NOVPUBAs soon as Song Bing said there was someone, Wu Bin and the others shone their flashlights toward where Song Bing was pointing right away.
When they saw clearly what it was, everyone looked at Song Bing with some speechlessness.
"Old Song, that’s just a shadow on the wall, not a person."
Wu Bin felt that Song Bing was really too timid.
However, he couldn’t really blame Song Bing, because the shadow on the staircase wall indeed resembled a human figure, so it did look quite frightening.
After carefully observing for a while, Wang Xing said, "Actually, he’s not wrong, it is a person, just one that’s been charred."
"This mark must be from when someone was standing here during a fire, and then the flames reached this spot, leaving such an imprint on the wall."
After Wang Xing explained this, Song Bing, who had relaxed a bit, tensed up again.
"Master Wang, you must be joking, right? You mean to say someone stood there in a great fire and was burned to death like that? Shouldn’t that be painful? I’d think any normal person would feel a lot of pain if they were burned like that,"
Fire is merciless; that’s not just a saying.
Scientific studies have shown that when people are burned, the pain they feel is the most intense.
Because the flames envelop the body in an instant, burning and damaging your skin, and instantly stimulate the pain receptors throughout your body, elevating your sensations of pain to their peak.
Therefore, people who are burned to death are either lying flat on the ground or curled up in a ball.
In such cases, it’s almost impossible for someone to stand.
However, if the person wasn’t standing when being burned, then how should one explain this shadow on the wall?
With such doubts, the group headed upstairs.
They first reached the second-floor corridor and set out to find the storage room where the fire started.
The further they walked, the more uneasy they felt.
Because on the walls of the corridor, there were also several shadows.
These shadows, like the ones they had seen before, were either standing or sitting.
But there were hardly any lying down or curled into a ball.
This indicated that during the blazing fire, these people didn’t react instinctively to protect themselves.
That shouldn’t be right!
"Why do I feel that the postures of these people are so strange? And the overall atmosphere also gives me a very odd feeling, almost like... they were martyring themselves."
It wasn’t just Wu Bin who felt this way; the others did too.
Wang Xing frowned and said, "The postures of these shadows are indeed strange; it seems the school also concealed some facts at the time."
Upon further thought, Wu Bin also found many suspicious points.
When he had previously looked into the incident’s records, he hadn’t seen any detailed descriptions or photos of the old building’s scene.
At first, Wu Bin thought it might be because the scene was too gruesome, so the officials chose not to disclose it.
But now, it seemed more likely that the scene was too bizarre, and that’s why they opted not to disclose it.
If his guess was correct, then what exactly were the officials trying to hide?
While Wu Bin was pondering this, they had already reached the janitor’s closet.
According to official reports, this was the origin of the fire.
But as soon as Zhu Ling looked at the janitor’s closet, she spotted something off.
"Brother, something seems off."
Upon hearing Zhu Ling say this, Song Bing shuddered in fear.
"Ever since I entered, I felt that everything around here is wrong. I’m scared now; can we leave this haunted place sooner? I want to go back to the dormitory."
Song Bing now deeply regretted pretending to be brave.
He had come to find clues about his own manipulation, but not only did he fail to find any clues, he had also wandered for so long only to see crime scenes everywhere.
Zhu Ling ignored Song Bing and continued, "Brother, look at the scorch marks on this wall, the charring around the door frame is even worse, and the wall is darker. The farther away it is, the fainter these burn marks become."
"Which means this isn’t the original point of the fire at all. The fire burned in from the outside, and that’s why we see this pattern."
Being a small fire dragon herself, Zhu Ling was most familiar with flames.
For them, the scorch marks in this room were merely dark remnants, but for Zhu Ling, she could completely reconstruct the direction and intensity of the flames from these marks.
Wang Xing also sensed something wrong; he discovered shadows of people at all four corners of the walls.
He said gravely, "The four people who were burned to death were all sitting with their backs against the wall, and their sitting positions exactly correspond to the four cardinal directions."
"Which means this storeroom was arranged into a Formation. Although the fire did not start here, when the fire came, the Formation still took effect."
Until now, Wu Bin and the others were somewhat bewildered.
The things they had discovered now were in direct contradiction to the official investigative report.
At this moment, they didn’t even know whom to believe.
Trust their own deductions, or believe the official conclusions?
Wang Xing glanced at Wu Bin and said, "If we want to find the original point of the fire, then we need to check the other classrooms."
Wu Bin agreed with Wang Xing’s opinion, and the group continued to walk to other classrooms.
One, two, three...
Wu Bin and the others checked every classroom on the second floor.
What chilled them to the bone was that on the floors of these classrooms, there were clusters of black marks.
These black marks were neatly arranged, and if they corresponded to every desk and chair, then that meant each and every student!
From the arrangement of the marks, when the blaze struck, these students simply sat on the floor, showing absolutely no sign of rushing out!
It was less an accidental tragedy and more a planned, premeditated martyrdom!
And through the scorch marks on the walls, they also deduced that the initial point of the fire was actually in a classroom in the very middle of the second floor.
Because only in this classroom were the black marks on the floor arranged in concentric circles.
And the center of these circles, on the floor, had the most severe burn marks.
"This should be the place."
As Wang Xing spoke, he took out a stack of yellow talismans from his shoulder bag.
Wu Bin asked curiously, "Master Wang, what are you doing?"
Wang Xing explained, "People have three souls and seven spirits. After death, the heavenly soul returns to heaven, and the earthly soul returns to the earth, while the human soul stays in this world to receive offerings from relatives."
"So I just need to draw a small Formation, and I can find out what exactly happened here initially."
Wu Bin and the others listened, dumbfounded.
What Wang Xing had just mentioned was beyond their understanding.
