Yang Xiao glanced at me but said nothing, which I took as tacit agreement. I asked again, "Can the Heavenly Eye still be opened?" He nodded but remained silent.
Mi Rongheng came over as well and threw the clothes drenched in black liquid in front of Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao looked up at him. After spending a few days as colleagues, they had some small talk. Within the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, aside from Wu Rendi, Mi Rongheng was currently the only one who could exchange a few words with him.
"Corpse Oil?" Mi Rongheng blurted out.
Yang Xiao nodded. "We got played this time. They first used Wraith Fire to lure us here, then covered your Heavenly Eye with Corpse Oil. Well done." As he spoke, Yang Xiao's face flushed red, as if he might bleed at any moment.
I glanced at Mi Rongheng, then turned to Yang Xiao and said, "The people who set the trap led us here just to pour this on us? Wait, did you say this is petroleum or Corpse Oil?"
"Corpse Oil. The 'corpse' from corpse, the 'oil' from oil." Yang Xiao replied. He glanced back at the building and continued, "They blocked your Heavenly Eye. The trap setters should still have a backup plan, but now it should be over."
Just as Yang Xiao finished speaking, Sun Fatty, Chief Xiong, and the others began running toward the dormitory (the only men's bathhouse was beneath our dormitory building).
More than half an hour later, we finished washing up. (The sticky layer of Corpse Oil on our heads and faces was hard to remove — almost required steel wool, and we used a whole bar of soap.) I tested it; the Heavenly Eye's abilities could no longer be felt. It was like when my grandfather and third uncle washed my hair with black dog's blood when I was a kid, but this time it was stronger — it felt like every pore on my body was coated with a sticky film, even sweating was extremely difficult.
After washing, the first thing we did was return to the dormitory to retrieve our guns. The situation at the women's academy was serious. Without the Heavenly Eye, we were almost as helpless as blind men compared to the trap setters. It was safer to have handguns.
When Sun Fatty and I got back to the dormitory, the first thing we saw was that the locker door was already open, with a mess of things inside, but the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation's specially made handgun was missing.
"Damn it! Where's the gun?" In the next dorm, Chief Xiong and Xi Menlian shouted. Then Chief Xiong shouted down the corridor, "Lazi, Feiyang, are your guns there?"
"No, no, they're gone! Someone stole them!" Yun Feiyang said miserably from the opposite dorm.
"Our guns are gone too!" Sun Fatty shouted at the dorm door, then turned and locked the door.
"Dasheng, why are you locking the door?" Sun Fatty's action puzzled me.
Sun Fatty put his index finger to his lips, signaling silence, then pulled open his shirt. This guy was fat, and the fat on his belly sagged down in rolls. From underneath the folds of fat, Sun Fatty pulled out his handgun and two spare magazines, handing them to me while lowering his voice: "Looks like this is the only gun left. You keep it. If anything else happens, we're counting on you."
Using his unique physique to hide the gun, it would be impossible to find it even with a thorough search.
I just hid the gun when Chief Xiong started knocking at the door. "Sun Fatty, Lazi, open the door!" Chief Xiong was a bit impatient. After knocking several times and seeing no answer, he kicked the door open with a bang. Xi Menlian and Yun Feiyang stood behind him.
"Chief Xiong, are you crazy? Didn't your mother teach you to knock?" Sun Fatty jumped up and shouted at Chief Xiong.
"I knocked. You didn't open." Chief Xiong said casually. "Things here are getting out of control. We came to discuss what to do next."
"Nonsense!" Sun Fatty curled his lip. "With the director here, what are you so worried about? Honestly, the Bureau's treasure — Director Wu Rendi — is still around. What are you afraid of?"
Xi Menlian had been silent but couldn't help interrupting after hearing Sun Fatty mention Wu Rendi: "Have you seen Wu Rendi lately?"
As soon as Xi Menlian said that, the dorm fell into a deathly silence. We exchanged glances. It had been days since we saw Director Wu. To be exact, since Gao Liang left with his team, no one had seen a trace of Wu Rendi.
I said, "There's still Yang Xiao. Those other directors might not be any better." I wasn't bluffing; Sun Fatty and I personally witnessed Yang Xiao's abilities. True or not, he was the only person so far who pinned Wu Rendi against the wall.
Yun Feiyang said, "Let's focus on ourselves first. Now, I can't even feel the formations in the academy. We have to find a way through this."
Sun Fatty shrugged helplessly. "Got any better ideas?"
Chief Xiong pulled out a small compass about the size of a cigarette pack and fiddled with it in front of us. "Though the Heavenly Eye is gone, we still have auxiliary tools."
"How do you have that?" I pointed at the compass in Chief Xiong's hand. Having stayed long in the Bureau, I naturally knew its function and usage.
"What kind of look is that? Haven't seen one before?" Chief Xiong looked at us. "Bureau equipment is prepared for situations like this."
"Equipment? Why don't we have any?" Sun Fatty's eyes widened.
Xi Menlian said, "Strictly speaking, it's standard equipment in other rooms except Room One. You don't usually join investigations, so you don't need this."
He and Yun Feiyang then took out their own compasses, showing off a bit.
I snorted, "Are you showing off?"
Sun Fatty looked at their compasses. "Do you have any spares?"
At that moment, Mi Rongheng, freshly washed and changed, walked in.
"Good, you're all here. Saves me from looking for everyone one by one." Mi Rongheng scanned us and said, "Wu Rendi ordered us to arrive at the gymnasium inside the academy within half an hour — twenty minutes left."
"Wu Rendi? He's still in the academy?" Chief Xiong sounded doubtful. "Where's he been hiding these days?"
"Go ask him yourself." Mi Rongheng said helplessly. "Also, just now when we broke into that warehouse and got drenched in Corpse Oil, Wu Rendi said he saw everything from the nearby rooftop."
Sun Fatty chuckled, "That fits his usual character. Let's go. Given the current situation, it's safest to stay close to Wu Rendi."
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the gymnasium, already crowded with female students. Wu Rendi and Yang Xiao stood inside. The two men stood out amid a sea of young girls.
After seeing us come out of the warehouse, Wu Rendi went to find Dean Su. Contrary to his usual style, Wu Rendi suggested to Dean Su that due to the emergency in the academy, teaching should be suspended for the time being. The students should be evacuated to Zhuque City, and after the incident was handled, they could consider returning to school.
Because Gao Liang hinted something to Principal Su before leaving, and coupled with the recent string of unexplained disappearances on campus, Principal Su could no longer bear the abnormal incidents happening at the academy. Reluctantly, she accepted Wu Rendi's proposal.
However, it was already too late to fully relocate the students to Zhuque City today. Under the pretext of a disaster drill, Principal Su arranged for all the students to gather inside the academy's gymnasium, where they would have to make do for the night. Wu Rendi personally stationed himself there as supervisor; at least tonight, nothing major should happen.
Seeing the few of us come in, Wu Rendi assigned us duties—two of us per group—to guard the gym's various entrances and exits. Wu Rendi stayed at the center of the gym, while Yang Xiao was stationed outside. With this setup, it seemed tonight would pass without incident.
As the sun slowly sank outside, the gym remained brightly lit. Sun Fatty and I were guarding the main entrance, not far from our classmate Shao Yiyi and her friends. At that moment, Yiyi's "girlfriend" wasn't nearby—she was chatting energetically with her close friends Bai Anqi and Xu Miaomiao.
"Fatty, what's really going on? This doesn't look like a disaster drill at all," asked Yiyi, who sat diagonally across from us.
"We're selling you off—to be child brides in the Guizhou mountains," Sun Fatty blurted out nonsense. "As for you, Yiyi, I'll specially take care of you—sell you to a ninety-nine-year-old old bachelor to continue his family line."
Yiyi raised a finger at Fatty. "You fat bastard, go die!"
Sun Fatty wasn't one to lose a verbal fight with a little girl. Wearing a mischievous grin, he replied, "Yiyi, you just made a grammatical error. I'm already 'dead fatty,' how can I die twice? Are you hinting at something? Want to die with me and be buried together in our ancestral grave?"
Yiyi, her face flushed either from anger or embarrassment, snapped, "I meant you should die first!"
Fatty kept smiling. "Still hinting, huh? You want me to die first, then you'll follow?"
Finally, Yiyi turned away in frustration, pale-faced and panting hard.
Watching Fatty beam like that, I sensed something and asked, "Dasheng, you've got a crush on her, haven't you?"
Sun Fatty jumped. "What are you talking about? How could I like this little girl?"
"Dasheng, I'm telling you something." I watched his nervous expression and spoke slowly.
"What?"
"Your face just turned red."
After a while, the sun had completely set. Dozens of teachers began distributing bottled water, bread, sandwiches, canned food, and biscuits—basically emptying the school's small supermarket.
Time passed quickly. By about nine o'clock at night, some early-to-bed girls were already struggling to keep their eyes open and started lying down to sleep. Sleepiness was contagious; though many still chatted noisily, the number of sleeping students steadily grew.
Later, around ten o'clock, most of the gym's occupants were asleep, and the rest were close to nodding off.
Wu Rendi was still sitting cross-legged at the center of over a thousand female students, almost motionless in the dim light. At some unknown point, he had lit an incense stick, holding it casually in his hand. Oddly, the incense glowed with an ember but gave off no visible smoke, and its scent was so faint it was barely noticeable—one could easily overlook the incense's presence in the gym.
I was guarding the door, bored, yawning repeatedly. Sun Fatty noticed and went to the water station, pouring a cup of coffee for me. "Lazi, have another cup. We've got to stay up all night; drink a few to keep going."
I waved off the coffee. "No thanks, I've had two already, or my hands will start shaking. Dasheng, I'm going out for a smoke. You watch the door for a bit; I'll come back and relieve you."
"Be careful." Sun Fatty chuckled. "There's a fox spirit outside. Watch out you don't get bewitched and drained dry."
"No worries. Yang Xiao's out there, if anyone's getting drained, it'll be him first," I smiled. "Besides, haven't you got my back?"
Before Sun Fatty could retort, I was already heading down the corridor to the main door.
Outside, I took a deep breath of fresh air. Inside the gym, with over a thousand people, some surely had foot odor or were passing gas—it wasn't the freshest air in there.
"What're you doing out here?" Yang Xiao's voice startled me from a shadowy corner. Somehow, he'd dragged a chair there and sat motionless in the dark. Had he not spoken, I might have missed his presence.
If the Heavenly Eye were still active, I could've sensed him easily. Since the Heavenly Eye had been blocked, returning to relying on mere eyesight felt strange and awkward.
"Old Yang, you scared me," I exaggerated, rubbing my chest. "Why are you hiding here?"
I pulled out my pack, took two cigarettes, and handed one to him before lighting one for myself. Surprisingly, Yang Xiao accepted it without hesitation. (I used to think neither he nor Wu Rendi smoked, so offering him a cigarette was a polite gesture.) Without needing me to light it, Yang Xiao inhaled deeply, and the tip glowed, releasing a wisp of smoke.
After spending so long in the Bureau of Civil Investigations, I'd grown accustomed to such oddities.
I took a drag and said, "Never saw you smoke before. Thought people like you and Director Wu didn't pick up the habit."
Yang Xiao exhaled smoke, saying, "Only boring people smoke. Luckily, Wu Rendi and I are both extremely bored."