The third oncoming bus was even more battered, just as Chen Mo had seen at the depot—its body covered in collision marks and bloodstains, the front end caved in as if struck by something heavy, the windshield shattered and smeared with blood.
At the same time, the passengers inside looked even more horrifying. The man clutching a briefcase had half his body crushed into pulp, his remaining head tilted to one side. The young woman was decapitated, blood still gushing from her severed neck. The four middle-aged women were missing limbs, slumped crookedly in their seats.
Their faces had become utterly grotesque, like vengeful spirits!
And sitting in the driver's seat, his own headless corpse was still driving that ghost bus without lights, roaring down the night road.
Chen Mo felt as if every pore on his body was about to explode.
Just then, he saw Wang Jianguo, drenched in blood, lunging at the window again, shouting hoarsely.
Though Chen Mo still couldn't hear him, after three times, he finally caught something from the lip movements.
What he repeated endlessly were two words.
Stop!
Stop!
Stop!
Wang Jianguo wanted him to stop the bus!
But how could he stop?
Under normal operating conditions, a bus must never stop except at designated stops—this was clearly written in the manual, an iron rule participants in this mission had to follow. Breaking it would trigger a death trap!
But Wang Jianguo's ghost wanted him to stop. Was it because he knew that if the bus kept going, something irreversible and terrible would happen?
In just a few minutes, the bus would pass the last intermediate stop. In fact, Longjing Bay and the final terminal, the Oil Refinery, were very close, connected by the Longjing Bay Bridge!
Even without knowing this, seeing the name Longjing Bay, Chen Mo, like Qu Jiaojiao, understood everything!
The story of the eight workers wasn't just baseless rumor. The workers who died in the accident had likely been buried in the bridge's structure by a ruthless contractor. Their souls, unable to return home and filled with resentment, now haunted that bridge!
Wang Jianguo... was desperately trying to tell him this. Was it because the Route 404 night bus he drove had been targeted by these vengeful spirits, crashing on that bridge? His ghost, trapped in that ghost bus, endlessly repeated the route.
Just as Chen Mo thought this, he saw Wang Jianguo's ghost on the opposite bus suddenly stop pounding the window and touch his own bloody face.
Then, using his own blood, he began to draw on the window stroke by stroke!
First, a long horizontal line, then three semicircular arches below. As he moved, blood continuously slid down the glass.
Though it was just a few rough strokes, though the sliding blood blurred the image, Chen Mo could instantly tell—this was a bridge!
A bridge painted in blood flashed before Chen Mo's eyes, then vanished with the ghost bus into the endless darkness behind!
This should be the ghost bus's final hint.
The three appearances of the ghost bus weren't some ghostly maze, but a gradual revelation that the bus would crash off the bridge!
The passengers on his bus were naturally the victims of that accident. But because the fall happened in an instant, their deaths were instantaneous too. Since death came so fast, they didn't know they were dead yet, just repeating what they did in life.
What Wang Jianguo wanted to tell him and his own deduction should point to the same thing.
This bus would fall off the bridge!
Longjing Bay Bridge should be a land bridge. The collision marks on the bus, the dismembered passengers—these were results of the bus crashing from a height onto the ground. That accident was likely caused by the vengeful spirits of the eight workers haunting the bridge.
And this mission would undoubtedly repeat that haunting, causing another bus crash. Perhaps Wang Jianguo's death was the same!
Thinking this, Chen Mo felt a pang in his heart.
Wang Hanzhang's son, whom she never stopped thinking about, had died in a supernatural event after all. Though this outcome wasn't unexpected.
But he had little time or mood to grieve for the old woman, because what faced him now was also an inescapable dead end!
If the bus kept going, passing Longjing Bay Bridge would trigger the vengeful spirits, repeating the crash and burying him and the passengers beneath the bridge. But if he stopped or changed the route, he'd trigger the rule's killing mechanism.
The truth behind this bus accident seemed easy to uncover, but even knowing it, what could he do?
Crossing the bridge meant death; stopping or detouring meant death too. No matter what he chose, it was almost an unsolvable dead end!
No, I don't want to die!
Chen Mo closed his eyes and gritted his teeth silently.
Li Yan, if it were you, what would you do in this situation?
In the rearview mirror, Qu Jiaojiao's face was equally grim. Clever as she was, she could deduce the truth—the vengeful workers' spirits haunting Longjing Bay Bridge caused the bus to crash, killing everyone aboard—but she couldn't find a way out either!
There was one more stop before Longjing Bay Bridge. Even if all the passengers got off—which they wouldn't—it still wouldn't avoid the story's greatest threat.
To reach the terminal, they had to cross that bridge of death. But once they drove onto it, they'd die too...
"Now... what... should we do..."
A flash of ferocity crossed Qu Jiaojiao's face.
Having clawed her way up in a wealthy family, she was no pushover. She admired the man before her, but if the moment came when the vengeful spirit descended, she wouldn't hesitate to shove him forward to draw its attack and save herself.
But even she felt this idea was better than nothing and probably wouldn't work.
If that could avoid the bus crash, this mission would be too easy.
Since death was certain anyway, she might as well do whatever she wanted before dying.
Like, maybe, something with this rather handsome man?
That... wouldn't be so bad...
Chen Mo, drenched in cold sweat, suddenly saw in the rearview mirror that Qu Jiaojiao, who had been pale and trembling, now wore a strange expression, looking at him with dazed eyes. He was startled.
"Don't struggle. How about we enjoy our last moments together?"
Qu Jiaojiao giggled, reaching out a snow-white arm toward him.
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PS: The second chapter isn't finished yet. It'll be posted a bit later, probably within half an hour.