Chapter 34: Do You Wish to Match Wits?

Li Xuan successfully brought Fang Xiaoyi into his fold, smoothly obtaining the blood of the former headmaster’s wife.

Transforming into a makeshift craftsman, he created three paper dolls that bore a faint, grotesque resemblance to a woman. Using cinnabar mixed with the stolen blood, he inscribed the former headmaster’s wife’s name and birth data onto their foreheads. Ruan Shiyin held a deep-seated hatred for the former headmaster’s wife, Fang Ping, so he trusted that these effigies would have a remarkable effect.

He had currently deployed two hidden cards. First, stripping Ruan Shiyin of her position as dean of students, effectively revoking her status as a teacher and her authority to punish students. Second, using Fang Ping’s blood to create these puppets to cloud Ruan Shiyin's judgment.

Yet, it was not enough. It was still too dangerous.

His thoughts drifted to the school’s reconstruction following the fire twenty years ago. Although news reports claimed Ruan Shiyin’s remains were never found, she had been a mere mortal during her life. How could a body simply vanish? It had certainly been suppressed by some "mysterious force."

Li Xuan joined forces with Song Fen and Fang Xiaoyi to track down the foreman of the original construction crew. The man was now in his fifties. When Li Xuan met him, he opened with: "May I ask, during the renovations after the Nalan Mude School fire twenty years ago, where did the body in the burned-out administrative office end up?"

There was a technique to the questioning. You must ask where the body went, not whether one existed. The premise relied on his expression and tone: he had to be brimming with confidence, as if he held all the winning cards. Li Xuan wore a black suit, his expression indifferent, an unlit cigarette tucked between his fingers, and his face obscured by silver-framed photochromic glasses. The aura he projected placed an inexplicable pressure on the foreman.

The foreman, Wang Yongcai—known to everyone as Ah Cai—found his mind reeling under Li Xuan’s intensity. Subconsciously, he stammered, "The... the body? How would I know? If you have questions, go ask the school."

"Oh, I’m just conducting a routine inquiry." Li Xuan tucked the cigarette back into his pocket, straightened his collar, and stood up. "That body belonged to the former dean, Ruan Shiyin. The school hired someone skilled to suppress her. Because she cannot leave, she has been wreaking havoc on the students. It was the reason the school had to close for twenty years, following repeated reports of missing students and pressure from parents. Now that it’s a new era and the school has reopened, her seal has been broken, and students are going missing again. An expert has advised that we must find Ruan Shiyin’s remains to perform a ritual, or else she will never be消灭. Otherwise, everyone—the students and those who saw her body back then—will die. Most importantly, ghosts lack humanity; she will eventually hunt down the relatives of anyone who witnessed her existence!"

Ah Cai was just about to light his own cigarette when his lighter accidentally scorched his lip, and the smoke dropped to the floor. He panicked, grabbing the hem of Li Xuan’s coat, and asked with a tremor, "Who... who are you? You’re not joking with me, are you? I have children. Don’t toy with me."

Li Xuan gestured toward Song Fen and Fang Xiaoyi, who stood silently nearby. "The current headmaster and dean of Nalan Mude. If you know how to use the internet, look it up on a computer yourself. I’m leaving. Pray that you’re lucky enough to live a little longer."

Ah Cai’s heart was in turmoil. It didn't matter if he, a man in his fifties, died, but his children were in the prime of their youth! Twenty years—he had kept the secret for twenty years!

He tremblingly pushed Li Xuan back into his chair, lit a cigarette, and handed it to him. "I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! After the fire twenty years ago, a superior asked us to handle the renovation, and they offered triple our original quote! We didn't know until we arrived that a dean had died in the fire. Because the cause of the fire was complex and the situation twisted, they absolutely could not let the public in Hong Kong know, so they told us to take care of it. I was panicked at the time and let my subordinates handle it. I thought they would take it away and bury it in some auspicious plot, but after the renovations were finished, my subordinate told me he was afraid of the bad luck associated with moving a corpse, so he simply mixed the body into the cement and poured it into the rooftop floor of the teaching building..."

At these words, Li Xuan’s heart skipped a beat. Sealing a body in cement, right on the site of the old administrative office—what a brilliant move!

Song Fen and Fang Xiaoyi’s faces turned pale as well. They already knew who had orchestrated it: the board of directors. They had invested too much money to let the school close, and it was that same group who had vehemently demanded the reopening of Nalan Mude.

So much was tied to the events of that year. Li Xuan suddenly asked, "Are you mistaken? If the body was hidden in cement, even a meter deep, the decay, bacteria, and bloating would force the stench to the surface. It would have been unbearable!"

Ah Cai lowered his voice. "That’s why... the body was dismembered..."

*Damn it.* Li Xuan truly wanted to know what kind of people those subordinates were to possess such terrifying psychological fortitude.

Leaving the foreman’s house, the three of them looked grim; they were disgusted by the sheer brutality of the concealment. It was no wonder Ruan Shiyin had become a land-bound spirit, unable to leave the school. Trapped within, she had grown powerful, moving as she pleased and opening the doors to the administrative office whenever she liked.

In the time that followed, Li Xuan used his "Fengdu Treasure" seal to draw several "Corpse-Seeking Charms," burning them into ash and hiding them in his pocket. He then went to the rooftop of the school’s teaching building, pretending to admire the view. Hearing the broadcast from the auditorium, he pulled candy from his pocket, releasing the ash of the talismans along with it, letting them drift on the wind while he whispered an incantation.

The ash was minimal, nearly invisible. Yet, Li Xuan saw it gather in the southwest corner of the rooftop, vaguely coalescing into a blurred human shape.

The body wasn't as scattered as he’d feared. Good thing he came to check.

He coughed, and the ash instantly lost its tether and was blown away by the wind.

In the auditorium, Teacher Fang Xiaoyi stood on the podium, conducting the orientation for new students and emphasizing the importance of school rules. Her face was slightly pale, and her hands, pressed against the podium, trembled uncontrollably.

Li Xuan had assigned her the task of "luring the tiger from the mountain." Having had her eyes treated with talisman water to grant her Yin-Yang vision, Fang Xiaoyi had seen the "missing" students the moment she entered the school—their bodies twisted, limbs reversed, some jumping repeatedly from the rooftop, others wandering the halls muttering, "Must obey the dean."

Her heart rate had soared, but she clung to her resolve and made it to the auditorium. When she saw Ruan Shiyin, who had been dead for twenty years, appear in the corner, staring at her with an eerie, horrific gaze, she felt she was on the verge of madness. Yet, maintaining her sanity, she pressed the microphone button connected to the school’s speakers.

"The orientation on school rules is officially beginning!"

This was her way of signaling to Li Xuan on the rooftop. *Ruan Shiyin is here.* If the ghost hadn't appeared, she would have simply said, "The orientation on school rules is now beginning." The word "officially" meant the ghost had arrived. If Ruan Shiyin left midway, she would "choke on her own saliva" and break into a fit of violent coughing! Every cell in her body was screaming with terror, but even so, she would do her utmost to cooperate—she couldn't let Li Xuan die!

On the rooftop, Li Xuan finished his task. He straightened his clothes and walked toward the exit.

Ruan Shiyin suddenly appeared in the doorway, blocking his path.

Li Xuan’s heart skipped a beat, but his face remained impassive. He walked straight ahead, passing through Ruan Shiyin’s illusory form, and hummed a nameless tune as he left the rooftop.

Ruan Shiyin turned her head, quietly watching the figure disappear around the corner of the stairs. She always felt there was something wrong with this new teacher, Li, yet she couldn't quite put her finger on it. And those two students who had broken the rules—they hadn't returned to school since that night...