Chapter 16: 【Answer the Phone Answer the Phone Answer the Phone——】

Chapter 16: "Answer the phone, answer the phone, answer the phone—"

The aquarium is divided into three floors, with the first floor being the exhibition area where most visitors come to tour. The second floor includes staff dormitories, a cafeteria, and storage rooms.

The third floor, the smallest, mainly consists of offices for management personnel. The long-abandoned and dusty Director's office is also located on this floor.

Using the pretext of "inquiring about salary issues," Luo Shengle smoothly made her way to the third-floor finance office. Behind stacks of faded financial reports sat the financial manager, a kind elderly lady with snow-white temples and thick reading glasses.

More fortunately, this elderly woman still used traditional record-keeping methods. After Luo Shengle reported a fake name, she watched as the administrator flipped through an old telephone directory, her rough, tree-bark-like fingers scanning row by row, containing the names, positions, and contact information of all staff members.

It was as if heaven was on her side.

For Luo Shengle, who possesses wind Ability, it would be quite a waste if she couldn't sneak a peek at the desired information in front of this elderly lady with poor eyesight.

Taking advantage of the administrator bending down to search through a drawer, Luo Shengle quickly stirred up a gentle breeze, flipping through the telephone directory to find someone surnamed Jiang.

Soon, she successfully left the third floor of the aquarium with Director Jiang's contact information.

Luo Shengle's own phone could not make calls in this game world, so she found Lin Ye's phone and dialed the number with great anticipation.

Before long, the call was answered, and a young man's slightly hoarse voice came through: "Hello?"

"Mr. Jiang, regarding the whale bone aquarium under your name..."

Before she could finish, Luo Shengle only heard a series of "beeps" as the line went dead. Director Jiang had hung up so quickly, as if he were afraid of being caught by a devil.

Undeterred, Luo Shengle tried several more times, but the number seemed to have been blocked, and no further calls were answered.

Just as she was feeling disheartened and planning to find another way to track down the whale bone, a message slowly appeared on her phone screen: "Try another phone, and dial again."

"I will make sure he answers," Yi Fengchu said with calm assurance, "but I need you to do something for me."

In that instant, Luo Shengle involuntarily recalled numerous cases from the "Amusement Park" where people had made deals with unknown entities, delved too deep into their connections, and ultimately met their end without a trace.

But then Luo Shengle remembered that even in the depths of her eyes, a snake from the "Narrator" had taken up residence, and she felt fearless once more—

Not only did she not believe this mysterious being harbored any ill intent, but even if He did, she had no means to resist.

Luo Shengle felt deep down that she lacked the ability to provoke the "Narrator's" hostility.

Thus, she accepted Yi Fengchu's request without hesitation: "What do you need me to do?"

"Let him know about me."

Through each neatly written word, Luo Shengle could almost imagine His gentle, smiling yet chilling tone: ["Cognition is reversible; once he knows of me, I will also know of him."]

...

A thousand miles away, in an extravagantly luxurious villa at the foot of a mountain, Director Jiang added a phone number to his blacklist, muttering under his breath, "What bad luck..."

"I've done everything I can to avoid anything related to that place, so why do people keep disturbing me?"

"Phew," looking at the now silent phone, Director Jiang slowly exhaled and resolved, "I must stay far away, and I will not suffer the same shortened lifespan as my ancestors..."

Then, he relaxed his body, leaning back comfortably into the soft leather sofa.

But it wasn't long before his phone rang again.

Before answering, Director Jiang carefully checked the number displayed on the screen, confirming it was not the one that had brought news of the aquarium earlier, before lowering his guard.

The phone connected, and a familiar female voice transmitted through the airwaves into his ears, an ominous premonition almost making him shudder.

Director Jiang's hand trembled as he tried to hang up the call, but it was too late—on the other end, the voice rapidly recited: "Praise you, great Mr. Narrator, master of the river of fate, king of the silver-white serpents..."

"Bang!"

The mobile phone was thrown forcefully by Director Jiang towards the distance, emitting a thunderous sound.

The veins near his temples throbbed violently several times. He cursed instinctively, his tone harsh and fierce, yet deep fear and unease lurked in his eyes, his chest heaving dramatically.

He watched the phone smash against the wall at high speed, the screen shattering and scattering on the ground, no longer capable of uttering those eerie words, yet his inner turmoil remained unsettled for a long time.

"Madness..."

Maintaining the posture of throwing the phone for a while, Director Jiang panted heavily, his eyes wide open with a nervous twitch, red blood vessels slowly spreading across the whites of his eyes.

He buried his face in his palms, gradually calming down, took a deep breath, and intended to press the bell to summon the maid to clean up the mess.

As he lifted one leg, Director Jiang casually glanced at the ground, and the foot suspended in mid-air froze instantly, not daring to take another step—

Before his eyes, the marble floor, cut into uniform sizes and polished to a mirror-like finish, reflected row after row of silvery-white characters:

"Answer the call."

"Pick it up."

"Respond to it."

...

The repeated characters seemed to transform into a white spider's web, densely enveloping Director Jiang. Due to their intricate density, at first glance, they appeared as a silver tide, seemingly about to silently engulf him.

These characters were reflected on the smooth floor, in glass windows, and even in the crystal-clear wine glasses, covering all reflective surfaces, large and small, not sparing even the most delicate facets of the crystal chandelier.

Amidst this bizarre scene, the television continued to play, with the handsome men and beautiful women on screen maintaining their gentle smiles, turning their heads to speak lines of love that were distorted—“answer the phone.”

Witnessing these incomprehensible, defying common sense scenes, Director Jiang felt his blood freeze for an instant before surging thickly to his head, causing his brain to throb and his eyes to redden, while his feet remained frozen in place, icy cold.

For a moment, he wanted to scream hysterically: Get out—monsters that should not exist in this world! Leave his room...

But when his trembling lips collided, Director Jiang vaguely realized that he could only emit weak whimpers.

“There’s no escape, no escape...”

He heard himself mutter.

At this moment, Director Jiang finally acknowledged the fear rooted deep in his heart, a fear of the unknown, of mysterious and inhuman entities.

In a daze, Director Jiang even felt as if he had returned to his childhood: as a young boy, he was carried into a dim, damp room, helplessly witnessing his once strong and vigorous father age dramatically overnight—this was when he first encountered that inhuman, terrifying, and profound power.

In distant memories, his father’s eyes were pale and bulging like those of a dying fish, staring resentfully at the ceiling, his gradually cold hand gripping Director Jiang’s wrist tightly, sharp nails digging deeply into the tender skin of the child.

His father’s weathered voice, like the wind passing through rotten tree hollows, carried the scent of impending death—

“There’s no escape, son, we can’t escape…”

Even as he closed his eyes for the last time, his father kept murmuring these words.

This was Director Jiang’s greatest nightmare in life.

These mysterious entities that human strength cannot resist or even comprehend need not peel away his irritable and furious exterior to make the seed of fear in his heart take root and sprout, laying bare his helplessness.

"Mr. Jiang?... What happened? Are you alright?"

Just then, hurried footsteps approached from afar—the live-in housekeeper, who had been cooking downstairs, rushed over in alarm after hearing the commotion.

Director Jiang came to, only to realize that his shirt was already soaked with cold sweat, clinging clammy to his back, giving him a suffocating sense of restraint.

The housekeeper seemed unable to perceive the anomalies. She calmly steadied Director Jiang onto the sofa before cleaning up the shattered phone fragments scattered across the floor.

...Was it over?

Collapsing onto the sofa in exhaustion, a glimmer of hope flickered in Director Jiang's eyes. Wishful thinking alone made him instinctively recoil, utterly unwilling to answer that call inquiring about the aquarium.

Yet, as the housekeeper passed by a glass window, her reflection continued walking forward while her head slowly turned toward Director Jiang at an unnatural angle, her lips curling into a silent articulation:

—"Remember to answer the call."

Every hair on his body stood up. Scrambling frantically, Director Jiang fumbled for a backup phone, inserted his usual SIM card, and whimpered between gasps, "I will... I'll do as you say..."