Qin Manjiang did not rashly call him back. Since Li Xijiu had chosen to send a message, his current circumstances probably made a phone call inconvenient.
The only thing he could be certain of was that Li Xijiu was still alive, somewhere between ten thirty and midnight last night.
Why was this happening?
Qin Manjiang did not understand, but their earlier phone call had given him a vague inkling of something.
Time on Li Xijiu's side seemed to flow differently from time in the real world.
It was as if time in that world would not move unless the two of them made contact.
Like the cat in the box, its state would remain unknown forever without outside intervention.
That also gave Qin Manjiang more time to prepare.
The most urgent task was to find a way back to yesterday. If Li Xijiu's calls could reach him today, there had to be some hidden connection between them.
Although Qin Manjiang had yet to discover what that connection was, he was certain it existed.
And as long as he kept communicating with Li Xijiu by phone or text to verify things, sooner or later he would discover why Li Xijiu had been "trapped" in this supernatural situation.
But he could not keep doing that indefinitely. Whenever they made contact, time in the two worlds would synchronize, and the clock on the other side would start ticking. The fire had broken out at midnight. In other words, Li Xijiu had only an hour and a half to live, from ten thirty to midnight.
A blaze... fire.
Using "36 South Sky Road" and "Threshold Cinema" as keywords, along with "fire" and "blaze," he soon brought up some search results on his phone.
Most were reports from last night.
But after reading through them carefully, Qin Manjiang's gaze froze for a moment.
The Threshold Cinema at 36 South Sky Road, Fu City, had been built fifteen years ago. Cinemas generally had elaborate interiors, complicated electrical wiring, and plenty of combustible and flammable materials. Once a fire broke out, it could spread and grow extremely easily.
There had already been a fire ten years ago, and ever since then, strange phenomena had frequently occurred in the rebuilt cinema.
For instance, the restroom mirrors had been covered in densely packed black handprints, and figures had suddenly appeared during screenings in supposedly empty corner seats near the front. There were even more bizarre rumors of people seeing strange characters in some films shown at the cinema-characters who did not belong in the original movies.
All kinds of rumors had run rampant, causing attendance to plummet.
Only recently had the combination of the latest horror films and a cinema with its own urban legends begun to pique people's interest instead.
The cinema had actually started drawing crowds again.
That was probably why Li Xijiu had gone there, too. He was interested in everything except studying.
The same fire, the same location... Even someone with Li Xijiu's brains would not believe it was a coincidence.
So, was someone who had died ten years ago responsible for this supernatural phenomenon...?
After searching online for a while, Qin Manjiang found nothing. He could not even find out how many people had died ten years ago, or whether they had been male or female.
The information seemed to have been deliberately suppressed.
That made it even stranger. There was no reason to be so secretive about an ordinary fire.
Glancing at the news on the television, Qin Manjiang quietly made his preparations. The fire had long since been extinguished, and the firefighters were doing everything they could to search for survivors.
He probably would not have a chance to get inside during the day. For now, his plan was to wait until night, sneak into the fire scene, and then contact Li Xijiu.
Their phones had connected them across time. Reaching the same location would connect them across space.
Qin Manjiang took a deep breath and gathered a hammer, a wrench, a high-powered flashlight, pepper spray, a cross, garlic, a Guanyin pendant, a jade Buddha... Things for dealing with people, things for dealing with ghosts, Eastern things, Western things. He was not expecting to cover every possibility, but he would bring a little of everything. What if something worked?
After all, ever since he had received Li Xijiu's call, things had happened that nothing he had learned in the past twenty years could explain.
He looked up at his face in the mirror. His features were distinct and well defined, and he wore silver half-rim glasses. His eyes were particularly long and narrow, and his hair had grown a little long, too.
As Li Xijiu put it, Qin Manjiang's face and name made him a born fit for those cultured scumbags in films and TV shows who started off gentle and refined, then turned into major villains.
He was not exceptionally handsome, and his expression was fairly mild, but he always gave people the feeling that he was sharpening a knife behind their backs.
He pinched himself. It hurt. This was not a dream.
Qin Manjiang was not gentle and refined, nor did he want to be a cultured scumbag.
He just wanted to live a steady, grounded life.
As for work, he picked up his phone and called the boss at the part-time job he was supposed to go to today, made up an excuse, and apologized. At least he had a little of the responsibility expected of an adult.
As for his studies, he would let them slide for now. He had already taken so much leave anyway.
What worried him most was his younger sister, Qin Manyi. The hospital had scheduled a treatment for her tonight, and he had planned to stay by her side overnight. What if this treatment woke her up?
But now that this had happened to Li Xijiu, nothing could go according to plan.
He would have to ask someone else to look after his sister tonight.
"Hello?"
The class representative was having breakfast in the school cafeteria when she received a call from an unfamiliar number.
"It's Qin Manjiang."
There was a rare note of hesitation in Qin Manjiang's voice.
"Oh, it's you! Are you coming back to class, Classmate Qin?" The class representative sounded happy for him.
"Uh, soon." Qin Manjiang skipped past the subject. "Could you do me a favor?"
The class representative set down the bun she had taken a small bite from and held her phone in both hands, nodding instinctively. "Sure. Go ahead."
"..."
"Mm... mm-hmm... okay, I understand."
"Thank you." Qin Manjiang breathed a sigh of relief and said solemnly, "I'll repay you."
"No, no, we're classmates. I just hope you can come back to cla-"
"Beep, beep, beep..."
He had hung up.
The class representative stared blankly at her phone. Facing the teasing looks of her roommates across the table, she grew a little embarrassed. "Why... why are you all looking at me...?"
"It was him again, wasn't it? That gloomy guy with glasses who skips class all the time. I bet he's about to get expelled. Xiaoru, you can't go falling for him!"
"Exactly, exactly..."
"What are you talking about? I... he..."
Never good with words, she was so flustered that she could not get a sentence out for ages, and her face went red.
Classmate Qin only asked me to look after his sick sister tonight. He keeps missing school because he has a heavier burden at home and needs to shoulder that responsibility. It's not that he doesn't want to better himself...
"I'm not talking to you anymore..."
August 12, nine in the evening.
With a backpack on his back, Qin Manjiang hailed a taxi.
"36 South Sky Road."
After giving the address, he noticed that the car had not moved.
Qin Manjiang looked at the driver. "What's wrong?"
"You want to go to 36 South Sky Road? There was a fire there just last night. Are you a reporter?" the driver asked.
Qin Manjiang smiled and nodded. "More or less. Will you take me? If not, I'll get another cab."
"Sure, of course. It's just that most people wouldn't go out of their way to take a cab to a fire scene this late at night. I was curious, that's all." The driver offered a brief explanation as the car pulled away.
Seemingly unbothered, Qin Manjiang asked casually, "By the way, wasn't there another fire at that cinema before?"
"Ah... yes, yes, there was. Quite a few years ago now. That was a big fire, too, but it mostly turned out to be a close call. All the adults got out. Only one child died."
A child?
Qin Manjiang's heart lurched. He had found nothing online, yet a casual question in a taxi had actually turned up something.
"Come to think of it, that kid brought it on themselves. Didn't know any better and went running around. Apparently they got trapped somewhere cramped and burned alive."
As the driver spoke, Qin Manjiang instinctively looked toward him, only to catch sight of the Safe Journey Pendant hanging below the rearview mirror out of the corner of his eye. Inscribed with "Safe travels," it had begun to spin.
If the car's movement had caused it, it would never have spun this fast. There was no breeze inside, yet it whirled round and round, as though something were flicking it.
An inexplicable chill came over Qin Manjiang, but the driver remained oblivious, still talking nonstop about his views on the fire all those years ago:
"I heard later that the kid was hiding in the restroom, and the door was broken and wouldn't open. Who can you blame for that?"
"What the hell is with this weather... why's it so chilly...?" the driver muttered.
Of course it's chilly. The Safe Journey Pendant beside you is practically spinning fast enough to take off...
Qin Manjiang edged closer to the car door. If things went wrong, he would rather jump out.
He had never encountered anything like this before, but ever since that call, he seemed to have been dragged into some vast, unfathomable, unknown horror.
Yet Qin Manjiang also understood very clearly that if he and Li Xijiu had stumbled into this amid a sea of people, there had to be a reason.
Perhaps... he could even find answers to his father's death and his sister's madness in all this.
The driver seemed uncomfortable as well and finally stopped talking.
They sped along. South Sky Road was not remote; in fact, it was fairly close to the city center. Yet for some reason, there were fewer and fewer cars tonight, the road seemed narrower, and even the streetlights looked dimmer.
Half an hour later.
"We're here. There's a police cordon up ahead, so I can't get through. You'll have to walk over yourself."
The driver's voice broke the silence.
Qin Manjiang paid and got out.
The driver stepped on the gas and hurried away, seemingly convinced the place was bad luck.
Qin Manjiang turned toward the Threshold Cinema, now reduced to ruins. The firefighters had left for the time being, and the entire site had been cordoned off.
Qin Manjiang took out his phone. Li Xijiu had only an hour and a half, and every moment used was a moment lost. He had to race against the clock to gather information.
But before he could send a message, another call from Li Xijiu happened to come through.
"What happened? Are you okay?"
Qin Manjiang asked in a low voice.
Li Xijiu sounded deeply uneasy. "Qin... there's a maniac... a maniac's trying to kill me! I'm hiding in the restroom, and... the other people in the cinema are acting kind of strange, too. I..."
Qin Manjiang did not wait for him to finish. His scalp prickled.
The taxi driver's words surfaced in his mind:
"I heard later that the kid was hiding in the restroom, and the door was broken and wouldn't open. Who can you blame for that...?"
"Get out of the restroom! Now!"
As he spoke, Qin Manjiang crossed the police cordon and hurried toward where the restroom stood in the ruins of the Threshold Cinema.
"But... I can't get out."
Li Xijiu sounded pitiful.
"The restroom door seems to be... broken?"
(End of chapter)
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