Nothing to Bat an Eye At

A brand-new Mercedes was parked on the street not far from Tongwen Academy.

A window rolled down, and a pair of binoculars poked out, then withdrew.

The young man in the driver's seat lowered the binoculars. He wore a lake-blue silk waistcoat over a white shirt, and adjusted his bow tie slightly as he spoke.

"Father, haven't we made too big a scene? Even the Emergency Management Department has been alerted."

An old man sat in the back, dressed in a neat suit and holding a cane. His brows were deeply furrowed. Although his expression remained calm, the gray-white mustache above his lips had begun trembling nonstop.

"Mr. Xu, how do you explain this?"

Beside the old man sat a middle-aged man in a moon-white long gown. He looked just over forty, with rather handsome features and an easy grace and composure cultivated over many years.

"Tongwen's feng shui is excellent. It faces south with its back to the north, its buildings looking toward one another, and its ceiling painted pitch-black, like a crow spreading its wings to shelter its chicks."

The middle-aged man addressed as Mr. Xu held a folding fan, tapping it slowly against the web of his hand.

"Add to that all these years of nurturing scholarly energy and producing generation after generation of scholars, each reinforcing the other. Tsk, if you managed it properly, Mr. Zou, it would surely flourish."

"Mr. Xu, you're a renowned feng shui master in Hong Kong and Kowloon, but my father certainly didn't hire you to assess the feng shui..."

The young man sounded somewhat displeased.

"In our traditional philosophy, qi is the foundation of all things. Qi is both matter and energy, and it determines everything in the human world."

Mr. Xu gazed at Tongwen Academy in the distance.

"I hear Western scholars, having unified the concepts of time and space, are now working on unifying matter and energy. Although our concepts differ, in our cultivation world, there has never been any distinction between matter and energy. They were unified long ago, both known as primordial qi."

"Mr. Xu..."

The old man in the back finally spoke.

"With things getting this big, the foreign devils might not be pleased..."

"Close Tongwen, and the Hong Kong and Kowloon authorities will have one less nuisance. You, Mr. Zou, can be nominated as an Imperial Gentleman. Not only can Tongwen's land be used for property development, but the authorities will also grant you another plot in the north."

Mr. Xu broke into a smile.

"Three meals from one fish, and everyone's happy. But how to close Tongwen is a hot potato, as well as a test the authorities have set for you."

The old man said nothing.

Tongwen was a school his grandfather had founded. Over all these years, the Zou family had maintained its existence as prominent local figures.

One of its founding purposes was to ensure that everyone never forgot where they had come from, and always remembered who they were.

This had brought the Zou family tremendous prestige, but also trouble.

The reputation and support they enjoyed within the Chinese community went without saying, but there was also hostility and suppression from the Hong Kong and Kowloon authorities.

The old man had wanted to close Tongwen Academy long ago, but considering the blow closing the school would deal to the Zou family's reputation and its impact on the local Chinese community, he had been forced to choose a slower method.

They deliberately admitted poorer students and grouped them together, making it difficult for the existing teachers to reverse the steadily declining academic atmosphere, however hard they tried.

They gradually lowered staff salaries and cut school spending, driving good teachers to leave of their own accord and worsening the teaching environment further, pulling the rug out from under the school.

Tongwen declined year after year. Closing it now would simply be the natural outcome.

Now was the time to seal the deal.

No parent would send their child to a haunted school.

"With its noble ethos and deep foundations, Tongwen has developed an aura of its own through all these years of nurturing. You could call it scholarly energy. Evil entities would find it very difficult to approach."

Mr. Xu explained.

"So if we were to invite something in, a little creature making mischief wouldn't do."

"But doesn't this count as losing control?"

Mr. Zou said gravely, "Will anyone still buy property built here in the future? And the authorities will absolutely not..."

"Mr. Zou, I merely set the stage. As for why things have turned out this way, that is certainly not my doing alone."

Mr. Xu opened his folding fan. Painted on it was a slender beauty in a cheongsam, who was now slowly swaying her body in a showy dance.

"Someone must be taking advantage of the situation to accomplish something."

Closing his fan, Mr. Xu looked out the car window.

Some wanted to become an Imperial Gentleman, some wanted to kill a person who should already have been dead, and some wanted to prove that only the authorities could safeguard the interests of Hong Kong and Kowloon's residents.

The Zou family weren't the only ones eating this fish.

"Mr. Zou, rest assured. Since I set this up, I will certainly help you clean up the trouble afterward."

The old man surnamed Zou nodded.

"Then I'll leave it in your hands, sir. Ping'er, let's go."

The Mercedes slowly started up and drove into the depths of the night.

High in the sky, a crow took everything in, then beat its wings and flew away.

Inside a classroom in the teaching building.

"I'm begging you, stop crying."

Chen Ying held the woman's neck with his left hand, looking speechlessly at Wen Xiu, whose eyes had swollen into narrow red slits.

"...If you don't like me, why did you touch me?"

Chen Ying suppressed the urge to punch this woman's head apart.

"I told you, you threw yourself straight into my arms. I didn't know anything about you, so I had to check whether you were carrying a weapon. Who knew whether you were with Yisheng?"

"Then why were you so rough?"

"Was I that rough? Why are you hung up on something so trivial? If I really were that kind of person, I'd have just forced myself on you."

"Then do it! Aren't you from Dragon City? What are you afraid of..."

Wen Xiu tried hard to widen her eyes, pulling her skirt above her knees as she spoke.

"Motherfucker, didn't your parents ever teach you what fear is?"

If the jet-black hair in the corridor hadn't already spread out like a spiderweb, its strands forming what looked like tentacles that slowly tapped against the windows and walls,

Chen Ying swore he would have punched this woman's head apart.

"I'm not from Dragon City."

I crawled out of hell.

Chen Ying looked at the mass of hair outside. It clearly had no intention of entering the classroom, and was rapidly moving toward the other end of the corridor.

Was this thing weak against doors too?

It had struggled with that rusty rooftop door for ages, and it couldn't open the classroom doors either.

As the saying went, big bodies were weak against doors, and lots of hair meant weakness to fire. It was already hairy, and now it couldn't even open doors...

As Chen Ying pondered this, a light shone over from the distance, bobbing up and down and swaying from side to side, accompanied by footsteps.

"Another nasty thing?"

The Flower Princess, the hairy monster, and now some strange glowing thing.

If he saw Wen Ruzhi again, he would have to ask how to deal with these ghosts.

His fighting skills were now enough to trade a few blows with the gangsters' Red Poles, but he had absolutely no way of dealing with these nasty things.

"Something else is coming. Run in a minute. Don't worry about me."

Chen Ying held Wen Xiu by the neck and spoke into her ear.

"Chen Ying, I will never abandon you."

Crazy bitch. Who needs you worrying about me? I'm afraid you'll slow down my escape.

Before Chen Ying could speak, the classroom door creaked open.

A beam of light shone in, falling directly over Chen Ying and Wen Xiu.

This light...

Chen Ying looked up. The light seemed to come from a flashlight.

"Chen Ying, Wen Xiu, what are you doing here? Chen Ying, why are you gripping your classmate Wen's neck?"

Their Chinese teacher, Fang Zhijie, frowned deeply, his expression solemn as he looked at Chen Ying and Wen Xiu with considerable uncertainty.

"Teacher Fang, Chen Ying and I are dating."

Wen Xiu pulled Chen Ying up with a heave and hugged his arm against her side, wearing a picture-perfect smile.

"Dating? Classrooms are for studying. Go to the park to date."

Fang Zhijie waved his flashlight.

"You two, come out at once. This is another class's classroom. Wen Xiu, why are your eyes red?"

"Um, sir, Chen Ying just told me a really romantic story."

Romantic, my ass.

Chen Ying felt he was just one catalyst away from exploding completely.

There was a gang of thugs and two nasty things in this building, yet Fang Zhijie and Wen Xiu actually had time to stand here chatting.

Had people in this world seen so many ghosts that their nerves had become this thick?

"Teacher Fang, did you hear anything? Why haven't you left when it's so late?"

Chen Ying smiled and headed toward the classroom door, dragging Wen Xiu along as she clung to his arm.

"I'm on duty tonight. I was grading your essays in the office and preparing tomorrow's lesson plan. Then I heard something outside, so I came to take a look around."

Fang Zhijie frowned deeply as he examined Chen Ying and Wen Xiu's disheveled clothes.

"You really weren't doing anything improper?"

"Absolutely not."

As he answered, Chen Ying turned his head to look outside. The corridor was utterly quiet, and everything looked peaceful in the moonlight.

Strange. Where was that hairy monster?

"Don't worry, Teacher Fang." Wen Xiu smiled, hugging Chen Ying's arm. "Chen Ying is a real gentleman."

"Sir."

Chen Ying scanned the nearby floors. Neither The Flower Princess nor the Yisheng gang seemed to be anywhere within sight.

Through the window, however, several white paper lanterns floated above the school playground.

"What are those?"

Fang Zhijie glanced at the white lanterns.

"Sky lanterns, probably. For praying for your family's well-being."

Holding the flashlight, he directed them, "You two, come back to the office with me first."

Chen Ying eyed Fang Zhijie's back doubtfully.

"There's no need, is there, sir? I want to go home..."

"No. I still have a few things to say to you."

Gulp.

Chen Ying swallowed, staring at Fang Zhijie's straight-backed figure.

This Fang Zhijie... was he really Fang Zhijie?

Was it possible that he was some kind of nasty thing too?

A surge of power rose from the base of Chen Ying's neck, and he was about to step slowly forward to test the waters.

"I'm not some old fuddy-duddy. It's good for young people to like each other, but remember to let your feelings stay within the bounds of propriety. I can refrain from notifying your families, but you must know where to draw the line."

Fang Zhijie spoke firmly.

"My wife and I met at Tongwen too. In that regard, I can understand you..."

Chen Ying dispersed his power. This Fang Zhijie was frighteningly normal.

He looked left and right. Both The Flower Princess and the hairy monster had vanished without a trace, as though they had never existed.

Fang Zhijie led them through the stairwell and back to the office, where a girl stood up and demanded loudly,

"Chen Ying, what were you doing with Giraffe?"

"They're dating."

"Dating?"

Fang Zhijie set the flashlight aside and motioned for Chen Ying and Wen Xiu to sit down.

"Four-Eyes Min, why haven't you left yet?"

"Feng Huimin is waiting for her father to pick her up. Feng Huimin, Wen Xiu, it's not nice to call your classmates nicknames."

Fuck.

Chen Ying found somewhere to sit, unable to help wondering where all those nasty things had gone.

He looked hesitantly out the window. The white sky lanterns rose higher and higher, floating up into the vast sky.

Praying for good fortune?

Chen Ying thought that perhaps he should release a few sky lanterns himself.