Futile Devices Scans

Jiangcheng No. 2 Senior High School, senior-year advanced class.

Winter break was approaching, and the New Year’s Day event was right around the corner. Everyone’s taut nerves finally relaxed a little.

Those who should sleep slept, and those who should slack off slacked off. Their former state of being living people half-dead was gone for good. Of course, Qin Shu was not yet fortunate enough to enjoy this blessing.

His good buddy Tang Rui Cheng was currently subjecting him to high-decibel mental pollution.

“Emergency help! Emergency help! Qin Shu, stop sleeping. Hurry up and lend me your English homework to copy! Quick, quick, quick!”

“…Go ask Pei Zhao. Don’t bother me while I’m sleeping.”

“No, bro, you’re telling me to go copy from the academic representative? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. He’ll lend it to you.”

“How is that possible? Qin Shu, you really don’t know how lucky you are. As I see it, he only spoils you. I’m telling you, the other day—”

“Old Tang, shut up. Keep making noise and I’ll rip your head off and kick it like a ball.”

Those words, spoken through gritted teeth, fell, and the world finally went quiet.

Qin Shu had already slept through an entire morning reading period.

He was sprawled over his desk, covered tightly from head to toe with his school uniform jacket, utterly indifferent to the affairs of the world. He had not even eaten breakfast.

Only after Tang Rui Cheng grabbed his shoulders and shook him left and right, howling by his ear like some unusually strong mosquito, did he finally lose patience and throw out that sentence.

But Qin Shu swore to the heavens that he truly was not such an irritable person by nature.

He had always been cheerful, sunny, and good-tempered. He had a good relationship with both teachers and classmates, and because he was somewhat fond of helping others, he was also especially easy to cheat out of money.

Being cheated out of money was fine. In this world, there would always be people who truly needed help. But…

Qin Shu would rather that ragged homeless man had been scamming him.

Last Saturday had been Christmas Eve. After Qin Shu finished playing basketball, he bought a roast chicken, planning to take it home and give himself an extra meal. While passing through People’s Square, he ran into a very strange, skinny old man.

The old man was sitting by the roadside, flipping through a book with a cover so tattered it was practically ruined. His thin, grayish clothes were full of holes and patches, and he had a head of tangled, matted, messy long hair. With his sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks, he was frighteningly thin.

These days, it was already rare to see a homeless man in such a sorry state. Qin Shu’s attention was immediately drawn to him, and he went up to start a conversation, asking whether he needed help.

Unexpectedly, the old man’s mental state also seemed not quite right. He actually claimed to be a bookseller… one who specialized in selling “immortal-cultivation manuals.”

According to him, the book he was reading was called The Eighty Divisions of Heavenly Dragons. If Qin Shu was interested, then since he looked kind and they seemed fated, he could pay a little extra to buy an even more profound and unfathomable long-lost text, The Nine Nether Purgatory Scripture. Once he succeeded in cultivating it, he would naturally be able to ascend to the heavens, descend into the earth, overturn mountains and seas, and possess mighty power capable of shaking the sky itself.

It was such an ancient, classic scam line that Qin Shu felt as if he were watching a movie. He had to use all his strength to hold back his laughter.

Fortunately, Qin Shu was a good-tempered person. He patiently listened to the homeless man mumble through a whole pile of strange scriptures, then chose to play along with this farce.

He gave the old man all the spare change on him. Afraid the man would not use the money to buy food, he simply tore off half of the hot roast chicken in his arms as well, supervised the homeless man as he ate several big mouthfuls on the spot, and only then left in satisfaction.

After leaving with the remaining half of the roast chicken, Qin Shu casually informed the local police about the matter, hoping they could try to find the old man somewhere warm to stay and also send him to see a doctor.

After all, it was the middle of winter. It could snow at any time. An old man dressed in thin clothes and wandering alone outside could very easily lose his life.

Having done this much, Qin Shu felt he had already done everything humanly possible. He happily went home, ate the remaining half of the roast chicken, and fell asleep in peace.

Because logically speaking, the story of his encounter with that strange old man should have ended there completely.

Until the next day, when the police told Qin Shu that the homeless man seemed to have disappeared into thin air. The surveillance cameras had not captured his movements, and when they questioned the surrounding vendors, there were no clues at all. It was as if he had never existed.

Until the third day, when Qin Shu returned to school for class and stood on the sports field attending the flag-raising ceremony, only to suddenly see a deathly pale, semi-transparent, floating human figure sitting on the discipline director’s shoulders… frantically tearing at the hair that was already sparse to begin with.

Qin Shu thought he had not slept well the previous night and was seeing things.

After checking repeatedly, confirming again and again, verifying from multiple angles, and staring with wide eyes over and over, he finally accepted reality.

He was not seeing things at all. He had run into a ghost.

Ha. Ha.

After recognizing the reality that he had run into a ghost, the world suddenly became exceptionally “clear.”

Qin Shu found it very difficult to explain this bizarre sense of clarity to others.

His vision in both eyes was 5.2. He had never experienced the trouble of a blurry field of view to begin with. In the past, when he stood on the school rooftop and looked down, Qin Shu could clearly see all kinds of flowers, plants, and decorations, as well as the bustling crowd on the sports field, without any effort at all.

And now… he could see ants crawling over the shrubs, and he could also see a semi-transparent little boy floating in midair, frantically eating those ants.

No, he should call it a little ghost. Qin Shu stared at him curiously and secretly observed him, discovering that the “clarity” in his field of vision was gradually increasing as well.

At first, the little ghost’s figure was still faint and indistinct, but very soon, it became more and more solid in his eyes, even gaining a special texture.

Although it remained semi-transparent, Qin Shu could distinguish the boundary between it and the surrounding objects, as well as the clothes the little ghost was wearing… which seemed to be a complete school uniform. The name tag read Morning Star Elementary School.

Where was Morning Star Elementary School? Who was this child? What had happened to him, and why had he appeared on the sports field of No. 2 High School?

Qin Shu was getting very absorbed in secretly watching him. Many questions surged up in his mind, and he became completely immersed in his own thoughts.

Until that child suddenly raised his head and met his eyes. On his stiff, deathly pale face tinged with blue were two eye sockets the size of quail eggs, hollow, pitch-black, and bottomless. The longer Qin Shu looked, the more terrifying he became.

Qin Shu instantly became very well-behaved. He turned and ran, hiding in the classroom for the entire day without leaving again. Even when he went to the bathroom, he insisted on dragging his good deskmate Pei Zhao along.

He was scared.

Never mind for now whether making someone else accompany him to the bathroom was a little embarrassing. In any case, Pei Zhao agreed every time, and in any case, he was scared.

That fright had kept Qin Shu from sleeping well last night. He was a day student. His parents were not in Jiangcheng, and he had long since grown used to going home every night to face an empty house. The moment his head touched the pillow, he could instantly go chat with the Duke of Zhou.

But this ability to fall asleep at lightning speed only worked in a house without ghosts.

With his eyes closed, Qin Shu worried there might be ghosts. With his eyes open, he was afraid he might really see one. He tossed and turned all night… He did not run into any ghosts, but he tormented himself until the skin beneath his eyes was dark and blue. Looking at him, he was not all that different from a ghost himself.

With no other choice, he could only come to school and catch up on sleep there, using the morning reading period to sleep a little longer.

As for whether there might be other ghosts in the school, Qin Shu truly had no attention to spare for that at the moment. In his uneasy dreams, he struggled hazily, as if he could once again hear the strange tone of the old man’s muttering recitation. It was like sleep paralysis, leaving him unable to get up no matter what, unable even to sleep properly.

Until, at a certain instant, Qin Shu suddenly felt a chill spread over the back of his neck, and that anxious feeling of being restrained abruptly vanished without a trace.

“Qin Shu, move aside.”

A clear, cool voice sounded by his ear, like jade falling onto snow, rather fitting for the season.

It was Pei Zhao, his good deskmate.

Qin Shu instantly perked up. He lifted the school uniform jacket covering his head, stood up, and stretched hard.

Then he hooked an arm around Pei Zhao’s shoulders and pulled him into his arms, patting his back with genuine emotion as he said, “Zhaozhao, thank goodness for you! I was being pinned down by a ghost just now. It was so scary. I almost couldn’t wake up.”

Pei Zhao did not struggle, but he likewise did not respond to Qin Shu’s enthusiasm. He merely looked calmly into Qin Shu’s eyes, speaking at an unhurried pace.

“Mm. Let me in.”

Being stared at expressionlessly by Pei Zhao, Qin Shu did not feel there was any problem at all. He had long since grown used to his deskmate’s cold and indifferent appearance. He curled his lips in a smile and let him go.

“Thank you.” Pei Zhao was very polite. Turning sideways, he went around Qin Shu’s chair and sat back down in his own seat.

The two of them sat in the very last row of the classroom, on the far left. Pei Zhao’s seat was by the window, just like the classic protagonist’s seat in an anime.

Sometimes, Qin Shu would secretly think that Pei Zhao really did possess a certain special protagonist-like aura.

Because Pei Zhao was extremely good-looking. His features were as delicate as a painting, and he had an especially beautiful pair of fox eyes, the corners slightly upturned, while the color of his pupils was extremely light, like pure golden amber in the sunlight.

Good-looking. This was an objective fact.

Even dressed in the plainest school uniform and white shirt, he only looked even cleaner and more refined, like a trace of frost and snow living in midsummer, standing out so starkly that he almost seemed out of place among the crowd.

But Pei Zhao seemed to have never noticed that his appearance was as if it existed on a completely different layer from everyone else’s. His personality was very quiet. He did not like talking, nor did he smile much. It also seemed as though he was not good at making any vivid expressions.

Many classmates were quite afraid of him and secretly said that Pei Zhao was too aloof, too difficult to approach. Even the girls who wanted to pursue him were often discouraged by this.

Only Qin Shu knew that Pei Zhao was actually a super good person. He was especially easy to talk to, very gentle, and unbelievably reliable in everything he did!

His so-called aloofness and expressionless face were only a surface impression. Pei Zhao bore no ill will toward anyone. He was simply purely facially paralyzed, that was all. When communicating, he would occasionally seem a little dazed, which was actually rather cute.

According to anime terminology, someone like him was called an airhead type, and that was also one of the standard protagonist templates.

Just as Qin Shu was letting his imagination run wild, the bell for first period rang.

This should have been an ordinary physics class. The cold and stern Teacher Li was preparing to explain the test paper from the last quiz and go over the key points of the common mistakes.

Qin Shu took a deep breath, opened his notebook densely packed with notes, and prepared to first throw all those bizarre and grotesque matters to the back of his mind and focus on listening to class… but very soon, he froze.

There was a semi-transparent little boy crouching beside Teacher Li’s leg, looking extremely familiar.

This time, the Morning Star Elementary School uniform on him was even clearly visible. Qin Shu did not need to concentrate to distinguish it at all.

Qin Shu’s expression gradually stiffened. In silence, he turned his head toward the window, wanting to stare at Pei Zhao’s face to cleanse his eyes.

“What the hell!”

His eyes were not cleansed. Instead, Qin Shu could not help blurting out in shock, causing the gazes of the entire class to gather on him in unison.

But he could no longer care about that. Right now, he could not see Pei Zhao’s appearance clearly at all. All he saw was boundless, pitch-black mist rising out of nowhere, inexplicably carrying a bone-piercing chill. In the middle of winter, it gathered into a cage like a frozen hell, almost wrapping him tightly within it.

Outside the window, everything was pitch-black. The corridor ceiling trembled and split into pieces, then melted and dissolved in a bizarre manner like cream, revealing a large hole. Immediately afterward, a dark human figure hung upside down from that hole, staring straight at Qin Shu through the window.

A hanged ghost.

A kind of fierce ghost, its resentment extremely deep. Its bright red tongue had been pulled out long and was flailing wildly, while its face was covered in bloody tears.

Qin Shu did not understand how he knew it was a fierce ghost either, but in comparison, the little boy at Teacher Li’s feet suddenly seemed quite a bit cuter, almost kindly-looking.

As his thoughts flew, Qin Shu acted on instinct. He swiftly reached out, groped around, and grabbed Pei Zhao, who was sitting beside him.

Even though he could not see anything clearly, he directly wrapped his arms around Pei Zhao’s waist, lifted him up, and flung him backward, decisively making Pei Zhao hide behind him.

After all, Pei Zhao was very light, and at this moment, he was so light it was terrifying, as if he had no weight at all… His yang energy definitely was not strong enough. It would be bad if he were hurt by this fierce ghost.

The hanged ghost’s hollow gaze remained fixed on Qin Shu. Thick blood flowed from its eye sockets, soaking into the ominous, eerie black mist, its shape and colors horrifying. Qin Shu gritted his teeth, rolled up his sleeves, tensed every muscle in his body, and prepared to deal with whatever attack might come next.

But at that tense, lightning-fast moment, the hem of Qin Shu’s clothes suddenly moved, as if something behind him had gently tugged it.

Cold sweat instantly broke out all over him. He whipped around to look, only to meet the eyes of expressionless Pei Zhao.

For some reason, that vast expanse of sinister black mist had all disappeared. Qin Shu’s vision blurred for a moment, and the terrifying scene before his eyes instantly receded without a trace, changing back into that ordinary classroom and Pei Zhao’s clean, pale, and beautiful face.

Pei Zhao was currently sitting on his desk. He had probably been picked up and placed there by Qin Shu. In his eyes was a faint, somewhat adorable confusion.

He was still pinching the hem of Qin Shu’s school uniform in his hand, and as if without the slightest emotion, he softly said, “Qin Shu, put me back.”

Green hills and clear waters, birdsong and fragrant flowers.

For some inexplicable reason, these phrases popped into Qin Shu’s mind.

“Good deskmate, let me hug you for a bit…”

He murmured, still a little unable to recover. Perhaps because of lingering fear, Qin Shu’s hands unconsciously reached out once more and wrapped Pei Zhao’s entire body tightly into his arms, giving him a very hard hug.

Alive. Tangible. Cool to the touch in a comfortable way. Wonderful. Qin Shu let out a long breath, and his heart, which had almost leaped out of his throat, finally slowly returned to normal.

“Put me back.” Pei Zhao’s face was pressed against his chest, so he could only make his request again in a muffled voice.

Qin Shu was somewhat reluctant. “I feel kind of awful. Let me hug you. Just for a moment.”

“…Mm.”

See? He had said it already. Pei Zhao was a really good person!

Qin Shu was in the middle of sighing emotionally when he suddenly received an icy and sharp gaze. His heart chilled again. His expression stiffened slightly, and he raised his eyes, following the direction of that gaze straight toward the front of the podium.

The stern Teacher Li’s face was livid. Clutching the test papers in his hand, he enunciated each word through gritted teeth. “Qin Shu, what kind of madness are you suddenly throwing? Stop messing with your deskmate and go stand outside the door for class!”

The classmates, who had been shocked into stunned silence, burst into roaring laughter in an instant. It seemed there were even people whistling and cheering.

Qin Shu coughed awkwardly, hesitating as he tried to explain. But when the words reached his lips, there was no way to explain it. Forget it, forget it. He withdrew his hands, helped Pei Zhao down from the desk, and quietly said, “Sorry,” receiving a very soft “Mm” in return.

Others would not understand, but Qin Shu did. This meant Pei Zhao was still in a decent mood right now, so everything was fine.

Under the various expressions of everyone’s attention, Qin Shu silently carried his notebook and walked toward the door. Right after that, he saw Tang Rui Cheng, who was sitting in the front row, turn back and suddenly make faces at him, opening his mouth in a pinched voice. “Aiyo, let me hug you for a bit…”

“Tang Rui Cheng, you get the hell out too!”

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