Chapter 48 A Couple of Things (1/2)

Chapter 48 A Couple of Things

Walking out of the train, I stood on the station and breathed in the slightly dry air of the north, breathing it out in one long breath.

I had once again returned to this birth city of mine, Bei Ning.

Familiar air surrounded me, familiar surroundings, and even the stretch of the road from the station was familiar. I felt a complicated expression well up from my heart. Returning to my home, I felt both comforted and yet anxious.

I stole a glance Wen Jiubo who stood next to me. His expression was still very calm, you couldn’t see any sort of reminisce nor could you see any distaste. However, there did seem to be a faint sort of disappointment in the furrow of his brow.

Was that just my imagination?

“What’s wrong?” Wen Jiubo seemed to notice my gaze, turning around.

“No, that’s…” I thought about it for a moment but couldn’t help but ask. “No, I’m still very curious.”

“What are you curious about?”

“How do you know my second aunt?” I asked curiously.

Wen Jiubo laughed when he heard, asking. “Do you really want to know?”

“I do!”

No matter how I looked at it, my second aunt and Wen Jiubo were very different people, I didn’t think they would get along.

“I would have to start from before you were born.” Wen Jiubo said, smiling. “Twenty years ago, I stayed briefly in Bei Ning. Like these days, apart from being an exorcist, I had a normal day job as a cover – I was a teacher in a high school.”

“You actually were a teacher?” I asked in astonishment.

“Of course, don’t you think I seem like someone who would be a teacher?” Wen Jiubo smiled, eyes crinkling.

I rolled my eyes at him. “You were lucky that the school didn’t kick out a teacher as indecent as you.”

Wen Jiubo smiled, continuing, “However, it was then that this indecent teacher met your second aunt, Shanqiu.”

That’s right, speaking of which, my second aunt was also a high school teacher. Did this mean that she and Wen Jiubo taught at the same high school?

“At that time, she and I were colleagues, teaching the same class. Although we weren’t in the same office, we still saw each other on a day-to-day basis. But it was around the end of the school term that I discovered that there was something not right about her.”

“Something not right?”

“That’s right. Shanqiu was normally an outgoing person, but during that time she was quite depressed, there was even once where she forgot to bring her textbooks to class. She had to rush back to her office after the class started to get them. With my willing-to-help attitude, I went to ask her what was wrong. In the end, she told me that there was a ghost haunting her family.”

“A haunting?” I listened eagerly. “Then wasn’t that exactly —”

“That’s right, that was exactly my area of expertise.” Wen Jiubo said, smiling. “I only found out after asking, but around midnight every day at her house, there would always be strange sounds coming from the bathroom. It was creepy sounds of nails scratching against the wall. But whenever she gathered up the courage to switch on the light in the bathroom, there would be nothing there. This continued on for a week, and she wasn’t able to rid herself of the noise.”

“What happened after?” I couldn’t help but ask.