In the lab
Lu Yibei glanced at Professor Ma, and she could see that his lips were slightly parted as if whatever he wanted to say was stuck in his throat.
It truly is strange that an urban legend would even consider helping her out. This must mean that Professor Ma has a connection to the headless girl.
On the other hand, Professor Ma could tell from her cold eyes that she wanted to ask him a question.
The exact kind of look a student would have when they wanted to ask a question in class but ended up not doing so for fear that they would be embarrassed.
“Come on, ask me anything.”
“Oh, well,” Yibei said, surprised that he could read her. “If you insist… I was wondering if…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Professor Ma swung his hand and slapped her.
“Absolutely not! I did not sleep with her! I would never sleep with my students!”
‘I didn’t even say anything… Well, I thought about it, but I didn’t say it out loud!’
“Professor, that’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is, I bumped into Lu Xu thanks to her.”
Hearing Lu Xu’s name, Professor Ma leaned his head in closer, but not before swallowing two pills into his mouth.
“Alright. I’m ready.”
Lu Yibei stared blankly at Professor Ma and sighed, “We don’t have to do this.”
“Just tell me! Otherwise, I’ll deduct your grades!”
He would never admit it, but Professor Ma was deathly worried about Lu Xu.
When she realised that the headless girl was leading her to the laboratory, she couldn’t help but frown.
‘Do I wait for her to leave, or do I take a detour? Wait! I’m supposed to be saving Professor Ma! I don’t have time for this!’
However, the headless girl turned around and waved towards her before getting into a running position and dashing towards her.
Her heart skipped a beat as she subconsciously took two steps back—the girl was getting closer and closer, and her running towards her head-on was sending chills down her spine.
On the ground, not far away, there was a soft rustling sound, like a small creature scurrying about.
Looking for the sound, the headless girl turned around to look for the source, holding her head in her arms. She then turned back around and stared at Yibei with cloudy, dead eyes.
And it blinked.
It’s weird looking at a corpse filled with hints of life.
‘Is she trying to tell me to follow her?’
The headless girl stopped a few metres away from her and pointed towards her own head in her arms. Yibei stared at the head and stretched out his hand slowly before retracting it repeatedly as if she were scared of being electrocuted by the head.
As if sensing her fear, the girl’s head sighed lifelessly, as if she were trying to say, “I thought you weren’t afraid of me!”
Patting her own head, she placed it firmly back on her neck, then opened her umbrella.
Now that her upper body was concealed by the large umbrella, she seemed strangely normal. Some may even say that her slender waist and long legs are a little enticing.
Seeing this, she thought about the rumours about how some students will strike up a conversation with the urban legend, not knowing better, before being scared to half-death.
Just as she was thinking, there was a sudden sound of her stomping her feet in front of her as if urging her to move forward. The girl waved her arm from under the umbrella, beckoning Yibei to follow her.
Lu Yibei narrowed her eyes, not in a rush to follow.
Although, from the current point of view, the girl had no intention of harming her, she is an urban legend, so…
It’s better to be cautious!
Hence, Yibei followed her, albeit cautiously and from a respectable distance.
Fortunately, the path to Gate No. 4 is remote, and it is almost impossible for any normal human to appear.
Otherwise, if they were to bump into a girl wielding a kitchen knife following a headless girl, they may book themselves into the nearest mental hospital.
The two soon arrived at the laboratory building in less than a minute, and the darkness seemed to engulf the headless girl.
When she got near the laboratory building, she didn’t seem to want to stop; she walked in through the main entrance quietly, and the dimly lit corridor quickly engulfed her figure.
It seemed that security was still working; bursts of a soap opera could be heard from his duty room. However, no matter how brave the security guard was to choose a post near Gate No. 4, his curtains were still fully closed.
Suddenly, the security guard opened the curtains as if intuition was telling him something was there, and the headless girl floated past the duty room just as he did that.
But he saw nothing.
‘She must have a way to hide herself from humans,’ Yibei deduced.
However, Yibei had no way to hide herself other than…
Lu Yibei walked past the duty room, finding that she was much shorter than the height of the window, and walked through with no incident.
She followed the girl all the way to the second floor, and her eyes started to burn.
The corridor was empty, and the whitewashed walls and flickering fluorescent lights were suffocating her.
Yibei could hear the sound of her own breathing under the sickly light, and she was grossly aware of how automated her breathing was.
However, when she came back to her senses, the girl in front of her had disappeared, and she was alone again.
She didn’t know how to find Professor Ma from here on out.
Although he may be in the lab he’s usually in, he may be in other rooms too—the lab, his office, the filing room—he could be anywhere.
Yibei frowned, trying to deduce his most likely location and head over there first. At this time, the girl appeared before her again before hurrying up the stairs leading to the third floor.
The girl, seeing that Yibei wasn’t following her, poked her umbrella out from the stairwell and waved it up and down as if asking her to follow her.
“The professor… he must be upstairs.”
The umbrella waved up and down as if it were nodding. Professor Ma’s office was at the end of the corridor; the filing room was on the third floor; the lab was on the fourth floor.
Yibei had doubts about trusting an urban legend, but time was running out.
‘I hope Professor Ma is alright.’
She followed after the girl with courage. Besides, the lab was the first place she wanted to check anyway.
It’s better to trust the girl to save some time.
I’m feeling brave, she thought to herself. ‘This isn’t like me.’
As she followed, she didn’t realise that the girl in front of her had stopped, and she bumped into her back, causing her head to fall into Yibei’s arms again.
Feeling her long hair mixed with dried blood, Yibei couldn’t help but cringe immensely and stand there like a statue. She subconsciously wanted to throw it across the corridor, but she swallowed her fear and turned her head around to look at the girl’s face.
Her cloudy, lifeless eyes stared at her, and she rolled her eyes.
Immediately afterwards, her body retrieved the head before placing it back on her neck.
‘Did she just make fun of me?’
The girl waved her arm, raised her finger, and pointed upstairs. However, instead of leading her upstairs, the girl looked at the stairwell and looked back at Yibei before making a motion that she was cold, as if something was looming upstairs.
She wanted to ask the girl to confirm her suspicions, but the girl simply backed into a wall and gradually faded away.
‘Ah… really?’
She came to the stairwell and cautiously retrieved two charms from her pocket before tossing them upward into the landing of the stairwell.
A burst of dazzling blue light flooded the entire stairwell, followed by a shrill scream.
The voice sounded like a man with a very hoarse voice, like an insect hissing. Strangely enough, it reminded her of a villager in the village she had seen in her vision before.
As she thought about it, she produced two more charms and threw them into the landing again, but this time, they simply made a ‘clunk!’ sound on the floor.
After making sure that there was nobody else, she went up the stairs and came to the fourth floor, and the scene before her sent a chill down her spine.
The entire white-washed corridors were stained red with handprints and smears of blood, and beyond the prints, the characters within the bamboo scrolls were etched into the walls.
“Hold up!” Professor Ma interrupted. “You’re telling me… outside the corridor… now?”
“Right? I was so scared! I contemplated abandoning you!”
“Oh. Then what?”
“Well, I saw Lu Xu, and he was looming in the corridor.”
In the lab
Lu Yibei glanced at Professor Ma, and she could see that his lips were slightly parted as if whatever he wanted to say was stuck in his throat.
It truly is strange that an urban legend would even consider helping her out. This must mean that Professor Ma has a connection to the headless girl.
On the other hand, Professor Ma could tell from her cold eyes that she wanted to ask him a question.
The exact kind of look a student would have when they wanted to ask a question in class but ended up not doing so for fear that they would be embarrassed.
“Come on, ask me anything.”
“Oh, well,” Yibei said, surprised that he could read her. “If you insist… I was wondering if…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Professor Ma swung his hand and slapped her.
“Absolutely not! I did not sleep with her! I would never sleep with my students!”
‘I didn’t even say anything… Well, I thought about it, but I didn’t say it out loud!’
“Professor, that’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is, I bumped into Lu Xu thanks to her.”
Hearing Lu Xu’s name, Professor Ma leaned his head in closer, but not before swallowing two pills into his mouth.
“Alright. I’m ready.”
Lu Yibei stared blankly at Professor Ma and sighed, “We don’t have to do this.”
“Just tell me! Otherwise, I’ll deduct your grades!”
He would never admit it, but Professor Ma was deathly worried about Lu Xu.
When she realised that the headless girl was leading her to the laboratory, she couldn’t help but frown.
‘Do I wait for her to leave, or do I take a detour? Wait! I’m supposed to be saving Professor Ma! I don’t have time for this!’
However, the headless girl turned around and waved towards her before getting into a running position and dashing towards her.
Her heart skipped a beat as she subconsciously took two steps back—the girl was getting closer and closer, and her running towards her head-on was sending chills down her spine.
On the ground, not far away, there was a soft rustling sound, like a small creature scurrying about.
Looking for the sound, the headless girl turned around to look for the source, holding her head in her arms. She then turned back around and stared at Yibei with cloudy, dead eyes.
And it blinked.
It’s weird looking at a corpse filled with hints of life.
‘Is she trying to tell me to follow her?’
The headless girl stopped a few metres away from her and pointed towards her own head in her arms. Yibei stared at the head and stretched out his hand slowly before retracting it repeatedly as if she were scared of being electrocuted by the head.
As if sensing her fear, the girl’s head sighed lifelessly, as if she were trying to say, “I thought you weren’t afraid of me!”
Patting her own head, she placed it firmly back on her neck, then opened her umbrella.
Now that her upper body was concealed by the large umbrella, she seemed strangely normal. Some may even say that her slender waist and long legs are a little enticing.
Seeing this, she thought about the rumours about how some students will strike up a conversation with the urban legend, not knowing better, before being scared to half-death.
Just as she was thinking, there was a sudden sound of her stomping her feet in front of her as if urging her to move forward. The girl waved her arm from under the umbrella, beckoning Yibei to follow her.
Lu Yibei narrowed her eyes, not in a rush to follow.
Although, from the current point of view, the girl had no intention of harming her, she is an urban legend, so…
It’s better to be cautious!
Hence, Yibei followed her, albeit cautiously and from a respectable distance.
Fortunately, the path to Gate No. 4 is remote, and it is almost impossible for any normal human to appear.
Otherwise, if they were to bump into a girl wielding a kitchen knife following a headless girl, they may book themselves into the nearest mental hospital.
The two soon arrived at the laboratory building in less than a minute, and the darkness seemed to engulf the headless girl.
When she got near the laboratory building, she didn’t seem to want to stop; she walked in through the main entrance quietly, and the dimly lit corridor quickly engulfed her figure.
It seemed that security was still working; bursts of a soap opera could be heard from his duty room. However, no matter how brave the security guard was to choose a post near Gate No. 4, his curtains were still fully closed.
Suddenly, the security guard opened the curtains as if intuition was telling him something was there, and the headless girl floated past the duty room just as he did that.
But he saw nothing.
‘She must have a way to hide herself from humans,’ Yibei deduced.
However, Yibei had no way to hide herself other than…
Lu Yibei walked past the duty room, finding that she was much shorter than the height of the window, and walked through with no incident.
She followed the girl all the way to the second floor, and her eyes started to burn.
The corridor was empty, and the whitewashed walls and flickering fluorescent lights were suffocating her.
Yibei could hear the sound of her own breathing under the sickly light, and she was grossly aware of how automated her breathing was.
However, when she came back to her senses, the girl in front of her had disappeared, and she was alone again.
She didn’t know how to find Professor Ma from here on out.
Although he may be in the lab he’s usually in, he may be in other rooms too—the lab, his office, the filing room—he could be anywhere.
Yibei frowned, trying to deduce his most likely location and head over there first. At this time, the girl appeared before her again before hurrying up the stairs leading to the third floor.
The girl, seeing that Yibei wasn’t following her, poked her umbrella out from the stairwell and waved it up and down as if asking her to follow her.
“The professor… he must be upstairs.”
The umbrella waved up and down as if it were nodding. Professor Ma’s office was at the end of the corridor; the filing room was on the third floor; the lab was on the fourth floor.
Yibei had doubts about trusting an urban legend, but time was running out.
‘I hope Professor Ma is alright.’
She followed after the girl with courage. Besides, the lab was the first place she wanted to check anyway.
It’s better to trust the girl to save some time.
I’m feeling brave, she thought to herself. ‘This isn’t like me.’
As she followed, she didn’t realise that the girl in front of her had stopped, and she bumped into her back, causing her head to fall into Yibei’s arms again.
Feeling her long hair mixed with dried blood, Yibei couldn’t help but cringe immensely and stand there like a statue. She subconsciously wanted to throw it across the corridor, but she swallowed her fear and turned her head around to look at the girl’s face.
Her cloudy, lifeless eyes stared at her, and she rolled her eyes.
Immediately afterwards, her body retrieved the head before placing it back on her neck.
‘Did she just make fun of me?’
The girl waved her arm, raised her finger, and pointed upstairs. However, instead of leading her upstairs, the girl looked at the stairwell and looked back at Yibei before making a motion that she was cold, as if something was looming upstairs.
She wanted to ask the girl to confirm her suspicions, but the girl simply backed into a wall and gradually faded away.
‘Ah… really?’
She came to the stairwell and cautiously retrieved two charms from her pocket before tossing them upward into the landing of the stairwell.
A burst of dazzling blue light flooded the entire stairwell, followed by a shrill scream.
The voice sounded like a man with a very hoarse voice, like an insect hissing. Strangely enough, it reminded her of a villager in the village she had seen in her vision before.
As she thought about it, she produced two more charms and threw them into the landing again, but this time, they simply made a ‘clunk!’ sound on the floor.
After making sure that there was nobody else, she went up the stairs and came to the fourth floor, and the scene before her sent a chill down her spine.
The entire white-washed corridors were stained red with handprints and smears of blood, and beyond the prints, the characters within the bamboo scrolls were etched into the walls.
“Hold up!” Professor Ma interrupted. “You’re telling me… outside the corridor… now?”
“Right? I was so scared! I contemplated abandoning you!”
“Oh. Then what?”
“Well, I saw Lu Xu, and he was looming in the corridor.”
