Aoba Office

Women have come a long way.

I followed Fu Ying without waiting for his answer.

The woman walked forward as if there was no one around her.

I walked across another road, turned a corner, and saw a community under construction. The houses in the community have been built, but there are no windows.

A phone booth on the roadside is very inconspicuous, just like those street lights and street signs. Normal people passing by will not pay special attention to it.

The red phone booth has mottled paint, but its original bright color can still be seen. It is also the only bright color on this colorless road.

The phone booth is a fully enclosed space, a boxy space with a flat top, marked with the words Public Telephone. On the side facing the motorway, there is still an advertising box. The advertisement posted inside has faded, and it can be vaguely seen as a movie poster.

I still have an impression of this movie. It was a campus love movie that was shown when I was in high school. The male lead was a popular celebrity at the time, and the female lead was also a popular celebrity. Therefore, it earned a lot of eyeballs and box office. However, the reputation was extremely bad, the box office plummeted, and it was soon discontinued across the board. .

The poster in the advertising box does not show the youthful beauty of the male and female protagonists, only two pale faces. Even the name of the movie was blurred to the point of being unrecognizable, and other writing had completely disappeared.

The woman quickened her steps, crossed the road, and headed directly to the phone booth.

I followed.

The phone booth was clean, only dusty, not turned into a trash can.

The phone hanging on the inner wall looked complete, with the microphone hanging on it and no buttons missing. It's just that the numbers on the buttons are blurred. The operating instructions posted on the phone were also missing.

There is also a horizontal board under the phone with an old-fashioned Yellow Pages on it. The index book was dog-eared and yellowed on the sides, with a string threaded through the spine and tied inside the phone booth.

The woman opened the door and walked in without dialing the number.

I didn't see any yin energy attached to the phone booth, nor did I see any ghosts around here.

Shouzi and Fu Ying followed. The thin man probably understood my intention. Fu Ying could not bear to look at me strangely. He had restrained himself enough, but he still couldn't bear to look at me frequently.

Normal people probably wouldn't be able to understand the reason why I came here.

The woman stared at the phone booth without blinking.

I was recalling the contents of Aoba’s files.

I remember there was a file mentioning a phone box.

The phone box on the roadside rang, it was a call from the deceased. Once you answer the call, you form some kind of connection with the deceased. Those who answered the call ended up being killed by ghosts.

Aoba's client also died.

Aoba's people didn't solve the case. After the client died, the phone box in question disappeared. They were not targeted. Of course, there is no chance of winning in a cat-and-mouse game in such a big world.

I don't remember exactly what the phone booth looked like.

But in Minqing, when public phone booths were rarely seen anymore, something like this suddenly happened...

"What's her husband's name?" I asked Fu Ying.

Fu Ying suddenly heard such a question and was stunned. He straightened his thinning hair and said, "I don't know. Our sub-district office has contacted her relatives before and found her parents. There is nothing they can do. She didn’t mention her husband’s name either…”

"Should... her surname be Lin?" I remember that the client's surname was Lin. "What's her name?"

Fu Ying thought for a while, "I don't know her husband's surname. Her name is Yu Xiaoqin."

I cannot recall the name of my client’s wife, and I am not sure if she is this woman.

The woman suddenly changed her expression and grabbed the microphone excitedly.

My heart skipped a beat, and I suddenly felt Yin Qi.

The yin energy floated out of the phone. It was pure ghost yin energy, without any malicious intent.

A gentle expression appeared on the woman's numb face.

The soundproofing effect of the phone booth is good. I didn't hear the woman's voice, but judging from her nodding movements and mouth shape, she should be promising something to the person on the other end of the phone.

Fu Ying sighed: "It's always been like this. I'm crazy. I always think my husband will call me."

She may not be crazy.

I looked at Yu Xiaoqin's appearance and was a little undecided.

I thought I already had a hard heart, but when I saw Yu Xiaoqin holding the microphone with a look of happiness on her face, I was still touched.

She probably really heard her late husband's voice.

If this phone booth is eliminated, Yu Xiaoqin may really collapse.

The call lasted for three to five minutes before she hung up with regret and returned to her numb face.

She pushed away the phone booth and walked out, still not looking at us.

"Yu Xiaoqin, Ms. Yu..." I called her, but she didn't stop.

I looked back at the phone booth, which was back to normal.

"That..." Fu Ying looked at me and hesitated to speak.

"Oh, Director Fu, you don't need to worry about us. I just... encountered a lot of situations like this during demolition. Some people don't want to move because of the memories of the old house." I apologized, "Let's take a look here. Just leave it alone.”

Fu Ying was a little suspicious. He looked at us for a while, then looked at Yu Xiaoqin, "It's nothing. Our street office often goes to see her. My bike is still parked there."

This means he doesn't want to leave directly.

It’s not easy for me to chase people away either.

With Fu Ying following me, I couldn't "match the code" with Yu Xiaoqin, at least I couldn't mention Qingye's name.

I ignored Fu Ying, walked to Yu Xiaoqin, and asked, "Did your husband call just now?"

Yu Xiaoqin remained silent.

"He calls regularly every day, or not? That public phone booth... Minqing rarely sees it now. How did you find it?" I asked one question after another.

Yu Xiaoqin didn't look at me.

Fu Ying's gaze on me has become a little strange.

The thin man made an excuse for me, "Didn't her family take her to see a doctor? Didn't they care about her?"

"I can't control it. I heard it has been many years. Her parents are also old... maybe... they seem to have passed away?" Fu Ying said uncertainly, "At that time, the houses here were still built in rural areas. She That's when I came. I didn't notice her until the land acquisition was completed and the construction of resettlement housing started. When I contacted her, her parents were already in poor health and were often hospitalized. They came over several times. There was nothing they could do. Last year, another relative of hers came over, scolding her and beating her to no avail. It seemed that one of her parents had died. "

"If this happened a long time ago, her husband passed away a long time ago, right?" the thin man asked.

"Hmm..." Fu Ying thought for a while and patted his forehead, "It must have been ten years, maybe longer. I actually can't remember clearly. No one has said it in detail. Everyone in their family is crying. It's so noisy, but she doesn't say anything. They are not very willing to talk to our street office." Fu Ying smiled bitterly, "In fact, we can't help much with this kind of thing. We don't need to deal with it. If someone takes care of her... maybe her family has given up."