With Xiaoxiao Ji in tow, Nana Toki jogged past the cameras like slipping under the eyes of iron crows, and reached Longvine Academy’s gate.

Her gut knotted like a pulled fishing line—bad sign. Did someone spot them?

She reached for her Black Great Axe, ready to snuff a witness like pinching a candle, and swung till the edge kissed air in front of a face.

Under that silver crescent of steel, she finally saw the long-absent Protagonist Lord—Xuduo.

Nana clicked her tongue, memory shaking off like dust from old silk; she’d almost forgotten Xuduo studied with Xiaoxiao Ji.

With appearances this rare, was she really the Protagonist Lord?

“It’s midnight. Why aren’t you in the dorm asleep? What are you doing here?”

The axe’s edge lay at her neck like winter frost, and Nana stared at Xuduo’s face, white as paper under moonlight.

Beside her, Xiaoxiao Ji peeked from behind Nana like a timid sparrow, eyes skimming Xuduo’s pajamas.

“You… she… there’s… a ghost in the dorm…”

Xuduo’s knees went jelly and she sank to the ground like wet clay, trembling as if wind ran through reeds.

She pointed at the dorm block with a shaking finger, voice thin as a leaf: “I ran into a ghost in my room.”

“A ghost?”

Aside from that haunted building’s specter, were there others on this campus?

Nana peeled off a thread of power like teasing a strand from a spider silk, and brushed it toward the dorm Xuduo pointed at.

A faint chill pooled around a building beside Dorm Three, like mist crouched among stones.

It wasn’t the same flavor of yin she’d felt at Dorm Three; she couldn’t name it, only that it didn’t taste like Zhong Qiangwei’s kind of ghost.

The “person” on the Soul Carriage had been right—this was a ghost school, a campus steeped like tea in night.

Dawn bled a pale light like milk through paper, yet the campus gloom sat unmoved, a tombstone that refused the sun.

“Um… who are you…?”

Xiaoxiao Ji looked at the girl on the ground, a face that rang familiar like a bell in mist.

She dug through memory like turning old drawers, and found it: when Lu Ming hunted ghosts, Xuduo had drifted near her home once.

“I’m Xuduo…”

She seemed surprised to meet Xiaoxiao here, froze a heartbeat like a deer under branches, then wove a friendly smile. “We’ve met before.”

“Oh! Hi, Xuduo. I’m Xiaoxiao Ji.”

Believing fear thins like tea when shared, she chose to make friends. “Did a ghost show up in your dorm too?”

“You mean too…?”

Xuduo blinked, stunned like a rabbit meeting thunder, then slid her gaze stiffly to Nana. The meaning was loud as a drum.

“Don’t look at me. That idiot’s haunting has nothing to do with me—it’s other evil ghosts.”

Nana didn’t want to babble at the Protagonist Lord; she cut to the bone. “Tell me your dorm’s situation.”

Maybe because she’d met this ghost-and-girl pair once, Xuduo’s nerves eased like snow melting on a tile.

Then she noticed the Black Great Axe hanging from Nana’s hand, and her face stiffened like lacquer.

“This may sound neurotic. A voice woke me, loud as gulls at dawn.

It kept begging me for help, telling me to go to the old campus of this school.

Before I could answer, the dream snapped, like a thread cut.”

“This alone made you bolt without even your slippers?”

Nana eyed Xuduo’s bare feet, pale shells on cold ground, and sighed at the edge of light.

“Is your courage even smaller than Xiaoxiao Ji’s?”

“I wish that were all. What scared me were my three roommates—possessed.”

Xuduo’s smile turned bitter, like rind under tongue.

“I don’t know if it was possession, but I opened my eyes and saw all three standing by my bed, eyes wide and still, staring at me like I was a condemned beast.

They looked ready to pounce and choke me. I panicked, fought free like a fish in net, ran out, and then ran into you two.”

After spilling her story, Xuduo added, “Xiaoxiao, did your dorm run into the same thing?”

“Mm… in some sense, your side’s gentler than mine.”

Xiaoxiao’s mouth twitched like a taut string.

The ghosts in her building weren’t as ‘friendly’ as Xuduo’s trio; hers came for her life like wolves for throat.

“Where are you going now?”

Nana had listened, then suddenly asked like a pebble dropped into a well. “We’re heading to the old campus. You?”

“Wait, you’re going to the old campus?”

Shock hammered through Xuduo like a bellstrike. “Are you crazy? I just said the voice told me to go there!”

“So what?”

“There might be other ghosts there! Aren’t you afraid?”

“You said ‘other ghosts’… The one standing in front of you is also a ghost.”

Nana stared at the Protagonist Lord’s face, tired as a lantern burning low.

“Are you saying I don’t act like a scary ghost?”

“…” Is that the point? really?

“Don’t worry, Sister Ling Jiang—you’re actually pretty scary.”

Xiaoxiao cheered from the side like tossing kindling. “You scare me all the time.”

“…” Why did she feel she’d failed somewhere, like a banner snagged in wind?

“Anyway, we have to go for other reasons. If you’ve got things to do, let’s part here.

This school is more twisted than you think.”

Nana gave Xuduo a smile with meaning like ink hidden under water, then led Xiaoxiao toward the gate.

The Protagonist Lord carried a yin-heavy body ghosts love, like moths to a lamp; bringing her along spelled trouble.

Hero-saves-beauty? Leave that to the Protagonist Lord; Nana had no wish to wade that mud.

“Hey! Hey! Wait for me.”

Nana’s last line chilled Xuduo like fog on bone.

Dawn was near; safety felt thicker in numbers, and Lu Ming had told her the ghost in the white triangle scarf was thigh-level—someone to cling to.

“I’ll go with you to the old campus!”

“You? I don’t have time to protect you.”

Nana looked at Xuduo trotting up like a puppy and laid it bare.

“I already have one idiot at my side. Any more and I’m not covering you.”

“It’s fine. Lu Ming gave me talismans for self-defense. I don’t need your protection.”

Her heart, though, was hollow as a reed.

She wasn’t begging Nana for shelter; she just wanted to hold out till sunrise, and whatever after could float like leaves.

“Fine.”

Since the Protagonist Lord insisted, Nana had no more reason to refuse.

Besides, the Protagonist Halo might flare at the cliff’s edge, awakening some overpowered skill and murdering the mastermind behind this school—saving Nana a fight.

System: “…” The host’s wild brain spins free as birds.

The three slipped out through Longvine Academy’s gate and headed south, stop-and-go like lanterns in a drizzle, into a stand of dead trees.

The sky had kept a pale wash, but as they went deeper, it dulled like ink poured over rice paper.

Wind worried the branches like thin knives, and both Xiaoxiao and Xuduo felt their hearts prickle, hair rising like grass under cold breath.

Xiaoxiao’s courage faltered, drumbeat stuttering in her chest.

“Hold on. We’re almost there.”

Nana watched Xiaoxiao’s nerves like watching a chick in rain, and reached back a hand without turning.

“If you’re really scared, take my hand.”

“Can… can I?”

Xiaoxiao edged close like a cat to a warm stove.

“I did bring you here. That’s on me. It’s just holding hands; it’s fine.”

“Oh! Then I won’t be polite!”

“Hey! Don’t push it. Holding hands is holding hands—why’re you crowding so close?”

Nana blinked once, and her whole arm got hugged, wrapped like a branch by a koala.

“This still counts as holding hands, Sister Ling Jiang. Don’t be so stingy.”

Xiaoxiao clung tight, a tree sloth hanging warm against Nana’s side.

“…” When did this idiot learn such shameless moves?

“…” Since when did human–ghost romance become okay?

As the ignored outsider, Xuduo stared with shock, like lightning in clear sky.

Why did these two look suspiciously cuddly, sugar bleeding into the horror?

Was this really okay?

While she gaped, a scrap of gray paper drifted across her vision like ash.

Before she reacted, the scrap slipped into her eye and vanished like smoke.

“What was that?”

She rubbed her eye; her sight sharpened like a blade newly honed.

Shapes in the gloom now stood out as pale outlines, the world edged in graphite.

“Xuduo, you okay?”

Clinging to Nana’s arm, Xiaoxiao glanced back at the still Xuduo.

“You… behind you…”

As if a threshold clicked, Xuduo trembled, voice thin as a spider strand.

“Behind us?”

Xiaoxiao turned, looked, and frowned at empty air. “There’s nothing.”

“…”

Nana didn’t speak. She poured power into her eyes like oil into a lamp, and saw Xuduo’s pupils pin to dots.

They locked straight past Nana’s shoulder, fixed on something standing behind her like a nail in shadow.