“Ji?”

Trailing behind Nana Toki, Lu Ming’s face flickered with surprise, like a lantern catching a sudden draft. Why would she text at this hour? Did something go wrong?

“I’m here. Classmate Ji, what’s up?” His fingers tapped like rain on bamboo, a calm rhythm over a restless heart.

He shot a quick reply to Xiaoxiao Ji, then lifted his gaze toward Nana Toki, still pushing through the dark like a heron over dusk water. If she needed help, shouldn’t she call Ling Jiang first? Why message him?

“Something’s haunting outside my dorm. Can you come? I’m terrified.”

Her reply came fast, like a moth beating at glass. Before Lu Ming could brief Nana Toki, another message chimed through his phone like a cold bell.

Haunting in the new campus dorm?

That didn’t fit. Lu Ming remembered Nana Toki had set a sizable spirit array around Dorm Seven—like a net of starlight keeping the night at bay. As long as Xiaoxiao Ji didn’t step outside, she should be safe.

“What’s it like around you right now?” His voice tried for steady, a stone in a stream. “Do the Talismans I left not work?”

“They work, but barely.”

The words landed light, a sparrow on a rail. Another message flew in right after, a cry like wind through reeds: “Lu Ming, could you come back first? It’s late, I’m really scared.”

Odd. Lu Ming’s brows tugged together, shadows stitching between them. Better let Nana Toki handle this.

“Hey, Ling Jiang.”

“Hm? What now?” Called out by the “Protagonist Lord,” Nana Toki turned slowly, like a winter willow bending to a hush. “You about to burst like a full water skin?”

Lu Ming: “...” If I had to pee, I wouldn’t tell you. You maniac.

“Xiaoxiao Ji just texted. Says their dorm’s haunted. Wants us to go back.” He ignored the needling jab, kept his tone flat as a slate. He handed over his phone. “Here’s the chat. Look.”

“Their dorm, haunted?”

Nana Toki’s brow arched, a raven’s wing cutting the sky. She had ringed that dorm with spirit arrays and spirit-stilling yellow Talismans; even the Red Lady wouldn’t waltz in. How could there be a haunting?

“Could someone be masking themselves with spellcraft and pretending to be her?”

She remembered the first time she’d pranked Xiaoxiao Ji—sleight of hand like smoke and mirrors. She suspected the texter might not be Xiaoxiao Ji at all.

“Hard to say, but it doesn’t feel like a real haunting.” Lu Ming scrolled through the contacts list, fingers moving like minnows. “This is definitely her number. But whether she sent it—unclear.”

His words fell, and a chill rolled through the corridor, like frost uncoiling along stone. Both of them shivered, two living souls in a deep graveyard hush.

“So Xiaoxiao Ji might already be in trouble.”

Nana Toki’s voice was cold, midnight wind over a burial mound. Close beside her, Lu Ming swallowed, like a pebble dropping into a dry well. He forced the words out: “It’s just a guess, Ling Jiang. Don’t worry too much.”

“Ha? What nonsense?” Her tone snapped, a blade ringing on a railing. “Me, worry about that idiot? Not happening.” She turned away, a swan refusing the shore. “Don’t make things up.”

Lu Ming: “...”

“We keep moving. Whether that idiot’s in trouble or not, we finish the real task first.”

She wasn’t emotionless—just caged by the tunnel’s narrow throat, like a fish penned by rocks. There was no choice but forward, and hope the night spared Xiaoxiao Ji its harsher fangs.

“So what do I text back?” Lu Ming’s voice floated, a leaf carried down a dim canal. He opened his inbox and found Xiaoxiao Ji’s contact.

“How would I know? What if you’re chatting with a fake?” Nana Toki rolled her eyes, two moons tipping on their hinges. Lu Ming took the hit, thought a moment, then typed: “Hold on a little longer. We’re coming.”

He sent it, then shut off his phone, cutting that silver thread.

“We’re here.”

After three more minutes of fumbling through pitch-black, the corridor tightened until the walls were a narrow throat, less than two meters apart. They reached the end: a rust-caked iron door, like a coffin lid left to weather. The plaque still barely read “Office,” letters frayed like old reeds. Nana Toki’s gaze swept it; the door’s skin bore scratch marks, wild as thorn-vines.

“These don’t look like tool marks,” Xuduo whispered, stepping up. Her fingers hovered over the grooves, a moth testing bark. “The shapes are wrong.”

“If not tools, then… fingers?” Lu Ming’s voice lost air, like a flute with cracked reed. In Longvine Academy’s old campus, strangeness piled up like storm clouds; a door with claw marks wasn’t even the worst of it.

“Look here.”

Nana Toki pressed her flashlight close. The beam slid over the scratches, catching black-red seams of dried blood, dark as coagulated wine. “Only human blood turns like this when it sets. Maybe someone clawed it bare-handed.”

“But why would an office door be covered in claw marks? Even a prank wouldn’t go this far.”

“Who said it’s a prank?” Nana Toki tossed him another eye-roll, a pale coin spinning. “Didn’t you notice? Starting from the second floor, every stair up has an iron gate stopping people.”

She pointed at the right-side stairwell, a shadow cage in the corner. “We met one gate going from one to two. Now there’s another between two and three.”

“So?” Lu Ming still didn’t see the shape in the fog.

“So the second-floor corridor is a sealed arena, a hunting ground.” Her words fell like cold dew. “If someone killed here, what would you do?”

“With no room to fight, you’d run,” Lu Ming said, glancing back at the corridor’s ink-black throat. His neck shrank like a turtle into its shell. “You mean a murder happened here? These scratches came from someone trying to claw their way into a teacher’s office for help?”

“Who knows?” Nana Toki shrugged, a reed bending under weight. “It’s guesswork. To find truth, we go inside.”

She pointed at the rusted door, a captain choosing the next star.

“But… do we really have to?” Xuduo’s face drained pale, like paper dipped in milk. The night’s thousand pricks had pushed her to the edge. Only the necklace at her throat steadied her, a warm pebble on cold skin.

“We came this far—no turning back. If you’d wanted to, you shouldn’t have stepped into the river.” Nana Toki shot Lu Ming a look; he caught it like a tossed knife. Two quick strides, and his hand reached for the iron handle, old rust flaking like dried scabs.

“If you’re scared, take this.”

Before stepping in, Lu Ming pushed the door and handed Xuduo a small sachet, fragrant as spring rain. “It calms the mind. Don’t be too afraid.”

“Mm…” She took it, her smile weak but warm, like a lantern behind thin paper.

“Enough mush. Get moving,” Nana Toki snapped, dodging their sweetness like a cat avoiding water. She drifted through the doorway, white sleeves a ghostly ripple.

“This doesn’t look like a school office,” Lu Ming said as the door groaned open, breath sour as compost and blood spilling out. The smell mixed like rotting leaves in an iron basin—heavy, clotted, vile.

Inside was bare bones. A few desks sagged under piles of books, an old water dispenser and a fan hunched in the right corner like tired sentries.

White exam papers littered the floor, stamped with shoe prints—petals crushed into mud. Many had been here, and hurried.

“Anything, Ling Jiang? Any sign out of the fog?”

Lu Ming made a slow circle in the cramped room, found nothing but dust and silence. He returned to Nana Toki with Xuduo in tow, two shadows seeking a third.

“......”

“What is it, Ling Jiang?”

He followed Nana Toki’s gaze to a photo frame. The glass had yellowed at the edges, like tea stains creeping through silk. Blood speckled the border, dried into brown stars. Old years slept behind that pane.

Lu Ming and Xuduo leaned in, faces tight as knots. A shy young man in black-rim glasses looked out—a quiet reed along the river.

“Teacher Bai?”

Xuduo’s voice lifted, a startled bird breaking from a branch. Why would he be here?

And who was the little girl beside him? Her face tugged at memory like a thread snagging on thorns.

Lu Ming glanced from the photo’s pair to Nana Toki’s profile, the lines of her cheek a moonlit ridge. A wild thought surfaced in his mind, like a carp leaping in dark water.

Was this a photo of Teacher Bai and Ling Jiang?