Chapter 122: Mommy
With a trace of guilt, Gao Ming got up. He wanted to ask if the others in the bedroom heard the voice.
He reached his head out of the net. He looked around and realised something was wrong. The bedroom was too quiet. Gao Ming picked up his phone and noted it was already 11.50 pm. It must have been quite a while when he was absorbing that memory fragment.
“Is there no one around?”
He looked behind each net. Everyone was gone, and no one told him.
“In terms of value, I shouldn’t be the one abandoned. Did they see something crawl into my bed and escape?”
Gao Ming sent Xi San a message, “Are you at the toilet?”
Xi San, “???”
Gao Ming, “What’s wrong?”
Xi San, “Aren’t you in stall three?”
Gao Ming, “I’m still in the bedroom. Beware of the Gao Ming with you.”
Xi San, “No! You are not Gao Ming! You can’t trick me!”
Seeing the replies, Gao Ming was sure Xi San hadn’t been swapped. “If I don’t hurry there, Xi San might have a mental breakdown.”
Gao Ming planned to go to the headmaster’s office at midnight. However, before that, he wanted to get to know more about the ghosts at the school. Gao Ming carried his school bag and left.
…
Xi San stared at the screen. An indescribable fear enveloped him. When he received Gao Ming’s message, he knew that something was wrong. To test Gao Ming, he purposely said the wrong stall. Gao Ming was in Stall 2, and he was in Stall 3. If the other person didn’t even notice this, then it couldn’t be Gao Ming!
After giving himself a pat on the back, Xi San was in another conundrum. What if Gao Ming was really still back in the bedroom and the one with him was the ghost? Who should he trust? Gao Ming said that they might receive messages from ghosts after midnight. However, there were still minutes to midnight. Who was lying?
Hiding inside the stall, Xi San didn’t feel safe at all. His breathing intensified.
Should he run out?
Xi San touched the lock. He noticed that there was a barely-discernible hole under the partition. Xi San slowly knelt down and moved his eyes to the hole. It was too dark to see clearly. Xi San opened the flashlight on his phone. He aimed it at the gap.
“Gao Ming, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Can you give me some paper?” Resisting the fear, Xi San aimed the light at the cubicle next to him. Through the light, Xi San saw a bloodshot eye. The thing inside the cubicle stared back at him. They maintained this strange pose. Xi San’s hand that held the phone was between the two cubicles. Xi San’s face twitched. He wanted to pull back his hand, but his phone was stuck.
“Do you still need the paper?” Gao Ming’s voice asked.
“No. I don’t use paper!” Xi San was anxious. A force yanked on his wrist. He lost his balance and knocked into the partition. “Daddy Jie, save me! It’s not Gao Ming inside the cubicle! It’s a ghost!”
Wang Jie was shocked by the scream. He hurriedly ran out to look. Gao Ming happened to appear at the toilet entrance.
“Gao Ming?”
Before Wang Jie reacted, Gao Ming kicked down the door of Cubicle Three. Then, Xi San screamed again.
“What’s going on?!” Wang Jie was stunned. He saw Gao Ming kicking Xi San.
The door of Cubicle Two opened. A shadow in the school uniform flashed and disappeared.
“Was it in Cubicle Two?” Gao Ming wanted to give chase, but his leg was still in the cubicle.
“What are you doing?” Wang Jie helped Gao Ming and then Xi San. “Why did you two suddenly fight? What was that shadow?”
“You came in the toilet with a ghost.” Gao Ming closed the toilet door. He told them everything that happened to him in the bedroom, including the news about the 51st student.
“It looks like Yuan Hui wasn’t lying. We were on some kind of bus.” Xi San wiped away the footprint on his face and tried to act calm.
“We were on a bus ten years ago. We were sent here on a bus ten years later. It looks like the bus is the key.” Wang Jie thought. “Zuo Jun’s luxury bus is not common. He even customised it. The extra seatings were removed to add in bar counters and drink fountains. Other than the driver, there are 51 seats.”
“Could the answer be to find all 51 students and get on the bus together?” Xi San’s guess was quite logical. “The key is with the driver. He should still be in the school.”
“The issue is some of the students have become ghosts…” Wang Jie suddenly remembered something. His pupils narrowed. “Or it’s the last student standing who will get to leave?”
Then, his gaze, looking at Xi San and Gao Ming, changed. If his guess were right, they were competitors.
“Don’t jump to conclusion.” Gao Ming knew what Wang Jie was thinking. This man only cared about himself. “Stay here. I’ll go out to take a look.” Without giving them a chance to speak, Gao Ming left the toilet.
The hostel’s front door was locked. Something was taped to the door. The hostel manager’s room next to it had a red light on. Gao Ming could feel the resistance from the God of Blood and Flesh. Something bad would happen if he went too close.
Gao Ming silently approached. Through the window, he saw the manager auntie standing in the middle of the room. She wore a red jacket and mumbled to herself with an exaggerated smile on her face. Bloody tears slid down the window. The furniture cried.
Gao Ming inched forward, and he saw the auntie taking out the pictures of the students’ cut-off heads from her red jacket.
“My dear children, come to mommy’s embrace. Let mommyr hug you…
“Be nice. Listen to mommy, or mommy will have to lock all of you up.”
At that moment, Gao Ming charged at the front door.
The giant sound got the auntie’s attention. The smile on her face was scary. “Do we have a bad baby? Mommy will be mad.”
The front door was knocked down. Gao Ming took out a black death portrait. A black dog swallowed him and disappeared into the shadow outside the hostel.
“You can’t escape. Mommy will find you…” The auntie took out her ring of keys and entered the shadow too.
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