(Part 1)
In the eyes of many innocent boys, the girls' dormitory is likely a synonym for "mysterious," "sacred," and "beautiful." It is a forbidden zone for boys and a paradise for girls. As the saying goes, the unattainable is always in a state of agitation; under the grand premise of being forbidden entry, it is inevitable that boys would secrete some hormones and indulge in their pure fantasies.
However, in reality, the girls' dormitory is not much better than the boys'. There are equally lazy people who, like maggots, don't take out the trash, letting it rot and stink in the corner. There are also those who return from buying clothes at the mall only to throw their dirty laundry on the desk, emitting a sour, foul body odor.
The only difference is that the girls' dormitory involves more intrigue than the boys'. A dormitory of four people can have ten different private group chats with varying members; even the master practitioners of palace intrigue in ancient times might not be as calculating as they are.
Why mention all this? Because...
"But we aren't even going to the girls' dormitory?" Kosma said to Lin, who was holding up a finger and lecturing on Modern Palace Intrigue 2: The Girls' Dormitory, realizing the situation a bit late.
Hearing this, Lin lowered his finger and asked in confusion, "Aren't we going to the abandoned old girls' dormitory?"
"You said it yourself—it's 'abandoned'..."
"Are we really going in?"
Walking in the middle, Kevin gazed tremblingly at the old girls' dormitory not far away. A sinister wind blew in gusts, the main door creaked with eerie noises, and a resentful female voice seemed to echo from the deepest depths. He felt as if countless pairs of eyes were quietly staring at his back, and invisible shadows were creeping closer...
"We've come all this way; of course we're going in." Kalpas, wearing his mask, slapped Kevin on the back unceremoniously. "Move it!"
"But..." Kevin face was filled with bitterness; he really didn't want to enter this dormitory that looked like it was full of some indescribable "floaters."
Lin said with a cold face, "Don't forget why we're doing this."
"Isn't it just because you guys want to make money to buy [Censored] and [Censored]! Don't act like there's some unavoidable reason!"
"And you don't want them?"
"I..."
The reason these four notorious guys appeared at the old girls' dormitory was actually quite simple.
"As long as we uncover the truth behind the Seven Mysteries of the Campus, we can get a reward of 50,000 yuan." Lin calmly checked his backpack, which was full of tools, before swinging it back onto his shoulders. "Four of those mysteries are related to the old girls' dormitory."
The so-called Seven Mysteries of the Campus were seven eerie stories that had circulated at Senba Academy for a long time.
Every school has similar stories more or less, but the ones at Senba Academy were the most bizarre and had the highest level of perceived reality. They were: The Midnight Magic Mirror, The Cry for Help in the Toilet, The Non-existent Eighth Floor, The Extra Person, The Eye in the Tree, The Human-Head Radish, and The Raincoat Killer.
"The Midnight Magic Mirror, the Toilet Cry for Help, the Eighth Floor, and the Extra Person are all in the old girls' dormitory. Well, it's twelve o'clock—it's about time for 'them' to be most active." Lin looked at the time on his watch.
Kevin backed away, hair standing on end from fear. "Don't say things like that! How could they possibly exist!"
"Cut the crap. Kosma, you're with me. Kalpas, you're with Kevin. We'll split up to find the mysteries, two per group. It's more efficient that way."
"We have to split up?!"
Without giving Kevin a chance, Kalpas grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged the wailing Kevin away.
"Honestly, I didn't expect Kevin to be afraid of ghosts..."
Lin frowned as he looked to his side, only to see Kosma with a pale face and trembling legs. He sighed and took the lead, walking into the dormitory.
"In Room 404 on the fourth floor, on the fourth bunk, there is a mirror used by a girl who jumped off the building. She jumped at 1:11:11 AM. The mirror was stained with her blood when she died. When others saw her body, they found that her corpse wore a bizarre, joyful smile."
"Supposedly, she saw her future self in the mirror—an ugly, aged version of herself. Fearing the arrival of that future, she chose to end her life, leaping down as the glass shattered."
"And that shattered mirror, stained with her blood, has been able to reflect different futures at different times ever since."
Hearing Lin emotionless description, coupled with the desolate, dilapidated environment smelling of an unknown stench and the empty hallway, Kosma felt as if the girl who jumped was standing nearby, quietly watching their backs. He felt like he had been soaked in ice water...
"Is that mirror... still there?"
"The credibility is high. People on the forums say they've seen it, but it doesn't reflect the future." Lin paused, then spoke in a disdainful tone, "That bunch of idiots probably never thought to look in the mirror exactly at 1:11:11 AM."
...I think maybe they weren't being 'idiots.'
Fortunately, thanks to Lin vigorous pace, they didn't stay in any one area for long. Kosma emotions stabilized slightly, but when Lin stopped, his heart leaped back into his throat.
The fourth floor, Room 404. They were standing right at the door.
Kosma was bracing himself, wanting to take a deep breath to calm down, but unexpectedly, Lin pushed the door open directly as if he had an urgent need to use the restroom—as if waiting one more second would result in a leak...
"Bunk four... found it."
Lin picked up a shattered mirror from one of the beds.
So fast?
Kosma face looked terrible. He walked hesitantly behind Lin, keeping a wary distance from the mirror in Lin hand. Lin, meanwhile, was turning the mirror over and over to see if there was anything special about it. Unfortunately, aside from completely dried blood and the cracked surface, Lin couldn't see anything wrong.
Lin checked his watch again. "There's still half an hour until 1:11:11 AM. Let's find the other one first..."
"Save me..."
An icy chill instantly climbed up Kosma spine. His pupils shrank, and in terror, he took a large step back, tripped over something, and fell directly to the floor.
"Lin... did—did you hear... AHHHH!"
Just as Kosma wanted to confirm the cry for help with Lin, his peripheral vision caught what had tripped him.
An arm.
A stiff arm covered in the iron-blue hue of the dead and cadaveric spots.
Under his vacant gaze, the fingers of that arm twitched, and then it slowly retracted under the bed.
And Kosma ear-splitting scream rang out at that very moment.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
"Ka—Kalpas, did you hear that? That was Kosma scream, right!"
Kevin looked toward the source of the scream in terror. Kalpas also stopped and looked that way. They did not notice that at the moment they stopped, an extra shadow had appeared among their own shadows cast by the eerie moonlight...
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Part 2)
"Shut up."
Lin grabbed Kosma mouth—the one that had nearly shouted the entire dormitory down. Whether it was an illusion or not, after that shout, the girls' dormitory seemed to come to life. Some "things" began to crawl slowly toward them across the floor from invisible corners...
Kosma expression and eyes were now entirely consumed by fear. After Lin let go, he stammered while pointing in one direction: "C—Corpse... a corpse!"
"A corpse?"
Lin looked where he was pointing but saw nothing. The area was empty, without even a piece of trash. He leaned down to check under the bed but still found nothing.
"Eh?" Kosma froze. He clearly remembered that what tripped him was a corpse, and it had even moved to hide under the bed. But why...
"I really saw it!" Kosma face was as pale as if it had been painted with flour. "That corpse could move! It—it must be a ghost! We took her mirror, so she..."
"Calm down."
Lin covered his mouth again. Lin gave him a look, signaling him to look at the window behind the tattered curtains blowing in the wind.
"Mmph!"
In the sight of the two, a blurry black shadow crawled past the window like a gecko. A thick, unbearable stench of rot wafted through the gaps. Half of "its" body paused outside this window; after a moment, finding no further movement, it left using all four limbs.
What was that?
Can a human crawl around on walls like a gecko? And that smell—it was the foulest stench Kosma had ever encountered. Under the dual stimulation of fear and the smell, he almost threw up.
After waiting for Kosma to calm down, Lin finally let go. Kosma leaned against the wall, panting and drenched in cold sweat.
"What was that thing..." he asked with uncontrollable dread once his voice returned to normal.
"Don't know. Time to go." Lin took the mirror and his backpack and walked toward the door with indifference, only to have his leg grabbed by Kosma, who was too weak to walk.
"Wait a minute! Lin!"
"..."
Noticing from Lin expression that his voice was too loud, Kosma quickly covered his mouth. He looked out the window in total terror, fearing that the monster might have heard his shout.
"Are—are you still going out? What if there's one outside the door too..."
"Then do you want to stay here? I don't mind."
That one sentence silenced Kosma.
Did he want to stay here? If he didn't go out, would the "things" outside stay out? Moreover, there seemed to be one of those "things" in this room as well.
So, go out, or stay here?
"Did you hear that cry for help just now?" Kosma lowered his voice, his eyes scanning every possible place where a black shadow might appear. But this dilapidated girls' dormitory was drafty on all sides; it felt like something could be anywhere...
"Yeah, it should be in this direction."
Lin nodded, checked the time again, pointed in a direction at random, and walked forward with long strides.
"Hey! That—that's the 'Cry for Help in the Toilet,' isn't it?" That spine-chilling cry for help was the voice of a girl that sounded extremely raspy.
The Cry for Help in the Toilet was a rumor even older than the "Midnight Magic Mirror."
A girl who suffered miserably—just like every school, every story has a tragic supporting character—that was her existence. No one knew why she was first bullied, and no one was interested in knowing; after all, her ordeal was just dinner-table gossip, nowhere near important enough for them to care about.
She wouldn't resist or hide. Anyone could step on her shoes. When those shoes, covered in footprints, were cut up with scissors and thrown onto her bed, she only dared to huddle with her shoes and weep silently amidst the mockery of the roommates who bullied her.
And her endurance only resulted in increasingly boundary-crossing beatings and insults. Her things were smashed, her cups were trampled on the floor, her underwear was stripped off and hung at the dormitory entrance...
That day was the day before summer break—the day that should have been her chance to breathe from the long-term bullying.
Amidst screams, she was beaten by her roommates, stripped of her clothes, thrown into the stinking toilet of the dorm, and then locked inside with an iron padlock they had bought.
The roommates left laughing and chatting. They thought it was just another "joke." That idiot couldn't be so dumb as to not call for help out the window, and the school couldn't be completely empty. So, they ignored the continuous "Save me" and left.
Until they returned to the school, smelled the stench coming from the toilet, opened the iron lock, and saw that "thing"...
"In the end, those roommates died one after another in different places, and their deaths were all very bizarre. After that, it's said that anyone who hears the cry for help in the toilet must leave immediately, or they will be found by the girl's ghost." After Kosma finished telling the story of the "Cry for Help in the Toilet," he glanced at the immovable Lin. "Lin... why aren't you scared at all?"
After seeing bizarre things happen with his own eyes, Kosma was scared out of his wits, yet Lin remained calm as ever.
"There are many bugs in this 'rumor.' To be honest, it's not that I don't pity the girl who died in the toilet; I'll assume for a moment she was an orphan with no relatives, but..." Lin paused to think for a few seconds. "Since no one really cared about the girl's ordeal, why are the details of her bullying so specific? Why did no one save her? If the police questioned people and got the information, why did the roommates, who committed intentional homicide, not die in a prison cell but in various other places?"
"Uh..." Kosma was stunned. He processed it for a few seconds. "What if the school covered it up, and then their consciences bothered them so they let it slip..."
"If they had a conscience, they wouldn't have bullied her so maliciously. And a school cover-up is even more impossible. If she jumped off the building, they might have a chance, but being locked in a toilet and starving to death is impossible to cover up."
Lin spoke rapidly as they drew closer and closer to the dorm where the cries for help were coming from. "A 'rumor' has a characteristic of being embellished during its spread, exaggerating the plot until the original truth is unrecognizable. But some of the original content usually remains. For example, the fact that everyone in the dorm died is likely true; that's not easily altered."
"Then..." Kosma looked at the expressionless Lin in confusion. Lin was standing at the dorm door; the eerie "Save me" was still coming from behind it.
Lin checked the tools in his backpack, then held the bag in his hand. Pushing the door open with the same speed as before, he went straight to the toilet door.
Kosma stood hesitantly at the dorm entrance. The dark corridor felt like "things" could crawl over at any moment, so he had no choice but to follow Lin.
And Lin, at this moment, pulled open the toilet door without hesitation. Appearing before them was—
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Part 3)
A fast-moving black shadow lunged for Lin face the moment he opened the toilet. Those rotting, stinking hands would touch his face in the next second... no! In a fraction of a second!
Before Kosma could even react, Lin had expressionlessly reached out, grabbed the throat of the lunging humanoid, and slammed it against the wall without even turning his head.
Thump!
"GAHHH!!"
The rotting humanoid smashed against the wall let out a strange cry. A heavy stench filled the air. But just as it was about to lunge again, its hollow, empty eye sockets saw something.
"Gah!"
It immediately shrieked and scrambled back into the toilet. The toilet door slammed shut instantly!
"..."
Kosma brain stalled.
What happened? In these few short seconds, what on earth just happened?
"It ran back?"
"Yeah. Kosma, give me a hand." Lin made a gesture to Kosma, and then, in the next second, under Kosma trembling gaze, Lin kicked the door panel!
BOOM!
The terrifying force made the toilet door let out a groan of distress!
"Wait—wait a minute! Lin!"
"What are you afraid of?" Lin seemed to have sensed something after that kick. He turned to rummage through his backpack. While searching, he said calmly to Kosma, "Do you think 'ghosts' are very scary?"
"Aren't they scary?!" At the thought of that "glimpse" just now, Kosma heart raced—the corpse, the monster, the rotting flesh. Just having those appear before him made it hard to breathe.
"If you're referring to appearance, movies have those all the time; they might even be more disgusting." Lin quickly found what he was looking for. He gripped an object and slowly pulled it out. "In fact, what you're afraid of is the 'ghost' portrayed in horror movies. They have superpowers and are everywhere—in dreams, in walls, under the covers... humans have no way to deal with them, while they can play humans to death in a variety of ways."
"But that's impossible."
When Kosma saw the object in Lin hand, his pupils shrank even smaller than when he saw the ghost. "Lin, you aren't—you don't plan to..."
"If ghosts were really that kind of thing, then serial killers wouldn't exist in this world; they'd be killed by the vengeful spirits of their first victims. And if a person wanted revenge, they'd just need to slit their own throat."
"The truth is, ghosts do exist, and there are those with immense resentment who can kill and have special abilities, but... at best, they're just a type that's a bit stronger than the average person. They only have the advantage of occupying the hearts of people like you with fear."
CRACK!
The head of a fire axe bit into the wood of the toilet door!
At the same time, the toilet ghost's ear-piercing scream rang out. Yet Lin maintained his expressionless face, pulled the axe out, gripped the handle with both hands, and raised it over his head—
CRACK!
"GAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
Under Kosma terrified gaze, Lin repeatedly swung the axe into the crumbling door panel until he had hacked a gap large enough for his hand to pass through.
Lin put the axe down, shoved his head into the gap, and surveyed the rotting humanoid shrieking in panic in the corner. A grimace appeared on his face: "Hello there."
"Gah—"
Lin reached in, unlocked the toilet, and amidst the toilet ghost's struggling attempts to grab onto the pipes, he hacked off its rotting arms with one swing. Grinning grimly, he grabbed its two legs and dragged it out.
The dried blood flowing from its severed arms left a trail on the floor.
Even Kosma felt a bit sympathetic. The ghost that had startled him was now being thrown onto the balcony by Lin, trembling like a real little girl.
"Lin... this isn't very good, is it? She was quite pitiful when she was alive..."
"Huh? This thing?" Lin turned his head and picked his ear with a finger stained with a bit of blood. He glanced disdainfully at the ghost on the ground and stomped his foot hard on its mangled head. "This thing is the murderer who killed everyone in the dorm."
"But wasn't she just getting revenge?"
"Did you misunderstand something? I said 'the whole dorm.' The bullied girl in the rumor was also killed by it."
"Wh—What!"
Kosma had thought the ghost before him was the bullied girl from the story, but he heard a completely different answer from Lin.
"The inconsistencies in the story I mentioned earlier can be explained with just one logic. This fellow killed one of the girls first, then used that girl's voice as bait to continuously kill others who were lured over. I'm afraid everyone in the dorm was killed using this method."
Just as Lin said, ghosts rely on a person's inability to effectively resist due to fear, as well as some "surprise attacks."
"But didn't those girls die in different places?"
"It's not like it can only stay in one place." Lin foot ground down hard on the toilet ghost's head, pinning it to the floor. "Haven't you noticed? The dorm we're in now isn't actually the same one where the incident in the rumor happened."
"Ah?"
"Alright, time's almost up. It's about..."
"Please, let me go..." Just as Lin checked the time and raised the axe to swing down, the ghost beneath his foot let out a raspy voice. "I was actually also..."
SHING!
The fire axe swung down without hesitation, biting into the strange humanoid's skull. Blue, red, and yellow fluids splashed all over Lin expressionless face.
Immediately after, the ghost lost all movement and slowly turned into spots of light, disappearing. Along with it, the blood on Lin face vanished too.
"So annoying. Who wants to hear your story? The moment you lunged to kill someone, there was nothing left to talk about." Lin impatiently wiped the blade of the axe and put it back into his backpack.
Nowadays, everyone who does something bad feels they need to give themselves a tragic backstory. They don't realize that no matter the backstory, the things they do don't deserve mercy.
Kosma swallowed hard and looked at where the ghost had disappeared. He now felt that Lin was perhaps scarier than a ghost...
"Don't worry, I just sent it to be reincarnated... probably."
Lin didn't care about any of that. He checked the time one last time and then excitedly pulled out that magic mirror from his bag.
"It's 1:11 AM. Just a few seconds left."
Kosma heart, which had just begun to settle, leaped up again. This meant a ghost was likely about to appear in the mirror...
1:11:09 AM.
1:11:10 AM.
1:11...
Lin eyes widened as he looked at himself in the countless shards of the mirror. Upon reaching the designated time, they began to change...
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Part 4)
"What is this?"
Under Lin gaze, his appearance in the countless mirror shards changed. Some became more mature, some younger; some weren't much different from him now, but their temperaments were worlds apart.
"Lin, what do you see?"
"Why don't you come over and see for yourself?"
"I... think I'll pass."
Lin ignored Kosma. Compared to the ghost in the toilet, he was far more interested in the magic mirror in his hand.
"Is this really the 'future' me?" Lin looked at one version of himself. "This cold, stern guy who never smiles looks like a completely different person. He looks like his comrades just died."
"..." Kosma sometimes felt that Lin way of speaking was simply too... blunt.
"And... why is there a girl? Who is this white-haired girl? Though she looks a bit like me and is quite pretty, surely I won't go and get gender reassignment surgery in the future."
Hearing Lin say this, Kosma curiosity was piqued instead. He actually wanted to see "Girl Lin" too.
"Hm, wait."
Lin suddenly stopped all movement. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the mirror in his hand. This time, he wasn't looking at the images in the mirror, but merely at "the mirror."
The wind around them stopped abruptly. Everything that should have been in motion seemed to hit a pause button.
Following that, bright red blood began to flow continuously from the cracks in the mirror.
"Hey, Lin..."
"Shh, I can't hear her talk anymore." Lin made a silencing gesture.
"Her?" Kosma shuddered, nodded hurriedly, and backed away a few steps.
Lin asked someone who wasn't there, "Are the images in the mirror the future me?"
"..."
"No answer?"
As Lin threatening words left his mouth, the blood suddenly surged! As if provoked, the blood filled the balcony in the blink of an eye, the thick smell of iron drilling into their noses.
"Fine, I understand."
And Lin... he was amused.
He smiled very brightly, turned to the bewildered Kosma, and said, "Here, you hold her."
"M—Me?"
How could Kosma possibly dare to touch the mirror that was still bleeding!
"Did you forget what I said? Ghosts are just a bit stronger than normal people at best, with some fake superpowers. As long as you aren't afraid of them, it's no different from a normal fight."
"Really? You're not lying to me?"
"If you get killed, can't you just become a ghost and come find me?"
"..."
That seemed logically sound, yet it also felt very wrong...
Lin shoved the still-bleeding mirror into Kosma hands without a word, making him hold it so the mirror faced Lin. Then, Lin...
He was unzipping his pants.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Kosma screamed even more in terror than before as he watched Lin smooth, unhesitating movements.
Even the mirror seemed frightened by Lin; it stopped bleeding for a moment.
"Since you don't want to talk..." Lin smiled kindly, then pulled down the waist of his pants, "Then die under my self-created exorcism move."
"...Exorcism?"
"The Ultimate Golden Slash!"
No one knows what happened afterward. Kosma only vaguely remembered that in the chaos, the ghost of the girl in the mirror floated out before Lin next move, "The Ultimate Golden Slash," could be unleashed, and prostrated herself before Lin to beg for mercy.
Lin was right. Ghosts weren't scary; at least, in front of a scarier human, ghosts became quite well-behaved and adorable.
"The me from parallel worlds... I see. It doesn't reflect the future, but rather parallel worlds. It's horizontal, not vertical." Lin got the answer from the ghost.
Kosma expressed great wonder at this. "There really are parallel worlds?"
"Want to try?" Lin handed over the mirror, which had now calmed down, but Kosma hesitated and didn't take it.
"Forget it." Kosma smiled with relief. "Maybe the parallel version of me... isn't necessarily living a better life than I am now. Didn't you say so? Some of your parallel selves looked sad and miserable. Why add more worries to myself."
"You're quite free-spirited about these things."
Lin smiled too. He didn't care about the images in the mirror. His parallel selves...
He was an extremely arrogant person. He believed that even if it were another version of himself, they would surely achieve a beautiful future on their own, and he didn't need to worry about them.
"Since you told the truth, I'll let you go." Lin put the mirror back in its original dorm room. "Don't do this anymore."
They still had other rumors to find, so they didn't stay long.
The footsteps of the two faded away. The mirror on the desk lay silent. After a while, a person "passed through" from inside the mirror. Her expressionless, beautiful face was full of coldness. She glanced at the two departing figures. Her long, silvery-white hair was particularly striking in the dark night...
"No matter which world it is, that guy has such bad taste."
Lin and Kosma reunited with Kevin and the others, who had gone to the "Non-existent Eighth Floor." There were three of them.
Wait, three?
"I'm the real Kevin!"
"He's the imposter!"
Two "Kevins" pointed at each other and questioned loudly, both showing fear of the unknown situation in their eyes.
Lin swept a cold gaze over these two who were radiating the same level of silliness, then asked Kalpas, "What was the eighth floor like?"
"Hmm..." Kalpas thought deeply for a moment, then gave a terrifying smile. "A place for trash."
"Finished cleaning?"
"Trash stays where it belongs. Do I need to clean it?"
"Hey! Wait, don't ignore me!" Kevin shouted.
"It's me! Not you!" the other Kevin pulled at his clothes.
THUD!
The fire axe slammed into the wall.
The whole place went silent. Lin cracked his neck and sighed. "Now, you still have a chance to tell the truth. If I have to drag you out myself later, you'll have to play baseball with me and Kalpas."
"I'm the real one! Before we even entered the eighth floor, this guy was already sneakily following us. I exposed him, and he turned into me, but none of you believed me!"
"I'm the real one! You followed us into the eighth floor; it was chaotic there, and you took the chance to turn into me!"
Which one was telling the truth?
Back in the day, the Truth-Listener (Diting) faced two Monkey Kings; he had the ability to identify them but dared not expose the Six-Eared Macaque for fear of retaliation.
Lin had no such concerns.
Lin looked at them with dead-fish eyes: "What color underwear was Mei wearing yesterday?"
"Uh..."
"White!"
SHING!
The "Kevin" who had just blurted out the color didn't even have time to react before the fire axe decapitated him in one stroke...
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Part 5)
"This really reminds me of how much fun we had back in junior high."
The Pandemonium of the girls' dormitory had ceased at some unknown point. Lin stood on the open ground outside the dorm, giving his baseball bat a test swing. He spoke with a sense of nostalgia to Kalpas, who was testing the weight of a "ball" nearby: "Playing baseball under the setting sun—that is our fleeting youth."
"Don't talk like you're already an old man; aren't you still a high schooler?" Kalpas sneered, winding up into a pitching stance.
Kevin and Kosma, watching from the sidelines, felt their throats tighten. They exchanged a look, seeing an inescapable terror in each other's eyes.
As for why...
"I'm throwing it now!"
Kalpas gave a radiant, manic smile.
"Come on, bring it!"
Lin laughed cheerfully.
Playing baseball and breaking a sweat in the name of youth—it sounds quite beautiful, doesn't it?
As long as you didn't look at the "baseball" in Kalpas hand.
The head Lin had sliced off had turned into the iron-blue head of a strange man. Unlike the toilet ghost, it hadn't disappeared. Now held in Kalpas hands, its mouth had been stapled shut by Lin with a stapler. It could only stare with wide, panicked eyes, wanting to say something but unable to make a sound, watching helplessly as Kalpas hurled it forward.
Lin smiled, gripped the bat with both hands, swung with full force, and connected for a perfect home run.
CRACK!
The moment the head was hit, it exploded into a firework of many colors. Brain matter, blood, and eyeballs showered over Lin before slowly fading away.
"Phew... it seems the ghosts in this dormitory are quite friendly after all."
Lin wiped the non-existent blood from his face and smiled easily.
"Speaking of which, Lin, Kalpas—why do you two seem so familiar with ghosts?"
Only after leaving the girls' dormitory did Kevin finally think to ask the two who had shown absolutely no fear.
"Are we? Maybe you only felt that way because the ones in the girls' dormitory were all 'the old, weak, sick, and disabled,'" Lin brushed him off casually. He rummaged through his bag again, absolute coldness taking over his dark pupils. "The next location is the small western woods in the school—the site of the 'Eye in the Tree' mystery."
"That's a bit of an obscure rumor," Kosma said. Influenced by Lin, he wasn't quite as terrified anymore.
"It's nothing much. It's just that when you go to those woods at night, you feel like the surrounding trees are watching you."
"..."
Don't say such terrifying things with that relaxed expression and tone!
"I... actually heard about that one," Kevin interrupted, his face looking sickly.
"I recall you took Mei there once, didn't you?"
At those words, Kalpas and Kosma gazes landed on Kevin face. Judging by his lingering fear, he had likely encountered something "strange." Combined with tonight's "verifications," the "phenomenon" he once thought was an illusion was now enough to make his skin crawl.
"The Eye in the Tree... you guys should know how our high school is different from others, right?" Kevin took a deep breath. Though his eyes were still frantic, he forced himself to stabilize. "Our high school has an 'Anatomy Lab'."
Senba Academy was an "anomaly." It was merely a high school, yet its land area and facilities were of the highest standard for a private university. It even had specialized facilities like anatomy labs, mortuaries, and chemistry labs. However, these were not open to students; they were used by a small group of teachers and the principal.
"Our school is already distinct just for that. And I heard that the number of 'Silent Teachers' (a respectful term for donated cadavers) we have is strangely high. We aren't a medical school; where are all those Silent Teachers coming from?"
Kevin lowered his voice. Compared to ghosts, the idea that "walls have ears" was a more chilling prospect.
"So, we suspected... that the teachers using the anatomy lab are involved in 'that kind of business'."
"Impossible," Lin interrupted Kevin with a sudden wave of his hand. "At most, she'd manufacture rumors like 'weird laughter from the anatomy lab' or 'waking up on the experimental table.' She doesn't lack money."
"...You know the teacher from the anatomy lab?"
"Our relationship is... alright, I guess." At that moment, the boy who hadn't blinked in the face of ghosts actually showed a hint of trepidation. "In any case, she wouldn't do something like that."
"Oh... then I'll continue," Kevin said, slightly confused but not dwelling on it. "Someone was curious about what those Silent Teachers looked like, so they snuck into the mortuary. They saw many bodies there, but the strange thing was... they felt like those bodies were watching them."
How could people who were already dead watch someone?
In the pitch-black underground mortuary filled with the smell of formalin, those corpses that still looked as they did in life opened their eyes—eyes filled only with white—as the oblivious students passed by...
"They felt very uncomfortable, so they left. But the problem was that the next day, when they passed through the western woods above the mortuary, they felt... the exact same gaze as before."
"'There's no mistake!' one of them screamed frantically. That night, they went back to the mortuary. They discovered in horror that the number of bodies... had changed."
"Did it decrease? No, it increased."
"They saw it. Their own corpses were in there, too..."
It was a standard ghost story, though most are long on horror and short on logic. Fortunately... Lin was someone with a very strong sense of logic.
"Were they alright in the end?"
"No. No one ever saw them again."
"Then who spread the ending of this story?"
"..."
No one could answer.
"Fine, then what happened with you?" Lin didn't dwell on it and asked about Kevin situation.
"When Mei came to visit our school, I took her to the small woods."
"..."
Kosma, Lin, and Kalpas simultaneously shot him looks of disdain.
"Hey! I just wanted to find a quiet place to chat with her!"
"I get it. You go to a hotel at 11 PM just to play Airplane Chess all night."
"I'm not even going to argue with you!" Kevin huffed. "Then, I felt someone watching us from behind. But when I turned around, there was nothing. Mei said she felt very uncomfortable, so we left."
"Before leaving, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a hollow in a tree."
"Inside, there was an eye that was nothing but white."
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Part 6)
Rustle, rustle, rustle...
Stepping on the soft soil felt like stepping on human skin. The rustling of the wind through the leaves sounded like high-pitched, narrow laughter. The moment they stepped onto this land, dark gazes stretched out and coiled around their necks.
The moment Kevin passed a tree, he sensed the gaze behind him, but he didn't dare turn around.
His intuition told him that he couldn't turn back. Once he did, what he "saw" might be something usually "invisible."
"Hmm..."
Lin stopped halfway and looked at a tree beside him, then cast a sharp gaze toward another.
"What is it?" Kalpas asked upon seeing his movements.
"There are many of them."
This time, Lin gripped his axe directly, staying alert. His gaze moved from one tree to another; he couldn't stop to confirm which one it was, as if every tree here had come to life.
"Hey... is it my imagination?" Kosma took a half-step back, stepping on a tree root. His pupils dilated and contracted repeatedly from fear. "Are these trees moving?"
He suspected he was seeing things. A tree that was nearly ten meters away just a moment ago was now about five meters behind him the moment he turned his head.
"Don't scare me..."
Kosma and Kevin, the two cowards, were practically hugging each other. To put it plainly, the area was now filled with "demonic energy"; one could feel the needle-like chill just by physical sensation.
Kosma stared deathly at that tree, carefully moving away from it. But before he could take two steps back, his back bumped into a cold object.
"..."
At that moment, cold sweat poured from his pores along with his terror.
He turned his head with difficulty. At the very edge of his vision, he saw a brownish-black tree trunk.
Was this tree here before?
The trees from all directions seemed to be playing "Red Light, Green Light" with them. As long as no one was looking at one of them, it would move closer at light speed. The space they had to stand in grew smaller and smaller. The wind, sounding like raspy mockery, grew louder, and those evil gazes began to reach toward them like bloodthirsty, swaying branches.
"What do we do, Lin..." Kevin didn't even dare to speak loudly anymore.
He thought he saw it just now—in the center of a tree trunk, there was a hollow, and an eyeball of pure white flashed within it.
Could these trees really be possessed by the souls of those Silent Teachers in the underground mortuary?
"They aren't. Since the Silent Teachers donated their bodies, it means most of them were kind and free-spirited people. It's impossible for them to become ghosts wandering the world."
"It's impressive that you can use logical thinking for this! But can you find a solution!" Once a person falls into extreme fear, it's hard to control their emotions. Kosma volume skyrocketed. They stood back-to-back, watching the encroaching trees.
"It's simple. Since it's impossible for these trees to be possessed by the Silent Teachers..." After deducing the conclusion, Lin rummaged through his backpack for a while. "Then there is only one answer."
In the midst of the trees that had begun to shamelessly wave their branches and rush forward, Lin pulled another item from his backpack.
"I hope she doesn't come looking for trouble afterward."
VROOOOM!
The carnival of trees was cut short by a discordant noise.
Following that, their branches trembled, shaking like a sieve.
In Lin hand, a fierce beast roared.
"A chainsaw?! Where did you get a chainsaw!" Kosma shrieked hysterically.
What Lin had pulled out of his backpack was indeed a roaring chainsaw with high-speed rotating teeth!
"A folding chainsaw invented by a certain person when she was bored. Though her original intention was to use it for cutting vegetables." Lin gripped the handle, then charged at the shivering trees.
He left the others standing there in a daze, watching blankly as Lin chased the trees all over the place.
Here it was again—this situation felt familiar, like something they had seen half an hour ago.
The sharpness of that chainsaw was no joke. They had never seen a chainsaw that could cut trees as easily as tearing paper. Even a normal chainsaw requires a good angle; this one sliced through them in a single stroke.
What flowed from the cross-sections of the trees was actually blood, fat, and some strangely shaped internal organs. There was no smell, but it looked exceptionally disgusting.
Facing this bloody scene, Lin simply stepped on a tree trunk and sliced it in two with one stroke.
Only then did the other three realize how many "trees" there were. At some point, they had disguised themselves as ordinary trees, and now Lin was finding them one by one and mercilessly sawing them down.
"These aren't disappearing... aren't they ghosts?" Having realized this, Kosma grew bolder. He was afraid of ghosts, but that didn't mean he was afraid of "monsters." Frowning, he knelt nearby and examined the things flowing from the trunks. "It's not bark; it's a mixture similar to human skin, muscle tissue, and tree fibers..."
Remembering what Lin said about these trees not being possessed by Silent Teachers, then...
"These are all new species created by that teacher from the anatomy lab. No, according to her, they're likely just some failed by-products."
At this point, Lin cut down the last tree and stabbed the chainsaw into the dirt. "I remember her saying she wanted to create a plant that could grow 'meat'—everything from the bark to the trunk to the fruit would be edible meat, and it would grow extremely fast. If you're hungry, you could just cut a piece of meat right off it. These are probably the failed works of that new species."
"Cutting a piece off when you're hungry..."
Kevin imagined a flailing tree covered in tumors and fleshy fruit—the pink meat and mucus-covered fruit made him want to gag.
"Leaving these trees abandoned here isn't her style. I suspect a batch escaped directly from underground and hid here to attack people at night." Lin picked up a piece of internal organ and sniffed it; there was no foul odor. "But our curfew happens to clash with these guys' schedule, so only we would be here this late."
"Hey, Lin, you aren't..." Kosma watched Lin actions, his stomach churning.
"As I thought, it should be edible. Kalpas, pack these up. Our dorm won't need to buy meat for a while."
"Good. It looks like I can make a feast."
Kalpas also unhesitatingly grabbed the organs and stuffed them into the plastic bags Lin threw out. The two of them acted with such efficiency that it was terrifying to behold.
The Daily Life of High School Flame-Chasers: Seven Mysteries of the Campus (Epilogue)
"Why do you carry plastic bags and disposable gloves with you..."
As the Seven Mysteries of the Campus were solved one by one, Kevin truly felt they had a chance to get that 50,000 yuan. However, Lin various actions along the way made him feel that this "hidden expert" brother of his was much scarier than the mysteries themselves.
Would a normal person carry a fire axe, a chainsaw, black plastic bags, and disposable gloves?
Would a normal person saw apart trees that leak blood and organs one by one without blinking, then plan to eat their meat?
"I'm not a shut-in like you who stays in the dorm all day playing games and only goes out to date Mei. I have many things to do."
"I really hope the person who stayed in the dorm with me all last week playing games isn't the same person as you right now." Kevin eyelid twitched. "And what's with that 'I'm-offended-because-you-have-a-girlfriend' face? Didn't that cute girl confess to you back then? You're the one who didn't accept her and treated her like a man."
"Uh..." Lin also remembered that past embarrassment and gave a fake cough. "Hua... she is indeed very good, but unfortunately, I am a man with great ambitions."
"I don't follow."
"My 'XP' is big breasts."
"Finally, the last one."
Kalpas also seemed to feel the fatigue of the night's non-stop work and facing so many non-human monsters. He placed two large bags of ingredients next to the vegetable garden and wiped his mask.
"The last one?"
Kosma, whose brain was already a bit muddled, didn't stop to think which six of the seven mysteries had been completed. He just wanted to finish this last one quickly, go back to the dorm, turn on every lamp, and hide under the covers listening to the Great Compassion Mantra.
"Human-Head Radish... sounds like the same type as the Eye in the Tree." Lin rummaged through his backpack again. This time, Kevin and Kosma stood far away, fearing he would pull out some other bloodthirsty weapon.
"Let me think, I remember it was..."
"There's no need to mention those rumors that have no accuracy." Lin stopped Kalpas from continuing. "In the end, our world only has this much 'extraordinariness'."
"Wait, wait, wait. We've encountered ghosts and Human-Made creatures; is that not 'extraordinary' enough?"
Lin sighed and shook his head. "Ghosts? There have been descriptions of them since ancient times. Whether they exist or not isn't entirely unexpected. Human-Made creatures even less so; their appearance was only a matter of time. Do I need to tell you about Dolly the sheep?"
"True extraordinariness should be a disaster with no warning, something never seen before that humanity cannot resist. It's a thing shaped like a natural disaster but far scarier—like the situations in novels where mysterious powers sweep across the globe."
"Lin, you really are... a qualified high school sophomore." Kevin didn't know what else to say.
"This isn't 'chunibyo'; I'm just seeking truth from facts." Lin brushed the hair from his forehead. "Our world is just this mundane. But there's nothing wrong with that."
"An extraordinary world has extraordinary people. Perhaps a me in another world would be a hero saving the world, or maybe a monster destroying humanity. But they would surely envy the mundane me who can live freely and without restraint."
"Let's finish this last job quickly and go back."
Lin stretched, but this time, in their eyes, his silhouette seemed to hold a deeper meaning.
As expected, the last "Human-Head Radish" was actually just a radish with a human head created by someone. Its greatest use was probably to avoid having to carve a scary radish design for Halloween.
"Heave-ho."
Lin pulled out a Human-Head Radish, then, under the horrified gazes of the others, he pulled off the radish's "nose." A blood-colored liquid flowed out. He dabbed some with his finger and put it in his mouth.
"Hmm, tastes about the same as a regular radish, only the color is different. Let's make stir-fried radish with meat."
Lin and Kalpas casually put the Human-Head Radish and the Eye-Tree meat together, preparing to take them back for cooking.
"Wait a minute, is there still one missing?"
At this point, Kosma, who had been tormented all night, finally remembered something in the cold dawn as the sun was about to rise.
"The Midnight Magic Mirror, the Toilet Cry for Help, the Non-existent Eighth Floor, and the Extra Person in the old girls' dormitory, plus the Eye in the Tree and Human-Head Radish we just solved—that's only six. Isn't there still the Raincoat Killer?"
The Raincoat Killer was the most realistic and likely of these rumors. After a night of exploration, Kosma was even more convinced it existed. Since even more bizarre things had happened, then the last rumor, which was purely about a human, definitely had to be real.
However... the Raincoat Killer might actually be the scariest one. The ghosts and Human-Made creatures they encountered didn't pose that much of a threat to humanity, relatively speaking. The most terrifying one had been the ghost in the toilet, who killed an entire dorm.
And a killer is a bona fide murderer.
"Oh, that one. It doesn't actually exist."
Lin spoke the unexpected truth calmly.
"...No way? How are you so sure?" Kevin was also puzzled. Lin had maintained a skeptical attitude toward the other rumors, but he was certain the Raincoat Killer didn't exist.
"It doesn't exist because it doesn't exist. Would you believe there's a killer wandering the school?" Lin said in a calm tone. "That's a murderer. If someone in the school found out, the police would have surrounded the place long ago, and we'd be on a long break."
That made sense. Lin greatest strength was using logic to explain everything. Thus, many discordant things and events would find an answer—unless, as he said, a completely irrational "disaster" appeared.
No logic, no warning—only the "fact" of its occurrence. Such a thing... is much like someone suddenly deciding to commit a street massacre, buying a machine gun on a whim, and opening fire on a crowd.
Do the people shot to death have any reason for dying? No. Everything just happens because a madman suddenly caused a massacre to be born.
Yes. So... logic is not always omnipotent.
Expressionlessly, Lin zipped up his backpack and swung it onto his back. The group walked toward their dormitory.
And no one noticed that through a gap in Lin backpack zipper, the sleeve of a black raincoat was peeking out...