Chapter 75: Weird School! (4500 characters)

Thump thump thump!

"Come in."

"Chief Chen, I've found the materials you wanted for you; please take a look!"

Zhu Sihai earnestly handed a document to Chen Shoushan.

Chen Shoushan took the document, nodded, and said, "Not bad, you go get busy!"

Zhu Sihai didn't leave immediately but asked, "Chief Chen, I heard Chief Chen Ruhai heard you're back and wants to see you; he's waiting in the Public Security Bureau lobby, what do you think?"

Chen Shoushan's return naturally couldn't be hidden from Chen Ruhai, especially since the Public Security Bureau had recently caused such a commotion, attracting many wealthy people's attention.

"Let him come in; I happen to have something to discuss with him."

Chen Shoushan nodded; he too was just about to look for Chen Ruhai, after all, for the aid plan for ZS City, Chen Ruhai is currently the most suitable person.

Now the Foundation, just founded, lacks usable management talent, and Chen Shoushan only cares about the Foundation's Ghost Master power, not paying much attention to ordinary people, so this kind of trouble can only be left to Chen Ruhai.

Soon, Chen Ruhai walked in; Zhu Sihai, being tactful, didn't follow him in.

"Chairman Chen, the Foundation building has been fully renovated, and the donated funds are all in place..."

Chen Ruhai, having mixed in business for most of his life, naturally handles these small matters of the Foundation with ease.

"Not bad, I indeed didn't misjudge Boss Chen; I happen to have a few things that need handling, not sure who to ask—those who are capable should bear more work, Boss Chen won't refuse, right?"

Chen Shoushan first laughed and praised Chen Ruhai, then continued speaking.

"……"

Chen Ruhai momentarily didn't know what to say, neither daring to refuse nor to casually agree.

"The supernatural incident in ZS City may have been resolved, but it still caused many civilian casualties and public property losses; now is the time we need the Foundation, Boss Chen, could you make a trip?"

Ignoring the silent Chen Ruhai, Chen Shoushan continued speaking; although his words were phrased as a question, they were more like a notice than a discussion.

"Of course no problem! But there are still some issues; the Foundation's accounts currently have only twelve billion in liquid funds, and if we go to ZS City for gratuitous relief, there probably won't be much left..."

Chen Ruhai didn't directly refuse but raised some practical problems to try to change Chen Shoushan's mind; he wasn't clear on the exact situation in ZS City, but had some general understanding, after all Dahe City and ZS City are close, and some news can't be blocked.

And although the supernatural incident in ZS City is said to be resolved, Chen Ruhai also doesn't want to take that risk—who knows if there might be lingering issues.

Moreover, this aid plan with no feedback is simply wasting money; even if Chen Shoushan took this money to build himself a super-large villa, everyone would feel better, at least they could see where their money went.

"Money isn't important, uh… also right, you can set up a charity in Dahe City to make the Shoushan Foundation's name known—not just in Dahe City, but also in Chuan City, Chang City, etc."

Chen Shoushan suddenly thought of this idea; regardless of how much money can be raised, at least the Foundation's name will get out there, allowing lower-class citizens to see it and spread influence.

"And aren't the Foundation's staff not yet fully hired? Those ordinary people in ZS City caught up in the supernatural incident will surely be shunned by those around them; you might as well recruit some lower-level staff—having experienced the supernatural incident, their acceptance of the supernatural should be considerably stronger—of course, if headquarters has arrangements for them, then forget it."

Citizens whose memories were altered by the newspaper ghost will surely not be excluded by normal citizens—after all, their crazy appearance frightened many citizens, even some family members.

"Then I have no problem; I'll go back and prepare."

Since the talk has gone this far, Chen Ruhai could only grit his teeth and agree; after agreeing, Chen Ruhai thought that since Dahe City is also experiencing supernatural incidents, it might be good to bring his family to ZS City to hide for a while.

"Um, once you're in ZS City, the local person in charge will cooperate with you and also guarantee your safety; you don't need to worry."

After seeing Chen Ruhai off, Chen Shoushan then began to look at the materials Zhu Sihai brought.

Chen Shoushan first looked at the student numbers on the material, each class's count, then re-examined the first day's school surveillance, the classroom footage, confirming the first day's numbers were normal.

In other words, the supernatural incident indeed broke out on the second day.

Adjust the surveillance to the morning of the second day, when students were leaving their dorms; this time Chen Shoushan placed the surveillance feed on the dormitory building hallway.

Second Middle School has four dormitory buildings: boys live in Buildings 1 and 2, girls in Buildings 3 and 4; each dorm building has six floors, each floor has eighteen rooms, a standard eight-person room.

Although the dormitories are ordinary, it's worth noting that Second Middle School's basic facilities are better than First Middle School's; basically every classroom is equipped with multimedia whiteboards, air conditioning, etc.

Chen Shoushan set the surveillance to the time when the wake-up bell rang; this is the school-regulated wake-up time for students, and all students must leave their dorms within the regulated time.

The situation in the footage was indeed so: students walked out of their dorms one after another; students from all four buildings did the same; soon the allotted time passed, and the dormitory interiors became empty.

Chen Shoushan's eyes twitched slightly; he noted several dorm room numbers: Building 1 Room 105, Building 1 Room 607, Building 3 Room 218, because from the wake-up bell start to finish, not a single student came out of these three rooms.

Immediately he opened the materials Zhu Sihai prepared; the materials contained a list of all dorm rooms inside the buildings, including not only each room's student names but also their photos, for the dorm supervisors to check rooms at night to prevent students from climbing over walls.

Chen Shoushan opened the student lists for those three rooms, glanced over them roughly, and found nothing abnormal; the students are all locals from Dahe City, with records from elementary to middle school, nothing suspicious.

But when he saw the student list for Dorm 218 in Building 3, he saw a photo of Wang Tong's daughter, meaning Wang Tong's daughter actually went missing from the dorm, not like most students who disappeared from the teaching building.

Chen Shoushan then looked at her file and learned that Wang Tong's daughter is named Wang Yanling, president of the Photography Club at Second Middle School, who likes to go around taking beautiful landscape photos and also takes photos for school meetings.

The file also listed the various awards Wang Yanling had won from childhood onward, and the places she'd gone and activities she'd participated in; it's clear she's an outstanding and proactive girl.

And at the end of the file it wrote that Wang Yanling's last activity was going to Daton City to participate in a campus photography contest, but she didn't win any prize; and according to Chen Shoushan's knowledge, the time Wang Yanling was defiled was those few days.

And the person in charge of Daton City is exactly Gao Zhiqiang, the lecher from the original work!

After learning these detailed details, Chen Shoushan didn't find too many problems with Wang Yanling; her involvement in the disappearance was probably just a coincidence.

Having discovered the dormitory supernatural phenomenon, Chen Shoushan yet found no common point among those rooms; could it be a random killing pattern? Or are the missing persons dead, or perhaps they entered a certain ghost's Ghost Realm?

Chen Shoushan leans more toward the latter, because Ye Feng drives the ghost funeral garments; even if he can't resist some kind of killing pattern, he should still have time to ignite the Ghost Candle, and only a Ghost Realm could instantly pull Ye Feng in.

The surveillance was adjusted to the classrooms, because the dorms showed no other issues, and according to Zhu Sihai's reported information, the real large-scale disappearances occurred in the classrooms, which is what the upcoming footage shows.

And the dormitory disappearance incident that Chen Shoushan discovered in the surveillance, others basically noticed nothing at all; even some fortunate people who didn't go missing were unaware of it.

At first the footage was normal: students rose for morning reading, some in classrooms, some in hallways, chatting in groups of three or five.

And the school's teachers also entered the offices one after another, beginning to prepare today's lesson content; everything looked quite normal.

Until the class bell rang, when a strange thing suddenly happened: some classrooms' students vanished right before everyone's eyes, with no omen, just that sudden.

Students entered the classrooms in an orderly fashion; suddenly, at that moment, some classrooms' students disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Moreover, it wasn't that all students in every classroom disappeared; rather, most classrooms' students suddenly disappeared—some classrooms' students vanished a few minutes after class started, while others vanished instantly at the moment class began.

And in classrooms where no disappearance occurred, the students didn't notice anything amiss, because it was class time, the whole school was quiet, and lack of noise is normal.

Time in the surveillance continued to flow, yet still no teachers appeared; the whole school's teachers seemed to have vanished suddenly, and the students in the classrooms began to chatter, with some class monitors standing up to maintain order.

And during this period, students in classrooms still suddenly all disappeared, whether the classroom was quiet or noisy, they would abruptly vanish.

Chen Shoushan furrowed his brow and switched the surveillance to the doorway of the teachers' office, because there is no surveillance inside the office, so he could only see the tightly closed door, with no teachers coming out.

They also disappeared without noticing!

Soon, only a few classrooms and students remained in the school; at this point, the remaining students seemed to sense something was off, and the whole school felt a bit too quiet.

Moreover, the teachers hadn't arrived yet, so some students from a class decided to go to the office to look for teachers; after leaving the classroom, they were surprised to find that the students in the surrounding classes had all disappeared.

If they were initially surprised, but as more and more empty classrooms appeared, they began to feel fearful; finally, they plucked up courage and found some teachers' offices, but they were still empty, and after checking several offices in a row, all were just as empty……

The whole school seemed to have only a few classes' worth of students left unnoticed; when this news was passed back to the class, the students in the class began to panic.

Finally, after receiving a call, the Public Security Bureau brought people to surround the school; the remaining students, under the bureau's announcements, tremblingly walked out of the school voluntarily, and from then on Second Middle School became completely deserted, with no one left.

Seeing this on the monitor, Chen Shoushan still frowned; he was certain that the order in which the classes disappeared had no pattern, and each class's situation was different—some noisy, some quiet, and even some students were moving about—but in the end, they all disappeared.

He fast-forwarded through the period when the school was empty of people, until Ye Feng entered the school under the monitor's attention, and only then did Chen Shoushan readjust the playback speed to slow.

On the monitor, Ye Feng was holding a red candle, stepping cautiously into the empty school; from the school gate to the teaching building, Ye Feng encountered no attacks along the way.

Because there wasn't much information, only knowing that students disappeared in classrooms, Ye Feng could only check each classroom one by one, but found nothing; those classrooms that made students vanish into thin air seemed to have no effect on Ye Feng either.

With no results, Ye Feng could only check the teachers' offices; one, two, still no problems were found, until he entered the third office.

Ye Feng disappeared, vanished into thin air; after entering, he never came out again.

From the monitor's angle, only a tightly closed door could be seen; what happened inside could not be observed from outside, only that Ye Feng never came out of the office again.

Chen Shoushan's expression didn't change much; he simply silently replayed Ye Feng's actions after entering the school, and finally concluded that the disappearance had no relation to Ye Feng's behavior, at least not a direct one.

Finally, Chen Shoushan fixed his gaze on the tightly closed door of the office.

Ye Feng had checked only three offices in total, and he disappeared only in the third office; the only difference between the third office and the first two was that, after Ye Feng entered the office, the door was blown shut by the wind.

And in the first two offices that Ye Feng opened, the doors remained open, and Ye Feng came out as well.

So is it the door? Does closing the door mean disappearance?

Chen Shoushan followed this clue and speculated.

Indeed, when the class bell rang, all the students entered the classroom, and the last student to enter the classroom would sometimes unconsciously reach out and close the door.

Then the students inside the classroom would suddenly disappear, but this is not absolute; among the surviving few classes, there were also instances where the door was closed, yet no disappearance occurred……

Moreover, according to the monitor, Chen Shoushan knew that the paranormal incident occurred before the students woke up in the morning, and although many people slept in dormitories with the doors closed at night, only a few dormitory occupants went missing.

But if we look from another angle, the places where the missing students and teachers disappeared—whether dormitory, classroom, or office—all had their doors closed.

This is a common point, meaning that closing the door could be one of the conditions for disappearance, but it is certainly not the sole condition; other conditions must also be present.

But this cannot be discovered just by watching the monitor footage.

To confirm his conclusion was correct, Chen Shoushan repeatedly reviewed the monitor footage several more times before finally stopping.

Although Chen Shoushan had gone a full day and night without rest, relying on his superb physical condition, he did not feel overly tired, nor would he lose his mind anywhere.

Regarding the paranormal incident at Second Middle School, Chen Shoushan is definitely going to handle it; if the incident had occurred at First Middle School, he could have pretended not to see it, but if it might spread, then he cannot ignore it.

After all, Chen Shoushan himself doesn't want to suddenly disappear one day.

But before dealing with the haunted school incident, Chen Shoushan still needs to handle those four people; after all, if Chen Shoushan were to enter the haunted school, the entire Dahe City would have only these four fake Ghost Masters left.

Although they currently appear not to have much lethal power, Chen Shoushan still wants to consider the safety of the Public Security Bureau, and without Ghost Masters watching over them, he really doesn't feel at ease.

So Chen Shoushan plans to, while they haven't yet entered the school, quickly give them a trial and then kill them, to avoid trouble.

(End of chapter)