"I looked at Wang Sichuan, Wang Sichuan looked at me, then I looked at Pei Qing, who exchanged a glance with the old cat. I then turned to look at Lao Tang. At the time, I hoped to see someone who had no inexplicable look of horror on their face, unfortunately there was none, even the always aloof and indifferent old cat was extremely pale."
The phone kept ringing, but due to the decay of the internal parts, the sound became dull after a few rings, as if someone was hiccupping, obviously the hammer had broken.
The little warrior who was standing by the phone at that time was so scared that his face turned pale. He was frozen, looking at us, and his hands were trembling there. Obviously, his conditioned reflex was to answer the phone.
The bell rang for a long time, but no one responded. Everyone was standing there stiffly, obviously this situation was beyond our ability to handle.
We fought until the bell rang, and at that moment we didn't know if the phone finally broke or just stopped working. In any case, when that eerie sound stopped, we breathed a sigh of relief.
"A few people were looking at each other, of course, it was impossible to pretend that nothing had happened. We walked out pretending we didn't know anything. So a few of us went to the telephone and Old Tang turned back and called a soldier over: "Xiao Zhao, have you worked as a telephone operator before?""
"When the soldier returned, Old Tang said, 'Look... look at this phone.'"
The soldier nodded and walked towards the phone that he was about to pick up when suddenly the phone rang, causing us to be frightened. Old Tang even took a step back and drew his gun.
"This is a characteristic of soldiers who have trained in martial arts. We have encountered monk soldiers before, who are skilled in fighting and handling guns, but when they get scared, they instinctively switch to a defensive posture and start walking in horse stance. On top of that, they instinctively reach for their gun, which is quite funny."
However, no one was laughing at that time. Several people looked at the phone again. Wang Sichuan was tough and said, "Who's afraid of who?" He picked up the phone and put it to his ear, saying, "Hello!"
In the dark depths of an abandoned Japanese ruins, a vintage telephone suddenly rings, a scene much more horrifying than what was described in the handwritten notes. So when Wang Sichuan suddenly answered the phone, all of our hearts skipped a beat.
After Wang Sichuan fed it, he didn't speak and waited for the other's answer. This is a very scary thing because you don't even know where the call is coming from and what's on the other end.
"At that time, I really hoped that it was the other engineering troops we had sent out to search who found the other phone and caused the misunderstanding out of fun. But after Wang Sichuan called out, the voice we heard in response was not human."
At that time, everyone heard that strange sound. It was a noise composed of a series of rapid static electricity sounds and many indescribable sounds, like a person coughing at high frequency.
One by one, we picked up the phone and listened for a long time, but we couldn't make sense of the sound. We didn't know what it was, but everyone knew it had significance, because it was structured and regular.
"I believe that upon seeing this, everyone's first reaction is Morse code. This is because many foreign adventure movies and novels have overemphasized the generality of this simple code. Indeed, in foreign countries, Morse code is a skill that improves survival abilities during exploration, but in our era, we all studied Russian nationwide. It wasn't until two or three years after I started working, around the late 1950s after China and the Soviet Union's falling out, that small English classes began."
Therefore, at that time, not to mention the concept of Morse code, even the basic ABCD letters used for coding were not recognized by most people here. Our foundation in English was learned in vocational colleges during the post-Cultural Revolution period. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that anyone could transmit Morse code in that environment.
Here is the translation: Although this is not Morse code, there is a romantic story about it: as a standard for message encoding, Morse code has a long life that surpasses other encoding schemes. Morse code was used as an international standard in maritime communication until 1999. In 1997, when the French navy stopped using Morse code, the last message sent was: "Attention all, this is our final shout before eternal silence!" I recently learned about this.
After forty-five seconds of continuous ringing, the voice on the phone disappeared again. Wang Sichuan hung up the phone and we huddled around it, expecting it to ring again. However, for the next two hours, the phone remained silent.
Several people were caught in a deadlock, and Lao Tang immediately asked all nearby engineering soldiers to check the telephone lines and asked Xiao Zhao, who had served as a telephone soldier, what was going on.
Here we need to explain this type of telephone again. This is what the telegraph operator said at that time. If he hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known the structure of this telephone. The hand-cranked telephone is actually a generator. At the other end of its telephone line, there is either another telephone or a switchboard (also a telephone, but with a switching function). As long as the lever is shaken, the bell will ring on the other end. If the bell is not heard clearly, it is likely that the external dry battery is dead. The telephone line can be stored for a long time, but the dry battery has definitely corroded.
However, the call distance of this type of phone is relatively long, so it is really difficult to estimate the location where the other party is emitting the current.
This is equivalent to saying nothing. Old Tang sent people to follow the telephone line and they found that after going out for more than ten meters, the telephone line merged into the huge cable and extended deep into the cave.
At this point, thankfully, Old Tang found us a materialistic reason which was very reasonable. He said that it must have been the electrical wires inside the cable mixed up with the telephone wires. Just now, he sent someone to work on the generator and it must have been when they were handling it that the electrical current suddenly increased, breaking through the insulation, and causing the phone bell to ring. Those regular sounds may have been static noise in the circuit.
After hearing it, we all felt that it made a lot of sense. Everyone wiped away their sweat and almost congratulated each other with relief.
Having a reason, even though it has not been verified and is just a speculation, is still better than being mysterious.
At that time, only Pei Qing did not accept this explanation. He still stared at the phone, shook his head to Lao Tang, and a profound expression appeared on his face.
"Old Tang felt strange when he saw his action and asked him what it meant. Pei Qing looked at us and then did something that surprised us. He picked up the phone and carefully began to shake the joystick, gradually increasing the speed."
"He actually fought back!"
Then he put the phone to his ear, looked at us, put his finger to his lips, and made a gesture for us to be quiet.
Later, when we described this incident, we all said that this was a call to hell. We had no idea where the call was going and who would answer it.
"I'm thankful that God didn't give us more scares at that time. The silent moment lasted for about ten seconds, and then the phone rang again with the same indescribable sound."
After listening for a while, Pei Qing raised the phone in front of us and let us listen to the continuous coughing sound. She asked, "Have you seen 'The Neverending Story of Electric Waves'?"