I had a lot of questions for her, but I didn"t know where to start.

Unlike Teacher Liu and the other ghosts, Princ.i.p.al Zhang was still alive, but not in good shape.

"Her living soul is leaving the body," Ning Tiance said after checking Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s eyes and the top of her head. "The Yang fire on her head has gone out."

"What Yang fire?"

Teacher Liu explained: "Humans have three lamps, one on top of the head, and one on each shoulder. These are flames lit by Yang energy. It"s hard for ordinary people to see with the naked eye. Yang energy is weak at night. If you turn your head suddenly, the lamp on your shoulder will go out, and Yin energy will be able to invade your body. Ghosts will be able to control the human"s mind and spirit. So when we"re dealing with humans, we usually think of a way to make them turn around. The first time Mu Huaitong saw you, she was hiding in the corner of the stairwell. She"d heard you had cut Yuanyuan"s hair and had quite fierce Yang energy. She knew you would be hard to deal with, so she thought of that method for extinguishing your soul lamp."

"So has mine been extinguished?" I looked left and right, then held up my phone to take a picture of my head, trying to see whether there was a lamp.

"Yours..." Teacher Liu paused, then went on: "If the soul lamp of an ordinary person is an oil lamp that can be blown out by a breath of air, then yours is a forest fire. The more the wind blows, the fiercer the fire becomes."

"Then..." I looked at Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s haggard face. "Can I use some of my fire to light the lamp on Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s head?"

"No," said Xiao Ning. "Her life span is coming to an end. Even her living soul won"t last long. Anything you have to say, you should say it now."

I quickly sent a message to Princ.i.p.al Zhang: Princ.i.p.al, what can we do to make Xiao Duan leave her body? What is her obsession?

Lying in the hospital bed, Princ.i.p.al Zhang didn"t move, but her phone seemed to be controlled by an invisible hand, typing on its own.

Duan Youlian was part of the first group of boarding students I enrolled when I was princ.i.p.al of Benevolence Middle School. After her father"s car accident, I asked her mother if she wanted her child to move out of the dormitory and switch to day schooling. Her mother asked me about the advantages and disadvantages of boarding and day schooling. I told her that day schooling meant her daughter could stay with her family, so that her mother wouldn"t be too lonely. As for boarding, the school environment was simpler, and the child would be more likely to overcome the homesickness of leaving her relatives. Her mother said she would choose what was best for the child, and had Duan Youlian stay at the dormitory. But I never expected that the innocent cruelty of children could sometimes be more ruthless than society.

After I read out Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s message, Duan Youlian said, "The dormitory teacher thought I stayed in the dormitory every night, but it was really my roommates pretending. They chased me out of the dormitory. I always spent the night at an Internet cafe. It was cheap, and I could pa.s.s the time by going online. But it was a very disordered environment. I went every day, and soon someone got their eye on me. One night when I left the school by the back door to go to the Internet cafe, I was attacked. I got knocked out in the struggle. The riverbanks weren"t fully covered by security cameras then, so they threw me in the river. At first it was very painful. Then suddenly I became very strong and swam up from the bottom of the river. I stood on the sh.o.r.e. My head was full of water. Even my brains poured out of my ears. That was when I knew I was dead."

I felt particularly sad on hearing this, but I still grasped the key point. "You left the dormitory at night, which is like cutting school. Your body was dumped, but crawled up on its own. If no one finds a body and calls the police, it"s very hard to determine that a death has occurred. I suppose you"re still listed as missing by the police. How many years has it been since you pa.s.sed away?"

"I don"t remember. My brain is gone, I don"t have any sense for numbers." Duan Youlian shook her head.

I sent a message to Princ.i.p.al Zhang: In what year did you become a princ.i.p.al? And when did Duan Youlian go missing?

I remember clearly that at the beginning of 2011, I became the princ.i.p.al of Benevolence Middle School. At the end of that year, Duan Youlian went missing.

"I don"t suppose Xiao Duan could still be alive?" I said inadvertently after reading the text.

"Impossible." Ning Tiance quickly shook his head. "She"s definitely a living corpse. I"m very sure."

Teacher Liu also chimed in. "Ning-tianshi is right. I"ve been dead so many years. I can tell the living from the dead."

Duan Youlian also insisted that she was dead.

I looked bitterly at these three law-blind people, pounded my chest and began to explain. "2011 was eight years ago. Civil law stipulates that if a citizen"s whereabouts are unknown for four years, or two years following an accident, interested parties can apply to the People"s Court to have that person declared dead. In other words, if Duan Youlian"s mother didn"t apply for a declaration of death, Xiao Duan is legally still alive."

Princ.i.p.al Zhang: Duan Youlian"s mother Lin Jianying has probably not applied for a declaration of death. Before I fell into a coma, I made inquiries about her. She has never given up looking for her daughter.

Duan Youlian burst into tears. She crouched on the floor and said to me, "Teacher Shen, I want to see my mom..."

Before I could say "no problem," Xiao Ning immediately said, "No! Your resentful energy is too strong, and you"re a living corpse. If an ordinary person encounters you, their life span will be reduced, even if you don"t mean no harm."

Then what could we do? I had no understanding in this area. I could only stare at Xiao Ning.

"The only was is if Xiao Duan is willing to use this talisman to suppress her Yin energy." Xiao Ning took the yellow robe out of his backpack and tore out one the exorcism talismans I"d charged up from inside. "An ordinary fierce ghost, even if this talisman didn"t destroy their soul, would still be unable to move. You"re a living corpse, so you should still be able to move, but it be painful." He saw Duan Youlian reach for the talisman and said significantly, "Very painful, perhaps even more painful than when you died."

Duan Youlian shook her head. "It doesn"t matter if I"m in pain. As long as I can see my mom."

"We"ll go to her now." I held up my phone. Princ.i.p.al Zhang had just sent me Xian Duan"s mother"s address.

Although there were still things I wanted to ask Princ.i.p.al Zhang, Xiao Duan"s business was more pressing. It was best for this mother and daughter pair to see each other tonight. We snuck back out of the Fourth Hospital. Before leaving, I"d returned Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s phone to the cabinet.

The driver, who had been waiting for us outside the hospital, took us to the gate of the estate, looking displeased. "It"s already 4 AM. I get off of work at five. If you aren"t out by four-thirty, you can find your own way back."

Xiao Ning and I would be all right. We could move around during the day. But it would be harder for Teacher Liu and Xiao Duan.

I was concerned. "I can carry Teacher Liu close to my chest to help him avoid the sunlight on the way home. Xiao Duan..."

"That won"t do at all," Teacher Liu said hurriedly. "Teacher Shen, your chest is the place where your blood is hottest. It"s no different from being exposed to the sun. I... I"d better go in Ning-tianshi"s backpack."

"You"re sure about that?" Xiao Ning opened his backpack, which contained sixty-four colorful flags and a big pile of talismans.

Teacher Liu didn"t speak.

"How about this: I"ll take off my shirt and wrap it around you," Xiao Ning said thoughtfully. "You"re possessing an object, so you"ll be fine as long as you avoid direct sunlight."

"Thank you so much, Ning-tianshi!" Teacher Liu said gratefully.

"No problem. It"s my first time worrying about a ghost. It feels quite novel." Xiao Ning was clearly talking to Teacher Liu, but his eyes were on me, holding a smile.

The two of them were busy being polite, but I was anxious. I looked at the entrance to the apartment building and said, "The door is locked. How can we get in? Even if we could get in, we"d have no way to get into Lin Jianying"s house. Teacher Liu, can you unlock the door?"

Teacher Liu"s face was embarra.s.sed. "I can temporarily leave the notebook and pa.s.s through the wall, but I can"t bring Xiao Duan in. Xiao Duan is strong enough to kick down the door, but..."

Duan Youlian certainly wouldn"t be willing to kick her mother"s door down. Repairing a door would cost a lot of money.

"Ah, you see, what future is there in being a ghost?" I sighed lengthily and said to Xiao Duan, "Why don"t you ring the doorbell? Maybe when Auntie sees your face on the screen, she"ll open the door."

In fact, there wasn"t much hope, but we had no time. We agreed that if Auntie Lin didn"t open the door, we would get on the bus and leave. During the day, Xiao Ning and I would come up with a way to arrange to see Auntie Lin and ask her to leave the door open for Xiao Duan at night.

"All right. Ning-tianshi, put the talisman on me now?" Xiao Duan calmly looked at Ning Tiance.

"Don"t cry out," Ning Tiance said, sticking the talisman over Duan Youlian"s heart. "The cry of a living corpse is piercing. It"ll wake up the people in the estate."

After the talisman was stuck onto Duan Youlian, her whole body trembled, and her nails grew a centimeter on their own. She clutched her arms and clawed at them, grimacing in pain, yet she still didn"t make a single sound.

Enduring the pain, Xiao Duan rang Auntie Lin"s doorbell again and again.

"This estate is pretty upscale. Won"t the security cameras have caught us sneaking in?" I asked worriedly while Xiao Ning and I hid in a copse of trees.

"That"s no problem. Duan Youlian has been a living corpse for a long time. Her Yin energy is strong. She can affect the security cameras" signal. Like the time you and Manager Xia met a ghost in the elevator and the security cameras didn"t capture anything. At most the security cameras here will see the two of us going into the estate. They won"t capture Duan Youlian and Teacher Liu."

"So the cameras will see us going into the estate, then hiding in the trees? If we"re found out in the future, how can we explain?" Teaching ghost students was more tiring than teaching human students. In one night I"d worried so much my hair would be coming out by the handful. Aside from the students" physical and mental health... their mental and spiritual health, I also had to be concerned about my own conduct. It was too nerve-wracking.

"We"ll use the same excuse as by the river." Xiao Ning took my hand and said, "With these trees in the way, the cameras don"t know what we"re doing. It"s our own business."

"Eh?" I realized what Xiao Ning was talking about. Was he really thinking...

The door of the apartment building suddenly clicked open. Duan Youlian"s mother really had taken a look at the screen and come running downstairs in the middle of the night.

"Xiao Lian..." A middle-aged woman reached for Duan Youlian, trembling. "You..."

Duan Youlian stepped back, turned her face away and said, "You can"t touch me."

Then she walked into the building with Auntie Lin. I couldn"t hear what they were talking about.

I squeezed Xiao Ning"s hand nervously. "Xiao Ning, what do you think Xiao Duan will say to her? Can Auntie accept it?"

"Teacher Shen," said Ning Tiance in an altered voice. "After that time I rushed back to H City from the train station, I asked Manager Xia about you. He misunderstood and thought I was also interested in you, so he hinted to me that you liked men, and that you had some feelings for me. My feelings at the time were very complicated."

I was stunned. Xia Jin, that jerk! I"d planned on being friends with Xiao Ning first; I hadn"t expected him to sell me out so early!

I quickly tried to salvage the situation. "Xiao Ning, don"t believe Xia Jin, I..."

"I believed him." Xiao Ning interrupted me with his lips.

It was a very beautiful night. Xiao Ning and I hid among the trees. Under the soft moonlight, we exchanged a gentle kiss.