Chapter 27: The Cat Cries at Midnight (Part 1)

  "Did you guys hear the cat meowing?" Su Qi's dormitory sister Yu SiSi suddenly sat up from bed, and with such a violent movement on the upper bunk, even all the iron beds in the dormitory shook.

  "Is that a cat?" The other sisters in the dormitory were lying in bed, brewing sleepiness, and only when Yu Si said this did they turn their ears to listen.

  "Our dormitory isn't raising one."

  "It's not from our dormitory, it's from outside." Yu Sisi emphasized.

  Su Qi lay silently on the bed, not saying a word. In fact, she had already heard the cat meowing, and it wasn't just one cat, but a group of cats. The sound of their meows echoed through the dark night, filling her with an inexplicable sense of fear, as if the evil female ghost was about to appear at any moment.

  "Now that you mention it, I think I heard it too." Whether they really heard it or just pretended to, some people in the dormitory had already started echoing SiSi's words.

  "This isn't spring, so why is a cat crying?"

  "Maybe it's frozen."

  "How can it be so scary?" Yu Sisi's words were filled with undisguised worry and fear.

  "Have you been watching too many horror movies?"

  "Hey!" The eldest sister in the dormitory, Lin Qingqing, suddenly remembered something and asked excitedly, "Do you guys know what our school used to be?"

  "Where?" Lin Qing's obviously abnormal expression immediately sparked everyone's interest, people's pursuit of gossip is endless.

  "The burial ground." Lin Qing's words were like a stone thrown into the calm surface of a lake, instantly causing a considerable stir.

  "What! Graveyard! Isn't it a wasteland? How did it become a graveyard?"

  "Can't you not scare people in the middle of the night?"

  "Our school's hill behind is the imperial mausoleum, so our school is a cemetery."

  "Didn't someone die in the hills behind our house last year?"

  "Hey! What's going on, you're not allowed to talk but you still talk!" Jolene was the most timid one in the dormitory. She avoided all stories and movies related to ghosts and monsters.

  "Lili, what are you afraid of? It's just talk. Lin Qingqing comforted the loudly shouting Qiao Lili, "Look at Qi Ruo, she hasn't said a word yet! Qi Ruo, aren't you asleep?"

  "Even if I was asleep, you'd wake me up," Su Qi responded with a hint of helplessness. She wasn't interested in these rumors and hearsays, but the unusual cat calls at midnight still made her somewhat worried. She had been thinking about various possibilities just now, but unfortunately, she didn't have any leads.

  "Aren't you curious about what's going on in our school?" Lin Qingqing asked reluctantly.

  "Older sister, you've said this before, what's there to be curious about." Su Qi had been mysteriously warned by her seniors when she was a freshman. "Didn't we discuss it among ourselves when Lili wasn't around?"

  "Really? I had forgotten." Lin Qingqing's words were tinged with a hint of sadness, "Am I getting old and getting Alzheimer's?"

  "Big sister, can't you just stop it!" Lin Qingqing's words sparked a unanimous outcry from everyone in the dormitory. She said that she was not old and why should she be referred to as "old" along with other sisters in the dormitory? How could someone say "old" in front of girls?!

  "I'm just saying, do you have to? Alright, alright, I still have an early class tomorrow, I'll sleep first." Lin Qingqing knew she couldn't win against the group of sisters, so she simply gave up arguing with them and went to sleep.

  Lin Qingqing's reminder made all the sisters in the dormitory realize that it was getting late, and they stopped talking and continued to brew their sleepiness.

  Su Qi let out a soft sigh, Lu Ke's dormitory was just next to her own, I guess he also heard the cat meowing? Maybe he knows the reason, I'll go ask him tomorrow.

  "Huh? You're sleep-deprived?" Shi Ruwen pointed at Su Qiruo's panda eyes. This morning when she went out, Su Qiruo had already discovered that her eye circles were dark, and last night was just a bit later than usual, it shouldn't be this obvious!

  "No." Su Qi replied impatiently.

  "Ladies should pay attention to skin care, go to bed early and get up early, otherwise they will become old." Zheng Ruowen solemnly reminded.

  "Got it." Su Qi glanced at Xi Ruiwen, such a delicate and tender guy, probably didn't lack maintenance usually. "By the way, did you guys hear the cat meowing last night?"

  "I heard." Si Ruiwen didn't hide it and answered honestly, "What's the big deal?"

  "What's wrong?" Su Qi asked as if suspecting that Shi Ruwen had water in his brain, "It's the middle of the night and it's so cold, and there are so many cats meowing, is this normal?"

  "Cats are creatures that gather evil and absorb darkness, so many cats means there's a ghost or demon around. You're finally not slow-witted this time." Lu Ke said to Su Qi with a hint of rare praise.

  Maybe it's because he's used to being criticized by Lu Ke, but Su Qi always feels that Lu Ke is not kind when he hears his words now, and still asks, "What ghost appeared?"

  "It's strange if no ghosts appear in a school built on a site with accumulated yin energy."

  "Why haven't I heard so many cats meowing before?"

  "Maybe you didn't notice!" Si Ruiwen hastily replied, "This school is a hundred-year-old gathering place for yin energy, so it's normal to have some unclean things appear!"

  "A place where evil energy has accumulated for a hundred years?" Su Qi said in surprise, although she didn't understand what this meant, but as someone who had seen some ghosts and monsters, she vaguely felt that this wasn't a good thing.

  "The back mountain of the school is a hundred-year-old imperial mausoleum. The south of the mountain collects fortune, and the north gathers yin. One yin and one yang are in harmony with the heavenly way. Since the imperial mausoleum in the south occupies the place that collects fortune, the school in the north naturally becomes the place that gathers yin. Later, the place where the school was located became a cemetery due to the imbalance of yin and yang, and it became a true gathering place for yin. When the school was built, many coffins were dug up from the ground, which were later uniformly destroyed."

  "How did you know?" Su Qi's eyes widened in disbelief at Lu Ke's words, could it be true that the school was really built on a cemetery? She had always thought it was just a joke.

  "I heard that the most coffins were dug up under San She." Seeing Su Qi's slightly fearful expression, Lu Ke added a sentence as if unintentionally. San She was exactly where Su Qi was located in the school building, with a history of more than 60 years.

  Minutely observing Lu Ke's slightly smiling mouth, Si Ruiwen also immediately echoed, "Women are inherently yin, and the school is built in a place where yin energy gathers, no wonder the three dormitories always have strange occurrences."

  Su Qi Ruo's face turned pale, and it seemed like there was a sealed bedroom on the third floor. It seemed like a girl had died... Su Qi Ruo didn't dare to think about it anymore, or she would scare herself. "What does that have to do with anything?" Su Qi Ruo asked calmly, trying to appear composed. "Why did you guys say so much about the cat's meowing?"

  "There are cats meowing, so there must be a ghost tribe!" Shi Ruwen said calmly, "If you don't want to hear the cat meow, just go and get rid of the ghost tribe!"

  "Eliminate the ghost tribe?" Su Qi was frightened by Ye Ruiwen's casual words, but she wasn't a Taoist priest, didn't have a peach wood sword and wouldn't know how to draw talismans. How could she eliminate the ghost tribe? What if she got possessed by a ghost instead?

  Xu Qi stared at himself in disbelief, and Xi Ruiwen immediately floated up with a small smile, "What's the big deal? It's just the ghost tribe, can they be more powerful than me?"

  Su Qi's expression suddenly turned cold, how could Xi Ruiwen speak so inappropriately?

  "The demon clan is not what you think it is," Lu Ke couldn't bear Xian Ruiwen's complacent expression, so he explained to Su Qiruo, "The demon clan is formed by the condensation of spiritual energy and can also be considered a kind of spiritual source. However, the source of their spiritual energy is too chaotic and not pure enough. Unless it's a weak and small demon clan, they won't be preyed upon by other demon clans."

  "It turns out that ghosts are a kind of spiritual source." When Lu Ke said this, Su Qi suddenly felt that ghosts were not so scary after all, but still asked cautiously, "Then why do people describe ghosts as being so frightening?"

  "When spiritual energy accumulates to a certain extent, it can form a spirit body. The spirit body is just like an ordinary human body and can influence other people."

  "Then, will it possess me?" With a sense of being despised, Su Qi asked the last question with a big heart.

  Lu Ke furrowed his brow, having explained for so long, how could Su Qi Ruo still not understand? Lu Ke's tone suddenly turned cold, "No." Su Qi Ruo actually wanted to ask about the specific reason, but hearing Lu Ke's unfriendly tone, he also gave up on asking further.

  "Actually," said Xie Ruwen, seeing Su Qiyu's hesitant expression, "ghost possession is a kind of hypnosis. A ghost that has cultivated its spiritual body can hypnotize people with weak willpower." Su Qiyu looked at Xie Ruwen with gratitude and suddenly felt that he could be quite cute sometimes.