Since you've already come all this way.

When Chen Yiming awoke from a haze of confusion, the first thing he saw was his father's large hand swinging toward him. If his mother hadn’t intervened, that hand would have landed squarely on his head.

“What good does it do to hit the child now?” his mother said, blocking his father, though her own expression was far from pleasant.

She had always thought Chen Yiming was merely spoiled by the family, fond of playing around but never overstepping the line. Who could have guessed he’d be so bold as to toy with matters of life and death?

Ji Ningzhao stood nearby, wiping her hands with a cloth she’d prepared in advance. She wanted to ask a few more questions, but Chen Yiming was on the verge of collapse—if she didn’t bring him back to his senses soon, he’d be left a fool. Seeing this, she could only summon his wandering soul back for now, since he already seemed to recall the events that had once transpired.

Once the paper over the window is pierced, the secrets behind are laid bare.

Chen Yiming sat there, dazed and speechless for a long while, and his father, whose anger had flared so fiercely before, now found himself growing worried.

He turned to Ji Ningzhao and asked, “Miss Ji, is the boy still not fully awake?”

Ji Ningzhao set down her cloth, walked over, and patted Chen Yiming gently on the shoulder. At her touch, the sensation of drifting that had enveloped him abruptly vanished; he felt himself anchored firmly in reality once more.

What the family didn’t see was that, at the very instant Ji Ningzhao touched his shoulder, a faint wisp of gray smoke curled from his collarbone, winding up along her index finger. But as it reached her wrist, it vanished completely, dissipating into nothing.

Ji Ningzhao returned to the sofa and looked at Chen Yiming. “Now, Mr. Chen, please continue recounting what happened after that.”

During the entire process of reflection, though the memories had felt misty and elusive, Chen Yiming had truly known what had happened. Now, prompted by Ji Ningzhao, he instantly recalled the words he’d spoken in his unconscious state.

A suffocating terror seized his heart. It was clear now that everything that had happened afterward was a direct result of their visit to that abandoned school building.

Even Wen Rujin gathering everyone to “have some fun” had been a desperate attempt to chase away the fear that had haunted the two of them after that night.

Upon hearing this, Chen’s father was furious all over again. So there had been such a hidden story behind it all. If luck hadn’t brought Xie Qingfa to them, and if Ji Ningzhao hadn’t been willing to help, his foolish son might have died without anyone ever knowing why.

He resolved that if they made it through this ordeal, he’d have to discipline Chen Yiming properly. Yet, with only this one child, he knew he’d never have the heart for true severity. So his plan was to send Chen Yiming to stay with Chen Yishen as soon as everything was resolved.

But for now, the most pressing matter was to preserve his son’s life. And Miss Ji hardly seemed inclined to stand by watching him beat the boy.

“Well? Get over here and make yourself clear,” Chen’s father barked, seeing that his son, though awake, still looked dazed.

Chen Yiming, knowing he’d face consequences later, hung his head and obediently took a seat on the sofa opposite Ji Ningzhao.

As his mind cleared, he began to recall the events in detail, and a chill crept up his spine once more.

It wasn’t the first time Chen Yiming had been to Mount Jingtai, but he had only ever visited the developed tourist areas. Never before had he ventured to the abandoned school at the mountain’s base.

Though Mount Jingtai was said to be within the city limits of Hangzhou, in reality, it lay at the border between Hangzhou and Shenzhen.

By the time their group had finished their noisy preparations and set out, it was already five or six in the afternoon when they reached the mountain.

Though the sky was not yet fully dark, the mountain’s shadowed side already seemed cloaked in evening gloom. The dense vegetation made the air cool and damp; a gust of wind was enough to raise goosebumps.

The disused school, untouched by human presence, was overrun by wild grasses grown wild and tall. Even from the outside, one could see the gaping entrance to the main building, dark as a black hole, and the walls mottled and scarred by weather and time. Moss crept across the surfaces, forming eerie shapes in Chen Yiming’s eyes.

The iron gates, perhaps left untouched due to the building’s sinister reputation, had not been carted off for scrap. Now, under the breath of some untraceable wind, they groaned and creaked with a sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

With the fading light, the scene resembled a setting from a classic horror film, on the brink of haunting—while they, noisy and carefree with their backpacks, might as well have been the doomed NPCs about to meet their fate.

“To be honest, Wen and I didn’t want to go in at all,” Chen Yiming said, still subdued. “But everyone kept urging us—‘we’re already here, might as well have a look.’ The school wasn’t big, so we figured we’d take a quick tour and drive back.”

There was, of course, another reason: Chen Yiming and Wen Rujin, both in their early twenties, were unwilling to lose face in front of their friends.

At this, Ji Ningzhao couldn’t help but curl her lips into a faint smile. The phrase “we’re already here” truly held a peculiar kind of magic at times.

Her movement was so slight that Chen Yiming didn’t notice. He simply continued.

The main entrance wasn’t locked. They pushed it open and wandered through the building. It wasn’t much different from any other private school—though abandoned, most of the furniture remained. The desks and chairs were thick with dust but otherwise well preserved.

There were no strange murals or decorations typical of ghost stories, and every classroom opened onto a corridor with windows, allowing them to glimpse the fading daylight outside, along with the beams of their flashlights.

They joked and laughed, exploring from top to bottom, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Most importantly, even with nerves stretched taut, neither Chen Yiming nor Wen Rujin sensed any true danger within the building.

At this point in his story, Chen Yiming glanced at Ji Ningzhao.

She nodded in agreement, affirming his intuition. Even ordinary people with no training whatsoever could, in moments of heightened awareness, instinctively sense when a place was truly unsafe.

Beyond the classroom block lay the dormitory building, rumored to be the site of the most intense hauntings.

By now, Chen Yiming’s nerves had relaxed and impatience crept in—he just wanted to finish the tour and leave this godforsaken place.

But the moment they entered the dormitory, every hair on Chen Yiming’s body stood on end. He and Wen Rujin exchanged a glance, and a powerful sense of unease flooded them both.