A Guest In A Ghost House

I was going to make up an excuse for what we were doing there, but not a sound came out when I opened my mouth. I simply couldn"t come up for a decent explanation.

To our surprise, Huang Xiaolong showed us just how honest and frank of a man he was, "This place is haunted and we"re trying to catch the ghost!"

Zhang Sheng was visibly angry, "WHAT? Don"t play around with me!" Then he turned to the security behind him, "Call the police! Someone is damaging public property!"

One of the securities pulled out his phone and called the police. All of us looked at each other in speechless despair. After all, Ace middle school was the best middle school in our town. The police would come quickly, even thought his wasn"t really that big of a deal. They scolded and lectured us, then asked us to pay the 1,000 yuan fine. We were allowed to head home after that.

As Wu Jian arrived to the school, we were sitting near the gate, clearly upset and with some security still staring at us. Wu Jian stared blankly then beckoned us to leave.

We met up with him a few blocks down the road and told Jian about everything that happened, he also reported that he didn`t know what to do next. He then proceeded to tell us about what he had discovered.

The first discovery was about the victims.

Su Qing, a student of the Ace Middle School. Died at the age of eighteen, the cause, suicide. After giving birth in the bathroom, she couldn"t bear with the murmurings and parents" condemnation, so she committed suicide.

Tan Mei, also a student of the Ace Middle School. Died at the age of nineteen, the cause, suicide. The initial diagnosis was that Tan Mei unwittingly saw Su Qing giving birth and spread the news about what she had seen.

Guy 1, a student of the Ace Middle School. Died at the age of eighteen, suicide.

Guy 2, a student of the Ace Middle School. Died at the age of seventeen, suicide.

……

There were several students in his findings that had died because of suicide, and their deaths had all occurred in the same place, the toilet.

However, there was a question that still remained unanswered. Who was the man that had gotten her pregnant? We couldn"t find the answer in any of the transcripts or statements of Su Qing"s parents and cla.s.smates.

Wu Jian told us everything he had learned in a clear and precise manner, then picked up another thick folder. This one was different. It was obvious that the paper in this folder was printed onA4 temporarily.

Zhang Sheng was now 61 years old now and retired. He had worked in the countryside and in mountainous areas when he was 15 years old. When China restored the policy of The Entrance Exams for Universities, he studied at Zhong Hua Normal university, worked in the Ace Middle School after graduating and never left. He went from being a teacher to becoming vice-princ.i.p.al, and then retired after being vice-princ.i.p.al for some time. During the period of Su Qing"s suicide, he was a dean of the Ace Middle School.

The rest of the papers in the folder were some awards he had received along with his detailed education and work experience. Wu Jian just asked us to casually browse through the rest of the papers. He then seemed to have found what he was looking for and declared, "Look at this, this is the most important piece of information right over here!"

I took it and read an article that contained a formal apology from a newspaper. The newspaper"s he ad quarters were in our town, they had written an apology to Mr. Zhang that read as such, "We send our sincere apologies to Mr. Zhang. We are sorry for making some improper comments without any evidence."

I couldn`t figure out why this was so important so I gave it to HeXiaoru. I started looking at the second paper, it was an article that had published by the same newspaper. In brief, the story was about a brute teacher in the Ace Middle School who had been raping girls.

As everything was starting to make sense to me, I quickly turned over to the last page, a love letter written from the depths of a girl"s heart.

I looked at it in detail but find nothing out of the ordinary. So I turned to Wu Jian.

He pointed to specific words in the letter, I followed his finger and read: Our forbidden love, could we somehow get G.o.d"s blessing?

I understood now, the main thing to note were the words, "forbidden love".

"Where did you find this letter?" I asked quickly.

Wu Jian answered, "After Su Qing died, it was found in her school bag. Later on, it was kept as physical evidence."

Su Qing, a forbidden love, what if the man that had gotten Su Qing pregnant was someone who wasn"t allowed to be with her? What if it had been a student-teacher affair?

Wu Jian looked at me with a sigh, "The content was unclear, but Zhang Sheng did arouse a lot of suspicion."He Xiaoru then asked, "But the newspaper printed a formal apology to him."

"They made an apology but it doesn"t mean they were wrong. Maybe they were just under some kind of pressure to do so. I checked more recent information, and just before the newspaper report was published, Zhang Sheng has been nominated for a national prize as an excellent representative of teachers, that may be a reason why the newspapers had to retract their statement. The problem is, this all happened a few years before Su Qing committed suicide. While what the newspapers reported may have had nothing to do with Su Qing, it does prove that Zhang Sheng is not as perfect as people say."

I agreed. Although everything seemed to make sense, all of our gathered data was useless. There was still no evidence that proved that Zhang Sheng was the murderer.

Wu Jian knew this, so he pulled me aside and told me, "Since we"ve already gotten caught by Zhang Sheng it will be impossible to sc.r.a.pe the wall again. Can you ask your friends in that building for some help? We could use their help to go through the wall at night. Maybe we"ll find something useful."

I agreed with him and made a mental note to ask the beauties in the ghost house for some help later today.

Wu Jian kept all the doc.u.ments he had pa.s.sed around. After our meeting with Qi Lin, we knew that we were safe for a little while longer, so we went home separately.

When I made it back to my place, I slept for a while and hurriedly went to work.

I figured since I had come to work late and left early, Sister Hua wouldn"t be particularly happy with me. So I probably shouldn"t turn to her first. The first thing I should do to make her happy is focus and work hard.

I had tried to beg Lulu for help, but she just gave me a cold face, "I heard you asked sister Tan for help, I guess that means you don"t need me."

I don"t know why, but if felt like she was acting a bit jealous. I shook my head quickly, perhaps I was just imagining things.

Xiao Lingdang was late today, and sister Tan arrived with her. She had just come in to say goodbye to Xiao Lingdang. Even though she said she had to leave, I asked Xiao Lingdang to stall for a moment and keep her here. I was in the middle of work, and couldn"t just drop everything to talk to her.

Lulu was extremely unhappy that I had asked Sister Tan to stay. "We have too many guests here tonight, she"s taking up too much room."

She wasn"t wrong, there were a lot of people…er I mean ghosts in the building tonight. "I"ll treat her to a meal, will that make it ok? We"ll just serve her food and she"ll be on her way" I took out the tips that I had just accepted.

That actually made Lulu angrier, and she shouted, "Your tips? You should be giving them to us! Not inviting your guests to dinner with our money!"

Now it was my turn to be speechless. I guess Lulu was right, they were the ones working tonight, but weren"t they my tips? Nevertheless, I didn"t have the guts to argue with her, so I just staredat her imploringly.

She was obviously angry as shetook the small plate of peanuts and snap peas with her, paying no more attention to me.

Peanut and snap peas were usually just a free appetizer for guests. Lulu was so angry, she never returned with anymore food. I had no choice but to give Sister Tan these small dishes and nothing more.