"The beehive is built on the building?" Shuyue also noticed this unusual sight.

Recalling the giant centipede they encountered earlier, it seemed not impossible for bee insects to grow as large as a room.

After listening to their description, Elorie couldn’t help but shiver, "Maybe... we should look elsewhere?"

"It’s okay, whether it’s bees or wasps, they only attack when disturbed. As long as we don’t run upstairs and just search the stores below, there shouldn’t be much problem," Chen Xuan said confidently.

How could he turn back midway because of a few bugs?

At worst, there’s always the Invisibility Talisman to use.

But are these insects simply becoming giant?

He recalled the mutated crawlers turning into coins, and the "host’s hands" destroyed by Decomposition and Re-Fusion in the poker game, which were similarly wrapped with a lot of maggots beneath their surface.

Chen Xuan vaguely felt that there might be some connection here.

"Let’s hurry up and finish searching," he said, glancing up at the sky, which remained extremely gloomy, as if a dense fog was lingering overhead, making the light seem dimmer than before, perhaps because the sun was starting to set. "If we don’t find anything here, we should consider finding a place to spend the night."

After another twenty minutes, the three finally arrived below the building.

Because of the many high-rise buildings around, the lower area was already rather dark. The crisscrossing shadows intertwined with dense wild plants to form a dark forest.

The first floor of the podium was full of various glass display walls, some of which contained many mannequins, probably for selling clothes or jewelry in the past.

"When I used to come here, I only dared to look from outside," Elorie lowered her voice, afraid of disturbing the tenants in the hive above, "Anything they sold in here could equal several years of my income."

"Now you can boldly walk in and take a look," Chen Xuan chuckled.

He was the first to walk into a jewelry store, where many shelves had already been overtaken by vines, and the items were not well-preserved. He summoned the Qi Sword to clear the vines and weeds while searching for something like a checkout counter.

"All the shelves are empty..." Elorie examined the racks carefully, "The glass is also broken, someone should have taken the goods."

"Probably when the disaster struck, the whole city fell into chaos," Chen Xuan said indifferently.

"But where could they have gone? If even the capital isn’t safe..."

"I don’t know about that."

It’s unlikely that it’s a disaster caused by demons. After all, they haven’t deviated from the human scope, with desires for food, drink, and entertainment being essential needs, there’s no reason to turn a perfectly fine city into this state.

"Chen Xuan, is this what you’re looking for?" Shuyue suddenly spoke up.

Chen Xuan went to her at the row of floor cabinets and found a scanner gun lying in the drawer, along with some unopened batteries next to it.

"This is it!" He exclaimed in joy.

He removed the old batteries from the gun, inserted the new ones, silently prayed for the Buddha’s blessing, and pressed the power button.

The scanner gun’s indicator light miraculously lit up.

Great, it wasn’t damaged!

"Did you come to the commercial district just to find this thing?" Elorie asked in surprise. She couldn’t imagine what connection a scanner gun might have with returning to the world.

"She is not a customer," Shuyue whispered.

The implication was that if they returned, Elorie would be left behind here.

"No problem, just turn her into a customer too."

"Can you connect to the Deformed Technique?"

This question stumped Chen Xuan. Without accessing the inventory page, he couldn’t use the trading ability. He had to admit Shuyue was becoming more knowledgeable.

However, he quickly thought of a solution, "It’s not much of a problem. I’ll go back first, then send you a customer revisit invitation. As long as you think of the shop in your mind, it should appear in some room."

The store itself could traverse multiple worlds as well.

Shuyue gave him a thumbs up in approval.

Chen Xuan activated the matching mode of the scanner gun and began pairing it with his phone. All the scanner guns around the world are essentially similar; even if this one didn’t have a small screen, the operation method was the same. Once paired with the data port, he could transfer the old scanner gun program backed up on his phone to the new gun, replacing the former with the latter. With his fast food work experience, this operation was as smooth as could be.

A gentle beep sounded, indicating the transfer was complete.

Chen Xuan immediately scanned himself, but the expected option box did not appear in his view.

He then aimed at Shuyue and pressed the trigger, but still nothing happened.

"How about it, does it work?" Shuyue asked.

"It seems there’s a problem..." Chen Xuan saw through his phone that the device was indeed connected, and the barcode numbers inside matched the products sold at the Ability Store; scanning for checkout should work.

Could it be... that this matched scanner gun can only be used for checkout?

Startled, Chen Xuan took out the damaged scanner gun and summoned the Thousand Thoughts Sword, using its tip to pry along the cracks and slowly remove the back casing.

Upon revealing the internal structure, he almost laughed out of anger.

This was no ordinary scanner gun, but future technology!

Inside the small gun body were densely packed circuits and cables, connected to several silver crystals of unknown material, with a complex structure that was truly astonishing. If the integration level of a phone was rated as "one," then it started from at least "ten!"

Something with such a high technical content and yet the store gave it a plain plastic casing; were they deliberately teasing the store manager?

"Miscalculated..."

It was indeed his own fault; he never thought to inspect the internal quality of the scanner gun.

Now it seemed that the computer, counters, shutter doors, and even coffee machines in the store could potentially hide unknown complex technologies.

Even though Elorie didn’t understand why he was sighing over a scanner gun, she guessed the situation wasn’t optimistic, "We can’t go back for now?"

"Today, it seems impossible," Chen Xuan shook his head. Unless someone knew how to repair this thing, they only had one path left: find an entry point to leave this world. "Let’s find a safe place to spend the night first... hmm?"

In the corner of his eye, he noticed a box of rolled up currency in another adjacent cabinet.

He took it out for a closer look and found he wasn’t mistaken.

The bills probably served to exchange change for customers, containing large denominations like 20s and 50s, quite fitting for a luxury shop’s status. But due to prolonged neglect, the money had developed thick mold stains.

"Strange..." Chen Xuan mused to himself.

Having some spare change in the store was completely normal, but while all the goods in the store were looted, the euros remained untouched, which was indeed curious.

They weren’t even well hidden, just placed in the storage cabinet, certainly in plain view for people looting for zero costs. A box of euros counts as quite a fortune.

"Shh," Lin Qing suddenly gestured for silence, then took out an Invisibility Talisman, enveloping all three of them in it.

"Hey, my body... is gone?" Elorie was utterly shocked.

Chen Xuan turned to place a hand on her shoulder, "Don’t panic, crouch down, we’re all here."

Then, he also heard the sound of tapping, like something fell from the sky.

A few figures staggered into view at the shop entrance.

Catching sight of them, Chen Xuan involuntarily gasped.

At first glance, they looked almost like ordinary people, with hands and feet, dressed in suits and ties. But their faces were insect-like, with two large compound eyes taking up almost a third of their face, and mouths akin to grasshoppers, with serrated mandibles on either side.

Their exposed hands also transformed into bug-like forms, with hooks and barbs, making for a truly unsettling appearance.

Were they mere monsters, it could be dismissed, but these figures were dressed impeccably, their clothes meticulously maintained, not at all shabby, making for a truly absurd scene.

Absurd to the point of evoking fear!