The phone was on speaker, and Xiao Gu heard every word Chen Ge said clearly. When he heard Chen Ge say—"I have only one demand: let my employee go"—his nose stung, and his hands clenched tight.
He had always felt he was an unlucky person, someone who brought trouble no matter where he went. It had been like that at the Fanghuayuan residential complex, and it was still like that after becoming a haunted house employee.
But even so, his boss had never once looked down on him. And at the critical moment, he had said something like that.
The rain hammered down, but Xiao Gu's heart was warm. He felt like he finally had a home he could rely on in Jiujiang.
The Raincoat Woman had heard Chen Ge's words too. Standing in the downpour, her body slowly returned to normal, rain sliding down her bright red raincoat.
After a long while, the Raincoat Woman turned toward the phone and brought her mouth close to it: "Have you seen my child?"
"Within one week, I will make sure you see your child." Chen Ge agreed without hesitation.
The Raincoat Woman said nothing more. She slowly lowered her head, clutching Xiao Gu's clothes as she left the East Suburb Waterworks, apparently heading to her next stop.
Watching the red raincoat vanish, Xiao Gu collapsed into the mud as if all strength had drained from him.
"Boss, she's gone! I'm saved!" Having narrowly escaped death, Xiao Gu's voice trembled with excitement.
"Don't run around. Find somewhere to take shelter from the rain, and I'll come pick you up shortly. Also, keep an eye on your phone's battery, and set my number to speed dial while you're at it."
"Got it."
"Hang up for now. I still have to keep the promise I made to her."
The call ended. Xiao Gu obediently set Chen Ge's number to speed dial.
Once everything was sorted, he put his phone away and walked over to the other unlucky passenger—Huang Ling.
"It's okay now." He reached out his hand to her. Huang Ling, who had been badly frightened, took a long time before she finally grabbed Xiao Gu's hand and pulled herself up from the ground.
"That just now… what was that?" Huang Ling didn't even know where to start. Her eyes were filled with fear. She simply couldn't accept what had happened—just two hours ago, she had still been at the office, putting up with a difficult client. And now, two hours later, she was sitting on a bus full of dead people in the middle of the suburbs.
"I can't really explain it either. My boss is coming soon—I'll let him tell you. He knows a lot about these things." Xiao Gu led Huang Ling out of the waterworks and stood under the eaves to shelter from the rain.
The downpour hammered on. Huang Ling's clothes were soaked through and her makeup had smeared, but she didn't care about any of that. She kept dialing one number over and over on her phone, but no one ever picked up.
"Are you calling your husband?" On the bus, Xiao Gu had overheard the conversation between Huang Ling and her husband. The two had argued, and Huang Ling seemed to have considered divorcing him.
Huang Ling nodded. An inexplicable fear gripped her—a fear completely different from what she had felt earlier. This was more restless, more agonizing.
"Why won't he pick up? What is he doing? Pick up the phone!"
Xiao Gu watched Huang Ling frantically calling her husband and said nothing.
Back on the 104 bus, Huang Ling's husband had been the one frantically calling her, asking where she was. In the end, he had even shouted that everyone on the bus was a ghost.
But her husband wasn't on the bus. So how had he known she had gotten on a hearse? And how had he known the bus was full of ghosts?
Huang Ling had probably figured out the answer to that question herself by now—that was why she was desperately calling him.
Xiao Gu watched Huang Ling in silence. The woman, much older and more mature than him, leaned against the wall, practically on the verge of a breakdown.
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. Rain dripped off her chin.