Chapter 44: The Phone Call from Li Yun

"Huang Ying, let's do this in the future too!" I couldn't help saying. Just imagining myself hoeing the field while Huang Ying dropped the seeds sounded so appealing.

"Okay!" Influenced by the atmosphere, Huang Ying answered immediately.

After she spoke, I walked into the field and stood beside her, resting my arm around her shoulder as we walked together toward Grandpa Ke and the others.

Grandpa Ke and the others saw us too, stopped what they were doing, and looked at us with smiles on their faces.

"Grandpa Ke!" I called out.

"Come here, here's the key. It's too hot out here under the sun, you two head back first!" Grandpa Ke clapped his hands, raising a cloud of dust around them, then reached into his pants pocket, took out a key, and handed it to us.

"Let us help you, we don't want to go back just yet." I didn't take the key because I really wanted to experience what it felt like to farm the land together with Huang Ying!

Huang Ying's face was full of eager anticipation; it was clear she really wanted to try "farming" as well.

Grandpa Ke smiled and said, "All right then, you two can help drop the seeds."

Grandma Ke smiled and handed us a white bag filled entirely with seeds.

"Drop four seeds into each hole, I'm going to get the fertilizer." After handing us the bag, Grandma Ke turned around and walked toward a dark pile of stuff.

That was pig manure; in the countryside, this was commonly used as farm fertilizer. Huang Ying and I stood there and watched as Grandma Ke grabbed a handful of the pig manure without the slightest hesitation.

Huang Ying and I frowned at the same time, then bent down in unison to start dropping the seeds.

After just a dozen minutes or so, sweat was already beading on my forehead. Clearly, I wasn't cut out for this kind of heavy labor.

The pig manure had to be placed on top of the seeds. I looked over and saw that our seed-dropping progress had already far surpassed Grandma Ke's, so I turned my head and said, "Huang Ying, let's go sit over there and rest for a bit!"

Huang Ying nodded, and the two of us walked over to the edge of the ridge and sat down.

Just as we sat down, my phone suddenly rang.

I pulled out my phone to take a look, and my heart rate immediately accelerated. My expression changed drastically on the spot. Huang Ying noticed it too; she cast a subconscious glance at my phone and then asked, "What's wrong with you?"

"N—nothing, I'm going to take this call!" I had no idea what expression was on my face as I said this, but it must have looked terrible.

Huang Ying smiled and nodded, then shifted her gaze back to Grandpa Ke and Grandma Ke, not even looking at me again. It was almost as if she were deliberately avoiding making things difficult for me—though it was possible I was just overthinking it, feeling guilty because of a troubled conscience!

Holding the phone, I ran quite a distance away until I found a small mound of dirt. I hid behind it, making sure Huang Ying wouldn't be able to hear my voice, and hurriedly answered the call for fear that she would hang up if I delayed.

With trembling fingers, I pressed the answer button.

This was only the second time I had answered a phone call with such intense nervousness. The last time was the conversation between my grandfather and me after the incident involving Huang Ying, and the level of tension this time was a close second to that.

"......Hello...... Li...... Li Yun?" My voice was trembling. I used to call her several times every day without ever thinking about what to say, but now that the call actually went through, the moment I opened my mouth, I had no idea what to say next.

Ever since that last incident, there had been no news of her whatsoever. Calling her always resulted in a state of unanswered calls, and I never expected that she would take the initiative to call me.

It wasn't that I had no feelings for Li Yun; on the contrary, I had deep feelings for her. But these feelings were not like the ones I had for Huang Ying. My feelings for Huang Ying were about cherishing, protecting, and love. As for Li Yun, half of it was guilt, and the other half was pity.

People are truly strange. Even when you are deeply in love with someone, the moment you hear that someone else also likes you, far from feeling disgusted, you actually feel a sense of joy.

After asking my question, I quietly waited for a response from the other end of the line.

For two full seconds, there was only static crackling from the phone. After two seconds, a voice finally came through.

"Hehehehe...... You all go die, just all go die......" A woman's laughter came from the other end. It wasn't Li Yun—definitely not. Based on my understanding of Li Yun, she would never say something like that.

I quickly pulled the phone a distance away from my ear. I had originally expected it to be Li Yun's voice, but instead, it was this chilling sound. I was completely unprepared, and even hearing this voice in broad daylight was enough to make my skin crawl.

After moving the phone away, I suddenly remembered something. Back when the dormitory head went missing, someone had used the dormitory head's phone to call me, and the words spoken were an exact match, down to the very tone of voice.

Last time, I had thought it was Li Yun trying to scare me away and stop me from investigating the cause of the dormitory head's death, so she disguised her voice to frighten me. But now, I felt that the matter was far from being that simple.

"Who are you?" I moved the phone back to my ear and asked, tension gripping me tighter than ever.

"Hehehehe..." The voice emitted an extremely eerie laugh, completely ignoring my question.

"Where is Li Yun?" I continued to ask. Who cared who this person was? Finding out Li Yun's whereabouts was what I wanted to know most.

However, the very moment I finished speaking, the call was disconnected, and the dial tone buzzed in my ear.

Holding the phone, I immediately pressed redial, but it went back to being unanswered. I tried several times consecutively, and the result was always the same.

Just who was this? This voice was definitely not Li Yun's. I had brushed it off last time, assuming it was just a sensory illusion under special circumstances, but now she was calling again.

I vaguely sensed that the dormitory head's death, Li Yun's story, and the mystery of Li Yun's disappearance were absolutely not simple matters.

Ever since the incident with the dormitory head, that voice had been lingering around Li Yun. Otherwise, how could both events bear its shadow?

My mind was currently a complete mess. The matters here hadn't even been resolved yet, and now a new trouble had arisen.

Unwilling to give up, I dialed the number one more time, but the outcome remained the same—unanswered.

Damn it.

I couldn't help myself anymore and threw the phone onto the ground. It was infuriating. The feeling was just like taking the college entrance examination and encountering a question the teacher had explained in class, but which you hadn't paid attention to, leaving you completely clueless. To use a saying from my grandfather's village, it was so frustrating it made your testicles want to burst!

After standing there thinking for a few seconds, I gradually calmed down, picked up the phone from the ground, and walked back toward Huang Ying and the others.

The field had just been plowed and the soil was very loose, so the phone wasn't broken. I slipped the phone into my pocket, forced my face to contort into a smile, and then stepped back out into the open.

I couldn't let Huang Ying know about the situation between Li Yun and me. Although people say lovers should be completely honest with each other, I couldn't bear to imagine how much pain it would cause her if she found out.

I was one hundred percent certain that she wouldn't scold me, nor would she even raise her voice at me. She would just be like before, harboring not a single complaint, because in my memory, God had never equipped her with the ability to fly into a rage. I didn't want to see her wronged, hiding in a corner crying all by herself while still forcing a smile for my sake.

To put it bluntly, I was just finding a righteous excuse for my own actions so that I could tell myself I was keeping quiet for her own good.

Even if it sounded a bit hypocritical, at that moment, I simply didn't want her to get hurt.

Emerging from behind the small mound of dirt, I saw that Huang Ying was still sitting on the ridge of the field, resting her chin in her hands as she watched Grandpa Ke and Grandma Ke with rapt attention.

Her eyes were so pure, untainted by even a speck of dust, as clean as a newborn infant's.

People nowadays have long had their eyes blinded and scoured dry by the blowing dust of the mundane world. I only hoped that Huang Ying would never be polluted by this secular society and could retain that pristine genuineness of her true nature within this turbid world.

Quietly, I walked up behind Huang Ying and placed my hand on her shoulder.

"You're done with your call!"

The moment my hand touched her, Huang Ying immediately turned her head to look at me and said those words. To me, her face was always as warm and pleasant as a spring breeze.

"Yeah!" I nodded, then sat down right beside her.

After I sat down, Huang Ying shifted her gaze back to Grandpa Ke and the couple, focusing intently and earnestly once again.

"What are you looking at?" I was curious. Why did Huang Ying keep staring at Grandpa Ke and Grandma Ke farming?

"Farming!" Huang Ying replied without even moving her eyeballs.

"Uh...... just farming? I mean, what else are you looking at besides the farming?"

This time, Huang Ying shifted her gaze back to me. The corners of her lips twitched, and as if she wanted to say something before she even spoke, her face flushed slightly red.

"N—nothing at all..." She shook her head repeatedly.

I smiled. Her lying skills were truly subpar; even a child could tell she had been thinking about other things while watching the farming.

However, looking at her expression, I had already roughly guessed what was on her mind.

She must have been thinking about farming together with me in the future.

Uh... I might sound a bit narcissistic, but she really must have been thinking about that!