Chapter 367 - Phone Call

“Aixen? What kind of name is that?”

Chen Chen did not directly lower his guard. The girl in front of him was so friendly to him, which made Chen Chen feel like she was planning to rape him or rob him or something. He tentatively asked, “What are you doing at the police station?”

“I’m giving my statement just like you guys.”

The girl spread her hands innocently. “Several people in our class are missing and the whole class has to give a statement to assist in the investigation!”

Hearing this, Chen Chen’s expression slightly relaxed and he nodded. “In that case, you can go back now. It’s late at night and it’s not good for a girl to stay outside.”

“Oh…”

Upon hearing these words, the girl immediately nodded obediently. “Then I’ll head back to the dormitory, bye-bye…”

With that, she waved to Chen Chen, then turned and left.

Chen Chen was taken aback when he saw that the girl was so well-behaved and obedient. He felt that he had misjudged her.

As he watched her leave step by step, after thinking about it, Chen Chen simply shouted at her back, “Oh right, if you can, I hope you can leave school as soon as possible. It’s best if you can ask Tutor Wang for a long leave tomorrow.”

“Ask for leave?”

The girl turned her head and asked curiously, “Why must I leave the school?”

“Because if you wait too long, you might never be able to leave.”

Chen Chen smiled and just dropped such a sentence. Then he stopped paying any attention to her.

At this point, if the girl still did not want to leave, it had nothing to do with Chen Chen. As the saying went — good advice meant nothing to stubborn ears. Chen Chen could not always devote his time and narrate the whole story from beginning to end, right?

Now that there was still insufficient evidence, even if he explained everything, the only result was that he would be seen as an idiot.

All this flashed through Chen Chen’s mind. At this time, Chen Chen walked into the duty room again and began to prepare instant noodles for himself and Li Bo.

Making instant noodles could be said to be the traditional art form practiced by the loser gang of Mainland China. One could be clueless about eating steak with a knife and fork or driving a Ferrari with one hand, but making instant noodles was an inevitable skill, one that they were all familiar with.

Chen Chen, being a veteran loser himself, was so used to this that when he used the plastic fork to fix the lid in place, he could insert it through the lid and the cup accurately on the first attempt, without making mistakes.

Moreover, for times when he could not even afford a cup, Chen Chen had also invented the skill of cooking instant noodles from a packet using the lid of a thermos.

After preparing the two cups of instant noodles with great ease, Chen Chen placed one of the cups in front of Li Bo. At this time, Li Bo’s expression was still a bit slack. It was obvious that Wang Wei’s death in the afternoon was too tragic and caused him a terrible fright.

Seeing this scene, Chen Chen suddenly realized that compared to ordinary people like Li Bo, his mentality seemed too calm.

There was no doubt that Chen Chen had encountered those supernatural beings two or three times, but he not only analyzed various clues but also calmly planned a countermeasure to stop the curse, even if this countermeasure was at the cost of hundreds of deaths.

This calmness could even be said to be a cold-blooded mentality, which had surpassed the mentality that ordinary people should have. Even Chen Chen himself could not understand why he still had such clear and meticulous thinking. He was unlike a person who had been targeted by Kayako, someone destined to die…

‘Perhaps this is due to the supernatural power of the USB flash drive?’

Chen Chen stared at the instant noodles in front of him and thought inwardly, ‘The USB drive not only gave me the rules about the USB drive, but it also gave me a calmness beyond that of ordinary people?’

Even so, in the next second, Chen Chen overruled this possibility himself. After all, he did not feel that he was being manipulated at all. On the contrary, this calmness was more like the result of long-term training — a habit or instinct born out of a special experience.

However, as to what that experience was, he had forgotten…

Chen Chen’s movements froze as fragmented images flashed in his mind again. Among those images, there were scenes of himself in control of a company, scenes of himself absorbing some kind of crystal shards, and scenes of himself floating within a glass cabin of a tall, high-tech building…

However, when Chen Chen wanted to step forward and grab those fragmentary memories, they seemed to disappear without a trace like fallen meteors.

A trick of his mind or was there something wrong with his memory?

Chen Chen took a deep breath. He was starting to get dizzy, so he stopped thinking about it, and started to chow down the noodles after they were cooked.

Seeing Chen Chen’s behavior, Li Bo seemed to have finally recovered. He asked in a low voice, “Lil Chen, didn’t you just say that we’re likely to die like Brother Wei? Why is that?”

“I said in the afternoon that Zhou Jie had unleashed four horror movies at that time, do you remember?”

After Li Bo nodded, Chen Chen continued. “And before Brother Wei died, didn’t he also say that the situation when he received a strange ringtone was like the movie called One Missed Call? And what I want to tell you now is that the manner in which he died was also similar to this movie!”

“…”

Li Bo fell silent after hearing the words and it took a long time before he could say in a soft voice, “Lil Chen, I understand what you mean. You’re saying that Zhou Jie has released the ghosts in the four movies and we’re the targets of these ghosts now?”

“You can say that.”

Chen Chen sighed. “But I still think that there are no ghosts in this world. We’re just implicated in various rules that can kill people. As long as we find a way to find the loopholes in the rule, we can make it out alive!”

After listening to Chen Chen’s words, Li Bo nodded steadily as if his hope for life was rekindled. He also picked up the instant noodles and began to eat ravenously.

Both of their actions caused the assistant police officer at the front desk to watch with mouth agape.

In this manner, an entire night had quickly passed by.

Fortunately, perhaps the police station did have some mysterious power or because Kayako had an entire dormitory building’s worth of targets to hunt down, ultimately, Chen Chen and Li Bo managed to survive the first night without Kayako trying to claim their lives.

However, this was also normal. After all, people who had entered Kayako’s house in the movie did not always die at once. Some of them died one day after leaving Kayako’s house, some died two days later, and the longest time span was six or seven days later.

In other words, during these six or seven days, Kayako might appear at any time and kill Chen Chen and Li Bo.

It could also be known from the movie that there was no distance limit for the curse’s pursuit. Even if they fled to the other side of the earth or even to the moon or Mars, it would not help.

Chen Chen sat up from the seat in the police duty room and looked at the clock on the wall. It was already seven in the morning, so Chen Chen woke Li Bo up, and the two took a taxi back to the school.

It might appear that Chen Chen was going back to school to attend classes, but in fact, it was just to check the situation on campus.

However, as soon as he returned to the campus, Chen Chen distinctly sensed a peculiar atmosphere. The campus that was once so quiet now had a few police cars parked next to building No. 1. In addition to the police, there was also a group of school leaders surrounding the place, causing the students passing by to look back frequently.

“What happened?”

Li Bo saw the situation at the school and turned to look at Chen Chen. “Is this also caused by those ghosts?”

“How would I know.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “But you just have to remember, don’t step into dormitory building No. 1. Now this dormitory building has become the source of the curse. Even the police officers who entered are dead meat…”

“…”

Li Bo fell silent immediately.

After having breakfast in the cafeteria, Chen Chen and Li Bo walked into the classroom according to the schedule. However, when he first entered the classroom, he saw a group of students in his class discussing something in full swing.

“Did you know? Something happened to Wang Wei in our class!”

“I know. Wang Wei died of epilepsy yesterday. It’s really terrible…”

“Not just that, but Zhou Jie and those in our class have also disappeared, and they haven’t been found yet!”

Chen Chen sat beside the crowd and listened silently. As expected, soon enough he heard about last night’s news. Zheng Jie, the monitor of Chen Chen’s class, also turned his head and said to the group next to Chen Chen, “Not only that, but when I was downstairs just now, there were police cars all around along with the tutors from the department next door. So I went to an acquaintance from the department next door and asked, and guess what I found out?”

The people near Chen Chen stopped talking and looked at the class monitor Zheng Jie solemnly.

“Just last night, two more students disappeared, and both of them lived in Dorm 304!”

“Why is it Dorm 304?”

Chen Chen frowned at once. “Is it related to Dorm 404?”

“Of course!”

Zheng Jie put on a mysterious expression. “I heard that acquaintance said that in the middle of the night, the people in Dorm 304 heard people crying for help from upstairs!”

Chen Chen’s expression sharpened upon hearing these words.

“Cries for help — is that real? Chen Chen and Li Bo weren’t in their dorm last night?” The classmate beside Chen Chen turned to him with a suspicious look.

“Because the police asked a lot of questions last night, Li Bo and I didn’t go back to the dormitory all night and we just spent the night at the police station.”

Chen Chen nodded. “My phone is broken, but the tutor did call Li Bo, and he can also prove that I’ve been in the police station the whole time.”

Seeing this, Zheng Jie hurriedly said, “You see, I told you, didn’t I? At that time, there was no one in Dorm 404, but the four people in Dorm 304 heard the cries for help from Dorm 404, and it sounded like Zhou Jie’s voice…

“So two of them went to check on Dorm 404 themselves, but after they went, they didn’t come back even until dawn.”

Zheng Jie looked at everyone’s faces one by one as if he wanted to see a trace of fear, but to his disappointment, everyone looked at him calmly, not at all frightened by the story.

“So, the two people in Dorm 304 called the police, thus resulting in the scene downstairs that we saw.”

Seeing this, Zheng Jie stopped trying to build suspense and finished his story lamely.

“So, did the police find anything?”

Chen Chen seemed to have thought of something and he asked again.

“Only the slippers of the two people from Dorm 304. However, apart from their slippers, the two of them seemed to have evaporated into thin air. There was nothing left.”

There was a glint of worry in Zheng Jie’s eyes and he spread his hands. “This whole incident is strange. Five people disappeared yesterday and two people disappeared just when today began. Heaven knows where those people went…”

When everyone was talking about this, the lecturer who was in charge of the class finally walked in. Everyone stopped talking and started to pay attention to class.

“Alright, settle down now, students. Let’s continue our previous lesson…”

As the lecturer started to teach, Chen Chen suddenly turned his head and looked around the classroom.

Nonetheless, after looking around, he did not see the petite figure.

“Did she ask for leave?”

Chen Chen shook his head. He did not expect that she would obey his request and asked for leave so promptly. He was a little dumbfounded at the level of trust she had in him.

Just then, a familiar cell phone ringtone came from in front of Chen Chen.

After hearing this ringtone, Chen Chen, who had been extremely composed, suddenly shuddered.

Chen Chen was no stranger to this sound. When he watched the movie One Missed Call, he had memorized this ringtone…

The class was going on now. It was very rude to have a mobile phone ringing in class. Generally, students would turn it off quickly, but this ringtone kept ringing for a long time without anyone addressing it.

The teacher who was giving the lecture finally could not stand it. She was originally writing something on the blackboard but now she turned around and said, “Whosever phone it is, turn it off, thank you!”

Suddenly, everyone looked at the monitor Zheng Jie.

“It’s not mine. This isn’t my ringtone…”

Class monitor Zheng Jie subconsciously picked up his mobile phone placed on the table, but he was taken aback at once. He did not expect that it was his mobile phone that was ringing.

“D*mn it, why is it this again…”

Zheng Jie cursed in a low voice. It was not the first time he had heard this ringtone. Still, after hearing this, Chen Chen abruptly raised his head and took a deep long look at the embarrassed Zheng Jie.

According to the rules of One Missed Call, there would occasionally be two or even multiple calls. The first call was always the moment the curse took root and the second call was often when one’s time was up…

Sure enough, Zheng Jie had just grumbled in a whisper, but by the time he raised his head, he suddenly let out a scream as if he saw a person standing in front of him that no one could see!

In the next second, Zheng Jie twitched and stood up while pulling on the desk in front of him with both hands. The books of the students beside him were sent crashing to the ground by his actions while Zheng Jie continued to open his mouth wide in agony, staggering and walking step by step toward the window of the classroom.

“Student, what are you doing?”

Seeing that this student was so insolent, the lecturer suddenly became stern. “Stop right there at once!”

However, at this time, Zheng Jie was destined to not listen to her words. In front of the whole class, Zheng Jie tipped over three desks and came to the window!

Although the teaching building was not very high, it had eight or nine floors. At this point, their classroom was on the seventh floor and Zheng Jie was sobbing as he kept looking back at everyone.

“Zheng Jie, what are you doing?”

Many people immediately realized something and they subconsciously wanted to rush forward, but before they could do so, Zheng Jie shrieked and jumped out of the window!

“Crash!”

“Ahhh!”

A violent collective scream erupted from the whole class and the face of the teacher who was giving the lecture changed drastically. She wanted to stop Zheng Jie, but it was a pity that all this happened too quickly, and there was almost no warning. When she came to her senses, Zheng Jie had already leaped out of the window…

Listening to the screams rising one after another in the class, Chen Chen’s expression was extremely somber. In his perspective, Zheng Jie did not jump down voluntarily but was controlled by an invisible and intangible force before getting thrown out of the building.

Whether it was Zheng Jie’s behavior before his death or his expression that was desperate for help, all this told Chen Chen one thing.

Zheng Jie was killed by One Missed Call…