Chapter 49: CH 49

Zong Yan was in such a hurry that he didn’t notice the person following him.

The crystal ball was in his school bag. He put his thumb through a gap in the bag and kept it on the sphere. That way he could sense the location of the creature at all times.

He’d arrived at school after spending the day doing homework, and now it was almost evening. The playing field of Qingyang High School was brightly lit. The lantern festival would begin soon.

A lot of people had arrived in time for the evening show. The daytime festival was intended more for students. In the evening there wasn’t just a lantern festival, there was also a haunted house decorated at great expense. Many people had purchased tickets to come see it. The atmosphere was lively.

There were people everywhere. Zong Yan struggled to navigate through the crowd, making his way at a turtle’s pace towards the location identified by the sphere.

“Wow, is that Senior Zong Yan?”

A lot of younger students saw him standing in the crowd and came up to him, excited and wanting to take pictures.

After all, the school festival was a golden opportunity to get a selfie with the senior students. On the school forum earlier, several girls had said they wanted to meet Zong Yan. People speculated about what character Senior Zong would choose to cosplay.

“Is the senior cosplaying as Lelouch?”

They were all from the same school, and Zong Yan couldn’t really refuse, so he had to turn around and take a group photo. But the number of people around him only increased, and the commotion got bigger and bigger.

“Ah? Is that Lelouch? Why do I feel like it’s Kyoya Hibari from Reborn.”

“How is that Hibari? Lelouch’s eye turns red when he uses his power. Look, one of the senior’s eyes still has the outline of a bird in it.”

The girls began to form a line to take pictures with him.

Zong Yan’s face was expressionless, but inside he was anxious.

“It really is Lelouch ah. The senior looks so good.”

Everyone could see that Zong Yan had put in minimal effort, but in this world beauty was a form of power, and the girls succumbed to the coercion of good looks.

After all, a man with a handsome face looks great in everything.

Meanwhile, Ye JingMing and his group, who’d chased after him, were gnashing their teeth.

“Damn it, that kid actually cosplayed Lelouch!”

The little brothers nervously looked at Ye JingMing.

After trying almost everything, they’d managed to find out from Xia KeYan’s best friend that she was going to cosplay Kikyo from Inuyasha at the school festival.

That was the reason Ye JingMing cosplayed as Inuyasha today. After all, Inuyasha and Kikyo were the official CP in the anime.

But as it turned out, when Xia KeYan came to school today, everyone found out that the character she’d actually chosen was Nunnally from Lelouch of the Rebellion.

At first Ye JingMing just had a bad feeling about it, but his premonition came true. Lelouch and Nunnally weren’t actually a CP in the anime, but it set off loud alarm bells.

Ye JingMing clenched his fists.

He was filled with resentment.

He and Xia KeYan were basically childhood sweethearts, but for various reasons she’d always treated him like a little brother. It was only after they reached high school that Ye JingMing really understood his feelings.

But he was too timid and never dared to confess.

Xia KeYan belonged to a well-known scholarly family in Jiangzhou with a storied history. Her ancestors were officials in Yanjing, very different from Ye JingMing’s upstart family.

When Ye JingMing was little, his father took him to Xia KeYan’s house to visit. They were always deliberately subservient and low key, very careful to only give the appropriate gifts. Back when Ye JingMing was still playing with Legos, Xia KeYan was reciting the Four Books and Five Classics. Anyway, he didn’t exactly know why, but Ye JingMing had been a little afraid of Xia KeYan since childhood. It might be because when he was bullied in elementary school, only Xia KeYan stood up for him.

But as time passed, in high school Ye JingMing formed his own gang, turning from a brave but browbeaten boy to an evil dragon. When they were in their first year of senior high school together, Xia KeYan caught him sneaking through Zong Yan’s desk. After that she didn’t speak to him again.

Ye JingMing wasn’t too happy about that.

But either intentionally or unintentionally, Xia KeYan had more contact with Zong Yan, especially in the second year of high school when they were assigned to the same study group. After that, Xia KeYan’s attitude towards Ye JingMing got even colder. Ye JingMing firmly believed it was because Zong Yan had badmouthed him behind his back.

As did Ye JingMing’s group of minions.

Although they usually called each other brothers, everyone tacitly followed Ye JingMing as the leader. The reality was that they’d all gathered for the sake of status and money.

Jiangzhou was only so big. Second generation officials with real family backgrounds sent their kids abroad from the start. The sons of big conglomerates who were on the Hurun list basically wouldn’t return to China until they finished college. Those who stayed were either well-established families or nouveau riche.

Ye JingMing’s father intended for his son to take over the family business in the future. The first thing he did was pave the way for Ye JingMing to accumulate more contacts inside the country. But when it came to family background, Ye JingMing really did rank No. 1 in Qingyang High School.

A while ago, most of Ye JingMing’s little brothers had seen Zong Yan get into a limited edition sports car. After that, they all began to dither a bit, complying in public but disobeying in private, and there was some veiled criticism.

Naturally they didn’t want to offend Zong Yan too much. They were all the children of businessmen. After they graduated they might move in the same circles.

“Get lost.” Ye JingMing was in a foul mood. He watched as the black-haired teen made a sorry gesture towards the girls and squeezed through the crowd. Ye JingMing didn’t bother to say anything more to his little brothers. He pushed past them, chasing Zong Yan.

Zong Yan ran fast, and there were a lot of people between them. Ye JingMing remembered the last time Zong Yan ran wild through the school and felt a stab of fear.

After a few steps, Ye JingMing realized that Zong Yan was headed towards the art building.

The entire art building, from the first floor to the seventh, had been converted to a haunted house. Even the windows were covered with black paper. In the dark it looked especially spooky.

The haunted house was a special tradition of Qingyang High School. Each class would select a few representatives to pretend to be ghosts and frighten people. The art building had a built-in terrifying atmosphere—the plasters in the art studio, the piano no one ever played in the music classroom, etc. The sixth and seventh floors were the anatomy dissection rooms of the International Department, which was petrifying in itself.

There were a lot of people at the haunted house. Zong Yan had to comply with the rules and join the back of the line, but he was on pins and needles the entire time.

He had a vague sense that the extra-dimensional creature was in the haunted house.

Admittedly, the haunted house was a good location. The supernatural imagery associated with such a place would provide the perfect cover.

Would an ordinary monster think to choose a haunted house?

He didn’t think it was a coincidence.

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Zong Yan concealed his phone’s screen and opened the MU app.

The investigation reports that he could access mentioned some unusual species.

Because of the activity of otherworldly creatures recently in Jiangzhou, some cultists had showed up, and even… species that could masquerade as human.

He looked up at the sky and began to think.

Right now he only had one card that was suitable to use, and that was the Night Watchman.

Zong Yan hesitated and sent a message to He Yuan.

The Night Watchman’s power level was absolutely comparable to a human Monarch. But he wanted to be on the safe side.

“Welcome to the haunted house. This is the map. Just follow the corridor to the left and go up one floor at a time. When you come down, the exit is on the right.”

The volunteer at the door gave him a printed map and a flashlight. “Remember to return the flashlight when you leave.”

“Thank you.” Zong Yan politely thanked him and disappeared through the door.

This made Ye JingMing who was in line behind him anxious, but the haunted house used a timed release system.

“Ye Ge, what should we do? That kid already went inside.”

They stood in the back and watched Zong Yan walk into the haunted house.

“What’s the rush? It’s no big deal if he’s inside. We’ve all been in the art building. One of you guard the first floor. You have to block him for me.”

Ye JingMing pooh-poohed their doubts and began to issue commands to his little brothers.

“When the time comes, contact the group. We’ll find an empty room and settle our grudges somewhere quietly.”

When it was finally Ye JingMing’s turn, he dashed in without even taking the map or flashlight.

While he ran up to the second floor, Ye JingMing noticed how dark the corridor was. From a distance he could only hear a few quiet footsteps and echoing shrieks.

For the sake of atmosphere, the haunted house only allowed in people every five minutes, and the number of visitors on each floor was strictly controlled.

Ye JingMing glanced at the little brothers who’d followed him inside and saw them trembling with their flashlights. He grimaced and continued running up the stairs without looking back.

The haunted house wasn’t completely dark. Each landing in the stairwell still had sufficient lighting.

Ye JingMing had never been afraid of haunted houses. He was a rock-solid materialist and had gone to many such places on Halloween. Even while his friends went in standing up but came out crawling in fear, he was the only one whose expression didn’t change and heartbeat didn’t leap. With his hand in his pocket he looked like he’d gone shopping.

He had to find that Zong Yan kid quickly. Then they’d resolve this like real men!

He, Ye JingMing, would show Zong Yan that the fair maiden always chooses the strongest man!

Inuyasha, dressed in red and carrying a wooden sword, ran up the stairs two at a time with amazing speed.

To be honest, he was dressed as Inuyasha with red clothes and white hair. If he ran into a classmate disguised as a ghost, given the dim light inside the haunted house, it wasn’t clear who’d scare who.

Ye JingMing stomped up to the second floor.

The second floor was normally an art gallery. Tonight it had been transformed into a scene from a haunted mansion. The paintings in the gallery had been torn down, painted with creepy patterns, or splashed with red ink.

Inuyasha murderously ran through the corridor with his sword in hand. He didn’t give the gallery a second glance.

In the dim light, Ye JingMing thought he saw a long, narrow shadow flicker and disappear. Overjoyed, he hurried toward it.

“Zong Yan, if you have any guts, don’t run!” Ye JingMing shouted and chased the dark shadow into the music classroom on the third floor.

“Where is he?”

The classroom was extremely dark. At some point the black cloth on part of the window had been torn off. Before it was a grand piano and a seated figure.

Ye JingMing was getting angrier and angrier. He decided that Zong Yan was playing hide-and-seek with him, so he walked up to the piano and extended the hand with the wooden sword.

“Hey, enough hiding. If you have the guts, you can—”

A second later his pupils constricted and he involuntarily stepped back.

With a bang, a blood-soaked head rolled off the piano stand.

Sitting there… was a headless body.

TL Notes:

CP – couple – a romantic pairing 

childhood sweethearts – 青梅竹马 – green plums and a bamboo horse — childhood games of riding on a bamboo stick for a horse; a friendship formed in childhood — said of boys and girls; life of subteen youngsters; playmates in childhood

Four Books and Five Classics – The most important books of Chinese Confucianism written before 300 BC (Wikipedia)

Hurun List – 胡润榜 – A list of wealthy people in China, similar to the Forbes 400 list of the world’s wealthiest people

the fair maiden always chooses the strongest man – 美人只配强者拥有 – beauties only belong to the strong – Maybe my version isn’t sexist enough idk

Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:

Kyoya Hibari – 云雀恭弥 (CN – Yúnquè Gōngmí) – 雲雀 恭弥 (JP – Hibari Kyōya) – A popular supporting character in Katekyo Hitman Reborn! (家庭教師ヒットマンREBORN!)

Kikyo – 桔梗 (CN – Jiégěng) – (JP – Kikyō) – The female lead of Inuyasha, pre-reincarnation version

Nunnally – 娜娜莉 (CN – Nànàlì) – (JP – ナナリー) – A supporting character in Code Geass, Lelouch’s younger siste

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