# 1533
Chapter 1529: Campus Legend Escaped
The one who shouted those words was none other than the woman with the administrative staff badge that Lin Qiye had just seen.
She stood gasping at the sixth-floor stairwell, her convenience bag torn open on some sharp edge, several boxes of chalk scattered and rolling down the stairs with light tapping sounds.
The pale golden flames in Lin Qiye's eyes gradually faded. He frowned at the woman, about to ask something, when she gritted her teeth and fled downstairs!
She was connected to those ghosts from before?
That thought flashed through Lin Qiye's mind. He wouldn't let this suspicious woman escape—his form vanished into darkness.
The woman sprinted down the stairs. As she reached the third floor, the darkness at the stairwell's edge churned like waves. Her pupils contracted slightly, and before she could even scream, she was swallowed whole.
The entire teaching building fell into silence once more.
Only then did Lu Menglei, who had been hiding beside Cao Yuan with a deathly pale face, slowly open her eyes. But the classroom was now empty. The flickering lights from before seemed like a hallucination, never having existed at all.
"Cao Yuan junior... what just happened?"
"Nothing much. The light we saw outside the door was probably sunlight reflecting off the glass. When we opened the door, there was nothing inside." Cao Yuan naturally couldn't tell her about the bizarre events that had just transpired. He made up an excuse casually.
"Reflected light?" Lu Menglei tried to recall. "But... I felt like it flashed earlier, and there was a woman's voice?"
"A car drove past on the road across the way—of course it would flash. The sound was from outside too." Cao Yuan held her hand gently. "There's nothing supernatural in this world. Just like what we saw, we were just scaring ourselves."
"But the reflection on the glass... it really looked like someone reading inside." Lu Menglei took a moment to accept the situation, then couldn't help but speak up.
Cao Yuan walked into the classroom to search. After rummaging around, he found a bag under one of the desks:
"Is this it?"
"Yes, that's it!"
"Good, we found it. Let's go."
Lu Menglei looked around nervously, then closely followed Cao Yuan out of the teaching building. Only when they were outside did she exhale in relief.
Immediately, as if realizing something, she quickly pulled her hand from Cao Yuan's grip, her expression awkward.
"Cao Yuan junior... I was too nervous just now, so..."
"It's fine." Cao Yuan smiled gentlemanly. Though this expression was quite out of place on his face, to Lu Menglei at this moment, it felt incredibly safe. "Come on, I'll walk you back."
Lu Menglei naturally couldn't refuse. The two of them gradually disappeared into the distance along the dimly lit road.
...
The darkness slowly receded behind the teaching building. The woman, like a drowning person finally crawling ashore, knelt halfway with her hands on the ground, gasping greedily for air.
Under the hazy moonlight, a man's figure emerged from the darkness. Lin Qiye examined this young woman carefully, his gaze lingering on her work badge:
"Jiang Zhihua... is that your name?"
The woman caught her breath and stared at Lin Qiye, her eyes full of wariness. "Who are you? What are you doing sneaking into our school?!"
"I'm a student here."
"You're lying." Jiang Zhihua fixed him with a cold stare. "What student has terrifying eyes like that, and can inexplicably bind me here? Which department are you from? Natural Sciences? Or Superpowers?"
"No. Philosophy Department."
"..."
When Lin Qiye pulled out his student ID, Jiang Zhihua was clearly stunned.
"You... really are a student at Shangjing University?" Jiang Zhihua frowned. "I thought you were like the others—a member of the 【Believers】..."
Upon hearing the word 【Believers】, Lin Qiye's eyes narrowed.
"If the night must fall?"
"If what?"
"...Never mind."
Not someone from the Night Watch... yet knows about the 【Believers】?
"She is indeed the administrator of the comprehensive building at Shangjing University. I found her information in the internal system." Jiang Er's voice echoed through Lin Qiye's Bluetooth earpiece. At the back door of the teaching building, An Qingyu was approaching in a wheelchair.
"Jiang Zhihua, 26 years old. She attended Shangjing University as an undergraduate before, then withdrew. But somehow she came back to work as the building administrator. She's been here four or five years now."
In modern society, virtually no one could escape Jiang Er's search. Within mere seconds, Jiang Zhihua's entire file had been laid bare.
After hearing Jiang Er's introduction, Lin Qiye asked in a low voice, "Where did you hear the name 【Believers】?"
"Five years ago, a group of people came to me and wanted me to join them... They called themselves the 【Believers】, but I refused. They pursued me ever since. It took me most of a month to shake them off." Jiang Zhihua hesitated, then answered honestly.
"They wanted you to join them? Do you also have a Forbidden Ruins?"
"Forbidden Ruins?" Jiang Zhihua seemed unfamiliar with this term. "You mean like your superpower?"
"Yes."
"I have one... but it's nowhere near as powerful as yours." Jiang Zhihua shook her head. "I can communicate with certain things and simply control their movements."
"Things?"
"Like... residual souls."
An Qingyu blinked and试探性地开口： "Can you bind souls?"
"More or less..."
By this point, Lin Qiye had basically pieced together the story. This Jiang Zhihua was probably a Forbidden Ruins wielder who had escaped the Night Watch's notice. Five years ago, when the 【Believers】 were still active, she had been recruited, but she hadn't joined. Instead, she'd been living among ordinary people this whole time.
Lin Qiye spoke thoughtfully. "So, that Classroom 609, and the old campus legend... you were behind all that?"
"...I suppose you could say it's related to me." Jiang Zhihua anxiously looked around. "Now isn't the time for this. Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you just caused? I spent so much effort keeping them moving within the classroom's barrier, and then you just stared them down and shattered my barrier completely...
Now all those children have escaped into the school. Who knows how long it will take to find them again... If they cause any trouble, Shangjing University will be in complete chaos."
Lin Qiye and An Qingyu exchanged a glance. The former took the initiative to soothe her:
"Don't panic. We'll track down those escaped souls. First, tell us what's really going on here?"