“Bai Shen, you’ll come with me to the fourth floor ah.” Xiang Chen said. 

The students slowly ascended the stairs, making their way up to the higher floors until it was only Bai Shen and Xiang Chen left. They stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the fourth floor, an ominous feeling tugging at their nerves. 

“Should we try it?” Bai Shen asked nervously.

“En.” Xiang Chen replied quietly. “I’ll go first.” 

He closed his eyes, holding onto the rail of the stairway to guide his steps as he ascended the stairs. One, two, three… 

The air around them seemed to buzz lightly, and Xiang Chen felt his heart thumping heavily in his chest. 

Four, five, six, seven…

The rail rounded a corner and continued up. 

Eight, nine, ten… 

Xiang Chen could hear the sound of Bai Shen’s steps behind him. 

Eleven…

Suddenly, an ear-piercing scream broke through the silence, breaking Xiang Chen’s concentration. His eyes flew open, and he turned around to look at Bai Shen. Bai Shen’s face looked stricken with fear, and the both of them hurriedly ran down the stairs. 

Shao Ming and some others were gathered on the second floor near the staircases. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Xiang Chen said as they reached the group. But everyone was frozen in fear, staring down the hallway to their left. 

Xiang Chen glanced to the left where the flashlights were pointed. His eyes widened. 

There was a distant figure at the end of the corridor. It wore their school uniform and stood deathly still. The terrifying part was that the front of the body was facing their direction but the head was twisted 180 degrees in the other direction. 

“I-I think that’s Shi Kang…” One of the other guys whispered quietly. “S-Shi Kang has black hair, and Gu Huang just dyed his hair brown…”

The person standing there definitely had black hair. 

Xiang Chen slowly put a hand on Shao Qing’s shoulder. He held a finger up to his lips and began to motion for everyone to slowly back away and head down the stairs. As the group of students began to slowly backtrack, the twisted head body twitched once, and then began to slowly make its way towards them. 

“Fuck this, let’s get outta here!” Someone shouted as people started to rush down the stairs. 

Xiang Chen quickly followed after them, but then he almost slammed right into Bai Shen who had stopped at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor. 

“Shit, it’s the fucking shadow guy again! Run!” 

Everyone dispersed. Some people tried to make a run for the door while others ran to hide. 

Xiang Chen knew he couldn’t outrun the crawling ghost since he was in the back of the group, so he grabbed Bai Shen’s hand to pull him up the stairs. They hurriedly passed the second floor where Shi Kang’s ghost appeared and made their way to the third floor. Xiang Chen ran blindly to the left, stopping at a random door. Luckily, the door was unlocked, so Xiang Chen pulled Bai Shen inside and locked the door behind them. Xiang Chen hurriedly turned off his flashlight, pulling Bai Shen into the corner hidden behind the door and a huge bookshelf. 

However, as soon as Xiang Chen let go and turned to face Bai Shen, he suddenly realized that the person he had grabbed was definitely not Bai Shen. 

It was the male student from earlier who had helped Xiang Chen up and pulled him away from the school. 

Xiang Chen was just about to say something, when the male student suddenly pressed him up against the wall. Their bodies were flat against each other, and Xiang Chen’s hand twitched with the urge to push him away when a deep voice whispered into his ear. 

“Stay still. It’s in the hall…” 

Hearing those words, Xiang Chen body stiffened, and he froze in place. He could feel the other person’s cold skin pressing against his own, their cheeks slightly touching. Although Xiang Chen knew that the other man was merely protecting them from being seen, his cheeks and ears still flushed red from the slight embarrassment of being in such a precarious position. He could feel his own breath hot against his face as it was shielded by the other man’s shoulder. He pursed his lips, feeling strange at having this taller male pressing him against the wall. 

Xiang Chen was already considered quite tall at 178cm heightwise, but this other guy was at least 185cm. He shook his head lightly to get rid of the ridiculous thoughts in his mind. 

Thump… Thump…

Xiang Chen held his breath as the sound got closer and closer. He didn’t know what was out there making that thumping sound, but he sure as hell didn’t want to find out. 

Thump…

It passed right by the door beside them and stopped. The air around them grew freezing, and Xiang Chen felt his chest grow tight from holding his breath for so long.

It seemed like an eternity passed before Xiang Chen once again heard the thumping noise as it slowly got further and further away from them. 

The other man’s low voice spoke once again. “Take a breath before you pass out. It’s fine now. It left.” 

Xiang Chen then took a deep breath, feeling the heavy pressure against his lungs abate. As he did, he also moved his hands to push away the other man; he had felt a little too suffocated at the close contact. 

“You…” Xiang Chen didn’t know what to say. He thought that he had grabbed Bai Shen, but it had been his mistake in grabbing the wrong person. When they had been close together, Xiang Chen had somewhat seen the sewed letters on the other’s name tag. It had read, ‘Ye Zhong.’ 

“It looks like we’ll be stuck here awhile, so we might as well take a look around.” Ye Zhong said as he stepped away and observed the classroom they were in. 

Although Xiang Chen was still recovering from running away, he agreed with Ye Zhong’s mindset. “En.” He replied quietly. 

Silently, the two of them began to work through the classroom. Xiang Chen turned the flashlight onto its dimmest mode, but even then, he was still afraid so he used his sleeve to cover the spread of the light. In the classroom, there were old notebooks tossed in a shelf. Papers were scattered all over the floor, and the smell of rotting wood permeated the air. Xiang Chen scrunched his cold nose to hold back a sneeze, rubbing it slightly. He’d always been a little more sensitive to lower temperatures. 

“You want my jacket?” Ye Zhong asked. He chuckled at the sight of Xiang Chen scrunching his nose. 

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Well, if you need it later, just let me know.” 

Xiang Chen looked at Ye Zhong curiously but then nodded his head slightly. “Okay.” 

It was hard to get anything from the notebooks as most of them were tattered and illegible from the fading ink and yellowing paper. They decided to check the desks next. As they moved to the front of the classroom, a peculiar object caught Xiang Chen’s eye. 

“This…” 

Xiang Chen approached the vase of dead flowers sitting on one of the desks. Were these mourning flowers for a dead classmate? 

“There’s something on the desk.” Ye Zhong said as he picked up a small white card. 

Xiang Chen leaned over and flashed the light on it. 

The small white card only had one thing written on it, ‘Wu Liqin.’

Ginseng

Final chapter for the night! Honestly, I have no reserve chapters so I'm posting it as I write. For the next few days, I'll try to do at least three chapters a day, and then start spreading them out to one a day. Let me know in the comments if you're liking this so far!