Chapter 45: Wasted Efforts
"W-why?"
After hearing Chang Qiuqiu's words, the first person to raise questions was Zhou Xiaoya, who was already tacitly regarded by Qi Xiaopang and others as a "puppet" used by Chang Qiuqiu to deceive others.
It was very scary when someone who had never made a sound suddenly came like this, not to mention that it was obvious to the naked eye that she was not a human.
Qi Xiaopang was so frightened that he screamed. When he screamed, Chen Qiaoxi also screamed with his eyes closed. For a moment, the closed sports equipment room was turned into a haunted house with deafening howling of ghosts and wolves because of these two people.
Qing Bai sighed and silently rubbed his ears. After nine years in the underworld, the actual screams and cries of hell could serve as background music. His tolerance was clearly stronger, and his expression didn't change at all. As for Ban Bieyi and Gao Tai, a minor surgery had escalated into a major illness. One was so shocked by Ban Bieyi's words that he was speechless and had no time to react.
Chang Qiuqiu was the first to respond to Zhou Xiaoya's sudden words. Her head drooped on her chest, her cloudy eyes fixed on her, a twisted expression tinged with surprise. She spoke through a leaking breath, "My appearance didn't scare them, but you made a sound and frightened them like this... I didn't expect you'd become a ghost. You're truly amazing."
Chen Qiaoxi: "..." No, what's there to compare? And it's not like I wasn't scared, you scared me to the point of vomiting, okay?!
Qi Xiaopang's eyes were full of circles. He never imagined that 'Chang Qiuqiu' was the real Chang Qiuqiu, and 'Zhou Xiaoya' was also the real Zhou Xiaoya. His 'genius equation' was truly genius, and he perfectly dodged all the correct answers.
Zhou Xiaoya seemed oblivious to the strange undertones in Chang Qiuqiu's words. She took a step forward and repeated, "Why?"
The voice was soft and gentle, with a sinister air.
Chang Qiuqiu's face fell when she was asked. She really fell. Her pale and green face, which was still relatively intact against the backdrop of her broken back of the head and twisted limbs, seemed to have suddenly lost its muscle support. The little scalp left on the top of her head was pulled down together with it, and then the philtrum dented inward, as if she had been hit by a hard object out of thin air, with such great force that her entire head was almost broken off. However, it was not completely broken off, and there was still a little bit of broken flesh and skin barely hanging on... But it was no longer possible to tell with the naked eye which side was the front and which was the back of the pile of rotten bones and flesh.
A crack opened and closed on Chang Qiuqiu's face... or what could still be called a face. A cold voice floated out from within: "I'll pay for your life."
Zhou Xiaoya remained dazed, seemingly unable to sense the stagnant resentment emanating from Chang Qiuqiu. Like an old-fashioned repeater doll with a fixed program, she once again asked, "Why do you have to pay for my life?"
Seeing that Chang Qiuqiu's body had begun to make muffled crunching sounds, Chen Qiaoxi was afraid that if Zhou Xiaoya asked a few more questions, Chang Qiuqiu would collapse into a pool of meat paste, so he quickly interrupted to explain: "After your accidental death, the school and the police couldn't find the person who locked the door, and finally closed the case as an accident. Afterwards, the school punished Chang Qiuqiu for campus violence..." Damn, he didn't know what happened afterwards!
Zhou Xiaoya stared at Chen Qiaoxi: "Why do you want to pay for my life?"
The serious expression on that pale face seemed to say, 'So what does this have to do with me?'
Chen Qiaoxi was so anxious that he was sweating profusely. If this guy wasn't a ghost, he would definitely have physically silenced her mouth... My dear, please don't ask me any more questions. If you ask again, someone will die. You are dead, but we are not!
Jiu Nian looked at Zhou Xiaoya and said softly, "She is just a remnant soul, her mind is not clear, and she only remembers a few things from her life. She can't understand anything too complicated or unrelated to her death..."
Qing Bai nodded, thinking that it was no wonder.
Ban Bieyi on the side came to his senses and struggled to stand up, but he almost couldn't hold on to the high platform because of his junior high school student's body. It was only thanks to Qi Xiaopang's quick eyes and hands that he successfully supported the man up.
But after he stood up, Qi Xiaopang's heart tightened even more. He raised his eyes and gave Qing Bai an anxious look - the old teacher's condition was really not good, and he felt the pain in his hands when he held him up.
Qing Bai was also worried, but he didn't say anything. He just gently pulled Jiu Nian, who was about to say something, to make room for him to speak.
Jiu Nian has always had a tacit understanding with him, and he understood Qing Bai's meaning with just one gesture.
Ban Bieyi didn't notice Qing Bai and Jiu Nian's little movements. He didn't have the extra energy to observe anything else. Just standing there and looking at Zhou Xiaoya had used up all his strength.
Yet, he didn't betray any pain. His tone, though weak, was gentle and patient, just like when he used to explain those math problems that seemed so simple to him to Zhou Xiaoya: "After your accidental death, the school launched a major crackdown on bullying among students, and Chang Qiuqiu was given a public notice as a typical example... Your father must have misunderstood that she had bullied you before you died, or even... maybe even that she locked you in the equipment room, causing your illness and death... That's why he hit her with his car."
"It's not a misunderstanding. I bullied him before and even pulled his wig off..." Chen Qiaoxi didn't know where he got the courage from, but he muttered softly as soon as Ban Bieyi finished speaking.
Chang Qiuqiu, whose face had been restored to its original state, was not angry at all. Instead, she chuckled: "Yeah, I did something wrong, and I deserve this bad luck—"
"I'm sorry!" Zhou Xiaoya, who had been speaking softly, suddenly spoke as loud as a bell, interrupting Chang Qiuqiu's self-deprecating remarks and scaring the others.
After a brief moment of surprise, Qing Bai raised his eyebrows. Isn't this a good ability to understand?
His expression remained unchanged for nine years, but he already had something in mind.
Chang Qiuqiu was silent for a long time. When she spoke again, she continued the sentence that had been interrupted: "...But if I didn't do it, I didn't do it. I don't want to die with someone else's blame on me."
A paragraph that was originally quite powerful seems a bit weak when it is divided into two parts.
Chang Qiuqiu curled her lips, suddenly feeling quite bored. "What are you apologizing for? In all the things that happened before, I was the only one who was sorry for you, not you for me... It wasn't you who hit me with your car."
Chen Qiaoxi's eyes widened: "Can a dead person be reborn as a human being... or a ghost?"
Although Gaotaiban Bieyi didn't say anything, his eyes were filled with surprise... Was this really the Chang Qiuqiu they knew? The arrogant and domineering Miss Chang?
Chang Qiuqiu rolled her eyes, the kind of "white eyes" where her eyeballs turned over to reveal the retinal blood vessels. It was very scary, but also revealed a strange "liveliness".
"I've been dead for so many years, and you still don't allow me to reform?"
Jiu Nian, who was manually muted, leaned close to Qing Bai's ear and whispered softly, "She has a ghostly aura about her. She must have come from the City of the Dead."
The City of the Wrongly Dead? Qing Bai's eyes moved slightly, and he replied in a low voice: "The City of the Wrongly Dead also provides posthumous education?"
Jiu Nian didn't expect Qing Bai's point to be this, and didn't know how to answer for a moment.
"Xu Xu Xu!" Chen Qiaoxi was so glared at by the pair of bloodshot eyes that he dared not say anything more.
Gao Tai wanted to ask clearly: "Then why did you trap us here?"
Chang Qiuqiu was silent for a moment, then tilted her head and said matter-of-factly, "I told you I don't want to be blamed and die in obscurity, so I naturally have to find the real murderer. But since I'm already dead, it's not easy to do anything, so I had no choice but to let you do it..."
Gao Tai's face darkened: "What if we don't find it?"
Chang Qiuqiu smiled and said without hesitation, "Then we'll just ask another group of old classmates to come look for it. Once I gather all the classmates and teachers from Class 2 of Grade 9 back then, we'll eventually find it."
These words were said lightly, but everyone felt a chill in their hearts. The vigilance that had been lowered because of Chang Qiuqiu's words that she had "reformed" and her overly lively and sarcastic tone was raised again... A ghost is indeed a ghost. Even if she pretends to be human, she is no longer human. The perspective and approach to looking at and dealing with problems have changed from the root.
"But we will die." Gao Tai supported Ban Bieyi and said with gritted teeth.
Chang Qiuqiu turned her head and said, "Everyone will die. Zhou Xiaoya died, and I died too. Can't you die too?"
How dare this guy say he's reformed? He's even more brutal than before!
Chen Qiaoxi's legs went weak.
Qing Bai glanced at Jiu Nian and said, "Your education level is quite good."
Nine years: "..."
Qing Bai noticed that there was no light coming in from the crack in the door, and there was very little light left in the dim room. It was getting dark.
Ban Bieyi's body could no longer hold him back. Qing Bai felt that he had given them enough time and space to talk, so he said bluntly, "Now that we have found the murderer, you can let us go."
Chang Qiuqiu shook her head, her hair scattered all over the floor. "I can't find him. You can't leave. Help me find him."
This was truly infuriating, and even Qi Xiaopang couldn't stand it. Taking advantage of Qing Bai and Jiu Nian's presence, he popped up and complained, "We have to help you find the real culprit and arrest him, but we're not the police... Do we have to help you get rid of him after we catch him?"
"You guys don't need to do this." Chang Qiuqiu said with a serious expression, raising her lips, "I can do it myself."
"You can't come yourself." Qing Bai picked up the school newspaper on the ground and handed it to Chang Qiuqiu again. His pale, slender fingers tapped the notice on it and said in a cold voice, "You forgot that Li Nan fell seriously ill ten years ago."
"If you're lucky, you're dead by now."
"Right, right, right!" Chen Qiaoxi also hurriedly responded, wanting her to give up and let them go. "Have you forgotten, Mr. Li... Li Nan had cancer, which was incurable. The school organized a donation campaign for the entire school, and you gave the most money..."
Chang Qiuqiu's raised lips slowly dropped, and the inappropriate 'liveliness' in her body completely disappeared. She was in a daze, as if she had suddenly realized something, but also as if she had fallen into another layer of fog.
"I forgot? I forgot? He's dead? Then all my efforts and plots were just... in vain?"
In just a few words, the last ray of light in the sports equipment room disappeared. In the sudden cold darkness, Qi Xiaopang and Chen Qiaoxi screamed in fear, but Qing Bai was keenly aware of the wind passing by his ears, cold and swift, sharper than any blade in the world, carrying the aura of the underworld that Jiu Nian had mentioned, and slashed forward without hesitation... Then there was a crisp "crack", and the shell covering the "sky" shattered.
At the moment when Qing Bai was completely enveloped by the darkness, he suddenly thought for no reason: if the underworld really had a smell, it should be the stale scent of water vapor mixed with rotten grass and trees, which becomes stronger and more fragrant as it ages, just like... wine.
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