CH 24

Before heading to New Shanghai High School by taxi, even the taxi driver had no idea that such a place even existed. As we drove, the driver had to ask for directions, and it took us over two hours to finally reach our destination.

As I got out of the taxi and looked around, I found myself in a barren wasteland with waist-high weeds and foul-smelling ditches. Deep within this desolate area, I spotted the school that had been hidden away from the bustling city.

“This looks nothing like the upscale private school in the pictures,” The school in the pictures had an air of sophistication and refinement, while the one before me exuded an eerie, ominous aura, like a half-buried corpse.

“It’s already 11 o’clock; I need to pick up the pace.” In order to complete my mission, I plunged into the wilderness and trudged forward with difficulty. However, I hadn’t gone far when I was met with a row of rusty iron fences blocking my path.

“Keep out!” read a warning sign that had been torn down and thrown onto the muddy ground, with a few blurred bloody handprints still visible on it.

I picked up the fallen warning sign and hung it back in its place, but I couldn’t help feeling puzzled. “Normally, even if this were an abandoned factory, there wouldn’t be a fence specifically built around it unless there were large amounts of hazardous materials inside. But why would a school be isolated like this?”

After I climbed over the fence and walked inside, if I had turned back at that moment, I would have seen the warning sign I just hung up sway and then fall back onto the muddy ground with a “crack”.

As I approached the front gate of the school, I noticed two red padlocks fastened to the black-painted gate. I peered inside but could only make out the outlines of a few buildings.

I concentrated on observing the building, and I suddenly felt a chill on my calf. I quickly jumped back and saw a black cat crouched at my feet. “You scared me.”

The cat’s eyes glowed green as it tilted its head in a strangely human-like manner before darting into the abandoned school with a “whoosh”.

“I can’t take any more surprises. If this keeps happening, I’ll develop a nervous breakdown,” I muttered to myself as I stuffed my suitcase under the gate and climbed over it to enter the New Shanghai High School.

“Phew, I made it to my destination. It’s time for my second live broadcast!” I took out my camera and phone and connected the mobile encoder.

“Image acquisition in progress…”

“Connecting to the bullet screen… “

“Data is stable. Do you want to start the live broadcast?”

“Yes.”

“Welcome Teletubies died of murder to the live broadcast room, welcome Officer Huang of the third year class 2 to the live broadcast room, welcome…”

As soon as the live broadcast started, several familiar names appeared in the chat room.

“OMG, the host is still alive! Thank goodness!”

“Host, we thought you had already passed away and even ordered a funeral wreath for you!”

“Where are you planning to go and die tonight? Machine Number One is on standby and ready to call the police at any time!”

The enthusiasm of my online friends exceeded my expectations. Although they were all just talking nonsense, it helped ease my anxiety and nervousness.

“Welcome back to the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room. Tonight, we’re going to a truly terrifying location.”

I pointed the camera at the name of the school. “This school is called New Shanghai High School, a private school jointly run by China and Japan. Only children from wealthy families can afford to study here…”

“I’ve heard of similar elite schools that introduce Japanese-style education. The tuition fees are ridiculously expensive!”

“Pfft! China has a history of 5,000 years; do we still need to import Japanese education? Japanese invaders, get out of our live room!”

“Get out!”

“Uh, everyone calm down. New Shanghai High School was actually shut down five years ago, so there’s no need to argue about it.” The rhythm of the live stream was getting off track, so I quickly stopped the veteran troublemakers, who were ready to fight and post memes: “According to reason, this school should be very famous locally, but in fact, after my investigation, information about this school was intentionally blocked five years ago.”

“What are they hiding? Or what happened five years ago that led to the shutdown of the entire school?” The audience’s attention was slowly drawn to what I was saying: “Through the layers of fog, we will search for the lost truth. Tonight, I will lead you to solve all the mysteries.”

“Hurry up, the security guard will wake up soon!”

“My intuition tells me that there must be something fishy in the women’s changing room. Everyone demands that the host investigate.”

“The upstairs analyst is very experienced, and my stargazing led me to the same conclusion as them!”

“You two upstairs are agreeing too much. In my opinion, the setting around the women’s restroom should be even more eerie…”

“You scum, get out of the live stream!”

Holding my phone and camera, I placed my suitcase at the gate and entered the campus. Whether to go to the women’s changing room or the women’s restroom was not something I considered. The first thing to do when arriving in an unfamiliar environment was to confirm the direction and find a map portraying the surrounding area.

“Teaching building, laboratory building, women’s dormitory, office building, playground…”

New Shanghai High School was very large, and it would take a long time to search the entire campus. As a precaution, I decided to search one building at a time to see if I could find anything.

“Host, if you really don’t want to go to the women’s changing room, we can accept you going to the women’s dormitory instead.”

“Come on, those who agree to go to the women’s dormitory, press 6.”

“6 Your sister, we’re here for a paranormal investigation show. There must be ghosts in the women’s restroom. I guarantee it with my reputation.”

After weighing the options, I finally chose to enter the teaching building closest to the gate.

This building wasn’t too tall, only four stories high. Due to the school’s emphasis on elite education, the number of students wasn’t too high, with all three grades taught in the same building.

The teaching building had four classrooms on each floor, with signs indicating the year and class posted outside each room. There were two exits on either side of each classroom, and the walls of the staircase bear scorch marks. Most of the handrails have fallen off, leaving the stairs bare and treacherous to walk on.

“Judging by the state of this building, the rumors online might not be unfounded. It’s entirely possible that there have been fires and stampedes here.” I walked along the first-floor hallway, wondering if anyone else had ever experienced the same eerie feeling of looking into an empty classroom late at night, with rows of desks and chairs sitting silently in the darkness.

The classrooms were empty and abandoned, and I couldn’t make out the words on the blackboard no matter how close I got to the window.

As expected, all the classrooms on the first floor were empty.

With the burnt walls as my guide, I made my way up to the second floor.

“Class 5 of Grade 1, Class 1 and Class 2 of Grade 2…” I searched the second floor but still couldn’t find anything, and I began to wonder if I was overreacting. I proceeded to climb up to the third floor, gasping for breath.

“Empty, empty, still empty…” Finally relieved, I looked toward the last classroom on the third floor.

“What’s that?”

Through the window, I saw four dark figures standing beside the podium!

“Bang!” My camera slipped out of my hand and hit the ground. I took two steps back, almost falling off the third floor if there hadn’t been a railing behind me.

“What is this?! Are there still students on this campus? No, stay calm, maybe those are just human sculptures.”

I picked up my camera and approached the window again. “What?! They’re gone?! Those four dark figures were not models!”

I broke out in a cold sweat, and without paying attention to the barrage of comments in the live broadcast room, I hurriedly moved towards the stairs. Just then, with a creak, the classroom door was pulled open.

“Ah, you scared me to death! Come out, it’s not a ghost, it’s just a person!” The voice sounded young. I was dumbfounded as I watched two boys and two girls walk out of the classroom with backpacks on their backs.

“You guys…” I started to ask, but the oldest-looking boy, who seemed to be around 17 or 18 years old, interrupted me.

“We’re students from a nearby school. We heard that this place is haunted, so we came to test our courage,” he explained.

“What’s there to test? You should go home quickly. This place is very dangerous!” I spoke seriously, which was quite rare for me. The fact that the underworld show was set up here for the live broadcast meant that there might really be ghosts in here.

“Uncle, you’re too timid,” teased one of the girls with short hair. She and the other boy were probably dating.

“Go home quickly. If something really happens, you won’t be able to run away,” I urged.

“You adults always make a big deal out of everything. We came here earlier and didn’t find anything strange.” one of the teenagers retorted.

“Yeah, if you want to leave, go ahead. Our courage test game has just begun,” another chimed in.

Kids these days were so bold, but this also means they won’t sit idle if they don’t take risks. If I forced them to leave, it might even provoke their rebellious nature, and they could secretly follow me.

“Okay, since you don’t want to leave, can I join in your courage test game? I’m actually a paranormal explorer live-streaming host, and I’m quite interested in this stuff,” I said these words purely to protect them. But little did I know that the real nightmare was just about to start.