Chapter 60: Exploring the Old Campus - Seven Strange Tales of the Campus.
Xue Chao skillfully searched through the radio station, but unexpectedly, he didn't find his identity this time. Instead, he found a club activity flyer with a cheap, bad ghost movie background, printed with "Exploring the Seven Strange Tales of the Campus", and signed "Story Club".
The event details state that this month's story club theme is "Supernatural Theme," involving a nighttime exploration of seven strange tales. Those interested should meet at the library on Friday evening.
...The name "Story Club" is not quite right; "Death Club" would be more appropriate.
Xue Chao wandered around the building, looked at each classroom, and then went down to the first floor from the west side. The library was unlocked. He pushed open the door with a creak, and found it empty. He quietly scanned the room. In the moonlight, dust motes swirled, like a beam of flashlight reaching into a hole in the ground.
As he turned to leave, he was suddenly patted on the shoulder. When he turned back, he was met with a pale, ghostly face with features like black holes, just centimeters from his nose.
The two stared at each other silently for a moment. The grotesque face retreated in defeat, removed its terrifying headgear, and the rolled-up student ID head came undone. It shuddered slightly and said dejectedly, "This isn't fun. Aren't you scared at all?"
"You're so bad." Two more female students jumped out from behind the door. Their heads were covered by student ID cards with their headshots, names, and classes printed on them. The headshots were probably their real faces.
Deng Dayun slowly emerged from behind the bookshelves at the far end of the library, like a emaciated ghost who had been buried alive in a cement wall and was now guarding the wall, watching the newcomer who had awakened this burial place without anyone noticing. The three of them fell silent in fright. They clearly knew Deng Dayun was there, but they were still frightened. The boy stuck out his tongue and mouthed, "We should have let him come. He's much scarier." The other girl gently retorted to him, telling him not to make a fool of himself.
Deng Dayun seemed not to hear them. His entire frame was loose and constricted, like a gray garment draped on a detached clothes rack. Even standing in the center of the stage, he looked like someone standing in the corner.
With droopy eyes and a downcast head, he seems to see no other creatures except children and reptiles, just as he can never enter the world of others. He is not antisocial; he simply lives a life of constant passing by the world.
But he secretly glanced at Xue Chao, who didn't have time to catch it, but he saw the gloomy undertone in it.
Xue Chao glanced lightly at him and took out a flyer: "You came because of my reputation, so you're prepared for this—what arrangements will the organization make?"
"You're pretty brave!" The story club president gave a thumbs up. "We've done a process, exploring the seven strange tales in order to see if they're true or just rumors—let's do some interviews before we begin. What do you guys think, Minmin?"
"Really... On the day I was on duty after school, music suddenly started playing over the loudspeaker, and a few other classmates heard it too, but the broadcasting station was locked up in the afternoon..."
"That broken equipment hasn't been replaced in centuries. My phone did the same thing after three years, suddenly playing music by itself. It's just reached the end of its lifespan and has a bad connection." The boy put the ghost face mask back on. "You girls are just too timid. We boys wouldn't scare ourselves like that, right?"
Deng Dayun remained silent, but Xue Chao waved his hand and said, "I believe you."
What's the point of having fun if it's not haunted?
The two girls immediately straightened their backs: "See? See?"
The boy flipped open his student ID card in disbelief, and the large headshot with its empty stare staring straight ahead approached the two male traitors: "No way... just those few run-of-the-mill ghost stories?"
Undeterred, he showed the exploration flowchart, and the first strange tale turned out to be "the 13th step".
The president then explained: "The stairs on the east side of the second floor only have 12 steps during the day, but at night, a 13th step appears. It is said that a student once died on those stairs and his head was broken. So his spirit has been staying there ever since. Therefore, when you walk up those stairs, if you count to the 13th step, never turn back, or you will be pulled into another dimension by the spirit."
Minmin exclaimed, "Ah! The version I heard said that if you turn around, the ghosts will twist your head off..."
The boy spread his hands, looking like he was saying, "How about that? Outdated, right? Bullshit, what did I tell you?"
The two girls were unconvinced, but Xue Chao waved his hand as a peacemaker: "Whether it's true or not, we'll find out soon enough."
The group walked through the dim and quiet corridor, with the defiant boys at the front, Xue Chao and Deng Dayun at the back, and the girls in the middle. The stairwell had motion-activated lights, and a pale white light was embedded in the ceiling, which would startle people when it lit up.
They counted when they came up; the first flight of stairs had 12 steps.
Who will go?
"Whoever doesn't believe it can do it."
"...I'll go then, you bunch of cowards!"
The boy stepped up the stairs one by one, his footsteps echoing in the lamplight, his shadow stretching longer with each step. As he walked, he counted in his mind: 1, 2... 12, 13.
The boy stood frozen at the highest point, cold sweat beading on his forehead. He asked softly, "Hello?"
No one answered; it was as if he were the only person in the stairwell.
"...Hey! Are you guys there?!" he called out impatiently again.
There was still no sound. A chill ran through him, and his limbs felt icy cold. He remained frozen for a long time before finally turning around slowly. The moment he turned around, the motion-activated light above his head went out, plunging the stairwell into darkness. A scream escaped his lips.
"Hahahaha!" A crisp laugh ignited the lights again as two girls laughed so hard they almost fell over, gloating. "Weren't you afraid?"
The boy breathed a sigh of relief, but then angrily exclaimed, "You guys scared me on purpose!"
Minmin folded down the two sides of her student ID card, making a devil horn-like gesture as a face: "Those who scare others will eventually be scare themselves. Karma's back."
"I'm just creating atmosphere for our adventure!" the boy insisted, but he walked down quickly. "And it really is 13 steps, I didn't miscount!"
"...13." The president hesitated. "It is indeed 13 steps. Would the number of steps be different between different floors?"
No one understood this, and they all shook their heads.
Minmin: "But I wasn't pulled into any other dimension, was I?"
The boy was triumphant again: "I told you it was fake, didn't I?"
Club president: "I wonder who startled the tenor just now... Now that the ghost story is proven false, shall we go?"
Deng Dayun remained silent, like a background figure just there to make up the numbers.
"I'm afraid that won't work." Xue Chao, who had garnered everyone's attention, pointed downstairs. "The first floor is locked."
Aside from Deng Dayun, who also noticed this, the others looked down to the first floor. They hadn't closed the stairwell door when they arrived, and the atmosphere suddenly became a bit strangely cold.
Minmin said weakly, "...but I didn't hear the door close."
Xue Chao: "It should have been drowned out by your screams and laughter."
The three of them felt a little awkward for a moment.
The president then asked, "Where is the wind coming from? Which window isn't closed properly?"
The boy came to Xue Chao's side and tried it: "It doesn't work, it's completely locked."
Minmin whispered, "But if it's the wind, how could it be locked? When we came, it opened as soon as we pressed the handle."
"..." The scene fell into a terrifying silence.
The boy looked around, forcibly suppressing his fear, and said impatiently, "The first floor is locked, so let's go to the second floor. The next ghost story isn't on the first floor."
Xue Chao gave him a strange look: "Are you sure?"
"What's there to be unsure about? Alright, we haven't seen a single ghost, it's all just our own people scaring us." The boy set an example by taking two steps at a time, but deliberately not counting the steps, and quickly reached the second floor. Although the second floor was also locked, there was a key on the top door lintel. "I told you, come on over."
Two girls followed closely behind. Xue Chao shrugged and caught up, finally prompting Deng Dayun to ask in a low voice, "...You knew why you went up?"
From the moment the boy climbed the 13th step and looked back, he was probably locked into the alternate dimension.
But the others didn't go up, so the conditions for the ghost story weren't met, leaving room for a comeback.
“No turning back.” Xue Chao seemed to know what he was thinking, without even turning his head. “Or do you think you can break down the door on the first floor? What do you think is outside—they just want you in.”
Deng Dayun was no naive newcomer; his already gloomy face fell even more, making him look even more somber: "...There are still 13 steps on the stairs outside." He silently followed.
Even with preparations, the imagery outside the second floor is still too bizarre—the smooth corridor has become a series of staircases, classrooms are distributed on both sides, and the stairwell that was originally responsible for the transition between up and down has become a flat ground. The corners and stair railings that are divided into two sections seem superfluous, like two rows of people lined up in front of amusement park rides to accommodate more people.
The stairwell has become a "buffer platform for climbing stairs".
"What...what's going on..." Minmin's voice trembled.
Xue Chao looked behind him. Even at midnight, there were still layers. Nearby was the playground with withered branches, a little further away was the sharp, cold fence, and even further away was the night sky with thin clouds hanging in the sky and a crescent moon that was faintly visible behind the clouds—unlike outside the window now, which was just a black bucket filled with the solid black of an electronic canvas. The concept of "distance" had completely disappeared.
This campus is the only model that appears to be suspended in mid-air in the software.
The three students who organized the expedition panicked, and Minmin burst into tears: "Waaah, what are we going to do next..."
"Didn't the president already set out the procedures?" Xue Chao said without changing his expression. "The conclusion just now was hasty. Once the ghost story is confirmed—what will be the next ghost story?"
After a slight pause, the club president immediately pulled out a written schedule: "The second ghost story is about an old video camera that's always been locked in the video club's display case. Rumor has it that that camera can capture ghosts!"
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. We're already here..." the boy said, trying to sound tough. "Besides, there are five of us, what are we afraid of?"
“…Five people?” Minmin hesitated and repeated herself, as if she had finally realized something was wrong. She asked fearfully, “Weren’t there always six of us? How come one is missing?”
These words stunned even Xue Chao and Deng Dayun, who had remained expressionless throughout.
Boy: "...Right, one is missing!"
Xue Chao, the president: "...We've always been five people."
The three spoke at the same time, then fell silent, each taking a step back and distancing themselves from the other.
Although Deng Dayun didn't speak, judging from the direction he was retreating, it was also a "group of five".
The boy panicked, gesturing wildly. Compared to the "sixth man," he was a head shorter than Deng Dayun: "No, there's another boy who's been with us the whole time! He's at the very back!"
Deng Dayun, who was at the very end, frowned: "I'm last."
The president nodded, and Minmin, upon hearing this, began to sob in fear again.
Xue Chao: "When did the person you're talking about arrive? What's their name? What do they look like?"
The boy pointed at him excitedly: "He came with you!"
“…” Xue Chao exhaled, “Joke.”
Boy: "I'm telling the truth, Minmin saw it too! He didn't say a word, he was wearing a hat and had his head down, how would I know what he looked like? I thought he was someone you brought!"
Minmin nodded while crying.
Xue Chao frowned: "But you didn't ask that person anything? Even if he's all over the place saying 'Don't bother me,' you should at least ask him a single question, right?"
"That's because there was one like that before!" The boy pointed at Deng Dayun again. "He came in and didn't say a word, wouldn't answer any questions, and ignored everyone. Who wants to be ignored a second time?!"
The remaining three looked at each other in silence. The boy, however, exploded, grabbing Minmin and yelling, "Why are you questioning us? You're the ones with the problem—maybe the ghost is among you!"
Deng Dayun's brows remained furrowed. The president wanted to argue, but Xue Chao stopped him.
Of the seven ghost stories, none involved "many people" or "few people," so it's hard to say. The man tilted his head, tossing his long, curly black hair to one side, and asked the club president, "What's the third ghost story?"
"Rumor has it that someone has gone missing in the women's restroom on the third floor, and was taken away by a ghost."
Xue Chao nodded: "Since neither of us can convince the other, let's split up. You two go investigate the camera ghost stories, and we'll go to the women's restroom."
The president shrank back slightly: "This is just too much like a horror movie where the main characters' group falls apart and is then defeated one by one..."
Xue Chao: "You still know we're like a group of protagonists courting death? When it's time to die, sticking together is death, and splitting up is death too. You haven't watched enough horror movies."
Deng Dayun stood silently on their side.
"…Fine, let's break up! Staying away from you might actually help me live longer!" the boy retorted defiantly. "But we're not listening to you. We're going to investigate the ghost stories in the women's restroom!"
Xue Chao gave a slightly smug, fake smile and gestured "please".
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