Let me introduce everyone’s favorite student council president, Classmate Ning Wang.
He had proper features that could represent the school in television interviews, a tall and straight height of over one meter eighty, and grades that ranked first in the grade for two consecutive semesters. Even though he was only a second-year high school student, he had broken the school sports meet record for the one-thousand-meter long-distance run, while Su Yubai would collapse on the grass and vomit rainbows just to finish within five minutes.
Su Yubai felt that this person was completely a stacking of supermodel attributes, the other family’s child among other families’ children. Placed in Slaughter O Tower he would be an Observer, placed in Hearth O Legends he would be a full-power Energy Knight. Playing against him would make one drool while cursing the designer for being a fucking idiot who dared to release such a thunderous thing from the test server.
Needless to say, this person had also maxed out the trait of obeying rules and order, and was the boss of the student council’s discipline department… while he, Su Yubai, was currently blatantly violating school rules, and even violating them while wearing female clothes.
He silently shrank back two steps into the stairwell and for the first time began to miss Miss Red Lips’ pale face. Dying from having his neck twisted by that guy would make him a tragic figure who unfortunately perished while resisting weird entities, but being recognized by Ning Wang would make him a psycho who for some reason died while wearing female clothes.
Su Yubai quietly held the puppet behind his back, wanting to make some futile struggle like a dying rat. But Ning instead raised an unexpected question:
“Classmate, which class are you in? What are you still doing at school so late?”
Su Yubai’s movements stopped.
What was the grade-first adult saying? I am indeed not as smart as you, but I’m not so stupid that I’ve forgotten which class I’m in, right? If you want to humiliate someone, at least change the method?
No. Looking carefully, his expression was serious and a bit curious, with no element of joking or teasing at all… could this guy still not have recognized me?
Su Yubai silently clenched his fists in celebration. Great, this was the blessing from his daily habit of crawling in the shadows of the last row.
“You’re here too.” He answered calmly.
“…I was making up classes in the competition class. There was a problem I never understood, and I only just figured it out,” Ning Wang paused subtly, his eyes flickering a bit, “but I’ve never seen you in class. What were you just doing?”
Only then did Su Yubai notice that Ning Wang looked exhausted and haggard. If posted online, people would probably say his lips were a bit purple.
Recently there seemed to be a national competition, as well as final exams, and as student council president he also had to send off and encourage the seniors about to take the college entrance exam. He was probably spinning nonstop all day long, so ending up like this was only natural.
Top students were truly terrifying.
“I also had a problem I didn’t understand, and was making up classes in another classroom,” Su Yubai quickly stuffed the glass bottle and puppet back into his backpack, then picked up the bag and walked over to the president. “Now I’m going home. Please don’t block the way.”
Su Yubai was determined to properly cosplay as a delicate, sickly-type beautiful girl, and by rights should not say such rude words, but at this moment being a bit rude was actually fulfilling the image of a kind beautiful girl. After all, Ning Wang had not been entangled by Miss Red Lips, and staying here was just meaninglessly taking risks.
But Ning Wang neither shut up nor made way. Not only that, he even slightly furrowed his brows.
“Please don’t lie. I saw you put a strange puppet on the steps. That should be a prop from the literature and arts club, right? But I’ve never seen you in the literature and arts club either.”
“Then I recommend you go a few more times when you have time,” Su Yubai answered with a light laugh, his pale face smiling like a ghost. “Pay more attention to the corners of the classrooms.”
“Sorry, I can’t just let you leave,” Ning Wang refused to yield. “I am the student council president, and I have the duty to stop and correct disciplinary violations. If you don’t cooperate—”
Su Yubai thought this was really troublesome, and simply suddenly rose on his tiptoes to close the distance, staring directly into the president’s eyes at fighting range. Ning Wang immediately choked, his eyes darting left and right, and he retreated two steps in discomfort.
In the end he was just a pedantic second-year high school boy, completely powerless against a beautiful girl (?) wearing pantyhose.
“What will you do? Report me to the director of teaching affairs and wait for him to reward you with a little red flower?” Su Yubai raised an eyebrow and pressed the attack. “You can’t even recognize your own classmate, so stop pretending to put on the airs of a student council president.”
Ning Wang froze in place. She was his classmate? But her skin was as white as snow, her long hair black, and her temperament like the sea in winter, both cold and beautiful… to put it bluntly, she had hard-hit his strike zone.
How could he possibly have overlooked such a person?
Ning Wang tried hard to identify the unfamiliar girl’s face and actually discerned some faint sense of familiarity. Su Yubai did not give him time to see through the truth. Like a ghost he circled past his shoulder, brushed past him, and strode toward the school gate.
“Wait!” Ning Wang called out loudly. “Do whatever you want to do.”
“And then?” Su Yubai turned half an eye toward him. “Wait to be recognized by you, and then you can happily snitch to the teacher and get a little red flower?”
“I won’t report you, I—I swear,” the honor student’s face flushed red. Swearing was a light and floating task that was still quite tiring for him. “But I have to watch from the side.”
“…Do you have a lot of free time?”
“No,” Ning Wang repeated a bit wearily. Anyone staring at black circles like his would be tired. “But maintaining school discipline is the president’s duty.”
Su Yubai thoughtfully put himself in the other’s shoes. A gloomy-type beautiful girl carrying a puppet and walking around the campus in the middle of the night was indeed quite unsettling.
“Fine, as long as you don’t disturb me it’s fine,” he shrugged. “But there’s nothing good to see, and it’s actually a bit dangerous. I advise you to satisfy your eyes and then honestly scram.”
“That depends on what you do.” Ning Wang neither confirmed nor denied.
Su Yubai no longer wasted his breath talking to a brick wall. He returned to the stairwell, took off his backpack under Ning Wang’s gaze, and took out the puppet with the hair already wound around it again. The latter’s expression immediately became surprised and curious:
“What is this? Is it a prop for acting in a horror movie—”
“Quiet,” Su Yubai coldly interrupted him. “Either shut up or scram.”
Ning Wang obediently chose to shut up and stood to the side holding a handbag. Su Yubai once again sighed at the convenience of a beautiful girl’s skin. If it were his usual self, he would probably have been knocked out with two solid punches long ago.
He placed the puppet on the steps and carefully smoothed the sticky hair, styling it into a black long straight hairstyle similar to Miss Red Lips’.
The second of the five laws of witchcraft, the “Law of Similarity”: things that are similar in appearance are also similar in essence. So the more the puppet resembled Red Lips, the better.
After tying the hair well, the puppet once again stiffly began to move. It slowly turned its old joints and climbed up the stairs step by step.
Su Yubai took the opportunity to glance at Ning Wang. As expected, the president showed an astonished expression like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden. He felt a burst of secret delight and was just about to continue appreciating it when he saw Ning Wang suddenly turn his head and look over, silently raising his right hand.
Su Yubai was stunned for a while before understanding what this guy meant.
“If you want to speak, then speak. It’s not like we’re in class.”
“Thank you,” Ning Wang said in a lowered voice. “So nimble. Is there a motor and AI installed inside? Is this the so-called embodied intelligence? The model club made one, but it had trouble even walking on flat ground.”
“Not that advanced. Inside it’s only loaded with a few strands of corpse hair. This is so-called witchcraft,” Su Yubai shook his head. “Just listen. You don’t have to force yourself to believe it.”
The puppet climbed onto the landing of the stairwell, and Su Yubai silently followed. After walking just two steps, a scent of butterfly orchid drifted over, and Ning Wang also tiptoed after him.
“I’ll reserve my opinion,” he said in a low voice, “but assuming this really is witchcraft, what is it used for? Could it be cursing someone—ah.”
Ning Wang’s voice suddenly trembled at the end. Su Yubai smiled lightly. This guy had finally realized he shouldn’t be walking shoulder to shoulder with someone who could curse and kill others… it seemed academic performance and reaction speed were not strongly correlated.
“You see those few strands of hair, right? The owner of the hair is already dead. The puppet is only reenacting her actions during the last period of her life,” he explained considerately. “I want to figure out the cause of her death.”
“The cause of death, huh,” Ning Wang looked thoughtful, his expression still half-believing. “Could she be our classmate?”
“Maybe.” Su Yubai neither confirmed nor denied.
A strange scream suddenly sounded in the stairwell, so tragic it was as if a heart had been torn in half while still alive. Su Yubai and Ning Wang stopped at the same time and looked toward the puppet.
It stopped on the last step leading to the seventh floor, its body twisting and struggling like a mouse that had fallen into a hot oil pot, its two old arms frantically scratching above its head. It forcefully gouged out two small wooden balls from the places corresponding to the eyes, then broke into a mad run and charged straight toward the seventh floor.
Now! It was almost time for the death!
Su Yubai gripped the railing and was just about to rush up—
“Classmate Su! Wait!” Ning Wang’s voice came from beside him.
“What—”
Su Yubai abruptly bit off the half-spoken words. Ning Wang still hadn’t recognized him, so he wouldn’t call him “Classmate Su.”
There was no third person in the nighttime stairwell. The existence that would call him that… there was only one.