Tonight was New Year's Eve, and many people were looking forward to the new year.
"10."
"9."
"3."
"2."
"1."
The countdown ended, and Blue Star officially entered the year 2025.
"Beep——"
At the same time, a long, grating mechanical sound rang out in the minds of people all over the world.
"The Horror Game [Eerie Era] has officially launched. Login destination—Blue Star!"
The anticipation on everyone's faces turned to panic.
"A Horror Game?"
"Mind implantation? Aliens?"
"Mommy, Mommy, someone's talking inside my head."
"Is the end of the world finally here?"
"What a goddamn day. The world can just hurry up and end!"
People shared and discussed the matter everywhere on social media, and it quickly shot to the top of the trending searches.
January 1.
It should have been a night of wild celebrations, but within a few hours, most people had already forgotten about what happened.
Only a tiny few still remembered. They wanted to speak up and tell others, but all they got in return were ridicule and misunderstanding. People said they were fantasizing and making things up.
Some even asked if they were spreading such rumors just to cause panic.
Under the mockery and pressure from others, those in the know gradually fell silent and stopped posting anything.
Comments about the incident disappeared from the internet, and everything seemed to return to normal.
Only the leaders of various countries held meeting after meeting, their expressions grave.
There were more and more police patrols on the streets. At night especially, police cars flashed their red and blue lights as they made round after round through the cities.
For a while, crime rates fell in many places.
Seven in the morning.
Shen Yu listened to music as he waited for the bus at the stop.
The morning air in Yeyang City was bitterly cold. A thin mist hung everywhere, and from a distance, the city looked hazy, as if veiled in white gauze. Its true face was impossible to make out.
A thin layer of snow covered the ground. As pedestrians walked across it, their words and breaths turned to white mist, blending into the city as though adding threads to the gauze being woven around it.
Shen Yu exhaled a warm breath, trying to ease the stiffness in his frozen fingers.
At last, a bus marked 201 pulled up.
It stopped, and the doors opened. Shen Yu climbed aboard.
He took the card from his pocket and tapped it against the reader.
"Beep! Student card!"
There were very few passengers on the bus, which struck Shen Yu as odd. At this time of day, it was usually packed with people rushing to school and work.
Still, a seat was better than standing. Shen Yu found an empty one toward the back and sat down.
The bus started moving.
Five minutes into the trip.
Drip!
Shen Yu felt something fall onto the back of his neck. The bone-chilling cold made him shudder.
He reached back to touch his neck and looked up at the ceiling. There was nothing unusual, and nowhere for water to leak through.
It was as if it had all been a hallucination.
But Shen Yu knew that was impossible, because he was one of the tiny few who still remembered the Eerie Era.
Why could he still remember? Was there something different about him? Or had he been targeted?
Shen Yu carefully felt around his neck, but found nothing wrong. He even tried taking a picture with his phone, yet his skin looked perfectly normal.
It made him anxious.
His monotonous, predictable life had finally been disrupted by an unexpected turn of events, but it was something he had no control over.
He rubbed his neck hard until the skin turned red and stung.
Calm down!
This didn't necessarily mean he had encountered an anomaly.
Even if he had,
he needed to find a way to verify it.
Without drawing attention to himself, Shen Yu observed the other passengers. Was he the only one, or had anyone else encountered something too?
There weren't many passengers on the bus: a few office workers, a few students, and some early risers who had gone out to buy groceries or browse the shops.
Some were chatting quietly, some sat in a daze, still half-asleep, some were looking down at their phones, and others leaned against their seats to catch up on sleep.
They all seemed perfectly normal.
Until Shen Yu looked toward the front.
The driver sat upright, both hands gripping the steering wheel as he drove with full concentration along the busy road.
The rearview mirror inside the bus reflected the driver's face. His skin was bluish-white, utterly devoid of color.
A tanker truck approached in the opposite lane.
At that moment, Shen Yu's heart suddenly began to race. A powerful premonition tugged at him.
Shen Yu jumped to his feet and hurried toward the front. A student beside him glanced up at him in confusion.
The driver looked terrible, a deathly air faintly emanating from him. His eyes bulged wide in a horrifying glare, as if they might pop out of their sockets. The veins stood out on the hands gripping the steering wheel, and the bus swayed from side to side.
A look of struggle crossed his face as his humanity fought against some unknown, twisted force.
In the end, the driver couldn't overcome whatever was controlling him. He slammed on the gas and headed straight for the tanker truck in the left lane!
Several cars were knocked over. Under the tremendous force, everyone on the bus was flung into the air.
Shen Yu's body was hurled backward. It was too late!
The shrill sound of a chain of collisions and the thunderous explosion filled his ears!
"Ding! Anomaly Containment System activation initiated... Activation complete!" "Host is in a life-or-death crisis. Deducting 10,000 Construction Points to purchase a One-Time Time Rewind." "One-Time Time Rewind activated!"
Everything around him came to a standstill.
Then Shen Yu's body, the wrecked vehicles, and the passengers all seemed to be in a film being rewound. Everything went back to the moment before the accident.
The shrill explosion and desperate screams still rang in his ears.
Shen Yu sat in his seat, gripping the seatback in front of him as he bowed his head and gasped for breath. Then he looked around.
The passengers all looked as they normally did, as if they had forgotten what had just happened.
The driver!
Without time to think, Shen Yu charged toward the driver's seat even faster than before.
The driver struggled, his eyes bulging. His face was twisted in agony, making him look terrifying.
The driver noticed Shen Yu approaching.
His neck jerked around slowly, as if its joints had rusted, and he looked at Shen Yu with pleading eyes.
Shen Yu grabbed him and yanked him out of his seat.
Then he took the driver's place at the steering wheel.
The commotion at the front caught the passengers' attention.
"What are you doing? Trying to steal the bus?"
"Hey! Why did you pull the driver away?"
Several people immediately stood up and approached.
Shen Yu calmly explained the situation. "Don't touch me. The driver's having a seizure, maybe epilepsy. The bus is still on the road and someone needs to drive. Hold him down, and don't get in my way."
Several passengers looked at him, uncertain what to do.
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