The three stared into the empty equipment room, lost in thought. All of them vaguely sensed that there was something suspicious about the ghosts' disappearance.
"Should we tell Qin Ze, Liu Kai, and the others?" Chen Xue asked.
Jiang Chen gave no definite answer.
Yang Chan glanced toward the dormitories, then at the teaching building, and a cold smile curled her lips. "Not yet. Since everyone has their own ulterior motives, and we're the weakest group, we ought to keep a few secrets to ourselves."
Jiang Chen gave her a surprised look.
He had thought she was all legs and no brains, but apparently she had noticed it too.
That was right. Qin Ze's earlier arrangements had seemed perfectly reasonable, but they contained a flaw that was glaringly obvious to anyone clever.
Men entering the girls' dormitory was a serious violation of school rules. And Dean Ma Hong didn't operate solely around the teaching building-he had authority over the entire school!
Jiang Chen didn't believe experienced Unusual Persons like Liu Kai and his companions could have missed that.
Yet they had agreed as though nothing was wrong.
That meant Qin Ze wasn't the only one with an agenda. Liu Kai's group had their own objectives too.
"Qin Ze wants someone to draw the dean away so he can investigate clues about that female student in the teaching building, find her name, then lure her out and deal with her."
"Once that female student is dealt with, most of the Sunward Middle School mission will be complete. That's where the greatest credit lies."
"So what are Liu Kai and the others after?"
Jiang Chen pondered briefly but came to no conclusion. He stopped dwelling on it and called to the two women, "Come on. Let's not worry about all that yet. Since the ghosts here are gone, according to the information we were given, the only one left on campus is that Paper-Burning Security Guard."
"We'll deal with him, then wait and see how things unfold."
The three crossed the sports field again. Five or six flower beds, each four meters across and bordered with cement and tiles, were scattered between the teaching area and the field. They formed Sunward Middle School's main green space.
A fire burned beside a flower bed planted with shrubs and roses.
A middle-aged man's voice drifted faintly from it. He was wailing in mourning, yet a sinister amusement slipped into his tone.
The sound of mingled sobbing and laughter echoed through the deserted school.
"Boohoo... how awful. Brother, you died such a horrible death..."
"Why did you have to die like that and leave me all alone..."
"You suffered so much. Even your bones were chopped to pieces... heehee... you poor thing..."
The burning paper illuminated a memorial tablet with a few crooked characters carved into it. A man in a security guard's uniform knelt before it.
His face was horrifying. One half wept while the other smiled, both expressions so exaggerated and strained that his features were twisted out of shape. The longer one looked, the more unsettling he became.
From behind, the guard's shoulders trembled slightly, as though he were overwhelmed with grief. What couldn't be seen from this angle, however, was the gleaming cleaver in his hand.
He claimed his brother had been hacked to death, his bones chopped to pieces, yet he himself held a cleaver, and malice flickered in his eyes.
"So, how are we going to kill him?"
In the middle of his sobbing, the guard suddenly froze. He heard what sounded like someone nearby plotting a murder.
"That's easy. First, we lure him out. Then, while we're talking to him, we get him to let his guard down..."
"Is this really a secret plot? They're drowning out my mourning." The guard's lips twitched. They were so loud that he could hear every word from two flower beds away.
"Ghost security guard Zhang Hua's lips twitched. Ghost Qi +20."
But his curiosity had been piqued. He stopped mourning, hunched over, and crept toward them on tiptoe, wanting to hear just whom this man and woman intended to kill.
"...Exactly. That's how we'll do it. Once we kill him, we'll bury his body in a flower bed as fertilizer. No one will ever find him!"
"Then how do we clear ourselves of suspicion?"
"That's easy too..."
Zhang Hua listened to their entire plot, from beginning to end.
Their plan was thorough: murder, disposal of the body, fabrication of an alibi. Clearly, this wasn't idle talk. They truly intended to act tonight!
That only made him more interested. He crouched beside the flower bed, listening with shining eyes.
There was just one problem: Zhang Hua still hadn't heard who their intended victim was.
The unanswered question clawed at him, making him more curious by the moment.
"Come on. Let's put our plan into action."
Seeing the two stand up as though they were about to leave, Zhang Hua could no longer contain his curiosity. He stepped forward.
"Wait. Could you tell me who you're planning to kill?"
His sudden appearance gave them both a fright.
"You heard everything we just said?" The man fixed Zhang Hua with a dangerous look.
"Don't worry. My lips are sealed. I promise I won't tell anyone." Zhang Hua waved dismissively with a sinister smile. "You just have to tell me who you're killing. If you don't, I'll call someone over."
The man and woman exchanged a glance, seemingly communicating something with their eyes.
"All right!" the man finally said coldly. "We can tell you, but this is our secret plan. Don't go blabbing about it!"
Zhang Hua's mouth twitched.
You were plotting so fucking loudly.
And you call it a secret plan?
You might as well grab a megaphone and announce it to the whole school!
"Sure, sure. Of course." Overcome by curiosity, he agreed with everything they said.
Jiang Chen approached and leaned close to the man's ear as though sharing something highly confidential. He even raised a hand to shield his mouth and whispered eerily.
"The person we're going to kill is named Zhang Hua."
So they're going to kill Zhang Hua... Thoroughly satisfied, Zhang Hua began searching his memory for someone at the school with that name.
Fuck, wait a second. Aren't I fucking Zhang Hua?
He suddenly realized.
The target was me all along!
But by then, a hand like an iron vise had already closed around Zhang Hua's neck. Right in front of his face, Jiang Chen gave a sinister smile.
"Great Strength Bull Demon Fist!"
Demonic power surged, and his savage grip squeezed Zhang Hua's neck with a sharp crack. Bones shattered one after another.
"You're asking to die!" Zhang Hua reacted. A stack of paper spirit money appeared in his hand out of nowhere and began to burn. He forced words out through his throat. "Jiang Chen! You died such a horrible death! Your whole body was covered in blade wounds, and your bones were chopped to pieces..."
The vicious curse awakened some eerie power.
Jiang Chen's eyes widened. A burst of intense pain shot through his right arm, as though someone really had slashed him.
Crack-
A whipping kick swept in from the side. Yang Chan had struck.
At the same time, a brilliant golden light flared in the shrubs behind Zhang Hua.
"Golden Light Talisman!"
Chen Xue, who had been hiding there, suddenly attacked as well.
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