Aoba Office

Everyone in the office looked at the thin man.

The thin man looked solemn. He listened to the person on the other end of the phone for a long time before he said, "I understand. Okay. Hang up first." He turned to look at me with complicated eyes.

"Who is it?" I had a vague answer in my mind.

"Ma Yibing called me. Another person was killed in the drama school." The thin man sighed, "This time he was caught in the act. A boy strangled his girlfriend because she wanted to break up."

"Strangled?" Chen Xiaoqiu asked.

"Yes. I used my girlfriend's scarf."

This sounds like an impulsive, passionate killing, completely different from Zhang Shanmei's case.

"Ma Yibing wants to invite us to the drama academy?" I asked.

The thin man nodded.

"Then let's go over and take a look after get off work." Guo Yujie said without any hesitation.

"You don't have to go, I can just go and see for myself." I refused.

I'm afraid things won't be simple this time, and I don't want to drag them into the water.

The thin man asked dissatisfiedly: "Brother Qi, what do you mean?"

"It's just a coincidence. There is no need to mobilize people like this." I found a good reason, and Guo Yujie accepted it immediately. Neither the thin man nor the fat man agreed, so Guo Yujie hesitated again.

"Stop making trouble. We are not detectives, nor are we from Qingye. Why are we meddling in so much business?" I said earnestly.

"Then you are still going?" Guo Yujie squinted at me.

"When Ma Yibing came over, I went to calm his mind. I think that boy was too frightened by the kimono thing, and now everything looks like a ghost."

Guo Yujie had no way to refute.

After get off work, the thin man and the fat man wanted to go with me, but I sternly refused.

I called Ma Yibing and made an appointment to meet him at the gate of the School of Drama.

Ma Yibing had his chest hunched over and his head drooped. His whole body had lost all energy, like a frightened bird. When he saw me, he was like seeing a savior. He quickly stepped forward and grabbed my hand.

I was speechless, and finally shook off his hand and asked, "What's going on? Could it be that your kid witnessed another murder?"

Ma Yibing shook his head, "No, I didn't see it, I just heard what others said."

"Then why are you so frightened?" I was frightened like this by Zhang Shanmei every night, but I didn't feel this way. This Ma Yibing is too cowardly.

"I can't help it. Tell me, one was hanged just now, and now another is strangled... In our school for so many years, we can count the number of suicides on one hand, but there was never a single murder before." Ma Yibing was depressed. He said quietly, "Brother Qi, do you think there is something dirty?"

"I didn't notice it last time." I shook my head and asked Ma Yibing to take me to see the murder scene first.

The murder scene was at the corner of a staircase in the teaching building. The stairwell had been blocked by the school. Some students were curious and glanced at it from a distance, while others were as timid and scared as Ma Yibing and wished they could take a detour.

I stood in the corridor and took a look, but saw nothing. After all, the murderer's modus operandi was to strangle the victim, and the scene was empty, leaving no traces.

"Who are the murderer and the victim?" I asked Ma Yibing for the details of this case.

Ma Yibing inquired about it, but he didn't know much. "The murderer is from our school. His girlfriend is not, but a former high school classmate."

"Come here specifically to break up?" I felt weird.

Ma Yibing also found it strange, "I heard that they broke up before, and that man recently started harassing her again, and then made an appointment to negotiate or something."

I listened to Ma Yibing's gossip again and went to the theater together. When Ma Yibing arrived, he didn't dare to go in. He wanted to chat with Shakespeare and give me careful instructions on how to enter through the side door - the main entrance of the theater was closed when there was no performance.

I pushed open the side door of the theater and felt a yin energy. I turned on the lighting on my phone and pointed it at the stage.

The stage was empty, and I moved the light all the way up, shining on Zhang Shanmei who was hanging in the air.

Zhang Shanmei lowered her head and stared at me with an expression full of unwillingness and resentment.

A chill ran down my spine, my hand shook, and my phone trembled as well.

Zhang Shanmei opened her mouth and moved her fingers. That look overlapped with my nightmare.

My heart gradually calmed down and I asked softly: "Do you... have any wishes?"

Zhang Shanmei struggled hard, but the movement was so slight that if I hadn't seen it too much in my dream, I wouldn't have been able to detect it. Red liquid dripped from her eyes, like blood, dripping onto the stage.

I couldn't bear it, but I didn't know what to do. Let her go? Doing that... I felt a chill in my heart, thinking of Xue Tao. That evil spirit likes to deceive living people and lure them to death. Could it be that Zhang Shanmei is also deceiving me?

"Oh...he..." Zhang Shanmei squeezed out a sound from her throat, and more blood and tears flowed.

An idea flashed in my mind, and I moved my arm, illuminating the center of the auditorium.

There was no one on the red seat, but the seat cushion was put down on the best spot in the middle, as if someone had sat there not long ago.

My scalp was numb and I had goosebumps all over my body, but I still mustered up the courage to walk to that seat. There were no clues left around the seats. I boldly touched the seat cushion, and the tentacles were so cold that I quickly withdrew my hand. I looked towards the stage. From this position, I had an excellent view. I could see the entire stage clearly, including Zhang Shanmei hanging above. And this position is also the perspective in my dream.

Zhang Shanmei's gaze moved over, and in addition to resentment, there was also a hint of fear in her eyes. She suddenly began to struggle, shouting at the top of her lungs as she did in my dream, scratching at the hemp rope, and breaking all the nails on her ten fingers. The hemp ropes were disconnected layer by layer, and Zhang Shanmei fell from the air and fell heavily on the stage. Blood oozed from her eyes, ears, mouth and nose. She seemed to feel no pain and was very happy. She got up from the ground with difficulty. She turned around to face me, and I could see clearly that her neck had been broken, and a section of her cervical vertebra had pierced the skin, but she tried hard to keep her head balanced and staggered toward the audience.

Bang!

Zhang Shanmei fell off the one-meter-high stage and got up again. Like a monster without intelligence or a moth flying into the flames, she crawled across the rows of seats with strange and slow movements, and finally came to me.

Her face was covered with blood, and her eyes were filled with feverish light. That bloody hand touched my face. I didn't feel the temperature that blood should have. Instead, I felt as cold as falling into an ice cave.

"Did I perform well?" Zhang Shanmei asked eagerly, spitting out a lot of blood.

I swallowed and said the words I heard in my dream: "Perfect."

Zhang Shanmei smiled brightly like a little girl and slowly disappeared in the light of the mobile phone.

With Zhang Shanmei's disappearance, the cold air shrouding the theater was also swept away.

I touched half of my cheek, and it was still cold. I lowered my head and glanced at the seat cushion. I tentatively touched it again, but it was still as cold as a piece of ice. My heart doesn't feel warm either.

Precognitive dream? A re-enactment of a past scene?

I don't know what happened just now, but I can be sure this time that Zhang Shanmei's death was not a murder, but a supernatural event.

What about the girl who was strangled?