Wan Jie Hospice Care Company

"Guest...guest?"

The fat boss shuddered. "This isn't a place for guests, master."

The master didn't say much, but simply kept his hands behind his back and then remained silent.

Xiang Yu observed him discreetly from the side, then made a decision, using his own title for this master: "Well-informed and Knowledgeable".

There's only one way to find out if this master truly possesses real skills: if he genuinely has the ability to subdue the supernatural, then with my eyes, I certainly wouldn't be able to discern his level. After all, the limit of "extensive knowledge" is limited; it can only observe targets at levels E+ and below.

If all that's hanging above his head is a dry "E," then the show is over. He's just another conman using smooth talk to make a quick buck while people are in a state of panic.

So Xiang Yu raised his eyes and glanced at the top of the master's head.

The next moment, he froze.

no【???】.

It's not [E+].

It's not even [E].

It is [E-].

E-... He had never seen this level before.

A well-trained police officer, if unarmed, is ranked E; an ordinary high school girl is also ranked E.

This means that the upper and lower limits of the E-class are quite large, so it's hard to imagine what the E-class actually represents.

A child? An infant still in swaddling clothes, unable to even lift its neck? An elderly person lying in bed counting the ceiling, waiting to die? Or something... completely unable to move an inch?

As the thought crossed his mind, Xiang Yu's initial wariness didn't dissipate; instead, it intensified. Interestingly, he still couldn't figure out where this person came from.

"Comrade, have you looked carefully? Look, we don't have a single customer at all!" the fat boss quickly said. "Alright, alright, we're not officially open. We're just having a little... uh... ceremony, yes, ceremony!"

"It's similar to that ribbon-cutting ceremony for a business opening, it just looks a bit weird, but it's definitely not illegal, I'm telling you!"

"..." Xiang Yu did not answer, but continued to stare at the deep corridor in front of him.

To be honest, something was off about this mall from the very beginning. That inexplicable eeriness had been clinging to his back since the moment he stepped inside, and only now had he finally figured out its source.

Visibility.

There should absolutely be no fog indoors. But here, the visibility is only a few dozen meters.

If you look a little further away, the distance disappears into darkness, like a pipe leading to some unknown place.

The farthest thing he could see was the stage in the center of the mall, probably used for promotions and events. Beyond that, the other half of the mall completely disappeared from the world, as if it had never been built at all.

But here's the problem.

The long string of red lanterns overhead, one after another, are shining brightly, but why can't they illuminate the distance?

The red light seemed to have been swallowed up by something halfway through.

The pretty woman beside her scoffed, "I don't think your words will work. What kind of police officer brings a high school student along? Young man, I'd like to ask you two what your relationship is."

Xiang Yu didn't bother to answer the woman beside him. He looked around and then grabbed An Ling's wrist to prevent her from disappearing from his side.

"Hey you two, stop right there!" The pretty woman tried to stop Xiang Yu, but several withered fingers clamped down on her arm.

"Madam, we need some customers," the master said slowly. "If we open for business but have no customers, wouldn't that be a pointless opening?"

"But...where are we going to get guests here..." The beautiful woman felt goosebumps rise on her back upon hearing the master's indifferent words.

"So we need to attract customers..." The master pointed to the stage in the center of the mall, "Then go sing there. A good mall definitely needs to play music."

He understood that malls play music to attract customers at openings; it was a perfectly normal thing. But since they weren't really opening, and just wanted to go through the motions of a ceremony, why... did they have to sing?

"Singing? Forget it, Master, I'm not a good singer... I've barely even been to karaoke." She glanced at the fat boss as she said the last sentence, resenting him for being so stingy with his money that he wouldn't even let her go to such a trendy place.

"It's alright, someone will teach you to sing," the master said.

The beautiful woman initially thought the other person was just joking, but it turned out they were serious.

"Teach me?"

"Yes, it's okay, go up and sing."

The stage was bathed in an impenetrable crimson light, the red glow flowing from top to bottom like viscous blood. All around the stage, there were paper replicas of goods and people, their pale surfaces gleaming with an almost transparent deathly aura in the red light.

"I...I won't sing. Aren't you afraid of attracting ghosts by singing in this place?" The pretty woman quickly shook her head, then hid behind the fat boss in fear.

The fat boss thought to himself, "I'm scared too, why are you hiding behind me?"

"This is part of the ceremony."

The master murmured.

The beautiful woman narrowed her foxy eyes, then walked gracefully to the master, took his hand, and said softly, "Oh, master, I'm very timid. Please don't make me sing. We have a sound system here, let's use it."

The fat boss always felt that he had some kind of ulterior motive, but he had no proof.

But the master remained unmoved, still staring at the stage not far away.

"..."

The fat boss gritted his teeth, stretched out his large, fan-like hand, grabbed the beautiful woman's arm, and forcefully pulled her towards the other side of the stage.

"What are you doing, Lao Wu!" She frantically slapped the fat boss with her hands, but still couldn't stop him.

"We've prepared to this extent, if the mall still can't open, we'll lose everything!" the fat boss said angrily. "Just bear with it, it's just singing a couple of songs, is it going to kill you?"

"You want me to put up with it? Why don't you go sing yourself?"

"If the master wanted me to sing, I would have sung it already! Didn't he tell you to go? Listen to me!"

"you!"

Seeing that the other party still wouldn't comply, the fat boss could only grit his teeth and say, "Go up there and sing, and I'll buy you a mink coat and make you a gold bracelet!"

"!"

The beautiful woman paused visibly, then smiled and said, "Then, buy me a gold necklace too."

"Okay! As long as the mall can open, we can earn it back!"

Actually, she had already conspired with the master; she was supposed to sing that song anyway. But at the last minute, she suddenly thought, "I've taken such a big risk to reopen this lifeless shopping mall, but in the end, I'm not the one who really benefits. Why should I?" She couldn't swallow her anger.

So she made a deal with the master: after she performed this play and extorted some good stuff from him, she would go back and fulfill the agreement.

Now it seems that fatso was really stupid.

The fat boss finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the woman following the master's guidance step by step toward the stage.

But then he realized that Xiang Yu, who had come to inspect earlier, seemed to have disappeared.

"Hey? Where is he?"

A sense of unease arose in the fat boss's heart, but he quickly suppressed it.

He shouted at the beautiful woman who had climbed onto the stage:

"Sing it now!"

"What's the rush..." The woman rolled her eyes, turning to the gaunt figure beside her. "Can you sing anything?"

The master nodded slightly.

The woman straightened her slightly disheveled collar, cleared her throat, and began to sing her best song, Teresa Teng's "Wishing We Last Forever"—

"Then... when will the bright moon appear?"

"Raising a cup to the heavens, I ask..."

........................

At that moment, Xiang Yu was holding An Ling's shoulder, standing on the opposite side of the mall.

He had quietly slipped away to investigate the visibility in the mall. After a brief search, he concluded that the visible area was only about ten meters wide.

But this is really strange. There is no fog and there are lights, but the visibility is so low.

But when he heard a woman singing behind him, his heart skipped a beat, and he immediately sensed something was wrong.

At this moment, Xiang Yu is next to a mobile phone store. There is not only a paper mobile phone in the counter, but also several paper figures that serve as counter employees.

They trembled very slightly at first, and then their whole bodies twisted. The paper rubbed against each other, making a "whooshing" sound. The smiling faces drawn on them rose and fell with the twisting, and even had a bit of the elasticity that only living things have.

An Ling suddenly covered her mouth, almost screaming out loud.

The crimson light slowly rose from all directions, like a tide washing over the world before their eyes. The scenery continued to change and reshape with the song, and when it finally settled, the final scene left Xiang Yu feeling cold all over.

The mall was packed with people.

Countless figures appeared in the mall, bustling and noisy.

It felt like a bustling shopping mall. Some people were looking at the phones in the counters, some were picking out clothes on the shelves, and some were haggling with the sales staff while holding white banknotes.

Everything was so ordinary.

A strong stench of decay lingered in the air for a long time.