“What is that?”—the words dropped like a stone into black water.

Nana Toki turned, following the heroine’s gaze, her hand drifting to the Talisman in her pocket like a moth to embers.

By the cracked gate of the ruined old campus, a small boy stood in blood-red robes, a soaking shroud in dawn’s chill.

His black hair hung like waterweed, limp on both sides, a damp shadow swallowing light.

He had no clear features; his sockets were two raw holes, his lips sewn shut like a doll’s split seam.

Those empty eyes pinned Nana Toki, cold as nails through wood; he had clearly noticed them.

“That’s a Red—” Her breath snagged like thread in a needle’s eye.

She felt his power loom like a glacier, far beyond the Red Robed Wraith that shadowed the Protagonist Lord.

That choking yin rolled in like high-altitude air; even at a distance, her heart fluttered like a trapped sparrow.

Xiaoxiao Ji clutched Nana Toki’s arm like a drowning kitten; she couldn’t see what Xuduo mentioned, but her body shook with blind fear.

“Sister Ling Jiang…” The plea came soft, like fog touching reeds.

“It’s fine, don’t tense,” Nana Toki said, her palm smoothing Xiaoxiao’s hair like wind over grass.

“He spotted us last time and never struck; maybe he’s playing for something else,” she murmured, a stone held behind silk.

To be honest, Nana Toki had little confidence; in a world of aura and mana, her usual godmode was smoke against rain.

Fodder could be patched with artifacts and tricks, bridges thrown like planks; a true boss was a cliff you couldn’t cross.

Right now, the boy’s rancor bled like winter fog; his yin outweighed hers a hundredfold, bare and biting.

Meeting his gaze felt like standing beneath a falling slab; pressure pressed like ice on bone.

What torment carved him before death, to leave a wraith this dripping with blood and hatred, like a well poisoned to the roots?

Nana Toki brushed her pocket, resolve settling like frost; the old campus was off-limits for now.

If things shifted, she’d pull Xiaoxiao away like a fisherman cutting line.

Ssssss… The sound slid like liquid over stone.

His sleeve twitched, and the wall by the gate began to sweat scarlet, like the bricks themselves were bleeding.

The blood gathered like guided ants, pooling, then spelling mangled words: “Come closer and you will die.”

A warning, or a hollow bluff? His face held no ripple, like someone stating tomorrow’s weather.

Nana Toki tightened on the Talisman, brows knotted like twisted rope; his tone said he didn’t want to be their enemy.

Maybe he wasn’t the mastermind behind this school’s rot; the thought flickered like a firefly.

She blinked, and the red-robed boy was gone, like mist blown off a pond.

They hadn’t even met for three minutes; it felt like a mirage, sand sifting through fingers.

No one lingered around the old campus; the blood words vanished while her focus shifted, like ink swallowed by rain.

Everything slipped back to normal, quiet as dust settling.

To avoid any teacher patrol sweeping this spot, Nana Toki hustled Xiaoxiao and Xuduo back into the new campus like ducks into reed shade.

The puzzle kept bulging like a storm cloud; this school hid more than she’d imagined, layer on layer like lacquer.

That red wraith with hollow eyes and a sewn mouth left her skin crawl, like every seam of herself laid bare.

It was nearly five in the morning; light thinned like milk across the campus edges.

Nana Toki was about to shoo the heroine off and get Xiaoxiao back to the dorm for a nap, a harbor before daybreak.

Fresh from the old campus, Xuduo refused to leave, clinging like burrs; no threat budged her beyond two meters.

“Ms. Xuduo, are you glued to me or what?” Nana Toki’s voice flicked like a fan.

“We’re going to sleep; if you won’t, the idiot beside me has to,” she added, worry pricking like nettles.

“This… it’s nearly morning anyway,” Xuduo said, a guilty smile like paper crumpling.

“Going back to my dorm is a hassle; Xiaoxiao’s dorm has two spare beds, so I’ll thick-face it and crash there.”

She’d never admit she feared the three roommates possessed by ghosts, shadows nesting like bats.

“…” Nana Toki watched the words ‘nervous’ and ‘scared’ plastered on Xuduo’s face like cheap stickers.

“Sister Ling Jiang, weird stuff happened in Xuduo’s dorm before,” Xiaoxiao said, her voice a soft ribbon.

“We gather at dawn soon; let Xuduo stay with us,” she added, kindness like warm tea.

“Tsk. Fine, just this once,” Nana Toki sighed, resistance folding like wet paper.

“No next time,” she warned, but the fool beside her had asked, and she would indulge.

They reached Dorm Building Three; Xiaoxiao was counting minutes of sleep like coins.

At the stair bottom, a boy sat dazed, like driftwood stranded by the tide.

“Lu Ming? Why are you here?” Her surprise flared like a match.

“You’re asking me?” he said, eyes damp as rain-glazed tiles.

“I should ask where you went,” he added, hurt like a cat left in the rain.

“I even slipped into the office to steal a keycard to save you,” he muttered, pride and worry tangling like vines.

“Uh… sorry,” Xiaoxiao said, guilt pooling like ink in water.

“Sister Ling Jiang had to take me to the old campus, and I forgot to return your call; thanks for worrying.”

“But, Lu Ming, how did you get my number?” she asked, curiosity like a bird pecking seed.

“Ah… I copied it when I filled my info in the office,” Lu Ming said, hands up like shields.

“With Sister Ling Jiang at your side, you’re strong; if I hit trouble later, I might ask for help,” he added, hurried, like wind chasing leaves.

“Nothing else implied,” he said, blinking like a startled deer.

“Is that so?” Nana Toki’s look slid like a blade.

“You’re not trying to poach my pillar, are you?” she asked, words sharp as sleet.

If he dared, she’d smite him on the spot, thunder in a narrow alley.

“…” Lu Ming swallowed, silence heavy as a stone.

Who dares steal a ghost’s anchor? And he didn’t even like Xiaoxiao.

“Anyway, leave that aside—why is Xuduo here?” he asked, topic flipping like a card.

He hadn’t seen her since they split near Wang Yan, and only now realized she attended the same school.

“That? She had trouble too,” Nana Toki said, laying out Xuduo’s story like tiles on a table.

“As I guessed,” Lu Ming murmured, his brow creasing like folded paper.

“Did you go to the old campus?” he asked, the question taut as bowstring.

“Yeah. Why?” Xiaoxiao said, curiosity bright as dew.

“I found a secret while grabbing the keycard,” Lu Ming said, glancing around like a fox at dusk.

“The old campus in the western forest used to be an orphanage,” he said, the word heavy as a locked door.

“An orphanage?” The thought opened like a cold window.

“Yeah. An orphanage,” Lu Ming said, showing his phone like a lantern.

“I checked; the roster for this exchange with Longvine Academy matches the orphanage’s list exactly,” he said, each name a ghost echo.

“Those people went missing long ago; I suspect they’re all dead,” he added, the sentence falling like ash.

“So our exchange partner is a school of dead people?” Nana Toki asked, her expression warping like heat over stone.

“That makes no sense; whoever organized this must be an idiot,” she said, disbelief snapping like dry bamboo.

One careful check and the lie would tear, like paper in rain.

“I know; it doesn’t add up,” Lu Ming said, helplessness hanging like a frayed rope.

“Unless someone has another purpose, this is jumping into a fire pit,” he said, smoke already in the air.

“And there’s something else,” he added, a thorn under skin.

“This school has run similar exchanges with many other schools,” he said, repetition like drumbeats in the dark.

“Strange,” Nana Toki said, the word small and sharp, like a pin.

“Yeah, very strange,” Lu Ming agreed, his face set like clay drying.

“If the school is truly run by the dead, where did the real students go?” he asked, the absence a yawning lake.

“If there are living students here, how do so many ghosts avoid harming them when the night’s yin peaks?” he asked, the paradox coiling like smoke.

“So you mean…” Xiaoxiao’s voice trembled like a reed in wind.

“I suspect someone in this school is raising ghosts with the living,” Lu Ming said, the claim falling cold as moonlight on a grave.