It was past two in the morning, in the east-side bedroom wing.
The landline in Hashimoto Maya's room suddenly rang.
Hashimoto Maya: "...?"
He stared at the unfamiliar phone number on the landline for two seconds. Instead of answering, he first took out his cell phone and checked it.
Seeing that his phone had power and signal, Hashimoto Maya immediately understood: based on experience, though he had no idea what was happening, answering this call would probably mark the beginning of some incident.
...Come to think of it, shouldn't calls like this go to Jiang Xia? Why were they calling an innocent detective assistant like him?!
Hashimoto Maya rolled over and pulled the blanket over his ears, hoping to muddle through it.
However, the caller had no intention of stopping. The ring tone continued, each peal sounding like a death knell.
Hashimoto Maya gradually understood: perhaps someone needed an alibi, but found provoking Jiang Xia too difficult, so they had settled for the next best thing and called to harass a detective assistant instead.
Usually, only Mrs. Suho lived in this mansion. She was old and hard of hearing, so all the landlines here had their ring tones turned up loud.
After stalling for a while, Hashimoto Maya could no longer keep pretending. He cursed that bully who picked on the weak in his heart, then irritably grabbed the landline receiver.
"Cackle, cackle, cackle—"
A sharp laugh came from the receiver, like fingernails scraping a blackboard, carrying an ominous chill that made one's skin crawl.
It was clearly not a pleasant sound. Hashimoto Maya clenched his fists, faint killing intent drifting off him, but he still maintained the patience expected of a good person and politely asked, "Who is this?"
"I am the Messenger of the Cursed Mask." The Voice