Chapter 78 The old campus, a face as cold as a corpse pressed against his back...
He was puzzled. Unlike universities, high schools don't have many boarding students. They are usually from far away, especially the senior students who get out of school late and have heavy workloads. How could such a small number of people fit into one building and share a dormitory? Why would they leave such a mark? To steal something?
Outsiders certainly can't just enter the campus. You have to scout the area and climb through windows. It's better to bribe a roommate with low moral standards.
Such an unnecessary and inexplicable location would probably only allow someone to casually steal the shoes that students are drying by the window.
The dormitory was pitch black, and you couldn't see anything. The playground was no better, and you had to rely on the moonlight. Xue Chao didn't have night blindness, but his eyes would inevitably get tired. He slipped and almost fell into the dirt.
...No, he stepped on something.
It is a black glass bead.
Why are there glass beads in the grass?
His first thought was of the white glass bead that Sheng Hong was playing with, the one with glitter on it, which matched her outfit perfectly. Its main purpose was to throw it into the stairwell so that Pu Fengchun could hear it and make a dazzling entrance, which would then lead to her going crazy.
Could it be related to her?
He searched carefully in the dark, and when he returned to the main entrance, he picked up half a handful of glass beads. They were colorful, with varying shades and almost no two were the same. Only the two solid black glass beads were different.
He went around to the mark again, squatted down to study what it was, temporarily placed the glass bead in the soil in front of him, and ran his hand down the wall... The soil was damp, and when he brought it to his nose, there was a faint smell of blood, which was almost gone.
Digging into the soil at the base of the wall, one can feel a series of indentations—a line of words is carved at the base of the wall, just below two slender oval marks.
Xue Chao almost knelt down, leaned closer, and strained to read it before he could make out that it read: ...She just stared at me like that.
He froze.
The wind rustled through the grass like waves. Xue Chao lay by the dark window, not daring to look up. Cold sweat trickled down his rotten tongue, mingling with blood, causing a sharp, painful ache.
The window above our heads was open.
A rustling sound came from the wind, and something as soft as grass swayed gently as it fell, brushing against the wound on his back. Perhaps it was the sense of crisis that made it hurt even more than his mouth.
...He guessed it was hair.
He was momentarily distracted by the familiar scene.
His hair hung lower and lower until it spread completely across his back, continuing to flow down and sway against his calves. His face, as cold as a corpse, pressed against his back and rubbed against him like a snake, causing him to shudder.
This seemed like a sign of weakness, which only emboldened the ghostly creature clinging to him, its cold hand moving down his waist as if trying to wrap around him.
Xue Chao, however, was thinking that the touch of a ghost was not as cold as the touch of Jiang Ming when he was hugged.
Only the way he brushed against his back was somewhat similar.
Xue Chao grasped the ghost's outstretched hand, stopping its movement. He raised his head slightly, and his back felt lighter. Black hair covered his head, and he was face to face with the pale ghost face that had moved in front of him, nose to nose.
The female ghost was drawn the same way as the mark, except for the whites of her eyes.
So he created some distance, and when the female ghost clung to him again, he shoved two solid black glass beads into the blank whites of her eyes... There was no obstruction; it felt like throwing stones into water.
"Are you staring out the window looking for your own eyeball?"
The chilling feeling slowly faded away. Just like when he arrived, Xue Chao got up. The female ghost was gone, but the dormitory window was still open. He stretched his stiff joints, climbed into the dormitory building, and closed the window.
The six-person dormitory was empty at the moment. Half of the beds were empty, and the remaining three beds were empty. Bed number 1 was tidied up, but the phone, wallet, and backpack were not there. Looking at the calendar on the table, it seemed that the person had gone home for the weekend.
The other two students probably didn't go home; the phone of the student in bed number 2 was still charging on the table.
This is a male dormitory. In mixed-gender dormitories, the male dormitories are usually on the bottom and the female dormitories are on the top to avoid inconvenience, which makes sense... But wasn't that a female ghost standing at the window just now?
Before Xue Chao could think it through, the door lock clicked open, and he quickly slipped into the private bathroom in his dormitory.
The person who came in moved very quietly. After entering the room, they did not act immediately, but stood there for a moment and then began to search the dormitory room like Xue Chao... This was not someone from the dormitory.
The visitor seemed to have a clear goal, searching more thoroughly than Xue Chao. After finding bed number 3 by the window, he quietly made a round and headed towards the bathroom.
Xue Chaojing quietly gripped the mop, coldly listening to him approach. Suddenly, she heard a jog coming from outside the corridor, heading straight for the dormitory.
The person who was almost at the bathroom door paused, immediately turned back, and hid in the closet of bed number 3.
The door opened, the key that had been in the mortise was pulled out, and the door was shoved shut. The newcomer jumped into the rocking chair on bed number 2, grabbed his phone, and yelled, "I've already finished using the toilet, why haven't you come in yet? I told you I'm the only one in the dorm today. Who are you bothering? Are you bothering ghosts? Stop dawdling and get in!"
Soon after, the sound effects of the game starting echoed in the dormitory, accompanied by occasional shouts of cursing from him and his teammates. Xue Chao and another person were hiding in the room, listening to him quickly lose a game.
Before the next game started, a teammate casually asked, "Have all your roommates gone home?"
"One went home, the other stayed out all night," student number 2 said with a mix of sarcasm and teasing. "To spend time with his girlfriend—"
The teammates' chat erupted in knowing laughter, mocking him for being a spineless kid who had no one to play with and could only fight against them. Number 2 retorted unhappily, "Go away! In today's society, there aren't many young men like me who are chaste and have a proper job. Do what you should do at your age. Early romance is not advisable!"
Another burst of laughter erupted, but it abruptly stopped halfway through. Student number 2 exclaimed in surprise, "Huh?!" and tried pressing the buttons for a while, but nothing worked: "Damn! Another disconnection. What's wrong with this lousy internet today? Did it run out of credit?"
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, two knocks.
Student number 2 instinctively asked, "Who is it?"
There was no answer from outside, so they knocked twice more.
Student #2 probably thought it was someone from another dorm visiting in the middle of the night: "The game console is out of power, and there's no food either. You're welcome to bring your own food as a tribute, otherwise, get out of here, I'm going to bed!"
There was a series of knocks on the door.
In the dead of night, in the dormitory room where everyone was alone, a sudden knock on the door finally made the usually thick-skinned student number 2's nerves tense up a bit. His voice weakened as he asked, "...Who is it?"
After a long while, student number 2, already fearfully reaching for the fruit knife, heard a familiar laugh from the doorway: "Hahaha, you weren't really scared, were you? I even made a bet with them, haha, what a coward—I came back to get my ID card, that internet cafe bastard wouldn't let me into a private room! It should be on the table, could you just grab it for me? Hurry up, my baby's waiting for me!"
Student number 2 took a deep breath, immediately cursed, got up to look for his unlucky roommate's ID card, and felt around the desk: "It's not on the desk!"
There was a sound of "Ah!" from outside the door, followed by a grin: "It should be in my jeans pocket. Open the closet and look!"
Xue Chao, who was hiding in the bathroom, and the person who had hidden in the cabinet both paused at the same time.
Student number 2 had already placed his hand on the recessed handle of the cabinet, about to pull it open, when someone outside suddenly slapped their forehead: "I remember now, I threw my ID card and meal card into the drawer together!"
He took his hand off the handle, opened the drawer, and sure enough, he found it. Student No. 2 took the ID card and walked towards the door: "You brat, don't leave things lying around next time. It's exhausting for your dad."
"You've worked so hard, haha! Aren't you really going to come and have some fun with us?"
“No, I’m not going. Last time I went out with you guys, none of you remembered the time. By the time we got back, the dorms were already locked. In the end, I was practically begging the dorm auntie for forgiveness…” Student No. 2 suddenly fell silent.
The dormitories are already closed at this time.
The dorm supervisor is difficult to talk to. If the dorm is locked down, roommates either have to live outside or knock on the window and wait for them to open it before climbing in.
How did he get into the dormitory building?
The person outside was still laughing and saying, "Well, I didn't make you kneel, did I? Alright, you're the one who's criticizing me. Why are you taking so long to open the door... Hey, why aren't you saying anything?... Open the door."
Student number 2 gripped his ID card tightly, stood still, and asked stiffly, "...Who are you?"
There was silence outside the door, then the knocking suddenly became intense!
Student number 2 screamed and backed away, hiding in the rocking chair, covering his head with a blanket, and tightly covering his ears, shouting in terror, "Get out!"
After a long stalemate, so long that Student Number 2 was suffocating and somewhat delirious, the knocking finally stopped, and the thing outside left.
Student No. 2, filled with surprise and doubt, took off the blanket and scrambled to push tables and chairs in front of the door, fearing that the thing might return.
When he was sweating profusely from exhaustion, his cell phone on the table suddenly rang. Startled, he didn't dare to go over.
No one answered, the call ended automatically, and it called back a second time... Even the nagging, oppressive feeling was familiar.
After hanging up, the call came back several times. Student number 2 couldn't take it anymore. He yelled in despair, rushed to the table, picked up the phone, and glared angrily, waiting for the other person to say anything.
"you……"
The voice was very soft, almost breathy, as if afraid of disturbing something. Student number 2 didn't hear what was said, but could tell that it wasn't the voice of the roommate who had been pretending to be outside the door.
He glanced at the call screen and, sure enough, it wasn't his roommate. He breathed a sigh of relief, but then the other person spoke again. This time, he heard it clearly: "...There's someone in your room, right behind you."
Student number 2 froze, turned around blankly, and saw cabinet number 3 slowly push open with a creak.
Xue Chao was too far away to hear the conversation. He only heard the screams start again, then suddenly stop, followed by the sound of a knife piercing flesh and blood spurting out. The screams ended up sounding like a broken bellows.
His expression shifted slightly... The one hidden in the cabinet was a "person".
This doesn't seem like how ghosts kill people.
Sure enough, another resentful voice was heard, accompanied by the hissing sound of a knife repeatedly piercing flesh: "You damn traitor, where did you put the stuff! I gave you food, and you turned against me! Who the hell should I call the police to arrest?! You deserve to crawl through the sewers and drink sewage every day! I'll stomp your head to pieces!"
At first there was some struggle, but later, student number 2 became completely silent.
The murderer, however, was not satisfied. He grabbed student number 2's phone: "How did you find me, huh? A rat tipped you off! You're all snitches in rat holes, always snitching! Your roommate? Come on, let him hear what a rat sounds like!"
He dialed back the most recent call, and just as the dial tone beeped twice, the phone rang sharply, its clear, piercing tone echoing in the dormitory.
Xue Chao froze.
The phone rang right behind him.
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