Chapter 17

The others' gazes remained fixed on Yang Jian.

Seeing him dial a phone number, the school was filled with the sound of a ringing phone, which puzzled everyone. Before they could ask, they saw him hurriedly hang up, his face showing signs of shock.

"Yang Jian, what... what's going on?"

Zhang Wei, seeing Yang Jian so frightened, started to tremble himself. "Don't scare me like that. We're all counting on you. Your state is making me very uneasy. Please, just smile, show that knowing smile you have when watching movies, to give me some confidence."

Yang Jian's calmness and his ability to lead them out of the ghostly realm had given everyone hope for survival. His current expression immediately caused panic among the group.

Yang Jian's expression was unpredictable, and his face was particularly grim. Before he could speak, his satellite phone suddenly rang, the beeping sound echoing.

His eyes narrowed sharply.

The caller ID on his phone read: 138...

It was the phone number left by the Lightning King on the forum.

He was calling back.

"Sure enough... this is a trap, a very terrifying trap." Yang Jian gritted his teeth, unable to tell if he was angry or afraid.

The phone kept ringing, but he didn't choose to answer.

He knew that the person making the call couldn't possibly be alive. Who knew what would happen if he answered.

Fortunately, the phone's settings worked, and the ringing didn't continue.

After a long time without an answer, the call was disconnected.

And his phone never received another call.

"Ring, ring, ring..."

"I love you, love you, just like a mouse loves rice..."

"The cool moonlight turns into a river of longing for you..."

However, the phones of the other students started ringing one after another, with various ringtones echoing.

Everyone took out their phones and saw that the caller ID was all 138...

"Yang, Yang Jian, look."

Wang Shanshan, Miao Xiaoshan, and Zhao Lei showed him their caller IDs, their eyes filled with fear.

"Don't answer." Yang Jian said with a particularly serious expression.

The others nodded, understanding that the call was indeed strange and shouldn't be answered.

Zhang Wei didn't have a phone; he had lent his to Yang Jian. He looked at the screens of the others and trembled. "D*mn, all the same caller ID... This 138 number is so powerful, making over a dozen calls at once. Is this a ghost?"

"This isn't the 138 number; it shows Mr. Wang's phone number." A student named Qian Wanhao subconsciously answered the call.

"Qian Wanhao, are you crazy or have you lost your mind?" Zhao Lei, almost shouting in fear, said, "We told you not to answer the phone."

"Don't be so nervous; this is Mr. Wang's phone. Maybe he's here to save us." Qian Wanhao said.

"Quick, hang up."

Yang Jian's eyes narrowed, and he rushed over to try to take the phone and hang up the call.

A call from Mr. Wang?

This was even more terrifying. Mr. Wang was the first to disappear in the ghostly realm. With everyone else dead, how could he still be alive?

Sure enough.

From the other end of Qian Wanhao's phone, only static could be heard. Mr. Wang didn't speak.

But then a sound that made Yang Jian fear even more came through.

"Knock, knock, knock..." The sound of knocking came from the phone.

It was exactly the same as the knocking outside the classroom earlier.

Heavy, oppressive, and suffocating.

At this moment, Qian Wanhao realized the severity of the situation, his face turning pale. He dropped the phone in a panic.

The phone fell to the ground, the screen shattered, but the call was still connected.

"Knock, knock, knock..." The eerie knocking sound came through the earpiece again.

"Knock, knock."

Yang Jian rushed over and quickly picked up Qian Wanhao's phone to end the call.

"Qian Wanhao, you idiot, if you want to die, go ahead, but don't drag us down with you." Zhao Lei, angry, grabbed his collar and shouted, but his anger couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. Although he didn't know what would happen after answering the call, he was sure it wouldn't be good.

"Damn, I'm not afraid of a god-like enemy, but I'm afraid of a pig-like teammate. This is true; at critical moments, there are always a few idiots who bravely step forward to risk their lives, not only endangering themselves but also others. Qian Wanhao, you're truly great, you've moved me to want to kill someone. I've taken so many extra classes in nine years, and none of them were as excellent as you."

Zhang Wei said, "Was the old man outside the classroom your grandfather? If you love him so much, why don't you go talk to your grandfather and ask him to spare us?"

"I, I didn't mean to. The name on the screen was clearly Mr. Wang's. If it was someone else's call, I wouldn't have answered." Qian Wanhao, like a child, wiped his tears.

"Answer Mr. Wang's call? If Mr. Wang told you to die, would you go and die?" Zhao Lei was so angry he wanted to hit him.

"Enough, everyone calm down. This isn't the time to argue. I also made a mistake; I should have warned you earlier." Yang Jian walked over and said, "And arguing and infighting won't help us survive. Look at the situation we're in."

Everyone immediately fell silent.

"Yang Jian, what will happen after answering the call?" Miao Xiaoshan asked nervously.

Yang Jian said, "What else? Soon, Qian Wanhao's grandfather will come to chat with us."

"What?"

Everyone's eyes widened in terror.

Yes, that old man would definitely come here.

The knocking sound from the phone had a terrifying function: it could summon the old man.

As for the outcome, it was obvious.

And...

Yang Jian tightly gripped his phone, recalling the post by the Lightning King on the forum.

"A trap, the entire story on the forum is a trap. The Lightning King encountered the old man knocking at his door at home. From the situation in the classroom earlier, someone died when the old man knocked on the first door... and the Lightning King's home had two doors, the front door and the bedroom door."

"In other words, the Lightning King was alone at home, and he was already dead when the first door was knocked on. The posts on the forum afterward couldn't have been made by him. The phone number and audio file left behind weren't his either. Only one thing could do this."

"A ghost!"

Yang Jian took several deep breaths.

That's right.

The earlier part of the post was made by the Lightning King, a living person, but by the end, he was already dead, and the posts were made by... a ghost.

To confirm this hypothesis, he opened the forum story again and flipped to the end.

Sure enough.

His hypothesis was correct. The last few replies in the forum story had many typos, completely different from the earlier posts by the Lightning King. Additionally, there was a half-hour gap between the posting times.

This... was a curse spread by an evil ghost.

Anyone who heard the knocking sound, whether online or on their phone, would be sought out by the old man.

This explained everything that had happened earlier.

"Online, on the phone, hearing the knocking sound will make the old man come looking, as if marked by an invisible coordinate. Hearing the knocking sound in reality will result in immediate death... but why didn't the old man appear when I opened the audio file in the toilet earlier?"

Yang Jian's face was drenched in sweat as he thought.

He was trying to figure out the old man's pattern of action and his method of killing.

To survive.