Jin Sheng was the key person at Yi Ming Private Academy, all the ghost stories were related to him in some ways. For example, he was the one who foretold the deaths in real life and embellished them as ghost tales to warn the victims. Even though the tragedies were ultimately not avoided, at least the boy had tried. Han Fei went down the corridor and opened the door of every single room he passed. The monster who resembled Ma Manjiang might return at any moment, hesitation would be no different from wasting away his own life.
Since he had no key, Han Fei relied on brute force. He knocked down the doors. Courtesy was no longer that important when a person’s life was on the line. Han Fei eventually reached the last room. This lab had a huge lectern. There was a cupboard slid underneath the lectern. It looked like it was used to store lab equipment. “Jing Sheng?” Han Fei called out softly but there was no response from inside the cupboard. Han Fei reached over to open the cupboard and once he did, balls of rolled up papers tumbled out. Han Fei bent over to look into the cupboard. Jing Sheng was not there, there was only a pile of waste paper.
‘I’ve checked all the rooms on the 4th floor, where could he be?’ Picking up some random balls of paper, Han Fei spread them open to take a look but once he did, he could not move his eyes away. Strings of sentences were written on the back of these papers. When arranged properly, they made up one after another ghost stories.
“I see the school guard patrolling at night, he is the only night time guard. I reminded him to stay away from the canteen and hostel but he refused to heed my advice. Now his physical condition is getting worse as more ghosts climb onto his body.
“I see the three children trailing behind Ma Bo. They are his dead elder brothers. The doctor said he suffers from schizophrenia but I know that he is not crazy, he is wiser and more cunning than most of us.
“I see the wild hound outside the school trying to grasp the attention of the spring blossom. Unfortunately, spring will eventually pass and the hated wild dog might not survive the harsh winter.
“I see a ghost roaming the girl hostel. He will only appear after the hostel manager is gone. Like the snake, he is there to trick Eves to take a taste of the forbidden fruit.
“I see Teacher Ma walking around with two faces, one looking like a human, the other like a ghost.”
There were many similar stories. All of them started with ‘I see’, written in the first person view. ‘These are probably left behind by Jing Sheng. All of his ghost stories have been brought to life at this school. Or rather, the tragedies that occurred in real life have been recorded by Jing Sheng as ghost stories.’ Reading through the stories, most would assume these were a child’s harmless nightmare. But for Han Fei who knew the horrible truth about Yi Ming Private Academy, Jing Sheng’s ghost stories were already the family-friendly version of what really happened.
Jing Sheng used a child’s perspective to describe everything, all the gore and cruelty were given a disguise of a horror tale. Han Fei unfolded all of the paper balls and used his impressive memory to memorize down all the stories. He wished to find a solution among them. When he reached his upper body into the cupboard to haul out the deeper pile of paper, the system suddenly announced in his mind, “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve found a Broken Grade G Cursed Object—Jing Sheng’s Exercise Book.”
Han Fei turned to the tip of his fingers and realized there was an exercise buried underneath the mountain of paper. The book was heavily torn and only a few pages were left. ‘Jing Sheng hid inside the cupboard and wrote down the ghost stories in this particular book? Since he has torn out most of the pages, why didn’t he go all the through? What’s so important that they are left on the last few pages?’
Han Fei’s curiosity easily trumped everything. He opened the book and what he saw made his stomach turn. The last few pages contained a message of self-reflection.
“Dear Teacher Ma, I wrote this self-reflection with deep regret and shame. I should not have come up with those stories and definitely should not have lied. This is a deep lesson that I have learned. I will not tell ghost stories to scare the other students again. I will not claim that the stories are real to gain attention. I hope that all the teachers and students will forgive me. I also pray that no one will make the same mistake I did. I was wrong. I am sorry, I apologize to everyone again.”
All the ghost stories were torn away and rolled into balls. Only this self-reflection remained.
‘The person he apologized to was really Teacher Ma. Looks like the man noticed that Jin Sheng has found out about his secret, but instead of using corporeal punishment, he uses his power of authority to torture and humiliate Jin Sheng.’ What Ma Manjiang did to Jin Sheng reminded Han Fei of what the Butterfly did to the kind homeless drifter. ‘Just what is the connection between the Butterfly and Ma Manjiang?’
Jin Sheng was not inside the cupboard and Han Fei had no idea where he went. His only clue was the exercise book. Han Fei flipped through the pages of enforced apology and his heart burned. Just as he thought there was nothing worth reading from the book, he found something else at the very last page. It was written at the corner of the last page and the handwriting was even and firm. The writer must have put a lot of thought before he decided to write this down.
“It is dark all around me, I can’t see anything. There is no light here, but there are the occasional pills which dropped around me. I could see myself falling asleep but soon all those people appeared inside the cupboard.
“They demanded an explanation from me. Since I could see them, why didn’t I reach out for them? I didn’t know what to answer. Were my stories real? I don’t even know anymore.”
After reading the last sentence, Han Fei’s emotion was complicated. ‘In the end, Jin Sheng himself became one of the school’s ghost stories.’ He sighed but the search for the boy had to continue. From what he wrote, Han Fei picked up a keyword—cupboard.
‘According to Jin Sheng, he was inside a dark space and the characters in his stories appeared around him. That means that he is probably still hiding inside some kind of cupboard. There is no light but there are pills? Could he be at the infirmary?’ Han Fei now had an irrational fear of opening cupboards, he was afraid that he’d open one and find a dead body inside.
“Ol’ Lee, where is the school’s infirmary?”
“It’s on the 2nd floor at the office building.” Ol’ Lee took in the pile of rubbish. “Is this one of that student’s pranks?”
“We’ll go to check out the infirmary first.” Han Fei flattened the papers and stuffed them inside Jing Sheng’s exercise book for that would be easier to carry than lugging around balls of paper. But to his surprise, the system added, “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve repaired the Grade G Cursed Object—Jing Sheng’s Exercise Book.”
Jing Sheng’s Exercise Book was the gentlest and kindest cursed object Han Fei had ever encountered. It radiated no malice or resentment. But one’s heart would brim with inexplicable sadness when holding it.
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