BXBX NOVEL Volume 3 Chapter 2
Volume 3 Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Yu Yin couldn’t take his mind off the phone number on the piece of paper.
After saying goodbye to Yu Tong at home, Yu Yin checked the clock. There were around two or more hours until his afternoon cla.s.s started. He still had enough time in between to eat lunch and take a nap.
The entire house was empty. Yu had run over to hole up in the library, and it looked like his uncle had probably gone to work too. n.o.body was around.
Before Yu came, the home was often like this. Yu Yin suddenly thought back to those times.
After gathering his materials for the afternoon cla.s.s, he walked into the kitchen to throw some things into the microwave for lunch.
He minded the phone number a lot because the feeling the deceased had given him that night was just too different from what happened afterwards. If even him, a mere pa.s.serby with no relation to the person, felt it was strange, the person’s family and friends obviously would too.
Should I call those people or not?
Yu Yin instinctively felt that whatever they were plotting wasn’t anything good.
Should I go take a look?
“Ugh, since when have I become someone that’s always meddling in other people’s business?” Yu Yin senselessly mocked himself and quickly dispelled the thought of connecting with them.
He wasn’t someone that liked to abuse himself all the time after all.
As the timer ended, the microwave let out a ding. Yu Yin walked over to pour the hot lunch into a bowl and carried it out to the living room. He turned on the television.
The television was still reporting the news regarding the armed confrontation.
That’s right, the armed confrontation seems to have happened in the same district as the suicide. But I guess because many people jump off buildings nowadays, the news hasn’t appeared on television. At most, it will probably just show up in the corner of some newspaper.
After jumping through several channels, his cellphone that he had randomly tossed aside earlier began to ring. Yu Yin quickly eyed the phone number displayed. He did not recognise any part of the number; it was probably from some scamming group.
“Sorry, I’m eating lunch right now, so wait until I’m done.” He stirred his noodles with absolutely no intention of picking up the phone.
After a moment of ringing, the phone naturally went silent by itself. A few seconds later came the sound of a new message.
They change to SMS nowadays if the call doesn’t go through?
Yu Yin held the chopsticks in his mouth as he picked up his cellphone and flipped it open. After pressing a few b.u.t.tons, he found the text.
The strange thing was that there was no signature in the message, nor the phone number it came from. There were only a few simple and clear-cut words:
“Help me look for my possession.”
“Who sends this kind of senseless thing?” Yu Yin furrowed his brows and flipped his phone shut before tossing it to the side and continuing to eat his noodles while watching the news.
Really, who sent that text?
And why don’t I have their phone number?
Yu Yin didn’t think too much about it and simply shrugged to himself as he refocused on the television.
Less than a minute pa.s.sed before he received another text on his phone. When Yu Yin checked, it was the same exact message.
And just as before, there wasn’t a source phone number.
Within the next five minutes, he received four more texts with identical content.
At first, Yu Yin a.s.sumed it was some kind of prank and didn’t pay any mind to it, simply waiting for the other person to stop of their own accord once they had fooled around enough. But after the message came ten times in a row, he couldn’t a.s.sume it was a mere prank anymore.
Yu Yin tossed his chopsticks and looked over the ten texts with an inexplicable feeling. He was somewhat suspicious, but he also found it extremely bizarre.
He had never seen a text without a source phone number before, so he had no idea if he could even reply.
Curious, he used the phone’s in-built functions to call the other party. Strangely enough, it actually connected, and the number that appeared on the screen was the same as the one that he had first received a call from.
All he could hear was the standard dialing tone. It rang for a while, but n.o.body picked up. Like that, the line automatically cut.
Absolutely baffled, Yu Yin stared at his phone for a moment. Refusing to give up, he tried to call again, and once more came the dialing tone. While he waited, he also grabbed a piece of paper to write down the phone number.
Just like earlier, n.o.body picked up.
“What are they trying to pull? Looking for someone yet not picking up.” Yu Yin stared at the signal that had been cut off a second time before looking back at the paper. This time, he actually punched in the phone number.
Bizarrely enough, the dialing tone could not be heard this time. The line instead relayed that the phone was currently unable to connect.
Yu Yin began to feel something was off. He didn’t know whose number this was, but it was possible that the owner just happened to be busy and had shut off their phone...
He swallowed hard, then opened the text message and called through there again.
This time, the dialing tone returned.
Yu Yin froze in shock. He didn’t know what this meant, but his instinct and the feeling of chills going down his spine made him think it was best to immediately hang up.
Just as he was about to do so, a sound came from the other end. It had unexpectedly connected.
There were no sounds from the receiving end for a long time.
Seeing that the phone had connected and was already counting the seconds lapsed, Yu Yin didn’t know what to say either.
The receiver end was quiet, with noises that sounded like the empty wind in the background. After a few minutes pa.s.sed, he heard something. It was a man’s voice. “May, may I ask who is calling?” The other person’s voice had a slight tremble, as if he was afraid of something.
“Who are you...why do you keep calling me?” As soon as Yu Yin heard the human voice, he relaxed slightly and hurriedly began to question the other person.
“You...why would you call this number?” The other voice was still shaky, but didn’t respond; instead, it followed up with another question.
“Wait a minute, you’re the one who called first!” What even...you clearly were the one that sent a bunch of texts first, yet you’re asking me this? Do people pulling pranks now all have mental issues?
Wait a minute, why does this person’s voice sound familiar? I feel like I’ve heard it from somewhere before?
“I, I didn’t call this number.” The other person also seemed puzzled.
“I received a lot of texts from this number. When I called back, it went to this phone number. If you’re not the one who sent the texts, then who did?”
“I’m the one that wants to ask you that! The cellphone suddenly began ringing by itself...you, exactly how did you call in?” The other person began to sound panicked, and their voice began to tremble again.
That’s right, he had definitely heard this voice before.
Yu Yin immediately linked it with a certain person working at the same place his dad and uncle did. “...May I ask where you are calling from?”
“This is where the investigation team is.”
This time, the other person answered confidently.
***
“There’s a ghost! A ghost!”
After Yu Tong arrived at his workplace and started preparing some materials around noon, he heard a bunch of people running down the corridor.
“What’s wrong?” He opened the gla.s.s window on the side and looked outside. The people running were part of the investigation team that had arrived earlier. He grabbed onto one of the people that was currently retreating and asked, “Did something happen inside?”
His colleague stared at him with a panic-stricken expression of disbelief, and he stammered with wide eyes, “That...that cellphone from the suicide case two days ago...that cellphone...”
“What’s wrong with the cellphone?” Yu Tong jumped out of the gla.s.s window. It was rare to see his colleagues this panicked.
Everyone in the investigation office had run out. He could only see one person remaining inside, trembling as they held onto the cellphone that had already been sealed in a bag.
“It’s ringing!”
“It’s ringing?” Yu Tong furrowed his brows suspiciously. “Wasn’t the deceased’s phone completely smashed? Even the battery had been sent flying. Did you guys overwork too much and just imagine it?”
“It really rang! It rang several times!” The person that had been caught said in fear, “When it rang the first time, we thought we had misheard, but then it continued to ring!”
It didn’t seem like he was lying. Yu Tong let go of him and just as he was about to walk inside, the person that had picked up the phone slammed it down onto the table with an expression as if he had seen a ghost, and hurriedly fled. He acted as if he was being chased after by some kind of phantom. “Jiu Shen, how is the cellphone?”
Yu Tong immediately grabbed onto his fleeing colleague and questioned him.
Because of the uproar in the office, a bunch of people from various groups had begun to gather around and watch.
“It, it asked me who I was!” The person told him, half scared to death, then immediately broke free and fled far away.
Yu Tong looked around at his frightened coworkers and, under everyone’s gazes, entered the office. A bunch of items that had been undergoing inspection had been tossed carelessly on the table, which showed just how frightened they had been.
The cellphone was splayed onto the table, since the bag it had been earlier hadn’t been sealed.
Yu Tong picked up the phone. The display was black, and there were no signs of any phone number calling in.
“Tong, hurry up and get out of there!” The coworker named Jiu Shen shouted at him from afar.
“Wait, I don’t think there are any issues.” Yu Tong examined the cellphone, not thinking that it would ring anymore. He placed it back into its bag on the table. Just then, the cellphone in his own pocket unexpectedly rang.
He looked at it; the phone number on the screen wasn’t one he recognised. It wasn’t from someone at the station, and definitely not someone from his family.
“h.e.l.lo? This is Yu Tong. May I ask who is calling?” He quickly picked up the call without any hesitation. Foreign numbers would sometimes be from people that had found clues or were supplying information, so he couldn’t accidentally miss it.
The other end did not reply. All he heard was the sound of empty wind.
After waiting for a long while without hearing any other noises, Yu Tong hung up with a frown.
Only a few seconds had pa.s.sed before his cellphone received a text.
Yu Tong flipped open his phone and saw just a short message on it: “Help me look for my possession.”
The strange part was, there was no phone number connected to the message, so he had absolutely no idea who sent it. “Hm...does the texting system have issues?”
Just as he was about to try dialing back, he heard a series of loud bangs from outside. “What are you all doing standing out here?! Does the office have rats or contain some kind of virus? Did the results for the item I just sent in come out yet?”
Charging over like a storm of fire and wind came someone with a face identical to Yu Tong’s. As soon as he appeared, the unsettled personnel all settled down. “Tong, what are you doing in there?” Because the gla.s.s door couldn’t be kicked, Yu Xia actually pushed the door open with his hand, a rare sight.
“No particular reason. A minor issue happened to come up just now, so I came to take a look.” Yu Tong answered his twin brother with a smile as he put his phone away. “What did you come here to get?”
“Oh, I brought something over this morning to run a comparison...it’s from the armed confrontation matter. I figured it was about time for the results to come out, so I made the trip to come check,” Yu Xia hurriedly responded in his usual busy manner.
“Jiu Shen, come in and help look then.” Yu Tong waved at the worker and with his usual smile, said, “There’s nothing in here anymore, so you can be at ease and come back in.”
The workers all exchanged glances with each other, and after a while of hesitation, gathered the courage to walk back in.
The entire office was filled with a somewhat awkward atmosphere. However, after Yu Xia charged in, it evidently improved by a decent amount. Jiu Shen, who was responsible for examining Yu Xia’s item, quickly pulled up the case from his computer and pa.s.sed over the corresponding doc.u.ments. “It’s all here, completed.” As he said this, he pa.s.sed the files over to Yu Xia while shooting a frightened glance at the phone still on the table.
“Thanks!” Yu Xia grabbed the doc.u.ments and lifted his foot, prepared to run out.
“Xia, wait.” Yu Tong chased after him outside the office and pushed up his gla.s.ses that nearly fell off. “The family members refuse to close the Yong Hao suicide case. Could you help me ask the responsible group to pa.s.s full authority over the case to me?” He was still brooding over the matter with the mother.
Yu Xia gave him an odd look. “Tong, you’re part of the administrative group. This isn’t within your responsibilities.” Although he didn’t know why the sudden request, he clearly expressed disapproval.
“I know that. But the family member gives off a strange feeling. I want to take charge of this matter to deal with the follow-up. Obviously, I’ll apply for it from the higher-ups too.” Yu Tong knew that doing this wasn’t good, but this was his decision after contemplating for the entire morning. “Could I trouble you to talk with the group responsible? Otherwise, suddenly applying for it without warning wouldn’t end well either.”
Yu Xia was silent for a long while before he finally nodded. “OK, I’ll let them know on their end. If you want to take charge, then go for it. It’s just a suicide case anyways, so they’ll probably let you get away with it.” Of course, there was no way they could do something like this with a major case.
“Thanks,” Yu Tong smiled.
“No need. I’ll go continue my work then.” Yu Xia walked away in a rush with the doc.u.ments in hand, quickly disappearing around the corner.
Yu Tong stared off at the corridor that had begun to clear back up and let out a sigh.
It had been a long time since he had fought over a case, probably since he had transferred into the administrative group...
Just as he began to relax, his cellphone rang again. But this time, the phone number displayed was one that he couldn’t be more familiar with. Without even thinking about it, Yu Tong immediately answered.
“Ah Yin, is something the matter?”
***
After ending that strange phone call, Yu Yin gave up on going to his afternoon cla.s.s.
“h.e.l.lo, Xiao Zhong? This is Yu Yin. I have something this afternoon so I can’t go to cla.s.s, help me find a random person to jot down my name on the attendance list.” Yu Yin stood in front of a building while making a call to one of his closer friends in the cla.s.s. He checked his watch; it was nearly time for the afternoon cla.s.s to start. “I’ll treat you to a drink next time, please do me this favor. I have something important I need to deal with. Alright then, bye.”
After hanging up, he looked over at the police officers walking in and out of the building. Some of them he actually was acquainted with, and they exchanged greetings.
In reality, he should’ve been able to enter directly as well. However, the guard at the entrance today had somehow changed, and refused to let him in unless a police officer they recognised came over. Not wanting to bother anyone else, Yu Yin could only give a call to Yu Tong, who was currently likely to be in the office, to come down and let him in.
A few minutes later, he soon saw that frustrating baby face call out and hurriedly run over.
He’s clearly my old man, yet how come every time we go out, we’re a.s.sumed to be brothers? And I’m always the one that’s supposedly the older one?
“Ah Yin, don’t you have cla.s.s this afternoon?” The first thing that came out of the mouth of the 38-year old that looked more like an 18-year old with his d.a.m.ned baby face was this suspicious question. “You skipped cla.s.s for no reason again! Have you not been listening the last few times I told you not to skip cla.s.ses as you please?” Yu Tong accused his son with a frown.
“When I’m standing next to you, you’re the one that looks more likely to skip cla.s.s,” Yu Yin immediately shot back with absolutely no intention of respecting his elder.
He wondered if people would start calling him the father once he hit the age of thirty, and then point at his father as the son.
Yu Tong reached out to pinch his son’s cheeks and pulled them outwards. “Did you come all the way out here after skipping cla.s.ses just to talk nonsense?”
“Ow-ow-ow-ow-owwww...don’t learn from Uncle’s tendency to use violence—” Yu Yin forced the hands away and backpedaled. “I have a serious matter!” He rubbed his sore cheeks as he took a few more steps backwards.
“What kind of serious matter?” Yu Tong narrowed his eyes, his tone suspicious.
“Someone from your group randomly called to hara.s.s me just now.”
“n.o.body would be that bored, you must be mistaken.” Yu Tong instantly shot him down. He then retrieved two bottles of fruit juice from the nearby vending machine.
“I’m not mistaken. I asked where the other person was, and they actually answered they were from the investigation group...plus the voice sounded like Jiu Shen-gē’s.” Yu Yin naturally remembered a few people’s voices after floating around them for so long, especially this worker that he was extremely familiar with. “But I don’t think Jiu Shen-gē is the type to spam others with texts...plus, I have Jiu Shen-gē’s phone number. Why would he use another phone to call?”
“Texts?” Yu Tong noticed something odd. “What kind of texts did Jiu Shen send to you?”
Yu Yin took out his cellphone to open up the texts page and pa.s.sed it over to Yu Tong.
Yu Tong was stunned by the words he saw on the screen. “I doubt...these were sent by Jiu Shen.” He took out his own cellphone to open his texts and pa.s.sed it to his son while saying, “When I received an identical text, Jiu Shen had run out of the office without holding anything. I don’t think he could have sent these things to us.”
When Yu Yin glanced at the words on Yu Tong’s phone screen, he felt his back grow cold.
“That’s right, I heard that the reason they ran out was because something supernatural occurred in the office. As a result, everyone ran away.” Yu Tong recalled the reason he had entered the office. He swapped their phones back. “That cellphone from the suicide case was completely smashed after falling from the top of the building; even it’s battery was destroyed. But the office workers all heard the phone ring, and it seems Jiu Shen even got it connected.”
“Connected?” Yu Yin thought of the person he had communicated with earlier, and was also astonished. “Wait, did he say through the phone that he was from the investigation group?!”
“Apparently so, it seems.”
Then, the father-son pair simultaneously fell silent.
“Dad...I dialed from the text earlier...it can’t be that I called that cellphone, right...” Although Yu Yin very much wanted to hear a rejection, he was absolutely certain where the call had connected to. As he doubtfully asked this question, he could feel gooseb.u.mps form on his skin.
“Mm, I think it probably did connect to there.” However, Yu Tong just couldn’t figure out how the call could’ve connected to a completely destroyed cellphone.
“Can I go take a look at that cellphone?” Too careless. Yu Yin felt that he had been overly careless. It was his mistake; he shouldn’t have bothered to dial back through that number.
“Let’s go.” Yu Tong seemingly had been thinking of the same thing. He led the way past the guard and entered the elevator to go up to the office.
As the elevator was going up, Yu Yin spoke first. “Dad, by suicide case, do you by any chance mean the one from this morning?”
“That’s the one; student Chen Yong Hao’s case still hasn’t been closed.” Yu Tong nodded, walking out first as soon as the elevator doors opened. “The cellphone is his. Because the case was about to be closed, we were planning on delivering it back to his family.”
They walked in single file down the corridor and quickly arrived outside the office.
Since the supernatural disturbance had temporarily stopped, everyone had returned and gone back to work. It was just that the cellphone that was technically evidence had been placed in the farthest corner possible by someone and had even been placed under some random scripture books. It was clear to see just how badly the phone had affected everyone.
“Jiu Shen, could I ask you to come out for a moment?” Yu Tong said as he gestured at his colleague who was repeatedly glancing in the direction of the cellphone still.
Jiu Shen, who was currently inspecting some materials, turned around and put down his things. He quickly walked over. “Ah Yin, don’t you have cla.s.s today?”
“Nope, I skipped,” Yu Yin responded with a smile, completely ignoring his dad’s criticizing gaze.
“Jiu Shen, could you tell Ah Yin about the cellphone matter just now?” The three of them left the office and headed towards a small resting area.
Jiu Shen shivered. “It was really terrifying...”
“After connecting, did someone ask you why you kept sending texts?” Without the patience for idle chatter, Yu Yin cut straight to the point. “And in the end, asked you where you were?”
“Huh? How did you know?!” Jiu Shen staggered backwards and stared at him in extreme shock. “Don’t tell me you also got that call... no, you couldn’t have touched that cellphone so how could you have picked it up...wait, Ah Yin, why does your voice sound like the one from the phone earlier?”
He had been too scared to notice earlier; now that he had calmed down and thought about it, he came to this realisation.
“You’re mistaken.” Yu Yin shot his dad a glance, choosing to give a white lie. The matter was already weird enough; he had no desire to make it any more complicated.
Jiu Shen looked at the father and son in suspicion, feeling that something was fishy. “Do you two know something?”
Their att.i.tudes were just too odd. Putting Tong aside, the fact that Ah Yin had specially run over here was already an issue.
“Mm...nothing at the moment.” Yu Tong maintained his usual smile and replied, “Because the family of the deceased doesn’t want to close the suicide case, I’ll pa.s.s a report over later and ask the higher-ups to take this case. Jiu Shen, could you help me gather all the materials so that I can look them over?”
Yu Yin stared at his dad in surprise. From what he could remember, it had been ages since his dad had accepted a case.
Jiu Shen was staring at Yu Tong with the same expression. “Eh, understood. Once you get permission, you can come get the materials from me.” Actually, going over to take a look wasn’t typically a problem either, but it was still better to complete the formal procedures first.
“I’ll trust you to carry out that request then.” Yu Tong flashed the other person a large smile.
“Oh....o-okay. I’ll go back now and get it ready.” Jiu Shen looked somewhat stunned. He hurriedly stood up and ran back to the office.
Yu Yin coldly glanced at his dad, who despite being middle-aged, was still pretending to be naive and innocent. He rolled his eyes and said, “That’s swindling.” Or more accurately, cheating a good and honest coworker.
“As long as they don’t see it that way then it’s fine.” Yu Tong stood up and smiled. “You wait here a moment, I’m going to get permission for the transfer.” As he had already asked Xia, the other party had probably received the message already.
“Alright.”
***
He was the only one left in the small resting area.
Yu Yin watched the people busily rushing around outside the gla.s.s door, and he suddenly felt that skipping cla.s.s was truly a rare moment of leisure.
As he flipped through some of the books that had been placed on the nearby shelf, he began to grow nervous.
He thought of those people that had pa.s.sed him their phone number. The texts had already dragged him into the suicide case...did that mean he should also give a call and see what those people were up to?
“I really hope they don’t carelessly do something stupid...”
Yu Yin took out the piece of paper with the phone number and dialed the person from earlier that morning.
The line connected within a few seconds. “May I ask who is calling?”
Oh good, at least it sounds like they have some manners. Yu Yin put the paper away as he thought this. “I’m the person that went to light incense this morning. You gave me your number, remember?”
“Oh, have you already decided to join?” The person’s tone changed slightly.
“Mm, could you tell me exactly what you guys plan on doing?” Yu Yin looked out at the people walking around outside the gla.s.s door, making sure n.o.body came in.
“Come over here tomorrow at midnight, and we’ll tell you what our plans are.” The other person was clearly very cautious to not reveal anything. “My name is Chu Jin He, what’s yours?”
“Yu Yin. See you tomorrow night then.”
“Alright, good-bye.”
The conversation hadn’t lasted even five minutes by the time the other person hung up.
Yu Yin stared at his phone for a while before shifting his gaze. Then, he froze.
There was someone crouched outside the small area’s gla.s.s door, staring in at him. The person’s face was practically plastered onto the gla.s.s, with their eyes and such squished upwards. The face was deathly white and scarily transparent to the point where he could see the nerves and arteries underneath the skin.
He subconsciously stood up from his chair and took a step back.
The person was still looking at him from outside.
The eyeb.a.l.l.s stuck against the gla.s.s were bloodshot, and he could practically count all the veins.
He had a feeling that he had seen this person before.
Yu Yin forcefully turned his head. By the time he looked back, that thing behind the gla.s.s door had disappeared. In its place was Yu Tong, pushing the door open to walk in. “Ah Yin, what are you standing back there for?” His son had already retreated to the furthest side of the small area, hugging the wall.
“Eh, just pretend that I was doing some stretching exercises.” Yu Yin let out his bated breath and walked over to the table.
“Did you see something unclean in the station?” Yu Tong furrowed his brows as he hit the nail on the head.
“It wasn’t that bad...” It wasn’t exactly unclean; if anything, the most ‘unclean’ thing he had seen was probably back during the leopard cat incident.
Yu Tong gave him an odd look. He then pulled something out from the gathered materials he was carrying and placed it on the table. “Take a look at this. It’s the cellphone from Yong Hao’s suicide case.” He had circled back around to the office earlier to grab it. Everyone had looked at him with an expression of reverence, as if taking the phone was equivalent to being cursed to death.
When Yu Yin saw the phone, he finally understood why Jiu Shen had been so frightened.
If a phone this destroyed—with no battery, a shattered screen, and even missing b.u.t.tons—could connect, it really was haunted.
Moreover, the one that had made the call...had apparently been himself.
“Also, this is the phone’s number.” Yu Tong opened the report and pointed at the number there.
Yu Yin could only stare blankly at the number in shock.
That was the number that had appeared on his phone screen before the flurry of texts.
Yu Tong took out his own phone and pulled up his call history log. The number that he had received earlier without any response from the other end was identical.
“Do you think this seems like a prank?”