Chapter 18: Gaoshan Ghost School

Rustling—

The sound of students moving through the corridors came, but no conversation was heard; almost everyone clutched a book, studying intently.

Occasional unlucky souls tripped from not watching their step, yet no one around paid them any attention—not even the victims themselves, who immediately scrambled up to retrieve their fallen books.

It was lunchtime.

A dense crowd of students crammed the hallways, stairwells, and the square leading to the cafeteria.

The atmosphere remained suffocatingly oppressive.

“Will we really not get depression in five days? I’m already feeling irritable,” Tuxingsun whispered to Bailingdao beside him.

They dared not speak loudly anymore.

Although the surrounding students completely ignored one another, given the precedent of He Yikan, they could no longer treat these seemingly harmless students as normal people.

Something eerie was mixed in here!

The students brushing past them could erupt at any moment and devour them.

Most critically, they still didn’t know what triggered the eerie phenomenon.

"Do you think the generous rewards of a targeted dungeon just fall from the sky like free pancakes? Naturally, the difficulty rises with the stakes," Bailingdao sighed.

The base reward was a common piece of equipment.

Equipment was inherently rarer than ordinary items, and crucially, rewards could stack without any upper limit.

In other words, theoretically, they had a chance to obtain Epic or even Legendary equipment!

In the outside world, even the worst Common-grade equipment could fetch a starting bid of 100,000; slightly better ones could reach a million.

For ordinary players.

Acquiring just one Common-grade item meant long-term financial security.

As always—Spirit Catastrophe Game was fair.

The difficulty of a dungeon was absolutely proportional to the richness of its rewards.

“Is Shi Gandang okay? Won’t staying in the infirmary to care for He Yikan violate school rules?” Bailingdao worried more about his other teammate.

After buying food, they sat at the table.

Looking up, they saw clocks hanging all around the cafeteria, each second punctuated by a noisy ticking.

They had made no progress yet.

Tuxingsun gobbled his food, muffled and unclear: “What else can we do? Go drag him away? Please—he’s got his sweetheart, let’s focus on finding clues.”

I have to say, the cafeteria food at this haunted school is really good.

After all, considering their life-threatening study habits, if nutrition didn’t keep up, countless students would likely die suddenly from anemia caused by sleep deprivation and chronic mental strain.

This wasn’t out of the ghost school’s kindness.

It simply deemed it wasteful to let nutritional issues hinder learning.

“The problem is here—the small black room is off-limits for now, the art building can’t be found, and as for the homeroom teacher’s secrets…”

Here, Bailingdao’s expression turned strange.

He thought of something unpleasant.

He sighed: “Shi Gandang said the principal trusts only the homeroom teachers of Class Seven and Class One. He’s stuck in the infirmary, so I, being in Class One, have to get close to Teacher Yao Qing.”

“But when he came back, he was like a bomb ready to explode—he didn’t even let me speak before he screamed at me for the mess Liu Yang caused, ordered me to scrub myself spotless in the restroom before entering the classroom.”

“Bro, I feel cursed—nothing I did, yet every NPC is targeting me.”

Bailingdao stretched lazily, utterly helpless.

Who knew what drug Teacher Yao had taken? One trip out and his temper turned so volatile.

Liu Yang too—vanished without a word, exploded right there, forcing me to scrub myself for half an hour in the restroom.

Thud—

As they talked, they didn’t notice a student walking past behind them with an empty tray; Bailingdao’s stretch accidentally bumped into him.

The tray clattered to the floor.

“Oh, sorry, let me help you clean up.”

Bailingdao muttered an apology and bent down to pick up the tray and utensils.

Yet the instant he lowered his body—

A chill shot up his spine straight to his skull.

As a veteran who had survived multiple dungeons and reached level 6, Bailingdao knew exactly what this instinct meant—he instinctively sidestepped away.

Ssshh—

He reacted fast enough.

Even Sun Xingzhe, sitting directly across, hadn’t seen what happened before Bailingdao had already retreated three meters away.

Still, he clutched his lower back, face pale, lips ashen.

His uniform had a large tear; blood poured steadily from the wound on his lower back, vivid red against the spotless floor.

Almost—

He’d nearly been cut in half!

“What the hell is this? Is it the ghost He Yikan mentioned?” Tuxingsun rushed over to help cover him.

The student whose tray had been knocked over had, in the blink of an eye, his skin splitting open to sprout several blue tentacles; from his chest cavity emerged a ghostly hand clutching a craft knife—a true horror specter.

It was that craft knife that had effortlessly pierced Bailingdao’s lower back.

Most eerie of all, none of the eating students looked up at the horrifying specter.

They kept chewing, eyes locked on their textbooks.

“Color… you have his color… where did you take him…”

The specter mumbled something.

Before either could grasp its meaning, it roared and lunged at them, swinging its tentacles.

Bailingdao gritted his teeth, pulled a band-aid from his pocket, and slapped it over the gruesome wound on his lower back.

The nearly three-finger-wide wound visibly healed beneath the tiny band-aid.

Clearly, this was an item.

“Run! Head to the classroom building—to the homeroom teacher’s office!” Bailingdao decided instantly.

Direct confrontation was clearly foolish.

Everyone had seen He Yikan’s fate.

The best option was to find the homeroom teacher—surely he wouldn’t let this eerie phenomenon slaughter them freely.

After all, their current identity was students.

And they were students who hadn’t broken any rules and had decent grades.

In a sense, the ghost school favored high-achieving students.

Bailingdao had deduced this from Teacher Yao’s attitude toward Wu Wang—even though the teacher threatened and seemed to despise him.

In reality, he’d let Wu Wang wander freely, even granting ample time to explore.

The reason was simple—he was top of the class.

Splash! Splash!

Tables and chairs were overturned by the pursuing tentacle specter; soup and water splattered everywhere, and several innocent students had their necks slashed by the ghostly hand wielding the craft knife.

“Shit! This thing’s contagious!” Tuxingsun glanced back while fleeing, cursing involuntarily.

He’d noticed the students struck in the neck—whose necks had been severed and should have died—now rising again.

Their skin began to split open.

Colorful tentacles burst from their bodies—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple.

The previously calm, oppressive atmosphere vanished entirely, replaced by a horrifying inferno of dancing demons.

“Now it’s truly Gaoshan Ghost School…”