"Someone like me?"
The ticket seller laughed, but her smile was filled with venom. "Little monk, do you know that someone like me can decide whether you live or die?"
"I think you want us alive."
Tang Luo spoke with great confidence.
"Little monk, you're pretty clever," the ticket seller said.
Tang Luo pointed at Lin Zi'ang's corpse. "When he died, the Corpse Controller's anger seemed genuine. Of course, that kind of anger looked more like it came from a 'loss,' which was why he was angry."
"I'm a Corpse Controller!"
The bus lurched violently as the driver cursed, "You bald donkey!"
"I have hair," Tang Luo said. "How can I be called a bald donkey?"
The term "bald donkey" had originally come from certain places, where wandering monks liked to lead donkeys around while begging for alms.
Many monks who tarnished the reputation of the clergy idled around and openly begged, stole, swindled, and cheated people. So whenever the locals saw these wicked monks leading donkeys, they would shout from a distance, "Run! The bald-headed donkey leader is coming!"
Over time, "bald donkey" became a derogatory term for monks.
Tang Luo had hair, and he wasn't leading a donkey, so he naturally couldn't be called a bald donkey.
Even during the Journey to the West, to be precise, he could at most have been called a "bald dragon."
"We want you alive." The ticket seller knelt on the seat in front and leaned over to speak. "But you don't understand. Sometimes, being alive is even more painful than being dead."
"Besides, we want the living, and we want the corpses too. Don't go thinking you can choo—"
"Ha!"
Before the ticket seller could finish, a deep, resounding shout cut her off.
The broom Auntie Shufen had never let go of had successfully avoided the obstacles.
It swept through the air with a perfect whoosh, the whistle of its swing accompanying it as it struck the ticket seller in the face.
It was the kind of broom people used to sweep their floors at home.
It wasn't plastic; it was made from one solid piece of wood.
If you removed the bristles, it felt about as heavy as a golf club.
The ticket seller let out a shrill scream.
She fell backward into the aisle.
Her right hand covered her face, blood streaming between her fingers.
She was clearly badly hurt.
"Hey!"
Having landed her first blow, Auntie Shufen gave another low shout.
Her bloodstained broom swept sideways, swinging like a baseball bat at the three corpses standing in a row.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
The three sounds of bursting melons came almost as one.
With a single swing from Auntie Shufen, all three corpses had been smashed in the head!
A silver gun with a wax tip!
A sharp screech of brakes rang out as the bus came to an abrupt stop.
The driver stood up and stared at the back of the bus in shock.
What was going on?
Someone actually dared to fight back?
Did they not know how to write the word "fear"?
"Ahhh! Die!"
Before the driver could make the corpses do anything, the ticket seller was already shrieking.
The young man and old woman who had been sitting in their seats suddenly sprang up. Their bodies moved with an agility that defied all reason as they pounced on Auntie Shufen.
In her panic, Auntie Shufen could only swing her broom wildly.
The tip of the broom struck the young man first.
The instant it touched him, his body withered away.
He went from being a whole person to a sheet of skin!
A lifelike human skin!
Yet the skin didn't lose its "momentum" when it shriveled. It wrapped itself around the broom.
In an instant, the broom became as heavy as a thousand jun.
Auntie Shufen couldn't hold on to it, and it fell from her hands.
The old woman's body shriveled too, turning into a sheet of skin that spread over Auntie Shufen.
Half-standing, Auntie Shufen had nowhere to dodge.
The human skin moved too fast. She could only watch as its eerie face filled her vision.
A clammy, icy sensation covered her entire face.
It felt as if a snake were coiling around it.
"Ahhh!"
Her scream was even more piercing than before.
The human skin, which had just covered her face, suddenly became an actual lifeless object and slid off Auntie Shufen.
"Jingle-jingle..."
A clear bell rang out amid the screams.
The driver, whom they had thought would come help, was crouched there, pressing the hand with the bell against the ticket seller's face.
His own face twisted into a smile.
As the ticket seller struggled, the clear ringing of the bell echoed through the bus.
Black fumes rose from her head and the driver's hand.
Along with them came a stench so foul it nearly choked them.
The instant K and the others smelled it, they dropped to the side and began vomiting.
A moment later, the ringing stopped.
The driver let go, and the ticket seller's upper body slowly rose upright, followed by her lower body. She stared straight ahead.
One of her cheeks had caved in, and her eyes had turned completely white, without pupils.
"You were going to die anyway," the driver said with a laugh. "Might as well put you to some use."
He shook the bell on his wrist.
The three headless corpses and the ticket seller's corpse moved into a line.
They spread their limbs out, dividing the bus into two sections.
"Don't cause any more trouble, or I won't mind taking a few more corpses back with me." The driver's voice came from the other side.
Through the gaps, they could see him return to his seat and start the bus.
He was dedicated to his job. Even with dead people inside the bus and dead people outside it, he still had to drive to the terminal station.
Tang Luo rather admired this free labor.
As for everyone else, they had practically thrown up their guts.
The stench of corpses hadn't dissipated. The three of them were deathly pale and still vomiting.
They didn't have the strength to cause any more trouble.
Amid the sounds of vomiting, the bus continued on.
As they kept throwing up, Auntie Shufen and Mi Ke suddenly began to feel less sick.
Even the dizziness and weakness from vomiting until they were spent began to fade, and their strength returned.
"Are we all right now?"
The two women lifted their heads in surprise and saw K still doubled over in agony.
On the other side was the monk Xuanzang, who had put some distance between himself and them.
Noticing their gazes, he turned and smiled at them.
"Consecration?!"
Auntie Shufen almost cried out.
Fortunately, she stopped herself in time.
This wasn't some little monk—he was a master!
Tang Luo pointed forward and shook his head, signaling them not to draw attention to it.
After thinking it over, the two women decided to trust the master who had consecrated them and quieted down.
That left K as the only one still vomiting.
After retching violently for a while longer, he couldn't hold on and nearly passed out.
The driver had probably expected the vomiting to stop.
He kept driving.
The bus left the desolate mountain road and entered Fengmen Village.
They could see scattered houses along both sides of the road.
Their old-fashioned shapes looked like monsters baring their claws and fangs in the night.
Auntie Shufen and Mi Ke shuddered at the sight.
Not long after entering the village, the bus made several turns and finally stopped.
The engine died, and the vibrations ceased.
The driver's voice came from the front of the bus. "We've reached the terminal station... I mean, you've reached the terminal station of your lives. Oh, I guess you can't hear me."
"I didn't know you were so poetic," Tang Luo said.
"Hm?"
The driver sensed that something was wrong.
The corpse poison he'd released was enough to leave these people barely able to function.
Even if they hadn't passed out, they shouldn't have been able to answer in such a strong, composed voice.
He immediately shook the bell in his hand.
The driver made the corpses blocking his view move aside. He wanted to see what was going on.
A faint, oily green glow rose in his eyes, allowing him to see in the dark.
It seemed to be that strange-looking man in white, with white hair, who was speaking?
"Bang!"
Before the driver could make sense of what was happening, a clear gunshot rang out.
Everything went black in front of him. The headless corpse toppled over, crashing heavily into the bus.
That stupid Corpse Controller had no idea how powerful firearms were!
The corpses standing on the seatbacks lost control and fell over at the same time.
The noise brought K, who had been on the verge of passing out, back to consciousness.
In the darkness, he saw a blurry figure in white, apparently holding... a gun?
Not a spear like the ancient cold weapons, but a firearm—a modern weapon.
"Master, why are you using a gun? Aren't you a monk?" K heard the woman called Li Shufen ask.
"Who says monks can't use guns? You're too attached to appearances, benefactor," Tang Luo said matter-of-factly.
As the saying went, "Wine and meat pass through the gut, but Buddha remains in the heart."
Someone at his level didn't get hung up on forms or material things.
Whatever was most convenient would do.
The driver, as a Corpse Controller, had some impressive tricks.
But he was still human. A person shot in the head would die all the same.
"Let's go. This is the terminal station," Tang Luo said as he stood up.
He had brought them to the terminal station, helped complete the mission, and even gained some merit.
If only every mission came with "kind" people like this.
How nice would that be?
Thinking back to Jack the Ripper last time—what a piece of trash. All he knew how to do was lurk in the shadows.
I, Tang Xuanzang, hate sneaky bastards like him the most.
They got off the bus. The rain that had been falling since the mission began had stopped, and a bright crescent moon hung high in the sky.
The stars shone brightly.
Tang Luo surveyed their surroundings.
The wide-open space beneath their feet wasn't paved with concrete. It was covered in loose gravel, a stony expanse.
Their footsteps rang clearly as they walked across it.
There was no wind, no frog croaks, no chirping insects.
Apart from the bus they'd gotten off, two more identical buses were parked in the open area.
They faced an imposing set of double gates.
There were no openings in the middle; the gates were completely sealed.
They looked like the entrance to some castle.
Beside the gate stood a small room, like a reception booth or guardhouse.
There were no lights inside, and the door was tightly shut.
The area was enclosed by concrete walls over two meters high, with shards of glass faintly visible along the top.
Behind the buses stretched an empty expanse, with no buildings anywhere.
This was the terminal station of Fengmen Village.
The whole place was rectangular and as large as a football field.
For a mountain village with only three buses, this terminal station occupied an unquestionably excessive amount of land.
The iron gate was naturally open, and across the road, fields could be seen on the other side.
Farther away lay the mountains.
On one side, a three-story building stood in view.
The other side was mountains too.
Before you continue