Zhu Xiu

Zhu Xiu is the former equipment-room manager at Western Jiujiang Private Academy and the surviving participant most directly connected to the coercion that ended in Zhang Ya's death. His attempt to enter the Ghost Stories Society gives Chen Ge and Zhang Ya the opportunity to identify and confront him.

Biography

Identification and judgment

Police identify Zhu Xiu as the headmaster's youngest son, the former husband of dance teacher Sun Meijing, and a suspect in the group that forced Zhang Ya toward suicide. Five years earlier he weighed roughly 180 kilograms, but his later loss of about sixty kilograms makes old descriptions appear inconsistent. After police attention closes in, he disappears while repeatedly visiting Fang Hwa Apartments at Tuesday midnight, behavior that links him to the Ghost Stories Society's entrance ritual. (Chapters 233–234)

Zhu enters a Society meeting as one of the prospective members and receives the designation No. 11; the pre-existing No. 5 is a different masked member who judges whether stories contain lies. Chen Ge follows No. 11 into the elevator, removes his pig mask, and summons Zhang Ya. She takes a soul-shaped likeness of Zhu, leaving his living body frozen, bleeding from the eyes, and unable to respond before Inspector Lee has him removed for police and medical custody. (Chapters 241–243, 246)

Appearance and personality

Zhu Xiu was an exceptionally heavy man around the time of Zhang Ya's death and later becomes much thinner after losing about sixty kilograms. His foul, hoarded room and collection of women's shoes reinforce a private pattern of disturbing behavior. He is secretive and self-protective, disappearing when he learns the police are investigating him and hiding his identity behind the Society's robe and pig mask. (Chapters 233–234, 241–242)

Skills and supernatural abilities

No independent supernatural power is demonstrated. Zhu succeeds in completing the Ghost Stories Society's hidden elevator ritual and reaching its meeting, but his membership provides no protection when Zhang Ya seals the elevator and removes his soul. (Chapters 234, 241–242)

Relationships

Zhang Ya is Zhu Xiu's victim and eventual judge: the recovered scene connects him to the coercion preceding her death, and she personally renders him catatonic. Sun Meijing is his ex-wife, whose interview gives police the physical detail that helps identify him. Chen Ge tracks him through the Society, unmasks him as No. 11, and delivers his still-living body into Inspector Lee's custody. (Chapters 233–234, 241–243, 246)

Items

Zhu wears the Ghost Stories Society's standard black robe and a pig mask while designated No. 11. These conceal his identity during the meeting but are ordinary Society equipment, not supernatural possessions or personal signature artifacts. (Chapters 241–242)