When the afternoon class started, Li Xiu was still a little worried that Fang Qianan would continue to run into the classroom and disturb his class.
Fortunately, after a full political lecture, the prince seemed to have given up on torturing himself. The empty desk that had been dragged into the classroom was still placed diagonally next to Li Xiu's seat, but the owner of the desk had never appeared again.
Li Xiu secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Without Fang Qianan's interference, Li Xiu's life seemed to be finally back on track.
Despite a low fever, Li Xiu pulled himself together and got through the four classes in the afternoon. His head was filled with papers and test questions, and there was no extra space for those ridiculous stories about gods and ghosts.
The so-called "ghost" I encountered in the complex building at noon must have been just a mental illusion caused by being too nervous in the dark and being constantly influenced and suggested by the ghost-fearing guy next to me, right?
Li Xiu said to himself.
but...
Although he thought so, Li Xiu still found it difficult to calm down once he was distracted from studying.
It felt like leaving home and forgetting that the porridge was still cooking on the gas stove. Even though your surface consciousness had forgotten everything, your subconscious mind still felt uneasy and panicked...
"That's enough."
As the school bell rang, Li Xiu rubbed his temples and shoulders.
All day today, he felt like his shoulders were weighed down. His poor physical condition and even worse mood made Li Xiu not want to stay in school any longer. As soon as school was over, Li Xiu, contrary to his usual behavior, grabbed his schoolbag and headed out of the school.
In the corridor, Li Xiu ran into her math teacher head-on.
Many students considered this bespectacled, forty-something female teacher to be stern and difficult, but Li Xiu had a good relationship with this math teacher, Chen. He could sense that Teacher Chen was actually quite nice, even at a school like Qiming, she foolishly tried to get those pampered princelings to study seriously.
When I met Teacher Chen, he was holding a thick lesson plan, holding his cell phone between his shoulder and ear, and chatting with the person on the other end of the phone while walking.
"Yeah, yeah... I was covering both of his classes this afternoon... He said everything was still in the office, but he's gone, and he didn't ask for leave... I don't know what happened... Anyway, I'm almost dead tired..."
Seeing that the other party was still on the phone, Li Xiu just nodded politely at him as a greeting.
Just as he was about to leave, Teacher Chen called him as if he suddenly remembered something.
"Teacher Chen?"
"Li Xiu, I heard that your teacher Ouyang came to see you this morning?"
The math teacher was distracted from the phone and asked Li Xiu.
Li Xiu was stunned for a moment, then nodded.
"Well, yes, he said he would help me with a few questions, but I left as soon as the Academic Affairs Office came to see me at the beginning of the third period."
"Is that so? What did you think of your teacher Ouyang at that time?"
"How about it?"
Li Xiu was a little confused.
"That is, um, are you in a bad mood or something..." The math teacher was frowning unconsciously at this time, and she continued to ask with some embarrassment.
Is something wrong?
Li Xiu instantly thought of Ouyang's face that suddenly turned ashen when he left, and his nonsensical question.
"Li Xiu, did you see anything just now?"
After a very brief silence, Li Xiu lowered his eyes and shook his head gently.
"No. Teacher Ouyang let me go when he saw that I had something to do."
Li Xiu's voice was flat.
The math teacher didn't pay any attention to Li Xiu's slight awkwardness. It was obvious that she had just casually asked Li Xiu about it on the spur of the moment. After hearing Li Xiu's reply, she tilted her head slightly and said to the phone, "...Well, the student also said there was nothing unusual."
After saying that, she smiled bitterly and waved at Li Xiu.
"That's okay, Li Xiu. Go home first and don't stay outside. It gets dark early these days, so it's safer to go home early."
After he finished speaking, Teacher Chen continued walking in the opposite direction of Li Xiu, holding the lesson plan.
Li Xiu stood there for a while before dragging his feet out of the school.
Ouyang suddenly disappeared and didn't attend the afternoon class...
Li Xiu guessed in his heart based on the few words that Teacher Chen had just unconsciously revealed.
Although he knew that as an adult male, Ouyang would be fine in theory, Li Xiu couldn't help but keep recalling the seemingly ordinary scenes in the dark office.
He felt uneasy for no apparent reason.
The coldness once again seeped through her shoulders and into her whole body. Li Xiu unconsciously wrapped her school uniform tightly around her, but she still felt cold from time to time.
Although I really wanted to go home immediately, take a hot shower and lie down on the bed to rest, there was still some uncooked rice left in my schoolbag that was messed up by my brother.
Li Xiu frowned, but without delay, she took a detour as usual and ended up at the small park she usually went to.
This park, located near the old city, was quite old. There were no sights or recreational facilities. The trash cans along the roadside were already missing parts, and the barren grass was covered in garbage, giving the impression of neglect. It was precisely because of this that, while the streets were bustling with people at dusk, Li Xiuyi found the park completely deserted once he turned into it.
The trees and shrubs, untrimmed for who knows how long, cast vast shadows in the setting sun, obscuring the light in the park and making it seem much dimmer than elsewhere. Passing by the dilapidated children's play corner, I could see the swings swaying in the wind, their rusted metal parts creaking as they swung, adding to the desolate atmosphere of the surrounding area.
Li Xiu did not waste any time. After entering the park, he went straight to the artificial pool.
The water in the pond had already turned a bit green, but there were an unusual number of fish in it.
Perhaps because he usually feeds the fish with raw rice too much, the fish here have become accustomed to Li Xiu's feeding. As soon as he walked to the side of the pool, layer upon layer of waves rolled up on the thick green water surface, and dense schools of fish had gathered in front of Li Xiu.
In a park like this, in its semi-abandoned state, the ponds naturally couldn't possibly hold the adorable koi or goldfish—even if they were once beautiful, they'd long since faded into the wild. The fish in the ponds now were mostly mottled and dull in color, their scales covered in swollen blisters and tumors. Only the bulging eyeballs on their heads hinted at their ornamental ancestry.
But...
Were these fish this disgusting before?
Li Xiu habitually threw the remaining raw rice in her schoolbag into the water. Suddenly, there was a splashing sound on the water surface. All the fish swarmed over, opened their bloody mouths wide and frantically grabbed those small white particles.
They were fighting fiercely. Li Xiu just glanced into the water and frowned because of the deformed and disgusting bodies of the fish.
When I first started feeding these fish, I remember they looked just a little grayer, right? But now they looked a little... a little deformed.
When thinking about this, Li Xiu suddenly felt many prying eyes.
He subconsciously looked in the direction of the gaze - and happened to meet the empty eyes of the fish.
It was at this moment that Li Xiu suddenly realized that the fish here had bulging eyes that looked a lot like human eyes falling out of their sockets. And the strange fish's bloated heads suddenly looked less like fish and more like swollen, blackened faces that had been deformed by being submerged in water.
And now, those faces were piled up together, staring at Li Xiu under the turbid water.
"Hmm—"
Li Xiu gasped and pushed back repeatedly.
I accidentally stepped on the slippery bricks on the shore and almost fell down, then slid into the water along the mud on the shore.
"careful!"
Fortunately, at the critical moment, someone suddenly pulled him hard from behind, which allowed Li Xiu to stabilize his body and avoid falling into the water while having a low fever.
"Where did this kid come from? What if the pot falls into the water? -"
A rough voice sounded like someone was cursing.
Li Xiu shuddered, and his whole body seemed to be awakened directly from a half-asleep state, and his mind instantly became much clearer.
An old lady who looked to be in her fifties or sixties was standing beside him with raised eyebrows, cursing at him. She looked somewhat familiar, but Li Xiu could not remember whether he had really seen her before.
"Yes, I'm sorry... Thank you!"
Although the other party seemed to have a bad temper and his tone was extremely bad, Li Xiu could only thank him repeatedly after taking a deep breath.
He couldn't help but look at the mud on the shore, where his footprints were still left.
He himself didn't know how he ended up running so close to Suibian. He had always stood on the steps and casually scattered rice into the water before, but this time he was getting closer and closer as if possessed by a ghost.
Also, there's something wrong with those fish...
Li Xiu's breathing became heavy and her heartbeat became frighteningly fast.
He couldn't help but look at the pond again. In the blink of an eye, the fish had already returned to the bottom of the water and disappeared. All Li Xiu could see was the water surface with ripples still on it.
Blinking, Li Xiu suddenly felt unsure about what he had just seen.
Are there really fish with human faces?
"Hey, what are you still looking at? Do you really want to try falling into the water?!"
The old woman suddenly reached out and roughly grabbed Li Xiu. Without waiting for Li Xiu to react, she dragged the disabled boy back to the park trail.
"I, I didn't, I just wanted to..."
"What are you thinking? You shouldn't come to a place like this."
The old woman interrupted Li Xiu rudely and pushed him towards the park exit.
"It's too dangerous here, don't come here again."
"ah?"
Only then did Li Xiu notice that the old woman was wearing a red armband. However, the red armband looked faded, and the yellow words on it were so mottled that it was impossible to make out what they said.
Is this... a park ranger?
Li Xiu had been here for a long time, but had never met a park ranger. He was a little confused when he was driven away by the ranger.
However, Li Xiu himself was not the kind of rebellious teenager who liked to go against others. He almost fell into the water just now. When he was scolded by the old lady, he shrank his neck very honestly, turned around very obediently, and prepared to leave the park as the old lady said.
"Hey, that kid!"
As a result, just when Li Xiu was about to step out of the park, he heard the old lady shouting from far behind him.
Li Xiu turned around and found that the old man with the red armband was still standing on the park trail, looking at him.
"What?"
"Little kid, don't do such dangerous things again."
The old woman's face looked a little gray, and perhaps because they were some distance apart, her voice also sounded muffled.
"Oh, I know. I was just careless today."
Li Xiu originally thought that the other party was talking about him feeding the fish by the water. He was about to explain that he was not so confused normally when he heard the old man's next words.
"Giving food to the hungry ghosts is not something a kid like you can do. All the creatures that crawl out of the hungry ghost realm are extremely ferocious, not to mention the one you're carrying on your back..."
"What?"
Li Xiu opened her eyes wide in surprise.
Before he could figure out what the other party meant by these weird words, the old woman suddenly stopped talking and stared at Li Xiu, her face becoming increasingly gray.
2
Just now she had a ferocious look on her face, like the difficult old man who was fighting for a seat on the bus, but now she looked extremely frightened, as if she had seen something very scary.
"What a sin... Such a sin..."
From a distance, Li Xiu guessed the old woman's panicked mumblings by her mouth shape, and then she turned around quickly and left.
Li Xiu chased after her for a few steps, but when he stood on the park trail again, the old woman was nowhere to be seen.
"Crash…"
Something in the pool seemed to move suddenly, making a sound of water.
The park seemed even quieter than before.
But Li Xiu found that he didn't even dare to look towards the pool.
...He didn't know what he would see.
The author has something to say:
What will you see?
You will see——
Brother: Hi, wife!