Thankfully, I had the excuse to miss most of physics class. By the time Song Mu Chen and I reached the classroom, the lesson was almost over. Teacher Wu Li, who taught the class, didn't seem pleased. Fortunately, Jiao Shi had already informed her beforehand, so she didn't say anything and instead waved for us to hurry up and return to our seats.
The rest of the day passed by quickly. Before I knew it, school had ended and we could all go home.
Unfortunately, I couldn't go home just yet. I had a mission, assigned to me by none other than Shu Bai Chun himself, and I couldn't relax until I at least knew what I was getting myself into.
Adjusting my glasses, which had almost slipped off without me noticing while I stared intently at my textbook, I then packed everything up and rose from my desk. Stifling a yawn, I glanced at the mid-afternoon sky. There was still quite some time before sunset, but I couldn't let my guard down.
"We better get back because it would be dark soon, and they mostly come at night. Mostly."
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Tong Xue turned around to stare at me. When I shook my head, he decided to pretend he didn't hear anything and move to the main topic. "Now that school's over, what do you say we hit the net café and play a few rounds of Starcraft?"
Usually, I would be game. But today wasn't the same. My friend might think I was lame. But he couldn't lay the blame.
So I shook my head and told him to go ahead. I stayed back to read and didn't take his lead.
Damn it. My goal during this redo was to make friends, but ironically, my main mission was counterproductive to my goal when it prevented me from socializing after school. I tried not to show my dismay.
Tong Xue raised an eyebrow but didn't press me for details. I flipped through the pages of my book grumpily as I watched him leave.
"Are you going for club activities, Ming Cong?" Yun Shan asked as she came over. She had risen from her desk to check on Lian Hua, as always. The latter was going to the art club, and she had packed all of her drawing materials, including her sketchbook.
"I'm not in any club…yet. Too bad my time is…set."
I should consider joining one. While some might argue that this was a great chance to redo my school life and made it more fulfilling by making more friends, I also had one eye on my mission. I needed a legitimate reason to stay back after school so that I could watch Shu Hong Qiu from the shadows, otherwise I would seem like a stalker.
Scratch that. I would be an actual stalker. I still remembered being ostracized because of my creepy behavior last time. Never again. I wasn't going to repeat that mistake this time. I wanted to be popular, not left out.
Having learned my lesson from my blunder with Shen Ai Qing, I decided to approach Shu Hong Qiu differently. Funnily enough, I wasn't romantically interested in Shu Hong Qiu, but I still had to protect her as best as I could, otherwise her grandfather would come for me during the seventh month. And also, quite frankly, because it was the right thing to do.
I never considered myself particularly heroic, but when a schoolmate was in danger – a super beautiful campus flower at that – there was no reason for me to stand to the side and simply watch.
"Be careful," Yun Shan said to Lian Hua, placing a hand on the smaller girl's shoulder. "Don't stay in school until too late. Make sure you go home early."
"Sure." Lian Hua smiled, but I could tell that she wasn't receptive to the athletic girl's advice. She squeezed Yun Shan's hand. "You be careful too. Don't overexert yourself and get an injury during basketball training. I know the tournament is coming, but the team needs you."
"I'll do my best." Yun Shan grinned and flashed a thumb's up. "I need to show off my cool side to you, Lian Hua!"
"I'll definitely cheer for you."
"Me too," I added. Yun Shan chuckled.
"You better be there, bro, or I'll dunk your head through the basket."
She was totally a basket case.
As Lian Hua rose from her desk, Yun Shan leaned over to whisper into my ear. "Ming Cong, can you keep an eye on Lian Hua for me? Just…make sure nothing bad happens to her."
"Huh? Why me?"
"You're in one of those art type clubs, right?"
"No, I just told you, I'm not in any club right now." Though, now that I thought about it, I really should experience club activities. In the past, I had been so obsessed with my own conception of romance that I wasted my school afternoons stalking and doing things that crept out my female classmates. I was determined to do better this time around.
"Oh." Yun Shan looked sheepish. She gave me a glance from head to toe. "It's just that you look so, uh…intellectual, I always thought you were in the art club or literary club or library club."
In other words, she was calling me a nerd.
"Nah, I can't draw." I glanced in Lian Hua's direction. Her drawing skills made me feel ashamed of my own. "And if I want to read, I can do that at home. I don't need to join a club for that."
"Ugh…" Yun Shan sighed and watched Lian Hua leave the classroom. "I just hope she doesn't do anything reckless. She tends to stay back late after evening to finish a drawing. With what happened to Han Zhi Hui…"
"She'll be fine." I stood up and placed a hand on my chin thoughtfully. "I guess I'll look around the school and perform a screen. Where did they say Han Zhi Hui was last seen?"
"You should be careful too." Yun Shan frowned. "Don't do anything dangerous."
"Don't worry, I'm a guy."
"Hey, I might be a girl, but I can kick your ass."
"Yeah, I know." I held my hands up in mock surrender. "That's not what I meant. I mean, whoever is responsible seems to be targeting girls, so they won't have any interest in me. I may not be manly, but I'm as creepy as can be."
"What do you mean?" Yun Shan was suddenly guarded. "How do you know they're only targeting girls and not guys?"
"Hmm? Because a girl disappeared? When I heard about it, I teared."
"Only one so far. But you're making this sound like a serial abduction." Yun Shan was staring at me intently. "Do you know something we don't?"
"No, I don't." I realized I had conflated the missing girl with a ghost targeting Shu Hong Qiu. They might be totally unrelated cases. "Just rumors."
"Where did you hear the rumors from?"
"Uh, online?"
When in doubt, blame the Internet. I found it to be the most convenient scapegoat for everything. Thankfully, Yun Shan bought my claim. She shook her head in disapproval.
"You really shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet."
"Yeah, I won't, but I just thought the possibility's not zero." I smirked. "If I solve the case and find the culprit, I'll be a hero."
"Be careful you don't get yourself killed first." Yun Shan grabbed her jersey at her desk before she turned to leave. I watched her, not quite sure what to make of her ominous warning.
Departing the classroom, I scanned the corridor. Nothing looked out of place. A few students had lingered after school, chatting cheerfully. I then headed toward the building where all the clubrooms were.
From the news online, it appeared that Han Zhi Hui was last seen in her clubroom. She was in the occult club, which was supposed to conduct research on supernatural events – particularly those that occurred in school. If I wasn't mistaken, every school tended to have their seven mysteries or something, but that was a tradition in another country.
In Cheng Shi City, though, it didn't seem like Chong Hua High shared that myth. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth checking out. As I said, I thought it was worth a shot. At worst, when danger ensued, I would just shout.
Approaching the occult club's room, I knocked on the door. There was no reply, so I took the liberty of opening the door and entering. In the worst-case scenario, I could claim that I wanted to join the club.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone in the clubroom. I looked around in dismay, almost falling over in shock when I found myself face to face with a shriveled head. As I regained my composure, I saw that the room was littered with all sort of occult merchandise, including a voodoo straw doll and nails, a Noh Hanya mask, weird grimoires, glowing crystal balls and talismans with undecipherable runes.
Nobody was around to maintain them, and the whole room was a mess. What happened to the other members? Did they all skip club or avoid the room because one of them went missing a couple of nights ago?
I checked around for a few clues, even picking up an old camera and looking it over, but found nothing useful. Mischievously, I looked through the viewfinder of the camera, half-expecting to see a ghost in the room with me.
In true anticlimactic fashion, I saw nothing. Then again, what did I expect? I had literally been to hell and back. I wasn't going to be afraid of a ghost.
Putting the camera back and wondering if I could use it to combat ghosts with its fatal frame, I turned toward the books. Ignoring the obviously fake grimoires, I began leafing through the old-looking journals and diaries. Perhaps Han Zhi Hui or one of the occult club members had recorded their activities in it, which might provide some sort of clue…
…nope. Nothing. Instead, they were fictional journals, mostly simulating characters who found themselves embroiled in a supernatural event or something. A few had Lovecraftian tendencies, where the "author" went from sane to stark raving insane by the end.
"Seriously? What the hell?"
Tossing the books back to the shelf and clamping down on my frustration, I rose from the floor – there were no chairs because the space had been taken up by occult goods. Nothing good could come out of such products, though.
Stumbling over a Ouija board and a Kokkuri set, I caught sight of another grimoire. This time, I didn't outright dismiss it because of its title.
"How to summon a demon, really? Did they not realize their huge folly?"
Was this what was popular among teenagers these days? Even I wasn't stupid enough to play around with something like this.
Then I stopped.
Normally, I would have disregarded the book altogether, just like I did with the other grimoires. But this certain tome grabbed my attention. Why?
Because I noticed the bloodstains on it.
I couldn't believe I almost missed that.
Picking up the book gingerly, I studied it. A chill ran down my spine, but I shook it off and flipped it open. Glancing through the first few lines, which made no sense to me whatsoever, I suddenly glanced up when I thought I saw something darting in the shadows.
Just my imagination.
Damn, staying in this creepy room was making me feel jumpy. I swallowed and returned to poring over the grimoire, but most of it were just chuunibyou styled diagrams and indecipherable text. A lot of scribblings at the side too.
Oh, you had to love how teenage minds worked.
Shutting the book in disgust, I dropped it back on the floor. Though I wasn't able to glean anything concrete, I could already build a picture in my mind. Han Zhi Hui and her friends tried to summon a demon using this book, and it involved blood or whatever, which explained the bloodstains. It might have something to do with her disappearance, though I doubted they actually summoned a real demon.
I had met real demons before, and I knew none of them conformed to the weird illustrations that peppered the book.
Shaking my head, I snorted. This was a case example of How not to summon a demon lord.
Checking my smartphone for the time, I realized that I had stayed in the clubroom for too long. It was almost evening, and I honestly had better things to be spending my time on. Leaving the occult club behind, I hastened toward the student council room. Praying that it was empty and that Shu Hong Qiu had already gone home, I peeked inside.
No one was present.
Turning away, I was about to head home when I noticed that the lights in the art club were still on. Lian Hua was probably still inside, and I recalled Yun Shan asking me to look out for her. Sighing, I kept my eyes on the light emanating through the clubroom window.
I wouldn't imagine I'd miss that.
However, despite my vigilance, I almost missed the scream that came from the opposite end of the corridor.