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Join the ServerHe stumbled off the bed in a daze, his feet landing on the floor feeling soft and spongy, as if he were walking on a pile of cotton. His eyes wouldn’t open, and his brain hadn’t quite booted up yet; he navigated to the bathroom entirely on instinct.
The flushing sound of the toilet roared through the empty room, echoing back and forth and making him shudder with a jolt.
Jiang Xiaoyu let out a massive yawn, shuffled over to the sink, twisted the faucet, and splashed a handful of cold water onto his face.
The cold water ran down his chin, giving him a shiver and finally helping him regain some clarity.
He lifted his head, but all he saw in the mirror was a face blurred until only the silhouette remained.
“Wow, what a realistic dream.”
He mumbled, his tone still thick with the grogginess of just waking up. In the dream, he had been so magnificent—the Young Master of the Huai Manor, living in luxury, surrounded by servants wherever he went. His wife, the Young Master’s consort, was named Dongfang Yueli; she loved wearing moon-white dresses, and her brows and eyes were as beautiful as a painting. Every detail in the dream had been crystal clear, so clear that it felt like it had really happened.
“How magical!”
Jiang Xiaoyu shook the water from his hands, shaking off the chaotic thoughts along with it. Whether it was the Huai Manor or the Young Master’s consort, it was all just a dream. He was just a student at the Huangquan Vocational Institute, and today was his first day of school.
He clenched his fist at the blurry shadow in the mirror and shouted, “You can do it!”
His voice rang out in the empty room several times before finally dying down.
Jiang Xiaoyu pushed the door open and stepped into the living room.
Then, he froze.
There was someone sitting on the sofa. White top, long hair, white dress, her back straight as a board.
—It was Xiaoqi.
Jiang Xiaoyu yawned again, rubbing his eyes as he shuffled toward her, his steps uneven.
“Morning, cousin.”
Xiaoqi sat perfectly upright on the sofa, her hands resting on her knees. Her hair hung down on both sides of her face, not a single strand moving. She was quiet and still, like a porcelain doll.
Only when she heard Jiang Xiaoyu’s voice did she turn her head, her movements slow and gentle, as if she were afraid of breaking something.
“Brother, it’s time for class.”
“Oh, right.”
Xiaoqi stood up and walked out. Jiang Xiaoyu hurried to follow.
The corridor was just as it had been last night: dark, with a few sickly green spirit lamps overhead flickering in and out, stretching their shadows into long, distorted shapes. Jiang Xiaoyu squinted, following the blurry white shadow ahead of him, his feet stumbling as he walked. Xiaoqi moved without a sound, light as air; he nearly lost her several times, saved only by that hazy white outline leading the way.
“Slow down, cousin, I can’t see the path clearly,” Jiang Xiaoyu called out from behind.
Xiaoqi’s pace faltered.
Then, she did indeed slow down a little.
The two reached the top of the stairwell, one after the other. Jiang Xiaoyu glanced down at the steps and started grumbling: “The hygiene in this school is terrible. There’s so much moss growing on the stairs, you’d think they’d find someone to clean it.”
He stepped down as he spoke, completely unaware that the moment his sole touched those green, fuzzy things, they would whoosh and retract. One of them, slower than the rest, was stepped on directly and let out a tiny, high-pitched cheep.
Xiaoqi looked back—the shadow-moss was frantically digging into the cracks of the wall, burying itself deep and never daring to show its head again.
She said nothing and turned back to continue walking.
As they reached the sixth floor, a figure swayed out from the stairwell. It was a senior student—a vengeful spirit, purple and bruised, with a length of broken noose hanging from its neck, swaying back and forth. It was a hanged ghost, someone who usually acted as a bully on this floor, collecting protection money and living quite comfortably.
Today, perhaps it hadn’t checked the calendar before heading out.
Just as it poked its head out, it saw Xiaoqi.
Xiaoqi saw it, too.
In the moment their eyes met, the senior spirit’s face shifted from bruised purple to a sickly pale whoosh. It stood there frozen as if nailed to the spot, its mouth hanging open, emitting a series of distorted, warped sounds: “Qi-qi-qi-qi-qi…”
Then, it glanced behind Xiaoqi.
It saw Jiang Xiaoyu, squinting, leaning against the wall, and feeling his way down.
In that instant, it felt as though it had been struck by lightning. The ghost recoiled, turned, and bolted. It ran so frantically that the piece of noose around its neck caught on the stair railing, causing it to trip and tumble head over heels. Scrambling to its feet, it tore itself free from the noose and plunged into the depths of the corridor without a single glance back, leaving behind a trail of shrill, harrowing screams.
Jiang Xiaoyu squinted toward the sound, seeing only a blurry shadow flicker once before disappearing.
“Was there someone there?” he asked.
“Yes, they ran away,” Xiaoqi replied.
“Oh.” Jiang Xiaoyu continued down the stairs.
Half a floor later, half a face quietly poked out from the fifth-floor corridor. It was an aberration; one side of its face was quite delicate, while the other had been chewed to a pulp by something, revealing the white bone underneath. It had come out to watch the commotion, but the moment it poked its head out, it was met directly with Xiaoqi’s expressionless face.
Then, it saw Jiang Xiaoyu behind her.
By last night, word had spread throughout Building 13: three powerful senior spirits had tried to move against the human by Xiaoqi’s side, and Xiaoqi had slaughtered them all, leaving none behind.
Once the news got out, all the aberrations in Building 13 held an emergency meeting overnight. The theme of the meeting was simple: from now on, if you see that human with Xiaoqi, get as far away as possible.
“She and he are here—!”
The aberration howled in a shrill voice, not even bothering to care about its rotting half-face, retracting back inside and slamming the door shut with a loud bang. Immediately after, a chaotic barrage of clattering erupted down the corridor as countless doors slammed shut at the exact same time, making the entire hallway buzz with vibration. In a single instant, the corridor was picked completely clean, to the point that even the few wisps of ghost-fire normally drifting through the stairwell fled into the wall cracks in sheer terror.
Jiang Xiaoyu squinted his eyes once more. His vision was poor, but his hearing was sharp, catching the whole chain of door-slamming commotions with absolute clarity.
“Cousin, what’s with all that loud clattering?”
“People are running,” Xiaoqi said.
“Ah? People running means they’re about to be late for class! Should the two of us start running too?”
“No need,” Xiaoqi said. “We need to go meet the principal first.”
Jiang Xiaoyu slapped his forehead: “Oh right, I almost forgot. The principal said he’d come pick us up for school today.”
The two continued down the stairs. When they reached the fourth floor, they ran headfirst into A’Piao.
A’Piao was drifting out of the corridor at an unhurried pace, humming an off-key tune under its breath. The moment it saw Xiaoqi, it instinctively shrank toward the wall. Then, it saw Jiang Xiaoyu.
Its brain began initiating emergency contingency protocols.
That startup took a full five seconds.
On the sixth second, instinct finally came online.
“HOLY CRAP!!”
A’Piao launched itself entirely onto the ceiling, plastering against the wall like a cat whose tail had been stomped on. Its translucent body shook like a sieve, ripples of panic radiating outward across its form.
“Xiao-qi-qi-qi-qi—morning!” It stammered out a screech, and then whoosh, it floated off into nothingness, leaving not even a puff of exhaust behind.
Jiang Xiaoyu blinked. Though he couldn’t see the fine details, the general outline of that sequence of events—bouncing up, screeching aloud, floating away—was still visible to him.
He leaned in toward Xiaoqi, lowering his voice to say mysteriously: “Cousin, do you feel like all the classmates are avoiding me when they see me today?”
Xiaoqi glanced at him.
“It’s not because of you.”
Jiang Xiaoyu thought it over.
Then he let out a loud shout.
“Ah!”
“I get it!” He slapped his forehead in sudden realization. “They aren’t avoiding me; they’re avoiding the principal! Cousin, am I right or what?!”
Xiaoqi looked at him, falling silent for a moment.
“Mhm,” she said.
Her tone was utterly flat. But if Jiang Xiaoyu had been able to see her face clearly, he would have noticed the corners of her mouth curving upward ever so slightly.
The two continued down the stairs, arriving at the first floor in no time.
Standing by the entrance was a black-robed figure—the principal himself. He stood planted there like a charred tree stump. The moment he saw Jiang Xiaoyu emerge, his face immediately plastered over with a beaming smile.
“Young Master Jiang, Young Master Jiang,” the principal greeted him warmly with a smile. “Did you rest well last night?”
“Hello, Principal!” Jiang Xiaoyu shouted at the shadowy black silhouette, his voice so resonant the entire building could hear it. “I slept great!”
The principal rubbed his hands together, bowing slightly as he spoke: “Young Master Jiang, since you stayed the night in 1314, are there any rules you could provide for our records?”
While Jiang Xiaoyu stood in a daze, Xiaoqi explained softly from the side: “Cousin, 1314 is an extremely mysterious room within Huangquan Vocational Institute. If you can provide a single survival rule for 1314, the school will reward you with one million ghost coins.”
“One million?!” Jiang Xiaoyu perked up instantly, all drowsiness vanishing into thin air. He racked his brain to recall last night’s events, furrowing his brows in deep thought for a long while before suddenly clapping his hands: “I remember now!”
Straining to recall, he said: “Do not open the room on the right, otherwise you will run into a woman made of light. She can turn into anything you desire.”
Hearing this, the principal’s expression grew serious in an instant. Pulling out a notepad, pitch-black supernatural power surged from his body. That power churned and spread outward, probing deep into the scene Jiang Xiaoyu had described.
He saw a female aberration composed of light.
She was suffocatingly powerful, radiating a blinding light from head to toe. She had transformed into Jiang Xiaoyu’s glasses, resting quietly upon the bridge of his nose. And then, without warning, she turned her head, seemingly noticing the principal’s prying gaze.
She merely waved her hand with a gentle flick.
The principal’s time-clone was obliterated into ash in an instant, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.
The principal violently coughed up a mouthful of blood, splattering it across the notepad. Characters surfaced upon the page in response—
[Do not open the room on the right side of the living room, otherwise you will encounter a light-attribute female aberration. Preliminary estimate: SSS-rank aberration.]
Wiping the blood from the corners of his mouth, the principal waved his hand, and a blood-colored sticky note manifested upon the door of the room on the right in 1314. At the very bottom of the note, the signature read: Jiang Xiaoyu.
Seeing the principal vomit blood, Xiaoqi was taken aback for a moment. She turned her gaze to Jiang Xiaoyu, her eyes holding something complex, unsure of what she was thinking.
Wiping away the lingering blood from the corners of his mouth, the principal’s smile returned as he respectfully handed over a black card.
“Young Master Jiang, here is one million ghost coins; please keep it safe.”
“Ah? Haha… Thank you, Principal, thank you, Principal!” Jiang Xiaoyu took the black card, turning it over and over to inspect it, stowing it away with pure glee. Though as for what was actually written on the card, he couldn’t make out a single thing.
“You’re very welcome, Young Master Jiang.” The principal’s smile deepened as he stepped aside, making a gesture of “after you.” “Come, let me escort you to school.”
Jiang Xiaoyu followed the principal outside happily, taking two steps before turning back to call: “Cousin, let’s go!”
Xiaoqi remained standing in place, glancing at the puddle of blood the principal had coughed up on the ground, and then at Jiang Xiaoyu’s carefree, grinning face.
Then, she stepped forward to follow.
“Coming.”
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