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“I know that mall.” The Mirror God suddenly said. The mist was so thick that he couldn’t see Han Fei that clearly anymore. “A long time ago, the owner of the mall was a very unique ghost, he managed to retain his rationality and the memory from his previous life. In the cryptic world, he provided sanctuary for the locals who had no place to go.”

“He was such a kind person?”

“Yes, before meeting you, he was the biggest dummy I’ve ever met. Clearly, the things he was doing would not lead to a good end.” Mirror God sounded self-deprecating. “The intersection of Longevity Street and Happiness Street was a rather unique place, it was not governed by any Pure Hatred. The spirits that escaped from other areas would gather there to seek sanctuary at the mall. Before there were Unmentionables, the area around the mall could be considered the safest place in this world, because no Pure Hatred dared to massacre the mall as it meant challenging the mall owner.

“Initially everything was fine but soon the mall owner realized he underestimated the sin within humanity, his greatest enemy was not the ghosts from the other areas but the ghosts he had offered sanctuary to. There were good and bad people, the same goes for ghosts. Some souls were soaked in evil.” Mirror God’s tone was filled with regret. There was black flame burning in his eyes but no matter what, he couldn’t leave the trap of the mirror. “The mall owner was ambushed by his own people. That night he lost all of his stock and he almost perished.”

No one interrupted Mirror God, everyone waited for him to continue but he seemed to realize something and stopped talking. “If you want to go there, I can lead the way but I do not advise you to enter the mall. The stock sold inside the mall is not normal stuff. Things like soul, flesh, memory and organs have been tagged and priced. At that place, you will see the cruelest truth of this world.”

The Ziggurat was the new player area of Perfect Life, once the player ventured out of it, the player would see the real cryptic world.

“At the very least, I run a convenience store. This visit can be considered a learning trip, and I should see if I can buy some new stock from the mall.” Han Fei couldn’t contact his neighbours and thus he had the reason to go out.

“I knew I couldn’t stop you.” The Mirror God drew something on the mirror. It looked like a hand holding a skull. “If you encounter someone with this symbol on their body, leave immediately. They are the people who ambushed the mall owner. Their souls are filled with sin and they kill for joy. Whenever they kill a Lingering Spirit, their souls will be carved with a new skull, trapping the Lingering Spirit’s memory inside their bodies. Most of them cannot be reasoned with, but 10 of them are an exception. They are all extremely cunning and hide inside the mall. They call themselves the Ten Fingers.”

“Are there Pure Hatreds among the Ten Fingers?” Han Fei asked.

“I know that several decades ago there were no Pure Hatred among them but now I suspect there will be at least one of them who have evolved into a Pure Hatred.” The Mirror God said carefully, “It’s not easy for the Lingering Spirit to evolve into Pure Hatred, they have to ignite the black flame of hatred and let the flame burn off everything. Then they have to revive in the ashes of memory. However, the Ten Fingers appeared to have gone down a more extreme route. They used pure sin to replace hatred, they have turned the hatred inside them into sin. They satisfy and improve themselves by damaging others and creating despair.”

“The Ten Fingers are the only dangerous thing at the mall? The mall is at the intersection of multiple areas but it has not been absorbed by any territory yet, this is very strange.” Even though the Ten Fingers sounded scary, Han Fei believed the mall should have more secrets than that. With his understanding of Fu Sheng, the man wouldn’t have marked down the place with a question mark without reason.

The Mirror God shook his head. “That’s all I know.” After getting a basic understanding of the mall, Han Fei stopped wasting time. He led Zhuang Wen and walked through the mist. They exited the street and raced down the alley alongside the edge of the plastic surgery hospital. After they left the mist, Zhuang Wen’s hatred couldn’t be hidden anymore. She would be discovered by the Pure Hatreds at the hospital. But the biggest problem was Zhuang Wen was not always conscious. If she got into a fight with other ghosts, she wouldn’t stop until she or the other party was dead. Even Han Fei couldn’t get her to calm down. For the sake of security, Han Fei chose the steadiest method.

As they made their journey, Han Fei took out the red paper doll from his inventory to sense Xu Qin’s location. “Please let everyone be fine!”

…

“Die!” “Go to hell!” “Do you think you can hide from me? I see your eyes! You are staring at me and your pupils are trembling!” The shelf was pushed over and the cans fell to the ground. Soaked meat pieces mixed with broken glasses before they dissolved into bubbling blood water. The stench permeated the air. An arm carved with skulls retracted from between the shelves. It plucked off something red and stuffed it into the mouth. “Still want to run? Han Fei?”

The arm fell and the flesh stuck to the skull tattoos. The five fingers twisted together and the arm became unnaturally large. It spread through the first floor of the mall like old roots. “Struggle, yes struggle for me!”

The black long tongue licked the fresh blood from the shelf. A humanoid monster filled with skull carvings grabbed the top edge of the shelf and looked around. It was almost 3 metres tall. Its eyes radiated sin. Its body was like coagulated blood, it looked barely human.

“Found you!” The shelf not far away suddenly exploded. Several figures in red ran down different directions. Some of them rushed towards the exit and others towards the windows on the first floor.

“Now that you’re here, don’t even think of leaving. You’re such precious stock, you should be sold on the shelves. You will look so pretty on them.” The humanoid monster dragged its mutated arm and moved towards the exit. The old shutters of the mall slowly fell. The shutter was made entirely out of blood and flesh. It was like a red waterfall. When the shutter almost closed, someone cried and instantly the despair of all the ‘merchandise’ at the mall was ignited at the same time!

The innumerable cans started to crack. The crying gathered the despair into a kind of controllable power, it blocked the shutter and stopped it from closing. The different figures scurried away. The figure among the cries revealed himself. He was just a small boy but he contained unimaginable power. After everyone escaped, the boy made to leave. The monster carved with human skulls was still quite a distance away from him. The others didn’t flee after leaving the mall, they were waiting for him outside the shutter.

The despair gathered by the crying slowly dissipated. As the boy turned to leave, a thin figure jumped down from the signboard of the mall and landed before the shutter. He looked similar to a normal person but all 10 of his fingers were cut off and his body burned with black flames fueled by hatred and sin.

“Do you think you can escape?” The man lifted his head. The edges of his lips were torn open and they were sewn together by thread. He stood between the boy and the other red figures. He scanned the people around him but strangely enough, the reflection of the people in his eyes was all dismembered. In the man’s world, everything that he saw was torn apart and dismembered, there was nothing symmetrical and complete in his world.

“So beautiful.” His neck twisted in an impossible angle. The man’s eyes stared at a woman holding table knives and wearing a red dress. “Each curse is a flower blooming on the soul, you have the prettiest wedding dress.” The man took one step forward. The boy was about to do something but he was enveloped by a black shadow and then disappeared.

“You will make the perfect merchandise. No one will afford your price but never mind, you’ll be my personal collection, something not for sale.” Something wiggled inside the man’s broken finger stumps. He wanted to take another step when he sensed something. His eyes turned towards an alley near the mall. In the darkness, a woman was looking at him.

In the eyes filled with blood, there was black flame dancing. Her lips repeated the same curse, “If I touch you, you’ll die!”