Bai Ru glanced at Gu Yi, her eyes filled with confusion. Gu Yi murmured, "That person's voice... is very strange."

Indeed, the five words that person had just spoken were wrenched out as if from a throat long unused—dry, hoarse, like forcing sound out after ages of silence.

"It's related to this," Gu Yi patted his pocket.

Bai Ru nodded in agreement.

The Dean of Students led them to a restaurant that appeared quite respectable. After they were seated, he first apologized again that the Principal couldn't join them, then invited them to order.

After casually ordering a few dishes, Bai Ru secretly glanced at her watch—it was already past noon. She feigned social engagement for a while, managed to eat a little, and then excused herself, leaving the restaurant, while Gu Yi used the excuse of drinking to keep the Dean of Students detained.

On this front, Bai Ru felt completely at ease; with Gu Yi’s tolerance for alcohol, ten Deans of Students combined couldn't outdrink him.

Bai Ru hurried back to the school, heading straight for the library, checking her watch as she walked, estimating she would only be about three or four minutes late at most.

When she reached the library entrance, she saw a sign posted: Closed for Inventory.

She reached out and pushed the door, finding it unlocked, so she pushed it open and stepped inside.

Standing at the entrance, she scanned the area and noticed no one was present inside.

Just inside the library entrance, to the right, was the registration counter; along the walls on both sides were rows upon rows of bookshelves. At the very back, a door led down to the underground archives.

"Is anyone here?" Bai Ru called out, her voice echoing back to her.

Just as the echo faded, she heard a slight disturbance coming from the far left corner. She immediately looked in that direction, sensing the noise originated from behind the row of bookshelves at the innermost left side.

Bai Ru grew instantly wary and cautiously moved towards the sound.

She reached the end of the aisle but saw no figure, nor anything that could have made the sound.

Suddenly, she heard light footsteps behind her. Startled, she spun around sharply, only to see the same old man she had seen on campus standing not far behind her, his expression exceptionally grim.

Bai Ru maintained her guard and asked, "Are you looking for me?"

The old man twisted his mouth, seemingly about to smile, but ultimately gave up. He pointed to his own mouth and rasped, "Follow me."

With that, he turned and slipped behind a row of shelves. Bai Ru slowly followed in his wake.

They walked all the way to the reading area on the opposite side. The old man found a table and sat down, glanced at Bai Ru, and gestured for her to sit as well.

Bai Ru frowned slightly and sat across from him.

The old man pulled a small notebook and a pen from his pocket and spoke in that grating voice, "Pretended mute for ten years, spoke little."

Bai Ru couldn't help but feel puzzled. What reason would make an old man pretend to be mute and stay in the school?

The old man placed the notebook and pen on the table and abruptly asked, "Can you catch ghosts?"

Bai Ru hesitated for a moment, then nodded. She took out a photograph and placed it on the table, asking, "Is this from you?"

Upon seeing the photo, the old man's eyes flickered. He reached out, moved the picture aside, turned his head to the side, and nodded slightly.

Bai Ru asked, "Who is the child in the photograph?"

The old man opened his mouth, paused, and instead of answering her question, asked, "Old Hao, something happened?"

Old Hao? Principal Hao?

Bai Ru remained silent, pondering whether to answer his question.

After a long moment, the old man spoke again, "Tell me, I suspect maybe..."

Bai Ru reasoned that this old man must know a great deal. After some thought, she decided to tell him. "Yes. Sir, why did you ask me to come? Perhaps you could just tell me directly."

Hearing that his suspicion was true, the old man closed his eyes, a trace of sadness crossing his face. After a moment's pause, he suddenly opened his notebook and scribbled a line: "Do you have a spell that can prevent ghosts from appearing near us?"

Having written it, he turned the notebook toward Bai Ru.

Bai Ru was slightly alarmed. She looked up and searched her surroundings carefully, noting nothing unusual. After a moment’s thought, she took two talismans from her pocket and handed them to the old man. "Stick one directly over your chest, and the other behind your chair."

Saying this, she stood up and pasted one talisman each on the surrounding walls, the floor, and the nearest bookshelf to them, then told the old man, "You can relax now."

The old man smiled, a smile that seemed somewhat pitiful and bitter. After a long while, he murmured softly, "Twenty years..."

Bai Ru’s assessment was correct. The old man before her truly knew much. After a long exchange of speaking and writing, Bai Ru finally pieced together a significant portion of the inner story behind the haunting incident at the school.

The old man's name was Wu Zhongyou, a native of Qingshui County, sixty years old this year. More than twenty years ago, he was still a teacher, but later, unable to resist the trend of going into business, he resigned from teaching and switched to construction contracting.

He chose this line of work with his own ideas in mind. At that time, Qingshui County was vigorously developing its economy, and new construction projects were appearing everywhere. Wu Zhongyou happened to have connections with construction teams and some material sources, so he naturally targeted this industry. Truth be told, he was quite successful in this field, soon contracting numerous projects in Qingshui County.

Fuxing Middle School was one of his projects, but according to him, after taking on this contract, he began to have regrets. First, during construction, accidents kept happening. Although no lives were lost, many members of the construction crew were injured to varying degrees while working.

Although Wu Zhongyou secretly subcontracted the school project to others after taking the contract, he was still ultimately responsible. Therefore, he couldn't just ignore the frequent incidents here. He assumed the injuries were due to the crew's inattention to safety. One night, he went to the school alone, intending to check if the construction team's safety measures were adequate.

The scale of the school construction at that time was not as massive as it is now; the main construction involved one main building and one auxiliary building. The main structure of the main building was nearly complete. After inspecting it and noting some construction precautions, he was about to leave when he noticed something strange.

He saw two black cars parked right where the main entrance of the school stands now. Wu Zhongyou felt puzzled. These two cars hadn't been there when he entered the building. He glanced at his watch—it was past ten in the evening. Why would someone drive to a school construction site this late?

Wu Zhongyou had heard that some people might steal materials from construction sites at night, but the current situation didn't quite fit. Although he didn't recognize the makes of the two cars, he could tell they were definitely high-end vehicles. In his words, they were two sedans. He didn't believe someone would drive such nice cars to steal construction materials, and besides, the cars weren't large enough to carry much, even if they were stealing. Would they risk it for a few bricks?

But driving here so late certainly meant something. Wu Zhongyou dared not rashly go outside, so he hid behind the main gate, peeking out secretly, wanting to see what these people were up to.

Although streetlights hadn't been officially installed along the road next to the site yet, there were a few temporary light poles set up to prevent accidents if people passed by in the dark. At this moment, Wu Zhongyou used the faint light to barely make out the scene around the two cars.

The license plates seemed to be obscured by something. He could only see the cars parked quietly. At first, he thought there was no one inside, but soon he saw a small red light flashing in the driver's seat—someone was smoking.

Wu Zhongyou immediately felt regret. He should have snuck out earlier and walked around. Now, staring at the cars, he had no idea what the people inside were doing, when they would leave, or when they might get out. What if they spotted him? Would they pose a threat to him?

Just as he was contemplating sneaking out of the building, the door of one car opened, and a man in a suit stepped out. Because the car blocked most of the light, he couldn't clearly make out the person's appearance, but he could tell the individual was wearing a suit.

Twenty years ago, suits were not as common as they are now; one could say that anyone wearing a suit possessed a certain status. Wu Zhongyou instinctively shrank back, afraid that the people by the cars might notice him.

At that moment, he saw the man in the suit wave towards the inside of the car. Immediately afterward, five men emerged from both vehicles. They didn't seem inclined to enter the school construction site. Instead, they took out a number of tools from the trunk of one car and proceeded to a side area, beginning to pull up a sewer manhole cover.

After the cover was opened, they did not descend. Instead, they stopped and looked toward the man in the suit.

That man walked over, raised a hand to cover his nose and mouth, peered down, then nodded before returning to the car and getting back inside.

The subsequent five men also made no move, merely spreading out and finding spots to smoke.

Wu Zhongyou couldn't help but be curious, forgetting his idea of sneaking away. He remained tucked in the doorway, wanting to see what these men were planning.

Unexpectedly, he stayed hidden for an unknown length of time until the man in the car waved his hand. The other five men immediately tossed their cigarette butts away. Two of them walked over to the trunk of the other car, opened it, and bent over to lift something out.

When Wu Zhongyou first saw the man wave his hand, he glanced down at his watch—it was ten minutes to midnight. He couldn't help but grimace; he had wasted so much time that it was already midnight. When he looked up again and saw what the two men were lifting from the trunk, he couldn't help but be greatly startled.

Although the light wasn't bright, he could clearly see that the two men were lifting a person out of the trunk—very likely a dead body.

And that wasn't all. Besides these two, another man walked to the side of the car, opened the rear door, and pulled out a child, hoisting the child onto his shoulder.

Wu Zhongyou stared wide-eyed as they slowly walked toward the open sewer entrance.