Chapter 18 A Trick

"Boss, what's going on?"

The old Taoist was confused. He had clearly seen himself struck by an arrow, no, struck by a pen.

But now, he felt completely fine, except for the lingering bruises on his face, which were from his own fall.

Zhou Ze reached down and picked up the fallen pen, but as soon as he touched it, it turned to ash.

"It was painted on," Zhou Ze said. "If he were really that powerful, he wouldn't be unwilling to face me directly. In fact, he could easily beat me to a pulp."

"Painted on?"

"Yes, painted on. It's like a more advanced form of hypnosis, deceiving your sight, hearing, and smell, and changing them according to his design."

Zhou Ze looked at his arm. There had been obvious wounds on it earlier, but now there was no sign of them. However, the realistic texture of the images was enough to make someone subconsciously believe it was all real in a short amount of time.

"Damn, he's in the same business as me, a con artist's trick."

The old Taoist instantly regained his manly confidence.

As the Great Leader said, all reactionaries are paper tigers!

"Boss, should we go catch him now?"

Zhou Ze shook his head and pointed to the window in the hallway. "It's almost dawn. He's already hiding."

Actually, the appearance of ghosts has little to do with the time of day. At least for ghosts, it doesn't make much of a difference. It's more about the effect on people.

During the day, everything is in broad daylight. Even if they encounter something strange, ordinary people can feel a bit of courage, or at least some psychological comfort.

But at night, people are easily frightened by what happens, giving ghosts an opportunity.

Of course, that ghost is a bit special. He's good at painting, but even the best paintings and quality need an environment to support and complement them. Daytime isn't his preferred painting background because it magnifies the flaws in his paintings, while at night, his paintings are more realistic.

"Then what do we do next... go eat breakfast?"

Zhou Ze walked towards the other end of the hallway. The old Taoist naturally followed, and then he watched Zhou Ze enter a room with a "Storage Room" sign on it.

Inside the room, in addition to a pile of junk, there was a pair of black leather shoes.

Zhou Ze sat on a wooden plank, as if pondering something.

"Boss?"

Zhou Ze raised his hand, signaling the old Taoist to be quiet.

The old Taoist nodded and sat down on the opposite bed. He wasn't worried about the bruises on his body. He'd been traveling around for so many years and had suffered countless hardships and superficial injuries. This was child's play.

About fifteen minutes later, Zhou Ze bent down and began searching under the bed.

The old Taoist also bent down and rummaged around. He didn't know what the boss was looking for, but it didn't matter. Searching was the right thing to do!

After all, most bosses don't see your progress, but your attitude.

Under the bed were just some miscellaneous items. After pulling them out, the space underneath was empty, since no one lived in this room anymore.

Zhou Ze opened the closet. All eight lockers were opened, and there was nothing inside except for a thin layer of dust.

The old Taoist scratched his head and simply climbed onto the upper bunk. There were many posters on the wall near the upper bunk, all of them of soccer stars, like Cristiano Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos.

Zhou Ze also went to the upper bunk. He felt that there should be something here; otherwise, Wang Baogang's soul wouldn't have lingered here, and he had also seen other strange scenes in this dormitory.

If nothing else, this room should be the key to this series of events.

"Boss, what kind of paintings are on the posters over there? They look weird," the old Taoist said, pointing to Zhou Ze's side.

"Picasso's paintings," Zhou Ze replied.

Then, Zhou Ze seemed to have discovered something and reached out to touch the poster.

From the old Taoist's perspective, his boss was actually reaching out to touch the woman's chest in the painting. The old Taoist immediately said:

"Boss, touch Yingying when you get home. The woman in this painting is too ugly..."

Before the old Taoist could finish speaking,

There was a "rip" sound,

And the painting was torn off directly by Zhou Ze. Several pieces of paper fell between the painting and the wall.

Zhou Ze didn't have time to pay attention to the old Taoist's nonsense. He picked up a piece of paper. It was a pen drawing, very detailed. The drawing was of a dormitory, but the dormitory was covered and filled with a special liquid.

It could be considered water, or it could be... blood.

The next drawing was on the balcony. There was a boy with only half a body struggling to climb inside, and in the dormitory closet, two legs were sticking out.

The next one was the third drawing. In the drawing, there was a man standing upside down on the tile floor, wearing leather shoes with his hands on the ground.

The three drawings represented three scenes, and Zhou Ze had just witnessed these three scenes before.

One was in the dormitory, filled with blood, one was the boy with half a body, and the other was Wang Baogang walking upside down.

Below, there were three more drawings, six in total.

Picking up another drawing, the drawing was of a skeleton, holding a book, walking among the students and teachers. If nothing else, it should be Sun Qiu.

The next one was the fifth drawing. When Zhou Ze saw the scene in this drawing, he immediately turned his head to look at the old Taoist, who had just climbed down from the opposite upper bunk to Zhou Ze's upper bunk, seemingly very interested in what Zhou Ze had found.

"What's drawn? I can't see clearly," the old Taoist asked.

Zhou Ze handed the drawing to the old Taoist. The old Taoist grabbed the ladder with one hand and took the drawing with the other, then he froze and fell straight down. Fortunately, it wasn't high, so nothing happened, but the old Taoist looked like he was in a daze.

The drawing fell to the ground. In the drawing, an old man in a Taoist robe was lying there, his head separated from his body. Nearby, there was a black cat, as if gnawing on his corpse.

Zhou Ze opened the last drawing.

Somewhat surprisingly, the last drawing wasn't of himself, but of the buzz cut guy. The buzz cut guy had a sharp object stuck in his forehead, standing straight. Because the buzz cut guy had two moles on his face, it was easy to match the image of the person in the drawing.

After looking at all the drawings, Zhou Ze looked at the dazed old Taoist below and suddenly felt a sense of loss.

Why was there a drawing of the old Taoist but not of himself?

Hmm,

This feeling was like when the main character of a movie was overshadowed by a random extra.

The old Taoist immediately climbed back up and took the other drawings from Zhou Ze to look at them all, and then he asked Zhou Ze tremblingly:

"Boss, the drawings are all fake, fake, right?"

Zhou Ze got off the bed and washed his hands at the sink, and said, "I haven't seen the two drawings of you and the buzz cut guy. I've seen the other four."

"How is that possible? This isn't some Mayan prophecy. I'm still alive, and that buzz cut dorm manager is still alive."

"Are you trying to say that a few years ago, a middle school student with good drawing skills in this dormitory started to admire you in advance?" Zhou Ze asked rhetorically.

"This is the ghost's trick, deliberately mystifying, trying to disrupt our morale!"

Zhou Ze didn't say anything more, but signaled the old Taoist to put away the six drawings. Then, Zhou Ze walked to the balcony.

It was almost dawn, and the morning light was faintly visible. People always like to regard the morning light as a symbol of hope, but sometimes, it is more like the oppression before the arrival of darkness.

The old Taoist, with a bitter face, also walked to the balcony, took out a cigarette, handed one to Zhou Ze, lit one himself, and then sighed, saying:

"Boss, these are all fake, right?"

The old Taoist had asked this question before.

"I don't know." Zhou Ze shook his head, then leaned against the edge of the balcony and continued, "Do you feel that everything here has been humid since we entered this dormitory building?

And it has a musty smell?"

"Dormitory buildings are all like this." The old Taoist exhaled a puff of smoke.

Zhou Ze reached out and rubbed his temples. At this time, the dormitory building rang the bell, meaning that the students should get up to attend the morning self-study.

Some more diligent students had already walked out of the ground floor exit when the bell rang, wearing red school uniforms.

And the students in the other buildings around them were wearing blue school uniforms.

"School uniform colors are different."

Zhou Ze pointed downwards. He didn't want to let go of any details now. The reason was simple: from the moment he entered this dormitory building, the things that had happened one after another made Zhou Ze feel completely clueless.

"Probably the school uniforms are different for junior high school students and high school students. This is a junior high school dormitory building. The two buildings outside seem to be high schools. This middle school has both a middle school and a high school department."

As the old Taoist spoke, he took out the drawing again and looked at it. The more he looked at it, the worse he felt. He even wondered why the person who died so miserably in the drawing wasn't Zhou Ze but himself.

When did I have such a high presence?

"Look, your buzz cut guy is out."

Zhou Ze reached out and pointed downwards. The buzz cut dorm manager walked to the outside of the exit, holding a phone as if he was making a call.

"Did they not call the police?" Zhou Ze asked.

"Didn't they?" The old Taoist asked doubtfully.

In fact, for Zhou Ze and the old Taoist, causing a little trouble wasn't a big deal. Burning some paper money would be enough to deal with it. The key was that even if the buzz cut guys didn't call the police, they wouldn't have acted like nothing had happened.

Before, they were only focused on catching ghosts and had ignored this, but now that they had calmed down, they had figured out something was wrong.

No, to be precise, since entering this dormitory building, not many places had been right.

"Look, he's still alive."

The old Taoist pointed to the buzz cut guy standing below.

This feeling,

Really,

He's good,

I'm good too.

"Crack!"

Suddenly, there was the sound of glass shattering on the roof. The old Taoist only felt a gust of wind pass by his face, and then he heard a burst of noise and screams from below.

The buzz cut guy standing below was hit by the glass,

That piece of glass,

Went straight into his forehead,

Straight through.