Chapter 4: Early Morning Conversations
Meng Luli was already used to dealing with Xiao Rui and his nonsense. That guy was always gloomy and handed out bad looks like they were candy. He had been more scary than usual during this task so far, but considering the de-aging all of the students had to deal with that wasn't surprising.
No, the surprise was that fluffy-haired kid. He'd shown professionality and succinct conveyance of facts that appealed to Xiao Rui's lack of interest in dealing with other people and then dropped the bombshell that the school flower was in fact male and crossdressing for some reason or another. How he'd gotten the crossdressing tidbit out of a photo was beyond her to be honest.
Xiao Rui was trying harder than usual during this task to solve it as quickly as possible. Wanting to be back to his usual age was understandable, but she wouldn't have to be dealing with what was likely to be a stressful but short task if not for how Xiao Rui looked after collecting information last night. He had gone to bed straight after that tidbit and not even asked her to do anything this morning, so she just knew that he had come up with a plan involving fluffy-hair that would cause another chaotic ending. If she had to run for her life one more time because of his crazy schemes, he was going to owe her so many sweets to make up for it.
Being the younger sister of the childhood friend to a guy like that was going to end in tears, on her side most likely too. The plentiful compensation he usually offered to make sure she didn't go crying to her ge just wasn't enough some days.
As it was, Meng Luli definitely didn't feel compensated enough to be up so early to meet Xiao Rui in front of the boys' dorms. He likely had some task or another for her ready too with that dropped bomb of information from last night.
The sight of Xiao Rui standing in front of the boys' dorms beside the boy from last night proved her right. Her fast paced walk soon turned into hesitant little steps at the look on his face. She felt chills go up her spine at the look of interest he turned on his conversational partner that had not appeared last night even with the unexpected revelations.
Why did she somehow have the feeling that the expected chaos level from Xiao Rui's actions was going to double? That fluffy haired guy hadn't looked like the type to incite chaos…
Gathering her courage, Meng Luli covered the last little bit of distance between them by cheerfully skipping. Backing down or showing her fear here and now would make it harder to get compensation out of Xiao Rui later. She was going to push forward and ignore any thoughts on the potential chaos these two might get up to later. Her future self could deal with future problems, right now she just wanted a parfait. A nice big, chocolate and caramel parfait with a fruit tart and maybe some nut brittle on the side for crunch.
"Xiao Rui," she called out. "Making me get up so early like this when you already have someone to help out! I want a parfait from that hole in the wall near my ge's apartment and some of the fruit tarts from that one place."
The interested look on his face twisted into one of annoyance. "He hasn't agreed to help, only to share information. What compensation do I owe for that?"
Meng Luli heard a light cough as Liu Rong interrupted their tense atmosphere. "We were just confirming the information shared last night in greater detail. If that's all, I'll be heading off to class now. I want to ask my classmates some questions."
Meng Luli watched in surprise at the quick escape of Liu Rong across the grounds towards the first year classrooms. Was there any reason to run so fast from the two of them? They hadn't even really gotten into a fight, and the boy had rabbitted.
Turning to commiserate with Xiao Rui, Meng Luli saw that the stinky look on his face had escalated back into 'murderous fiend' from the slight annoyance of their earlier tiff. Snorting, she asked, "Is that the look that made him rabbit so fast?"
"We were talking just fine about how he determined Li Hong was male before you interrupted," he grunted out.
Meng Luli just looked at him as if he was an idiot. Most people didn't understand that the look of mild annoyance that was terrifying to them or the murderous look that made them immediately back away that showed up on this stinky boy's face were more like porcupine quills than anything. The happier he looked, the more chaos he caused. The more murderous he looked, the shorter his sentences and less his interactions.
It wasn't like he was actually going to go out and murder anybody, she sighed inside of her head. This guy had surprisingly upstanding morals for his tendency to glare murder when even the tiniest bit upset.
"He probably just wanted to confirm some of the information with primary sources," she comforted. "We'll see him in the library after school anyway, so let's head to class now and talk to him afterwards."
That stinky look on his face didn't decrease by much, but she was sure that she could create opportunities for the two of them to talk this afternoon and get him back in the mood for chaos instead of the much worse sulking. His sulking somehow ended up with more casualties than his pure chaos any day.
*********
Liu Rong, by this time, was sitting in his homeroom after being scolded for skipping class. He was glad that he only had to write a review tonight. The template he'd used back in his school days ought to work out just fine, so he could focus on investigating after classes let out.
Tapping on his desk lightly, he thought about his conversation with Xiao Yongrui this morning. They had met up by chance in front of the boys' dorms with Xiao Yongrui waiting for Meng Luli to meet up with him and himself wanting to get to class early to have time to receive his punishment and have time to talk with his classmates. Then they had gotten to talking.
Xiao Yongrui had seemed somewhat interested in how he had deciphered that Li Hong was, in fact, male, so he had explained about body proportions and characteristics to look out for in crossdressers of either gender. Luckily he hadn't had to explain where this knowledge came from, or he would have had to curse his jie once more for the eclectic education she'd given him in some matters.
The conversation had been going so well too until Meng Luli showed up and got into a fight with Xiao Yongrui. He'd thought he was about to witness a one-sided murder at the time, but now that he really thought about it, the way the two interacted was more like siblings of some sort. Meng Luli was teasing him, so Xiao Yongrui must have just been annoyed despite the scary look on his face that ended their conversation.
After all, if he had seen that look on a customer's face back when he was paying his way through university, he would have switched out with another staff member right away. Ah, but running away so fast seemed to be a bit rude with that nice conversation they'd had. Would Xiao Yongrui be upset with him?
Maybe if he apologized after classes were over, they could continue consulting about the investigation. He wanted to know more about what Xiao Yongrui thought about the huge secret of Li Hong being the school grass instead of the school flower and what he knew about Li Hong staying in the teacher's dorms.
As Liu Rong was all but daydreaming while thinking about all of this, a package of you tiao and soy milk suddenly appeared in front of his eyes. Looking up, he was met with the blushing face of one of his female classmates.
"You didn't have breakfast this morning, so I bought this from your favorite stall," she practically whispered in embarrassment.
"Ah, this classmate, you didn't have to," Liu Rong responded with a brief widening of his usual polite smile. "But since you were kind enough to already buy it for me, why don't we chat while I eat? I overheard rumors about a ghost from an upperclassman last night, and my jie really enjoys ghost stories. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
A susurration of whispers once again came about from Liu Rong opening his mouth in this classroom. But this time, it wasn't all making fun of him. In fact, quite a few people seemed very interested in where this was going.
The girl who had given him breakfast was joined by some other female classmates. They looked excited as they started blurting out snippets about the rumored ghost, interrupting each other so he could only catch bits and pieces.
"The ghost's name is Li Hong - "
" - she was a first year two years ago - "
" - the same age as the current third years - "
" - jumped off the roof of the girls' dorms - "
" - she wasn't even staying there, she lived in the teachers' dorms, don't know why she was there in the first place - "
" - heard she got confessed to by the first year's school grass, but he delivered the letter to the girls' dorms - "
" - didn't he know she was in the teachers' dorms? And I heard it wasn't from him but a trick from some fellow first years jealous that he liked her - "
" - yeah, I heard that too! She got a bunch of confession letters that turned out to be jokes, and then she was teased really badly about it by those first years - "
" - so it was bullying? She couldn't stand it and jumped!"
Sitting there calmly in the middle of this cacophony, Liu Rong finished munching on the you tiao and stuck a straw in the soy milk to drink it. "Thank you very much ladies, but what about the scary part? What does the ghost do that the upperclassman was so scared mentioning her? My sister loves scary ghost stories best."
He then sat through another burst of information that he quickly sorted out as he enjoyed his soy milk. Li Hong as a ghost reacted to confession letters like they were markers to track her victims with. The person who wrote them was the target, not the person being confessed to. The target ended up maimed or dead shortly after in what could only be called unnatural accidents. They only knew it was a ghost because the maimed ones all claimed to have seen Li Hong. There were also accounts from the friends of the dead victims that they had mentioned Li Hong unexpectedly shortly before their deaths.
However, the most interesting thing to Liu Rong was the silence of the blushing student who had given him breakfast. She was still standing right in front of him even as she was being crowded by the other female students eager to share information on the ghost, but the blush had disappeared. Did she know something? Or was she just scared of ghosts?
The ringing of the bell interrupted both his thoughts and the girls chattering in front of him. It looked like class was starting, and he would have to wait to question the breakfast girl until after class.
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