I"d gotten off the bus early to see Xia Jin to his door, so I biked the rest of the way as usual. The distance wasn"t far. It only took about ten minutes to get home.

When I got home, I saw Liu Sishun pacing back and forth in the living room. When he saw me, he immediately approached me and said, "Because of you, Li Yuanyuan has transc — decided to go home."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Ah, it"s a sad story," said Liu Sishun. "When Yuanyuan was ali-… When she was little, she had a bad time. She was timid and got bullied by her cla.s.smates all the time. When she grew up and went to work, she met a cla.s.smate had who bullied her when she was at school. Her cla.s.smate pushed her head into the toilet and she was drowned. She couldn"t leave the toilet after that."

I said angrily, "That isn"t schoolyard bullying anymore. We can report that student for intentionally harming Yuanyuan and leaving her with serious psychological trauma. She should be held responsible by the law, and she should have to pay for the treatment Yuanyuan will need in the future."

"Oh, don"t worry about it, she"s already been taught a lesson. It"s just that Yuanyuan is so pitiful. Tied to the toilet, her obsession too strong. Even if she wanted to she couldn"t leave. She had to keep appearing by the toilet at night."

"At home you rely on your parents, outside you rely on your friends. I think that as her roommates, we should advise her to go to seek treatment and get out from under this psychological shadow as soon as possible."

"There"s no need. When she was ali-… before, her cla.s.smates used to say that she smelled like a toilet and always rejected her. But you never despised her. Wherever you met her you always reached out. Now she has gone home and will live a good life in the future. " Liu Shishun said, "Just now she came back and left with her luggage. She also asked me to take good care of you in the future."

I looked at Li Yuanyuan"s bedroom, which was as clean and tidy as before. The toilet was still there, but the wig was gone.

As Liu Sishun said, Li Yuanyuan always smelled of toilet cleaning solution, which didn"t go away even when she showered. In fact, I didn"t like that smell, but I knew that I had to be careful with Li Yuanyuan"s emotional state. Even though I didn"t like the smell, I still had to persist in extending the hand of friendship to her.

If she had really been able to make progress, that was great, but it was too bad she had left in such a hurry that we hadn"t gotten to see each other.

But it didn"t matter. As long as there was a connection between them, two living people would always have the chance to meet.

"Thank you, Teacher Liu. I know you were waiting especially to tell me about it."

"It"s nothing. I don"t sleep very much at night. By the way, this notebook is for you. You can take it with you when you teach your cla.s.s. You can use it to write lesson plans or record the names of students. " Teacher Liu handed over a very old notebook. The paper was thin and yellow. It seemed to have been preserved for many years. Inside it was blank, with nothing written in it.

This must have been his favorite notebook, which he had kept safe for many years. I put it next to my heart and said, "Thank you. I"ll carry it with me in the future."

"Ah, no, no, you don"t need to carry it on you, definitely don"t put it next to your heart. Your blood is too strong and hot." Liu Sishun waved his hand and said, "You should put it in your book bag. If you run into any disobedient students in cla.s.s, just take it out."

What was the connection between a lesson plan and disobedient students? It probably had to do with Teacher Liu"s teaching experience. We would discuss it later.

Now I was very sleepy, almost falling off my feet. After taking the notebook and giving Teacher Liu a vague parting, I went to my room and fell asleep.

In my dream, I dimly saw Li Yuanyuan. She was wearing a dress with flowers on it, smiling and waving at me. Then she flew up into the sky.

When I woke up, I thought it had been a good dream. I was in a good mood. I went to work wearing an ordinary, cheap T-shirt that I"d bought at the wholesale market for 20 yuan.

Xia Jin had gone to the elevator maintenance staff in the morning, but there had been interference in the CCTV signal during the period we were trapped. There was only a blue screen. By the time the signal was restored, we had already left the elevator. And the staff really hadn"t heard our distress call at all, though they"d been working diligently the whole time.

Xia Jin investigated for a long time without turning anything up. The shopping mall would open at nine, so he had no time to keep looking. He quickly got into his working demeanor.

I watched him and saw that he didn"t remember what had happened last night. I knew him; I didn"t think he was pretending.

This made me both worried and relieved. Worried that he really had had a psychological attack, and relieved that he didn"t remember it, so it wouldn"t affect our future brotherhood.

I put my cell phone into the staff"s temporary locker, put on the bear costume, and proceeded to perform my laborious and adorable part-time job.

While I was working, I kept strolling casually past the elevators, mainly to see Ning Tiance, if he showed up today. I was really concerned that in order to dispel evil, he was going to pee in the elevator.

However, Xiao Ning didn"t appear all day. Not until I was about to get off work at 10 pm did I see a bright yellow robe. Just looking at the clothes, I knew that it was Ning Tiance.

Seeing him ignore the staff"s obstructions and head directly towards the elevator, I rushed to stop him, but I was still wearing my bear costume and fell down after two steps.

Looking up, I saw Ning Tiance still striding towards the elevator. I struggled, realized I would have a hard time getting up, and instead used my arms to crawl forward.

The floor of the shopping mall was very smooth. It"s wasn"t hard for the fuzzy costume to slide along it. I quickly caught up with Ning Tiance, who was waiting for the elevator. Just then, the elevator arrived. When I saw that he was going to enter the elevator, I quickly used my furry arms to hug his thigh.

"Wait - for me -" I gasped inside my bear suit.

Ning Tiance must have been shocked. He pulled out the wooden sword on his back, pointed to me and said, "What evil is this? Show your original shape."

I held his leg firmly with one arm and reached to unzip my costume"s zipper with the other. I was already clumsy in the suit; holding a person with one hand made my movements extremely awkward. I couldn"t get the zipper open for ages.

The staff came with Xia Jin. Just as I was about to ask Xia Jin to help me take off the bear suit, I saw Xia Jin shaking Ning Tiance"s hand warmly. "h.e.l.lo, Master Ning, my name is Xia Jin. I asked you to come. Didn"t I say before that you could come to my office directly from the staff elevator? Why did you come here?"

"I was worried about the haunted elevator," Ning Tiance said as coldly usual. "Also, could you ask your employee to let go of me?"

When Xia Jin looked down, I shouted to him, "Help — help me out of this costume!"

"Shen Jianguo?" Xia Jin was surprised. "Why are you holding on to the master I invited here? You also must have guessed what kind of thing we ran into last night. Come on, we"ll tell the master what happened last night together."

He stooped and pulled me up. After taking off my suit, I waved to Ning Tiance with my face full of sweat. "Hi, Xiao Ning."

"Xiao Ning, what Xiao Ning! He"s called Master Ning." Xia Jin smacked me on the back of my head. "Crawling on the ground and grabbing a customer"s thigh in the middle of the mall, what a disgrace!"

Xia Jin had been working for many years, and his public relations ability was quite strong. He immediately turned to the customers who had started taking pictures and watching the bustle and said, "I"m sorry, these are two actors we invited for the event. They"re rehearsing the performance of "The Celestial Master Exorcising a Bear Demon." If they pa.s.s the audition, you may see this program in our mall in the future. We"re going to close soon. Please pay for your purchases as soon as possible. At 11 o"clock, the registers will close. "

When the surrounding crowd heard Xia Jin, they put away their phones and went to the registers. Some people also told Xia Jin that the program was good and funny. They hoped to see it sometime.

After the crowd dispersed, Xia Jin took me and Xiao Ning back to his office.

As soon as he entered, he politely asked Xiao Ning to sit on the sofa and offered him a cup of tea. Then he glared at me and said, "Talk about losing face for me. Even if you wanted to find a master to the dispel the evil as soon as possible, you still have to mind appearances."

I"ve never stood on formality with him, so I just said, "It"s precisely because of minding appearances that I was rushing to stop him from going into the elevator. With so many people there, what would happen if Xiao Ning went around peeing virgin"s urine in the elevator? I"m guessing you"re a virgin, right?"

This last was addressed to Ning Tiance, who blushed and took a sip of tea to cover up his expression. He pretended to be cool and said, "Although the Maoshan Sect doesn"t forbid marriage, we aren"t allowed to divide our Yang source until we"re powerful enough. I"m not powerful enough yet, so the time hasn"t come."

So he was a virgin.

Xia Jin said fawningly to Ning Tiance, "Master Ning is being modest. A few days ago you solved the haunting at President Liang"s house. President Liang highly recommended you to me. He said that your skills are profound, and you would certainly solve the haunting at our mall."

I tugged at Xia Jin"s clothes. "Ah, you"re a university graduate, why are you so superst.i.tious? There"s no such thing as ghosts."

Xia Jin slapped my hand. "Are you blind? You saw what that elevator was like last night, you think that wasn"t a ghost? And your roommate Li Yuanyuan, I saw her come out of the toilet with my own eyes. And I looked up the residential history of Apartment 404, Unit 4, Building 4 of the Farther Side Estate. It"s an abode of ghosts! And you still dare to live there, with her as your roommate. Have you ever seen her during the day? Haven"t you been living with a ghost all this time!"

"You"ve gone too far. It"s one thing to be superst.i.tious yourself, but don"t insult my roommate by calling her a ghost. Yuanyuan is a nice girl, she"s just a little strange. How could you talk about her like that?"

"Then you try calling her over here during the day. If she dares to come see me by the light of the sun, I"ll believe she"s human."

"She went back to her hometown. She"s not in the city. How could I call her over? Anyway, is this something that needs to be proved?" I was angry. That Xia Jin was also immersed in feudal superst.i.tion made me feel hopeless.

Xia Jin saw that he couldn"t lead me astray into his superst.i.tions. He shook his head and said, "Ning-tianshi[1], look at him, isn"t he the one who"s surrounded by ghosts? I"ve never run into this kind of thing before, but yesterday while I was with him we kept running into ghosts. It must be his presence dragging me down."

Ning Tiance looked at us for a while and shook his head. He said, "Mr. Shen Jianguo is a man of integrity, untouched by the supernatural. On the contrary, Mr. Xia, you have Yin energy on your brow. Your fortune has been bad recently, and you"ve been susceptible to hauntings."

Well, look at that. Xiao Ning knew I didn"t believe in ghosts, so he wouldn"t say it was me. That"s was just routine.

[1]天师 - "celestial master," the t.i.tle Ning Tiance gets called most of the time.