46. Corpse Controller!

He cursed inwardly, "Shit!"

K reached out, instinctively about to use Gale Slash, but the raised hand held no pale blue light.

Damn it!

He cursed again.

K remembered that he had used his skill when he rushed out of the "ghost."

He had gotten Gale Slash in the previous mission. Even though he'd been practicing with it, the skill was still only level one.

It was still on cooldown.

"Damn monk!"

If that stinking monk hadn't appeared right there, of all places,

why would he have wasted his only combat skill for no reason?

"Benefactor, you seem to hate me quite a lot?" Tang Luo asked bluntly, showing no consideration for K's venomous glare.

What's with you, buddy?

Why are you glaring at me?

"I told you not to let people on!" The ticket seller turned to the driver and scolded him sharply.

"Come on, I was a little scared too, you know?" The driver sounded less than sincere. "More people on board makes the place feel livelier."

"You want to be scared and make money at the same time." The ticket seller sneered disdainfully, then looked at Tang Luo and the others. "I'll be honest with you. Those three are corpses. We make extra money by hauling them around. Got it? If you don't want to be thrown off, keep your mouths shut. Otherwise, you can walk through this wilderness yourselves."

She looked fierce.

But K and the others felt their hearts, which had been in their throats, settle back down.

K took a close look at the three people.

He saw that they had feet, and that thin ropes were securing them to their seats.

The bus seats weren't plain plastic; they were covered in black fabric that felt a little fuzzy.

The thin ropes were black too.

It was late, and rain was falling outside. The lights inside the bus were off.

That made it hard to see, so it was understandable that they hadn't noticed the ropes.

Even so, there were plenty of holes in the story.

For example, why were the corpses snoring?

The ticket seller stood up and took a small recorder from under the seat near the three of them.

The snoring had clearly been coming from it.

"...It sure isn't easy making a little money off you people!"

The ticket seller looked at the old woman and the young man as she spoke.

The young man kept his head down and said nothing.

The old woman looked up, gave a ingratiating smile, and clasped her hands together in a little bow.

Then she turned to Tang Luo and the others, gesturing with her hands.

Maybe she was mute?

Were those three corpses theirs?

"If you want to get off, you can do it now."

The ticket seller planted her hands on her hips and spread her feet, like a compass.

No one said anything.

They might have been thinking it over, or perhaps they had no intention of getting off.

But the driver didn't give them time to analyze everything and weigh the pros and cons. He had already started the bus and was back on the road.

Inside the jolting bus, the corpses swayed from side to side, but the ropes kept them from falling over.

At last, they made it through that stretch of road, which had been in disrepair for years, and the bus became "steady" again.

It still made sharp turns because of the winding mountain road, but at least it no longer lurched up and down.

Lin Zi'ang's face was pale. He seemed not to have recovered from the jolting just now.

In truth, the more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

The ticket seller had explained things, but plenty of questions still remained.

Why were they transporting corpses on a bus?

Didn't they have a hearse?

Even if they used a bus, they could put the corpses in coffins, cover them up a little, and secure them to the roof, couldn't they?

Why go to the trouble of putting them on the bus and passing them off as passengers?

The reason they'd let Tang Luo and the others on was at least somewhat plausible.

As the driver had said—he'd gotten spooked too and wanted more people on board to make it feel livelier?

He'd been eager to make money at first, then got more frightened the longer he thought about it, so he let Tang Luo and the others on.

That, at least, was within the realm of normal.

But aside from that, everything else was strange.

"Let me off! I want to get off!"

Lin Zi'ang shouted.

To hell with the mission. Failing it wouldn't kill him. He wanted off the bus now!

"It's pouring, and it's dark. Why would you get off?" the driver called from the front. "I'll take you to the Terminal Station first."

He didn't stop. On the contrary, they could feel the bus picking up speed, though it had been moving at a moderate pace before.

Lin Zi'ang shoved open the window beside him. Cold wind and rain poured in.

He couldn't think about anything else. He lunged forward and threw himself through the narrow window, barely wide enough for a person.

Unfortunately, Lin Zi'ang clearly wasn't capable of making a graceful dive through the window like he was jumping through a hoop, then rolling to his feet.

Some part of him caught on something.

Lin Zi'ang's body tipped headfirst out the window. Two-thirds of him hung outside the bus, while the other third remained inside.

His face slammed hard against the side of the bus, and his legs thrashed wildly.

With the sound of fabric ripping, "rrrip,"

Lin Zi'ang slid free and fell off the bus.

But his dismount was all wrong.

His hands touched the ground, and then his head hit next.

The force of the fall, combined with the bus's momentum, snapped Lin Zi'ang's neck.

His face ended up pressed completely against his shoulder.

"Are you crazy?!"

The driver cursed and hit the brakes.

He shoved the window open and looked back, spotting a body not far behind the bus.

It twitched a few times, then went still.

"Idiot!"

The driver cursed again, then decisively opened the door and jumped out.

Before long, he climbed back aboard carrying Lin Zi'ang's corpse and threw it heavily into the aisle.

Everyone fell silent.

Auntie Shufen and Mi Ke both turned away from the body, trying not to throw up.

The driver stared at them, his hypocritical smile finally gone.

The ticket seller stood beside him, also watching Tang Luo and the others.

Unlike the driver, she was smiling now.

"You're too greedy," she said into the silence.

"...He jumped out on his own. I might as well take what I can get," the driver replied. "If Heaven gives you something and you don't take it, you'll only bring trouble on yourself."

"If Heaven gives it to you?" the ticket seller said with a smile. "If Heaven really existed, it would send down a bolt of lightning and strike us all dead."

"Heh."

The driver smiled without humor, raised his hand, and turned his wrist.

A clear ring sounded.

A strange ornament hung around his wrist, with two bells attached to it.

From the start, no matter what the driver did, it hadn't made a sound.

Until now.

The bells rang.

The three people in white robes who had been sitting in their seats suddenly stood up.

They snapped the ropes around their bodies.

Their raised faces were livid, their eyes open and showing nothing but whites.

Corpses—without a doubt, three corpses.

And the driver was someone who could control corpses.

A Corpse Controller?

A corpse操er?

Mm, that second title didn't sound very good.

Corpse Controller it was.

The three corpses stood in a row without moving closer, blocking the aisle.

"If you don't want to die, sit down and behave," the driver said, then turned and went back to driving.

The ticket seller yawned and lazily sat back down.

Every so often, she glanced at Tang Luo and the others, her expression a mix of mockery and sympathy.

She was practically saying: Oh, dear. I warned you, but you just had to get on and meet your deaths.

People who ask for trouble get themselves killed.

When it rains, it rains; when a woman marries, she marries. And when people are determined to get themselves killed, no one can stop them.

The bus was going fast. For a bus to be moving at that speed on a mountain road in the rain, just before nightfall,

was practically a death wish.

It also left Tang Luo and the others no chance of escaping through the windows.

The lesson was lying right there in the aisle.

The three corpses with their livid faces and blank white eyes blocked the way.

No matter how sharply the bus turned, the three corpses never budged.

The old woman and the young man acted as if nothing happening on the bus concerned them.

They didn't seem like accomplices, but they didn't seem like corpses either.

It was hard to tell who they were.

The ticket seller sat sideways, glancing at Tang Luo every so often.

Only the roar of the engine and the "patter" of the rain filled the bus.

The oppressive atmosphere was almost suffocating.

"Other than Consecration, do you have any attack skills?"

Sitting beside Tang Luo, K lowered his voice. He made sure Tang Luo and the others could hear him, while the sound wouldn't carry to the ticket seller and driver at the front.

"The Tathagata Palm," Tang Luo said.

"...Good."

K struggled to get that one word out. "Let's wait ten minutes. When I give the signal, we attack together."

In ten minutes, his Gale Slash would be off cooldown, and he could use it again.

"Why do we need to attack?" Tang Luo asked. "They're taking us to the Terminal Station for free and helping us complete our mission. This is fate. It's a good thing."

"..."

Damn, that made way too much sense. K could hardly argue with him.

Laozi can fate your second aunt!

He was sure now: this guy wasn't right in the head.

Thinking about it, it was true!

Even if he was a God and Demon Walker, would he really dress like that?

It wasn't as if he were some big shot who could ascend to heaven, descend to the earth, or even destroy the world.

That dashing, resplendent "monk's robe"—

it was like a botched imitation of a tiger, the classic look of someone trying to act cool and ending up looking like an idiot!

"I was wrong. I really was wrong. I should never have counted that monk as a fighter. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have let my guard down and gotten on the bus..."

"No matter what you think, I'm going to attack in a moment," K said, suppressing his urge to kill his useless teammate.

"Mm." Tang Luo nodded. "How about I Consecrate you first?"

He could Consecrate K.

That way, when the fight started, he could save him once and gain some merit.

As for the "merit cost" of Consecration, Tang Luo would of course keep it under control.

But he wasn't going to stop his Consecration campaign over a little expense.

It was like running a shop: without putting anything in (as a cost), how could you expect to get anything out (as a profit)?

"I..." K really wanted to curse him out.

"Master, could you consecrate me?"

Mi Ke turned around and stammered.

It was a last-ditch attempt.

"Sure." Tang Luo nodded.

K didn't want to say anything more, so he turned away.

That damn bald donkey was just giving ignorant newcomers like her a little final comfort.

"What's this consecration thing? How about the little monk consecrates me too?"

He'd just given Mi Ke a simple consecration, but they hadn't yet gotten into the more advanced methods.

The ticket seller suddenly stood up and walked over.

K's expression changed. Had she actually heard them whispering?

Tang Luo looked at the ticket seller and shook his head. "I'm afraid someone like you wouldn't be able to handle my consecration, Benefactor."

There'll be another chapter tonight. Please vote for me!