46. Corpse Craftsman!

Chapter 46: Corpse Artisan!

He cursed inwardly, "Damn it!"

K reached out his hand, instinctively preparing to use Gale Slash, but no pale blue light appeared on his raised palm.

Screw this!

He cursed again.

K remembered that he had used his skill when he charged out of the "ghostly entity."

K had obtained Gale Slash during his previous mission, and although he had been practicing with it constantly, the skill remained at Level 1.

It was currently still on cooldown.

"Damn monk!"

If it weren't for that wretched monk appearing there of all places, why would he have wasted his only combat skill for nothing?

"This benefactor, you seem to hate this poor monk quite a bit?" Facing K's venomous glare, Tang Luo didn't give him any face at all and asked directly.

Little brother, what is wrong with you? Why are you glaring at me for no reason?

"I told you not to let people on the bus!" The conductor turned to look at the driver and scolded him sharply.

"Oh, well... I was a bit scared, wasn't I?" The driver sounded insincere. "Having a few more people on board makes it feel a bit more lively."

"You want to make money but you're also scared." The conductor snorted in disdain and looked at Tang Luo and the others. "I'll tell you the truth: these three people are corpses. We're making extra money by transporting bodies, understand? If you don't want to be kicked off, keep your mouths shut and behave. Otherwise, you can walk through this wilderness yourselves."

She looked quite fierce.

Yet, this immediately put the hearts of K and the others, which had been in their throats, back into place.

K took a closer look at the three people.

He discovered that they had feet, and there were thin ropes securing them to the seats.

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

The thin ropes were also black.

It was late, it was raining outside, and the lights inside the bus weren't turned on.

It was normal for their vision to be obstructed, causing them to miss the ropes.

However, there were still many holes in her explanation.

For instance, why would corpses be snoring?

The conductor stood up and pulled a small tape recorder from under a seat near the three of them.

The snoring sound was clearly coming from there.

"...It really isn't easy to earn this little bit of money from you lot!"

The conductor looked at the old woman and the young man and said.

The young man kept his head lowered and didn't speak.

The old woman looked up, revealing a fawning smile, and pressed her palms together in a gesture of prayer.

She then turned toward Tang Luo and the others, gesturing with her hands.

Was she perhaps a mute?

Were the three corpses brought by them?

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

The conductor stood with her hands on her hips and her feet spread apart, looking like a compass.

None of them spoke.

It was unclear if they were deep in thought or simply didn't intend to get off.

However, the driver didn't give everyone time to slowly analyze the situation or weigh the pros and cons; he had already started the bus and was back on the road.

Inside the swaying carriage, the corpses rocked left and right, but thanks to the ropes, they didn't fall over.

Having finally passed that stretch of road in disrepair, the bus became "stable" once again.

Although it still had to make sharp turns due to the winding mountain path, at least it wasn't jolting up and down anymore.

Lin Zi'ang's face was pale, as if he hadn't recovered from the earlier shaking.

In reality, it was because the more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

Even though the conductor had provided an explanation, it was still riddled with suspicious points.

Why use a public bus to transport corpses?

Was there no such thing as a hearse?

Even if they had to use a bus, couldn't they have put them in coffins, covered them up a bit, or secured them to the roof?

Did he really have to use a car to pose as a passenger?

The reason for letting Tang Luo and the others board could barely be explained away.

Was it as the driver claimed—that he was feeling uneasy and wanted more people around to boost the human presence?

He had been blinded by the desire to make money in the moment, but as he thought about it more, he grew increasingly terrified, leading him to let Tang Luo and the others on.

At the very least, that belonged to the realm of normal circumstances.

But apart from that, everything else about this reeked of the uncanny.

"Stop the bus! I want to get off!"

Lin Zi'ang shouted at the top of his lungs.

To hell with the mission; he wouldn't die if he failed it once, and he needed to get off this bus right now!

"It's pouring rain and pitch black outside, why would you want to get off?"

The driver's voice drifted from the front. "I'll take you to the terminal before you get off."

Not only did he fail to stop, but everyone could feel the bus, which had been moving at a moderate pace, suddenly begin to accelerate.

Lin Zi'ang shoved the window beside him open, letting the cold wind and rain pour in.

Ignoring everything else, he lunged forward, trying to scramble through the narrow window that was barely wide enough for a person.

Unfortunately, Lin Zi'ang clearly lacked the ability to perform a graceful swan dive, leaping through the frame like a circus performer and landing perfectly on the ground.

He didn't know what he tripped on.

Lin Zi'ang went headfirst, two-thirds of his body hanging outside the bus while the remaining third stayed inside.

His face slammed hard against the side of the vehicle, and his legs kicked wildly in a desperate frenzy.

With a sharp "rip" of tearing fabric.

Lin Zi'ang's body slid free, successfully detaching from the bus.

However, his landing posture was all wrong.

After his hands made contact with the ground, his head followed immediately.

The force of the fall combined with the momentum of the bus caused Lin Zi'ang's neck to snap instantly.

His face was pressed completely against his shoulder.

"What a lunatic!"

The driver cursed loudly and slammed on the brakes.

He pushed open his window and looked back, spotting the human body not far behind the bus.

After a few twitches, it went completely still.

"Sick in the head!"

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

A moment later, he returned carrying Lin Zi'ang's corpse, tossing it heavily onto the aisle.

The group remained silent.

Auntie Shufen and Mi Ke both turned their heads away, refusing to look at the body to avoid vomiting.

The driver stared at them, his hypocritical smile completely vanishing from his face.

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

Unlike the driver, she was smiling now.

"You're too greedy."

In the heavy silence, the conductor spoke.

"...They threw themselves at us, it would be a waste not to take them," the driver said. "He who refuses what Heaven provides will suffer the consequences."

"What Heaven provides?" the conductor laughed. "If there really were a Heaven, it should have sent a bolt of lightning to strike us all dead."

"Heh."

The driver gave a mirthless laugh and raised his hand, twisting his wrist.

A crisp ringing sound echoed out.

On his wrist hung a strange accessory adorned with two small bells.

From the very beginning, no matter how the driver moved, they had never made a sound.

Until this very moment.

The bells rang.

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

The ropes binding them were snapped apart.

As they lifted their faces, their skin was a deathly shade of cyan, and their eyes were wide open, revealing nothing but the whites.

Corpses, three corpses without a doubt.

And this driver is someone who can manipulate corpses.

A corpse driver?

A corpse-manipulator?

Hmm, the latter title doesn't sound very pleasant.

Let's stick with corpse driver.

The three corpses stood in a row, not approaching, simply blocking the aisle completely.

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

The conductor yawned and lazily sat back down in her seat.

She glanced at Tang Luo and the others from time to time, her expression a mix of mockery and pity.

It fully conveyed: Oh my, I warned you, but you insisted on coming aboard to throw your lives away.

If a person insists on courting death, they will surely die.

As the saying goes: Heaven will rain, mothers will remarry, and if someone is bent on self-destruction, there is no stopping them.

The bus was moving fast, driving at such a speed on a mountain road during a rainy, near-nightfall evening.

It was essentially a death wish.

At the same time, it eliminated any possibility of Tang Luo and the others jumping out the window to escape.

The warning example of that was currently lying in the aisle.

The aisle was blocked by three corpses with iron-blue faces and white, staring eyes.

No matter how sharply the bus turned, the three corpses remained completely motionless.

The old woman and the young man turned a blind eye to what was happening inside the bus.

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

It was difficult to determine their identities.

The conductor sat sideways, casting glances at Tang Luo every now and then.

Only the roaring engine and the "patter-patter" of the rain echoed through the vehicle.

The oppressive atmosphere was almost suffocating.

"Aside from your 'blessing,' do you have any offensive skills?"

Sitting beside Tang Luo, K lowered his voice, ensuring he was heard by Tang Luo and his group while remaining inaudible to the conductor and driver at the front.

"Tathagata Palm," Tang Luo said.

"...Fine."

K said that "fine" with great difficulty. "Wait ten more minutes. When I shout, we strike together."

In ten minutes, his Gale Slash would finish its cooldown and be ready to use again.

"Why must we strike?" Tang Luo asked. "They are giving us a free ride to the terminal and helping us complete our mission. This is fate, a good thing."

"..."

Damn it, that made so much sense that K couldn't even refute it.

Fate your second aunt's backside! K roared internally.

He had already concluded that this guy was mentally unstable.

Thinking about it carefully, he was right!

Even for a God and Demon Walker, would anyone dress like this?

He wasn't some big shot capable of traversing the heavens and earth or destroying the world.

This flashy, gaudy "monk's robe."

It was a classic case of trying to paint a tiger and ending up with a dog—a textbook example of trying to look cool and ending up looking like an idiot.

I was wrong, I was truly wrong. I shouldn't have considered this monk a combat asset from the start. If I hadn't counted on him, I wouldn't have let my guard down and boarded this bus...

"Regardless of what you think, I am going to strike later," K said, suppressing the urge to kill his incompetent teammate.

"Hmm." Tang Luo nodded. "How about this, let this poor monk give you a blessing first?"

He would bestow a blessing upon this K.

When the fighting started, it might save him once and earn some merit.

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

However, he would not let such a minor expenditure stop his "great cause of consecration."

It was just like opening a business; without investment (cost), how could one reap the harvest (profit)?

"I..." K wanted to curse out loud.

"Master, could you perhaps consecrate me as well?"

Mi Ke turned around and stammered.

It was a case of treating a dead horse as if it were still alive.

"Very well." Tang Luo nodded.

K did not want to say anything more and turned his head away.

Damn bald donkey, he's just scamming ignorant newcomers like her to provide a bit of final psychological comfort.

"What kind of consecration is this? Why don't you try consecrating me too, little monk?"

He had just finished a simple consecration for Mi Ke and had not yet delved into deeper methods of consecration.

The ticket seller suddenly stood up and walked over.

K's expression changed. She had actually heard their whispers?

Tang Luo looked at the ticket seller, shook his head, and said, "As for this poor monk's consecration, someone like you, Benefactor, would likely be unable to bear it."

Thanks to yyyingy, bioleon, Jickivence, Brother Pig Online, Surprised Beef Ball, Tree Heart Twelve, Flawless Romantic, and Lv Zhou for the tips!

There is another chapter tonight, please vote for recommendations!