20 The Bleeding Grounds

Finding a cut on his head made Liu Xiaodan walk himself to the dorm clinic. Even though there were unanswered questions and holes in his story, it was enough for him to get left alone by the nurse. Liu Xiaodan sat on the bed while the nurse was working on her reports. He was thinking about the face Liu Guangru made; it was more bone-chilling than the twelve faces he saw. In fact, he had forgotten about them when Liu Guangru snapped.

He dropped his head even though the nurse advised against doing so. He began curling behind the curtains, hiding his trembling frame from the sight of the nurse. He burrowed his face against his knees and started crying again. Liu Xiaodan was not feeling good.

"Nurse Wang? Are you there?"

"In a moment..."

Liu Xiaodan heard Chuan Nayi's voice and so he cleared his face. He took in deep breaths as he heard the door open. He listened in to their little conversation before waiting for Chuan Nayi's image to appear from the corner of the curtained bed. The girl stared at him and walked towards him slowly. She sat on the bed and held the man's hand.

"Xiaodan, are you... okay?" She glanced at his hand, not seeing the bracelet where it should be. "You're not wearing the bracelet."

"Sorry, I just had to... not do it." He chuckled and scratched his cheek. He had no plausible explanation to the girl about his 'disobedience' to her warning. Then again, he could not say that Liu Guangru, the boy who haunted her, was someone he was friends with. "Anyway, how are you? No one came to confront you, right?"

"Confront me? Does that have to do anything about me?" She looked at his hand and ran her thumb on his wrist. "About us?"

Liu Xiaodan's heart skipped a bit again, but it was for a nice reason. His face grew a faint red across the cheeks. He looked down at their hands and noticed something was different with the one she was wearing. Unlike his bracelet, Chuan Nayi's had a stray straw wrapped in between the beads. The writings were also changed with the addition of strokes. He glared at it as if ravishing his memories if he was mistaken or not.

The girl smiled at their silent, but the groan that escaped Liu Xiaodan made her wonder. She brought her gaze up to the man's face, only to see a glare towards her wrists. Chuan Nayi pouted a little. "Sorry, I had Li Feng modify it days back. It was starting to burn a lot so I thought there was something wrong. It doesn't anymore so I think it was okay. I asked him to fix yours, too, but he refused... saying that only mine is dysfunctional."

'He probably knew I need to know whenever ghosts are nearby. Then again, this must be connected to why he was being urged by those ghosts. Why would they... feel offended if Li Feng fixed the bracelet?' Liu Xiaodan seemed to not listen to his girl. However, he was indeed thinking deeply about what she said.

Chuan Nayi hummed at his silence. He should have said something. She then took a deep breath before using her finger to tap on his arm. "Is it true? Did Li Feng killed Jiang Hou?"

Liu Xiaodan lifted his face to see the look on her face. He could read the sadness and worry on her face, perhaps from the notion of being in contact with a convicted murderer. He shook his head and decided to avoid certain details. "No, he is innocent. Soon enough, it will be proven. Whoever killed Jiang Hou made it possible for him to come see Li Feng."

That was when he remembered what the spirits were chanting. What should have been him? The dead? The framed killer? Liu Xiaodan could only hide his confusion from the girl. He shook his head one to get rid of the distraction and pat Chuan Nayi's head. "Don't worry too much. Nothing bad will happen. I won't let anything bad happen to you..."

"Why does it sound like something is threatening me?" She brought her gaze straight into Liu Xiaodan's eyes. "What is happening, Xiaodan? Are we in danger?"

"I, uh..."

"Nurse Wang!" A student banged at the door, startling everyone in the room. "Nurse Wang! Nurse Wang!"

"I'm opening the door!" The nurse opened the door and screamed in surprise. She then ushered the students carrying someone who was covered in bruises and had a bleeding concussion.

The group passed by before Liu Xiaodan and Chuan Nayi. They stared at the student in horror, not knowing how to respond. The girl could only hold onto his hand tighter, but Liu Xiaodan decided to get up from the bed. He walked with Chuan Nayi behind him, taking a glimpse of the bleeding student. The nurse had gone to the cabinet for materials needed to patch him. The horseman looked at the half-conscious male.

The nurse returned and started cleaning the blood on the back of his head. His possible roommates held him to sit up as the nurse work on his wound. The male student reached out to hold onto one of the people, but Liu Xiaodan stepped in to take it. A collective gaze was thrown towards the horseman upon holding the hand of a stranger.

The wounded started to babble. "It was a ghost. I swear it was a ghost..."

"There he goes again. Brother Chen, please." One of the males patted the wounded man's shoulder. "There was nothing there..."

"What do you mean ghost? You saw it?" Liu Xiaodan, who used to be uncaring of others, did his best to make him speak.

"No, but there was blood... and prints... and... and... a scream..." Brother Chen paused. He closed his eyes and took in deep breaths to calm himself. He then looked at the horseman again. "I, uh... I was walking to my room when I heard a scream from the halls. I turned around the corner, and there was this big blotch of blood on the wall. There's these hand and foot prints coming towards me so I ran." He hummed as he shook his head lightly, one of his hands aching to console his own wound. "I slipped down the stairs and knocked myself out, I think..."

"No matter how many times he tells that story, it doesn't change the fact that there was nothing there. In the halls, in the wall. Nothing." The other student whimpered. It was evident that he wanted to believe his upperclassman, but the lack of evidence frustrated him.

Liu Xiaodan pursed his lips. He only made a hum to acknowledge their answers. 'If it was Guangru, he wouldn't even bother cleaning up. Then again, I grew mad at him for those things. Did he learn to avoid a mess? And who is he killing? Is this happening because of me?'

Since the talk did not go anywhere substantial, the horseman just went back to his bed. Chuan Nayi still stayed with him while the nurse was working on the bruises. The male student was in a fine physical condition, but his mind was still a wreck. He kept on murmuring what he saw, but his friends could not bring themselves to believe him. Soon enough, the nurse had gone back to her seat. The wounded man had already fallen asleep during the treatment.

Liu Xiaodan could hear them discussing with the nurse. They were worried that their upperclassman had turned crazy after hitting his head. The horseman pulled on his curtain as if saying he wanted to listen in, along with Chuan Nayi. It was no issue to the other two after all.

"But... it's not impossible, is it?" Nurse Wang responded. "There are ghosts in this building after all. Then again, they never had any real contact with anyone since that incident two years ago." She hummed and thought aloud. "After that time that they said the Weeper killed seven students, the activities went completely quiet. No one reports anything anymore..."

"Eh, Nurse Wang?" One of the students insisted. "But ghosts are... like dead! They can't bleed and all!"

"That's like saying ghosts shouldn't be able to move because they're dead, you know." Nurse Wang whimpered, pressing her hand against her cheek. "I believe your upperclassman. There's no way he didn't see anything enough to scare him that much. If it was a prank, then it would have been better. At least someone could be held responsible for his injuries." She turned to the window and got up to draw the curtain. "If it was indeed a ghost, I don't know what we can do."

"Are you really saying ghosts are real? A person of science, Nurse Wang?"

"You haven't stayed in this building for more than five years. I stay here all my work hours so I can tell if something is wrong." Nurse Wang pouted a little. "Someone just recently died. It's possible that it was causing the ghosts to act. Several sightings happened after someone died in the girl's dorm so it could be the same here."

The male students had already gone quiet. They only looked at each other before one of them scratched his head as he spoke, "how can we help Brother Chen? Even though we don't accept your explanation, we should at least find a way to get him back to normal..."

"Normally, Xiao Feng would barge in upon hearing about this kind of situations." Nurse Wang hummed, putting a hand on her chin. She then turned to Liu Xiaodan's direction. "Ah, you... you're friends with Xiao Feng, right? Do you know about his antics when it comes to this kind of situations?"

"I-I can't say I do, but I want to find out what happened." The horseman chuckled nervously as he felt the dagger gazes on him. He looked at the two students. "Where did this happen?"

"...Fifth floor."

Liu Xiaodan froze. This time, he was not able to hide it from everyone who was looking at him. The twelve faces that threatened him came back to his mind, and so he just looked down on the floor. He could feel his heart pounding once more, but it was too strong for fear alone. He stared at his poor reflection at the shiny floor, sensing the environment. Everyone else was quiet.

The horseman suddenly got up and walked to the walkway unobstructed by the beds. He just realized that the bed where Brother Chen was... was outside the two meter reach of Chuan Nayi's bracelet. He held out his hand towards them as if keeping them where they were. The nurse could only get up from her seat again and follow the man just past the first bed.

A low groan came from the last bed. Liu Xiaodan peered from the slit on the curtain bed, seeing another student lying prone across the bed, pinning the resting wounded by the abdomen. Blood was smeared on the other's back, and his skin was graying. He was suffocating the living with his weight, which could be manipulated by the spirits. The horseman stared at the spirit... only until he got up from the bed.

"You..." the ghost spoke in a rather low voice. It was one of the faces he saw, and it was now pacing towards him. "You..."

Liu Xiaodan took a step back, but he still froze as the ghost did. The spirit then looked at its own abdomen and placed his hands on it. Blood drew on the uniform he was wearing, and the blotch grew when he pushed his fingers inside of his own body. The red liquid spurted and sprayed all over the curtains as the ghost groaned lowly. He fell to the floor and laid there before vanishing once Liu Xiaodan blinked. Along with him disappeared the blood. All of a sudden, everything was normal... and the chill was gone.

The father held onto his forehead and looked at the people who were curious and scared of his actions. Liu Xiaodan turned to the slit and saw Brother Chen already standing against the curtain. He had a staring contest with the man before the image disappeared. The wounded was back on the bed, but Liu Xiaodan was worried. Brother Chen... stopped breathing.