The middle-aged woman watched helplessly as passenger after passenger vanished, and the unease inside her reached its peak.
"I only agreed to bring the children to Liwan Town — I don't know anything else!"
"You don't know? Then I have no reason to keep you around." The moment
The woman screamed. Her ugly face began to distort, her features twisting into something monstrous.
The plain, dowdy clothes she wore seeped blood without end, splotchy and mottled — every stain was the imprint of a small child's hand.
"Let me off the bus!"
Her voice was hoarse and terrifying. Her bones crackled, and her body seemed to grow several inches taller.
Watching the changes overtaking the woman, Chen Ge and the surrounding employees remained perfectly calm — as if they were standing outside a cage, observing the beast inside roar and thrash.
"Getting off the bus isn't a problem, but first you need to tell me — where did those children go?" Chen Ge had promised Red Raincoat that he would help her find her children within a week. Three days had already passed.
The woman seemed incapable of hearing Chen Ge's voice. Her face grew more and more hideous.
Interestingly, Chen Ge appeared equally oblivious to the transformations happening to her. His voice remained steady, without the slightest fluctuation: "Did you steal all of these children?"
He pointed at the still-unconscious boy, looking at that young, innocent face.
The woman seemed to realize that Chen Ge was the ringleader of all these ghosts and monsters — and, as it happened, he had just stowed the Skull Crushing Hammer in his backpack, leaving his hands empty.
She didn't hesitate any longer. Her venomous gaze locked onto Chen Ge's neck, and she lunged!
Her outer garment was drenched in bloodstains. Chen Ge watched the woman charge at him, not even making a halfhearted attempt to dodge: "Half-body Red Clothes — so you're the strongest combatant in this two-star trial mission."
The woman stopped dead halfway through her rush. Her body, seized by terror, went completely rigid.
Without anyone noticing when, a new figure had appeared between her and Chen Ge.
Red robes like blood. Without Chen Ge needing to say a word, Xu Yin had already stepped in front of him.
"The Route 104 last bus is a two-star horror scenario, and the strongest combatant in this scenario is a half-body Red Clothes. Following that logic, there should be someone in Muyang High School capable of rivaling a half-body Red Clothes as well." Chen Ge was still preoccupied with the old principal. Now that he'd deduced the principal might be a half-body Red Clothes, he found himself even more tempted.
After having Xu Yin restrain the woman, Chen Ge didn't kill her outright. He intended to hand her over to Red Raincoat for judgment.
"Every grievance has its author. Every debt has its creditor. What goes around comes around."
The woman had no idea what Chen Ge was really thinking. All she saw was the smile on his face, and she found it deeply "unsettling."
Stowing the rest of his employees into the comic book, Chen Ge picked up the unconscious little boy and stepped off the Route 104 last bus.
The moment both his feet touched the ground, the black phone vibrated softly.
"Does this count as the mission being complete?" Chen Ge turned to look at the last bus. The entire vehicle was now empty. By the end of the mission, he had been the very last person to get off.
"My current strength should be enough to unlock higher-difficulty missions." Chen Ge could clearly feel the difference in himself. A few months ago, a two-star horror scenario would have meant searching desperately for a sliver of survival in a hopeless situation — trembling with fear, knowing he could die at any moment. Look at him now. Things were entirely different.
"Looks like all my hard work these past few months has paid off." Chen Ge swiped open the phone screen and tapped on the new message displayed on the black phone.