"Doctor!"
Upon hearing this familiar voice, Fatty instantly gathered an enormous amount of courage. He abruptly stood up and rushed toward the doorway, colliding head-on with the approaching figure.
Gu Mian, who was at the doorway in a white lab coat, was almost knocked half to death.
Gu Mian staggered back, winded and struggling to catch his breath.
"What's the matter?" Chu Changge emerged from behind Gu Mian and pulled Fatty over.
Fatty cowered behind Gu Mian, no longer daring to even glance at the students inside. "They… they…"
Liu Li, on the lectern, walked over with a fixed smile. "Teacher, we were playing 'Pass the Flower.' What brings you here?"
Gu Mian pushed Fatty, who was clearly terrified, aside. "Class is over. I just wanted to familiarize myself with the environment."
"Ah," Liu Li's face showed a regretful expression. "But Teacher, our game isn't finished. Teacher Wang should finish what he was saying."
It seemed they were determined for him to finish the game. Hearing this, Fatty shivered violently.
He was almost in tears. "I don't…"
Gu Mian glanced at Fatty, then bent down to pat Liu Li's head. "What do you take your teacher for? Break time is for the teacher to rest, not to play games with you. Understand?"
Seeing Gu Mian's expression, Fatty sucked in a cold breath. He actually felt that Gu Mian's current expression was even more terrifying than those ghosts.
At that moment, Chu Changge gently tugged at him. "Let's go."
Fatty was slightly stunned. "What about Gu Mian?"
"He, of course, has to teach the class," Chu Changge said softly. "Don't you know that?"
I know, I know...
Fatty spoke anxiously, "But that's not right! You didn't see those students inside…"
"Don't worry," Chu Changge said, pulling Fatty a short distance away. "Gu Mian has experienced far more than you have. You don't need to worry about him."
"What?" Fatty frowned in confusion.
Chu Changge adjusted his glasses. "Just wait and see. He's different from you."
By now, Gu Mian had closed the classroom door and was standing at the lectern.
Liu Li stood beside him, showing no intention of returning to his seat.
He looked up at Gu Mian. "So, you're our new Civics teacher?"
"Yes, my surname is Gu." Gu Mian bent down and genially patted his head.
Liu Li tilted his head up. "Then can I ask you a question—Uncle Gu, how did you die?"
Gu Mian's genial expression froze instantly.
Everyone stared at him, seemingly desperate for the answer.
Liu Li, a strange smile on his face, also stared intently at Gu Mian.
After a long silence, Gu Mian finally began to laugh, his laughter growing more and more exaggerated.
Still laughing, he bent down and leaned close to Liu Li's ear, then forced out a voice that seemed squeezed from the depths of his throat:
"You should call me 'Big Brother.' Otherwise... I'll... wring... your... neck... off."
Perhaps because Gu Mian's threat was too harsh, no students dared to cause trouble for the entire class.
Gu Mian himself even left early.
When there were still fifteen minutes left before class ended, he announced in a weak voice, "That's all for today. Even if you wanted to hear more, I'm not teaching any further. Class dismissed."
It wasn't that he wasn't dedicated; this Civics class was just too hard to teach. It wasn't his area of expertise, and he could fall asleep just reading from the textbook.
When Gu Mian returned to the office more than ten minutes early, Fatty was completely shocked.
"You're..." He stepped forward to touch Gu Mian's white lab coat, then his shoulder. "Did you get scared and run out early?"
Gu Mian brushed his hand away. "Scared? What's there to be scared about? I discovered something."
Chu Changge, sitting at the office desk, adjusted his glasses. "What is it?"
Only the three of them were in the office at the moment. The other three had said they were going to gather clues, but who knew where they'd gone off to.
"The instance description said we're supposed to be teachers for twenty-nine resentful spirits, but I counted carefully. There were only twenty-eight students in the classroom. I asked around and found out the missing one is named Lin Yanan. The other twenty-eight don't seem to like this Lin Yanan much."
Fatty still had lingering fears when talking about those students.
He touched his chest and began, "Dr. Gu, you have no idea what I went through during that first class. They said they wanted to play 'Pass the Flower' and tell secrets. But the things they revealed, each one was more horrifying than the last..."
"It was somewhat okay at first, but it got scarier and scarier. Killing dogs and torturing cats, framing others, and then it even got to killing their grandfather, younger brother, and so on. It was terrifying!"
Gu Mian was quite interested in this. "They seem to have violent tendencies, and likely had them even before they died. Could their deaths be related to these actions?"
Did the people they killed become Evil Ghosts and return to claim their lives?
That doesn't seem very plausible. If it was revenge, they would only need to seek out one person; there'd be no need to kill the entire class.
Unless everyone in the class did something to the same person.
Gu Mian glanced again at Teacher Zhang Ping's desk. "During the first class, did anyone mention this teacher?"
Fatty shook his head.
"Then, did the things they talked about have any common points?"
Fatty recalled carefully.
"Several of them had abused animals, and several had bullied a girl..."
Chu Changge suddenly interrupted him, "A girl? Were they talking about the same girl?"
"I don't know," Fatty shook his head. "One said the girl was like a rabbit, and he even killed her pet rabbit, dissected it, and placed it on her desk. Another said he stole money and framed her for it, which almost got her legs broken."
Fatty shivered fittingly as he spoke.
If they were indeed talking about the same person, then this instance might become much easier.
Since two people in this class had bullied this girl, it was highly probable that others had participated as well.
It must be this girl's revenge on the entire class.
However, things might not be that simple; there were still many unanswered questions.
Chu Changge had evidently reached the same conclusion. "There are two problems now: first, to figure out who this girl is, and second, to understand the significance of Teacher Zhang Ping's presence."
Gu Mian looked out the window. "Good. Since we have some free time now, we can explore the school."
Outside the teaching building, the sunlight was bright, easily dispelling the musty, decaying odor.
Gu Mian first went to the school's main gate.
He had been curious about the seal on the gate for a long time.
Fatty and Chu Changge had teamed up to explore the teaching building, leaving Gu Mian alone here.
The heavy iron gate was long rusted. Some parts were even rotted through, creating holes large enough for a child to pass, but Gu Mian had no intention of going out right now.
He reached through a gap and peeled off the seal on the outside of the iron gate.
"'Sealed by the Rongcheng City Public Security Bureau. Rongcheng City...'"
Gu Mian pondered for a moment, then looked towards a notice posted not far from the iron gate. Because the characters were too small, he could only make out the title at first glance—
"Investigation Report on the Fire in Grade 8, Class 4"