Chapter 49: Quilt

“What did the president do that time? What did senior see?” Bai Yan asked.

“He… At that time, he…” Wen Xueli really didn’t want to answer that question, however, she’s already revealed too much. So, she might as well tell him this bit of information, “The president, he…”

Just when Wen Xueli was about to retell the story from the start, only an ear-piercing static noise could be heard from the other side.

Originally, Bai Yan thought that it was merely caused by the phone’s bad signal, or it had something to do with the cellphone’s poor quality, but following the electric sounds, strange gurgles went on and off from the other line, making anyone who heard it experience shivers down their spine.

“Senior? Senior, can you hear me?”

“Senior, are you still there?”

Bai Yan patiently repeated these words, maybe the phone was delaying his questions. After some time, the ear-piercing static sound slightly dwindled, causing Bai Yan to vaguely hear Wen Xueli’s voice. Over at her end, she sounded like she was struggling for her life while also letting out a hideous shriek.

Bai Yan wanted to say something. But, along with a violent-sounding ram, the phone quickly hung up.

Bai Yan reiterated what Wen Xueli had told him, briefly and straight to the point. After listening to his accounts, Luo Xing couldn’t help but sigh from frustration, “No matter how we look at it, our phone call did her harm. If we never called her in the first place, maybe she would still be safe and sound.”

“Sooner or later, the outcome will still be the same, she can’t escape her fate. This world is already done for.” Even with the distance between the phone and them, Ye Shangyu’s voice was clearly as cold as ice, “Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later, she will die. The only thing we’re guilty of was to move it up to an earlier date.”

Ye Shangyu’s words were particularly callous, but when Bai Yan heard this, he sensed some connotation behind them. Yet, right now, they shouldn’t be dwelling on the loss. He continued to speak on the phone, “Do you know what the circumstances of the president’s parents’ are?”

“Dead. They were found dead inside their house half a month ago, though the way they died was particularly weird.”

“It must have been by the president’s hands.” Bai Yan muttered to himself incoherently, “Wen Xueli put emphasis on the 20 or so archives he made. These archives were records of supernatural stories and are ought to be of big significance in this level of the game. Did you research them?”

“No, we didn’t have any prior knowledge pertaining to the archives.” Ye Shangyu said, “I’m sifting through the supernatural stories I can find online and analyzing the possible locations for these. But, the online articles only report where the person has died. At most, it would have a corpse’s picture, so there are no leads on finding a way to survive and finish the game.”

“This means, we have to go back to the Supernatural Club to get the president’s archives?” Bai Yan couldn’t help but stressfully knit his brows, “Getting the application forms was nothing. When we go this time, we can’t be too sure. Moreover, if the president is still there, he won’t necessarily give them to us…”

Thinking that the president’s real identity was a ghost, Bai Yan suddenly felt that this task was far too difficult. However, the archives were extremely important, not going there to retrieve them just won’t do.

After hanging up with Ye Shangyu’s phone, Bai Yan called Luo Xing’s attention, and the two headed to the Supernatural Club.

At this moment, it was fast approaching 5 PM, and there were no people in sight on the East building’s third floor.

The nights came quickly during winter days, and even though the hallways were brightly lit, the club activity room was pitch-black on the inside. Looking through the glass, the interior looked like a black hole that seemed to be oddly oozing out.

Because of the small holiday, the students would go home to their families one after another. As a result, the number of students that were wandering around the school was kept to a minimum, and it was quiet everywhere they went.

The two’s careful footsteps echoed in the hallway, the beat of their steps mimicking the rhythm of their heart beats.

Stopping right outside the activity room, Bai Yan leaned into the glass to take a look around. Inside, he saw all the furniture still in place, just like before. Furthermore, there wasn’t a single person around.

Knowing that the president wasn’t around, Bai Yan’s courage immediately puffed up.

He fished out an iron wire from his pocket and nudged the door open. With the bright phone flashlight in hand, he casually walked inside.

To prevent some scenarios, like being walked in on or the door locking from the outside, from happening to them, he kindly asked Luo Xing to watch the door and be on the lookout. If there was something even slightly amiss, they would immediately make a break for it. “When we were picking up the application form, I quickly scanned the room. The cupboard contains a lot of paper, so the archives must be inside there?” Bai Yan talked to himself out loud, quickly rummaging through the cupboard’s contents.

Time passed by in seconds, then in minutes. Although there wasn’t anyone inside the club activity room, the deadly silent ambiance could give anyone in that situation more pressure.

Afraid that dire matters would spring from stupidity, once he found the archive, Bai Yan quickly called out Luo Xing to run off.

He then very carefully closed the door and sprinted like there was no tomorrow to the school’s exit.

…

At Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu’s agreed meetup place, the three were gathered together and flipped through the archives. Meanwhile, in the West building of the dormitory, a girl scurried down the stairs with a quilt, her expression filling with worry.

“It’s over! In spite of everything, I forgot to grab my quilt! It’s been a long day!”

Looking at the strong gusts of wind outside the dormitory, Sun Yulan felt extremely upset. Originally, she intended to dry the quilt to get rid of some moisture it had. However, once night fell, cold unforgiving winds blew throughout the night, so the quilt’s moisture adapted to the wind’s iciness and gave a less than satisfying result when high noon fell.

Blue Sky College was built on a mountain, so the nights in these mountains were especially ferocious.

When Sun Yulan was grabbing her quilt, many of the remaining student’s clothes were already blown away to the dirt-filled ground. The other quilts that weren’t securely fastened by clips were also blown to the ground. Along with the dead leaves and mixing in with the dirt, the items looked utterly filthy.

Sun Yulan saw the clothes that were packed with dirt and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of happiness surging from within. Fortunately for her, she used three big clips so that her comforter wouldn’t be easily flipped over. Otherwise, she would have had to endure being wrapped in a dirty quilt for the entire night.

After getting her quilt down from the clothesline, Sun Yulan touched the cold comforter and shivered from the act.

The mad winds made her skin hurt from the cold dryness, but since she couldn’t do anything about this, she merely packed her quilt and weighed it by hand, having this nagging feeling that something was wrong.

“It feels like this blanket is a bit heavier than normal. Could it be that a ghost managed to squeeze inside?”

Sun Yulan muttered this, almost spooked by it. She was so engrossed browsing through the forum in the dormitory the whole afternoon that she forgot to retrieve her comforter.

While browsing the forum, she carelessly clicked on the ‘Nightly Ghost Stories’ section on the school’s forum, opening it and finding a new post.

There was only a single story on the post, and there was not a single comment below.

Because the length of the story wasn’t that long, Sun Yulan quickly breezed through it, reading it from the start to finish. After she finished reading it, she was somewhat regretful. Not because the story was boring, rather, it was because the writer’s post was extremely terrifying!

The protagonist in the story was a college girl, who also lived in the school.

One day, when the girl was grabbing her quilt, she discovered that the comforter was heavier than normal. But, this difference was not something she paid attention to, so she carried her blanket and returned to her dorm room.

However, in truth, inside the girl’s quilt was a ghost that had gotten inside, giving the quilt a slightly significant change in weight, which was the ghost’s heaviness.

Sun Yulan was against recalling the following scenes, because those were simply far too frightening for her, especially in this situation.

Standing inside the barren dormitory while holding her comforter, Sun Yulan shivered from the chilliness of the wind. She gazed at the pitch-black sky, her heart somewhat unsettled.

She felt the wind become fiercer and fiercer, so Sun Yulan, who was still carrying her quilt, sprinted back to the dorms.

On the dormitory’s first floor, several girls were standing near the exit, most probably waiting for the food they ordered. On this particularly cool night, nobody dared to go to the school’s dining hall to purchase some food. Moreover, because it was currently Golden Week, there was nothing edible sold in the dining hall, and the students were also lazier this time.

Finally seeing the bustling hall, Sun Yulan heaved a sigh of relief. She examined herself in the hall’s mirror, noticing that her complexion was a bit paler than usual, but luckily, the blanket looked normal and didn’t contain any traces of a ghost’s figure.

“I’m really too much of a coward, scaring myself like that.” Remembering how she indulged in her wild imagination, Sun Yulan couldn’t help but laugh at her silliness, “That was nothing more than a ghost story. How could there possibly be a ghost inside my quilt?”

Sun Yulan rode the elevator along with another girl. But, she suddenly shook her head wildly, convincing herself that her quilt might still have been moist, so that was why the blanket felt kind of cool to the touch and a bit heavier.

Although the blanket weighed differently, the variance from before wasn’t that much. Sun Yulan walked out of the elevator and went inside her room with her blanket at hand. She then neatly laid her quilt on the bed, finally freeing both her hands.

“Lanlan, come here and eat some take out. I’ll give you some yellow braised chicken!”

Sun Yulan quickly turned around and discovered her roommate, Mo Kaka, greeting her.

“Thanks, Kaka.”

The takeout container was open, making Sun Yulan get a delicious whiff of the yellow braised chicken and immediately forgetting her fear and worry.

The restaurant near the school that served the yellow braised chicken was extremely generous. Their chicken was succulent and tender, and the chicken’s skin was smooth and flavorful. Soon, Sun Yulan singlehandedly devoured the meal until the container was empty, even the rice, as well as the green peppers, were licked clean.

Under the comfort of this tasty food, Sun Yulan had entirely forgotten about her prior uneasiness. She gleefully giggled and thanked her roommate before playing on her cell phone until it was lights out. She then reluctantly got in her bed and tried to go to sleep.

“It’s cold, it’s so cold…”

Even though she was being covered by this thick quilt, Sun Yulan should have felt nice and warm, but the cold gales of wind chilled the blanket for a long while, making the blanket chilly. Maybe it needed a bit more time to heat up.

Sun Yulan had anticipated this earlier and was prepared to endure it for some time.

The quilt gradually warmed up with her body temperature, and in her dazed state, her consciousness slowly drifting. However, Sun Yulan still couldn’t sleep, mostly because her back always felt cold.

Sun Yulan was afraid of the cold. Thus, she gathered the quilt up and positioned her entire back to be tightly wrapped around the blanket.

Yet, this remedy of hers didn’t lead to her back feeling any warmth. The annoying light chill was still deliberately running down her spine, causing her to restlessly toss and turn.

‘Why is my back so cold today? Is it because the humidity outside is high?’

Withdrawing inside the quilt, the chilliness was difficult for Sun Yulan to bear, so she hurriedly nuzzled her chin under the blanket.

However, she felt her back was still not warming up. So much so that even the back of her neck felt a bit cool, as if someone was blowing cold air onto her neck.

Due to the coldness she felt, Sun Yulan couldn’t fall asleep, so she laid down on her bed and daydreamed. Slowly, she finally recalled the story she read this afternoon, her body instantly shaking from the memory.

Could there really be a hidden ghost inside her quilt?

With this in mind, Sun Yulan became more afraid. She then lifted the blanket and opened it. Phew! Fortunately, when she pulled the rims of the blanket apart, there was nothing inside the hole…

Sun Yulan’s heart felt at ease, making her want to use the quilt to cloak her as she slept.

But before she could close the quilt’s opening, she thought of something and abruptly pulled the blanket’s rims open again.

Seeing inside the quilt’s ‘opening’ yet again, Sun Yulan suddenly couldn’t move.

Inside the slit, she saw a peculiar mouth. This certain mouth was quite wide and was right in the place where her back felt the cool air…