Hell High School (12): Campus Ghost Stories

The sudden appearance of the floating corpse in the artificial lake was seen by too many people, so the school thought it better to address the issue rather than cover it up. As a result, they arranged for homeroom teachers to conduct campus safety education for almost every grade.

On this day, during breaks and after school, the hallways were filled with discussions about the artificial lake.

Players who received the plot hint took the opportunity to ask NPCs about campus ghost stories, and indeed, they obtained some clues.

[The Six Great Ghost Stories of Hell High School]

Basically, every school has its own campus ghost stories, and the locations are usually similar.

The fragment that Xia Yizhen collected this time, “Floating Corpse in the Artificial Lake,” was one of the six major ghost stories.

A girl in Class 8, wearing black-framed glasses, mysteriously said, “At night, near the artificial lake, there’s a chance of encountering a young girl and a boy arguing. Regardless of the season, the girl will be wearing a summer pleated skirt, pitifully asking passersby for help. At this time, you must not approach! Because that’s not an injured girl, but a water ghost. To be precise, the boy is the water ghost, and the girl is the soul. The two ghosts work together to find a substitute!”

Xia Yizhen pouted. If she had known about this kind of thing earlier, she might not have fallen for it yesterday. However, ghost stories clearly differ from reality.

The female ghost was the one in control, while the male was just a false ghost. Moreover, the problem with that willow tree was the biggest issue.

Clearly, the words of these NPCs could only be taken as references, not fully trusted.

Perhaps the Zhen Xiaohong everyone was discussing didn’t necessarily intend to commit suicide; she might have just slipped and fallen into the artificial lake during a nighttime argument.

After all, the artificial lake dug by the school was quite large, and many places didn’t have guardrails.

Unfortunately, there were no cameras by the lake, so no one knew the exact truth of what happened back then.

Tan Xiao was also quite interested in these kinds of ghost stories, but he didn’t ask the girl. Instead, he poked his deskmate next to him: “Wen Yi, have you heard of this kind of ghost story?”

Wen Yi nodded: “I’ve heard of it.”

Maybe because it was daytime now, with plenty of sunlight outside, Tan Xiao was not afraid, and eagerly discussed gossip: “Actually, the school I attended before also had similar ghost stories. They said that behind the playground was a graveyard, and if you went to play soccer at night, the soccer ball might turn into a human head.”

“And another one, you can’t go into the water tower behind the teaching building at night because there is a ghost who hanged himself up there.”

Perhaps because high schools across the country are quite similar, the ghost stories are also pretty much the same. After all, everyone says that many schools and hospitals are built on graveyards.

The students are young and full of life, so they can suppress some malevolent entities, but those who die in vain within the school might also become new ghost stories.

When Tan Xiao was in high school, he encountered a classmate who jumped off the building due to excessive pressure. Of course, there were also cases of students dropping out due to being pregnant out of wedlock, one of whom was an unknown senior.

However, that senior didn’t jump into the lake like Zhen Xiaohong did. Instead, she dropped out of school, held a wedding banquet, had children, and a few years later, when they reached the legal age, she and the boy got their marriage certificate.

The story of this senior sister had always been a cautionary tale in the teacher’s mouth: “Their grades were really good back then. But what happened? Neither of them went to college, didn’t even get their high school diplomas, went back home to farm, and their lives turned into a mess. They blamed each other, and the poor kids!”

Because the teacher always brought up this case, he never really thought about early romance. When he was studying, he was solely focused on reading the classics.

Although he received quite a few love letters, he had never opened any of them. Whenever he found one, he would tear it up and throw it in the trash.

He wasn’t sure if they were signed, and he was afraid that some bored person would pick one up and cause a stir, so he had to deal with them this way. This action made many people think Tan Xiao was cold and heartless, and later, no one wrote him love letters anymore.

If his former classmates knew he was secretly dating a boy at this critical moment, they would probably be shocked.

However, Tan Xiao would definitely keep this underground relationship a secret, at least until the college entrance exams were over, and he would never make it public.

In a light-hearted manner, he recalled the memories and curiously asked, “Yuying High School has six major ghost stories, what are the other five?”

Wen Yi replied, “Similar to your previous school, besides the water ghost in the artificial lake, there are the chemical demon in the experimental building, the human model in the biology building, the crying in the bathroom, the red-clothed ghost on the rooftop, and the mysterious bulletin board.”

[The Chemical Demon of the Laboratory Building: It is rumored that there was a chemical explosion in the school’s laboratory. Late at night, you might encounter the demon conducting experiments. If you are caught, you will be tied to the experiment table and tortured in various ways.]

[The Human Model Ghost Story: The human models used for teaching in the school are real skeletons donated by a teacher after their death. If you wander around the biology building at night, you might encounter this “biology” teacher patrolling the halls.]

[Toilet Crying Ghost Story: There is a building in the school that is a public toilet. It is said that five years ago, this toilet was directly connected to a deep pit of a cesspool. Until a teacher’s child fell in and drowned in the sewage, the school finally converted the old toilet into the current squat toilet. At midnight, the child who drowned would cry in the toilet. If you are unlucky enough to encounter it, two small hands covered in feces would appear in the squat toilet and pull you down.]

When Tan Xiao heard this intriguing ghost story, he couldn’t help but interject, “That’s so disgusting, I’m never going to that public restroom again!”

[The Rooftop Red-Dressed Ghost Story: In a girls’ dormitory, a lovesick senior was betrayed. Imitating a TV drama, she wore a red dress and jumped off the rooftop. Her soul now haunts the rooftop, targeting heartless men and causing jump accidents.]

[Mysterious Bulletin Board Horror Story: In the past, the school would post photos of outstanding students on the bulletin board. Later, a student had an accident, and that student would occasionally appear on the bulletin board, randomly selecting an unlucky person to pull into another world.]

When Wen Yi told these horror stories, his expression and tone had a subtly inhuman quality. He joked while rubbing the goosebumps on his arms, “It sounds like there’s no safe place in our school?”

“That’s why the school is very dangerous at night. You shouldn’t wander outside alone.”

Tan Xiao squeezed Wen Yi’s hand under the table: “Don’t worry, I won’t be alone tonight.” Wherever his partner went, the other went, so how could he be alone?

The players, including Xia Yizhen, had sour faces. In the real world, campus ghost stories were just ghost stories; everyone knew they were made-up tales.

But Hell High School was a supernatural-themed game, and after experiencing a supernatural event yesterday, she had no doubt that the other five ghost stories were also true.

Only players who go to the place at night and encounter the ghosts could collect the relevant fragments.

This morning, because two floating corpses were retrieved, players who arrived at the artificial lake before the bodies were dealt with could also succeed in collecting.

On the third day, just as players were hesitating whether to take the risk, the safe day turned into the dangerous night.

Perhaps because something happened at the artificial lake, the school made a temporary decision: “From today onwards, evening study sessions are canceled.”

The school added, “The seniors will have one day off, but they still have to attend evening self-study sessions afterward, so the extended evening sessions are canceled.” The extended evening sessions referred to the extra fourth evening self-study session.

For the seniors, they wouldn’t get a day off even if the sky fell.

This was bad news for the players. Although the evening self-study sessions were dangerous, they were relatively safe during those few hours due to the teachers’ supervision. As long as they returned to the dormitory from the classroom on time, there were no ghosts knocking on doors at night.

“This is not a good thing for us. The cancellation of evening study sessions indicates that the instance might have progressed from the first phase to the second phase. The upcoming nights will become even more dangerous.”

The instance lasted only ten days, and the difficulty would definitely increase day by day. It’s standard game practice to raise the difficulty around the one-third mark.

The person saying this was a young man who looked very refined and cultured. His last instance was [Qingshan Hospital], which was also a horror and supernatural-themed dungeon.

Unlike the lucky rookie Xia Yizhen, Dong Hu earned his A-grade rating through his own strength.

Due to his outstanding resume and excellent performance, Dong Hu easily became the leader of the player group in the [Hell High School] dungeon.

The cultured and refined man adjusted his glasses: “Based on my deductions, each class has 5 special students, so the number of participants in our instance should be around 300. However, in just these three short days, we have already lost 16 companions.”

“Don’t think that 16 people don’t sound like a lot. As the difficulty increases each day, the number of deaths will also rise. If we want to clear as many levels as possible, we must gather the storyline as soon as possible.”

“Today, I asked about the campus legends and learned about the six major ghost stories!”

“Me too, me too!”

The floating corpse in the lake today was both a crisis and an opportunity. Many people had learned about the six major campus legends.

Dong Hu said, “Great, starting today, evening study sessions are canceled. Since we have a lot of people, we should take advantage of the night to verify these six campus legends. Everyone will be divided into groups to check off the stories. The earlier we do it, the safer it will be. The seniors only have one day off, so let’s put in extra effort today.”

Dong Hu himself was also a senior in high school. He led by example, and the players in the senior class didn’t voice any complaints.

Wait, Xia Yizhen suddenly raised her hand: “Boss Dong Hu, I have a question.”

The former looked at her. Although his tone was calm, he was still patient. After all, in a supernatural story, details are crucial. Perhaps this girl in front of him had information he hadn’t gathered yet: “What question do you have?”

“The system panel says there are seven campus legends at Hell High, but from what I’ve heard from everyone, all the players have only mentioned six. So what’s the seventh legend?”

Xia Yizhen said, “I have no objections to collecting story fragments, but if this story fragment is destined to be missing a piece, then haven’t we been risking our lives for nothing these past few days?”

“Yeah, what is the seventh legend?”

The players exchanged glances, having all gone through the story and only gotten six locations and six ghost tales.

One player speculated, “Maybe if we collect all six ghost tales, we can summon the seventh ghost tale?”

Someone retorted, “You think this is like summoning Shenron? Shenron also needs all seven Dragon Balls, missing one won’t work!”

Donghu raised an eyebrow. He originally thought that Xia Yizhen was just average, but she might be more outstanding than he had imagined.

Of course, he wouldn’t waste his efforts: “I’ve already gathered some clues about the seventh ghost story. The name of the seventh ghost story is ‘The Disappearing No. 14.’”

Although he didn’t get much information using the props, based on his deductions, the seventh ghost story was in the third year of high school, and it was very likely that it was in the third year class 8 where Xia Yizhen was.