Reading guide:
1. Depressed, timid college junior x selfless, cheerful senior
2. Mild horror
The feng shui of senior year bites.
That was the last thing Yu Lianshan thought before she fainted in the auditorium.
She didn't know if she would ever wake up again.
Oh well. It wouldn't matter if she didn't.
Just as she had once desperately wished she could control when she caught a cold or came down with a fever, so she could...
Take a day off and go home.
At least she wouldn't have to lie on the cramped, hard, freezing dorm bed, eat the cafeteria's exquisitely awful food, or stuff stacks of exam papers back into her backpack at eleven at night and rush back to the dorm.
Life like this was a prison, a hell.
Yu Lianshan suddenly opened her eyes and saw the underside of the bunk above her.
What a shame. She hadn't died after all.
Still wearing her school blazer, she was lying on her dorm bed.
"You're awake. Are you all right?" A clear, lovely woman's voice came from beside her ear.
Yu Lianshan froze. She looked up and saw someone sitting inexplicably beside her bed, wearing the same No. 74 Middle School uniform as she was.
"My name is Chi Lian. It's nice to meet you."
Yu Lianshan was still bewildered, but the senior named Chi Lian spoke first:
"Junior, at No. 74 Middle School, always remember that when you see someone, you have to say..."
"Nice to meet you."
"What happens if I don't?" Yu Lianshan asked suspiciously.
The next second, Chi Lian turned around.
She showed half her face to the girl sitting on the opposite bed. She had been staring at Yu Lianshan for so long that she'd forgotten to speak.
Suddenly, a head fell cleanly from its neck and rolled to Yu Lianshan's bedside.
Yu Lianshan sucked in a breath, feeling a chill around her own neck.
She immediately gave the headless senior a sweet smile. "Nice to meet you, senio!"
With the bloody handprint on the wall looking on in silence, she followed Chi Lian along the dormitory hallway she knew so well.
"Am I dead?" she asked timidly, dodging a bloodied weight flying toward her.
"Not entirely. You can come back to life." Chi Lian glanced back and stopped her from pressing the elevator button. "Stay with me. Don't touch anything."
"Lots of things in No. 74 Middle School are disguised as ghosts. The easiest way to tell is to use what you know from your past life..."
"For example, student dormitories don't have elevators."
The next moment, the elevator doors burst open, and two headless corpses waved at them.
"Nice to meet you."
Yu Lianshan obediently greeted the old corpses and escaped disaster.
Chi Lian smiled and recited many more eerie rules:
1. Don't play on the trampoline in the middle of the teaching building.
2. If you hear the Hae Qiong Waltz, don't look around under any circumstances.
3. If someone's stomach hurts, cover her mouth immediately so the butterflies in her stomach don't fly out.
4. ...
Chi Lian had thought that after hearing all these key points, Yu Lianshan would be like the new students she'd guided before: returning safely and completely to reality.
Until one night, they were both dragged to the Academic Affairs Office.
In front of the dean's ghost face, Chi Lian heard Yu Lianshan confess:
"I'm sorry, Dean. I shouldn't have had a puppy love."
Chi Lian froze, unable to believe Yu Lianshan had such intense tastes.
She couldn't understand it. With all these corpse sisters and corpse juniors around, there was no way this adorable junior should have broken the strictest rule in No. 74 Middle School's rulebook:
520. Puppy love is strictly forbidden.
Seeing that her junior was about to be stuck here forever, just like her, Chi Lian immediately elbowed her and said:
"Hey, what are you talking about? You like someone? Who? How could I not know?!"
Yu Lianshan lowered her head and stared at the bloodstained school crest on her chest. After a long while...
"You."
Chi Lian: ?
"I like you. You've always been the one I've liked. For a long time now."
"Fine."
The ghost face across from them suddenly spoke in front of Chi Lian. Its two hollow eyes shifted from Yu Lianshan to her, giving no thought at all to Chi Lian's stunned expression.
In a chilling voice, it said:
"You two are both going to the Dissection Room."
[2026.8.18]
Theme: Cherish life
