Page 45

Qiao Shiyu sat cross-legged on the carpet with a crispy chocolate-filled wafer roll between her lips, flipping through several DVDs they had bought that afternoon. Munching indistinctly, she asked, "What should we watch later? How about Ghost Baby? I heard R Country's horror movies are the scariest."

Before she had even finished speaking, more than a dozen boys shot upright and asked in unison, "We're watching more?"

"It's only a little past ten at night. We finally have three days off, so we can't possibly go to bed this early!" Qiao Shiyu pointed innocently at the wall clock. When she turned around and saw the boys drenched in sweat and gasping for air, she jumped. "What's wrong with you guys?"

The only one who still looked relatively fresh and composed was Lu Chi. He reached behind himself to knead the shoulder that had gone numb from being pressed on, then deadpanned, "We got too immersed. We spent over two hours screaming along with the male and female leads."

The movie room fell silent. The girls' expressions went from contemplation to realization, then shock and finally disdain. More than a dozen pairs of eyes narrowed as they examined the boys sprawled all over the floor. "You guys... seriously?"

The next second, the school heartthrob, whose image mattered greatly to him, immediately sat up. He hooked an arm around Lu Chi's neck, shaking his head and waving his hands frantically as he gave a dry laugh. "Of course not! When you watch a movie, you have to immerse yourself completely. Otherwise, what's the point, right? Hahaha..."

With a look of disgust, Lu Chi slapped Yue Bin's arm away, rolled his shoulder, and rose from the couch.

Yue Bin quickly grabbed the hem of Lu Chi's shirt. "Where are you going?"

Lu Chi tugged his clothes free with an annoyed look as he walked away. "The bathroom—"

"I'll go with you!"

Lu Chi stopped and turned to look at the boys, who had spoken in perfect unison. Why did this scene feel so familiar?

Zhang Yang awkwardly scratched the back of his head and laughed it off. "Yue Bin's right! We were so absorbed in the movie just now that we forgot to go to the bathroom! Hahaha!"

"Yeah, yeah!" More than a dozen tall, strapping men nodded furiously, huddling together to bolster each other's courage. "We can use this break to go to the bathroom. We can chat and discuss the plot along the way, so we won't be too scared—"

Xing Yuan, who had accidentally blurted out what they were truly thinking, immediately shut his mouth. But it was already too late. The girls still in the movie room nearly laughed themselves crazy.

Everyone burst out laughing and mocked them. "Hey, seriously? You boys are that scared?"

"Who was it that said they had broad chests and warm embraces for us to lean on? If we really ran into a ghost, wouldn't that person be so scared he'd curl up in my arms?"

"But it's okay!" The girls remaining in the movie room rolled up their sleeves, copied the boys' earlier poses, raised their arms, and struck bodybuilder stances. In unison, they said, "Our shoulders may be slender, but you can lean on them too~~"

The boys, having been mercilessly ridiculed, left the room with grim faces, still blaming and accusing one another. "It's all your fault! Why did you have to say that? You made us all lose face!"

"I didn't mean to!" The captain of the school basketball team, who stood nearly six foot three, timidly scratched his head. "It just slipped out."

"One careless remark from you got us all dragged into this." Zhang Yang grumbled, "Who knows whether those girls will spread rumors after we get back to school—"

The intimidation of Zhang Yang's words rivaled that of a female ghost in a horror movie. The boys heading for the bathroom all stopped in their tracks and said together with horrified faces, "No way, right?"

Lu Chi, who felt no pressure whatsoever, took advantage of the moment while the other boys trembled and entered the bathroom first. When he came out, he found the boys gathered in a circle outside the door, shoulders slumped, heads raised, arms dangling and swaying before them. Their expressions were resentful, green light seemingly glowing in their eyes as they said eerily in unison, "It's all your fault..."

Lu Chi instinctively retreated two steps and shut the bathroom door.

A few seconds later, Lu Chi opened the door again. Before he could see what was outside, someone grabbed his arm and yanked him forward.

Yue Bin aggressively pinned Lu Chi against the bathroom door. "You've gone too far! We're all worried sick, so why do you get to go to the bathroom without a care in the world? Are you even one of us boys?"

"Exactly, that's too much. Aren't you afraid those girls will spread rumors at school? Then every one of us boys will lose all face!"

"Or are you not a boy at all? Are you actually on the girls' side?" As Yue Bin spoke, he grinned wickedly and reached toward Lu Chi's lower abdomen. "No, I need to check—"

Lu Chi's ears twitched. With a smack, he seized Yue Bin's wrist. Before Yue Bin could loudly protest, Lu Chi raised the index finger of his other hand to his lips and said cautiously, his face grave, "Shh. Quiet down. Did you hear that? Some kind of sound..."

The boys, already on edge, shuddered and instinctively perked up their ears. Xing Yuan said stiffly, "Lu Chi, stop messing around. H-how could there be any sound?"

"Exactly. How come we didn't hear anything? Don't try to scare us on purpose just to dodge responsibility—"

"No." Before Zhang Yang could finish, Lu Chi interrupted him. The young man calmly shook his head, his eyes wide open. "There really is a sound. It seems like footsteps, and something else too. I can't hear it clearly. Listen—"

"Thump, thump, thump, screech, clatter..."

The boys instinctively crammed together, trembling. Someone stammered, "I-it really does sound like something!"

"I-it sounds like someone is going up the stairs..."

"C-could it be those girls?"

"No." Lu Chi shook his head again. Ever since he had been struck in the back of the head with a stick, the young man's five senses had become sharper than everyone else's. Even now, he was able to analyze the situation calmly. "Those footsteps sound like leather shoes on the floor. The girls are wearing slippers, just like us. They couldn't make that kind of sound—"