Carrying My Senior's Coffin (GL) - Chapter 5

Actually, it wasn’t a major issue. Those people liked to amuse themselves with her, and sometimes, to ensure her obedience, they would keep some compromising material in their hands.

All Fang Yiyi wanted was to successfully graduate and get her diploma. She didn’t care about anything else. This was discovered early on when she became their bullying target. They would then manipulate her, like playing with a hamster kept in a cage, spinning the wheel and watching the hamster frantically run until it was breathless, sometimes falling over. They would look down and laugh heartily.

This photo was one such piece of evidence, a posed shot.

But she couldn’t say so. Fang Yiyi knew this was their warning, telling her to behave. If she resisted, they had many more tactics waiting for her.

Fang Yiyi’s cheeks were pale, and her lips were pressed into a thin line. Ever since her parents died, she had become withdrawn, averse to conflict, timid in the face of trouble, and consistently gave in, merely getting by. Over time, even she herself believed that the world was supposed to be this way, and she could only cling to a humiliating existence in exchange for a tiny bit of peace.

She recalled the events of last night: the darkness, the cold, the stickiness. Her lower abdomen was still throbbing faintly.

It had only been one night. If she continued to stay, what would she endure? Would that ghost simply kill her?

To seek death, or to live without any dignity?

Fang Yiyi squeezed her fingers. “Teacher…”

“Teacher.” The door lock turned with a crisp sound. Someone had walked in uninvited, interrupting Fang Yiyi mid-sentence.

Nancy entered, wearing a clean school uniform and white “Little Princess” leather shoes. She glanced at Fang Yiyi in the room, a flicker of disdain in her eyes, which she quickly masked, replacing it with an innocent, harmless smile. Her carefully styled hair brushed past Fang Yiyi, carrying the faint scent of shampoo.

—Whenever she was on campus, Nancy maintained the persona of a well-behaved model student, a façade that was utterly convincing, making her seem like a completely different person than she was outside of school.

The counselor was visibly happier upon seeing her, as most teachers liked students like this: “Hello, Nancy. Do you need to see me for something?”

Nancy lowered her head and smiled sheepishly. “I do have something… but could it wait…” She hesitated, glancing at Fang Yiyi.

The counselor was a bit puzzled: “You’re both female students, is there anything that can’t be said in front of her?” She didn’t want to let Fang Yiyi leave just yet, as her issue hadn’t been resolved.

Nancy blushed, nodding awkwardly, her voice soft and small, as if it were an unspeakable secret: “Um… Teacher, it’s some personal matter of mine that I’d like to discuss with you…”

“Alright then,” the counselor saw that she was truly uncomfortable speaking and decided to set Fang Yiyi’s issue aside for now. “Fang Yiyi, you should go back first. I have a class this afternoon. Come to my office again tomorrow.”

“Teacher!” Fang Yiyi decided to try to fight back for once.

“Yiyi,” Nancy tugged on Fang Yiyi’s sleeve, putting her hands together in a pleading gesture. Her hair tilted forward with the movement, brushing past her ear, making her face look softer and fairer. However, shielded by the angle, her eyes glared viciously at Fang Yiyi, while her voice was the complete opposite—soft and weak: “I’m so sorry to interrupt your matter. I know there’s a priority order, but some things are more urgent than others. I really need to talk to her right now, truly. Could you please let me go first… I’m really sorry!” After speaking, she mouthed something at Fang Yiyi.

Fang Yiyi ignored whatever the unspoken message was. It was a warning, whatever it was—a warning to be obedient and not cause trouble.

“Fang Yiyi, you should go back first. Whatever you have to say can wait until tomorrow.” The counselor felt that postponing Fang Yiyi’s issue would be fine.

Fang Yiyi bit her lower lip, her face pale. She instinctively felt she should try to argue again. She moved her lips, but suddenly her voice failed, and her mind went blank. She had been suppressed for so long that when she finally wanted to resist, she didn’t even know how to string a sentence together.

Fang Yiyi was dazed, her eyes tinged with a look of hopelessness. She quietly retreated.

Her body was still faintly aching, especially the parts that were too sensitive to mention, and every step she took made it hurt more.

She left the teaching building and stood on the steps at the entrance, looking around. There were many people in this school. They were young and vibrant, filled with dreams and hope, walking in the sunlight with boundless futures ahead of them. People passed her in twos and threes; everyone seemed to have companions, everyone looked happy. Their laughter reached Fang Yiyi’s ears, and she suddenly realized that in this place, she was the only one who was utterly alone from beginning to end. She wore worn-out clothes and had a solitary personality. She garnered many stares wherever she went, but no one ever approached her to say hello, to ask her name. Similarly, no one was willing to be her friend.

To them, she had always been an irrelevant passerby.

It seemed… that apart from the haunted dorm room, she had nowhere to go. Her belongings were there, and it had become her only refuge.

In truth, she wasn’t necessarily afraid of death; the so-called will to survive was just a primal instinct. Otherwise, why would she run to the teacher for help when she felt no fear, and why was she walking toward the dorm even though she knew she might die there?

Fang Yiyi’s thoughts wandered aimlessly. She snapped back to reality when someone blocked her path and called her name. Fang Yiyi was startled awake, her eyes refocusing. She found that she was already on the fourth floor, having just rounded the stairwell, only five steps away from her dorm room.

“Fang Yiyi! Did you hear me when I spoke to you?!” Youlan shouted, her arms crossed and her brows fiercely furrowed. “Are you deaf?”

She had been waiting here ever since she heard Fang Yiyi went to the counselor’s office, and her legs were nearly numb. That Fang Yiyi would seek out the teacher was unexpected. After all, given Fang Yiyi’s timid and spineless personality, she would never have the guts to defy them, unless she no longer wanted her diploma. But then, what made Fang Yiyi risk expulsion just to change dorms? Could there really be something in that room? Were the dreams they had the other day actually real?

The thought made Youlan instantly uneasy. She panicked and rushed to consult the others who had played the planchette with her. They ultimately decided that Nancy would go to the counselor, pushing Fang Yiyi out of the office, while the rest of them would split up and wait wherever Fang Yiyi might go, to ambush her. Whether through threats or coercion, Fang Yiyi could not be allowed to change dorms!

—What if Fang Yiyi changed dorms, and the ghost came after them again? What would they do then?

Fang Yiyi looked up at her, then glanced behind. Sure enough, she saw Manman standing there with her arms crossed as well. Those two usually moved together, inseparable, though their relationship wasn’t as close as Youlan and Nancy’s.

Fang Yiyi looked away, half-closing her eyes and staring blankly at the floor, standing there numbly like a foolish mute.

This reaction pleased Youlan. She changed her stance, leaning against the wall to relax her numb legs, and curled her lips, looking at Fang Yiyi with disdain. “I heard you went to the teacher to change dorms? What, you think we wronged you by giving you such a large single room? Don’t be ungrateful. Do you know how much a room like that rents for outside of school?”

Fang Yiyi kept her head down and said nothing, appearing to have abandoned the idea of changing dorms.

Aha, objective achieved, Youlan thought. She knew Fang Yiyi too well—cowardly, weak, and useless. Running to the counselor today had probably used up all the courage she had for college. Now that she had been interrupted, she probably wouldn’t dare cause any more trouble.

For such a pathetic wretch to dare scare me and make me wait nervously for so long—it’s utterly rebellious! She doesn’t deserve it!

Recalling the fright she felt when she learned Fang Yiyi had run to the counselor, Youlan’s temper flared.

Her eyes showed unconcealed contempt. She looked Fang Yiyi up and down and sneered: “I’m telling you, in the apartments around our school, that single room of yours costs three thousand yuan a month. Sigh, have you ever seen that much money in your life? We few are kind-hearted and couldn’t stand your poverty, so we did a good deed and helped the poor by sending you to 404. You’re ungrateful, wasting all our good intentions! Don’t blame us for being rude!”

Hearing this, Fang Yiyi suddenly looked up, staring directly at Youlan, her eyes black and bright, her gaze cold: “Do you know there’s a ghost living in there?”

Youlan was startled by her sudden retort. She cleared her throat and said loudly: “Wh-what ghost? Isn’t it just you, the pauper ghost?! Look at your shabby appearance. Manman, let’s go!”

She turned around, grabbing Manman’s shoulder sleeve, ready to drag her away.

Just then, the light above their heads flickered and then went out with a bang. It made a sizzling sound, as if there was a short circuit.

In the middle of the day, an inexplicably eerie chill swept through the hallway.