"And then?"

Zhou Ze asked as he sipped his coffee.

Xu Qinglang was also listening to the story, thinking it was an interesting late-night tale.

As for any sense of tension or fear...

Neither Xu Qinglang nor the old Taoist next to him was even slightly frightened.

In the old Taoist's words,

What was there to be scared of?

"I'm with a ghost and a zombie every day.

Have I ever been afraid?

Have I ever chickened out?

I haven't been afraid, and I haven't chickened out.

I just...

Follow my heart."

"What else?" The teenager paused, then smiled. "That's it. I woke up scared. It was just a dream, but it felt so real, haha."

After speaking, the teenager yawned and picked up the novel he had taken from the shelf earlier, reading it. He seemed to find something interesting, as he laughed.

What an innocent child,

Still thinking it was just a dream.

Then why did you run to my bookstore in the middle of the night?

Were you sleepwalking?

Xu Qinglang looked at Zhou Ze in surprise, pointing at the teenager, then at his own head.

Zhou Ze nodded.

The teenager didn't know he was already dead.

He thought he was still alive, but he had become a ghost, already wandering.

"Not taking him in?" Xu Qinglang asked. "Aren't you just one short?"

Xu Qinglang had just come downstairs and saw Zhou Ze sitting across from the teenager, listening to his story. He didn't believe Zhou Ze was worried about some fierce ghost causing trouble at the school, so he kept the teenager around as a clue to play hero and save the world.

He knew that Boss Zhou had been yearning for that last one percent for a while now, thirsty as could be.

"Can't take him, his soul is incomplete."

Zhou Ze shook his head, somewhat helplessly.

Xu Qinglang frowned and took a closer look at the teenager, finally noticing some details. The teenager's soul was incomplete. He was missing a few hun and po (components of the soul), which was why the teenager was so "innocent" after becoming a ghost, not knowing he was already dead.

Even with so many illogical things happening around him, even though he was at the bookstore in the middle of the night instead of at school,

He didn't feel anything was wrong and still thought he was alive.

Simply put, there was something wrong with his brain,

A very advanced kind of...

Mental retardation.

When Zhou Ze first saw him, he had immediately opened the gates of hell.

How did you die?

What grievances do you have?

Are you hungry? Thirsty?

He didn't ask anything. He didn't have time to listen to his blabbering. He planned to send him in directly to get his position filled, but he couldn't send him in, leaving Zhou Ze depressed and speechless.

"So, what do you plan to do?" Xu Qinglang looked at Zhou Ze, reminding him, "A ghost that can kill people. Can you really just stand by?"

Xu Qinglang was right. Zhou Ze really couldn't just stand by. Although it wasn't the "with great power comes great responsibility" nonsense that Spider-Man's foster father told him in superhero movies, since Zhou Ze was a ghost messenger here, he had a responsibility to ensure that no ghosts caused trouble in the area. If they did, he had to resolve it as soon as possible.

The Yin Court,

Was watching.

"Let's go." Zhou Ze nodded. "You coming with me?"

"No, I came down to get a face mask. I'm going back up to get my beauty sleep."

Xu Qinglang lay lazily on the sofa, exuding a charm that could bend steel.

Zhou Ze was sometimes helpless with Xu Qinglang. He was clearly normal in that area. He could let a woman sleep with him as if he were a gigolo and even leave three thousand yuan on the nightstand,

Which was enough to show that there was no problem with Xu Qinglang in that area, but sometimes when he let himself go, the posture he showed was truly something that Bai Yingying without makeup couldn't compare to.

Born with alluring charm,

Xu Qinglang was lucky to be born in this era. If he were in ancient times, he would have been ravished by emperors and nobles who had a penchant for same-sex relationships.

The old Taoist immediately volunteered at this time, proactively taking the car keys from Zhou Ze, saying,

"Boss, Yingying is playing games upstairs, she's busy. This poor Taoist will go with you. It is the responsibility of us righteous people to vanquish demons and defend the Dao."

And so, the old Taoist drove the car, Zhou Ze sat in the passenger seat, and they drove to Pingchao Middle School.

It was actually quite far, about half an hour's drive.

This middle school was indeed very big. At the school gate was a paifang (traditional Chinese archway) with the words "Provincial Key Pingchao Middle School" written on it. Then there was a gatehouse, and what was even more exaggerated was that behind it was a canal. The school was on the opposite bank of the canal, and there was a bridge here that spanned the canal, belonging to the school. There was also a gatehouse at the other end of the bridge.

So, it was a bit of a pipe dream for students boarding here to skip school. Two gatehouse checkpoints guarded it unless they swam across the canal to reach the outer streets and towns.

Relying on his silver tongue, the old Taoist directly fooled the gatekeeper, saying that his grandson had a sudden heart attack inside and he had to go in to see the situation. The gatekeeper didn't dare to delay and immediately opened the gate. The gatekeeper wasn't too wary of someone who clearly wasn't a student.

The car drove into the campus, and Zhou Ze and the old Taoist got out of the car and walked to the living area. This really was like an independent town, with bathhouses, supermarkets, and many cafeterias.

The students were like chickens locked in assembly line cages that couldn't even turn around, drinking water, eating, and then laying eggs on a schedule every day.

It was almost midnight when they arrived here. The dormitory buildings were basically dark, except for the lights in the dormitory supervisor's office on the ground floor. The other floors were pitch black. Even though they were filled with people, they gave off a ghostly and eerie feeling.

"Boss, which building is haunted?"

"He said he lived in Building B." Zhou Ze pointed to a building diagonally, "It should be this one."

"Which dorm?" the old Taoist asked.

"Sixth floor, but I don't know the specific dorm. Just go up and ask any student where someone just died."

"Good idea." The old Taoist gave a half-hearted flattery.

Damn it,

He didn't ask properly at the shop and waited until they got out here to ask.

Several men were sitting in the dormitory supervisor's office on the ground floor, chatting loudly and laughing from time to time, as if they were talking about dirty jokes.

Even when Zhou Ze and the old Taoist walked into the corridor, they didn't notice. The management here was indeed loose enough.

Or rather,

Was this called being strict on the inside but lax on the outside?

They went up to the sixth floor, which was dark. The old Taoist randomly knocked on a dorm door. The students in the dorm thought the dormitory supervisor had arrived, and the sounds of talking suddenly became silent.

The old Taoist knocked a few more times.

A student in slippers walked over and opened the door. He was stunned when he saw the old Taoist and Zhou Ze. Obviously, he realized that these two people were not the dormitory supervisor.

"Police."

The old Taoist took out his wallet and flashed it, then put it away after acting tough in the dark.

"Which dorm here has someone who just died?" the old Taoist asked.

The student was completely dumbfounded.

What was going on?

At zero o'clock in the middle of the night, the police came to knock on the dorm door and ask where someone had died?

"Someone died?" The student looked at the old Taoist in shock.

"Yes, I'm asking you where someone died."

"When did they die?" The boy asked in surprise.

"Don't pretend!" The old Taoist took a step forward and scolded. "Is the school trying to hide the news and telling you to keep quiet? We're the police, it's no use lying to us.

If there are any problems in the future, you will be responsible too."

The student was completely frightened and turned to ask his roommate on the bed behind him, "Did someone die here?"

His roommates also started chattering, everyone was very confused.

What surprised the old Taoist the most was that these students seemed to be genuinely confused. This wasn't acting, this was high school, not some film academy.

"Sun Qiu, which dorm is Sun Qiu in?" Zhou Ze asked.

"Sun Qiu? He's in the dorm across the hall."

The boy pointed to the dorm door across the hall.

"Okay, that's none of your business. Go back to sleep, and don't make any noise." The old Taoist said imperiously.

Turning around, the old Taoist went to knock on the door of the dorm across the hall.

Soon, a boy wearing glasses walked over and opened the dorm door.

The old Taoist and Zhou Ze walked in directly, and the boy who opened the door was a little dazed.

"I remember he said his bed was the upper bunk by the window, right?"

The old Taoist pointed to the bunk, and to his surprise, there was actually someone sleeping on that bunk, covered with a blanket.

"What's going on? Someone's sleeping where someone just died?" The old Taoist was a little surprised.

"Who are you?"

A boy in the dorm asked.

"Is Sun Qiu in this dorm? How long has he been dead?" the old Taoist asked.

"Sun Qiu?" The boy was stunned for a moment, then shouted, "Sun Qiu, wake up, someone's looking for you."

What?

The old Taoist turned back in shock,

Then,

He saw the boy on the bunk lift the blanket, rub his eyes, and then sit up. He looked at the old Taoist and Zhou Ze and asked:

"Who's looking for me?"

Looking very sleepy.

It wasn't a coincidence that they shared the same name,

This appearance,

Was clearly the same teenager who was telling stories in the bookstore an hour ago!

The old Taoist's eyes widened,

What was going on?

Wasn't he already dead?

His ghost had floated out, so who was this person lying in bed?

At this time, Zhou Ze directly reached out and grabbed Sun Qiu's wrist. Sun Qiu frowned, but he didn't shout, as if his reaction was a little slow.

Zhou Ze rolled up Sun Qiu's sleeve and shone his phone flashlight on it,

Only to see that Sun Qiu's arm was covered in livor mortis (postmortem lividity)!

This wasn't a living person,

This was a corpse that had been dead for a long time!

The old Taoist opened his mouth in shock when he saw this.

Zhou Ze calmly put Sun Qiu's sleeve down, "It's nothing, go to bed early, and don't make any noise."

After speaking, Zhou Ze walked out of the dorm.

The old Taoist immediately followed, impatiently asking, "Boss, what's going on? Is this person dead or not?"

"Dead," Zhou Ze replied.

"Then this..." The old Taoist couldn't understand.

"Because of inertia," Zhou Ze replied.

"Inertia?"

"Yes, inertia. In this school, the students' daily schedules are tightly arranged. The time to get up, go to class, eat in the cafeteria, return to the dorm, and turn off the lights are all fixed.

So, even if he's dead, the inertia of this lifestyle allows him to continue to maintain a 'living' state.

Because every day is almost the same for him.

It's like a small ball thrown off a track, it will continue to roll forward according to its inertia. He's the same way now.

Didn't you notice?

His reaction has actually become very slow,

But his classmates and teachers haven't noticed,

He's already dead."

"Is it that mysterious?"

"When I was a doctor, I encountered a few similar cases. Autopsies showed that the corpses had been dead for many days, but their colleagues or family members said that they had seen them go to work and live as usual yesterday."

"How could this be?" The old Taoist smacked his lips, unable to understand.

"An unchanging life, the daily behavior patterns are fixed, like an automated machine;

Does it make a difference if the driver is alive or dead?"