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墨書 Inktalez
Early the next morning, I began to execute my plan. I bought a second-hand phone and a new SIM card, all for just a hundred yuan. The saleswoman at the small mobile shop kept sizing me up, as if she found it surprising that someone like me would buy the cheapest phone available.
As I was leaving, I heard her mutter, "What bad luck, selling such junk as the first deal of the day. This is how it ends."
I was so angry that I almost turned back to throw the phone at her face. I checked my pockets and decided against it; there wasn't enough money in there to make a scene.
Once outside, I dialed A San's number. The call quality was terrible, crackling and buzzing.
A San shouted from the other end, "Brother Qiang, is it your signal that's bad or mine? The static is louder than your voice!"
I asked, "Where are you?"
"You’re too impatient. I just arrived at the border and haven’t crossed yet. You know I'm sneaking across; I have to wait for the right moment, and the roads aren't easy."
"Oh, that's your problem; your signal is poor over there. From now on, call me on this number. This number is our dedicated line, available twenty-four hours a day. Contact me directly if anything comes up."
After hanging up, I returned to the shop. Huang Hai had just woken up; the shop wasn't open yet. He stood in the courtyard wearing a cotton robe while talking on the phone.
I was taken aback when I saw him with a brand-new smartphone—one of those latest models that hadn’t even been released in the country yet. Had he changed his ways? Was he willing to spend so much on a phone?
I walked over and asked him, "Huang the Shopkeeper, trading up to something so trendy?"
Huang Hai chuckled and replied after hanging up, "It was sponsored by someone else."
What the hell? It was so cold that I started sweating. How did he get involved with someone like that? Is he going to rely on others for everything? What’s next—finding a wife through sponsorship too?
"Who sponsored this? Who's so clueless?"
"Ouyang Young Master. This is a parting gift he gave me. It's to thank me for saving him."
"Come on, did he really need you to save his life? Who's this loser? You could have handled it yourself."
"Don't look down on people like that! I have my own status!" Huang Hai flicked his sparse hair and began recounting an incident from last night at the hotel.
It turned out that Ouyang Jian, fueled by alcohol, felt the need to show off his grand entrance with two bodyguards. At the party, he made a romantic confession to Tang Yumo.
As a result, when Tang Yumo led him into a back alley of the hotel, his two bodyguards were taken out in an instant, rendered incapable of action. Huang Hai estimated they were done for. It was Huang Hai who risked everything to protect Ouyang Jian, preventing the Hakka People from killing him.
Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but admire Huang Hai. I never expected him to have such courage.
"Well, look at you. You dared to take on the Hakka People; they don't hold back. If they want you dead, you're dead—no hesitation."
"Hey, what can I do? Ouyang hasn't settled the bill yet."
Damn it. I almost kicked him to death. What kind of person is this? Thank goodness Ouyang Jian didn't pay in advance; otherwise, I'd have to collect his corpse today.
Huang Hai jumped back a bit to dodge my kick and shouted, "Don't get rough! I'm a person of status!"
"Yeah right. I believe you have an ID."
Huang Hai patted his cotton robe. "It's silk. I wouldn't dare wear anything else; I don't want to get it dirty."
"Afraid that wearing an outer garment won't let you show off?" I retorted. "By the way, that Nokia of yours is useless now, right? Let me borrow it."
"Don't you already have one? What do you need an old phone for?"
"To crack walnuts."
"Well, okay then."
Huang Hai ran back to the house to grab his hardest phone in the world for me, then dashed off again to open the shop. Today was the grand opening, and he was taking it more seriously than I was.
I took the phone back to my room. I couldn't get involved in the shop's affairs now, and I figured Huang Hai wouldn't let me either. The shop had become his personal property. When I come back, if I can survive Lop Nur, I will definitely reclaim control over the shop. After all, it was registered under my name, and I had feelings for it.
I inserted the SIM card into the hardest phone in history and pondered whom to call to test the call quality. It better be better than that last phone. After thinking for a moment, I dialed customer service. This was a dedicated line; I didn't want anyone except A San to know about it, mainly for safety reasons.
I pressed zero, and a sweet, scripted voice from customer service came through: "Hello, please speak."
"Hello, I'd like a pork chop rice, no egg."
There was silence for a few seconds; it seemed the customer service representative was confused.
"Hello, could you please repeat that?" The call quality of this phone was a hundred times better than the second-hand one I just bought; the customer service representative's voice came through clearly. I could sense a hint of unease in her tone—perhaps even anger?
"Pork chop rice. Haven't you heard of it or can't you make it?"
"Sir, this is China Mobile; we do not provide delivery services."
"So what? KFC sells pies and youtiao too; can't you deliver? I'm going to complain on Taobao and give you a bad review!"
"Have you lost your mind from Singles' Day? Go complain to Jack Ma instead. People like you deserve to be single for life."
I understand now, the Customer Service Sister is not just enduring anxiety, but also anger. When she gets angry, she doesn't hold back, bombarding me with words in a rapid-fire manner that leaves no room for me to interject. I had no choice but to decisively hang up the phone.
At this point, I had nothing left to do but wait and think. I was waiting for news from A San, for Jack to respond to me, and for Fatty to recover. I needed to carefully consider my action plan, which I believed would be quite challenging to execute due to numerous external distractions. It was even uncertain whether I could bring the Antimatter Bomb into the underground of Lop Nur.
Of course, there were still some specific details to handle, such as thoroughly reading the information left by Xiao Guolin and distinguishing the similarities and differences between him and Cao Mingzhe regarding their experiences in the underground dream of Lop Nur. Ideally, I would be able to create a more credible underground map based on this.
Additionally, during this time, I needed to make contact with everyone in the Task Force, to grasp how many Left-Handed individuals were within it. I wanted to imprint these individuals in my mind and ideally find a way to identify those Left-Handed members whom I believed could pose a threat to our operation and remove them from the Task Force.
However, this task was even more difficult. For instance, there was Secretary Chen, who was sent down from above and likely held a position similar to that of Cao Mingzhe. The difficulty of getting him out of the Task Force far exceeded my ability to deal with him.
Some matters do not shift according to one's will. My actions had yet to begin, but the butterfly effect triggered by another event had already manifested itself prematurely, even altering my plans.
I violated the Confidentiality Agreement by leaking details about the first Lop Nur Archaeology work, which erupted suddenly without any preparation. (To Be Continued)
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