Chapter 133: Xiao Jing?
Late at night.
A girl in a thin long dress was wandering the streets, looking around at the crowd with a lost and confused expression.
She stopped in front of a bus stop and looked up at the route map.
After a while, she gave up and sat weakly on the bench. She pulled up her legs, hugged her knees, and continued to stare at the people walking by with her big eyes.
Maybe someone had been watching her for a while, because a kind-looking middle-aged man came over and handed her a bottle of water.
The girl lowered her head, saying nothing and not moving. The man smiled and asked, “Little girl, where is your home? It’s so late, why aren’t you going back?”
She still didn’t answer, not even looking up at him.
“How about having a drink of water?” he said, placing the bottle next to her with a helpless expression.
Seeing that she wasn’t responding at all, the man frowned even more. After thinking for a moment, he took out his phone and called the police.
The phone call suddenly scared the girl. She jumped off the bench in a panic and ran into a dark alley.
Luckily, the safety in this small town was pretty good. Even though she was out alone at night, nothing like robbery or harassment happened.
The girl wandered aimlessly through the dark corners of the city, clearly frightened and not knowing what to do.
Finally, she stopped in a small alley, squatted down, and said in a sad voice to herself, “Where’s my home?”
………………………………………
On Monday, Li Mu didn’t feel like going to class, so he called in sick.
Yu Fan thought about it for a moment and decided to skip class too.
Even though their homeroom teacher didn’t agree, taking a sick day or skipping school didn’t make much difference to them. The school wouldn’t punish them just for missing one day.
They were still walking the streets, looking for Xiao Jing without any real plan. Suddenly, Li Mu shouted, “I just remembered something!”
“What is it?”
“Could Xiao Jing be near the after-school care center?”
“What makes you think that?”
Li Mu frowned and explained, “Back then, my parents were always busy with work and traveling a lot, so they left Xiao Jing at an after-school care center.”
At that time, his parents were often away, and Li Mu was in middle school with long school hours. There was no one to look after Xiao Jing, so they found a well-known care center to help with her homework and daily needs. Li Mu had evening classes every day and usually didn’t finish until around 8 p.m., when he would go pick up Xiao Jing.
For Xiao Jing, that care center might have been the place she was most familiar with.
Now that he had a clue, he immediately started running in the direction of the care center.
Yu Fan followed behind, pushing the electric scooter, just about to ask Li Mu to get on, but after they turned a corner, Li Mu suddenly stopped again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Is this place being torn down?”
Yu Fan leaned forward to take a look and saw that this was an old village in the center of town. Years ago, there had already been talk about demolishing it. Now, the place looked run-down and messy, with things scattered everywhere. Some workers were doing the final prep work before demolition. It looked like this whole area would soon be flattened.
The after-school care center used to be located inside this village, but the scene in front of them made Li Mu hesitate.
“Should we go in and take a look?” he said as he stepped over the mess and walked inside.
Yu Fan quickly locked the scooter and followed him.
He had pushed the electric scooter all this way and was now full of regret for even bringing it.
He only brought it because he liked the feeling of Li Mu hugging his waist while they rode.
“Ugh, this place totally looks like a spot for ghosts to come out at night,” Yu Fan muttered as he walked beside Li Mu, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “There aren’t even many people here during the day. At night, you'd probably only see ghosts.”
“......”
He glanced at the run-down little shop nearby and chatted with Li Mu, saying, “When I was a kid, my family rented a place here. We didn’t move to the new house in the suburbs until I was in middle school.”
“Umm.”
They walked through a ruined area. The buildings on both sides were already starting to look like something from a war zone. Li Mu looked around at the piles of junk as they went deeper and deeper inside.
The deeper they went into the old village in the city, the fewer people they saw. Eventually, there was no one around, and everything became quiet, like the place was completely cut off from the world.
It was hard to believe a place this empty could exist in the center of a city.
The strange feeling of exploring an unknown place made Yu Fan start to feel excited, but Li Mu was still worried as he searched for the old location of the after-school care center.
After a few more steps, Yu Fan suddenly stopped Li Mu.
He turned his head and listened carefully, then asked, “Did you hear something?”
Li Mu was reminded of the awkward moment back at the abandoned school building. His face darkened, and he didn’t respond.
“It kinda sounds like a kid crying,” Yu Fan said. Maybe it was because he’d dealt with ghosts before, but his first instinct was always to think of the worst. He pulled out his special glasses and asked, “Don’t tell me we’re really running into a ghost here?”
“......”
At that moment, Li Mu also heard the faint sound of crying. He looked in the direction of the sound and realized it was coming from a three-story building.
That building just so happened to be the same one where the care center used to be.
He started to feel excited and took a deep breath, getting ready to call out, but then he remembered that ghostly sounds couldn’t usually be heard by normal people.
Xiao Jing could only talk to Yu Fan when she was inside a mirror or when she had taken over someone’s body.
Also, there wasn’t any cold feeling around the building, which usually happened when ghosts were near.
So he guessed it was just a young girl who had been upset and ran here to cry.
Yu Fan pushed open the front door, knocked on the frame, and called out, “Is anyone here?”
The crying sound inside stopped immediately.
Li Mu followed closely and looked around. The building still had some of the decorations from the old care center. There were children’s drawings left on the walls, but all the desks and chairs were already gone.
The smell of something rotting hit their noses, and dust was everywhere. It made them both frown.
From the entrance, they could see most of the first floor clearly. So they started walking up to the second floor.
Upstairs, they heard some soft, faint noises.
Then came the sound of a window being opened.
They listened for a moment and were just about to go up to the next floor when they suddenly heard a loud BANG from outside the building.
It sounded like something heavy had fallen from above.
Without thinking, the word “suicide” popped into their minds.
Both of their hearts froze for a moment. Then, almost at the same time, they turned and ran outside. But when they got to the door, they only saw a girl in a long dress limping away in the distance.
“Xiao Jing!” Li Mu called out her name without thinking when he saw her back.
Yu Fan froze, standing in place and staring in the girl’s direction.
When the girl heard that name, she stopped walking. She turned back happily and said, “Li Mu?!”
“Wait...”
Looking at her zombie-like face, both of them fell silent.