"Passengers"

"They're here!" Wang Xiyi whispered excitedly.

"Looks like that urban legend was real." Sun Hang nodded.

"That direction..." Wang Xiyi looked toward where the train was coming from. "This thing... came out of the rock?!"

"Where it came from isn't important. What matters is where it can take us!" Sun Hang vaulted over the second-floor railing and landed on the platform.

Sun Hang glanced at the three women from the corner of his eye. Each wore a completely different expression: Wang Xiyi was excited, Zhong Ling was calm... while Xue Yue's expression held a trace of fear amid her concern.

Sun Hang couldn't help grumbling inwardly: Come on, sis... out of the four of us, you're clearly the least human. So why are you also the biggest scaredy-cat...? Wouldn't that be a little embarrassing for an anomalous entity if word got out?

"Xue Yue, can you sense any emotions?" Sun Hang asked. "You know what I mean, right?"

Xue Yue shook her head, her eyes fixed tightly on the approaching headlights.

A teeth-grating screech of brakes rang out as an extremely old sheet-metal train slowly came to a stop before the platform.

The carriage's peeling exterior paint no longer revealed its original color. Its rust-covered shell and old-fashioned construction made one wonder how its wheel hubs even fit modern subway tracks—in other words, this train belonged in a railway museum exhibit, not in a subway station that had ceased operations late at night.

With a click, the door before Sun Hang slid open to both sides.

The lights inside the carriage were dim, flickering from time to time like the aging streetlights in an alley with long-neglected wiring.

Sun Hang peered into the carriage. The one in front of him was empty, but faintly, it seemed there were some "passengers"