After leaving the museum, Ji Xun was in a terrible state, and Shen Kui remained deeply unsettled.
The shocking scene captured on the surveillance footage weighed heavily on both of them. After a brief discussion, they decided to part ways temporarily to sort through their thoughts.
Shen Kui returned home and collapsed onto the sofa, recalling the moment from the surveillance footage: the face emerging from the shadows had struck her heart like a heavy hammer.
She never imagined that, less than twenty-four hours after Tian Ke’s fall, she would see the other person again in such a manner.
Staring blankly at the ceiling, she found herself thinking of nothing for once. This brief moment of emptiness allowed her senses to expand. She felt as though she had returned to yesterday evening, standing alone in the empty hallway, hearing Tian Ke’s clear, vibrant voice bidding her farewell.
And then… came that gut-wrenching, muffled thud.
As her thoughts drifted to this point, Shen Kui suddenly froze, sensing something amiss.
She stood up and paced around the room a few times, replaying the details of the previous night in her mind.
The more she thought about it, the more something felt off.
What exactly was wrong?
Her gaze wandered to the wall, where a calendar hung. On the blank space to the right of the calendar, she had written her recent plans from top to bottom.
This was a schedule Shen Kui had made at the beginning of the month. She had always been someone who planned her life meticulously, able to sort through even the most chaotic situations and tackle tasks one by one in order.
Wait…
Order!
Like a bolt of lightning, a terrifying realization struck Shen Kui’s mind!
She rushed to her desk, grabbed her phone, and with trembling hands, opened the recording function.
Due to work requirements, Shen Kui had replaced her phone two months ago with one that had an automatic call recording feature. Now, it had become the only way to confirm a horrifying suspicion.
Her hands shaking, she opened the recording function, found the call from yesterday evening, and pressed play.
A familiar voice, accompanied by crackling static, filled her ears once again—Tian Ke’s final words:
“Crackle… don’t… investigate… three o’clock… crackle… don’t… pay attention…”
“Thud!”
“Life goes in cycles. Hua Hua, we’ll meet again.”
Shen Kui held the phone, her mind blank. The recording felt like a demon’s whisper, looping endlessly in her ears.
“Thud!”
“Hua Hua, we’ll meet again.”
…
“Thud!”
“Hua Hua, we’ll meet again.”
…
She felt as though all her strength had been drained, slowly sinking to the floor.
She finally understood where that sense of unease had come from…
The recording clearly indicated that Tian Ke’s fall had come first, followed by her farewell!
The “thud” of the fall and Tian Ke’s suddenly bright, clear voice felt like two sides of a severed reality, eerily juxtaposed before her eyes.
How could it be…
How could it be?!
How could someone who had fallen to their death on the spot still be bidding her farewell over the phone?!
No, no, there must be some other explanation.
Shen Kui desperately tried to comfort herself, frantically looking around the room, hoping to find something—anything—that could offer a plausible reason to convince herself.
Her eyes fell on her phone. The angry throw from last night had left a crack in the upper right corner of the screen. She opened the call log and found the record of Tian Ke’s call from last night.
Right, there was this, too…
She had almost forgotten. Last night, Tian Ke’s phone was clearly in her hands, so how could she have received a call from his number?
How exactly did that final call from Tian Ke before her death come through?
And what did the sound of the fall in the call truly represent?
Could it all… be as she suspected?
Shen Kui sat on the floor, stunned, feeling overwhelmed by a tangled mess of thoughts she couldn’t sort through.
For the first time in her life, she found herself questioning her steadfast materialist worldview.
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sarcastisaurus On CFRFGC Chapter 86