It seems like Yu draws ghosts to him even though he can’t see them like Yu Yin does...wonder if it’s because of his history?

Translated by: TaffyGirl13

Chapter Four

Of course, Yu Yin didn’t prevail in the end.

It was a new morning, just after the day they had paid a visit to Yan Si.

“So troublesome, as soon as one is dealt with, another pops up.”

It was still early. The four members of the Yu family were all gathered at the dining table to eat, when one person suddenly let out this complaint.

This morning, Yu Xia’s expression was extremely unsightly, as if someone owed him millions of dollars. Even Yu Tong didn’t attempt to tease him casually.

“That’s right, Ah Yin, this is the thing you borrowed from Ah Si; he pa.s.sed it over to me last night. But when I came home, you had already gone to sleep, so I didn’t give it to you earlier.” Yu Tong pa.s.sed over a bag of doc.u.ments with a smiling expression that was completely opposite from his twin brother’s expression. “What did you borrow from Ah Si?”

“Oh, just some reference materials.” Having been severely reprimanded after the leopard cat incident last time, Yu Yin didn’t dare to reveal anything. He put the bag of doc.u.ments away and said, “The school is going to test English soon. I figured that since he graduated from a medical school, he would know a good deal, so I asked if I could borrow some reference materials...”

If Uncle knew he had borrowed some doc.u.ments regarding the headless corpse case, he would definitely hear an earful.

“How come I don’t see you studying even though you have a test coming up?” Yu Tong raised an eyebrow. “And the school is starting tests now?”

Of course not!

“Oh...the teacher just gave us a little quiz, don’t worry about it,” Yu Yin hurriedly added.

His dad stared at him with an expression of suspicion.

“That’s right, Uncle, what did you mean just now when you said ‘as soon as one is dealt with, another pops up’?” Change the topic, change the topic, don’t let them start questioning the doc.u.ments.

Yu Xia glanced at him and snorted, “The headless corpse case in Taichung City.”

“Huh? Is that a district under your jurisdiction?” Crossing boundaries?

“Some things that were found next to the headless corpse belonged to our area, so the investigation group for Taichung City...well, actually, Taichung County, asked us to cross over and help. Since your Uncle just completed the case from last month, he’s temporarily more free and was dispatched as support,” Yu Tong explained on behalf of his brother in light spirits.

Coincidence?

Well, I guess it’s not that strange. It’s just crossing over to another district. Last time, Dad stepped over from Taichung to the East side too and was kept out there for over half a month before he could return. The incident this time is barely anything in comparison.

“Driving back and forth takes over an hour!” Yu Xia’s expression was extremely ugly. Just thinking about driving around in circles and even having to climb up slopes seemed to be a huge pain.

“Just think about it as an exercise. And isn’t roaming around outside pretty nice?” Yu Yin said with a smile as he took a bowl of soup.

“So senseless.” Since most cases where he was dispatched as support were never any good, Yu Xia suddenly felt that it would be better to find a scapegoat to send off in his place instead.

That’s right, finding any random newbie to their death would work...

“Ah Yin, you still need to go back to the school for cla.s.s next week right?” Yu Tong continued to eat elegantly, completely ignoring the evil expression that had appeared on his twin brother’s face.

“Mm, yeah.” Yu Yin glanced at the expressionless Yu by his side and nodded. “I want to ask Yu to come help; those little devils are beyond infuriating. It would be good to draw their attention elsewhere for a bit.” Moreover, he was going to get them to make something more complicated next time, so he’d be much too hung up without another person’s help.

“As long as Xiao Yu doesn’t oppose, it’s up to you guys.” Yu Tong paused for a moment before continuing, “I would like you to help me keep an eye out for a girl called Ye Xiao Xiang in your cla.s.s.”

Ye Xiao Xiang?

“Ah, I know her.” I just haven’t seen her.

“I heard she’s gone missing for nearly a week now. The cla.s.s advisor couldn’t contact her guardian through their home phone, nor could they find any relatives, so they filed a report with the police. When I saw the report, I noticed it was the school you’re working at, so I figured you could take care to watch for anything fishy.” Yu Yong’s primary work was still administrative related. His hands froze as he narrowed his eyes and thought of something else. “That’s right, there’s another person you should watch out for...”

He didn’t continue speaking for a long while, but Yu Yin knew there was no need to ask any further. “The Ye Xiao Xiang you mentioned is a student in my cla.s.s. However, it looks like she’s seriously ostracized by her cla.s.smates because...” He described everything he had witness on the first day. Yu Tong and Yu Xia both nodded as they listened closely. “That’s why, I would also like to know what is going on with the cla.s.s.”

“Alright, just be a bit more attentive,” Yu Tong smiled slightly, agreeing with Yu Yin’s thoughts.

“Ok.”

***

Yu Yin only had a few short cla.s.ses on Fridays, and he didn’t have work in the afternoons. Typically, he’d go kill some time with a few of his good friends at karaoke or stroll around looking for girlfriends and such.

Like now.

“Hey, Ah Yin, want to go to Third Street for some karaoke?”

Ah Guan, who was still on crutches and clearly hadn’t learned his lesson at all after recovering from his surgery, waved Yu Yin over. “There’s a new deal! Students get 20% off when booking a room, and they get free drinks too. I’ve invited a few of our female schoolmates to join.”

“I’ll pa.s.s, thanks.” Yu Yin lifted his bag and pulled out his cellphone to send a text. He turned around and advised, “I think you’re better off going home and resting before you get into any more trouble.” Although the incident from before had already been resolved, he still felt afraid that it would have some kind of repercussion.

“Eh, I managed to finally return to cla.s.ses after all this time. Going out to play a bit won’t kill me.” Ah Guan sprawled across the desk and cried out, “I stayed shut in the hospital for so long that the suffocation was driving me crazy. I couldn’t eat this or that, let alone go outside. It was like being held prisoner.”

“Being held prisoner was for your own good. If you went outside to play and ended up reopening your wounds, everything would be ruined.” He was certain that Ah Guan would’ve ended up like that, and then immediately get sent back to the hospital for second degree injuries.

“If I don’t go out to play, I’ll be mentally injured. That’s right, I’ll return the money borrowed from your family for medical fees soon.” Only after waking up had Ah Guan learned that his own parents hadn’t come to see him. Instead, the Yu family had helped provide the money to cover medical feeds. Then the shop that Ah Guan been working part-time at had been raided. After subtracting everyday living expenses, his savings weren’t enough to repay the debt. He had to wait until his body was completely recovered before he could pay back by continuing to work part-time. “Oi, do you want to go or not?”

“If you want to go play, go out by yourself. I’ve already made plans with someone today, bye-bye.” Yu Yin closed his phone cover and quickly left the cla.s.sroom. Since he didn’t have cla.s.ses in the afternoon, he had made other arrangements.

When he reached the parking lot, he received a reply to his text. He opened it to read: “Already waiting for you at the school gates”.

Yu Yin quickly started his motorbike engine and swiftly arrived at the school gates to meet the person.

Yu, who had been waiting in the guard’s office, ran out after he saw the vehicle. He even politely gestured farewell to the guard before going up to the motorbike.

“Wow, don’t tell me you waited there for the entire morning?” Yu Yin asked in astonishment as he handed a helmet to Yu.

Before going to school in the morning, he’d casually asked Yu if he’d be interested in walking around the elementary school he was subst.i.tuting at. Contrary to expectation, Yu had immediately agreed, and they had arranged to meet at the school gate after cla.s.ses ended. However, it looked like Yu had already waited for a while now.

Yu shook his head and indicated the number 11 with his hands.

It was currently 11:45 according to Yu Yin’s watch.

“You don’t have to come so early next time. Let’s go eat lunch nearby first, then we can go look for the cla.s.s advisor,” Yu Yin said as he gathered their belongings.

Yu nodded and put on the safety helmet before climbing onto the back seat.

Yu Yin had arranged to meet the Cla.s.s Four academic advisor this afternoon, as she did not have cla.s.ses either. Aside from wanting to ask about the materials to buy for next week’s cla.s.s, he also wanted to ask about the matters Yu Tong had mentioned regarding that student.

For some reason, he had a vague feeling that there was something off. From the moment he’d first walked into that cla.s.sroom, he felt there was something weird about the whole thing, as if there was an issue anywhere one walked...of course, it could possibly just be him overthinking it.

The two of them randomly chose a fast food place near the elementary. Yu Yin parked the vehicle nearby and the two of them walked inside.

Because it was lunchtime, there were quite a few people in the restaurant. Nearly all the tables were packed.

They found a vacant spot in a more remote corner and sat down to leisurely enjoy their lunch.

From their spot, they could see half of the pond outside the window. It had apparently been a natural pond that had fish and frogs and such. But because it had gotten so polluted, it had ended up turning into a sewage pond. One could even see garbage floating on the surface, and the water had been contaminated to the point where it was dark green in color.

The pond was very close to the school. There were also a lot of weeds growing around the area. Even Yu Yin, who hadn’t been teaching at the elementary school for long, knew that the school strictly forbade any students from going into this area. If any were found frolicking around there, they would be punished with service work.

Yu Yin prodded at the chicken nuggets on his plate with his un-environmentally friendly chopsticks as he began to think over some matters, such as how to ask the teacher for permission to use cla.s.s funds for purchasing materials, how to ask about Student Ye’s situation, and such...

He lifted his head to see Yu sitting across from him, earnestly eating his chicken. “That’s right, I forgot to ask you, your English seems to be pretty good?”

Especially English.

In the beginning, he had a.s.sumed Yu was just flipping through those original texts for fun, until recently, Yu Tong actually needed help for some test. He had asked Yu to help translate a portion of an English doc.u.ment, and Yu had done so with no mistakes.

This made Yu Yin suspicious.

Could a high school student...one that hadn’t even graduated yet, be that high-level?

Yu tilted his head and looked at him for a while before putting down his chopsticks, flipping his notebook open, and slowly writing some words down. “The teacher taught me some, and the rest I figured out by flipping through a dictionary while reading.”

Isn’t that too G.o.dly? You can understand that much just from flipping through a dictionary?

Yu Yun felt apologetic from the bottom of his head at the English dictionaries lying on the shelf that he’d never flipped through before.

“I had a lot of time...to slowly look through them.” For some reason, Yu had clearly paused while writing this sentence. He had erased half of the words he had originally written and changed it to the shortened sentence.

“Your family members really educated you carefully...” They even gave you a ton of time to review books. “Seems like your home had lots of books for you to read. Not bad...”

Before he’d finished his train of thought, Yu abruptly bolted up from the seat across, knocking over his chair with a loud thud. The notebook that had originally been laid on the table also fell to the ground from the excessive force.

The restaurant suddenly fell silent, as everyone inside turned to look over at their table.

Yu Yin had been completely shocked by Yu’s sudden outburst. With no idea what had incited such a large reaction, Yu Yin raised his head prepared to ask. However, he saw that Yu’s face that had never particularly looked healthy had now turned pasty white, and his usual expressionless face now showed fear and panic.

“Yu?” Yu Yin wasn’t sure if there had been anything wrong with the chat just now but stood up to try to pacify Yu.

After all, this was a public location, and they had to worry about the others eating there.

Yu stood still for a moment and glanced at him, before immediately turning to leave.

“Don’t run away!” Now completely baffled, Yu Yin swiftly placed the chair upright again before lifting his bag and running out. As he pa.s.sed the counter, he didn’t forget to pay for the meal. “Auntie, my younger brother isn’t feeling well. Please help us box the rest of the food, I’ll come back and grab it later!”

He ran away after only taking a few bites!

After running out of the restaurant, he saw that Yu had already gone quite a distance and had stopped near the pond. “Yu! Do you have a screw loose?” He grabbed the other’s shoulder and forcefully turned him around. Yu Yin noticed that Yu had already returned to his usual expressionless appearance, as if the instance of upset just now had been fake.

The violet eyes locked gazes with him before Yu shook his head, not revealing anything.

“You...” Yu Yin furrowed his brows. But just as he was about to ask something, the two of them simultaneously heard the sounds of a quarrel nearby.

They came from the side of the pond.

***

“Pig head, there’s no way the teacher would notice if we come out at break time.”

“But...”

“If you keep being noisy, I’ll beat you up! It’s just going out to buy some drinks, we’re going straight back. What’s there to be afraid of?”

A few elementary school kids that had clearly snuck out during lunch time were pushing each other around next to the pond. The leader looked to be taller and st.u.r.dier than the others. The three others next to him were a lot more timid and they were falling him with hunched shoulders. “Calm down, Teacher wouldn’t dare to do anything to us. My dad already said that if Teacher is bad to us, he’ll come to deal with the school. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Yes, you’re right. Boss is right,” a skinnier kid next to his side hurriedly chimed in. This seemed to inflate the leader’s ego more; even his stride seemed more confident.

“You all just have to follow me well. I’ll treat you guys at the drinks shop later!”

Yu Yin heard all of this from the distance.

“Oi! What are you guys doing?” Yu Yin immediately bellowed as a few of the children walked closer to the pond. The school forbade the kids from getting close to the pond. Aside from the fact that it was beyond filthy, the weeds nearby had grown out of control with n.o.body ever around. They densely covered the edge of the pond, so the slightest carelessness could easily result in an accident. “Get away from the pond!”

The kids were frightened out of their wits by the sudden shout, and they all turned to look at him in panic.

Yu Yin immediately recognised the students; they were the ones that the cla.s.s advisor had specifically pointed out to him on the first day he had subst.i.tuted for the cla.s.s. The leader was Zhao Liang Yi. “What are you guys doing here instead of resting during break time?” From his memory, aside from Wednesdays, which were half days, they were supposed to be in cla.s.s through the afternoon?

After a moment of stunned silence, the taller student quickly returned to his senses. “It’s, it’s not your stupid business! You’re not our teacher, so what’s it to you? Believe me or not, I’m going to call my dad immediately to make you leave!” The threatening tone of voice was nearly identical to that of an adult.

Yu Yin raised his brows and coldly smiled. “Thanks, but I have my own feet to walk myself, so no need to inconvenience your dad to help me leave.” His first impression of these students had already been extremely, extremely bad. Because the other students had been too annoying, he’d actually forgotten to pay much attention to them. But now was as good of a time as any. “During break time, you should be eating lunch and taking a nap. If you all return immediately, I’ll pretend I never saw this. But if you don’t, I’ll call and ask your teacher to come over to escort you back.”

The tall student froze, his expression paling. The smaller ones next to him all subconsciously looked at each other in dismay. “B-boss...we should just go back to the cla.s.sroom...”

“Go back my a.s.s! What are you so scared of? All of you are to follow me!” Seemingly trying to regain his authority, the leader Zhao Liang Yi’s tone of voice was abnormally vicious, and the others didn’t dare to utter a word in response to the shout.

“Alright, then I have no choice but to invite your teacher over.” Yu Yin noticed that Yu had caught up from behind as well as he pulled out his phone to look for the number in his contacts list and called it without hesitation. “h.e.l.lo? Teacher Qi? This is Yu Yin, the students in your cla.s.s are currently...”

Before he’d even finished, the taller student suddenly charged over before Yu Yin could even react. The student crashed into Yu Yin, forcing him to stagger backwards a few steps. Luckily, Yu managed to catch him in time.

“I dare you to call and complain, just wait and see what happens!” Zhao Liang Yi ferociously shouted at him.

“Alright, I’ll wait and see.” Luckily his cellphone hadn’t been smashed. Yu Yin quickly continued, “The students in your cla.s.s are at the pondside, please hurry to pick them up.” He then immediately hung up and put it back in his bag. What a joke, he had only just repaired his phone last month. He was currently short on money and had no desire to waste more on repairing it again.

Seeing that the eyes glaring at him had nearly turned red, Yu Yin could tell that the student before him was extremely furious.

That’s right, his dad is apparently in the building industry...I hope he isn’t involved in anything illegal. Otherwise, there will be a fight on the dad’s side...which would be a huge pain.

“Mark my words, I’ll make it so that you won’t dare to come back to school, just like Ye Xiao Xiang!” Zhao Liang Yi bellowed as he angrily pointed a finger at Yu Yin.

Although not interested by the threat, Yu Yin’s attention was grabbed by the mention of a particular name. “What did you do to Ye Xiao Xiang?” He suddenly recalled the flowers, the torn up textbooks, and the graffiti all over the desk.

“Nothing much, I just told the whole cla.s.s about her mom being with another man. My dad said she’s rotten goods, which means Ye Xiao Xiang is also rotten goods, and rotten goods shouldn’t need to go to school! Just looking at her is an eyesore!” Zhao Liang Yi smugly declared, and even shot a glance at Yu Yin.

Yu Yin’s expression sank the more he listened. He locked gazes onto the student in front of him and asked, “Did you personally witness that?”

“That’s right, I once saw her mom get picked up by a stranger man’s car after cla.s.s. The two of them even secretly talked inside for a long time. The car windows were also blacked out.” Without noticing the radical change in Yu Yin’s expression, Zhao Liang Yi snorted, “That means she has a guy...ah!”

Before he’d finished his complacent words, he suddenly let out a sharp cry.

The three students next to him were also frightened, and the shout also brought Yu Yin back to his senses.

As Zhao Liang Yi had been deriding someone else, he’d somehow stepped into some weeds. Although they seemed to be a dense clump of gra.s.s, the weeds suddenly sank down. An extremely loud splash followed.

“Food, foot!” Zhao Liang Yi shouted as his entire foot fell into the water. He kept trying to crawl out by grabbing the other weeds nearby. “I, I can’t pull it out!”

In a split second, his arrogant expression had twisted into one of extreme fear.

“Stop struggling! Or else the gra.s.s will tangle up more!” Yu Yin grabbed his shirt collar and pulled upwards while looking over to the other three little devils trembling on the side. “All of you, back off away from the pond!”

The three that were originally frightened immediately ran to stand further away.

“Foot, foot!” Zhao Liang Yi continued to wail.

“Shut up! Can’t you see I’m pulling?” After being hit by Zhao Liang YI’s wildly flailing limbs, Yu Yin’s mood turned sour. Only after tugging a few times did he suddenly notice that the student’s foot was trapped in something. Even after pulling for a long while, the foot did not come loose. Instead, it seemed to sink deeper and deeper.

historical

Sludge?

Yu immediately walked over from the side to help pull on Zhao Liang Yi’s shirt collar as well.

The two of them expended a ton of effort before, and after who knew how long, they finally managed to start pulling the shocked senseless student out bit by bit.

“d.a.m.n! Who knows how much trash is under there!” While slowly dragging the student out, Yu Yin grumbled, “So bizarre, why am I here playing tug-of-war with a pond...”

“Teach-teacher....” Zhao Liang Yi, who hadn’t spoken for a long while now, suddenly lifted his head, his face about to cry. “It’s not gra.s.s...it’s like something...is biting me...”

“Huh?” The instant they pulled him out completely, Yu Yin seemed to see something get dragged up onto the surface latched onto the student’s foot.

The instant it broke the water’s surface, the thing immediately came off.

It was round like a ball, and as it fell back into the water, it suddenly turned upside down.

Yu Yin saw an extremely swollen face glare at them before it slowly sank back into the water.

His entire body froze for a few seconds.

That thing...he really hoped he was mistaken, truly hoping he had seen wrong, but that floating, swollen, and ruined face with its eyes protruding out under the separated black hair was such a clear image that it was impossible for him to persuade himself that it was merely his eyes playing tricks.

Yu had completely lifted the student out on the side. As soon as Zhao Liang Yi had been pulled out from the water, he collapsed and the ground and began howling in pain while clutching his foot tightly. His wails were so painful to hear that Yu Yin was summoned back from his daze. “What’s wrong with you now! No matter how dirty the water is, it can’t corrode your foot!” He turned around but was stunned once more.

There were clear teeth marks on the foot the student was tightly clutching, deep enough to start bleeding.

“There’s a man-eating fish, Teacher!” Zhao Liao Yi scowled from his place on the ground, unable to stand himself up.

Yu Yin immediately refocused his attention and pulled out a handkerchief to help stop the bleeding. “Man-eating my a.s.s. If this place had man-eating fish, they would’ve been poisoned to death by the garbage ages ago. You, you just stepped on some tin cans, the kind with uneven edges.”

At the very least, I have to pacify this student first.

“Teacher, I’m going to die...”

“As if you’re going to die...” Yu Yin turned around and immediately noticed the other three students still standing there. “You three, hurry up and look for Teacher Qi to come help!”

Strange, I made the call just now, so why hasn’t she arrived after all this time? From his memory, the pond wasn’t far from the school. Plus they’d just spent the time pulling the student out, so typically speaking, she should’ve arrived by now.

“Oh-okay!” Clearly frightened out of their wits, the other three students immediately scrambled away.

“I told you to go back yet you didn’t go back; got a scare didn’t you?” Yu Yin grumbled. He then noticed that the hand he was using to stop the bleeding was trembling a bit; it seemed like he hadn’t yet recovered from the scare he’d gotten from that thing just now. Calm down, calm down. Just pretend you saw a movie special effect. You’ve seen a ton of movies, so you should be used to these things. It’s not the first time you’ve seen a drowning corpse...

“Yu, come over and help me...Yu! What are you doing?!”

Just as Yu Yin was preparing to lift the student up to bring him back, he suddenly turned around to see Yu standing by the pond, extremely engrossed in staring at something.

Yu Yin followed his line of sight, and within a second, felt gooseb.u.mps form all over his body.

In the water not too far from the sh.o.r.e, an arm was reaching out from the waters, its open palm waving at Yu.

Judging from its size, it didn’t belong to an adult, but a child.

Without even thinking, he immediately placed the student down carefully on one side and raced over to stop Yu, who was just about to step into the pond.

“Return to your d.a.m.n senses! Immediately return to your senses, do you hear me?!” He then pulled the person in his arms backwards, only releasing him once the hand was no longer in sight. “Do you not want to live anymore?!” He threw Yu down on the ground and shouted in anger.

Yu didn’t react for a while after crashing into the ground. Only after a few moments did he slowly lift his head to look at Yu Yin.

“Don’t randomly look at the things in the water!” Yu Yin pulled the person up from the ground, abruptly discovering that there was a wet patch on his clothes. Although Yu had been about to enter the water, he hadn’t actually touched it yet, right?

Yu blankly stared at him for a while before shifting his gaze towards the still wailing student on the other side.

“Let’s leave here first before we talk any further.” Yu Yin pulled him away with large strides, afraid that Yu would be called over again like before. He then picked up the student and quickly left the pond’s perimeter.

He couldn’t really say what it was.

But he knew there was definitely something in the pond.

When they had just barely left the pond area, they were welcomed by a middle-aged man running over. Yu Yin quickly recognised the person as the director.

“Zhao Liang Yi! I’ve told you so many times not to randomly run around! You deserved to have fallen into the water!” The director angrily shouted in exasperation as he ran over, clearing already knowing the situation. He turned to Yun and said, “I’m sorry for this, even your clothes are completely filthy now.”

Only after being told this did Yu Yin notice that as a result of pulling the student up earlier, his entire body was covered in gra.s.s and mud, which made him look pretty miserable. Yu wasn’t in any better condition. Having pulled and fallen to the ground, his clothes were likewise covered in mud and gra.s.s, filthy and a complete mess.

“No worries, we’ll just clean ourselves up later. -->>

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