Episode 2 Chapter 016: Horrifying Phone Call
I don’t know how the cloth shoes got on the curtains, and I have no idea why there were cloth shoes in my room.
As there was no answer to the question, the matter was left unresolved. Naturally, the cloth shoes were taken away by my mother. As it was still early, I went back to bed and slept for a while. Then the alarm clock rang and I got up because I didn't get enough sleep, but I still went to work reluctantly.
I was just feeling sleepy the whole morning and kept dozing off. Later, when I felt extremely sleepy, I suddenly received a call. It was a completely unfamiliar number. I hesitated and finally picked up the phone. But there was no sound from the other end of the line. I called several times but there was no response. I was about to hang up when I suddenly heard bursts of crying from the other end, and it sounded louder and louder. It turned out to be a man crying.
I felt a little confused. What did it mean for a grown man to sob on the other end of the phone? Soon, I heard him start to speak amid the sobs, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. The language sounded strange and he spoke very quickly, so I hung up the phone.
But after a few minutes, the phone rang again. I saw that it was still the same number and was originally planning not to answer it. But after thinking about it, I picked it up patiently. After I picked it up, I said hello. This time there was no silence or other sounds on the other end of the phone, but a completely different voice. The person on the other end said he was Shi Hu and this was his number. I was just about to ask him what happened just now, but he asked me on the phone what happened just now. He could hear me talking, but it seemed like I couldn't hear him talking.
I didn't react at the time and was about to ask him what the crying sound on the phone was, but before I could open my mouth, Shi Hu's voice suddenly changed back to the kind of words I couldn't understand just now. I was completely confused, so I asked him what the hell was going on and why he kept saying things I couldn't understand.
After about ten seconds, Shi Hu's voice came back from the other end. He asked why I suddenly stopped talking and there was no sound at all. I was about to say something when I realized something was wrong. So the words on my throat turned into another sentence. I said to Shi Hu, "There's something wrong with my phone. I seem to hear someone else's voice."
Shi Hu was stunned for a moment on the other end of the phone, and then he told me that he was coming to my workplace to see me, and asked me not to go anywhere, and that he would discuss what he wanted to talk to me about in person. Shi Hu must have had something else to talk to me about, so I said okay, and then hung up the phone.
After that, I went to the bathroom to rinse my face. Because I didn’t bring my cell phone, when I came back, I found another missed call on my phone. At first I thought it was Shi Hu calling again, but I soon felt something was wrong. Why did this number look so familiar? So I looked at the number and couldn’t help but feel a chill all over my body. This number was mine!
I was stunned for a moment holding the phone. I couldn't figure out how I could call myself. So I pressed the number and dialed it. As expected, the prompt tone on the other end of the phone said that the number I dialed was busy, which was exactly what I knew. What was a bit unbelievable was that when I dialed my own number, it was always busy, and there was no missed call display.
By this time I was a little restless, and I felt an inexplicable strange feeling slowly spreading around me and surrounding me. In order to relax myself, I kept drinking water. Fortunately, I was at work at the time and there were other colleagues around me, so even if I was scared, it was not that severe.
More than an hour later, Shi Hu arrived at the unit, but he did not come in. Instead, he asked me to go outside. He said that it would be too conspicuous for him to come in like this. In fact, I have never been clear about what identity Shi Hu had in contact with me. When I saw him, I asked him . He said that the matter had to be kept confidential for the time being. If I really couldn't figure it out, I would just think of it as him making friends with me privately.
I thought to myself that making friends in private is not so mysterious. Shi Hu asked me if I was free now. He wanted to know something from me. I didn't have anything to do, so he told me that we could talk while walking. Shi Hu came to me because of Old Man Liu. I knew that the Public Security Bureau had not lifted the ban on me, which meant that Old Man Liu's matter was not over yet.
He first told me that Old Man Liu’s ashes were stolen. After hearing this, I thought he was talking about this specifically, so I asked him if he thought I did it. Shi Hu shook his head and said that that was not what he meant, he just wanted me to know. So I asked why he stole his ashes and it was not taboo.
Shi Hu didn't say anything, probably he was still investigating. Then he asked me, as a confirmation again, whether Old Man Liu and I really didn't know each other or I didn't tell the truth. I solemnly told Shi Hu that I really didn't know him. I felt that if I didn't deny it categorically, this question and doubt would never end. After listening to him, Shi Hu was silent for a while, and asked me if I knew about Old Man Liu. I said how could I know about him if I didn't even know him.
Then I found out that Shi Hu came to me just for this matter. Before he told me this, he warned me that what I was about to hear might be difficult to understand and might seem incredible, but asked me not to question it. I nodded, thinking to myself what was so weird? Besides, weirder things had already happened to me. Could there be anything weirder than these?
Shi Hu said that Old Man Liu had "died" once three years ago. I dared not breathe as I listened to Shi Hu. Shi Hu said that Old Man Liu died inexplicably a year ago, and his family held a funeral for him. On the day of cremation, his wife, daughter and son-in-law took the funeral home's car to take him to the funeral home, but what was shocking and unexpected was that when they arrived at the funeral home, the driver opened the door, only to find that his whole family was lying in a mess in the car. The driver didn't know what had happened at the time and thought they had fallen asleep, so he went up to call them, but he didn't know that they couldn't wake up even after pushing them, and when he touched their noses, he found that they were all dead.
The driver was so scared that he called the police on the spot. After the forensic examination, it was found that Old Liu's family died of suffocation due to inhaling toxic gas. The statement at the time was that they might be in a closed space with the corpse, and Old Liu's body emitted the toxic gas.
This explanation is far-fetched, but there is no other reasonable explanation. Moreover, the driver was in the cab at the time, and he said that there was no sound. People will struggle violently before they die, but if there was such a struggle, he would not have been able to not hear it.
This kind of thing definitely couldn't be known to the public, so the funeral home and the Communist Party blocked the news. What was even more bizarre was that when the bodies of Old Man Liu's family were sent to the funeral home and were about to be refrigerated, Old Man Liu actually came back alive.
This incident scared people very much. Everyone thought he had faked his death. However, after carefully questioning Old Man Liu, they found that he was indeed alive and not faked his death. The doctor also examined him and said that his vital signs were normal, but he was a little weak because he had not eaten for a long time. When Old Man Liu learned that all his family members had died suddenly, he burst into tears. The police had no choice but to send him back to his residence, which is the place I often pass by on my way to and from get off work.
I found it unbelievable and it sounded like a fairy tale. I asked what happened afterwards. Shi Hu said that Old Man Liu's family could not find out the cause of death. After obtaining Old Man Liu's consent, they cremated all the bodies and took the ashes back with him.
I said, I didn’t expect that the living ones all died in the end, but the dead ones came back to life, and became the loneliest person. So I said to Shi Hu, old man Liu was able to come back to life, his life couldn’t have been saved by his whole family, otherwise how could he have died...
Shi Hu said he was not clear about this matter and didn't dare to say anything. After he finished speaking, he continued. He said that they had been to Old Man Liu's residence and did not find any urns for his family members. Moreover, the funeral home and other did not have any information that Old Man Liu had buried these people. I didn't know why Shi Hu was concerned about this. I said maybe he buried him somewhere else, or disposed of him in another way.
Shi Hu said maybe, and then he asked me that he had checked my files and information and said that I bought the house three years ago. I said yes, why did he care about this? Then Shi Hu said that Old Man Liu’s daughter also bought a house in our community three years ago, but they encountered an accident before they had time to move in, and then the house became Old Man Liu’s.
As for the room in his house, it is 721.
