Chapter 28: The Mark That Belongs to Her
The light and shadow shifted, and a girl whispered in the dark.
“Disc Fairy, Disc Fairy, please come out…”
“Looking ahead and behind the night, with a woman binding a straw man, paper powder mask, headscarf dress, called Zigu.”
“Zigu, Zigu, you are my shadow, I am your clothing; if d*ath can take away the pain, then let his body born of it…”
In the next moment, the scene before her began to tremble violently, the dizzying screams echoing down the corridor at dusk, the nauseating stench of bl**d permeating the air, as something’s life faded away.
Then…
The illusory bubble shattered, and Luxianbei caught a glimpse of the scene hidden behind the curtain.
The sky had darkened significantly. Lin Yiqi sat slumped alone in the Venting Room, her left hand gently resting on her abdomen, while her right hand clutched a bloodied fire axe, hanging limply to the ground.
Her pale face was splattered with some bl**d, her lips slightly parted as she gasped for breath, like a goldfish out of water.
A boy’s corpse lay silently in the center of the room, the bl**d seeping out from beneath him had nearly stained the entire floor red.
The sky gradually darkened, and outside the window, the cicadas of early autumn emitted their d*ath throes.
Lin Yiqi’s numb gaze turned to the boy lying in the center of the room, and suddenly she laughed.
“I did it! Hahaha! I succeeded, even if you all snitched behind my back and fled, I still succeeded, haha!”
As she laughed, she began to cry, covering her face as she wailed.
Amidst the chilling, pathological laughter and the despairing cries, the sun completely sank below the horizon, and the entire room was enveloped in shadow.
Luxianbei did not wake up; the illusion continued.
She sensed that something maddening was surging in the darkness, maliciously devouring Lin Yiqi’s body.
“Ah—!” Lin Yiqi let out a long, relieved sigh, opening her arms to embrace the darkness, then gazing into the darkest corner of the room, whispering softly.
“Are you here to take away what was promised? Then take it all… take it away…”
In the darkness, a deep purple mark slowly began to glow on her forehead.
……
“Glug—glug—!”
With a soft sound of luggage wheels rolling, the scene in front of Luxianbei gradually became clear.
Under the night sky, a girl in a black high-collared trench coat and sunglasses, stealthily dragged a roller suitcase through the silent campus.
She entered the teaching building, walked up the stairs, and crossed the empty corridor to arrive at the Venting Room at the end of the top floor corridor.
Luxianbei’s gaze lingered at the door of that Venting Room.
The room was pitch black, utterly invisible, only punctuated by the sounds of flesh being cut and the girl’s gasping and retching.
The unsettling sounds continued for an unknown duration, and Luxianbei speculated about what was happening inside, feeling a chill run down her spine.
After a brief silence, the faint sounds of fabric being cut and sewn echoed from the dark room.
Soon, the girl exited the room, dragging her roller suitcase, and turned to enter another Venting Room. Almost immediately, the sounds of fabric cutting resumed.
Lin Yiqi not only successfully killed Zhao Ke, but she… then stitched him piece by piece into those venting dolls! Luxianbei pieced together the near-truth and felt a wave of chilling terror wash over her.
The hurried footsteps of the girl, the rolling sounds of the suitcase, and the sounds of fabric cutting and sewing…
The three sounds cyclically echoed in the Venting Room until the sky started to lighten at dawn.
The girl, looking haggard, emerged from the last Venting Room, dragging her suitcase, quietly leaving.
Luxianbei looked at her retreating figure with complicated emotions until she vanished from sight, leaving only an empty corridor, suffused with an unsettling atmosphere.
Then…
It was dawn, and Shihhekou Middle School, having slept through the night, awoke to the rising sun, regaining some vitality. No one knew that last night, under the cover of darkness, the flower of evil had quietly bloomed.
After an unknown duration, footsteps echoed down the corridor, a group of students filled with anger and repressed emotions arrived outside the Venting Room.
They struck the venting dolls forcefully, occasionally whispering, voicing their grievances against Zhao Ke.
“Seems like we haven’t seen that Zhao kid today? He didn’t come to school?”
“Bang bang—bang bang—!”
“Who knows where he went? It’s better for us to stay out of his business; didn’t you see how the teachers didn’t dare to deal with him?”
“Bang bang—bang bang—!”
“That’s true; it’s better to leave his matters alone. I wish he would never show up at school again!”
“Bang bang—bang bang—!”
As they rained down punches and kicks, the venting dolls emitted muffled thuds, but they couldn’t hear the hidden cries of pain beneath the dolls, nor could they smell the stench of decay wafting through the air.
……
“Hu—!”
Breaking free from the illusion, Luxianbei slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
She hadn’t expected that the girl entwined with urban legends, Lin Yiqi, had appeared in Zhao Ke’s diary, and that there were such secrets hidden behind the lockdown of Shihhekou Middle School.
But from where did the creature resembling an unformed infant urban legend, resting on her shoulder, come from?
After leaving Shihhekou Middle School for so long, why had it suddenly returned here on this moonless night—a special occasion?
Was it for that ritual?
Luxianbei stood still, contemplating for a long time, then bent down to pick up each charred doll, placing them into the relatively intact suitcase.
Then she walked to the corner of the classroom, carried the unconscious Du Sixian, and left the classroom.
In the darkness, the empty corridor felt particularly silent; as she walked, Luxianbei could even hear her own footsteps.
The strange dolls and paper figure urban legends that had previously thrived in the corridor had hidden away.
Indeed, they had hidden away!
Luxianbei felt as she passed through the corridor that the gazes from the shadows were upon her, watching her retreating figure with a mix of stealth, caution, and panic.
This feeling reminded her of the time in high school when she accidentally fell asleep during a late self-study session, waking up to find herself locked inside the teaching building.
The usually noisy teaching building fell into silence, but it was anything but peaceful. There was an unsettling feeling that something was lurking in the shadows, watching her, making her feel uneasy all over.
“Ahem…” Luxianbei cleared her throat, her expression unchanged, “If you all have nothing to discuss, I’ll be leaving now!”
“……”
After a brief silence, whispers arose from the darkness.
“She’s leaving… should we keep her… or not…”
“…… Keep her… or not… scared…”
Luxianbei, “???”
What are you afraid of? Shouldn’t I be the one afraid?
Luxianbei realized that even though she had become quite like an urban legend, she still didn’t quite understand their mindset, silently cursing as she continued to move forward.
As she reached the stairwell, she paused for a moment, glancing at the fourth floor.
The dark corridor resembled a large mouth, ready to swallow the only faint light, hiding something eerie and terrifying in the shadows.
Forget it, it’s best not to meddle in things that have nothing to do with me.
Each of those people had faults; this was a tragedy born from countless coincidences and extreme, obsessive emotions.
With such a complicated relationship, how could I possibly untangle it? Luxianbei thought, after all, I’m just a simple and cute homebody single dog!
……
About ten minutes later, at the foot of the mountain outside Shihhekou Middle School.
Luxianbei paused by the roadside, looking back at the faintly visible abandoned school halfway up the mountain, suddenly feeling a sense of surviving a disaster, and involuntarily let out a long breath.
Although she hadn’t found the girl entangled in urban legends, this trip was not in vain after all.
However, gazing in the direction of Shihhekou Middle School, a question gradually surfaced in her mind.
In such an obviously urban legend-infested place, even if the Siye Society couldn’t eradicate it completely, why was there not a single person guarding it on a special night like the moonless night?
Aren’t they afraid the urban legends inside will come out to harm people?
It seems my earlier speculation wasn’t entirely baseless; indeed, there must be an insider in the Siye Society.
Uh, other than myself! Luxianbei added internally, and I haven’t done anything unforgivable, especially since I’m just a temporary worker!
It was already the early hours, and people who had been active outside had long disappeared. The empty streets occasionally showed glimpses of urban legends.
On the street, long-legged wriggling organisms ran, being pursued by a cloud of gray mist.
Chunks of flesh mingling with metal debris, deformed urban legends resembling streetlights blinked their single large eyes at the deserted road.
In the shadows around the corner of the street, something was greedily peering, its gaze drifting back and forth between the roller suitcase, the inner pocket of the coat, and the sleeping Du Sixian.
It sensed the aura of the urban legend’s core and the scent of flesh and bl**d emanating from Du Sixian, yet it feared the terrifying aura radiating from Luxianbei, not daring to approach rashly.
Just as Jiang Li had warned Luxianbei, the moonless night was a carnival belonging to urban legends.
Walking through the dimly lit streets, Luxianbei’s brows furrowed, her mood could be summed up in two words: fear.
Strange, the situation didn’t seem so severe when she came here, did it?
Could it be because the night wasn’t deep enough at that time?
What to do now? With so many urban legends, if I just walk back, who knows what might happen!
Luxianbei felt as if she were walking down a path in the mountains carrying a lot of gold bars, ready to encounter bandits who might shout the familiar “This road was opened by me,” then rob her of the gold and drag her back to be their wife.
Although I could fight back desperately, refusing to comply, waiting until dawn when I turned back into a man, only to watch Du Sixian meet her fate helplessly.
But who knew those urban legends wouldn’t have the strange thought of “Wouldn’t that be better?”
Or maybe…
I should just take a taxi back!?
Luxianbei pondered, taking out Uncle Zhang Shan’s business card from her coat pocket, then turned around, rummaging through Du Sixian’s belongings until she found her phone.
After a brief examination and confirming that her phone was intact like her clothing, she used the faint glow from the streetlight to position the front camera towards her face, her pupils slightly trembling.
On the phone screen, in the image captured by the front camera, a strange mark had appeared on Du Sixian’s forehead.
A crimson shape outlined like flames, with a faint golden center, beneath which concealed an unsettling black aura swirling.
Luxianbei stared at the mark for a few seconds, a bizarre thought sprouting in her mind.
That is…
Her mark.
