Chapter 27: Under the Wall

“Rumor has it… over a decade ago, a girl in our school’s choir was exceptionally gifted,” Chen Dongyang said, his voice echoing in the empty classroom, laced with deliberate mystery.
“She was beautiful, played the piano beautifully, and sang like an angel. The heart of the choir. But she fell in love with… well, what we’d now call a guy from outside school. Her family was dead set against it.”

“Later, she got pregnant. Her family locked her up, cut her off from him. On a stormy night, she slipped out and came to school alone. And then…”

Chen Dongyang paused, building suspense.

“She killed herself in a music classroom, hanging from the wire of an old ceiling fan.”

He instinctively shone his flashlight at the ceiling.
An empty base hung there, the fan long gone, only broken wires dangling, silently hinting at something.

Yin Qingle’s breath caught, and she clung to Yin Xiran’s arm, seeking courage.
Yin Xiran patted her sister’s hand gently, but her sharp eyes stayed on Chen Dongyang, analyzing, not frightened by the tale but probing its meaning.

Jiang Yuxin stood apart, arms folded, her deep eyes lowered, lost in thought.

“Since then, some say late at night, a piano plays on its own in that classroom—her favorite song from when she was alive,” Chen Dongyang continued.
“Others claim if you come here alone at night, you’ll see a shadow in a white dress, sitting at the piano, playing endlessly…”

His voice halted abruptly.
The mysterious expression froze, replaced by sudden, visceral shock.
His face paled.

He realized the rumored haunted classroom was… the innermost one on the third floor of the old teaching building.

“Rumor has it… that girl never left this classroom,” he murmured, voice dreamy and dry, finishing the story.

“Eek!” Yin Qingle shuddered, letting out a small, frightened cry, practically clinging to her sister.

“Classmate Chen!” Yin Xiran shot him a look, a mix of reproach and exasperation.

“Sorry, sorry!” Chen Dongyang snapped back, waving his hands.
“I didn’t mean to! I just… remembered something.”

Meeting Yin Xiran’s ‘you-better-explain’ glare and Yin Qingle’s scared eyes, he rushed to clarify.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you. It’s just something my dad said once.”

“He told me that oral stories, especially ones tied to specific places and details, are never just made up. Even if they’re warped beyond recognition, there’s always an ‘archetype’—a real connection. Legends are like distorted shadows of reality. We can’t see the truth, but we can trace the shadow to its source.”

His expression turned serious, his gaze sweeping over them.
“That rumor—the suicidal girl, the music classroom… could it connect to what’s happening now? If it happened in this classroom, doesn’t that mean…”

He trailed off, but they all grasped his implication.

Could the rumored suicide from over a decade ago and the recent senior’s death share a connection across time?

Jiang Yuxin, silent until now, locked eyes with Yin Xiran.
They saw the same fleeting realization in each other.

“That girl never left the classroom,” Jiang Yuxin said, repeating Chen Dongyang’s final line in her cold, calm voice.
She looked at Yin Xiran.
“Maybe your first idea was right.”

Yin Xiran caught her meaning, a devilish smile curling her lips.
“It’s not too late to start now.”

She stepped to the classroom’s center.
“Everyone, step back.”

An invisible, powerful force radiated from her, sweeping outward.

Chen Dongyang and Yin Qingle felt the air thicken.
Then, a stunning scene unfolded.

The classroom’s four walls, their yellowed, cracked paint, began to peel silently, curling like living things, turning to fine dust and drifting down.

The cement beneath followed, not breaking but dissolving, as if caressed by an invisible hand, crumbling into gray sand.
A small storm swirled, then settled neatly into the room’s corners, guided by another force.

The process was eerie, silent, with an unsettling, deconstructivist beauty.

In moments, the walls were stripped to their dark red brick core.

When the last layer of cement fell from the wall facing the door, revealing the brick beneath, everyone held their breath.

Embedded in the mottled brick was a clear, human-shaped outline.

Curled like an unborn child, it was sealed forever in the cold wall.