Chapter 26: The Mysterious Beijing Telephone

“In fact, only we knew that this number was connected directly to a dedicated line operator. That operator handled calls specifically routed to Beijing, to some kind of high level place. Anyway, this was something only used for reporting special work...”

The person helping my father was the secretary of some official. He knew quite a lot, and as he held the number in his hand, he kept rambling on, his gaze toward my father becoming more and more probing.

This was a level ordinary people could not come into contact with. It was what they called a dedicated line. Back then, ordinary people making phone calls would just dial the switchboard, shout into the receiver to ask for a place, a unit, or a specific person. But what was a dedicated line? Nobody knew.

The secretary only vaguely understood that dedicated lines were used only when major events occurred, and each number was different. What they represented behind the scenes was something only a very small number of people would know.

The exact situation of this line was clearly unknown to him as well. He only vaguely knew it was connected to Beijing, which already made him feel quite impressed.

My father was left confused by everything he said. He did not know how to respond at all, and the secretary’s probing gaze made him even more uncomfortable. He could only smile without answering, which made the secretary even more certain that my father might have some deep background.

The call was quickly connected. On the other end came a pleasant female voice, with a standard Beijing accent, asking, “Please state the number you are transferring to?”

Unlike ordinary phone calls, this dedicated line did not require naming a specific unit. You only needed to read out a special set of numbers, and it would be routed to the designated place.

The secretary knew this and quickly read out three digits. The call was transferred, then another female voice asked again for the transfer number. The secretary read out the final three digits, and only then was the call fully connected.

This whole process had completely confused my father. Only when the secretary called out to him did he finally take the phone nervously.

Seeing my father take the phone, the secretary did not leave. After all, in that era there was no concept of privacy. Moreover, no one wanted to make a mistake. They had to guard against the possibility that my father might be a spy.

My father naturally could not object to this. After all, Master Jiang had already instructed what to say. There was nothing special he needed to add. Being able to make the call at all was already good enough.

“Hello...”

The call connected, and a steady male voice came through. Just that one word made my father straighten up immediately on his end, as if he were reporting to an important figure.

Some people simply had that kind of presence. Even their voice carried authority. The person on the other end seemed to have exactly that kind of superior aura.

“You... hello...” my father stammered after struggling for a while, forcing out a heavily accented Sichuan Mandarin greeting. After all, the other side was speaking standard Beijing Mandarin, and he was afraid they would not understand his rural dialect.

“Who are you looking for? What is the matter?” Although the voice carried authority, the tone was very polite. However, that politeness also had a natural sense of distance and detachment, not warmth.

“I... I am looking for Jiang Lichun, Master Jiang,” my father said. His rough, accented speech was already hard to manage, and combined with the pressure from the phone, he became even more nervous. Even the secretary began to sweat for him.

There was silence on the other end. My father’s hand holding the receiver became slippery from sweat. He feared the next words would be that there was no such person.

Fortunately, the silence did not last long. The voice suddenly asked with some urgency, “Then who are you?”

“I... I am Chen Chengyi’s father,” my father replied according to Old Man Jiang’s instructions. At this point, not only the secretary was puzzled, even I was confused. Why did my father not say his own name, but instead say he was my father? Did I know that person? Was I that important?

The secretary also did not know who Chen Chengyi was, probably thinking that this unremarkable village man had a capable child with that name.

“Chengyi? Chengyi! Good, good.”

The voice on the phone suddenly said something strange, half question, half exclamation, followed by those two words good, good. It left my father completely puzzled.

“Alright, I understand. I will notify Jiang Lichun. Anything else to pass on?”

After a few words of reflection on my name, the other side seemed ready to end the call, asking politely.

My father would not accept that. End it already? No. For some reason, he suddenly found courage and spoke much more fluently, shouting, “Please make sure you tell Master Jiang that my daughter is not doing well. We need his help. We are very anxious here.”

The voice on the other end remained steady. After listening, it simply said unhurriedly, “I will do it as soon as possible.”

Then, before my father could say anything else, the call ended.

Only the dead tone remained in the receiver. My father stood there stunned for a long time.

In short, my father had done everything he could to save my second sister. Compared to her life, even if it meant weakening his future bond with me, he would endure it. That was the mindset he had when making this call.

But the call had left him confused and unsettled. In the end, he could only sigh and leave the township office.

Do your best, and leave the rest to fate.

A week passed in the blink of an eye.

My second sister’s condition grew worse and worse. In the first few days, she still had one or two hours of clarity each day. During those moments, she would cry, call for Mom, say she was afraid, and tell the family she could remember nothing.

But in the following days, she spent most of her time unconscious or asleep during the day. When awake, she just stared with empty, hollow eyes, saying nothing, responding to nothing, like a person without a soul.

At night, however, was the most painful time for our family. After 11 p.m., my second sister would always get up and walk toward the graveyard.

At those times, she seemed like a completely different person. Her expression and eyes turned sinister and full of resentment. No one in the family could stop her. If we tried, she would always find ways to hurt herself. Even if we tied her up, she would bite her own mouth and tongue.

My parents were in extreme anguish. With no other choice, they could only stuff her mouth, and then she would desperately bang her head against things.

At the worst moment, my father even took out a kitchen knife and shouted at her, “Come out! Stop harming my daughter! I will die with you!”

What he got in return was only bursts of mad laughter and a contemptuous gaze. Even my father, a man who had always been strong, could not help but crouch down and hold his head in pain when he saw it.

A daughter suffering like this meant no parent could feel any less pain.

In desperation, we could only let her go to the graveyard. We could not bear to see her already exhausted body covered in more injuries. She still sat on the grave mound and sang opera, and our family could only take turns watching her.

But the worst situation was still ahead. The villagers had begun to notice.

Think about it. Night after night, eerie opera singing echoed from the graveyard. Who would not feel uneasy?

Old Man Wang was only the first to discover it.

After three nights of this, several bold men in the village went together to investigate the graveyard and eventually discovered what was happening to our family.

The villagers were kind, and many sympathized with us. But in that era, no one could openly speak of ghosts and spirits. If they wanted to help or give advice, they could only quietly come to our house and speak in whispers.

Rumors also began to spread in the village. Most of them were like:

“The Old Chen family, how did that girl end up mentally ill?”

“Sigh, I went to see her. She has already become skin and bones, her face pale enough to frighten anyone.”

These kinds of comments reached my parents every day, only making their hearts heavier.

The villagers sighed in pity, but everyone was just ordinary people. Even if they had heard ghost stories in the countryside all their lives, when something like this truly happened, what could they do? In truth, everyone understood clearly that my second sister had not suddenly fallen ill. Deep down, they all believed she had encountered something unclean.

At the same time, sympathy aside, her condition also made the villagers uneasy. The haunting seemed too real. Everyone feared that whatever it was might come for them next.

Widow Zhou came to our house.