"This place is impossible to stay in, Boss Chen, I'll wait for you downstairs." Fan Dade's words came rapid and panicked. The footprints in the stairwell had rattled him, and through the phone
"Don't move around — he might be hiding in the stairwell. Tell me the shoe size and tread pattern first—" Chen Ge didn't finish before the call was disconnected.
"People do tend to do irrational things when they're frightened. Whether Fan Dade's behavior just now qualifies as one of those situations, I can't say."
Chen Ge pocketed his phone, picked up the backpack from the ground, and stared down the road ahead.
"The next stop is Liwan. I'm already here — where are you?"
The night and the downpour shrouded everything. No one could have guessed that countless monsters living in the shadows were now converging on a small town at the city's edge.
Liwan lay just ahead!
The driver, Tang Jun, slammed on the accelerator. The battered bus hurtled through the rain, gaining speed with every second.
Rain hammered the glass windows until the whole vehicle seemed ready to fall apart, but the frantic passengers aboard paid it no mind.
When that hazy silhouette appeared on the horizon, every last one of them held their breath.
Lightning split the night sky, and for one blazing instant the flash illuminated several figures moving through the darkness. Those shadows, in turn, spotted the 104 spirit bus barreling toward them.
"Almost at the stop." The doctor was the first to rise from his seat. He could feel that the atmosphere on the spirit bus was different from usual, and he wasn't willing to spend a single extra moment aboard.
"Hey — the three of us should stick together," the doctor said in a low voice to Chen Ge and the man nicknamed Scissors. "There's a very dangerous passenger up front. The three of us get off together, and I won't lie to you — once we're off, we each run in a different direction. Which one he chooses to chase down… well, that's up to fate."
Anyone who could ride the spirit bus and still be alive clearly couldn't be underestimated, so the doctor didn't bother hiding his plan. He laid it out plainly.
Neither Chen Ge nor Scissors responded. Scissors was worried the doctor might not be trustworthy — once he was alone, he could become easy prey. Chen Ge, meanwhile, had his own plans. He intended to drive the bus straight into Fan Cong's residential complex, dragging the Red High Heels and the Smiling Man along to storm headfirst into the killing trap the Shadow had laid, and rescue Fan Cong — the one person who held the critical clues.
Getting on Chen Ge's bus was easy, but getting off was a different matter entirely. In a sense, this bus was far more dangerous now than when it had served the Shadow.
The doctor walked to the exit door and gripped the handrail tightly. He had heard stories about the Smiling Man, and he had already decided that the moment the doors opened, he would find somewhere to hide.
The 104 spirit bus had entered Liwan Town, drawing ever closer to the stop at the town's edge. The doctor's heart climbed into his throat. He clenched the handrail, tensed the muscles in his legs, and lowered his center of gravity, ready to bolt out the instant the doors parted.
The plan was perfect — but reality caught him completely off guard.
The 104 bus blew right past the terminal stop without so much as slowing down.
"Not stopping?" Veins bulged across the doctor's temples. He knew then that something was definitely going to go wrong tonight.
At the very stop where the bus should have halted, it didn't. Every passenger except Chen Ge turned to stare at the driver.
Tang Jun was under enormous pressure, his body trembling. He had no idea what awaited him up ahead. He was simply doing as his boss had told him — keep driving.
"Why didn't you stop? Hey!" The middle-aged man from the family of three rose from his seat, his face dark with anger.
The child sitting beside him looked up as well, stealing furtive glances around. The adult world was something he didn't understand — everything always seemed so complicated.