Carrying My Senior's Coffin (GL) - Chapter 6

The sinister chill spread quickly, swiftly enveloping all three people in the corridor.

Youlan paused. Her grip on Manman’s hand tightened, and she hurriedly turned and ran downstairs. The corridor filled with the chaotic pounding of their footsteps, frantic and disorderly, as though they were fleeing for their lives.

Fang Yiyi rubbed the goosebumps on her arms and remained where she was.

She could clearly feel something damp and sticky pressing against her back, accompanied by the faint moldy smell of an underground parking garage.

She glanced toward Room 404 nearby.

Sure enough, the door had opened a crack.

Perhaps because the curtains were closed, the inside was completely dark.

Fang Yiyi pressed her lips tightly together and unconsciously held her breath. After pausing for two seconds, she stepped inside.

Things had already reached this point.

There was no avoiding it.

The spring attached to the inside of the door still worked perfectly. Fang Yiyi had only opened it halfway when she felt the resistance.

She stopped and looked at her shadow cast upon the patch of floor framed by the corridor light. The lines of her legs were stretched to an unnatural length, while everything above her waist seemed to merge with the darkness.

Fang Yiyi closed the door.

The tiny patch of light vanished in an instant.

She steadied her breathing. A thin layer of sweat covered her palms.

Perhaps it was only her imagination, but from the moment she entered the room, the damp, sticky chill behind her disappeared. It was like a piece of ice melting into the air, leaving threads of coldness lingering all around her.

“May I open the curtains?” Fang Yiyi asked tentatively.

Her voice was quiet, carrying obvious unease and fear.

No one answered.

Fang Yiyi thought for a moment, then hurried toward the bed.

With a sharp swish, she pulled apart the heavy, cumbersome curtains. Long-lost sunlight immediately poured inside, illuminating the small dormitory that had remained silent for so many years.

Dust billowed into the air.

Fang Yiyi reflexively closed her eyes. A few specks clung to her long lashes, making them look soft and fuzzy beneath the sunlight.

Suddenly, a faint chuckle sounded beside her ear.

Fang Yiyi jumped, and her grip loosened abruptly.

The curtains fell shut with a soft flap.

The room returned to its usual darkness.

“You’ve… adjusted rather quickly.”

The voice was hoarse and ethereal. Its pronunciation was strange and distorted, without any proper rhythm, like an old tape recorder that had fallen into disrepair.

It drifted from her left ear to her right, making her deeply uncomfortable.

Fang Yiyi had nothing to say.

A faint pain came from her right ear. Something also seemed to be wrapped around her neck, making it difficult to breathe.

“…Look over there,” the voice said again.

Look where?

Fang Yiyi froze.

Yet her eyes seemed to be guided toward the small dark room.

The moment she looked, cold sweat broke out all over her body.

The small room was still pitch-black, but at some point, a shattered full-length mirror had appeared at its entrance.

Fragments were scattered across the floor. Only a few pieces remained attached to the frame.

Those shards resembled countless tiny eyes, each clearly reflecting Fang Yiyi.

Her thin figure stood there.

Something resembling a black-and-white shadow from a CT scan was clinging tightly to her body.

White bones were faintly visible within its arms, which were wrapped around her neck. A complete head rested on her shoulder at an unnatural angle, its chin pressed against her shoulder blade and its teeth biting down on the cartilage of her ear.

A tangled mass of lines resembling hair drooped from the back of the skull, extending all the way down to the tailbone.

It revealed the creature’s sex.

It seemed to be a woman.

The arms around her tightened.

Fang Yiyi let out a muffled groan.

“Are you going to kill me?” she suddenly asked.

The ghostly figure in the mirror paused.

Its palm crawled onto Fang Yiyi’s face, while the bones of its arm twisted at an impossible angle, like parasitic dodder vines.

“Since you dared to come back, weren’t you already prepared?”

Fang Yiyi closed her eyes and clenched her fists, trying hard to steady her breathing so that her voice would not tremble so badly.

With the desperation of someone risking everything, she shouted, “I don’t want to die!”

“…I don’t want to die.”

Her voice gradually grew quieter, as though she were speaking only to herself.

She covered her face and slowly crouched down, sobbing as she broke apart.

“I don’t want to die… I still haven’t received my diploma. I still haven’t let Mom and Dad see me graduate… I don’t want to die…”

“I only want to graduate quietly. Why? Why do they have to force me? I’ve already backed down again and again. Why won’t they even let me stay alive…?”

Her small shadow curled into a trembling ball within the darkness, thin and helpless.

After she cried for a while, someone seized her chin and forcibly lifted her face.

Before her were two dark, empty eye sockets without eyeballs.

“Utterly useless.”

She heard that hoarse, grating voice speak those words.

Then pain shot through her neck. She was lifted and dragged backward against her will before being thrown onto the bed she had only finished arranging that day.

Fang Yiyi’s vision filled with stars from being choked.

The sudden deprivation of oxygen made her gasp for a long time before she realized she had been pinned down again.

Her clothes were pulled open.

A cold that seemed to penetrate straight into her bones attached itself to her skin, freezing her through from the inside out.

Unlike the haziness of the first time, she was fully conscious now.

Her mind recorded every sensation with agonizing clarity.

Cold.

And pain.

Her cheek was patted lightly.

Within the darkness, that thing whispered beside her ear.

“Remember it well.”

Fang Yiyi stared vaguely at the silhouette, opened her mouth, and released a series of hurried breaths.

…

“Bzzz—bzzz—”

Inside the dark dormitory, an old-fashioned phone buzzed to announce the time. Its tiny screen emitted a faint green glow.

Fang Yiyi picked it up, glanced at it, and turned off the display.

“It’s two o’clock,” she said quietly while sitting on the bed.

A shadow sat at the bedside.

Compared with its previous vague and ethereal form, it had become more solid now. Pale flesh could faintly be seen.

The shadow bent over, arranging its hair.

“I have class.”

Fang Yiyi shifted uneasily, thinking about how she could get past the ghost beside her to put on her shoes.

“…”

No one answered.

Fang Yiyi thought for a moment, then rolled out of bed.

The floor was dirty and had not yet been cleaned. She lowered her head and carefully tried to step into her shoes.

Just as her toes touched the top of one shoe, an arm swept across her waist and dragged her back onto the bed.

Two blue-white arms braced themselves on either side of her head. Damp hair clung to the ghost’s face.

Within the shadows, two blood-red lips were especially striking.

“You want to leave? There’s no such wonderful deal in this world. You’re not going anywhere today.”

As the saying went, the first time was unfamiliar, but the second time came naturally.

This ghost’s stamina seemed limitless. Fang Yiyi simply emptied her mind and stopped thinking about anything.

Gradually, amid the pain, she even began to feel a strange sense of pleasure.

Later, she did not even know when she fell asleep.

She only knew that when she woke the next day, her stomach was growling painfully from hunger.

Fang Yiyi sat up blankly and scratched the messy tuft of hair sticking up from her head.

She dug her school uniform out from the gap beside the bed. It had been crumpled into a ball.

She spread it out and stared at it in a daze.

How was she supposed to wear this?

“Standing there like a fool. Are you savoring the memories?”

The memories of the previous night instantly flooded Fang Yiyi’s mind.

She obediently shook her head without thinking and looked toward the source of the voice.

A woman in a long red dress was sitting on the desk.

Her ankles were exposed, and her feet rested against the back of the chair. Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent. Her half-dry hair spread out in long waves.

Her face was delicate, with small, refined features. The corners of her eyes tilted slightly upward, carrying a lazy weariness after being fully satisfied.

She looked exactly like a female ghost who devoured human essence.

As the one whose essence had been consumed, Fang Yiyi felt terrible.

Merely sitting on the bed made every bone in her body feel as though it had fallen apart. Her waist was sore and painful, as though she had been dismantled and reassembled. Every cell in her body screamed with exhaustion.

She thought that if there were a mirror nearby, she would probably see enormous dark circles beneath her eyes.

She had no idea whether this would shorten her lifespan.

Or how it would be shortened.

Or by how much.

The good thing was that she was no longer as terrified as she had been the previous night.

After spending two nights with this ghost, she could tell that the ghost did not intend to kill her.

At least, not for now.

“What’s your name?” Fang Yiyi asked.

The ghost toyed with her fingernails and glanced at Fang Yiyi with a faint, unreadable smile.

“Li Ting.”

Li Ting?

Fang Yiyi’s eyes widened.

“Ten years ago, Ning’an City produced a national college entrance examination top scorer who received 749 points—only one point short of a perfect score. After that, there was no more news about her. No one knew which university she attended. Her name was also Li Ting. Was that you? You came to Zhengling Women’s University?”

Li Ting gave a quiet hum in acknowledgment.

Although Fang Yiyi did not know why the nation’s top scorer had become the female ghost of Dormitory 404, she still exclaimed sincerely, “You’re amazing…”

“That’s ancient history. Why bring it up?”

As she spoke, Li Ting seemed to remember something.

She gave a derisive laugh, and her gaze turned gloomy.

“Why are you still not getting up? Didn’t you get enough to eat yesterday?”

Fang Yiyi stared blankly, then hurriedly began putting on her clothes.

What did she mean, not getting enough to eat?

Fang Yiyi had not eaten a single thing since yesterday. She was already so hungry that her stomach felt stuck to her back.

If she did not eat soon, she might genuinely starve to death.

When she stood, her legs went weak.

Unable to maintain her balance, she stepped onto the floor. Her clean sock was immediately coated with a thick layer of dust.

Fang Yiyi’s pale face scrunched up like a bitter melon.

Li Ting also looked disgusted.

“So dirty.”

“…”

Fang Yiyi did not know what to say.

She had tried to clean several times, only to be stopped. She had assumed this ghost naturally liked such a filthy environment.

“I’ll ask the dormitory supervisor for a set of cleaning tools later.”

Li Ting tossed her a Buddhist bead threaded on a red cord.

“Wear this. I’m going with you.”

Fang Yiyi picked it up and examined it.

The red cord was an ordinary braided bracelet like those sold everywhere. The Buddhist bead seemed to have been removed from something else. Complicated scriptures were carved densely across its surface, too tiny to make out clearly.

The two pieces looked somewhat mismatched when combined.

By the time Fang Yiyi finished getting ready and left the room, half an hour had already passed.

Li Ting transformed into a wisp of smoke and disappeared into the Buddhist bead.

When Fang Yiyi reached the ground floor, an ambulance was parked outside the dormitory building.

She had no interest whatsoever in such commotion. Avoiding the crowd, she headed straight for the cafeteria.

Breakfast consisted of fried dough sticks, steamed buns, small pickled side dishes, and three flavors of porridge.

It was self-service, and students could take as much as they wanted.

Fang Yiyi was starving.

She immediately took two bowls and filled both with millet porridge. Then she took four fried dough sticks, one steamed bun, and a small plate piled high with pickled vegetables.

Finding a corner for herself, she began eating with great enjoyment.

Several classmates walked past together and sat at the table beside hers.

“Has Nancy really gone insane? When I saw them carrying her into the ambulance just now, she was still screaming that there was a ghost!”

“She thinks everyone she sees is a ghost. I came out of the dorm this morning, and when she saw me, she pointed at me and insisted I was one. The way she acted scared me to death.”

“I heard she broke her leg…”