Chapter Eleven: A Car Full of Strangeness

In Tianhai City, there is a bus shrouded in mystery. No one knows where it comes from, nor does anyone know its ultimate destination. Some passengers leave it alive, while others vanish without a trace.

This time, Mu Rongxun boarded with the sole purpose of uncovering the bus’s destination. He had prepared extensively, yet an unexpected side quest shattered his carefully laid plans. If it were only about the quest rewards, he could have ignored the fate of Xu Ying and Zhang Jiao, but the final penalty was simply too severe; he dared not risk it.

"Something feels off," Zhang Jiao shivered, sensing an eerie atmosphere in the bus.

"Now that you mention it, I feel a chill too," Xu Ying said, trembling. It was summer, and they wore light dresses, but suddenly it felt like the depths of winter—a change so abrupt no one could endure it.

"Feeling cold, miss? Would you like me to help?" A passenger standing nearby turned to them.

"No, thank you," Xu Ying politely declined, lifting her head to thank him.

A piercing scream echoed inside the bus. The man’s face was ridden with decay; most of his skin had fallen off, revealing blackened holes. Maggots wriggled in and out of his mouth and eye sockets, a sight so vile that anyone would be repulsed.

"What happened?" Zhang Jiao rushed to comfort Xu Ying, but when she looked up, she saw the horror and fainted on the spot.

"Ah, young women these days really have no nerve," the man remarked, peeling off the prosthetic mask to reveal a youthful face beneath.

"How could you?" Xu Ying, enraged, confronted him.

"Blame me, huh?" The young man shrugged carelessly. "It’s not my fault you’re so easily frightened."

"You..." Xu Ying was so furious she could hardly speak.

She hurried to revive the unconscious Zhang Jiao, shaking her and pinching her nose bridge.

"Young man, do you enjoy scaring people?" At that moment, an elderly man with white hair patted the youth’s shoulder.

"Yeah, so what?" The youth impatiently shook off the old man’s hand.

"Well then, how about this?" The old man’s previously kindly face suddenly bled from its seven orifices, contorting into a gruesome mask.

"Tch," the youth scoffed. "Sir, if you’re going to act, at least make it convincing. This is child’s play, hardly frightening." He wiped some blood from the old man's face, sniffed it, and remarked, "Hmm, the props are decent."

But gradually, his expression shifted. He realized the blood was real.

Xu Ying, unable to rouse Zhang Jiao and seeing the old man’s transformation, promptly followed her friend into unconsciousness.

Mu Rongxun sighed helplessly, took two white slips from his pocket, and stuck one on each girl. He leapt from his seat to the rear of the bus. Ignoring the two bloody claws reaching for him, he produced a short sword etched with strange patterns. With swift precision, he sliced off the claws, drove his knee into one creature’s cheek, twisted the blade in a reverse grip, and drove it through its ear and out the other side. Instantly, the monster dissolved into a cloud of black smoke.

A guttural roar erupted as the other fiends in the carriage surged toward Mu Rongxun. He faced them with sword in his right hand, left hand tracing the blade. As blood smeared the sword, the engravings seemed to awaken, glowing with golden light.

Mu Rongxun had paid dearly to have a purifier’s rune inscribed by a high-level Light Awakened from the Special Bureau headquarters. Against these monsters, its effectiveness was undeniable. Chen Lian possessed a similar ability, but she was too weak to inscribe runes herself.

Though the bus appeared crowded with monsters, in truth, they were weak—Mu Rongxun dispatched them as easily as chopping vegetables. One by one, they vanished.

Soon, only a handful remained. The bus, once packed to the brim, was now eerily empty.

"You’re amazing!" The mischievous young man, eyes alight with excitement, sidled up to Mu Rongxun. "Is that martial arts? Will you teach me?"

Mu Rongxun sneered, slicing at him with his sword.

"Hey, hey, don’t joke! Blades are dangerous!" The youth quickly raised his hands in surrender.

But Mu Rongxun was not joking. When his first strike missed, he immediately followed with another. The youth’s face changed.

"How did you see through me?" As he spoke, his fair skin began to age rapidly, drying out like a desiccated fish. His voice grew hoarse, as if something was scraping within him.

"Your fatal mistake was trying to get close to me," Mu Rongxun replied coldly. He traced his left hand over the blade again, and the sword’s light flared anew.

Seeing this, the monster dared not approach. The rune, inscribed by a high-level Light Awakened, was deadly to creatures like him.

Mu Rongxun found himself in a quandary. He’d thought the bus carried several people, but the youth was only a disguised monster. He’d assumed the youth was just a mischievous oddball, but the unnatural proximity raised his suspicions.

Now, only he, Xu Ying, and Zhang Jiao remained—three true humans, while the monsters were not limited to one.

The monster’s appearance was mere accident; Mu Rongxun’s original aim was the bus itself.

This bus, known as the Ghost Bus, was no ordinary anomaly.

From the outset, Mu Rongxun’s target was the bus, but the abundance of monsters aboard had caught him off guard.

If not for the quest, he would have thought himself the only human present.

He recalled the trio of hip-hop youths who disembarked earlier; he suspected they too were genuine humans.

But why did the quest not trigger when they boarded, only activating when Xu Ying and Zhang Jiao got on? Could it be they were somehow different?

That question, for now, had no answer. Besides, this was hardly the moment to ponder such things.