Chapter 65: “Do I kiss you, or do you kiss me?”

The silver moon hung like a hook, and the stars were brilliant.

Under the hazy night sky, students on the playground strolled and chatted in twos and threes. Occasionally, some of the high-handed student council members would blow several piercing, shrill long whistles, then shout and laugh with their companions, trying to attract attention and show off their “status” in the school.

Not far from the basketball court, Su Chunfeng hung upside down from the parallel bars with his legs hooked over them. He was lifting himself up slowly and effortlessly in this inverted position.

Beside him, Wang Haifei, wearing her light blue school uniform, leaned against one of the parallel bar pillars. She looked down at her own two small hands, which were restlessly twisting and fidgeting in front of her slightly curving chest. Pouting with a touch of gloom, she said, “Lately, I feel studying is getting harder and harder. Sigh… I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s more like your heart is tired, right?” Su Chunfeng said with a laugh.

“What?” Wang Haifei tilted her head, looking puzzled.

Su Chunfeng continued his inverted sit-ups effortlessly and teased, “Juggling studying hard while also dating, racking your brains to find chances for secret meetings, and figuring out how to handle sharing a boyfriend with your best friend… anyone would be tired from all that.”

“Shut up.” Wang Haifei’s face flushed red as she spat out the words. “You sure dream big, don’t you?”

“Wrong. Not at all. I have more headaches about this than you do.” Su Chunfeng tensed his leg and abdominal muscles, powered himself up smoothly, and sat upright on the parallel bars. He pushed off with his feet against the other side of the bars, turned to look at Wang Haifei, and said, “Actually, I’m really curious. What are you and Zhang Lifei thinking? Are you two that close? Close enough to slice me up like an apple and share half each? When it comes to feelings and relationships…” At this point, Su Chunfeng shook his head and stopped—better drop it. Going any deeper, given Wang Haifei’s age, she wouldn’t really understand and would just get more upset.

Wang Haifei pouted and said, “With me and Lifei being so close, how could I possibly say I’m not willing? Besides, you… you like Lifei quite a bit too.”

“Liking someone isn’t the same as loving them!” Su Chunfeng protested, feeling wronged. “Actually, I’m embarrassed too. The three of us have been close desk-mates for three years, and you two are as tight as sisters. So if you two don’t mind sharing in this matter, how could I, who seems to be getting the sweet end of the deal, just flat-out reject Lifei?”

“Sigh.” Wang Haifei sighed with frustration.

“Haifei, you should be able to tell, actually. No matter what Lifei says or does each time, I just handle it half-heartedly. I just don’t want to hurt her, and I don’t want to hurt the friendship among the three of us either.”

“Hmm.” Wang Haifei nodded. Suddenly she lifted her face and said in a lighter tone, “Let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s really nothing much anyway… So, help me think now: what can I do so I don’t feel so tired while studying?”

Su Chunfeng was taken aback. What does she mean, ‘it’s really nothing much anyway’?

This is a love triangle!

Truly, a boy can never figure out a girl’s thoughts.

To tell the truth, Su Chunfeng and Wang Haifei were having a tough time right now. Although they saw each other often, chatting and eating together, and as high school students they didn’t need to be overly concerned about other people’s looks and gossip, basically every time they were together, Zhang Lifei, who was almost always stuck to Wang Haifei’s side, would join in.

Therefore, chances for the two of them to be alone together like tonight were extremely rare.

It was only by seizing this opportunity, after evening self-study ended and because Class 3 had a teacher explaining problems, letting out later, that Su Chunfeng and Wang Haifei finally managed to slip away from Zhang Lifei. They sneaked over to the basketball court for a secret date.

With one hand on the edge of the parallel bar, his legs swinging, Su Chunfeng jumped down from the bars and landed steadily in front of Wang Haifei. He smiled and said, “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself, so you feel tired when you study… Tell me, what’s your short-term study goal right now?”

Wang Haifei bit her lip, a little embarrassed, and said, “I want, after the midterm exam, to move into Class 1.”

“Want to be in the same class as me?” Su Chunfeng grinned mischievously.

“Annoying!”

“Afraid someone might steal me away?”

“Who would want you?”

“Speaking of which, someone actually wrote me a love letter today…”

“Who?” Wang Haifei immediately glared, but in these eyes that should have been filled with fierce anger, because of her gentle nature, glistening tears quickly welled up instead.

Su Chunfeng hurriedly said, “Just kidding, no, no one.”

“Hmph!” Wang Haifei was both angry and a little happy, laughing until two tears slipped out. She said, “You just know how to bully me because I’m easygoing. If you really secretly started dating another girl, I, I’ll tell Lifei! Lifei will definitely give you a hard time! See if you dare then!”

Su Chunfeng grinned, chuckling. He greatly enjoyed these pleasant, slightly flirtatious jokes when they were alone.

In the hazy night, Wang Haifei’s coquettish, feigned-angry look appeared even more adorable and charming. Unable to suppress the flutter in his heart, Su Chunfeng reached out and grabbed Wang Haifei’s soft, boneless little hands. He lifted them to his chest, held them tightly, leaned his body forward, and brought his face so close that his mouth almost touched Wang Haifei’s ear. Smelling the faint scent of her shampoo, he whispered, “Haifei, you’re really pretty.”

Wang Haifei blushed and lowered her head without saying a word.

Suddenly, she felt a warm, moist touch on her forehead. It was Su Chunfeng softly kissing her there, as light as a dragonfly skimming water.

“Ah.” Wang Haifei let out a soft gasp and quickly turned her face away, her cheeks flushed.

Unexpectedly, Su Chunfeng, encouraged by this sweet success, couldn’t help but press his luck. He gently kissed her delicate cheek.

At that, Wang Haifei felt like all her bones had gone soft. Weak and limp, she leaned against the parallel bar pillar, lowering her head as much as possible to hide, afraid that Su Chunfeng might kiss her again. She whispered nervously and shyly, “Chunfeng, don’t do this. It wouldn’t be good if someone saw.”

Su Chunfeng glanced back and saw figures in the distance, laughing and talking as they walked toward them in the gloom.

A boy and a girl being alone together dating wasn’t strange in this high school, but if they were discovered being physically affectionate like this, they would soon become gossip material. Remembering that Wang Haifei was, after all, a girl and quite shy, Su Chunfeng immediately released her hand. He stepped sideways, grabbed the parallel bars, pushed himself powerfully into the air, gracefully swung his legs, and sat securely on the bars again. In high spirits, he said with a smile, “Don’t you dare tell that girl Lifei about this.”

“You wish.” Wang Haifei said coquettishly. Thinking back on how Su Chunfeng had held her hands, been so close, and kissed her twice in a row, she felt both bashful and a little wistful, reluctant for the moment to end.

Su Chunfeng leaned back, hanging upside down again. He looked up from below at Wang Haifei, whose head was bowed and face flushed bright red with shyness, and whispered, “Next time let me kiss your lips, okay?”

“No!”

“Then you kiss my lips instead, that’s okay, right?”

“You’re awful!” Wang Haifei gave Su Chunfeng a light shove. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw people approaching, so she quickly moved a couple of steps away. Fearing Su Chunfeng might continue his playful banter and be overheard, she quickly changed the subject, “Oh, hey Chunfeng, I heard from people in my dorm that last spring, a girl in our dorm building jumped to her death. Then for over half a year after that, the dorm building was often haunted. It scared so many girls that they didn’t dare stay, and it only got better this year.”

“Huh?” Su Chunfeng paused, reminded of the small arcane array aimed at the girls’ dormitory building but actually set up on the faculty dormitory building.

“I still get scared at night when I sleep…” Wang Haifei stuck out her tongue.

Su Chunfeng smiled and said, “Didn’t you just say it’s been fine this year? What’s there to be scared of? Besides, all that talk about ghosts is just to scare people! There are no ghosts in this world.”

“I’m just scared anyway.”

“When you’re scared, think of me…”

“Thinking of you would scare me even more!” Wang Haifei spat back. “I’d be afraid of having nightmares.”

“You’ve dreamed about me?” Su Chunfeng teased.

“Stop it!” Wang Haifei stamped her foot. Seeing the few boys passing by from not far away looking over toward them, she grew even more embarrassed. She bit her lip lightly, seeming both reluctant to leave and a little like she was acting coy, and said, “I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m going! If I’m any later and Lifei can’t find me, she’ll definitely come after you tomorrow to settle accounts.”

Su Chunfeng flipped down from the bars. “I’ll walk you back.”

“No need, it wouldn’t be good if people see us!” Wang Haifei pushed Su Chunfeng to make him stop, then turned and took off quickly with small, hurried steps toward the girls’ dormitory building.

Watching Wang Haifei’s graceful figure disappear into the night, Su Chunfeng turned back, jumped onto the parallel bars again, and looked up at the brilliant, deep starry sky. While happily savoring the sweetness of the moments before, he pondered what Wang Haifei had said about the girls’ dormitory building—it seemed this matter wasn’t so simple after all.

A small arcane array specifically targeting the girls’ dormitory building was set up on the faculty dormitory building, and it was a defensive-type array used to resist and break down attacks of yin evil energy. This proved that the so-called “haunting” incidents Wang Haifei had heard about weren’t just made-up rumors or wild guesses.

And the fact that the array was set up on the faculty dormitory building meant that the person who cast the art and set up the array was male, and was a staff member at this school.

There were two reasons:

First, the art caster couldn’t conveniently enter the girls’ dorm to do things that ordinary people would find very strange.

Second, the art caster definitely wasn’t someone from the jianghu of esoteric arts that the school had hired. The chance that the school administration believed in this sort of thing these days was pretty low. Also, because it involved the school, most esoteric artists wouldn’t come to handle such a minor incident. Moreover, if an esoteric artist really did take action, would they need to set up such a small defensive array? Couldn’t they just go boldly into the girls’ dorm to drive out the evil and subdue the negative forces?

As for the so-called “ghosts,” in the eyes of esoteric artists like Su Chunfeng, there were no “ghosts” in this world in the traditional sense we talk about.

Evil spirits, demons, malevolent entities, and similar lowly creatures are all collectively called malignant supernatural entities.

The sources of malignant supernatural entities were varied. Of course, there were cases, accepted by people for thousands of years, of “ghosts” formed after a person’s death. However, the chance of such a “ghost” popping up to cause trouble was extremely low. But since there had been a “haunting,” lasting for several months, it suggested the matter was quite serious.

As mentioned before, in places like schools, occultists found it inconvenient to cast arts.

Similarly, the chance of malignant supernatural entities causing trouble in a campus environment with such a strong scholastic atmosphere was also extremely low. Many ghost stories often used schools as a setting to scare people, which was really quite far-fetched.

Even if, by some coincidence, such an event did happen at a school, it would be hard for it to last very long.

Because malignant supernatural entities would be worn away by the intense scholastic atmosphere until not a trace of their energy remained.

So what exactly happened in the girls’ dormitory building last year?

And who among the school staff was an occultist?

After pondering for a long time, Su Chunfeng suddenly slapped his forehead as if a light bulb had gone off. He leaped down from the parallel bars with a self-mocking smile and headed toward his dormitory:

“What does it have to do with me?”