Chapter 36: It Is Listening

3:00 AM. The ruins of the Qiyin School were shrouded in a thin mist. Shen Mo crouched behind a rusted iron fence, the scent of damp grass clinging to the tip of his nose.

His gloved fingers tapped the bone-conduction headset behind his ear. Xiao Wu’s voice came through instantly: "Southwest corner, blind spot of the surveillance system. The third grille screw on the ventilation duct is loose. I’ve hacked into their security system; the night guard will head to the restroom for a smoke in five minutes."

Su Wangying crouched beside him, the hood of her black windbreaker pulled low, her hair brushing against the back of his hand. She clutched a waterproof file bag to her chest, inside which lay the sign language manual etched with faint, ghostly blue scratches.

"Remember to breathe," he whispered. He caught a glimpse of her throat moving—a habit she had when nervous, like a cat trying to remain perfectly still.

Shen Mo climbed over first, his knees bending slightly upon landing to cushion the sound. Su Wangying followed. No sooner had the tips of her sneakers touched the ground than the sound of a guard coughing drifted from the distance.

Both froze, waiting until the footsteps turned toward the restroom before crouching low and moving toward the ventilation shaft beneath the teaching building.

The smell of rust inside the duct was heavier than expected. Shen Mo shone a micro-flashlight against the interior wall. A fragment of faded red silk—likely a decoration from some long-past school anniversary—was stuck to the metal grille.

Su Wangying’s breathing was faint against the back of his neck. Suddenly, her fingers brushed his back, tracing signs: *There are engravings here.*

He shifted aside to let the light hit the wall. Scrawled in crooked letters were the words: "Lingling is afraid of the dark."

The edges of the chalk marks were peeling away like a withered flower.

"A student from before the 1998 fire," Su Wangying signed slowly, each movement as if she were stroking the words. "The old files mentioned a little girl who always carved her name wherever she could reach."

The vent was only two meters from the basement ceiling. Shen Mo stepped onto Su Wangying’s shoulders, but stopped just as his fingertips touched the grille. The metal was coated in a fine, powdery layer that shimmered with the pearlescent luster of mother-of-pearl under the flashlight.

"Chalk dust," he murmured, his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth, a realization that made his jaw ache.

Xiao Wu had said it was a carrier of memory, like the magnetic powder on a tape.

As the grille was pushed open, the smell of mold surged out, mingled with a sweet, metallic rot. Shen Mo jumped down first, turning to catch Su Wangying.

The floor was covered in broken tiles. Moonlight leaked through cracks in the ceiling, illuminating an entire wall of blackboards. They weren't a single piece, but countless shattered fragments pieced together. Each edge bore scorched marks from fire, and the surface was layered with overlapping sign language symbols, like time itself crumpled into a ball.

Su Wangying knelt, her fingertips trembling the moment they touched the ash on the floor.

"They're vibrating," she said, looking up at him, her pupils dilating in the dark. "Like a heartbeat. One... two..."

Shen Mo pulled out a portable EEG device and clamped it to his temples. The brainwave curve on the screen immediately spiked with irregular peaks.

"Ask it," he wrote on a pad with a special ink pen. "Ask 'Who is speaking?' in standard sign language."

Su Wangying raised her fingers, forming the first sign: *Who*.

As she formed the second sign, *is*, the nearest blackboard emitted a faint, imperceptible hum.

When the final arc of the sign for *speaking* was completed, the entire wall of blackboards shuddered in unison. Dust rose, coalescing between them into hazy, flickering letters: *Listen to me.*

Su Wangying’s pupils contracted sharply; her fingers began to twitch uncontrollably. Shen Mo saw her wrists jerk as if pulled by invisible strings, first signing *Help*, then *Me*, the movements mechanical, like a marionette.

He yanked her by the collar, pulling her back until she hit a concrete pillar. Only then did the gestures gradually slow.

She leaned against the wall, gasping for air, cold sweat beading on her forehead. "I... I heard someone in my ear saying, 'Finish it.'"

Xiao Wu’s voice crackled through the headset, breathless: "I just analyzed the blackboard symbols! They’re recursive code. Each layer points to the next decryption key—the final one leads to the *Silent Teaching Log*, which hasn't been seen since the 1998 fire!"

Shen Mo saw Su Wangying’s fingers clench at her sides—her habit when she reached a critical clue in her research.

"There’s more trouble," Xiao Wu’s voice dropped. "I hacked into the data center's cooling system logs. They’re using recycled water from the old school well. The water quality report shows... traces of neuropeptides, matching the cerebrospinal fluid of the aphasic patients."

Shen Mo’s jaw tightened in pain. He grabbed the waterproof paper and scribbled: "The language center might be contaminated. Switch to sign language. Turn off all microphones."

Su Wangying nodded, her fingertips flashing the sign for *Understood*.

As they approached the blackboard wall again, Shen Mo put on insulated gloves. The moonlight shifted through the cracks, illuminating a complete blackboard in the center. Its edges were heavily scorched, and in the upper left corner, written in red chalk, were the words: *The Last Lesson · 1998.6.17*.

He used a small spatula to scrape the surface dust. The moment he touched the board, his temples felt as if they had been pierced by a steel needle.

The temporal lobe monitor erupted in a sharp alarm.

Double images flashed before his eyes—the symbols on the blackboard flowed, transforming into a woman in a blue tunic.

Her mouth did not move, and her throat remained still, yet his brain automatically "translated" her voice: "You don't need to speak. As long as you look at me, I exist."

During their retreat, Su Wangying suddenly stopped, staring up at the crack in the ceiling.

Where the moonlight poured in, the ashes were flowing slowly, outlining a hazy human silhouette. The "person" had both hands crossed over their chest—the specific sign for "quiet" used by teachers at Qiyin School.

"It's watching us," she signed.

Shen Mo pulled out a micro-camera, aiming it at the cloud of ash.

Back home, he and Xiao Wu imported the footage into their computer. In the 3D modeling software, the trajectory of the ash became clear—it was a coherent sequence of movements, as if telling an unfinished story.

Xiao Wu stared at the screen, his throat moving. "I cross-referenced the surveillance from the day of the fire... When Ms. Lin was carried out of the burning building, she was in this exact posture."

Shen Mo saved the model file. Outside the window, moonlight crawled onto his desk, illuminating the dust sealed in the plastic bag.

The powder vibrated slightly at the bottom of the bag, as if waiting for an answer.

He took out his fountain pen and wrote in his notebook: "It is not recreating the past..."

He paused.

Downstairs, a car horn blared. He closed the notebook, hearing, woven into the sound of his own heartbeat, a faint, breathless child's voice rising from the depths of his memory:

*"The autumn rain has a box of colorful paints..."*