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墨書 Inktalez
Liu Haoming knew his daughter was unhappy today, so he gave up on the idea of trying to communicate with her. Anqing was too tired and had gone to bed early, while Ziya seemed to be busy doing something in her room after finishing her evening routine. He was left alone in the living room, waiting for the midnight news. As he watched the various advertisements and those irritating competitions on TV, his eyelids grew heavier.
With a heavy sigh, Liu Haoming closed his eyes and saw an old friend appear before him. "Where the hell have you been? I waited at the News Agency for a long time, and I thought you were off playing with your mistress again."
Zhang, the Chief Editor, didn’t respond but looked at him with a mix of helplessness and regret before mechanically walking toward a corner of the room. Liu Haoming was puzzled. "Hey! Are you here to play the pity card in my house?"
Zhang remained silent, squatting next to the tropical fish tank, looking oddly miserable. Liu Haoming found it amusing and got up to join him, pulling him up as if to say something. His old friend stood up without a word, turning his back to Liu Haoming, who sensed that Zhang was slowly turning his head back toward him.
Suddenly, with a horrifying crackling sound echoing in his bones, Zhang twisted his bloodied head to look at Liu Haoming. The latter was taken aback and shouted in shock, "Oh my god! Are you human or a ghost?"
"What’s wrong with you?" Anqing had just fallen asleep when she was abruptly awakened by the ringing phone in the living room and heard her husband cursing at someone. She quickly rolled out of bed and rushed into the living room. To her surprise, Liu Haoming seemed to be haunted by a nightmare. She hurriedly called out to him and asked loudly what was wrong. Then she grabbed a clean towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead, thinking to herself: It’s autumn already; why is he still sweating like this?
"I just had a nightmare... you wouldn’t believe how terrifying it was..." Liu Haoming took some time to recover from the nightmare and took the towel from his wife’s hands to wipe himself down. After a moment, he felt he needed to take a shower to truly feel better. Just as he was about to get up, he suddenly remembered the phone call and picked up his phone to see it was Yuan Ye calling.
Since Liu Haoming had set his phone to automatically shut off after a certain time, he missed Yuan Ye's call when it came through. Now hesitating whether or not to call him back, he wondered what Yuan Ye wanted at this hour.
……………………………………
Yuan Ye angrily pulled the phone away from his ear and muttered under his breath, "Damn it, Liu Haoming, remember this: don’t hang up on me..." Just then, the phone rang again. He stepped forward to answer it and saw that it was Haoming calling back. He quickly spoke into the receiver, "Haoming, did you see the news?"
Liu Haoming's cold and detached voice came through the line. "What do you mean? Didn’t I just go looking for you at the News Agency? I didn’t even get to see the 10 o'clock news."
Yuan Ye moved the receiver away from his ear; he didn’t want Liu Haoming's loud voice disturbing him further. He pressed on with another question: "Did you see the midnight news?" At that moment, he still found it hard to believe what had happened; just this afternoon they had parted ways as two living people—how could they possibly be gone just hours later? Unable to accept reality, he felt compelled to seek information from other sources to confirm what he had just witnessed.
The phone rang, and Liu Haoming's furious voice came through. "I missed the midnight news, but I sure saw a midnight nightmare." His words filled Yuan Ye with frustration. How could he be so flippant during such an important call? Normally, he would have hung up by now, but the gravity of the situation forced him to endure and wait for the other person to finish speaking.
...
Zi Anqing watched her husband as he called Yuan Ye, feeling it was inappropriate to stay in the room. She retreated to the bedroom, where she could still hear his explosive voice. With a sigh, she curled up on the bed, remembering that she had something for Ziya tucked away in her coat. She hurriedly got up, pulled out the sachet from her pocket, and opened the door to peek into her daughter's closed bedroom. However, she decided against giving it to her and returned to bed, pulling the covers over herself.
...
Ziya was not asleep either. She kept replaying the events leading up to Qin Nannan's death in her mind. Why had he been staring at his phone so intently? What could possibly have captured his attention? Tossing and turning, she felt a deep longing for Zhou Chen. Was he doing well? Her imagination blurred as she gradually found herself in another unreal world... Zhou Chen walked ahead of her, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't close the distance between them.
"Zhou Chen, wait for me! I want to ask you something!" Ziya desperately tried to bridge the gap between them, but for some reason, it felt like an invisible barrier kept them apart. The figure ahead maintained a teasing distance, seemingly oblivious to her calls.
"Zhou Chen, please wait! I need to know what secret your phone holds! Just give me one second!" The scene around her fell into a haunting silence; it felt as if only she and Zhou Chen existed in that moment, while the trees and houses stood still.
Ziya nervously scanned her surroundings, feeling an unsettling sense of danger as if something might suddenly leap out at her. That instinctive fear gripped her heart tightly. Just then, a shadowy figure appeared between her and Zhou Chen, slowly turning its head to look at her...
"Don't... Zhou Chen, help me... don't come any closer..." Ziya struggled against the nightmare as beads of sweat formed on her forehead.
...
"Cough cough. You asked me about the midnight news; I told you I didn’t watch it. I just fell asleep on the couch and had a terrible nightmare. I'm serious; why are you being so boring?" Liu Haoming fought to control his temper as he patiently explained to Yuan Ye what he had said on the phone.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Liu Haoming thought Yuan Ye might hang up or sulk in response, but after a few seconds, Yuan Ye's voice came through again. "I just watched the midnight news. There was a car accident near Northwest Bridge by News Agency... I saw... the car belonged to Zhang Maocai..." Liu Haoming's heart skipped a beat as he continued to listen intently. Unable to hold back any longer, he interjected, "So only Zhang Maocai could afford that model? You're overthinking this!" Despite his words, a wave of intense unease washed over him at that moment.
Yuan Ye was interrupted by Liu Haoming on the phone. Seizing the moment, he struggled to suppress the turmoil within him, swallowing hard as he continued, "I saw with my own eyes the firefighters at the chaotic scene, using a cutting torch to pry open a car and pull out two bodies..."
At that moment, Liu Haoming felt an inexplicable pressure rising in his throat, and he couldn't help but interject urgently, "Hurry up, tell me who it is!"
A trembling voice came through the phone, almost choking on the words, "It's Zhang Maocai and his secretary, Nana..." Liu Haoming froze, the receiver nearly slipping from his fingers as he caught it just in time. The shocking news left him stunned. Just then, from his daughter Ziya's room came her frantic cries in her sleep. He rushed to her door, pounding on it desperately.
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