Ever since entering this place, Zhao Mingyue had felt that something was off, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
Unlike Sunshine Apartment, there was no overpowering smell of disinfectant or the unsettling stench of char. There were no scents at all, not even the ubiquitous, spine-chilling drafts of yin wind.
More terrifyingly, there wasn’t a single superfluous sound.
The silence was frightening. No rustling wind, no chirping insects—nothing.
She felt as if she had stepped into a world where time itself had frozen.
After a long observation from the front of the dormitory building, she noted each floor had only four rooms, numbered 101 to 104. Every bedroom was a large, open barracks style, with upper and lower bunk beds. A single room could sleep sixteen people, sometimes even more than twenty or thirty.
Every dorm room window was fitted with burglar bars welded from rebar. They were quite solid, likely meant to prevent students from sneaking out.
The doors, however, were old and worn, made of solid black wood. There was nothing on them except the dormitory number, painted on with red lacquer.
With the stairwell as a dividing line, two dorm rooms were on the left and two on the right.
The dormitory building was right at the entrance. Zhao Mingyue began to wonder if she should first complete the quest that involved the “Under the Bed.”
[Under the Bed]
[Quest Requirement: After starting the quest, enter Room 404 of the Dongcheng Thirteenth High School dormitory building. Lie down on the lower bunk of the bed in the corner to the right of the entrance, closest to the window. Close your eyes for ten seconds, then open them.]
[I’m too scared to go to class, but now that they’ve all left, I’m alone in the dormitory. I bury my head under the covers, afraid to hear her voice, afraid to see her eyes.]
The very number “Room 404” sounded unlucky, even though she had also lived in Room 404 at Sunshine Apartment.
“I’ll observe things first. If I can finish any quest, that’s good. Sister Yu is here to help me, anyway.”
She gave herself a mental pep talk but didn’t take the rabbit doll out of her pocket. Holding her flashlight, Zhao Mingyue approached the dorm room.
The dorm doors were all locked, but she could look inside through the windows.
The window glass was covered in a thick layer of dust. The flashlight beam could penetrate it, but it was too blurry to see clearly with the naked eye. Fortunately, a piece of the glass had been broken from the bottom for some unknown reason, offering a clear view inside.
The broken corner was at the very bottom, and the window itself was somewhat low. Zhao Mingyue had to bend over to peer inside through the gap.
Her heart raced the moment she bent down. She was terrified that the second she lowered her head, a rotting face or some other horrific thing would suddenly appear before her.
Thankfully, nothing happened. The strange, eerie silence persisted.
The flashlight’s beam shone through the opening, revealing what she had expected: a room packed with many large iron bunk beds, at least thirteen by a conservative estimate. If all were occupied, this single dorm could sleep twenty-six students.
This dorm room hadn’t been cleaned out much; it was very messy. The floor and beds were littered with various belongings, mostly things students had brought but didn’t want to take back home—an old cotton-padded pair of trousers, a few pairs of unwashed stinky socks.
Aside from some broken little toys, a few beds still had thin, moldy cotton comforters left behind.
Zhao Mingyue furrowed her brow. The flashlight beam hit the wall, which was slightly yellowed with many half-torn posters and multiplication tables.
Looking at it, this seemed like nothing more than an ordinary, abandoned dorm room.
That was, of course, if you ignored the dozen-plus chairs neatly arranged on the floor.
These chairs were placed very uniformly, all leaning against the head of the beds. Their fronts faced the room’s interior, while their backs faced the window. Only the chair in the very center, the one closest to the window, was different; its front faced Zhao Mingyue, opposite to all the other chairs.
An unkempt, abandoned dorm, yet the floor was perfectly lined with so many chairs…
“What a creepy dorm room.” Zhao Mingyue straightened up. Earlier, she had imagined that if these chairs weren’t meant for people, looking up at night and seeing a human figure sitting on every single one of them would be truly terrifying.
Having finished inspecting this one dorm, Zhao Mingyue went to check the other rooms on the first floor.
The situation was exactly the same—the same mess, the same orderly arrangement of chairs.
The only difference was that in some rooms, the fronts faced inward, while in others, they faced outward. But in every case, there was always one chair that was different from the rest.
“Does this out-of-place chair signify something? If one chair represents one wraith, then does an opposite-facing chair mean that Ghostly Monster has rebelled, or… escaped?”
Zhao Mingyue thought of the little boy who had hidden in the convenience store that day. He had escaped from Dongcheng Thirteenth High School, and she didn’t know if he had ever come back.
“If not, could that chair represent the teacher, the Old Dean who was burned to death?”
After a few steps back, ready to leave, Zhao Mingyue suddenly caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye.
It was a face, an iron-green face belonging to a young child.
Just moments ago, this face had been pressed against the window of one of the dorms, watching her. The instant she turned her head, it vanished.
Zhao Mingyue wasn’t afraid; instead, she quickly walked over. Only then did she realize this was the very first dorm room she had inspected, the only one where the opposite-facing chair was right by the window and also faced outward.
That boy had been watching her from the broken gap in this dorm room’s window. She remembered thinking earlier, as she looked in, that a face might suddenly appear.
Cautiously, she bent down and shone her flashlight inside.
Unfortunately, with only the window to look through, some blind spots were completely invisible.
For instance, the wall right next to the window.
Could that Ghost just now be hiding there, its face less than a meter from her own?
“Little friend, I mean no harm. I came here to help you. If you can hear me, sit on the chair in front of me. I will help you,” Zhao Mingyue spoke softly, her voice very low.
After she spoke, there was still no movement inside the dorm.
Just as Zhao Mingyue was about to leave, in her line of sight, right under the broken gap, a lollipop slowly extended upward from below.
“Big Sister, if you really want to help me, grab this lollipop. Then I can get out.”
The voice also came from below. Zhao Mingyue’s pupils constricted.
This Ghost wasn’t beside her; it was right in front of her!
Her breathing became slightly ragged. Zhao Mingyue didn’t reach out immediately. “Stand up first. Let me see you.”
“No can do.”
“Why?”
“I said no, so no. If Big Sister is really scared, you don’t have to grab the lollipop. Just get a little closer and help me look at the numbers on it, then read them out loud. That will be enough.”
Zhao Mingyue looked closely and noticed three tiny numbers on it. They were so small she would have to squint and get very close to see them.
Before she could even speak, Bai Yu’s voice came, telling her not to bend down but just to walk closer.
Zhao Mingyue took a step forward. At that moment, from her left pocket where the rabbit doll was, a slender arm suddenly reached out. Its delicate five fingers shot into the gap and fiercely grabbed the lollipop.
Simultaneously, the instant Bai Yu grasped the lollipop, two small hands lunged up from below, accompanied by a child’s mischievous laughter, trying to seize her arm.
In a flash before Zhao Mingyue’s eyes, she saw Bai Yu’s hand, holding the lollipop, instead clamping down on the Imp’s wrist. Before she knew what happened next, an extremely agonized wail erupted from inside the dorm. The wrist in Bai Yu’s grip turned into a wisp of smoke and was absorbed by her.
“Be careful of the Imps here. None of them are good. Don’t let your guard down.”
