Chapter 83: Empty Bus
Cold icy rain battered Lin Qian’s entire body.
His body grew increasingly stiff; these rainwaters carrying supernatural properties were suppressing his supernatural abilities, then killing him.
“The ghosts have started to go dormant…”
“If it weren’t for the bus, just relying on this rain to suppress my ghosts would at least require nonstop drenching me for ten days or so.”
The supernatural properties in the rainwater weren’t terrifying. Of course, this was only true for him.
But for others, this rainwater carrying supernatural properties was undoubtedly fatal.
As his own fierce ghost gradually fell into dormancy, the ice cubes under his feet also began to melt gradually.
The bus’s speed didn’t slow down at all, which meant this ghost bus might not stop here.
Trouble…
Lin Qian felt his dying body.
Although his body had long ceased to be that of a living person, every rebirth from destruction restored his body to the state of a living person.
Just not completely equivalent to a living person—more like a living dead.
The kind with an extremely slow heartbeat.
Heavy rain poured down.
Lin Qian suddenly sensed something wrong.
The supernatural properties in the heavy rain seemed to intensify!
Lin Qian narrowed his eyes slightly. “Has the source ghost arrived?”
The moment this thought appeared, a muffled bang rang out.
Immediately after, the bus came to a sudden stop.
Lin Qian crashed directly into the bus, making a bang.
Rumbling~!
The bus headlights flickered on, then went out completely.
Lin Qian shook his head, his consciousness somewhat dazed.
“What… what happened?”
The bus seemed to have stopped.
Lin Qian felt his own supernatural abilities beginning to revive.
The suppression power on him seemed to have vanished.
His consciousness was gradually clearing.
He could confirm the bus had stopped.
He let go of the hand gripping the license plate.
Heavy rain poured down; the shadow lay back on the ground, and the ice cubes under his feet vanished instantly.
Lin Qian wiped the rainwater from his face, and his ghost domain activated instantly.
His figure merged into the ghost domain.
His soaked body dried rapidly, and the supernatural properties were expelled.
Lin Qian narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the bus.
With just one glance, his pupils contracted sharply.
“What the hell!”
“Where are the ghosts!”
The old bus was hidden in the darkness, with the bus door tightly closed and headlights extinguished.
It was pitch black inside the bus cabin.
Ahead of the bus was a woman lying on the muddy road.
A woman holding a white umbrella.
The white umbrella on the ground was unnaturally clean; the mud splashed up by the heavy rain couldn’t stain its snow-white surface.
The woman lay on the ground, her bluish-black hand tightly gripping the black handle of the white umbrella.
A thick, cold aura emanated from her body.
The ghost was reviving; as the heavy rain washed over it, the cold on the ghost grew increasingly dense.
It was as if this rain was washing away its own filth.
Undoubtedly, this woman was a ghost, and a terrifying one at that.
But that wasn’t the most important thing.
He now knew why the bus had stopped.
From the fallen woman, it was clear the bus had encountered a crash.
Ghost blocking the bus.
The bus had stopped.
But the question was, why hadn’t the bus opened its bus door!
Where were all those ghosts on the bus?
When the bus encountered engine failure and ghost blocking the bus, shouldn’t the bus door open first and then the engine fail?
How could the bus not even give the passengers a chance to get off?
Thirty-nine ghosts!
All of them now in that pitch-black bus cabin.
Lin Qian swallowed, and in his ghost domain, a extremely terrifying thought entered his mind.
The moment this thought appeared, even he felt a chill run down his spine.
He didn’t know what would happen if you didn’t get off when the bus stalled.
But people would definitely die.
That middle-aged man earlier hadn’t chosen to get off; when the bus restarted, not even a corpse was seen.
But what if it was ghosts?
Would the ghosts also disappear?
But ghosts and people are different; ghosts can’t be killed.
How could ghosts disappear?
The bus engulfed in darkness was now like a man-eating tiger in Lin Qian’s eyes.
Dangerous, horrifying.
“Is it because of the full load?”
Lin Qian stared fixedly at the bus.
He was waiting, waiting for the bus to restart; he wanted to see if those ghosts were still inside. If not, where had the ghosts gone?
Rainwater passed through his body and fell to the ground.
The bus stood quietly by the roadside.
Amid the pouring rain, the fierce ghost knocked over by the bus suddenly twitched.
Immediately, an extreme cold flashed by.
Visibly, the rain intensified.
The woman slowly stood up, the white umbrella opened, blocking the rain.
But suddenly, Lin Qian’s pupils contracted slightly; the pure white umbrella instantly turned pitch black the moment the woman raised it.
And the clothes on the woman also turned pitch black at that moment.
Lin Qian frowned; what color were the woman’s clothes just now?
He was certain the woman’s clothes hadn’t been this black earlier.
“A weird fierce ghost…”
In this environment, with that ghost clearly linked to this place, he wouldn’t conflict or confront it.
This wasn’t on the bus; if it were on the bus, with the bus’s suppression power, he could directly suppress it without giving it a chance to escape.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t on the bus.
Moreover, he had already controlled three revived fierce ghosts.
Once three ghosts lost the ghost messenger’s suppression, their revival speeds were all extremely fast.
Only the ghost performer’s revival speed would be much slower.
He had no way to kill-machine the three revived ghosts for now.
If he controlled another revived ghost, he might run into trouble.
Lin Qian hid in the ghost domain, watching the umbrella-holding female ghost slowly walk to the roadside, the mud on her body slowly falling off.
She was like him, waiting for the bus.
That fierce ghost hadn’t noticed him.
This was good news.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
There were ghosts that could attack through ghost domains, but clearly, the one before him wasn’t that type.
“Ghost messenger suppression quotas are still too few.”
“Need to find a way to increase them.”
A ghost messenger who could only suppress three ghosts was still too weak.
With only three suppression quotas, he couldn’t catch the ghosts that tempted him.
He really needed to find a way to increase the quotas.
He already had ideas on how to do it.
It was just a bit risky.
But if he planned it with Yang Jian…
The difficulty would drop significantly.
Lin Qian’s eyes flickered; for the headquarters ghost messenger incident, he couldn’t join at the start but could join midway.
Still, it was best not to let anyone know.
His thoughts wandered, and Lin Qian considered many things.
“With three revived ghosts, I still need to find a way to become an anomaly.”
“Relying solely on ghost messenger suppression of fierce ghosts isn’t stable enough.”
“Right now, I’m not close to the ghost messenger; once I get close, the ghost messenger’s supernatural part will start reviving and go out of control.”
“Supernatural out of control means I won’t be able to suppress the revival of three fierce ghosts.”
“Though I control fierce ghosts with balance, this balance is utterly useless; the fierce ghosts will still revive as they should.”
Lin Qian stroked his chin; in his situation, balance seemed unrelated to fierce ghost revival.
His abilities only handled control, not revival.
The meaning of balance seemed only to be controlling fierce ghosts.
Before, he thought that if his fierce ghost revived, he could control another fierce ghost to delay the revival.
But now, it seemed like a joke. How to delay?
Ghosts would still revive; at most, a bit slower, but not stop.
The previous delay worked because the controlled ghost had low terror level.
Now, the three revived fierce ghosts started at A-level, with the ice ghost being solidly S-level.
To suppress or delay fierce ghost revival, he could only control a ghost with higher or equal terror level.
But the problem was, after control, it could delay revival, but once one ghost’s revival started, it would trigger the others.
That was messed up.
If not for controlling the ghost messenger’s suppression power, he couldn’t imagine his state.
Indeed, he still didn’t fully understand his own abilities.
With many thoughts, Lin Qian knew these weren’t issues he could solve now.
“Becoming an anomaly…”
“That’s quite difficult.”
He rubbed his face, gazing at the umbrella-holding female ghost; if he wasn’t mistaken, this was the black umbrella fierce ghost.
In the original work, the ghost Yang Jian handled first time chose to retreat directly.
It possessed an extremely terrifying ghost domain.
It was a ghost even Yang Jian feared.
This was one reason he hadn’t acted.
This ghost was very terrifying.
Time passed slowly.
The rain grew heavier.
Suddenly, Lin Qian narrowed his eyes slightly.
The bus suddenly made a rumbling sound.
Immediately, the bus door opened without warning.
The lights inside the bus cabin lit up first, followed by the outside headlights.
Dim yellow lights shone from outside the bus cabin into the rain curtain.
The pale headlights pierced the rain curtain, illuminating the ground ahead.
Lin Qian’s expression was horrified, staring fixedly at the bus cabin.
Inside…
It was completely empty inside!
Where were the ghosts?
Where had all those ghosts gone?
It couldn’t be that the bus also had the ability to transfer fierce ghosts, right?
The umbrella-holding female ghost walked toward the bus; soon, she boarded, water stains falling outside without being brought in.
Lin Qian’s expression shifted uncertainly. “No, the bus definitely can’t transfer fierce ghosts; those ghosts might have been eaten…”
“No, the bus can’t eat ghosts.”
“It should be control…”
Lin Qian’s figure flickered, appearing at the bus door; he hesitated, then boarded.
Instantly, his expression changed. “This suppression power…”
The fierce ghost inside him instantly went dormant.
The shadow under his feet became no different from a normal shadow, just with a different color.
All fierce ghosts inside him were tightly suppressed.
He couldn’t even use a trace of supernatural power.
And the bus hadn’t truly started moving yet.
After sensing his state, he understood: the bus’s suppression power had strengthened!
The strengthening of suppression power meant its terror level had also increased.
He glanced at the driver’s seat; a driver had reappeared there.
The driver stared expressionlessly ahead, hands on the steering wheel, motionless.
The driver’s pale face and deathly aura made one extremely uncomfortable.
Lin Qian composed himself and sat in the last row.
The umbrella-holding female ghost had already found a seat, folded her umbrella, and placed it on her knees.
She kept her head down, expression numb, eyes lifeless, emanating a cold aura.
Lin Qian lowered his gaze; he now knew what happened with a full load on the bus.
Once the number of ghosts on the bus exceeded the seats, the ghosts inside would prepare to get off, but the bus would instantly close the door, not letting those fierce ghosts off.
Then, the bus would start uncontrollably speeding.
To make the bus stop, it required special circumstances, like ghost blocking the bus, causing a restart.
Or letting the bus stop on its own.
But that might take an extremely long time.
He didn’t know exactly how long.
A stopped bus wouldn’t open its bus door.
When it restarted, the ghosts inside might have been controlled by the ghost bus to increase its own terror level and suppression power.
Of course, this was a possibility.
In short, if the bus risked a full load, you must get off.
Otherwise, certain death.
Not even a chance to escape the bus.
“Meng Xiaodong told me to get off at thirty-five; at thirty-five, you can get off, and the bus won’t lose control.”
“Once it exceeds thirty-five…”
Lin Qian recalled hanging onto the bus’s rear while it sped wildly, his mouth twitching slightly.
“Terrifying bus; no wonder Yang Jian’s dad was killed by this thing.”
Time passed quietly; amid his thoughts, the bus suddenly closed its door.
Lin Qian instinctively looked up; clearly, he now feared this bus.
Fortunately, this was just a normal start.
With the bus door closed, the bus slowly started moving.
The pale bus lights pierced the rain curtain.
Under the pouring rain, the bus slowly drove along the roads.
The scenery outside the window began to recede.
But due to the heavy rain, from inside the bus, it seemed like the bus was stationary.
“I wonder if continuing for five stops will get me where I want to go.”
Lin Qian’s eyes showed some worry.
Though this supernatural land trip had brought great benefits—using the bus’s suppression power to control an S-level fierce ghost.
But there were pros and cons.
The benefits were clear: his strength had greatly improved.
The downside was he couldn’t control a fourth revived ghost, unable to suppress its revival.
Treating a revived ghost as a puzzle piece to control was possible, but first, the killing patterns had to match or conflict.
If not, it was trouble.
His current situation was best to control puzzle pieces for his internal fierce ghosts to increase his terror level, not new fierce ghosts.
Unless the controlled fierce ghost was kill-machined.
But low terror level fierce ghosts were useless to control, only good as puzzle pieces for terrifying fierce ghosts.
He could do that too.
But he felt it hid a major risk, though he couldn’t pinpoint what.
“Overthinking; after this, I’ll ask how to become an anomaly.”
“First, ask the ghost cabinet about its conditions; if too harsh, threaten the human skin paper.”
“The human skin paper should be sensible.”
Lin Qian thought this.
Headquarters.
In a small courtyard, an old man gazed at the rippling water surface and slowly smiled.
“After so many years, you’re the first young one to witness the bus full load.”
“And the first junior to think of riding this way.”
“Bold enough.” The old man nodded sincerely.
Da Jiang City.
