: My First Collaboration with Lingling

Why do you say that?

Lin Chen was a little curious and asked, his gaze falling on the man and following his movements.

"Look at how hurried he is, he's obviously looking for our hunting lodge, but he can't even see such a big sign. He's walked past several lodges, which means he's panicked because of some kind of fear. Plus, his clothes, jewelry, and watch are all luxury items, he looks like a nouveau riche."

"Tsk tsk, this is great! He's in big trouble in his life and career, plus he's rich, he's the perfect target!" Lingling said seriously.

Lin Chen felt a little embarrassed; it gave him the feeling of running a shady business.

Sure enough, after going to several wrong stores, the man finally arrived at the entrance of Qingtian Hunting Grounds.

"Welcome to Qingtian Hunting Grounds," Lingling said with a smile, then led the man into the store.

Upon entering the store, the man immediately began recounting the strange events he had encountered to Old Man Bao, while Lin Chen found a spot to the side and studied diligently.

"I am the owner of a large shopping mall in the JA district of Shanghai. Recently, people have been going missing in my shopping mall. I would like to ask you to come and check it out."

"For missing persons cases, you should go to the security guards, not us," Old Bao said casually, taking a drag of his cigarette.

"I contacted the security guards, and they checked the shopping mall's surveillance footage and found that the people who went missing in my shopping mall were only seen entering the mall; they didn't come out." The man was on the verge of tears as he spoke.

"Do you know that because they couldn't find the missing person, the security guards temporarily closed my shopping mall? I'm going to lose tens of thousands of dollars in just one day, and the police won't remove the cordon until the matter is resolved."

"If this continues for too long, even if I open for business, this incident will cause my shopping mall to have insufficient foot traffic, and I won't be able to make any money!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Chen pursed his lips repeatedly.

I thought I was scared by a ghost, but it turns out I was scared by not being able to make money.

"Has anyone died?" Old Bao continued to ask.

"No one died. If someone had died, the city's monster-hunting team would have intervened long ago." The man's expression was somewhat unnatural as he said this, as if he was hiding something.

"If you want to entrust us with your case, don't withhold information," Old Man Bao reminded him.

"There were no dead people, but there was a faint smell of corpses coming from the shopping mall. If it weren't for that, my shopping mall wouldn't have been shut down," the man said angrily.

"The stench of a corpse?" Old Bao's interest was immediately piqued. "Is there anyone left in the square?"

"Yes, there are security guards." After saying that, the man immediately added, "As long as you accept this commission, I will immediately transfer one million to you, and I will pay you another two million after the matter is resolved."

Clearly, this man came prepared, knowing the prices of Qingtian Hunting Grounds, and directly increased the commission price tenfold.

"Alright, we'll take this on. Sign the power of attorney, and we'll send someone to handle it this afternoon." After saying that, Old Man Bao had Lingling prepare a power of attorney.

After both parties signed and confirmed the agreement, the power of attorney became effective, and the man left the hunting grounds.

"Private hunting firms really make money!" Lin Chen couldn't help but think as he looked at the scene before him.

"By the way, there are no other teams available at the club right now, so this commission will be entrusted to you and Lingling. Our hunting club is different from other hunting clubs; we don't charge any handling fees for commissions. After you complete this task, you and Lingling will split the profits equally, 1.5 million each," said Old Man Bao.

"One and a half million!" Lin Chen's eyes lit up. This was a much faster way to make money than a wild mage hunter, even faster than robbing!

"Actually, this order shouldn't be worth three million, but the man was afraid of losing too much money if it dragged on too long, so he quoted a very high price. Normally, it would only be a few hundred thousand," Old Man Bao explained to Lin Chen.

It would have been better if he hadn't explained it; the explanation only made Lin Chen more confused.

Indeed, the world of the rich is that simple and brutal.

"By the way, I see you're from Bocheng. Bocheng just went through a crisis. If you don't have a place to stay, you can stay in the attic; there are still empty rooms there."

……

After lunch, Lin Chen and Lingling took a taxi to the address left by the man.

Upon arrival, Lin Chen paid and got out of the car, carefully examining the shopping mall.

There was a police cordon outside the mall, and it looked very deserted because it was closed.

"What should we do?" Lin Chen had no clue, after all, this was the first time he had ever encountered something like this in his past and present lives.

"Let's go to the security room to check the surveillance footage and see what's going on," Lingling said, crossing the cordon and heading towards the mall.

Upon arriving at the mall entrance, Lin Chen and Lingling's expressions changed slightly, as a faint stench of corpses wafted through the mall.

The two exchanged a glance and continued walking into the mall.

Seemingly due to the closure and in an effort to reduce costs, the entire mall was dimly lit except for the area near the entrance. Coupled with the faint stench of corpses in the air, it made people feel extremely uncomfortable.

Just as Lin Chen was about to call the man who had made the request, he heard a light footstep.

Immediately afterwards, a dark figure approached from a distance, walking towards the entrance of the mall.

"Sorry, the mall is undergoing renovations and is closed to the public during this period."

As the voices rang out, a blinding light suddenly shone in the mall, instantly making Lin Chen and Lingling's eyes uncomfortable.

Soon, the glare disappeared, and Lin Chen and Lingling's vision returned to normal. A thin man in a security guard uniform with a somewhat gloomy face appeared before them.

"We were sent by your boss to handle matters at the mall," Lin Chen said bluntly.

"It's you guys. The boss told me to assist you." The gloomy man was taken aback at first, then spoke.

Looking at the gloomy man's appearance, Lingling muttered, "Another guy who judges by appearances."

Lin Chen smiled awkwardly: "We want to go to the monitoring room to check the surveillance footage. Can you take us there?"

The gloomy man nodded, his emotions completely unmoved by Lingling's complaints.

On the way to the monitoring room, Lin Chen discovered that the gloomy man was not a talkative person. Even though his boss asked him to assist him, it took Lin Chen a lot of effort to get the man's name out of him, which was Li Shun, an ordinary name.

Li Shun led Lin Chen and Lingling to the front of the monitoring room, opened the door for them, and then said goodbye to continue patrolling the mall.

"That security guard is like a silent gourd, and he's really gloomy," Lin Chen couldn't help but complain after Li Shun left.

"I guess only someone like this can stay in a place like this; anyone else would have run away long ago."

Lingling responded and went to the monitoring console. After a few simple steps, she figured out how to operate it, and started to play back the footage at 32x speed.

Lin Chen glanced at the screen and realized that this was not something he could do. He looked at Lingling and found that she was not paying any attention to him either. So he picked up his phone and sat down to the side, naturally starting to watch short videos.

Time passed second by second, and Lin Chen's stomach began to rumble, but Lingling remained focused on watching the video.

Lin Chen released magic to summon Guilmon, and patted Guilmon's head: "I'm going to buy some food. You stay here and protect Lingling."

Not long after Lin Chen left, Lingling finished watching the video.

She looked around the room and found no trace of Lin Chen except for the Gilbeast.

Lingling took out her phone and dialed Lin Chen's number, but the phone showed no signal.