Chapter 129: The Chemistry Prep Room’s Spectral Loop

Lu Yang stood outside the old teaching building, his flashlight beam trembling as it pierced the darkness of the doorway, illuminating the equally deep corridor within.

“Are we… are we really going in?”

He swallowed hard, his voice amplified in the silence, a distinct tremor running through it.

He had been to this old teaching building just last night, but back then, he hadn’t known there were truly ‘unclean things’ inside.

Now that he knew, his resolve to enter was far less decisive than it had been before.

Qin Xuan offered no reply. Instead, he took the lead, stepping into the gloom that seemed to devour the very light.

His footsteps were steady, and his flashlight beam swept the surroundings with unwavering precision.

Su Mian took a deep breath, following closely behind.

The familiar warmth emanating from the necklace around her neck brought her a slight sense of reassurance.

Miyuki-maru and Hua Liang positioned themselves to her left and right, silently trailing her.

As Lu Yang cautiously followed, he couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, “I wonder if it’s just psychological, but it feels even more sinister this time.”

“Last time, it didn’t feel so… so oppressive.”

“And the murky, black gas is everywhere, seeming to grow thicker and thicker.”

Su Mian nodded silently.

Through her demonic eyes, the grayish-black ‘qi’ permeating the air was even denser than what was visible from outside. Near the stairwell leading upstairs, it had almost solidified.

“The lingering resentment here is growing stronger.”

Hua Liang’s voice drifted gently beside her. He, too, had shed his usual carefree demeanor, his reddish-brown eyes gleaming faintly in the dark as he scanned their surroundings.

Miyuki-maru naturally emitted a faint chill, dispersing several overly ‘viscous’ tendrils of resentment that attempted to approach Su Mian.

Her icy-blue eyes vigilantly observed every shadowy corner.

***

The group ascended the stairs.

The old wooden steps groaned under their weight, a sound that echoed eerily through the dead silence of the building, making their skin crawl.

Lu Yang glanced back with almost every step, his flashlight beam darting wildly, terrified that something might appear behind him.

Qin Xuan, however, seemed utterly unaffected by the environment.

He walked at a measured pace, each step firm, all the while inspecting the marks on the stair railings, the unusual stains on the walls, and even crouching down to examine some indiscernible imprints on the steps.

“Qin Xuan, what are you looking at?” Su Mian couldn’t help but ask.

“Traces.”

Qin Xuan replied calmly, without turning his head.

“Besides us, someone else has been here recently. The footprints are fresh. Could they be from the Demon Exorcism Bureau?”

Su Mian’s heart stirred.

Hadn’t Moyuan said that no one from the Demon Exorcism Bureau would be coming?

Finally, they reached the fifth-floor landing.

The air here was almost stagnant, and the temperature was noticeably lower than on the floors below.

The long corridor seemed endless, with most of the classroom doors on either side tightly shut, their glass panes grimy and opaque.

At the very end of the corridor lay the door to the ‘Chemistry Prep Room’.

Hanging above the doorknob was an old-fashioned padlock, seemingly quite sturdy. The lock body was even somewhat rusty, but in the dim light, its complex structure was still discernible.

“It’s locked.”

Lu Yang leaned in for a closer look, letting out a sigh of relief, yet also a hint of disappointment. “Looks like we can’t get in. Shall we check other classrooms instead?”

He walked to the door, carefully shining his flashlight on the lock and the gaps in the doorframe, then reached out to gently push the door panel.

However, to everyone’s astonishment, Qin Xuan retrieved a slender, wire-like tool with a special hook at its tip from a small kit he carried.

“Wait, Qin Xuan, what are you doing?” Lu Yang’s eyes widened.

Qin Xuan didn’t answer.

He bent slightly, carefully inserting the tip of the wire into the keyhole. He pressed his ear close to the lock body and, with incredibly steady fingers, began to gently prod and manipulate it.

In the darkness, only the faint ‘click-click’ of the wire against the metal of the lock cylinder could be heard, along with everyone’s bated breath.

Time seemed to stretch endlessly.

Lu Yang’s mouth hung open in an ‘O’ shape. He looked at Qin Xuan’s focused profile, then at the formidable-looking padlock, his face a canvas of disbelief: ‘This is possible?’

Miyuki-maru and Hua Liang also raised their eyebrows, a hint of surprise in their expressions, as if they hadn’t expected ‘this human club president to possess such a skill’.

Su Mian found it somewhat absurd.

Here they were, a group of ‘non-human’ entities, standing on the fifth floor of a haunted teaching building, facing a room that might seal away an evil spirit, and their method of entry was… lockpicking?

And judging by Qin Xuan’s practiced movements, it was clearly not his first time doing such a thing.

Less than a minute later, a soft ‘click’ echoed.

A crisp, clear snap of a spring releasing rang out, unnervingly distinct in the silent corridor.

With a gentle twist of his wrist, the seemingly sturdy old padlock sprang open.

He removed the lock and placed it softly on the ground beside him, his movements as natural as if he were simply opening his own study door.

Lu Yang’s jaw nearly hit the floor. He stammered, pointing at Qin Xuan, “N-no, Qin Xuan! W-who taught you that? Lockpicking, you know how to do that?!”

He leaned closer to Qin Xuan, lowering his voice, his face a mixture of shock and the excitement of discovering something new. “Spill it, have you… been up to this kind of mischief often?”

“Like… sneaking into the girls’ dorms in the middle of the night?”

“Or stealing exam papers from the faculty office?”

Qin Xuan gave him a faint, sidelong glance, an expression that suggested he was looking at an idiot.

He put away the miraculous wire, adjusted his glasses, and spoke with his usual calm, unwavering tone, “The essence of a lock is to use specially shaped pins, wafers, or gears to obstruct the rotation of the lock cylinder.”

“As long as one understands its internal structural principles and uses appropriate tools to mimic the key’s bitting, achieving this is not difficult.”

He paused, then added, “Moreover, this is an old-fashioned pin tumbler lock from over thirty years ago. Its structure is relatively simple, and its resistance to technical opening is very weak.”

Lu Yang was speechless.

He opened his mouth, finding himself utterly unable to refute such an academic explanation, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss.

Su Mian suppressed a laugh and quickly intervened, “Alright, alright, the door’s open. Let’s go in and take a look.”

Qin Xuan nodded, took hold of the cold doorknob, twisted it gently, and then slowly pushed the door inward.

“Screeeeeech—!”

The grating sound of the door hinges turning, dragging out a long, drawn-out whine, echoed through the empty corridor, sending shivers down their spines.

The flashlight beam flared brightly, then pierced the darkness within.

Against the wall were dilapidated sinks and lab benches, their surfaces strewn with long-abandoned, dust-covered glass instruments and unidentified metal stands.

The walls were tiled with old, yellowed, and bubbling white ceramic tiles, some areas still bearing suspicious dark stains.

Thick cobwebs hung in the ceiling corners.

Most striking was the center of the room, near the window, where the floor and wall tiles appeared slightly different in color from their surroundings. It looked as though they had been repaired later, but the workmanship was crude, with tiny cracks still visible along the edges.

And the room’s layout, the placement of the instruments…

Su Mian’s heart abruptly constricted, and her breath caught in her throat.

It was almost identical to the scene she had witnessed last night, the very spot where Chen Wan had died.

She could almost ‘hear’ the piercing screams of those girls arguing and shoving each other there years ago. She could ‘see’ Chen Wan’s eyes, suddenly devoid of light, filled with confusion and pain, as she was accidentally pushed, her head striking the sharp edge of the lab bench.

“Mianzi? What’s wrong? Your face is so pale.”

Lu Yang noticed Su Mian’s abnormality and asked with concern, while shining his flashlight around. This place… truly felt chilling. It seemed even colder than outside.

Qin Xuan, already holding his flashlight, began meticulously examining every corner of the room.

He first walked to the sink, observing the dried, rusted faucet and drain.

Then he crouched down, carefully illuminating the repaired marks on the floor with his flashlight.

He even used his gloved finger to lightly scrape some dust from a crack, brought it to his nose to sniff, and subtly furrowed his brow.

Miyuki-maru and Hua Liang stood near the doorway, not venturing deeper.

Miyuki-maru’s brow was also slightly furrowed, the chill in her icy-blue eyes intensifying.

Hua Liang’s relaxed expression had completely vanished. He surveyed the room, whispering to Miyuki-maru, “The residual energy in here… is very strong.”

“Not just resentment, but also deep traces of… ‘rules’.”

Just then, a sudden change occurred!

Without any warning, the light within the room abruptly twisted and dimmed!

It wasn’t that the flashlight had gone out, but rather that the entire space’s ‘color’ and ‘texture’ seemed to be instantly drained and replaced!

The smell of dust vanished, and the chilling sensation intensified dramatically.

“What’s going on?!”

Lu Yang cried out in horror, his flashlight beam wildly flailing.

Su Mian felt a powerful wave of dizziness wash over her, as if the entire space was accelerating, spinning, collapsing, and then reassembling!

The necklace around her neck suddenly became scalding hot, and a screen of spiritual energy enveloped her.

Immediately after, before anyone could fully adapt to the bizarre change, three blurry figures, dressed in old school uniforms from decades past, slowly materialized in the center of the room, near the window, like faded film developing.

They were three girls.

Their backs were to the group, their forms somewhat ethereal, emanating an unreal, grayish-white quality.

Most chillingly, their movements were stiff and vacant, completely unresponsive to Su Mian and the others, who were just inches away, as if they didn’t exist at all.

Lu Yang was so terrified he nearly dropped his flashlight, gasping for air with a guttural sound, clutching desperately at Qin Xuan’s arm.

Qin Xuan’s body stiffened slightly but he didn’t pull away, his eyes behind his glasses as sharp as an eagle’s, locked onto the three abruptly appearing ‘figures’.

The three girls, maintaining that unsettling blankness, uniformly and slowly turned towards the room’s window.

Where there had been only hollow darkness and blurry tree shadows, now several coarse hemp nooses seemed to appear out of thin air, dangling from the ceiling.

They stood on tiptoe, as if rehearsed countless times, each slipping their neck into a ghostly noose.

Then, they abruptly kicked away the equally illusory ‘footrests’ beneath them.

“Ugh—!”

Even knowing it was an illusion, Lu Yang couldn’t help but let out a short, startled cry, abruptly closing his eyes, unable to watch any longer.

Su Mian also felt a suffocating discomfort.

She forced herself to keep her eyes wide open, watching the three phantom girls suspended in mid-air, their bodies twitching slightly, their faces gradually contorting in agony from asphyxiation.

Their pain was so real, one could almost ‘feel the despair of the rope tightening around their windpipes’.

Suddenly, her gaze fixed on the face of the girl in the middle.

Despite being distorted by pain, her facial features, and the then-fashionable Dacron shirt she wore…

“These… these three people…”

Su Mian’s voice was dry, trembling with disbelief. “They seem to be… the three girls who caused Chen Wan’s death thirty-four years ago!”

Upon hearing this, Qin Xuan’s pupils contracted slightly.

He adjusted his glasses, his voice exceptionally clear in the dead silence,

“If my memory serves me right, I have backups of the student archive photos for those ‘accidental deaths’ and ‘suicides due to mental instability’ from the school administration back then. Based on facial comparisons…”

His gaze sharply swept over the three suspended phantom figures: “The short-haired, round-faced one on the left is Wang Juan. The slightly shorter one on the right is Li Mei. And the one in the middle…”

“…is Zhou Li, the school board director’s daughter at the time. They’re really ghosts?!”

Lu Yang’s voice was tearful. He opened his eyes to a slit, then quickly shut them again. “How could they be hanging themselves here?”

“And… and they’re letting us see it?!”

As if in response to Lu Yang’s terrified words, the three girls’ phantom bodies, suspended in mid-air, suddenly stopped their painful convulsions.

Then, like a video rewinding, the three figures ‘whooshed’ away from the nooses, instantly reappearing in another corner of the room, leaning against a lab bench piled with discarded equipment.

This time, the blankness on their faces was gone, replaced by extreme terror!

Especially Zhou Li in the middle; her face was ashen, tears streaming down, her entire body trembling like a leaf in the wind. Her hands frantically waved in front of her, as if warding off something unseen, and she let out a piercing, distorted wail:

“Chen Wan! Chen Wan! We know we were wrong! We truly know we were wrong! Please! Please let us go!!!!!!!”

Her voice was hoarse and broken, filled with endless remorse and pleading.

Wang Juan and Li Mei, next to her, also collapsed to the ground, curling up, emitting incoherent whimpers and pleas for mercy.

However, their pleas lasted for less than ten seconds.

As if erased by an invisible rubber, the vivid fear and supplication on the three faces suddenly froze, faded, and were once again replaced by that hollow, numb blankness.

Then, like machines programmed for a specific task, they stiffly, step by step, walked towards the window again, stood on tiptoe, slipped their necks into the illusory nooses, and kicked away the ‘supports’ beneath their feet…

A new cycle of ‘hanging’ began.

The entire process repeated, an endless, cursed, eerie pantomime, silently and terrifyingly unfolding in this chemistry prep room, sealed away for thirty-four years.

Lu Yang was too terrified to speak, completely cowering behind Qin Xuan, his teeth chattering.

As Su Mian watched this horrifying scene, a realization dawned on her.

After their deaths, these three girls’ souls found no peace. Instead, they were bound to this place by Chen Wan’s monstrous resentment, day after day, year after year, repeatedly experiencing the agonizing process that mimicked Chen Wan’s death.

This wasn’t mere intimidation; it was the cruelest form of revenge—forcing the perpetrators to personally endure every moment of the victim’s final pain, despair, and confusion, endlessly.

Qin Xuan’s expression of realization deepened. He analyzed in a low voice, which sounded particularly clear against the backdrop of the ‘hanging’ illusion: “It seems my guess was correct. The souls of these three were forcibly bound here by Chen Wan’s resentment after their deaths, unable to transcend.”

“What they are repeatedly experiencing is the painful process of Chen Wan being strangled to death.”

“Chen Wan’s revenge was not just to cause their deaths, but to trap their souls forever in this classroom, making them eternal prisoners and re-enactors of her painful memories.”

He looked up, his gaze seemingly piercing through this cyclical illusion, looking deeper: “So, where is Chen Wan’s own soul, or rather… the embodiment of her resentment, watching all of this?”

Almost the instant Qin Xuan’s words fell—

“Plink.”

A faint yet incredibly clear sound, like a single drop of water hitting the ground, abruptly broke through the background of the cyclical hanging illusion.

The source of the sound was the center of the room, that slightly discolored, repaired patch of ground.

Su Mian, Miyuki-maru, and Hua Liang simultaneously snapped their gazes towards it.

There, within the rough cement repair cracks, a viscous, dark-red, almost black liquid was slowly seeping out from deep within the ground.

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