Chapter 29: The Small-Time Star and His Short-Tempered Sugar Daddy (Part XXIX)
Both Cheng Nuo and Su Yu knew that Xiao Ji had gone out.
But the program team didn’t explicitly mandate that every guest must stay in their room during the segment of calling each other.
Xiao Ji didn’t say anything, so they could only guess that Xiao Ji probably went to make a phone call.
But neither Cheng Nuo nor Su Yu expected that just two minutes after Xiao Ji went out, Cheng Nuo’s phone rang again.
Xiao Ji was on the balcony just now. The sliding glass door had good sound insulation. Cheng Nuo only saw Xiao Ji answer the phone. Watching Xiao Ji’s expression and the way he spoke, he could roughly judge that it was very likely Fang Yinnian calling.
Cheng Nuo thought that if Xiao Ji made a call, there was a high probability he would call Fang Yinnian too.
Therefore, when he saw his phone ring again, Cheng Nuo’s first reaction was to negate his previous guess that Xiao Ji had gone out to make a call.
Feeling good about himself, he opened the door, went out, and pressed the answer button.
But there was no sound on the other end.
Cheng Nuo waited for a moment and actively said, “Hello?”
Suddenly, the sound of fine rain came from the receiver, seemingly beating against glass, making a crackling noise.
Cheng Nuo was puzzled. A few seconds ago, when he came out of the room to answer the phone, it wasn’t raining outside. He asked tentatively:
“Is it raining?”
Still no one spoke, but besides the sound of rain, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly appeared on the other end.
Cheng Nuo didn’t understand. Just as he was about to hang up and call back, he suddenly heard someone speaking in the receiver.
Childish and crisp, it sounded like a little boy.
At first, Cheng Nuo didn’t hear clearly what the boy said.
So he turned on the speakerphone and turned the call volume to the maximum.
After that, he heard knocking on a door. After the knocking, the boy spoke again, saying:
“Auntie, are you awake? Can I come in?”
In this instant, Cheng Nuo froze. His legs felt like they were filled with lead, his breathing stagnated, and his scalp went numb.
That was himself.
The window at the stairway was open. The wind rolled up the window screen, blowing into the corridor and into Cheng Nuo’s collar.
Cheng Nuo didn’t even dare to look back. With trembling hands, he threw the phone far away, pushed open the room door, fled inside in panic, closed the door backhandedly, and leaned against it, his legs going weak.
Su Yu was startled by Cheng Nuo. “What’s wrong? Did you see a ghost?”
Cheng Nuo immediately flew into a rage, roaring at Su Yu, “Shut up!”
Su Yu glared. “Teacher Cheng! You are so fierce!”
Cheng Nuo looked at Su Yu. He didn’t know why, but he felt that faintly, Su Yu’s face began to overlap with the face of Cui Ying in his memory, which had long been blurred, from many years ago.
He gasped for breath heavily, looking both terrified and angry. He tried hard to keep himself calm, telling himself that everything in front of him was an illusion.
It was just that the scene of Cui Ying hanging herself by the window back then broke through the restraints of memory and floated clearly in Cheng Nuo’s mind.
Cheng Nuo controlled himself not to look at Su Yu, then supported himself against the wall and moved wretchedly to the bathroom, locking the door.
At this time, the barrage outside the lens was already densely packed:
【Does anyone know what’s going on?】
【Possessed, holy sh*t! Scared the hell out of me! Cheng Nuo didn’t even pick up the damn phone, talked to the black screen for a long time, and kept pressing the volume key. Did I see it wrong?】
【Too weird, right? Wasn’t the call picked up? Didn’t Xiao Ji call?】
【Did you not see just now? Xiao Ji dialed the number twice, but hung up a few seconds after dialing, and then was examining that public phone. It seemed to be malfunctioning.】
【So scary. Can anyone explain?】
【Looking at the screen, everything is normal. Only Cheng Nuo’s behavior is weird. Does he have some mental illness???】
【It is said that after being an artist for a long time, many people will develop mental and psychological problems. That person who committed suicide before, wasn’t it because of mental problems?】
【This is too sudden. Oh my god…】
…
Xiao Ji watched 037’s live broadcast while pretending to take out his phone to call the program team.
Before the call went out, the program team turned off the live broadcast over there. The chief director walked in from outside the courtyard personally with people:
“What happened?”
Xiao Ji stood where he was, flawlessly saying, “The phone is broken.”
The chief director was stunned. “Broken?”
After speaking, he greeted his assistant, “You check it. I’ll go up and check the situation first.”
The assistant agreed, and the rest of the staff followed the chief director upstairs in a swarm.
The assistant looked at Xiao Ji, picked up the phone, and dialed a number casually. The receiver was silent, with no reaction at all.
He gave a “Hey,” tapped the receiver in his palm, and dialed another number. Still no reaction.
“It’s really broken. Need to find someone to repair it.”
Xiao Ji gave an “Oh” and prepared to turn and leave. After walking two steps, as if suddenly remembering something, he turned back and asked the assistant:
“What happened upstairs?”
The assistant frowned. “Something went wrong with Teacher Cheng Nuo. Director Liu took the medical team up. Don’t know the specific situation right now.”
On Xiao Ji’s calm face appeared a trace of imperceptible but—for him—just right confusion. Afterward, he didn’t ask more and went directly into the house.
Upon entering, Fang Yinnian wasn’t in the living room, so Xiao Ji also went upstairs.
Just as he reached the top of the stairs, he saw a group of people gathered outside his room door. Fang Yinnian was leaning against the stair railing, standing outside the crowd.
“What’s wrong?” Xiao Ji asked.
Fang Yinnian turned his head at the sound, looking at Xiao Ji. “Don’t know. Seems to be because of the phone call. Did you make a call just now?”
Xiao Ji nodded. “I did, but it didn’t go through. The phone is broken.”
“Broken?” Fang Yinnian also looked a bit surprised. “Who did you call?”
At this time, the cameras were turned off. Everyone present focused on Cheng Nuo; no one noticed the conversation between Fang Yinnian and Xiao Ji.
Xiao Ji stated bluntly, “You said not to call you, so for the first call, I called Teacher Cheng.”
Hearing this, Fang Yinnian’s eyebrows shot up. “You f*cking…”
“The call connected and rang for four seconds. I suddenly realized that when you said not to call you, it shouldn’t be taken seriously. So I hung up on him and called you, but it didn’t go through. The phone broke.”
Xiao Ji hurriedly interrupted him and continued to explain.
Only then did Fang Yinnian hold back the unspoken words, then said, “Why call me? I already said don’t call me. When I say I don’t want to answer, I really don’t want to answer.”
Xiao Ji raised his eyebrows. “Really? Was I over-interpreting?”
Fang Yinnian narrowed his eyes, his eyes full of threat. “Really. If you had gotten through tonight, just wait for death.”
He didn’t explicitly say whose call getting through would mean Xiao Ji waiting for death.
But based on Xiao Ji’s recent understanding of Fang Yinnian, he felt that it meant if he had gotten through to Cheng Nuo, he would have to wait for death.
Xiao Ji reached out and hooked Fang Yinnian’s belt. “Your mouth is truly much harder than your…”
He paused, his gaze landing somewhere on Fang Yinnian, and suddenly chuckled lightly. “Much harder.”
Hearing this, Fang Yinnian kicked Xiao Ji’s calf. “What dog shit are you f*cking spouting! I’m not hard? You lie down and try?!”
Xiao Ji made a shushing gesture. “Don’t get handsy here. Teacher Fang, your good brother is still seeing the doctor right now.”
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