Chapter 18: Abandoned Building
Li Mu didn’t have many friends in class, so even though he had changed a little, most of his classmates didn’t notice.
He hadn’t slept well, and after spending the whole day worrying about his body, he was rather absent-minded all day. He barely paid attention in class, and before he knew it, night had arrived.
When he got back to the dorm, Li Mu grabbed a chair and sat in front of the mirror, staring blankly at his reflection.
He rarely looked at himself this closely.
But now, as he studied his reflection again, his first thought was he looked cleaner.
After all, all his body hair was gone.
Leaning in a little closer, he noticed that his face seemed a bit more delicate. The change wasn’t obvious, but it still made him feel uneasy.
His eyelashes were slightly longer, his shoulders were narrower, and his wrists were thinner.
No matter how he looked at it, he was moving further and further down the path of becoming more feminine.
Would he actually turn into a woman one day? Even if he only looked like one on the outside, he still couldn’t accept it.
Lin Xi should have completely disappeared, right?
The only thing he could be grateful for was that, at least for now, his “little brother” was still fine.
But that small relief did nothing to stop the sinking feeling in his heart.
His face darkened as he rested his elbows on his knees, his entire body radiating a cold aura. His dormmates exchanged nervous glances, clearly too scared to speak.
In the dorm, his only friend was Zhao Pan. To the others, Li Mu had always seemed distant and hard to approach. He was quiet, and his cold expression made him look unapproachable. But in reality, he wasn’t a bad guy, just someone who preferred to keep to himself. But today, he looked like he was about to murder someone.
Wait a second... was Lin Xi really gone?
That thought suddenly crossed Li Mu’s mind.
Back then, Lin Xi had disappeared while in a possessed state, and after that, Yu Fan no longer felt the pressure of being near a ghost. That was why they assumed she had fulfilled her lingering regrets and moved on.
But what if... she had actually hidden inside him instead?
The more he thought about it, the more panicked he felt.
If his feminization was caused by another ghost at school, at least that was something he could try to figure out. But if it was because Lin Xi was still inside him, then he might need to take a long leave of absence and go to places like Mount Longhu or Mount Wutai for an exorcism.
Or maybe... he should just hope that Yu Fan, that unreliable guy, could come up with a solution?
Still, Taoist priests and monks were probably better at getting rid of ghosts than shaman whose powers might not even be real.
“Uh... Brother Mu?” Zhao Pan cautiously approached him. “Are you okay?”
Li Mu looked up at him seriously and asked, “Do you think I’ve changed in the past two days?”
Zhao Pan stared at him in confusion and scratched his head. “Uh… you got... more handsome?”
A second later, as if Zhao Pan had just discovered a new world, he suddenly jumped up in shock. “Brother Mu! You really did get a lot more handsome! I didn’t even notice before!”
Okay, now he felt a little better.
“But… you also look… uh, more delicate?”
The word "delicate" immediately translated in Li Mu’s mind to more feminine.
Kid, you’re digging your own grave.
Li Mu shot back coldly, “You’re one to talk. When are you booking your flight to Thailand?”
Zhao Pan was clearly the most delicate and feminine-looking guy in class. Not to mention, he was short, yet he had the nerve to call Li Mu delicate.
“Brother… that’s not a nice thing to say,” Zhao Pan whined, looking pitiful. “Besides, yeah, I might be a bit feminine, but at least I have a girlfriend.”
Li Mu immediately fell silent. He lowered his head, buried his face in his hands, and looked even more gloomy.
How was it that Zhao Pan had a girlfriend while he was still single?
Was it because… his standards were too high?!
After comforting himself with that excuse, Li Mu finally stood up and left the dorm.
There were still two hours of evening self-study left.
It wasn’t mandatory, there was no roll call, and no real class either. But Li Mu wanted to use this time to wander around the school and see if there really was a ghost hiding somewhere.
So, after stepping out of the boys' dorm, he took a turn and started walking toward the girls' dorm.
The school wasn’t very big. The entire campus was built around the main office building.
Directly in front of the office building was the podium and sports field.
Beyond that was the school gate.
To the left were the boys' dorm and cafeteria.
The left side also had classrooms and the girls' dorm.
The right and front-right areas housed the teaching and training buildings.
At the back, there was another teaching building, but it had been abandoned for years due to its poor condition and declining student enrollment.
As everyone knew, if a ghost was haunting a school, it was always in the abandoned building.
So, Li Mu walked through a tree-lined path and headed straight for the old school building behind the girls' dorm.
To his surprise, he saw three students, two boys and one girl, standing in front of the abandoned building, pointing at it and chatting excitedly.
As he got a little closer, he overheard one of them telling a ghost story.
“I heard that three years ago, people still lived in this building. But then someone was murdered here, their body was cut into pieces, and the killer was never found.”
“After that, the building became haunted. People started finding their pillows and stuffed toys mysteriously torn apart, and sometimes, there would be bloody handprints on the doors. The school was so scared that they shut it down.”
“Well, since we’ve got nothing to do tonight, why don’t we go in and check it out?”
Hearing this, Li Mu just smirked in boredom.
He had heard similar stories when he first came to this school. The plot was always the same, a student got murdered and became a ghost.
Back then, he had joined a group of curious classmates to check it out, but all they got was a spooky little adventure before leaving covered in dust.
It was pretty thrilling.
But now that he could actually see ghosts, going back in there felt a bit…
Suddenly, a hand patted his shoulder.
Li Mu turned his head calmly, only to see Yu Fan smiling at him with his usual bright, cheerful grin.
What the hell are you smiling at?
After getting tricked into cross-dressing by Yu Fan once, Li Mu had grown allergic to his sunshine-boy smile.
“What a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence.”
Li Mu had noticed Yu Fan following him ever since he left the dorm. Maybe Yu Fan had the same idea as him.
“Let’s go. Time for some exploring,” Yu Fan stretched lazily before heading straight into the abandoned building.
Compared to those three students who were still hesitating, his confidence level was off the charts.
Li Mu trailed behind him at a relaxed pace.
To be honest, he was kind of nervous.
He still didn’t know enough about ghosts.
Letting Yu Fan go ahead was the smart move. If they did run into a ghost, he just had to make sure he ran faster than Yu Fan.