"Hello? Are you still there?"
The voice on the other end of the phone asked urgently.
"I'm here… but I don't see you. Are you sure you've got the right place?"
Ethan stared at the open elevator, a strong sense that something was wrong creeping into his mind.
There was clearly no one inside.
Yet the elevator doors remained wide open, as if something invisible were blocking the sensor and preventing them from closing.
There were no police officers inside at all.
And just moments ago, the man on the phone had said they had been knocking on the door for three minutes.
Ethan's eyes were filled with disbelief, and an indescribable premonition suddenly rose in his heart.
"Mr. Ethan, we've already contacted the building management and retrieved the surveillance footage from the past hour."
The voice on the phone didn't answer Ethan's question directly. Instead, it became slightly stiff, buzzing faintly in his ear.
"At 7:25 PM, the camera on the first floor did capture a man entering the stairwell. His appearance matches the description you provided exactly."
Ethan's eyelid twitched.
No wonder the elevator had stopped on the first floor earlier.
That man had deliberately avoided using the elevator.
But even more unsettling was something else.
If the police had already checked the surveillance footage, there was no way they could have gone to the wrong address.
If they hadn't made a mistake…
Then where exactly had they been knocking?
"Also, Mr. Ethan, there's something else we need to confirm with you."
The voice on the phone continued without pause.
"We received your emergency report at 7:35 PM. According to your statement at the time, you had already confirmed that the man was dead when you called… zzzt… is that correct?"
Ethan listened carefully.
Apart from the crackling static, he could also hear faint background noises… and the sound of someone swallowing nervously.
Before he could respond, the officer continued speaking.
"He came up from the first floor via the stairs to the twenty-first floor and broke into your apartment. But from the moment he entered the building to the time you reported the incident, less than ten minutes had passed."
"In other words… even accounting for the time it took him to reach your floor and unlock the door, the encounter between the two of you—and the moment you killed him—must have happened within a very short period of time."
"So what we'd like to know is… what exactly caused his death?"
Ethan frowned, trying to suppress the uneasiness rising inside him.
"Technically… suffocation."
Because of the officer's strange tone, the whole situation sounded somewhat bizarre, but it was the truth.
The man had used a key to enter and rushed straight at him. The fight ended quickly.
Ethan had also called the police almost immediately afterward, so the entire incident taking only a short time wasn't strange—at least, that's how Ethan saw it.
But clearly, the officer on the phone had misunderstood something.
Or perhaps they still hadn't realized what the real problem was.
"Mr. Ethan, normally we would discuss this with you face-to-face, but…"
The voice became distorted as the signal weakened on the upper floors, mixed with sharp bursts of static.
The sound was so piercing that Ethan interrupted.
"So… you've already gone inside?"
"What?"
The officer on the other end paused, clearly confused.
"You couldn't have arrived just three minutes ago. I know how fast the police respond in Jinghai City—especially in a case involving a death."
"So you must have arrived earlier… and already entered through that door."
Apparently, the officers had not seen Ethan, which had made them suspicious.
That explained why their entire conversation had felt so strange.
That was understandable. Ethan didn't find it unreasonable.
He looked at the open elevator again, swallowing hard.
The blood-red message flashed through his mind once more.
The real question was this—
If the police hadn't gone to the wrong place…
Then where exactly was he right now?
"Zzzzz—"
Perhaps mistaking Ethan's words as some kind of provocation, the person on the phone fell silent.
Only the crackling static continued.
Ethan pulled the phone slightly away from his ear, instinctively trying to distance himself from the sharp noise.
At that moment, he noticed the time on the screen change again.
8:04 PM.
Almost unconsciously, Ethan turned his head and looked back through the doorway into his apartment.
The next second—
his pupils suddenly contracted.
The living room had become even darker.
It was as if a thin veil had covered everything, blurring the space.
But through the faint scattered light, Ethan noticed something horrifying.
The place where the body had been lying—
was now empty.
The man's corpse had disappeared.
Ethan stopped breathing.
He suddenly pressed the phone tightly to his ear again, his voice becoming urgent.
"So… what exactly did you find?"
"ZZZZT—!"
A violent burst of static erupted, like needles stabbing into his ears.
"Sir!"
The voice on the phone suddenly shouted, as if the officer had finally lost his patience.
Ethan immediately noticed something.
The tone had changed.
The man no longer called him by name.
Instead, the voice turned cold and rigid.
"…We have already located the body."
The voice was mixed with heavy breathing and faint trembling.
"After identification, the deceased is Ethan."
A brief silence followed.
Then the officer spoke again.
"So… who exactly are you?"