Why would such a eerie group photo show up here, like a moth pinned under glass?

They should be strangers, two tracks that never cross.

Nana Toki hated admitting it, yet the girl in the faded shot looked like her shadow.

The thought fluttered like a bat: did the original body know Teacher Bai from this school?

“Whoosh, whoosh...”

“Whoosh, whoosh...”

Questions bubbled in her mind like fish under ice.

Then a grave-cold wind rose in the sealed office, as if a crypt were breathing.

Test papers skittered up with a hiss, like autumn leaves blown by knives.

Between the swirling pages, a slash of vivid red flickered like a poppy petal.

Holding the yellowed photo, Nana felt a pressure like damp earth, a thick yin chill closing in.

“It’s the Red Robed Wraith!”

Closest to the chill, Lu Ming yanked Xuduo back like pulling seedlings from frost.

His hand went to his pocket, hunting talismans the way a soldier reaches for a blade.

“Don’t mess around. Plant your feet.”

Nana Toki’s long sleeve swept like a white crane’s wing, cutting him off.

Lu Ming gripped Xuduo’s hand and froze like statues.

The wind ebbed, papers fell like snow, and a boy in scarlet stood in the center.

His mouth was sewn shut with needle and thread, a red seam like a wound in cloth.

He had no eyes, only black, blood-slick hollows that yawned like wells.

The air dropped several degrees, cold sluicing down the spine like ice water.

Lu Ming and Xuduo shivered, leaves in a midnight squall.

“You finally chose to show yourself?”

Behind him, the white wall began to seep red, like rain bleeding through plaster.

Nana stepped forward, heart steady as iron, and drew out a bracelet.

“This is your friend’s, right?” She lifted the beads, like holding a lantern in fog.

“He asked me to pass it on. Can we talk?”

Silence pressed in, a velvet shroud that made the heart stutter.

The Red Robed Wraith had no eyes, yet his pits of ink-blood fixed on the bracelet like hooks.

“Where did you find it?”

Blood congealed on the wall, letters blooming like thorny vines.

Nana raised a brow, hope kindling like a spark in dry grass.

“On Bus 14 at Changteng Station.”

“Is he all right now?”

“Maybe,” Nana said, voice like cool water.

“He fulfilled his long-held wish and stepped into samsara.”

“...”

In the sealed, uncanny office, one red and one white faced each other, an echo of yin and yang.

They traded questions and answers like stones across a dark river.

Lu Ming didn’t dare breathe, lungs tight as drums.

The Wraith’s aura was terror itself, a blizzard that froze you without touching.

He could bridle that storm and still think like a man, calm amid thunder.

From any angle, the Red Robed Wraith was a knot you couldn’t untie.

Honestly, Lu Ming wanted no part of crossing blades with him.

“Rustle, rustle...”

It sounded like something crawling across old paper.

The Red Robed Wraith lifted his hand and clenched, like closing a net.

The bracelet rose from Nana’s palm as if by a tide, then drifted into his grasp.

“What’s your goal?”

Blood-letters slid across the wall as he rubbed the beads, the motion tender as polishing bone.

“I want every truth about the Changteng Ghost School.”

Nana’s face stayed calm, a still pond under winter moon.

“...”

It was as if he’d expected it. His expression didn’t shift, a mask carved from quiet.

He toyed with the beads, fingers like wind over bamboo.

Then he looked up, gaze heavy as rain. “You know what rules this school.”

“Truth isn’t always pretty,” the wall wrote, strokes jagged as thorns.

“Even so, do you still want it?”

“If I ran just because the truth wasn’t pretty, wouldn’t that be pathetic?”

Nana met those hollow sockets, steady as a mountain, and spoke cleanly.

“If you think I’m that kind of coward, abandon the thought.”

Her tone rang like steel chimes in winter air.

“Because if you won’t tell me, I’ll use force and make you.”

Each word fell like iron beads on stone, crisp and hard.

In the sealed office, the threat was a blade laid on the table.

Sweat beaded on Lu Ming’s brow, dew on cold grass.

He didn’t dare wipe it.

“Where should I start?”

The blood text crawled, letters like centipedes.

“From when the school turned ghostly, or from when we split?”

The strokes hinted like smoke: the original had escaped this place alive once.

“Boom, boom, boom—”

“Boom, boom, boom—”

The building shuddered, a drum pounded by giants.

The Wraith seemed to sense something; the yin wind went rabid, a river turned black.

The blood on the wall writhed, characters sharp as broken glass.

It spoke for him, raw with fury.

Desks, chairs, fans, dispensers—everything thudded into motion.

The office became a storm of iron knocking iron.

Curled in the corner, Xuduo went white as paper.

She clutched the little sachet Lu Ming had given her like holding a tiny fire.

“He’s here...”

Black, stinking blood leaked from those empty pits, a rot river trickling down.

His face twisted into nightmare, a mask cracked by rage.

He roared like a caged beast set ablaze.

The sewn lips tore under his own pull, threads snapping like spider silk.

Fresh wounds gaped, red rivers flashing.

“He’s here? The true master of this ghost school?”

Nana tried to press, but the Wraith shrieked and blew apart into black smoke.

He shot out of the office, a shadow arrow fleeing toward one point in the dark.

“Ling Jiang... what do we do now?”

Lu Ming helped Xuduo up, legs jelly, face ash.

The Red Robed Wraith’s sudden fury had battered him, waves slamming a small boat.

He looked toward the exit, hollow with fear.

“We’ve got no other way. We leave.”

Nana frowned and drifted to the door like a pale wisp.

The corridor had changed, a nightmare molting its skin.

The walls cracked, plaster sloughing off like scales, exposing desiccated faces beneath.

Inside the building’s walls hid bodies, one after another, like seeds packed in ash.

Nana had seen worse; it was the two living who turned green and purple.

The hallway stretched long as a serpent; who knew how many dead were buried in its hide?

“Don’t space out. Move.”

She tucked the photo away like pocketing a clue, then led them down to the first floor.

The building’s shake grew louder, a thunder rolling under their feet.

Screams threaded the sound, thin as wires.

No living throats were near; only walls held the dead, their last cries trapped like moths.

“Don’t look back. It’s the dead calling. If your soul gets hooked, not even gods can save you.”

Her words struck like cold bells.

Xuduo had started to glance back, curiosity flicking like a tail.

She swallowed it and ran, head down, a rabbit through briars.

Two living, one ghost, they sprinted.

A corridor that had taken ages fell behind in half a minute, like a rope cut clean.

Nana’s flashlight sliced the dark like a spear of pale fire.

The two behind her found a second wind and pushed harder.

They reached the first floor.

The mannequins that had stood stiff as scarecrows suddenly came alive, joints ticking like tiny gears.

Each twisted into poses that bent the eye, a gallery of broken dancers.

They closed in on those fleeing from the second floor, grins sewn onto faces like scars.

Xuduo froze, a deer on ice, and her step faltered.

Lu Ming almost went down with her, a near-tangle of limbs.

“Don’t freeze! Run!”

Lu Ming threw himself between her and the mannequins, a shield made of breath and bone.

But two hands can’t beat twenty.

They were swallowed by the dolls, pushed back toward the stairs like driftwood up a wave.

“Tch... you two really know how to be trouble.”

Nana had almost floated out of the building, a white plume in the gale.

Her temper snapped like a fan’s rib.

“When we get out, you’d better compensate me, or we’re done!”

She grabbed the nearest mannequin, fingers sparking with power like thunder caught in a fist.

She swung and smashed, sending plastic bones flying toward the pack.

Clang-clang, bang-bang—

Strike after strike, she carved a path, a storm breaking a fence.

At last she dragged them free of the doll-heap, breath a thin thread.

They cleared the building’s threshold as the structure groaned and collapsed behind them like a dying titan.

It didn’t end there.

Outside the old campus, the wind howled, sweeping away the stale pressure like a broom of knives.

A blood-red full moon hung overhead, an omen nailed to the sky.

Gray fog pooled around the old campus, gauze winding to keep them penned.

“What’s going on?”

Lu Ming panted, color still not back, like a man thawing from ice.

Buildings glowed with blood-tinted reflections, windows blooming with silhouettes.

Shadows watched from the dark, eyes like coals behind lattice.

“We’ve walked into a ghost nest,” Nana said, face finally hard, like frost on stone.

“Stay sharp. Don’t die easy.”

The mist thickened, milk poured into black tea.

The blood moon sharpened, a blade polished above them.

Harsh roars rolled from the fog, near and far, tides pulling and retreating.

When the red moon rose fully, its light revealed shapes that made hearts stagger.

The macabre carnival was about to begin.