Li Yao’s voice fluttered like a moth at a lamp. “Th-then… what do we do?”

Her face wavered like ripples under moonlight. She kept cutting little glances at Zhong Qiangwei, a quiet Morse of eyes. But Xiaoxiao Ji’s focus was a hook sunk into Zhao Yue; she missed the small storm passing between the other two.

“Let’s call a teacher,” Zhong Qiangwei said, her tone flat as a pond before dawn. “If this dorm’s as uncanny as your story, our room’s not safe either.”

She fished out her phone like drawing a knife from a sleeve. The ringtone swelled in the dorm’s ink-black hush, loud as a bell in a temple. It rang and rang, a tether thrown into fog, then the phone’s system cut the line like a guillotine.

“There’s full bars—why won’t it go through?” The signal icon glowed like a tiny lighthouse in her palm.

Stubborn as flint, Xiaoxiao dialed again. The tone crawled on like a tired insect, and no one picked up.

“Are we trapped in this dorm?” Xiaoxiao’s heart shrank like a startled deer. She sat by Zhao Yue’s bed, clutching her phone like a talisman, and her voice came out small as a wind-chime.

Without the big sister ghost by her side, the room felt like a cold lake at night. These two roommates were her only driftwood, yet both felt wrong, like flowers painted on glass.

“You forgot the mag-locked door at the third-floor stairs?” Zhong Qiangwei’s answer fell fast, like rain that knew the roofline. “No keycard, no exit.”

She and Li Yao seemed to know this building like the lines in their palms. Their voices braided without pause. “There’s no emergency exit here either,” Zhong added. “If you really want out, you’d have to climb to the top and jump, like a swallow diving from the eaves.”

“Is… is that so?” The word jump hit Xiaoxiao like an icicle; she felt those eyes pinning her like a butterfly to cork.

“Can’t we ask other students for help?” Hope flickered in her like a match in wind.

She reached for the door, hands trembling like leaves. Before her fingers brushed the handle, Zhong Qiangwei’s palm landed on her wrist—cold as a slab of ice from a winter river. Xiaoxiao jolted, teeth chattering once.

“Wh-what is it, Weiwei?” The nickname fell from her lips like a bead slipping the string.

“You’re really spooked, aren’t you?” Zhong stepped in close, concern pasted on like a paper mask. “There’s only us four girls above the third floor in this dorm.”

“What?!” The word burst out of Xiaoxiao like steam from a kettle.

“Yeah. Didn’t Teacher Bai tell you when he walked you back?” Zhong poured her a glass of boiled water, steam curling like white threads. “The girls’ dorm was full, so they stuck the four extras here to make do.”

“But… then why didn’t they assign us below the third floor?” Panic scalded her; the question came out in a near-scream, like a string snapping.

“Aren’t you really sick with fright?” Li Yao’s explanation stumbled out, breath thin as paper. “This afternoon the teacher said the first three floors of Building Three had a fire. They’re not fit to live in.”

“A fire?!” The word clamped her throat like an invisible hand. Her mouth opened, but no sound rose, only the thud of her heartbeat like a drum in a cave.

In Teacher Bai’s office, she’d heard nothing of this. If it were true, why did Teacher Chen send Lu to Room 121 in Building Three?

Riiing—!

Riiing—!

Her phone shivered like a fish on a line. Jittery as a startled cat, Xiaoxiao fumbled it out. The caller ID flashed a name like a flare in fog—Lu Ming.

She stared a heartbeat too long. How did he even get her number? They had never traded contacts.

“Why aren’t you picking up?” Zhong Qiangwei’s voice drifted over, soft as silk, tight as wire. “This might be our lifeline to the outside.”

“But…” Weren’t calls blocked in this building?

Doubt pricked at her like nettles. She didn’t think long. She hit accept, breath held like a diver. Before she could speak, Lu Ming’s voice rushed in, shaky and urgent, like footsteps running on wet stone. “Hello, is this Ji?”

“Mm… it’s me. What’s wrong, Lu? Your voice sounds… off.” Her instinct read the tremor like a weathervane catching a shift.

“I’ll explain later,” he said, words clipped like cut rope. “Tell me—are you alone? I need to say something important.”

“Of course not. I’m in the dorm; how could I be alone?” Her head swam; meaning slipped like fish through fingers.

She lowered the call volume, slid into a shadowed corner like a mouse into a crack.

Silence swelled, cool as subterranean water. As her last word fell, the air around her thinned and chilled, the temperature sinking like dusk over a lake. It felt just like the Soul Carriage—frost creeping under the nails.

“Hello? Lu? Why aren’t you talking?” She glanced at her screen—call ongoing, timer ticking like a metronome. On the other end, he was a sealed well. “Lu Ming, are you still there?”

“…”

“Ji,” he said at last, voice leveled like a blade laid flat, “what I’m about to say is important. Breathe. Don’t tense up.”

“W-what is it? You’re making it sound like ghosts in the rafters.” Her gaze slid, helpless as a leaf in current, toward Zhong Qiangwei and Li Yao. They stood frozen, eyes on her, smiles like masks—half-kind, half-crooked. Ice crawled up her spine.

“I had a friend pull everything on this school,” Lu Ming said, words moving fast as a stormfront. “This mixed dorm has a record of ‘accidents.’ One stands out—five years ago, a female student with the surname Zhong hanged herself in Room 411. Cause unknown, but I’m certain it wasn’t suicide. That same year, late in the month, a female student with the surname Li vanished from that room.”

“Not only that, this dorm once burned hard. Whole building—students included—died. The school shut it down afterward. If I’m right, the place we’re living in now is a spirit building—a dorm packed with the dead.”

The flood hit faster than she could swim. Before her mind could net a single fact, the rest crashed over her like black water.

“I don’t know what’s around you,” Lu pressed on, breath rasping like sandpaper, “but you must keep calm. I’m heading to the faculty building to get a keycard. Hold on till I get there!”

Clack.

Her phone slipped through her fingers like a wet pebble. She didn’t even finish hearing him. She froze solid, a deer in winter, as she realized Zhong Qiangwei and Li Yao had drifted up to her without a sound.

Their eyes converged on her like hawks on a field mouse.

Her blood felt like it was icing in the veins.

“Xiaoxiao, who are you talking to?” Zhong Qiangwei’s voice crawled out, a beast muffling a snarl. It raised every hair on Xiaoxiao’s body like wind on wheat.

Zhong’s hair hung loose like a black curtain. Her pretty face swelled bluish, as if strangled by invisible fingers. Her dark pupils filmed white, bulging outward like pearls forced from shells. One more heartbeat, and those eyes would tumble from their sockets.

She stood there like a woman freshly cut from a noose.

“A g-ghost…” The word cracked in Xiaoxiao’s mouth like thin ice. She toppled to the floor, trying to scuttle back, but the corner closed around her like a box.

Li Yao’s face wasn’t much better—veins rose like green vines along her pallid cheeks, warped and terrifying as old roots.

“Xiaoxiao, who were you on the phone with?” Their gazes speared her. Her breath stopped. Fear splashed gasoline through her chest, then lit it—her ears roared like a waterfall, and her thoughts frayed like silk in fire. Every hair on her body stood at attention. Those two faces leaned over her, twisted masks looming from above.

Bang—!

Zhong’s reaching hand was inches from her wrist when an axe-blade crashed down. The wall behind Xiaoxiao boomed like a drum. Plaster burst; chips flew like startled birds. Before she understood, a gaping hole yawned in the dorm wall.

“B-big sister ghost…” Pebbles clung to her hair like gray petals. She looked up at the newcomer and almost burst into tears.

“Sorry,” the newcomer said, voice cold as winter rain. “Got held up.” She floated through the hole with her Black Great Axe slung loose, white clothes trailing like funeral silk. With that storm-cloud face, Nana Toki looked like a White Warden walking out of the underworld.

She fixed her gaze on Zhong Qiangwei and Li Yao—on those two not-quite-people—and her words were knives on ice. “You two have some nerve. The little idiot I wouldn’t even scare to tears, and you think you can play with her like this? You tired of living, or what?”