Ye Li and Le Jun watched for only a few moments before they could no longer stomach the sickening, bloody scene, covering their mouths as they turned and hurried away.
As they headed upstairs, Le Jun couldn’t help asking, “How did you know those things would transform?”
“Last time when we jumped off the building and died, I vaguely caught a glimpse of some movement,” Ye Li replied. “Since we happened to run into that half-human, half-ghost thing, I figured I’d casually test it out.”
Le Jun: “...” That really was pretty casual!
The sixth floor remained deathly quiet, utterly devoid of life.
The hollow, deep corridor seemed like a shortcut straight to death, offering no glimpse of an exit toward hope.
“What should we do now?” Le Jun asked, looking at the girl beside him.
Without realizing it, this slender girl had already become his pillar of support.
Her deep, indifferent eyes, like dark pools undisturbed by ripples, always had an uncanny way of soothing his frayed nerves.
Ye Li’s expression was calm. “Let’s look around first and find Qi Yezhou.”
He had been the first to run up the teaching building, yet there hadn’t been a trace of him on the way up. If nothing had happened to him, he ought to be somewhere nearby.
With that, the two began walking forward from the end of the corridor, stopping to peer closely into every classroom they passed.
When they reached Arts Class 11, Ye Li stepped inside and walked straight over to her desk.
As before, piles of books were stacked haphazardly across its surface.
Ye Li picked up an exercise book from her desk and, using the light filtering in through the window, examined the wooden surface. There, she spotted a small pinch of grayish-white powder.
There were ashes here too!
Ye Li’s expression instantly darkened, as though weighed down by a heavy lead ball, dragging her heart into the depths.
If her guess was right, then there was no way to escape this ghost domain at all.
Everything they had done up to now might have been completely in vain.
If that was truly the case, it would be far too boring!
“What’s wrong?” Le Jun couldn’t make sense of her actions, but seeing her grim expression, he asked.
Still reeling from the blow, Ye Li muttered, “There’s ash here as well.”
Le Jun looked thoroughly perplexed. “Didn’t we already know that? There’s ash on all the desks, isn’t there?”
Facing the completely oblivious boy before her, Ye Li felt a complicated mix of emotions.
Yet looking into his innocent, earnest eyes, she ultimately couldn’t bring herself to shatter his hope. She kept silent.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Leaving the classroom, the two continued onward, but they still found no sign of Qi Yezhou along the way. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
The staircase in the left corner leading up to the rooftop was still there, unblocked by any wall, indicating that this truly was the top floor.
Walking all the way to the last classroom, they saw no sign of the top student inside either. Just as they were about to leave and check the rooftop...
Ye Li’s steps suddenly halted. She looked up at the class plaque mounted above the doorframe.
Science Class 2.
Something was wrong!
Frowning, Ye Li stopped Le Jun. “Look!”
Le Jun glanced at the plaque and froze as well. “Why is it Science Class 2?”
This was the first classroom on the sixth floor—according to class order, it should have been Science Class 8. How did it suddenly become Class 2?
“Science Class 2... that’s Wen Xue’s class.” Ye Li’s eyes lit up. “Come on, let’s go check inside!”
She didn’t dwell on why Science Class 2, which belonged on the fifth floor, had suddenly appeared on the sixth floor. Since it was here, there had to be a reason.
Whether good or bad, they would find out once they went inside.
Ye Li stepped into the classroom. Standing at the podium, she swept her gaze over the room and spotted a desk in the second row on the left, the third desk over, on the right side: completely bare, standing out starkly amidst the surrounding mountains of books.
This sole empty seat was, nine times out of ten, where Wen Xue had sat before she died.
Ye Li walked straight over, leaned down to look inside the desk drawer, and found a notebook inside.
It was an ordinary notebook with an eye-catching red cover.
“Is this Wen Xue’s notebook?” Le Jun asked in surprise.
“Probably.” Holding the notebook, Ye Li felt it looked strangely familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before.
She flipped open the cover. The handwriting inside was neat and delicate, with dates and times written at the top of each page.
This was a diary.
Wen Xue’s diary.
This meant there might be clues inside!
Both instantly grew excited, quickly flipping through the pages by the faint light from the window.
Judging by the earliest date, Wen Xue had started keeping the diary in the second semester of eleventh grade.
At first, the entries recorded her daily school life and studies, rambling enough to fill entire pages.
Though she didn’t write every day, she still jotted down two or three entries a week.
Until May 8th, where the page contained only three words repeated over and over: Why?
Why, why, why...
In different sizes and different handwriting, scribbled in frantic, dense disarray across the entire page, it felt suffocatingly oppressive just looking at it.
Ye Li’s fingers paused as she turned the page.
This day was very likely the first time Wen Xue had been bullied.
The paper was uneven, heavily wrinkled in places—traces left by tears dripping onto the pages as she wrote while crying.
Flipping further, several torn pages remained only as ragged stubs.
The final remaining entry was dated September 5th. It read: “I really can’t hold on any longer. I’m sorry, but I have to break our promise. This time next year, I won’t be able to stroll through the Qing University campus with you. Please take good care of yourself!”
Seeing this, Ye Li frowned.
Calculating by the timeline, September 5th was likely right around the time Wen Xue jumped to her death.
Thus, rather than a diary entry, these words were more like a suicide note.
Yet who was this suicide note left for?
Whose promise had Wen Xue broken?
Ye Li and Le Jun couldn’t help but exchange a glance, seeing the shared confusion in each other’s eyes.
The campus of Qing University...
Qing University...
A sudden spark flashed through Ye Li’s mind, and she keenly seized on the key detail.
She remembered Tang Qi mentioning that Qi Yezhou had guaranteed admission to Qing University.
So the person who had made the promise with Wen Xue was the top student!
The suicide note was meant for him!
No wonder!
Rate on N.U.
