The customer who came for a night visit tonight turned out to be Guo Haitao!
Lu Fei could never have imagined it.
Could it be that the thought spirit that had attached itself to the phone back then was not Haitao?
When carefully considering it, the thought spirit had always been causing mischief while attached to the phone and had never truly appeared.
Thought spirits are born from longing and fixation. As long as there is a malevolent aura on the deceased's belongings, a thought spirit can emerge, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the deceased themselves.
At this moment, the air in the pawnshop was unusually cold.
Dark red blood flowed from Guo Haitao's mangled body, dripping and pooling into a blossom of blood on the ground.
Lu Fei steadied his mind, trying to calm himself down.
"Haitao?"
The broken soul nodded slightly, its misaligned mouth opened, and a vague, indistinct sound came from its throat.
"Lu... Fei..."
"Haitao, are you here to pawn something?" A thousand words condensed into this one sentence. Lu Fei knew that if the other person could come to the pawnshop, it meant he had died with unresolved grievances.
The soul nodded again.
"What do you want to pawn?" Lu Fei took out a pawn ticket and pen, then sat down behind the counter.
A small puppy wriggled out of Lu Fei's arms, its furry little head curiously looking around, showing no fear of the terrifying soul before it.
A bloodstained jewelry box was placed on the counter.
Lu Fei opened it, and inside was a small, bloodstained diamond ring.
"How do you want to pawn it?"
"Re...venge..."
The hoarse voice croaked with hatred and bitterness.
He was indeed not a suicide!
Lu Fei's heart pounded as he stared intently at his mutilated face.
"Who killed you?"
"The school, old dormitory...she, she...long hair, long hair..."
With great difficulty, he spat out a few words, and the trembling hand of the specter left a bloody fingerprint on the pawn ticket.
Then, as if enduring immense pain, the distorted and shattered body suddenly trembled and disintegrated in an instant.
"Haitao!"
Lu Fei was greatly shocked, but in the blink of an eye, the ghost was gone, leaving only the bloody fingerprint on the pawn ticket.
He looked at the fingerprint, slowly clenching his hand.
"The school, the old dormitory, long hair... What exactly is in the haunted building?"
Taking a deep breath, he took out a tissue and wiped the blood off the jewelry box.
It was just an ordinary diamond ring, with the slogan of 'forever and always' written on the box.
"An engagement ring?" Lu Fei pondered while holding the small puppy. "Pan Linkai said that after they went to the haunted building, Haitao mysteriously acquired a girlfriend."
No one could see the photo of that girlfriend, except for Haitao himself.
Pan Linkai said that the so-called girlfriend was actually a female ghost in the old campus.
Perhaps, on the night Guo Haitao fell from the building, he was at the haunted house proposing to his so-called girlfriend.
"No matter what, I have to go to the haunted house!"
Lu Fei's eyes turned cold as he put away the ring.
He didn't sleep well that night, with many thoughts in his mind.
The cheerful and joyful face of Haitao during their university days, and the shattered and miserable look of tonight, kept alternating in his mind.
Early the next morning, he began to search for clues related to the haunted house.
However, there were too many exaggerated claims online, making it hard to distinguish truth from falsehood.
Some said it was a hanging ghost in the old dormitory building looking for a replacement, while others claimed there was more than one ghost, and that an entire class had once disappeared in the haunted house.
There were even conspiracy theories suggesting that something big was buried under the school, and every year, the school was using human lives to fill it.
It was all speculation, with no real insider information. Moreover, the information was scarce, as if it had been deliberately suppressed.
"Take advantage of the daylight and go to the haunted house to get a feel for the situation. It's best to find out what exactly happened there in the past."
Lu Fei put down his phone and stood up.
If there really are malevolent spirits in the haunted house, they must proceed with caution.
"Little one, you stay here and take good care of the house; we're going out for a while."
Lu Fei left enough food and water for the puppy, and asked Hu Zi to pack their things. However, after taking a few steps, he turned back.
Sure enough, the little thing was scarfing down its food nonstop, its belly already round and full after just a few minutes. It could devour a whole day's worth of food in one sitting!
"Little one, you really don't fear death, do you?"
Lu Fei put away the remaining dog food, and the little thing kept whining incessantly.
"Alright, stop whining. I'll bring you some treats when we get back."
Lu Fei tossed the puppy's toys onto the ground in the yard, letting it play by itself, and then locked the door and left.
Jiangcheng University.
It was summer vacation, and the school should have been very quiet.
But today, there were people constantly coming and going at the school gate, with ambulances and police cars arriving one after another.
A large crowd of onlookers had gathered, completely blocking the entrance.
"What's happening? Why is it so crowded?" Hu Zi, relying on his tall and strong build, pushed through the crowd to make a path for Lu Fei.
"Someone else died!"
"How long has it been? Another person jumped from the haunted building. That building isn't clean; I don't know why they haven't demolished it yet."
"I heard a group of students went inside late at night to play a game."
"Going to the haunted building to play in the middle of the night? These kids really have too much free time and are looking for thrills. Now, look what happened, their lives are over!"
Lu Fei felt a chill in his heart: "Another person fell from the old dormitory? Usually, only one person dies each year, why is there another death this year?"
However, the school has already been sealed off by the police, and one must have identification to enter or leave, let alone the old dormitory area.
Lu Fei, as a graduate, has no connection with the school once he collects his diploma, so he definitely cannot get in.
"Suddenly someone dies at this critical moment, what exactly happened?"
Lu Fei returned to the pawnshop but continued to closely follow the developments of this matter.
However, the police have released very little information, and the school has refused any media interviews.
This made Lu Fei very anxious.
Without being able to enter the school, he would be unable to uncover the truth behind Haitao's death, let alone seek revenge.
By the next day, there was still no new information on the matter.
But just as Lu Fei was feeling anxious, he received an unexpected phone call.
It turned out to be from Su Liguo.
"Mr. Su?"
"Manager Lu, my daughter seems to have encountered something unclean, and she's now disoriented. Please help her." Su Liguo's tone was very anxious.
"What?" Lu Fei was a bit startled.
"The day before yesterday, my daughter and a few of her classmates went to Jiangcheng University to play a game..."
"She went to the university?" Lu Fei was surprised.
"Yes... She said she was going out with her classmates, I didn't know she would go to such a place..." Su Liguo took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.
"Manager Lu, I've already sent a car to pick you up. If you're free now, please make the trip!"
"No problem."
Lu Fei never expected that one of the people who had gone to the haunted building at the university would be Su Liguo's daughter. He was just worrying about where to find clues, and here comes a firsthand witness.
When the car arrived, he called Hu Zi and rushed over to the Su residence immediately.
"Manager Lu!"
Su Liguo was at the door to welcome them, and as soon as they arrived, he led Lu Fei upstairs immediately.
"Manager Lu, Little Xue has been running a fever ever since she came back yesterday. She's been incoherent the whole time and keeps muttering about long hair, long hair..."