Chapter 64: The Hall
Yin City’s Longheng Square, completed in 2001 and located on the north side of Jinnan West Road, integrates retail space with two office buildings. These ingeniously designed, magnificent office buildings rise 70 floors above ground with three below, standing 320 meters tall. They offer a total construction area of over 160,000 square meters and house numerous multinational corporations, information technology companies, and fashion enterprises. The Longheng Shopping Center itself spans six floors—five above ground and one below—formed by three interconnected buildings in an elongated strip. With a total area of 55,000 square meters, it hosts flagship stores of world-renowned fashion brands, including but not limited to Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Chanel, Dior, and Escada.
Exquisite, luxurious, high-end, and grand—both the level of consumption and service standards are of the world’s apex. These are the labels of Longheng Square.
As midnight approached, Li Ang, dressed as an office worker, sat in a fast-food restaurant opposite Longheng Square, swiping on his phone’s screen. Using an app provided by a mule, he breezed through that day’s surveillance footage of Longheng Square at five times the speed. Unfortunately, there were too many cameras inside the mall, and the sheer volume of video was overwhelming; by eleven-twenty, he still hadn’t finished watching it all.
Li Ang sighed, pushed his sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose, picked up his briefcase, and left the fast-food restaurant. He crossed the street and, with an easy demeanor, entered the underground parking lot beneath the Longheng Square office buildings. He headed to the far left of the parking lot, pretending to unlock a car door before quickly slipping behind a support column into a security camera blind spot. He took off his suit and leather shoes, stashed them in his briefcase, and then retrieved a yellow and white janitor’s uniform—identical to those used inside Longheng Square—and put it on.
Wearing white gloves and a mask, Li Ang, now disguised as a janitor, calmly stepped out from behind the pillar. He pulled down the brim of his hat and walked toward the employee access door at the rearmost part of the parking lot. Using a lock pick, he cracked the specialized lock in under three seconds. Once inside the employee passage, he descended the stairs to the first basement level, passed through an L-shaped corridor, and entered the B1 floor of Longheng Shopping Center.
By then, the mall had closed for the night. The grand, gilded hall was silent; all the stores had pulled down their gates. The warm lighting that illuminated the day had been replaced by bleak and dim night lights. Li Ang looked up to see the glass dome above the mall was completely transparent, revealing a dim, yellow full moon hanging high in the sky. His boots tapped crisply on the beige limestone floor; his gloved hand, lightly caressing the golden-hued brass handrails, found them smooth as silk.
The shopping center consisted of three interconnected buildings: Building A in the center, Building B to the left, and Building C to the right.
Starting from Building C, Li Ang put on the Face-Changing Mask designed after a large orange tabby cat. At 11:40 PM, he arrived at the main lobby of Building A, where he found four figures already standing.
As countless player experiences shared on the forums suggested, when carrying out missions in the real world, the absolute priority was to hide one’s true identity. Once personal information was exposed, not only would the player be in danger, but even their family could become targets. Rumors were already circulating about a "vibrant social group" in Mexico that had heinously abducted a player’s family. They forced the player to work as a slave, undertaking mission after mission and surrendering all Game Currency to the group. Lower-level players were no match for modern firepower. Even those with significant extraordinary powers found their hands tied, not knowing where their families were hidden and fearing to make a move that could endanger them.