I forced my way through the crowd. There were many people in the classroom, including the school doctors. In front of them, a female student appeared to be resting on a table. I moved closer to see the girl more clearly. Exactly as I expected, her chest was moving up and down.

Next to this seemingly sleeping girl was another girl, who appeared to be her friend. The makeup on her face was smudged. She was crying, shaking the sleeping girl, “Wake up, Xuetao! Wake up, please. Why are you sleeping!? You can’t die! Wake up and talk to me!”

The sleeping girl gave no response no matter how her friend shook her.

“Excuse me, let me through.” Before I noticed, Wen Jiubo had already stepped into the classroom. He gently pushed through some students in front of him and walked into the classroom. He then began to talk to a nearby teacher.

“What happened here?” asked Wen Jiubo. “I’m the lecturer for Ancient Chinese Language.”

The teacher was still in shock, so Wen Jiubo startled him. It took him a few seconds to respond, “Uh, well.. A student said a girl was sleeping during individual study time and she wouldn’t wake up. And.. and when we arrived, we found her like this..”

The look on Wen Jiubo’s face became sullen, he whispered, “Did her heart stop?”

That teacher nodded, though it seemed that was tough for him to accept that fact.

A school doctor began to talk, “At first, we thought she was in a coma, so we administered some first aid, but none of it had any effect. It has been at least half an hour since we found her ‘fallen asleep.’ Her heart has stopped, but she is still breathing..”

“Did you call the ambulance and the police?” Wen Jiubo bent down and grabbed the girl’s wrist to see if he could feel her pulse. Judging from his look, he didn’t find anything.

The teacher nodded. “They’re on their way, they should be here any minute.”

As soon as the teacher finished his sentence, we heard sirens in the distance. The teachers fell silent before they began to drive away the increasing crowd of students that stood outside the classroom.

“Okay! All of you leave the classroom now. Leave, please! Hurry up, go back to your dorms! Do you hear me?”

“She might be in a coma,” I heard Shi Yitong muttering. “She’ll be saved if we send her to a hospital.”

“If you believed that, you wouldn’t have called me so quickly,” I whispered. My words clearly affected him because he then looked even more depressed.

“Gu Yu, our school is cursed by an evil spirit!” Di Yizhen said as he forced his way to me. I smelled cigarettes and alcohol on him. They were supposed to drink through the night and have fun, but instead, what happened tonight was stressing them out.

Among them, the look on Zhou Lang’s face was the worst. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had drunk too much or something else. He squeezed through the crowd at some point and grabbed my arm. I was startled and looked back.

“Gu Yu, can I talk to you?”

He seemed drunk. I never like the odor of alcohol, and he reeked of it.

“Dorm Head, can you take Zhou Lang back?” I turned around and looked at Di Zizhen, the smell of alcohol on him was much lighter. “He’s drunk.”

Di Zizhen nodded but hesitated a little. “But if I leave you here alone..”

“I’m fine, don’t I have Shi Yitong with me?” I tried to ease his conscience, “Besides, my ‘boss’ is here too. Don’t worry.”

“Uh? Your boss?” Di Zizhen didn’t understand.

I laughed out loud and tipped him off with a quick glance at Wen Jiubo, “Did I tell you his name? His surname is Wen, his given name is Jiubo.”

Di Zizhen’s mouth opened so wide that I could almost put an apple inside. He remained that way for a few seconds. “You.. Are you kidding? You mean, Wen Jiubo? Our teacher for Ancient Chinese Language?”

I found Di Zizhen’s face quite amusing. I nodded. “Yup, it’s him.”

“Damn, no wonder this teacher talked about the supernatural in his first lecture, I see it now!” Di Zizhen said in surprise. “Professor Wen is your boss!”

I smiled at him and nodded. “He is here to help, so don’t worry.”

Di Zizhen nodded. “Alright, then I’ll take Zhou Lang back to the dorm. Be safe.”

I nodded before turning around and peeking back into the classroom; Wen Jiubo was still talking to that teacher. The friend of the victim stood helplessly, watching as emergency workers took the almost lifeless body away.

Should I talk to her? Maybe she can tell me something useful. But before I could move, someone suddenly grabbed me by the arm again. I looked back and saw Zhou Lang, who was swaying a bit.

Zhou Lang was obstinate, he got hold of me and stammered, “Gu..Gu Yu, you listen to me, I have something important to tell you, something really important..”

Di Zizhen sighed, he grasped Zhou Lang’s arm and pulled him away from me. He spoke to Zhou Lang like he was a little child, “Alright, alright. We can talk about it tomorrow. Let’s go back to the dorm.”

“Oh..”

I stopped paying attention to the two. The emergency services had arrived and all the rest of the students were driven away by the police and the teachers. I saw the girl with swollen eyes coming out of the classroom, so I walked towards her.

“Hey.” I took out a tissue from my pocket and gave it to her. “You should wipe your tears. You won’t look beautiful with swollen eyes.”

The girl was a little confused, but she took the tissue and wiped away her tears, whispering, “Thanks.”

“I’m Gu Yu, majoring in Chinese Language,” I introduced myself to her. “What about you?”

“Journalism, Jiang Ping,” she sniffled.

“That girl.. is your friend?” I tried asking.

Jiang Ping nodded and then her tears resumed, “She’s my roommate, her name is Li Xuetao. She’s.. my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend?” Though I was a little surprised, I continued, “When did she..em, become like this?”

“Tonight we came here to study. At around eight o’clock, she said she felt sleepy and needed to take a nap, so she rested on the table.” Jiang Ping wiped away some tears. “At about nine o’clock, I finished my homework, so I wanted to wake her up and head back, but no matter how hard I tried, she just didn’t wake up. I was told her heart stopped beating, but I think she was still breathing, I swear she still had breath!”