"The abandoned well in the back field is the school's weak point. The old principal once said it's a wound that can never heal. If you compare the entire school to a heart, then this deep well is where secrets are buried."
Chen Ge suddenly recalled another question. "Principal, you said the Psychic Ghost School is made up of countless students' memories. The reason Muyang High School appears here is because a child at our old school was bullied, right?"
"Yes." The old principal didn't seem willing to answer this question.
"Can you tell me about that child?" Chen Ge knew the principal didn't want to dredge up the past, but all the clues pointed to that Muyang High School child being critically important.
The only weak point of the Psychic Ghost School was located in the burned-down campus of Muyang High School. There was another detail worth noting as well — all the buildings in the ghost school were randomly arranged, but Muyang High School had been squeezed to the very edge of the school grounds, the place closest to the blood-red city.
"I don't know the specifics either. All I know is that the child's name was Fan Yu. His adoptive father was a teacher at our school — he used to teach in the city proper, but I heard he offended someone, and no school would take him. In the end, he came to our school." The old principal's words once again overturned certain memories in Chen Ge's mind.
"Fan Yu? That child attended classes at Muyang High School?"
"Yes. Don't let the small size of Muyang High School fool you — it offered all the courses for both elementary and middle school." The old principal smiled bitterly. "We had no choice. There were no elementary schools in the suburban area at all. The children I adopted, along with the kids of migrant workers nearby, had nowhere to go, so I specifically added elementary school courses."
"That's not important." Chen Ge shifted his body upward little by little. "How many years did Fan Yu attend Muyang High School? And why did he drop out?"
"Fan Yu came to Muyang High School because of his adoptive father — that teacher at our school. Back then, Fan Yu wasn't even old enough for elementary school, but at his adoptive father's insistent request, we placed him in first grade. His father even begged me to help write up a certificate." The old principal recalled those events. His memory was excellent, which was one thing that set him apart from other ghosts — most ghosts only remembered their obsessions.
"After about a few months, Fan Yu couldn't keep up with his peers. The boy was bright and talented, but his talent showed in painting." The old principal remembered this clearly. "He could draw anything with perfect likeness — a genuine painting prodigy. At first his adoptive father didn't object to him drawing. Until one day, the boy drew a portrait during class. His adoptive father flew into a rage. According to the other students, the man tore the drawing to shreds and slapped the boy hard across the face right there in the classroom. It became a huge scene — it took me and another female teacher together to pull him off."
"Just drawing in class instead of paying attention shouldn't have made his father that angry." Chen Ge's mind sharpened. "Perhaps it was what the boy drew that provoked his father. Principal, do you know what the picture was?"
"The drawing was torn to pieces, but I remember the boy's desk mate telling me that Fan Yu had borrowed his red crayon while drawing that picture. Something about his own red crayon running dry." The old principal wracked his memory, but he couldn't recall what Fan Yu had drawn at the time.
"A red crayon?" Chen Ge's pupils contracted. "To use up all his own red paint and then need to borrow his desk mate's red crayon — that means the picture used an enormous amount of red!"
Chen Ge's expression grew gradually more serious. He looked slowly toward the principal and pointed at the blood-red mist swirling around them. "You just said Fan Yu had a great talent for painting, that he could draw anything exactly as it looked. So what kind of scene would he have wanted to paint that would require such a massive amount of red?"
The old principal hadn't thought much of it before, but hearing Chen Ge put it that way, he was suddenly struck with realization.
"A murder scene?!"
"Very likely!" Chen Ge slowed his speech. "That would also explain why his adoptive father flew into such a rage. I suspect the killer was Fan Yu's adoptive father."
The matter was even more complex than Chen Ge had imagined. At first he'd thought Fan Yu's adoptive father had only killed Fan Yu's mother, but it seemed the situation was far more sinister — the man might have been a complete and utter psychopath.
A respected teacher in the daytime, and a savage, uncontrollable murderer by night.
"That makes sense. Only someone like that would cover the toilet stall walls of Muyang High School with painted eyes to spy through. I really underestimated the depths of human evil."
Rethinking everything, Chen Ge realized Fan Yu's suffering had been far worse than he'd guessed. "Fan Yu's aunt's twins disappeared without reason, and after death they lingered at Muyang High School. Could their deaths also be connected to Fan Yu's adoptive father?"
Chen Ge revealed the true face of Fan Yu's father to the old principal. The principal's eyes burned crimson. "I thought Fan Yu was simply being bullied at school. I had no idea there was so much more behind it."
"You can't judge a book by its cover. He hid it well — otherwise he would have been discovered long ago." Chen Ge gained new perspective on certain matters. "Principal, before Fan Yu dropped out, did he do anything unusual?"
"I didn't pay close attention, because Fan Yu was in his adoptive father's class. Even a vicious tiger doesn't eat its own cubs, so I didn't dig too deep. Oh — there was one strange thing. Fan Yu always had bruises on him. His adoptive father told me the boy was unlikeable and loved to fight." The principal looked regretful. "Now that I think about it, those bruises might have been inflicted by his adoptive father."
"Is that all?"
"Fan Yu was isolated in class. Everyone inexplicably shunned him. His adoptive father also strictly forbade him from drawing — whenever he caught the boy drawing, he would beat and scold him. In the span of just a few months, the child seemed like a completely different person." The old principal couldn't bear to go on. "It was my fault. The school was about to be shut down at the time, and I was running around everywhere trying to save it. I was hardly ever at the school — I overlooked too much."
"Even if you'd gone out of your way to ask, Fan Yu probably wouldn't have answered. No matter how he struggled, he still had to go home in the end. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk — he didn't dare. Other students who were bullied at school at least had their parents' comfort at home, but for him, after being tormented at school, he still had to go home and face that terrifying adoptive father alone." Chen Ge's heart ached for Fan Yu, and it strengthened his resolve to continue looking after him. But then another question surfaced in his mind: "If Muyang High School appeared inside the Psychic Ghost School because of Fan Yu, then Fan Yu must have entered the ghost school at some point. But in reality, Fan Yu is still sitting peacefully in the Hanjiang Orphanage — he's never left."
Chen Ge narrowed his eyes. Many past experiences came flooding back into his mind.
He had a good relationship with Fan Yu, and he had seen Fan Yu's drawings.
The current Fan Yu had no painting talent to speak of whatsoever. All his drawings were made up of very simple lines — about the level of a kindergarten child.
"This level of skill has nothing to do with genius. Could Fan Yu's situation be like Li Xueying's? Did the side of him that Despair entered the ghost school, leaving behind only a simple, innocent shell?"
His brain felt as if struck by lightning. Chen Ge bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. He realized that long before himself, someone else had already noticed something unusual about Fan Yu!
After the Living Coffin Village trial was over, that Well-Jumping Female Ghost — who had existed for over a century — had given Fan Yu a bracelet when they parted ways (see Chapter 339)!
That top-tier Red Dress ghost had been dismissive toward everyone, yet her attitude toward Fan Yu was exceptionally warm, as if she'd deliberately sought to make contact with him and leave a good impression.
"When she possessed the little girl and was sent to the orphanage, there were so many children there, yet she specifically sought out Fan Yu! She stayed by his side the whole time. Ginger gets spicier with age — I should have realized this sooner!"
Climbing out of the abandoned well, Chen Ge gazed into its fathomless depths, thinking of Fan Yu, and then of the east and west campuses the Painter had constructed — one side Despair and darkness, the other beauty and tranquility…