Opening my eyes to see a ghost

Xiao Cao had been lying in bed reading a book, swearing poisonously to attest that Xiao Wang had been asleep the whole time and hadn't left at all.

Xiao Yang apologized to Xiao Wang and lay on his bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep for a long time. If it wasn't Xiao Wang just now, then who could it have been? It was definitely his voice, though. Could the two of them be in cahoots to scare me? That doesn't seem right, Xiao Cao is famously honest. How could he have scared me?

Finally, at two o'clock in the night, Xiao Yang got up again and walked towards the bathroom, determined to find out the truth.

By then, the lights in the corridor had been turned off, leaving only the dim light of the bathroom flickering sleepily.

Xiao Yang entered the bathroom and pushed open the door of stall number two once more, finding it as empty as before, with nothing inside. Who on earth had been trying to scare me earlier?

Not yet willing to give up, Xiao Yang opened every stall in the bathroom one by one. Aside from stall number three, which was broken, all were spotlessly clean, without a trace of anything.

He walked over to the faucet and washed his face, hoping to become a bit more alert.

Bang!

With the sound of wood colliding, the bathroom door closed, and the dim bathroom light closed its eyes, leaving total darkness.

"Damn it, who's trying to scare me? Is this amusing to you? Turn on the lights right now," Xiao Yang, sensing someone was pranking him, immediately got angry.

The bathroom light flickered back on with his swearing, still looking half-hearted in its illumination.

But the bathroom door remained firmly shut, and Xiao Yang pulled hard on it, but he couldn't open it.

He kicked the door forcefully, yelling to have it opened, but the door didn't budge, nor did anyone respond to him.

Suddenly, a hand rested on his shoulder. Xiao Yang angrily turned around, ready to curse, but his eyes widened, and he froze on the spot.

He saw something unbelievable: his own hand resting on his shoulder, with a sinister smile on his face.

"Hehehe, were you not calling me? I've come out," he saw his own mouth utter, as cold sweat instantly covered his whole body.

"Who are you? You... don't come any closer... get away!" Xiao Yang, frightened, collapsed onto the ground, inching towards the bathroom door.

The other him did not pay attention to Xiao Yang and fished out two pieces of paper from nowhere, one red and one white.

"Do you want the red paper or the white paper?"

Xiao Yang, perhaps out of fright or something else, actually started to chuckle.

He pointed to the red paper and shouted loudly, "I want the red paper, I want the red paper."

The next day, the police cordoned off the bathroom, because in the morning, someone had discovered Xiao Yang's corpse in the second stall.

Xiao Yang's belly was split open, his intestines spilled out onto the ground, and his heart was gouged out, its whereabouts unknown; his head, bearing a satisfied expression, was clutched tightly in his hands and placed at his waist as if chuckling there, and on his legs lay a piece of red paper.

Afterwards, pit number two was sealed up tightly, no longer in use, but whenever someone went to the bathroom at night, they could still hear faint noises from pit number two, as if saying, "Do you want white toilet paper or red toilet paper?"

The students were left with a lingering sense of curiosity, each speculating about what might have killed Xiao Yang.

Old Liu watched everyone with a chuckle, pleased with the atmosphere of speculation as it actively engaged everyone's interest in uncovering the problem.

After school, I hurried back to the Taoist Temple and retold Old Liu's story to my master, asking if he knew what kind of ghost or monster it was.

Patting my head, my master said it was just a story, nothing more. In the decades since he had joined the sect, he had never heard of such things actually happening.

After dinner, I cleaned the yard out of habit, finished my homework under the oil lamp, and after my master had gone to sleep, I washed up, changed into clean clothes, lit three sticks of incense, and planted them in front of the Divine Statues to begin my daily Maoshan practices.

With my right middle finger, I drew a cross on the ground, placed my calves over the cross, right leg on top of the left, and sat down; my hands formed a sphere shape and were placed above my dantian.

Only after the three sticks of incense had burned out did I get up and go to lie down in the back hall on my bed.

That night, I had a dream. I dreamed of a shadow holding two pieces of toilet paper, one red and one yellow. It didn't ask me anything, just stared at me with a strange grin.

I was terrified and silently recited the Six Ding Body Protection Mantra, but it seemed completely unfazed. I threw an Ancient Coin at it, but it still stood there grinning strangely, the coin passing right through its body.

I bit the paper and drew a Palm Thunder in my palm. When I tried to strike it, there was still no effect, so I turned and ran away in fear. However, it kept floating near me, still grinning with its mouth wide open.

I ran for a very long time, almost too exhausted to breathe, yet I couldn't shake it off. Left with no choice, I had to stop and ask it what it wanted.

It said it was tired of life at the school, that it had come out for some fresh air. It had heard during the day that someone had mentioned it, so it had come over. It also said that the person was one of its roommates and that it wanted to take his life.

I woke up with a start, sitting up and wiping the cold sweat from my forehead. The day had already broken, and my master was sitting quietly at my bedside, smiling gently at me.

After getting up and washing up, I ate something and told my master about the nightmare I had had. My master said it was because of the story we heard yesterday. There's an old saying that goes, "What you think about during the day, you dream of at night."

Without much thought, I packed my things and headed to the temporary school with my backpack.

When class time came, Old Liu did not appear. Instead, a middle-aged teacher came in and said that our homeroom teacher was sick and that he would be covering for him.

I didn't listen to a word of the class; my mind was occupied with whether Old Liu's illness was related to the dream I had had. The entity had said that Old Liu was one of its roommates and wanted his life. Could all this be more than a simple coincidence? Could it be that it really came to take Old Liu's life? But perhaps I was overthinking it—it could just be an ordinary illness.

The substitute teacher's lecture was incredibly dull, and my classmates were listless, unable to muster any energy. Seeing this, the teacher didn't seem to care. After all, he wasn't our regular homeroom teacher and was only there for the day. Even if we learned nothing that day, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Finding myself at the end of the seemingly interminable school day, I didn't go straight back to the Taoist Temple. Instead, after making several inquiries, I found Old Liu's residence.

In the midday sun, bright and blazing, Old Liu was wrapped in his blankets, shivering, his lips somewhat blue. He was glad to see me but too sick with a fever to get out of bed.

I poured Old Liu a glass of hot water and struck up a conversation. He praised me as a good and diligent student. He said that in a few months, I'd be able to complete the curricula from the first to the sixth grade and then take a bus to the city for school.