Chapter 14: Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14: The Song She Shouldn't Know

Bai Su's footsteps echoed through the empty corridors of Wutong Academy, each step carrying the weight of questions she couldn't answer. The blood on her hands had vanished, but the memory of it remained, a phantom stain she couldn't scrub away. She flexed her fingers as she walked, half-expecting to see them turn red again.

The headmaster's office sat at the end of the east wing, a heavy oak door that had stood unchanged for three centuries. Bai Su had passed it a dozen times since arriving, but she had never been summoned inside. The thought made her stomach tighten.

She raised her hand to knock, but the door swung open before her knuckles touched wood.

"Come in, Miss Bai. And close the door behind you. The draft is terrible this time of year."

Headmaster Zhou sat behind a desk piled high with examination scrolls, his spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. He was a small man, round and soft, with the kind of face that looked perpetually worried. Bai Su had heard rumors that he had been at the academy for forty years, that he had seen more ghost students than living ones, that he knew things about the school that no one else did.

She believed all of it.

"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?"

"Sit, please." He gestured to a wooden chair that creaked under her weight. "I've been told you visited the bell tower this afternoon."

Bai Su's heart stuttered. "I was just exploring. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"No trouble at all." Zhou pushed his spectacles up his nose, studying her with eyes that were far sharper than his soft appearance suggested. "I'm more curious about what you found there."

She hesitated. The ghost scholar had warned her not to speak of him. But the headmaster was supposed to know about the spirits in the academy. He was supposed to be the one who kept the balance between living and dead.

"I found a broken window," she said carefully. "And a footprint that shouldn't have been there."

Zhou's expression didn't change. "Whose footprint?"

"Mine."

The word hung in the air between them. Bai Su watched the headmaster's face, looking for any sign of surprise, of recognition, of something. But he simply nodded, as if he had expected this answer.

"I see." He reached into his desk and pulled out a scroll, yellowed with age. "Tell me, Miss Bai. Have you ever had dreams that felt more like memories?"

The question hit her like a physical blow. She thought of the song, the one that had followed her down the stairs, the one that felt familiar in a way that made her bones ache. She thought of the bell chamber, the feeling that she had stood there before, watching something terrible unfold.

"Sometimes," she admitted.

Zhou unrolled the scroll. It was covered in elegant calligraphy, the characters flowing like water across the parchment. But what caught Bai Su's attention was the name written at the top.

Bai Su. Her name. In her own handwriting.

"What is this?"

"Your admission exam." Zhou turned the scroll so she could see it more clearly. "You don't remember taking it, do you?"

She didn't. She remembered arriving at the academy gates, remembered being greeted by the servant girl, remembered being shown to her room. But the exam itself was a blank space in her mind, a gap she had never thought to question.

"How is that possible?"

"Because you didn't take it as a living student." Zhou's voice was gentle, almost apologetic. "You took it three years ago, Miss Bai. The day you died."

The world tilted. Bai Su gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles white. "That's not possible. I'm alive. I breathe. I eat. I can feel the sun on my skin."

"So can half the students in this academy." Zhou sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to age him ten years. "Wutong Academy has a unique property. The boundary between life and death is thin here. Sometimes, if the conditions are right, a spirit can become so attached to the living world that they forget they've left it. They walk, talk, study, sleep—all while being as dead as the students they sit next to in class."

Bai Su shook her head, her vision swimming. "No. I remember my village. I remember my parents. I remember walking here through the forest, the leaves crunching under my feet—"

"You remember what the academy showed you." Zhou rolled up the scroll, his movements slow and deliberate. "When you arrived, you were a confused spirit with no memory of your death. The academy gave you a story to hold onto, a thread to follow. It's what it does. It's how it keeps the ghost students from going mad."

"Then what really happened to me?"

Zhou was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

"I don't know. And that's what frightens me."

He opened a drawer and pulled out a second scroll, this one covered in red seals and official stamps. "This is the incident report from the night you died. Three years ago, on the eve of the imperial examinations, a fire broke out in the east dormitory. Seven students died. You were one of them."

Bai Su's mind reeled. A fire. She had no memory of fire, no memory of smoke or flame or the terrible heat of burning wood. But as she stared at the report, something stirred in the depths of her consciousness. A flicker of orange light. The crackle of flames. A scream that might have been her own.

"I don't remember," she said, her voice shaking.

"I know." Zhou's eyes were kind, but there was something else there too. Fear. "The problem is, neither does anyone else. The fire was ruled an accident, but the investigation was... incomplete. The other six victims were identified and buried. But you—" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "You were never found."

"What do you mean, never found?"

"I mean there was no body. Just a scorched patch of floor and a name on the roster. Everyone assumed you had burned beyond recognition, that your remains were mixed with the ashes. But now, I'm not so sure."

Bai Su's blood ran cold. She thought of the ghost scholar, of the way he had looked at her with something like recognition. She thought of the blood on her hands, the footprint that matched her shoe, the song that haunted her steps.

"The fire wasn't an accident, was it?"

Zhou shook his head slowly. "I've suspected for three years that someone started it. But I could never prove it. The other ghost students don't remember anything. They just woke up one day dead, with no memory of how they got here."

"And you think I remember?"

"I think you're the key to everything." Zhou leaned forward, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "You were in the bell tower today, standing at the same window where Chen Feng fell. You left a footprint in the dust that shouldn't exist. You're not just a ghost, Miss Bai. You're a ghost who's starting to remember."

The door behind her creaked open. Bai Su turned to see the servant girl standing in the doorway, her face pale and drawn.

"Headmaster, there's been another incident."

Zhou's expression hardened. "What kind of incident?"

"The library. One of the living students found a ghost student unconscious on the floor. She's... fading. Her qi is almost gone."

Bai Su was on her feet before she realized she had moved. "Where in the library?"

"The east reading room. The one with the poetry collections."

She knew that room. She had passed it on her first day, had felt a strange pull toward the shelves of classical verse. She had told herself it was just curiosity, the natural attraction of a scholar to knowledge.

Now she wasn't so sure.

"Take me there."

The servant girl hesitated, glancing at Zhou. The headmaster nodded, a grim acceptance in his eyes. "Go. But be careful, Miss Bai. The killer is still out there. And if you're right about your own memories, then you might be closer to them than you think."

Bai Su didn't wait for him to finish. She ran through the corridors, her footsteps echoing off the ancient stone walls. The academy felt different now, the shadows deeper, the silence heavier. Every corner she turned held the threat of something waiting.

She reached the east reading room to find a crowd of students gathered around the door. Living and dead alike pressed forward, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay inside. A young girl lay motionless on the floor, her skin pale and translucent, her eyes open but unseeing.

Bai Su pushed through the crowd, her heart pounding. She knelt beside the girl, checking for a pulse she knew she wouldn't find.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice sharp.

No one answered. The students around her exchanged glances, their faces a mixture of fear and confusion.

"I saw something," a small voice said. Bai Su turned to find a boy no older than twelve, his eyes wide and trembling. "I saw a shadow. It was standing over her, singing."

"Singing what?"

The boy's face went pale. "I don't know. I don't remember. But it sounded familiar. Like something I heard a long time ago."

Bai Su's blood froze. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but the words died in her throat.

The song came again. Soft at first, barely a whisper on the wind. Then louder, clearer, a melody that wrapped around her like a shroud.

She knew this song.

She had heard it before.

In her dreams. In her nightmares. In the moments between waking and sleeping, when the world blurred and memories became something else entirely.

And suddenly, she remembered.

The fire. The screams. The running footsteps in the dark.

A figure standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the flames.

A voice singing this exact song.

Bai Su's vision went white. When it cleared, she was standing alone in the reading room. The students were gone. The body was gone. Even the dust motes had stopped moving, frozen in the air like tiny stars.

The song stopped.

"Hello, Bai Su."

She turned slowly, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.

A girl stood in the doorway. Young, beautiful, with hair as black as ink and eyes that held no light. She was wearing the same uniform as the other students, but it was stained with soot and torn at the edges.

"Do you remember me now?"

Bai Su's breath caught in her chest. She didn't know this girl. She had never seen her face before in her life.

But she knew her voice.

It was the voice from the bell tower. The voice that had followed her down the stairs. The voice that had sung the song she shouldn't know.

"Who are you?"

The girl smiled, a terrible, beautiful smile that showed too many teeth.

"I'm your sister," she said. "And you're the reason I'm dead."