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Chapter 5
Full Charm Points Attract Filth
Some players had found the bus’s emergency hammer and were smashing everything in sight like lunatics.
Others had discovered a fire extinguisher and were bashing the metal walls with a deafening clang, clang!
Someone even grabbed the dead driver’s head and began using the skull as a blunt weapon.
And those who couldn’t find anything handy simply used their fists, heads, and teeth, attacking the bus in blind frenzy…
The higher the bus rose off the ground, the more the interior space compressed.
The roar of metal and human shouting merged into a storm of sound that filled the cabin—engulfing almost everyone.
Except Tang Yu, who sat perfectly still in his seat.
She Qulin gripped a hanging ring and made his way forward step by step.
The darkness hampered his vision a little, but not enough to trouble him.
Tang Yu’s attribute panel above his head glowed like a firefly in the blackness—bright, steady, impossible to miss.
Staring at it, She Qulin couldn’t help wondering:
Why would a decorative NPC like this be the target of a beginner-level protection mission?
Aside from that maxed-out Charm stat, did he have any hidden traits?
She Qulin swept his gaze around. The panels showed that Yan Lang was guarding Tang Yu’s side.
That was the player who’d smashed the window earlier—the one who couldn’t resist chaos.
“Yan Lang,” She Qulin said, “let’s take turns protecting him.”
Sure enough, as soon as he spoke, Yan Lang gave up the seat beside Tang Yu.
She Qulin sat down in the darkness. His right ear caught a faint rustle of fabric—the NPC named Tang Yu had tried to shrink twice toward the corner.
From the moment he’d boarded, She Qulin had noticed these subtle gestures. Probably a detail the devs had programmed in—an NPC’s reaction to being stared at too long. Nice touch.
“Hello. I’m She Qulin.”
His voice was cold, deliberate, each syllable crisp and clear. Even amid the surrounding chaos, it carried a weight that demanded attention.
Tang Yu recognized that voice.
He was the one who’d discovered the dead driver.
He hadn’t dared look directly at any of the players before. Now, surrounded by total darkness where faces couldn’t be seen, he risked raising his head.
He glanced at the man’s attribute panel.
Player — She Qulin
[Intelligence] 9
[Constitution] 5
[Agility] 5
[Strength] 5
[Luck] 6
[Charm] 8
After just one glance, Tang Yu quickly looked away, lips pressed tight.
This man was too smart. His years of experience told him that with clever, inexplicably friendly people, pretending to be deaf and mute was safest.
“Don’t be nervous. We’ll protect you.”
She Qulin’s tone was calm, reassuring. “Can you tell me your name?”
…He was role-playing.
Fully immersed in character.
And somehow, that terrified Tang Yu even more than the manic players yelling “NPC” at him.
It was the same instinctive fear humans feel toward something that looks human but isn’t.
“You seem to know that cleaning lady from before, right?” She Qulin changed the subject casually.
Tang Yu’s breath hitched.
He froze like a student caught by a teacher’s sudden question, his eyes darting away—skimming across the flickering player panels before landing once more on the red blinking light of the surveillance camera.
Shen Junxing.
Those blue eyes were filled with both fear and pleading.
Darkness surged around him—dense, suffocating, all-consuming.
Lightless darkness.
All-encompassing darkness.
Darkness that cut him off from everyone else.
She Qulin’s voice stopped.
Tang Yu didn’t know what Shen Junxing had done, only that at last, that probing voice was gone.
But as he stared at the blinking red light, countless memories of himself trapped inside surveillance footage came rushing back—image after image, frame after frame.
He bit his lip unconsciously.
Then it felt like a hand was tracing up the back of his neck, slowly, tenderly, sliding along his skin.
It brushed the Adam’s apple that moved when he swallowed, slipped beneath his mask, pressed its palm beneath his chin, fingertips grazing his cheeks—then pinched lightly.
The mask rippled with visible indentations.
His clenched jaw was pried open effortlessly, and a soft whimper escaped the corner of his mouth.
The pitch-black phone screen lit up.
A message from Shen Junxing.
Even though it was only text, Tang Yu could almost hear that low, gentle voice saying with helpless fondness:
“Bad habit.”
In the dark, that bit of light was blinding.
Shen Junxing.
Ever-present, shadow-like Shen Junxing.
The one who always took care of him.
The one he realized he might never have truly known.
Tang Yu clutched the phone tightly.
His whole body trembled; even his soul seemed to shiver.
滴答.
A tear splashed onto the glowing screen.
Amid the players’ shrill battle cries, a cold chill spread soundlessly through the bus.
It was summer outside, yet Tang Yu felt as though he’d been dropped into midwinter.
Enveloped by darkness, every other sense sharpened painfully.
He held his breath.
A metallic stench seeped through his mask, invading his nose.
滴答.
His ear twitched.
Trying to ignore the racket around him, he focused on the sound—liquid dripping.
But it wasn’t like water; it was thicker… stickier.
Suddenly, the dim overhead light flickered on.
Tang Yu squinted, blinking at the sickly bluish glow—and froze.
Streams of red liquid were oozing from the cracked windows, the hanging rings, the torn metal walls—dripping down in strings, long and short, like blood seeping from wounds.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Tang Yu’s eyes widened—every seat around him was now occupied.
A dark, motionless back of a head loomed in front of him.
There were far more than eight figures, and none bore the glowing player panels.
He turned—and saw a pair of dried-up hands strangling She Qulin’s neck.
Choking, She Qulin turned toward Tang Yu, forcing out a strangled whisper:
“Was… this… you…?”
The next second, his body dissolved into air.
The withered hands dropped to their knees.
In the seat beside Tang Yu sat a mummified passenger corpse.
The light flickered out again.
Darkness reclaimed the cabin.
Tang Yu’s body broke into a cold sweat—
then he heard the players’ delighted shouts:
“Eat my fire hammer!”
“Crispy crunch, just like chips!”
“Aaaaah don’t come near me I’ll kill you all!!”
“Who the hell hit me?! There’s no friendly-fire protection in this game?!”
“…”
When the lights blinked back on, the corpse beside him threw its head back and lunged straight at him—mouth gaping, face twisted.
Tang Yu didn’t even have time to react.
He stared blankly as the corpse’s head exploded right in front of him.
The fire hammer that had shattered it trembled slightly in the air.
If he hadn’t seen it himself, Tang Yu could never have believed such a small tool could smash a skull so easily.
“She Qulin! Where the hell are you?!”
Yan Lang’s angry shout cut off halfway.
He blinked.
【Congratulations! Player Yan Lang has awakened a new ability: Weak-Point Analysis.
You have a chance to identify a target’s weak points.
The greater the level difference, the lower the success rate.】【You used Weak-Point Analysis on Corpse Passenger’s Head — Success!】
Tang Yu stared as Yan Lang swung the hammer again and again, smashing every corpse that lunged near him like overripe watermelons.
“Sorry, just respawned.”
A freshly resurrected She Qulin emerged, meeting Tang Yu’s stunned gaze.
“I found out the ghost passengers only attack when the lights are on,” he said to Yan Lang.
At that, Yan Lang looked up.
For one brief moment, his eyes turned cold and fathomless—completely different from before.
The next second he shouted, “The bus gets weaker in the dark! Smash the lights!”
The players answered with cheers.
Like a bunch of trick-or-treat kids gone feral, they gleefully wrecked everything in sight.
That action hit the bus’s vital point.
Countless corpse passengers swarmed them, dragging the hammer-swinging players down, but the players fought back like maniacs—
You die, I die, whatever!
They’d revive anyway.
Light and darkness alternated wildly.
Tang Yu curled up in the corner, blue eyes wide, watching the scene that should have been horrific twist into a grotesque stage play.
The blood coursing through the bus’s “veins” sprayed across the stage as vivid red curtains.
The sluggish corpse passengers fell one by one, diligent extras dismembered into pieces.
The manic players—laughing, cursing, reviving endlessly, unlocking abilities—
they were the undeniable protagonists.
Then what was he?
What am I?
When the final light shattered and the last corpse fell, the bus looked like a wreck from some catastrophic crash.
It swayed unsteadily as it descended from the sky, finally slamming back onto solid ground.
As the bus hit earth, Tang Yu felt himself settle too—
like sediment sinking to the bottom of a bottle violently shaken in the dark.
And an answer crystallized.
I’m the audience. The NPC.
The darkness receded.
The bus stopped moving.
But the players didn’t end the performance.
They kept tearing the bus apart with glee.
They smashed the fare box.
They fought over the coins.
They pried open the fuel tank—
and discovered it was full of corpses.
They looted the corpses.
They ripped off the tires.
They fought over those too.
Then—
one of the tires quietly rolled away.
Shock! The evil, blood-sucking ghost bus isn’t completely dead yet!
