CH 30

“Who should I believe?”

Sakurako in my arms was light; I could lift her with just one hand as if she had no weight at all. After she spoke, she buried her head in my shoulder and remained silent. If it weren’t for the lingering warmth of the young girl by my ear, I would have doubted if she was the one who spoke those words just now.

Before we even reached the school gates, Hideki had caught up to us, twirling a vine in his hand and gesturing to me with his eyes. The message was clear: “Don’t hesitate; take action!”

Both of them were using their own methods to convince me, and my moving footsteps slowly came to a halt. I put on a look of inner conflict and wondered, “Who should I believe?”

I put Sakurako down and looked at my phone. The live stream room was full of various opinions. It was really scary.

“Host, are you out of your mind? Hideki is definitely a ghost. He has been leading you on from the beginning. The four corners game is just you playing with three ghosts!”

“Nonsense, that kid is at most mentally ill. How could he be a ghost? It’s that strange girl Sakurako who’s abnormal!”

“I agree. The camera was so close to Sakurako’s face just now, and I observed for three minutes, but her expression didn’t change at all. She’s definitely a resurrected corpse!”

“What normal high school student can casually mention murder? Hideki is the ghost! If I’m wrong, I’ll chop my own tongue and stream it live!”

“Is there any professional who can come out and explain? Half-immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain, are you there? Calling Half-immortal, calling Half-immortal, over.”

“Screw your half-immortal, I bet 100 ghost coins that Hideki is the ghost!”

“Are you even proud of betting with just a hundred ghost coins?” Master Tieling Biao rewarded the Super Thrilling Live Broadcast Room with 999 ghost coins, “I bet 999 ghost  coins, they are all ghosts!”

“Master Biao is so domineering,” I smiled slightly. No matter how dangerous the situation was, reading the barrage of comments made by these troublemakers always made me calm down quickly. Compared with the first live broadcast, the popularity has increased fivefold, and the skepticism has decreased a lot.

Actually, I have already figured out who is human and who is a ghost, but it was not the time to reveal it yet. To prevent the ghosts from getting angry and forcing me into a dead end, this pretense had to go on.

“I won’t leave this place until we find Shen Meng. Xue Fei may be in more danger, but after observing the inside of the laboratory building, there seems to be no trace of Shen Meng. She must be somewhere else.” I crouched in front of the two of them and said, “Don’t suspect your teammates; don’t give up hope. If we fall apart, we probably won’t make it out alive.”

Encouraging the two of them, I prepared to move towards the next building with the camera in hand, “Hideki, what do your parents do? They are always not at home; are they really that busy?”

“I’m not sure, but I rarely meet with them anyway throughout the year,” he said.

“That must be a large corporation. What’s your father’s name? Maybe I’ve heard of him?” I asked.

“Wang Hai,” he replied.

“Oh, Mr. Wang,”

Hideki wasn’t in the mood for chatting, and I didn’t want to be a bother either, since I had already asked what I wanted to know.

Apart from the laboratory building, the girls’ dormitory was the closest building to the teaching building. After circling around, I realized that the dormitory didn’t have a main entrance, but two side doors on either side.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a building built with its back to the sun. How do people live here?” I remarked. The girls’ dormitory was already gloomy, and the building was sandwiched between the boys’ dormitory and the teaching building, making it difficult for sunlight to shine through.

“Are you sure you want to go in?” Hideki was cautious and careful after witnessing the murder of Xue Fei.

I rattled the chain on the side door of the dormitory, but it was just for show, and the wooden door was easily pulled open.

“If you want to go in, you go in. I’m not going in,” Hideki said, taking a few steps back. Only Sakurako stood by my side.

The dark hallway occasionally emitted strange noises, making it creepy just to look at from the outside.

“Don’t blame me for not warning you. Once you go in, you might not be as lucky as you were last time,” Hideki cautioned, clearly apprehensive about the place.

I hesitated, but lifted my camera and took a few steps into the door. The entrance was where the dormitory janitor lived. The room was unlocked, and in addition to the bed and wardrobe, there was a huge bulletin board leaning against the wall.

Several notices were posted on it, and perhaps because they were kept indoors, the text on these papers was very clear.

“The police have investigated and determined that the death of Shen Mengting in bed one of the dorm 4118 was a suicide,” the announcement read.

“The school has initiated psychological intervention measures. In order to accommodate female students on the same floor who are afraid to return to their own dormitory at night, the school has arranged for temporary residence in the No. 1 dormitory building for a period of time.”

This announcement was posted on a certain day in April five years ago. I rubbed my chin, thinking that the police had intervened in the student death at New Shanghai High School, but I had never heard about this case from my police academy instructors five years ago.

I should clarify that most of the instructors responsible for the police academy internship work were in-service criminal division police officers. They usually teach as instructors to provide students with practical combat experience and analyze case situations in the classroom.

For a few talented students, the instructors would even actively engage in in-depth discussions with them, using divergent thinking for multi-dimensional reasoning.

Five years ago, I had come into contact with many homicide cases, but I had never heard the four words “New Shanghai High School” from my instructors’ mouths.

“Could it really be suicide?” I thought of another possibility. This case was significant, and even the on-duty detectives dared not reveal any information to the outside world.

I tore down the notice and stuffed it into my pocket. Then, I found a large bunch of keys with dormitory numbers on them in the janitor’s drawer.

“The notice provides two pieces of information: the deceased’s name is Shen Mengting, and her dorm room is 4118.”

“Shen Mengting and Shen Meng only differ by one character. Is this implying something?” I shook the keys in my hand and walked out of the room.

Hideki and Sakurako were standing outside the door. I waved at them and said, “I need to go upstairs. If you don’t want to come, stay outside and don’t wander around.”

“Wait. I’ll go with you.” Hideki dodged Sakurako and ran into the dormitory building.

“Okay, Sakurako, be careful by yourself.”

The little girl stood alone outside the door, and before I went up the stairs, I turned back to look at her again, feeling uneasy.

She was staring directly at my back with her eyes, like she was looking at a dead person.

The dormitory building had floor tiles that were very clean, and there was no clutter on the stairs. Compared to the crumbling stairs of the teaching building, this place was much better.

I climbed up to the fourth floor in one breath, counting the door numbers, “4111, 4112… 4118, this is it.”

With my phone as a light source, I struggled to find the right key among a large bunch of keys.

In the dark and enclosed space, standing in front of the dead person’s door, fear was sprouting on this eerie campus.

Hideki was acting like a frightened monkey, looking around anxiously. He grabbed onto my clothes tightly and said, “Hey, hey, have you noticed if there’s something following us from behind?”

He stared blankly into the depths of the stairs, “I feel like something is coming up the stairs.”

“Damn it, don’t startle me like that,” I said, concentrating on finding the key. Hideki’s words made me swear.

My fingers were sweating, and I was feeling a bit panicked.

“I’m not lying to you!” He shrank his neck. At this moment, all the light was focused on the keychain in my hand. Darkness surrounded us from all sides.

“That thing seems to be getting closer. I feel like it’s already on the third floor,” Hideki’s words made my heart race. I, too, was starting to feel the same.

“Indeed, something is approaching,” a similar thought flashed through my mind. It wasn’t the sound of footsteps, and there was no sound at all, but there was a strange feeling that something was getting closer.

It was coming up from below, not fast or slow, like a large, lifeless shadow.

The darkness in the hallway had grown thicker, making it difficult to breathe.

“Have you found it yet? Hurry up! Maybe we should just run!”

“Stop making noise; I’m searching!” The figure’s movements quickened, but the more I rushed, the harder it became to find the key. “Damn it, why are there so many rooms in this building?”

Cold sweat dripped down my forehead as I realized the truth. Something was rapidly approaching from the darkness behind us at the stairwell.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” Hideki’s voice quavered as though several pale hands were reaching out to grab us from the shadows.

Finally, I found the key. I didn’t even have time to grab the camera before I rushed with Hideki and opened the door to dorm number 4118.

“Bang!” The door closed, and we leaned back against it, listening to the silence outside.

There was no sound, as if the eerie feeling we had just experienced was only in our heads.

“That’s impossible.” The camera outside the door was functioning normally. I took out the underworld show cell phone and saw that it was broadcasting the scene from the hallway at this moment.

In the deep darkness, we could vaguely see a blood-red dress swaying outside the door!