Starting with dissecting ghost stories

Chapter 183 Ghost Stories and Car Accidents (4K)

June 28, Friday, cloudy.

The rainy season has lasted for almost a month, and the whole town feels like it's trapped inside a humidifier, where even breathing feels sluggish.

At six o'clock in the morning, Shen Xing opened his eyes on time.

A piece of plaster in the corner of the ceiling had curled up due to dampness, revealing the gray-black cement underneath, resembling a cracked piece of skin.

He stared at the patch of plaster on the wall for three seconds, and as his thinking ability gradually returned, he threw off the covers and got out of bed.

Washing up, shaving, boiling water—soon, the sound of the gas stove igniting echoed from the kitchen.

Shen Xing put three pieces of rice noodles into the pot to blanch them, and prepared to fry two eggs in the frying pan next to him. In less than ten minutes, two simple bowls of rice noodle soup, one large and one small, were ready.

He placed the rice noodles on the table and left them there, seemingly waiting for the soup to cool down.

About ten minutes later, the door to the second bedroom opened, and the younger sister, Shen Yuan, came out.

She was wearing a blue and white school uniform a size too big, with her coat draped over her shoulders. Her hair was a little messy, and her left hand was wrapped in bandages and splinted, hanging horizontally in front of her.

She seemed to smell the aroma of rice noodles in the air, turned around and went to the bathroom to wash up. After that, she came to the restaurant and plopped down opposite Shen Xing.

"Why is it rice noodles again?" Shen Yuan picked up her chopsticks with her right hand, slurped up a clump of rice noodles, and mumbled, "Next time... Long Dian is always so late..."

'

"What else would you like for breakfast?" Shen Xing picked up his chopsticks and said calmly, "How about I make you a hot pot?"

Shen Yuan swallowed a large mouthful of rice noodles and slightly raised her chin: "Okay, hot pot it is."

Shen Xing ignored his sister's unreasonable behavior. He knew she just liked to have a momentary outburst of words. After spending time together, he had come to understand his sister's character quite well.

His task was simply to raise his sister to the point where she could live independently, but given how willful she was, it was unlikely she would be able to become independent before graduating from university.

They finished their bowls of noodle soup almost simultaneously. Shen Xing glanced at his sister's arm and asked, "Should we ask for the day off?"

"It's just a fracture, I won't call. It won't hurt unless it rains," Shen Yuan said nonchalantly. "Going to class is more important."

How come I never noticed how much she loved studying before?

"Then go to school by yourself?" Shen Xing asked, looking at his younger sister.

"Ouch...it hurts, I can't walk anymore...carry me."

"I've asked for leave for you."

"Tch, you can at least take me there on your bike, okay?"

"Don't climb walls like that again next time."

"Stop nagging! Go wash the dishes, don't waste time!"

After washing the dishes, Shen Xing went downstairs, got on his bicycle, and waited for his younger sister to sit on the back seat before pedaling and riding towards Yucai Middle School.

Shen Yuan sat backwards on the back of the bicycle, her right hand gripping the metal frame seat. She leaned her head back against her brother's back, her legs swinging gently as she felt the cool morning breeze.

"Why didn't you become the school doctor?" Shen Yuan turned her head to the side, raised her head slightly, and asked a question she had always wanted to ask.

"Uncle Lu gave me a new job as an investigator dispatched to a new branch," Shen Xing said, his voice carried away by the wind behind him. "It seemed quite interesting, so I quit my job and took it."

"Investigate what?" Shen Yuan asked curiously.

"I'll record some abnormal events or strange tales, but it feels a bit like the old qigong craze; I don't think I'll achieve anything significant," Shen Xing replied.

He still had some expectations for his new job, after all, it was a completely new field, and more importantly, it gave him a lot of authority. He could use his job title to go to the police station to participate in some cases he wanted to investigate, and he could even perform autopsies again.

Dissection did alleviate some of his boredom—but not by much.

"Will it be tough?" Shen Yuan asked curiously. "Do you have weekends off?"

"There are no weekends off. You only need to submit one report per week. Once the report is submitted, the rest of the time is considered rest."

"Oh...did you hand in your report this week?"

"not yet."

Shen Yuan looked ahead and began to think, seemingly lost in thought.

"If I submit the report today, can I rest this weekend?" Shen Yuan turned her head and asked again.

"Hmm, what's wrong?"

"I'd like to invite Sister Xinran to go hiking this weekend."

"Then let's go."

"You should go too!"

Why?

"She's your girlfriend! Not mine," Shen Yuan said, her voice filled with exasperation. "Why are you acting like a block of wood? Can't you put a little more effort into dating?"

She seemed to value his relationship progress even more than Shen Xing did.

If I want my brother to have the day off tomorrow, then I have to help him write that report.

Abnormal events... Are there any abnormal events around?

Even after saying goodbye to Shen Xing and entering the school, Shen Yuan was still thinking about this question.

Shen Yuan returned to her class and sat in the second-to-last seat by the window, gazing out the window into deep thought.

The boy in front of her was still gossiping with his group, which was somewhat disrupting Shen Yuan's thoughts.

However, she vaguely heard something, which seemed to be about Wu Xiaoting.

Wu Xiaoting knew that the student sitting next to the podium was a "student from a poor family"—not that her family was poor, but that she would fall asleep as soon as class started.

Previously, Shen Yuan had become friends with the other party because she knew the other party's mother... But now it's almost time for the first class, why hasn't Wu Xiaoting come to class yet?

"Hey, did you know? Wu Xiaoting really does have a mental illness... Today her mother sent people from the mental hospital to arrest her." The boy in front said in a low voice.

How did you know?

"We live in the same neighborhood! Have you forgotten?"

"And then what? Was she arrested?"

"She kept saying something about the end of the world, the sky turned red, and she was being tied to a car while crying. Lots of people were watching!"

"Ugh... She's just like those crazy people on TV... Thank goodness she didn't try to attack anyone with a knife..."

""

"You live in the same neighborhood as her, don't let your mental illness spread to you."

"You're the one who's contagious!"

"Oh no, this lunatic's going to hit someone! Run!"

The boys in front scattered and started chasing and playing around in the corridor.

Was Wu Xiaoting sent to a mental hospital?

Shen Yuan was taken aback.

She never expected that the audio shop owner would send her daughter to a mental hospital, and for a moment, Shen Yuan became a little worried.

Soon, the school bell rang.

Shen Yuan finally couldn't resist, so she quietly tore off a page of paper, wrote a line on it, folded it into a strip of paper, and poked the boy in front of her with the strip of paper.

The boy turned around in surprise, took the note, leaned back slightly, and whispered, "Who should I pass this to?"

'

"This is for you..." Shen Yuan also lowered her voice.

The boy paused for a moment upon hearing this, swallowed hard, and sat up straight again, carefully unfolding the note as if he were about to open a royal decree.

To be honest, his heart is still pounding.

Shen Yuan has always been very unconventional in class. She hardly makes friends with anyone and is usually indifferent to others, showing no desire to communicate. She seems very mysterious.

But she was also exceptionally beautiful, which inevitably made her the "goddess" of many people in the class. Basically, whenever there was a topic about girls, Shen Yuan would be mentioned.

When he unfolded the note, he saw a line of neat and beautiful handwriting on it.

Do you and Wu Xiaoting live in the same neighborhood?

The paper seemed to still retain the warmth of Shen Yuan's palm. If you leaned closer, you could even faintly smell the paper's fragrance—of course, it was just the scent of a ballpoint pen—and the boy's heart couldn't help but pound faster.

Did she pass notes to anyone?

She passed me a note, does that mean she likes me?

She heard it too? Shen Yuan is also interested in this kind of topic? She just didn't want to participate in the discussion earlier because there were too many people?

Girls really do love hearing this kind of gossip... Let me think... let me think about what interesting things I have to say...

He had heard a saying that if you can pique a girl's interest in you, you've already won half the battle.

He was determined to use this note-passing incident to pique Shen Yuan's interest in him!

The boy in the front row solemnly picked up a pencil, tore off a new piece of paper, and quickly wrote his reply on it. Then he traced it over with a ballpoint pen, erased the pencil marks, folded it again, and tossed it to the back of the desk when the teacher wasn't looking.

As for Shen Yuan's note, he will keep it safe and cherish it as a beautiful shared memory when they are together in the future!

Shen Yuan had been waiting impatiently for a while. She picked up the note on the table, unfolded it, and saw a long reply that looked like a short essay.

The handwriting is so ugly, what is it even writing?

Shen Yuan struggled to decipher what the other person had written and finally understood it.

Apart from the very first paragraph, which was a response to the matter concerning Wu Xiaoting, the rest was basically about other very boring things.

He didn't seem to know which mental hospital Wu Xiaoting had been sent to... If he wanted to know, it seemed he could only ask the owner of the record store.

Just as Shen Yuan was about to crumple the note into a ball and throw it away, she glanced at the last part.

Did you know? There's a strange rumor going around school lately: you absolutely mustn't go into the storage room on the first floor of the administration building at 5 PM... It used to be the school clinic, and people say they dug up a lot of student corpses there. It's said to be filled with a strong sense of vengeance, and if you go in at 5 PM, you won't come back...

Why are you telling ghost stories?

However, Shen Yuan quickly realized what was happening.

Isn't this just a campus ghost story?

If we can find out the details and tell my brother, we might be able to get a report on the ghost story, and then we can go hiking together tomorrow.

But wasn't that the place that used to be the school clinic where my brother used to work? He was usually there around 5 p.m., and nothing seemed to have happened there.

Can this really be submitted as a report?

Okay, I'll give it a try.

The note the boy passed her was too worn to write anything on, so she had to tear off a new page and write on it.

Could you tell me more about the school clinic?

She passed the note to the other party again, and after waiting for nearly ten minutes, the other party sent her a new note.

It was still a long and rambling passage, but Shen Yuan managed to extract the general meaning.

It seems this story originated from the teachers, who are all very secretive about it. Some students overheard it, and coupled with the principal's ban on students going to the administration building after 5 PM, and the sudden resignation of the school doctor...

The story became increasingly mysterious as it was told.

"Da da yi"

"What are you passing notes to from behind? Bring them up here!" The math teacher seemed to have noticed the note-passing activity. He slammed his ruler on the desk, his face displeased.

It’s over.

Just as Shen Yuan was about to stand up, the boy in front of her stood up abruptly.

"Teacher, it was I who harassed Shen Yuan and disrupted class discipline!" He said, head held high and chest puffed out, his words filled with righteous indignation.

"Get out and stand in the hallway as punishment!" The math teacher impatiently swung the ruler.

Shen Yuan's situation is rather special. She lost both her parents and is a good student, so her teachers naturally tend to favor her.

As for that boy, the fact that the math teacher didn't beat him up shows he was in a good mood today.

"yes!"

The boy in the front row turned around, patted his chest at Shen Yuan, and then walked straight to the door to stand in the corridor as punishment.

Shen Yuan:

'

""

Is he crazy? Does he have to say it so loudly?

She could have just talked to the teacher about it; she was just worried about Wu Xiaoting. Shen Yuan thought the teachers were quite understanding.

His commotion, which was originally nothing, caused most of the students in the class to turn their heads to look at Shen Yuan. The hushed discussions only stopped when the teacher banged on the desk twice.

This is so embarrassing. Why are all the boys in my grade so childish?

She waited until get out of class ended and the teacher left before taking out her phone and sending a text message to her brother. She was already a slow typist, and typing with one hand made it even slower.

"Boom!"

""

The already gloomy weather was further aggravated by muffled thunder.

A group of students groaned in despair; it was raining, which meant today's PE class was going to be canceled.

Shen Xing sent out the message.

Soon, she received a reply from her brother.

Okay, I'll come over at noon.

That was helpful!

Shen Yuan clenched her right fist slightly, her spirits lifting somewhat.

She had originally intended to buy a bottle of soda to thank the person sitting in front of her, but when she saw him laughing and joking with his group in the hallway and glancing at her from time to time, she immediately gave up the idea.

She couldn't imagine what would happen if she actually bought a bottle of water, given how little she could pass a note.

Meanwhile, Shen Xing was riding his bicycle in the suburbs.

He gripped the handlebars with his left hand, looking down while replying to messages with his right.

There are many strange tales on Tianya's local forum. Now he plans to go to a nearby town to verify one of the strange tales and record it.

However, as he was looking down and sending messages, he seemed unaware that a large truck, fully loaded with cargo traveling in the wrong direction, was speeding straight toward him through the swirling dust.

By the time he looked up again, it was too late to turn.

"Thump."

The driver, who was dozing off in the truck, was jolted awake by a slight sway and slammed on the brakes.

What? What did you hit? A speed bump?

He quickly got out of the car and looked at the tires, where he saw a large patch of blood on the ground, and a young man covered in blood who had been caught under the wheel.

"Ah..." The truck driver jumped in fright. He looked up and glanced around. There was no one else around. Then, he felt a raindrop on his face.

He seemed to have made a decision quickly in his mind.

"Don't blame me...don't blame me...it's your own fault for not watching where you're going."

He got back into the driver's seat, moved the vehicle forward a little, ran over the young man's body, got out of the car, dragged the man and his car out from under the vehicle, and threw them into a ditch overgrown with weeds.

He then quickly got into his car, started the engine, kicked up the dust, and sped away from the scene.

"Tap...tap..."

"7

Large raindrops poured down from the sky, erasing all traces.

The corpse lying in the ditch, its chest caved in and its organs almost completely crushed, trembled slightly.

A bloodstained hand reached out from the ditch and grabbed at the weeds beside it.

Countless dark red blood vessels, facing the rain, surged along the ditch towards the pool of blood on the ground. They greedily covered the blood with the fungal carpet until not a single drop of blood or fragments of internal organs remained.

I don't know how much time has passed.

Shen Xing supported himself and slowly stood up from the ditch.

His glasses were gone, and following his slightly blurry vision, he looked at his body and hands.

What happened?