Lately, Li Mazi and I had been playing mahjong on the Tencent platform with Senior Shu. 

There was no regard for day or night. As long as Senior Shu felt an itch on his hands, he would call us and ask us to help him. 

We could only blame ourselves for asking for his help back then!  

Senior Shu looked cunning and savvy, but when he played mahjong, he sucked. Although Li Mazi and I were on his side and gave him the mahjong tiles he needed all the time, he couldn’t always win against his opponents. 

This led him to angrily pull out his Internet cable many times.

Li Mazi secretly texted me. “Little Brother Zhang, it seems Senior Shu is just a rookie at playing mahjong.” 

Not even a week had gone by, and Senior Shu had lost all of the points he had accumulated in the game. He was so mad that he declared that he would quit gaming. Sure enough, he didn’t call us for the next few days. 

As I had free time, I was sitting with Li Mazi at my shop front. We were drinking tea, eating watermelon seeds, and chatting. 

Besides thanking us, Old Gang had paid us two million renminbi and gifted us a box of the best Yuzen Longjing tea in the market. It was the right time to taste the tea. 

“Li Mazi, it seems that you’ve been behaving lately. You haven’t troubled me these days.” I took a sip. 

Li Mazi shook his head. His expression turned serious. “I felt that you were very tired. Being your generous friend, I decided to give you a vacation and refuse all the incoming deals.” 

“Speak clearly.” I shot him an indifferent look. 

Li Mazi wore a long face and slumped on his chair. “Little Brother Zhang, this business of ours doesn’t have an off-season or high season, right? Why is it always that when we’re dealing with a case, someone keeps calling us for a new case? And when we’re done, no one calls us for quite a long time. I don’t even see a rat roaming around the shop!” 

I cussed, “Do you have a pig brain or what? If no one comes to our door, why don’t you go to the countryside for a treasure hunt?” 

Li Mazi was excited and jolted up. “I know, right? These days, we do nothing but kill time in the shop. Since you’ve also experienced this exciting life, don’t you feel an itch whenever you stay idle?” 

“Nonsense!” I shouted at Li Mazi. “I’m worried that Li Meng and Ru Xue will suffer without you.” 

Li Mazi made a face as if he saw right through me. “Is that so? I’m so thankful for your concern.” 

“Thank you your sister!” 

Li Mazi’s bright eyes kept staring at me. I had to quickly order lunch to divert his attention. 

When I returned, Li Mazi was sitting in front of my computer, his expression especially vulgar. 

Not good! 

“Li Mazi, are you watching some inappropriate website on my laptop again? Last time, you didn’t clear the browsing history, and you made Yin Xinyue misunderstand me. Sigh, your bad habits never change.” 

I paced forward, ready to settle this account with him. 

Li Mazi pointed at the screen and said, “No, no, no. I’m looking at proper stuff.” 

“What? Really?” I didn’t buy it. Then, I saw a stickied post in our city’s forum, which caught my attention. It read, “Paranormal activities taking place at Wuhan University. Looking for an expert. Please help!”

Li Mazi smacked his tongue and guffawed. “Little Brother Zhang, they’re looking for an expert. Aren’t you one? See, the business deal has come to our door…” 

I ignored him and clicked on the post.

It was posted by a person nicknamed ‘Shiso.’ According to his post, a female student named Li Xiaoling had hung herself in the girl dormitory of Wuhan University. 

Under pressure from society, there were always students who did stupid things. This wasn’t something new. However, it was strange that seven days after the girl killed herself, terrifying events started to take place at Wuhan University. Every day, after midnight, a student would have their lips sewed up!

The victim would have the upper lip and lower lip stitched together, which caused them to bled horribly. 

When the first lip-sewing incident happened, the university’s leaders didn’t pay much attention to it as they thought that it was a dispute between the students in the dormitory; they just punished some of the roommates. However, after the second and third cases, the university found it very strange. They tried to come up with an explanation, but they couldn’t calm the students down.

Feeling helpless, the university had to hire a security company to protect and patrol the dormitory every night. The Student Council also checked the rooms every night. However, the horrible lip-sewing events still happened. 

According to Shiso, the lip-sewing events all happened at night time, which was around the time Li Xiaoling had committed suicide.

The students that had their lips sewed didn’t feel it at first. It was as if they were drugged. They slept through the night, and when they woke up in the morning, they found that their mouths were sewed up! Then, the sharp pain flooded in, which made them want to scream. However, when they screamed, the thread that sewed their mouths would rip their flesh, causing blood to spurt everywhere.

It was so strange. 

Shiso, the user that had posted the thread, also said that it was very unusual and that it didn’t seem like the work of a human. Perhaps it was related to Li Xiaoling’s death as the lip-sewing accidents started happening the week after her death. It did not seem to be a coincidence.  

As such, they made this thread on the forum, hoping that some expert would help.

“Little Brother Zhang, what do you think about it? Interesting, isn’t it?” I closed the website, and Li Mazi immediately craned his head toward me.

I stretched myself. “Somewhat.” 

Li Mazi sniggered. “We don’t have anything to do, so how about we stretch our sore legs a little? Mosquito legs also have meat. Who knows, perhaps we can even earn a nice sum from the school!” 

I nodded. 

Li Mazi hurried to contact Shiso, the one that had posted the thread. He made an appointment to meet them, too. It didn’t even take him half an hour to do that. 

I felt a little regret that Li Mazi wasn’t a diplomat.

As we had nothing to do, we changed clothes and arrived at a coffee shop near Wuhan University one hour before the meeting time.

Since it was opposite of Wuhan University, most of the guests in the coffee shop were students. We listened to their conversations. They seemed to be discussing the lip-sewing horror story.

“It’s really scary! I saw it once with my own eyes. We closed our doors at night, but the next day, my roommate’s lips were sewed together. We didn’t know how or why. The thread was black and rough. He now has dozens of holes in his mouth. His entire blanket was stained with blood.” 

“I’m scared to go to school. If it happens again, I think I’ll go crazy.” 

“I’ve made preparations to take some days off. I’m too afraid that it will happen to me. After all, I knew Li Xiaoling…” 

“Shut up! Are you crazy? Why did you mention her name? Don’t you know that she’s a ghost now!” 

“Oh God, oh God. Don’t talk about it anymore. My skin is crawling.” 

The students stopped discussing it. They paid then left in a hurry. 

It seemed that the paranormal activities at Wuhan University hadn’t stopped. However, it was weird that we couldn’t find any news articles about this. 

Reporters were always craving for buzzing news, right? 

This story was strange and mysterious. They could have a lot of things to write about. Why did they act as if they saw nothing? 

Shiso arrived, and I hoped he would clear my doubts. 

He was in his early twenties, had a fair complexion, and wore black-rimmed glasses. He wore a pair of jeans and looked like a nerd. After seeing Li Mazi and me, his eyes sparkled with doubt.

He gingerly sat on the chair and asked, “Are you the experts that contacted me through the forum?”