Chapter 113: The Essential Trio—No Less Than Three, No More Than Four, Part 6
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“It’s happening again!”
Everyone panicked and instinctively turned toward the cafeteria’s second-floor entrance.
When Shi Xianyu and Zhou Bushan had entered earlier, the second-floor door had merely swung shut; no one had locked it. Now, hearing sounds coming from the staircase, everyone lost their heads.
“Lock the door, quickly!”
Someone shouted, and several boys rushed to the entrance. Some held the door shut, some fastened chains around it, and others dragged tables and chairs over to block it from behind.
Tap… tap… tap…
Tap…
Tap.
The footsteps stopped outside the door.
Everyone held their breath, afraid to make even the slightest sound.
Shi Xianyu stared warily at the door.
The surroundings were so quiet that not a sound could be heard. Bai Yuxi had even stopped crying, burying her face in her boyfriend’s arms as she trembled silently.
Then, in the midst of that absolute silence, the door suddenly shook with a tremendous crash!
Bang!!!
The sound was deafening, as though someone had slammed into the door.
The unexpected noise startled Shi Xianyu. Before she could steady herself, another crash rang out, followed by another.
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
Fast and vicious!
This was no ordinary knocking. Someone outside was ramming the door, hurling themselves against it, pounding it with all their strength!
The metal door shook violently, making the tables and chairs braced against it rattle as well. Shi Xianyu’s heart seemed to tremble in time with the noise.
Then she heard a woman’s shrill scream.
The cry was filled with terror and agony, and the pounding against the door grew even louder. Scratching fingernails mingled with the sobs and screams. The tables, chairs, doors, and windows all clattered at once. For a moment, it seemed as though the entire cafeteria were quaking beneath the sound.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
The woman’s scream nearly pierced their eardrums.
Some of the more timid students were frightened into tears. Male and female alike, they were all left utterly helpless by the sudden turn of events.
At that moment, Zhou Bushan suddenly seized the bell hanging from his waist and strode forward. Holding a sword in one hand and shaking the bell with the other, he shouted, “By the mystic source of Heaven and Earth, by the command of the Golden Light Talisman—may ghosts and demons lose their courage, may spirits and monsters be stripped of form! As swiftly as the law commands!”
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The peachwood sword in his hand slashed through the air. It did not touch the door at all, yet the sounds beyond it abruptly ceased.
He flourished the sword once more, his presence imposing, and declared, “Heavenly thunder races, earthly fire blazes—destroy all evil in this world! Quick! Open the door!”
Everyone was still terrified and dared not unlock it.
Wang Aiguo asked shakily, “M-Master… y-you want us to open the door?”
Zhou Bushan said solemnly, “Don’t worry. Just open it. I have cast an Evil-Breaking Spell upon my sword. No demon or malign spirit would dare make trouble!”
The others remained trembling and hesitant, looking at one another. No one dared to move first.
After thinking for a moment, Shi Xianyu summoned her courage and stepped forward. She dragged the tables and chairs away, removed the chain, and opened the door in one swift motion before everyone’s eyes.
The corridor outside the second-floor entrance was completely empty.
There was nothing there…
Zhou Bushan chased after it with his sword, standing at the head of the stairs as he looked up and down. Then he returned suspiciously, lost in thought.
Shi Xianyu asked, “Did the ghost get away?”
Zhou Bushan took out his compass, his brows drawing tightly together. The needle spun round and round, pointing first outside the door, then back inside, wavering without pause.
“There are too many evil spirits here. It seems the compass can’t be used either.” Zhou Bushan sighed.
Under ordinary circumstances, he might still have been able to pursue it. But with so many students in the cafeteria, he could not simply abandon them, and the feeling of being constrained made him uncomfortable.
Shi Xianyu thought for a moment, then asked the others, “Has this happened before? The thing outside… has it ever broken in?”
Wang Aiguo replied with a pale face, “N-No… it’s never broken in. But it keeps calling from outside. Then the footsteps go upstairs, and then, and then… by the windows, it appears from the windows… it appears…”
He spoke so haltingly that Shi Xianyu had to ask again, “What appears?”
Wang Aiguo seemed afraid even to recall it. With his eyes tightly shut, he said, “A pair of legs!”
Shi Xianyu froze. “A pair of legs?”
“…Xiaoling’s legs.” It was the same girl in the qipao. She lowered her head and spoke in a quiet voice. “It seems that when she fell, her clothes caught on the third-floor window, and then her legs… dangled outside the second-floor window.”
Shi Xianyu remembered that someone had said her name was Xia Yu, and had even called her a green tea.
Whether or not she truly was one, Shi Xianyu was grateful that, under the circumstances, someone had taken the initiative to explain everything clearly. At least she no longer had to grope blindly through the situation.
“Then let me summarize,” Shi Xianyu said. “You went to a party hosted by Bai Yuxi. In the middle of the night, you inexplicably arrived here. Since you couldn’t find your way back and there happened to be equipment for a Dish Immortal game in the cafeteria, you guessed that you had to play the game in order to return. Then, through the Dish Immortal game, you obtained a clue—a word: ‘green tea.’ After that, there was a tremendous pounding and screaming outside the door. Terrified, you didn’t dare open it. Later, the thing went downstairs and jumped from the roof, leaving its body hanging from the third floor and its legs dangling outside the second floor. In other words, it recreated Du Xiaoling’s manner of death. Is that correct? Is there anything else to add?”
“Th-That’s more or less it,” Wang Aiguo stammered. “After every Dish Immortal game, it gives us a… a clue word. But we still… don’t know how to get out…”
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“Every time?!” Zhou Bushan’s brows knitted together as he questioned him sternly. “Young Master Wang, you’ve played the Dish Immortal game more than once?”
Perhaps because Zhou Bushan’s tone carried such obvious reproach, Wang Aiguo instinctively tried to shift the blame. “I didn’t! It was those girls!”
As he spoke, he pointed at Xia Yu.
Xia Yu raised her head and glanced at Bai Yuxi. “…We played twice in total. We weren’t sure what the clue from the first time meant, and Yuxi thought we might get a clearer clue the second time. Besides, the four of us used to be very close, so we tried it again.”
Shi Xianyu asked, “What was the clue the second time?”
Xia Yu pressed her lips together and lowered her eyes. “Bus.”
“Bus?” Zhou Bushan asked blankly. “What does a bus mean?”
No one answered him.
Shi Xianyu walked back to the round table and examined it carefully. How should she put it? There wasn’t a single decent word on that table: green tea, white lotus, simp, scumbag, cheap woman, mistress, tea artist, brother-leeching woman, mediocre yet overconfident man, playboy…
So it was hardly surprising that a Dish Immortal game had produced an insulting word like “bus.”
“Are you certain this was a survival clue given by the Dish Immortal?” Shi Xianyu asked.
Xia Yu stared at her blankly, bewildered.
Shi Xianyu sighed and said quietly, “Why do I feel more as though it was cursing you?”
Everyone: “……”
Zhou Bushan leaned closer and asked, “So ‘bus’ is an insult? It seems I haven’t spent enough time gaining experience in the mortal world after coming down from the mountain. I’ll have to learn more from you in the future.”
“It isn’t a flattering term. You’d be better off not learning it,” Shi Xianyu said.
Zhou Bushan asked in a low voice, “Then what do we do now?”
Shi Xianyu glanced at him, her eyes seeming to say: You’re actually asking me?
Zhou Bushan cautiously glanced at the nearby students before lowering his voice. “To be perfectly honest, I have some confidence when it comes to driving out ghosts and subduing evil spirits. But solving a case and apprehending the culprit… I’ll have to rely on you, fellow cultivator.”
Shi Xianyu was silent for two seconds. Then she cupped her hands toward Zhou Bushan and replied politely, “Of course, of course.”
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