Fang, Brother Fang? What's going on? Why are you looking for me all of a sudden... Old Wang? What happened to Wang Rongfa? Brother Fang, why are you suddenly concerned about him..."
In the lounge, a boy's slightly nervous voice came from Fang Qianan's cell phone.
The boy's name is Jiang Jun. He is one of the few younger brothers that Fang Qianan can call out by name.
Jiang Jun's family was only modestly wealthy, but he was a true social hero, smiling and fraternizing with everyone. Technically speaking, Fang Qianan's inner circle was largely his own, and even Wang Rongfa was brought in directly by him.
"Hey, that guy Lao Wang is thin-skinned. I guess he couldn't hold back after being scolded by you, Brother Fang, yesterday. His phone has been turned off since yesterday, and no one can contact him. I heard that he didn't go home last night, and I don't know where he went to relax... But, Brother Fang, don't worry, that guy is just like that. After he gets angry, he will lower his head. He definitely won't dare to go against you, hahaha. I'm not saying anything, Brother Fang, but I actually think that guy is a bit annoying. His family has so little money, and it's only because of your good temper, Brother Fang, that he is so stubborn and follows you around. But he's still so arrogant, really thinking he's someone important. The scolding you gave him yesterday, Brother Fang, finally made him quiet down a bit..."
Hearing that Fang Qianan was only asking about Wang Rongfa's whereabouts and had no intention of accusing him, Jiang Jun's tone instantly became cheerful. He diligently flattered Fang Qianan on the phone, but he didn't know that Fang Qianan's face on the other end of the microphone was getting worse and worse.
The Wang family was a legitimate nouveau riche, and their only means of supporting their children was money, hence Wang Rongfa's domineering personality. Staying out all night was not uncommon for him.
Under normal circumstances, Fang Qianan would not care about the life or death of such a person at all, but after experiencing the bizarre and strange encounters in the past two days, he had a very bad premonition when he heard the news of Wang Rongfa's disappearance.
"...And you?"
Fang Qianan abruptly interrupted Jiang Jun's chattering and asked.
"Did anything happen to you these past two days?"
"Ah? Brother Fang, what are you referring to?"
Jiang Jun's tone was very confused.
Fang Qianan frowned tightly, swallowed his saliva, and when he thought of his experience, he began to sweat again.
The question "Have you encountered a ghost?" was stuck in his throat and couldn't be squeezed out for a long time.
Li Xiu noticed something was wrong, looked up at Fang Qianan's expression, and his forehead twitched slightly.
He stretched out his hand and waved it in front of Fang Qianan's eyes, silently guiding him with his mouth:
"Have you ever encountered anything bizarre or terrifying?"
As Jiang Jun listened to the questions in the microphone, his tone became more and more confused.
"No, no. Brother Fang, why do you suddenly ask this?"
Jiang Jun cursed his bad luck in his heart. He finally answered the call from Brother Fang, but his phone was particularly unreliable and kept making a crackling sound as if it was broken. Fang Qianan's voice sounded very vague, and he often heard strange accents.
"What about the others? Did the others who were there that day also encounter nothing?"
After hearing that Jiang Jun had encountered nothing, Fang Qianan narrowed his eyes in displeasure, and then asked about the recent situation of others.
As a result, Jiang Jun looked even more confused.
"Um, huh? Brother Fang, what are you talking about?"
Fang Qianan was speechless for a while.
"Haunted house." He glanced at Li Xiu awkwardly, his voice unconsciously lowered. "It was the day before yesterday when we were in the haunted house... causing trouble for Li Xiu... How did those people become?"
"Brother Fang, eh, did you remember the wrong person?"
Jiang Jun even stuttered a little when he spoke.
"It was my grandma's birthday the day before yesterday, so I went home early and didn't go to the haunted house."
He knew that Wang Rongfa was going to cause trouble for Li Xiu that day, but he never liked this kind of thing, so he avoided it intentionally or unintentionally.
In fact, he was a little surprised. He thought Fang Qianan would not go at that time, because he could vaguely feel that Fang Qianan actually didn't think much of Wang Rongfa's small group.
Fang Qianan was silent for a while.
"Heh," he snorted coldly, almost laughing out of anger, "You said you weren't here? You clearly—"
Fang Qianan's voice suddenly stopped halfway through his words.
Because he found that he really... really didn't remember Jiang Jun being among that group of people.
The faces of the boys surrounding him were very blurry in his memory. Their attentive, flattering tone made him subconsciously think they were Jiang Jun and some other lackeys.
But, when I think about it carefully... do I really know those people?
"Brother Fang? What happened to Brother Fang? Are you okay—"
Fang Qianan hung up the phone abruptly.
My breathing became uncontrollably rapid and goose bumps appeared on my arms.
"Fang Qianan, what's wrong?"
Li Xiu seemed to call him, and with this call, Fang Qianan took a deep breath and came back to his senses from the great panic.
"Ah, A Xiu."
Before she could react, Li Xiu was grabbed by the wrist by Fang Qianan.
The shirtless boy was like a frightened cat, wanting to stick his whole body to him. The fragrance of the boy's shower gel mixed with his high body temperature instantly spread over Li Xiu, and he shuddered and subconsciously wanted to push Fang Qianan away, but the next second, he found that Fang Qianan was trembling slightly.
For some reason, Li Xiu's hand remained on Fang Qianan's chest, without moving.
"A Xiu... something's not right... the person in the haunted house that day... something's not right..."
Then, Li Xiu heard Fang Qianan's voice with a slight cry.
*
Because of what happened in his childhood, even though Fang Qianan didn't like the hypocritical lackeys around him, he wouldn't really drive them away. Of course, he wouldn't get arm in arm with them and become intimate with them.
He just needs someone around him.
However, in Fang Qianan's memory, the abandoned room in the haunted house was really crowded that day.
"That's why I hid on the windowsill and played with my phone."
…
After a long time, Fang Qianan finally calmed down a little in Li Xiu's stiff embrace, and he reluctantly gathered his energy to analyze the situation.
"But there were so many people in the room... When I came out of there, there were really only five people around me."
When he said this, Fang Qianan's face turned pale.
"Until just now, I didn't feel that there was anything wrong."
When did the "crowd" in the villa disperse? Fang Qianan found that he had no recollection of it. He didn't even feel the slightest bit of something strange.
This is simply not something humans can do.
Fang Qianan felt like he was about to faint when he thought about how he had been in the same room with countless ghosts without even realizing it. He instinctively looked at Li Xiu, hoping to draw some courage from the calm and indifferent young man beside him, but he found that even Li Xiu's face was extremely pale.
"…I… don't remember either."
Li Xiu's lips trembled slightly, and her voice was urgent and fast.
Yes, it was just now that he suddenly remembered that he had never seen the faces of those "people" clearly. The room was filled with dust and stale air, and the light was unusually dim at dusk. In his panic, he just thought those people were scary and strange.
Fang Qianan wrote down on a notepad the names of several people he was sure were present.
At that time, Song Cheng was the one taking pictures with his mobile phone.
Wang Rongfa and Amazi stayed close to Song Cheng, grinning and laughing, constantly uttering all kinds of obscene and insulting words.
Fang Qianan was originally just watching the farce in front of him with a half-angry and half-joking mood, but he joined in unknowingly. When the others tightly restrained Li Xiu's hands and feet, he stepped forward and took action.
So, who was standing beside Li Xiu, binding his limbs with cold and twisted limbs like pale vines?
Who is behind the young man, laughing wildly and taking him into his arms?
…
[Fang Qianan, Li Xiu]
[Wang Rongfa, Songcheng, A-Ma-Zi]
Because of the shaking hands, the names on the note paper were written in crooked handwriting, which looked very funny, but the two people sitting on the sofa didn't care about it.
Fang Qianan stared at the names he had listed, breathing rapidly. "We left you in the room and left... So, it was me, Wang Rongfa, Song Cheng, and A Mazi. That's four of us. But there was one more person, I remember very clearly. When we left..."
As we left, the setting sun shone on a group of people.
Five shadows fell on the ground.
Who could that person be...?
*
In the lounge, which was always warm and pleasant like spring due to the central air conditioning, Li Xiu's body began to feel cold.
He and Fang Qianan looked at each other for a long time.
Just as I was wondering what to do next, there was a noise at the door.
Fang Qianan and Li Xiu were both shocked and subconsciously huddled together.
"Huh, that's weird? Why is the door locked?"
As a result, they both heard a puzzled mumbling coming from outside the lounge door.
"Are you kidding me? It's so early in the morning..."
The combination lock beeped, but because it was locked, the person tried several times but failed to open it.
"roll."
After coming to his senses, Fang Qianan was made agitated by the noise and couldn't help but curse towards the door.
"Brother Fang?"
As a result, the other party recognized his voice and instead of getting angry, became happy.
"I just wanted to find you, Brother Fang. I'm Xu Luren. My family is having a small charity dinner in a week. It's my personal social activity. Brother Fang, are you free to come and do me a favor..."
With a click, the door suddenly opened a crack.
Xu Luren, who was lying at the door and trying to shout something inside, almost fell to the ground because of the change in center of gravity. After he finally managed to steady himself, he looked up and saw Fang Qianan, with a sullen face and naked upper body, holding the door handle and looking at him coldly with murderous eyes.
"Shut up and get out of here."
Fang Qianan's voice was cold, and every word seemed to be raining ice chips.
Xu Luren shuddered, and his gaze lingered for a moment on the bruises on Fang Qianan's body.
His eyes were a little wandering.
"Yes, I'm sorry, Brother Fang, did I disturb your rest? Yes, otherwise I'll slip the invitation under the door and wait for you to take a look after you've rested—"
"Bang--"
The door brushed against his nose and was closed again.
*
"Just an annoying guy—"
After sending Xu Luren away, Fang Qianan was about to turn around to explain when a piece of clothing was thrown on his head.
"Get dressed, I'm leaving."
Li Xiu lowered his eyes and said expressionlessly.
After that little episode just now, the boy seemed much calmer than before.
Fang Qianan opened his eyes wide in surprise: "What, but..."
Li Xiu: "Now it is basically certain that the problem lies with the Xiao family haunted house, but there are still some things I need to think about."
Fang Qianan's voice was flustered: "Then why are you leaving so suddenly?"
Li Xiu took a deep breath: "Because, morning self-study is about to end and the first class is about to begin."
The boy's face was full of annoyance, and he scratched his hair vigorously: "I can't just skip classes because of something ghostly.
Seeing that Fang Qianan wanted to speak, Li Xiu raised his hand and blocked his words aggressively.
"Anyway, if you have anything else, come and see me during lunch break."
The soft palm pressed against Fang Qianan's lips. The boy's body temperature was obviously low, but Fang Qianan felt that the place where Li Xiu touched was suddenly burning hot.
*
The door to the lounge opened again.
"...You said before that memorizing the core socialist values and mathematical theorems would ward off all supernatural powers, but it turns out it was useless."
"Then have you ever considered that it's quite possible that you haven't memorized all the laws? Hydrogen, helium, lithium, and beryllium—you only memorized these four? Don't you find that awkward?"
"Wait, you still remember this after all this?"
…
Xu Luren squatted at the door of the lounge, holding the invitation that his mother told him to send out no matter what. He raised his head stiffly and looked at the two people who walked out of the lounge.
The flirting between the boys came to an abrupt end, and the moment they saw Xu Luren, the entrance to the lounge fell into deathly silence.
"Forehead..."
Xu Luren blinked his eyes, looked at the school bully who had finally put on his clothes and Li Xiu who was following behind him, his blank brain turned in vain for a few seconds, and he squeezed out a dry sentence.
"Brother Fang, I, I was wrong."
"No wonder you were so angry just now?"
The author has something to say:
Ah Xiu: I'm not! I didn't! Fang Qianan, explain quickly!
Fang Xiaogou: ...Well, that...is...not what you think...（///▽///）
Ah Xiu: Why are you blushing?!!!!