in excitement, "Deputy Captain, it's possible! You forgot that if the revived weird dead machine turns back into a weird thing, its name will disappear from the monument! We won."
"Really! It's daybreak! Jiang City—is saved?!"
The investigators gasped, stunned. "Why didn't we find those flying head monsters at Gate One, or any other monsters either...? Turns out it's a system freeze! How did you do that? Deputy Captain, Xiaobai, you guys managed to resolve the B-level resurgence without the Captain having to do anything. You're incredible!"
Old Li shook his head slowly, "It's not me."
She felt as if she was in a dream.
The ghost den has already taken shape, and it is a B-level weirdness. Every time it appeared before, it was a disaster that killed millions of people.
In the city where the ghosts appeared, the investigators could only risk their lives to intercept and explore, waiting for more investigators with strange objects to arrive, to figure out the pattern and then find a way to split the dead machine. Even if there were obvious flaws in this strange revival, it was only a matter of time before it engulfed Jiang City.
Old Li looked at his watch.
It was only an hour and a half before the action team broke into the den of evil.
Not to mention the B-rank, even the previous roundup of the "Life Buying Money" was not so quick and easy. There were even nearly half of the survivors in the ghost den.
It was like encountering an E-level weird resurrection, with much ado about nothing.
Looking at the flashing sights around him, Old Li managed to calm down. "The strangeness probably hasn't revived. Don't leave the ghost den for now. Ask everyone about their recent actions. Did anyone come into contact with a head or eyeball? Perhaps... someone accidentally caused the rules to freeze."
But there is no monster to resist the weirdness, and the probability of the weirdness being killed by will or action is infinitely close to zero.
She suddenly thought of someone, "Where is Ye Ping'an?"
The investigators reported the recent action to higher authorities.
Ye Ping'an, who had been drawing lots in the square, was out of place among the investigators who were on high alert to prevent any strangeness.
The investigator reported with a twitch of his lips, "She's moving the prizes and is now preparing to go to the supermarket to check out."
Old Li was suspicious. "What account?"
"Seasonings bought from the fresh food supermarket."
“…” Old Li walked to the glass curtain wall and vaguely saw a high platform in the square. A figure was jumping down from it and happily stuffing a lot of prizes into the car.
Lao Li pressed the solar plexus.
She was just seeing things.
There was nothing strange left in the square, and it was the first place to be checked and confirmed to have no real body.
This girl was completely focused on the lottery and hadn't even moved away from it. It was obvious at first glance that it had nothing to do with her.
Even if Ye Ping'an really encountered the real body of the strange creature, the square would not remain so calm. A B-level strange creature could cause a lot of noise, and using strange objects to block it would also cause some changes.
but……
Nothing. A B-level monster, just disappeared like that? What a joke!
Old Li was worried and had a headache. "Go, spread out and clean the interior of the mall again. Maybe the weird thing is still hiding inside. Clean up the True Spirit Society sacrifice site again. Maybe the weird thing actually hid after we returned to the scene after the inspection."
An inquiry from the information department popped up on the phone.
The mall is located in a corner of the university town. It is not very prosperous, but it has received a lot of publicity recently and the area nearby is not deserted, so there are many people watching outside.
The headless bodies were truly terrifying, and their number was so great that even ambulances and makeshift isolation rooms were densely packed together, covering the entire road. The ghost den had just dispersed, but the news of the victims who had been sent out of the ghost den was almost impossible to hide.
Watching Ye Ping'an walk into the mall, Lao Li added, "Suspend the citywide evacuation notice temporarily to avoid panic. Let's have the reserve and police teams come in together. There are too many victims this time. Arrange for an announcement of a major homicide case. The perpetrator has been killed on the spot. Everyone needs to give a statement. Also, remember to check the surveillance footage at the nearby intersection to confirm how the car got in."
The investigators' work was still going on. Ye Ping'an returned to the supermarket with an empty bag and looked at the customers, big and small, in confusion. The customers in the mall had disappeared, but there was a new group of people instead.
Hiss...this atmosphere is not right.
What happened? Did someone steal her truck of frozen food and seasonings?
Ye Ping'an quickened his pace and returned to the underground floor. He dragged out a cart from behind the poster, confirmed that all the selected items were still there, and immediately felt relieved.
She was just an ordinary citizen and was not in her own store, so what happened here was none of her business.
A 10% off coupon plus several 10 yuan coupons were all scanned and confirmed on the machine, and in the end, only one yuan and fifty cents were required to be paid.
Ye Ping'an hummed a tune as he put everything into the bag, without even spending money on the shopping bag.
It’s free and smells great!
She hasn't used up her coupons yet, so she can come to this supermarket more often in the future.
Walking to the supermarket entrance, Ye Pingan ran into Lao Li head-on, "Isn't this Officer Li? What are you doing..."
Ye Pingan hesitantly moved closer to Lao Li and lowered his voice, "Officer, could something have happened at the mall?"
The corners of Old Li's mouth twitched, and he whispered, following Ye Ping'an's words, "There's been a serious incident, and someone's dead. Boss Ye, are you free to come back to the bureau with us? Everyone who was in the mall during this time needs to have their statements taken. If you don't have time, we can go to the car and record it. You helped save someone in the mall and protected a major clue. You'll be rewarded and possibly even get a bonus later. It'll be more convenient to go to the bureau to go through the formalities."
Folk ghost fighters are not enemies, and the Investigation Bureau's attitude has always been to unite and encourage integration.
Ye Ping'an didn't want to admit he was a ghost tamer, but Lao Li didn't force him. Her invitation left enough room for both parties to observe and try to make contact.
"Bonus?" Ye Ping'an's eyes lit up first, then he realized what she said and gasped, "Someone's dead?!"
I'm afraid that something really happened in that crappy performance art in the mall! The folk customs in Jiang City are really too "simple".
Ye Ping'an nodded decisively, "I'll go back with you."
It's only natural for law-abiding citizens to cooperate with the police. Well, I'm definitely not asking about the reward.
Driving out of the main intersection, Ye Pingan looked at the long line of ambulances and couldn't help but click his tongue, "So many people..."
There is an ambulance nearby. Since Xiao Xia and that little kid really have important clues, they should be able to receive proper treatment, right?
Following the police convoy into the city police station, there were police officers everywhere rushing around.
As soon as he entered the room, someone led Ye Pingan into the inquiry room and poured him a cup of hot water. "How do you feel? If it's okay, we can start the inquiry now."
Folk ghost fighters are generally unruly and resist the authorities, so the two investigators were particularly gentle in their attitude.
The question is very simple, basically it is about why you want to go to the mall, what you do and see when you get there, etc.
After repeating it over and over again, the two investigators in charge of the inquiry looked at each other.
Good news: Mr. Ye, who is most likely a ghost controller, is very cooperative with inquiries.
The bad news: She wasn't fully cooperative. She seemed to genuinely not be aware of the presence of anything strange, and everything she saw seemed normal.
The contents that the deputy captain requested to be asked about in the transcript have been asked out.
"Do you see anything wrong?"
"Officer! You must investigate the mall's management. I suspect they're putting on this performance for ulterior motives! Is there a reward for reporting this?"
"Wait a minute, what performance art?"
"Huh? Didn't you see that? Didn't the actors already leave? That's the one with the simulated human-head drone and the extras performing?"
The investigator was shocked, "You were attacked by a flying head?!"
Ye Ping'an was alert: "I didn't break them. They fell down by themselves." There was no way she would be scammed!
...Okay, it seems the weirdos have been hiding since someone entered the ghost den. He happened to drive through the intersection next to Gate 1, not Gate 1, where the most heads are flying, so he probably didn't alert too many weirdos.
"How did you get to the mall?"
"Just drive and follow the navigation."
The latest surveillance footage has been retrieved, and it shows that the van did indeed drive in from a small road that was missed during the blockade.
The traffic police were amazed and asked them who this driving expert was.
——The navigation is really unethical. If there is a road, you can just go there. If there is no road, you can create one and go there?
"How did you drive into the arch? Didn't you realize it wasn't a door?"
"The receptionist let me in, so I went in."
——Some things look like doors, and if you can go in, then they are doors!
Ye Ping'an answered confidently, but the more he answered, the stranger the way he looked at them became.
Investigator: ...It feels like the pain of having your IQ questioned.
After asking this question three or four times, the answers showed that the person on the other side seemed to be a lucky person who had strayed into a den of ghosts but had not encountered any evil spirits.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.
Not to mention learning about the other party's ghosts indirectly... Ye Ping'an was so determined that the investigator almost doubted whether he had made a mistake: there are actually no ghosts in this world.
The investigator patted his forehead, freed himself from his messy thoughts, and continued questioning.
She opened the box, revealing a bracelet and a form, and pushed it to Ye Ping'an. "The inquiry is basically over. Today's events were so sudden. I hope you weren't scared. This is a bracelet that monitors your heart rate and health status. You also need to fill out this form. It's..."
Ye Pingan glanced at the form briefly and nodded in understanding. "I understand. This is the mental health scale, right? It's okay. I didn't encounter the scene, so I don't need psychological counseling. I'll fill it out right away."
Name: Ye Ping'an
Address: Xile Hotel, Food Street, University Town Street, Jiang City, Lan Guonan Province.
Age: 24 years old.
ID number: ...
Ye Ping'an was busy drawing and answering the questions on the form.
Outside the one-way wall, Captain Hu sat in a wheelchair and looked at her. "On the mental scale required to enter the Investigation Bureau, how many points do you think she can get?"
Old Li sat with his arms folded. "I've never seen a perfect score of 100. There's so much pressure in society these days, and the average person usually scores 70 or 80. After experiencing the weird, getting a passing score of 60 is a good candidate for a reserve investigator. With a score of 80 or above, you can try using weird objects."
But she's hard to say. You didn't see her there, but she's in ridiculously good condition. Even in a B-level ghost den, none of them seem to be affected by the strange aura and have increased negative emotions..."
For a ghost master who uses ghost objects, it is always a slow death with vitality being devoured.
But Ye Ping'an did not have any of the characteristics such as pale face and body that looked more and more like a dead person. He did not even show any abnormal emotions or mental instability!
The questionnaire has only two sides. The questionnaire is sent out in the inquiry room, and the score is calculated quickly by comparing it with the monitoring data of the bracelet.
Old Li was shocked. "Is it really a perfect score?! Impossible—"
She carefully checked the contents of the form from top to bottom and was in a trance for a moment.
Old Li paused. "Perfect." "That's a perfect score. It's uncommon, but if it's her, it's not impossible. We used to think she couldn't be a ghost controler. She seems happy as long as she can make money. She got a cartload of stuff for free at the mall. It's all other people's money, so it's normal for her to be so excited. Greed for money is a minor issue compared to other problems."
Captain Hu nodded. "Let's observe for a while. Are the treasures and bonuses ready?"
【Author’s words】
The prize draw is coming soon~ This chapter was posted within three hours of the draw, so it will not be counted towards the subscription rate at the time of the draw and will not affect everyone's participation! Thank you for your support~
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Small Theater:
Please allow for the following weird comments.
[Hearse]: Being caught is scary, but seeing someone else escape is even more painful.
[Hundred Eyes]: I CNDY...%￥&()*FTUFVJ...
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