Li Xiu gasped violently and slowly opened her tearful eyes.
He was lying on the ground.
A boy was panting, pressing down on him. One hand held both of his above his head, the other pressed against his lips. A paper mask hung diagonally across his face, its edges already cracked and frayed from Li Xiu's frantic struggles.
"Fang...Fang Qian'an?"
Li Xiu stared at the familiar face above him for a long time, and murmured hoarsely.
Fang Qianan was still staring at Li Xiu with a nervous look on his face, as if he was still afraid of something about Li Xiu.
It was not until he heard this call that he let out a long sigh of relief. His entire body lost all strength in an instant and fell on Li Xiu.
"Fuck, you woke up, you finally woke up..."
Fang Qianan cursed several times in one breath.
"Do you know you're almost scaring me to death, Li Xiu? I really, fuck... I'm almost going to give my life to you..."
After several seconds, the former school bully vaguely sensed something was amiss. After Li Xiu called out to him, there had been no further sound.
"Hey, Xiu, don't scare me. Are you still awake?"
Fang Qianan's voice began to tremble. He reached out and carefully touched Li Xiu's face, and found that the boy's skin was cold.
"A Xiu? Answer me, my dear little ancestor, don't scare me——"
Just as Fang Qianan was wondering about Li Xiu's situation, the latter's next move almost scared him to death.
Li Xiu actually reached out and lifted up his clothes.
The boy's fingers were slightly cold, but his fingertips were surprisingly soft. He reached into Fang Qianan's hem and touched his side to his lower abdomen in an almost rude manner.
Fang Qianan's breathing suddenly became extremely rapid, and his whole body froze in place as if he had been hit by a spell.
"Ah, A Xiu, that, wait, wait, wait, wait—"
His brain was like a boiling kettle that began to puff out steam. Although he knew that the situation was obviously wrong, Fang Qianan was much slower before he reached out to grab Li Xiu's wrist with a red face and panicked hands.
"You, don't touch me, wait, damn—"
Such a simple thing is surprisingly difficult to do at this time.
Fang Qianan never knew in his life that there would be a time when his whole body would go limp just by being touched by someone.
Fortunately, just before Fang Qianan's head was about to explode, Li Xiu finally found what he had been looking for in Fang Qianan.
"It's really you…"
Li Xiu hooked the red rope around Fang Qianan's waist tightly. After touching the familiar knot that he had tied with his own hands, he finally felt relieved and fell limply into Fang Qianan's arms.
"Wuwu... Fang Qianan... Aren't you the school bully... Wuwu... Why did you wait until now to come..."
Feeling the boy's scorching body temperature, Li Xiu could no longer control her emotions, and she hugged Fang Qianan and cried in such an embarrassing manner.
"Yes, I'm sorry, it's my fault. I'm late. Please don't cry..."
Fang Qianan held the trembling thin boy in his arms with trepidation, and regretted that he had always been a cool guy and never bothered to learn those coaxing tricks. Now, facing Li Xiu who was already scared to the point of mental collapse, he could only worry and do nothing else.
Fortunately, Li Xiu's loss of composure only lasted a short while. After crying a few times, the accumulated fear and anxiety flowed out of her body with her tears, and Li Xiu gradually regained her composure.
He noticed that the darkness around him and Fang Qianan was so thick that it seemed like a solid wall, enveloping them layer by layer. The only light between them was provided by a white candle with a flickering flame on the ground.
The candle looked very ordinary. It was almost half burned, and the wax kept flowing and accumulated at the bottom to form a gray-brown wax block.
The amazing thing is its flame, which is thin and long, with a faint bluish-green tint at the top, so that the light it emits is also slightly green.
The air here is also very turbid, with a strong earthy smell.
Li Xiu's mouth was now filled with the taste of blood, and a faint stinging pain reminded him of the wound on the tip of his tongue. Li Xiu finally remembered that when he had just escaped from the illusion, Fang Qianan had put his hand into his mouth, not to really pull out his tongue, but to use something to nail the tip of his tongue.
It was after that that Li Xiucai finally came to his senses.
"Um, are you in pain? Are you okay? Teacher Xu said that he has to drain the blood from the tip of your tongue before he can pull you out of the illusion."
Fang Qianan had been observing Li Xiu, and at this moment he hurriedly explained.
"Teacher Xu? Is Teacher Xu here? Wait, where are we now?"
Li Xiu calmed himself down and quickly asked about the situation.
Fang Qian'an's expression was tense. He pulled Li Xiu up from the ground, then carefully took the candle from the ground and held it firmly in his hand. After taking a deep breath, the boy lowered his voice and spoke solemnly, "This matter is a bit complicated. Ah Xiu, you must have been bewitched and brought here. Anyway, Ah Xiu, don't be afraid. No matter what you see, don't be afraid and don't run around. We don't have much time, we must leave here quickly..."
*
Fang Qianan was in the hospital when he received Li Xiu's call.
His so-called biological father, his head covered in bandages, was lying on the hospital bed, cursing at him. The lawyer was also called in. It was said that Fang Chengke had finally made up his mind to end his father-son relationship with Fang Qianan.
Of course, similar things had happened several times before, so Fang Qianan didn't take it too seriously at the time - firstly, because the law does not actually support severing the father-son relationship between biological fathers and sons, and secondly, because Fang Qianan knew very well that his dear father would never be willing to give up his mother's money.
Although, even Fang Qianan himself was not quite sure how rich his mother, who was already in a mental hospital, was that could make Fang Chengke drool and unwilling to let go even in such a state.
…
As a result, just as he was sitting on the sofa in the intensive care unit with his legs crossed and daydreaming, he received the call.
Although Fang Qianan rushed back to school as fast as he could, Li Xiu was still missing when he arrived.
That was a disappearance that could not be explained by science at all.
According to the school's surveillance footage, Li Xiu seemed to be sleepwalking as he wandered around the school's comprehensive building. Then, he walked into a closed corridor and never came out again.
But the end of the corridor was sealed, and there was nothing there except a mirror.
"I've been asking those idiots at school to figure this out, but they're really useless."
In the darkness, Fang Qianan's voice was a little hoarse.
It was the kind of hoarseness that comes from finally relaxing after being overly tired.
"I called the police, but they couldn't explain why you disappeared. I was... I was completely devastated, I tell you..."
Fang Qianan hesitated for a moment, and finally brushed aside his anxiety at the time.
Just when everyone was at a loss, Teacher Xu, who had been asked to deal with the Xiao family haunted house, appeared in the gloomy office.
*
Not long ago——
"This is really... tricky."
When Teacher Xu saw the surveillance footage of Li Xiu disappearing, a hint of fear appeared on his usually calm face.
The series of student disappearances at Qiming Middle School was certainly not a good sign. However, it wasn't until this moment that Xu Qinghe realized that things might be even worse than his worst-case scenario.
And he didn't hide that.
"That mirror is not an ordinary mirror. It is actually a very important center of the formation."
The middle-aged man with a serious expression explained frankly to the boy in front of him who was full of hostility.
Teacher Xu told Fang Qianan in a concise manner that the entire Qiming Middle School, including this building and the Xiao family villa, were actually feng shui layouts specially set up to suppress certain things.
And now, because the seal of the Xiao family villa was shaken before, causing the formation to become unstable, Li Xiu was probably taken away by "that thing" during this period.
"Took away? What do you mean taken away? Damn it, you're telling me a living person was taken away by a ghost? Didn't you say before that as long as he studies hard, he'll be fine? That guy thought about going to political class after encountering a ghost. Didn't he do what you said? But now he's still taken away! He's so weak and his leg is still lame, why would a ghost take him away... Shit..."
Fang Qianan almost kicked the coffee table in the office to pieces.
He was clearly just a high school student who had just reached adulthood, but at this moment he exuded such a strong aggression that he was like a demon, causing Teacher Xu and several other students to step forward and intentionally or unintentionally block the man.
Teacher Xu couldn't help but glance at Fang Qianan. The man looked tired and helpless.
"If the time is short, maybe I can still bring it back."
The man's voice was hesitant.
"It's just... it will be dangerous."
Teacher Xu sighed softly, picked up Li Xiu's personal information that he had found from the school before, and looked at it for a moment. The man frowned more and more.
Going to another world to bring people back was already extremely dangerous, and the most difficult part of this matter was the birth of Li Xiu as an orphan - there was no blood relationship as a mutual connection, and if others went there rashly, they would probably die in the dark and empty other world.
"If that's not possible, someone close to him might be able to do it, but..."
However, the only person who can be considered close to Li Xiu is an old lady who now suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
The more he thought about it, the more solemn Teacher Xu's expression became.
"Where are your friends?"
Suddenly, a boy's hoarse and suppressed voice came from the side.
"Um?"
"Can't friends be friends?"
The veins on Fang Qianan's neck twitched slightly, and his fists were clenched. He stared at Teacher Xu and asked word by word.
*
"...Then the old man said that if he really wanted to try it, he could."
In the darkness, the boy lowered his voice and explained calmly.
"So I followed his instructions and found a way to get here. You have no idea how much trouble it was. I was running back and forth in the school corridor in the middle of the night, turning left and right. I was dizzy."
"Fang Qianan..."
"Anyway, since you're out this time, you're going to treat me to a meal anyway, you know that, Li Xiu, my sacrifice can no longer be compensated by your love for me."
As Fang Qianan spoke, he pulled Li Xiu forward step by step in the darkness.
"Also, since you're already so timid, stop looking around. Just follow me."
It would have been better if Fang Qianan didn't say anything. After he emphasized it so seriously, Li Xiu couldn't help it after all and looked around him in the faint light of the candle.
The next second...
If Fang Qianan hadn't been holding him tightly, he would have almost fallen to the ground again out of fear.
Paper figure.
Countless paper figures stood densely around him and Fang Qianan, with two rough red spots painted on their pale faces, and their eyes were two dark, empty dots. But as long as you looked into those two eyes, you would feel a sense of fear as if you were looking into the eyes of a living creature.
All the paper figures now had their mouths stretched to their ears. They surrounded Li Xiu, smiling silently in the darkness - just like the classmates in the environment who smiled warmly at Li Xiu.
[A Xiu——]
In a trance, Li Xiu could even hear the long calls coming from the paper people's mouths.