Futile Devices Scans

To prove this unbelievable theory, Qin Shu wasted no time and strode toward the mop sink at the other end of the bathroom.

The little ghost with a human face and an eagle’s body had already fled, seemingly frightened away by Qin Shu’s punch. But that did not matter. There was still a drowned ghost wearing the No. 2 High School uniform in the bathroom.

At that moment, it lay facedown with its entire head submerged in the murky water. Its thin, semi-transparent body appeared to be trembling faintly, radiating an ominous aura that was impossible to ignore.

Now considerably bolder, Qin Shu reached out, grabbed the wet hair at the back of its head, and yanked the drowned ghost out of the sink.

“Aaaaaah—!”

Unexpectedly, the little ghost immediately let out a string of terrified screams. Its scrawny torso twisted violently as it instinctively tried to struggle free from Qin Shu’s grip, but it was completely useless.

Because Qin Shu was stronger than it.

Logically, that should have been impossible. A human should not have been stronger than a ghost, yet that was precisely the case.

Qin Shu realized this as well. Growing even more curious, he narrowed his eyes, leaned closer, and carefully studied the terror on its face.

The human and ghost stared into each other’s eyes. The air fell strangely still and silent for a moment before Qin Shu spoke first, his attitude exceedingly domineering. “Behave yourself. Who are you, and what are you doing here? Explain clearly.”

“I-I… Who am I? Who am I?”

The drowned ghost was indeed very obedient and immediately parted its deathly pale, colorless lips. But just as the answer reached its mouth and it tried to speak, its expression instantly turned blank.

“You don’t remember your own name?”

Qin Shu looked thoughtful. Holding it by the collar, he turned it back and forth in search of clues. “Judging by your clothes, you should have been a student at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School. But the school emblem on your jacket is printed rather than embroidered, which means the uniform hadn’t been redesigned when you attended… Around 2021?”

“Twenty-one, twenty-one. Mm-hm. I remember now. I remember now.” The drowned ghost nodded shakily, seemingly confirming his deduction.

Seeing how timid it looked, Qin Shu could not help laughing softly, and his attitude became a little friendlier. “Senior Ghost, you’ve lived in the boys’ bathroom for so long. Have you ever harmed anyone?”

The moment those words left his mouth, the drowned ghost’s expression abruptly changed. Perhaps it had heard a word to which it was especially sensitive, because its entire body began trembling even more violently. At the same time, a dense, icy mass of ghostly aura suddenly erupted from its chest, and its old school uniform fell apart beneath the frigid temperature.

“No! Don’t hit me, don’t… I was wrong. I won’t do it again… Aaaaaahhh!” Inexplicable screams and pleas for mercy spilled from its mouth in broken bursts, like fragmented sounds chopped apart by a meat grinder.

Qin Shu’s pupils contracted slightly, but he still did not let go. He merely narrowed his eyes and looked toward the place where the ghostly aura had gathered—the drowned ghost’s chest, which had suddenly become a mangled ruin.

More precisely, he looked at the lungs exposed outside its chest cavity.

They were swollen and bloated, approximately twice the size of an ordinary person’s lungs. As they shook, traces of vomit and water could faintly be seen remaining inside. Their wet surfaces bore a lifeless, dismal gray hue, along with dense clusters of dark-red spots formed after blood vessels had ruptured.

The typical signs of drowning. Typical drowning hemorrhages.

“Your classmates bullied you, didn’t they? Were they the ones who killed you?” Startled, Qin Shu tentatively asked, “Did it happen right here in this boys’ bathroom?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I didn’t steal your money. I didn’t…”

The drowned ghost cried even louder. Its hoarse voice mingled with reflexive dry heaving, and a string of wet chunks of flesh even trembled loose from its chest. Clearly, it had no idea how frightening it looked and remained trapped in its desperate panic, unable to pull itself free.

“All right, all right. Sit down. You didn’t steal any money, and I’m not going to hit you. It’s safe here. Tell me who bullied you, and I’ll help you get revenge on every single one of them and clear your name. How does that sound?”

Qin Shu sighed helplessly. There was nothing else he could do, so he had to employ some of his social skills and coax this fragile ghost senior, who looked as though he were about to fall apart.

After coaxing him every way he could for a long while—even ten minutes after the class bell had rung—the ghost senior’s mental state finally stabilized somewhat.

He sat in the corner hugging his knees, his head lowered. His voice was no longer hysterical. Instead, it became very refined, like a thin, transparent sheet of paper.

“You’ll be beaten. You don’t need to get involved. Thank you.”

Still half-crouching, Qin Shu raised a brow and smiled casually. “But I can kill all of them with a single punch. Didn’t you just see that?”

Naturally, he was bluffing. Qin Shu did not know what he was actually capable of, but it was very effective. The ghost senior shuddered in fright and nodded timidly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have underestimated you…”

“In that case, tell me everything you know about those people. Oh, and if you have any final wishes or lingering obsessions, feel free to tell me those too,” Qin Shu said seriously. “Since you haven’t done anything bad, I can help you.”

“…But I don’t have any money. I don’t know how to repay you.”

“The payment I want isn’t much. There’s only one condition—once I’ve finished helping you with these things, you have to leave this place.”

“B-but I can’t leave.” The drowned ghost’s face instantly turned deathly pale. He suddenly no longer dared to meet Qin Shu’s eyes and nearly buried his head completely in his ruined chest. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave this place of my own accord. I really am sorry…”

His hunched, contorted posture was truly somewhat terrifying. Qin Shu silently shifted his gaze elsewhere and rubbed his chin. “Hmm… It’s like a barrier, right? I suspect only ghosts with unfulfilled wishes are forced to remain in the human world. It’s fine. I’ll personally send you away. You can choose from the following methods.”

“W-what methods?”

“First, I beat you to death. Second, we try using this talisman for salvation and resolving grievances. A Daoist priest drew it, so it should have some effect. Third, I personally bring that Daoist priest here and have him perform the salvation rite for you.”

“I understand. May I ask you to simply beat me to death?”

“…Hm?”

Qin Shu froze. He had not expected this timid, shrinking ghost senior to choose such an extreme method of death.

The ghost senior looked uneasy. He bit his lip and remained silent for a moment, then gathered his courage and spoke a long string of words without pausing even once.

“I trust you, and you’re the only person I dare trust. No one has ever treated me this well before, and no one has ever helped me… Thank you. I’m willing to die by your hand. If killing ghosts earns merit, I want that merit to belong to you.”

Qin Shu felt somewhat uncomfortable hearing this and coughed softly. “No, no. I haven’t treated you that well. Once you go to the other world, remember not to let any other bad ghosts deceive you.”

People who had received very little kindness were easily won over by the smallest trace of warmth. Qin Shu seriously considered this problem and decided to treat the people around him even better in the future—especially a certain naturally dazed person.

For now, however, he wanted to hear the ghost senior’s story.

It was not a particularly unusual story. It was something that could happen in schools anywhere in the world. A quiet, introverted, scrawny boy—ordinary and timid, unable to fit in, unable to make many friends—was noticed by malicious classmates and turned into a target upon which they could vent their cruelty.

He was bullied, slandered, surrounded and beaten, then had his head stepped on and forced into the boys’ bathroom mop sink. From that moment on, he never woke again.

As for the perpetrators, they escaped punishment because they were still minors. After collectively transferring schools, they continued living freely and comfortably. By now, they had already graduated successfully and were still enjoying glamorous lives in society.

“The ringleader who bullied you was named Tang Ran… Is this him? Wow, he graduated from a prestigious university and even became a minor internet celebrity.”

Qin Shu directly searched their names on social media and quickly found several photos that caused a reaction from the ghost senior.

After thinking for a moment, he sent a private message to the man named Tang Ran.

You said I stole the class funds and your breakfast money, three hundred yuan altogether. But I’ve finally managed to save enough. Tang Ran, the water is so cold. Come collect the money. I want to go home… I’m waiting for you at No. 2 High School.

After sending the message, Qin Shu sent another photograph. The background showed the murky mop sink in the boys’ bathroom, filled with densely packed red spirit-money notes, each bearing the particularly conspicuous words “Bank of Heaven and Earth.”

He had casually edited the image on the spot. His technique was rather crude, but it was more than enough to frighten someone.

Almost the very next instant, the sound of an incoming video call rang out. Tang Ran had called him first, and he was even using the main public account he operated. It seemed the message had startled him so badly that his guilty conscience had thrown him into disarray.

Qin Shu raised a brow slightly. At an unhurried pace, he activated the livestream and screen recording, applied a bunny-head filter to himself, and only then leisurely accepted the call.

On the other side of the screen was a man’s face with eyelids swollen from cosmetic surgery.

“Who are you? Just tell me what you want!”

Tang Ran’s tone was fierce, as though he wanted to seize the upper hand through sheer intimidation. After seeing Qin Shu’s school uniform, he became even more overbearing. “You’re just some little brat, and you dare stick your nose into this? Watch yourself, or I’ll have people wait outside No. 2 High School and deal with you.”

“Were you the one who forced Senior’s head into the mop sink and directly caused him to drown? Apart from you, how many other people personally took part at the time?” Qin Shu smiled and spoke calmly, enunciating every word clearly. “Mr. Tang Ran, the murderer.”

“None of your damn business!”

“How is it none of my business? You beat him until his ribs fractured. Now the flesh on his chest has almost completely fallen off, and he’s still lying in the sink trying to figure out how to scrape together those three hundred yuan. He looks especially pitiful.” Qin Shu spoke with a perfectly serious expression and deliberately tilted his phone, allowing the camera to capture the ghost senior’s confused, trembling body.

Logically speaking, ghosts should have been invisible and colorless to human eyes. But the bunny-head filter used to conceal faces did not disappear. Instead, it trembled as if the signal were unstable, then directly split into two bunny heads.

One bunny covered Qin Shu’s face, while the other…

A guilty person naturally knew how to interpret it. Tang Ran’s face turned pale. He had clearly been frightened, yet he gritted his teeth and spoke with even more blustering aggression. “…What the hell are you talking about? You crazy brat who doesn’t even dare show his face—who are you trying to scare with this supernatural bullshit? What exactly is your relationship with Song Qian Li? If you don’t explain yourself, I’ll personally kill you tonight!”

“Don’t bully the junior…”

Tang Ran was not the only one startled. The drowned ghost named Song Qian Li was frightened as well. Hearing Tang Ran’s deliberately vicious threat, he truly believed Qin Shu might be in danger. In his anxiety, he hurriedly spoke aloud.

His voice was soft and frail, tinged with tears, and completely different from Qin Shu’s tone. The distinction was immediately obvious.

“Who? Who’s speaking?!”

Tang Ran’s face became even paler, because he recognized the owner of that voice. His abruptly constricting pupils and darting eyes were plainly visible, and his voice cracked miserably as he shouted, “You’re fucking pretending to be a ghost to scare me?!”

Song Qian Li became anxious. He suddenly thrust his face toward Qin Shu’s phone, pressing extremely close, and choked out haltingly, “I’m not trying to scare you, Tang Ran. Please… don’t do this. It has nothing to do with Junior. I’ll work hard, work hard to save the money…”

“Y-you… Don’t come any closer! Shut up! Shut up!” Tang Ran shrieked, the sound nearly becoming a scream.

The pink bunny head with round eyes continued drawing closer, rapidly expanding against the phone screen. The face-concealing filter, which should have looked adorable, faintly began to glisten with strands of thick moisture and a dark, aged shade of blood.

In truth, Qin Shu was also startled by this bizarre change. But after experiencing so many strange events over the past two days, he at least managed to remain silent. He held the phone steady and allowed the situation to continue developing.

However, there really was not much left to develop.

While screaming, Tang Ran instinctively leaned backward to avoid the constantly enlarging bunny head. As a result, he lost his balance and actually fell from his chair, producing two consecutive muffled thuds.

After those thuds came a long, deathly silence. The phone lying beside Tang Ran continued operating normally, quietly recording every change that occurred.

For example… a faint, sticky trickling sound, followed by an eerie shade of blood slowly staining the screen red.

Immediately afterward, a warning appeared on Qin Shu’s phone, notifying him that the livestream had been stopped and that the account had been suspended for one week for broadcasting graphic, bloody imagery.

When Song Qian Li saw the notification, he hurriedly turned toward Qin Shu in a panic and asked uneasily, “Um, um, I’m sorry… Did I cause trouble?”

“Nope.”

Qin Shu put away his phone, lowered his eyes, and took a moment to compose himself. Then he turned toward Song Qian Li and smiled.

“You avenged yourself. You did a pretty good job.”

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