A faint male voice drifted out from the elevator: “William Sherman Teacher, what are you going to the eighteenth floor for?”

William Sherman replied calmly, “There’s been a bit of an incident at the school. These two are police officers, and I’m taking them to the math department to get a better understanding of the situation.”

“Oh,” the voice seemed a bit slow to react, taking a moment before responding, then continued in that same faint, sluggish tone, “Alright, please be careful.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the elevator returned to normal—the lights came back on, and with a creak, the stuck elevator resumed its ascent… as if nothing had happened at all.

“Gave you a scare?” William Sherman turned around, still looking only at Charles Gray, deliberately avoiding Logan Sullivan’s gaze, and explained with a gentle smile, “That was probably the building security. Last semester, a student jumped off the roof and committed suicide. Since then, unless you’re from the math department, if anyone else goes up to the top floor without a good reason, the security will stop the elevator and ask a few questions, just to prevent something like that from happening again.”

Charles Gray let out a sigh of relief, smiling a little sheepishly, “Oh… oh, so it was security. I thought it was…”

“A supernatural event?” William Sherman asked, half-smiling.

Charles Gray’s face turned ashen.

Logan Sullivan, however, frowned.

In this academy with the worst possible feng shui, even the professors who never dared look him in the eye acted so strangely.

Even the one who dutifully questioned everyone going to the top floor—maybe he wasn’t really a… “security guard” at all.

They swayed their way up to the rooftop. The entire eighteenth floor was empty; not even a mosquito or gecko made its home here. It was cold and damp.

Logan Sullivan couldn’t help but sneeze.

William Sherman immediately turned to ask, “Caught a cold?”

Even though he didn’t make eye contact, the question still sounded exceptionally sincere.

Perhaps it was his personal aura, but whenever Professor Sherman lowered his head or nodded, he exuded a kind of “gentlemanly composure.” Even when his gaze drifted a little unnaturally while speaking to Logan Sullivan, it somehow didn’t make people uncomfortable.

Logan Sullivan rubbed his nose. “No, I just feel like, the moment I walked into this hallway, I smelled that… special unlucky scent, the kind you get from endless math homework.”

William Sherman cooperatively curved his eyes, giving him a gentle and restrained smile.

“Don’t laugh,” Logan Sullivan joked. “Professor Sherman, to be honest, when I was in school, teachers were my nemesis. My homeroom teacher even predicted I’d grow up to be a little hoodlum. Who knew I’d end up a police officer? When I ran into him at the last school anniversary, I was just about to show off a bit—guess what he said?”

William Sherman made a show of listening intently. “What did he say?”

“That old firebrand said, ‘Sullivan—see, I was right. You’ve grown into a textbook example of a uniformed hoodlum.’”

Having dealt with all sorts of people for years, Logan Sullivan had a slick tongue that could put anyone at ease in just a few words. Even the quail-like Charles Gray seemed to find some common ground with him over “math homework,” and the way he walked behind them looked a bit more human.

But this William Sherman… the way he listened to Logan Sullivan made Logan Sullivan himself feel as if he wasn’t just chatting idly, but reciting some impossibly difficult listening comprehension passage in a foreign language—every word was treasured, and Professor Sherman didn’t want to miss a single syllable.

He truly “listened intently,” but never dared to look up at him. At first glance, his smile seemed gentle and refined, but after a while, you’d notice how formulaic it was, almost as if it were painted on.

Logan Sullivan almost suspected his face was about to freeze from smiling.

The three of them walked and chatted, their footsteps echoing down the corridor, the sound bouncing around, masking… the footsteps of a fourth person mixed in among them.

Quiet, shuffling, like soft-soled cloth shoes dragging across the floor.

The administrative building was designed like a tower—the so-called “tower building” usually meant an elevator in the center, with the hallway circling the “tower” in the middle, tall and narrow.

As they walked on, Charles Gray happened to notice that Logan Sullivan’s watch was undergoing some strange transformation. Starting from where the two hands met, a rose-red color—darker than light red, lighter than true red—began to spread outward in ripples, making the men’s watch look almost like an expensive piece of art. The metal band clasped around the man’s pale, slightly thin wrist, giving off an indescribable, eerie elegance.

Charles Gray hesitated, then whispered, “Sullivan… Chief Sullivan, your watch…”

“What’s up? It’s turning red?” Logan Sullivan, walking ahead, turned back with his trademark mischievous grin. “Know why?”

Charles Gray shook his head honestly.

Logan Sullivan grinned, “Vengeful ghosts love red. I think the feng shui in this building is bad—who knows what filth is hidden here? Maybe it’s the shadow of something projecting onto it…”

Charles Gray’s face went deathly pale. Instinctively, he glanced at the watch face as Logan Sullivan suggested, and this time, he saw an old woman in the glass—medium height, slightly plump, dressed all in black, staring at him expressionlessly!

Charles Gray froze in his tracks.

Logan Sullivan, however, just laughed as if he’d seen nothing, twisted a small button on the side of the watch, and suddenly a swirl of mist rose up on the dial, instantly washing away the red. Looking again, it was just an ordinary men’s watch—no strange red, no ghostly reflection.

“Never seen a color-changing mouse wheel? Same principle. This kid, give him a stick and he’ll believe anything.” Logan Sullivan teased the intern, then, without warning, suddenly turned to William Sherman, “Professor Sherman is highly educated, a materialist—surely you don’t believe in this ghost stuff, right?”

William Sherman pushed up his glasses, once again avoiding his gaze, and replied slowly, “The ancients said, ‘Beyond the six realms, the sage does not speak.’ Whether such things exist or not, no one can say for sure. But I think, if it exists, it exists; if not, then not. There’s no need to dwell on it. ‘Ask not of the living, but of ghosts and gods’—that’s what foolish rulers did in the old days. If a person can’t even figure out their own affairs, yet has the leisure to worry about ghosts and gods, isn’t that absurd?”

His words were full of scholarly flavor, yet ambiguous and evasive. Seeing his probing failed, Logan Sullivan just smiled and casually changed the subject: “Professor Sherman, do you teach humanities?”

“Yes, I teach college Chinese and some humanities electives.”

“No wonder—though I heard from a friend in real estate that new residential buildings rarely use this design. These tower buildings are usually commercial office buildings over a hundred meters tall. Hard to clean, poor ventilation, bad lighting—not comfortable to live in. I guess that’s what ‘bad feng shui’ means.” Logan Sullivan took out a pack of cigarettes and shook it. “Oh, right, is smoking allowed? Mind if I do?”

William Sherman shook his head. Logan Sullivan stuck one hand in his pocket, flicked out a cigarette with the other, lowered his eyes to light it, and after a moment, leisurely exhaled a puff of white smoke, looking every bit the seasoned smoker.

Having apparently decided to ignore him completely, William Sherman finally couldn’t help but frown. “Smoking and drinking are bad for your health. Officer Sullivan, you’re still young—you should show some restraint.”

Logan Sullivan smiled, not replying right away. His face was hidden behind a cloud of smoke, making his expression unreadable. Ash fell from the tip of his cigarette, and whether by accident or design, some of it landed in William Sherman’s shadow.

Logan Sullivan lowered his eyes, glanced at the floor, then cupped his hand to wave away the smoke. “In our line of work, sometimes we go days without rest. It’s easy to pick up bad habits.”

William Sherman seemed about to say something, but swallowed the words. After a while, he frowned and rather stiffly changed the subject: “There aren’t many departments in the old campus, nor that many teachers. On the whole eighteenth floor, only a few offices facing south are occupied; most of the other rooms are empty. We’ll be there if we go around this way.”

In cold, deserted corners, mold and moss grow easily… as do other things.