After the little boy finished speaking, the temperature inside the car seemed to plummet to freezing point, and the driver's face drained of all color in an instant.
"Just one hand left?"
The driver thought he'd misheard. He could hardly believe those words had come out of the mouth of a child no older than seven or eight.
His pupils dilated involuntarily, and his gaze drifted to the phone. The news article hadn't gone into detail about the cause of the child's death — it had only briefly mentioned that the perpetrator's methods were cruel.
Because of the boy's single sentence, the atmosphere in the car had turned eerily sinister.
The driver's hands on the steering wheel were slick with sweat. The woman in the passenger seat sat in silence, while the child in the back clutched the black plastic bag tightly, a smile on his face that didn't belong on someone his age.
Of the several "people" inside the car, only
He shifted a little closer to the boy, his voice calm and warm — but the things he said broke the driver out in another cold sweat.
"Just one hand left? Then are the other parts you've already found inside this black bag?" Chen Ge eyed the bulging plastic bag. "Would you let Uncle take a look? After we get out of the car, I can help you find the rest."
"No need." Seeing that Chen Ge had set his sights on the black bag, the smile on the boy's face slowly faded.
"Actually, we're a lot alike — I'm looking for something too." Chen Ge lifted his own backpack, which was considerably larger than the boy's bag.
"You're looking for something too?" The boy could smell the faint scent of blood emanating from Chen Ge's backpack. He sensed something was off — this wasn't how things were supposed to go when he'd gotten on the car. "What are you looking for?"
"Whatever I'm looking for is on this car. Once the timing is right, I'm going to stuff every last one of them into my bag and take them away." Chen Ge sounded like a creepy uncle trying to scare a child, his tone deliberately playful — but the boy sitting next to him didn't crack a smile. The child could tell that Chen Ge was dead serious.
"Every last one of them?" The driver, unlike the boy, nearly mistook the brake for the accelerator upon hearing Chen Ge's choice of words, and nearly veered straight into the woods.
He took Chen Ge's statement to mean that the man intended to kill everyone in the car and pack them into his backpack.
His mind couldn't keep up with the conversation happening in the back seat. The only person in the car who still gave the driver any sense of reassurance was the woman in the passenger seat — to him, she was fragile and pitiful. If things really went south, he'd grab her and run, and at least they'd have each other to watch their backs.
"The situation is complicated right now, and all I can do is protect myself while helping as many people as I can!" the driver steeled his resolve silently. He stole a glance at the passenger seat — the pitiful-looking woman seemed to have realized something too, and she lightly rested her fingers on the driver's knee.
Chen Ge had no idea what role he'd been cast in inside the driver's little scenario. His full attention was on the child beside him.
Since they'd met, he might as well make friends — invite the kid over to his place for a visit.
The taxi drove a little farther and arrived at a T-junction.
Going straight would take them out of Jiujiang's eastern suburbs and into the county district. Taking the other road would lead to the Bailong Cave Tunnel.
"Which direction is your home?" the driver asked the woman in a gentlemanly manner. The woman, who had kept her head lowered the whole time, slowly raised her face and pointed toward the Bailong Cave Tunnel.
"The Bailong Cave Tunnel?" Anyone who'd been driving a taxi in Jiujiang for any length of time knew about Bailong Cave — the place was practically a cursed stretch of road. Accidents happened there constantly, and the rumors surrounding it were endless, spawning no fewer than several different versions of urban legends.