5.
He let out a panicked scream and turned to run, but how could he outrun the teacher’s ghost? She flew straight at him, shrieking as she lunged for the faithless man. Her sharp claws were about to reach him when his body was suddenly enveloped in a brilliant golden light.
The blinding golden light struck the ghost. She screamed in pain and was hurled several yards away, her whole body sizzling as white smoke poured off it!
The despicable boyfriend burst out laughing and turned around, pulling something that looked like an amulet from inside his shirt. He said smugly, “This is a protective talisman enchanted by the sorcerer A Tán Minh. With this, what can ghosts do to me?”
“Ha! You’re already dead, and you still came after me? Can’t let it go? I’ll turn you to ashes today!”
With that, he walked toward the teacher’s ghost, talisman in hand.
The teacher’s ghost sensed how terrifying the golden light was and wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to hide.
Watching that scene made my blood boil.
Scum like him had brought shame on all of us men!
I shouted from the main entrance, “If that protective talisman can shield you, then all we have to do is destroy it!”
I whistled, and a tabby cat sprang out of nowhere. In a flash, it snatched the amulet from the bastard and swallowed it whole.
It was a puppet cat I’d just made—faster than a real one!
I patted its head. “Good kitty, my little darling! When this is over, I’ll draw you some dried fish to eat!”
Now there was no one left to protect him.
The teacher ghost’s long hair rose on its own and attacked the despicable boyfriend from all sides.
Seeing things go badly, his accomplice had already begun sneaking toward the door. My paper puppet caught him too and hurled him at the teacher’s ghost.
A while later, both scumbags had been beaten so badly they could barely breathe.
I quickly patted the teacher ghost’s shoulder. “Don’t kill them! They may deserve to die, but you’ll never be able to move on!”
Senior Brother had told me that although the teacher ghost had caused quite a bit of trouble, she had never killed anyone. In this situation, if we helped her settle her grievances in the mortal world and then performed a rite to guide her spirit onward, she could still be reincarnated.
The teacher ghost’s eyes were ice-cold as she asked, unwilling to accept it, “So we’re just going to let them get away with it?”
I shook my head and said seriously, “We’ll use the law to punish them!”
“For heartless people like them, who care only about fame and fortune, spending the rest of their lives in prison with nothing left is more painful than death!”
I took out my phone and recorded evidence of their crimes.
With my paper puppet and the teacher ghost there, they didn’t dare refuse to confess.
Faced with irrefutable evidence, the two bastards were quickly taken away by the police.
The teacher ghost had fulfilled her final wish, and her resentment was finally released.
After I chanted the rites to guide her spirit onward, she waved goodbye to me and gradually vanished into the mortal world.
6.
After seeing off the teacher ghost who’d been serving as a guide, I suddenly realized something.
I still hadn’t registered!
I searched the entire administration building but couldn’t find a single person.
Had everyone already gone home?
It was only five in the afternoon!
With no other choice, I headed for the sports field.
I looked around and was startled to realize I was completely alone in the huge sports field!
The guys should have been playing basketball at this hour.
The cafeteria across from the sports field was just as quiet…
But when I’d arrived at school, it had still been pretty crowded.
This made no sense!
As I wondered about it, someone called softly from behind me.
I turned around. A short male student was crouching in the bushes outside the basketball court, waving at me. “Hey! Over here!”
Following his instructions, I crawled into the bushes too.
My clumsy hands annoyed him, and he growled under his breath, “Easy!”
I didn’t understand. “What’s going on? Did something happen? It’s only a little after five…”
His name was Chu Tuấn. His eyes went wide, and he nearly lunged at me to cover my mouth, whispering angrily, “Because it’s already five!”
He told me that at Qinghua University, there was a terrifying school legend that went on for three days and three nights without end.
The most horrifying part was that from five to ten in the evening, it was the time of the hungry ghosts. Anyone still wandering outside the dorms would be eaten by them, bones and all!
At five in the afternoon, all the teachers and students on campus had to drop whatever they were doing and stay inside the dorms. They weren’t allowed to go out, while monsters roamed everywhere in search of food, eating their fill. Outside those hours, everyone left each other alone—as if this had become an unspoken rule.
But this was a ghost story. If everyone followed the rules, the story couldn’t go on, could it?
Take me, for instance, delayed by work. Or Chu Tuấn, who’d bet 100 yuan with his roommate.
And the girl in white calling to us from the artificial lake across from the sports field.
“Little brother, help me!”
The girl’s voice was soft and sweet, like a nightingale, and the words “little brother” made my knees go weak.
I hurriedly recited the calming incantation my master had taught me, and only then did I steady my mind.
But Chu Tuấn had already stood up and started walking toward her.
I quickly pulled him back. “Didn’t you say we shouldn’t wander around, and that we had to stay here from five to ten for our own safety? Have you forgotten?”
Chu Tuấn reproached me seriously. “Are we supposed to leave her there all alone? We’re men!”
With that, he hurried toward the riverbank.
Great. The next plotline had already started.
They wouldn’t even give me a moment to catch my breath!
7.
A girl dressed in white sat barefoot by the lake, her toes as pale as tender lotus buds.
Her dress was slightly damp, outlining her beautiful curves. Chu Tuấn stared, unable to look away. “Se… senior, I’m… I’m Chu Tuấn from the Mathematics Department. Is there anything I can help you with?”
The girl in the white dress brushed a lock of hair aside and spoke softly. “My shoe fell into the water. It’s already past five, and no one’s come to help. I’m scared!”
“Hey, handsome, could you help me?”
Despite having the character for “handsome” in his name, Chu Tuấn was actually short and slight, not even five foot seven, and his hair was already streaked with gray, so he wasn’t much to look at.
You could imagine he usually didn’t get many chances to show off in front of a beautiful girl like her.
That was why, afraid I’d steal his chance, he shoved me aside and said, “It’s my honor to help you!”
He quickly took off his shoes and waded into the water, searching as he asked, “Is it around here?”
The girl in the white dress giggled behind her hand. “Go a little farther ahead!”
A little farther and he’d be more than six feet from shore. That was really dangerous!
But Chu Tuấn seemed bewitched now. He didn’t notice a thing and just kept walking forward.
Just as I was about to step in, the girl in the white dress appeared beside me out of nowhere and slipped straight into my arms. “Little brother, why aren’t you looking at me? Am I not pretty?”
I immediately nodded like a bobblehead, practically drooling. “How could you say that? You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen!”
Hearing that, the girl in the white dress smiled with satisfaction. “Really? Then come down here and stay with me forever…”
Before she could finish, I decisively hurled something gooey into her open mouth, where sharp fangs were visible.
The powerful impact sent the girl in the white dress flying, and she crashed to the ground!
She didn’t look beautiful at all anymore!
She looked as if she’d just been dragged up from underwater, soaked from head to toe and covered in dark green-black mud. She was filthy and terrifying. Worst of all, the skin exposed beneath her clothes was covered in horrible, deep purple corpse spots!
Her mouth was gaping almost from ear to ear, but a lump of black slime had plugged it, making her look both terrifying and ridiculous.
She struggled, but the lump of slime seemed alive. It wrapped tighter and tighter until it finally swallowed her whole head.
Heh heh, this is the puppet I made out of clay, “Glutton.” It may be pitch-black and nothing special to look at, but anything it touches is doomed to be swallowed. This senior ghost picked a fight with the wrong thing!
The senior ghost couldn’t speak or see. She reached out with her sharp claws, groping blindly as she let out a wretched shriek.