I Raise My Wife in a Supernatural Story (Infinite) - Chapter 36

A crooked class plaque hung above the front door with the words “Class 8-1” etched into it.

Students in their second year of junior high are typically between 14 and 15 years old. At that age, conflicts can be as trivial as a playground spat or as devastating as a life-altering trauma. Given the bone-deep hatred Ling Yi harbored for his classmates, Qi Yan immediately drew a connection to school bullying.

Looking at Ling Yi’s frail, thin appearance, he was the textbook definition of a target. However, death seemed to have twisted his personality; as a ghost, he was far more domineering, tyrannical, and malicious than he likely ever was in life.

Under Qi Yan’s direction, Bai Qing rummaged through the classroom. They quickly located Ling Yi’s desk in a dusty corner. The tiny ragdoll hopped impatiently onto the desk and began flipping through the textbooks and notebooks left behind.

Bai Qing flipped through a few pages herself. “Is this how you people study these days?”

“More or less,” Qi Yan replied, her eyes scanning a textbook. “Judging by the edition, these kids are a few years younger than me. I remember using the old versions in junior high; this looks like the updated curriculum.”

The textbooks held little of value, mostly just scribbles and doodles. Occasionally, Ling Yi had scrawled messy lines of text that read like a fragmented diary.

In life, Ling Yi had been poor. His parents were workers at a chemical plant who both passed away early due to chemical exposure. The factory had brushed the relatives off with a pittance of compensation. Ling Yi, only in elementary school at the time, was left to live with his grandparents. The compensation was barely enough to survive, forcing his grandparents to scavenge for recyclables to keep the three of them fed.

By the time he reached junior high, the volatile nature of adolescence took hold. Qi Yan remembered that age well, the time when rebellious streaks flared and the tough kids looked for someone to step on. It started with mocking nicknames or social isolation, but it often escalated into physical brawls and, eventually, systemic bullying.

Qi Yan recalled her own school days. There was a girl and a boy who had been ostracized by the entire class. She couldn’t remember the exact reason, it might have been as simple as their appearance, but by the time she realized what was happening, the mockery had become a daily ritual for everyone. While it wasn’t bullying in the physical sense, three years of isolation was enough to shatter anyone’s spirit.

Ling Yi’s experience, however, was clearly much darker. The jagged notes in his books painted a picture of two years of hell. It wasn’t just isolation; he was robbed, beaten, and even subjected to sexual harassment and assault. The ringleader of these atrocities was the head of a small clique, a boy Ling Yi only referred to as “X.”

The records were vague, and Qi Yan had to piece the narrative together from fragments. Ling Yi had never used the boy’s real name, choosing the alias “X” instead.

Qi Yan often read widely to find inspiration for her comics, and her familiarity with mystery novels gave her several theories. “X” could be an initial, a symbol for a suspect or criminal, or perhaps a private designation known only to Ling Yi. Without a name, she couldn’t identify him, she didn’t recognize a single face in this class.

She also noted that the two girls, Ranran and Yanyan, were nowhere to be seen. It seemed they weren’t part of Ling Yi’s specific story, despite being co-bosses of this dungeon. Then again, she remembered they wore the same uniform. They likely went to the same school but were in different classes or grades.

Why didn’t they appear together? Qi Yan mused that their stories were distinct; in Ling Yi’s world, the other two children didn’t play a role. They might not have even known each other in life.

She pushed thoughts of the girls aside. Ling Yi was the priority.

As they searched, the noise outside intensified. It wasn’t just human screaming anymore; there was a strange, invasive screeching and the frantic thrum of wings beating against the air.

Qi Yan hopped from a desk into Bai Qing’s arms. “Let’s head out.”

“You’re done with the clues?”

Qi Yan shook her head. “We’ve flipped every desk. There’s nothing else here. Let’s see what’s happening outside.”

“Fine.”

Bai Qing held her securely, using her spiritual power to levitate slightly as she drifted out of the room.

The hallway was now a graveyard. Several bodies lay sprawled across the floor, not just the ones from the initial stampede. The two leaned in to inspect one. Bai Qing frowned, crouching down.

The body was unrecognizable. Only the hair length and build suggested it was a boy. His uniform had been shredded into bloody rags, and his flesh was a mangled mess.

Qi Yan used her stubby doll hand to cover her nose, fighting back a wave of nausea. “The smell, I think I’m going to puke!”

Bai Qing was much calmer, observing the blood splatter on the floor. “It looks similar to the victims on the roller coaster, total carnage.” She pointed to a pool of blood. “Look, there are bits of flesh here. Something tore these off piece by piece.”

“Ugh! Please stop talking!” Qi Yan gagged.

Bai Qing shot her a glance. “You’ll see more of this in the future. You need to get used to it.”

“I don’t want to! I’m not a forensic pathologist!”

Bai Qing stood up and carried her away from the stench. “You’re a manga artist. You can put these vivid experiences into your work. I’m sure people would love to read it.”

Once the air cleared, Qi Yan took a deep breath. “I’ll take your word for it, but let’s just get out of here first. Did you see anything useful?”

Bai Qing didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she tilted her head. “Listen to those wings.”

“I hear them! Birds? What kind? There are so many.”

“Vultures.”

“What?”

“Vultures, specifically, man-eaters.”

Qi Yan thought for a second. “Scavengers? The ones that eat carcasses?”

“These vultures attack the living too. They’re rare, usually found in desolate lands. That body we just saw? He was bitten to death and partially eaten while still alive.”

Qi Yan gagged again, turning her head away. “Then we definitely need to avoid them. Ling Yi was a quiet kid in life, but he’s turned into a monster. He’s literally tearing his classmates apart.”

Bai Qing snorted. “If you’re bullied that badly, it’s only natural to strike back once you have the power. An eye for an eye.”

As a demon, Bai Qing lived by a code of direct retribution. In her past, when she was just a small fox, she was nearly killed by a hunter before being saved by an old man gathering wood. She never forgot that debt and eventually found the man’s reincarnation to repay him.

But as a weak spirit, she had also suffered. Nine-tailed snow foxes were rare, and those with heterochromatic eyes were even rarer. Legend among cultivators and demons claimed that a single tail could grant a century of power, and their bones could be forged into legendary weapons. Gouging out the eyes of a heterochromatic fox could bypass hundreds of years of cultivation.

Consequently, Bai Qing had spent her early years being hunted by both humans and demons alike. She lived in a state of constant, bone-deep vigilance, terrified of becoming someone else’s prize. She was constantly wounded, hiding in shadows, and training desperately to survive. Her natural talent eventually made her the strongest of her kind, and once she attained that power, she sought out every soul that had ever harmed her.

Through their spiritual bond, Qi Yan caught glimpses of these memories. She saw the snow-white fox covered in scars, hiding, bleeding, and fighting just to see the next sunrise.

Qi Yan placed a small hand on Bai Qing’s arm. “You were too kind to those villains. Some of them you killed with a single stroke, that’s too easy on them. You should take a page out of Ling Yi’s book. Now this is how you get revenge!”

She waved her stubby arms, her beaded eyes wide and serious. The sight was unexpectedly adorable.

Bai Qing blinked, her expression softening. She had expected the human girl to find her methods cruel, but here she was, cheering her on.

“I thought you’d find Ling Yi’s methods too extreme.”

“Extreme or not, it’s a private matter. Human society has laws, but he’s a ghost now, laws don’t exactly apply to the afterlife.”

They chatted as they walked, eventually reaching the restrooms. A small, pitch-black corridor branched off near the toilets. Qi Yan gestured for Bai Qing to head inside. At the very end, hidden in the shadows, was a door.

“What a perfect spot for doing dirty deeds,” Bai Qing remarked.

Qi Yan agreed. She looked up to see if there was a light, only to see a bruised, purple face stuck to the ceiling. It stared down with pitch-black eyes and a wide, unnatural grin.

“AH!” Qi Yan shrieked.

Bai Qing’s eyes sharpened. She threw a wave of spiritual energy upward, and the face vanished instantly, dissipated by the force.

“Holy crap, that scared me!” Qi Yan clutched Bai Qing’s sleeve. “Did you see? Was that that little brat Ling Yi?”

The face had been distorted, bruised, eyeless, and grinning, and Qi Yan hadn’t been able to tell for sure.

Bai Qing nodded. “Likely. It looked like his corpse form. His face was purple, and there was blood on his forehead, though I didn’t get a good look.”

Before Qi Yan could finish complaining about Ling Yi’s antics, the sound of the vultures intensified. In the blink of an eye, a swarm of them dived into the narrow corridor, heading straight for their faces.

“Quick! Get inside!” Qi Yan shouted, patting Bai Qing’s arm frantically.

Bai Qing frowned at the approaching birds, her aura surging as she prepared to fight them head-on.

“Don’t fight them! Just go in!” Qi Yan cried. “I don’t want to be bitten into a shredded ragdoll!”

Annoyed by the noise, Bai Qing threw out a gust of wind to knock back the lead vultures, then twisted the door handle and ducked into the small room with Qi Yan.

A rhythmic thumping sound began immediately. The vultures weren’t giving up easily.

Bai Qing stood by the door, her irritation growing with every peck. She wanted nothing more than to walk out and slaughter them all, but she couldn’t leave Qi Yan alone.

Qi Yan, however, had gone still. The moment they entered the room, she was pulled into a vision. The dim storehouse transformed. She saw four or five boys surrounding Ling Yi in the corner, laughing and hurling vile insults at him.

The vision shifted rapidly. She saw the boys forcing Ling Yi to his knees. Then, the boy standing in front of him began to unfasten his trousers.

Qi Yan snapped out of it with a violent shudder. The pecking at the door had subsided; it seemed some of the vultures had lost patience.

“We need to go to the teacher’s office,” Qi Yan said, tugging at Bai Qing’s sleeve. “I know who the wolf is.”

In matters of strategy, Bai Qing trusted Qi Yan implicitly. The End-Mountain Sacrifice had proven that the kiddo had a sharp mind and plenty of schemes.

“Fine. Let’s go now.”

“Now? But outside.”

Before Qi Yan could finish, Bai Qing unsheathed her sword and cleaved the door open in a single stroke. The few remaining vultures tried to rush in, only to be sliced out of the air by a massive wave of sword intent.

Clad in a junior high uniform and wielding a legendary blade, Bai Qing stepped out into the hall. The look was, in every sense, utterly ridiculous.

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