Chapter 53: Ghost School (7)

It wasn’t unusual for someone to ask if one person likes another person but, in a haunted classroom setting like this and with a female ghost asking this question, it was very strange and completely outside of Cheng Zhi Chu’s expectations. Even Ou Yang and the others were surprised and for a moment they had forgotten about their fear.

Bai Yi looked over at the corpse-like female teacher and gently raised his eyebrow.

Even if he didn’t know why she had asked this question, he hooked up the corner of his lips and answered without hesitation: “I do. I like Zhi Chu.”

At the same time, he looked over at Cheng Zhi Chu sitting next to him and gave him a smile.

Faced with such a loving gaze, Cheng Zhi Chu felt his heart skip a beat. His ears turned red and he couldn’t help but bow his head. The thoughts in his mind at this moment was a complete mess.

What’s going on……….?

Cheng Zhi Chu still remembered the special requirements for this side task. When they answered a question, their answer cannot violate the instance setting and it cannot violate their reality circumstances.

After Bai Yi said that he likes him, the female ghost didn’t look like she intended to punish Bai Yi so it would mean that Bai Yi really does like him……….That is to say, was Bai Yi able to answer the question successfully because liking someone as a friend can also be considered as “like”?

Although he felt that this probably was the case but for a moment Cheng Zhi Chu couldn’t help but think of something ——– What if Bai Yi really does like him?

…………Impossible. He’s being too narcissistic. How can Bai Yi like him?!

Cheng Zhi Chu’s mind was a mess. He quickly shook his head to dispel the thought. He felt that he was being too self-absorbed. How could he have these kinds of thoughts? This is on par to slapping Bai Yi in the face.

Stop thinking nonsense. Bai Yi definitely only likes him as a friend. Even if this was the case, he should be content with it. At least Bai Yi is willing to see him as a friend………

As he tried to convince himself internally, Cheng Zhi Chu felt that he should be feeling happy but for some reason he felt a little disappointed.

“……………”

Hearing Bai Yi’s answer, the female teacher’s expression didn’t change. As usual, it was the dull look.

She fiddled with the computer on the podium and the lights in the front of the room suddenly went out. The projector on the ceiling lit up to reveal an image on the wall.

Everyone looked at the image. For Ou Yang who sat in the second row especially, his face turned pale.

What was displayed was the image of a paused video. At this moment, it showed Bai Yi, Cheng Zhi Chu and Ou Yang in their teenaged appearance. Cheng Zhi Chu wore the school uniform while Bai Yi and Ou Yang wore a basketball uniform. The setting was the school field.

The sky was dark and the lights around the school were already lit up. However, what was strange was that, despite the poor lighting, the image was very clear. It was as if it was not recorded and it was instead something that someone had seen with their own eyes.

The teacher played the video.

“…….I am really grateful to Senior Bai Yi. If it wasn’t for you helping me, I wouldn’t know how long it would have taken me to find it.”

Cheng Zhi Chu touched the hearing aid in his ear and gave Bai Yi a deep bow. With eyes filled with gratitude he said: “I’m sorry for taking up so much of seniors time. I made you be unable to participate in the basketball game……..”

“It’s okay. I will still have the chance to play in the future but if you lose your hearing aid it would be troublesome.”

Bai Yi looked down at him and said: “It’s good that we found it. Don’t worry about it.”

“I really appreciate it Senior Bai. I………”

Cheng Zhi Chu seemed to have remembered something. He quickly rummaged through his pocket, took out a few pieces of toffee candy and placed in Bai Yi’s hands. A little embarrassed, he said:

“Sorry, I don’t have anything on me now and I can only thank senior with this. Later I’ll get you——–”

Bai Yi shook his head and smiled: “You really don’t need to. Junior Cheng, I didn’t help you so that I can get something from you. If you want to thank me, I’ll just accept these candies. This is enough.”

“But………”

“Okay Junior Cheng. It’s rather late now. Hurry and go home. Senior will play with you another day.”

He ruffled the junior brother’s hair and spoke gently. The boy’s cheeks immediately blushed red.

Cheng Zhi Chu appeared a little helpless. He said in a small voice: “Okay. Then I’ll head back first. Senior too. Be careful on your way back…..”

“En, okay. See you tomorrow.” The handsome senior paused for a moment before smiling again. He gently called out, “Junior Cheng.”

Hearing him call him in such an intimate way, the young boy’s face turned even more red. He once again bowed to Bai Yi, picked up his bag and hurried away.

Bai Yi and Ou Yan watched him leave. When his figure disappeared in the distance, the smile on Bai Yi’s face instantly disappeared. With a look of indifference, he threw away Cheng Zhi Chu’s candy into the bin like it was useless garbage.

Ou Yang wasn’t surprised by this. Instead, he even chuckled and said: “What a foolish idiot. To think that he would actually carry something as lame as candy around and he even dared to give them out. So pitiful.”

Bai Yi continued to look indifferent and he didn’t deny those words. Ou Yang picked up the basketball and left together with him. As they walked off, he said: “That idiot looks easy to fool. It definitely won’t be long for him to fall for Brother Bai.”

……….

The video ended and Ou Yang’s expression had turned extremely ugly. In addition to him, Zhao Xiao Peng and Liang Wen Bing’s expressions had also changed. Li Jie bit gently onto her lower lip and only Shen Qi Qi who was not very close to them revealed a look of surprise. Her eyes swept over between Bai Yi and Cheng Zhi Chu.

“This is the truth that has happened. You can’t deny it classmate Bai Yi.”

The female teacher spoke monotonously: “How do you explain this? Do you still dare say that you truly like Cheng Zhi Chu?”

“I don’t remember the past.” Bai Yi replied indifferently. “I only know that right now I love Zhi Chu. Would you like me to prove it to you?”

As he said this, he sat back down and moved over to Cheng Zhi Chu’s face. His action revealed his intent to give him a kiss. The female teacher immediately spoke up and said: “No need. Sit properly, you’re done with your questions now.”

“………”

The handsome man’s movements stopped, and he slowly retreated. He glanced over at the female teacher through the corner of his eyes. The teacher didn’t say anything for a few seconds and she quickly moved to pick up her tongue that had fallen out of her mouth to avoid his gaze.

Ou Yang who sat in the second row was terrified. Because he was in the video, he was afraid that the next person to be called up on would be him, but the female ghost didn’t call him and instead looked towards Liang Wen Bin. She said: “Classmate Liang Wen Bin, please answer my question.”

“………..” Liang Wen Bin’s eyes that were hidden behind his glasses twitched slightly. With a very unnatural expression, he supported his injured arm and slowly stood up.

The projector screen changed to a different image. What had appeared was a photo of Su Ling. Ou Yang and the others were shocked. Gu Zhen who had deliberately looked away while the video earlier played also looked up and examined Su Ling’s photo.

This was an ID photo. The youth in the photo wore a school uniform but it wasn’t Chengnan High School’s and he appeared a little younger. It was probably a photo taken from middle school.

The youth’s appearance was still exquisite and beautiful. With black hair, black eyes, pale complexion and a cold and indifferent expression, he looked very gloomy. He didn’t seem to possess any of the cheerfulness or vitality that you would expect in young people. Even the photos taken of him while he was alive made him seem like he was a ghostly spirit.

“What school was this school uniform from?” The female ghost asked.

“The twenty-seventh middle school.” Liang Wen Bin swallowed and added, “It’s the uniform from the twenty-seventh middle school.”

“Why do you recognise this school uniform?”

“Because my middle school was also the twenty-seventh middle school.”

“Did you know Su Ling when you were in middle school?”

“…………I do.”

“What did you do to him back then?”

“………” Cold sweat instantly appeared on Liang Wen Bin’s forehead, “I……….”

The slide on the screen switched to the next one. Several photos were displayed at the same time.

The setting of the photos was the school bathroom. Liang Wen Bin wore a twenty-seventh middle school uniform and had a very cold smile on his face. Although he was also wearing a pair of glasses like now, he didn’t have the scholarly temperament at all and instead looked very cruel.

He was grabbing onto Su Ling’s hair. Su Ling’s face was covered in bruises and wounds and even blood was spilling out from the corner of his mouth. His uniform was stained with blood and there were even traces of blood on the floor.

He was dragged by Liang Wen Bin by his hair and shirt collar over to the squat toilet. Liang Wen Bin ferociously pushed his head down and forced him to drink the water from it.

Seeing those photos, Cheng Zhi Chu’s eyes widened in shock. When he recalled the fact that Su Ling had appeared next to Liang Wen Bin and had called him “Senior Liang”, he no longer found it strange.

It was because they already know each other and because Su Ling had suffered from Liang Wen Bin’s abuse. Su Ling looking gloomy was probably also related to this experience. His later act of committing suicide probably had something to do with Liang Wen Bin.

Cheng Zhi Chu couldn’t help but look back at Liang Wen Bin. The latter appeared to know that there won’t be anything good awaiting him with the release of these photos and his face was extremely pale. After a moment of panic, he couldn’t help but push away the chair and try to find an escape route. He reached out to the door handle and moved to push it open.

But in the next second, he disappeared.

More precisely, an endlessly deep back hole had appeared below him without any warning and it was too late for him to react. Even his expression didn’t have the chance to change before he fell in.

The black hole seemed to be able to absorb all the sounds inside. After Liang Wen Bin fell in, the black hole was still very silent. You couldn’t hear his screams and you also couldn’t hear the sound of something heavy falling to the ground

“Shaa———–”

A few seconds later, a small burst of blood spurted out from inside the black hole, scattering onto the ground.

The black hole gradually faded away leaving only a small patch of blood behind. There was no trace of Liang Wen Bin.

“Ah———–!”

Lu Jie let out a terrified scream. Ou Yang and the others also stood up and their pupils constricted. Huge fear inside them made them feel like something heavy was crushing their chest and they could hardly breathe. Their only thought was to escape from this horrible place.

“Sit down.”

However, with just the simple two words from the female ghost’s end, they felt like a bucket of ice was dumped onto them. They returned to their senses and sluggishly sat back down.

Liang Wen Bin’s sudden death had affected them psychologically. Zhao Xiao Pang quickly burst into tears and he cried incoherently.

“I don’t want to die, I want to go back. I beg you, please let me go. I will go and burn paper for Su Ling, I’ll pay my respects, I can even recognise him as my godfather! Just let me go………I beg you Su Ling. Let her let me go……..”

“You have also bullied Su ling?” When Shen Qi Qi heard this, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes and look at Zhao Xiao Pang who had cried until his face was red with shock.

“No…..I didn’t, I didn’t want to……….”

Zhao Xiao Pang was flustered. He tried to deny it frantically. With red eyes, he raised his fat fingers at Bai Yi and yelled out loudly: “It’s him! It’s Bai Yi! He instructed us to do that!!”

“Su Ling, if you want revenge, go look for him! I have no enmity with you. I had no reason to bully you. Those horrible things were all because Bai Yi forced me to do it. Also, Ou Yang———”

He immediately turned and looked at Ou Yang with both panic and resentment: “It’s all because of you. Those ideas about torturing Su Ling all came from you! You bastard, only those who are not human would be able think of things like that. Are you even human?!”

“Fuck you. You dare to say something like that?!”

Hearing him push all the responsibilities over to himself and Bai Yi, Ou Yang’s expression quickly changed, and he immediately started to curse.

“You were forced? Zhao Xiao Pang, you even dare to say that? The one who beat up Su Ling the most was you! You even used to sit on Su Ling and make him crawl like a dog. Did I or did I not advice you not to do it? You fucking didn’t listen and you ended up crushing his intestines. Who was the one who left him with a permanent injury?!”

“Bullshit. You’re just a pile of dog shit. Stop acting like a good guy. Why aren’t you mentioning that time you wanted to use the cigarette butt to burn Su Ling’s eyes?”

“You think I’m crazy? Did you really think I would do that? I was just doing it to scare him. Who would really burn his eyes? I don’t have any intentions to be expelled from school!”

“Scare him? It definitely wasn’t because you wanted to scare him. You were clearly angered by Su Ling’s eyes and you truly wanted to ruin it. If it wasn’t for me and Liang Wen Bin holding you back, his eyes would have been a goner!”

The two men broken into a fierce quarrel. In just a few words, they had almost revealed everything that they had done. Cheng Zhi Chu heard this and couldn’t help but shiver. Yang Qian Fan also had a horrified look on his face. This time, it wasn’t a pretense.

“You’re saying everything that you did was instigated by Bai Yi?” Gu Zhen’s eyes darkened as his eyes swept over Bai Yi.

“You didn’t know?”

The two red-faced men looked at Gu Zhen. Ou Yang sneered and said: “That’s true. Although you’re friends, your families are closely tied. How could he let you know about something as scandalous as this? If he did, he would be finished.”

“It doesn’t matter if you know about it now. Yes, it was his doing. We may seem like Bai Yi’s friends but we’re actually just dogs raised by him. We would do anything that he asks us to do.”

“Since middle school, we would often beat up Su Ling. This continued until he died. This is all because Su Ling is————”

“Quiet. Don’t disrupt the class.”

The female teacher who had been silent for a moment suddenly knocked on the desk and stopped Ou Yang’s words. Ou Yang who was influenced by his anger suddenly remembered that he was still surrounded by ghosts. He instantly stiffened and fell quiet.

“As for the next question………”

Several maggots wriggled out from the female teachers mouth as it opened and closed. Her gaze faintly moved over to Cheng Zhi Chu.

“Classmate Cheng Zhi Chu, it’s your turn.”

Cheng Zhi Chu’s heart jumped. He stood up and looked at the female ghost with pursed lips.

The slide displayed changed and this time there was a photo of Cheng Zhi Chu in his youth.

In contrast to the photos and videos earlier that made people feel uncomfortable, this photo was warm and gentle. The sunlight outside poured into the classroom through the window and reflected the teenagers light coloured eyes, giving it a hint of transparency. He was surrounded by several classmates as he sat at the desk and he smiled happily while chatting with them.

“Do you know who took this photo?” The teacher asked.

He naturally doesn’t know…….How could he know?

Cheng Zhi Chu thought this, but he guessed that based on the instance setting he shouldn’t know. After all, the teenager in the photo didn’t look over at the lens and he appeared to be relaxed. The photo however was a bit fuzzy, like it was taken in a hurry and the photographer didn’t want the teenager to notice.

“……I don’t know.” Cheng Zhi Chu paused for a moment before replying.

The female teacher nodded her head. She raised her hand to touch the projected image and said: “Then you should look for the answer yourself.”

Her words were just spoken when Cheng Zhi Chu suddenly noticed that the surrounding scene had changed. In less than a blink of an eye, he had left the classroom and was standing outside the teaching building.

“Sha———–”

The fountain in front of the teaching building sprayed water out from the water column. Crystal-like water droplets fell into the pool surrounding it reflecting a myriad of colours.

The campus was covered in green grass and the trees were calm and beautiful. This was Chengnan High School before it was decided to be relocated.

Cheng Zhi Chu was stunned for a brief moment when he realised that Bai Yi and the others were gone. He thought of the teacher’s words. He was probably sent here by the teacher to look for the photographer himself.

【Triggered side task: Look for the photographer.】

【Task content: Who took the photo? You are very curious. You need to find that person.】

【Task reward: 1000 Survival Points.】

Hearing the task released by the system, Cheng Zhi Chu actually had some guesses about the photographer’s identity, but he wasn’t completely sure, so he decided to enter the teaching building first.

Unsurprisingly, that photo was taken in the classroom of class 1-7. When Cheng Zhi Chu walked over to the classroom, he saw that there was no one inside. Class just happened to be in session at this moment and, since there wasn’t anyone in the room, they probably went to the sports field or music classroom for class.

Cheng Zhi Chu didn’t rush to leave. Instead, he activated his Clue Prompt skill and checked to see if there were any clues in the classroom.

A pair of footprints appeared on the ground leading out of the classroom. He followed the footprints and it led him out of the teaching building and over to the sports field. Over there, many students were currently taking physical education classes.

When Cheng Zhi Chu followed those footprints, he also figured out what his current physical state was. He was currently in a state like those of a ghost and the people here can’t see him. Without any concerns, he walked directly over to the sports field and found the owner of the footprints.

It was Su Ling.

Seeing the boy sitting on the edge of the field hugging his knees, Cheng Zhi Chu had a strange feeling.

Compared to the noisy ruckus on the field, Su Ling’s side was cold and calm. It was as it there was an invisible wall separating him from the rest of the world.

Cheng Zhi Chu watched this silent boy and couldn’t help but feel very distressed. The time here was obviously summer, but the teenager was still wearing the schools winter uniform. His body was firmly covered probably so that he could hide the wounds on his body.

Yet no one came to look for him.

The teenager hugged his knees and half buried his pale face in his arms. His black hair was messy, and he only revealed a pair of beautiful black eyes like a quiet and obedient black cat. After watching him for a while, Cheng Zhi Chu suddenly realised that the teenager’s eyes were unexpectedly focused on a particular figure running around across the field.

At this moment, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming closer and the boy immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be napping.

But the moment before he closed his eyes, his eyes brightened up. It was as if the person he was expecting for had finally arrived.

“Su Ling, are you okay? Still uncomfortable?”

Then Cheng Zhi Chu heard his own voice.

He looked back and saw his younger self come over.

****

Bai Yi’s Diary (Part 53)

The person in the video definitely isn’t the real me and only took my appearance.

How could I throw away something Zhi Chu gave me? Even if I’m crazy, I would never do that.