Chapter 48: President

When Bai Yan and Luo Xing entered the room, they found Wei Zizhuo had been there since earlier and was now laying on the bed and messily eating a bag of chips.

With his mouth wide open as he ate, he completely looked like a slob. The chips fell right back into the bag as they escaped his mouth, and when he saw the two people come back, Wei Zizhuo unwittingly said, “Bai Yan, Luo Xing, do you guys want some chips?”

“No thanks. I don’t have an appetite.” Bai Yan’s eyes quickly flashed a trace of disgust as he recalled that there were supposed to be a total of six people living inside the dorm room, which made him ask, “Is it just you here? Where are the others?”

“Oh, them? I left early. After they were done taking the exam, they went to drag their luggage out of here.” Wei Zizhuo smacked his lips together, “These potato chips are really good… Isn’t tomorrow Saturday? And, after that is the weeklong national holiday(1)? All in all, we have five days off, so those dumbasses ran all the way home. Our school’s education quality isn’t that great, but the holidays sure are!”

“They all went back. Aren’t you going back too?” Bai Yan asked.

“Ai, let’s not talk about it. I also want to go home, but my family’s far away. If I would get a round trip, it would cost around a hundred yuan, and during more than half of the trip, I’d be wasting time on the road, which is such a waste of money and is taxing on the body. It’d be better if I didn’t go back.” Wei Zizhuo shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “It looks like it’s just us three these next few days. Do you guys have plans for vacation? Or, do you have certain appointments with girls?”

“On the contrary, there are no girls. I intend to do my best in the club’s entrance test.” Bai Yan raised the application form in his hand, “The president required us to take note of five ghost stories. How much do you know about our school’s Supernatural Club?”

“Ghost stories? I heard that our school was built on some graves. I bet you also know about our school’s financial situation, so our school’s grounds are always being rented out by someone else. The students pay tuition to go to this school, just so they could afford this good piece of land. A lot of headmasters before wanted this lump of land for its convenience, and after they undertook a contract for this piece of land, they quickly transformed it into a school. Isn’t this like a ghost story?” Wei Zizhuo casually licked off the flavoring left by the potato chips on his fingers.

When he was finished speaking his mind, Bai Yan’s phone suddenly rang. He quickly grabbed it to take a look and lo and behold, it was Ye Shangyu calling.

Considering that there was still an NPC left in the room with them, Bai Yan went to the bathroom to receive the call in privacy.

After the line went through, Ye Shangyu quickly reported a series of numbers and proceeded to say, “This number belongs to the vice president of the Supernatural Club, Wen Xueli. She took a break from school for a month. You should go contact her about the club’s current state of affairs, while I’ll continue on finding more info about the president.”

When she finished, Ye Shangyu hung up while leaving Bai Yan feeling that he was hit in the face with a big I-told-you-so. “That was fast. She was able to get into the campus directory in such a short time? Don’t tell me she’s a real hacker?”

As a whole, Ye Shangyu seemed to be someone who grew up in a righteous environment and looked like someone who served as an imperial court’s eagle dog(2). Bai Yan also assumed that she wasn’t a person that would commit a crime, but after he pondered a little bit more, the app was a matter of life and death, which meant that the real world’s law didn’t apply, so it wasn’t at all surprising to him.

Using the number Ye Shangyu gave him, Bai Yan tried to call Wen Xueli on the phone.

This Wen Xueli deferred from school a month ago, and it just so happened to take place right about the time the Supernatural Club’s president returned.

The vice president was the president’s right-hand man inside the club, so if there were any important matters, the president would openly share them with her. Therefore, Wen Xueli must have known something. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have hastily left the school as soon as she caught wind of the president’s return, even going as far as to stop going to school for this.

A pleasant beeping sound echoed in the room with a perfect beat. He waited for half a minute before a woman with a slightly tired voice came through, “Hello, may I know who this is…?”

“Hello, senior. I am a freshman of Blue Sky College. Just recently, I’ve entered the exam to become a member of the Supernatural Club. The president required us to write down five ghost stories on the application form before we could enter…”

Bai Yan wasn’t finished talking when he suddenly heard a sharp shriek on the other side, and amid that sharp shriek were small traces of fear, “Supernatural Club? What does this have to do with me? I don’t know anything!”

She briefly paused, but then, Wen Xueli coldly said, “Don’t contact me again! I already left the club! I have no relations with that Supernatural Club!”

After she finished yelling and when Wen Xueli had nothing left to say to Bai Yan, she immediately hung up her phone.

“Originally, it was just a guess… But, judging from her reaction, you could already tell a lot.”

Following Wen Xueli hanging up, Bai Yan was not the least bit discouraged. He took a second before dialing her number again, but no one answered.

He continued to call her seven or eight times more until Wen Xueli blocked his number.

Bai Yan thought for a while and called Ye Shangyu, asking for more information on Wen Xueli. After hanging up, he bore in mind the important parts and went out to look for Luo Xing. With a dark expression on his face, he said, “You’re still working on that exam? Lend me your phone for a sec.”

“Here.”

Luo Xing quickly handed over his phone, and since Wei Zizhuo just finished eating his chips, he was beside Luo Xing, looking completely amazed, “You’re already a freshman. Why are you still answering third-year high school math questions?”

“Trying to find work as a private tutor and earn some money for my living expenses.” Luo Xing said without another thought.

Closing the bathroom door, Bai Yan once again dialed Wen Xueli’s phone number. This time, without waiting for her to talk, Bai Yan rushed in and said, “Wen Xueli. Father, Wen Wutao. Mother, Qin Limei. Their workplace is located at… And their residence is… Their current address is… Don’t hang up, senior. I really have some pressing matters to ask you about. Or, do I need to personally go to your door with the application form?”

“You are just a freshman, but you did a great job researching.” Wen Xueli snorted coldly, “You don’t have to use threats on me. I advise you to not get mixed up with the Supernatural Club. There’s still time for you to get out of there.”

“It’s already too late, I’ve already gotten involved” Bai Yan bluffed, “Perhaps senior really thought that you could get away by merely withdrawing from the club?”

“…”

A long silence drew from the other side of the phone.

After a while, Wen Xueli said, “What do you want to know?”

“President, Supernatural Club, also about the time when the president went missing for two months.”

“…” Wen Xueli sucked in a deep breath, “Junior, let me give you a sincere piece of advice. There are times that knowing too much can be a bad thing. If you are worried because of the president, then it would be good to defer from school like I did. I can’t say for sure, but there’s still a chance for you to get away.”

“I need to know this.”

“Okay, I hope you won’t regret hearing it.” Wen Xueli said, “I was childhood sweethearts with the president. Ever since he was young, he had always taken a special interest in ghosts and supernatural events.

When we reached high school, the academic workload was too much, so he didn’t have much time researching more about them. However, when we reached college, he immediately formed the Supernatural Club, and every day, he would research rumors on ghosts on the Internet. That was, until he tried to verify if these rumors were fake.

Naturally, you also know by now that things found on the Internet are all complete nonsense. Most of it was fake, and everyone who joined the club was only there for fun or to get some kind of thrill. At the start, it was truly like this, so no one would’ve anticipated what would take place next.”

Talking up until his point made Wen Xueli voice rough, “One year later, as usual, the president was going to where the stories happened to check if they were true. He’d already experienced tons of failures before, so he didn’t carry many expectations with him as he went there. That day, I had some work to take care of and couldn’t go with him.

Who knew that once he came back, he actually told me that the ghost story was true. This world really does have ghosts!

Everyone there were college students who have all received higher education. How could they possibly believe this? Unexpectedly, after he came back, he also couldn’t explain it very well, only directly taking out a piece of paper to sort out what he had recently experienced and telling us to never go near that place.

I thought that he was just joking, so I didn’t care about it. I didn’t expect him to become more intense over his obsession with supernatural events. Like how during his second year, he made more than 20 archives about them.”

“Senior, did you read any of these files?” Bai Yan asked.

“En, I browsed through one, and he didn’t necessarily stop me from doing so. At that time, I believed that writing these archives were similar to writing down novels. When I read them, they seemed extremely fake, but the president told me that what was written was completely true.” Wen Xueli choked back soft sobs, “He said that every time he came back, he’d faced mortal danger but would narrowly escape, but I only thought that he would tell me this just to tease me. Right now, I truly believe that this was really the case.”

“What was written on the file?” Bai Yan was somewhat interested.

“It took place in the location of the rumor. How could someone get away from this thrilling story with their life still intact. He said that these ghost stories that featured deaths all had rules in them. If you find out what that rule is, then you won’t die…” Wen Xueli recalled, “That’s right. He was in the process of making a map. He said that his abilities were limited, so he could only make one for our city. That very map is hanging on the club’s activity room wall.”

“Is this the one full of red crosses and question marks?”

“En, have you seen it?” Wen Xueli continued, “The red crosses indicate where these rumors occurred, while the question mark shows where these rumors could possibly take place. At the beginning, there were only a few, but these ghost stories kept spreading faster and faster, bringing along greater danger with it. There were multiple times when he came back and his body was full of injuries. This time, I gradually believed him…”

Wen Xueli cried a sob, hesitantly saying, “At that time, he told me that the world was getting more and more dangerous, and looking worried while at it. He later grew less enthusiastic about these chilling stories. It was like he was undertaking some kind of heavy responsibility. His personality also became darker, opposite from his bright and cheerful self before. He slowly became like this, which made me become terrified…”

“One day, he suddenly returned and wanted to talk to me. He was going to leave the school and head to a place where no one could find him. He also told me that if he did return, I should immediately quit school and distance myself from him. The further away we were, the better! I was a bit worried, but after he told me this, he quickly left, even cutting ties with his parents. For a time, everyone was going insane from distress. We looked everywhere for him, but in the end, we couldn’t find him, just like he said he was going to a place no one could ever find him.”

Telling him up until this point, Wen Xueli voice was quivering as her tears mixed in with her dread——

“Who knew that after a month had passed, he came back by himself out of the blue!”

“Originally, I was ecstatic about the news, but when I saw the way he acted, I knew… he changed! He already became a ghost from his archives!”