Chapter 13: Ghostbusters

When they arrived at Qiao Yunxue’s villa, the housekeeper aunt still welcomed Shen Yao warmly as always, and he still did not see Qiao Yunxue’s father.

They went straight to the study.

Today’s task was to discuss the so-called “Ghost-catching Plan”.

To catch a strangeness, its characteristics must be analyzed thoroughly and in detail.

Shen Yao raised his head, momentarily stunned.

He saw that at some point, Qiao Yunxue had put on a pair of semi-rimmed glasses, the frames rose-red, with a pendant hanging from the left arm.

With the glasses, Qiao Yunxue exuded a cold, intellectual aura.

“What are you staring at?”

Qiao Yunxue seemed displeased by Shen Yao’s gaze.

“Your glasses.”

“I’m used to wearing glasses when studying.”

In fact, she was a bit nearsighted.

“Oh.”

After a moment, Shen Yao casually asked, “Do you like red?”

He had noticed that many of Qiao Yunxue’s personal items were red: the Walkman, the headphones, and the glasses.

Qiao Yunxue gave an absent-minded “Mm.”

She clearly had no interest in discussing her preferences with Shen Yao.

She typed on the keyboard: “I’ve saved snapshots of all the forum threads on the Berlin Forum about the Telephone Ghost.”

She glanced at Shen Yao standing by the table and pointed to a stool nearby.

“Move a stool and sit next to me.”

“Okay.”

Sitting next to Qiao Yunxue, he could smell the fragrance in her hair.

The shampoo she used wasn’t strong, just a faint scent, not at all matching her usual temperament.

In Shen Yao’s mind, Qiao Yunxue wasn’t someone who should have warmth or empathy.

“I once received a call.

The person on the other end sounded strange, like they were twitching as they spoke, talking and talking nonstop.

I was so scared I hung up.

Thinking back, that was an encounter with the Telephone Ghost.”

“I’ve had a similar experience as the thread starter.

I was talking to someone, looked down, and realized my phone line had long been chewed off by a mouse.

I broke out in a cold sweat…”

“Lanzhou flatbread.”

“……”

All kinds of posts scrolled before them.

As their discussion continued, the full picture of the Telephone Ghost gradually became clearer.

First, the medium had to be a landline telephone—no SMS, no mobile phones, only telephones.

Then, the strange being’s method of killing was through a call with the victim.

During the call, it would ask for the victim’s address.

During the questioning, there would be a kind of mental attack, leading the victim step by step to reveal their location.

Every time the victim spoke an address, the strange being would arrive at that place, until it finally appeared by the victim’s side.

Reporting a fake address was useless.

The strangeness seemed to have some ability to discern, or rather, from the start it already knew the victim’s location and was just playing a game of cat and mouse.

Qiao Yunxue grabbed her hair.

“That’s all the information? There’s no clue at all…”

Shen Yao bit the pen cap, then suddenly pointed at a post.

It was the one posted by someone claiming to be a former criminal police officer in Yaoguang City.

“Is this the earliest post about the Telephone Ghost?”

“Yes…

This post appeared not long after the Yaoguang City girl’s disappearance case, but it didn’t attract much attention at first.”

Qiao Yunxue clicked into the thread, frowning slightly.

She also sensed something odd.

This post was made too early.

Shen Yao frowned.

“In that case… there’s something that doesn’t add up.”

“What doesn’t add up?”

“Who exactly is the perpetrator?”

“Isn’t it the strangeness?”

Shen Yao shook his head.

“The Telephone Ghost post appeared after the incident.

Unless there were already rumors circulating elsewhere online, how did the strangeness appear?”

“…Maybe it was a campus urban legend that attracted the Telephone Ghost?”

Qiao Yunxue answered hesitantly.

She realized she had been too careless in front of Shen Yao, missing such an obvious logical contradiction.

Shen Yao was silent.

He couldn’t make a judgment either.

“Keep scrolling down.

Stop.

There.”

Shen Yao pointed at “15 minutes” on the screen.

According to the thread poster, the girl was killed after a fifteen-minute call in the school’s teacher’s office.

“Why fifteen minutes?”

Shen Yao asked.

Qiao Yunxue looked at him.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with this time?”

“First, how could she talk to a stranger for fifteen minutes?

Second, the school is a crowded place, especially the teacher’s office.

Why didn’t any staff notice?”

Qiao Yunxue opened her mouth, realizing the reasoning didn’t hold, and shook her head.

Suddenly, she thought of something.

“What if the person on the other end wasn’t a stranger?

Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

Shen Yao nodded.

“That would also mean that the person she was talking to wasn’t a strangeness, and the teachers were aware, so they didn’t stop it.

This fits my theory: for a female student to suddenly disappear without a sound, it’s most likely someone familiar.”

Qiao Yunxue held her head.

“Wait, you’re saying the one who killed the girl wasn’t a strangeness?

It was a human?

Then what was the call we made that day?”

Shen Yao replied.

“According to your theory, strangeness is generated in zero dimension by strong emotions and enters the material world through internet urban legends.”

Qiao Yunxue wasn’t slow to catch on.

She immediately understood Shen Yao’s meaning.

“…The girl’s resentment before death gave rise to the Telephone Ghost?

Then the person who posted…”

Shen Yao’s gaze landed on the three characters for “Freight Master”.

“Did you ever private message this poster?”

“I tried, but he didn’t reply.

That’s normal on forums—people rarely respond to private messages.”

“Why?”

“Because they can’t be sure if the person replying is…”

Qiao Yunxue’s words stopped abruptly.

“This post is the origin of the strangeness.”

Shen Yao nodded.

“In that case, everything makes sense.

The powerful resentment after the victim’s death spawned the strangeness, which spread the urban legend online, attracting more victims.

So, the fifteen-minute time becomes interesting.

Perhaps this time is the ‘rule’ of the strangeness.”

“Rule?”

Qiao Yunxue realized she was completely unable to keep up with Shen Yao’s thinking.

Clearly, she was a senior ‘Martyr’ who had studied strangeness for seven years.

Why could Shen Yao, who just started, reach such conclusions?

“How long did we talk that day?”

“Around five minutes.”

“I don’t recall talking for that long.

Either you remembered wrong, or the strangeness can distort the caller’s perception of time.”

Shen Yao answered firmly.

“Fifteen minutes should be the limit.”

“I don’t quite understand.

What limit?”

“The strangeness keeps asking the victim’s address over the phone, and the victim can only answer step by step.

Of course, the strangeness can’t exist for long.

Otherwise, would it wait till the next day to bask in the sun?

So, the only possibility is that it can only exist for fifteen minutes.

If the victim gives their address within fifteen minutes, then…”

Shen Yao made a throat-slitting gesture.

“On the other hand, if the call drags past fifteen minutes, the strangeness likely disappears.

If you want to capture a strangeness, we must fully utilize these fifteen minutes.”

Qiao Yunxue stared, dumbfounded.

“You… thought of this just now?

Are you sure?”

Shen Yao nodded.

“With the information we have, this is the most probable scenario.”

Qiao Yunxue clenched her pink fist, thinking deeply before nodding.

“Okay, I believe you.

So, what should we do?”

Shen Yao massaged his temples.

“First, I must make the call, then delay the strangeness as much as possible—split every sentence that can be said in one sentence into two, and break the address down as much as possible.

You need to use your resources to set traps wherever it passes, no matter if it’s dog blood, chicken blood, talismans—use whatever works, try to catch it.

If the capture fails, I’ll hang up immediately to interrupt the strangeness.”

Qiao Yunxue took out a local map, drew a winding line on it with a red marker.

“Start from the western suburbs, guide the strangeness step by step at each intersection, and set traps and cameras at every intersection.

How about it?”

Shen Yao nodded.

“You need to prepare a mechanical watch for me so I can keep precise time.

Also, a pager for timely communication…”

Before he finished speaking, Qiao Yunxue took out a phone from the drawer.

“For convenience, I bought you a phone yesterday.

It can access the internet and make calls.

Take it.”

Shen Yao froze.

He took the phone from Qiao Yunxue’s hand.

It was boxy, with a pull-out antenna and a stylus clipped to one side.

He’d only seen such big color-screen phones on TV.

Was this… a gift?

Qiao Yunxue didn’t notice Shen Yao’s expression.

She was already immersed in the ghost-catching plan.

“There’s still the method of catching the ghost to figure out.

Shen Yao, please look into whether there are any local exorcism formulas or spiritual masters.”

Shen Yao quietly accepted the phone and nodded.

Between a snow globe and a mobile phone, which was more valuable?