Ye Xuechun was stunned. “What kind of place is this?”
Fu Wuxuan pondered for a moment before suddenly smiling. He pointed at the floor. “It’s far away in the heavens, but right before our eyes.”
Ye Xuechun froze. “In the Dorm Supervisor’s room?!”
As soon as he said it, realization dawned on him.
With the Flounder Dorm Supervisor watching the student dorms, slipping the envelope into the confiscated contraband box for the Flounder Dorm Supervisor to keep was a place no ordinary person could touch.
Yun Xueqing walked to the underside of the large bed and once again dragged out the cardboard box of confiscated contraband items they had previously overlooked. He took out the contents one by one.
Cell phones, game consoles, cassette tapes, pregnant women’s placentas… and bloodstained love letters.
Yun Xueqing picked up one of the blood-smeared envelopes from the love letters, tore it open, and what came out wasn’t letter paper, but another envelope boldly marked with the words “Denunciation Letter” on the surface.
They had really found it. Ye Xuechun stared in astonishment. “Hidden in a place like this. Yin Shixing really came up with it.”
Fu Wuxuan chuckled softly beside him, neither confirming nor denying. “Open the letter and see what it says inside.”
Yun Xueqing opened the envelope and pulled out the letter paper. The contents leaped into view.
Dear Teacher:
Teacher, I’ve discovered something terrifying. Even thinking about it now fills me with fear. I really don’t know what to do!
As you know, I came from the Peaceful Joy Orphanage. The caregivers there treated me very well, and the director was good to me too. I treated the orphanage like family, but I never imagined they would do something illegal like trafficking people!
On the surface, they treat the children in the orphanage like family, but in reality, they’re horrifying human traffickers! They sell off the kids from the orphanage in exchange for illicit money!
I stumbled upon this by accident. I was too panicked to gather evidence, but I believe this isn’t the first time they’ve done it. If the police investigate, they’ll surely find proof of their crimes!
I tried to report it to the police, but I’m too young, and with my record of getting hauled in for fights, the police didn’t believe me at all. They just thought I was pulling a prank.
I don’t know who else to turn to, so I’m telling you. I hope you can step forward and report it to the police to get them to investigate. Thank you.
Ye Xuechun was stunned. “Human trafficking?”
How was it connected to something like that?
After reading the letter, Ye Xuechun didn’t feel like the mystery was solved. Instead, more doubts piled up.
He asked, “Yin Yan found out about the human trafficking, so did the orphanage people kill him?”
Yun Xueqing shook his head. “No.”
Ye Xuechun didn’t ask how he knew. Instead, he pressed, “Yin Shixing saw this letter too, so he got dragged into it, right?”
Yun Xueqing’s expression remained as calm as ever, though his eyes darkened slightly. “You can ask others to find out.”
Ye Xuechun: “Who?”
“The Earthbound Spirit.”
At midnight, the Earthbound Spirit looped through its usual suicide jump from the building, just as always.
Yun Xueqing blocked its path and cut straight to the point. “You killed Yin Yan.”
The Earthbound Spirit’s empty eyes paused in its movements and turned toward him. “Yin Yan… he… died.”
Fu Wuxuan smiled and guided step by step. “You subjected him to school violence and drove him to death.”
The Earthbound Spirit before them was none other than the skinny glasses-wearing guy from the bullying footage.
Memories resurfaced, and the Earthbound Spirit slowly regained its senses. It looked at the three of them. “I didn’t kill Yin Yan.”
Yun Xueqing suddenly said out of nowhere, “You saw that letter and learned about the human trafficking. That’s why you pushed him out the fourth-floor window!”
Unlike his usual mild tone, his voice suddenly rose, clear enough for everyone present to hear.
The most hidden secret was laid bare before them all. The Earthbound Spirit trembled uncontrollably, unable to stop recalling that afternoon three months ago.
That day, they had beaten Yin Yan as usual and were about to leave when an envelope suddenly fell from his pocket.
The tall leader sneered. “What’s this? Not a love letter, is it? A loser like you dares write love letters? Let me see what you wrote…”
He bent down to pick it up, but the cowering Yin Yan suddenly lunged forward to snatch it back.
This act of resistance completely enraged the tall guy. “Hand it over! If you don’t give it to me, I’ll beat you to death!”
Yin Yan said nothing, just clutched the envelope tightly.
The usually docile punching bag suddenly rebelled, and a mere beating was no longer enough to subdue him. The tall guy sneered and decided to teach him a harsher lesson—one he’d never forget.
He hoisted the skinny Yin Yan up like a chick and dragged him along the hallway to the rooftop on the fifth floor.
He shoved Yin Yan to the edge of the rooftop and grinned ferociously. “Still daring to defy me? Do you know how to write the word ‘death’?”
Yin Yan trembled in fear but still didn’t let go of the letter in his hand.
Enraged, the tall guy grabbed Yin Yan’s arm and dangled half his body over the edge. “You’re asking for it!”
Terrified that the guy might really throw him off, Yin Yan instinctively grabbed the guy’s arm with both hands. The envelope slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.
The skinny glasses guy pushed up his glasses, picked up the envelope, tore it open, and skimmed the contents. His pupils shrank dramatically.
The tall guy grew impatient. “What does the letter say?”
Such a massive secret— the skinny glasses guy hesitated to reveal it with so many people around.
But then the now-quiet Yin Yan lunged again, clinging desperately to the tall guy’s arm to grab the letter from the skinny glasses guy’s hand.
Annoyed by the struggling, the tall guy instinctively kicked him hard out of habit. Yin Yan’s balance shattered instantly.
By the time the skinny glasses guy pulled his attention fully from the letter, he saw Yin Yan being kicked off the rooftop.
That face, always bruised and battered, twisted into unprecedented terror—an expression so distorted it barely looked human.
For a long time after, the skinny glasses guy couldn’t forget it, haunted by that face in his midnight dreams.
Yin Yan’s body plummeted from the rooftop with a sickening thud*.
The tall guy panicked too. He hadn’t meant to go that far and actually kill him. He rushed to the edge and looked down, only to see not just Yin Yan’s shattered corpse on the ground—but Yin Shixing standing there too!
The corpse lay just half a meter from Yin Shixing, blood splattering and staining his white school uniform red.
Yin Shixing’s eyes were vacant. Expressionless, he wiped the blood from his face, looked up at the rooftop, and met their gazes.
The Earthbound Spirit finished recounting the events and fell silent.
Fu Wuxuan pressed, “Did Yin Shixing fight you and take back the letter?”
The Earthbound Spirit was silent for a long while before slowly nodding. “He took the letter and collected Yin Yan’s bones.”
Killing Yin Yan by accident hadn’t been their plan, but they weren’t panicked. Killing Yin Yan meant no punishment—the school would even cover it up for them.
They just hadn’t expected Yin Shixing, who had always been at odds with Yin Yan, to step up for him.
The Earthbound Spirit gave a bitter laugh. “Well, they were blood brothers, after all. We killed his little brother, so as the big brother, it was only right for him to avenge him.”
Ye Xuechun fumed indignantly. “That’s exactly what should happen! If you ask me, scum like you who only bully the weak all deserve to die!”
The Earthbound Spirit let him rant, then gave another bitter laugh. “Indeed, we’ve gotten our retribution. None of us met a good end.”
Fu Wuxuan suddenly asked, “Then how did Yin Shixing die?”
The Earthbound Spirit had spoken freely up to that point, but when it came to Yin Shixing’s death, it refused to say another word no matter what.
Yun Xueqing spoke up. “Not everyone who commits suicide becomes an Earthbound Spirit. Only those with extreme obsessions who refuse to dissipate after suicide turn into Earthbound Spirits… Your obsession isn’t Yin Yan’s death. It’s Yin Shixing’s death.”
The Earthbound Spirit hung its head low, not daring to meet his eyes.
Yun Xueqing didn’t press it, merely saying slowly, “Once your obsession dissipates, you can escape this place and stop repeating endless deaths. Speak it, and you can be freed.”
The Earthbound Spirit shook its head, not answering directly but relenting slightly. “Go to the office. The answers you want are there.”
The three exchanged glances and slowly left the Grade 3 Class 2 classroom.
The Earthbound Spirit, now clear-minded once more, had its eyes turn vacant again as it walked toward the window.
On the way to the office, Ye Xuechun couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “Xueqing, how did you know they killed Yin Yan?”
Yun Xueqing paused mid-step, silent for a long time before saying, “I saw it.”
That morning, using the Retrospection Technique, he’d seen the envelope fall from Yin Yan’s pocket, and the scene had cut off abruptly.
But later, Yun Xueqing had found a moment to channel Spiritual Power again and cast the Retrospection Technique once more, witnessing the full process of them killing Yin Yan.
From the beating, the dragging, to the push off the roof—he saw it all clearly.
Yun Xueqing watched from start to finish, his emotions barely fluctuating.
Someone too afraid to resist bullying dared to stand up against crime, only to die unexpectedly from that same bullying.
It was something that had happened, and he was merely a bystander watching from afar. The people involved had their own motives, but it wasn’t his place to feel indignant.
The only thing was that the Denunciation Letter, written with all his courage, never made it out.
Seeing him fall silent again, Ye Xuechun, still only half-understanding, changed the subject. “The teacher’s office? You mean to see that portrait of the back figure… Late at night like this, that painting won’t come alive, will it?”
Fu Wuxuan snorted with a laugh. “What’s in that painting is probably Yin Shixing after his Weird transformation.”
Ye Xuechun sighed deeply. “Transformation? Doesn’t that mean he’s lost his reason? At that level, couldn’t he just slaughter us all?”
And if he was likely the big boss of this domain, would he really not kill them?
Fu Wuxuan’s tone was casual. “Not necessarily. Transformed humans mostly lose their reason, but a small portion retain human emotions. The old monk at Thicket Mountain was like that.”
Yun Xueqing added flatly, “Someone like Yin Shixing wouldn’t allow himself to become a mindless monster.”