The eight classes corresponded to eight buildings. The students would become food and sacrifice for the altars. Their lives would trade for safety. This was something many adults knew. The doors and windows were closed. The children moved down the streets, and the adults peeked behind the windows. No one moved forward to help the kids.
The team slowly moved out of the safe zone. The teachers led their classes. They would send their students to different buildings. Many kids left school for the first time. They didn’t dare to speak. They looked around nervously. They wanted to use the skills they had learned to kill ghosts!
The innocence of children contrasted with the cruelty of adults.
“Sir, we’ll follow Class Three.” The monitor whispered to Han Fei. “We’re not the only ones fighting with the headmaster tonight.”
Yan Lan’s class was the first to leave. She was followed by Zhang Menglan’s class. The city was like a beast, and the students soon disappeared. After all the classes left, Class Seven didn’t follow the path to their designated building but followed behind Class Three led by the headmaster.
“There are the headmaster’s supporters at the bases, and he has friends at the Black Buildings. We need to strike during the exam.” Night wiped away all the disguises. All the kids of Class Seven were trained ghosts. In the dark, all 30 students changed. Under the innocent faces were monsters. Half an hour later, a song echoed in the merchant’s street. The red light at the junction lit up. Class Three stopped at the entrance to the merchant’s street. This business center of Xin Lu’s old city was now deserted. Even the mannequins were clawed and destroyed.
“Come out. Why have you followed me for so long?” The headmaster turned to the source of the song. In the dark, there was a bride in a red wedding dress. She hugged her lover’s head and her expression was mad. “Zhang Menglan, you’re stupider than I thought.” The headmaster shook his head. “I’ve given you a chance.” The response was the song. Zhang Menglan’s song was a melancholic blue. Her voice could affect people’s hearts.
“Love is blind. You’ll kill your students and harm the survivors.” The headmaster had all the students enter the shops. He didn’t do this to protect the students, but he needed to ensure the safety of the merchandise.
“Fake and disgusting. You always say you’re doing this for the survivors, but you don’t allow us to interact with other bases. You do not care about the students. You treat them as animals!” Zhang Menglan hugged the head. Her voice attracted the ghosts hidden in the merchant’s street. Compelled by the sad song, the ghosts charged at the headmaster. The woman was the bride, sad and beautiful.
“You are the weakest of the staff. I kept you around because you are close to Yan Lan.” The headmaster’s voice changed. The scar wiggled on his face like a worm. The presence of ghosts oozed out of his body. The ghosts that came close to him were pressed to the ground and forced to kneel. The headmaster removed his top hat. He ignored the ghosts and even Zhang Menglan. He turned to the junction. The red light filtered. A school guard was strung at the junction.
“Yan Lan, you’re my best teacher. Why even you stop me?” The headmaster’s body started to enlarge. He looked serious. “If the exam fails, everyone at the school will die too. How many times do I have to repeat this simple concept?”
Metals clashed against the ground. Yan Lan leaped down from the second floor. She stood between the headmaster and Zhang Menglan. No one could ignore Yan Lan. Ghosts actively avoided her.
“Let Zhang Menglan go. I’ll send her students to the red building.” Yan Lan’s spine extended with spikes. “Let her go? Yan Lan. You seem to have forgotten something. I’m the headmaster. All of you can only obey me!” The headmaster’s scarred face started to mutate. The howl of a Lingering Spirit emitted from his body. His right arm grew, and the wounds became mouths.
With the aid of the black building’s Pure Hatred, the headmaster joined with the ghost. Even though he didn’t have the black flame of hatred, he was more powerful than a Large Lingering Spirit. He was a real monster!
“I haven’t shown my other side in a long time. Do you really think you can defeat me?” The Lingering Spirit, sealed in his right arm, attacked Yan Lan. The headmaster didn’t hold back. Yan Lan didn’t retreat but took a step forward. Blood exploded in her eyes. The metal pierced into her flesh, and she gathered strength!
None of the negative emotions could affect her. Even the giant ghost couldn’t stop her! She was always fearless!
Yan Lan gained speed and swung at the headmaster!
The glasses of the shops shattered. The ground cracked. The headmaster’s giant right arm slowly fell, and the face of the Large Lingering Spirit was crushed!
The dust faded away, and Yan Lan stood among the broken glass. The ghastly blood and metal pattern weaved on Yan Lan’s body. Her right fist was broken, and a lot of curses crawled into her body. A normal person would have collapsed already, but Yan Lan didn’t even frown. She raised her arms again. “The fearless persona is strong but can you really be fearless? Are you really not afraid of anything? Do you have the determination to embrace death?” The headmaster’s right arm slowly recovered. After the Large Lingering Spirit was destroyed, a scarier presence appeared. The headmaster’s body mutated even more. The black robe was torn apart. The wounds on his body showed how he had tried to unite with ghosts. He had been pushing himself. Finally, with the help of the Pure Hatred, the headmaster gained the presence of a Pure Hatred.
“The headmaster has the tolerant persona. At first, he was elected as the headmaster because he was respected. But as he combined with more ghosts, he was consumed by them. Now, he’s a half ghost and half human. His heart is with the ghosts.” No. 2 nudged Han Fei. “Sir, you need to lure the headmaster over. We still have use for Teacher Yan Lan.”
“Lure him over?” Han Fei walked from the other side of the street. “it looks like I’m still needed after all.” The greed mist leaked out. Sickness Core, Envy, Wuchang appeared. Negative emotions branded the headmaster.
“Gao Cheng?”
The headmaster’s eyelids twitched. His giant body moved to look down the street. “I knew the school wasn’t normal recently. There’s a power growing underneath my eyes. So it’s you! You pretended to be sick. But you were after me!”
“I’m doing this for the students.” This made the headmaster laugh.
“You’re fighting me for the kids? Gao Cheng, your ability comes from greed and ambition, but overwhelming greed will consume you from inside.” The headmaster wasn’t worried. He had confidence in dealing with both Han Fei and Yan Lan.
“I’m too lazy to argue with a dead person.” Han Fei pointed at the headmaster. The black mist opened behind Han Fei, and a giant axe slammed to the ground. “Kill him!”
The executioner appeared and charged at the headmaster.
“It looks like you’ve found many good things at the Strange Buildings. You managed to trick even the school’s machine. After I kill all your ghosts and turn you into a puppet, I’ll force you to spit out all of your secrets.” The headmaster turned away from Yan Lan to focus on Han Fei. “Thank you for the gift.”
The giant hand grabbed the giant axe. The axe cut into the headmaster’s palm, but something strange happened. Pure Hatred’s thread came out of the headmaster’s arm. They were like tentacles and crawled towards the Executioner. The headmaster had a tolerant persona. This was a good thing, but after being corrupted, it became something else. The headmaster had many ghosts inside his body, and they couldn’t be killed. To kill the headmaster, one had to destroy his persona. The Pure Hatred’s tentacle possessed the headmaster. The tentacles were how the headmaster managed to keep joining with the other ghosts.
“No wonder he’s confident to deal with three teachers at once. Half of his body has mutated to become a Pure Hatred.”
The executioner was formed from a collection of death. It was not easy for the headmaster to assimilate it. But, he only needed to delay it. The mental corruption would crush Han Fei. The negative emotions rose. Then, Han Fei did something unexpected. He turned and ran. He abandoned the Large Lingering Spirit just like that. Even the Executioner was shocked.
“What did you get at the Strange Building? You didn’t fear death so much in the past. Is that thing more important than this Large Lingering Spirit?” The headmaster had to kill one of the teachers first. Zhang Menglan posed no threat. Yan Lan would take too long to defeat. His best choice was Han Fei. To the headmaster, Gao Cheng was cunning and vicious. He had a very strange power too. As the headmaster tried to assimilate the Executioner, he charged at Han Fei. The shops collapsed. The ghosts at the merchant’s street scattered. Han Fei ran to where his students were hiding. Seeing this, Yan Lan frowned. The disgust in her eyes was clear.
She originally wanted to drag Zhang Menglan away, but when she saw this, she also chased after Han Fei. She couldn’t care less about Gao Cheng, but she wouldn’t let the kids be killed. The headmaster also didn’t expect Han Fei to be so ruthless. He held the sacrifice as hostages. The headmaster’s expression darkened. The trade had to continue, especially after he had used the Pure Hatred’s power. The tentacles avoided the rooms where the students were hiding, and the headmaster crashed into the adjacent building.
The headmaster saw Han Fei standing behind his students shamelessly, and Han Fei had a smile.
“This is not what you wanted to become. Let me find your missing self.” A child spoke beside him. The headmaster didn’t notice this before. When he did, the child had already raised his arms. “Fearless? You also have a fearless persona?”
“Yes. But my fearless persona is different.” No. 1’s brain emitted the persona of different children. He ignored all the negative emotions and looked into the headmaster’s brain to see his mutated persona. The headmaster was so much bigger than No. 1. Han Fei held Rest in Peace worriedly, but No. 2 told him not to interfere.
“What you need to do now is to trust him.”
“Trust?”
“Before we were trapped at the underground orphanage, the tester said that they would release all the children if we survived 99 tests. However, no one could do that. The simulation said that the possibility of that is 1/10000.”
“And?”
“In three years, No. 1 replaced all the sick kids and survived 99 tests. He created a miracle.” No. 2 looked at No. 1 “he’s always after freedom, and he never knows when to give up. He always stands at the forefront. He’s the oldest among us, and he’s No. 1.”
