Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Nine p.m.
On Sunday evenings, other clubs usually held meetings or activities, so the dance team ended practice half an hour early.
Dong Jia trained harder than most and was usually the last person to leave the dance studio. Today was no exception.
Nine twenty p.m.
Dong Jia finished packing her bag, turned off the lights, and left the room.
Ever since the Shanxiao had appeared, Dong Jia had developed the habit of keeping one hand on the stair railing.
As she walked, she unconsciously counted the steps on her way down.
The dance studio was on the fourth floor. Dong Jia had climbed this staircase for four years; she knew even the number of steps in each flight by heart.
But as she counted, something began to feel wrong.
Thirteen… steps?
That couldn’t be right. There should have been twelve.
She kept going down. Kept counting.
Still thirteen.
Dong Jia’s face turned deathly pale.
Having once come into contact with that supernatural world, ordinary though she was, Dong Jia had become far more sensitive to such things than most people.
Her face bloodless, she raced down the stairs. Her pounding footsteps echoed through the empty stairwell, and heaven and earth seemed so silent that nothing remained but Dong Jia’s footfalls and the frantic pounding inside her chest.
Thump. Thump…
Her heartbeat had never been so rapid or so violent.
Dong Jia sagged against the railing, unable to tell whether she felt this way because she was terrified or because of the exertion of running.
Gasping for breath, she stared at the sign marked “3” posted at the stairwell landing, her face ashen.
Unless she remembered wrong, she had already run around more times than she could count. Why was she still circling madly between the fourth and third floors?!
Dong Jia was so frightened she was about to cry.
Right – the music classroom on the third floor still had people in it. She had heard them rehearsing just moments ago.
The music of drums, saxophone, and organ pipes was still sounding in her ears. They were still there!
As if she had glimpsed salvation, Dong Jia shoved open the fire door and sprinted straight for the third-floor music classroom.
She ran so fast that she didn’t even care when one of her shoes fell off.
But when she finally reached the music classroom and pushed the door open, there wasn’t a soul inside!
The saxophone still sounded beside her ears, its mournful notes low and sorrowful, yet whoever was playing it was nowhere to be seen.
Gradually, even the music faded beyond hearing.
Had they left? Where had they gone? How had they gotten out?
In this entire space, Dong Jia seemed to be the only person left.
Like someone possessed, she ran around the circular University Student Activity Center, but found no one else.
The rehearsal auditorium was empty.
The art studio was empty.
The conference room was empty too.
Every classroom was deserted!
What kind of monster had she gotten tangled up with…?
Dong Jia sniffled. Still badly shaken, she thought of her impossibly fearless roommate who also happened to possess supernatural powers: Xie Qingling.
Only after taking out her phone did Dong Jia learn what true despair meant.
Her phone had no signal!
She couldn’t get through to Xie Qingling.
The signal in the University Student Activity Center was normally full bars.
Dong Jia despaired.
Some force was interfering with her, severing every connection she had to the outside world.
She was trapped here. She couldn’t get out.
But just as Dong Jia decided to burst into tears, her signal-less phone suddenly rang.
Caller ID: Xie Qingling.
Like a dying person grabbing hold of driftwood, Dong Jia answered at once. “Qingling, I’m lost.”
“I’m trapped in the University Student Activity Center. I can’t get out.”
Dong Jia had always been timid, and now her voice trembled as if she were about to cry.
After a second of silence, Xie Qingling immediately said, “Wait for me. I’ll come get you out.”
–
[The Four-Way Crossroads Ghost lives beside roads choked with traffic, searching for people burdened by sin. It lures them onto a Lost Path or harvests their lives in what looks like an accidental car crash. You carry a Migu branch from Mount Zhaoyao, so its illusions do not work on you. But one failure is not enough to stop it from carrying out its plan. You should be grateful that this little ghost does not eat people.]
[It followed behind you, leaving its dwelling and tailing you all the way to campus. That unlucky companion of yours became its target. This appears to be some scheme of the Four-Way Crossroads Ghost. No one knows why it is so determined to take you away.]
Xie Qingling tore open the tightly wrapped bandages and let blood drip from her wound. She smeared the red blood over the blade, stained a riot-control fork with it as well, and took along her remaining five bags of salt. That was all the equipment she had.
In the darkness, Xie Qingling charged out of the dormitory with murder in her eyes, heading for the University Student Activity Center.
At this hour, most people had returned to their dorms. Those who had just finished meetings needed to collapse on their beds before either body or soul could recover.
The blood-reeking Xie Qingling drew little attention. She soon reached the entrance to the University Student Activity Center.
Every classroom in the University Student Activity Center was dark. The place looked like a black void, its circular central courtyard resembling the gaping maw of some monster – a bottomless mouth that would swallow people whole.
Xie Qingling drew a deep breath. With the Migu branch in hand, she summoned her courage and rushed into the University Student Activity Center.
[Just as the Four-Way Crossroads Ghost wished, you stepped straight into the trap it laid for you. It skips and hops beside you, calling out with anxious eagerness: Big sister, big sister, come with me.]
[Yet you coldly ignore its calls all the same. All you want is to find that unlucky companion of yours. The Migu branch in your hand keeps the Four-Way Crossroads Ghost from deceiving you. It still cannot drag you into its illusion or take you anywhere else.]
Xie Qingling found Dong Jia at the turn of the second-floor stairs.
She pushed open the heavy fire door, and the green glow of the emergency exit light fell across Xie Qingling’s face, making her look like a specter in the darkness.
There was no telling what Xie Qingling looked like through Dong Jia’s eyes. All she heard was Dong Jia’s piercing scream, as though she had seen some horrifying monster.
Still screaming, Dong Jia tried to run.
Yet the route she chose was straight into the wall behind her. She was completely unaware of the obstacle blocking her path – the Four-Way Crossroads Ghost’s illusion had yet to break in Dong Jia’s world.
“Jiajia, it’s me. Don’t be scared. I’m here to take you back.” Her hands covered in blood, Xie Qingling forcibly shoved the Migu branch into Dong Jia’s hand as she circled helplessly beside the wall.
In an instant, the world returned to normal in Dong Jia’s eyes.
There was no four-legged monster crawling up the stairs, nor any inescapable prison trapping her inside.
The moment Dong Jia saw Xie Qingling, she burst into loud sobs. “I think something latched onto me.”
“I know. It came looking for me.” Xie Qingling snapped the Migu branch in two. “Take this and it won’t be able to fool you. Go back to the dorm first. I can handle things here. I’ll stay behind and settle this with it myself.”
Tonight had been far too much excitement.
Still badly shaken, Dong Jia nodded, then grabbed the Migu branch and ran.
Whatever happened next was beyond her ability to get involved. The best she could do was flee as quickly as possible and avoid becoming a burden.
Dance practice had already exhausted her, and her aimless running just now had drained even more of her strength. Her legs were so weak she could barely stand. Insisting on staying would only make things harder for Xie Qingling.
To keep herself from being captured and used against Xie Qingling, Dong Jia ran with all the speed she could muster.
After Dong Jia left, Xie Qingling tore open the salt bags and scattered a thin layer of white salt across the stairs and corridors.
The salt would force the monster to reveal itself.
She had decided to destroy these relentlessly haunting creatures before they dragged even more people around her into danger.
Xie Qingling could be petty too.
Didn’t Ling Fang want to assess her?
Then she would use this Four-Way Crossroads Ghost as her pledge of allegiance.
As Xie Qingling scattered the salt, she considered every possible situation that might arise next.
[Faced with you, weapon in hand, the cowardly Four-Way Crossroads Ghost does not dare approach. It is hanging from the second-floor railing, tormented as it tries every possible way to whisper beside your ear: Big sister, big sister, come with me.]
[It tries to come closer, but in the end, its cowardice stops it.]
Go? Go fuck yourself.
Xie Qingling tossed aside the empty salt bag. Holding the riot-control fork in one hand and the fruit knife in the other, she fixed her gaze on the corridor railing.
Just as Xie Qingling wondered whether one thrust of the fork could skewer it straight through, the tap-tap-tap of footsteps rang out in the silent stairwell.
Xie Qingling turned and saw, to her surprise, that Dong Jia had returned with the Migu branch.
“Why did you come back? It isn’t safe here. I can handle this by myself,” Xie Qingling said.
Dong Jia’s face was bloodless, even more ghastly than before.
“Qingling, listen.”
Not understanding, Xie Qingling cocked her head and listened –
Scrape, scrape, scrape…
Scrape, scrape…
The intermittent sound of some heavy metal object dragging across the floor echoed through the empty University Student Activity Center, grating and uncanny.
Scrape, scrape, scrape…
Screeech…
The sound came closer, clearer, and shriller, like a needle piercing through the eardrum and driving straight into the heart, bearing down with suffocating pressure.
Dong Jia was so tense her mouth had gone dry. “Outside… there’s… there’s something huge…”
Dong Jia had already made it outside the University Student Activity Center, but then she had seen the huge thing.
It was a monster carrying an enormous cleaver.
Dong Jia hadn’t seen it clearly, only glimpsed a blurry silhouette.
The monster came toward her one slow step at a time, but Dong Jia was already so frightened her legs were about to give out.
Her instincts told her this monster was even more terrifying than the one inside the University Student Activity Center!
Acting on instinct, she had run back to find Xie Qingling.
At least there was someone formidable here to cling to!
[She has only just broken free of the Four-Way Crossroads Ghost’s illusion. Her eyes still retain a trace of the boundary between reality and illusion, allowing her to catch a glimpse of an existence she was never meant to see. Poor child. She must have received quite a fright.]
[That is a Rakshasa. Newly awakened from chaos, it wanders through the night. Starving and no longer as mighty as it once was, it is terribly weak upon first waking – too weak even to lift the Rakshasa Blade it wielded in the past, so it can only drag the weapon along the ground.]
[It wanders, then wanders some more, exploring its surroundings with uncertain steps and searching eyes. It cannot understand why the mortal realm has become so unfamiliar. Fortunately, it soon discovers food: a Spirit Wielder whose Spirit Sight has yet to open, a rare delicacy. If it devours her flesh and blood and sucks out her brains, it will easily be able to lift that heavy Rakshasa Blade and hunt even more humans.]
[Dragging its Rakshasa Blade, it is coming toward you.]
Dong Jia asked, face white, “Qingling, what do we do?”
“Run!” Xie Qingling took off at once. “Split up! The thing outside has nothing to do with you. It came for me!”
Dong Jia froze, her face paling further. After a moment’s hesitation, she fled in another direction.
[The Four-Way Crossroads Ghost hanging upside down from the railing clings to your back. Enduring the pain of being wounded by your spiritual blood, it lets out a shrill howl.]
[Pressed close to your ear, it whispers: Big sister, big sister, come with me. The Rakshasa is already behind you. Come with me. Enter my illusion, and I can help you escape.]