Ghost Wall, Ghosts Playing with People?

The surrounding environment became familiar once again: the endless wilderness and forests, the impenetrable night, and the gas station that reappeared ahead after driving for a while.

Same structure, same location, even the few trees nearby were almost identical. Zhang Anzai could confirm it with a single glance; this was the very same gas station he had visited before.

However, Zhang Anzai did not waste his energy on panic. He silently checked the time on his phone and then simply drove past the gas station.

He tried his best to calm his mind and adapt to the fact that a bizarre entity was sitting right beside him.

"I can't escape, and wallowing in negative emotions is useless, so let's give this a try..." As Zhang Anzai continued to drive forward, he occasionally began to attempt some small actions.

For instance, he drank water while driving, and checked his phone, which was essentially a paperweight given the lack of signal.

As it turned out, no matter what he did, Chen Xing beside him showed little reaction.

"But, the abilities of this kind of monster surely involve learning and imitation."

After Zhang Anzai drove for another stretch, he saw, as expected, that Chen Xing had learned to unscrew the cap to drink water and could also manipulate the phone.

He even seemed to have learned some extended operations on his own; Zhang Anzai saw him pick up the phone, use the camera to snap a picture of the pitch-black window, and pick up a biscuit from the storage box to eat.

It was just that he wasn't very proficient yet.

When taking the photo, one of his hands completely blocked the phone lens. When eating the biscuit, he simply shoved it into his mouth and swallowed it without even a single bite, yet he didn't choke at all.

Zhang Anzai could only see all these movements through the faint light cast into the car by the low beams.

Coupled with the fact that he was observing secretly and could barely make out the details, Chen Xing's actions—which were human-like yet not entirely human—appeared even more eerie.

"This is not good news..." The reason Zhang Anzai tried these things was that he knew nothing about this strange guy beside him.

But doing these things alone wouldn't help him understand Chen Xing's behavioral logic; instead, he felt a sense of dread due to this sudden learning and growth.

Zhang Anzai worried that once this guy beside him learned enough, he would simply kill him and take his place.

Wasn't this behavioral pattern the most common trait of these doppelgänger-style monsters?

Amidst this lingering anxiety, Zhang Anzai soon saw the Highway 45 sign appear ahead once again.

Zhang Anzai decisively took out his phone, kept it recording with his left hand, and then drove past the highway sign.

As expected, when he looked in the rearview mirror again, the sign had vanished.

"If I maintain a steady speed of eighty or ninety, it takes over an hour from the Highway 45 sign to the gas station, and another hour or so from the gas station back to the Highway 45 sign."

Zhang Anzai had made this trip specifically to confirm that he was trapped in a ghost-loop highway, and incidentally, he had measured the approximate range.

At this point, he had driven back to the starting point.

This time, he didn't rush to set off; instead, he attempted to make a U-turn and drive in the direction he had come from.

As soon as he turned around, he saw, not surprisingly, the intersection he had passed earlier where someone had been burning paper.

"Now, what I need to confirm is what happens if I drive this way."

There was no one in sight here anymore, but as the car passed the intersection, Zhang Anzai turned his head to look and clearly saw the ashes from the burned paper on the grass by the roadside.

"Hoo..." Zhang Anzai turned his head to check with his peripheral vision; Chen Xing beside him showed no unusual movement.

That was a good thing, but bad news followed immediately: after driving for only a few minutes, he passed that intersection again.

"In other words, both sides of this highway... eventually lead back to the position where one departs from this intersection toward the gas station." Having tested this far, Zhang Anzai decisively turned the car back toward the gas station.

Actually, there were still a few directions he hadn't tried, namely the surrounding wilderness.

But setting aside the monster and the bizarre environmental factors of the instance, the surrounding wasteland was simply not suitable for driving. If he drove his ordinary sedan onto the wild ground, it was hard to say whether the car would fall apart first or he would be shaken to the point of vomiting.

Moreover, according to his past experience with other "ghost-loop" instances, such a solution was basically impossible.

It was more likely that after driving for a while, he would just end up back on the other side of the wasteland near Highway 44; the instance wouldn't leave such an obvious loophole.

With a monster sitting beside him that was quiet but constantly growing, Zhang Anzai didn't have the guts to waste time.

"Now there is only one thing left to confirm..." Zhang Anzai pushed the car to its maximum speed and drove toward the gas station in the shortest time possible.

"Friend."

Zhang Anzai jumped in fright. The thing he feared had happened: Chen Xing beside him had suddenly spoken.

"Hm? What is it?" Zhang Anzai replied, feigning composure, while thinking to himself: It has evolved to the point where it can speak so naturally?

"Can I... listen to this?" Chen Xing pointed at the radio, appearing as if he couldn't recall the name of the device.

Zhang Anzai tried his best to get his thoughts, which were sluggish from fear, moving again: "Uh... of course you can."

Zhang Anzai decisively turned on the radio and tuned it to a music channel.

In the 2000s, rock music in the Great Celestial Empire was still quite prosperous. Cui Jian's raspy voice subsequently rang out from the radio.

Although he was still young, Zhang Anzai inexplicably loved the music of that era. Normally, listening to his songs while driving would make him quite happy.

But how are you expecting me to get hyped up with this... After Zhang Anzai finished tuning the station, the car fell into an eerie silence, the classic rock contrasting with the strange stillness inside the vehicle.

"The one from before." Chen Xing spoke briefly, his tone strange.

Zhang Anzai frowned, his expression quite odd, but he followed the instruction and tuned it back.

A slightly hoarse host's voice came through: "I suddenly felt that there was something wrong with Wang Qiang beside me. Ever since he got out of the car to use the restroom, he seemed to have suddenly become unfamiliar with the large truck we were in..."

That's right, what Chen Xing wanted to tune into was the Midnight Stories channel.

"Damn it, this channel is one thing, but why does this story sound so familiar!?" Zhang Anzai's grip on the steering wheel was so tight his knuckles had turned white.

In the story the male host was telling, Wang Qiang, the protagonist's driving partner, had gone to the restroom once, after which he seemed to have been possessed by a ghost; his hands and feet were ice-cold, his heels didn't touch the ground, his speech was bizarre, and he swallowed his food whole.

"This is f*cking identical to my current state, isn't it?" This time, Zhang Anzai didn't care in the slightest whether there were any clues hidden within the story.

He only worried whether Chen Xing, sitting beside him, was deliberately using this story to tease him, implying that he had actually fully evolved. Or perhaps, this story might trigger him in a moment, forcing him to reveal his true form and get himself killed.

Just as he was spiraling in worry, Chen Xing suddenly spoke up: "This story is talking about..."