Meditation

Player Su Bai issued a task to his teammates: chat enthusiastically with the driver and obtain information fragments to piece together the game's complete backstory.

Player Su Bai chose to observe.

The requirement for clearing the beginner game was to survive for twelve hours. In Su Bai's experience, if they could deal with the game's key supernatural threat ahead of time, they would most likely be able to clear the game early and leave.

So, while the game environment was still relatively safe, impatience and rash action would only make things worse. He chose to let the trio talk to the driver and gather more information while he leaned back against his seat and closed his eyes.

Although sleeping in this environment was out of the question, Su Bai could use this time to thoroughly explore the power currently inside his body, search for the Vengeful Ghost Puzzle hidden deep within, and find a way to awaken that puzzle piece, which was crucial to this game.

Of the remaining three, Qin Ge couldn't move freely because the woman in the white cheongsam was blocking him. Especially now that she had turned entirely into a paper figure, even Qin Ge had to keep lowering his voice.

Just as Qin Ge himself had said, he was in a terrible predicament.

So the task of chatting with the driver fell to Zhang Yibu and Wan Shasha. To be precise, only Wan Shasha accepted it gladly. But when she saw Zhang Yibu huddling in his seat like a turtle again, Wan Shasha, who was his age, was exasperated by his lack of backbone. She forcibly dragged him to the first row of seats, where Su Bai had been sitting earlier.

That row was far from all the "special passengers" on the bus, making it relatively safer.

Su Bai appeared to be resting with his eyes closed, but he was actually devoting all his attention to guiding the power inside his body. In his previous life, after veteran players like them had spent long enough in the Nightmare World, some who were bored naturally began researching how to make better use of the power within them.

This power came from the Red Moon. All the buildings, objects, ghosts, and even people in the Nightmare World would involuntarily absorb its power after prolonged exposure to its moonlight. Once that power grew strong enough, they would undergo certain mutations.

The bored veterans Su Bai knew weren't satisfied with using the Red Moon's power to enhance the "traits" and "abilities" the Nightmare World had given them. Perhaps they had read too many novels and comics in the real world, because they actually wanted to try training the power inside their bodies.

Unfortunately, even by the time Su Bai was reborn, their research hadn't made much meaningful progress. All he had learned from them was how to vaguely see the flow of power inside his body while meditating.

Normally, the Red Moon's power darted about randomly inside a person's body. But using the method those people had developed, Su Bai could imagine an invisible hand entering his body and gathering the scattered power into a single stream. Then he could use that invisible hand to pull the stream through his body in a regular pattern, or even speed up its flow.

Those people called this method "cultivation," another term borrowed from real-world novels. But all it could do was slightly accelerate a human's absorption of the Red Moon's power. Most of the time, it was more like an idle pastime for veteran players in the Nightmare World, one that could even make the boring hours pass a little faster.

In this life, however, at this very moment, Su Bai could use the method to seek out and explore the power within his body.

After all, borrowing a vengeful ghost's power through the Vengeful Ghost Puzzle also consumed some of Su Bai's own power. That amount had been negligible to him in his previous life, but for his current self, it meant gathering every last scrap of power from every corner of his body.

While meditating, Su Bai could still monitor what was happening around him, and he could even hear snippets of Wan Shasha's conversation with the driver.

Although Su Bai's help had made the driver willing to answer Wan Shasha's questions, he only answered a small portion of her barrage of bizarre inquiries. Most of the time, Wan Shasha was simply talking to herself.

Beside her, Zhang Yibu played more of a straight man's role, occasionally chiming in with "yes," "right," and "you're absolutely right."

Perhaps Wan Shasha's "harassment" had spurred the driver on, or perhaps meditation had made time pass faster. While Su Bai rested with his eyes closed, the Route 444 Last Bus had already passed Happy Home Station, and the passenger in a suit at the back had staggered off.

Route 444 Last Bus, current passengers: 7.

"Next stop, Lovers' Lake Station."

After the driver started the bus again and announced the next stop, Su Bai sensed Wan Shasha and Zhang Yibu returning to their seats at the back.

He slowly opened his eyes. The light inside the bus was dim, but he still needed a moment to adjust. His body had recovered considerably during his meditation, though, and he no longer felt the exhaustion from being soaked in the rain earlier. Even his face reflected in the window looked less pale.

"Did you learn anything?" Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, Su Bai saw Wan Shasha looking eagerly toward him and Qin Ge, like a student who had solved a problem first and couldn't wait to raise her hand.

"The driver said that middle-aged man in the suit who just got off was unemployed. But he might be afraid of his family finding out he lost his job, so every day he sleeps on this bus all day, then gets off and goes home when it's time to leave work." Through the window, Wan Shasha could still see the suited figure disappearing into the fog.

"That's so strange. Aren't all the passengers on this bus, aside from the players... ghosts?" Wan Shasha lowered her voice so much when she said "ghosts" that they could almost only make out the exaggerated movement of her lips.

"The Nightmare World is full of strange things. Maybe even if he's a ghost, he's forgotten what he is? Don't novels and movies have supernatural characters like that all the time?" Su Bai had seen far too many wandering souls like this in the Nightmare World. Perhaps one day, the man would discover that there was no family in the home he returned to every day. Perhaps one day, he would discover that he wasn't human and had no need to pretend. When that happened, these wandering souls would become as savage as vengeful ghosts.

Su Bai hadn't seen that wandering soul in the suit during his previous life. Perhaps by then, he had already become a ghost through and through.

"Then maybe the old lady who got off earlier was like that too. The driver said her grandson seemed to have gone missing, so she gets on and off at different stops, always searching for him along the route." Wan Shasha looked sympathetic. "The special passengers aren't all scary, actually."

"And that one..." Wan Shasha pointed toward the nurse sitting by the bus door. "The driver said this was her first time boarding, but he'd seen other people from the Community Hospital before. Or ghosts. Anyway, they were all terrifying things, so the driver thinks she must have been bullied."

"And..."

"So you asked questions the whole way and didn't get a single piece of information about the driver himself?" Qin Ge pressed a hand to his forehead, looking pained.

"Oh!" Wan Shasha seemed to remember something. "The driver said he used to raise cattle!"

"..."

"We really tried our best to ask, but whenever a question was about the driver himself, he simply refused to answer." Wan Shasha knew she hadn't obtained much useful information, but she continued anyway. "Also, the one beside you, Qin Ge-the driver said she didn't really board the bus. It was more like she floated in through the window that was open earlier."

"That's about it."

"The driver also told us about the last stop. It's right after Lovers' Lake Station!" Seeing that Wan Shasha had forgotten the important part, Zhang Yibu couldn't help adding, "The last stop seems to be a village called Ghost Village."

"Right, right, the last stop!" Wan Shasha hurriedly thanked Zhang Yibu for his help. "The driver said that sometimes there are lots of passengers waiting to board at the last stop."

"We absolutely mustn't get off at the last stop?" Qin Ge repeated what Su Bai had said earlier.

"At least, that's what my dead brother told me when he visited me in a dream." Su Bai's smile remained flawless. "That prophetic ability is very accurate. There was only one time in his life when he didn't believe the prophecy, and then he died. Horribly."

"...You and your brother must have had a really bad relationship, huh?"

"How could that be?" Su Bai still smiled with his eyes narrowed. "I dream of seeing him again."