Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 697 - 695 Phone Call

Why?

Yesterday, the notes targeted both brothers. Kafei was attacked, and Danfei could only watch, eyes wide, as an abnormal entity carried his brother away, plunging him into endless regret and pain.

Today, once again!

He had already moved out of his original room, yet he never expected the notes would still haunt him! Danfei wasn't sure if the other players who received notes yesterday had also gotten them today, but he felt extremely aggrieved, wronged, and had the urge to hurl expletives.

Alright, calm down.

Danfei forced himself to calm his mind, taking out equipment and items one by one.

If the note 'Answer the call, don't answer the call' meant I should take the first call but not the second, then I might have already violated the instructions and am about to face an attack from the abnormal entity...

BRRRING—

The faint ringing of a telephone sounded again, causing Danfei's body, covered in cat fur, to shudder involuntarily.

Next door!

Danfei rushed silently to the corner of his room, pressing his ear against the wall—this spot was closest to the living room of the adjacent room, where the telephone was located.

BRRRING—

The telephone was still ringing. Thanks to his enhanced hearing from the cat-ear headphones, he could clearly hear the subtle weakening of the ringing sound as it was muffled by furniture and absorbed by the room's acoustics; he could even mentally map out the layout of the room next door.

To answer, or not to answer.

Danfei hesitated again, pondering for a while before deciding to hold his position.

I've already missed the call in the hallway. If the note is meant to be taken literally, then with this second telephone ringing, I have even less reason to leave my room, open the door to the room next door, and answer it. Doing so would only violate more taboos.

After the third ring, the adjacent room fell silent again.

PHEW...

Danfei heaved a sigh of relief. His deliberately suppressed breathing still sounded so loud.

He waited a while, making sure there was no movement in the hallway. Then, he carefully crouched down, pressed the paper against his knee, and silently wrote with a fountain pen everything he had just seen and heard, along with his own thoughts and analysis of the note's content.

As the fountain pen marked a period, Danfei was about to set down the paper and pen when he heard a loud, extremely close telephone ring.

BRRRING—

The source of the telephone's ring was in the living room—to be precise, right beneath Danfei's feet. He had previously moved the landline telephone from room 1172 near the door to monitor the hallway outside more easily. Now, the phone began to vibrate, its screen glowing with an orange light and displaying a line of characters: *101#*.

Tenth floor, hallway left side, landline telephone, he interpreted. Should I answer?

The second telephone ring echoed in Danfei's ears, as sonorous and enduring as an ancient bronze bell. His hand reached out instinctively, pressing down on the phone.

The appearance of this third call shattered Danfei's recent assumption about taking the note literally, making him start to doubt whether he had gotten it all wrong from the start.

As the third ring sounded, he knew that, following the previous pattern, the other party would hang up after this ring, giving him no chance for second thoughts.

CLICK.

Instinct moved faster than thought, intuition before reason.

His palm grasped the receiver, lifted it, and placed it against his ear.

Danfei answered the call without a word.

The meaning of 'Answer the call, don't answer the call' might also be to pick up the phone but not make any sound, not communicate with the person on the other end.

"Hello?"

A blurred and slightly distorted male voice came from the other end of the line, sounding somewhat irritated and anxious.

Danfei's pupils dilated sharply. He had listened to this voice for over thirty years; there was no way he could have misheard it.

Kafei!

"Hello!!! Brother, is it you?!"

Noisy static crackled from the other end, as if sensing his astonishment and confusion. "I'm Kafei! Your younger brother!"

The voice claiming to be Kafei spoke hastily, "Are you in room 1172? That's great! You haven't picked up any other calls before this, have you?

"Anyway, calm down first. Now listen to me.

"I... am already dead.

"What's speaking to you through the landline phone on the left side of the tenth-floor hallway is my Spiritual Body.

"To confirm my identity:

"When we were seven, we stayed at our aunt's house in Seattle with our parents. It was just around Christmas. Dad came home very late at night, covered in snow, holding two big boxes containing Transformers toys as gifts for us.

"Dad said he bought them with wages he earned as a temporary sales assistant at a used car market. We were thrilled, playing with the Transformers and fighting with each other. We nearly broke the toys and even got scolded by Mom.

"Later, we found out Dad hadn't actually found a temporary job at the used car market that day. The money he used to buy the gifts was from selling blood at a blood bank.

"Twenty US Dollars per bag of blood."

The voice on the phone recounted a story, evoking memories buried deep in Danfei's mind. These were memories he had never mentioned to anyone else, not even to Kafei. He thought his brother had forgotten about that event—back then they were only seven, and all they used to think about was playing.

Danfei's throat tightened. He opened his fur-covered mouth, wanting to say something, but nothing came out.

"Brother, you have to believe me. I would never hurt you.

"I'm not being manipulated by the abnormal entities from the Game's tasks—she really did want to manipulate me, but she underestimated the ancestral spirit curse of the Voodoo Black Witch Clan."

The voice on the phone spoke rapidly, "The time should be 03:32 now. She devoured my body yesterday. The extraordinary Energy contained in a player's physique pleased her greatly. Now, based on the connection in the bloodline of her prey, she's got her sights set on you.

"She knows you're staying on the eleventh floor but doesn't know which room.

"According to hotel rules, she can't continue her killing spree on the tenth floor where a death has already occurred, nor can she stay much longer on the eleventh floor, so she must pinpoint your location first.

"Therefore, she will use the landline phone at the front desk to call each room on the eleventh floor one by one to find you and then kill you—since there has been no death on the eleventh floor, it wouldn't be breaking the rules.

"Just like her, I've been frantically dialing the phones on the eleventh floor.

"I thought you were still in room 1108. When I got no response after calling there, I tried calling the landline phone on the left side of the eleventh-floor hallway, but there was no response.

"Then I tried the landline phone on the right side of the eleventh-floor hallway, still no answer.

"So I had to call every room on the eleventh floor, praying you would pick up my call before she reached you."

"..."

Is that so...?

Danfei's mind was in chaos. Could it be that 'answer Kafei's call, don't answer the call from the old woman in red' is the true meaning of the note?

BRRRING—

Another telephone ring sounded.

It wasn't coming from the hallway or from room 1172, but from the room next door.