Chapter 17: Summon Ghosts
“As expected.”
“Although very dangerous, it works on this platform.”
As early as when she saw Lin Shuyue being swallowed by the box and the ghost following her being driven away, Lu Jinzhao’s mind had already vaguely formed this idea.
As an ordinary person, no matter how she thought about it, it was impossible for her to board the train alive surrounded by evil ghosts.
So, there was only one method.
What if she was also possessed by a ghost and was no longer an ordinary living person?
This way, except for the ghost that had already targeted her, the other ghosts would also lose interest in her.
Now, what she needed to solve was to return to the train before being completely possessed and dying!
But this was not easy either.
What did it feel like to be possessed by a ghost?
Before this, Lu Jinzhao couldn’t answer, but now she could fully describe this feeling.
Numbness, pain, the soul seemed no longer able to control the body.
She needed to run, but every step she took felt unreal.
The brain was churning, as if an iron nail was rotating in her brain matter, dizziness, pain, coldness, a fearful sense of impending loss of control constantly surrounded her, forcing her to stay alert at every moment to maintain herself, or else in the next second, she would lose her self-consciousness as Lu Jinzhao.
Her legs were already numb, and with every step, a large amount of blood overflowed from under her feet.
If Lu Jinzhao looked down now, she would see that her legs were no longer human-like, her hair strands like blades had shaved off the flesh from her calves and ankles, and she could still walk only by sheer willpower.
As soon as this willpower dissipated, this body would never stand again.
But Lu Jinzhao knew what she should do at this moment, even though her brain was like mush and she could hardly think anymore, her instinct kept pushing her forward.
The train door was within reach.
Lu Jinzhao’s pupils were somewhat dilated, her heartbeat had slowed, her breathing was extremely weak, and even the flow of blood had become sluggish.
She was already teetering on the edge between life and death; as soon as her will wavered slightly, she would die just before boarding!
At this extremely critical moment, Lu Jinzhao heard a familiar voice.
“Little Lu!”
“Little Lu! Wake up!”
“You’re going the wrong way!”
Lu Jinzhao was startled, even her stalled thinking rippled at this moment.
This was Jiang Yingzhi’s voice!
“That’s not the train door! Look carefully!”
The other person’s voice was weak and desperate, constantly calling out to her, and as she stepped forward step by step, the emotion in the voice became even more despairing and helpless.
“Little Lu! Stop walking! That… is a ghost!”
“Don’t be fooled!”
Lu Jinzhao’s dilated pupils trembled slightly; she couldn’t think more meticulously, only instinctively wanting to believe the words of a familiar person, but…
Her forward steps showed no sign of stopping!
Even though her brain could no longer think and was entirely used for weak resistance against the invading ghost, her will unwaveringly executed the goal she had set for herself.
[Aim for the train door, board at all costs]
Jiang Yingzhi’s voice was thrown behind her; it wasn’t that Lu Jinzhao had seen through anything or had any concern, but simply that she could no longer think about whether Jiang Yingzhi’s words were true or false.
The only thing she could do now was go forward.
She had reached the train door.
The train’s lights shone on her, slightly warming her already stiff body that was no different from a corpse.
This crucial warmth finally allowed Lu Jinzhao to muster her last breath, forcefully kicking with her calves that were reduced to mere tendons and white bones in a twisted posture to step through the train door.
The instant she entered, this body collapsed straight into the carriage.
Oil exhausted and lamp extinguished—that was Lu Jinzhao’s state at this moment.
The moment she confirmed she was back on the train, her taut consciousness finally snapped, and the uncontrollable body collapsed as well.
The next moment, Lu Jinzhao heard a warm voice, seemingly genderless, asking if she wanted to undergo body repair.
In a daze, Lu Jinzhao instinctively answered yes.
She didn’t remember the body repair process, only that when her consciousness returned, her body no longer hurt at all, though her spirit still retained intense fatigue.
Lu Jinzhao lay on the ground, first sighing, then slowly propping herself up to climb to her feet.
During this process, she confirmed that her body had indeed been repaired.
Then, she thought of something and quickly took out her train ticket.
The train ticket had also changed now.
Its appearance was not much different, but the amount on it had become 300.
This was the balance after deducting the body repair cost.
Earlier, Lu Jinzhao had been in a semi-comatose state and couldn’t confirm how much life-buying money she had initially obtained or how much was deducted for the repair, but her intuition told her that a lot had been deducted.
Besides that, the [No Seat] on her train ticket had now changed to [Third-Class Seat].
She had discussed this point with Jiang Yingzhi on the way to the hospital earlier.
The other person had also said that new passengers would be promoted from no-seat tickets to third-class as long as they survived their first platform mission.
The [Class D] train they were on this time was the lowest known train level.
Although Jiang Yingzhi had only ridden Class D trains so far.
Even the platform mission of the lowest-level train was this dangerous; Lu Jinzhao couldn’t imagine how dangerous the platform mission of the highest-level train would be.
But now, she only felt fortunate that she had successfully survived.
It’s just…
She turned her head and looked; in the simply furnished carriage, she was the only one.
—Woo woo
It was the sound of the train whistle.
It was about to set off on the return journey, but up to now, no second living person had boarded.
Even though she had considered this possibility, facing this scene for real still left Lu Jinzhao with an indescribable melancholy.
Time was up.
The train doors slowly closed; besides her, no one else boarded.
Lu Jinzhao thought of Jiang Yingzhi’s voice before boarding; she couldn’t think then, but recalling it now, it was still a trap.
If she had hesitated or wavered at that time, she would have been doomed.
But who knew that at that moment, Lu Jinzhao had already chosen to go all in, leaving no space for any hesitation or doubt.
Even if Lu Jinzhao wasn’t ruthless or decisive enough toward herself, she would have wavered because of that call, but she had done it thoroughly.
Lu Jinzhao sighed, stood up from her seat, and walked to the train window to look outside.
As the train slowly started moving, she saw the scene outside.
A corpse in a burial shroud, stiff all over, stood under the streetlight; a person wrapped in black hair hung their head low; a person with Zhou Wenbo’s appearance held an empty bowl in their hands, constantly opening their mouth as if saying something; a miserable-looking black cat kept circling, as if searching for something.
And Jiang Yingzhi, whose belly was torn open, umbilical cord connected to a dead puppy wrapped around her neck, her whole body bruised and purple.
The hellish scene made Lu Jinzhao’s hair stand on end.
She clearly saw their blurry eyes fixed on the departing train.
Clearly ghosts had no emotions, yet Lu Jinzhao seemed to have the illusion that from those lifeless figures, she saw intense unwillingness.
