Friday was a wonderful day. With only a few hours remaining until the weekend, everyone was restless, discussing their plans for the days ahead.
This sort of atmosphere was actually rare among senior-year students, but Jiangcheng No. 2 High School was somewhat unusual, so the social environment among its students was also slightly different. The obsessive overachievers could continue grinding away, while the remaining slackers were devoted to enjoying their holidays.
After all, unlike many prestigious high schools with punishing schedules, Jiangcheng No. 2 High School did not manage its students particularly strictly.
There were no additional compulsory tutoring sessions and no extra weekend classes. A two-day weekend meant exactly that. Day students merely had to attend the flag-raising ceremony on Monday morning, while boarding students only needed to return safely to school on Sunday evening.
On the surface, this arrangement made the school administration seem remarkably enlightened and highly trusting of its students’ self-discipline and learning abilities… But the murder and accident rates at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School were genuinely far too high—absurdly high.
Thus, every arrangement and regulation had its own reasoning behind it.
That included the counseling session Qin Shu was attending that afternoon. It was mandatory. Once the homeroom teacher signed the form, the student had to attend, and it took priority over every senior-year class. None of the teachers objected.
Qin Shu did not object either. He had become somewhat interested in the school doctor.
Xu Min was an extremely young psychological counselor who had joined the school only about half a year ago. He was quite handsome and appeared entirely nonthreatening. One might even say his features were somewhat feminine.
Like Pei Zhao, Xu Min possessed clean, refined bone structure and delicate, beautiful features. His proportions and facial structure were exceptionally good. Even when he made exaggerated expressions, his facial muscles never seemed distorted or unattractive.
Qin Shu had never paid much attention to him before. But after they experienced Teacher He’s exploding head together… Qin Shu suddenly felt that something was wrong.
He could not explain precisely what was wrong. Only his instincts told him that there was something questionable about both Xu Min’s attitude and his general presence, something that could not be casually ignored.
Before attending the counseling session, Qin Shu experimentally searched Xu Min’s name and discovered that the young counselor was rather famous among the female students and exceptionally popular.
The reason Xu Min had first become famous was actually a series of high-resolution action photographs taken by a photographer during the summer sports meet.
Not only had he won the sprinting event for young faculty members, he was also the most photogenic teacher in the entire school. Every photograph looked exceptionally handsome. His brows and eyes still carried a sharp, heroic spirit that had not yet been worn smooth by work, and he seemed to possess virtually no unflattering angles.
Qin Shu frowned and examined the photographs repeatedly, only to feel increasingly certain that something was wrong.
The Xu Min from the sports meet and the Xu Min of today… looked slightly different.
Qin Shu enlarged the images and compared them carefully, yet could not identify a single difference. Nevertheless, as he studied that flawless face and recalled the school doctor standing blood-covered on the athletic field that day, his conclusion became even more unwavering.
Xu Min had changed. He looked completely different from six months ago, even though every one of his facial features remained exactly the same.
Driven by intense curiosity, and with the corpse-herding assignment still waiting after school, Qin Shu went downstairs half an hour early and knocked on the school clinic’s door.
After knocking politely twice, Qin Shu pushed the door open and immediately met the gaze of Xu Min, who was sitting upright behind his desk.
Qin Shu swept his eyes around the clinic as quickly as possible. There was a faint smell of disinfectant, two beds separated by fabric curtains, and several clean white coats hanging from a rack.
Xu Min himself appeared to be working on his computer, but the position of his hands was wrong, and his shoulders were drawn inward with faint stiffness.
The keyboard was still stored inside the pullout drawer beneath the desk, and the red light beneath the mouse was gone. After remaining unused for so long, the computer had already entered sleep mode.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Xu. I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Qin Shu smiled, calmly pulled out a chair, and sat down, deliberately asking a question whose answer he already knew.
“…No, of course not. I was just preparing a lesson plan.” Xu Min’s expression did not change, and he offered the same gentle smile. “Since you’ve arrived early, Student Qin, we can begin now. I hope this conversation will provide you with some psychological support and allow us to cooperate and make progress together over the course of our remaining sessions.”
A blatantly unnecessary explanation, followed by a string of official-sounding platitudes. Qin Shu could hear the insincerity in his tone, but he did not expose him. Instead, he cooperated fully and began speaking with Xu Min.
Qin Shu was not afraid of expressing his feelings. In fact, he was rather skilled at using conversation to lighten his own burdens. He had experienced fear, pressure, and nightmares over the past several days, along with anxiety, unease, and concern for the safety of his friends and family… Ever since that wandering old man opened his Heavenly Eye, Qin Shu had accumulated a great deal he wanted to say.
Since Xu Min was his psychological counselor, there was nothing wrong with asking Mr. Xu to help him process and share some of that burden. Qin Shu felt no discomfort about it whatsoever. It served two purposes at once.
During their conversation, Qin Shu even secretly removed the eyeball from his pocket and repeatedly squeezed and kneaded it like a stress-relief toy.
The gray-white eyeball silently played dead. Meanwhile, Xu Min, who witnessed every one of Qin Shu’s movements, worked extremely hard to pretend he could not see it.
But Qin Shu knew that Xu Min had seen it. He could definitely see the eyeball in Qin Shu’s hand, and moreover… Xu Min was frightened of it. He was gradually becoming restless, and even his originally soothing, pleasant voice subtly tightened.
So Qin Shu maintained almost aggressively intense eye contact, deliberately staring at Xu Min for long periods without interruption. He left him no room to look away or catch his breath, waiting until he finally exposed himself.
That was right—until he exposed himself.
“Student Qin, you…” Xu Min appeared unable to endure it any longer. A small crack emerged in his expression of seemingly limitless tolerance.
Qin Shu stared into his eyes and at the lips opening and closing as he spoke. Suddenly, he saw several strange, fine threads concealed beneath Xu Min’s eyelids and hidden where his lips joined his gums… Those were not lines that should exist in human skin.
Now!
“Don’t move. You’re not allowed to move!” Qin Shu abruptly stood and stepped onto the desk. Looking down from above, he seized Xu Min by the throat, hauled him up, and pinned him beside the computer monitor, using the screen’s light to examine him more closely.
Before Xu Min could resist, the gray-white eyeball in Qin Shu’s arms cooperatively sprang upward. It squelched and wriggled before settling on Xu Min’s face, leaving behind traces of strangely scented corpse fluid and frightening him so badly that his eyes rolled back.
“Nicely done, Sister Qian.” Qin Shu laughed and raised a hand to stroke the eyeball still resting on Xu Min’s face.
He had adopted Liu Yang Yang’s manner of addressing the eyeball. His movements were gentle, as though soothing the feathers of a vicious falcon.
For some reason, this action caused Xu Min to collapse emotionally. Even while Qin Shu held him immobile by the throat, Xu Min could not resist gritting his teeth and demanding, “…What in the world is that thing?!”
“Wait, shouldn’t I be the one asking that? What are you?” Qin Shu froze slightly before frowning and asking in return. “I saw the white threads beneath your eyelids and inside your mouth. You’re not Xu Min! Where is the real Xu Min?”
The person pinned against the desk remained silent for a moment. Under the eyeball’s oppressive presence, he finally had no choice but to explain.
His voice was more feminine than the real Xu Min’s, cloying and coquettish, making Xu Min’s face appear even softer and more effeminate. No wonder Qin Shu had always felt that Xu Min’s features had not changed, yet he somehow seemed like a completely different person.
“Xu Min is… he’s right here! This body still belongs to him. This little one is only borrowing it to move around outside… Hiss, Master, could you loosen your grip first? Master Xu Zi Ru is a relative from my clan. He already gave me permission to live in the outside world. I would never dare harm anyone~”
Qin Shu found the abrupt contrast rather unbearable.
His scalp tingled as he listened, but upon suddenly hearing Daoist Priest Xu’s name, he still did his best to endure it without allowing an impolite expression to appear.
“Daoist Priest Xu is truly related to you? What is your name?”
“Yes, yes! This little one is also called Xu Min—a cute, tragic, and harmless little male fox spirit…”
Qin Shu’s frown deepened. He picked up the eyeball and held it beside Xu Min’s neck as a threat, coldly interrupting, “Stop acting cute. Stop talking nonsense. Explain everything clearly right now.”
The male fox spirit who also called himself Xu Min froze and nearly screamed in terror. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Master, please calm down! This little one is truly terrified of such a wicked object coming so close, ahhh…”
Thus, ten minutes later, Qin Shu kneaded the eyeball, which had begun playing dead again, and sank into thought.
According to the fox spirit, the real Xu Min was not dead, but his soul had gone missing and its whereabouts were currently unknown. Daoist Priest Xu could verify this because Teacher Xu Min genuinely was one of his distant relatives.
When an ordinary person lost their soul, without a knowledgeable Daoist priest to identify the underlying mystery, their family and doctors might mistake the condition for sudden death from acute illness or diagnose them as permanently comatose. The “body” would then be rapidly disposed of, while the lost soul continued wandering, perhaps never managing to return.
But Xu Min was one of the fortunate ones. He genuinely had a relative who understood these matters. Since losing his soul left his empty body highly vulnerable to invasion by evil entities, Daoist Priest Xu searched for his soul while simultaneously devising a solution that addressed both problems.
—He allowed the ghost of a fox spirit to possess Xu Min’s body and temporarily walk among the living in his place until Xu Min’s soul could be recovered.
“Wait. Did I hear that correctly? You’re a ghost? A dead fox?” Qin Shu carefully studied Xu Min’s face, suddenly finding it difficult to believe.
“That’s right~ This little one has been dead for more than five hundred years and has lived on offerings from Master Xu’s family. Naturally, I have to help them occasionally. This time, Master Xu sealed me inside a piece of human skin, then used the finest celestial-silkworm thread to sew that skin onto Xu Min’s face. That allowed me to temporarily possess his body and move around freely.”
Xu Min answered fluently, his tone even somewhat cheerful. Only the content was chilling, and when combined with his feminine voice, it became particularly eerie.
Qin Shu narrowed his eyes. “…Where did that piece of human skin come from?”
“Master Xu cut it from his own buttocks! He’s done it several times!”
Xu Min hurriedly corrected the misunderstanding, betraying Daoist Priest Xu’s secret technique without hesitation. He added, “Master Qin, please rest assured. Everyone in our Xu family is honest and respectable. Back in the day, we were comparable to the Hu fox clan of Tushan. Unfortunately, too many hopeless romantics appeared later. Everyone wanted to marry humans, so the fox-immortal bloodline became far too diluted to be of any use.”
“You don’t need to tell me your family history. I only want to ask again—Xu Min, are you certain your existence is sufficiently safe and won’t indirectly harm ordinary humans?”
“Absolutely. If it were another method involving possession by an evil ghost… then yes, it might harm other people. Those techniques are hidden and vicious. Even ordinary masters wouldn’t be able to detect them.”
Qin Shu’s eyebrow twitched, and his heart seemed to jump along with it. This was truly like receiving a pillow the moment he became sleepy. He knew far too little about this field and urgently needed more information.
“What other methods of ghost possession exist? Do you know how to identify them? If someone is discovered to be possessed, how can the situation be handled safely? Mr. Xu, teach me. Next week, I’ll buy you an entire crispy-skinned roast chicken.”
Xu Min’s eyes lit up instantly. Forgetting that Qin Shu was still gripping his throat, he asked eagerly, “Seriously? Crispy-skinned roast chicken? From Liu & Li’s!”
As expected of a fox spirit—even after death, he still loved chicken… Qin Shu thought. Seizing the opportunity, he curved his lips. “That’s right. If you tell me more, I’ll buy you two.”
…
The beloved dismissal bell rang punctually at 5:40 in the afternoon.
To the students of No. 2 High School, it sounded like heavenly music. They swarmed from the classroom building like floodwaters bursting from a dam, creating a spectacular scene.
Qin Shu grabbed Pei Zhao’s wrist and expertly avoided the crowd, taking the path behind the gymnasium to leave by a quieter route. They were hurrying to the church in the eastern district, and there was no time to waste.
The ride-hailing car they had booked in advance was already waiting at the gate. The two sat in the back seat, but Qin Shu still did not release his hand.
The car drove away from No. 2 High School. Pei Zhao silently tolerated it for five minutes. But when he realized Qin Shu still had no intention of letting go and had even interlaced their fingers, he finally could not resist asking, “Why are you holding my hand this entire time?”
“Zhaozhao, have you started disliking me?”
“…No.”
“Then I’m going to keep holding it. I like doing this.”
Qin Shu spoke as though it were perfectly reasonable, looking smugly shameless, while his heart pounded with nervous tension.
He was testing the method the fox spirit had taught him.
—Taking a pulse.
A ghost’s pulse.
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