[Ghosts · Endless Night Road]

As he felt his consciousness slowly being pulled from his body, Zhang Anzai seemed to return to that gray River of the Past where water and sky blended into one.

Beneath the surface below was a strange, ghostly shadow whose shape he could not make out.

Unlike last time, this ghostly shadow was much larger, and its form was bizarre—a long strip. It lay underwater, yet at first glance seemed to be floating on the surface.

Before Zhang Anzai could study it closely, a wave of dizziness struck him, and he suddenly gained the senses of another body.

"You have entered Old Shadow [Ghosts · Endless Night Road] (Fierce)."

Zhang Anzai was startled. Frowning, he thought, Not every dungeon monster is as strong as the Mountain Peddler. I have a Strange Item to assist me now, yet I still got this rating after entering... Looks like this dungeon won't be simple.

He split off all his attention and quickly sensed the condition of the player's body within the dungeon.

"Hm?" Feeling the sensations coming from his hands and feet, he sharply noticed that his starting situation this time seemed rather unusual.

"Vroom..." A faint engine hum came from ahead. His feet remained lightly pressed down, while his hands gripped something and held it steady.

Night stretched beyond the window frames. Before him was a long highway extending all the way to the horizon.

"A national highway?" Zhang Anzai made that judgment immediately. There were no guardrails along either side of the road, only open wilderness stretching into the distance and rising and falling around several mountains.

Yet neither the wasteland around him nor the more distant woods and mountains showed even a trace of light. A place this remote could only be a national highway.

He was sitting inside an old-fashioned sedan with fully mechanical buttons.

It was distinctive enough that he recognized it quickly: an older Volkswagen Santana, a famous old car from the 2000s, practically a rugged off-roader of its era.

The car had decent power, but it was not moving fast, maintaining a speed of sixty to seventy kilometers per hour. The headlights were not particularly bright, perhaps because the bulbs had aged yellow; the light was somewhat yellowish, but it could at least illuminate the road ahead.

He drove for a short stretch along the highway, where there were neither people nor cars, when the little display on the car radio suddenly lit up by itself. Instead of a station frequency, the digital screen displayed the dungeon's introduction:

"The night is boundless, and the highway seems never-ending. The discomfort from the bumps appears to have been completely absorbed by your body. But have you adapted, or simply gone numb? You cannot quite tell.

"Highway 44 is a stretch of road you are not familiar with. There is almost no human habitation along the way, yet stories often circulate of people encountering wild animals here. Stopping to rest here does not seem like a good idea. Leave as soon as possible."

After the introduction ended, his body returned to normal.

"Whew..." Zhang Anzai let out a long breath, both to get used to the body and to test the current temperature.

His breath turned into a faint white mist. It was a little cold, but still bearable.

"Driving at night... this dungeon's setting is pretty broad." Zhang Anzai looked around. Just as the description had said, the highway seemed to stretch endlessly. It might take at least several hours to get out.

He checked both sides and behind him, areas he had not looked at earlier. They too were nothing but wilderness and mountain forests stretching into the distance.

"Don't tell me I'm driving through some nature reserve." Zhang Anzai complained helplessly.

He had been born in the latter half of the year, making him one of the older students in his class. By the time he graduated high school, he had already been an adult for several months, so he got his driver's license right after graduation. He had occasionally driven during his two or three years of college and work afterward, so his skills were fairly decent.

"Good thing I know how to drive. If this were someone who couldn't, they'd be screwed from the start." Zhang Anzai thought as he began checking what was in the car.

It was not difficult. Old cars did not have much space, so he could inspect things while driving.

First, he checked himself. Other than a thin jacket over his T-shirt and his pants pockets, he had nothing on him except a phone—an old model from over a decade ago.

He turned it on and, as expected, there was no signal. It was completely useless.

Next, there was no one in the passenger seat or the back seats, which was only natural. There were no large items piled there either.

The storage compartments on the driver's and passenger's sides contained only a wallet, tissues, a lighter, a charging cable, plastic bags, an eyeglasses case, and similar items. There were some biscuits in the compartment, along with two bottles of water. Other than that, there seemed to be nothing else.

"Can't check the trunk for now, but that's normal enough."

When Zhang Anzai turned his head, he saw that there was even a coin amulet hanging beneath the rearview mirror. One look told him this was a driver from Great Xia.

"This has to be from more than ten years ago. Otherwise, there'd probably be a Rockstar logo hanging there."

Zhang Anzai could more or less guess what this dungeon was about. Ghost-themed content had always been fairly straightforward—little stories that made people shiver all over and feel their hands and feet turn cold even in midsummer.

Driving at night meant nothing more than running into ghosts, hitchhikers, driverless cars, that sort of thing. With his courage, he should be able to handle it.

What he feared was some other variable.

"Let's see whether there are any service areas or gas stations along the way. I need to stop and inspect the trunk. If this is from an earlier era, there should be useful things in there."

If his opponent was a ghost, the things Zhang Anzai had in mind might not necessarily be useful, but having them was better than not: "Too bad this is a sedan and not a semi-truck. Otherwise, I'd put on a little song—life, ah~ can it be played..."

Zhang Anzai nearly started singing before he remembered, "Right, there's a radio."

He looked out at the unchanged scene beyond the windows, then adjusted the frequency.

FM 102.7

"Welcome to Guangzhou Car Music Radio..." The voice of a Cantonese radio host came through the speakers, carrying that old-fashioned texture of faint electronic interference.

Zhang Anzai had wanted to play some music, but this was inside a dungeon. And as far as he knew, most objects in dungeons were useful, so...

FM 93

"Zhejiang Traffic Conditions Radio..."

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Anzai changed the station again. "Local traffic stations might be useful, but not by much. After all, we don't even know where Highway 44 is."

Keeping his eyes on the road ahead, which continued winding forward as if it had no end, Zhang Anzai kept tuning through the frequencies.

Ding! The sudden sound effect made him jump.

This station's host had a voice and tone clearly different from the previous ones:

"FM 103.1, Jinan Traffic Radio. Midnight Stories, keeping you company until midnight, every night."

The host's voice was husky and slow, with sound effects added in. When he said the program's name, Midnight Stories, it had reverb, and the echo lingered several times afterward.

Combined with the dark, chilly atmosphere surrounding Zhang Anzai's car, he unconsciously switched on the seat heater to make himself a little more comfortable.

"This program... I think I remember it. Jinan Ghost Stories?" Zhang Anzai was from the south, but around ten years ago, when he was about to start middle school, he had lived in Jinan for a while because of his parents' work transfer.

Entertainment options had been limited in those days, so he would occasionally listen to the radio. This ghost-story broadcast program had been one of the shadows of his childhood.

Yet while he was distracted, the radio suddenly crackled, followed by a burst of noisy static.

"On tonight's program, everyone will be hearing Jinan Ghost Stories: Car Accident."

Zhang Anzai raised an eyebrow. The sound just now had seemed like signal interference, but once the connection returned, the radio host on the program had actually changed into a woman's voice.