Chapter 20

Never expected it. Truly never expected it.

Jiang Luo had already given up on suspecting Bai Ye Feng because of that information, yet he'd just happened to rip off the man's disguise.

This discovery sent Jiang Luo's mood soaring.

He suppressed his irrepressible smile and wiped the paper ash from between his fingers. Just as he finished, Xu Yan returned from outside.

Xu Yan had been somewhere—there were flecks of mud on his shoes. Jiang Luo glanced back at him, and Xu Yan glared back with full alertness.

Jiang Luo smiled. 'Back? It's about to rain outside.'

As the saying goes, you don't hit a smiling face. And Jiang Luo's smile was particularly beautiful, his words effortlessly familiar, easily dissolving the slight hostility between them. It made Xu Yan feel too awkward to keep glaring. He stiffly grunted, 'Mm.'

Jiang Luo picked up the thermos and poured two cups of water. 'Sit,' he said naturally. 'Why stand?'

Xu Yan hesitated, then walked over and sat at the table.

Jiang Luo sat down too, propping his chin on his hand and watching him with a smile. A grey towel covered his black hair. His face was pale, his features long and vividly colored. His eyes were clear like ink wash, his lips a bright vermilion. At first glance, he looked like a beautiful ethnic minority youth, with his head wrapped and lips red, teeth white.

'Classmate, how long have you known Bai Ye Feng?'

Xu Yan answered instinctively, 'Six years.'

'Oh,' Jiang Luo said, as if enlightened, and pressed on curiously, 'Is Bai Ye Feng—such a warm, kind person—always been like this?'

Hearing him praise Bai Ye Feng, Xu Yan's hostility lessened a little. 'Brother Bai has always been this good.'

He thought for a moment, then hesitantly realized that the Bai Ye Feng from before left almost no impression in his memory. 'Before… Brother Bai used to be more low-key.'

Jiang Luo: 'I heard he started pushing himself upward five years ago. That was his first year of high school, right? Talented people indeed—starting to work hard in first year isn't too late.'

'Yeah,' Xu Yan couldn't help adding more. 'Before Brother Bai started high school, none of us saw that he had this kind of talent.'

Jiang Luo smiled. 'A genius.'

Five years ago.

Chi You wasn't dead yet back then.

This was practically an earth-shattering secret. Jiang Luo was so elated he wanted to go mess with Chi You right away. But he quickly suppressed the urge. A secret this big—of course he had to use it to its fullest potential.

Jiang Luo casually chatted with Xu Yan about other topics, glossing over those two questions. By the time Bai Ye Feng and Zhuo Zhongqiu returned from the bathroom, they saw the two of them talking in what could be called an amiable atmosphere.

Bai Ye Feng walked over with a smile. 'What are you talking about?'

'About the strange tales of Shanhai University,' Jiang Luo said. 'Your school is quite interesting.'

His expression showed no abnormality. His attitude toward Bai Ye Feng was a few degrees cooler than toward Xu Yan—which was normal, since Jiang Luo had just been set up by Bai Ye Feng's praise-to-kill tactic.

Bai Ye Feng didn't suspect anything. He smiled. 'Jiang Luo, you're welcome to visit our school. If possible, transferring here wouldn't be a bad idea either.'

Zhuo Zhongqiu clicked her tongue. 'Openly poaching?'

A sudden thunderclap boomed outside the window. A flash of lightning lit up the sky. The group looked out as a torrential downpour abruptly began.

The rain was ferocious from the first drop, piercing the long sky and slamming against the ground, rattling the windowpanes.

Bai Ye Feng watched the storm for a long moment. 'Let's rest.'

The signal in the Old Campus was poor. To prevent the exam-prep students from playing on their Mobile Phones, the School hadn't reinforced the signal. Their Mobile Phones couldn't access the internet; at most they could make calls or send texts.

Idle time was especially sleep-inducing. Accompanied by the sound of rain, Jiang Luo slowly drifted into sleep.

Until the night deepened.

In the middle of the night, Jiang Luo was abruptly woken by his Mobile Phone ringing.

Bleary-eyed, he picked up the phone. The caller was an unknown number.

The dorm was quiet, breathing shallow, no one speaking. Everything was wrapped in silence.

Jiang Luo pressed answer, eyes closed. 'Hello?'

'……'

Jiang Luo: 'Who is this?'

'……zzzt……zzzt……'

Noisy static crackled intermittently. A female voice rose from the broken fragments: 'I……zzzt… I'm at…… I'm here……'

Jiang Luo jolted fully awake from his drowsiness. He sat up. A cold draft slipped through a crack in the window. Gripping the phone, he looked around—nothing.

'Zzzt……'

The stiff female voice continued: 'You and I…… back to back.'

The call cut off abruptly.

Jiang Luo's temples throbbed. The cold wind raised goosebumps all over him. He sat up, leaning against the white wall, and opened his phone to check the call log. But the unknown number he'd just seen had vanished without a trace.

He flipped through the call records several times but couldn't find any trace of that call. Jiang Luo was now completely certain: he'd encountered a Paranormal Incident.

You and I, back to back?

He turned slowly to look behind him. Behind him, aside from a wall, there was nothing. Just as Jiang Luo was about to look away, his gaze suddenly fixed on the wall.

Could there be something inside the wall?

Could it be The 2012 Missing Student Case?

A chill ran down Jiang Luo's back. He moved away from the white wall, turned on his phone's flashlight, and carefully scanned the wall.

The interior wall of the dorm wasn't as dilapidated as the outside. There were no cracks. Jiang Luo tapped the wall lightly. The sound that came back was dull, seemingly normal.

He thought for a moment, then used his phone light to check the other walls. The other three were lying motionless in their beds. The loud ringtone hadn't woken them.

Jiang Luo glanced at the time. It was only two in the morning.

'What are you doing.'

A voice suddenly spoke behind him.

Jiang Luo's scalp prickled. He scrambled back, pulled a talisman from under his pillow, and held it between two fingers in front of him. In the stark white light of his phone, he saw Bai Ye Feng's face.

Bai Ye Feng wasn't wearing his glasses. The face softened by silver frames in daylight now looked cold and eerie in the dim light. But he quickly smiled. 'Why aren't you sleeping in the middle of the night?'

Jiang Luo put the talisman away. 'Suddenly need to use the Toilet.'

'Let's go together,' Bai Ye Feng said. 'I need to go too.'

The dorm had a shower room but no bathroom. Going to the Toilet with a skin-wearing evil spirit—especially one who harbored ill intentions toward him—Jiang Luo wasn't stupid. Were they going to compete to see who could pee farther?

Jiang Luo looked down, fiddling with his phone. 'I'll play on my phone for a bit first, then go. You go ahead.'

Bai Ye Feng smiled. 'Alright.'

Footsteps faded away. A few minutes later, Bai Ye Feng returned.

Before going to sleep, this Champion Contender gently said to Jiang Luo, 'Jiang Luo, holding it in is bad for your health.'

Jiang Luo: '……' Hah.

For the rest of the night, Jiang Luo didn't sleep again. He waited until dawn broke and the rain stopped.

When Zhuo Zhongqiu got up, she saw him sitting on his bed with dark circles under his eyes. 'You're up so early?' she said, surprised.

Jiang Luo said, 'I never slept.'

He rolled out of bed, went to the washroom to splash his face, and said to Zhuo Zhongqiu, 'Let's go find a hammer and a shovel.'

The two of them went to The First Floor administrator's office to borrow tools, then returned to the Sixth Floor. Bai Ye Feng and Xu Yan were sitting at the table talking. Seeing them come back with tools, both looked surprised. 'What are you going to do?'

Jiang Luo said succinctly, 'Break the wall.'

Only then did Zhuo Zhongqiu realize what the job was. She asked, 'Jiang Luo, really break it?'

Jiang Luo nodded.

Zhuo Zhongqiu flexed her wrists. 'Then let's break it.'

Bai Ye Feng advised, 'The students will come back after we leave. What will they do if you break the wall?'

Truly a considerate, kind white lotus. Jiang Luo looked at Bai Ye Feng with a perfect smile. 'We'll fix it before they get back.'

Bai Ye Feng sighed and made a 'go ahead' gesture.

Jiang Luo and Zhuo Zhongqiu moved the dorm beds aside and started hammering at the white wall. The dorm walls weren't high quality; soon they'd made a small hole.

The hole ended up about the size of a trash can. But contrary to Jiang Luo's expectations, there was no corpse inside the wall—only a few termites crawling around.

He frowned in thought. Had the female ghost lied to him, or had he misunderstood her meaning?

'You and I back to back.'

Understood normally, shouldn't that mean inside the wall?

Bai Ye Feng, sitting nearby drinking water, asked leisurely, 'Find anything?'

His posture was utterly relaxed, as if he'd known all along there was nothing in the wall. A thought flashed in Jiang Luo's eyes—he remembered the mud on Xu Yan's shoes yesterday.

Before it rained, most ground was dry. Xu Yan wouldn't leave Bai Ye Feng's side unless ordered. So had Xu Yan, on Bai Ye Feng's orders, gone somewhere with damp soil?

'No,' Jiang Luo sighed regretfully, then countered, 'Bai Ye Feng, have you found anything?'

Bai Ye Feng chuckled. 'Jiang Luo, you overestimate me. I haven't even left the dorm yet. What could I find?'

Jiang Luo said, 'You don't seem very anxious.'

'Ah,' Bai Ye Feng's gaze slid over the ends of Jiang Luo's black hair, then moved back to the reddened corners of Jiang Luo's eyes from his sleepless night. His tongue flicked lightly. He smiled softly. 'Anxiety is useless.'

Jiang Luo glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He and Zhuo Zhongqiu left the dorm, returned the borrowed tools, and went out to find their companions.

Zhuo Zhongqiu asked him on the way, 'Why suddenly think of breaking the wall?'

Jiang Luo told her about the call he'd received last night. After listening, Zhuo Zhongqiu didn't ponder the call's content first, but sighed over Jiang Luo's constitution. 'You really are unlucky.'

Jiang Luo felt he should explain. 'I'm not always this unlucky.'

At least before meeting Chi You, Jiang Luo was… well, still pretty unlucky.

He changed the subject. 'Looks like they're all here.'

The group was at the same meeting spot as yesterday. Jiang Luo told them his discovery. 'I plan to go to the archives to check the 2012 student records. Who's coming with me?'

Zhuo Zhongqiu and Ye Xun stood behind Jiang Luo. Lu You and Sailor raised their hands too, but Jiang Luo didn't want to bring fools. 'Let's go, Zhuo Zhongqiu, Ye Xun. The three of us.'

Wenren Lian rested his chin on his hand, thinking. 'Then Kuang Zheng and I will go look for places with muddy ground.' He curved his lips in a mischievous smile. 'Since Bai Ye Feng gave us this hint, it'd be a shame not to accept his gift.'

Jiang Luo nodded approvingly. 'I think so too.'

Lu You asked, 'What about us?'

The remaining three looked at Jiang Luo eagerly.

Jiang Luo smiled. 'You're going to do something very important for me… help me get every competitor's contact information.'

'The more the better,' Jiang Luo winked at them.

Splitting into three groups, Jiang Luo's trio found the School's archives first. When they arrived, the archive room was already full of people, each holding a stack of records, sitting on the floor sweating as they read.

They went to the cabinet storing 2012 records. Most of the files were already gone.

As people who knew the Competition information in advance, Jiang Luo's group had a slight advantage. Though they didn't know the real name of the missing girl from that year, they did know which class she was in.

Senior Year, Class 4.

They found the records for Senior Year, Class 4, and paged through the information.

The girl disappeared before graduation. Her academic record should have gone blank from the moment she vanished. Such information was easy to find. They quickly found the corresponding person—but there were actually two girls who fit.

Ye Xun said quietly, 'After the first girl disappeared that year, several more girls went missing in succession.'

The two girls who met the criteria were named Wang Xin Hui and Fu Yuaner.

Their photos were in the records. They looked no older than eighteen, in the flower of youth, smiling shyly at the camera.

Jiang Luo memorized their appearances and continued comparing the information in the two records.

One girl disappeared first, the other later. In this information, one must have a longer blank period than the other.

Jiang Luo quickly determined that the girl named Fu Yuaner was the first to disappear that year.

He picked up his phone and took a picture of Fu Yuaner's information.

In the photo, Fu Yuaner looked gentle and somewhat introverted, with faint freckles on her face—exactly the kind of face everyone imagines for a teenage first love.