As if something delightful had crossed her mind, Litchi licked her lips, a spark of excitement in her eyes.
She could barely contain herself as she stepped into the lounge, pulling a tube of lipstick from her clutch. She had just popped it open to touch up her makeup when her phone buzzed.
"A number I don't recognize?"
Litchi tossed the compact back into her bag, irritation prickling at her. The mood had been so perfect, and now this call was ruining everything.
She took a breath, working to steady herself so her voice and tone would come across as natural as possible.
"What a buzzkill."
Too annoyed to bother with makeup, she answered the phone and walked toward the recording studio's door.
"Hello? Is something wrong?" Her sweet voice rolled out like a sip of ice-cold fruit wine — refreshing, pleasant, with just the faintest hint of intoxication.
"Number Five is dead. I need you to come to Building 3, Fanghua Garden, floor twenty-four." The person on the other end was clearly unmoved by Litchi's voice, cutting straight to the point.
"Dead?" Litchi's still-bleeding fingers slowly tightened into a fist. A bead of blood dripped onto the pale pink phone case.
"I don't care what Number Five told you or what the two of you are to each other. Get over here. Now."
"Now?" Litchi hesitated, phone in one hand, the other pushing open the studio's wooden door. Light spilled out onto the pitch-black corridor outside. The hallway was utterly silent.
The door cracked open just a sliver. Unwilling to let it go, she pressed one more question: "His death has nothing to do with me. Why do I need to go to the twenty-fourth floor?"
"Unless you want to die, get over here right now!" The voice on the phone slipped through the narrow gap in the door and drifted out into the hallway.
"Fine." The woman swung the door wide open, bag slung over her shoulder. She had barely taken half a step out of the studio when a monstrous hammerhead hurtled toward her without the slightest warning.
She didn't even have time to scream before the impact sent her flying back into the recording studio.
"Ahh!"
Pain arrived a few seconds late, and a belated scream finally ripped through the studio.
"Number Twelve?" A cold, raspy voice came through the receiver. The speaker was using a voice changer, but even disguised, the voice carried a trace of familiarity that Chen Ge couldn't quite place.
He wanted to keep listening, but the person on the other end seemed to catch on and hung up without hesitation.
"Only caught three words, but that's still a major lead." Standing in the center of the dark corridor, Chen Ge held Litchi's phone, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Every member of the Odd Talk Association was unknown to the rest, but whoever had called Litchi was different. This person seemed to know about the relationship between Litchi and Number Five, and had even tipped her off at a critical moment to leave.
"Whoever this voice belongs to is most likely the hidden president, pulling the strings from the shadows."
Chen Ge mentally replayed every voice he had heard inside the Odd Talk Association and was now certain: this voice did not belong to the man who had sat at the first seat to the left of the dinner table, nor to Number Five or Number Ten.
"The circle keeps narrowing. Once I catch him, the Odd Talk Association should crumble into dust."
He set Litchi's phone down on a chair, took up a position by the door, and dialed Captain Yan's number.
Captain Yan's team mobilized far faster than the Xicheng precinct. In just over a dozen minutes, a patrol car had already arrived.