Chapter Ten She answered the phone

  The little snake's name is Yu Hua Long, his parents who hadn't studied for many days hoped their son would become a dragon, so they gave him this name. "Obviously it's just a snake but wants to become a dragon? From now on I'll call you Little Snake." The first time he met Yu Hua Long, Fat Chen used his own stout body as a shield and gave him the nickname, not caring whether he liked it or not, and gradually this nickname replaced Yu Hua Long's real name. Now, almost everyone in the factory calls him Little Snake instead of addressing him by his true name.

  Hong Jun lived in the factory dormitory, because he was a fellow countryman with the boss and also served as the workshop team leader, his dormitory conditions were relatively good, only 500 meters away from the factory, 60 square meters, two bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen and one bathroom. Including Hong Jun, there were four people living in the dormitory, which was much better than the ordinary workers who crowded into a dormitory with dozens of people. Among the four people, Hong Jun was the team leader of the brick-making workshop, Xu Ming was his deputy, Fat Chen was the deputy director of the marketing department, and Xiao She was an electrician for maintenance. In daily life, the relationship between the four people was extremely good, except that Xu Ming often went out because he had a wife, the remaining three people were typical otaku, especially Xiao She, who was also from the same county as Hong Jun, just over 20 years old, very honest and quiet, usually after work, they almost never left the dormitory, and there was no overnight absence. Unexpectedly, tonight he was not in the dormitory. If it were normal, the three people would have discovered that he was not there long ago, but today's strange events made everyone confused, until now the danger had passed, their minds returned to normal, only then did they discover the abnormality around them.

  "I haven't seen him, he's gone after work," said Fat Chen.

  "I didn't hear that he was going out, when I got off work, I called you to go eat and asked him, he said he was going back to surf the internet and read e-books." Xu Ming said to Hong Jun, earning a punch from Fat Chen, "You little brat went out to eat without calling me?" Then immediately laughed again, "Luckily didn't call me, otherwise would have also run into that female ghost."

  "Give Little Snake a call and see where he's gone, maybe he's had an adventure." Xu Ming looked at Hong Jun with a sly smile. But Hong Jun let out a bitter laugh, an adventure? He knew almost nothing about Rui Xin now, she was a heavenly beauty, how could she suddenly be willing to associate with him? He didn't have any attractive qualities from head to toe. Hong Jun always felt that something was fishy.

  But even if it's really a female ghost, with such beauty, he'd be willing to risk his life. Beauty is more important than life, Hong Jun told himself.

  "Can't get through." Fat Chen put down his phone and said, "Not in service area."

  "Not in the service area?" Hong Jun asked back, Little Snake was using a mobile number, and now the mobile signal in this city has achieved full coverage, how could there still be a blind spot? Did he go to another city? This possibility is not great. In the more than a year since Little Snake came to the factory, his farthest trip out was just to the municipal park, which was only 20 miles away from the factory. Apart from this, in Hong Jun's impression, Little Snake seemed to have never left this small town. He was a straight-up fighting machine among otaku.

  "I'll try calling him." Hong Jun held onto a glimmer of hope, took out his phone and dialed the stored number of Xiao Hua. Maybe Fat Chen's phone was malfunctioning or something. Hong Jun thought to himself.

  Unexpectedly, after two rings on the phone, it went through. This made Fat Chen so surprised that his chin almost dropped to the ground.

  "Hello?" A gentle woman's voice came from the other end of the phone, and Hong Jun's heart skipped a beat. It had only been an hour since they parted ways, but he immediately recognized who it was.

  "How could it be you?" Hong Jun looked at his phone and saw that he had indeed dialed Xiao She's number.

  "You called me on my phone, shouldn't I be the one answering?" The person on the other end of the line chuckled and said, "What's up, something going on?"

  That's right, it was indeed Rui Xin. Hong Jun was a bit suspicious of his ears and reached out to touch them, as if there was no problem.

  "No, no, I was just asking, have you returned to your dorm?" Hong Jun said after a pause.

  "You're back early, just finished bathing and getting ready for bed. By the way, what did that old monk want with you tonight? I didn't think the situation looked good at the time, and I didn't have a chance to ask you what happened, did something bad happen?"

  "Alright, let's talk about this later when we meet in person. It's not clear over the phone with just a few words. It's already late at night, you should hurry up and go to sleep." After some small talk, Hong Jun said goodbye to the other party.

  "It's Rui Xin." Hong Jun said, looking at the puzzled Pang Chen and Xu Ming.

  "Rui Xin? Have you gone mad? How did you end up hitting her?" Fat Chen said.

  Hong Jun took a closer look at his phone and then took over Fat Chen's phone to take a look: "No, I dialed Little Snake's mobile number."

  "You must be mesmerized by her beauty, let me try calling." Fat Chen took over Hong Jun's phone and seriously dialed Xiao She's phone number.

  "Sorry, the number you dialed is out of service area." Fat Chen threw his mobile phone to Hong Jun, "See, I told you it was wrong, out of service area."

  Hong Jun carefully looked at his phone and found that the number dialed by Fat Chen was the same as the one he had dialed, which was indeed Xiao She's number. Why did his call go to Rui Xin when he dialed it, but Fat Chen's call showed "out of service area"? He dialed the number again.

  "How come you're still not asleep? I've already lain down." Hong Jun was 100% sure that the voice coming from the other end of the phone was Rui Xin.

  After exchanging a few pleasantries, they hung up the phone. Hong Jun looked at his two friends in confusion. Fat Chen took Hong Jun's mobile phone again, checked the call log, and dialed again. Still out of service area. This time, he and Xu Ming were also stunned.

  The phone number they dialed was undoubtedly Xiao He's, but Chen Duan couldn't get through. Hong Jun did get through, and the person who answered the call was actually Rui Xin. Moreover, in Hong Jun's mobile phone contacts, Rui Xin and Xiao He's phone numbers were the same.

  "Could it be that Ruixin and Xiaoshe have a leg up on each other? Now Xiaoshe is at Ruixin's place?" Fat Chen scratched his head and said.

  "Slap." Xu Ming gave Fat Chen a hard slap on the back of his head, "What nonsense are you talking about? When did you ever hear Little Snake say he knew Rui Xin? Besides, even if Rui Xin and Little Snake were related, would Rui Xin need to leave Little Snake's phone number for Jun Ge? And why couldn't you get through while Jun Ge could?" As he spoke, his voice weakened, could it be that Rui Xin and Little Snake really... He didn't dare think about it.

  The three of them fell silent, and in the aroma of instant noodles, Hong Jun decided to verify again, not to find Xiao She, but to see if Rui Xin and Xiao She had any relationship. If he didn't clarify this matter, his heart would never be at peace.

  He dialed Xiaoshe's phone number again, and as expected, it was still Ruixin's voice. In front of his two friends, he stuttered and asked Ruixin if she knew Xiaoshe, his heart racing with anxiety, fearing that Ruixin would say, "I know him, he's my boyfriend."

  Fortunately, Rui Xin did not respond that way. Her response was concise and made Hong Jun feel extremely happy, and the doubts that had been stuck in his head instantly disappeared: "She has been using this number for over a year. Who is the little snake you're talking about? I don't know."

  "Isn't it a mobile phone call transfer?" Lin Jie didn't know when he had already cooked the instant noodles, and gave three people a big bowl without serving. She interjected, having caught on.

  "No, Rui Xin used this number, Xiao She also used this number, it won't be a call transfer."

  "Was it a mistake by the mobile company? They mixed up two numbers?" Fat Chen himself shut his mouth, this suspicion, even he felt was not convincing.

  "Knock knock." A knocking sound was heard.

  Hong Jun's dormitory building was built in the 1980s, a typical wooden building with five floors and four units. The whole building has forty rooms, where more than three hundred employees of the factory live. Hong Jun lived on the fifth floor of the west unit. Across from them used to be the boss's nephew, but he had taken half a year off due to family matters and gone back northeast.

  "Is someone knocking on the door? It's already past one in the morning, who could it be? The four of them held their breath, but didn't hear any more sounds. After about two minutes, Xu Ming couldn't bear it anymore and shouted towards the door: "Who is it?"

  There was no response, as if the knocking sound had never occurred. Chen became frightened: "Didn't Master Release Emptiness say we would be safe for three months? How could it find us in less than an hour?"

  "What kind of brain is this? If that female ghost came to the door, would she still be so polite and knock on the door? Besides, can a door stop a ghost?" Lin Jie mocked as he walked forward and opened the door, causing the three men hiding behind him to turn bright red.

  Outside the door, there was no one, except for a few late-sleeping flies still buzzing their wings. Outside the door, there was nothing else alive. A false alarm. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, and at this moment, Lin Jie, who was about to close the door, suddenly bent down and picked up something from the ground.

  It's a piece of paper with only one big black word: Must.

  Hong Jun held it in his hand, a ordinary A4 printed paper cut into a palm-sized white paper. On the surface of the paper, a large "must" character almost filled the entire page, with strong black and white contrast, making Hong Jun feel a bit dazzling. His heart skipped a beat as he thought of that small coffin, the word written in congealed blood was also "must".

  "There's no one outside, just this note," Lin Jie said.

  "What does it mean?" Lin Jie didn't know the origin of this word and was deep in thought.

  "What does it mean? Maybe some kid just threw away a piece of trash paper?" Fat Chen threw out his own "insight" again, and the back of his head was slapped by Xu Ming: "I'm really worried about your IQ, we're on the top floor, and there's no one living opposite us. Let's not talk about whether someone would throw away trash paper in the middle of the night, even if they did, it's just us few people on the top floor, who would be bored enough to come up here to throw something? You don't think it was blown up by the wind, do you? Is there such a strong wind in the stairwell? Besides, this character, I saw it yesterday afternoon when I and Jun Ge first saw that small coffin. Can't be a coincidence, right?"

  "Brother, my brain isn't very useful, don't mind me," said Fat Chen with a smile. "Brother, where do you think this note came from? What does the writing on it mean?" "Uh..." Xu Ming was momentarily stunned, he looked at Hong Jun for help, but Hong Jun shook his head, equally perplexed.