Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Ashes (Part 1)

In the end, this extraordinary late night concluded under the watchful eyes of a group of medical students holding pots, bowls, and spoons as they came to catch the thief.

Ming Yue and Guo Tianyang, as the main culprits and accessories, were dragged out by Li Xianzhou.

Ming Yue’s face was as pale as a corpse; she really wanted to perform an ascension right then and there.

Why does being invited to drink tea with Li Xianzhou put so much pressure on her?

Ming Yue: = = Because Li Yanwang knows my older brother.

Do you want to be reported on?

Do you want to be summoned by your parents?

Do you want to face the hellish authority of your father and brother?

Ming Yue: ...No.

As for the others, they disbanded on the spot.

Li Xianzhou scolded everyone to hurry up and go to sleep. Anyone who wanted to stay up until midnight could stay in the cold storage room.

And so, these heartless people immediately scattered like birds and beasts.

In the office of the Spirit Institute, aside from the school registration, this late night marked Ming Yue's second visit.

Li Xianzhou flipped the light on with a snap, sat down, and coldly surveyed the two students with their heads lowered.

"Speak. What is it this time that requires a report?"

The two students exchanged glances.

Guo Tianyang spoke first: "Teacher, it was my fault. It has nothing to do with my junior, let her go back."

Li Xianzhou: "Shut up. You overstepped your authority in the medical school responsible for the third year. I haven’t even dealt with you yet, so don’t be so eager to take the blame."

Guo Tianyang: "..."Every time Ming Yue encountered Li Xianzhou, there was always a new feeling.

Li Xianzhou clasped his hands together and scrutinized the two of them.

"One overstepping authority in the third-year affairs."

"One cutting down the heroic spirits of the medical school."

"You two really are something."

The two of them: "..."

Guo Tianyang didn't speak, while Ming Yue raised her head. "Teacher, can that also be considered a heroic spirit?"

Li Xianzhou's voice was cold: "If you can donate your body for others to control for decades, then you can say that."

His voice was so cold it could freeze shards of ice.

Ming Yue felt a chill run down her spine. She compared the Li Xianzhou in front of her, under the yellow light, to the usual Li Yanwang who handled school affairs and realized—

There was no difference at all.

It was impossible to tell whether Li Xianzhou was angry or not.

Ming Yue: QAQ

Ming Yue swallowed, "But, that senior seemed to want to harm us."

Li Xianzhou nodded. "That's why you’re still chatting in the office and not meeting the judge. Understand?"

So, if there wasn’t a threat from the enemy, I should have already gone to see the judge after cutting down an old ghost?

Ming Yue instantly had goosebumps all over her back, nodding like a little chicken pecking at rice.

Li Xianzhou pulled out a brand-new report folder from the drawer. "Now, tell me, what happened with the old Qing dynasty relic?""Sit down."

The two students immediately sat down, feeling heavy in the butt, side by side like they were about to eat fruits.

Ming Yue took a sip of tea and organized her thoughts): "The moment that lady came out, I felt her walking posture was quite peculiar."

"It was very old-fashioned, not modern at all—sorry, my writing skills aren’t great."

"Secondly, after Guo Tianyang senior’s golden light divine incantation passed, I pulled her hand away and noticed her nails were black, but the nails on four or five of her fingers were especially long, much like those women in Qing dynasty foot-binding dramas."

"Finally, during the confrontation, when the yin energy took shape, I saw her facial features change dramatically, and a 'flag head' appeared."

Guo Tianyang confirmed: "We saw the flag head too."

Ming Yue: "But, why would someone from the late Qing dynasty, who could still style their hair into a flag head, end up as a corpse used for experiments?"

"The end of a dynasty, where people were worth less than dogs, and exiles or those who died violently were as numerous as cattle."

"The status of one’s identity is a societal construct; in the face of death, everything is equal."

Li Xianzhou stated, his expression unchanged, jotting down a few brief points before asking the key question:

"What are your thoughts on the requests from the medical school’s old ghosts?"

Both students spoke at the same time.

Guo Tianyang: "I propose postponing."

Ming Yue: "I propose we should start acting on it right away."

After they spoke, they exchanged glances.

Ming Yue suddenly smiled: "Senior, your steadiness is the reason why, even after dozens of attempts, the institute’s formation can never be set up and the body memorial stone still can’t be erected."

Guo Tianyang was fuming, "You..."

"Alright," Li Xianzhou interrupted coldly, "This is not a debate room."He then handed the report to Guo Tianyang: "The events of tonight, write them up and submit them in a week for my review."

"And you, Ming Yue, write a 3,000-word self-criticism."

Guo Tianyang: "……"

Ming Yue: "……"

While walking on the road, the pot falls from the sky.

But these past few days, isn't there a bit too much of a pot?

Guo Tianyang flipped through the report folder, paused for a moment, and asked, "Teacher, are you sure we should classify that female ghost as a heroic spirit?"

Li Xianzhou avoided the question: "It's a fact that she dedicated her ghostly life to the medical school."

Guo Tianyang felt frustrated inside: "Then why not give those professors who donated their bodies for teaching purposes the title of 'heroic spirits'?"

"Aren't they more deserving?"

Li Xianzhou: "I didn’t say they aren’t."

"But the one causing trouble this time is this ghost."

"Don't stick your neck out."

"And besides, you didn’t do a good job with the covert operations. The whole medical school knew about it in just one night. It's better to let things slip than to try to block them—if her status as a heroic spirit isn't solidified, how will future students of the medical school face those rotting corpses in the cold storage?"

Ming Yue was holding back her anger, "But there’s already a saying—that the source of donated bodies is always half-gray and half-white, it’s never completely clean—"

Before she could finish, she was interrupted by Li Xianzhou, who coldly stared at her:

"A saying is just a saying. You should understand the difference between 'set in stone' and 'gossip.'"

"If it becomes confirmed that the source of bodies for Jinda Medical School's education comes from mass graves and markets—have you thought about how much damage that would do to the school’s reputation, even if it happened a century ago?"

The two students fell silent.Li Xianzhou tapped his fingers on the desk: "So, this is the reason why I didn't refute Ming Yue's idea."

"The body memorial should start now. I'll communicate with the medical school about this matter tomorrow—if they don't agree, I'll make them bow to the dead one by one."

"But, the reputation of Jinling University cannot be tainted."

Ming Yue lifted her chin, filled with youthful vigor: "The reputation of Jinling University has never been built on these empty words!"

Li Xianzhou smiled.

"The confidence of youth."

"In modern society, destroying the reputation of a century-old prestigious university takes nothing but one night of rumors."

Ming Yue: "But—"

Li Xianzhou stared at her: "No 'but'."

"Now let me ask you, Ming Yue, as the head of the Medical School Department at Chaotianque, why didn't you think to go to Chaotianque and make a summary of your investigation before your second visit tonight?"

"He has the most comprehensive medical school data in the entire sealed spirit academy right now—if I tell you that in the report he submitted to me this afternoon, he clearly speculated that the ghost haunting the cold storage was the restless spirit of a body donor, seeking to return to life?"

Ming Yue: "……"

Ming Yue was struck as if by lightning.

"This..."

Li Xianzhou softened his tone slightly, "So, I say, this incident tonight could have been resolved in a much smoother way."

"Your 3,000-word self-criticism is not unjustified."

"Turn it in before leaving the school."

"Now, both of you, go back and sleep."When Ming Yue returned to the dormitory, Bai Linlang was sitting on the bed, waiting for her late return.

Upon seeing her come back, the dorm leader let out a sigh of relief. Her face, slightly pale, was complemented by her Peppa Pig pajamas, giving her a cute, innocent look as she exclaimed, "What the heck? I thought you died in the medical school!"

Bai Linlang widened her eyes, glanced at An Xueru’s bed, and lowered her voice.

Ming Yue tossed her bag and collapsed onto the bed in a sprawled position. "I also thought I was going to die in the medical school."

"Three thousand words of self-criticism, dorm leader. Li Xianzhou really is..."

Bai Linlang, wearing her pink pajamas, rushed over, plopping herself onto Ming Yue’s bed: "What happened?"

"You came back late, so you probably don’t know, but a lot of seniors went to the medical school tonight."

Ming Yue suddenly sat up, "What did they go to the medical school for?"

Bai Linlang: "I heard from a senior that they went to ‘do a formation’ to suppress the resentment of the medical school."

"They also said something about preventing the hundred-year-old ghost from turning into a vengeful spirit."

"What did you guys do? I remember you went to the medical school with the seniors from year four."

No wonder that old lady was causing such a scene and there wasn’t any peer help stepping forward. Ming Yue sighed, "Don’t mention it. The medical school is haunted, and the morgue was turned upside down."

"Old ghosts and new ones kept appearing one after another."

Bai Linlang was stunned for a moment: "The morgue?"

Ming Yue briefly explained the corpse source issue. Bai Linlang, who was pure and righteous, immediately focused on the main issue:

"The medical school is really something else, huh? Such a serious body issue, and they’ve been dragging it on for decades without solving it."

Ming Yue puffed her cheeks: "Maybe it’s a thankless and exhausting job, and it doesn’t really help the performance of each dean."

Bai Linlang: "……"Bai Linlang was someone with clear-cut views on right and wrong, and a strong hatred for evil. She immediately began to criticize the leadership of the medical school with a variety of creative and colorful remarks. Ming Yue, listening to her, couldn’t help but admire the dorm leader’s mastery of language—her vocabulary was vast, like the ocean.

After thinking for a moment, Ming Yue collapsed back onto the bed and weakly said, "Alright, alright, dorm leader, go rest early."

"This semester still has a week left."

Seeing this, Bai Linlang didn’t have the heart to bring up An Xueru’s failure in the written exam for the incantation and simply went back to her own bed, pulling the covers over herself to sleep.

The next morning, the school’s group chat exploded.

Anonymously, people started popping up one after another:

“Holy crap, did you guys see that? Last night, the medical school was covered by black clouds, blocking the sun!”

“How could we not see it! I was in the Biological Sciences lab doing experiments at midnight, you know? Suddenly, the window just shattered! I thought it was a gas explosion, but when I looked out, the medical school’s first floor was covered in flames—golden flames!”

“You were still doing experiments at midnight?”

“…You wouldn’t understand the struggles of a pharmacy student!”

“Damn, who was closer to the scene than me? At 11:30 PM, the medical school’s cold storage room was haunted! We went over with brooms and mops, but the cold storage room door was locked tight, and suddenly, black smoke started pouring out—damn!”

A witness anonymously stepped forward and calmly explained:

“What the others upstairs said is true. The cold storage door wouldn’t open, and the Spiritual Medicine students inside were blocking the way. The smell was just everywhere—I swear, I’ve never smelled something so awful in my life.”

“It was like the smell of rotting corpses for years—”

“—and then it got burned, mixed with the stench of rotten eggs from a manure pit.”

“Don’t say anymore upstairs, we’re having breakfast.”

“Eating breakfast my ass! The school’s haunted, and we almost got killed by the ‘dead’, and you’re talking about breakfast?!”

“What? Someone died?”

“Listen to him blabbering, has he been studying Marxism to make up such nonsense?”“Stop talking nonsense! I went into the cold storage room this morning to check on the handover, and all the old bros in the cabinets have changed positions! They’re not in the same state we put them in!”

“Holy shit!”

“Holy shit LLS, you better be responsible for what you say!”

“Holy shit! So the cold storage room in the medical school is actually the morgue!”

“…You dumbass, get lost, don’t involve us in your discussion!”

One hour later, the Jinling University school newspaper printed an extra edition, collecting detailed student testimonies, which was turned into a "vivid and expressive" long article titled: “Shock! The Medical School Haunts Late at Night, the Spirit-Sealing Institute's Skilled Hands Exorcise Evil!”

When opened, there were even photos of the medical school’s cold storage that seemed to have been obtained through some unknown means.

After seeing it, one could only slap their thigh and shout:

“These new journalism students would be wasting their talent if they didn’t become paparazzi!”

Three hours later, at noon, the authoritative media of Southern Huaxia, Jinling Morning News, reprinted this article from the Jinling University school newspaper.

In just one day, the article reached over a million views and became the headline of Jinling City.