The phone continued to ring, its sound echoing endlessly through the hollow pipes, as if it were exploding from all directions. Liang Wan felt dizzy; at one point, she was in a state where she could hear the sound and not hear it at the same time. The rhythmic ringing seemed to come from a corner of her brain, and she thought that if she closed the door, she could ignore it.

Suddenly, in an instant, she was jolted awake, as if she had been driving and suddenly regained focus. She became acutely aware of the ringing, which now felt incredibly real.

She took a deep breath, stood up, and walked toward the sound, discovering that it came from a door on the left wall of the pipe. The door looked very similar to the one in the bathroom where she had just showered; it was likely the same type of room the man with the sunglasses had mentioned.

The ringing was very clear coming from inside. Liang Wan’s hands trembled slightly. No matter what was happening here, she couldn’t comprehend it, but she didn’t care; this situation felt utterly bizarre to her.

This was a complex of buildings beneath the desert, their purpose a mystery, yet they were vast and had an extremely strange structure. All the clues pointed to this place, built in the 1980s and long abandoned. Although many seemed interested in it, it was absurd to think someone would install a phone here.

After she pushed the door open, she took a few steps back and shone her flashlight inside. It was pitch black, but she could see several neatly arranged desks, piled with paper documents resembling files, all covered in thick dust. Scattered on the floor were bits of paper and ashes.

At the bottom of the room was a pool, empty of water, revealing a large amount of charcoal and paper ash. A significant quantity of paper had been burned here. The phone was on the third desk, still ringing in a regular pattern.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, except for the phone and the area around it, which had a clean circular patch where the dust had been wiped away. Someone had been here and set this up.

Liang Wan felt a headache coming on. After hesitating for a few seconds, she picked up the phone.

“Miss Liang Wan?” a voice immediately came through, “You’re quite slow to answer.”

Liang Wan didn’t recognize the voice. When she heard her name, she looked around and suddenly found everything particularly absurd. What was going on? Was this some high school prank?

“Confused?” the other party said. “Just say one word to confirm that you are indeed Liang Wan.”

“Who are you?” Liang Wan asked. The voice on the phone sounded very distorted.

“I’m glad to hear your voice. How have you been lately? Everything is different from what you expected, isn’t it?” the voice continued. “This is the only phone line here, the only way to communicate with the surface after entering beneath the desert. Only four people know about this phone line, including you. Now that you’ve answered this call, I’d like to congratulate you.”

Liang Wan glanced at the map in her hand and suddenly realized this was the trick of the man with the sunglasses. This route was not a safe one; it was a path that would inevitably lead to this phone call.

She hung up the phone with a “slam.” She didn’t like being a pawn in someone else’s game, no matter how important that game was; she refused to cooperate. The phone rang again, and she wanted to turn and leave, but suddenly realized that if this line wasn’t a normal one, where else could she go? Should she go back and slap that blind man and argue with him?

She turned back, wanting to pick up the phone again, but her inner turmoil ultimately stopped her. The person in the dark glasses had brought her here to answer this call for a reason, and it might be very important, perhaps even beneficial to her. However, the person on the other end of the line did not treat her as an equal.

Her situation was already on the brink of collapse. Perhaps to these people, such a scene was nothing, but she was an ordinary person. In any case, being addressed in a condescending tone in this state made her feel somewhat angry.

“If you want to use me, at least you should know your position. Not everyone is willing to be exploited in such a situation.” Even though she knew that the person on the phone might be a key factor in whether she could return alive, she wouldn’t worship a lifeline.

Those who study medicine have heard of Stockholm Syndrome to some extent. Liang Wan was very resolute in her heart; she would follow what might be a tragic outcome, but it would definitely be the right choice to think through the problem.

The phone continued to ring. Liang Wan walked outside, glanced at the floor plan, and decided to continue along the path laid out by the blind man. This was her own inner desire; she wanted to see what the core part of these buildings, which had been closed off, looked like.

She turned and stepped outside, continuing deeper into the place. Because of this, she didn’t notice that in the corner behind the third table where she had answered the phone, there was actually a shadow standing there.

The shadow slowly emerged, hunched over, seemingly without shoulders, the whole figure slumped as if it were being suspended. The shadow approached the phone, and it rang again. The shadow unplugged the phone line.

On the Sichuan-Tibet highway, the car had just pulled into a rest stop to refuel. Wu Xie had taken off his outer coat and was basking in the high-penetration sunlight of the Tibetan region like a lama. He needed to be darker still.

Wang Meng was on the side, continuously making phone calls. His expression changed slightly. He turned back to Wu Xie and said, “The line is down. That damn woman hung up on me.”

“You think you’re in control of this situation. Your tone unconsciously reveals a sense of superiority,” Wu Xie said. “Beautiful women are very sensitive to this sense of superiority because they are very familiar with that feeling during their upbringing.”

“Boss, saying that undermines your credibility; you don’t even have a girlfriend,” Wang Meng replied. “What do we do now?”

Wu Xie looked at the magnificent scenery below the mountain. Climbing uphill, he had unknowingly reached such a high ridge. People are the same; without realizing it, they can find themselves in a situation that even they fear.

“From the stack of photos that Lan Ting handed him at that time, he began to mix a few key photos among them as he flipped through. Now, having come this far, an absurd trap has been laid, a plan that seems childish and has been underestimated at every step, yet hidden within every hundred steps of foolish methods is a single correct path. It has accumulated to the point where his opponents are finally beginning to feel fear.

Unfortunately, many things are like human blood; a blockage in a single blood vessel is trivial in a system so complex that all pathways are intricately connected.

‘There are 24 hours left to close the net,’ Wu Xie glanced at his watch and said, ‘By the time we reach Motuo, everything will have come to an end.'”