Tang Jun put on an honest, well-meaning face as he opened the bus door and sat down in the driver's seat. It felt profoundly unreal: "I can't believe I'm already back to doing my old job."
"Driving is driving, no matter who it's for. Besides, I'd never force you to do anything you don't want to do. We're colleagues — there's no need to be stiff about it." Chen Ge slung the heavy backpack onto the last row of seats. "The weather's nice tonight. The rain is pouring — perfect for a night out."
"So where are we headed tonight?" Tang Jun was still a little afraid of Chen Ge, though he couldn't quite explain why.
"Liwan Town. Take the route you know best."
"We're really going there?" The moment he heard the words "Liwan Town," a sense of foreboding settled over him. "Boss, that place is seriously dangerous. I'm not questioning your abilities — I just don't think we need to go poking that hornet's nest."
"I'm not going to poke anything." Tang Jun had barely relaxed when he heard Chen Ge's next sentence: "I plan to purge Liwan Town from the inside out — rescue the people who need rescuing and figure out the things that need figuring out."
Hearing Chen Ge say that, Tang Jun didn't dare open his mouth. There was no way to reason with him.
"You can still run if you want. We'll leave at eleven tonight." The Route 104 bus ran a long line connecting the eastern and western suburbs of Jiujiang. Departing at eleven, even if everything went smoothly, they wouldn't reach Liwan Town until well past midnight.
"Why would I run? You underestimate me." Tang Jun's calf twitched unnaturally, and both hands gripped the steering wheel tight.
The rain grew heavier and heavier. Outside the Route 104 bus, the world was pitch black.
At eleven o'clock, a battered old bus pulled out of New Century Park and slowly vanished into the curtain of rain.
"Do you always drive like this?"
"Yeah."
"Have you ever been pulled over by traffic police?"
"Not yet. The Shadow tampered with the bus — you can think of it as a hearse that specifically serves the dead and the desperate."
Tang Jun answered Chen Ge's questions with earnest care. The Route 104 hearse drove farther and farther, quickly arriving at the first stop.
The bus platform in the downpour looked blurry. Not a single soul was there, yet Tang Jun still pulled the doors open and lingered beside the stop for three minutes.
"If nobody's at the platform, you stop there for three minutes. You might pick up a special passenger. That's what the Shadow told me."
Rain spilled into the bus. Chen Ge sat in the second-to-last row, quietly watching it all.
Plenty of eerie urban legends about buses circulated through this city, but no one had ever imagined that one day a legend would evolve into what it had become. Still, this aligned perfectly with the Creed of the Urban Legends Society — when I walk through the night, I become the most terrifying urban legend in this city.
The three minutes passed, and Tang Jun was on the road again.
Stop and go, until after they'd left the western suburbs, Chen Ge finally spotted someone waiting at a platform up ahead.
"Still waiting for a bus past eleven at night — whoever this is must be somebody."
The bus came to a stop. The driver didn't say a word. When the doors opened, the figure on the platform staggered aboard.
He wore a cheap suit, reeked of alcohol, his cheeks flushed red, his words slurred. His clothes and trousers were completely soaked through.
"S-scan the card…" He pulled out his wallet and scraped it against some spot on the bus. When the beep of a successful card scan never came, he grew agitated.