Chapter 104: Death by Jumping

The ambulance arrived quickly, carrying the man on a stretcher down the stairs. The person who had been talking with him followed, accompanying him to the hospital.

I hadn’t expected this to happen right before my eyes. The illness was indeed sudden—just a moment ago, Ah Hua was laughing and chatting, and the next, he was unconscious with a high fever. It was truly bizarre.

I whispered to Tu E, “What’s going on?”

“His soul has left his body,” he replied.

His soul left his body? How could that be? He was fine just moments ago, and then suddenly his soul departed?

“What caused it? How could this happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

This guy couldn’t think straight. I decided to try another approach: “What are the usual causes of soul departure?”

He thought for a moment. “Many things: possession by spirits, witchcraft, curses, bad feng shui, a weak constitution easily startled…”

“Enough, enough, no need to list them all,” I interrupted. He couldn’t focus on the point, so I resolved to ask Xiao Qingwan instead.

At noon, after school, I didn’t find Xiao Qingwan, and we had no way to contact her. We could only wait until the afternoon.

In the afternoon, we had a specialized lab class, and I was even more confused. Wearing white lab coats, we followed them into the laboratory, but it was purely observational—I didn’t understand a thing.

After enduring the whole afternoon, we went to the cafeteria for dinner at dusk. Xiao Qingwan and Su Yi had already reserved seats for us.

Xiao Qingwan didn’t have to “observe and learn” like us. She was secretly staying in Su Yi’s dorm as her friend, wandering around during the day, occasionally tagging along to classes, carefree.

The girls nearby kept glancing over, watching Tu E and Wei Erye with a hint of resentment toward Xiao Qingwan and Su Yi.

Those two were simply too conspicuous.

Su Yi also glanced at Tu E from time to time. It seemed she and Xiao Qingwan had some unspoken agreement not to look toward Wei Erye.

With all these secret glances, my presence was somewhat redundant. But the matter still had to be discussed.

I told Xiao Qingwan about the morning’s incident and asked for her thoughts on soul departure.

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“I’ve heard about the chemical engineering class incident too. I didn’t expect it to be soul departure. Could it be related to the little ghost we found?” she said.

I pondered for a moment and said, “That person fell ill so suddenly. If it’s a spirit, how could it happen?”

Xiao Qingwan considered it: “I don’t know much either. If someone was already possessed but their yang energy was strong or for other reasons they showed no symptoms, it’s possible for the soul to suddenly leave later. But in such cases, the person would likely have shown signs before, like listlessness.”

The sick man had seemed so energetic before, even mocking others.

“Looks like we have to start with those little ghosts. I actually have a plan,” I said.

“What plan?” Xiao Qingwan asked.

I looked at Su Yi. She froze for a moment, confused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

At nine in the evening, Su Yi sat on a stone bench under a streetlamp, pretending to look at her phone. We hid in the shadows, watching her closely.

I had suspected for some time that the little ghosts were targeting Su Yi, since only she could see them, and they even smiled at her. We only noticed something odd when we were with her and Xiao Qingwan last night. Though we didn’t understand why the little ghosts only appeared to her and hadn’t caused actual harm.

It took a lot of effort to convince her to lure the ghosts out. Eventually, we used Tu E’s charm to get her reluctant consent.

Whether from the cold or fear, her legs trembled continuously, and she kept glancing our way to confirm we were still there.

Xiao Qingwan whispered, “Will this really work? If those ghosts are really after her, why hasn’t anything happened to her all this time?”

“Let’s try. Just because the ghosts follow her doesn’t mean they want to harm her. Maybe there’s another reason,” I said.

Time passed slowly. Suddenly, Su Yi became alert, hugging herself and looking around anxiously. She screamed sharply, stood up abruptly, and ran toward us.

“They’ve appeared! They’ve appeared!” she shouted in panic.

We rushed forward. I asked quickly, “Where?”

I didn’t see anything near her.

She pointed in a direction. “Over there!”

Tu E immediately chased after it. Wei Erye and I followed quickly, running toward the sparse streetlights near the office building. I still didn’t see the little ghost Su Yi mentioned.

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Bang! A heavy, muffled noise suddenly came from the side, as if a heavy object had fallen. I jumped in fright. The three of us stopped and looked toward the source of the noise.

There, lying motionless on the ground beneath the office building, was a man with a large pool of blood beneath him.

“Ah—” Su Yi, who had just caught up, screamed in terror.

I immediately looked up toward the upper floors. Under the corridor lights on the fifth floor, I vaguely saw something fluttering. Was that the little ghost Su Yi had seen?

I ran into the office building, heading upstairs. Tu E and Wei Erye followed. When we reached the fifth floor, the thing was gone. I looked around the place it had been fluttering, wanting to enter the office to search.

“It’s already gone,” Tu E said.

I looked at him. “Did you sense anything?”

“The aura here is very strong, but the thing disappeared.”

“Disappeared? What do you mean?”

He tilted his head and thought. “Just like last night, it suddenly vanished. No sign of escape.”

No sign of escape meant it disappeared right there? Why? Could a mischievous little ghost vanish into thin air?

I noticed some scattered black particles on the ground. Squatting down, I picked one up. It was paper ash. How was there paper ash here?

School authorities arrived quickly, along with many students drawn by the news. The man who had fallen was a chemical engineering student, the one who had been sitting in the back row earlier that day discussing the Bald Man with Ah Hua.

He had gone to the hospital in the ambulance and, it was unclear when he returned to school or why he came to this seldom-visited office building. Police and ambulance personnel arrived swiftly, and the man was declared dead at the scene.

Xiao Qingwan took care of Su Yi and left first. Su Yi looked deeply shaken. We waited until the police finished their questioning and briefing before leaving.

The next day, news spread throughout the school. There were many rumors about the suicide, but the most common explanation was depression. The man had previously sought counseling at the school’s psychological center, and his recorded symptoms were depression.

Yet no one could explain why he would go to the office building to “commit suicide.”