Chapter 24

This was Su Cheng's voice, yet it also seemed not to be hers.

Clatter...

Su Cheng seemed exhausted. The dagger slipped from her hand and struck the floor with a clear ring.

Her mind broke free of the resentment, dazed.

The masked man's corpse became Xunfang in her red dress.

Her eyes were wide open, bloody froth trickling from the corner of her mouth. Blood had stained her red dress a dull, deep crimson.

The scarlet corpse looked perfectly at home in the blood-colored carriage.

Chen Renping leaned beside a seat, his head hanging limply.

The fabric over his abdomen was soaked red. He had been shot right at the beginning...

Where were those passengers from before?

Su Cheng turned around.

Those living, breathing passengers had long since disappeared.

Behind her stood fourteen passengers who had long been dead... Some were fat, some thin, some tall, some short. There were adults and children.

Their faces were a lifeless, cold white. Wisps of red smoke flowed through their translucent bodies, and their deathly still eyes watched her quietly...

The scene should have been terrifying, but Su Cheng was eerily calm.

She even felt that this was simply what people looked like. Didn't she look the same?

Su Cheng slowly extended a finger and counted them one by one:

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5... 13, 14."

Why were there only fourteen?

Su Cheng murmured, "Where's the fifteenth?"

All fourteen passengers raised their hands at once and pointed at her.

Am I the fifteenth?

"So I'm the fifteenth..."

Su Cheng lowered her head and looked at her blood-soaked yellow dress. Her hands were covered in blood, but the chain around her wrist was spotless.

Her name was clearly engraved on the wooden bead:

Mu Ling.

So her name was Mu Ling.

Mu Ling had died three years ago.

So she should have died long ago.

Su Cheng picked the dagger up from the floor again and pressed it against her neck. She remembered dying from having her neck slashed... She had bled so, so much when she died. It had hurt so, so much...

A pale hand caught her wrist, stopping the blade from moving.

Su Cheng looked up blankly. It was Chen Renping's soul.

He shook his head. "You're not Mu Ling. You shouldn't stay here."

Then who was she?

Where should she go?

Su Cheng lowered the knife. Her thoughts were terribly sluggish, as though something was preventing her from thinking.

What she didn't know was that wisps of red smoke also swirled around her.

"Then where should I go... I need to go back to..."

The apartment.

The instant those words appeared in her mind, they smashed through her shackles like a heavy hammer.

Her body shuddered. Her awareness returned with complete clarity, bringing her out of her stupor and back to reality.

She was Su Cheng, not Mu Ling.

This was an instance. She needed to go back to... the apartment!

The yellow dress Su Cheng wore faded into a trench coat. The bracelet disappeared, and the black wristband reappeared.

When she touched her pocket, the storage slot that popped up and the chocolate in her pocket grounded her sense of security in what she knew.

Mu Ling's soul seemed to be expelled by some force, leaving Su Cheng's body along with the red smoke.

Mu Ling returned to the fourteen passengers.

Now there were fifteen.

Su Cheng glared at Mu Ling among the passengers and demanded irritably, "You wanted me dead?"

Now that she was clearheaded, looking at Xunfang's mangled body again, Su Cheng pieced everything together from what had just happened.

Xunfang was Lin Jie, the serial killer from ten years ago! Perhaps to hide, or perhaps because of a gender identity disorder, he had undergone surgery on his entire body to turn himself into a woman.

That was why Chen Renping had never suspected Xunfang was the fugitive killer aboard the train.

It was also why there had been nothing incongruous about Xunfang and the masked man. That had been his original body.

In any case, she had killed Xunfang herself, which counted as avenging Mu Ling. Yet Mu Ling had possessed her and bewitched her into killing herself, wanting Su Cheng to join her in death. Were all ghosts so quick to discard people once they had served their purpose?

Mu Ling shook her head. Her long hair fell over her face as she lowered her head, and she shrank behind the other passengers.

Su Cheng frowned, not understanding what Mu Ling meant, then turned to Chen Renping with a grateful look. "Thank you!"

Chen Renping had only recently become a ghost. His soul was weak, nowhere near as solid as the passenger ghosts, but he had none of the red smoke that surrounded them.

Author's note:

None.

Chapter 24

Chen Renping pointed at the bag on Xunfang.

Su Cheng immediately retrieved the bag from the blood. Its surface was covered in blood, but none had seeped inside.

The inner compartment held only four paper talismans, a white plastic-sealed bag containing six long, rusty nails, and a small, rusty hammer.

The instant Su Cheng put the items in her pocket, the yin energy clinging to her abruptly dissipated. Chen Renping and the passenger ghosts all took a step back from her.

The paper talismans summoned souls, so the only things they could fear were the iron nails.

Then everything made sense.

Why, despite recognizing Xunfang as Lin Jie beneath all her layers of disguise, the ghosts hadn't dared attack her on the train.

Why the ghosts had needed to use Su Cheng to deal with Xunfang...

Because the iron nails Xunfang carried could harm or intimidate ghosts!

And with Xunfang bringing these aboard, it was entirely possible she had known the ghosts existed and deliberately come to deal with them, eliminating any future trouble for good.

Su Cheng took the last two nutrient solutions out of the smart bag's storage slot and tucked them into her trench coat's outer pocket, then put the paper talismans, nails, and hammer into the emptied slot.

[Soul-Suppressing Nails: paranormal-type weapon. Effect: drive the six soul nails into a corpse's crown, both palms, both soles, and heart to seal its soul inside the corpse. Weight: 0.1 kg]

[Soul-Suppressing Hammer: paranormal-type weapon. For use with items such as Soul-Suppressing Nails. Weight: 1 kg]

[Soul-Luring Talisman (4): paranormal-type weapon. Effect: attracts ghosts. Weight: 0.02 kg]

Su Cheng was secretly delighted. These really were good items.

She backed away several steps, distancing herself from Xunfang's corpse.

With Su Cheng no longer blocking them, the passenger ghosts fixed their gazes on Xunfang's corpse and advanced together to surround it.

Hands reached into Xunfang's corpse and dragged her soul out.

It looked completely different from the female body. Without the smiling mask to conceal it, the face was that of a delicate-featured man.

He had abandoned the male name Lin Jie and replaced it with the carefully chosen female name Xunfang. He had comprehensively altered his □□ and identity information to be female, fooling everyone.

But the soul did not change with the name and body. It still bore the male appearance he loathed.

Forever bearing his sins and filth.

"You! You-"

Lin Jie stared in panic at the hateful faces, but as he backed away, something caught his leg.

His leg was, by a ghost,

easily

torn off and stuffed into its mouth to chew.

"Ah! It hurts!!!"

Before the crowd of ghost passengers, Lin Jie's frail soul had no power to resist.

"I didn't mean it! Let me go! I just lost my head for a moment. I know I was wrong..."

"I'm actually very pitiful. I'm a woman, but I had a man's body. Every day, I was imprisoned in that disgusting male body. I was in so much pain! My parents kicked me out that day, and I only did something wrong because I was too angry..."

"Please let me go! Aaaah-"

The passengers showed no pity for him, continually tearing at his soul and devouring it.

The agony of his soul being ripped apart made Lin Jie howl himself hoarse...

Seeing that he couldn't arouse the ghost passengers' pity, he began cursing instead. "Do you know how many hormones I took, how many operations I had to look like this?! What right do you have to treat me this way? This is all heaven's fault!"

"It hurts! It hurts so much!"

The passenger ghosts ate very slowly. They wanted Lin Jie to remain conscious and feel the agony of being torn apart bit by bit.

Lin Jie might never have imagined that boarding the train this time would end like this.

Someone who had once delighted in slaughter would ultimately be consumed by his sins.

Chen Renping did not join them. He looked at Su Cheng and pointed at the door behind her. "Go."

Su Cheng nodded, bent down to pick up the handgun in the corner, then turned and stepped through the faintly glowing door.

[Ding~ Side quest "Old Case Reenacted" completed. Reward: 800 points. Settlement will begin upon leaving the instance]

She had finally completed a side quest, but Su Cheng felt little joy.

Thinking back now, she felt a belated surge of fear.

The ghosts had invaded her consciousness without her noticing. She didn't even know when she had fallen under their influence. That was the most terrifying part.

Fortunately... she had made it through the scare unharmed.

Stepping through the door, Su Cheng returned to the carriage where she had started.

One second after she entered, the door automatically shut and locked, and could no longer be opened.

When the passengers saw the blood on Su Cheng's trench coat and shoes, their faces abruptly filled with terror, and they all backed away.

Without a change in expression, Su Cheng drank the two nutrient solutions from the storage slot.

There was still a knife wound on her arm, but fortunately, it had stopped bleeding.

She looked at the girl wearing earphones, who was watching her cautiously. "How long was I gone?"

The girl answered quietly, "About two minutes..."

Only two minutes.

Did time flow differently in that space...?

The white-haired old woman hesitated for a moment, then asked tentatively, "What about them?"

She meant Xunfang and Chen Renping, who had also gone through the door.

"They're both dead."

The old woman shuddered. "Y-you, you killed..."

Su Cheng frowned. "No."

The old woman exchanged glances with the other passengers. Whether they believed her or not was unclear, but some of the fear faded from their faces.

The couple sitting in the corner muttered in disappointment, "We thought we could get out of here through that door..."

Su Cheng had no intention of continuing the conversation. She fixed her gaze on He Lie, whose head was lowered.

The black suitcase containing the dismembered body was no longer in the aisle. It had been closed and placed beside his seat.

The quest "Old Case Reenacted" was complete. Only "The Extra One" remained.

Clearly, the central figures of the remaining side quest were He Lie and the red-mist female ghost he had killed.