A Good-for-Nothing

106. A Diary (2)

 

Translator: Dragon Rider

 

Zu Zhichong fished two Anti-ghost Fu out of his pocket, handed one of them to He Zheng and the other to Qin Huai. Then he walked towards the desk. “You two stay where you are. Cutie, tell me where the source of the black gas is. Is it on the surface of the desk?”

He Zheng squinted his eyes to make his gaze more intent and then gave Qin Huai a pull. “Stay close to me.”

Then he cocked an eye at the desk. Though there was black gas on the desk, it was not very clear, and the color of it was light. “No. It seems to be in a drawer.”

The desk had three drawers. The one in the middle was used for containing the keyboard of a computer, and the two on the sides personal belongings. All three drawers were shrouded in black gas. Zu Zhichong first opened one of them and saw an empty leather bag inside, a handbag of a very simple style. “A handbag? Is there anything strange about this?” he asked.

“Yeah! There’s black gas on it!” He Zheng yelled as Zu Zhichong picked up the handbag.

Zu Zhichong didn’t notice anything suspicious, but he did find an exercise book. The handbag was covered in black gas, and the gas in the drawer was much thinner.

Then he opened another drawer. It was empty. There was nothing inside.

The one in the middle was the only one left. The gas around it was as black as ink. Zu Zhichong and Qin Huai couldn’t see it, but He Zheng was seeing it distinctly. The pitch-black gas was so thick that it seemed to be solidifying, as if dark red blood was about to ooze out of it.

Zu Zhichong gingerly opened the drawer in the middle and saw that there were a black external keyboard and a little diary about the size of Zu Zhichong’s palm.

He Zheng widened his eyes.

Though He Zheng had not said anything, Zu Zhichong could still tell that there was something wrong with this diary. It was uncommonly icy, and he felt as if it possessed the power to control his mind. As he held the diary in his hand, numerous dark, negative emotions started surging inside him.

Zu Zhichong quickly incanted a Spell of Purification, stuck a yellow Fu on the diary and another on the handbag. He Zheng saw that all black gas was “forced” back into these two items immediately after Zu Zhichong did this.

“The black gas… is gone,” He Zheng murmured. This was the first time that he had felt the black gas so distinctly.

Zu Zhichong had an austere look on his face. With a Fu stuck on it, the diary was much safer. He beckoned He Zheng and Qin Huai over with a wave.

“Does this diary have the thickest black gas around it?”

“Yeah.” He Zheng inclined his head. Qin Huai felt that this office had become a lot more comfortable after what Zu Zhichong had just done.

Zu Zhichong opened the diary and was greeted by a name – Liu Lanxue, which was that female teacher’s name. The handwriting was elegant, neat and quite pleasing to the eye.

February 13rd. Wednesday. Sunny. This is the forty-third day after I was put in charge of Class 305 of the twelfth grade. There’s still a lot of room for improvement in my work. I need to communicate more with students in this class. PS: Some of them don’t seem to like their new class teacher. Xu Tianhao in particular made it rather clear.

February 15th. Friday. Sunny. Today we had two meetings summarizing problems found in our work, which were quite enlightening. Tonight, in a self-study session, some students sneaked out to play video games. I brought them back and informed their parents. Xu Tianhao was extremely angry and threatened to have me beaten up. I told this to his parents.

March 15th. Tuesday. Cloudy. Today’s weather has been a perfect reflection of my mood. After reviewing my management of this class, I found that I failed to apply what I’d learned in college to my work. Xu Tianhao handed in a blank test paper in this mock examination. The average score of Chinese of my class ranked dead last in the grade. I received a warning.

A few pages in the middle were missing. The marks made it very clear that someone had roughly torn the pages off with great force.

After the few missing pages, contents of the diary became gloomy. Rather than recording what she had learned from work, the teacher had been purely venting her negative feelings.

April 10th. Monday. Cloudy. Xu Tianhao’s parents came to make trouble. The principal had me apologize. I even had evidence that Xu Tianhao stole the money, but the principal still refused to believe me. It’s not me who did the wrong thing, but it’s me who ended up apologizing.

April 11th. Tuesday. Rainy. I’m an unworthy teacher, an incompetent educator. I betrayed myself, betrayed the glorious cause of teaching. I was forced into kneeling before a child, a student of mine! How pathetic! How lamentable! Why didn’t I just kill myself?!

He Zheng and Zu Zhichong exchanged glances as warning bells began to ring in their heads.

April 12th. Wednesday. Rainy. It’s all over now.

April 12th was the day before.

Xu Tianhao died the day before.

‘Why did Xu Tianhao’s ghost come back to haunt Qin Huai’s niece? Why did this female teacher kill Xu Tianhao?’ They felt that they were closer to the truth after recalling Vice-principal Wu’s account of the incident and reading this diary.

“I think… maybe we need to pay a visit to the detention house,” Qin Huai remarked in a somewhat hoarse voice and took his eyes off the diary. They had no idea what kind of person Liu Lanxue was, and neither did they know what kind of person Xu Tianhao had been. Xu Tianhao was already dead, which meant that they needed to gather information from various sources to make an accurate judgement.

The hope of them dashed to pieces.

As they walked out of the office, Zu Zhichong received a phone call from Luo Zhou. On the other end of the phone, Luo Zhou informed him, “Liu Lanxue died.”

Liu Lanxue was dead.

Xu Tianhao was dead as well.

Zu Zhichong’s heart sank. As things stood, it seemed as if an invisible hand had just forcibly nipped off their last possible lead.

‘Exactly what is the truth?’