Li Xiu gasped violently and slowly opened his tear-filled eyes.

He was lying on the ground.

A boy was panting on top of him, holding his hands above his head with one hand, while the other remained against his lips. A paper mask hung diagonally from the side of his face, with many cracks and rips at the edges that had been inadvertently torn during Li Xiu’s wild struggle.

Li Xiu stared at the familiar face for a long moment, then murmured hoarsely:

“Fang…..Fang Qian’an?”

Fang Qian’an was still looking at Li Xiu anxiously, as if he was still worried about him.

It wasn’t until he heard this call that he breathed an instant sigh of relief. His whole body lost strength, covering Li Xiu.

“Fuck me, you’re awake. You finally fucking woke up…..”

Fang Qian’an spoke several curses in one breath.

“Don’t you know you scared me to death? Li Xiu, I really…..my life was really going to be in your hands…..”

After a few seconds of this, the former school bully vaguely felt that something wasn’t right. After Li Xiu called his name, he made no other sound.

“Hey, A-Xiu, don’t scare me. Are you not awake yet?”

Fang Qian’an’s voice began to shake. He reached out and carefully touched Li Xiu’s face, only to find that the boy’s skin was ice-cold.

“A-Xiu? Speak, little ancestor, don’t scare me—”

Just as Fang Qian’an was flustered and uncertain about Li Xiu’s situation, the latter’s next action nearly made him lose his mind.

Li Xiu actually reached out and opened his clothes.

The boy’s fingers were slightly cold, but the pads were unexpectedly soft. He simply put his hands under the hem of Fang Qian’an’s clothes and touched from his waist to his lower abdomen in an almost crude way.

Fang Qian’an’s breathing suddenly became extremely rapid, and his whole body froze in place as if he had been hit by an immobilizing spell.

“A-A-Xiu, that, wait, waitwaitwait—”

His brain was like a boiling kettle beginning to puff out steam. With the knowledge that something was clearly wrong, Fang Qian’an hesitated for a long moment before reaching to grab Li Xiu’s wrists.

“Y-You stop touching, wait a minute, fuck—”

But such a simple thing turned out to be extremely difficult to do.

Fang Qian’an never expected that there would come a time when his entire body would go weak at someone’s touch.

Fortunately, just before Fang Qian’an’s head could explode, Li Xiu finally found what he was looking for.

“It’s really you…..”

Li Xiu clung to the red rope around Fang Qian’an’s waist. After touching the familiar knot tied by his own hands, he finally let go and fell softly into Fang Qian’an’s arms.

“Wu…..Fang Qian’an…..aren’t you done being a school bully…..wuwu…..why did you delay coming here until now, ah…..”

Feeling the boy’s hot body temperature, Li Xiu could no longer contain his emotions and hugged Fang Qian’an as he cried embarrassingly.

“S-sorry, it’s my fault, I was late. Please stop crying first, ah…..”

Fang Qian’an gingerly held the frail boy trembling in his arms, regretting that he had chosen the cool guy route and never bothered to learn those tricks for coaxing people. Now, facing a Li Xiu who was so terrified that he had a nervous breakdown, all he could do was fret.

Fortunately, Li Xiu’s breakdown only lasted a short while. After crying, the accumulated fear and anxiety flowed out of his body with the tears, and Li Xiu gradually regained his proper calmness.

He noticed the darkness around him and Fang Qian’an, so thick that it was like a physical wall, enveloping them layer upon layer. The only light used to illuminate the space between the two of them was provided by a white candle flickering on the ground.

The candle looked ordinary. It was almost half burned, and the wax oil continued to flow down and accumulate at the bottom in a gray-brown mass.

The incredible thing was its flame, long and thin with a faint greenish hue at the top, which caused the light it emitted to also be slightly green.

The air here was also very murky, with a strong earthy smell.

Li Xiu’s mouth was currently filled with the taste of blood, and a faint stinging pain reminded him of the wound on the tip of his tongue. He finally recalled that just as he left the illusion, Fang Qian’an put his fingers into his mouth. This wasn’t to pull out his tongue, but to prick the tip of his tongue with something.

It was after this that Li Xiu finally came to his senses.

“Um, are you in pain? Is anything wrong? Teacher Xu said that blood must be drained from the tip of your tongue to drag you out of the illusion.”

Fang Qian’an had been observing Li Xiu, and now hurried to give an explanation.

“Teacher Xu? Teacher Xu is here? Wait, where are we right now?”

Li Xiu composed himself and quickly inquired about the situation.

Fang Qian’an appeared tense. He pulled Li Xiu up from the ground, then carefully picked up the candle and held it firmly in his hand. After taking a deep breath, the boy lowered his voice and said seriously: “It’s a bit troublesome to talk about. A-Xiu, you were brought here because you were entranced by a ghost. But don’t be afraid, A-Xiu. No matter what you see, don’t be afraid and don’t run around. We don’t have much time. We need to get out of here quickly…..”

*

Fang Qian’an had been in the hospital when he received Li Xiu’s call.

His nominal biological father was lying on the hospital bed with his head covered in bandages, cursing at him. A lawyer was also called over. Reportedly, Fang Chengke had finally made up his mind to sever the father-son relationship with Fang Qian’an.

Of course, similar things had happened several times before, so Fang Qian’an didn’t pay much attention at the time — firstly for the reason that the law did not support the severance of a paternity relationship between a biological father and son. Secondly, because Fang Qian’an knew very well that there was no way his dear father would be willing to part with his mother’s money.

Although, even Fang Qian’an didn’t quite know how rich his mother in the mental hospital was. She could even make Fang Chengke like this, still drooling over it and unwilling to let go.

As it happened, he received the phone call while sitting cross-legged on the sofa in the intensive care unit, wandering on a mental journey.

Although Fang Qian’an had rushed to school as fast as he could, Li Xiu was still missing when he arrived.

This disappearance could not be explained by science at all.

According to school surveillance, Li Xiu seemed to be sleepwalking at that time, wandering around the school complex. Then, he walked into a closed corridor and didn’t come out again.

But the end of the corridor was sealed, with nothing there except for a mirror.

“I kept asking the idiots at school to think of a way, but they weren’t worth a fart.”

Fang Qian’an’s voice was a bit hoarse in the darkness.

It was the kind of hoarseness people got when they finally relaxed after being overtired.

Fang Qian’an hesitated for a moment before finally voicing part of his anxiety at the time.

“I also called the police, but they couldn’t explain how you disappeared. At that time, I…..my mindset collapsed, let me tell you…..”

And just as everyone was at a loss for what to do, Teacher Xu, who had been asked to deal with the Xiao Family Haunted House, appeared in the gloomy office.

*

Not long ago—

“This can be really…..tricky.”

When Teacher Xu saw the surveillance video showing Li Xiu’s disappearance, a trace of alarm appeared on his usually calm face.

It was certainly not a good thing for Qiming Secondary School to have students disappear one after another. However, it was not until this moment that Xu Qinghe realized that things might be worse than the worst-case scenario he had imagined.

And he didn’t conceal this at all.

“That mirror is not an ordinary mirror, but rather an extremely important lens.”

The solemn-faced middle-aged man explained frankly to the boy overflowing with anger in front of him.

Teacher Xu told Fang Qian’an in a concise manner that the entire Qiming Secondary School, along with this building and the Xiao family villa, were actually Feng Shui layouts specially designed to suppress certain things.

But now, because the seal on the Xiao family villa was disturbed previously, the formation became unstable. Li Xiu was likely taken away by “that thing” during this period.

“Taken away? What do you mean, taken away? Fuck, now you’re telling me a ghost has taken away a living person? Didn’t you say before that as long as he studied hard, nothing would happen? That guy was thinking about going to politics class even after he hit his head. Didn’t he do just as you said? But now he’s still been taken away! He’s so weak and he has a lame foot, what did a ghost take him away for…..fuck…..”

Fang Qian’an nearly kicked the office table to pieces.

He was obviously only a high school student who had just come of age, but his anger was so strong at this moment that he was like a demon, causing Teacher Xu’s other students to step forward intentionally or otherwise to stop him.

Teacher Xu couldn’t help but watch Fang Qian’an, looking tired and helpless.

“Time is short, but we might also be able to bring him back.” The man’s voice was hesitant.

“Only…..it could be dangerous.”

Teach Xu let out a soft sigh and picked up Li Xiu’s personal information he had acquired from the school before. After reading for a minute, the man’s brow furrowed more and more.

Going to the otherworld to bring a person back was extremely dangerous, but the most difficult part of the matter was the birth of the orphan Li Xiu — there was no blood relationship to link to, and if others rushed forward rashly, it was likely that they too would be trapped in the darkness of the otherworld.

“If that really won’t work, a person who is close to him might barely be able to do it, but…..”

But the only person who could be considered close to Li Xiu was an old lady who was currently suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. 

The more he thought, the more solemn Teacher Xu’s expression became.

Suddenly, a boy’s hoarse and constrained question came from the side:

“What about a friend?”

“Hm?”

The veins in Fang Qian’an’s neck throbbed slightly, and his fists were clenched. He stared at Teacher Xu and said word for word:

“Will a friend work?”

*

“……Then the old man said I could give it a try if I wanted to.”

In the darkness, the boy lowered his voice and gave a calm explanation.

“So I followed the method he gave me and found a way to come over. You don’t know how troublesome it was, running back and forth through the school corridors in the middle of the night, turning left and right. It made me dizzy.”

“Fang Qian’an…..”

“Anyway, when you get out this time, you have to treat me to dinner no matter what, Classmate Li Xiu. Your body can no longer make up for my sacrifice.”

As Fang Qian’an spoke, he pulled Li Xiu step by step into the darkness.

“You’re already so timid, so don’t look around. Just follow me.”

It would have been fine if Fang Qian’an hadn’t said that. But after he stressed it so seriously, Li Xiu couldn’t restrain himself in the end and looked around them in the weak candlelight.

In the next second…..

If Fang Qian’an hadn’t been holding onto him so tightly, Li Xiu would have fallen to the ground in terror.

Paper figures.

Countless paper figures stood densely around him and Fang Qian’an, two spots of red roughly painted on their pale faces. The eyes were two dark, empty pinpoints, but when he looked at those pinpoints, there was a sense of fear similar to looking at a living creature.

At this time, all of the paper figures were grinning from the corners of their mouths to their ears. They just surrounded Li Xiu, smiling silently in the darkness — just like the classmates who had smiled warmly at Li Xiu.

In a daze, Li Xiu could even hear a lingering call coming from the mouths of the paper figures.

[A-Xiu—]

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Chapter 43 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 45