Chapter 28:
School Specter (Part 2):
A Rare Reincarnated Ghost…
Wang Min explained that she was a second-year student at Qingping No. 2 High School, the best high school in the area. Recently, a student had jumped from the school building and been taken to the hospital. Rumors spread among the students, claiming she had been wrongly accused and died unjustly. The incident even made the newspapers.
The school had given the students a day off. When classes resumed, the teachers warned them against discussing the incident, threatening punishment for anyone caught gossiping.
The student’s name was Li Qinqin. Wang Min had learned this later; they weren’t in the same class and didn’t know each other.
It had happened at noon, while the students were eating lunch in their classrooms. Li Qinqin had jumped from the building. Wang Min hadn’t witnessed it directly, avoiding the crowds gathered at the windows. She had heard from others that it had been a gruesome scene, Li Qinqin’s body broken and bleeding, her screams echoing through the schoolyard.
The teachers had called an ambulance, and Li Qinqin had been taken away. Afterward, life had returned to normal. The third-year students focused on their college entrance exams, the second-years on their studies, the first-years on choosing their academic tracks. The incident had been a ripple in the water, quickly forgotten.
Classes resumed, but Wang Min felt increasingly unwell, like she had a fever, her head constantly aching. But the school nurse found nothing wrong. High school students were prone to various ailments. She started experiencing bouts of drowsiness, and whenever she woke up, strange things would happen. Pencil drawings would appear on her desk.
Just simple drawings, but they filled her with a sense of dread.
A small, black figure with a knife stuck in it, words scribbled on its body, too blurry for her to read.
She had woken up in class, no one near her desk, the drawing beneath her elbow.
She never sleepwalked. Who had drawn it?
Terrified and unsure who to turn to, she kept the incident to herself.
Then, something even more terrifying happened. She saw Li Qinqin, her ghostly figure appearing before her.
Wang Min was a boarding student. After evening study hall, she was walking back to her dorm when she tripped on the stairs. As she got up, she saw a face staring down at her.
It was Li Qinqin!
Her face was pale, her mouth closed, blood dripping from her forehead, the bones in her hands exposed. She looked like a walking corpse!
Wang Min, without thinking, pushed her away and ran towards her dorm. But she found herself running in circles, trapped on the fourth floor, no matter how many flights of stairs she climbed.
Exhausted and terrified that Li Qinqin would catch up, she remembered the motion-sensor lights in the stairwell. She heard footsteps below, but the lights didn’t turn on. The only thing she could think of was the longevity lock she always wore.
She clutched the lock, chanting “Amitabha Buddha.”
The lock, which had protected her many times before, seemed to work its magic again. She finally reached her floor, relieved and drenched in cold sweat.
But before she could take another step, a figure blocked her path.
Li Qinqin emerged from the shadows, smiling, standing at the entrance to her floor.
“Stay away from me!” Wang Min held up the longevity lock like a shield, her eyes squeezed shut, yelling at the top of her lungs, too afraid to move.
She didn’t understand. She had never wronged this person. Why was she being targeted?
She screamed and screamed.
Then, someone tapped her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Go away!” She remembered the saying, never tap someone’s shoulder at night. The three flames above a person’s shoulders represented their life force. If they were extinguished, she would die. This was a deliberate attempt to harm her!
“What’s wrong?” It was her classmate’s voice. Wang Min didn’t believe it. “What are you doing? Are you possessed?”
Someone grabbed her flailing hands, forcing her eyes open. She saw her roommates surrounding her.
Li Qinqin was gone. She had been right there.
When she asked about Li Qinqin, no one had seen her. They thought she was crazy, her screams disturbing the other students on the fifth floor, almost attracting the attention of the dorm supervisor.
Just because they hadn’t seen it, didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Wang Min had always been frail. A fortune teller had said she lacked fire in her five elements, her yin energy too strong. She had worn the family heirloom, a longevity lock, since birth, never taking it off. She avoided funerals, hospitals, and mountains, her weak constitution attracting spirits. As a child, she had seen shadows at funerals, fleeting glimpses, not the kind of ghosts people talked about.
This was the first time she had encountered a real ghost.
Since Li Qinqin had committed suicide, she must be lonely, wanting to take someone with her. That’s why Wang Min had gone to the funeral home for joss paper, planning to burn offerings for her, hoping to appease her.
But it hadn’t worked. She still saw Li Qinqin, even during the day, in dark corridors, in the bathroom mirror, Li Qinqin’s face staring back at her.
She dreamt of standing by the window on the third floor, unable to move, someone pushing her, falling, waking up screaming.
She was constantly on edge, her classmates dismissing her as being obsessed with ghost stories. But she believed in the supernatural, enough to seek help from the owner of that strange shop, Chen Henian.
She didn’t have much money. Her parents had died when she was young, and she had been raised by her relatives. She was relieved when Chen Henian agreed to help.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” she said. “Do you understand? Can you get rid of her?”
Chen Henian nodded. “You said the longevity lock is a family heirloom. Do you know its history?”
She hadn’t expected him to ask about the lock again. “I’ll tell you after you help me. My grandmother gave it to me. If you come to my hometown with me, you’ll understand.”
“Go home,” Chen Henian said.
“I’m not lying,” she insisted. “I don’t know much about it myself.”
“Tonight, I’ll go to Qingping No. 2 High School and take care of the ghost,” he said.
“Really? That’s great!” Wang Min smiled. “I’ll wait for you at the gate.”
She seemed genuinely happy, not afraid. She agreed readily and left quickly.
After nightfall, Chen Henian prepared to leave, taking only two talismans and a red string.
The mirror ghost emerged. “Aren’t you taking me with you?”
“It’s just a vengeful ghost, wanting a replacement,” Chen Henian said. “A recent death, I can handle it in one night.”
The mirror ghost circled him, bored.
“I asked you to look at that longevity lock. Did you notice anything?”
“A genuine antique,” the mirror ghost replied. “Sell it, and you’ll be rich.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Chen Henian said.
The mirror ghost tilted its head, noticing his serious expression. It answered carefully, “It’s old, passed through many hands, so it carries a lot of resentment. There’s a faint smell of blood, but it’s too old to discern anything specific.”
“It felt familiar when I held it,” Chen Henian recalled. “Could I have been surnamed Wang in a past life?”
He was a rare case of reincarnation, a wandering soul finding a chance to be reborn. His time as a spirit could be considered his previous life.
His previous life, the longevity lock, and Wang Min were somehow connected.
“Oh…” The mirror ghost’s interest was piqued. “Now that you mention it, the girl’s eyes and nose do resemble yours.”
“Really?” Chen Henian considered this. “Does that make me her great-grandfather or something?”
He was curious about his past life, how he had died, what lingering attachments had kept him in the human world. His master hadn’t been able to tell him. He couldn’t return to Dongpi Village, the place most connected to his past. This was an opportunity. Otherwise, he would have dismissed her with her ten yuan.
At eleven, he arrived at Qingping No. 2 High School. He rarely visited schools, especially at night. Schools were often built on abandoned or haunted grounds, the youthful yang energy of the students suppressing the yin energy. But at night, the yin energy would surge, especially in places where suicides had occurred, the death stirring up restless spirits.
Wang Min was already there.
He approached her, and they walked to a low wall.
“Some reporters are still snooping around, so the security guards won’t leave until one,” she explained. “We have to climb over the wall.”
Several bags of cement were piled at the base of the wall, providing a foothold. They easily climbed over.
The school grounds were cold and dark, the power shut off, three teaching buildings surrounding a concrete courtyard with a few locust trees.
Chen Henian asked her to take him to her classroom, the drawing on her desk a potential clue. Before they reached the stairs, a water bottle fell from above, shattering on the ground, the water turning into blood.
Chen Henian didn’t look down, his gaze fixed on the corridor above. In the dim light, he saw a figure, the same ghost in the black dress.
“Welcoming committee,” he chuckled. “How thoughtful.”
He started to walk towards the stairs when Wang Min tugged at his shirt, reminding him of her presence.
She hadn’t screamed, her silence pleasing him. He handed her a talisman. “Hold onto this. Even if a ghost tries to take you, you’ll be safe with me.”
Wang Min nodded obediently.
They reached the fourth floor without incident, no ghostly barriers or other obstacles. Li Qinqin’s figure walked ahead of them, leading them to Wang Min’s classroom, 424, at the western end of the hallway.
The location wasn’t ideal. Chen Henian observed the building’s layout, noticing that the classroom windows were completely blocked by the restrooms, a dark and yin-filled space. No wonder Li Qinqin’s ghost had attached itself to Wang Min.
Li Qinqin disappeared into the classroom. Chen Henian and Wang Min followed, pushing the door open.
The moment they stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind them.
The loud bang startled Chen Henian. He glanced around. Before Wang Min could point to her desk, the room flickered, and the classroom was filled with students, their faces pale and ghostly.
All dead.
Chen Henian remained motionless, his gaze turning to the podium.
Li Qinqin appeared, standing there, her bulging eyes scanning the room, then fixing on Chen Henian. She held a hemp rope whip, cracking it against the podium.
She glared at them, her voice filled with rage. “You’re late for class!”
