"What are you looking at?"
Huang Junkun felt Pan Linkai's gaze crawl over him like a cold draft. He stiffened, turned around, and scanned the area behind him.
Aside from a few rats scurrying near the flowerbed, there was nothing.
"Damn it! Are you out of your mind trying to scare me at this hour?" Huang Junkun snarled, clearly unnerved.
"I'm just reminding you to watch your words and show some respect," Pan Linkai replied uneasily, glancing around. "I keep feeling like... something's watching us."
"You're full of—" Huang Junkun started, but Wang Feng stepped in.
"Alright, enough. We're all classmates here. What's the point of fighting in a place like this? Show some respect for the dead."
"And who made you the boss? We've graduated, you know!" Huang Junkun sneered before continuing, "Am I wrong? If Haitao really couldn't take it, then fine, but he had parents! Couldn't he think about them before jumping off a building?"
"He didn't jump by himself—he ran into something supernatural!" Pan Linkai blurted out in frustration.
Everyone froze.
A dozen eyes turned to Pan Linkai, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief.
Lu Fei seized the moment. "What do you mean by that? Does it have something to do with the ghost dorm?"
Pan Linkai's face darkened, his lips parting as if to speak, but no words came out.
"Ha! I bet he's just making it up," Huang Junkun scoffed. "Let's go, Yiyi. There's no point staying here with this bunch of idiots."
"If you want to leave, go by yourself," Xia Yiyi snapped, dodging his outstretched hand and moving closer to Lu Fei. "Pan Linkai, what really happened?"
Pan glanced nervously around, clearly still on edge.
"There's a food stall across the street," Lu Fei suggested, pointing to the bustling eatery. "Plenty of people and plenty of light. Why don't we sit down there and talk?"
After a brief hesitation, Pan Linkai nodded.
The group crossed the street and sat at a table under the stall's bright lights. Even Huang Junkun tagged along, albeit with a sour expression.
After a few sips of tea, Pan Linkai finally spoke.
"Haitao... he had a girlfriend, right? You guys know that, right?"
"Yeah, Lingling, right?"
"No, not Lingling. They broke up ages ago. This was someone else. And... he met her in the ghost dorm."
"In the ghost dorm?" Xia Yiyi's eyes widened. "What kind of girl would go to a place like that?"
"Exactly. We didn't believe him at first. We thought he was just making it up to save face after the breakup with Lingling," Pan said, his voice heavy with regret.
"Why did you even go to the ghost dorm?" Xia Yiyi asked. "I heard there were four of you that night."
"We just wanted a thrill. We didn't really believe the ghost stories," Pan admitted, his face clouded with guilt. "Sure, the ghost dorm had a spooky reputation, but none of us really thought there'd be actual ghosts. We thought the stories were just rumors."
"So, one night, after the lights-out curfew, we snuck into the dorm."
"Honestly, it was scary at first. But after we walked around and didn't see anything creepy, we started to relax."
"Someone suggested we play a ghost-summoning game to make things more exciting. We played the Four Corners Game."
Hearing this, Lu Fei couldn't help shaking his head.
Playing a ghost-summoning game in a supposedly haunted building was asking for trouble.
"In the game, four people stand in the room's corners. All the lights are turned off—it has to be pitch black."
"Then, each person moves to the next corner, tapping the shoulder of the person in front of them."
"The legend says that by the end of the game, a fifth person will appear."
"But when we played, nothing happened. We finished two rounds, got bored, and left."
The group exchanged confused glances.
"So nothing happened. Then why did you say Haitao met his girlfriend there?"
"Because after we left the dorm, Haitao realized he'd lost his phone somewhere inside," Pan continued. "None of us wanted to go back in, so he went back alone to find it."
"He came out about ten minutes later, phone in hand, and we all returned to the dorm without incident. We even laughed about it and went to bed."
"For the next few days, everything seemed normal. But then I noticed Haitao was acting strange—always glued to his phone, grinning like an idiot. During the day, he seemed distracted and out of it."
"When I asked him what was going on, he said he'd started dating someone. He said he met her in the ghost dorm and that she was even prettier than Lingling. I didn't believe him at first—until he showed me a photo."
"And then?"
Pan took a sip of tea, his face pale as he continued, "He showed me a photo, but all I saw was the ghost dorm. There wasn't anyone in the picture."
"What?!"
"I asked him where she was, and he pointed to the photo, saying she was right there. He said he took the photo himself. At first, I thought he was joking. But he was so serious, so convinced, it gave me the creeps."
"I showed the picture to Xiao Ming and Da Liang, and they couldn't see anyone in it either. Just the dorm."
"It was like... his so-called girlfriend only existed to him. But he kept smiling at the picture like it was the most beautiful thing in the world."
The chill in the air seemed to intensify. Xia Yiyi instinctively leaned closer to Lu Fei.
"Why didn't you warn him?"
"We tried," Pan admitted, glancing at Lu Fei. "But like Lu Fei said, once someone's been bewitched, their mind isn't their own. He thought we were just jealous."
"What could we do? A few weeks later, we graduated. Xiao Ming and Da Liang went back to their hometowns, and I got busy job-hunting. I forgot about the whole thing until I heard about his death yesterday."
Pan lowered his head, his voice tinged with guilt.
"Maybe you guys think this is all my fault. If I hadn't suggested going to the dorm, or if I'd been more insistent, maybe Haitao would still be alive."
"Why did it have to be him? We all went to the dorm—why was he the unlucky one?"
No one knew how to respond.
The atmosphere grew heavy with silence.
"You can't blame yourself entirely," Lu Fei said, breaking the quiet. "Haitao made his own choices. It's not your fault he was targeted. The fact that you're still here means you were lucky."
Lu Fei patted Pan's shoulder reassuringly.
But in his heart, Lu Fei understood why Pan Linkai had been so afraid when he saw Guo Haitao's phone.