just look and listen [hualian au]

:two:

ch.2-- ghost bride

---

it was safe to say mu qing, feng xin, and xie lian were still classmates for this class. although xie lian had no doubts he'd fall lower to another section by the time the second semester will start. he held no expectations for this year and all he wanted was to get finished.

"the professor is new, right?"

"mmm~! i heard he was once a model too!"

"he's got to be handsome, right?"

xie lian didn't bother to hear the gossips of his classmates, instead, he opened up his notes to doodle quietly while waiting for the class to start.

"ah, ah, mei mei! where were you?"

"you guys won't believe it...i just saw the ghost bride!"

"what?!"

xie lian frowned, his doodling stopped at the mention of the ghost bride from the other ghosts. he tried to listen more into it yet the door opened and the professor entered.

"good morning class," his deep voice was very alluring and all the girls couldn't help but be swayed.

xie lian furrowed his brows and the voice. for some reason, there was like a filter in that voice that made his ears itchy and hot. he hated it.

"I'm jun wu, and for this year i will be your professor," jun wu, the man with a deep voice and sharp handsome features, smiled at his students. "let's get along for the rest of the school year?"

"yes~!" although, it was mainly the females of the class that agreed wholeheartedly towards jun wu while xie lian just hummed.

(maybe, with this jun wu variable, this time the school experience might be not bad.)

---

"oh no... i lost jian shi!"

"gosh...that's another ghost gone...what's happening?"

"the others said that the ghost bride has been rampaging..."

"the north isn't really safe for female ghosts right now..."

"not just that, even female students are being targeted! their soul is always being sucked dry that they fall into a coma and die..."

xie lian frowned. his concentration was disrupted when the ghosts kept chattering about this "ghost bride". so he put down his pen and plugged his earphones. he sighed quietly and shook his head and he adjusted.

"excuse me...did you say something about a ghost bride?" xie lian said. a few people looked at him in confusion but then looked away when they saw him talking on the phone with his earphones plugged on.

"wha-! sister...did he just say that?"

"no way...hey, you can hear us?"

xie lian could feel the temperature around him get cold and knew that the ghosts were surrounding him. he hummed, "yeah...i guess. i heard you guys kept talking about missing girls?"

one ghost covered her mouth in surprise that this beauty could actually hear the dead talk! "oh, well... it's not a real issue in the living but to us ghosts it's a big deal because the ghost bride has been active for a while after at least 17 ghosts have been missing,"

"yeah! you should know there are still ghosts that want to linger here...the ghost bride taking them away makes it horrible because they can't be recovered or even go to the afterlife..."

xie lian thought quietly. then he asked, "and you said there were only female ghosts?"

"yes. female ghosts that are the same age as high school students. even the living female students too. the ghost bride has been very picky about who they target but recently it's been so frequent that a lot of ghosts hid here and far away from the north..."

xie lian grew silent at the sentence yet the ghosts around him were excited. "i really don't believe it! you can really hear us? that's so great!" 

"wait-- but that would mean he heard every comment we said before!"

"waah~!"

they grew embarrassed but xie lian chuckled and consoled them. "it's alright," he said. "i've grown accustomed to hearing ghosts," 

"you're really cool!"

"it's so cool that you can actually hear us! we've never seen anyone like you before!"

"thank you," xie lian smiled. "well, i have to go now. thank you so much for the answers,"

"ah! wait," one ghost stopped xie lian before he could stand up. "do you... do you know about another person like you?"

"like...me?" xie lian asked in confusion. "no, i don't. I'm pretty sure it is not common for people to hear the dead,"

"well, do you...like it?" "like what?"

"do you like that you have this gift?"

xie lian pursed his lips and smiled. "not particularly...this curse is really a bother sometimes and i can't sleep or concentrate."

there was a pause and xie lian suspected that the ghosts were looking at each other. so he took the initiative to ask, "why do you ask?"

"well, if you really want it gone, then why not go to a shaman?"

"a shaman?" xie lian said in surprise. shamans were known but very few could see them personally. as time passes and modernity advanced, divinity is rather preserved so not many shamans are present in any cities to do business.

"mhm! if you want, we can give you the address? most ghosts that are stuck here that didn't have any lingering attachment goes towards this shaman to go to the afterlife,"

xie lian's heart beat fast and it felt like a heavy boulder was lift-off on him. "that would really be great!" he grinned.

"it's nothing, you're really pretty!"

xie lian wrote the address on his notes and finally bid the ghosts goodbye. he had a smile on his face when he walked out and quietly waited for the school to finish.

(he was finally free-- well, almost. as soon as he gets out of here he can go to the shaman and get this heavy curse off on him and then he can continue to live peacefully.)

---

xie lian was in a complicated mood.

it turns out that the location where the shaman lived was far and he had to cross the north yu jun region. "this is bad," xie lian tilted his head. yu jun region was where the ghost bride was and he didn't want to encounter such a fierce ghost.

it wasn't that he was afraid. he knew the ghost bride targeted ladies but it was what he would soon hear that bothered him. he sighed with a heavy heart, tucked away the note, and prepared to go tomorrow.

"fucking annoying ghost," xie lian cursed in his heart, no longer filtering out his kindness when he felt annoyed that his plan was disrupted.

he went towards the train station without his friend and waited for his train to arrive. with no distraction, he was always listening to the gossips of the ghosts around him and it was the only thing he could do for now.

(though, xie lian might now admit but he's doing this to make sure that he won't regret what he'll do later on. this might be the last time he could hear different voices and he wants to treasure it deeply.)

xie lian opened his phone and heard the train arrive. without looking for the sign, he went in and sat as the train was oddly spacious. he looked around and saw that there were few people around.

he pursed his lips and put away his phone. he listened to music and closed his eyes as he waited for the train to stop.