Li Xiu? What's wrong with you? You look weird."
When Li Xiu returned to the classroom that day, her expression was so bad that even her distant classmates couldn't help but ask her a question.
"...that person didn't do anything to you, did he?"
Li Xiu felt several pairs of eyes lingering on the parts of his body exposed outside his school uniform. It was obvious that the fact that Fang Qianan dragged him out in public today gave many people in the class a very bad association.
"I'm fine."
The boy took a deep breath and forced a smile.
But the embarrassing moment as they left the lounge was still fresh in his mind. Xu Luren didn't seem particularly bright; his thoughts were almost entirely revealed on his face.
In fact, it was something that could be solved with a few words of explanation. However, in response to Xu Luren's panicked apology, Fang Qianan said:
"If you dare tell anyone what you saw today, you will die."
Li Xiu, who was standing next to Fang Qianan at the time, said: "Fang Qianan?!"
Noticing Li Xiu's shocked and accusing look, Fang Qianan seemed to sense something was amiss and added, "A Xiu and I didn't do anything at all! Remember that!"
Xu Luren's face turned pale as he nodded quickly, wanting to swear that he really didn't see anything and of course he wouldn't say anything.
…
"That's enough..."
Not long after I returned to my seat, the morning class began.
Li Xiu sat upright at his desk, but his eyes still looked a little dull.
The empty desk that Fang Qianan had dragged over to him was still there, but there was no one sitting there - of course, according to Fang Qianan, he wanted to stick with Li Xiu every moment today, but was sternly rejected by Li Xiu.
The first reason is, of course, that he simply can't pay attention to the class as long as Fang Qian'an is around. The second reason is...
"Don't you have any psychological trauma?"
After the nightmare last night, Li Xiu really didn't want to challenge the scene again.
Facing Li Xiu's cold gaze, Fang Qianan also gave in dejectedly. After agreeing that the two of them could contact each other by phone anytime and anywhere, he left dejectedly.
"call..."
However, Li Xiu had to admit that even without Fang Qianan's interference, he would have no way to study seriously.
He drove Fang Qianan away purely because... he just wanted to escape a little.
[ghost]
The teacher was still lecturing seriously at the podium, while under the podium, Li Xiu unconsciously wrote this word on a piece of paper.
Li Xiu stared at the word for a long time. Her fingertips were cold and the palm holding the pen was covered in cold sweat.
He felt an indescribable and strange fear in his heart.
Just like Fang Qianan, who only realized today after being reminded that they had shared a room with many supernatural beings in the Xiao family haunted house that day, Li Xiu also vaguely realized that she seemed to have overlooked many things in her daily life.
A lot of... things are wrong.
A breeze blew in from the window, and the paper slogans and learning materials on the classroom walls swayed in the air flow.
The wall clock ticked forward regularly, and the teacher's sonorous teaching voice echoed above the quiet classroom.
It was a sunny morning, in a classroom surrounded by countless normal people, but Li Xiu found herself shivering uncontrollably. The heaviness in her body had become uncomfortably noticeable due to a lack of sleep.
So cold...
He couldn't help but think.
Is it because the low-grade fever hasn't subsided yet? Why has it been several days, and every day he still feels like his shoulders are too heavy to lift, and he gets chills from time to time?
Just as Li Xiu was distracted thinking about his physical problems, a siren sounded from outside the window, instantly piercing Li Xiu's trance.
Although the sirens stopped abruptly after a few seconds, the students sitting by the windows had already noticed that something was wrong on campus - a police car was driving to the school.
Even in class, people's curiosity cannot be suppressed.
Noticing the unusual movement downstairs, even the teacher couldn't help but lean towards the window and take a quick look while saying "Listen carefully".
Class A1's location just allows them to catch a glimpse of the back door at the junction of the Xiao family haunted house and the campus.
The back door, which connects the haunted house and the Qiming campus, is a heavy iron door with a large iron lock on it for many years. No one has ever seen it opened.
The wall between the haunted house and the school campus wasn't very high, so even if Qiming students wanted to go to the haunted house, they would simply climb over it. This backdoor was mostly invisible.
But at this time, several police cars had already parked there. Some people got out of the cars and stood behind the elderly janitor, waiting for the old man to open the door tremblingly by changing the keys one by one.
"Oh my god, what's going on?"
"There must have been an accident at the haunted house..."
…
Uneasy whispers began to spread throughout the class.
Soon, even more bizarre rumors began to spread like a virus on everyone's mobile phones.
Some students happened to have free time during this class. Although they were stopped from getting close, they all saw from a distance that someone was carrying a person out of the Xiao family haunted house.
And that person was brought out in a shroud.
[Oh my god, is the haunted house showing off again? ]
[I heard that every year a few people die inexplicably in the haunted house.]
[I don't know who this unlucky guy is. It can't be someone from our school, right?]
[Haha, maybe it's Ouyang? ]
…
The news that was originally flooding the screen paused for a moment because someone mentioned Ouyang.
After all, many people have seen the pictures that were previously posted in the group.
A living person, who just a day ago was a popular male teacher in the school, could have possibly filmed the entire process of himself hanging and posted it in the group chat...
Not everyone can bear this shock.
Considering the many scary rumors about the Xiao family haunted house, the lawless students with serious elements of the second disease were also more or less frightened.
[How annoying! Don't come here and talk about things you don't have evidence for.]
[This is so funny, is there really anyone who believes this kind of ghost story?]
[Could it be a homeless person? The school has security patrols, so they didn't dare enter and just rested in the haunted house. Homeless people have so many underlying illnesses, so it's normal for them to accidentally die.]
[But, I heard that a sophomore student has also lost contact...]
[Ah, this is so annoying, stop talking.]
…
For the rest of the class, the students were somewhat distracted and absent-minded.
Compared with these people, even Li Xiu's absent-mindedness became less obvious.
After waiting for a long time until the get out of class was over, a group of people rushed to the window to continue watching.
"Fuck, what the hell just happened?"
"what the hell..."
The students' chattering prompted Li Xiu to walk to the window and glance toward the haunted house. Then, he frowned.
Within a class period, the police car had left, or the school realized that something was wrong and moved the police car to another location.
The back door of the school leading to the haunted house was still open, but there were several more janitors at the school gate. Each janitor was busy climbing up and down to add railings and barbed wire to the originally low wall.
Judging from the very small part of the work that has been completed, it seems that the school intends to simply raise the wall to a level that even monkeys cannot climb over.
Of course, if it were just this, we could tentatively attribute the school's decision to send workers to raise the wall to a normal act of stopping the damage in time when something happened at the haunted house.
but...
There were also a few things that looked like they were done by logistics staff, which made people feel very strange.
They were tying red cloths around the trees and shrubs near the wall.
Each strip of cloth was a glaring red, and they had impatiently tied it all over the bush, which looked indescribably strange.
"What's going on at school? Isn't that thing ugly?"
"No one usually wants to go to the haunted house, right? Is there any need for such a big fuss?"
"Damn, the more I think about it, the scarier it gets. Did they really carry someone out of the haunted house?"
…
As Li Xiu listened to her classmates' chatter, the chill she felt became more and more pronounced.
Before the bell rang, the school radio started broadcasting.
Even the official tone could not hide the panic in his voice. The dean announced to the students as calmly as possible on the radio that from today on, the school strictly prohibited students from entering the Xiao Family Garden. Once discovered, they would be punished and expelled.
As for tying red cloth on the trees, the school leaders explained that the school had treated the trees to protect them from the winter cold in advance.
"...Please respect the campus environment and the work of the staff. Do not remove or damage the strips of cloth on the branches when passing by. We will also regularly patrol the area, and any students caught violating discipline and damaging the environment will be dealt with strictly."
"Pfft, do these people at school think we're idiots? Who would winterize a tree in late summer, and even tie a red ribbon around it? Are you crazy?"
Unlike the well-behaved Class A1, after hearing the campus announcement, a boy in another classroom laughed out loud.
He leaned against the window and stretched his neck to look in the direction of the haunted house. Seeing the messy and blind scene, he couldn't help shaking his head.
"Mr. Fang, don't you agree?"
He turned his head eagerly and looked at a tall boy in the classroom who was playing with his mobile phone with his head down.
I don't know why, even though such an interesting thing rarely happened outside, the eldest young master of the Fang family refused to look out the window. He didn't even go close to the window today.
The former prince exuded an aloof and wary aura today, and the way he stared at them made people feel creepy and uneasy.
Sure enough, the boy gritted his teeth and started talking to Fang Qianan, but he ignored him completely.
He stopped talking awkwardly and looked at the others awkwardly.
[Everyone, please, can someone tell me why Young Master Fang is acting so strangely today?]
The boy coughed lightly, pretended to play with his phone, and secretly sent a message to others.
[I heard that an idiot interrupted his work this morning.]
[Service? What service? Wait, this service isn't the service I'm thinking of, right?]
[But, didn't Master Fang only go to Class A1 and arrest that guy this morning?]
[Shh, don't talk nonsense. Whoever tells about this will die.]
[Wait, you're not talking about the one from this morning...]
I think I know what's going on, but I don't dare to say it.
…
For a while, the romantic rumors about the prince of the Fang family even overshadowed the strange events happening in the school among this group of idle young men.
Almost everyone remained subtly silent, but their eyes all fell on Fang Qianan at the same time.
As a result of this observation, everyone found that Fang Qianan's complexion was really bad.
It's not the kind of badness caused by a bad temper... but the kind of badness that feels like all the energy has been completely drained away.
The muscular boy who was as ferocious as a human weapon when beating people up had a slightly grayish complexion today. The bruises under his eyes were so dark, and his lips were completely bloodless.
Everyone looked at each other, and the atmosphere was very solemn.
No one dared to speak.
No one even dared to type out their guesses on their phones.
Fortunately, at this anxious moment, a companion happened to come in from outside the door, carrying takeaway ordered from an expensive hamburger restaurant outside the school.
As usual, the man chose the most expensive one and handed it to Fang Qianan.
"Angus beef with caviar and bacon burger, Mr. Fang, I remember you liked this flavor last time."
"Oh, and the iced Americano you requested."
When the cold coffee cup touched his fingertips, Fang Qianan shuddered and came back to his senses from his phone.
He took a deep breath, his gaze lingered on the lines of text on his phone for a few seconds, and then he suddenly pressed the screen-off button.
Fang Qianan had no appetite.
His stomach felt heavy because of the news he had just received, and his chest felt stuffy. But Fang Qianan soon remembered that he seemed to have not eaten anything since yesterday.
Although I'm not hungry, it seems very bad to continue being so hungry.
Fang Qianan didn't refuse the burger his followers offered him. But as soon as he took a bite of the burger...
"vomit--"
A strong fishy smell gushed out from deep within the body.
Fang Qianan didn't bother to pay attention to the panic of others. He covered his mouth tightly and rushed to the toilet.
As soon as he opened his mouth, the burger he had just eaten gushed out.
His stomach was churning, and Fang Qianan felt as if he had suddenly turned into a high-pressure water gun, spraying vomit into the toilet.
The fishy smell spread throughout the entire toilet cubicle. Even a tall and strong man like Fang Qianan vomited so much that his abdomen cramped and he felt dizzy.
After a lot of effort, Fang Qianan stopped vomiting.
He wiped the tears that welled up from vomiting, sniffed, and was about to flush...
His movements suddenly froze.
The toilet was full of what he had just vomited.
There were large and small pieces of flesh with teeth marks on them sinking in the water that had been dyed deep red by blood.
A grayish-white finger had been chewed out of shape and was mixed in with the pieces of meat that looked like internal organs.
That was clearly a human finger.
The author has something to say:
Actually, I originally wanted to write about Li Xiu giving Xiaofang a pomelo.
As a result, when Xiaofang ate the pomelo, she found that the seeds inside were all teeth.
…
Later I felt that it did not fit the overall plot and deleted it orz
In addition, the rumor about tying red cloth on trees comes from the Changsha Civil Affairs College...
After the incident, the school tied red cloth on the trees in that area.
I don't know what the principle is.