Chapter Text
If there is one thing Yanfei wants people to know about her, it is that she likes plans.
She likes her calendars and planners and schedules. She likes knowing what to do, where it is, when to do it, who will be there, and why she’s doing it. The thrill of the unpredictable has never exactly appealed to her, especially because she grew to associate that with all the professors she had over the course of her education that liked to schedule final exams literal days before the date. Yanfei, in short, likes being sure things are in their proper place. Going through life making sure of exactly that has helped her survive most trials and tribulations, after all.
So when she walks in the lecture hall and sees a stranger sitting at the back of the room, surrounded by several of her students, Yanfei pauses.
She flips through her mental list of names and comes up blank. This woman is most certainly not one of Yanfei’s students, unless someone had suddenly transferred into this class, nor can she be a new professor observing the class, because Yanfei would have been informed about that at least three business days beforehand. And yet, to her bewilderment, plenty of her students are crowding around the woman and chattering excitably to both her and one another. Is she some sort of celebrity? Yanfei will admit she doesn’t keep up with showbiz news much, mostly because she’d much rather listen to a true crime podcast instead. But what would a celebrity be doing in the lecture hall during her morning class?
“Ah, there she is,” the woman says, standing from her chair. The chair usually reserved for visitors, Yanfei notes; she wonders if anyone had actually told her to sit there. She forces herself to keep her eyebrows from raising when the woman gives her a shallow bow, the smile on her face friendly at first glance and unnerving at second. “Professor Yanfei, right? It’s good to meet you.”
“That’s me,” Yanfei says, warily. “And you are? I don’t recall anyone sitting in to observe for this class—”
“Wait, Professor, you don’t know her?” one of Yanfei’s students exclaims. Normally she’d give him a sharp look for interrupting her, but he goes on before she can do even that: “This is Miss Yelan! She’s going to give a seminar later today about urban legends and the supernatural!”
This time Yanfei lets her eyebrows rise without holding back. “Oh,” she says. “I see. Right, I remember now.”
Because who is going to look at that seminar topic and not think of a con artist?
Don’t get her wrong. Yanfei is very much open to the idea of their ancient Chinese gods existing somewhere in the heavens, together with all the other fantastical creatures from legend. When she was younger, her father used to drag her to temples and shrines to offer respects to the gods being worshiped there, and while Yanfei isn’t their most devout believer, she isn’t about to completely cross out the possibility of their existence. But her job deals with facts and figures, not stories anyone can just make up for fun. If she were interested in those, she would have gone into fiction-writing.
Really, when she heard the psychology department talking about how they had invited this… Yelan person to give a two-hour seminar on urban legends, Yanfei had scoffed out loud and had to pretend she was coughing instead. It’s none of her business, sure, but to think they would spend money and time and resources on something like this? They may as well have put all those to better use, like finally remodeling the abandoned building across the university campus or something. Goodness knows how much space it takes up while being virtually useless!
Yelan’s eyes narrow, almost knowingly, so Yanfei smooths her expression back into a neutral one. She can be as skeptical as she likes, but she’s polite enough to do that behind people’s backs, at least. “So why are you here?” she asks, not unkindly. “To observe the class? I’m afraid you can’t just walk in whenever you like, but if it’s your first time—”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Yelan cuts in. “I can leave, if you like. I just happened to pass by outside when some of your adorable students called me over to ask who I am.” She beams at the ‘adorable students’ in question, and Yanfei barely resists the urge to roll her eyes at the myriad of admiring sighs around them. “I didn’t mean to stick around. What class is this, anyway?”
If you don’t plan on sticking around, then can you just leave right now? Why bother asking? “It’s for a pre-law course,” Yanfei answers, aware that isn’t much for specificity but not caring enough to give a proper answer.
“Mm, how interesting,” Yelan remarks. “But very far from my specialty, I see.”
Yes, good you noticed! “Well, if there’s nothing else…”
“Can’t Miss Yelan stay, Professor?” another student pleads, backed up by several other similar questions. “It can’t hurt, right? Maybe if she likes how you teach, she’ll give more seminars here in the future?”
The youth of today are so very transparent, Yanfei thinks. She glances up, and though Yelan’s expression reveals nothing, she has a feeling kicking her out of the room wouldn’t be a good idea. “Oh, fine,” Yanfei sighs, turning around to head to the front of the hall, just to hide the irritated furrow in her brow. “It can’t hurt. But the rest of you, behave and listen to today’s discussion, please!”
When she takes her place behind the podium, pushing her laptop open to her presentation, Yanfei looks up to see Yelan sitting again, a pleased smile dancing along her lips.
Yanfei wishes she were more surprised to see over half her afternoon class missing.
Although the psychology department had been the one to arrange Yelan’s seminar, that doesn’t mean it isn’t open to students from other courses, and they can be excused from being absent in their concurrent classes if they had signed up to attend it. Yanfei allows herself a minute or two to just stare at the lecture hall, where she can count on both hands the amount of students sweating under her gaze, then sighs. “Well, looks like everyone’s here,” she dryly comments. “Let’s begin. Did you all read the assigned chapters for today?”
Her class ends a few minutes before Yelan’s seminar would, according to the schedule. Yanfei dawdles by the podium after all eight of her students have left the lecture hall, pretending to fiddle with something on her laptop. She can’t fault her students for being interested in something aside from her class — many times she’s canceled a class and assigned homework instead so they can go attend some other activity — but she hadn’t quite expected an absence of this scale. With a sigh, Yanfei packs her things up and leaves the hall, thoughts eventually drifting to what she should get for dinner tonight after her evening class.
Then she pauses, looking up at the label of a room just ahead of her in the hallway. Where is Yelan’s seminar supposed to be, again? Isn’t it… well, this one?
Yanfei slips in through the back door further down the corridor, feeling her face scrunch up of its own accord when she realizes how packed the multi-purpose hall is — there aren’t enough seats for everyone attending, so students and professors alike are standing along the sides and behind the back row, leaving only the center aisle relatively empty. “Miss Ganyu, you’re here too?” Yanfei whispers, when she bumps into her fellow professor by the back row.
Ganyu blinks. “Oh, Miss Yanfei! You’re late! It’s the open forum now, Miss Yelan finished speaking earlier.”
“I know, I had a class. What are you doing here?”
“Um… is it bad?” Ganyu’s cheek turn an embarrassed pink. “Everyone else was talking about it, so I wanted to go see too. I suppose it really is interesting, though. Miss Yelan sounds like she really knows what she’s talking about.”
Yanfei purses her lips. “Is that so?”
It seems like she really did catch the tail end of the seminar, because Yelan has closed her laptop and is smiling at the crowd. “I’m sorry I can’t stay too long — I wouldn’t want to intrude on anyone who still has classes after this, even if you might want that,” she says, to the laughs of the audience. Yanfei crosses her arms over her chest and tries to keep herself from grinding her teeth in irritation. “If there’s one thing I want to leave with you all, though, I’d like to emphasize that what I enjoy most about urban legends is not necessarily their content but picking them apart to pinpoint their origins and discovering what details have basis in reality. After all, stories cannot be born from nothing, can they? There’s always a grain of truth in there, even if it’s the most mundane one.”
She turns her back on the audience at first, as if to walk off the stage, then tilts her head and gives them an unsettling smile. “And if it turns out to be the most interesting one… well, all the better, no?”
The hall explodes with applause, then quickly turns into the noise of several different conversations at once; Yanfei sighs and turns for the exit right away, wondering what she had even expected. Fine, she supposes there’s merit in studying the origins of urban legends, but aren’t they little better than ghost stories? Doesn’t all their value lie in entertainment? What she hates most is that they’re passed around as if they’re meant to be believed, and then that gives rise to plenty of nonsensical superstitions with no real sense in them… and Yelan is encouraging this sort of thing?
Why is Yanfei getting so bothered about this, actually? It’s none of her business. She repeats that sentence to herself at least five more times before heading back to the faculty office, hoping none of the professors there are going to make a big fuss about this as well — or if they are, that they won’t try to drag her into any conversations. She has lesson plans to outline and essays to grade, not headaches to endure. At least Yelan won’t be staying for good or anything, Yanfei allows. The novelty of her seminar will fade soon, and they’ll forget about her in a few days, or even by tomorrow if she’s lucky.
Now, on to more important matters: does she have time to get a snack before her last class for today?
To Yanfei’s annoyance, Yelan is all the students of her evening class can talk about. She walks in the lecture hall a few minutes before class to find them all clustered together, going on and on about urban legends they’ve heard and how they might have come into existence, though mostly all she hears is about how hot the guest speaker was, to absolutely no surprise.
“You think Miss Yelan came here for that seminar because of our, you know…” One student wrings their hands, then mumbles, “Our uni?”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on! How do you not know about all the ghost stories about this place? Like how it used to be a mental hospital or—”
“That’s enough,” Yanfei interrupts, startling all three students away from each other. “Can we all get back to our seats now? You can share ghost stories after class, thank you very much.”
Most of them look guiltily away, as if she’d caught them all cheating on each other’s exams, but one student huffs. “Professor, they’re not just ghost stories, they’re real!”
Yanfei can feel that headache she’d been trying to avoid all day coming up now. “Oh, really?”
Another student pipes up: “Yeah! Did you listen to the seminar a while ago? The speaker said every ghost story has, like, a bit of truth in it!”
“I believe her topic was on urban legends, not ghost stories,” Yanfei says, then immediately grows irritated with herself for that. Who cares what it was about? Either way, it’s hardly important right now, much less for a class of pre-law students. “But enough of that. Seats, please! The earlier we start, the sooner you can get back to gossiping, and I’m sure you’re all in a hurry for that.”
She’s not sure if any of them actually pay attention to the lecture, but for once Yanfei is just too tired to care — today has been a nonstop montage of little irritations around every corner, and all she wants is to go home and have yesterday’s leftover tofu for dinner. She supposes she should have expected this day would be annoying from start to finish when Yelan sat in on her morning class, but she had been hoping getting something troublesome over with as soon as the day began would save her later problems…
It’s always dark out once she’s dismissed her evening class, and today is no different, even if she ends the lecture a little earlier than usual for her own sake. The students file out of the room quickly, speaking lowly in pairs or groups, and Yanfei waits until they’ve all left to rest her head on the podium and sigh in relief. It’s quiet aside from the gentle hum of the air-conditioning, the soundproof walls blocking out any other noise from outside, and Yanfei shifts around to lay her head atop her folded arms instead, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Her thoughts return to what her students had been discussing just earlier, and she snorts to herself. Ghost stories about their university? Of course Yanfei’s heard more than enough of those to dismiss them as rumors spread around to frighten the poor freshmen. Ghosts haunting the restrooms, ghosts haunting the offices, ghosts haunting the gardens… and ghosts haunting every last square inch of the old building, so much so that staff had to keep it under lock and key to stop foolhardy students from heading inside as part of a dare or a ‘test of courage.’ Time after time the officials say it’s scheduled for remodeling, but time after time plans are pushed back and delayed indefinitely, so consistently that students have made up stories about how the building is cursed to remain standing no matter what.
In Yanfei’s opinion, it’s because they keep putting the development money to other uses — like seminars. She closes her eyes to enjoy the peace and quiet for a bit…
…and jolts awake.
Had she fallen asleep? Her neck aches something awful, so she probably did. Yanfei slowly sits up, blinking blearily and stretching her sore arms over her head. The clock tells her it’s only been around half an hour since she dismissed her class, so at least she hadn’t slept the night away in this lecture hall. Still, it’s a good thing those footsteps outside had woken her when they did, because she might have missed her train…
Wait. Footsteps?
That’s impossible. The walls are soundproof. Yanfei knows this because she had been relieved to find out they finally got around to installing soundproof walls in lecture rooms to make sure the noise from outside would stop interfering with classes and drowning out the professor’s voice. So she couldn’t have been woken up by hearing footsteps unless they were inside the room. Which is impossible, obviously, because there’s no one else in here right now.
But she’s sure she had heard something. Had they been footsteps? They had certainly sounded like it. Had they been very loud or close by? No, they were faint, audible but muffled by the walls…
The soundproof walls, so: impossible. Yanfei had imagined it. Perhaps she had just woken up from how cold it’s gotten. She slings her bag over her shoulder and turns the air-conditioning off, then instantly regrets it when the room falls completely, eerily silent, then instantly feels stupid for regretting it. After almost two years of teaching in this university, the last thing she should be freaking out about now is the campus at nighttime, and she’s not a child who jumps at every sound and peers over their shoulder every five minutes after hearing about ghost stories. It’s all the stress of today, she tells herself; the sooner she gets home, the better.
She steps out of the lecture hall, secretly relieved the corridor lights are still on, even if it’s fairly late by now. Yanfei quickens her usual pace a little as she heads down the stairs at the end of the hall, trying to focus all her thoughts on her tofu dinner later. She’ll take the train home, and then she’ll heat her food up, and then she’ll sit down and have a nice meal, and then she’ll get a bit more work done before having a good long sleep, and then…
And then Yanfei slows to a stop.
This side of the staircase faces the abandoned building. Normally this is something Yanfei doesn’t pay attention to, because she’s been passing by it for the better part of the past two years and so doesn’t care about it any more than she would care about the dean’s office she passes by on the way to the third-floor restroom or the café she passes by on the way to the train station. But something had caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she turns around to squint out the glass walls where the old building looms, tall and dark and threatening. Had she just imagined it, like how she had doubtless imagined the footsteps?
That thought — along with pretty much everything else in her head — is wiped clean when Yanfei sees it again: a faint white light from inside one of the old building’s rooms, standing out in the darkness of the evening.
Okay. So there’s someone in the old building. This is surely not something to be alarmed about, Yanfei thinks. People go in there all the time, for plenty of reasons: students sneaking in for fun, teachers checking for students sneaking in for fun, the occasional cleaning staff checking out reports of stray animals… It’s nothing unusual, in short. Yanfei shouldn’t be thinking about it. Yanfei shouldn’t be frozen in place on the stairway landing, staring at the light.
Yanfei certainly shouldn’t be entertaining any thoughts about going in to check what it is herself.
The more she thinks about it, the more sense it makes for her to just go take care of it. After today’s seminar, she’d be more shocked if students weren’t trying to sneak in the old building for the thrill and pass it off as researching urban legends or whatever. Besides, what sort of daredevil student would be stupid enough to shine a light bright enough that it’s visible from the next building over? Are they trying to get caught? Yanfei shakes her head, feeling a little less unnerved now — she can get over there, shoo some pesky rascals away, and still reach her train back home with time to spare. No big deal. Just doing her duty as a law-abiding professor.
She definitely only opens her phone flashlight because it’s hard to see in the darkness, and for no other reasons.
The students and other staff members she passes by on the way are comforting, but only in the few seconds it takes for her to cross the campus; when Yanfei comes to a stop by the entrance to the building, she feels a now-familiar chill run down her spine. The light had been on the third floor, and she can’t see it from the front… Maybe the students have already left. It’s not too late to forget about all this and turn back now.
But just in case. Yanfei will do a quick search, and if she doesn’t find those students, well… she’ll have to commend them for hiding well, she supposes. Then she’ll stop wasting her time and get back home before it gets too late. That’s all.
The building’s front doors are locked and barred, of course, but she knows the back door can be opened by jiggling the knob a little and pushing hard once it gives. Yanfei makes sure no one else is around before ducking into the shadows and rounding the building, then frowning when she realizes the door’s been left ajar. Seriously? First these students shine bright lights, then leave the door open? Maybe they’re freshmen going through an initiation rite or something, she thinks, as she slips inside. It would certainly explain the sloppiness of their little break-in.
Inside is deathly quiet. Yanfei shines her phone flashlight around to light up familiar surroundings — she’s been here before with a few other professors, of course, mostly during her first year on the job. Back then they had just begun vacating the building to transfer all equipment and belongings to the other, newer building now in use, so she had helped with moving some of the smaller furniture back and forth. Now it’s gray and dusty, the leftover furniture worn and tattered and the paint peeling off the walls, but it’s nothing particularly special. You’d still have to put in the work to make it look like a horror movie set, really.
…Still, it looks and feels far more different in the evening than it does during the daytime. Yanfei shivers, turning left to head down the corridor and towards the stairs. Best not spend too much time here, lest she… wind up missing her train, of course.
The stairs creak with her every other step, but Yanfei welcomes what little sound she can get, straining her ears for anything else. Surely students would make some noise if they’re moving around in here? She can’t hear anything, though, and even when she reaches the third floor and squints down the hallway stretching on before her, she can’t see any hints of light seeping through from beneath a door or the like.
Had she been mistaken after all…? No, she had definitely seen the light with her own eyes, and it hadn’t disappeared even when she looked away from it. Where is it now? Have the students left already?
If that’s the case, she’d be more than happy to leave now. Yanfei turns on her heel to head back down the stairs —
— and freezes.
Right. She definitely didn’t imagine that this time, did she? She’s wide awake now, and there are no soundproof walls to blame here. Just now, she’d heard footsteps running down the corridor, didn’t she?
In the silence of the building, Yanfei’s breathing sounds too loud to bear. She swallows and, very slowly, turns to look down the hallway again — even when she shines her phone flashlight against the shadows, it seems to go indefinitely further down, the darkness yawning ominously before her.
Footsteps again — louder this time, as if closer. Yanfei closes her phone at the realization that whoever — or whatever — is down there might be tracking her down from her light, but then that leaves her in complete, unbroken darkness — which should be impossible, she realizes, because there are windows on her right side, aren’t there? So why can’t she see anything in front of her — why are the footsteps only growing louder and louder and closer —
A flashlight clicks on, its beam small and narrow but enough to nearly blind her. “Professor… Yanfei?”
“What?” Yanfei gasps out, more out of surprise than confusion — and then she repeats, emphatically, “What?” when she realizes exactly who she’s looking at. “What the — What — What are you doing here?!”
Yelan — otherwise known as the purveyor of all of Yanfei’s headaches today — frowns, as if she’s wondering what Yanfei is doing here. “It’s dangerous. You shouldn’t be here.”
“What?” Yanfei repeats, for what feels like the sixth time now. There’s so much to question in those six words that Yanfei has no idea where to start, but somehow she sputters out, “What do you mean, dangerous? This is just an old building on campus? I’m only here because I thought some students were sneaking in again, but I didn’t think you would be—”
But Yelan cuts her off. “Why did you think that? Did you see someone going in?”
She sounds completely serious, scarily so. Yanfei scowls, her head spinning from confusion. Don’t tell me… Is this woman here to go ghost-hunting? Is she completely insane? “No! I just saw a light from outside—”
“A light?”
“Yes! Was it you? I swear, just because we paid you to come give a talk here does not mean—”
“Where was this light?” Yelan presses.
Yanfei lets out a frustrated growl. “Here! On the third floor, in one of the rooms! What is your problem?”
But Yelan is already turning away from her, staring down the darkness of the hallway as if she can see every last floor tile. “This is it,” she murmurs, so quietly that Yanfei wouldn’t have heard her if not for the silence of the building. Then she turns back to face Yanfei, her expression a mix of worry and kindness, so convincing that Yanfei may have believed her if not for the hint of delight in bright emerald eyes. “I’m sorry, that must have been me. I thought I saw someone entering and wanted to ask if we were allowed in here, but I’m afraid I must have been mistaken. Shall we leave together?”
Yanfei stares at her. Then she says, “Pardon me. But do you think I’m stupid?”
“Why, Professor Yanfei, what ever gave you that idea? I’m just concerned—”
“Drop the professor, please. You’re not my student. Do you expect me to believe you’re wandering around in here because you wanted to, what, sightsee?” Yanfei folds her arms over her chest, feeling much less nervous now that she finally has someone to take her frustrations out on — and that someone happens to be the very person who’s been frustrating her all day, both directly and indirectly. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but this building is strictly off-limits to non-staff… and you are most certainly not staff. Please leave before I report you to the higher-ups.”
Finally the kind mask Yelan had been wearing slips off — and Yanfei almost wishes she had kept it on, because she cannot properly articulate in words how her frustration breaks heights when Yelan looks down on her with a bored look in her eyes, as if Yanfei is some troublesome moron getting in her way. “Is that the best you can do?” she asks, loftily. “Report me to the higher-ups? I suppose you have no real authority of your own.”
“You…?!”
“Listen here, Professor,” Yelan says, blatantly ignoring Yanfei’s earlier order. “I’m here on important business, and it’s not something someone like you would understand. Why don’t we just agree we didn’t see each other here tonight? It would be much more convenient for the both of us, so I can continue doing what I was doing… and so you don’t have to worry about what I’ll do to you if you try reporting me to anyone.”
Yanfei’s mouth opens and closes like that of a beached fish. What is this woman even saying? That was a threat just now, wasn’t it? There is quite literally no other way to interpret that, right? Is this ghost-hunter threatening her right now? “You — Do you think you can do whatever you want or something?!” Yanfei sputters, her voice rising into a shout as her fury finally spills over. “I can’t care less if you’re going to go around giving seminars and putting ridiculous ideas in our students’ heads, but it’s something else for you to threaten me for asking you what you’re doing on restricted property! I swear, if you don’t—”
“Wait. Shh.”
At first Yanfei sincerely and genuinely wants to clobber Yelan for thinking she can just shh her in the middle of her speech, but when she pauses to take a deep breath and continue screaming, she hears it. Soft, faint, barely even audible at all but undeniably there: the whistling of wind.
This would be fine on its own. The wind may have just suddenly picked up outside, enough to be heard even within a building; besides, with it sort of falling apart, Yanfei would hardly be surprised to find holes in the wall where the wind may be blowing in. That might explain the strange creak of wood too, even if neither of them are moving or stepping on the floor tiles. She may even be able to explain the rustle of grass and leaves as sounds filtering in from outside, where the campus garden isn’t far away.
But, as her heart drops to her stomach, she knows there is no explaining the sudden light coming from beneath a closed door down the hallway — the very same sign she had been looking for when she came in here.
“There it is,” Yelan breathes, already setting off down the corridor towards the light. Then she seems to remember she isn’t alone, because she turns around two and a half steps later and gives Yanfei the most scornful look anyone has ever given her in her life. “If you know what’s best for you, go home and forget about this. This is my business and mine alone.”
“You are unbelievable,” Yanfei says, numb with shock. “Just what is going on here? Are you hiding something in there? What is this, did you arrange a gathering with your ghost-hunting squad here—”
“I’m no ghost-hunter, I’m telling you, just stay out of this—”
“I can’t stay out of this, I work here! Come with me so I can report you for trespassing—”
“Trespassing! Hah! Your higher-ups invited me here, if you need reminding—”
“Yes, for a seminar! I don’t think you need to give another one in this building at this time, do you think?!”
Yelan opens her mouth, then changes her mind and abruptly turns back to stalk down the hallway again, her steps decisive and purposeful. “This is your last warning. Turn around and leave while you can, or else I cannot guarantee your safety. I know you think I’m some sort of quack, Professor, but I am being completely serious here when I say following me will be mortally dangerous.”
The seriousness in her tone has Yanfei backing off for a second — after all, any normal person would probably have fessed up about whatever they were doing in here by now. There’s no doubt that Yelan is telling the truth… or at least really believes in whatever she’s doing right now, which for the life of her Yanfei still cannot fully understand. “You…” She gnashes her teeth like a wild animal, then closes her eyes for a moment of patience. “Fine.”
Yelan must’ve been expecting more of a pushback, because she stops right in front of the door to raise an eyebrow at Yanfei, still standing at the end of the hall. “Fine? Really? So you are scared for your life. Well, I can respect that.”
“But I’m watching you. And I’m not leaving until I see you walk out that door.”
“Oh, yes? You have fun with that, then.” Yelan lays her hand on the knob, twists it, pulls the door open —
“As if!” Yanfei flings herself forward and wraps her arms around Yelan’s torso. “You really think I’m just going to let you walk in there?!”
She may have backed off for a second, but only for a second! What if it really is a cult gathering for ghost-hunters or con artists? What if Yelan is trying to use the university as a cover-up for some kind of criminal activity? Given time Yanfei could probably refute her own guesses, but right now she’s running on pure adrenaline and frustration that just turning around and walking away from something as suspicious as this would be ludicrous! What sort of law professor would ignore someone clearly doing something illegal?!
Yelan shrieks, which is fun for the one second Yanfei hears it, for the catharsis if nothing else. “Get off! I’m serious, you don’t want to do this!” She tries to shove Yanfei off of her, but Yanfei clings on like a leech, glad Yelan’s slender frame hadn’t been concealing superhuman strength or something. She yanks Yelan back — maybe they can get through this without going in that room —
But with a snarl, Yelan stretches her arm out and yanks the door wide open.
Before the flood of light drowns everything else out, Yanfei’s last thought is that she really, really wishes she’d known this would be happening when she woke up today.