"Clink, clank."
As the key keeper Alette hurried along, the keys at his waist kept knocking together.
For some reason, he suddenly turned around, but there was no one in the corridor. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, turned back, and continued forward as if he were making his usual rounds.
Three or five minutes later, his phone rang.
A phone was not particularly useful to deaf-mute people, since the person on the other end could not see their sign language. Still, they could communicate through text messages, and when people came to ask him questions, he sometimes typed out replies on his phone.
Yet Alette pressed the answer button.
"Hello," Alette said.
"Are you alone?" the man on the other end asked.
"I think so," Alette said.
"How do you know 'they' have arrived?" the man asked.
"There are no reporters." Alette wiped the sweat from his face. "If important people were coming here to do 'charity,' there would definitely be media coverage. And it would be during the day."
"What are they doing?" the man asked.
"I don't know. It seems like they're looking for something." Alette covered his face.
"You think they're looking for that thing?"
"I'm not sure." Alette spoke in terror. "What should I do?"
"Don't make them suspicious," the man said. "Did you do anything stupid?"
"I don't think so," Alette said.
"Keep it that way," the man said. "Notify me immediately if anything goes wrong."
With that, the man hung up, leaving a busy signal beeping in the receiver.
Alette put the phone back into his pocket.
There was a feeling called kinship. Even if people had never spoken or met before, they could feel instantly familiar with one another, as if they had endless things to talk about.
There was another