Everyone kept their eyes fixed on Yang Jian.
When they saw him make the call and heard a phone ringing somewhere in the school, they found it strange. Before they could ask anything, however, they saw him hastily hang up, looking utterly terrified.
"Yang Jian, wh-what happened?"
Seeing Yang Jian so frightened, Zhang Wei began trembling all over as well. "Don't scare me like this. We're all counting on you. Seeing you like this makes me feel completely hopeless. Please, just smile, okay? Give us that knowing grin you have when you're watching porn, so I can have a little confidence."
Yang Jian's calmness, and the fact that he had led everyone out of the Ghost Domain, had given them hope of surviving.
But the expression on his face now instantly sent everyone into a panic.
Yang Jian's expression kept changing, his face exceptionally grim. Before he could say anything, Zhou Zheng's satellite positioning phone in his hand suddenly received a call, ringing with a beeping tone.
He glanced at it, and his pupils abruptly contracted.
The caller ID on the phone was: 138.
It was the phone number Lightning King had left on the forum.
He had called back.
"So it really is... a trap. A very terrifying trap." Yang Jian gritted his teeth, unable to tell whether he felt anger or fear.
Beep, beep.
The phone kept ringing, but he did not answer it.
Because he knew that whoever had made the call could not possibly be alive. Who knew what would happen if he answered?
Fortunately, the phone's settings still worked, and the ringtone did not continue forever.
After being unanswered for a while, the call soon disconnected.
And no more calls came to his phone.
"Ding ding ding, ding ding ding."
"I love you, love you, like a mouse loves rice."
"Melancholy moonlight flows like a river of longing."
But the other students' phones began ringing one after another, all kinds of ringtones echoing around them.
Everyone took out their phones and looked. Every caller ID showed 138.
"Yang... Yang Jian, look."
Wang Shanshan, Miao Xiaoshan, Zhao Lei, and the others held up their phones to show him the caller IDs, fear in their eyes.
"Don't answer." Yang Jian's expression was extremely grave.
The others nodded. They all understood that the calls were strange and should not be answered.
Zhang Wei did not have a phone. He had lent his phone to Yang Jian earlier. Looking at the trembling phone screens in everyone's hands, he shuddered. "Th-the hell, they all have the same caller ID. Is this 138 number that amazing? It called more than a dozen phones at once. Is this haunted or what?"
"Mine isn't from 138. Mine shows Teacher Wang's phone number." A student named Qian Wanhao instinctively answered the call.
"Qian Wanhao, are you crazy or did your brain short-circuit?" Zhao Lei practically shouted in fright. "We told you not to answer the phone!"
"What are you so nervous about? This is Teacher Wang calling." Qian Wanhao said, "Maybe Teacher Wang came to save us."
"Hang up, now!"
Yang Jian's pupils shrank as well. He rushed over, intending to snatch the phone away and end the call.
Teacher Wang was calling?
That was even more terrifying. Teacher Wang had been the first person to disappear inside the Ghost Domain. Everyone else was dead now, so how could he possibly still be alive?
Sure enough.
Only a crackling electric hiss came from Qian Wanhao's phone. Teacher Wang did not speak.
Then a sound that terrified Yang Jian rang out.
Knock, knock knock. Knocking came from the other end of the call.
It was exactly the same sound as the one from outside the classroom earlier.
Heavy, oppressive, enough to make one unable to breathe.
Only then did Qian Wanhao realize how serious this was. His face turned deathly pale, and with a trembling hand, he hastily threw the phone away.
The phone hit the ground, its screen shattering, but the call remained connected.
Knock, knock knock. The eerie knocking came from the receiver again.
Knock, knock knock.
Yang Jian rushed over and, as quickly as possible, picked up Qian Wanhao's phone and ended the call.
"Qian Wanhao, you idiot. If you want to die, then go die yourself. Don't get us killed too."
Furious, Zhao Lei grabbed his collar and roared at him. Yet his rage could not conceal the fear in his eyes. Although he did not know what would happen after the call connected, he was certain it would not be anything good.
"Damn it, don't fear enemies as powerful as gods; fear teammates as stupid as pigs. That saying really is true. At critical moments, there are always a few brain-dead people who bravely step forward to throw their lives away. They don't just get themselves killed—they get everyone else killed too. Qian Wanhao, you're truly incredible. You've moved me so much I want to kill someone. I had nine years of compulsory education and made up so many classes, yet I was never as outstanding as you."
Zhang Wei said, "Was that old man outside the classroom your actual grandfather? If you love him so much, why don't you go tell your grandpa to let us go?"
"I-I didn't do it on purpose." Qian Wanhao cried like a child as he wiped away his tears. "The name on it clearly showed Teacher Wang calling. If it had been someone else, I definitely wouldn't have answered."
"You answer just because it's a teacher calling? If a teacher told you to die, why don't you go die?" Zhang Wei was so angry that he wanted to hit him.
"Enough. Calm down. This isn't the time for this." Yang Jian walked over. "I'm partly at fault too. I should have warned you earlier. And can arguing and fighting among ourselves help us survive? Look at the situation we're in."
Everyone immediately fell silent.
"Yang Jian, what would have happened after the call connected?" Miao Xiaoshan asked nervously.
"What else could happen? Very soon, Qian Wanhao's grandpa will come over and have a chat with us."
"What?"
Everyone's eyes widened in extreme terror.
Yes, that old man would definitely come here.
The knocking from the phone had a terrifying function: it could summon that old man.
As for what the result would be, it was obvious.
And besides—
Yang Jian tightly gripped the phone in his hand, recalling Lightning King's forum post.
"A trap. The entire story on that forum was a trap. Lightning King encountered that old man knocking at his door while he was at home. Judging by what happened in the classroom earlier, someone had already died when the old man knocked on the first door. Yet Lightning King's home had two doors: the front door, then the room door."
"That meant Lightning King, alone at home, had already died when the first door was knocked on. The rest of the forum story could not have been posted by him. The phone number and audio file left behind were not made by him either. And there was only one thing that could do something like that."
"A ghost~!"
Yang Jian took several deep breaths.
That was right.
The beginning of the post had been written by Lightning King, by a living person. But by the end, he was already dead, and it was the ghost that continued posting.
To prove this guess, he opened that forum story again and flipped to the end.
Sure enough.
His guess had been correct. The final few replies in the forum story contained many typos, completely different from Lightning King's earlier posts. There had also been a half-hour gap between posts.
This... was a curse spread by an evil ghost.
Anyone who heard the knocking would be found by that old man.
That explained everything that had happened before.
"Hearing the knocking online or through a phone would make the old man come looking for you, as if you had been marked with an invisible coordinate. Hearing it in reality would kill you immediately. But why hadn't that old man appeared when I opened the audio file in the bathroom earlier?"
Cold sweat appeared on Yang Jian's face as he thought.
He tried to figure out the pattern behind the old man's movements and the method he used to kill.
So that he could survive.
Before you continue