Forbidden Land – CH 101

After leaving Chen Demao’s house, Zhang Chao asked, “Do you think what Professor Chen said is credible?”

Chen Rong nodded. “I think he should be credible. He has no reason to lie to us. Besides, he explained the school song word for word. I think if it can be explained logically, it can’t be faked. Otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence that the school song can be interpreted in another way and completely logically?”

Zhang Chao agreed. “It seems that the foreshadowing was indeed laid when the school song was first created, and the Quishi Society must have existed. Hmm, these things are too ‘chaotic.’ I need to go back and sort them out again. After the exams next week, we’ll go to your hometown to find your grandfather and see if he can explain what happened to me.”

Back in the dormitory, Zhang Chao took out paper and pen, thought for a long time, and wrote down these words:

1. After Bai Qiu and Li Weihao died, I heard their voices in the dormitory. It wasn’t a hallucination.
   • Unsolved.
2. The Bai Qiu I saw wasn’t a hallucination. Whether it was someone in disguise or a ghost, I don’t know.
   • Unsolved.
3. The woman in an ancient costume is a real entity, not a ghost. Whether it’s a person in disguise or something else…
   • Unsolved.
4. The sound of Yue opera being sung on the sixth floor of the School of Medicine is real. The source of the sound…
   • Unsolved.
5. Strange animals, mysterious ghost walls.
   • Unsolved.
6. The reason for my physical weakness.
   • Perhaps spending too much time in contact with “Bai Qiu” damaged my “spirit.”
7. The strange dream in the hotel.
   • Perhaps the damage to my “spirit,” leading to physical weakness, attracted the evil spirits of those who died unjustly in the hotel, causing a nightmare.
8. Hearing “My lord is like the moon in the sky” on the sixth floor of the School of Medicine, and those strange encounters.
   • The woman in an ancient costume appeared, and Bei Bei chased after her. The sensation of fingers “touching” my neck earlier was likely due to attracting the evil spirit on the sixth floor.
9. Encountering a water ghost, almost becoming a substitute.
   • Same as the incident at the hotel, a weak body attracts evil spirits. A strong body naturally deters evil spirits.
10. The dream at the Seventh Hospital.
    • Because my soul was damaged, my body was weak, and I was carrying a piece of ancient clothing—a “rag”—which attracted the evil spirits of those who died unjustly on Tianmushan Road, causing a nightmare. The old man who raised ghost children might have actually used their power to shield me, but it depleted his energy even faster. Seeing the shadow of the ancient woman was due to the rag. Since throwing it away, it hasn’t happened again.
11. After returning to school, I hadn’t encountered any evil spirits.
    • My body had recovered; evil spirits wouldn’t come near.
12. The girl in black might be a member of the Quishi Society, using intimidation to escape and conceal her identity.
13. The girl in black’s attempt to capture the woman in an ancient costume might be for the sake of the students, a concern of the Quishi Society.
14. The Quishi Society truly exists; the alternative interpretation of the school song was the best evidence.
15. The occasional foul odor of Qizhen Lake was the result of the Quishi Society members throwing excrement into it to drive away impurities.
16. The school buildings were arranged in a Heavenly Demon-Binding Array, yet impurities still remain. Perhaps something strange was buried beneath the western swamp. This corroborates the fact that the woman in ancient costume and strange animals all head towards the western swamp.

Writing these things down in his notebook, Zhang Chao breathed a sigh of relief, feeling his thoughts become much clearer. He didn’t know if his guesses were right or wrong, but it was the most reasonable explanation at the moment.

If you told him now that there was no such thing as evil spirits in the world, he definitely wouldn’t believe you. Evil certainly existed, but he didn’t know what form it took or whether it would affect people. Some might just be lurking in the shadows; if you didn’t provoke them, they wouldn’t bother you.

He vaguely felt that although these things seemed unrelated, he always felt they were actually connected.

Staring at his notes, he felt like a detective, but not in the ordinary sense.

~

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“Am I doing this in line with the spirit of the Quishi Society?”

Thinking this, he couldn’t help but smile. He’d heard that most of the people in the Quishi Society were top elites in society; he wondered who they were.

He felt his thoughts were becoming a little clearer, but he’d overlooked two things: both he and Chen Rong had received “urns,” and the black cat, Bei Bei, had been horribly murdered. He hadn’t included either of these in his list.

Turning his head, he thought about how, after his exams next week, he could go to Chen Rong’s hometown; perhaps Chen Rong’s grandfather could answer more of his questions.

Zhang Chao had been to rural areas, but the rural areas around Ningbo were actually small towns, different from true mountain villages. Zhang Chao had never been to the kind of mountain village Chen Rong had described, and it filled him with mystery and curiosity.

He naturally couldn’t think about what might happen there.