GBP Chapter 940 Scene
Chapter 940 Scene
The thing that was "awakening" was a far more twisted entity than the contamination on his arm, and it had noticed this "tiny contamination" of his.
"..."
Yu Shijiu subconsciously looked towards the back of the carriage.
The "passenger" next to Lin Hai, who had been keeping his head down and was wearing a dark hoodie, had somehow raised his head.
His hat was still pulled low over his head, revealing only the lower half of his face—pale skin and a stiff, slightly upturned corner of his mouth.
He is laughing.
Beside him, the woman in the wet floral dress slowly, very slowly, turned her face toward Yu Shijiu.
Through the gaps in the long black hair falling across the forehead of the woman in the floral dress, two cold, lifeless eyes pierced through the dimly lit space between the seats and locked onto him.
No.
Yu Shijiu's heart pounded. He noticed that the woman in the floral dress had actually locked onto his left arm, which was wrapped in strips of cloth and was trembling.
The murmurs of a certain "person," carrying a subtle, almost imperceptible guidance, drifted gently through the increasingly cold and oppressive air of the carriage, only faintly detectable by those with heightened mental sensitivity or those with special vision like He Lingling:
"Look...we've all gotten on the bus..."
"We're all... about to get on the bus..."
"..."
Yu Shijiu's heart pounded heavily in his chest, each beat like a taut drum.
He forced himself to look away from the woman in the floral dress and instead looked at Lin Hai beside them.
Lin Hai was looking at him at that moment, his small pupils barely visible in the dim light, only swirling fragments of light.
Yu Shijiu slowly clenched his fists, which were hanging by his sides.
He had just clearly seen a cold, research-oriented interest in Lin Hai's eyes.
Lin Hai, he really did it on purpose.
Yu Shijiu clenched his fist tightly, suppressing the urge to grab an axe.
Lin Hai, sitting in the back seat, tilted his head slightly, his gaze falling on Yu Shijiu's left arm, seemingly very satisfied with the reaction of Yu Shijiu's left arm at this moment.
"Don't look at him."
Anjie's deep and urgent voice came from the front seat, carrying an unquestionable tone.
"Shi Jiu, look down at your hands, or look out the window, anything is fine, just don't look behind you."
Yu Shijiu took a deep breath, lowered her head as instructed, and looked down at the back of her right hand, which was covered in goosebumps.
He even started gripping the upper part of his left arm tightly with his right hand, feeling the restlessness of the hair under the thick strip of cloth, and the involuntary twitching of the deeper muscle fibers.
"Brother Chen..."
Xu Han's trembling voice rang in their ears. He shrank closer to the car window, and this time he even pulled a corner of He Lingling's coat over.
"I...I...I'm starting to feel cold again...so many eyes...all around..."
Although Xu Han was saying the most cowardly things, his other hand, which wasn't tugging at his clothes, secretly pressed on the prop at his waist. He kept glancing fearfully at the four newly boarded passengers in the back of the carriage who had their heads down, and at the corner where Lin Hai was further away.
Although he was scared, he could also sense that the "balance" in the carriage was being broken.
Previously, although it was oppressive and eerie, it at least maintained a superficial "stillness." But now, with the arrival of four passengers at the second station, something has been activated.
He Lingling was struggling to breathe under her coat, her eyeballs twitching in pain.
...Although the fragments of the future she saw were blurry and brief, they contained a wealth of information—for example, Lin Hai was unknowingly and frantically absorbing the "black mist" inside the car.
The black mist originated from the passengers, from the bus, and possibly even from the fear emanating from these living players/NPCs.
What is Lin Hai planning to do? Is it to accumulate power? Or to trigger some kind of dungeon mechanic they are unaware of?
What chilled He Lingling even more was that, during the time the Ghost Eye opened uncontrollably... she vaguely saw all the passengers in the carriage who had been looking down... simultaneously raise their heads. That fleeting glimpse was enough to make one's blood run cold and freeze.
What does it mean when all the passengers look up?
He Lingling could not know for sure.
But she understood something very important—the passengers' simultaneous looking up must be related to Lin Hai!
The bus, filled with everyone's fear, bumped along in the rainy night, like a lone boat sailing on a black ocean.
As dawn approached, the rain outside the window seemed to lessen a bit, but the dark clouds in the night were still thick. As the bus drove along, the occasional outlines of abandoned houses flashed by in the distance, desolate and lifeless.
Time passed by, and each second seemed exceptionally long.
The young couple hugged each other tightly. Xiao Juan buried her face completely in her boyfriend's chest, her shoulders trembling slightly, as if she were crying silently.
Ah Hao's face was ashen, his eyes fixed on the red hat of the driver in front of him, as if it were the only "normal" object he could grasp.
"Cough...cough..."
A suppressed cough came from the middle of the carriage.
She was a newly boarded elderly woman with a hunched back.
Several sober players looked in the direction of the sound and saw her with her head down, her gray hair dry and messy, her hand covering her mouth thin and dry like a chicken claw, with dark marks seeping between her fingers.
The coughing sounded particularly jarring in the quiet carriage.
As she coughed, a stronger odor, a mixture of stale medicine and some indescribable putrid smell, spread out.
A man in a suit, who looked like an office worker leaving get off work, sitting near the old woman frowned and subtly moved closer to the window.
Another slightly overweight middle-aged woman who had just boarded the bus muttered something:
"Oh dear, if you're not feeling well, you shouldn't go out. What if you catch something from someone else..."
The middle-aged woman's voice wasn't loud, but it was clearly audible in the quiet carriage.
The old woman seemed not to hear her complaints, but coughed even more violently, her thin, withered body trembling violently with each cough.
Yu Shijiu glanced at the other seats in the carriage out of the corner of his eye.
As the old woman coughed and the surrounding passengers reacted subtly, the invisible "black fog" in the carriage seemed to thicken and flow faster. Just like before, more black fog gathered towards the area where the five people "echoed" at the rear.
The young male passenger in the hoodie next to Lin Hai seemed to have an even more pronounced stiff smile.
The woman in the floral dress stubbornly continued to "look" in the direction where Yu Shijiu was, her gaze behind the gaps in her wet hair cold and sticky, like tangible spider silk wrapping around her.
Yu Shijiu: "..."
He got used to being stared at for a while and didn't feel particularly uncomfortable. Instead, he smiled at the woman in the floral dress.
The woman in the floral dress: "..."
Her gaze lingered for a few seconds, her dark hair clinging damply to her cheeks.
Yu Shijiu ignored her gaze and lowered his head to touch his hairy left arm.
As dawn approached, the resonance deep within the skin of his left arm grew stronger.
As the old woman continued to cough, Yu Shijiu even began to "hear" some clearer, intermittent murmurs, no longer the chaotic and indistinct delirium of before, but rather low murmurs with a clear direction:
"Come...come here..."
"Together... it's cold..."
"Going home... I can't go back..."
"the same as you……"
"……Come……"
"Let's all...go...back...to...each...together..."
These voices drilled directly into Yu Shijiu's mind, attempting to evoke deep-seated fear and a strange sense of identification within him.
Yu Shijiu hissed, trying to stay conscious.
"Hang in there, Shi Jiu."
Chen Yi's voice rang in his ears, carrying a calm and comforting tone.
"It affects you, but you can control it. Think about why we want to win."
Why do we need to win?
...To survive?
But I don't really want to live... Is it because I want to leave Dawn Game?
Yu Shijiu frowned—he still quite liked the life in the Dawn game.
Or perhaps... it's to see those important people again...
Yu Shijiu slowly recalled the image of Lu Chusheng silently handing over the cloth bag, as well as the fat, green, and proud cat eyes.
Just then—
"Squeak-"
The bus suddenly braked hard!
The tires screeched as they rubbed against the wet road, and the immense inertia propelled all the passengers forward!
"what!"
Xiao Juan let out a short, startled cry.
"What's going on?!"
Ah Hao grabbed his girlfriend and cried out in alarm.
Yu Shijiu subconsciously braced himself against the back of the seat in front of him, but at that moment a tearing pain shot through his left arm, as if something inside was struggling wildly, trying to break free.
He groaned, and cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead.
From the driver's seat, the driver's cursing voice could be heard:
"Damn it! Something just darted past!"
In the rain-soaked view illuminated by the car headlights, a blurry black shadow seemed to flash by and disappear into the roadside weeds.
But everyone's attention was quickly drawn to what was happening inside the car.
The sudden braking seemed to shatter a fragile "mask".
Xu Han's gaze slowly drifted to the seats in front.
The old woman who had been coughing suddenly raised her head due to inertia.
It was an old face covered with dark brown age spots, with sunken eye sockets and cloudy, diffused pupils, suddenly exposed to the dim light.
The old woman's mouth was slightly open, revealing sparse, blackened teeth. Even more chilling was the clear, dark purple ligature mark around her neck.
The deep purple mark went deep into the flesh, as if something had once tightly strangled his neck.
She seemed to be startled by the driver's sudden braking and cursing, her cloudy eyes slowly turning.
Her gaze swept over the passengers around her who had looked up in surprise—the man in the suit who had moved away, the middle-aged woman who had muttered something, and several other people nearby who had instinctively looked at her.
Then, very slowly, as if a rusty hinge were being forcibly pried open, the old woman's lips parted to the sides of her cheeks, revealing a bizarre expression that was both crying and laughing.
"What...what are you looking at..."
Her voice was hoarse and broken, with a heavy, phlegmy tone.
"Never seen...cough...a person...die before reaching their destination...?"
The moment the old woman finished speaking, the color of the ligature mark on her neck suddenly deepened, almost turning pitch black, and it twitched slightly as if it were alive.
"Ghost... ghost!"
The man in the suit who was closest to the driver was the first to break down. He screamed and jumped up from his seat, rushing towards the front of the carriage to try and hit the partition between the driver's seat and the carriage.
"Stop the bus! Driver! Stop the bus! I want to get off! I want to get off! I want to get off!!!"
The middle-aged woman was also terrified by the movable ligature mark on the old woman's neck. She slumped in her seat, motionless, only gasping for breath.
The temperature inside the carriage also dropped sharply due to the old woman's unusual behavior.
"...What...what is this! A ghost! A ghost!"
Xiao Juan and A Hao were terrified, especially after seeing the old woman's face. Their already stiff faces showed extreme fear, their bodies went limp, and they wanted to look away... but they felt like they were nailed to the spot by the old woman's cloudy eyes and couldn't move.
Seeing that Xiao Juan was about to faint from fright, A Hao gritted his teeth and bit his tongue, using the pain to look away and cover his girlfriend's eyes with his hand.
"No, don't be afraid... don't be afraid, we, we won't look, we just won't look..."
The two's actions did not attract the attention of Yu Shijiu and the others, but Lin Hai, who was sitting in the back row, looked up and glanced at them indifferently.
"He's a responsible man, actually."
Mulanzhi seemed to like the NPC Ahao quite a bit, and chuckled softly:
"Will they be the main characters in this dungeon?"
"..." The three male players next to him hesitated for a few seconds, then turned around to look at Lin Hai in the seat behind them.
"Brother Lin, what do you think?"
One of them asked in a low voice.
Lin Hai's slender eyes fell on the couple in the front seat, a hint of sarcasm flashing in his eyes.
“Lanzhi is right,” Lin Hai said, his eyelids drooping, his meaning ambiguous. “After all, they seem to have the most screen time right now.”
Mulanzhi said gently, "However, NPCs with such a personality type are generally very likely to be cannon fodder in the script."
The other three male players thought about it carefully and also said, "That's possible."
Lin Hai smiled and said, "Anything is possible. Let's wait and see how the story unfolds."
Mulanzhi turned to look at Lin Hai, "Brother Lin, you're acting a bit strange today."
Lin Hai looked at her: "Strange?"
Mulanzhi: "Activating your talent skill right at the start is not like your style, Brother Lin."
"..." Lin Hai chuckled and said lightly, "Just a whim."
Mulanzhi: "..."
The other three: "..."
The three exchanged glances and wisely chose to remain silent.
Mulanzhi stared at Lin Hai for several moments, until the latter looked up at her before she looked away and sat up straight.
Mulanzhi stared at the chaotic carriage in front of her, her eyes lowered as she recalled Lin Hai's gaze just now.