Without waiting for Luo Yingbai to respond, he continued: “Because he died so cleanly, with absolutely no clues, it was determined to be an accidental death due to a hidden illness, and the case was closed.”
Huang Weihua was an orphan with no other family. He had signed a body donation form before his death, so after the case was closed, his body was sent to the hospital for autopsy. And then, something strange happened—after opening his chest, Huang Weihua’s heart was still beating!”
Luo Yingbai was stunned.
Fang Wei said, “Imagine that scene: the body is almost completely dissected, and when they open the chest, they see a bright red heart still thumping inside. Several people in their class fainted on the spot!”
This was indeed an unheard-of strange event. Although Luo Yingbai was not scared, he found it extremely bizarre. “Wait a minute, if there was a heartbeat, wouldn’t the doctor performing the autopsy have felt it? Then… how could they proceed?”
Fang Wei paused: “But at the time, the corpse had been examined by forensic experts and had been soaking in formaldehyde for several days. Huang Weihua was definitely dead. As for the heartbeat, maybe it started after the chest was opened? Otherwise, it would be hard to explain.”
Luo Yingbai was silent for a moment, then asked, “Did he do anything unusual before the incident?”
Fang Wei thought and said, “I don’t know about other things, but he had posted on his friend circle that he kept having nightmares.”
After saying this, he added, “Some things are better not thought about too deeply.”
Fortunately, no more people had incidents afterward. Just be careful and don’t wander around at night.”
Luo Yingbai’s phone rang. He opened Weibo, and a line of red text in the comments section read: Cowardly Package: @White Brother Fortune Telling Wow, is there really a ghost in this teaching building? Why can’t I find a way out on the third floor? These walls! These windows! How have they all turned into something else?!
The person who tagged Luo Yingbai this time was someone he knew, an undergraduate junior from the 78th Chinese Language Class, He Cheng.
Just as he was saying these words, the environment around them quietly changed. The aluminum alloy sliding window turned into a wooden, faded window frame. The white wall, freshly painted before the year, was now covered with mottled moss. The floor tiles disappeared, replaced by a cement surface stretching out, and not far away, a black figure was slowly approaching them.
“Tap, tap, tap…”
At the critical moment of life and death, He Cheng, with an unknown source of strength, leaped up from the ground and grabbed Gong Kang, shouting: “Run quickly!”
The two young men ran wildly down the corridor, forgetting that they had already been walking on the third floor for ten minutes without going downstairs. It seemed no matter how they ran, they remained in the same place. The footsteps behind them were unhurried yet followed closely, getting closer and closer.
He Cheng felt he was about to run out of breath, gasping heavily. Gong Kang beside him was also drenched in sweat, his steps growing slower.
Laughter surrounded them from all directions. In his over twenty years of life, He Cheng had never been so acutely aware of approaching death.
At that moment, a flash of clear light suddenly appeared around them.
A breeze from an unknown source gently swept through, and wherever it passed, the old corridor shed its illusion and restored its true appearance. A voice, both distant and near, leisurely sounded:
“Law, law, law, element without law, empty, empty, empty, not empty. Grieving spirits and souls originally the same, who speaks of dreams in dreams? The path of mystery, rootless tree, all are illusions, break!”
The suffocating oppression and fear instantly dissipated. Before the scattered starry light had completely faded, a young man approached with a smile. In this scene, he himself seemed like part of the illusion – jade-like features, elegant temperament, transcendent and refined.
In fact, Luo Yingbai was not originally someone who liked to smile all the time. He was born with a cold and aloof face reminiscent of a high mountain flower, always surrounded by a melancholic aura.
Whenever his lips didn’t curl and he didn’t smile, people would immediately perceive him as weak, helpless, and pitiful.
Unable to bear such “care,” he had to smile frequently, using his expression to prove he was fine and loved. Over time, it became a habit.
He Cheng stared blankly, almost unable to process the consecutive strange events. Looking around, he found everything had returned to calm, as if the previous danger was just a dream that had vanished without a trace.
He got up from the ground, looking at Luo Yingbai with suspicion, secretly wondering: Who is this guy? He actually drove away the ghosts with just two sentences. Looking at his appearance, the possibility of him being an immortal didn’t seem impossible…
While he was lost in thought, Luo Yingbai spoke: “The school has been saying not to come to the teaching building at night. What were you two thinking, trying to get yourselves killed like this?”
He Cheng and Gong Kang didn’t notice and hurriedly walked past, bewildered: “What’s happening?”
Classmates swarmed around them, talking over each other to explain the situation:
“Your dormmates were worried when you two hadn’t returned before lights out, and couldn’t reach you by phone. We were scared to death.”
“We even asked two security guards to search the building, but they couldn’t find the stairs once inside… Was it really haunted? How did you two get out?”
“Thank goodness you’re safe. We were about to call the police! What were you doing so late? You didn’t play that game like Huang Weihua, did you?”
He Cheng laughed and cried, “Am I crazy? I never want to enter that building again in my life.”
Luo Yingbai walked over to ask, “What game was Huang Weihua playing?”
Meanwhile, in the special investigation unit, someone knocked on Summer Xianning’s office door.
He looked up and called, “Come in.” Gou Songze strode in and handed him a case file.
His expression was grave, and his speech slightly faster than usual: “Director Summer, this morning a body was transferred from the criminal investigation team – a student from my brother’s school. The autopsy and summoning report aren’t out, but Yang Zheng discovered the body is missing!”
Summer Xianning, hearing it was from Luo Yingbai’s school, became more attentive. After flipping through the record Gou Songze handed over, his expression turned serious: “He played a spirit summoning game in the teaching building?”
Gou Songze nodded.
Summer Xianning stood up decisively: “Let’s go.”
The spirit summoning game had many variations, with different methods for summoning different ghosts. Huang Weihua’s version involved standing before a mirror late at night, lighting two candles on either side, writing one’s name on the mirror with lipstick, and reciting an incantation, with the candles absolutely forbidden from going out.
If a woman with peeling flesh appeared in the mirror, one could start a conversation, ask questions, or make wishes. But if unable to persuade her to leave before the candles extinguished, she would furiously burst from the mirror – and those who saw what happened next were already dead.
These were just rumors, and Luo Yingbai, who could speak to fierce ghosts without such steps, had never personally tried it and didn’t know if they were true.
The school suppressed the news of Huang Weihua’s game, with only a few people knowing. If He Cheng’s classmates hadn’t mentioned it, Luo Yingbai wouldn’t have understood the candles and mirror found at the crime scene.
