Chapter 12 (Principal Wang)

At first, I didn't understand what she meant and asked, "Are you sobering up now?"

Then, Xu Nuo sent me an angry emoji and told me to stop changing the subject. She asked me again if I had a girlfriend.

I was completely confused and said, "Are you crazy? If I had a girlfriend, would I be chatting with you every night?"

Xu Nuo told me to keep making things up and insisted that her friend had seen me last night in the hallway, hugging a girl and even making her cry.

That's when it hit me—she was talking about Yingying. This also proved that I wasn't hallucinating. All these eerie events were real.

My emotions were all over the place. If Yingying wasn't a figment of my imagination, then I could see her again. But if what she said was true, what was I supposed to do? Helping lost souls move on? How was I supposed to do that? I couldn't even help myself.

I glanced at the Bodhisattva painting on the wall and couldn't help but imagine myself waking up in the middle of the night, opening my eyes to see a ghostly face staring back at me. Who the hell could handle that kind of horror?

Suddenly, I remembered the jade pendant. Yingying had specifically told me to keep it on me at all times. I reached into my pocket, but it was gone. I panicked and searched frantically until I noticed it hanging around my neck.

Looking closely, I realized that the string used to hang it wasn't an ordinary thread—it seemed to be woven from hair. Could it be Yingying's hair?

Since I hadn't responded for a while, Xu Nuo bombarded me with a bunch of emojis. My mind was a mess, so I simply told her, "You're overthinking. Yingying and I are just ordinary friends."

Then she asked, "Yingying? Which Yingying? Gu Yan, are you possessed or something?"

I replied, "You're the one who's possessed. We're talking about two different Yingyings. I asked her about it last night. Stop trying to scare me."

Xu Nuo told me to wait—she had something to show me.

I waited a few minutes but heard nothing from her, so I went to wash my face. When I came back and checked my phone, she had sent me a photo and a link.

She asked, "Is this her?"

I opened the photo—it was a selfie of Yingying. Then I clicked on the link, and the more I read, the colder I felt inside.

It was a news article. The headline read: Female University Student in Hecheng Dies in a Car Accident—The Cause Was…

I scrolled down and saw the details: A female student had an argument with her boyfriend, ran out of the campus in the middle of the night, and was hit by a drunk driver while trying to hail a cab. She was rushed to the hospital but didn't survive.

It was exactly the same story Xu Nuo had told me.

At the bottom of the article was a photo. Her eyes were blurred out, but I could still recognize her—it was Yingying.

Her full name was Shen Mengying.

I was completely dumbfounded. What the hell was going on?

I immediately messaged Xu Nuo, "That's impossible. I just saw her last night! And your friend saw her too! This article must be wrong, right?"

Xu Nuo responded, "No way. The whole school knows about this. The dormitory supervisor was even fired because of it, and the school compensated her family. How could it be wrong?"

I felt like I had been struck by lightning and just stood there in a daze.

If this article was correct, then the Yingying I met last night really wasn't human?

But she had a heartbeat. How could a ghost have a heartbeat? That completely defied common sense.

Then I recalled what Yingying had said last night: I'm not really me, and you're not really you. I'm just like you.

What the hell did that mean?

Since I had been silent for a while, Xu Nuo suggested, "Didn't you say you know the principal? If you don't believe me, why don't you ask him? That'll clear things up."

Her words suddenly reminded me—yeah, the principal must know about this.

I told her, "Alright, I'll ask him when he comes in at seven."

Xu Nuo said, "Good. Let me know what he says. I'm really curious." Then she mentioned she was still hungover and wanted to sleep a bit more. Before signing off, she joked about paying me back for the hotel room last night, but I declined.

I waited until almost 8 AM. As soon as the duty teacher arrived, I rushed to the principal's office.

I wanted to ask him about Yingying, but more than that, I needed to know why he had tricked me into hanging that painting.

At first, I tried to rationalize it. Maybe the first dormitory had too many incidents, and it was hard to hire staff, so he wanted to trap me here. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Even if he wanted me to stay, this was too extreme.

Something was definitely off. The principal knew something.

When I reached the security room, I ran into the janitor lady.

I asked her, "Has Principal Wang arrived?"

She was quite friendly and replied, "He just got in. You can go straight to the second floor to find him."

I was stunned. "Wait, isn't Principal Wang's office on the fifth floor? What's he doing on the second floor?"

The janitor looked puzzled. "Are you confused? His office has always been on the second floor, Room 201. Are you a student or a teacher? I've never seen you before."

I ignored her question and pressed on. "Are you sure you're not mistaken? I clearly remember his office being in Room 505 on the fifth floor."

She gave me a strange look and said, "I'm sure. I clean his office every day. How could I get it wrong?"

I was completely baffled. Did he move offices?

Without saying more, I rushed to the second floor.

Sure enough, Room 201 had a sign that said Principal's Office.

But the moment I pushed the door open, I knew something was wrong.

Behind the desk sat an elderly woman, nearly sixty, wearing glasses and looking rather thin.

This wasn't Principal Wang.

She looked just as surprised to see me barge in. "Who are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for Principal Wang. Who are you?" I asked.

She replied, "I'm Principal Wang."

I was stunned. "That's impossible. Principal Wang is a middle-aged man, around forty, with a bit of a bald spot. Are there two Principal Wangs in this school?"

Seeing how confused I was, the janitor from earlier came up and called out, "Principal Wang, this young man says he's looking for you."

I was utterly dumbfounded.

Then the woman in the office patted her forehead and said, "Oh, I see."

She looked at me and explained, "Young man, I'm the principal of this school. My name is Wang Shufen. The person you're talking about—the one upstairs—is probably our head of logistics, Director He."