Global Collapse

Chapter 921 [Gugu's Typing Section]

"It's an elevator!" The fat man was no longer the timid person he had been when he was fighting alone.

After meeting with Gu Mian, he was like grass that had been parched and then rained on, stretching out and standing upright.

If faces could be illuminated, then the glow emanating from the fat man's face at this moment could light up the entire shopping mall.

They came following the rustling sound, but the thing was moving too fast; they could only hear the sound but not see it. By the time they got to this place, they had completely lost track of it.

But by a twist of fate, they discovered an elevator there, with a claw machine standing next to it. The elevator was covered in a thick layer of dust, almost blending into the darkness. If it weren't for the light from the claw machine attracting the fat man's attention, he wouldn't have noticed the elevator at first glance.

"Is that the fitting room you hid in before?" Gu Mian didn't look at the elevator, but instead glanced around and looked at the small rectangular house with a tarpaulin in the distance.

Upon hearing this, the fat man was taken aback and followed Gu Mian's gaze. Sure enough, he saw the familiar fitting room, and looking around the fitting room, he saw the familiar collapsed clothes rack.

That was the spot where he had just entered the instance.

"But when I came in, I looked around the area first and didn't see any glowing claw machines. Otherwise, I wouldn't have only just noticed this elevator now." The fat man scratched his head. He would never ignore such an eye-catching glowing object.

Gu Mian immediately understood the situation: "It's normal. The claw machine in the mall was just my imagination. I guess I hadn't fully utilized my imagination before you went into the fitting room. There weren't any claw machines here back then."

The fat man thought Gu Mian's words made a lot of sense, so he stopped observing the useless claw machine that Gu Mian had imagined and went straight to the elevator to try to press the elevator button.

The mall had been without power for a long time, and the fat man didn't expect the elevator to respond to his calls. He pressed the gray buttons twice, but the elevator did not move at all.

"It's a pity. If the elevator were still working, we could use the floor buttons inside to confirm whether the mall has four floors as you said, doctor."

In that clothing store filled with mannequins, in that area known as the "doll stacking area," Gu Mian shared her conjecture with Fatty.

"The obstacle area should be inside the claw machine, but it's appearing directly in the mall. This isn't a misplaced obstacle area; its location is correct. It's inside the claw machine, the only claw machine in the instance—this mall." The fat man recalled Gu Mian's earlier words; so this mall was the claw machine.

He then concluded that the claw in the claw machine was probably not a real claw, but most likely a ghost.

And the dolls aren't actually dolls, but rather players.

Therefore, this instance is essentially a ghost-catching instance.

Unfortunately, the fat man only had one piece of information: the number of obstacles in the first layer, which he had set to three.

This is the first floor of the mall, which means there are three areas on this floor that are similar to the "doll stacking area".

At this moment, Gu Mian had already noticed the mall map on the wall next to the elevator. He took two steps to the map, looked up and examined it carefully. He saw that the map was covered with thick dust, but the areas with drawings had been wiped clean to reveal the contents underneath, indicating that someone had been here.

The fat man also saw the map. He stared at it for a while and said, "I wonder how many ghosts the player who set the number of ghosts set up... Doctor, you said that the list that appeared earlier showed four floors where obstacles could be set up, so this mall probably has four floors. But now the elevator is broken and we can't go to the other floors to take a look. And the map only shows our floor and doesn't show the other floors."

As the fat man spoke, he pressed the gray buttons a few more times, hoping that pressing them a few more times would bring the elevator back to life.

They've only figured out what kind of instance this is, but not what the conditions are for leaving. However, thinking about it carefully, they haven't completed most of the instance quests from previous instances, mostly relying on the doctor to "draw doors" to help everyone leave the instance. Thinking about this, the fat man became a little lax.

However, Gu Mian said that this instance is very special, and it may be that the Earth or the game organizers have come up with something new. They still need to try their best to explore and figure out what this instance is all about.

However, the fat man suspected that before the doctor could fully explore the instance, the exit door would be right in front of them, beckoning them.

The easiest way to understand this place is, of course, to catch a ghost and interrogate it about the situation in this instance.

Unfortunately, they followed the sound but couldn't find the ghost. It's likely the ghost sensed something was wrong and ran away early.

He still doesn't know what the ghosts here look like.

A headless body hangs in the mirror, but upon closer inspection, it is not a ghost.

Following the headless body upwards, Anzhi Tinglan saw a blue claw clinging firmly to the headless corpse like a vine. Further up, she saw an upside-down human body attached to the ceiling.

That's the real ghost.

It was a ghost hanging upside down! Just like the claw in a video game arcade, its body was a claw and its arms were clamps. It moved upside down from the ceiling to grab players, like the claw in a claw machine grabbing plush toys.

The slightly decomposed human body tightly gripped the headless, fresh corpse in its hands, while its feet seemed to be stuck to the ceiling and were not clearly visible. At this moment, its body slowly turned towards the direction of the orchid.

Anzhi Tinglan saw its half-rotten eyelids and lips in the mirror. The mirror was so close to her that it felt like she was facing a ghost, and she even felt as if the smell of decay was lingering around her nose.

By this time, she had regained much of her strength and hurriedly got up to try to escape. Although she had entered a visual illusion zone filled with mirrors, and the ghost couldn't immediately discern her true location, she couldn't stay there forever.

After standing up, she looked in the mirror and realized that the ghost had not entered the obstacle area, but was still in the outside corridor.

The ghost glanced at the obstacle course area, but seemed uninterested in the place and the people inside. It quickly shifted its gaze and turned back to look in the direction they had come from, as if it were looking for someone.

Was it the obstacle zone that was hindering the ghost? Anzhi Tinglan pondered as she moved deeper into the mirror, but it didn't seem quite right.

Why is the ghost keeping looking in the direction they came from? Does it mean they have reinforcements coming?
Anzhi Tinglan couldn't help but think of the worst possibility. After all, someone had filled in the largest number, ten, for the number of grappling hooks. If there were ten ghosts in a shopping mall, it wouldn't be surprising if two of them appeared at the same time.

Just as she was preparing for the worst, the ghost outside finally moved.

After observing for a while, it finally slowly swayed its body and returned the way it came without looking back.

Anzhitinglan: "?"

After chasing her for so long, why didn't you even come in to try and catch her before leaving?
Congratulations on joining GuGu's writing section!

[Gugu Typing Zone: Here is a mysterious handful of rice. Scattering the rice on your keyboard has a chance to summon a keyboard-typing machine that keeps typing. At this time, the keyboard will make a sound like "Scattering rice on the keyboard and letting a chicken peck at it is faster than your intermittent zombie typing."]