On April 18, Qi Si had planned to sleep in, then lie in bed all day, preferably rotting to death beneath the covers.
But at exactly nine in the morning—not a second early or late—the phone rang with an eerie trill.
"Sunday is gloomy, My hours are slumberless..."
Black Sunday, the forbidden song rumored to carry a death curse, was a perfect match for a lifeless nonhuman creature like Qi Si.
He had added it to his music library back in middle school, when he had been avidly collecting dark and grotesque works of art. As for why he had kept using this "viral song" as his ringtone even after growing out of his edgy phase, all he could say was that it had become a habit.
In a sense, he could be called a nostalgic person. Within the territory he could control, he was deeply resistant to change, because change meant trouble.
Like a venomous snake that saw through infrared perception—if it one day discovered that a boulder had appeared in its habitat, or that a tree had vanished, it would inevitably remain restless and agitated for a long while.
The phone kept ringing tirelessly. It did not look like a wrong number.
Qi Si's drowsiness was successfully driven away. He picked up his phone and glanced at it. It was Jin Yusheng.
He answered the call, and Jin Yusheng's slightly nervous voice came through in a low murmur. "Old man, someone wants to talk to you."
Qi Si caught the unnaturalness in his tone and narrowed his eyes slightly. "Oh? Have you been taken hostage? Why not just give them my address and have them come over so we can talk face-to-face?"
"No need." The voice on the other end changed to a clear female voice, one that