In the pitch-black background, snap—a cone of light shines down, illuminating a circle on the ground. Standing in the spotlight is a boy, about 1.65 meters tall, one arm folded across his chest, the other pinching his chin, his silhouette deep and dramatic: "I am the Destiny Mentor."
Snap! The second cone of light beams down, forming another bright circle. In it stands a man, about 1.78 meters tall, dressed in a white suit, hands in his pockets, cool and elegant, also turning his back to the crowd: "I am the Mind Mentor."
Snap! A third cone of light appears, lighting up a third spot, where a young man over 1.8 meters tall stands. "I may be a bit of a goof, but this looks kinda fun, so count me in—Ahem!" The youth clears his throat, showing off his straight, pine-like shoulders and silhouette: "I am the Life Mentor."
Snap! Sure enough, a fourth beam lights up, revealing the mysterious silhouette of someone just over 1.7 meters tall, dressed in business attire, speaking in a cryptic tone: "I am the Soul Mentor."
Whoosh! All four spin around at once, each dramatically thrusting a hand forward. Sparks and lasers explode in the darkness, as they shout in unison: "We are the Four Dream Mentors, here to lead you on the journey to achieve your dreams—turning around just for you!"
——Zooming out, back to a normal view, we see a large lake—the very one where the Lake Spirit resides. The four are standing on a fishing platform by the lakeshore, all pointing at the water, looking just like four magical girl warriors striking a pose. The reason for this eye-blinding scene isn’t just that the Dream Mentors collectively lost their minds—well, not entirely, anyway. There’s a reason for it. Let’s rewind a few hours, back to the morning of September 12th.
After meeting Fate Guide, the boy, yesterday, this morning he’s not running around, Ethan Zhuo is skipping class, and he drags Jack Young and the others to gather at the Linwan Technical College campus, ready to kick off the exorcism operation. This time, Ethan Zhuo is both the main force and the muscle, Fate Guide is the technical advisor and spectator, and Jack Young is just here for the ride. Since Fate Guide’s fortune-telling takes time, he might as well watch the action unfold.
The three first gather by the artificial lake, finding a waterside pavilion used for fishing, which gives a clear view of the whole lake. A gentle breeze stirs, the water is calm, a few wild ducks and water birds flap their wings overhead—no matter how you look at it, it’s a beautiful scene.
"Death deserves respect, so from now on, I’ll call you ‘Big Brother’." Ethan Zhuo shouts at the lake with full spirit: "Today, your little bro is here to help you return to nature and fulfill your wishes! First, let’s get warmed up with an opening tune!" Bang! Senior Brother pulls out a tape recorder, sets it on the ground, and hits play. Instantly, explosive Buddhist chanting erupts, a swarm of monks chanting the Rebirth Mantra blasts across the lake.
With the wild ducks scattering in fright, Ethan Zhuo quickly sets out gold ingots, candles, and other ritual items. Lighter in his left hand, a fistful of joss paper in his right, he mutters: "Big Brother, if you’re not into this, there’s always a Taoist chant. Over there, you’ll have good food and drink—whatever you need, just tell your bro, I’ll get it all for you. Just please, don’t come looking for me again…"
Seeing all this unfold, Jack Young took a deep breath and tried his best to just watch the chaos—but of course, he couldn’t hold it in! The next second, he teleported behind Ethan Zhuo, his face dark as night, and delivered a killer hand-chop with the precision of a master heckler. Quick, somebody come clean up this clown! Every time he runs into a ghost, he totally loses it—he’s not here to help, he’s just here to stir up SIAO (only true legends can pronounce that… cue evil laughter)!
Senior Brother, who was clutching his head and wailing on the ground, was still bawling when he suddenly jerked upright, eyes wide with terror, lips trembling as he looked at the two and stammered, "B-Big Bro just spoke!"
Jack Young immediately perked up, curious: "What did he say? As long as he’s talking, we’re good—just worried he’d go silent."
"He still just said ‘gra...dua...tion...’"
As soon as Ethan Zhuo said that, the three exchanged glances. A breeze blew by, rustling a few leaves—seriously, is this guy here to tell dad jokes or what?
"Just hang out over there and be our human walkie-talkie!" With no other choice, Jack Young rolled up his sleeves and turned to Fate Guide: "Destiny Mentor, got any bright ideas?"
"Yeah, better collect some intel first." Fate Guide put on his professional face: "Residual thoughts are usually a mess—what they want is hard to pin down. It’s like someone with a speech disorder: the more they can’t say it, the more anxious they get, and the more anxious, the less they can say. So when he says ‘graduation,’ it’s a super vague clue. We’ve gotta dig into his life before we can do anything."
Makes sense! At moments like this, one Destiny Mentor is worth a hundred Mind Mentors. Jack Young and his crew instantly formed a team and set off on their mystery hunt. A middle-aged uncle, a local big bro, and a fresh-faced pretty boy—walking together, they were total head-turners. Soon they found a bunch of students and started asking, "You know the senior from year four?" The answers were all over the map.
Ethan Zhuo tried chatting people up—"I'm a senior! Are you guys recruiting? Which company? Fortune 500?" Okay, bro does run a clinic, but today he’s not handing out job offers.
Jack Young tried his luck—"Are you guys from TV? Filming a show? I’m from the Art & Media College—I can sing, dance, give me some screen time!" Girl, I do have connections, but I can’t help you right now.
Qian Kun stepped up, but before he could say a word—"Hey handsome, let me pinch you, just once!" Well… nothing left to say, especially since the guy asking was a burly muscle dude.
This chapter isn’t over yet ^.^, click next page to keep reading!
Destiny Mentor retreated in defeat, finally pulling out his go-to tool and getting ready to divine the future. Some fortune tellers use turtle shells, some use the eight trigrams, some use slips, stickers, or tickets as props—but Qian Kun’s tool is way trendier: a smartphone. The boy opened up some mysterious app, then started shaking his phone up, down, left, right, just like WeChat Shake, complete with dice-rolling sound effects. After a moment, he stopped, stared at the screen, and announced confidently, "We’ll have a clue any minute now!"
"Old Geng?" Just as he finished, Su Yue came running over: "Heard this morning that someone was acting nuts by the lake, blasting spell chants from a speaker. I figured it had something to do with you—turns out I was right! What are you up to?"
"Don’t slander me! It wasn’t me, the noise was all his doing." Jack Young quickly cleared his name, then took a careful look at classmate Geng. Her round face turned a little red under his gaze, and she shyly said, "What are you staring at?"
"Nothing, just suddenly realized our Student Council President might actually be useful."
Having connections in high places really does make things easier. Jack Young didn’t plan to tell Geng about the "haunting," but getting some info on the side was no problem. Especially since campus ghost stories spread among girls way faster and hotter than among guys who only care about League of Legends. As the top boss of the school’s biggest reservoir of girl resources, Geng was also a pro at campus legends.
"Senior from year four? Oh, I know, that one’s pretty spooky." Sure enough, Geng immediately dropped some intel: "He was a senior four years above me—his class graduated just as we enrolled. Since it happened right before we started, we heard all kinds of rumors during freshman boot camp. It was so creepy, some people didn’t dare cross Breakup Bridge for a while."
According to Geng, here’s what went down.
During the graduation season of Geng’s freshman year—around May or June 2012—a tragedy struck. A senior about to graduate died in the campus artificial lake. No one knows the details; that night, a promising young man about to step into society lost his life. "That lake is super shallow, barely any water most of the time—you can even see the bottom sometimes. No one gets how it happened. Rumor is, he was at a graduation party, got drunk, jumped in the lake, and never came back up."
Sudden deaths are always a shame. Geng said she’d ask upperclassmen if anyone knew more, then waved goodbye to the trio. She still had class and couldn’t hang around.
"Graduation season, drunk, fell in the lake?" Jack Young mused. "And the senior keeps muttering 'graduation... graduation...'—could it be, he couldn’t handle breaking up at graduation and took his own life?"
"Easy fix!" Ethan Zhuo clapped his hands. "All we gotta do is find his ex-girlfriend, toss her in the lake, and—"
Wham! Eat my hand chop!
This ghost-fearing guy’s totally useless now—just throw him out as trash! Still, he’s not wrong: we don’t have any leads yet, but we should look for someone who knows more about the Lake Spirit. With such stubborn lingering regrets, maybe there’s some injustice behind it. If we find a clue, maybe we can help settle things.
"Destiny Mentor, keep divining. Mind Mentor, go chat people up and gather intel—make use of your charm. I’ll check out the scene!" With everyone assigned, Jack Young headed back to the lake. His sharp eyes could easily see through the shallow artificial lake, but just to be safe, he pressed his hand to the water to investigate.
Touch-sense detection, Ming Jade True Qi, synchronized vibration!
Buzz—a wave of mechanical vibration mixed with True Qi rippled out. This was the new version of contact-based detection. Compared to plain old physical waves, the Ming Jade True Qi upgrade offered more precise, deeper probing—at least, in theory. But in practice, since acquired True Qi isn’t exactly top-notch in quality or control, it mostly relies on touch-sense detection, with True Qi just playing a supporting role.
Still, even mechanical wave detection alone was more than enough right now.