Chapter 13  : The ‘Interview’ Address

Hao Ren stood on a mound of earth by the side of the road, looking down at the near-deserted village. He began to doubt his intellect and whether or not it was beyond saving—how could anyone be so easily fooled to come here, of all places!?

He had been living in the city for more than twenty years, so naturally he was astounded to find that a rundown place like this existed just beyond the outskirt of the city. A place so primitive and desolate. True, it was certainly pretty far away from the city, but in Hao Ren’s opinion such a place should be found hidden in the ravines deep in the mountains; the kind of place disconnected from civilisation, with steep cliffs and dangerous slopes blocking off every means of transportation. Only then would it be possible to find a community in such a poor state, but that village is not even close to fulfilling these criteria. There was even a highway within reach! That’s why the state of the village left him dumbfounded.

What was more surprising was that, as he recalled, the woman on the phone invited him here in the name of an import and export trading company. This was where made his stand. You could insult one’s personality, but it was a step too far to insult one’s intellect! Although he still couldn’t differentiate between trading companies and supermarkets, at least he could tell that finding even a grocery store in that village would be an impossible feat!

Under the blazing sun, Hao Ren remained by the road, staring at the direction in which the rusty old bus had previously disappeared. If he kept waiting here, it would take another hour for the next bus to come. This thought alone almost made him give up on life. It was then he even began to miss the good-for-nothing, lazy bum, freeloader of a vampire for a guest at home—he missed Vivian and the frigid coldness around her. Technically there was always the scent of blood in the air, but at least it’s chilly! Where he was then, not a single sprout could be seen in a radius of a few hundred metres, and the largest shade within his range of sight was a telephone pole a hundred metres away, the shade of which could barely shelter his shoulders from the heat… He could not stay here much longer!

As for the village which seemed to be a fair ten minutes’ walk away, there was no way he would go there, not even if the interview turned out to be a genuine invitation. Who in their right mind would come here just for a job?

No matter how he looked at it, it was obviously a joke. The woman on the phone had played a cruel joke on him.

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Right then he was just curious about one thing. Why did he still come here after he answered the call? When he heard ‘Bastard Barrio on the phone, why didn’t he sense anything strange? Why was it only after he alighted the bus did he felt like an idiot? These were the three questions he did not thought about prior to making the trip, and now that it registered in his mind, he felt like an total idiot.

That’s right. He remembered the moment he got that strange call he certainly did deliberated for quite a while, hesitated a moment, and decided to come and take a look only after much “careful” consideration, during which he felt that everything was normal. Those few minutes of contemplation were indeed proof that he came here wilfully, but looking back… this whole deal was nothing but irrational!

Moreover, he should have raised an eyebrow when the words “Bastard Barrio” and “import and export trading company” were used in conjunction!

Subconsciously, Hao Ren reached to rub his head, as if making sure that this thing perching on his neck still belonged to him.

A few seconds later, Hao Ren shuffled towards the direction from which he came. Of course he knew it was unrealistic to walk all the way back home, given such horrid weather, but he felt he had to at least keep a little distance between himself and this ghost town to be safe. He could wait for the bus as he walked along the road. Since that rusty bucket of a bus didn’t have fixed stops anyway, he could pull it over wherever he was.

It was a strange phone call, a strange contact number, and a strangely mysterious woman. She managed to persuade him to come over with an obviously flawed invitation, so Hao Ren reckoned that sometime in the past his brain had gone ballistic. He had to leave this place as fast as he could, and return to his home, to his two strange life forms. Maybe Vivian or Lily could help him—at least from what he knew, the vampire practised some magic. She mentioned it before.

He had barely walked a few steps when the phone in his pocket suddenly rang as though suddenly coming to life.

Hao Ren was so startled that he almost peed himself. The familiar ringtone was ten times clearer than it had ever been, blaring so loudly that his eardrums almost pop, as though his rage and frustration was being channelled through the phone. Hao Ren frantically reached for the device, and right there across the screen was the freaky number he had been dreading all this while: 00000012345.

He just stared at it, and instinctively removed the batteries. Luckily for him he didn’t buy an iPhone. iPhone users, under such regrettably unusual circumstances, would have to resolve to smashing their phones to bits by now.

And very quickly he realised he would just have to do exactly that. The ringing didn’t stop even after he took out the batteries! It was like a scene straight out of a horror film. His phone did not go silent even without the batteries, the row of numbers on the screen together with the eerie ringtone persistently demanded his attention. If previously Hao Ren was not sure how he felt about creepy occurrences, he definitely was more than certain at the moment that he was being targeted by the paranormal!

To make things worse, he did not have anything with him that could be used in defence. He didn’t even had the chance to ask Lily and Vivian how the paranormal world was like before carelessly walking out into the unknown.

When the ringtone bleated for the third time, Hao Ren made up his mind. He held his phone, raised it in the air, and forcefully smashed it on the ground with as much force as he could muster.

“I don’t think you could utter another sound—Oh, god, no!”

Nokia surely lived up to its name. Hao Ren helplessly stared, eyes wide, as he thrust his old trusty phone on the ground, it brushed against the surface… and rolled itself in the mud, beeping in victory!

Hao Ren admitted that he had never had much strength in him, but whatever just happened in front of him could only have of one explanation: the caller on the other side was telling him that attempts of escape were futile, and that there are some things that would just defy any reason, logic, and common sense—it would be just as useless to strap the phone on a missile and blast it off to the other side of the world!

With trembling hands, he slowly reached down to grab his apparently undamaged phone and brought it to his ear. His heart was thumping like mad but still he steadied himself (for he was a man of pride, one who valued dignity over death) before saying, “Hey! What’s the big deal?”

“What else? The interview!” said the sweet but shrewd female voice from the other end. Not knowing exactly why, upon hearing it, Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief. Could it be that she was speaking like a normal human therefore he felt somewhat safer? Or was it because the mysterious woman was still talking about the interview despite the things that had happened, which led him to feel somehow consoled.

He had gotten so far, and with all the strange occurrences before this, if the other person really meant him harm, then this was the perfect moment to strike him. Since the woman did not use her supernatural abilities and shoot him to the afterlife with a bolt of lightning, Hao Ren concluded that he should be safe for now.

As for why a lightning bolt amongst all other things, that was where Hao Ren couldn’t go any further with his limited imagination. He couldn’t think of anything else that belonged to a higher power. The duel between Lily and Vivian the night before seemed like a Hollywood blockbuster movie to him.

“Interview…” Hao Ren calmed himself, pretending that he was not in the slightest bit afraid,

even his tone was convincingly steady. “Let’s not beat around the bush. I’m already here, so are you still going with that whatever trading company cover story? Can’t you just lay it out in the open?”

“Oh, our superiors have orders, we don’t reveal it if it’s neither the right time nor the right person,” the woman on the other side didn’t seem so creepy and gloomy. He did not sense any evil intentions from her as it turns out to be a seemingly normal conversation, Hao Ren got really curious about it. “Now, if you would just follow my directions, you would reach the workplace of our unit…”

“Hold it!” Hao Ren bellowed, interrupting her. He was not going to play follow-the-leader any longer. “I wanna be clear about this. What do you really want? A person of honesty keeps no secrets. Just stop using the interview as a guise, okay?”

The woman on the phone got impatient, “Why do you have to ask so many questions? I’ve said it’s an interview, so it’s an interview! If you really want to know our rules, you have to come here first! Now listen, see that telephone pole up ahead? Get over there, place your hand on the ad about some ancient Chinese medicine, and face North… Don’t know which way that is? Up is North, down is South, left is West, right is East. So, raise your head and look up!”

“…” Hao Ren was speechless. He thought he was speaking to a lunatic.

When he did turned to face the sky, he was flabbergasted.

A large towering building was hanging upside down right above his head!