Chapter 19
Su Cheng covered her nose and searched the corners of the restroom in confusion, but found no source of the stench. When she turned on the faucet, the water flowed normally and had no unusual smell.
"Where's that rotting smell coming from...?"
Su Cheng lowered her head to search the sink and found a wooden bead bracelet behind its pedestal.
The bracelet was wedged between the pedestal and the wall, covered in thick dust and cobwebs. Had Su Cheng not looked carefully, she could easily have missed it.
After hooking the bracelet out, Su Cheng washed it clean under the faucet. Only then did she discover characters carved into two of the beads: Mu Ling.
Mu Ling?
The bracelet's owner?
The dust accumulated on the bracelet had been thick enough to conceal the characters, so it had clearly been there for more than a day or two. It could not have been left by one of the passengers outside.
Su Cheng tucked the bracelet into her pocket, let out a breath, and left the restroom. She really could not stand its choking stench.
Rumble, rumble, rumble-
The train seemed to have entered another stretch of track. The echoes of its movement sounded more hollow, as though it had entered a tunnel.
Bzz, bzz.
The lights flickered twice, then abruptly went out.
Su Cheng froze with her hand on the restroom door handle. What's going on?
The sudden darkness instantly put Su Cheng on edge. If something like this happened in a special instance, something was definitely going on.
Su Cheng turned around warily. Her eyes glimmered in the darkness, like an animal activating its night vision.
She stared into the cramped restroom, took out her enchanted dagger, and calmly began counting the seconds.
1... 2... 3... 4...
The Soul-Pointing Needle did not budge.
In the quiet space, the only sound was Su Cheng's faint, slow breathing.
She watched the entire restroom, her nerves taut. As the seconds ticked by, nothing that defied common sense happened in the darkness...
Rumble-
The train emerged from the tunnel.
Bzz, bzz.
The lights abruptly came back on, as though someone had flipped a switch.
Su Cheng's nerves relaxed slightly as the lights returned.
Thirty seconds had passed between entering and leaving the tunnel.
But immediately afterward, a scream shattered the silence. "Aaaah! Honey!!"
Outside, everything became noisy and chaotic.
"Waaah... Daddy..."
"What happened? So much blood! Is someone dead?!!"
"Where's the attendant? Why's the door locked? Where's the attendant? Someone's dead!! Call the police-"
Su Cheng's heart lurched.
Something had happened after all.
But the Soul-Pointing Needle she had held the entire time had not moved at all.
Was the supernatural presence too far away for the Soul-Pointing Needle to detect?
Su Cheng hurried out of the restroom.
The passengers in the carriage were already panicking. Some stood up in confusion to look, while others could not contain their curiosity and walked toward the scene.
When Su Cheng passed the young man curled up in his white T-shirt, she noticed that he still had not moved. If not for the slight movement of his body as he breathed, she might have wondered whether he was alive.
From where the crowd had gathered and the sounds of the woman and boy crying, Su Cheng formed a guess: the dead man was the husband from the family of three.
Approaching the gathered passengers, Su Cheng felt her scalp prickle the instant she saw the "person" on the floor.
A headless corpse lay in the aisle. Bright red blood gushed from the clean cut, soaking through his short-sleeved work shirt and pooling beneath the severed neck...
Blood had splattered onto the wall, the seats, and the mother and son collapsed beneath a seat, sobbing and wailing.
The corpse's head was wedged beneath a seat, his face turned toward the crowd. Fear lingered in his wide-open eyes, as though he had seen something utterly horrifying before his death...
Perhaps because it had only recently left his body, the severed head still retained its color. The head that should have rested on his neck had rolled beneath a seat like a ball after separating from his body, making the sight especially horrifying...
"Urgh..."
Some passengers retched in fear and backed away, trembling.
Su Cheng's face paled slightly, and she looked away. Even though she had witnessed the bloody spectacle of "people eating people" in the zombie instance, she still could not bear to look directly at this.
She had always found the heavy smell of blood deeply repulsive.
Perhaps it was because the blood of her own kind always conveyed a signal of "danger"...
Who killed him?
The cut across the corpse's neck did not look like something a human could have made.
Then... a ghost?
Considering the instance's name... very likely.
When was he killed? When the train entered the tunnel and the lights went out...?
Then why kill him?
Was it random, or were there conditions that triggered it...?
Her mind full of questions, Su Cheng took a step back and went to a corner to observe the passengers she had been keeping an eye on.
The wife was already beside herself with terror at her husband's gruesome death. She held her son, trembling all over.
The woman in the red dress looked indifferent, without the slightest trace of fear. Her eyes were slightly lowered, her thoughts unknown.
The middle-aged man wore an ugly expression. His heavy dark circles and dejected air made his gaze look particularly gloomy.
Everyone else reacted normally. The girl with headphones, the old woman, the young man playing games, the bald man... without exception, they were frightened and vomiting.
"What happened back then?!"
The middle-aged man looked coldly at the wife. His tone was rather harsh, almost interrogative.
"I... sob... I don't know!!"
The woman recalled what had happened, bewildered and terrified. Her words came out jumbled. "When the lights went out, he went up front to get hot water, then hurried back to his seat in a panic. As soon as the lights came on, I'd just turned around, and he... he fell off..."
"Waaah..."
The little boy was drawn into the memory by his mother's words and cried his heart out. He had clearly been badly frightened, and even being held tightly in her arms could not calm him.
"Did any of you see anything?"
The man's gaze swept over the others one by one.
The girl with headphones shook her head firmly. She swallowed. "I... I had my eyes closed. I have a habit of closing my eyes when going through tunnels."
The woman in the red dress shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention."
The old woman and the young man shook their heads, their faces slightly pale.
Su Cheng mulled over the wife's words again and again.
The husband had gone alone to the junction between carriages to get water. Then, when the lights went out, he might have seen something and met his end while hurrying back to his seat in a panic.
Did the ghost kill people when the lights went out as the train passed through the tunnel?
Su Cheng glanced at her watch. The old woman had told her earlier that they would reach the station in ten minutes, but thirteen minutes had already passed.
And why did the trees flashing past the window look so much like the scenery she had seen outside when she first entered the instance...?
Su Cheng rubbed her fingertips together slightly. The train is looping along the same stretch of track!
Does that mean the train will soon enter the tunnel again...?
The thought made Su Cheng's hair stand on end. She hurriedly checked the time on her wristband. If the ghost would kill again when they entered the tunnel, how much time did they have left?
A passenger shouted in panic, "Where's the attendant? Why hasn't the attendant come yet...?"
"It's already 20:20. Why haven't we reached the station?"
"What on earth is going on?"
Anxiety was contagious, and the carriage grew restless.
"Quiet!"
The middle-aged man barked. His glare was quite intimidating.
"The train will enter the tunnel again in ten minutes. During those thirty seconds in the tunnel, the ghost will kill again! You'd all better sit together. You're an easy target if you're alone."
The bald man demanded irritably, "A ghost? Are you kidding me?"
"Do you think a human could have done that to the corpse?"
"Well... that..."
Everyone's eyes fell on the cut across the corpse's neck, then turned away in discomfort.
The passengers whispered anxiously among themselves.
A few questioned it, but most already believed him.
Su Cheng glanced at the unusually composed middle-aged man. How did he know when the train would enter the tunnel and how long it would stay there?
After all, Su Cheng had not even thought earlier to calculate the exact time the train would reach the tunnel.
She had only deliberately counted the thirty seconds it took to pass through because the lights had suddenly gone out and she knew this was a special instance.
And the middle-aged man also knew there was a ghost on the train.
While observing everyone, Su Cheng had paid particular attention to their wrists and confirmed that she was the only player on the entire train.
The man was not a player, yet he knew both the details of the train's journey and that there was a ghost aboard. There had to be something behind this.
Who was he? What connection did he have to the train?
Su Cheng had a feeling that the middle-aged man was deeply connected to her side quest...
Author's note:
None
Chapter 19
"Why should we believe you? How do you know so much?"
The woman in the red dress twirled a dangling curl around her index finger and casually asked the questions Su Cheng also wanted answered.
The middle-aged man's face remained grim. He offered no explanation, saying coldly, "Believe me or don't."
With that, he swept his gaze over every passenger present and asked ominously, "Do you still remember why you're on this train? Does this train really have an attendant?"
His words sent a shock wave through the crowd.
Apart from Su Cheng, the passengers' expressions shifted repeatedly.
"I... I was going home..."
"This train never had an attendant. Why didn't I notice at all?!"
"Why can't I remember anything...? What on earth is going on?!"
"You... you just said the ghost would kill again..."
Only the wife, holding her son, did not join the conversation. She looked dazed, mumbling indistinct words, immersed in her own world and indifferent to everything around her...
Su Cheng took in everyone's expressions. Only the woman in the red dress remained unreadable.
She sat with her legs crossed, swinging them idly. Whether faced with a corpse or a ghost, she remained perfectly at ease.
Su Cheng paid particular attention to her expression and did not miss the interest that flashed through her eyes when she looked at the middle-aged man...
Suddenly, the woman turned and stared straight at Su Cheng. She lifted her eyes with the hint of a smile, her lips moving slightly as she mouthed, "Am I pretty?"