Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 74 Yesterday's Song
The trip to the seaside was like a brief yet dazzling dream, leaving a warm, almost unreal, imprint on Bai Yu's heart. When they returned to the bustling, vibrant city, his heart, which had always felt detached like an outsider, began to feel a sense of belonging. The boundless blue sea and the image of his parents embracing tightly in the sunset firmly bound his wandering soul to this harbor filled with ordinary happiness.

Junior high school life was much busier and more fulfilling than elementary school. The mountains of textbooks, the increasingly heavy academic pressure, and the teenage anxieties that sprouted like mushrooms after rain after entering puberty, all formed a huge and intricate net that completely occupied his time and energy.

He remained the teacher's top student and the unattainable "academic genius" in his classmates' eyes. His name always occupied the top spot on the grade's honor roll, and trophies and certificates from various academic competitions piled up like a small mountain on his desk. He seemed omnipotent; no matter how complex the physics model or how obscure the classical literature, he could understand it in the shortest amount of time and then reinterpret it in his own way, in a more concise and efficient form.

However, the loneliness and alienation that stemmed from the depths of his soul remained unchanged. He still disliked participating in any group activities and still couldn't learn how to socialize effectively with his peers. He was like a distant star hanging alone in the night sky, bright yet radiating a cold aura that kept people at a distance.

Those around him had long been accustomed to his "special" nature. His parents, with their love full of tolerance and understanding, continued to create a warm haven for him where he could breathe freely. They never forced him to do anything he didn't like, nor did they ever compare him to other "normal" children. They simply and quietly protected his inner world, a world he didn't want to be disturbed by outsiders, in their own way.

However, beneath the calm surface of the lake, undercurrents were surging silently.

After entering puberty, those fragments of memories that he had forcibly suppressed deep in his soul began to resurface in his dreams.

He began to have frequent, bizarre nightmares.

He would dream that he was in an opera house filled with classical atmosphere, where a woman in a black evening dress was looking down at him with greedy eyes, talking about "games" and "choices".

He would dream of walking on ruins shrouded in a thick gray fog, the air thick with the scent of nothingness and oblivion. He would see several indistinct comrades, engaged in a doomed battle against an incomprehensible, terrifying being. He could clearly feel the profound powerlessness and despair that seeped into his very bones.

He would even dream that another "self" lived inside his body. An elegant and proud "self." That "self" would discuss profound topics about "art" and "aesthetics" with him in a playful tone, and ridicule everything in the world that he considered "vulgar" and "boring."

Each time Bai Yu awoke from such a nightmare, he would be drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding uncontrollably. The realism and cruelty he felt in the dream made him doubt and fear the peace and happiness he currently possessed.

He started having insomnia.

In countless quiet nights, he would quietly get up, walk to the window, and gaze silently at the night sky outside, bathed in the orange glow of the streetlights. He would stretch out his right hand and unconsciously draw an eye on the cold glass, an eye woven from countless twisted lines, a strange symbol resembling a constantly spinning vortex.

He didn't know why he drew this symbol; he only knew that each time he drew it, his heart, restless from nightmares, would find a brief moment of peace. It was as if the symbol itself had some profound and inseparable connection with his soul.

His unusual behavior naturally did not escape his parents' notice.

They didn't directly ask him about the content of his nightmares, because they knew that the child harbored a secret that even he himself couldn't understand. They simply tried to dispel the growing gloom between his brows with gentler and more patient companionship.

The father began spending more time with his son in the study, researching profound books about the origin of the universe, parallel universes, and quantum mechanics. He tried to find a reasonable explanation for his son's bizarre dreams using scientific and rational methods.

His mother would put aside everything else and play "Moonlight Sonata" for him on every sleepless night, a song that could soothe everything. The melodious piano music was like his mother's gentle hand, softly smoothing the wrinkles in his soul caused by nightmares.

Under the gentle care of her parents, Bai Yu's heart, which had been shaken by the nightmare, was once again pulled back into this "reality" full of warmth and truth.

He began to convince himself that those so-called nightmares might simply be caused by the overwhelming academic pressure of adolescence and his own overly vivid imagination. After all, how could incomprehensible monsters really exist in this world?
He began to learn to "forget" those nightmares and to devote all his energy to the real world that was within his reach.

……

At the age of sixteen, Bai Yu entered high school.

With his undeniable talent and almost superhuman learning ability, he unsurprisingly entered the "rocket class" of this provincial key high school. Everyone here was a prodigy from all over the city.

However, even in such an environment teeming with geniuses, Bai Yu remained the most dazzling presence. His brilliance was even more radiant than ever before. It was as if, after he had "forgotten" the nightmares that had once plagued him, he had instead released all the mental energy that should have been consumed.

He was no longer content with just the knowledge in textbooks. He began to devour the wisdom of all fields in the history of human civilization with an almost greedy attitude. From Einstein's theory of relativity to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; from Shakespeare's sonnets to Van Gogh's Starry Night... his brain, like a supercomputer, integrated these seemingly unrelated pieces of knowledge in a wonderful way, constructing a vast and logically beautiful personal knowledge system.

His reclusiveness was also given a completely new definition in this new environment—"the loneliness of a genius".

He was no longer the ostracized "monster," but had become an "idol" admired and worshipped by countless people.

Every day, his desk would be stuffed with all sorts of love letters and gifts. Walking around campus, there would always be some bold girls who would blush and try to say a word or two to him.

However, Bai Yu remained indifferent to all of this. It was as if there was an insurmountable ice wall in his heart, ruthlessly shutting out all emotions that tried to get close to him.

Until that girl appeared.

Her name is Lin Wan, and she is the arts and culture representative of the class next door. Like her name, she is a gentle, quiet girl, full of scholarly air.

Unlike other girls who would chase after him with almost fanatical eyes, she would simply choose a spot in the library every afternoon, neither too close nor too far from him, and quietly read her book.

She would read the profound philosophical books he read, and even if she only understood a little and her brow was furrowed, she never gave up.

She would quietly place a steaming glass of lemonade on his desk when he lost track of time while pondering a difficult problem, and then, before he noticed, she would run away blushing like a startled deer.

At the school's arts festival, she would quietly sit alone at the grand piano in the center of the stage and play "Moonlight Sonata," a piece he had heard his mother play during countless sleepless nights. Although her playing wasn't as skillful as his mother's, it was equally full of gentle and peaceful power.

Her presence was like an uninvited ray of sunshine, gently and quietly shining into Bai Yu's frozen world.

Bai Yu's heart, accustomed to solitude and tranquility, gradually began to stir because of someone who was not related to her by blood.

He unconsciously began searching for that familiar figure in the library.

He began to look forward to the sweet and sour lemonade on his table every afternoon. He started to unconsciously curl the corners of his mouth upwards with a faint smile when he heard the familiar song "Moonlight Sonata," a smile he himself was unaware of.

This is a dangerous sign.

The last vestige of his soul, the investigator "Bai Yu," was desperately warning him. Once he formed a bond with this "false" world beyond familial affection, there would be no turning back.

He tried to escape, tried to rebuild that ice wall.

He began to deliberately reduce the number of times he went to the library, and when the girl brought him lemonade, he would say to her in a cold and hurtful tone, "Thank you, but no thanks."

However, each of his rejections did not elicit a retreat from the other party, but rather a more careful and protective stance.

She stopped bothering him at the library. Instead, every morning before he arrived, she would quietly place a neatly organized notebook on his desk, containing the topics he was researching.

Instead of bringing him lemonade, she would appear like an angel descending from the sky on every rainy day, when he stepped out of the school gate and realized he hadn't brought an umbrella and was at a loss. She would then shove the umbrella into his hand without a word and run into the misty rain herself.

That almost stubborn tenderness finally pried open Bai Yu's long-sealed heart.

On a rainy evening, as Lin Wan once again shoved the umbrella into his hand and prepared to run away, Bai Yu reached out for the first time and grabbed her cold wrist.

The girl's body stiffened abruptly. She turned around and looked at him with puzzled eyes as clear as a fawn's.

Rain dripped from her hair, wetting her slightly pale cheeks.

Bai Yu didn't speak. He simply opened the umbrella silently and tilted it towards the girl, covering her slender body under its shade.

The two of them gazed at each other silently amidst the pattering rain.

Time seems to stand still at this moment.

In the end, the girl blushed first and lowered her head somewhat embarrassedly.

"I...I'll take you home." Bai Yu heard her own voice was a little dry, but it was unusually clear.

This was the first time he had extended an invitation to an outsider that was considered a "colleague".

That day, the path home, washed clean by the rain, felt both incredibly long and incredibly short.

They walked side by side without saying a word, but the subtle atmosphere between them was more touching than any sweet words.

From then on, Bai Yu's world had one more person with whom he could let down his guard.

They would read books together in the library, watch the sunset together on the hill behind the school, and discuss philosophical questions about the universe and life.

Lin Wan's appearance completely melted the ice in Bai Yu's heart. She added a touch of emotion to his overly rational world.

His nerves, which had been taut from the nightmares, were relaxed like never before with her by his side. Those bizarre dreams appeared less and less frequently, and their content became increasingly vague.

He had almost forgotten the pain and mission that the investigator named "Baiyu" had once carried.

He began to act like a boy in love, his heart racing at the sight of a girl's smile, and tossing and turning all night in anticipation of a small date.

His heart, which should have belonged to a hero, was being filled little by little by this ordinary happiness that belonged to a young boy.

On the day the college entrance examination ended, the whole class held an all-night graduation party at a karaoke bar near the school.

Amidst deafening music and wailing singing, Bai Yu was pushed in front of Lin Wan, whose face was also flushed, by a group of already drunk boys under the pretext of "punishing the academic genius."

"Bai Yu! If you're a man, confess your feelings!"

"Kiss me! Kiss me!"

Under everyone's gaze, Bai Yu looked at the girl in front of him who had her head bowed low with shyness, and his usually calm heart stirred with an emotion called "impulse".

He didn't say anything.

Amidst everyone's gasps, he simply reached out and gently embraced the girl's arm. Then, amidst the clamor filled with ambiguity and jeering, and against the backdrop of the melodious tune of "Yesterday Once More," he tenderly kissed her.

It was a sweet, innocent kiss, filled with the refreshing scent of lemonade.

At that moment, the last vague memory of the "investigator" in Bai Yu's mind completely vanished.

He fell completely in love with this world.

(End of this chapter)