Lakeside Ghost Story 10

Zhou Wu and Li Mingfeng were like terrified rats. Zhou Wu especially. Though he ran fast, he had to drag Mu Ying along with him. At some point, Mu Ying had grown stiff and sluggish. Unless someone called to her, she would not take a single step.

"Run!"

The three rushed toward the school's rear gate, their footsteps fading into the distance. Zhuo Yu did not know why they had come to Springwater High School, but he was anxious too. He was afraid the boss would kill all the veterans.

Of course, he did not want to save anyone. He wanted to salvage information. Every additional survivor meant another clue, and he had not yet squeezed all the information he could from Zhou Wu and the others.

"Let's go after them." Zhuo Yu made his decision at once. He stuffed the useful files into the folder, put it in the last grid space, then directed Liu Jingyun into action.

Liu Jingyun pushed the wheelchair far faster than he could turn its wheels himself. They followed close behind Zhou Wu. She was so nervous going down the stairs that she nearly lost her grip and bounced Zhuo Yu right out of it.

For the first time in his life, Zhuo Yu got to experience a wheelchair roller coaster. He clutched the armrests for dear life, feeling that he was more likely to die tumbling down the stairs than at the boss's hands.

The boss moved with startling speed. From the second-floor staircase, Zhuo Yu spotted the crocodile-headed man. Zhou Wu and his two companions had run straight into his line of fire.

Furious and panicked, Zhou Wu turned and ran down the corridor. The boss had blocked the main entrance hall, so his only option was to break a classroom window and escape.

The boss seemed to sense something. He stopped for a moment and looked uncertainly toward Zhuo Yu, but Zhuo Yu and Liu Jingyun had already hidden around the bend in the stairwell. Seeing no one, the boss resumed his pursuit.

But those few seconds of hesitation let Zhou Wu and the others rush into the chemistry lab.

Zhou Wu and Li Mingfeng were stretched to their limits. They charged wildly through the room, kicking over tables, chairs, and lab equipment. Glass shattered without end, and the floor was covered in unidentified reagents.

Just as Zhou Wu raised his hand to smash the window, the boss stepped through the doorway and hurled a chair at them.

The chair was solid wood and iron, but the boss tossed it as easily as a pebble, knocking all three desperate survivors flat with unerring precision. The tremendous force slammed Li Mingfeng into the wall, folding him over like a shrimp.

He had probably broken a rib.

Zhou Wu was truly about to lose his mind. In a helpless rage, he pulled out his hand/gun and emptied his remaining bullets in one burst. Just like before, they did nothing. He flung the gun to the floor in frustration.

Then the unexpected happened.

Fragments from the ricocheting bullets struck an iron table leg, throwing off sparks. In an instant, those sparks ignited the wet reagents on the floor, and the chemistry lab became an inferno.

"The alcohol lamp... I smashed the alcohol lamp just now!" Zhou Wu had fallen into despair. A scorching wave of heat surged toward him, quickly sweeping over every table and chair as flames raced along the floor in his direction.

Yet there was still a way out. As the fire spread toward the podium, it must have ignited something explosive. With a thunderous boom, the entire classroom erupted. The powerful shock wave shattered every window in the room at once.

The blast forced the boss back a step. Zhou Wu was caught in it as well. He coughed up blood, shoved Mu Ying out the window with all his strength, then jumped out himself. Only Li Mingfeng, his bones broken, remained on the floor, groaning in agony.

"Don't leave me behind! Please, don't leave me behind!"

Li Mingfeng tried to flee, but flames had already crawled over his body. The extreme heat, intensified by the chemical reagents, made the fire impossible to extinguish, like maggots clinging to bone. Li Mingfeng screamed in twisted agony until he nearly tore out his throat. The boss stopped as well, standing quietly in the doorway as he watched the man be swallowed by the flames.

Li Mingfeng's skin blistered and swelled, then dried out, blackened, and shriveled. Gradually, his howls ceased...

[Actor Li Mingfeng has died. Cause of death: fire.]

The System's merciless voice came online, announcing the survivors' suffering.

Only then did the boss turn away. He intended to continue pursuing Zhou Wu through the main entrance, but this time he sensed something much stronger. That feeling from before had not been an illusion. Zhuo Yu really was in this school!

The crocodile-headed man clenched his fists. For the first time, panic rose in his heart, as though he had returned to fifty years ago, becoming that useless Asha once more rather than the bloodthirsty monster he was now.

Zhuo Yu could not die. He could not die here!

The boss headed for the stairs through the flames. The fire spread from the chemistry lab, swallowing the entire high school whole. Strangely, though everyone regarded the boss as a supernatural force, his body could still be injured like an ordinary human's. He could still feel pain.

Blisters began to rise on his skin, but he did not care. He only wanted to find Zhuo Yu.

On the school field, Zhuo Yu ran into Zhou Wu face-to-face.

Zhou Wu looked as if he had seen a ghost. He was badly startled, perhaps mistaking Zhuo Yu for a specter come to claim his life. Before Zhuo Yu could call out to him, he had already dragged Mu Ying away at a dead run.

Zhuo Yu silently withdrew the hand he had extended, speechless.

"Your reaction was way too fast! If you'd been any slower, we'd have burned to death too." Liu Jingyun's heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to leap from her mouth. By now, she was utterly in awe of Zhuo Yu, almost ready to become his biggest fan.

Naturally, Zhuo Yu had escaped quickly. He had been on guard against the punishment of the third day, so the moment he heard the crackle of fire, he punched through a window and climbed out.

Liu Jingyun had been dazed for a moment before she threw the wheelchair down as well and followed him out. She did not know why, but following Zhuo Yu's lead was enough.

The two escaped the school building before the explosion.

Looking at the raging sea of fire before him, Zhuo Yu could not help sighing over the curse of Seven-Day Tales. Even after leaving the forest, the punishment of fire still found them.

Right. Asha.

Zhuo Yu figured the fast-moving boss must have left the school building to hunt down whoever remained.

What he did not know was that the terrifying boss who had struck fear throughout the Studios was now like a dog abandoned for the second time, racing madly through the flames and searching classroom by classroom for Zhuo Yu. His despair at that moment cut even deeper than Li Mingfeng's had before his death.

The boss had already died once. Death was not something he feared at all. But now he had to admit that he was afraid to die, afraid that Zhuo Yu would die.

Can't find him... Why can't I find him?!

At the lakeside cabin, he had personally wrapped his hand around Zhuo Yu's throat and stared into his eyes for a long time to make sure. If this had only been some trick by those intruders, he would have crushed Zhuo Yu's neck without mercy.

But the truth was that Zhuo Yu had really returned.

The boss simply could not bear the pain of losing him again. The pain of the blazing fire did not amount to even one ten-thousandth of it.

On the field, Zhuo Yu frowned as well. He had always felt that something was off. Sure enough, a school that could be infiltrated so easily could also catch fire with equal ease. Reward and danger were always directly proportional.

And now, that unsettling premonition had returned.

He even wanted to rush into the blaze, though he had no idea where that urge came from.

"Let's go!" Liu Jingyun took hold of the wheelchair and ran. Heaven knew why she was so tenacious that she could still squeeze out more strength.

Zhuo Yu did not object, and she pushed him all the way to the RV parked by the road.

They drove away from the fire, and the flames shooting into the sky and billowing smoke finally alerted the townspeople.

Lights came on one after another in every household. Residents poured out of their homes with their families in tow, and the entire town descended into chaos. But there seemed to be a leader among them. Under the direction of a man in his prime, they notified the town fire department. Then everyone followed orders, using basins of water to put out the nearby flames and keep the fire from spreading further.

Zhuo Yu was not far away, staring intently at the crowd.

That man leading them looked remarkably like Mu Ying...

Three fire engines arrived from the distance. With the joint efforts of the townspeople and the fire department, the wild flames were finally extinguished. They had come quickly and gone just as quickly, as though they knew there were no targets left in the school and had gone out without a fight.

The townspeople's chatter and children's cries blended into a din. The man who had been organizing the firefighting waved his hand, telling everyone to return home and leave the rest to the fire department.

After giving his final instructions, he left the scene with a slight headache and headed home.

Zhuo Yu and Liu Jingyun seemed to share an odd tacit understanding. They exchanged a glance and immediately decided to follow the man.

From his behavior and his excessive resemblance to Mu Ying, Zhuo Yu concluded that he was the father of the character Nina: the mayor of Springwater Town.

They had tailed Zhou Wu before. Now they were tailing the mayor, so they were already well practiced.

The mayor's house was not far away, only a little over ten minutes on foot. Once the lights inside had gone out again, Zhuo Yu had already found a point of entry.

He turned his wheels and moved closer to a drainpipe. Then, like a professional climber, he grabbed a small platform at a pipe joint and used all his strength to lift himself up, feeling upward with one hand for the next section of pipe.

Liu Jingyun had thought nothing Zhuo Yu did could surprise her anymore, but now her eyes widened again. "I thought you couldn't move?!"

All of Zhuo Yu's weight hung from his arms. He could not hold on much longer, so he answered briefly, "I specifically trained my upper body."

His upper-body strength really was formidable. As a perfectionist, it was already hard enough to accept that his legs could not move. He did not want the parts of him that could move to be weak too, so he worked out day after day. Adaptive rock climbing was an activity that trained the entire upper body. How could he possibly pass it up?

Zhuo Yu was now hanging entirely in midair, with only his hands bearing his weight.

"My lower body can't move. Give me a push," he said with effort.

Liu Jingyun looked around and finally found a street trash can nearby. She pushed it against the wall, stood on top of it, and heaved Zhuo Yu's legs upward. At once, Zhuo Yu could reach the second-floor windowsill.

He climbed another stretch, raised the window, and after Liu Jingyun pushed him up a second time, he swung himself into the villa.

The room Zhuo Yu had broken into seemed to be a bedroom. In the dim moonlight, he saw a woman lying in bed. She rubbed her eyes, awakened by the noise.

"Sleep. Go to sleep." Zhuo Yu met the woman's gaze with his own. Their eyes locked, and she closed hers.

Zhuo Yu let out a breath. He adjusted his position, sat upright, and leaned against the corner of the wall.

Climbing to the second floor had taken an astonishing amount of stamina. Rock climbing itself was a test of overall physical ability. He worked to steady his breathing, intending to regain some strength before beginning his search.

Then the woman's terrified voice rang out.

"Who are you?! Why are you in my room?!"

Damn it, Zhuo Yu thought. The ability had failed.