In Zhao Yuan's hometown, poverty meant people couldn't afford to go to a proper hospital. For minor illnesses, they would gather herbs in the mountains. For major ones, they could only endure them and wait for death.
The day Zhao Yuan received his university acceptance letter, people from the surrounding ten miles and eight villages came to congratulate him. It wasn't easy for someone from the mountains to get into college. Seeing the Zhao Family struggling with the tuition fee, the villagers generously opened their wallets. With a few dozen yuan from one and a few dozen from another, they scraped together enough money for his tuition.
Zhao Yuan was deeply moved by this scene.
'A person must be grateful.'
From that day on, improving the terrible medical conditions in his hometown became Zhao Yuan's dream. Now that he had the Witch Doctor's inheritance, the chances of his dream coming true had skyrocketed!
After familiarizing himself with how to summon the Inheritance Seed, Zhao Yuan knelt before the corpse and kowtowed three times, his head hitting the floor with loud thuds.
Wu Peng had given him the Witch Doctor's inheritance, making him his benefactor and master. The proper respects had to be paid.
A bizarre scene unfolded.
Beams of golden light erupted from the corpse, causing it to rapidly disintegrate into a cloud of glowing dust.
"What's going on?" Zhao Yuan was shocked and hurriedly searched for answers within the Inheritance Seed.
A moment later, he understood. 'This body's mission was to find a suitable candidate to inherit the Witch Doctor's legacy. Now that I have the inheritance, its mission is complete, so it dissipated.'
Zhao Yuan immediately realized a new problem. 'Oh no, all the corpses in the anatomy building are cataloged. If one is missing and the numbers don't match up later, it's going to be a huge problem!'
If a body was missing, the university would definitely investigate. He might even get expelled!
'I'll have to alter the records. The professors in the anatomy building can't possibly remember how many bodies are disposed of each semester. If I add one to the disposal records from a few years ago and change the related data, I might be able to cover this up.'
Zhao Yuan immediately opened the computer and began altering the data.
After changing the last piece of data, he let out a long sigh of relief. 'Finally done. I hope this is enough to fool them.'
He stood up, closed the lid of the formalin tank, gathered his things, and prepared to leave.
Just then, a strange KLAK KLAK sound came from outside. A ghastly, pale white skeleton floated past the window and let out a cackle at Zhao Yuan, "HEH HEH HEH."
"A ghost?!" Zhao Yuan jumped in fright, the hair on his body standing on end.
As the shock wore off, a strange feeling washed over him. 'This skeleton ghost... why does it look so familiar?'
Then, he heard three familiar voices.
Although the voices were low, Zhao Yuan's body had been cleansed by the Inheritance Seed, making his hearing much sharper than before. He not only heard their conversation clearly but also recognized them as the other three assistants from the anatomy building.
The three of them had planned to have dinner with some girls from the neighboring arts college that evening. But as soon as the girls saw what they really looked like, they made an excuse and left. This left the trio feeling dejected and full of resentment, so they ran back to the anatomy building to take it out on Zhao Yuan.
At this moment, the three of them were crouching in the hallway, snickering.
"That idiot Zhao Yuan must be scared stiff. Too bad we couldn't see his face," Wang Lei said with regret.
"No worries, let's scare him again. This time, instead of the skeleton, we'll use the human anatomy model. That thing has all its organs hanging out. It'll definitely scare Zhao Yuan half to death!" Zhou Peng suggested with a wicked grin.
"Good idea!" Sun Ke agreed. "I'm definitely going to record the moment Zhao Yuan pisses his pants and post it online. He'll be too ashamed to stay at school and have no choice but to crawl back to his poor mountain village."
The more they talked, the more excited they got. They immediately crouched down and snuck off to a nearby classroom to get the human anatomy model.
Inside the anatomy lab, Zhao Yuan was trembling with rage.
He never would have imagined that not only would they dump all their work on him, but they would also pretend to be ghosts to scare him. If he weren't so brave, he would have been scared sick! And these three even wanted to humiliate him and force him to leave the school in disgrace!
'If they get their way, my life will be ruined!'
'I'm going to teach them a lesson they'll never forget!' Zhao Yuan clenched his fists.
Even a saint has his limits, let alone a hot-blooded young man like him.
'So you want to play ghost, huh? Fine, I'll let you see what it feels like to be scared by one!'
The trio had no idea they'd been found out. A few minutes later, they returned to the outside of the anatomy lab, carrying the model.
Wang Lei crouched on the ground, maneuvering the human anatomy model to float past the window while imitating ghostly wails and wolfish howls with his mouth.
Zhou Peng and Sun Ke peeked out from below the window and turned on their phone cameras. But they soon discovered that Zhao Yuan was nowhere to be seen inside the lab.
"Where is he? Where'd he run off to?"
Just as they were wondering, a RUSTLE RUSTLE sound started up. The three looked over curiously and saw a skull on the computer desk.
Nighttime. An anatomy lab. A skull. A strange noise...
The trio's scalps instantly went numb with fear.
"It's not... actually haunted, is it?" Sun Ke recalled the legends about the anatomy building, and his face instantly turned pale.
Wang Lei forced himself to stay calm. "Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as ghosts!"
The words had barely left his mouth when the skull on the computer desk suddenly moved. Its dark, empty eye sockets stared straight at them, making the three feel as if they had been plunged into an ice cave, a chill running through their bodies.
WHOOSH!
Two balls of fire flickered to life within the skull's eye sockets. They were cold and eerie, glowing an unusual bluish-white.
As the flames swayed, the three of them simultaneously had the same terrifying illusion—those weren't flames, but the eyes of an Evil Ghost! They were being watched by an Evil Ghost!
"I died such a wrongful death... the three of you will be my replacements..."
A voice, utterly cold and devoid of any sign of life, echoed in their ears, scaring them to the point of a complete breakdown.
"Oh god, it's a real ghost!" The trio threw the human anatomy model aside, screamed, and turned to run.
They hadn't run two steps when they saw a white, ghostly figure drifting back and forth in the corridor ahead. Terrified, they quickly scrambled into the bamboo grove to find another escape route.
They were so focused on running that they didn't see what they tripped on. Suddenly, a flurry of dark shadows attacked them from all directions, beating them relentlessly. In an instant, the three were covered in wounds and their faces were bloody.
The three thought they'd been caught by a ghost. They scrambled on all fours, crying for their parents. By the time they escaped the anatomy building, their clothes were tattered and they were covered in bruises, looking utterly pathetic.
"With guts like that, you have the nerve to play ghost and scare people?" Zhao Yuan emerged from the bamboo grove, smirking coldly.
The so-called ghosts were all his doing.
The skull made noise because Zhao Yuan had trapped a little white mouse inside it. As the mouse scurried around, its claws scraped against the bone, not only creating sound but also causing the skull to move.
As for the eerie flames in the skull's eye sockets, that was simply the spontaneous combustion of White Phosphorus.
White Phosphorus has an extremely low ignition point; it will spontaneously combust if the temperature gets even slightly high. The "will-o'-the-wisps" often seen in old graveyards during the summer are caused by White Phosphorus seeping from bones and igniting. The temperature had been high for the past few days, and to top it off, Zhao Yuan had turned on the air conditioner's heat function, blowing hot air directly at the skull. It would have been stranger if the White Phosphorus *hadn't* ignited!
As for the realistic ghostly voices and sinister winds, those were the effects of the Oral Skill.
Wu Peng had once learned the Oral Skill for fun, and this technique was categorized under miscellaneous studies in the inheritance. It was said that a master of the art could use just their mouth to create the soundscape of a scene with thousands of people. Zhao Yuan was only a beginner and certainly couldn't achieve that, but pretending to be a ghost to scare a few people was no problem at all.
The white ghostly figure was even simpler. The one thing the anatomy building had in abundance was white lab coats.
The things that had beaten up the trio weren't Fierce Ghosts, but bamboo stalks. Having grown up in the mountains, Zhao Yuan was an expert at setting traps to catch prey. He had used the bamboo grove to set a trap that gave the three of them a sound thrashing.
Unfortunately, the trio didn't know the truth and thought they had really encountered a ghost. They scrambled out of the anatomy building and ran right into a group of students heading to the sports field to play a late-night game.
The group of students was startled by the trio's pathetic, injury-covered appearance.
Someone who recognized Wang Lei and the others asked in astonishment, "What happened to you guys?"
"There's a ghost!"
"The anatomy building is haunted!"
"Help!"
Wang Lei and his friends acted as if they'd found a lifeline, diving straight into the crowd.
"What? The anatomy building is haunted? For real?" The crowd was taken aback.
"It's true! That Fierce Ghost is right behind us, in the bamboo grove!" Wang Lei pointed behind them.
And indeed, a RUSTLE RUSTLE sound came from the bamboo grove.
Everyone's gaze was drawn to it, their nerves stretched taut. Wang Lei and his two friends were especially prepared to bolt the second the Fierce Ghost appeared, leaving the other students behind as sacrifices.
Soon, a figure darted out of the bamboo grove and called out to the crowd: "MEOW!"
It was a scruffy stray cat.
The tense atmosphere instantly froze.
After several seconds, the crowd erupted in laughter. "That's your Fierce Ghost? You mistook a cat for a Fierce Ghost? That's hilarious!"
The trio was dumbfounded. "How can it be a cat? What we just ran into was definitely a ghost!"