"You finally answered the phone! I thought you'd disappeared. What happened? You're not hurt, are you? Is everything all right?"
After Duanmu Huai came down from the mountain, he turned on his phone and immediately received a message from Chisato. She said she had something important to discuss with him and asked him to call her back as soon as he saw it. Only then did Duanmu Huai turn on his phone and return Chisato's call. The moment it connected, he was met with a barrage of machine-gun-like questions from her.
"I'm fine. I went to Deep Mountain, and there was no signal there, so I couldn't call... If you want someone to blame, blame your terrible infrastructure."
"That has nothing to do with me! Wait!!"
Chisato suddenly stopped halfway through her sentence. Then Duanmu Huai heard a series of clanging gunshots from the other end.
"What are you doing?"
"Working! Wait a moment, I'll be done soon!!"
Along with Chisato's shouts from the other end of the phone, Duanmu Huai heard several more gunshots, followed by a man's scream. Then there was a heavy thud, as if something massive had fallen over. A few seconds later, Chisato's panting voice sounded again.
"Done. Work's over. The Scavengers can take it from here... Ah, are you still there?"
"I'm here. What did you want to discuss with me?"
"Well, it's like this..."
Over the phone, Chisato quickly explained to Duanmu Huai what had happened to her earlier.
"AAA?"
"Yes. Miss Ayano wants to meet you and discuss the situation. They seem to be investigating clues in this area too, but they haven't found anything particularly useful... Oh, right, Xiao Ai, you said you went to N County to investigate. Did you find anything interesting?"
"I did find something interesting."
Duanmu Huai