Camera 3, Hua'an Mall
In Hua'an Mall, Yunqiao City, night guard Zhou worked twelve years of night shifts. Starting from his third year, every night at 2:07 AM, Camera 3 would show a figure that shouldn't exist — standing in the vacant corridor of the mall's third floor. There is no third floor. The third floor is a lie.
File No.: GI-2026-001 Investigator: Lin Du Location: Hua'an Mall, Old City District, Yunqiao City First Recorded: July 2, 2026 Status: Under Investigation
I. Interview Transcript (Excerpt)
Interviewee: Zhou Defu, male, 64, former night-shift security guard at Hua'an Mall, retired June 2026.
Recorded: July 3, 2026, Ground Floor Security Office, Hua'an Mall. Recording No. WF-2026-001, duration 41:22.
Lin Du (hereafter "Lin"): Mr. Zhou, how many years of night shifts did you work at Hua'an Mall?
Zhou Defu (hereafter "Zhou"): (Approximately five seconds of silence) Twelve years. I started right after the Spring Festival in 2014. Worked until this June.
Lin: Before your retirement, did you report the anomalies on the surveillance cameras to your superiors?
Zhou: Yes. In 2017, 2019, and 2022 — three written reports. The first time, the security department sent someone who replaced the hard drive, saying the image was just noise. The second time, they swapped out the camera, calling it signal interference. The third time— (pause) —the technician who came that time, last name Chen, watched about fifteen minutes of the playback and said nothing. He asked for the USB drive and took it. The next day I was reassigned to the ground floor, told the third-floor equipment needed upgrading.
Lin: And the third floor was never upgraded after that.
Zhou: (voice drops) The third floor is empty. It's never been open.
Lin: It's never been open?
Zhou: The blueprints show a third floor. The mall's promotional materials list a third floor too — brand clothing section. But anyone who's been up there knows: it was never accessible. The doors were welded shut. I worked there twelve years. Never once saw a light on up there. Never saw a single item of merchandise.
Lin: The figure you saw in the monitor — was it visible when the lights were on?
Zhou: No. It lit itself up. That place, it's completely dark, everything around it is dark — but where that person stands, there's a little bit of grayish light. That light isn't from a lamp. I can't explain it. Comrade Lin, you haven't seen that kind of light.
Lin: What did the figure look like?
Zhou: (long pause) ...Couldn't see clearly. Dark-colored clothes. Short. Standing. Not moving. Later... later it would take a few steps forward, then disappear.
Lin: In which direction?
Zhou: (barely audible) Toward the camera.
II. On-Site Inspection Log
Date: July 4, 2026, 1:50–2:30 AM Location: Hua'an Mall, Basement Level 1, Security Room Personnel Present: Investigator Lin Du, Technician Zhao Ming
The security room occupies the southwest corner of the basement level, approximately twenty square meters. Six 47-inch拼接screens are arranged in a row, five currently operational. Camera 3 covers the east-side corridor of the mall's third floor — a thirty-meter passage that has been vacant for years, with no shelving, no lighting, and no fixtures of any kind.
At 02:07:00, the first frame of anomaly appeared.
A technician and the investigator witnessed the full event inside the security room: approximately two-thirds into the left side of the frame, without any warning, a human silhouette materialized. This figure did not form through the accumulation of static — it "developed" like a photograph, gradually sharpening: first the head and shoulder shadows, then the torso and limbs, over a period of eleven seconds.
Figure characteristics: approximate height 160 cm, wearing dark long-sleeved clothing (color unidentifiable), head slightly lowered, as if gazing at the ground. Hand positions indeterminate, outline blurred. No facial features discernible.
At 02:07:11, the figure began moving slowly toward the right side of the frame, at approximately 0.3 meters per second. By 02:07:19, after traveling approximately six meters, the silhouette vanished from the frame — not through a flash, glitch, or static buildup, but simply ceased to exist, as if "cropped" out of the image.
During the same period, the other five screens showed no anomalies. Ambient noise in the security room was normal. No unusual odors. Thermometer read 18°C.
Technician Zhao Ming's Note: Camera 3 records in H.264 format, 1920×1080 at 30fps. The anomalous frames exhibited no recognizable digital noise or signal interference patterns. The light source illuminating the figure could not be identified — the third-floor corridor contains no lighting fixtures, and there are no adjacent light sources on the building's south side.
III. Background Check
Hua'an Mall is located at No. 12 Heping Street, Old City District, Yunqiao City. Built in 1998, the structure comprises four above-ground floors and one basement level. The mall underwent major renovations in 2003 and was closed for approximately two years starting in 2008 due to a property rights dispute. After reopening in 2014, most areas on floors one through four gradually resumed operations — except the third floor, which has remained closed to the public.
According to records from the Yunqiao City Urban Construction Archives, the building's original design blueprints list the third floor as a clothing retail area, approximately 2,100 square meters. However, a handwritten notation appears on a 2011 completion acceptance document: "Third floor use function altered. Suspended from use pending further notice." The signature and seal on this notation are illegible; the issuing authority could not be identified.
Nearby residents and merchants consistently describe the "third floor being closed" as "just how it's always been" with no one curious about the reason.
Zhou Defu, who retired in June 2026, is currently the only known mall employee who worked in proximity to the third floor for an extended period.
IV. Items Pending Investigation
- Original document and issuing records for the 2011 "third floor function alteration" notation
- Technical reports from the 2017 and 2019 equipment replacements
- Identity of the Chen姓 technician from 2022 and the whereabouts of the USB drive
- Physical entry into the sealed third-floor area (requires property owner's authorization)
Addendum: On July 9, 2026, the investigator conducted a 24-hour continuous monitoring session on Camera 3. At 02:07:00 on that date, no figure appeared. At 15:22 the same day, Camera 3's feed independently displayed approximately four seconds of full-screen static before recovering. Physical inspection revealed no faults in the camera or wiring.
This phenomenon could not be replicated. It could not be ruled out.
Case status remains "Under Continuous Observation."
— Investigator Lin Du, July 15, 2026