Energetisch

Kapitel 3

Shen Fengxi was seated in the row behind Gu Fuchen, also by the window. Seeing everyone was seated, Teacher Xu clapped her hands to signal quiet and then began the lesson. This Teacher Xu, whose full name was Xu Momo, seemed quite popular; it was clear the students in the class liked her very much. Soon the bell rang, and the students, relieved, breathed a sigh of relief and began chatting in small groups.

Shen Fengxi was too lazy to make new friends, so he imitated Gu Fuchen, resting his chin on his hand and gazing at the floating clouds outside the window, pondering how to avoid paying Ma Ming back the three hundred yuan. Unfortunately, this peace was interrupted by the Feng Shui trio in less than a minute.

The three guys approached Shen Fengxi's table. Glasses mustered his courage and reached out his hand, saying in a stiffly friendly tone, "Hi, hello, transfer student, my name is Wu Bing."

Shen Fengxi looked at them expressionlessly, knowing what they were planning to do.

"This tall guy is called Chu Yunnan, and the fat guy is called Dong Hua, but we all call him Donggua," Wu Bing continued, and the two men behind him nodded quickly, showing shy smiles.

"Oh," Shen Fengxi uttered lazily.

Wu Bing looked around to make sure no one was watching, then asked with a serious expression, "Student Shen, do you believe in ghosts?"

This time, Shen Fengxi slowly raised his head, pointed to his eyes with his right middle finger, and said solemnly, "Believe me, I have the ability to see ghosts." Wu Bing and the other two took a step back, their faces showing reverence. He suddenly pointed at Dong Hua: "For example, behind him, there is now the vengeful spirit of a headless girl."

Upon hearing this, Dong Hua screamed in fright and jumped back. His obese body lost its balance and crashed into the desk next to him with a loud bang, falling to the ground. Wu Bing and Chu Yunnan were deathly pale. One clasped his hands together and chanted Amitabha, while the other kept making the sign of the cross. It was unclear where they had learned these nonsensical exorcism techniques.

"Did they learn that from Japanese manga? They're so easy to fool," Shen Fengxi thought without a trace of guilt.

Just then, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor came from ahead. It turned out that Gu Fuchen had gotten up and was walking outside without saying a word.

Shen Fengxi was startled. He saw Gu Fuchen leave the classroom again in that strange way, his legs stiff and his figure swaying. At the same time, on the roof of the middle school library, the rusty weathervane began to spin in mid-air, faster and faster, and the sky above it revealed an eerie and oppressive dark color...

Midnight Paranormal Handbook by Ma Boyong - Chapter One (End)

Chapter Two

Midnight Paranormal Handbook

"Do we really want to go in?"

"Fatty, are you scared?"

"No, it's just..."

"Hmph, coward, I'm going to tell Zhu Xiaxi from the next class."

"No! I really don't have a crush on her..."

"Then come with us quickly."

Amidst a murmur of whispers, three dark figures slowly rose from the shadows surrounding the library. It was past 11 p.m., and the massive, ancient library stood in the darkness, resembling a grim medieval castle. It was a cloudy day; the moon and stars hid behind thick clouds, making the atmosphere even more somber and gloomy. Although it was early summer, a chill still permeated the air as one stood beside the building.

By this time, the library was completely empty; all the lights were off, and a large padlock secured the main entrance. The entire building was eerily quiet, the only thing still moving being the weather vane, which continued its slow, creaking rotation, its groaning sound seeming to foreshadow something ominous.

Wu Bing, Chu Yunnan, and Dong Hua tiptoed past the patrolling campus police and darted to a corner behind the library. There was a water room there, which, together with the library's tall outer wall, formed a blind spot, making it an excellent hiding place.

“But how are we going to get in?” Fatty Dong Hua said hesitantly. “Why don’t we wait until the gatekeeper forgets to lock the gate and then come back?”

Wu Bing adjusted his glasses, glared at the indecisive fellow, and then turned to Chu Yunnan, saying, "Your intelligence is correct, isn't it?" Chu Yunnan grunted and craned his neck to look up: "It should be correct. According to my investigation, there's a broken window on the second floor of the library that can be opened from the outside. It should be right opposite this washroom. The distance between the two windows is less than two meters. Moreover, the library's outer eaves are 70 centimeters wide, which is quite spacious."

"Great, let's go!" Wu Bing rubbed his hands excitedly. "Maybe we can solve this mystery today." Dong Hua still looked apprehensive: "But what if those things really come out? What should we do then?"

Wu Bing pulled out a handful of talismans made of folded yellow paper from his pocket and said smugly, "I was prepared. These are all made according to the pictures in the book; they'll be fine against them." He then handed a few to Chu Yunnan and Dong Hua. Dong Hua looked at the talismans in his hand and asked doubtfully, "Are photocopies effective too?"

"Of course, this isn't money." Chu Yunnan gave him an impatient shove. "Hurry up and climb, or someone will find out."

So the three of them climbed up the water pipe using both hands and feet to the water room, and then climbed through the water room to the cement eaves outside the second floor of the library.

Chu Yunnan walked in front, quietly counting the windows; closely following behind was Fatty Dong Hua, who pressed himself against the wall with a look of panic, afraid of falling; last was Wu Bing, who cautiously clung to the wall, occasionally taking out a compass to check.

Chu Yunnan quickly found the window, and the three of them immediately climbed in one by one. It was a large reading room with dozens of long tables lined up in a row, and hundreds of magazines and periodicals neatly arranged.

On the bookshelves on both sides, the covers featuring handsome men and beautiful women are positioned towards the outside. In the darkness, it looks as if many faces are floating on the bookshelves, which is quite eerie.

"Actually, we should ask that new transfer student; he seems to know a lot." Fatty Dong Hua struggled to brush the dirt off his body; the exercise he had just done was quite difficult for him.

Chu Yunnan curled his lip: "Come on, look at the transfer student's arrogant attitude today, all cocky and conceited. What can he do to help? We might as well rely on ourselves."

"Enough with the nonsense, let's find the right location quickly, or we'll miss the appointed time," Wu Bing urged the two of them.

The three men pushed open the door to the reading room and walked out. The corridor was utterly silent; the echo of their footsteps could be clearly heard. All three became extremely tense, slowly making their way upstairs.

The ladder moved, and the surroundings were dark and still, with no one knowing what was hidden there or whether they were being watched.

Suddenly, Chu Yunnan stopped in his tracks.

"Wait a minute!"

Wu Bing quickly turned around, his tone filled with excitement and nervousness: "Yes, have you found anything?"

Chu Nan silently pointed to a door on the right in front of them. Fatty Dong Hua said in surprise, "Isn't this Mr. Zhang's office?"

"Great, shall we go in and take a look?"

"Do you think there's anything supernatural inside?" Wu Bing looked in the direction Chu Yunnan was pointing, his eyes shining behind his glasses.

"No..." Chu Yunnan scratched his head, "There's a math quiz the day after tomorrow, do you want to go take a look at the test paper now?"

"Idiot!" Wu Bing smacked him on the head. "Is now the time for that kind of thing?" He swallowed hard, then continued, "We can think about it later if we have extra time..."

After this minor setback, the three continued on their way. They climbed an emergency staircase on the side of the library, a staircase rarely used by anyone, with poor ventilation, making it dark and stuffy even during the day, and large, suspicious red stains on the floor and walls. In this high school, students had always fearfully called it the "Bloody Staircase" and had made up many "stories" about it.

"When I first enrolled, I heard that a female student once committed suicide by cutting her wrists at the top of this staircase because she failed her exam. The staircase was so secluded that no one noticed. On the third day, a cleaning lady accidentally walked up the stairs and discovered the body leaning against them; the blood from her wrists had stained an entire flight of steps red." Wu Bing recounted this story with great enthusiasm as he climbed the stairs. Fat Dong Hua jumped away from the dark red stain as if electrocuted, looking around in panic. Wu Bing and Chu Yunnan laughed heartily. Chu Yunnan said, "That story sounds obviously fake. Human blood contains platelets; blood clots quickly. How could it possibly cover an entire flight of steps?"

"...Anyway, I didn't do well in biology class." Fatty Dong Hua grumbled unhappily, still looking around timidly, as if afraid that the darkness might suddenly reveal a pale-faced girl.

“I’ve also heard another version…” Chu Yunnan said, “It’s said that the person who died on the stairs was actually a construction worker. When this floor was being built, he accidentally fell into the concrete mixer and his whole body was pulverized. His blood, flesh, and cement were all buried in the stairwell.”

“This is an even bigger flaw.” Wu Bing adjusted his glasses dismissively. “The fabricator has no basic architectural knowledge. Staircases are made of precast slabs, how could they be cast in concrete on site?” Fatty Dong Hua opened his mouth, but in the end, he didn’t dare to say anything, only gripping the talisman in his hand even tighter.

The three of them walked and talked, and before they knew it, they had reached the top floor. The stairs on the top floor had ended, and at the end there was only a square wooden door about a meter wide in the ceiling. The wall below the wooden door was fitted with three or four steel stairs.

It was nearly midnight, and the narrow top floor felt even darker and more oppressive, with occasional gusts of wind blowing through the gaps, producing eerie howls.

Looking down, the staircases behind me, lacking any light, formed a series of circles, resembling an incredibly deep and dark cave.

"Did you... hear anything about the business?" Dong Hua suddenly asked nervously. Wu Bing was about to mock him for being timid, but his expression changed. He seemed to have heard something too. Chu Yunnan and Wu Bing exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing, and looked up at the wooden door on the ceiling.

A series of fine, sharp creaking sounds came slowly and rhythmically from overhead, like the strained turning of a rusty bearing, creating a hollow echo in the dark aisle formed by the staircase. The three men, each more resourceful than Zhuge Liang, looked at each other, none daring to move.

“That… that should be the weather vane, right?” Surprisingly, it was Fatty Dong Hua who spoke first. Wu Bing and Chu Yunnan nodded, and Chu Yunnan added, “I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but starting today, this weather vane has actually started to turn. It’s never happened before.”

Wu Bing steadied himself and said firmly, "Let's go take a look. No one objects, right?" The other two remained noncommittal. So Wu Bing walked to the ladder and turned to Chu Yunnan, saying, "Hey, you're tall, give me a hand."

Chu Yunnan stepped forward, supporting Wu Bing's right leg with both hands and lifting him upwards. Wu Bing pushed off forcefully, grabbing the ladder bar with both hands. He swayed a few times in mid-air, struggling against the smooth, vertical wall, and finally climbed the ladder.

Chu Yunnan and Fatty Dong Hua both looked at Wu Bing with concern. Wu Bing quickly climbed to the top of the ladder and pushed the wooden door. With a slow creak, the door opened.

Wu Bing secretly took a deep breath, steeled his resolve, and with a burst of strength, squeezed himself through the door. However, he soon realized that he hadn't "squeezed in" but rather "squeezed out" of the door; the wooden door led to the library's roof.

And that weather vane, just a short distance away, was still turning at a steady pace.

Soon, Wu Bing dragged Chu Yunnan and Fatty Dong Hua up as well. The three of them felt much better after getting off the roof and leaving the suffocating, blood-red staircase.

Fatty Dong Hua was a little afraid of heights and dared not stand upright, so he squatted down and asked, "Is this the weather vane?"

Wu Bing nodded: "Not bad."

The weathervane had an old-fashioned design, consisting of a piece of iron cast into the shape of an arrow, fixed to a vertical post topped with a lotus flower design. However, it was quite old; both the arrow and the post were covered in rust. Strangely, despite the three people not feeling any wind, the weathervane continued to spin on its own, like an old donkey laboriously pulling a millstone.

“If I’m not mistaken, this is the root of the recent paranormal events,” Wu Bing said seriously. “The book ‘The Sequel to Dunjia’ says that wind comes from evil things, and ghosts arise from the wind. It’s obviously referring to this weather vane.”

"According to the results of the geomancy survey, this location is indeed the most ominous on the entire campus. The library itself violates several taboos, and the pond and rockery in front of it, along with the winding paths, create a predicament that is most prone to the breeding of evil spirits," Chu Yunnan added.

Fatty Dong Hua wasn't as knowledgeable about these things as the two of them, so he could only ask, "Then what should we do?"

"Of course we should destroy it, so that the source of the evil will be completely eliminated," Wu Bing said without hesitation. He rolled up his sleeves and walked forward, gripping the weathervane pole with both hands.

"But what if the teacher finds out tomorrow?" Fatty Dong Hua was still hesitant.

"Don't worry, even if they find out, they won't be able to figure out who it is. So many bicycles have gone missing on campus, when have the campus police ever solved a case?" Chu Yunnan patted him on the shoulder and went over to help Wu Bing. Fatty Dong Hua hesitated for a moment, then carefully moved over step by step, not daring to look down from the roof.

The three of them worked together to pull the pole, yanking it back and forth a few times. The metal pole made a sharp sound, as if it were screaming in frustration. After bending back and forth a few times, the long-neglected weathervane finally gave way to the torment of these three healthy high school students and snapped with a "crack".

The instant the signal broke, all three heard a violent howl, a sound that was neither metallic nor animalistic; no one could describe it. A white mist instantly began to rise around the weathervane, its icy touch seeping into everyone's hearts.

"Look!" Chu Yunnan suddenly cried out in horror. Wu Bing and Dong Hua saw that bright red blood was flowing out of the cross-section of the broken pole, just like a human wound. The three of them looked at each other, at a loss for what to do.

The white fog grew thicker and thicker, gradually turning light gray, then gray, and then...

"Quickly throw the talisman!"

Wu Bing shouted, and the other two, as if waking from a dream, hurriedly took out the talismans they had prepared beforehand and threw them out. These things flew into the mist, swirled a few times like ordinary pieces of paper, and then disappeared completely, serving no purpose.

"My God!" Fatty Dong Hua was so frightened that he scrambled towards the exit. Wu Bing and Chu Yunnan were also terrified and fled towards the exit. When they reached the exit, they stopped, too scared to go down.

The ceiling exit leading to the stairs was pitch black, making it impossible to see the situation on the stairs at all. Only a strong and pungent smell of blood was surging through the air. The three of them were now completely trapped.

"What should we do?" Fatty Dong Hua seemed about to cry, as the white mist and the smell of blood grew stronger. Wu Bing, covered in sweat, pulled a book from his pocket, shouting, "Let me see what the book says," his voice already distorted; Chu Yunnan, on the other hand, was futilely tossing away talismans one by one, fear clearly imprinted in his pupils.

"Hello!"

A loud voice suddenly shouted.

With a loud "crack," a thunderclap exploded in the white mist, its golden light dazzlingly bright. Strangely enough, after the thunderclap, the white mist seemed to recede slightly to both sides, and the stench of blood thinned slightly. Completely unaware of what was happening, three or four more thunderclaps followed, each pushing the white mist aside, eventually forming a narrow passage. Then, taking advantage of this opening, a dark figure appeared before them, extending its right hand.

"Students, good children should be in bed before 10 o'clock." A complaining voice rang out: "Even if I lose sleep for you, the principal won't give me overtime pay."

"Teacher Ma?" the three of them exclaimed in unison, as if they had grasped a lifeline, their voices filled with a mixture of joy and surprise.

The person who appeared was none other than the lazy PE teacher, Ma Ming. He was wearing a light blue tracksuit, but in his hand he was holding a peach wood sword and a magnet. A yin-yang fish chain bracelet on his wrist emitted a warm blue and white light that gently enveloped his entire body, giving him an eerie and incongruous appearance.

"We'll talk about gratitude later. Let's get out of here quickly." Ma Ming quickly took out a box of ink pads from his pocket, dipped his index finger in it, and swiftly drew three inverted symbols on the foreheads of the three people. Then he handed each of them a bunch of herbs.

"Hold it between your right index finger and thumb, and don't lose it, or you'll be too dead to take the final exam!"

After saying this, Ma Ming gestured for someone to follow, and leaped into the narrow entrance leading into the building. The three men looked at the still churning blood, their faces pale, and hesitated to jump in.

Just then, the surrounding white mist suddenly gathered, and faint cries could be heard from within, with blurry figures swaying and getting closer.

"I don't care anymore!" Fatty Dong Hua, pale with fright, yelled and jumped into the opening. Wu Bing and Chu Yunnan, seeing the situation was dire, followed suit. At first, the three of them felt as if they were drowning; a choking smell filled their lungs, their nostrils and mouths were filled with a metallic taste, and their limbs could only struggle weakly, without any strength. They didn't know how much time had passed before they felt their bodies sink, and with three thuds, they landed solidly on the floor.

Wu Bing was the first to get up. His backside was still sore from the fall, and he rubbed it, wincing as he tried to get a better look at his surroundings. They were now on the top floor of the library, and an unsettling airflow still emanated from the opening in the ceiling above them. In the dim light, he could see Ma Ming hunched over, fiddling with something at the top of the stairs.

"Teacher Ma, what are you doing..." Wu Bing, always full of curiosity, couldn't help but look over to see what was going on. When he got closer, he couldn't help but gasp. The red stains that had been solidified on the walls and stairs now seemed to have come alive, like living sludge, slowly flowing down the floor.

Meanwhile, Ma Ming was carefully pasting a stack of three-inch square strips of white paper onto the stairs, one sheet for each step. When he heard Wu Bing's question, he simply waved his hand and continued pasting. Wu Bing noticed that each sheet of paper turned blue the moment it touched the stairs—or more precisely, the red stains on the stairs.

At this moment, Chu Yunnan and Fatty Dong Hua, supporting each other, also came over. Ma Ming turned around and said to them seriously, "From now on, you must strictly follow my instructions and absolutely cannot make any mistakes, otherwise the forensic doctor will have to spend a lot of time piecing your test questions back together."

The three of them swallowed hard and nodded.

"I'll walk in front, and you follow me. Look carefully, and make sure you step on this blue test paper with every step. You absolutely cannot step off by even 1 centimeter."

After giving his instructions, Ma Ming turned and cautiously walked downstairs step by step, bending over to stick the test strips as he went. The three men dared not speak, and could only follow suit, trembling as they stepped over the pool of blood that seemed to be moving. The fat man, Dong Hua, who was walking at the back, unconsciously looked back and saw that the earliest test strip had already been swallowed by the red blood, silently dissolving and disintegrating. He was so frightened that he quickly turned back.