Chapter Fourteen: Playing with Fire

Pretending to be a ghost to scare someone? When he was alive, Xu Wenrui often suffered from nightmares and claimed to have seen a “female ghost,” which was why his grandmother took him to that charlatan Duan Yong. He drank the so-called “talisman water” mixed with alcohol, leading to his untimely death.

Given this, could there be some connection between the prank where his classmates pretended to be ghosts and Xu Wenrui’s subsequent strange behavior? Yan Xue hadn’t realized that Xu Hao’s so-called joke would be like this; instinctively, she made a mental link between the two events.

“Oh! So you all play these old-school pranks now?” Kang Ge couldn’t help but laugh. “The last time I pretended to be a ghost to scare someone was when I was fifteen. My little sister was five, and after I scared her, my mom nearly beat me half to death.”

His words made Xu Hao, who had been a bit anxious, burst out laughing as well. “Brother, you really deserved that beating! You were fifteen, and you still went out of your way to scare your own sister?”

“What’s so strange about that! You’re a senior in college, just over twenty, right? And you’re bored enough to scare your classmates by pretending to be a ghost!” Kang Ge shrugged.

“It’s not the same at all. I’m just over twenty, and Xu Wenrui is a few months older than me. Scaring him is fair game,” Xu Hao replied, his worries seemingly forgotten as he chatted easily with Kang Ge. “Honestly, I just couldn’t stand how fake he acted, so when I heard he’d been jumpy and weird lately—so much so that his roommates were annoyed—I decided to play a joke on him.

I never thought he’d be so terrified. I figured a normal person would just be startled, maybe get angry, maybe stop talking to me for a bit. I didn’t really care if he liked me or not, you know? But it turned out I’d gone a bit too far—he was so timid! Might not even be as brave as your five-year-old sister!

Afterward, I realized I was at fault. Even if I didn’t like him, wrong is wrong. I went to apologize, but the moment he saw me, he went crazy, shouting and avoiding me, then pushed past me and ran out. I heard he didn’t even return to the dorm afterward.”

“He reacted that strongly?” Yan Xue was surprised.

Back when she was in university, her school had far more men than women, so pranks and teasing were common. Usually, things ended with a few laughs or curses. If someone went too far and made someone angry, there might be a shouting match, and sometimes, people were on the verge of a physical fight—but only because of the school’s strict rules.

But to see the victim shouting, avoiding everyone, and being so scared they didn’t dare return to their dorm—that was new to her.

“Yeah, it was really strange, wasn’t it?!” Xu Hao slapped his thigh, feeling suddenly understood by Yan Xue’s reaction. “So you can’t blame me for being narrow-minded—his reaction was so extreme, yelling at me like I was trying to kill him, and then I heard he stopped coming to school. I was mentally prepared for him to contact me suddenly and blackmail me or something!

So when I happened to be in their dorm and the lady downstairs called, saying his sister and brother-in-law were dropping off some things and needed someone to help carry them up, I volunteered. I wanted to sound out his family, see what was really going on, but who’d have guessed you two were imposters!”

He sighed helplessly and shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ve got me curious now!” Kang Ge said, all the while watching Xu Hao’s expression closely. “Come on, satisfy my curiosity—how did you scare him?”

“It’s nothing, really. Don’t laugh, but I used a super clichéd trick. If it had been someone with a bit more sense or courage, I might have gotten beaten up right then and there,” Xu Hao admitted, not sounding proud of his prank, but rather resigned and a bit bewildered. “Have you ever heard that old ghost story? The one where you’re in the bathroom and suddenly an old lady’s hand sticks out from the next stall, holding a red and a green sheet of toilet paper, and asks you to choose? You’ve heard it, right?

At our school, each dorm has its own washroom and balcony, but the toilets are communal. The bathroom light had broken recently, so the inner stalls were pitch black, relying on the faint light from outside.

I saw my chance, bought a set of fake nails—those plastic ones with double-sided tape or whatever, so you can stick them on for a bit. Xu Wenrui usually went to the bathroom late at night after everyone else had gone to bed, so I waited in the dorm, and when I heard him go, I slipped into the next stall, scratched at the partition with the fake nails, and he started yelling, asking who it was, telling me to knock it off.

Then I reached my hand under the partition—I’d made sure to powder it ghostly white. The fake nails were so long it was hard to hold the toilet paper.”

“You didn’t really use a green and a red sheet, did you?” Kang Ge asked with a mischievous grin.

“No, not for lack of trying, but I just couldn’t get them!” Xu Hao said regretfully. It was clear he didn’t really regret scaring Xu Wenrui. “I figured, with the lights out, nobody could see clearly anyway. As long as I said the right lines, it’d work. It was just a prank, not a movie—no need for complicated props!”

“What happened next?” Yan Xue asked.

“I pinched my voice and asked, ‘Do you want the red paper or the green paper?’ He didn’t respond, and I thought maybe he wasn’t scared—actually felt a bit disappointed. I waited a while, heard nothing, so I went back to the dorm.

But later, someone else went to the bathroom and heard crying, got scared, and found him curled up in the stall, hugging his head and trembling. When people came in, he kept talking about ghosts, so they brought him back to the dorm.

The next day, after I heard about it, I was surprised by how strong his reaction was—he was terrified. I realized maybe I’d gone too far, so I tried to apologize. But he freaked out, shoved me, said I was trying to hurt him, talking nonsense, seemed mentally unstable, and then he ran off.”

Xu Hao’s description of Xu Wenrui’s reaction was certainly unusual, but what Yan Xue focused on was a detail Xu Hao mentioned unintentionally: “You went to apologize, said you’d played a prank on him, and Xu Wenrui said you were trying to hurt him?”

“Yeah, he accused me of trying to hurt him, and talked about ghosts and stuff. I really was sincere about apologizing, but when he said that, I got upset. I admit my prank was wrong, but you can’t just accuse me of trying to harm someone! So I asked him how I was supposedly hurting him—what, am I supposed to summon a ghost to get him?

The moment he heard that, he broke down, shoved me aside, and ran off—so fast! We called after him, but he didn’t respond or look back. I thought he’d gone to report me to the counselor, but apparently he never did,” Xu Hao said, sounding both aggrieved and baffled.

“You said ‘we’?”

“Yeah, I told you, I get along with his roommates, so I hang out in their dorm sometimes! I only went to apologize because they urged me to—otherwise, I would’ve just let it go.”

“What’s your friend’s name? How’s his relationship with Xu Wenrui? They share a dorm, so he should know Xu Wenrui pretty well, right?” Yan Xue asked casually.

“Haha, you guessed wrong! Zhuang Fukai barely talks to Xu Wenrui unless something’s up! You might as well ask me—there’s not much difference!” Xu Hao laughed heartily, but then seemed to realize it was a bit inappropriate. “But if you really want to talk to him, I’ll help you reach out. Just keep in mind, he doesn’t pay much attention to Xu Wenrui, so the chances of getting useful information are slim.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you arrange for him to meet us?” Yan Xue seized the opportunity eagerly.

“No problem,” Xu Hao nodded, getting up to make a call. As he left, he muttered, “I can’t just tell him straight out that we want to ask about Xu Wenrui, or he’ll definitely refuse to come!”

“Hey, are you sure this is okay? Won’t your buddy be mad at you?” Kang Ge reminded him with a rare show of concern.

“Oh, it’s fine! Zhuang Fukai has a great temperament! If clay figures have a bit of earthiness, he’s only got half that! Worst case, I owe him a meal!” Xu Hao said easily, unconcerned.