Chapter 59: Old Buildings
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Zhou Bai walked next to Qian Wangsun. What appeared before him were 13 dorm buildings that had an average of seven stories each.

But these dorm buildings were all dark, without a hint of light. They’d clearly been abandoned.

Zhou Bai asked curiously, “These dorm buildings look fine. Why were they abandoned?”

“I heard it’s because a fifth-year student went off while practicing and had a mutation, but he was too afraid to tell anyone else and tried his best to hide it. Finally, one night…he ate all the students on his floor.”

“Fifth-year student?” Zhou Bai frowned slightly. Tao academies foster their students for a total of five years, which means that there are usually students from the first year to the fifth year, a total of five classes.

Qian Wangsun said with an eerie face,”It’s said that every night, people hear the sound of chewing from these empty rooms, so they sealed them off.”

Seeing Zhou Bai’s solemn expression, Qian Wangsun laughed. “You can’t believe that. It’s just a campus myth. These dorms were discarded because their formations are outdated. After all, our dorms all have formations to balance Spark for the ease of our practice.

“Ten years ago, the formation for balancing Spark was renovated. It was too time-consuming and troublesome to change the formations in the old dorms, so they just built new ones. Tao academy has a large enough area. They didn’t even have to take down the old buildings.”

Qian Wangsun looked at Zhou Bai with a smile, “I’ve researched it, back when independent Taoist Qingjing was teaching at Tao academy, she used to live on the second floor of the seventh building. I found this page of notes there too. I’m pretty sure independent Taoist Qingjing wrote this.”

“If independent Taoist Qingjing wrote it, the teachers probably would have taken it long ago. It wouldn’t be here for you to find.” Zhou Bai shook his head. He didn’t think independent Taoist Qingjing wrote this. But no matter who wrote it, since it has to do with Tao Te Ching, he wanted to look into it and see what was going on.

“Wait, why did you come here?” Zhou Bai looked at Qian Wangsun strangely. “How can you find something in this kind of place?”

Qian Wangsun said, “I practice the Bow Map. Observation comes first. And I like to walk around in my free time. I’ve pretty much explored the entire campus aside from some forbidden areas. This was where I made the most gains.”

The two of them arrived before 13 dorm buildings. Qian Wangsun looked to the left and said, “I’ll search the six buildings on the left, you’ll search the six buildings on the right, then we’ll meet in the middle, and we’ll look through building number seven, where independent Taoist Qingjing used to live. Is that all right?”

“You search numbers eight through thirteen, I search numbers one through six, and we’ll search number seven together?” Zhou Bai nodded and said, “That’s fine; let’s get started.”

Qian Wangsun tossed out a crystal, which hovered next to him and suddenly lit up. It gave off a bright glow, illuminating the space around them.

Zhou Bai could see countless glowing threads that formed different shapes inside the crystal. These lines were what gave off the glow, like lamp filaments.

Qian Wangsun said, “This is an Illuminating Formation Stone. You operate it with primordial spirit power. It can convert primordial spirit power into light energy.” Then, he tossed one at Zhou Bai. “I’m lending this to you. Don’t forget to return it when we’re done.”

Zhou Bai took an Illuminating Formation Stone and tried to inject primordial spirit power into it. Light immediately glowed from the crystal.

Another thing invented by this world’s Taoist technology? Zhou Bai thought to himself, This is so convenient. I think it’ll last a long time with my primordial spirit power.

He watched Qian Wangsun walk to a building before them and slowly disappear into the pitch-black doorway. Zhou Bai used his primordial spirit power to control the crystal and walked toward another building in the opposite direction.

Seeing the number six on the door, Zhou Bai lightly pushed it open.

As the door opened, it gave off a creaking sound. The dark hallway and rooms looked like giant, formless mouths.

Christina shivered and said, “Why did you come to this sort of place? It looks so scary. I think my fur is falling off.”

“What is there to be afraid of? It’s just a dorm building, and no one lives here, meaning no students will mutate. From this perspective, it might be even safer than the dorm buildings currently in use.”

Zhou Bai strolled along the hallway as he spoke. The light from the crystal swept over each room. He could see all the rooms had been emptied and had nothing left behind.

In the darkness, only the crystal gave off a gentle glow, and the tapping of his footsteps sounded in the empty hallway.

“There’s nothing here. How did Qian Wangsun find that?”

Zhou Bai watched empty rooms pass by him one after another; they all looked the same. He gradually grew bored and slowly picked up his pace, watching the rooms pass by him quickly.

At that moment, he felt his vision blur, as if a white shadow flashed before him.

Ah!

He heard a sudden shrill cry, and Zhou Bai’s heart skipped a beat. He complained, “Why are you screaming for nothing? I’ll be scared to death.”

Christina held her chest and said, “I’m…I’m a little scared. What was that thing that just passed?”

“It’s probably just something remaining in the last room.” Zhou Bai turned around and bravely walked toward the room they’d just passed.

A white figure appeared before Zhou Bai.

Ah!

Zhou Bai held his chest, saying angrily, “Is that enough?”

Christina covered her eyes with her paws, trembling. “That was so scary.”

Zhou Bai rolled his eyes. Then he looked at the white thing that appeared before them. It was a white sphere graffitied on the wall.

In the middle of the ball was a black square. Underneath the square were red lines hanging down from the square, making the entire image look like a bleeding eye.

Zhou Bai couldn’t understand what it meant.

He frowned, walked inside, and looked around. He found the entire room was empty. There was nothing besides this eerie graffiti.

Christina’s body curled into a ball, and she kept trembling, “This is bad, Zhou Bai. I’m so scared. Something seems off; let’s go.”

“You’re way too cowardly,” said Zhou Bai. “If you can’t handle it, close your eyes. I’ll call you if there’s any danger.”

Zhou Bai shook his head. He felt like there was nothing in this room. He walked out and continued to inspect this dorm building.

But he didn’t see anything strange during the rest of his search: an entire building of empty rooms, covered in dust. You could tell it had been abandoned for a long time.

Zhou Bai returned to the first floor. When he passed by the room with the graffiti again, he couldn’t help taking another look at it to see if he could make any discoveries.

He stared at the pattern, then said with a frown, “Why do I feel like there are more red lines on this graffiti? Did I remember wrong?”

He couldn’t confirm it, and he didn’t see any problem with it, so Zhou Bai left building number six and walked toward the next building, number five.

He took a look at the building sign for number five, then pushed the door open.

The moment he entered, Zhou Bai felt a strong moldy smell hit his face. The light from the crystal illuminated the place; black mildew covered the walls of the hallway. The plaster peeled from the walls, and the entire hallway looked like it was drenched in water.