Chapter 45 : Chapter 45
Chapter 45: What Is Chasing Him?
It was a boy who looked extremely thin, his complexion so pale that it did not resemble that of a living person. He did not look very old—perhaps only eleven or twelve. He wore a white school uniform from some school. It was not particularly dirty, but the white clothes on his body had already begun to yellow, as if they had been left for a very long time.
Not only that, Zhao Mingyue also noticed scattered spots of blood on his clothes.
Those bloodstains had already turned black, which clearly meant they had been there for a very long time.
At that moment, Zhao Mingyue already understood the boy’s identity.
Every detail on his body revealed something strange. Moreover, with skin as deathly pale as his, how could he possibly be a living person?
The boy’s neck was twisted in an extremely unnatural angle.
After entering the convenience store, the first thing he did was glance around. Then, for some unknown reason, he seemed to be terribly frightened. His frail body hurriedly hid behind a row of shelves.
The way he behaved made it seem as if he feared something outside—and that something was chasing him.
The boy crouched there, and Zhao Mingyue could clearly see his overly thin back.
She did not speak. She looked at the boy, then at the wind chime hanging on the wall.
Earlier, she had wondered whether the wind chime could detect the appearance of ghosts. Now it was completely confirmed. That thing did not react only to Bai Yu. It would respond to any ghost that entered.
“Bai Yu, should we go take a look? He is a ghost, right?”
“Yes. You can try approaching him.”
After receiving Bai Yu’s answer, Zhao Mingyue picked up the rabbit doll in one hand and walked out from behind the counter.
The child was indeed frightened.
That fear was definitely not an act. Zhao Mingyue could see his small body trembling uncontrollably as he tried his best to curl himself into the corner behind the shelf.
It was obvious that he wanted to peek outside, but he was so terrified that he did not even dare to make such a small movement.
“Um… do you need any help?”
Standing behind the boy, Zhao Mingyue spoke cautiously.
The boy had already been trembling. When Zhao Mingyue’s voice suddenly came from behind him, he nearly jumped up in fright.
“Do not be afraid. This place is very safe. Nothing scary can enter here. If something has happened, you can tell me. I am the clerk here.”
The boy crouched on the ground. Only after hearing Zhao Mingyue’s words did he dare to turn his head slightly to look at her.
At that moment, Zhao Mingyue noticed a very clear black handprint on the boy’s neck.
Combined with his unnaturally twisted neck, she immediately understood how he had died.
“As you can see, I work here.” Zhao Mingyue pointed to the badge hanging on her chest. “What exactly are you afraid of?”
The moment she mentioned that, the boy’s emotions, which had just stabilized slightly, began to collapse again.
He hugged himself tightly and shrank further into the corner.
After becoming ghosts, roughly ninety-eight percent of them lost their memories of life. Most of them also lost the ability to think. What drove them was merely the lingering resentment that had yet to dissipate.
Because of that, such ghosts were usually unable to communicate normally.
Seeing the boy like this, Zhao Mingyue felt somewhat helpless.
After thinking for a moment, she decided to change her approach.
“I know you are afraid of something. You are afraid that it will catch up to you. But hiding like this will not help.”
“You do not want the day to come when that thing catches you, right? If you do not want that to happen, you can tell me about it. Maybe I can help you deal with that thing.”
This was the first ghost she had encountered while working at the convenience store. She was quite curious to learn more about it.
Besides, there was nothing else to do at the moment, and she was not worried that whatever was chasing him would actually appear.
After all, the thing living in her shadow was quite capable in a fight.
Sure enough, when the boy heard those words, he turned his head again.
“H-he is very scary. He has killed many people…”
“It is fine. I am not afraid of him!”
“No, sister. He will kill you.”
“You do not need to worry about that. Instead, you should think about this—if you do not use your mind to deal with him, he will always exist. You must seize every opportunity.”
After a while, under Zhao Mingyue’s persistent persuasion, the little boy finally stood in front of the counter.
With hesitation and fear on his face, he began telling the story of what had happened to him.
“First tell me why you appeared here.” Behind the counter, Zhao Mingyue placed the rabbit doll upright so that Bai Yu could also see the boy.
“I—I escaped from the school. When I came out, the sky outside was suddenly very, very dark. There was not a single person anywhere. I saw the light here, so I came inside,” the boy said softly.
“You escaped from school? Which school?”
The school emblem on his uniform had been stained by blood, so Zhao Mingyue could not read what was written on it. She could only see the final words: middle school.
“Dongcheng No. 13 Middle School.”
“Dongcheng No. 13 Middle School!?”
Zhao Mingyue’s eyes widened slightly.
Her next mission location was there—a middle school that had been abandoned for many years.
“Yes!”
“So you mean that something in the school is chasing you?”
“Yes. A killer entered the school. He wants to kill the principal and all the students in the class the principal manages. I was too scared, so I ran away.”
“A killer? Are you also a student in the principal’s class? Did you tell the principal or your classmates about this? Oh, right—what is your name?”
Zhao Mingyue asked casually while frowning.
Unexpectedly, that single question seemed to trigger something.
The boy’s emotions instantly became tense and chaotic again. His eyes were filled with panic, and his entire body trembled violently.
“I do not know! I do not know! I do not know anything! Do not go there! Do not go! Do not—do not go there!”
His voice was quiet but extremely rapid. It was the reaction of someone overwhelmed by terror.
Suddenly he turned and ran. Passing straight through the convenience store door, he vanished into the street before Zhao Mingyue even had the chance to stop him.
Zhao Mingyue stood frozen behind the counter, her lips slightly parted as if she wanted to say something but could not.
“Did I… say something wrong just now…?”
Silence returned to the convenience store.
She sat back down and carefully thought about the few sentences the boy had spoken, but no matter how she tried to piece them together, she could not understand.
“Bai Yu, do you think he really escaped from Dongcheng No. 13 Middle School? It feels like he has not even realized that he is already dead. And he said that after he escaped, the entire world was dark except for the light here. Why would that be?”
The rabbit doll fell over, and a figure appeared beside Zhao Mingyue.
“I cannot be certain. However, this convenience store does indeed have something unusual about it. As for that ghost, he probably separated from the school because of some accident. Once he leaves the school’s range, his mind becomes hazy. Aside from things related to the school, he cannot remember anything else.”