Don’t Discriminate Against Species

Chapter 56 - Rooftop

The door to the rooftop swung open. Fu Li couldn’t help rubbing his nose. It was unknown if the rooftop had gone unswept for too long or if some animal had died up there, but there was a stinky smell coming from it.

“Don’t come over first,” Fu Li glanced back at the headmaster and nodded at Zhuang Qing. Zhuang Qing walked up to the rooftop, where there was undried sewage as well as a thick layer of rust over the railings that bore the brunt of wind and rain all year long.

The headmaster stood behind the door, sighing, “This place hasn’t been used for a long time. For some unknown reason, strange things have continuously been happening recently. Nurturing children isn’t easy, and there were multiple instances of people jumping from the building. The students’ parents aren’t the only ones who are upset, so are we.” As the school’s headmaster, he viewed every student in the school as hope for the future.

Zhuang Qing glanced around before turning to look at Fu Li.

Fu Li nodded.

“I know what’s the problem,” Zhuang Qing walked out onto the rooftop, his shoes grinding the dust beneath. “We’ll settle it at night.”

“At night?” The headmaster replied worriedly. “Doing it in the morning might be a bit safer?” Mishaps had occurred at the school repeatedly, and alerting the police hadn’t been of any use. Afterwards, the senior leaders had mentioned dispatching staff from the security department or whatnot. That one of them would be the famous boss of Chang Long Biotechnology Company had been out of his expectations.

Nowadays, even a rich owner of a company had to hold two jobs simultaneously. They didn’t have it easy either.

Although he wanted to resolve the issues occurring in the school and prevent the loss of more students’ lives, he didn’t want to implicate innocent people. “Mr Zhuang, this matter isn’t very urgent, why don’t we wait for daytime…”

“This problem can’t be resolved during the day,” Zhuang Qing turned back and beckoned Fu Li over. “What are you doing standing there foolishly?”

Fu Li came down from the rooftop and asked Zhuang Qing in a low voice, “Why do we have to personally handle such a small thing? What about the rest?”

“Didn’t you just happen to be idle?” Zhuang Qing leaned his head to the side with some discomfort. “Familiarize yourself more with your work. You’re new, so you don’t know that there are many things that the management bureau has to do.”

The headmaster couldn’t accompany the two people at all times, so after arranging food and lodging for them, he appointed a teacher to act as their guard, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the school layout.

Zhuang Qing and Fu Li didn’t intend to allow the teacher to follow them. Thus, after taking down the other party’s phone number, they sent the teacher back to rest, saying that they would call him when night arrived.

“So this is what a university is like,” Fu Li watched the young humans brimming with enthusiasm beside him. He could sense strong vitality from these young people.

From time to time, boys transporting girls on their bicycle would pass by them, causing passersby to reveal envious gazes.

Fu Li watched these loving couples pass by with a broad smile. He told Zhuang Qing, “Humans are very interesting.”

“Is it their emotions or the person that’s interesting?” Zhuang Qing watched Fu Li gaze fixedly at a passing student, his head turned in silence.

“Captain Z-Zhuang,” A very dashing boy rushed in front of Zhuang Qing and bowed. “Did you come to resolve the issue of the haunted campus?”

Zhuang Qing furrowed his brows wordlessly. Who was this?

“This must be senior Fu Li,” The boy’s attitude towards Fu Li was even more enthusiastic. “I’ve seen the publicity video. You were beyond cool in the video, truly my idol.”

“I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Wang Dong, a disciple of Wanyue Sect,” The boy smiled sheepishly. “Martial Granduncle and Senior Brother frequently mention you. I can finally meet you today.”

“I can only blame myself for not having learnt well and being unable to handle the problem at school. I know the location of the incidents, I can lead you there at night…”

“Aren’t the doors to your dormitories closed after eleven o’clock?” Fu Li pointed at a dormitory in the distance. A signboard hung on the door to the dormitory, on which the school dormitory rules were written. “Students should attend school properly, there’s no need for you to worry about other things.”

“No…” Wang Dong wanted to say something else, but when he turned his head, he was met with Zhuang Qing’s cold stare. He hurriedly swallowed his words. “Senior is right.”

“Fu Li!”

A boy in plain and simple attire raced over, his face overflowing with happiness. “Why are you here?”

“Zhang Peng?” Fu Li still remembered this boy. At that time, he had received the management bureau’s prize money for courageously saving this boy from a gas explosion.

“That’s me, that’s me.” Zhang Peng remembered that Fu Li wanted to enter university by self-studying and asked, “Are you here to sit in on classes?”

“No, I’m just taking a random walk,” Fu Li coughed dryly. “You know I haven’t been to university. That’s why I came to take a look.”

Zhang Peng felt a bit regretful. Thinking that his words may have been inappropriate and made Fu Li unhappy, he hastily said, “Then I’ll accompany you.” He had classes in the afternoon, but if it was for his savior, then even skipping class was not an issue.

“You should have classes in the afternoon, right?” As if discerning the thoughts in his heart, Fu Li said, “I have someone to accompany me, don’t worry. Studying means you’ve paid school fees. Not studying is a waste of your parents’ efforts.”

“O-Okay then,” Only then did Zhang Peng notice that there were other people beside Fu Li. He nodded hesitantly. Tearing a piece of paper from his notebook, he wrote down his handphone number and passed it to Fu Li. “This is my handphone number. Call me if there’s anything.”

“Sure,” Fu Li smiled and accepted it. But he was clear in his heart that this number would never be dialed.

“Senior, you know our faculty’s top student?” Wang Dong was amazed. Given Fu Li’s status as a yao cultivator with profound cultivation, he had thought that Fu Li wouldn’t ever get to know ordinary humans.

“En, I used to do physical labor with his dad at a construction site,” Fu Li didn’t feel that there was anything wrong with doing physical labor. “This child’s conduct is quite good. After knowing that I was studying to enter university, he gave me all his notes and textbooks, and even taught me study methods.”

“University?” Wang Dong’s voice increased in volume by several notches. It was already strange enough that such a great yao actually went to do physical labor for a living, but he even wanted to go to university. This situation was equivalent to a major figure capable of rebelling against an emperor kicking up a huge fuss about wanting to take the imperial exam. No ordinary person could understand the feelings of such an individual.

“What about university?”

“University is good,” Wang Dong smiled dryly, clapping twice. “Good teachers and students, and many pretty female classmates…”

He had heard that Captain Zhuang wasn’t very easy to get along with, but he hadn’t thought that he would be this hard to get along with. Anything he said would receive the other party’s scrutiny. There was clearly nothing to his gaze, yet he was still cowed into silence by his stare.

Later on, when Fu Li urged him to go to class, he said his goodbyes without the slightest hesitation.

The world of profound cultivators was too far from him. He’d better study well, otherwise he would have no hope of joining the management bureau in this life.

“What exactly were you thinking when you went to do manual labor despite having a pile of treasures on you?” Zhuang Qing very much wanted to give Fu Li’s head a shake and find out what was inside.

“Everything I have was given to me by other yao cultivators. I want to know if I can survive away from them,” Fu Li placed his hands behind his back. His appearance was distinctly youthful, yet he spoke like an old man. “A yao’s life is too long. When without company, one has to learn how to grow on their own.”

The corner of Zhuang Qing’s lips moved, but nothing came out of his mouth.

He didn’t know what it was like to live pampered by countless yao cultivators. Since young, he understood one principle – he had to fight for the things he desired. No one would protect him his entire life. Rather than trust others, he should trust himself.

Good friends had secretly schemed against him to eat his flesh, his clanmates had bullied him, and there had been yao beasts who wanted to eat him. Every single one of them had harbored malicious intentions towards him, but he had also never expected anything good from them.

He had to keep a firm hold on things that belonged to him, otherwise they would be snatched by others the moment he turned his head.

Soon after, it was time for class. There were markedly fewer students on the pathways. Fu Li saw that there were still students walking outside lazily and asked curiously, “Don’t they have to attend classes?”

“They don’t have classes,” Zhuang Qing observed Fu Li’s curiosity about everything related to university. “Study properly when you go back, strive to self-study… and enter school.”

As for this school’s admission notice… he shouldn’t think about it for the time being.

“I haven’t been studying properly lately. I’ll revise after going back,” Fu Li turned and looked around a few times. “I might even be a student here in a few years.”

Zhuang Qing: …

Forget it, it was good to have a dream.

The autumn wind was whistling at approximately eleven o’clock that night. All the students had returned to their dormitories. Three school leaders followed behind Zhuang Qing and Fu Li, exposed to the cold wind. They sneezed a couple times.

“Are your hearts in good condition?” Halfway there, Fu Li took out a bottle of medicine that he had bought from the pharmacy opposite the school gate. “Keep this.”

“What is this?” One of the school leaders accepted it in confusion. The six words “Fast-Acting Pills to Save the Heart’ was written on it. He stuffed the bottles into the hands of the colleagues beside him. What sort of nonsense was this? He was a staunch believer of materialism who hated any talk of the supernatural.

A blood-curdling scream came from the rooftop. Frightened, a mouse secretly eating in its hiding spot in the rubbish bin shrunk into a ball. A bang resounded, and something heavy fell onto the cement ground.

“Another child jumped?” A school leader panicked and took out their phone to call for an ambulance. Fu Li stopped the school leader. “You heard wrong, nobody jumped.”

Although nobody had jumped, the yin qi in this building was very heavy.

Not more than a few minutes later, there came the sound of yet another heavy object falling to the ground. The three school leaders wore slightly grave expressions. This repeated several times, and the school leaders’ complexions turned somewhat pale. They had realized that the scream and sound of a heavy falling object had never changed from start to end. Even the time of the intervals was exactly the same.

“Found it?” Fu Li found a miniature, remote-controlled player at a certain hidden corner. The screams as well as the sound of a heavy item falling to the ground had come from it.

The school leaders couldn’t help furrowing their brows. The kids nowadays really went too far with their mischief, how could they joke about such a matter? They glanced around, but saw no human figures. However, something suddenly dropped from the floor above, landing heavily on the floor. Fresh blood splashed a great distance.

“S-Save the person,” A school leader once again took out their phone, but was stopped by Zhuang Qing before he could dial the number.

“No need,” Zhuang Qing pointed at the corpse on the floor. The corpse and bloodstains on the ground gradually vanished, as if they had never appeared in the first place.

“This is… the magnetic field effect,” Zhuang Qing thought of a scientific explanation. “It’s not real.”

The few school leaders looked at the empty floor. Their beliefs in materialism were heavily shaken.

Magnetic field effect – who were they trying to fool?