After the living passengers had left the bus, Chen Ge took out his comic book and summoned his employees one by one. He didn't offer any further explanation and simply walked to the very last row.
A dense crowd of "people" filled the bus. The couple was terrified. They had calculated every possibility, but never expected that even in their current state, they'd run into someone hijacking a vehicle.
"It's dangerous here. Stay with me for now."
Chen Ge didn't bother asking the couple for their opinion. He had Yan Danian stow them both inside the comic book.
The couple were only slightly stronger than average lingering spirits — roughly on par with Old Zhou and Duan Yue — so Chen Ge wasn't worried about them causing trouble.
After dealing with the couple, Chen Ge led his employees to surround the hearse's driver — Tang Jun.
"Talk. Why wouldn't you let me board at the bus stop?"
The driver hadn't expected Chen Ge to hold such a grudge, refusing to let him go even now that they'd reached the final stop.
His features scrunched together under the pressure closing in from all sides. Trembling, he said in a small voice: "Red-coated ghosts aren't allowed on the bus. This vehicle can only carry the desperate and those driven by lingering will."
"You knew I had a red-coat with me?" Chen Ge glanced at the driver but didn't press the issue further. "Who told you to drive this last-run bus?"
"I don't know." The driver answered Chen Ge's questions with utmost caution. He had never faced anything like this before, and without needing any further prompting, he spilled everything: "I'm a bus driver. I used to drive the Route 104 last run. There were all kinds of horror stories circulating at our company about this bus — how it always ran into strange things — so a lot of the older drivers refused to take it. In the end, the management had no choice but to offer an extra three hundred a month to whoever drove the Route 104 last run. I'm a pretty fearless person, so I became the last-run driver."
"What happened to you after that?" Chen Ge stared at the driver's face. The man didn't seem to be lying.
"The Route 104 line is very long — it cuts across Jiujiang, connecting the eastern and western suburbs. The first time I drove it, the old driver who handed the shift over secretly gave me a few warnings." The driver looked at Chen Ge's face, and his regret deepened. "He told me that when driving the night shift, whether there were passengers or not, I had to open both the front and rear doors at every stop and wait for a while. He said I must never stop outside of a designated stop, and I must never stay at any single stop for more than three minutes. And the last and most important rule was: on rainy days, never drive too fast. The slower, the better."
The sweat on the driver's forehead kept multiplying. He kept dabbing at it with the towel on his shoulder, but it did no good. After a while, Chen Ge noticed — it wasn't sweat. It was water.
As the conversation deepened, the driver's complexion grew worse and worse. His exposed skin looked slightly bloated, as if he had been soaking in water for a very long time.
"I followed the old driver's advice. For the first few weeks, I strictly followed his instructions — no matter whether there were people or not, I'd open the doors and wait at every stop."
"Until one month later. That day there was a torrential downpour. After I entered the eastern suburbs, there wasn't a single passenger on the bus."
"It was just me on the entire bus. At the first few stops, I still did as the old driver told me and opened the doors to wait. But then I started thinking — there's nobody on the bus, the stops are empty, so why open and close the doors? It was just a waste of time."
"That day was just like today. The rain kept getting heavier, and I was in a hurry to finish my shift and get home. So at every remaining stop, as long as I saw no passengers waiting, I drove straight past."
"But when I reached the stop behind the water treatment plant, I suddenly heard someone speaking inside the bus. I couldn't make out exactly what they said — it sounded like they were telling me to stop."
"It was pitch black outside, and besides, I hadn't reached the stop yet, so I didn't stop."
"After driving a bit further, I suddenly realized something was wrong. There were no passengers on this bus! So where was that voice coming from?"
At this point, the driver's shoulders began to tremble. He lowered his head, clutching his hair with both hands, as the "sweat" that seeped from his forehead slid down his cheeks: "I felt like my entire body had frozen solid. I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw — standing right behind me was a person. His skin was pale and waterlogged, and his eyes were bulging almost out of their sockets."
The driver slowly raised his face. His skin was pallid and his eyes bulged outward — not unlike his own description.
"In a panic, I yanked the steering wheel, and the bus plunged straight into the river." The driver actually had a knack for storytelling. He rattled off this whole account in one breath, then stole a glance at Chen Ge. Seeing no indication that Chen Ge was about to strike, he continued: "I watched myself sink into the river. I don't know how much time passed, but when I opened my eyes, I found myself still on this Route 104 last-run bus, with a shadowy figure standing beside me. It told me that if I carried one thousand passengers, I would be set free."
"A shadow? Describe its outline and the way it spoke."
"That shadow had the same build as me — it was like my own shadow had come to life. I can't describe its voice, or rather, the moment you hear it, you forget it in an instant."
Judging by the driver's expression and tone, he wasn't lying: "This ghost shadow really has no loose ends. It's more difficult to deal with than any ghost I've encountered before."
"If you're planning to investigate that shadow, I can give you one more piece of information." The driver's entire face looked bloated and ghastly — he had dropped all pretense. "But you have to promise me one thing."
"What is it?"
"Let me go." The driver looked at Chen Ge with desperate hope. "After my accident, my family must be worried sick. I want to go back and see them."
"I can go back with you when the time comes. Do you have any other wishes? Tell me everything, and I'll do my best to fulfill them." Chen Ge's tone softened considerably — he already considered the driver one of his own.
"You'd go back with me?" The driver couldn't begin to guess at Chen Ge's true intentions. He had a sinking feeling that this terrifying figure might very well harm his family.
After a long struggle, the driver sighed and gave up fighting: "I once asked the shadow why it was sending all the passengers to Liwan Town. It said it was raising something there and needed to continuously feed it pain and despair."
"So it created an out-of-control door and funneled every desperate, suffering person in all of Jiujiang to this place — all to nurture something?" Chen Ge committed the driver's words to memory. He asked a few more questions, then stowed the driver inside the comic book as well.
The only passenger remaining on the Route 104 hearse was the middle-aged woman. She had witnessed Chen Ge's earlier "rampage" and was now terrified.
"Stop wasting time. Tell me everything you know, too."