To avoid earning a formal warning on his third day of enrollment, Fang Tian could only fight off his drowsiness and turn up at the classroom a few hours before the class meeting began. The school welcome assembly was over; today was the day for handing out schedules and textbooks, when the advisor and homeroom teacher would both attend and offer the freshmen some advice on study and life.
Three days — not long, not short. From his very first night at Qingkong, the school had opened a door to a new world for him, at the cost of utterly wrecking his body clock. A living person, and yet his hours stayed in close sync with the ghosts'.
Fang Tian found the seat in the farthest corner and, without a word, put his head down to catch up on sleep.
When he jolted awake, he found the classroom already filled with freshmen — and the cause of his waking was the person beside him jabbing him in the lower back with a "Sunflower Pressure-Point Hand."
He glared at his attacker, only to find it was Chu Lun, whom he hadn't seen in days. Chu Lun discreetly pointed toward the podium: the homeroom teacher and advisor had both arrived. In the first three days of term the freshmen were still a little reserved, so the moment the teacher appeared, the loud chatter died down.
Fang Tian looked around. Most of his classmates had shown up. The teacher on the podium was a man in his forties, in black-framed glasses, the thin fringe on his forehead faintly betraying a trend toward Mediterranean baldness.
What came next was nothing more than copying down schedules and handing out textbooks; a first class anywhere couldn't escape these procedures. The welcome assembly and club recruitment had already gotten plenty of freshmen acquainted, and the little cliques within the class had begun to take shape.
Fang Tian, predictably, fell into the situation of having no one to talk to. After collecting his textbooks, he found Chu Lun was in much the same boat.
But unlike him, who'd run into all manner of mishaps from his first day, Chu Lun had earned his isolation through sheer skill —— once the teacher finished the important start-of-term items, Chu Lun put on his headphones, propped his phone on the desk, and absorbed himself in his game, that "none of this is any of my business" attitude toward life leaving even Fang Tian feeling outdone.
"Chu Lun, what have you been doing these past few nights?"
Since they'd run into each other, Fang Tian felt he ought to show some concern for the roommate he'd be living with for four years. If he hadn't met Chu Lun in the classroom today, he'd have been ready to go file a missing-person report with Officer Feng.
"Training."
Chu Lun said without lifting his head, the team fight on his screen at a white-hot pitch. He was fully immersed, with no spare time to bother with anyone in the 3D world.
In that ten-second team fight, Chu Lun displayed astonishing hand speed —— after feeding the enemy a wipe, he struck preemptively — one against his four teammates — and extended his "warm and friendly" regards to all of them.
In truth, Fang Tian was deeply curious what exactly Chu Lun trained at, out all night long, but now didn't seem a good time to talk — all the more so since, given his particular setting, Chu Lun couldn't open his mic to rage at all and sundry, and had to channel his life's learning into the chat box instead.
Bored, Fang Tian slumped over his desk and held his phone up to his face. He simply couldn't blend into the classroom's cozy atmosphere; he kept feeling the boys' eyes on him brimmed with hostility, and as for the girls......
Well, the Information Technology Department's freshman class had exactly three girls this year, each surrounded by a crowd — so much so that Fang Tian hadn't even seen what the three of them looked like.
Anyone, please, someone come talk to me!
For all that he looked unruffled on the surface, Fang Tian had already begun screaming in his inner world.
As if, in some unseen way, someone had heard that scream, his pitch-black phone screen suddenly lit up, and then......
The eye socket that appeared on the screen nearly carried him off.
The Lin Jiu on the screen was still missing her eyes, though perhaps because of the camera angle, the fleshy buds and blood vanished when her face showed.
The distance between Fang Tian and Lin Jiu was no more than a screen's width. He went wide-eyed, not daring to make a sound. After sizing him up a good while, a line of blood-red text surfaced on the screen:
『Your package arrived. Go pick it up at the gatehouse.』
A package?
Just as Fang Tian wanted to ask about the details, the Lin Jiu on the screen had already vanished.
Lin Jiu's appearance made every minute feel like a year. In the lively, bustling classroom, he alone seemed to be doing time in prison.
Having barely made it to the end of the class meeting, Fang Tian was the first to charge out. With the laptop as a cautionary tale, even if the package held a bomb he'd have to find a way to haul it back to the dorm — he had no wish for his phone to follow the laptop's fate.
When it came to electronics, Lin Jiu could only be described as extremely cruel.
Along the way, countless guesses about the gift sprang up in Fang Tian's mind, his mood a mix of anticipation and unease.
The good news: this was the first time in his life he'd received a gift from a girl his own age.
The bad news: this girl his own age had been dead for three years.
The package was far bigger than he'd imagined, the whole box snugly protected by foam, so you couldn't make out what was on it at all.
Considering Lin Jiu's body was still missing to this day, Fang Tian immediately thought of plenty of classic horror-film beats.
Perhaps, in a ghost's eyes, gifts carried a different meaning.
For instance: every time his relationship with Lin Jiu took a step forward, she'd mail him one part of her own body, and on the day the case was declared solved, all the mailed parts would piece Lin Jiu back together whole......
Carrying such a horrifying notion, Fang Tian took several detours down side paths and snuck back to his dorm.
This school already misunderstood him deeply; he had no wish to be branded a deranged serial killer on top of being a scumbag.
Back in the dorm, he bolted the door, and to guard against Chu Lun's sudden return, he even dragged the wardrobe over to block it.
He set the box on the desk and drew a deep breath. Like a warrior marching off to war, ready to face death without flinching, he tore open the foam wrapping the box.
Even fully braced, Fang Tian was stunned by the familiar logo on the box. His heart seemed to stop for several seconds; the package hit him harder than his first sight of a ghost.
He could hardly wait to tear open the packaging and study the specs on the manual.
And all the figures pointed to a webpage he'd browsed before coming to Qingkong City. If he remembered right, this laptop ran as high as 33,000 yuan — back then he'd only feasted his eyes on it, then bought a four-thousand-something machine instead.
He took out his phone, quickly opened the notes app, and typed:
『Lin Jiu, what's this?』
『An apology.』
『This is too much. You're too kind.』
Lin Jiu paid him no more mind; the blood-red text soon vanished.
***
Meanwhile, at the Qingkong City station, the Fourth Division.
"Captain Feng, Lin Jiu's account...... spent more money."
"When? How much?"
"Last night. 33,999 yuan."
"That much? What did she buy?"
"A laptop for Fang Tian......"
The young officer started to speak, then hesitated. "Captain Feng, what exactly is the relationship between this Lin Jiu and Fang Tian?"
"I was about to ask you."
Feng Xi said, out of sorts. She'd had Fang Tian keep in contact with Lin Jiu — she had not told him to wheedle thirty-thousand-plus out of the girl. It seemed she'd have to find time later to give Fang Tian a proper lesson in legal awareness.