59: Chapter 59 Telephone

Swish, swish... Patter, patter...

A missing person poster was pasted onto the wall at the stairwell, and a rough, large hand slowly slid down from it.

"Sigh!" The man let out a heavy breath. Looking at the photo on the poster, tears couldn't help but stream down his face.

After looking at the poster for a while longer, the man turned around. Carrying a tool bucket in his hand, he walked into the elevator, dejected.

Under the bright elevator lights, one could see that inside the man's tool bucket were glue and a thick stack of missing person posters.

Riding the elevator to the sixth floor, the man took out his keys, unlocked the door, and entered his home.

In the small living room, a row of children's toys was neatly arranged on the table and cabinets.

These toys were the favorites of his six-year-old son, Dongdong, but now, the owner of these toys was nowhere to be found.

The man gently set down his tool bucket and tiptoed to the bedroom door. Watching his wife hiding under the covers, secretly wiping away tears, his heart felt heavy.

His son, Dongdong, had been missing for three days, and for these three days, his wife had been weeping every single day.

"Daddy, pick up the phone! Daddy, pick up the phone!" Suddenly, an innocent child's voice came from the man's pocket; his phone was ringing.

The man backed out of the bedroom and pulled out his phone to see that it was an unknown number.

A glimmer of hope instantly rose in his heart; perhaps a kind stranger had seen his son, Dongdong.

The man hurriedly answered the call and held it to his ear, his heart pounding in his throat.

"Is this Dongdong's father?" The voice on the other end was hoarse and grating, as if the throat had been injured.

"Y-yes... it is me." The man quickly replied.

"Your son is with me now. Give me your address, and I will come over."

"Really? Thank you... thank you so much! We are at Lianjiang Residential Complex, Unit 1, 6th Floor, Room 167." Upon hearing the news, tears streamed down the man's face as he spoke excitedly.

"Good, I'm coming over now." The person on the other end hung up after speaking.

The man wiped his tears and rushed into the bedroom, shouting to his wife, "Honey, Dongdong has been found!"

Before the words even faded, the figure on the bed tumbled off, not even bothering to put on shoes. She rushed to the man, grabbed his arm, and stared at him with swollen eyes.

"R-really?" the woman asked cautiously.

"It's true. A kind person is bringing our Dongdong over right away." The man nodded firmly.

"Oh!" The woman hugged the man, weeping with joy.

Ten minutes later, the couple had changed into formal clothes and sat on the living room sofa, watching their front door anxiously.

The woman clutched a thick red envelope tightly in her hand, prepared as a reward for the return of her son.

Knock, knock, knock!

After waiting anxiously for another ten minutes, the front door was finally knocked on.

"Coming! We're coming!" The couple's eyes lit up. They rushed to the door impatiently and threw it open.

"Dongdong!" the woman called out eagerly.

Click!

The sensor light outside flickered on. The scene they had imagined—a stranger holding their son—did not appear; the hallway outside was empty, with no one in sight.

Disbelieving, the couple rushed out into the hallway, but it remained empty, with no one there.

"How can there be no one here!"

The hope in the woman's heart vanished instantly. Her body went limp, and she collapsed to the floor, staring blankly at the red envelope in her hand.

"Hallucinations. We must be too nervous, that's why we hallucinated. Dongdong will be back soon." The man helped his wife up from the floor and guided her into the living room.

The moment they stepped inside, the sensor light at the far end of the stairwell flickered, as if it had a loose connection. A blurred figure flashed past with the light.

The man gently placed his wife on the sofa and stood up, turning to close the door.

Perhaps it was because the wind was too strong, but the moment he stood up, the sound of the front door closing came from behind him.

Before the man could turn around, a child's voice—the one he had been longing for day and night—rang in his ears. It was the voice of his son, Dongdong.

"Daddy, I'm here!"

Tears instantly burst from the man's eyes. He whipped his head around and saw his son's familiar face.

The woman on the sofa also heard the voice and hurriedly looked up.

"..." The couple's mouths hung wide open. Their bodies resembled withered branches shaking in the autumn wind, their minds completely blank.

Their trembling limbs seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move a single step. They were plunged into endless despair.

Before their eyes stood a pitch-black, slightly hunched man, and atop that man's neck sat their son's head.

The fair face and the pitch-black neck presented a stark color contrast.

A thick, black light radiated from the hunched man, instantly plunging the entire living room into darkness.

...

At Lianjiang Residential Complex, Unit 1, 6th Floor, a middle-aged auntie was leading several Public Security Officers, hurrying down the hallway.

Leading this group of Public Security Officers was the sturdily built Officer Zheng Hai.

"Comrade Public Security Officer, it's here." The auntie stopped in front of Room 167 and pointed at the door.

"When I passed by this morning, I smelled a very foul odor from inside. I knocked on the door for a long time, but no one answered. I'm worried that something might have happened to the people inside," the auntie said to Officer Zheng Hai.

"Alright, please step back a little." Officer Zheng Hai nodded and let the auntie retreat behind the Public Security Officers.

He stepped forward and frowned slightly; he also smelled the odor the auntie had mentioned.

The auntie might not know what this smell was, but for him, having worked as a Public Security Officer for over a decade, this scent was not unfamiliar at all.

That was the smell of a rotting corpse; someone in the room had met with a mishap.

"Load your weapons and be careful." Officer Zheng Hai drew his service pistol from his waist and said seriously to the team members behind him.

The team members understood the gravity of the situation, nodded, and drew their own service pistols.

The auntie hiding behind them, seeing that these Public Security Officers had even drawn their guns, immediately realized something was wrong and retreated even further.

Officer Zheng Hai took a deep breath, raised his foot, and kicked hard.

With a loud bang, the wooden door was kicked wide open by Officer Zheng Hai, who had already entered the world of cultivation.

Officer Zheng Hai rushed in first. After discovering there was no immediate danger, he waved to the team members behind him.

Subsequently, the other Public Security Officers filed in, enduring the unparalleled stench from behind the door.

Once inside, all the Public Security Officers immediately covered their mouths, struggling to keep from vomiting; the scene before them was simply too shocking.

Inside the living room, there were two headless corpses: one maintained a sitting posture on the sofa, still clutching a thick red envelope in its hand, while the other lay on the floor.

Dense swarms of flies were buzzing around the two corpses, and countless plump, white maggots were crawling all over them.