The three of them finished the last class of the afternoon, leave slips in hand like an imperial sword of authority, and left the school without a hitch.
Red King took all of it in.
"They left the female ghost to stay behind, and Natural Disaster took the two of them out. What are they up to?" Red King couldn't quite make sense of the relationship among Zhou You and the other two.
"Pack up. Follow Natural Disaster." Red King ordered Nianshi and Lishi. As for the female ghost, he would leave her for now. She didn't look like anyone important anyway.
Zhou You and the other two did not leave by taxi. They walked straight into the Lanzhou Noodle Shop across from the school gate.
Red King didn't dare go in, afraid of running into them head-on. Only after the three had finished eating did he dare enter the noodle shop to dig for information.
Nianshi hypnotized the cook, got out of him what the three had eaten, and ordered three bowls of the same to take away.
"Write it down. Natural Disaster ate a bowl of Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles." Red King had Lishi record it.
If it weren't so hard to find out what Chu Xiaoyao ate in the cafeteria, he would have been only too eager to get that clear as well.
If someday Natural Disaster discovered him, he might save his own life with "Let me treat you and Zhou You to a bowl of noodles."
All of this was critical intelligence for keeping himself alive. Even the Professor didn't know it.
"Take the bus?" Zhou You asked. With a beauty on either side of him, passersby kept turning to look.
Chu Xiaoyao had originally planned to go by bus, but with Su Tingxue here, she couldn't let her presence come off weaker.
She gave a grand wave of her hand, thoroughly extravagant. "Taxi. My treat!"
Su Tingxue tilted her head and looked past Zhou You at Chu Xiaoyao. She didn't quite understand. It was only a taxi. Why sound so magnificently heroic?
Perhaps this was simply the bearing of a true expert.
Chu Xiaoyao paid out fifteen yuan, and they arrived at Wanhe Residential Compound.
Just as the post had described, Wanhe Residential Compound was a very old compound. The buildings were all six-story walk-ups with no elevators, their ceramic-tile exteriors mottled. In any one building, only a scant few households had their lights on.
Half the streetlights were dark, and the ones that still worked were very dim. Nameless little bugs danced around the lamps as if holding a grand banquet.
Zhou You wasn't afraid, though. His own home was this kind of old compound too, housing assigned by his parents' work unit.
At the compound gate, a man of about thirty stood under a streetlight with a black dog on a leash, waiting anxiously for something.
"Swimming This Week?"
"Stir-Fried Bamboo Shoots and Pork?"
The two confirmed each other's identities, like exchanging a code. Zhou You thought the other man stood out. The other man thought Zhou You stood out even more.
It wasn't that Chu Xiaoyao and Su Tingxue beside Zhou You were eye-catching. It was that all three of them were wearing school uniforms.
So he really was a student.
The little black dog barked twice at Zhou You, as if saying hello. It really did have a touch of spiritual awareness.
"This humble one is Ji Sen of the Green Bamboo Sect. And you three fellow Daoists are?"
"Carefree Sect, Zhou You."
"Carefree Sect, Chu Xiaoyao."
"Mount Longhu, Su Tingxue."
Ji Sen had never heard of the first two, and his expression stayed ordinary. When he heard Su Tingxue's name, he at once set aside his suspicions and turned solemn with respect.
So it was that Little Celestial Master of Mount Longhu, Su Tingxue—a cultivator of some renown in their circle.
"So you are fellow Daoists of Mount Longhu and the Carefree Sect. I have long admired your great names." Ji Sen said it politely. Whether he had heard of them or not, "long admired your great names" came first.
"This way, please."
"You're finally here. I didn't sleep well all last night." Ji Sen poured out his woes to the three of them, and went over the events of the post again, only in more detail, and more frighteningly.
Last night, the moment he closed his eyes, he had felt something watching him. Even wrapped in his quilt, he felt no safety. He had left the door and the lights on, and opened the wardrobe and the drawers as well, clutching his spirit sword, suspicious of ghosts at every turn.
All along the way, Ji Sen watched the expressions of Zhou You and the other two. Finding no fear on any of their faces, he felt much more at ease.
All three were very bold.
As for Su Tingxue, it went without saying. She often watched horror films to relax; even with a vengeful ghost pressed to her face, her expression wouldn't change.
Chu Xiaoyao feared neither heaven nor earth.
Zhou You had spent these years hanging around with Chu Xiaoyao, and over these years had trained up his nerve.
Ji Sen lived on the top floor, the sixth. The stairwell lights were dim. With every floor they climbed, the lights on the floor below went out, leaving pitch blackness. Footsteps echoed in the stairwell, as if something were following close behind.
"This is the place I rent. I live alone, so I don't have many things. Most of what's inside was left by the previous owner, so the overall style is a bit old." Ji Sen explained just before opening the door.
The door opened on a living room decorated in turn-of-the-millennium style.
The whole place was finished in pale yellow wood. The wooden sofa and stools looked stiff and hard. A patterned cloth covered the coffee table, with a clear soft pad laid over it. A corner cabinet with rounded edges was piled with all sorts of little trinkets. The big-butt television's snowy screen hissed and crackled, and the white noise it gave off was irritating.
In an instant it dragged Zhou You's memories back to a hazy childhood.
"Why is this TV on!" Disbelief crossed Ji Sen's face, and he hurried over to look.
"Did you forget to turn it off when you left?" Zhou You asked, studying the television carefully.
He hadn't seen an old television like this in a long time. It was nearly a cube. Zhou You habitually called it a big-butt television. He had only ever seen this kind as a child; by now they had basically all been phased out.
"Th-that's impossible! When the old landlord gave me the place, he said this TV was broken, so I went ahead and unplugged the power cord entirely!" Ji Sen looked panicked. This was something he had never run into before.
Then he froze.
The television wasn't connected to a power cord at all.
"You run the air conditioner with the window open?" Chu Xiaoyao pointed at the balcony window. The cabinet air conditioner in the living room was on, the cold air strong, while the balcony window stood wide open and hot wind poured in.
"No! I definitely closed the window when I left!" A chill ran over Ji Sen. He gripped the window frame and looked out. The compound was pitch-black.
"Who opened the window!"
This was the sixth floor, and no protective netting had been installed. It was exactly as if something had opened the window and climbed in.
If it wanted to climb in, the only way would be to come around from the roof, wouldn't it?
Ji Sen clung to the window frame and swallowed, hesitating over whether to look up. There wouldn't be something crouched right above his head, would there...
In the end he didn't dare look up. He drew his head back in.
Zhou You frowned. The situation here gave off an uncanny wrongness he couldn't put a name to. Was it a ghost?
Zhou You's soul left his body to investigate. He wanted to see where that ghost was hiding.
It was the first time Su Tingxue had encountered a situation like this. She thought over which kind of vengeful ghost could bring it about, and opened her Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye to sweep the whole apartment.
Strangely, the entire room held no secrets before the Heavenly Eye, and yet nothing was found.
Aside from a peace talisman of negligible effect that Ji Sen had obtained from who knew where, there was no trace of any spell.
"Did you find anything?" Zhou You asked. He had come up empty. The apartment looked entirely normal.
Yet sign after sign said this place could not possibly be normal.
Su Tingxue shook her head. Her Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye couldn't make anything out either.
"Could it be that the thing didn't come in through the window, but climbed out of it, and is already gone?" Zhou You's brows locked tight. The problem was more complicated than he had imagined.
After all, if there were anything in the apartment, the little black dog ought to have barked.
"Wait. Where's the little black dog?" Zhou You suddenly noticed that the little black dog at his feet had vanished at some point!
"Coal Ball is gone?!" Ji Sen broke into a cold sweat. Coal Ball was the little black dog's name.
How could Coal Ball suddenly disappear before everyone's eyes without making a single sound?!
Badly shaken, Ji Sen picked up the spirit sword and bronze handbell that had been on the sofa and warily looked all around.
"Coal Ball, are you there?" Weapon in hand, Ji Sen searched room by room, calling for the little black dog again and again, hoping to hear one more bark.
But he searched the whole apartment, and that bark never came.
The little black dog had vanished without a sound.
"Could it have been locked outside?" Zhou You wondered. He wanted to look outside. That little black dog was quite spiritually aware, and would be a great help in finding the thing they couldn't see. It was the key to breaking this open.
There was no little black dog outside the door either.
"Coal Ball is gone." Ji Sen came out of the master bedroom, his expression low. He had few friends in ordinary times. It was the little black dog that kept him company, and with the dog gone, it felt as if some piece of him were missing.
"Coal Ball really can't be found." Another Ji Sen appeared from the second bedroom, his expression just as low. That was his companion.
!
The two Ji Sens drew their swords on each other and spoke in unison.
"Who are you!"
Chapter 37