Her Immortal Love - Chapter 1

Qin Changsheng walked past a sewer well near the university with her friend.

Several caution tapes were stretched around the sewer well. People coming and going nearby seemed completely unfazed by it. Qin Changsheng cast a casual glance in that direction but didn’t ask any questions.

This wasn’t a prestigious 985 or 211 university but a private, elite institution. In Qin Changsheng’s words, diplomas from such private universities weren’t widely recognized, and the students attending these elite schools didn’t seem to need a diploma to make a living anyway.

They were all just drifting through their days, living aimlessly.

The university had several gates. Outside the north gate, which faced the city’s most bustling area, turning left led to a street lined with hotels and daily rental apartments. Groups of younger female students and handsome senior boys walked arm in arm, already enjoying what they imagined to be the ideal university life.

Turning right, a string of food stalls offered everything from local snacks to seafood barbecue and Korean cuisine. Even as late as one or two in the morning, vendors could still be found grilling skewers here.

Her friend was utterly surprised that Qin Changsheng had come to such an ordinary place to hang out with her. After all, Qin Changsheng was the quintessential homebody. Since childhood, she rarely went out. By the time she started high school, she was already wearing glasses, thick, round frames that resembled the bottom of a bottle, and she would instinctively adjust them on the bridge of her nose whenever she spoke.

She and Qin Changsheng had once lived in the same neighborhood and walked to and from school together. Later, for reasons unknown, Qin Changsheng’s entire family moved to Chengdu.

They still kept in touch occasionally, updating each other on their lives through QQ and WeChat.

The two of them randomly picked a self-service barbecue joint on the food street outside the university and went upstairs to take their seats. The young girl who came to light the griddle and hotpot seemed to be a part-time university student hired by the restaurant. Her movements were clumsy, her words nervous, and her hands trembled so much that she failed to light the fire several times.

Seeing the girl’s shaky hands, Qin Changsheng deftly rolled up her sleeves and said, “Let me do it.” With a few quick moves, she had the fire going.

The girl blushed, nodded at Qin Changsheng, and whispered a thank you.

With the fire lit and the temperature rising, the meat and vegetables on the oiled paper began to sizzle. Xu Jing arranged the meat strips on the griddle with tongs, set the tongs aside, and pouted at Qin Changsheng. “Alright, out with it. Why are you here? Did you piss off your grandpa again and sneak out?”

Back when they were classmates, Xu Jing had stayed at Qin Changsheng’s house for a few days. Her family consisted of five people: a stern grandfather, a mother who was an exceptional cook, a father who worked overtime constantly, and an older brother studying in the U.S. whom Xu Jing had never met.

Though they lived in the same neighborhood, Qin Changsheng’s family was far wealthier than Xu Jing’s, there was no comparison. Their home was practically a small villa, with each family member having their own study. When Xu Jing visited, Qin Changsheng’s grandfather even instructed her to clear out a room used for storage and set up a bedroom for Xu Jing.

Qin Changsheng had always been very obedient, but she was especially afraid of her grandfather. Once, during middle school, while chatting about something or other, Qin Changsheng described her grandfather to Xu Jing as “like a monster that crawled out of a coffin.”

Xu Jing still remembered how calm Qin Changsheng had looked back then, instinctively adjusting the thick round-framed glasses on her nose bridge.

Not long after, the Qin family moved away. When Xu Jing concernedly asked the reason on QQ, Qin Changsheng simply replied that her father had been promoted and transferred to Chengdu, so they were moving to where his new job was.

In Xu Jing’s memory, Qin Changsheng almost never went out, always buried in books. She was quite tall, delicate and pretty, but always maintained a calm and reticent demeanor. Her movements were light and swift, like a pale little vampire.

Xu Jing had only been teasing her with the question, but Qin Changsheng smiled and replied, “My grandfather died long ago.”

Xu Jing instinctively gasped, then immediately fell silent, feeling it was impolite to ask such things. Just as she was awkwardly searching for words, Qin Changsheng shook her head: “It’s fine. He’s been dead for several years.”

People came and went around them, oil sizzling on the parchment paper. Xu Jing hummed in acknowledgment, then propped her chin in her hands and said, “You didn’t come here just to hang out with me, did you? This crappy place doesn’t even have a scenic spot, and it’s not particularly lively. Changsheng, you never used to go out before. And when did you stop wearing glasses? When I first saw your face without them, I almost didn’t recognize you!”

Qin Changsheng watched the boiling oil in the pot and said indifferently, “I’m wearing contact lenses.”

For a moment, the atmosphere grew heavy. Qin Changsheng seemed lost in thought and didn’t offer further explanation. Unable to find another topic, Xu Jing asked, “Changsheng, are you dating anyone? You’re so beautiful, you must be the campus goddess at university. You must be seeing someone. Is he handsome?”

She had intended to lighten the mood with small talk, but Qin Changsheng slowly looked up with a somewhat helpless, wry smile. Turning her face away, she said softly to Xu Jing, “Xu Jing, I heard there was a terrifying story at your school recently, about a dead person in the sewer. Tell me about it.”

They sat by the window in the self-service hot pot restaurant. Steam rose with the oily mist, leaving every surface greasy. The windowsill was coated with a hazy film of oil stains. From where she sat, Qin Changsheng could only see crowds of people bustling around the food stalls below.

Xu Jing looked at Qin Changsheng hesitantly and muttered, “That story is horrifying. Besides, someone really died. If I tell you, it might disrespect the deceased.”

Qin Changsheng picked up her chopsticks and served herself some food. “She’s already dead. What are you afraid of?”

Seeing Qin Changsheng’s nonchalant expression, Xu Jing leaned forward curiously and lowered her voice. “Such a big incident happened at our school, our forum and social media were flooded. But within a day, the authorities suppressed it. Our homeroom teacher said if we dare discuss it privately again, we’ll get a formal warning. You can’t even find anything about it online now. How did you hear about it?”

Qin Changsheng twirled her chopsticks and smiled at her. “I heard it from someone.”

“Who did you hear it from?”

“From someone.”

“Who is ‘someone’?”

“A dead person.”

Xu Jing let out a soft “oh” before saying to Qin Changsheng, “I’ve only heard about this from others. That day, the construction crew was working on improving the cable pipelines in the sewer when they fished out a dead body. Honestly, it was terrifying. I heard the girl died a gruesome death, her body had been soaking in the water for a long time, one of her eyeballs had fallen out, and a thick layer of bluish-gray corpse wax had formed on the surface. But I also heard from others that the girl wasn’t exactly known for having a good character, so to this day, no one knows for sure who killed her.”

As she spoke, she leaned forward slightly. But in that very instant, Xu Jing felt as if someone had blown a cold breath against the back of her neck. In the sweltering hot pot restaurant, she shuddered reflexively, let out a small gasp, and reached behind to touch her nape.

Qin Changsheng glanced at the empty space beside her, his expression cold, as if issuing a warning. Xu Jing turned her head, reaching around to feel her neck. The moment her fingers touched the dampness, she was utterly startled. “Oh my god! Where did this water come from?”

Qin Changsheng quickly reassured her, “Look around, there are air conditioners everywhere. When the cold air from the ceiling meets the warm air, it condenses into water droplets. You’ve studied natural sciences, why are you so easily spooked?”

Xu Jing was only half-convinced, but she managed to calm down a little. She glanced around the bustling, crowded restaurant, thinking to herself that in broad daylight, there couldn’t possibly be any ghosts. Gathering her courage, she continued, “Actually, that’s just one version I’ve heard. There’s another one.”

Qin Changsheng seemed intrigued and asked with interest, “What’s the other version?”

Xu Jing thought for a moment, leaned in closer, and said slowly, “Well, even though our rundown town doesn’t have any national 5A-level tourist attractions, we do have some ordinary scenic spots. Over there, behind our school, about ten li away, there’s a mountain range called Ji Mountain. It’s incredibly tall, even taller than Mount Emei in Sichuan.”

She pointed in that direction, and Qin Changsheng followed her gesture. In the distance, a towering, undulating mountain range pierced through the clouds, resembling a giant brown bamboo shoot shooting straight into the sky.

Seeing Qin Changsheng’s gaze fixed on the lofty peak, Xu Jing lowered her voice mysteriously and said, “So, here’s what I heard. A few months ago, that girl, along with her roommates and a few close friends from class, went hiking on Jishan Mountain. But somehow, after the group descended, they did a headcount and realized she was missing. Isn’t that strange? Why would they only notice she was gone after coming down? There weren’t that many people, only about seven or eight. It should’ve been obvious if someone was missing, yet they genuinely didn’t realize until they were back at the foot of the mountain.”

Qin Changsheng hummed in acknowledgment, clearly listening attentively. Xu Jing also picked up a piece of meat, brought it to her mouth, and after chewing and swallowing it, continued, “I heard that girl didn’t get along well with them, but there was a very beautiful girl in her dorm who was quite close to her. The boys wanted to invite the beautiful girl, so they had no choice but to bring her along. Actually, we all speculated privately that the boys disliked her and wanted to mess with her on purpose, so they deliberately left her behind on the mountain.”

Qin Changsheng stopped twirling her chopsticks between her fingers and tapped them lightly on the table, looking somewhat puzzled. “That doesn’t make sense. If that girl was so close to the beautiful girl in her dorm, why didn’t the beautiful girl step in to stop the boys from leaving her behind?”

Xu Jing was momentarily stumped by the question. She stammered, “You don’t understand. I heard that girl’s character was truly awful. The beautiful girl treated her really well, always looking out for her, but she even slapped the beautiful girl on the mountain.”

Qin Changsheng glanced briefly at the empty space beside her and nodded, indicating she was still listening, and decided to set aside that doubt for now. “So, what happened next?”

Xu Jing lowered her voice and said, “Then that girl was left alone on the mountain. You know how vast that mountain is, and cell signals are often lost. After the boys came down, they waited for two days, but the girl neither called nor returned. When the school checked the dorms, she was marked for staying out overnight without permission, and they kept quiet about it. Later, when the school needed to access her file to process the penalty, they realized she had to be present. That’s when they discovered she had been missing for a week.”

The surrounding chatter seemed to fade away. Xu Jing lowered her voice even further and whispered, “The school searched for a long time, called her family to ask if she had gone home, and even reported it to the police. When they questioned the last people who had seen her, they finally learned that the girl had been missing on the mountain for over a week.”

The school then organized numerous search and rescue teams, repeatedly sending people up the mountain, even deploying helicopters. But despite combing through the entire Jishan Mountain, they found no trace of the girl.

Since no body was found, the school didn’t dare report her as deceased. They continued organizing rescue efforts and even searched the surrounding villages and towns, hoping she had simply taken a wrong turn and ended up somewhere else.

Then, nearly a month later, the school arranged for a construction team to repair and improve the underground water pipelines. This was because, on the night the group of boys abandoned the girl and returned to school from Jishan, the female dormitories near the edge of the campus collectively reported that their tap water pressure had significantly dropped.

Due to the school’s habitual procrastination and the timing coinciding with the punishment of the missing girl, the school did not take the matter seriously. Nearly a month later, they finally organized a team to inspect the water pipeline issue. Beneath the manhole cover on the road outside the school, twisted and coiled water pipes and cables lay hidden. Several young, strong construction workers lifted the heavy cover together and looked down, only to find the girl entangled among them. Her hand, raised high, was already rotting and decayed, frozen in the position of knocking on the heavy concrete manhole cover until her last breath.

There was no light in the shaft. She had groped around, accidentally breaking a thick water pipe, and had no choice but to drink from the gushing tap water daily. She futilely stepped on the pipes and knocked on the heavy concrete cover. But the cover was too weighty, trampled by thousands and passed by tens of thousands, with at least hundreds of cars speeding over it every day. Even if she knocked with all her might, the noise she made was drowned out by the bustling clamor from the street food stalls nearby.

Day and night, she kept knocking on that cover. Yet no one noticed the person just a wall away. Abandoned and ignored by all, she died in that dark place.

She listened to the lively commotion outside while knocking on the concrete cover in despair and solitude. Until her final moment, her hand remained entangled in the thin cables above, locked in that same posture.

Qin Changsheng set down his chopsticks. Xu Jing, who had been telling the story, shuddered and broke out in goosebumps herself. Lowering her voice urgently, she said, “Why talk about something like this during a meal? I haven’t scared you, but I’ve terrified myself!”

Qin Changsheng looked at her steadily and asked, “What did the girl who died look like?”

Xu Jing thought for a moment and replied slowly, “I’ve seen her before. She was quite heavy, a bit shorter than you, around 160 cm tall, and weighed about 134 pounds.”

Qin Changsheng nodded lightly and quickly, glancing briefly at the empty space beside him before saying slowly, “I see. Let’s eat quickly, the meat is about to burn.”

Only then did Xu Jing lower her head and hurriedly pick up her chopsticks. “It’s all your fault, making me tell such a scary story as soon as you arrived. I was so frightened I forgot the meat was grilling.”