Shi Ting’s chopstick hand paused for just a moment before he reached down to pick up another bite. “When I went to the Yan Mansion to collect medicine, your father mentioned it.”

“Is your mother ill again?”

“The old condition. She hasn’t dared stop the medication.” He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “It’s getting late. I’ll take you home shortly.”

Back at home, Yan Qing’s mind was still occupied with the case at the nursing school. She lay in bed, the image of the body turning over and over in her thoughts.

Her instincts had always been sharp. There was something important she had missed — she was certain of it.

She drifted in and out of that unsettled state until the following morning, when Jing Zhi’s quick footsteps came rushing toward her door.

“Miss, there’s a telephone call from the Military Police Bureau.”

“The Bureau? Have they solved it?” Yan Qing sat up, rubbing her eyes. She had been dreaming all night and her head still felt heavy — clearly the lingering tail end of her cold.

“It’s Team Leader Zheng. He says another person has died at the nursing school — again in room 104. He says if you have time, would you please come and have a look.” Jing Zhi finished speaking and gave an involuntary shudder. “Miss, how can there be another death? Can it really be a ghost?”

The story of ghost killings had spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred. Most people by now believed it completely.

Without question, this was precisely what the killer intended — using the ghost story as a cover for their brutal crimes.

Yan Qing reached for the clothes beside her and dressed quickly with Jing Zhi’s help, then splashed some water on her face, applied a little cream, and hurried off to the school without even eating breakfast.

With two female students dead in succession, the nursing school was gripped by panic. Everyone was talking about the legendary ghost, and the story had grown more sinister with each retelling — no one had any heart left for classes.

Yan Qing had barely arrived when she ran into a group of students gathered at the entrance. Jing Lan saw her and rushed forward immediately. “This is terrible, Yan Qing! Someone else is dead. Is there really a ghost?”

“Do you know who died?”

“I heard it’s Fan Dongping from third year.” Jing Lan’s face had gone pale. “She was hanged.”

“Take me there.”

Jing Lan pushed her wheelchair to the entrance of room 104, where a coarsely-dressed woman stood before Bai Jin, wiping her eyes. “My poor daughter — what a terrible end. Why did you have to suffer such a cruel fate?”

“When did you first realize your daughter was missing?”

“She didn’t come home last night. I thought she’d gone to work, so I didn’t worry. But she always comes home by morning after her shifts — and when she still wasn’t back, I came to the school to look for her. And this is where I found her.” The woman broke into fresh wailing.

She was crying loudly, but Yan Qing sensed little genuine grief in it. If anything, it seemed the woman’s true lament was not over the loss of her daughter.

“Let’s go in.” A familiar voice sounded beside her. “That woman is suspicious. I’ll have someone look into her later.”

Shi Ting took the wheelchair handles from Jing Lan and pushed Yan Qing into room 104.

The victim was Fan Dongping, a third-year student at the school — round-faced, with long hair, dressed in the school uniform: a teal top, a black ankle-length skirt, black shoes, and white stockings. She had a slender build and a fair, pleasing face.

She hung stiffly from the central ceiling beam of the classroom, her body swaying slightly from the residual motion.

Yan Qing suddenly thought of the ghostly figure she had glimpsed that night — drifting in just such a way, eerily unsettling.

Two officers climbed ladders to bring the body down, while Bai Jin scaled the other ladder and leaned out over the beam above.

—