Lu Wenchuan did not move aside immediately.
The steering wheel was still shaking wildly. The driver's phantom wound around his arm, trying to drag him back into the darkness behind the driver's seat.
He said quietly, "With you looking like that, are you sure you can stop it?"
Xu Zhihan braced himself against the railing, his voice cold. "You ask stupid questions like that every time."
Lu Wenchuan smiled, the veins on the back of his hand tightening slightly.
"Fine. I'll give you thirty seconds."
Xu Zhihan looked at him. "Can you hold out?"
"I'll have to, even if I can't."
The moment Lu Wenchuan finished speaking, every window on the bus shattered at once.
Countless black hands reached in through the windows, grabbing at the three living passengers. Forced into obedience by the driver, the dead souls inside the bus lunged at them too.
Lu Wenchuan raised his blade, sweeping thunder and fire through the bus.
This time, he no longer held back.
When Thunderlight erupted, the entire bus lit up for an instant. The black hands curled back under the flames, and the dead souls screamed as they retreated beneath the seats.
Xu Zhihan stood in the middle of the bus, staring at the tickets inside the fare box.
A strand of soul was bound to each ticket.
This bus was not a lone evil spirit.
It was an urban legend nurtured on a busload of dead souls and the fear of the living. The driver was only its shell. Its core lay in these tickets.
Xu Zhihan reached out to touch the topmost ticket.
The moment his fingertip landed on it, a memory surfaced on the ticket.
The first missing person.
A woman coming off the night shift had been so exhausted that she boarded a bus without a route number. She thought she could get home sooner, but she never got off again.
The second missing person.
A drunken man cursed at the driver for going too slowly, and the dead souls on the bus tore away half his soul.
The third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
These memories forced their way into Xu Zhihan's mind, one after another.
Xu Zhihan grew even paler.
He hated having things like this shoved into his head.
People's fear, resentment, regret, and cries for help all crowded together, so loud they made his head ache.
The chill in Xu Zhihan's eyes deepened.
"So damn noisy."
He raised his hand and tore up the first ticket.
The bus let out a piercing scream.
A layer of black energy vanished from inside the bus.
Lu Wenchuan saw it and immediately understood what Xu Zhihan was doing.
"Tearing up the tickets works?"
Xu Zhihan said, "Yes."
"Can you save them if you tear them all up?"
"Yes."
"Will it hurt you?"
Xu Zhihan paused.
Lu Wenchuan knew the answer without needing him to reply.
He cursed. "I knew it."
Xu Zhihan looked up. "Got a problem with that?"
"Yes." Lu Wenchuan cleaved through the driver's lunging phantom. "But saying so won't help right now."
Xu Zhihan went on to tear up the second ticket.
The dead souls inside the bus began to regain a little awareness.
A woman crawled out from beneath a seat. When she saw the ticket in Xu Zhihan's hand, she suddenly burst into tears. "My ticket. Can I get off now?"
Xu Zhihan glanced at her. "Yes."
The woman froze.
She seemed unable to believe she could really leave.
Xu Zhihan tore up her ticket.
The black energy around the woman dispersed, and her spectral form grew faint. She knelt on the floor and bowed her head to Xu Zhihan.
"Thank you."
Xu Zhihan frowned. "Don't kneel."
The woman did not dare move again. She turned into a wisp of white light and vanished.
Something shifted in Lu Wenchuan's eyes as he watched.
Xu Zhihan spoke coldly, yet he had not simply destroyed all the dead souls on the bus.
He was freeing them one by one.
It was troublesome, exhausting, and cost him his life force.
And this man hated trouble more than anything.
Lu Wenchuan suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.
He did not like that feeling.
So he took all his anger out on the driver.
"What are you staring at?"
The driver's phantom screamed as thunder and fire burned it. Lu Wenchuan kicked the dashboard, his voice edged with cold.
"Drive your damn bus."
Half the driver's body dispersed under his kick. It roared venomously, "You'll all stay here!"
The bus suddenly turned around and charged straight into the deepest part of the black fog.
At the back of the bus, the three living passengers' bodies began to turn transparent.
Xu Zhihan raised his head.
There was no time to tear the tickets up one by one.
He looked at the remaining tickets in the fare box.
Lu Wenchuan also noticed something was wrong. "How many are left?"
"A lot."
"Can you tear them all up together?"
Xu Zhihan's voice was steady. "Yes."
Lu Wenchuan frowned. "At what cost?"
Xu Zhihan did not answer.
Lu Wenchuan's expression darkened. "Xu Zhihan."
Xu Zhihan gave him an indifferent look. "You're very noisy."
"I don't want to hear that right now."
"Then don't listen."
Xu Zhihan reached out and pressed his hand against the entire stack of tickets.
All the black tickets burst into flames at once.
The crying inside the bus instantly swelled.
The dead souls' memories surged in together, as though trying to tear Xu Zhihan's mind apart. His fingers went slightly white, but his lips did not move.
Lu Wenchuan saw a trace of blood seep from the corner of his mouth.
His gaze turned cold. He turned and pinned the driver's phantom to the driver's seat with a thrust of his blade.
"You'd better pray he's all right."
The driver shrieked, "He's the one asking to die!"
Lu Wenchuan pressed down with his wrist, driving thunder and fire straight into its chest.
"Shut up."
The tickets burned faster and faster.
The dead souls on the bus faded away one after another.
Some cried, some laughed, some stared blankly at their hands, and some kept talking about going home.
As Xu Zhihan listened to these voices, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
Noisy.
So damn noisy.
But he did not stop.
At last, only the three living passengers' tickets remained.
Those three tickets had only just taken shape, and the writing had yet to turn completely black.
Just as Xu Zhihan was about to tear them up, the driver suddenly broke free of the thunder and fire, its entire face emerging from the ceiling.
"They can't leave!"
A huge maw split open in the ceiling and snapped straight at the three living passengers.
Lu Wenchuan's gaze sharpened, and the thunder and fire in his right hand surged.
His old wound split open completely, spilling even more blood. But he did not retreat. He sprang off a seat and drove his blade into the ceiling.
Thunder and fire blasted through the bus.
The driver's enormous maw was forcibly cleaved apart.
When Lu Wenchuan landed, his knees buckled slightly, but he quickly steadied himself.
Xu Zhihan saw the blood on his wrist, and his voice grew colder.
"Do you not want that hand anymore?"
Lu Wenchuan caught his breath, still able to smile.
"It's still there for now."
"Idiot."
"Thanks for caring."
"I don't care."
"Right. You don't."
Xu Zhihan did not want to talk to him.
He raised his hand and tore up the last three tickets.
The black threads attached to the three living passengers snapped at once.
The high school boy's eyes flew open, like a drowning person finally drawing breath. He stared blankly around the bus, then saw Xu Zhihan. His voice trembled. "I... where am I?"
Xu Zhihan did not answer.
He could no longer speak.
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His fingertips were cold, and his vision kept blacking out.
But the bus had not stopped.
The driver's core was still there.
The last light inside the bus flickered. The bus was heading straight toward a stop marked "Place of No Return."
Lu Wenchuan walked over to Xu Zhihan and said quietly, "I'll handle the rest."
Xu Zhihan looked up. "Can you?"
"Yes," Lu Wenchuan said. "You just saved those people. I can't stand around watching."
Xu Zhihan stared at him.
Lu Wenchuan tightened his grip on his short blade, and thunder and fire spread out from beneath his feet.
This time, he did not charge at the driver.
He charged at the door.
The urban legend's rule was that once you boarded, you could not get off.
Then he would cleave the door open first.
Lu Wenchuan brought his blade down. The door gave a piercing screech, and a crack opened in it.
The driver screamed in terror, "No getting off!"
Lu Wenchuan sneered.
"You don't get to decide."
The second strike fell.
The door shattered completely.
The thunder and fire drove back the black fog outside, revealing a path to reality.
Lu Wenchuan turned to look at the three living passengers.
"Run!"
The three living passengers stumbled out through the doorway.
The next second, the entire bus began shaking violently.
The driver had lost control completely.
It crawled out of the front of the car, wreathed in black vapor, and lunged straight at Xu Zhihan.
"You wrecked my car!"
Xu Zhihan looked up, his voice soft.
"So?"
The driver abruptly froze.
Xu Zhihan stood amid the ashes strewn across the ground, his face frighteningly pale, yet his gaze was so cold that no one dared approach.
"Kneel."
The driver crashed to his knees.
Lu Wenchuan stood beside the car door, panting. When he turned and saw this, he couldn't help laughing.
"You're fierce."
Xu Zhihan glanced at him but didn't snap back.
Because he had no strength left.