Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Medical School - Part 3 [Correction]

The inside of the ventilation shaft was square, with rough cement cuts. The friction against her palms was painful, but the high friction force was very convenient for her to use for climbing in and out.

Ming Yue’s whole body was wedged in the cement passage, like a noodle. She turned her head to look back and forth, deciding to retract her earlier complaints about Jin University’s narrow and poorly designed ventilation ducts.

Perhaps this was actually meant to prevent some foolish students from sneaking into the ventilation shaft to gossip with the old ghosts.

Chao Tianque pulled out his phone and flipped through the medical school’s building structure data. He shouted toward the ventilation shaft: “Junior, be careful! The medical school has had many body donors, and there must be plenty of old ‘customers’ who return after death.”

“The ventilation shaft is cold and full of yin energy, be careful of encountering any old guests causing trouble!”

Body donations?

Ming Yue was taken aback by his words. Something flashed in her mind, but unfortunately, she couldn’t grasp it. “Don’t worry, senior—”

It was class time, and the medical school was eerily quiet. After the haunting incident, the main staircases had been sealed off, but the side stairways still led to the various floors and laboratories. As a result, students had to take alternate routes through the side stairways, making the main staircase eerily empty. It felt like, despite hundreds of students being present, only Chao Tianque’s group of six seemed to be alive and breathing, with almost no yang energy left.

The hallway was shrouded in grey mist, and the yin energy had formed webs. Chao Tianque felt a chill. He wasn’t comfortable with Ming Yue being alone in the ventilation shaft, so after discussing with Tan Lu, the two of them pulled out all the yang energy talismans from their talisman bags. They lit them with a lighter and burned them below the ventilation shaft.

The cold air sank while the warm air rose, using the flow of the air to funnel into the ventilation shaft, hoping it would offer Ming Yue some help.

The pseudo-sky window of the living body laboratory was very close to the exterior ventilation shaft, no more than ten meters away. Ming Yue didn’t take many steps before she reached it.

The cement path inside was dimly lit, and dust filled the air. The only sound was the “scratch-scratch” noise from her climbing.

Ming Yue could feel her yin eye absorbing the yin energy faster and faster, and the scar from the curse started to ache faintly. It coiled like a snake, and the surrounding yin energy density rapidly increased. The air was damp and sticky, like a tangible substance.

She turned her left eye and took out a piece of talisman paper, using some tears to make a yin energy talisman, which she stuck on the iron bars of the ventilation window as a precaution. Then she pulled out a screwdriver and, with just a few moves, unscrewed the metal frame. Her field of vision quickly shifted to the lower level—

From a high vantage point.

Inside the laboratory, everything was visible.

Under the three- to four-meter-high wall, the floor was covered with rabbit ghosts, densely packed, as if the ground were covered with thick, sticky black moss.

Ming Yue: “......”

The sight of it was so intense that it nearly triggered an explosion of panic.She took out a yang energy talisman, strung it onto the tip of the energy/gun, aimed carefully, and prepared to shoot—

Suddenly, a strange whistling sound came from somewhere, like damp breathing, the sound of wheezing in her ears. Ming Yue paused, looking back toward the rising smoke from the talisman paper. It seemed normal. She wasn't paying much attention and, in her clumsy way, raised her gun and shot.

Bang, bang, bang.

A series of sharp sounds echoed.

The ground of the laboratory was covered in talisman papers, arranged in all directions, with the space between tiles also nailed with them. The talisman papers were attached with thin ropes for easy pulling. Ming Yue, like a gecko clinging to the iron window, took out a low-level lightning talisman, rubbed it in her hands, and suddenly threw it down from the window!

It was as though a bolt of lightning materialized out of nowhere in the laboratory, flames spilling from the electric light surrounding it.

Boom, boom, boom, a series of explosions rang out.

Accompanied by the rabbits' ear-piercing shrieks, the gray clumps of energy crazily stretched and contorted across the floor.

Chest expansion—

Leg kicks—

Sit-ups—

Outside, the two third-year students who were watching the talisman smoke heard the shrill cries and stopped what they were doing at the same time. Tan Lu rushed to the door, looked inside, and cheerfully said, “It worked!”

Inside the cement path, Ming Yue was holding a stopwatch, calculating the longest burning time that wouldn't kill the rabbits. She was pleased with herself.

Why am I so smart?

Ming Yue was practically glowing with pride.

The smoke from the burning talisman paper grew thicker, blocking the line of sight toward the ventilation shaft. It mixed with the damp yin energy, the yin and yang clashing. It felt like the heat was getting hotter and the cold was growing colder, with no signs of fusion.

Thirty seconds passed in the blink of an eye. Ming Yue covered her nose, waved away the mist, and tried to pull the rope to raise the ghost children trapped in the net. However, her right hand seemed to be stuck on something, and she couldn't put any force into it.

Maybe the direction was wrong, that's why she couldn't muster any strength.Ming Yue frowned, crawled a couple of steps deeper, then moved from the right side of the ceiling window to the left, turning her body around and lifting the rabbit nets one by one.

In the distance, Tan Lu's voice called out, praising her for a job well done. Ming Yue responded loudly, tying the rabbit nets to the ceiling, as if hanging up a bunch of gray ghost lanterns.

One, two, three.

Seven, eight, nine.

What should have been as smooth as a Dove chocolate was getting more and more difficult, more and more taxing. Her right hand was being pulled again. Ming Yue tugged hard, thinking that the density of the yin energy was so high that she could hardly see her elbow. She tried to use the light from the ceiling window to see the knots in the net. But instead, her elbow got pulled in, and she clearly saw an old, orange peel-like hand tightly gripping her living flesh, digging into her clothes.

The hand was dark purple, covered in deep red wrinkles, narrow and tightly packed like snake scales. Its nails were long, and the skin looked necrotic, as if deprived of oxygen.

Ming Yue: "..."

She looked at her right hand, caught by the grip, and then glanced at her left hand holding the rabbits.

Right hand: "Not me."

Left hand: "Not me either."

Whose hand was that?

It must be the old residents of the ventilation pipe, comfortably fat, probably inviting me for tea!

In an instant, Ming Yue thought about going to face the present moment. A surge of strength exploded within her, and she grabbed the old, orange-peel hand, turning her head to look hard into the darkness.

The old man: "..."

The old man suddenly had a ten-centimeter intimate eye contact with Ming Yue, and she was so startled that her soul almost left her body.

Outside the cement path, Chao Tianque was about to open the door and collect the rabbits when he suddenly heard a hoarse, miserable scream!

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah——"

The voice was rough and hoarse, clearly not a woman's.

Chao Tianque: "..."Tan Lu: "......"

The two of them squinted and asked, "Who is it?"

Chao Tianque: "This is bad! It must be that junior who's in danger!" With that, he rushed out of the classroom and desperately dashed toward the ventilation shaft.

Tan Lu was so anxious she wanted to hit him: "You idiot! How are you going to fit in there with that huge size!"

At this point, the ventilation shaft had been firmly blocked by the yin energy, like a living barrier isolating everything, leaving only the winding cement path. Ming Yue watched in the dark as the old man’s dim gray-green eyes glowed faintly, forcefully prying his claws apart, grabbing the noose around his neck, and dragging him forward.

The old man: ...

The old man: "You little thief!"

The old man was not one to give up easily. In a few moves, he pulled his "old partner" back.

In the narrow pipe, the old man and Ming Yue were engaged in a tug-of-war, pulling back and forth, having a merry old time.

Ming Yue crawled, crawled, but the noose was long, and when she pulled one side, there was still a large portion trailing behind her. Her ankle was tied up at some point, which severely slowed her speed. She could only crawl like a bug in the narrow cement path. Behind her, the old man hissed, the yin energy solidified, and his body slithered in and out of the cement like a shadow, a black snake, mouth open, aiming to bite Ming Yue's heel. His breath stank, full of plaque and decay.

Ming Yue was startled by his yellow teeth and screamed:

"Ahhhhhh——!" She kicked him hard in the face.

Outside, the two third-year students heard this scream and anxiously ran in circles. Tan Lu bit her finger until it bled, quickly making a fire talisman to throw into the ventilation shaft, but Chao Tianque stopped her with a shout: "Are you crazy!"

"Do you want to burn the junior alive?!"

Tan Lu yelled back: "What else can we do? Fire is pure yang, it can fight off the yin energy!"

Chao Tianque: "......"

Chao Tianque, in the midst of the chaos, tried to calm himself: "Let me think, let me think!"

Deep in the cement path, the old man was knocked over by a kick. Not willing to back down, he reached out with his "manicured" hands, attempting to strangle Ming Yue’s neck while desperately blowing corpse gas into her face.

Ming Yue was sprayed with his foul breath, and screamed: "Wow, how many years has it been since you brushed your teeth?" Then, as expected, she spat a faceful of saliva right back at the old man.The old man: "......"

The leftover meal's strong, pungent smell wafted through the air. The old man could not bear the humiliation and let out a miserable scream, both frightened and enraged. He tried to strangle Ming Yue but was once again kicked away by her.

Ming Yue: "Pah, enough of you, you hanging ghost! Instead of trying to hang me in a wide open space, you think you can lure me by crawling through the waterway? Can't even see what's in front of you!"

She then took out a triangular ruler and aggressively jabbed it into the old man's face. The bloodstained edge stuck to the ghost, and before the old man could even scream in pain, it was as if a spark ignited in the dark tunnel, and with a hiss, a burst of flames appeared. The old man was burned to death by the concentrated yang energy in Ming Yue's blood.

A thick cloud of corpse smoke rose from the flames, enveloping her face as if she were standing in a decaying corpse pit. The foul stench filled the cement passageway.

Ming Yue almost fainted from the burning corpse stench. Her stomach churned, but then she had an idea. In the narrow space, she pulled out a "Storage Qi" talisman and began drawing in the corpse smoke like a vacuum. She went through seven or eight talismans before the smell was finally under control.

Storage Qi talisman: "...... What did I do to deserve this, sucking in this garbage."

After the task was completed, Ming Yue struggled to turn around in the cement tunnel, only to realize she had no idea where she had crawled to in the chaos of the battle. She had reached an unfamiliar corner.

The darkness was everywhere. Four gray cement tunnels stretched out in unknown directions.

Ming Yue: "......"

This medical academy is truly a cursed place!

Fine dust drifted down. Ming Yue rubbed her eyes. Her left eye had absorbed so much yin energy that it now emitted a faint gray glow in the darkness.

The strange whistle sound came again.

"Living person, the smell of living blood..."

"Nonsense, it's clearly the smell of yang energy..."

"...Where is it? Where is it?"

The voices grew more numerous and intense, sending shivers down her spine, like maggots crawling on her back.

The ghosts moved silently, following the scent of the living. Ming Yue had known this since she was little.

However, that did not mean she could remain unaffected when, in a narrow, yin-filled ventilation tunnel, she found herself at a crossroads, surrounded on all sides by "old customers."The battery of the chrysanthemum phone was as strong as a power bank. Ming Yue stared at the pale flashlight light as the old ghosts gathered around the four tunnel entrances to watch the spectacle. She fell into an awkward silence.

Ming Yue: "Today's luck must have been written as 'no good for anything.'"

The old customers, densely packed and stacked, reached out their hands towards Ming Yue. This scene was enough to scare the dead back to life.

Maybe the old site of the medical academy was once a mass grave or a corpse stop from a hundred years ago, Ming Yue thought to herself, deeply reflecting on her underestimation of the situation.

In the second before the darkness closed in, Ming Yue only had time to make two moves: First, she bit down on her own wrist, and second, she took out the only fire talisman from her bag and placed it on top of the unused "Storage Qi" talisman.

The Spiritual Academy admitted only a few dozen people per year. The smallest class had just over thirty, and the largest had around fifty. This year's new class had thirty plus a few, and they decided to have a whole class for the course, selecting a class president.

Naturally, for a major event like the final exam, the class president had to step up.

Yan Jun was reading private messages from classmates in the department on his phone, all asking about the specifics of the final exam. He was thinking about how to reply to them.

The academy's formation kept the evil spirits and malicious minds in check, so the dead stayed quiet and the living remained at peace.

However, the fact that the ghosts did not appear did not mean they did not exist.

The underworld was severely understaffed.

Since the population explosion of the last century, countless ghosts had been left wandering in the mortal world. If all of them appeared at once, they could probably pile up to hundreds of meters thick across the surface of the Earth. Putting that aside, at least the formation in the Spiritual Academy helped a large area of wandering spirits, including Jin Da, fall into a peaceful slumber, preventing them from awakening and disturbing the living.

This point, Yan Jun, who worked in real estate at home, understood more deeply than most students at the academy.

Jin Da had a long history, and no one knew how many heroic spirits and souls were sleeping there.

After the formation was set up the next day, Yan Jun contacted the senior, Guo Tianyang, hoping to learn from the upperclassmen and gain experience for allocating first-year students.

Senior Guo was very kind and directly let Yan Jun join his group. They started sweeping through the academy late at night.

Yan Jun, who got up at 3 AM, was starting to question his life.Half a night and one day later, the sweep through the Gehai Academy was completed, and Yan Jun remained highly tense the entire time.

Waves of ghosts appeared—some were old souls of the academy who harbored unfulfilled desires, some were living people with sinister intentions from the surrounding areas, and some were vengeful spirits with strong spiritual energy—Yan Jun even spent three hours chatting with a senior ghost who was in charge of guarding the Kunlun Mountain model.

This morning, the senior students, with the goal of "being friendly to juniors and earning more points," entered the medical academy right behind the third-year group led by Chao Tianque. This made Senior Chen Hongmei, who had been the host twice, very annoyed, almost to the point of having a Buddhist ascension and a second spirit leaving her body.

Upon entering the hall, the air was thick with yin energy. Yan Jun picked up the remnants of a still-energy talisman from the bloodstained floor, and he felt a chill in his heart.

The senior students muttered in front of the mirror in the hall:

"This is strange, I look handsome and dashing, but why does this mirror make me look so ugly?"

"Yeah, it's fine that you're ugly, but why do I look so ugly too?"

"Look, there's a handprint on the edge, this mirror has been tampered with—"

One of the senior top students threw some revealing powder, clearly showing that there were green footprints all over the floor, both in the left and right passages.

The senior student smiled and said to Yan Jun, "Don't rush. After you learn Yin-Yang Sensitivity, you'll be able to make this kind of stuff too."

In the end, the senior group decided to enter the first floor directly from the central lawn, heading straight for the body specimen cold storage room [Note]: commonly known as the corpse stop room.

As the door opened, cold air rushed out. Yan Jun followed the seniors into the cold storage room quietly. The spacious room had rows of metallic cold cabinets on both sides, filled with the predecessors who had contributed to the medical education cause—

Yan Jun paused for a moment in silence and bowed three times to the broken corpses of his predecessors in the cold cabinets.

However, before he could finish the third bow, a loud clattering noise came from the ventilation shaft above.

"……"

The senior students all quickly raised their equipment.

Just as the fan of the ventilation shaft kicked on, a person, covered in dust and grime, fell from the ceiling with a loud crash. They landed directly in the bone platter, and the legs, spine, and fingers of the predecessors inside the cabinets fell to the ground with a clatter.

Everyone hurried a few steps closer and saw the disheveled person, covered in bloodstains, struggling to get up, limping.

Yan Jun: "……"Yan Jun was stunned: "Ming Yue?"