After boarding the bus, Xia Jin looked at the words on the only green seat and laughed. Then he sat down on the red seat behind the green one. He really must have been tired today; otherwise, he would have patted me on the stomach and asked me how many months. Today he was letting me off easy.

When Xia Jin sat down, the driver immediately looked back at him.

I quickly said, "Dage, this is my schoolmate. He lives on the way. He"ll get off at the stop before Farther Sh.o.r.e Estate."

The driver was silent as usual. He turned his back to us and said in a deep voice, "Well, it won"t kill him."

I couldn"t understand this, but I saw that he wasn"t angry and didn"t seem to mind taking Xia Jin along, so I sat down in front of Xia Jin and looked at my phone.

Li Yuanyuan didn"t sit with us. She ran to the last row in the far corner of the school bus by herself. She was hidden among the shadows, her figure hard to distinguish.

After finding out that we had boarded the bus, Princ.i.p.al Zhang set her mind at ease. On the other hand, Ning Tiance had sent several messages in a row:

I"ve seen that you are full of Yang energy. Your Yang source must still be whole. A virgin"s urine is the most effective way of dispelling evil. Could I be wrong in supposing you are a virgin?

How are you? Did you make it out? I"m near the mall. I"m coming to help you.

I"m here. Security has shut the door. Hold on while I find something to break the gla.s.s with. If you"re really scared, p.r.i.c.k your middle finger. A drop of heart"s blood full of Yang energy will work. Just hold on a little.

I hadn"t expected that rather than calling the police, Xiao Ning would rush to the mall to break down the door to save me. I put a voice call through to Xiao Ning. There was no answer for a long time. I was afraid he was too busy breaking down the door to hear his phone.

When I was starting to get really worried, the call was picked up. Ning Tiance"s panting voice came from the phone: "I"d just found a brick, then the security guard rushed out to chase me. Don"t worry, my qinggong is very good, I can dodge him. Wait."

I immediately interrupted. "I"ve already gotten out. I"m on my way home."

The voice at the other end paused. After a while, I heard Ning Tiance say, "I just hid in a corner to avoid the security guard. It"s inconvenient to talk. It"s good that you"ve gotten out, but there"s still a ghost in the elevator. I still have to get in to exorcise it."

"Wait a minute." I quickly stopped him from hanging up. "It"s really nothing, just an elevator malfunction."

"No, I walked around the mall earlier today. The Yin energy was very strong. At that time, I thought something might happen. Unfortunately, the mall closed at 11 and they asked me to leave. If I had known something might happen to you, I would have stayed longer."

I was very moved. After all, we barely knew each other. Xiao Ning had gone to the mall in the middle of the night to break down a door for a stranger. He really was a kind-hearted and estimable young man. Only his awareness of the law was a little weak, and he had been poisoned by feudal superst.i.tion. It really was upsetting.

"It"s wrong of you to do that." I gave him some basic information. "In this case, you should dial 119, 110 or even 122 first. You can"t break down the door. You should explain the situation to the security guard. If he doesn"t believe you, he can check the CCTV to confirm. That way he"ll help you get the door open."

"Ghosts can interfere with CCTV, and ordinary people can"t see them. I can only take the risk myself," Xiao Ning replied earnestly.

"..."

This couldn"t go on.

As a new teacher, perhaps my experience was limited, but I couldn"t stand by and watch a kind-hearted young man sink into the mire. I had to help him find new faith in science.

"Let"s meet another day." I couldn"t say everything clearly over the phone, so I decided to meet up in person. "I have work tomorrow for my part-time job, so I have no time. How about the day after tomorrow, Monday, at noon?"

"Do you want to talk about ghosts? No problem. You"ve encountered ghosts several times in the last few days. Your fortune must be fairly bad. You need to break free of it."

"So don"t go breaking down the door of the mall now. We"re already out. Even if there is a ghost, you don"t know that it"s going to hurt anyone. Right?"

Ning Tiance hesitated. "But if I leave it there, it will hurt someone eventually…"

"Well, it"ll be better for you to come when the mall opens tomorrow. And we"ll get a chance to see each other," I suggested.

"All right."

I was relieved to hear at last that he wasn"t planning on violating the law and breaking into the mall. I stayed on the phone with Ning Tiance a while longer, chatting, then told him to go get some rest. Then I put down the phone and leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes.

The swaying of the school bus nearly put me to sleep. Suddenly I felt a shadow in front of me. When I opened my eyes, Xia Jin was standing up looking right at me.

I asked, "What is it?"

I remembered Xia Jin falling asleep as soon as he took his seat. He hadn"t woken up even while I talked to Ning Tiance about his plans to break down the door of the mall, so he must have been very tired. How come he was so energetic now?

As I was wondering, Xia Jin suddenly curled his lips into a simpering smile that made my flesh crawl. He said, "Teacher Shen."

I was so disgusted by his expression that I pushed him away with a slap. "Get away. So it"s a specially reserved teacher"s seat, what"s so weird about that?"

He must have rested enough and had now come to tease me. In university that was Xia Jin"s favorite thing to do. Three years of work hadn"t reined him in at all. When it came to his former schoolmates, all he wanted was to make trouble.

He leaned against the arm rest. He didn"t look angry. He crooked his finger and sidled up to me in a slinking, catlike motion. "Teacher Shen, you really are heartless. Some of us really admire you."

For a time I was shocked speechless by his behavior. Taking this opportunity, Xia Jin actually sat down on my lap, put his hands around my neck and his head on my shoulder. Pouting, he said, "Your chilly demeanor is just so attractive!"

After that, he even tried to kiss me. I pushed him away and loudly said, "Settle down!"

Xia Jin and I had a good relationship. When I was in college, he was one of the few people who knew about my s.e.xual orientation. Although he was straight, he didn"t shun me. There was nothing he couldn"t say to me. Anyway, even if I liked men, it didn"t mean that I would like any man I met. Our relationship was one of pure Socialist brotherhood. Him knowing about my s.e.xuality didn"t mean we couldn"t show our affection with some slaps on the a.s.s on the basketball court.

He could talk to me about my love life, and I could go see movies with him, but I wasn"t going to fall in love with him. He was always pursuing girls.

During his three years of work, Xia Jin had found a girlfriend. Their relationship was very stable. They were trying to save up money for a down payment on an apartment, planning to get married when they had saved up enough. He couldn"t have suddenly developed an interest in me.

I was pressing Xia Jin back against the window and he, with incredible force, was trying to get close and kiss me while I struggled desperately. On the school bus, the two of us flailed at each other.

Fortunately, the driver and Li Yuanyuan were both well-mannered. I glanced at them and saw they were both keeping their eyes to themselves. The driver was focused on driving. Li Yuanyuan was looking out the window. Both of them were obviously not looking at me. That made me feel secure.

"Wake up, don"t you have a girlfriend?" I stuck my elbow against Xia Jin"s chest, holding him at bay.

"But suddenly I just feel so safe around you. Look at this strong arm of yours." He couldn"t kiss me, so he reached out and touched my arm, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

This couldn"t continue. It was too scary. Xia Jin was probably over-stimulated tonight. Was this some kind of PTSD? When I was studying basic psychology in university, the teacher mentioned this kind of psychological disorder. When people are threatened by death, or seriously injured, or their bodily integrity is threatened, they will have delayed and persistent mental disorders. Most of the time they would be normal, but some stimulus would make them burst out like this.

Could it be that my calm manner in the elevator had made such a strong impression on him?

This couldn"t go on. He had even started tearing at my clothes. How were we going to go on being brothers?

Exerting all my strength, I finally wrestled Xia Jin to the ground and delivered a fist full of Socialist friendship. Xia Jin fell unconscious when I hit him.

I hadn"t hit him that hard!

Seeing that he was unconscious, I quickly pulled him up and put him in my pregnant woman"s seat. He flopped on the seat, not moving. I quickly said to the driver, "Dage, why don"t we go to the hospital first? Did I hit him too hard?"

The driver didn"t turn back. He looked at the road ahead and said, "He"s all right now. He"ll wake up soon."

Maybe the driver had studied medicine or something. As soon as he had spoken, Xia Jin woke up, clutching his head. He mumbled, "Sleeping under the air-conditioning gave me a headache, the cold wind was too strong."

I looked at him hesitantly and asked tentatively, "Do you… remember what just happened?"

"What just happened?" Xia Jin shook his head and saw that he was sitting in my seat. He rolled his eyes at me and said, "You were getting revenge because I laughed at you. You moved me to your green chair while I was sleeping. I was so exhausted I didn"t even wake up."

"..."

I couldn"t tell if Xia Jin really didn"t remember what had happened just now or if he was faking it.

I stared at him for a while, but I didn"t dare to sit down. I didn"t want to be trapped in a seat unable to fight back if he had another attack.

Whether he was pretending or really didn"t remember, it was still for the best not to mention it.

But tomorrow I would have to contact his girlfriend to give her a hint her that Xia Jin had been tired lately and needed some extra attention.

Xia Jin fell asleep again under my scrutiny, but this time he didn"t have an attack and slept all the way home. I was worried something would happen to him, so I left Li Yuanyuan on the school bus and went with him, only relaxing when I saw him go upstairs.

It must have been a temporary, one-off phenomenon. As long as the relationship between him and his girlfriend remained stable, it shouldn"t happen again.

I would see what happened when we met the next time. If he didn"t mention it, it would be like it had never happened, and we could go on being brothers.