Chapter 28: Spook High (28)
Qin Fu’an tilted his head toward the class schedule posted on the peeling white wall next to the blackboard.
The paper was mottled with dark crimson bloodstains, yet beneath the dried gore, crisp lines of text began to surface once the morning bell rang.
In the slot for the first period’s instructor, Qin Fu’an’s name was printed in clear, bold strokes.
Beyond that, he had lectures scheduled across several senior classes throughout the day—a timetable officially assigned to him by the administration before he had gone to bed the night before.
Confirming from the roster that he had completely broken free from the “student” status, Qin Fu’an set the bulging shopping bags packed with snacks onto the podium.
Standing tall on the raised platform, his pale green eyes swept over every hungry, expectant face in the room.
“Zhao Jiayue, Chen Qi, Yake, Bai Song.” Qin Fu’an called out the names of the four players in an even voice. As they pushed back their chairs in bewilderment, he instructed them, “Come up here and distribute the snacks to everyone.”
The moment the words fell, the classroom plunged into a wave of hushed, excited commotion.
Yet even in their excitement, the noise remained tightly suppressed within the four walls, laced with tense, cautious restraint.
While the four players handed out the snacks, Qin Fu’an retrieved several jars of honey and set them down in a row on the lectern.
“Last night, I gave you my word: any student who took down a monster and passed the exam would get honey water today.”
Meeting the burning, wide-eyed stares of the children, and catching sight of the black tentacles pressed against the corridor windows peering hungrily inside, the sharp, unapproachable edge around Qin Fu’an’s eyes softened a fraction.
“So across the ten classes that sat for the exam last night, every class gets a full jar of honey.”
The second he finished speaking, muffled cheers and gleeful murmurs rippled across the desks.
Those deathly pale, numb faces broke into brilliant, lively smiles indistinguishable from living mortals, suddenly brimming with the vibrant energy unique to youth.
That restless, bubbling joy surged freely throughout the entire room. Yet as the sole architect of this happiness, Qin Fu’an showed no surprise at the children’s emotional turnaround.
In his eyes, human or aberration, ghost or demon—as long as a creature understood human speech and possessed the faculties to think and converse, it was an ordinary, rational living being.
These uniformed, downtrodden students were simply a bunch of wretched kids who had been bullied with nowhere to turn, harboring a few psychological scars after bottling up their grievances for far too long.
Rearing children and pacifying brats was simpler to Qin Fu’an than breathing.
Yet to the students of Grade 12, Class 4, Qin Fu’an was the very first ray of light they had ever touched across an eternity of numb, suffocating dark.
Bright, scorching, unapologetic, and fiercely infectious.
“Teacher Qin, can we be your students forever?” a kid clutching its ration of snacks asked timidly, gathering the courage to lift its head.
The instant the question was voiced, the murmuring class fell dead silent. Row after row of pale, youthful faces tilted upward toward Qin Fu’an in unison, like little sunflowers turning toward the morning sun.
In a silence where a dropped pin would sound like thunder, the air was no longer thick with suffocating dread.
On the contrary, looking down from the lectern, Qin Fu’an could read the tangle of raw longing and anxiety pooling in their eyes. They yearned for his answer, yet dreaded hearing it just as much.
Qin Fu’an cast a cool glance at the student who had spoken. Just as the child’s eyes wavered, threatening to dart away, he knit his brows slightly, his clear, resonant voice cutting through the stillness with absolute clarity.
“What, you don’t want to graduate? You’re planning to stay behind and repeat your senior year?” He snapped the textbook shut. Even clad in the same blue-and-white tracksuit as the youths, his words carried the unmistakable, imposing gravity of an instructor.
Following his sharp retort, the student who had spoken and the rest of the class—players included—hurriedly dropped their heads in unison, avoiding his gaze in sheer panic.
The sprawling room remained utterly soundless.
Qin Fu’an was thoroughly satisfied with their wholesome dread of him.
He rapped the wooden pointer lightly against the lectern twice. Once the children obediently lifted their gazes, he propped an arm against the edge of the podium, his stern aura evaporating as he slipped back into his easy, indolent posture.
“Consider this a warning: any student taught by me who can’t even clear a simple exam like the Gaokao had better pray they don’t have the misfortune of landing in my class when they repeat next year.”
He delivered the words like an offhand remark, his languid tone masking the lethal weight behind the threat.
Yet neither mortal nor ghost dared treat his warning as idle air.
Watching the student aberrations sit ramrod straight, burying their noses in their textbooks in a frantic bid to study, the livestream chat erupted into an endless barrage of question marks.
[I heard the threat loud and clear, but isn’t the streamer a player?! He’s leaving the second the trial ends! How can he threaten a room full of monsters with a straight face?!]
[Aren’t the four players the most unhinged part of this? They know he’s a player too! What are they terrified of?! If you fail, you die; if you pass, you’ll never see him again anyway! So why are they sitting straighter than the ghosts?! Why is their study ethic more disciplined than a real-life Gaokao candidate’s?! Did their brains get fried from studying?!]
[Make way, make way! As the streamer’s royal interpreter, allow me to decode his parting words: Advancement rates are tied directly to my salary and performance bonuses. If any of you dare fail and drag down my payout, you’d better pray you’re pulverized clean down to ashes—otherwise, I’ll find a hundred different ways to scatter your remains.]
[…To the guy above: are you being for real???]
[Damn it all, reading that translation, I genuinely believe that’s what he meant! He wasn’t encouraging them to study hard at all; he was literally threatening those entities into getting high marks!]
[Wait, did I miss something? How did the interpreter deduce this was about bonuses and pay? He didn’t say a single word about money!]
[To the guy before me: last night when the school issued his official teacher credentials, the streamer’s eyes lingered on the salary and bonus section for about two whole seconds.]
[…I’m sick of saying the word absurd. I was just basking in the heartwarming, wholesome bond between teacher and students, and then the streamer goes and ruins the mood like a pro.]
[No, I still can’t wrap my head around why those four players act like terrified mice around him! He’s only marginally stronger than them—stepping up to close the gap is the logical move!]
[Heh, I came from Chen Qi’s stream, but I’ve been parked here for a full day. Want to know why? Go watch her POV and you’ll understand.]
[What a coincidence, I’m from Yake’s channel.]
[Same here, just hopped over from Bai Song’s…]
Qin Fu’an ignored the tangled mess scrolling across his floating chat, brushing it aside as usual. When the dismissal bell rang, he sent the four players off to deliver the remaining snacks and jars of honey to the other senior classes.
Outside the windows, the cluster of tentacles watched the food dwindling on the podium, bit by bit…
When the final jar of honey was carried away, they bundled together and burst into a chorus of pitiful wails.
Wahhh, so much delicious food, not a single bite left for us, we’re starving, starving, starving~
Sniffling, they babbled among themselves, wondering if they had provoked Qin Fu’an the night before. One comment led to another until an argument broke out, culminating in a messy, squabbling brawl as they wrestled in a tangled heap.
Watching the mass of black tendrils writhing outside the glass like a knotted ball of yarn, Qin Fu’an’s silence was deafening.
He walked back to his seat. Amid his little deskmate’s cool, aloof silence, he reached into his tracksuit pockets, pulling out item after item and shoving them straight into Xie Yunhuai’s desk compartment.
Honey, hard candies, biscuits, milk…
From the moment Qin Fu’an shoved the first jar of honey into the desk, Xie Yunhuai could no longer concentrate on his worksheet.
He fought to rein in his gaze, yet from the corner of his eye, he could see Qin Fu’an relentlessly stuffing treats into the compartment.
Then, a round candy tumbled out from the crammed drawer, landing squarely on his thigh.
It was a featherlight piece of candy, barely registering against the fabric of his trousers, yet it struck his heart like a soft, heavy mallet.
His breath hitched. Before his mind could catch up, his body moved on instinct, snapping his knees together to catch the falling sweet.
“…” Freezing solid beneath the unreadable gaze beside him, he turned his head with excruciating stiffness.
Their eyes met. Qin Fu’an arched an amused brow, leaning in close to the boy’s ear to murmur in a slow, intimate drawl: “Student Xie, do you know what your soul fragments were gossiping about just now?”
Having completely forgotten about the soul fragments, Xie Yunhuai’s dark eyes went wide under Qin Fu’an’s stare. He shrank back in confusion, his neck tingling from the warm breath brushing his skin.
Like a dazed, startled cat that had been cornered, too slow to react.
Yet even as Xie Yunhuai tried desperately to shrink his presence and retreat into the wall, Qin Fu’an showed no mercy.
Right before Xie Yunhuai and his spectral tendrils, the shameless tattletale began reciting their secret thoughts aloud:
“Why is he handing out treats to everyone else and not me? I fought hard killing monsters last night too~”
“Is that jelly? Only toddlers eat fruit jelly.”
“Qin Fu’an is so annoying. I’m never being his deskmate again.”
“Wait, no, Qin Fu’an can only be a teacher next time… Qin Fu’an is even more annoying now!”
“I’m never listening to Qin Fu’an’s strange words again. He only lies. He never lies to anyone else, he only tricks me…”
“I hate Qin Fu’an.”
Staring at the youth curling tightly into a defensive ball, Qin Fu’an reached out with deliberate mischief, brushing his fingertip against the burning crimson of the boy’s earlobe. As Xie Yunhuai flinched away, Qin Fu’an aired his grievances with an air of pure innocence: “Student Xie, in the span of a single class period, you secretly hated me seventeen times in your heart. I feel terribly wronged, don’t you think?”
Don’t you think?
Don’t you…
You…
Xie Yunhuai’s eyes had flushed red without him realizing it. Overwhelmed by agonizing embarrassment, physiological tears pooled along his lower lids, misting his clear, dark pupils behind a shimmering veil, leaving his lashes wet with damp moisture.
The boy had clearly never faced a situation this mortifying in all his cycles. Resembling a boiled prawn, he wedged himself into the narrow gap between his desk and the wall, wishing he could turn into a paper-thin sticker and slide down the plaster, escaping Qin Fu’an’s suffocating proximity entirely.
Unfortunately, the man cornering him was rotten to the core. Far from relenting, Qin Fu’an drank in the sight of the boy’s flustered distress with open relish, tilting his head to lean in another fraction closer.
Warm breath brushed against the sensitive shell of the boy’s ear once more, accompanied by Qin Fu’an’s low, smothered chuckle:
“Student Xie, your heart suddenly went quiet. Tell me, do you have anything to say to the ‘annoying’ me?”
He cocked his head, feigning an attitude of rapt attention.
Xie Yunhuai: “…”
His heart had long since lost all steady rhythm, his mind blank and paralyzed. Beyond an instinctive retreat, he couldn’t formulate a single syllable to defend himself.
Cornered into offering a response, Xie Yunhuai wrestled with his frayed nerves. After an agonizing silence, he dropped his chin to avoid Qin Fu’an’s eyes, squeezing out a tiny, muffled murmur.
It was so soft that had Qin Fu’an’s hearing not been exceptional, he would have missed his little deskmate’s pitiful, trembling apology: “…I’m sorry.”
It seemed he had teased the boy a bit too hard. Watching Xie Yunhuai squeeze his eyes shut to shut out reality, Qin Fu’an reflected on his actions while peeling open a wrapper, pressing the sweet directly against the youth’s tightly pursed lips with a low laugh.
“Here. You’re forgiven.”
The next second, Xie Yunhuai obediently parted his lips and took the candy.
Qin Fu’an didn’t spend the entire ten-minute break tormenting the kid. Having fed him a sweet, he went back to fishing items from his pockets.
The desk compartment was already overflowing. Tasting the rich sweetness spreading across his tongue, Xie Yunhuai opened his mouth to stop him, only to watch Qin Fu’an pull out a familiar object like a stage magician.
The toy bubble blower he had used the previous night.
Xie Yunhuai froze, staring at Qin Fu’an through misty, uncomprehending eyes.
Hadn’t it been returned?
“Did you steal it?” Panic seized him instantly. His voice dropped to a frantic whisper, his posture screaming paranoid terror of being caught.
He looked so guilty that anyone glancing his way would have sworn he had just pulled off a heist himself.
Qin Fu’an couldn’t hold back his amusement any longer. Genuine, radiant laughter spilled across his handsome features as he reached out and gave Xie Yunhuai’s dazed head a firm pat.
“What are you scared of? I bought it with my own money.”
For once, he acted like a decent human being, refusing to provoke Xie Yunhuai’s anxiety any further.
Xie Yunhuai let out a breath of relief. Once the tension drained away, he belatedly clutched the toy pressed into his lap, realizing that Qin Fu’an had gone out of his way to buy it specifically for him.
It wasn’t a standard snack handed out to the rest of the student body.
It was a toy meant for Xie Yunhuai alone.
“…Thank you.”
Cradling the plastic toy, Xie Yunhuai fixed his dark, earnest eyes onto Qin Fu’an.
He looked remarkably obedient.
And so, Qin Fu’an couldn’t resist giving his head another affectionate pat.
Having navigated the chaos of the first day, the players—now acclimatized to the instance’s rhythm and backed by the formidable shield of Qin Fu’an’s faculty status—cruised smoothly through their second day until nightfall arrived.
“We had that brutal physical exam yesterday; there shouldn’t be another one tonight, right?” Walking back to the classroom after dinner, Yake grimaced at the memory of the previous night’s massacre.
Yet what lingered most vividly in his mind was the image of Qin Fu’an after slaying Nan Zhu.
Who could comprehend the horror of speaking with someone one minute, finding no trace of their corpse the next, only for the killer to leisurely ask if you had any thoughts on the matter?
Yake had suffered nightmares all night. In his sleep, even the dormitory walls sprouted slitted green eyes identical to Qin Fu’an’s, smiling down at him with unblinking scrutiny.
He had jolted awake three times, eventually spending the remaining hours staring at the ceiling until dawn broke.
Bai Song shook his head. “We’ll find out soon enough. Let’s just pray it isn’t an exam designed for a total party wipe.”
Yake choked, shooting him a glare, secretly relieved that the man had never exhibited any jinxing traits.
Chen Qi and Zhao Jiayue walked alongside them in silence.
Facing the encroaching dark, anxiety was inevitable, yet knowing Qin Fu’an was around brought an unshakeable thread of reassurance.
He hadn’t extended excessive charity to them, yet miraculously, the mere thought of his presence anchored their nerves.
Come to think of it, the name Qin Fu’an sounded rather comforting.
Strolling back to the room, the desks that had been packed full the day before were now occupied by fewer than twenty students.
The room was quiet, yet unlike yesterday’s suffocating stillness, tonight’s quiet felt more like a calm, resigned readiness.
Whatever horror lay in wait, neither the players nor the students carried the paralyzing terror of the night before.
Amid the quiet vigil, time trickled away until the familiar chimes of the bell broke the silence.
Yet… the unexpected unfolded before their eyes.
The sharp, rhythmic clack-clack of high heels striking the floorboards approached once more.
The agonizing pressure seized their chests anew, forcing everyone to double over with bloodless faces, groaning through clenched teeth.
The silky, melodious voice drifted across the school grounds:
“Good evening, students. I am your proctor for tonight’s examination.”
“Please remain in your respective seats to review your materials and prepare diligently for the Gaokao.”
“No disruptions. No loud noises.”
“Tonight is a Silent Night.”
“…”
The voice faded into the wind.
The footsteps receded into the distance.
The students braced for battle exchanged bewildered glances, unable to believe what their ears had just processed.
“…A Silent Night?” Xie Yunhuai murmured the words blankly, as if struggling to comprehend their meaning.
Qin Fu’an was equally surprised. By his prior calculations, following the physical exam, the remaining subjects should have covered Chinese, Mathematics, English, and either the Humanities or Sciences composite—neatly spanning five days, five evening self-study blocks, and five examinations.
Why had tonight abruptly transformed into a “Silent Night”?
Where had the deviation occurred?
Or had he overlooked a critical detail?
A slender pen spun fluidly through Qin Fu’an’s long fingers. His brow creased slightly as he weighed the variables, only to realize that countless gazes in the room had settled onto him.
Qin Fu’an looked up in mild surprise, meeting a sea of hesitant, unsettled eyes.
“…What are you all staring at me for?” Setting the pen down, he arched an amused brow. “Don’t tell me you dislike a peaceful night and want something thrilling instead?”
The children flinched, shaking their heads with frantic vigor.
“Focus on your books. If you can’t read, sit quietly and entertain yourselves.”
Hearing this, the children nodded in obedient unison once more.
Identical and neatly synchronized, like carbon copies.
Qin Fu’an chuckled softly, lowering his head to begin drafting tomorrow’s lesson plans for his other classes.
As for why tonight was designated a Silent Night?
As long as it was peaceful, that was all that mattered.
Amid the students’ bewildered apprehension, two hours slipped by in the blink of an eye.
A Silent Night truly proved to be just that.
No mangled horrors prowled the halls, no cannibalistic teachers hunted for flesh, and no students turned upon one another…
Across the entire campus, only the howling winter wind broke the quiet. Bathed in the fluorescent glow of the classroom, the aberrant students reading their textbooks looked no different from ordinary scholars studying late into the night in the mortal world.
Tonight was truly a peaceful night.
Lying on the hard wooden slats of his bunk, Qin Fu’an closed his eyes, systematically reviewing every scene and detail since entering the trial.
School rules, class codes, students, faculty…
Reaching a specific memory, his train of thought paused.
The Principal… What did the Principal standing on the raised stage—and the entities flanking him—actually look like?
Qin Fu’an suddenly realized that his memory of them was blank. He had seen them clearly only yesterday, yet it felt as though an invisible hand had quietly scrubbed their features from his mind, leaving behind only smooth, blurred voids where their faces should have been.
Something was wrong.
His eyes snapped open in the pitch-black darkness. Raising his voice across the room, he called out to the other occupant: “Student Xie, do you know the Principal’s name?”
Xie Yunhuai had likely drifted off; Qin Fu’an’s inquiry hung unanswered in the dark for a long while.
Qin Fu’an didn’t press him, waiting patiently while turning the anomaly over in his head.
After several seconds, the youth’s drowsy, bewildered voice drifted through the shadows: “I… don’t remember?”
The confusion in his tone was palpable. While the memories of his endless loops remained razor-sharp, why couldn’t he recall the Principal’s name or appearance?
Qin Fu’an wasn’t surprised by the answer.
Giving a soft grunt of acknowledgment, he sank back into thought.
Yet before long, Xie Yunhuai’s voice broke the silence once more.
Veiled in the thick of the night, it was impossible to discern the emotion behind his words.
“Qin Fu’an.”
He enunciated each syllable of Qin Fu’an’s name with pristine clarity, pausing a beat before murmuring, “Will you be a teacher here forever?”
Qin Fu’an lifted his gaze, looking through the darkness toward the neighboring bunk.
An identical question had been asked by the other students of Grade 12, Class 4 only that morning.
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