Chapter 124: The Price of Life

　　"Huzi, what are you doing?"

　　Lu Fei had just stepped into the shop when he saw Huzi squatting at the entrance.

　　"Boss, there's a red envelope at the door. I don't know who it belongs to, but it looks like there's quite a bit of money in it. I picked it up and put it away, waiting for the owner to come back..."

　　Huzi's hand was about to touch the red envelope.

　　"Red envelope?" Lu Fei's heart skipped a beat. He shouted and quickly walked over: "Wait! Huzi, don't touch the red envelope!"

　　"What's wrong, boss?" Huzi's hand stopped, and he looked back at Lu Fei in confusion.

　　"Our pawnshop is in a rather remote location, and not many people pass by here. How could someone leave a red envelope here?" Lu Fei walked to the entrance and carefully examined the red envelope.

　　"Now that you mention it, it does seem pretty strange." Huzi scratched his head. "It looks like there's a lot of money in it. If someone lost so much money, they should be in a rush to get it back, but no one has come looking for it."

　　"Huzi, go make some tea," Lu Fei said.

　　"Okay."

　　Huzi brewed the tea and served it to Lu Fei.

　　Lu Fei directly poured the tea over the red envelope.

　　After a puff of steam.

　　The several hundred-yuan bills inside the red envelope slowly turned green!

　　Joss paper money.

　　"Money for the dead?!" Huzi was greatly shocked.

　　"This is money to buy a life. There must also be fingernail clippings and hair in the red envelope. If you dare to pick it up, your life will belong to someone else." Lu Fei said.

　　Buying-life money is a kind of folk sorcery that many spiritual mediums and geomancers know.

　　When some people are terminally ill or encounter all kinds of misfortunes, they go to a spiritual medium for help. The medium will then hide their fingernail clippings and hair in the money, wrap it in red cloth, and throw it on the road.

　　Whoever picks up this money and spends it will have to bear the disaster for that person.

　　"What the hell! Who's so damn sneaky!" Hu Zi cursed angrily.

　　"Who else, it must be that old witch from yesterday." Lu Fei snorted coldly, "If these are her only petty tricks, there's nothing to worry about. She can fool a moron, but trying to fool me is far from enough."

　　"Um, boss, am I really that dumb..." Hu Zi scratched his head.

　　"Be more confident, drop the 'really' part." Lu Fei lit a fire and burned the money clean.

　　This way, the curse would rebound onto the person who cast it, giving that old witch a lesson.

　　If she has any sense, she should know when to stop.

　　If she dares to cause more trouble, Lu Fei won't be polite.

　　Lu Fei had Hu Zi clean the doorway, and they resumed business as usual.

　　He went to make a fresh cup of tea, flipped through a book on ancient scripts, and soon got lost in thought.

　　He was never a top student, and he barely managed to get into university in the first place.

　　"I wonder when we'll hear news from Red Sister..."

　　At that moment, Hu Zi, who was scrolling through his phone, suddenly called out.

　　"Are the mental states of college students really so fragile these days? Boss, look, another student at Jiangcheng University has committed suicide by jumping off a building."

　　"Jiang Da?"

　　Lu Fei felt a jolt in his heart.

　　Jiang Da was his alma mater, and he quickly found the news article.

　　"In the early hours of the day before yesterday, another student at Jiangcheng University jumped to their death! Every September, there are deaths at Jiangcheng University. Is it a curse or just a coincidence?"

　　Hu Zi whistled, saying, "Students die every year at this school; it's a bit eerie! The comments all say the school is haunted. Have you heard about this, boss?"

　　"I went to Jiang Da for university. Our school has always had a legend about a haunted building." Lu Fei pointed to the photo of an old, eerie building in the news, saying, "Look, the jump happened from that haunted building."

　　"There really are ghosts?" Hu Zi's eyes widened.

　　"I haven't seen them with my own eyes, but people do die at the school every year." Lu Fei began to recount the legend of the haunted building at his alma mater to Hu Zi.

　　Jiang University has two campuses, a new one and an old one, separated by an artificial lake.

　　Aside from a few teaching buildings still in use, all the other structures in the old campus have been abandoned, with some dormitory buildings even sealed off, prohibiting anyone from entering.

　　Because every year, someone jumps from that building.

　　Over time, people started saying that the building is haunted, and the annual deaths are due to the ghost seeking replacements.

　　"So, are there really ghosts?" Hu Zi was getting more and more curious.

　　"I haven't been to that building, but someone from our dorm went. He was lucky and didn't encounter anything dirty. When he came back, he told us that the stories about the haunted building were fake."

　　"The school doesn't allow us to go near the old dormitory buildings, and they don't let us talk about it much, so I haven't paid much attention to it."

　　In fact, Lu Fei was also very curious at first, but not long after starting college, his grandfather went missing. He became depressed and only hoped that college would end soon, not caring much about other things.

　　Hu Zi watched a few more videos and clicked his tongue, saying, "People die every year. There must be something wrong! Boss, look, a lot of people online are saying that someone was hanged in this building before, and there was even a murder case. I don't know if it has anything to do with evil spirits, but if it does, we could go check it out."

　　"Not every haunted incident is related to evil spirits..."

　　Lu Fei was flipping through the news when he suddenly froze.

　　"The person who jumped was named Guo Haitao? The guy from our dorm who went to the haunted building was also named Guo Haitao. It can't be a coincidence, can it?!" 

　　He quickly opened the university classmates' group chat, which he had never used before.

　　To his surprise, the group was already in an uproar.

　　"Guo Haitao from our class is dead. Did you guys know? He jumped off the old dormitory building two nights ago."

　　"Didn't he just get a girlfriend? How could he be so desperate?"

　　"It's not that he was desperate. He must have been possessed by something dirty in the haunted building. Don't you remember, he used to go on adventures there."

　　"What a pity. I heard his girlfriend was quite pretty."

　　"These are all feudal superstitions, everyone. Don't spread rumors. The incident with Guo Haitao was probably just an accident. He wasn't the only one to go to the haunted building."

　　"Now that we've graduated, don't try to fool yourself, class monitor. At least one person dies in the haunted building every year; it's like no one knows that."

　　"Who were the ones who went to the haunted building with Guo Haitao back then..."

　　Looking at the chat records, Lu Fei felt his head spinning and couldn't believe it for a moment.

　　He never expected that the person who had died was really his roommate from college.

　　Could the legends about the haunted building be true?

　　Thinking of his roommate, with whom he used to eat meals and attend classes, now being gone, he felt uneasy all day long.

　　In the evening, the classmates' group chat was still discussing the incident.

　　Class monitor Wang Feng organized everyone to visit Guo Haitao's parents, after all, they were once classmates.

　　"Lu Fei, are you there?"

　　"You should know about the accident involving classmate Guo Haitao, right? We're planning to visit his family to offer our condolences. You used to be pretty close to him; do you have time to go tomorrow?"

　　The class representative had also sent a message to Lu Fei.

　　Lu Fei replied immediately: "I have time."

　　With his university roommate in this situation, he definitely had to go.

　　"I can't believe you're here!" Wang Feng was very surprised. "Since we graduated, you've never shown up in the group chat, and you never attend the class reunions. I thought you weren't in Jiangcheng anymore."

　　"There were some family matters; I usually don't check the group much." Lu Fei changed the subject. "Class representative, can you get in touch with the people who went to the haunted house with Haibo?"

　　"I managed to contact one of them. He's also coming tomorrow."