The next morning, we arrived at the abandoned toilet. Everyone yawned and searched around the bathroom, but nobody found anything strange.
Although the restroom was clear, my mind wasn’t. After a moment of searching inside, I walked out of the bathroom and starting smoking in the doorway. That was when I realized someone was watching me. I raised my head and saw a tall man with a righteous facial expression standing before me with a strange gaze.
He was Zhang Sheng, I immediately recognized him as the one who was pursuing the granddaughter of grandpa Huang. We stared at each other for a moment, then he left without saying a word.
I was baffled. Why had Zhang Sheng just shown up here, just to give me a weird look? I subconsciously turned around and was startled to find that I was in the doorway of the female bathroom. How embarrassing.
The others came out sweating, though it seemed that nothing of interest was found. "Take a break and I'll talk with some people around here." With that, Wu Jian walked to a tree nearby. There were a few elderly people sitting under the tree, chatting with their children.
I hesitated for a while, then hurried after Wu Jian.
Wu Jian looked back at me without a word. He sat on a bench in the tree shade. After a few women gave him a strange look, he nodded his head to greeting them, "What a hot day today! Though I must say, I’m enjoying the sunny weather. I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but the toilet here is super clean, I’m guessing there are cleaners here that clean it every day, right? "
A middle-aged woman gave Wu Jian an angry look, "Clean? That is the most dangerous place around here!"
Wu Jian and I looked at each other and Wu Jian pretended to be surprised, "I feel like it’s very clean and safe, there’s no peculiar smell, there’s not even a single cigarette butt on the floor, I am even embarrassed to smoke inside."
The middle-aged woman gave a disdainful “Hmph!”, but said nothing else. An old man pointed to one of the other teaching buildings, "Young man, don't use those restrooms, if you can’t hold it, there’s one in that building."
Wu Jian reacted in a confused way, "Why? Isn't this toilet open?”
The middle-aged woman replied, "Bah, bah, we don't use that toilet, I’m telling you, that toilet is haunted."
Wu Jian smiled and said, "Really."
It was a long time before the old man replied, “Well, it’s just best not to go in."
It seemed that the toilet was generating some really weird reactions from the locals, although none of us had found anything strange about it, not even Huang Xiaolong. After hearing what the old people under the tree had said, there must be something wrong with the toilet for sure.
It had all happened a little over a decade ago, a high school student who was pregnant secretly ran to the bathroom during night lessons to birth a child in this very bathroom. She left the baby inside and went back to class. The baby died and word got around. The gossip from her schoolmate condemned her to a state of depression.
On the seventh day after she had birthed the baby, the girl who was in the hospital at the time, ran back to the toilet and wrote something on the toilet wall with blood, then she committed suicide. From that day on, the bathroom was considered haunted. Dean Zhang hired someone to paint the entire restroom and even performed a ceremony to drive out any evil spirits.
Wu Jian asked, "Dean Zhang? The one still in the school?
Middle-aged woman said, "Yes, Zhang Sheng is a good man. He takes good care of his students. Once the toilet was haunted however, anyone who entered the toilet died. After Zhang Sheng performed the ceremony, no one died again. He is such a kind hearted person, it seems that girl didn’t want to hurt him, even after she she had become a ghost."
Just then, all the others present began praising Zhang Sheng as well.
Their words increasingly confused me, according to grandpa Huang, Zhang Sheng was not a good man. Why he was considered to be a perfect man in the minds of these people?
Soon the topic about Zhang Sheng changed to household affairs. Wu Jian winked to me, and we all left together. he lit up a cigarette and blew out a smoke ring, "Unfortunately we don’t know who the girl who committed suicide is. I’ll look through the archives to find out what happened here. It should have been recorded because it sounds like it wasn’t just one or two people who died.
I nodded my head and thought about it all for a while, I then decided to tell him what grandpa Huang had told me. After I informed him, Wu Jian was a bit stunned, "It seems like Zhang Sheng has issues of some sort."
I also agreed with him. There were so many people in a school and it was simply impossible for Zhang Sheng to take care of everyone of them, perhaps that’s why it seemed strange for him to be respected by everyone we talked to. It was also strange that even though several people died in the bathroom, Zhang Sheng still made it out alive. It must have taken so much courage and integrity to persuade the revenge ghost. Perhaps I was just being narrow minded, but I really couldn't accept that a man was just so darn great.
After discussing it with Wu Jian, I began to remove the paint off the wall, trying to find out what the girl had written with her blood with hope that I could get some more information. Meanwhile, Wu Jian went back to the police station to look for any relevant files. We agreed to meet around dinner time.
I quickly finished my lunch and went to the area around the haunted bathroom. It must have been too hot around noon because nobody was resting in the tree’s shade anymore, which was certainly beneficial for us. Huang Xiaolong and I went to buy some simple tools, then back to the bathroom.
Huang Xiaolong, He Xiaoru, He Xiaoyong, Huang Lei, Chen Qianqian and I, six people in total, began to work. The wall had been painted more than 10 years ago and had became blotchy, which actually aided our task of removing the paint. Especially since the paint on the wall was thick.
"It’s was too thick," He Xiaoru complained, as he scratched the wall with a small plank.
Huang Xiaolong also echoed, "It is, there has to be something here. Who paints so many layers in the bathroom for no reason?"
Just then, Chen Qianqian heard a cry of surprise, causing all of us to quickly turn and stare at the wall being worked on. Chen Qianqian pointing to the wall with a frightened facial expression, and there they were. Several words painted in dark red on the wall.
We walked over to have a closer look, Chen Qianqian had peeled off the thick paint that had been covering it, but dark red words written in blood were still clear.
I, thought, night. Those were the three words written in blood that were revealed in front of Chen, it was clear there were more words around it. Although it was noon, I already felt a chilly breeze slowly blowing against my body, it even felt like it was getting difficult to talk.
Huang Xiaolong appeared ecstatic, "it looks like the words were written over on this wall! Everybody hurry up, start from here."
Everyone began to work again. I cheered myself up and was about to start working, when suddenly, an authoritative voice came from the entrance of the restroom.