From the end of the world

Chapter 423 Return to school
This happened when I returned to Saltwater in early January.

The purpose of my return to Xianshui City was to transfer some of my belongings to the current house at Luoshan headquarters. Although they were not very valuable, they were personal. For example, there were photo albums made when I traveled abroad, notes written when I collected strange events, and some private files and information in my laptop that I didn't want others to see. I am also a pillow person, and I feel that sleeping on the pillow I am used to is more comfortable.

After finishing the simple arrangement, I also went back to the university with nostalgic feelings. It's not that I changed my mind and wanted to continue my studies, but I felt that it would be embarrassing to be expelled for too many absences, so I went to apply for the suspension of study. Of course, this is just a superficial reason. I don't really care about that kind of thing, and I can delegate it to others to do it for me.

I just want to put an end to my campus life by revisiting the old place. The campus life that seemed so boring in the past, now as a resident of another world, looks back and presents a different brilliance in my memory. It is not in my style to always let it linger in my mind. I am a person who pays more attention to the sense of ritual, so I will say goodbye to my past self completely with this ritualistic approach.

As the saying goes, you can't step into the same river twice. Things are always changing. During my absence, the university was also changing. To be more precise, it was the society that was changing dramatically, and this wind of change was blowing into the university unstoppably.

Society has fully accepted the existence of strange things. Although most people have not personally experienced what a strange event is, through the continuous popularization of science on the Internet and television, people have become aware of the existence of the depths of the world. When I walked on campus, I could hear students in some places discussing topics related to the strange, and the word "Luoshan" even appeared among them.

With the government's statement and recognition, the Luoshan organization has entered the public's field of vision.

For the time being, the government still defines Luoshan as "an official organization that specializes in handling strange events for the country and is inseparable from the government", and has not made clear the contradiction between Luoshan and ordinary people.

However, the masses do not only see superficial information. Just based on the fact that "there are a large number of individuals in this world who possess extraordinary powers, and they seem to have formed organized forces long before the founding of the country", many people are aware of the turbulent undercurrents beneath the surface.

How ordinary people should deal with the demon hunter group has always been a hot topic on the Internet. Some extreme people believe that the country should take the initiative and use the modern armed firepower to quickly control Luoshan, an organization with many hidden dangers, and impose the most thorough management on the "few extraordinary individuals" such as demon hunters; some negative people believe that everything is too late, and the government may have already become a puppet manipulated by Luoshan behind the scenes.

The latter idea is not without reason. In fact, some official forces in a few places have turned to certain forces in Luoshan, or have been dominated by the power of spiritual magic by the extraordinary camp. However, this phenomenon has not yet become popular, because the law is behind the scenes to curb the further spread of this phenomenon.

Back to school. Maybe it was because I had disappeared for a long time before, and coupled with this wave of frequent strange events, some teachers and students in the school who knew my style thought that I had encountered the real thing in the process of investigating strange events, and then died.

When I walked into the classroom, the noisy classroom suddenly became silent. Looking around, the number of students present was less than half of the usual number.

I sat down in the back seat. When the teacher in charge of the class came in and saw me, he opened his mouth wide and was silent for a moment, then couldn't help asking, "Zhuang Cheng, are you alive?"

Until the end of the get out of class, I was constantly being looked at with strange eyes. It seemed that they suspected that I had died in some strange incident a long time ago, and that I was now a demon in the guise of Zhuang Cheng. If it was just a joke, it would be fine, but it seemed that a few people really suspected it, which made it hard to laugh. It was as if a wind of magical realism was blowing in my face, and I couldn't help but sigh, "What's wrong with this world?"

Although I was often looked at as a weirdo in the past, it was the first time that I was treated as a monster by teachers and students in the same school. It was not only like "saying goodbye to my past self", but I was also uncomfortable walking around the school normally.

While walking outside the teaching building, I overheard a few students chatting on the roadside. It seems that more than a dozen students have mysteriously disappeared in recent days, and several students have been confirmed dead. The school seems to be planning to suspend classes urgently and simply end this semester early, and plans to switch to online home teaching for the next semester.

Similar phenomena are not only happening in this university. Many schools are planning to do so, and some companies are also preparing to switch to working from home. If it was just an epidemic, or a natural disaster or man-made disaster, it would be fine, or even a war would not be unacceptable, but now all kinds of "ghost stories" that are out of human common sense are becoming more and more serious in society, and social order cannot operate normally under such a terrorist storm.

It seems that Zhu Shi’s plan to continue his studies is also aborted… When this thought came to my mind, I heard a series of trotting footsteps and a voice calling from behind: “Senior…Senior!”

At first I thought he was calling someone else, but the trotting footsteps seemed to be coming towards me, so I turned around and looked at the person who was calling.

She was a female student with a ponytail, a pure appearance, and a quiet temperament. She seemed to be out of energy. She trotted to me, propped up her knees, panted a few times, and then looked at my expression from below with an uneasy look. I felt that her appearance seemed a little familiar, and wanted to ask her what she wanted to do with me, but then I noticed another familiar figure in the direction she came from. I saw Zhu Shi appeared there with a helpless look on her face. She was wearing a white women's shirt and a black skirt as usual, carrying a large black guitar case, and walked towards us.

She didn't need to hide the Forged Yama Sword in the guitar case, so why did she still carry the guitar case? Although I had some doubts, I didn't raise this question on this occasion.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"She is my classmate." Zhu Shi said, "She said she wants to ask you something."

She looked at the female student, who looked at my face with a mixture of surprise and suspicion, then stretched out her finger, tapped my shoulder cautiously, and then retracted it like lightning.

Looking at the other person's trembling expression, like a small animal, I quickly searched my memory bank for the corresponding information about this female student. Yes, although only once, I have seen this female student before.

The female student seemed to have mustered up the courage to ask, "Um...you are Zhuang Cheng, Senior Zhuang, right?"

"Yes, I am Zhuang Cheng," I said. "By the way, I am alive."

Her expression eased a little, and then she asked cautiously, "I heard that you haven't been in school recently because you were involved in a dangerous supernatural incident... Is that true?"

"Although there are some discrepancies in the details, this is basically the case."

While confessing, I looked at Zhu Shi, who answered for me: "She has also encountered mysterious events recently. She doesn't know what to do and is very panicked. She happened to hear a passing student mention that you appeared in the school, so she was eager to meet you and seek consultation from you, the 'weird expert'."

If that’s the case, why didn’t the female student ask Zhu Shi for help? No, she should ask why Zhu Shi didn’t take the initiative to help her with consultation?
Judging from Zhu Shi's helpless expression, it's probably not that she doesn't want to help, but it may be a coincidence. I won't think about the problem in that direction for now, but turn my attention back to the female student.

The female student asked tentatively: "Senior, do you still remember me?"

"Of course I remember," I said.
-
We sat down in the student cafeteria.

The female student's surname was "Qiao". She was a freshman at Xianshui University and was also my junior. Zhu Shi called her "Xiao Qiao", which sounded like a famous beauty in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and she called Zhu Shi "Xiao Zhu".

I met this school girl once in mid-September last year. Yes, it was around the same time as my first meeting with Ma Zao, or a little earlier to be exact.

I went into the unfinished building where Ma Zao was hiding in order to investigate the ghost stories at the abandoned construction site. It was said that there was a ghost who died in a construction accident in the unfinished building. He would appear in the middle of the night covered in blood and kidnap female students passing by.

This school girl was the one involved in that evil ghost story.

(End of this chapter)