The Haunted Shopping Mall

"Where did Lin Chen go at this time?" Seeing that her phone had no signal and she couldn't call Lin Chen, Lingling couldn't help but complain.

"Lin Chen went to buy you some food."

The sudden sound startled Lingling. She looked around the room again and found that there were indeed only herself and Lin Chen's summoned beast in the room.

Lingling jumped off the chair, slowly approached Guilmon, and curiously examined it: "You can talk?"

"Yes, it will." Guilmon nodded.

"Amazing! A talking summoned beast! This is the first time I've ever seen one like this. I've never even heard of one before."

Lingling reached out and touched the Gilmon, which was slightly taller than her, and circled it a few times, trying to see how it differed from ordinary summoned beasts.

While observing the Guilmon, Lingling seemed to have discovered something, and suddenly turned her head towards the door.

The door to the monitoring room had been opened at some point, revealing a gap of more than ten centimeters.

"Gilmon, was this door open just now?" Lingling asked.

"No, I remember it was locked up." Guilmon answered confidently after thinking for a moment.

"Lin Chen? Is that you?" Lingling called out tentatively, but there was no response from outside the door.

"It's definitely not Lin Chen, I didn't smell Lin Chen's scent."

As soon as Gilmon finished speaking, Lingling suddenly felt like she was being spied on, a feeling that made her very uncomfortable.

Lingling arrived at the door of the monitoring room, slammed the door shut, then sat back down in front of the monitoring platform to retrieve the footage from earlier, wanting to see who had opened the door.

But it didn't matter if she didn't look; after reading it, Lingling showed a surprised expression.

It turns out that, according to the surveillance footage, from the moment she and Lin Chen entered the mall until they reached the monitoring room, there were only the two of them; there was no security guard named Li Shun at all.

In other words, Li Shun is a ghost, and he may be the one who orchestrated the disappearance incident at the mall.

Lingling instinctively took out her phone, intending to make a call, but the moment she saw the screen, she realized that her phone had no signal.

She had previously thought the lack of signal was due to the monitoring room being located in the basement, but now it seems to be caused by the power of ghosts.

"Crunch!"

The sound of a door opening rang out, and Lingling immediately turned to look at the doorway. She noticed that the door to the monitoring room had opened a crack of about ten centimeters. Looking out through the crack, it was pitch black outside.

That feeling of being watched returned as the door to the monitoring room opened.

Guilmon also found it strange and walked straight towards the door. But just as Guilmon was about to reach the door, the door to the monitoring room slammed shut, followed by a series of footsteps that gradually faded into the distance.

Seeing this, Gilmon turned to Lingling and asked for her opinion.

Lingling was also bold. She took out a pen, wrote a line on a piece of paper, placed it on the monitoring table, and then went to Guilmon's side, opened the door, and walked out with Guilmon.

Leaving the monitoring room, Lingling found that it was not only dark outside, but also extremely cold.

Using the faint light from their phones, Lingling and Guilmon quickly searched the area around the basement. Finding nothing amiss, they went down the stairs to the first floor.

The first floor was pitch black at night. Lingling and Guilmon walked around using the light from their phones, but they didn't find anything unusual or even hear the slightest sound.

"Have you gone upstairs?"

Lingling looked up at the shopping mall above her head. The mall had six floors in total, and it wouldn't be an easy task to explore it all.

But Lingling is no ordinary person; her little brain quickly recalled the strange things she had noticed while browsing the surveillance footage.

Before long, she had a goal in mind and led Guilmon straight upstairs.

On the fourth floor, Lingling and Gilmon had just reached the door of a bathroom when they heard the sound of flushing water coming from inside. She knew the ghost must be inside.

Following the sound of the toilet flushing, Lingling arrived at a squat toilet and gestured for Guilmon to open the bathroom door.

With a loud bang, the bathroom door was blasted open by the flames spewed by Guilmon, revealing the entire squat toilet, but there was nothing there.

Just as she was feeling something strange, she suddenly noticed a drop of liquid on her forehead. She looked up and saw that the top of her head was completely dark.

In order to see what was above her head, Lingling raised her phone and looked up using its light.

Then!

She saw a face, a face that was also looking at her!

Immediately afterwards, that face lunged at Lingling at an incredible speed.

……

After having eaten and drunk his fill, Lin Chen went to a pastry shop and bought some cakes and other desserts for his Digimon and Lingling before heading back to the shopping mall.

When Lin Chen arrived at the mall again, he found that the mall's doors were locked.

Lin Chen found it strange, took out his phone, found Lingling's number, and dialed it. After a while, a notification sound came from the phone, saying that Lingling was temporarily unavailable.

In an instant, Lin Chen felt uneasy and immediately found the man who had made the request and called him.

"Boss, we're still investigating. Why did you send people to lock the mall's main entrance?" Lin Chen asked bluntly.

"What! You've already gone? My people waited all afternoon but didn't see you, so they just went home!" The client was completely bewildered.

"Isn't Li Shun a security guard at your mall? He's the one who greeted us!"

As soon as Lin Chen finished speaking, the other end of the phone went completely silent. After a moment, the man who had made the request spoke in a trembling voice: "Li Shun, he's not my security guard. He's the first person to go missing!"

"Buzz!"

Lin Chen's mind exploded instantly. He recalled his previous interactions with Li Shun, and indeed, many details seemed a bit off.

At this moment, Lin Chen, worried about Lingling's safety, didn't care what the man on the phone was saying. He hung up the phone and used magic to summon Gabumon.

"Gabumon, break the lock!" Lin Chen ordered.

Gabumon swung its claw down, and with a clang, the door lock fell to the ground. Lin Chen led Gabumon straight to the underground monitoring room.

Arriving at the door of the monitoring room, Lin Chen's heart skipped a beat as he looked at the open door. He was afraid that Lingling might have met with misfortune, but the thought of the Gilmon by Lingling's side reassured him.

Upon entering the monitoring room again, it was completely empty.

Just as Lin Chen was about to turn and leave, he noticed something left on the monitoring platform.

Upon closer inspection, there was a piece of white paper on it. Lin Chen picked up the paper and found four large characters written on it: He has a problem!

Seeing the message left by Lingling, Lin Chen finally felt relieved. With Lingling's intelligence and Guilmon's strength, Lingling should not be in too much danger.

However, I still need to find Lingling as soon as possible, just in case.

"Gabumon, can you track Guilmon's location?" Lin Chen asked.

Gabumon nodded, signaling Lin Chen to follow.

A short while later, Gabumon led Lin Chen to the toilet door on the fourth floor, where the sound of running water could be heard from inside.