Completing the Loop

Scream!

Xu Disung screamed as he shot up from his bed. The other three around him shrieked at his voice. Even though they were all groggy, they had to attend a bro who just screamed.

Xu Disung, however, started feeling his body with both of his hands wary of any mutilation. His hands then rested on his chest that uncontrollably went up and down.

The last thing he remembered was seeing a girl in front of their door. Her hair shot up from the gap and pulled him somewhere. That was when he woke up at the same spot he started.

He looked around him to see his bros frowning at him. They were saying something, but he could not hear anything but the sounds of their breaths.

"Don't mind her."

He heard a child's voice and stared at the direction where the ghost app said there was a ghost. The audio guy saw Guangru seated on his father's bed. His gaze locked at the direction, even though Ruan Jin started shaking him.

"She won't get near any of you." Guangru smiled. He only lied down to the side, disappearing from Xu Disung's view.

"-sung!" Smack! Ruan Jin just had to smack him as well. It worked with him after all.

He got the same reaction from his brother, but no hard retaliation from the other party. He then held him by the shoulders. "Disung! Disung! Hey! Are you okay now?"

"There was a child there!" Xu Disung shot his finger to the direction of the berth, almost poking Ruan Jin with his pointer. He trembled as he insisted. "I really saw a kid! He—he—he—!"

Liu Xiaodan took hold of the trembling hand. "Disung, we believe you. What happened? Did the kid do anything to you?"

His expression had become dark, still keeping his disappointment to himself if ever Guangru hurt any of his friends.

That was when the audio guy remembered the kid was not the only problem. He shook his head and sighed… not believing the words coming out of his mouth if he ended up hearing that from another person.

"There was… another one outside the door. It was a girl with brown eyes. She tried to… I don't know what she wanted to do to me." He twitched and returned Ruan Jin's shoulder grab. "She was looking for a Jin…"

"Fuck, it's her again…" Ruan Jin curled up into a ball.

"Don't you think we should—I don't know—see if an exorcist could cleanse the building? A lot of weird things had been going around after all." Wen Taio suggested with a sigh, which had earned the other two's agreement in an instant.

"N-No, please, no." Liu Xiaodan shook his head and rubbed his neck while looking away. "There are a lot of spirits that live in this building. Most of them are harmless, but some can kill people when provoked. It would be dangerous for anyone to take them on."

He then turned to them. "Don't worry, it'll be solved soon."

"Solved soon? Ghosts like that don't go away fast, do they?" Xu Disung almost hissed his complaint. "Xiaodan, we might be able to live like this for a few days but not for months or for the following years. You don't like this either, right?"

"We should talk to Li Feng tomorrow morning before school." Wen Taio hummed, patting the back of his closest bro. "I was wrong to not consider the dangers. Maybe we should make an assessment first." He then flicked the head of the unsuspecting Ruan Jin. "And we're sticking together."

"Yeah, yeah, that should be fine." Ruan Jin consoled his forehead. He then turned to Liu Xiaodan. "Let's do it after class tomorrow? Are you going out with Chuan Nayi again?"

"N-No, I'm staying with you guys. I feel guilty for not being around the last time." The father sighed and bowed to them. "I feel like I was unable to steer you guys away from trouble because I was not around. I'm so sorry."

Ruan Jin hit his head again. "Stop doing that. What? You think you can control them?" He pouted away from his view. "It's not like you can just make them puff away."

Liu Xiaodan rubbed his sore head and listened to his friends as they started discussing the possibilities. They had no idea that Liu Xiaodan could destroy those ghosts with a single word. All he had to do was command his son to deal with them.

With another ghost trying to hurt them, the father had become wary of holding Guangru back. Then again, his son had set his eyes on Li Feng for an event to which he had no idea what happened.

The morning had come, and the residents of Room 208 were not in the highest spirits. They took no interest in the lessons and in participating in class. They were just sitting on their seats like their minds were all floating to the ends of the earth.

The first class finished without them realizing as it did. Xu Disung was about to leave when they saw Chuan Nayi get up and jogged to their spots. It was refreshing to see her hair and skirt bounce as she took on the steps. She stopped next to their table.

"I heard what happened yesterday. Are you guys alright?" Chuan Nayi was truly worried as she knew how much it hurt to be scared of the unseen.

"Everything's… okay." Ruan Jin answered as he got up and went past Xu Disung and Wen Taio. He approached Chuan Nayi and pulled her back a little. Doing it in front of Liu Xiaodan and the class was embarrassing, but he had to ask in the softest whisper that she would hear.

"Was there anything that the girls' dorm was saying… about me?" He had a faint blush on his face, but it was not because of having her so close to him.

Chuan Nayi took the initiative to step back and keep distance. She hummed as she thought of an answer to his concern that she did not quite understand. Then, it hit her. She made a loud twitch, but she chose to whisper back, putting her hand over her mouth so no one would read her lips.

"Of course, they talked about it, but more about what Li Yunru from Year One said. She heard the whispers and responded with something like 'let's see if you don't piss yourself if I threw you out of the sixth floor.' When I talked to her, she sounded like she was describing Weeping Ling."

"Weeping Ling?!" Ruan Jin yelled and grabbed the girl's arms without restraining his strength. He might be a little small, but it did not mean he did not have the strength of a man. "What do you mean Weeping Ling!?"

Liu Xiaodan and the other horsemen shuffled to them at this point. Ruan Jin quickly let go as he noticed she was making this pained expression.

Chuan Nayi only chuckled as acceptance of his apologies. She rubbed her sore arms, looking around to see the worried and angered expression of their classmates. She had to smile and assure them he did not hurt her on purpose.

"What about Weeping Ling?" Cheng Fei, who sat near the place where they crowded around Chuan Nayi, asked seeing that Ruan Jin grew pale all of a sudden. The events in the girls' dorm had not reached the boys' dorm just yet. Being let inside such a high floor could stir up envy among the males, they said. "She came back?"

"Came back?" Liu Xiaodan twitched and looked at Cheng Fei. "Was she… here before?"

"Ah, Weeping Ling used to be seen around the boys' dorm. She's that ghost that the stupid seniors encountered before." The guy from 207 stammered as he tried to explain to Liu Xiaodan, with the whole class listening. "You know, that time when they played a heavy prank on us freshmen two years ago? Where a total of seven students fell from the building?"

"I remember that!"

"Crap, I slept all through that noise…"

"Oh, my God! That!"

Mixed reactions came from the class. Liu Xiaodan, who was not connected to anyone before last year when he met Ruan Jin and the others, could only recall Xu Disung's story. It seemed like most of them knew about the incident; some were even victims of that game the seniors played.

The worst was Ruan Jin, who was one of those attacked by the fraud ghosts.

For some reason, it was starting to connect. If the boys' dorm drove Weeping Ling to the girls' dorm, then she must have a small chance of seeing male students. She ended up seeing Ruan Jin when he tried to climb the sixth floor, the same floor of her haunting spot in the boys' dorm.

Liu Xiaodan massaged his head in pain. One of the ghosts from one of the dorms had locked their eyes on another friend of his.

The talks normally dissolved as the next teacher entered the classroom. The faces of the students regain their original color; though some turned paler than earlier because of the lesson.

The four horsemen stayed on their seats with Ruan Jin lowering his head to his table area. He closed his eyes, forcing him to force the memories out of his mind.

…

Loud crying resounded in an empty hall. There was a girl seated on the floor with her face buried on her knees. Her red anklet draped on her foot as if it was broken. She continued to cry even till footsteps echoed in the hall. The girl lifted her face to see a male freshman in civilian clothing standing before her.

The guy kneeled before her, sitting on one of his feet. "Why are you crying? Are you lost?"

She straightened her back and saw the streaks of tears on the guy's face. For someone who was crying as well, it was not the best choice of words. She answered as she sniffled almost at the same time as he did. "No, I'm trapped…"

He twitched and got up just to sit next to her. He cleared his face with both of his arms. Loud sounds of sobbing and sniffling came from the man before he got up again. He smiled at her and reached out his hand. "Actually, me, too. Do you want to walk around?"

The girl nodded and took his hand. She got up and walked at the same pace he was as they trod the hall. She could notice that the guy was weak and tired. She could hear him breathing so loud.

However, from his grip, he just wanted to be done with something. Resting or letting it go on longer was nothing he wanted to do one bit.

Her weak grip tightened around his hand.

"Ah, right." The guy gave her a weak and nervous smile. "Don't be scared of me! My name is Ruan Jin from Film and TV Prod. What's yours?"

"…Ye Ling."