"Uncle Wang?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"An owner just called saying they saw someone suspicious slip into Building Three. We're short on night-shift security tonight. If you're not asleep, could you come help out?"
"Suspicious person? Sure, I'll be right there!" Ever since his own mistake had gotten Old Wang fined, Xiao Gu had been eaten up with guilt and had been looking for a chance to make it up to him. So he agreed without hesitation.
Grabbing his phone, Gu Feiyu jogged over to Fanghua Garden.
Building Three was right next to the back gate. Gu Feiyu peered inside the security booth — Old Wang had left in such a rush he hadn't even closed the door.
"Did something happen?"
He called Old Wang, but no one picked up. After entering Building Three, a new message popped up on WeChat.
"The guy who snuck in looks like a thief. We've got him cornered on the twenty-third floor. Watch yourself when you get here."
"Got it."
Worried about Old Wang's safety, Xiao Gu stepped straight into the elevator car and pressed the button for the twenty-third floor.
The elevator doors slid shut. Xiao Gu stared at his phone, and something suddenly struck him as odd.
"Uncle Wang types really slowly. He usually just sends voice messages. And when I called him just now, why didn't he pick up?"
Suspicion gnawed at him, though Xiao Gu didn't think anyone would deliberately be deceiving him.
"I just moved to the city to work. I'm nobody — no looks, no money. It's not like anyone would go out of their way to trick me. They're probably lying in wait and can't answer the phone right now."
The numbers on the display kept climbing. The elevator arrived at the twenty-third floor in no time.
"Uncle, I'm here. Which room are you in?"
Xiao Gu stepped out of the elevator on tiptoe, ducked around the corner of the hallway, and sent Old Wang a message asking for their location.
"The thief seems to be in 3239. We're set up in the room across from him. Try not to make too much noise when you come over."
He looked up at the pitch-black corridor, memorized the room number from the WeChat message, and headed inside.
There were no lights in the hallway. The only illumination came from Xiao Gu's phone screen. He eyed the closed doors on either side and slowed his pace.
The farther he got from the elevator, the quieter it became. Halfway down the corridor, he glanced back and noticed the numbers on the elevator display had suddenly changed.
Someone downstairs was using the elevator — or something had slipped inside it. Either way, the car had gone all the way back down to the first floor.
If he ran into trouble now, escaping by elevator was practically impossible. It would take about a minute for it to come back up.
"Someone's coming up from the first floor? Another security guard?"
Xiao Gu waited a while, but the elevator stayed put on the first floor without ascending any further. He felt a twinge of doubt, but before he could figure it out, Old Wang sent another message urging him on.
If it had been an ordinary message, fine — but this one set Xiao Gu's nerves on edge.
"Uncle Wang doesn't type this fast. Could it be someone else sending these?" Xiao Gu had already harbored this suspicion, but the crux of the matter was that he couldn't think of anything about himself worth coveting. Old Wang had dozens of contacts on WeChat — why single him out?
Xiao Gu stopped in his tracks. He dialed Old Wang's number once more. No one answered.
"No phone calls, but constant messages — is someone trying to hide their voice?"
Not long ago, Xiao Gu had run into that deranged woman in Building Three and narrowly escaped being dismembered. That memory had become a dark shadow looming over him. It had also taught him a valuable lesson: never harbor the intent to harm others, but never drop your guard against them either.
He stopped advancing and began creeping carefully back toward the elevator.
"Get out of Building Three first, find the other security guards, and sort out what's going on."