This Is Some Twisted Love You've Got

Just before eight thirty, a figure in a purple tracksuit ran up from the distance, slightly out of breath. "Sorry, everyone. Traffic was backed up."

"Mm, no problem." A flicker of displeasure crossed Qin Ze's eyes, but his smile remained warm. "Introduce yourself."

"Yang Chan. D-Rank."

"All right, I'll lay out our strategy for handling this incident." Qin Ze spoke with confidence, seemingly having already worked out what to do. "Based on those three hints, there are three particularly dangerous ghosts at Sunward Middle School."

"First is the female student whose name we don't know. She's this school's greatest taboo."

"Second is the dean of students. His punishment indirectly led to that girl's death. Afterward, he probably suffered the most inhumane treatment imaginable himself and became a terrifying ghost."

"Third is the girl who pushed her."

"The female student died in the classroom building. The girl who pushed her might have died in the girls' dormitory or the classroom building. The dean will most likely appear around the classroom buildings."

"So the classroom buildings are the most dangerous, followed by the girls' dormitory. Last are the ghosts wandering the campus, like the ghost security guard and the running ghost on the sports field."

"We'll split into three groups. Qin Hai, Qin Feiyang, and I will go to the classroom buildings, the most dangerous area."

"Liu Kai, your three are already a team. You'll take the girls' dormitory."

"Finally, Chen Xue, your group only needs to find the ghosts around campus. Does everyone agree with that arrangement?"

After considering it for a moment, everyone nodded.

No one accused Qin Ze of having a death wish by insisting on splitting up the team. In fact, group missions were often organized this way.

The reason was simple. With eight or nine D-Rank Unusual Persons standing together, even a half-step vengeful ghost would be intimidated. What vicious ghost would dare show itself unless it was tired of living?

Besides, this was a D+ mission, meaning the strongest ghost would most likely be a top-tier vicious ghost or a half-step vengeful ghost.

A three-person team with a D+ expert could easily crush a top-tier vicious ghost. Even if they couldn't beat a half-step vengeful ghost, they could hold out until reinforcements arrived.

Of course, the one slightly underhanded part of Qin Ze's arrangement was putting Jiang Chen and the other two D-Ranks together.

But he had already said that the classroom buildings were the most dangerous. All three of the school's most terrifying ghosts might even be gathered there.

That left Jiang Chen's group with little room to object.

"Heh, we'll head in first, then. If you run into danger, call for help immediately. Everyone is to respond at once." Qin Ze pointed at the button-sized radio on his collar.

They all carried one. These were specially made by the Netherworld and could resist interference from ghosts' magnetic fields to a certain extent.

"We'll go on ahead." Liu Kai nodded as well and walked into the campus.

Only Jiang Chen and his two teammates remained.

"Heh, Qin Ze sure knows how to arrange things. He's already at the peak of D+, yet he still took another D+ with him and dumped me with two rookies." Yang Chan frowned in displeasure.

Chen Xue knew how strong Jiang Chen was. She gave Yang Chan a cold look. "If you want to abandon this mission, you can leave now. Jiang Chen and I are enough."

She would rather no one else discovered the potential of a dark horse like Jiang Chen. That would only mean more competition.

"Heh, Chen Xue, your temper's as bad as ever. Do you really think you're the Chen Family's precious young lady?" Yang Chan sneered. The two apparently knew each other.

But as soon as she finished, she suddenly froze. She looked at Jiang Chen in the darkness, studied him for a moment, and her eyes widened.

Between her nerves over arriving late and the darkness, Yang Chan hadn't realized he was someone she knew-and someone she would never have expected to see here.

"You... you're the guy Lin Youwei likes. What are you doing here?!"

"Wait, you're an Unusual Person too?"

Her face was full of astonishment.

"No, I'm not an Unusual Person." Jiang Chen grinned, his tone teasing. "I'm just someone from a different world than you."

Hearing the words she had originally said herself, and realizing he had overheard her saying them, Yang Chan couldn't help feeling embarrassed. A faint blush rose to her cheeks.

Then, embarrassed enough to grow angry, she snorted. "What's so special about that? So what if you're an Unusual Person? You're still only D-Rank at your age, and you don't have an established family backing you. You and Weiwei still belong to different worlds! You'd better give up on her."

Jiang Chen: "???"

He felt that if he were a ghost, a system notification would definitely have popped up right then.

Jiang Chen looked baffled. Ghost Qi +99.

This girl seemed to have misunderstood something.

But Jiang Chen had never been the type who liked explaining himself. Why should he go to all that trouble to prove his innocence just because she had misunderstood him?

His philosophy was simple: if someone messed with him, he messed with them.

So he pondered for two seconds, then looked at her with just the right mix of conflicted emotion and regret. "But even if I give up on Weiwei, she still won't like women. Yang Chan, take my advice and stop clinging to her. This is some twisted love you've got!"

Yang Chan: "???"

You fucking-!

Before she could react, Jiang Chen had grabbed the thoroughly stunned Chen Xue and walked into Sunward Middle School.

Only after they passed through the gates did Chen Xue recover. She leaned closer, her face alight with gossip. "Jiang Chen, was everything you just said true? Wow! That's huge! That savage girl Yang Chan actually likes Lin Youwei?"

Jiang Chen felt that, as a grown man, firing back once was enough. He couldn't keep squabbling with a young girl. So he smiled and shook his head in denial.

But when Chen Xue saw his expression, she immediately looked thoughtful. Then she slapped her thigh in excitement. "I get it! This is so serious that even you don't dare talk about it carelessly, right?"

"I get it, I get it! This is massive gossip! Yang Chan likes Lin Youwei. No wonder she always dresses so androgynously and sticks to her all day..."

Gossip was a woman's innate skill. From then on, Chen Xue completely ignored Jiang Chen and came up with a whole string of evidence on her own, enough to thoroughly confirm the story.

Jiang Chen listened, dumbfounded.

Behind them, Yang Chan let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.

"Aaaah!!! You bastard, Jiang Chen! What the hell did you tell her?! I'm not a lesbian! I'll kill you both!!!"

Jiang Chen: "..."

You might not believe this, but I didn't say a thing. She came up with all of it herself...

In the end, Yang Chan followed them in anyway. Looking haughty, she declared that she wouldn't let her personal feelings affect the mission. She also made it clear that her strength was close to D+, making her the strongest here, so the other two had to follow her instructions.

Chen Xue immediately looked horrified and covered her chest. "What are you planning to make me do?"

Veins nearly bulged on Yang Chan's forehead, and her little canine teeth ground audibly. "I'll say it one more time! I don't like women!!"

As the three stepped onto campus, they felt the temperature drop noticeably. Even the wind outside had been hot and dry, yet simply passing through an iron gate had made their surroundings instantly chilly.

Trash lay scattered all over the campus, giving off waves of musty stench. It seemed the people at the school had left in such a hurry that they hadn't even had time for one final cleanup.

Several classroom buildings stood to the right, with the dormitories farther ahead. Since their group was responsible for the campus grounds, they headed left toward the sports field. Along the path were flower beds planted with various grasses and trees.

The three noticed numerous piles of black ash here, as though something had been burned.

"Be careful, both of you. The chain of events that led to that girl's death began when a security guard caught her burning joss paper beside a flower bed. Not long after she died, that guard also died in an accident."

"They say that afterward, people often encountered a security guard burning joss paper beside the flower beds. Once they approached, they discovered that the person he was making offerings to was them! Not long after returning home, every one of those people died from various causes."

Yang Chan gave the warning as she walked at the front, taking on the responsibilities of the team leader.

Jiang Chen nodded slightly. This girl was a little strange, always going on about people from different worlds and toads lusting after swans, but she was still quite straightforward.