Chapter 2: The Legend of the Female Ghost

  Yanbian University was formally established in 1916, initially named Beijing University. Its predecessor was the three church schools run by the American Church in Beijing, with departments of theology, law and medicine, totaling nearly 20 departments. Although nominally a church school, after American Leland Tsu-tan took over as president, there was no emphasis on Christian teaching, but rather free teaching, making it one of China's more famous universities at the time. It was also the only university that did not relocate in 1937 when the Anti-Japanese War broke out.

  Yan Jing University is located on the main road from Yiheyuan to the city, only five kilometers away from the city. Across the street is Tsinghua University. Its layout has traditional Chinese characteristics, with the east-west axis centered on Yuquan Mountain Tower as a scenic spot. From the alumni gate, through the stone arch bridge and the Huabiao (taken from the ruins of Yuanmingyuan), there are two buildings with nine open spaces on either side of the Fangyuan: Mulou and Minzhu Lou. The front is Beigong Building (Administrative Building) with a Xieshan-style roof, and the two sides are Zongjiao Building and the library. Along the central axis, it continues east to Siyi Pavilion in Weiming Lake, and there are also Boya Tower and Linhu Xuan by the lake. The eastern part is divided into the northern male dormitory and the southern female dormitory by Weiming Lake. The male dormitory includes four male student dormitories: De, Cai, Jian, and Bei, as well as the Huashi Sports Hall. The female dormitory is distributed along a north-south axis, with Shilou, Nanbei Lou, female student dormitories, and Baoshi Sports Hall.

  Chen Jiayao is a student in the 36th class of Yanjing University Medical College. Last night, she didn't return to her dorm until almost midnight, and due to the extraordinary events she experienced, she didn't get a good rest. This morning when she got up, her eyes were clearly dark. She and several classmates were carrying books on their way to the classroom. Wang Fang, who is closest to her, saw that she looked worried and asked with concern: "Jiayao, are you not feeling well?"

  She smiled and said, "Nothing, just a bit tired." Her eyes unconsciously swept around, seeing Ouyang Yun not far away wearing a suit, carrying a bag and smiling at her, she was taken aback.

  Ouyang Yun had been wandering around here for a while and smiled at this time: "Chen Jiaoyao, good morning!"

  She hadn't reacted yet, when Wang Fang and several of her roommates glanced at the two of them a few times, then smiled ambiguously. Wang Fang leaned in close to her ear and said: "When did you get to know another rich boy? Hehe, he's more handsome than your Chu Gege."

  Her face immediately turned red, she glared at her good friend, then calmly walked up and said: "Hello." Feeling that the clothes on his body were very familiar, she was a little surprised in her heart, and asked softly: "Mr. Ouyang, do you live nearby?"

  Ouyang Yun smiled, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth, and said in a low voice: "I didn't leave at all." He blinked his eyes, lowered his head and asked: "How's this outfit? Pretty cool, huh?"

  This remark is quite modern; if it were said in Ouyang Yun's time, it would be ordinary, but now it's the 24th year of the Republic, so this remark is somewhat shameless.

  Chen Jiayao covered her mouth, staring at him with wide eyes, her face turned red, and she muttered: "He's really handsome."

  With a pleased swing of her hair, she completely forgot that she had cut her hair short after joining the army. Ouyang Yun said with a smile: "Chen, can you do me a favor?"

  "You're my lifesaver, of course you can."

  "It's like this," said Ouyang Yun, taking out a gold bar of about half a catty from his pocket. "I don't have any money on me, only this, but I don't know the exchange rate. Can you help me exchange it?"

  Each of them brought one gold bar and one silver ingot, which was all the expenses for the entire event.

  Chen Jiayao looked at the glittering gold bars and smiled, saying: "I didn't expect you to be a rich man."

  Handing the gold bar to her, Ouyang Yun smiled even more elegantly, and for some reason, the phrase "young people are rich" flashed in his mind, and his smile became even brighter.

  "Jiayou, are you a friend?" Soft and gentle voice, Chen Jiayou and Ouyang Yun looked around and saw the soft and charming Pan Mei. Under the gaze of "Multi-gold Youth", the girl's face flushed with a soft red glow.

  Chen Jiayao glanced at Ouyang Yun, seeing his eyes brighten like a light bulb that had been electrified, and thought to herself, "Looks like another one who's been charmed." She recalled some past experiences with people being charmed, her eyes curving into crescent moons as she introduced them: "My classmate Pan Meiren, Ouyang Yun." She put away the gold bars and said, "I've got this taken care of."

  "Mr. Ouyang, hello," said Pan Mei with a blush and a lowered head.

  "Beauty?" What a domineering name!

  Chen Jiayao knew he had misunderstood and explained: "The 'mei' in 'meiniu' means charming."

  "Oh."

  Chen Jiayao pulled out her wallet from her pocket, took out all the banknotes inside, and was about to say "use this money for now", but was interrupted by a loud shout coming from behind Ouyang Yun.

  "It's him!" The one who shouted this was a familiar figure, Class Monitor Fan Wei. Fan Wei only wore shorts and a vest, and in this place, it was naturally hard to withstand the morning chill. His exposed limbs were all frozen red, and his nose was running with snot hanging from his face. There was a scratch on his left cheek, and his hair was disheveled with several blades of grass stuck in it, looking quite bedraggled. He charged over furiously, followed by more than a dozen boys, some of whom were holding big sticks.

  Fan Wei was very embarrassed, and the consequences were severe. No wonder Ou Yang Yun's clothes looked so familiar - they were actually Fan Wei's. So... Chen Jia Yao and Pan Mei thought back to the fight that had occurred six months ago between Yan Da and Qing Hua universities, and couldn't help but sweat for Ou Yang Yun.

  That fight was a typical love triangle incident. Pan Mei had her feet in two boats, and as a result, one of the boats, Fan Wei's, got angry, brought a group of dead parties to confront the other boat, and both sides fought fiercely in Heping Hutong until Fan Wei beat the other boat into submission.

  There is a rumor that Fan Wei is a descendant of Cangzhou Bagua Zhang, so although Tsinghua has many people, the result is that Yenching won.

  But how could such a capable person lose his clothes?

  Fan Wei was robbed of his clothes by Ouyang Yun at the wall, and he angrily led a group of people to search for him. Seeing that this little thief was actually flirting with Pan Mei, he became even more enraged, and without saying another word, he led the brothers to surround them.

  "Fan Wei, what are you doing?" Chen Jiayao feared Ou Yang Yun would get the short end of the stick and hastily shielded him like a mother hen protecting her chicks.

  "This kid stole my clothes!"

  "It's not stealing, it's borrowing," said Ouyang Yun, rubbing his nose with a very gentlemanly air.

  "Robbing the strong with words!" Fan Wei started to pose and breathe, his face indeed flushed bright red, but it's unclear if he was really successful or just angry; both palms stretched out, in a rather mysterious posture.

  "Stop messing around, he's my friend! Ouyang, return his clothes."

  Ouyang Yun initially only wanted to borrow clothes, but Fan Wei, who claimed to be the successor of the Eight Trigrams Palm, was not so easy to get along with. As a result, he was thrown several times and ended up eating dog feces. Not wanting to cause trouble, Ouyang Yun took off his clothes, revealing the camouflage uniform underneath, and handed the clothes back to their original owner, saying "Sorry."

  "Is a single apology enough to settle this?" Fan Wei's brother shouted out in indignation.

  More people were curiously sizing up that camouflage outfit, the style of which was quite strange, but also very good-looking, and on Xiao Ze's body, it looked particularly spirited.

  Pan Manren's eyes lit up.

  "Fan Wei, I apologize on his behalf," Chen Jia-yao said.

  "Fan Wei, forget it, they didn't mean to," said a soft voice, naturally from Pan Mei.

  Fan Wei's face changed color, his upper and lower teeth overlapped, making a "heh heh" sound, it was unclear whether he was angry or cold.

  "Never mind then?" His brothers, some of whom may have been soothed by Pan Mei's gentle voice, consoled him.

  Fan Wei let out a heavy hum, took the clothes and walked away without looking back. However, he had already made up his mind to find his senior brother at noon and ask for his help to vent his anger.

  By the side of Weiming Lake in the campus of Yanda, Chen Jiayao and Ouyang Yun chatted. Ouyang Yun carefully fabricated her own life story - a returned overseas Chinese, studying medicine, this time back to serve the motherland.

  Chen Jiayao believed it to be true, and upon learning that he had no relatives or friends in the country, she offered to let him live in a courtyard house on Xiaomazihutong as a way of repaying the debt of gratitude for saving her life. The courtyard house was originally purchased by her father as a warehouse, but it started to be haunted a year ago, resulting in several deaths, and since then no one dared to live there, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Ouyang Yun.

  As a young man from the 21st century, Ouyang Yun was naturally an atheist, not even fearing gods, let alone petty ghosts, so he reluctantly accepted her kind intentions.

  The Xiao Ma Hutong is about a one-minute walk from the Yan Da, and Chen's house was indeed idle, with the rusty lock on the gate being good proof of this. The yard is very large, covering nearly 600 square meters, which in Ouyang Yun's time would have been considered a "mansion". The buildings in the yard are typical of the traditional Beijing quadrangle courtyard structure, with three tile-roofed houses at the front and back, a kitchen on the left, two slightly shorter servant quarters and a toilet on the right - this last point made Ouyang Yun particularly happy. Although special forces soldiers live a hard life, as someone who had worked in medicine, he was somewhat of a clean freak, and if you asked him what he was most worried about before crossing over, it would be that there wouldn't be any toilets.

  Chen Jiayao hurriedly sent him to the door, leaving a string of keys and flashing away. Nowadays, university students are not like their younger brothers and sisters in the 21st century, who take pride in skipping classes and consider diligence shameful. They are quite diligent and truly link going to college with serving the country. No wonder when Ouyang Yun said "serving the country", Chen Jiayao immediately looked at him with new eyes.

  Nowadays students are really pure! That's good.

  It would be better if it were a female ghost. Entering the yard, Ouyang Yun looked around and thought to himself.

  The yard was empty except for a few sparse trees, and it looked like it had been idle for at least half a year. However, his years of special forces training allowed him to quickly discover several suspicious points. At the toilet door, he found a toilet that had been left out to dry, and upon entering, he didn't find any spider webs. It seemed that this toilet had definitely been used recently. The three main rooms in the back were also not as dusty as the front room, with no spider webs everywhere. The strangest thing was the room on the left, where the lock on the door was rusty, but through the curtains, he could see that the bedding on the bed was neatly stacked, and a cheongsam and a dress hung on the clothes rack in front of the bed. This house should have someone living in it.

  "How strange!" he muttered to himself: "Was I deceived by Chen Jiaoyao? This is actually her boudoir, but she told me to stay here casually. No, no, she didn't enter the yard just now. Could it be that she doesn't know someone lives here?! Or, was this originally a ghost's room, a female ghost?!"

  He tried all the keys but couldn't open that lock. He didn't bother anymore and entered the room on the right.

  The house on the right was unlocked, and the quilt on the bed was covered with a sheet. The floor and sheet were full of dust. He decided to stay in this house, carefully cleaned it up, and slightly sweated. In the meantime, he stretched his waist and thought, "Let's take a nap first." He hid his backpack under the bed, closed the door, and placed a bowl filled with water against the door. He lay down fully clothed and soon fell asleep.

  In a daze, a feeling of dampness, has it rained? Ouyang Yun thought to herself, reaching out to wipe her face and opening her eyes.

  It was already nighttime, the sky was gray and gloomy, making the light inside the house not very good. What caught his eye was a trembling tongue, only a few inches away from his face. The owner of the tongue had a pale white face, with two streaks of blood flowing down from his eyes, and white hair scattered on his shoulders. The tongue was incredibly long, reaching half a foot. A ghost?! Ouyang Yun took in a breath of cold air, his heart almost stopping its beat.

  The ghost was wearing a loose floral jacket, with both hands reaching out to grab him, and her fingernails were sharp and long, apparently a female ghost.

  There is actually a ghost in this house, a female hanging ghost?!

  If it were someone else, they would have fainted in fear. But Ou Yang Yun was no ordinary person. After years of being a special forces operative, his willpower was far stronger than the average person's, so although he was also frightened, he wouldn't give up easily.

  The female ghost's hands were open like claws, reaching out to grab his shoulders; her head was lowered, her mouth open, revealing two fangs, her blood-red tongue licking his face, a slippery feeling, seemingly ready to devour him.

  Ouyang Yun's teeth were clenched tightly, and he suddenly sat up, grabbing the ghost's two wrists with both hands. He shouted loudly: "Where did this little ghost come from!?" The ghost's wrists were warm and soft, almost like a human's.

  The female ghost originally only wanted to scare him, and scaring him half to death would have been enough. However, she didn't expect that the other party would be so bold and fearless, not even afraid of ghosts. Caught off guard, she was startled herself and let out a frightened cry, struggling to break free from his control.

  The cry was not eerie, but a human voice. Ouyang Yun's heart didn't skip a beat, and he burst out laughing: "Looks like it's just a cowardly ghost!" His hands suddenly loosened, his right hand swiftly grabbed the quivering tongue, his left foot kicked the female ghost in the stomach, sending her flying, then he jumped off the bed and turned on the light.

  The female ghost was kicked out by him, rolling on the ground for a while, covering her face with both hands when the light came on, and quickly ran out of the room, then opened the door and ran out.

  At a glance, the red tongue of the ghost mask on his hand made Ouyang Yun lose his smile, thinking "ghosts are born from the heart", this saying is not wrong at all. He chased out, but saw a shadow jumping out from the wall of the courtyard, and suddenly disappeared. Very professional flying eaves and walking walls, compared to his climbing skills, he didn't know how much more brilliant it was. He had no choice but to give up the chase, thinking: "The acting skills are not bad, the basic skills are also strong, no wonder you can successfully pretend to be a ghost", haha, unfortunately, I met this Zhong Kui.

  He returned to the room and caught a whiff of a faint fragrance, smiling: it turned out to be a female ghost who loved beauty.