Chapter 11: Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11: The Song Beneath the Skin

Headmaster Zhou's office had never looked more ordinary. Scrolls lined the walls in neat rows. A pot of tea steamed on the low table. The afternoon sun filtered through paper screens, casting everything in warm amber light.

Bai Su sat on the visitor's cushion, her hands folded in her lap. She had wiped them clean three times since leaving the bell tower, but she still felt the dried blood cracking against her palms. A phantom sensation. A memory her skin refused to forget.

"You're pale," Headmaster Zhou observed, pouring her a cup of tea. "The ghost scholar's bell chamber isn't exactly a welcoming place for the living."

"I needed answers."

"Did you find any?"

Bai Su hesitated. The footprint. The blood on her hands. The song that followed her down the stairs. None of it made sense. None of it could be true.

"I found more questions," she admitted.

The headmaster nodded as if he had expected this answer. He pushed the tea toward her, and she took it gratefully, letting the warmth seep into her cold fingers.

"Chen Feng's body has been moved to the mortuary," he said. "The coroner will examine him tomorrow. But I suspect his death will be ruled a suicide."

"He didn't jump."

"I know." Headmaster Zhou's voice was quiet, heavy. "But proving it is another matter. The ghost students won't testify. The living students didn't see anything. And the only witness who might have spoken is now dead."

"What about the bell ringer? The one who rang the bell this morning?"

The headmaster's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. A warning. A hesitation.

"There is no bell ringer," he said slowly. "The bell chamber has been locked for three years. Since the last suicide."

Bai Su's blood turned to ice.

"Then who—"

"Rang the bell this morning?" Headmaster Zhou finished her question. "I was hoping you could tell me."

She thought of the empty chamber. The still rope. The bell that rang nine times without a hand to pull it.

"I don't know," she whispered.

"You should rest." The headmaster stood, signaling the audience was over. "Tomorrow, we will begin the investigation in earnest. But tonight, you need to eat, sleep, and forget what you saw in that tower."

"Forgive me, Headmaster, but I don't think I can forget."

"Then learn to live with it." His voice was not unkind, but it carried an edge of finality. "That's what we all do here."

---

Bai Su did not go to the dining hall. She did not go to her dormitory. She walked instead to the west wing, where the suicide candidate's desk still sat in the corner of the empty study room.

She had questions. And there was only one person—one ghost—who might be willing to answer them.

The study room was dark when she arrived. The candles had burned down to stubs, and the only light came from the moon filtering through dusty windows. She lit a fresh candle with trembling hands and set it on the desk.

"I know you're here," she said to the empty room. "I know you've been watching me since I arrived. I know you followed me to the bell tower."

Silence.

"I need to understand what happened to Chen Feng. I need to understand why I saw his death before it happened. I need to understand why there was blood on my hands when I woke up in that tower."

Still nothing. But the candle flickered, and Bai Su felt the temperature drop.

"Please," she said, and her voice cracked on the word. "I'm scared. I don't know what's happening to me. And I think—I think I'm the only one who can stop whatever is coming."

A shadow moved in the corner of her eye. She turned, and there he was.

The suicide candidate. Young. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle, and a rope mark circled his throat like a collar. He wore the same scholar's robes he had died in, stained with ink and age.

"You shouldn't be here," he said. His voice was soft, like wind through dry leaves.

"I know."

"Everyone who comes to this room leaves with questions they can't answer. Everyone who lights a candle for me ends up burning themselves."

"I know that too."

He studied her for a long moment. His eyes were dark, depthless, like wells that had gone dry.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

He laughed, a hollow sound that didn't reach his eyes. "That's a dangerous word. Everything includes things you don't want to hear."

"Start with why Chen Feng died."

The ghost scholar was silent for a moment. Then he sat down on the desk beside the candle, his feet dangling above the floor. He didn't touch the ground. He never did.

"Chen Feng came to me three weeks ago," he said. "He had questions about the bell tower. About the student who died there three years ago."

"Li Wei."

"You know the name."

"I know he was accused of stealing examination answers. I know he jumped from the bell tower before he could be expelled."

"That's what the official record says." The ghost scholar's voice dropped. "But Li Wei didn't steal those answers. He was given them. By someone who wanted him dead."

Bai Su's heart hammered against her ribs. "Who?"

"I don't know. I never knew. But Chen Feng was trying to find out. He said he had found something in Li Wei's old belongings. A journal. A record of everything Li Wei saw in his final days."

"Where is this journal now?"

The ghost scholar's expression flickered. Grief, maybe. Or fear.

"Chen Feng had it with him when he died. The headmaster's office confiscated all his belongings. If the journal exists, it's in Headmaster Zhou's private collection now."

Bai Su stood up, her mind racing. "I need to see it."

"You need to be careful." The ghost scholar's hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. His grip was cold, impossibly strong. "You're not the first student to come asking these questions. You're not the first to see the blood on their hands."

"What do you mean?"

"There have been others. Students who saw things they shouldn't. Students who heard the song."

"The song?"

"The one that followed you down the stairs." His eyes met hers, and for a moment, she saw something ancient in them. Something that had been waiting a very long time. "It's called the 'Drowning Maiden.' An old folk song. About a girl who was thrown into a well by her lover and swore she would return to drag him down with her."

"I've never heard it before."

"Are you sure?" His voice was gentle now. Almost pitying. "Think carefully, Bai Su. Haven't you heard it in your dreams? Haven't you hummed it without knowing why?"

She wanted to say no. She wanted to deny it with all her being.

But as he spoke, she realized she could remember the melody. The way it rose and fell. The way it curled around her thoughts like smoke.

She had heard it before. In her sleep. In the space between waking and dreaming.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

"You will." He released her wrist, and she saw faint finger-shaped bruises forming on her skin. "But you need to hurry. The killer is getting stronger. Every death feeds them. Every life they take brings them closer to breaking through."

"Through the veil?"

"Yes." The ghost scholar looked toward the window. Outside, the moon was rising, full and silver and wrong. "And when they do, this academy will become a graveyard. Not for the dead. For the living."

---

Bai Su left the west wing with the melody of the Drowning Maiden echoing in her skull. She tried to hum something else, anything else, but the song kept returning. A loop. A curse.

She was halfway across the courtyard when she saw the figure standing beneath the ancient ginkgo tree.

A girl. Young. Dressed in white robes that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Her hair was long and wet, plastered to her face. Water dripped from her fingertips, pooling at her bare feet.

Bai Su stopped breathing.

The girl turned.

Her face was pale. Her eyes were black, entirely black, without iris or pupil. She smiled, and her mouth was too wide, too full of teeth.

"You heard my song," she said. Her voice was sweet, like honey over poison. "I've been waiting for someone to hear it."

Bai Su's legs wouldn't move. Her voice wouldn't work.

"Don't be afraid." The girl stepped closer. Water followed her, spreading across the stone path like living darkness. "I've been looking for you, Bai Su. For a very long time."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know everything about you." The girl stopped an arm's length away. She was taller than Bai Su, and when she leaned down, her wet hair brushed against Bai Su's cheek. "I know the song your mother sang to you when you were a child. I know the dream you had the night before you came here. I know the name of the boy you left behind."

Bai Su's blood ran cold. "Leave him out of this."

"Too late." The girl's smile widened. "He's already dreaming of me. They all are. The living boys with their warm hearts and their beating blood." She reached out, and her fingers were cold, so cold, as they touched Bai Su's face. "But I don't want them. I want you."

"Why?"

"Because you're the only one who can see me." The girl's black eyes bore into hers. "You're the only one who can remember me. You're the only one who can bring me back."

"Back from where?"

"From the well." The girl's fingers traced down Bai Su's cheek, her jaw, her throat. "From the place where I drowned. From the darkness where I've been waiting for a hundred years."

Bai Su's heart was pounding so hard she thought it might burst.

"I don't understand."

"You will." The girl leaned in, her lips brushing against Bai Su's ear. "Tomorrow night, when the moon is highest, come to the old well behind the library. Bring the journal. Bring the truth. And I will show you everything."

"I don't have the journal."

"Then find it." The girl pulled back, and her smile was sharp, hungry, terrible. "Before someone else does. Before they use it to bury the truth forever."

She stepped back, and the water receded with her, flowing back into the shadows like a living thing.

"See you soon, Bai Su."

And then she was gone.

Bai Su stood alone in the courtyard, her breath fogging in the cold night air. The ginkgo tree rustled above her, shedding golden leaves like tears.

She looked down at her hands.

They were wet.

Not with blood this time.

With water.

Cold, dark water that smelled of mud and stone and something older than the academy itself.

She wiped them on her robes, but the wetness remained. A stain that wouldn't fade. A mark that wouldn't leave.

And in the distance, she heard the bell ring again.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

She counted, her heart keeping pace with each toll.

Four. Five. Six.

On the seventh ring, she started running.

Not toward the bell tower.

Toward the headmaster's office.

She needed that journal.

Tonight.