Global Collapse

Then everyone will no longer need to worry about how to divide Gu Mian.

Because the thoughtful ice skates have already cut him into even strips.

Gu Mian always thought that all ice rinks in the world were the same: the ground was ice, and little people were darting around on the ice.

He was amazed by the fat man's ability to distinguish between different skating rinks at a glance.

Fatty said that he remembered it very clearly after going there so many times. The amusement park in Lianhua had been abandoned for a long time, and the ice inside was also cracked into white foam. Once, he was splashed in the face by Xiao Hong, and it felt like he had been rolled in flour. It felt like he could be deep-fried directly.

The wallpaper on the walls of the ice rink is also blue Frozen stickers.

Xiao Hong had accidentally spilled powder all over him because she was posing like the princess on the sticker.

"The size, structure, wallpaper, house, even the railing we're holding onto are exactly the same," the fat man concluded. "Doctor, you might not know this if you haven't been there, but this copy is a one-to-one replica of the ice rink at Lianhua Amusement Park."

Fortunately, Xiao Hong couldn't enter the dungeon.

Otherwise, the fat man felt he would be covered in her spray.

"Could it be that the game organizers have run out of inspiration, to the point that they have to go to the real world to find maps and piece them together?" The fat man offered his guess that the organizers were not up to par.

"As long as it's not like we're digging the outside world in directly, that's fine. Let's ask Liu Ruyan, Xiao Qiao, and 007 if they still have any of the items in their rooms."

Liu Ruyan lived with Xiao Qiao, so she naturally knew what cups and decorations were in her room.

Since 007 was teleported to the Calabash Gorge base, her house has been abandoned and no one has gone inside since.

However, Liu Ruyan is the landlord and has a spare key, so you can ask her to go in and take a look.

Upon hearing this, the fat man opened the group chat for ten people, intending to ask Liu Ruyan to go and check on things again.

However, as soon as I opened the group chat, I saw a long string of messages sent by Chu Changge.

After Gu Mian explained that the mall was like a giant claw machine, the ghosts were the claws, and the players were the plush toys, the fat man racked his brains but couldn't figure out what the dungeon was trying to make them do.

They didn't give me any introduction or tasks.

Aside from having to evade the ghosts' pursuit, he couldn't think of anything else to do.

But Fatty remembered that they had an external brain, Chu Changge, so he simply sent the story to Chu Changge through the group chat to see what Chu Changge would say.

After sending it and not receiving a reply for a while, the fat man guessed that the other person was probably busy.

When they entered this instance, Chu Changge was not in the apartment; they didn't know what he was doing outside.

Even the fat man thought that Chu Changge probably didn't know about their entry into the dungeon.

Feeling that he might not get a reply anytime soon, the fat man simply turned off the group chat and focused on exploring the claw machine mall with Gu Mian.

As he explored, he discovered the mall map and the ghost. In the midst of the thrilling game, the fat man forgot about asking Chu Changge. Only when he opened the group chat again and saw a bunch of messages from Chu Changge did he remember that he had asked Chu Changge about it.

"Doctor, look, Brother Chu replied to me in the group."

While watching it himself, the fat man reminded Gu Mian to watch it as well.

Chu Changge replied more than ten minutes after he sent the message. The fat man suspected that Chu Changge had taken a few minutes to look through the chat history after discovering that someone in the group chat had contacted him.

[Chu Changge]: Pay attention and see if the mall has a main entrance.

The fat man didn't notice this at all. His first reaction after entering the dungeon was to find Gu Mian, and his first reaction after finding Gu Mian was to catch a ghost.

He really didn't intend to go and check outside the mall.

However, the public restroom where they met Gu Mian had a window, and the fat man looked out through the window and knew that their floor was the first floor.

But what's the use of finding the main gate? Just run out the gate?

The instance didn't give any quests, but Fatty didn't think that just running out the main gate would be the way to leave the instance; that would be too easy.

They had explored almost the entire upper floor, but they still couldn't find the mall entrance.

"Luckily, I took a picture of the map next to the elevator beforehand." The fat man thought to himself as he took a camera out of his inventory.

[Strange Camera]

[Description: This camera was the possession of a madman. One rainy night, people found his body; he was clutching it tightly in his hand.]

[Function: Can take photos of spirits; only one photo can be taken per day]

This is compensation for the taxi game crashing.

Originally designed to capture invisible ghosts, this camera has gradually evolved into a must-have for photography due to its long battery life (no need for charging) and unlimited storage.

It's said you can only take one photo a day, but only if you get a good shot does it count as a proper photo; otherwise, it doesn't. You can take photos without limit. Xiao Qiao often takes the camera and uses it. Every time she returns it, there are hundreds of useless, gorgeous selfies on the camera.

It's worth mentioning that Xiaohong once had this camera, but because of her improper status, the camera could only take one photo of her per day.

Fatty often saw a series of stunning photos of Xiao Qiao in his camera album, which ended with a picture of Xiao Hong's mournful, ugly face, serving as a period to the end.

It can also be used in dungeons; as long as you don't hit the ghost, you can hit it hard.

The fat man took a picture of the map on the previous floor.

He didn't notice where the mall entrance was when he was looking at the map, but it's not too late to look for it in the photos now.

Viewing photos on a camera is not as convenient as on a mobile phone. The screen is small, and you can't zoom in and out directly with your fingers. You can only operate it by using the zoom in and zoom out buttons on the device.

The fat man struggled to zoom in and out, searching along the edge of the map on the first floor, but still couldn't find the main entrance.

"This is wrong..."

He was a little confused.

This shopping mall is quite large. A mall of this size should have at least two exits, one at the front and one at the back, but there are none on the map.

He suspected that his eyesight was bad and he hadn't found it, so he asked Gu Mian next to him for help: "Doctor, can you take a look? Can you see where the main entrance is on the map on the first floor of the mall?"

“There’s no gate.” Gu Mian said matter-of-factly, “I noticed it when I was looking at the map up there; there’s no gate drawn on it.”

There are two possibilities: one is that it's simply not drawn on the map, but there is actually a door.

Secondly, there really is no door on the first floor of this shopping mall.

Even if it's the second possibility, it wouldn't be too strange, after all, this is a supernatural instance, anything is possible.

But why is Chu Changge asking whether there's a way or not?
After confirming that there was indeed no mall entrance on the map, the fat man continued looking.

[Chu Changge]: The grappling hook represents the ghost, the doll represents the player, and the number of obstacles represents the hiding areas. Judging from the number of obstacles, the mall you are in has approximately four floors.

The fat man nodded as he looked at the document: "It's the same as what you predicted, doctor."

[Chu Changge]: The exit gate is where the plush toy leaves the claw machine after being grabbed. Just as a person leaves a shopping mall through a door, a plush toy in a claw machine needs to leave through the exit gate. In this case, the exit gate functions like a door, so doors in the mall probably don't exist; only the exit gate remains.

[Chu Changge]: Since you represent the dolls, perhaps finding the item retrieval point will allow you to leave the instance.
[Chu Changge]: If the number of item retrieval points is set to be large, leaving will be much easier. However, since Gu Mian is in the instance, I suspect there are other exits besides the item retrieval points, and these exits are likely located at Gu Mian's birthplace.
"Haha, Gu Mian is here! Everyone hurry up and carve out an exit for him! If we don't let him out soon, the dungeon will be gone!"—This sentence inexplicably popped into Fatty's mind, and he imagined it was Mr. Green's voice.

“Brother Chu’s analysis makes sense,” the fat man had been nodding like a chicken pecking at rice ever since he saw Chu Changge’s message in the group chat. “We didn’t see a door on the map, so this item retrieval point is probably the door. As long as we find it, we can leave the dungeon. But Brother Chu said that Doctor, your spawn point might have another exit…”

The first thing that came to the fat man's mind was the two rows of toilets in the cubicle.

He used to watch Harry Potter, where the wizards used the toilet as an exit, standing in the toilet and flushing themselves down to another place.

"Should we flush people down? But the mall has been abandoned for so long, is there still water?" The fat man didn't consider hygiene at all, but was thinking about the more urgent problem of water and power outages.

"The window." Seeing that the fat man's associations were getting out of control, Gu Mian spoke up in time to stop his divergent thinking.

As soon as Gu Mian entered the instance, the first thing she saw was a window.

In fact, there are windows not only in the toilets, but also in the stairwells.

The window seemed to grow a mouth and speak: "Come on! Get out of here. You'll clear the dungeon without any pain, I'll successfully protect it, and everyone will have a bright future!"

But Gu Mian didn't hear its fervent request and turned away.

Of course, this was a back door left for Gu Mian, so that he wouldn't have no way to break through the wall. If Gu Mian wasn't in this instance, there probably wouldn't be any windows left on the first floor.

Of course, the reason Gu Mian didn't target the window was because the steel security bars were difficult to deal with. If he had brought a chainsaw, it would have been much easier, but he didn't bring it in this time—the dungeon probably hadn't considered that either.

[Chu Changge]: If there is no exit at the birthplace, it's quite simple to find the claw machine's retrieval port.

[Chu Changge]: Your building has four floors. Based on the normal structure of claw machines, the retrieval opening is at the bottom of the prize box, so it should be on the bottom floor of this building.
[Chu Changge]: You said players spawn on the first floor, but that floor isn't necessarily the first floor. The instance won't throw all players into the bottom floor together, making it easy for players to find the loot chute and escape. Go look for stairs or elevators; see if they only go down.
[Chu Changge]: Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if Gu Mian was thrown to the bottom floor at the start, but since you're on this floor too, the probability of you being at the very bottom is not high.
[Chu Changge]: You're most likely on the top floor. You'll need to search down floor by floor to find the retrieval point.
Upon seeing this, the fat man exclaimed in horror. When he sent a message to Chu Changge, he still hadn't found the map or the stairs on the first floor.

Unexpectedly, Chu Changge deduced from the information he provided about the short weight that the mall had no main entrance and that the stairs on the first floor could only go down.

The fat man glanced at the time Chu Changge sent these messages; it was half an hour ago.

Just half an hour ago, he and the doctor were chasing after a ghost; they only recently found the stairs.

Chu Changge had already described the staircase scene before they did.

At this moment, the fat man remembered Chu Changge's initial mental value. Most players' initial values ​​were in the single digits, but Chu Changge's initial mental value was as high as 25.
There are indeed reasons to view it so highly.

However, the game's numerical system has been obsolete for a long time. Apart from the first few dungeons where you could occasionally get one or two points of allocable stats, I haven't seen it since. (End of Chapter)