Chapter 43 "Which One?" (4)

  After inquiring about the location of the basement entrance, I thanked the middle-aged woman and headed towards the basement. This basement had storage rooms for upstairs residents on both sides, but since some people had already moved out, some of the storage room doors were wide open, with nothing visible inside due to the darkness.

  I walked forward with bated breath, and easily found the underground storage room that the middle-aged woman had mentioned. The door was closed, I hesitated for a moment, then raised my hand to knock on it. The sound of my hand hitting the iron door reverberated in the underground room, making me involuntarily stand up straight, as if someone was watching me from the darkness.

  Just then, the creaking door opened and a person appeared before me. In the dim light, I saw that it was an ordinary old man with a face full of wrinkles, each one as deep as if carved by a knife. He didn't even glance at me, but instead tilted his head and asked, "The usual rules, did you bring the thing?"

  I was startled: judging from the tone of this conversation, it seemed as if this old man was doing some shady deal with someone, and if it had something to do with drug trafficking or something like that, I would be in big trouble if I got involved.

  The old man originally had an attitude of loving to reason with me, but when he heard me mention this person's name, he grabbed my hand in a hurry and said: "You've finally come, I've been waiting for you for over ten years, come in quickly, I'll give you the thing." As he spoke, he pulled me inside, his strength was so great that it didn't seem like he was an old man at all.

  The old man's voice was full of excitement, but I knew he must have mistaken me for someone else. I hastily opened my mouth to explain, but the old man didn't care what I was saying. One hand grasped mine tightly, as if afraid I would escape from here, while the other felt around in a corner of the room for something. My hand really hurt, so I begged for mercy: "Old sir, please loosen your grip first, I won't leave, just turn on the light."

  The old man, however, refused to let go of my hand, and continued to rummage for something in the corner, saying: "I've been blind for so many years, what's the point of lighting a lamp?"

  I was startled, it seemed that he had been looking away from me with a tilted head not because of his cold attitude, but because his eyes were inconvenient. In just a short while, the old man had already taken out what he wanted to find from the corner and stuffed it into my hands. I took it over, it was a thick stack of paper, on which who-knows-what was written.

  I didn't have time to look, and there was no light in the house so I couldn't see anything anyway. But the old man just said he had hidden this thing for over a decade, it seems these things are very important to him. Although I'm very curious and want to know what's on them that's worth an old man collecting for over a decade, I don't want to take these papers because he mistook me for someone else. So I said again: "Old sir, you really got the wrong person, this is my first time coming here too, I'm looking for someone named Dong Agen."

  The old man still grasped my hand and said: "I am Dong Agen, I won't make a mistake. These things are all for you, you are the second one!"

  The old man's words shocked me, I didn't expect him to be the person I was looking for. Looking at the paper he stuffed into my hand, although I didn't understand what he meant by saying I was "the second one", a strong urge rose from the bottom of my heart to see what was written on these papers.

  Dong Agen seemed to know what I was thinking, and after fumbling around on the table for a moment, he lit a candle and said, "It's the same as before, take a look first." Just as the candle was lit, I felt like there was a shadowy figure flashing in the room, as if someone had rushed out. My first reaction was that there was a thief hiding in the house, so I quickly followed him out. I saw a person standing in front of me, and he also turned around to look at me. I almost bumped into his body, and just as I was about to ask him something, he suddenly raised his hand and put it to his mouth, making a "shh" sound. Then, with a mysterious expression, he said, "The ninth floor isn't finished yet, don't go up there, it's very dangerous."

  In an instant, I felt all the hairs on my body stand up. This sentence I had once seen in a letter was what that migrant worker said to Old Chu. I involuntarily took a step back, and now I could see even more clearly that he was indeed dressed in the attire of a migrant worker.

  As I watched him, that person softly said: "There are still many things that haven't been put away properly, I have to go work." After finishing speaking, he turned around and walked out.

  I watched him turn around, just about to open my mouth to ask him a few questions, when suddenly a hand stretched out from behind and tightly grasped my arm, hurting me so much that I let out a loud cry. It must have been Dong Agen, there shouldn't be anyone else here besides him. Turning around, it was indeed him.

  I struggled to pull my arm away, and while struggling, I said: "Old man, your grip is really strong." But Dong Agen didn't intend to let go, his face almost pressed against mine, with a tense expression all over his face, asking: "What did you see? What did you just see?"

  I hastened to extricate myself from his grasp, and hastily told him what I had seen, saying: "I saw a man running out of your room, and thinking it was a thief, I gave chase."

  Dong Agen's voice trembled this time as he said: "Where is it? Where is it?"

  I pointed with my hand and said, "He was just here, he shouldn't have left the basement so quickly." As I spoke, I turned my head to look around, only to find that the worker in front of me had vanished.

  I was startled, this is the innermost place in the basement, at least 50 meters away from the exit. In just a few seconds, that worker absolutely couldn't have run to the exit. I hastily asked Dong Agen: "Old man, where did this person go? He hid in your room and you didn't even notice?"

  Dong Agen shook his head, but his face was full of excitement. "I didn't hear anything," he said, "but he really came back."

  I didn't quite catch what Dong Agen said next, but in that instant my whole body felt like it had fallen into an icy cave, colder than ice. Because just then, I suddenly discovered a problem: when the migrant worker ran away, I hadn't heard even the slightest sound of footsteps.

  Dong Agen didn't notice my terror, and just kept talking to himself, repeating the same sentence "He's back", I looked at where the migrant worker disappeared and asked cautiously: "Who is he?"

  Dong Agen stood still, staring in the direction of the basement exit, his eyes unable to see anything, but I could feel that he was intently watching that place, as if wanting to see the disappeared migrant worker. It wasn't until I asked for the third time that he came back to himself and said: "He is my son."

  At that moment, I saw sadness, fear and excitement on the old man's face. I had never known that so many seemingly contradictory expressions could appear on one person's face at the same time. But since this person was Dong Agen's son, it was likely related to his family affairs. As an outsider, I didn't dare ask any questions, so I hid those doubts in my heart.

  Dong Agen pulled me into the storage room, where candles were already lit. He had me sit in a chair and put that thick stack of paper in my hands, saying: "He didn't cheat me, it's true after all."

  I didn't know whether Dong Agen said "he" or "she", nor did I understand what he meant by saying this at that time. Since I couldn't figure it out, I decided not to think about it for the time being. As I took over those papers and leaned in close to the candlelight to take a closer look, Dong Agen suddenly tilted his head to listen, saying: "Wait a minute before looking, someone is coming." After finishing speaking, he blew out the candle with one mouthful, and the storage room immediately fell into darkness.

  My heart grew even more tense, this was just like the underground activities of a black society in a movie. Just then, footsteps came from outside the door, stopped at the entrance, and a young woman's voice sounded from outside: "Daxian, I'm ready."

  I almost burst out laughing, I thought it was a gangster doing some shady deal, but what I heard instead was something about "great immortals", however, immediately after that I thought to myself if this Dong Agen is involved in some sort of cult activity, if so, then perfect, watch me expose his true nature this time, the hero saving the beauty kind of thing, I've been waiting for a long time already.

  Dong Agen murmured "hmm" and said in a strange tone, "If you want to know what others don't know, you must use something that others can't know to exchange."

  I was stunned for a moment, Dong Agen's words sounded a bit awkward, but after careful consideration, they made sense. It seemed that someone of his status shouldn't be able to say such things. The young voice at the door said "yes" and then added: "I've brought the thing."

  Dong Agen said: "Put it at the door, you also know the consequences of pretending to be fake, say, what do you want to know?"

  The woman's voice became even more respectful, saying: "I want to ask you to tell my husband for me, please don't come looking for me again. I'm really scared, it's all because I've wronged him. As long as he doesn't come looking for me, I'll burn a lot of paper money for him, please!"

  The young woman's words shocked me, and my eyes involuntarily turned to Dong Agen. At the same time, I quickly recalled what the taxi driver had said to me: "If you're not afraid, you can find someone here", "He can talk to the dead". Dong Agen was the terrifying medium the driver had mentioned!

  The driver didn't tell me the name of that spiritual master, just said this person was very famous. Under normal circumstances, it's rare for someone to work in the same profession as a already very famous colleague unless you have extraordinary abilities. The young woman outside the door asked Dong Agen to do what is usually done by spiritual masters, so I analyzed that Dong Agen was the spiritual master mentioned by the driver, and I had great confidence that I wouldn't guess wrong.

  I first became curious about Dong Agen, in the driver's words, Dong Agen was a very scary person, and listening to the woman's voice outside the door just now, she also seemed to be both respectful and fearful of Dong Agen, but I didn't think he had anything that would make people feel scared, unless there was something inside that I didn't know about.

  I hid in the darkness, watching Dong Agen's performance with great interest. Dong Agen didn't speak again, and if I couldn't still hear his faint breathing, I would have thought that there was only me in this room. As I waited impatiently, I suddenly felt that there was another person in the room.

  "Yes, it's a very strange feeling. Although the room was dark and I couldn't see anything, I truly felt that there was an extra person in the room. I quickly turned around, but behind me was still just darkness. Just then, Dong Agen let out a cough, which startled me, but the feeling of there being an extra person in the room instantly disappeared. However, another strange thought arose in my mind. In that instant, I felt as though I had sensed the person who had vanished, and could even feel her turning around to glance at me. It was a woman wearing a red dress."