Chapter 156: [Passing the Imperial Examination] Murderous Intent Rising
Bai Cha retrieved the pinhole camera.
However, she didn’t pack it up right away. Instead, she swung the lens toward the notebook beneath the living room table.
Controlling a split tendril of her dodder vine, she flipped the notebook open.
There was no time to analyze the names in detail, so she quickly swept over every single page with the lens.
After all, there was no guarantee how long the person inside would take to burn incense.
Once that was done, she pushed the notebook back to its original spot, then used the camera to do a thorough, meticulous sweep of the entire living room.
Only then did Bai Cha pull the pinhole camera out through the window, carefully closing the tiny crack in the glass back up.
Having done all this, Bai Cha still had to coil the dodder vine around her waist. Since she was wearing a summer school uniform, her arms were exposed.
This was a minor drawback of the current dodder vine skill: unless she severed the tendril, she had no choice but to temporarily wrap it around her body.
Severing it, however, felt like a bit of a waste.
Fortunately, this tendril wasn’t overly long yet.
Bai Cha shifted her legs slightly; crouching for so long had left them somewhat numb.
She scanned her surroundings with utmost caution, confirming that no one was watching, before quietly stepping out of the greenery.
From there, she walked casually through the neighborhood.
Upon returning home, Bai Cha quietly unlocked the door.
No matter how careful she was, however, making some sound was inevitable.
Han Yingying manifested in the living room almost instantaneously.
Bai Cha closed the door with care, hung the keys back up, and even adjusted their positions to ensure they hung exactly as they had before she took them.
“Is Mom awake?”
Han Yingying shook her head.
“Her phone rang once in the middle of it, which scared me… so, um… I blocked my mom’s ears.”
A ghost’s basic, universal skill set: deceive, obscure, and frighten.
This “obscuring” wasn’t limited to sight alone; it could block out all five senses entirely.
For Han Yingying, keeping Mother Han in a deep slumber was actually effortless.
Yet she also felt a pang of shame, feeling as though she were letting her mother down.
“Thank you for your hard work. I’m really sorry—that was my oversight.”
Bai Cha immediately offered an apologetic, remorseful expression.
Han Yingying waved her hands in a hurry, her shame instantly vanishing. She was doing this for her mother’s own good, and she hadn’t harmed her—she was simply letting her sleep.
“No, Sister! You went out all for my sake. Did you find anything?”
Han Yingying was quite curious.
“Hard to say, but I think there might be something suspicious about your death,” Bai Cha said softly as she walked back into her bedroom.
Based on the clues that had surfaced so far, Han Yingying’s death was by no means a simple suicide. Or rather, she indeed died by suicide, but… what if she had genuinely possessed the ability to get into a good university in the first place?
Han Yingying froze.
She didn’t register the meaning behind those words right away. Only after a long pause did she slip into the bedroom after her.
“Sister… what do you mean? How… how could there be something wrong with my death? I’m the one who wanted to die…”
Bai Cha pondered for a moment before shaking her head.
“Don’t panic just yet, I’m not entirely certain either.”
Opening her personal interface, she replayed the recorded video footage.
Her focus centered mainly on that final notebook.
The pages of the notebook were densely packed with a roster of names.
Organized into four columns, a prominent arrow sat right in the middle:
[Parent] [Child] $\rightarrow$ [Child] [Parent]
Names corresponded beneath each label.
Bai Cha pressed the pause button, scanning through the entries name by name.
Upon reaching a certain page, she caught sight of Han Hong-mei and Han Yingying.
[Han Hong-mei] [Han Yingying] $\rightarrow$ [Chen Tian-ci] [Chen Jian-yu]
Bai Cha looked at this row of names, deep in thought.
When the middle-aged man was on the phone earlier, he had addressed the caller as Boss Chen.
He was inquiring about how the man’s son had been scoring lately.
This made it obvious: the son’s grades hadn’t been good initially, but began improving after seeking out this charlatan. Now, the man was calling to check in because Han Yingying’s scores had suddenly shot up on her end…
The implication was glaringly obvious.
Han Yingying’s life had been stolen.
It was hard to say for the moment whether the man had used something akin to the “brain swap” she had casually made up, or a life swap, or perhaps a fate swap.
In any case, if Han Yingying’s scores improved, the other party’s scores were very likely to run into trouble.
And conversely… wouldn’t the other party pass the college entrance exam with flying colors?
Bai Cha did another thorough inspection of the middle-aged man’s apartment layout in the video.
The interior was cluttered because it held a massive quantity of items.
Looking closely, however, it wasn’t actually messy; there were simply stacked rows upon rows of boxes.
Some were gift boxes sent by others, while many carried no discernible labels.
Near the kitchen area stood a massive stack of medicinal herbs.
She could confirm this because one of the large crates stood wide open.
The contents inside were clearly raw herbs.
In all likelihood, these were the very medicines the parents forced down their children’s throats.
“Yingying.”
Han Yingying sat obediently by the edge of the bed. She had opened her mouth several times wanting to speak, only to check herself each time.
Hearing Bai Cha call her name, she responded in a flash.
“Sister, you called me?”
“Mhm. Did you mention the cheating plan to your classmates?”
Han Yingying hesitated: “I haven’t had the chance to bring it up yet. I only told them we’d talk tomorrow.”
“Then let’s set that aside for now. There’s something far more important I need to tell you first.”
Bai Cha closed her interface, looking at her with a sympathetic, gentle gaze.
Yet when paired with her upcoming words, that gentle gaze was brutally cruel.
Because she said, “In truth, you could have gotten into a university and satisfied your mother on your own, but your life was stolen from you.”
BOOM!
Han Yingying felt as if something had exploded inside her head—much like the moment she leaped from the thirty-something floor, wind roaring violently past her ears.
Her body began to tremble, blood-red tears streaming from her eyes as her ghostly aura surged outward instantaneously.
There was far too much weight behind those words.
She couldn’t control herself.
She couldn’t even manage proper speech, low, guttural snarls tearing from her throat the moment she opened her mouth.
Yet amidst this chaotic frenzy, a hand reached out to gently stroke her mangled cheek.
“Don’t give in to grief just yet. We need to protect your mother first.”
Han Yingying choked on her breath.
She forced herself to calm down rapidly.
“Sister, what do you mean? I… my… why do you say my life was stolen? And my mom…”
She clutched Bai Cha’s hand, consumed by desperate anxiety.
Bai Cha felt an icy, bone-chilling pain radiate through her wrist.
Not showing a hint of it on her face, she spoke in a soft voice: “What I’m saying right now is just my theory for the moment, but I do have some evidence.”
“I found a roster in the room of your mother’s parents’ group owner. The roster listed your name, as well as the names of Chen Feiguang, Wang Jiapeng, and the others. Or rather, every single one of you who died and came here should have a record of your name on it.”
“After I took over playing your role, my scores became exceptionally good. I had you deliver those notes, intentionally prompting their parents to seek out that group owner, because I wanted to see what was up with him…”
“What I didn’t expect was that upon learning ‘Han Yingying’s’ scores had improved, he panicked and immediately placed a phone call to someone. And that caller’s surname matched the surname of the person paired with your name on the roster.”
Han Yingying’s power began to flare out of control once more.
“So… so…”
Bai Cha let out a soft sigh.
“So I suspect that perhaps none of you were meant to die. You were supposed to have your own lives. Even if we don’t talk about getting into top-tier universities, you certainly wouldn’t have failed to make the cut entirely.”
In an instant, murderous intent erupted from Han Yingying.
