The words of the passengers in the bus were all heard, but no one could make sense of them.
“Brother Dong, which one do you think is problematic?” Xiong Jiabao, seeing Xin Meng at a loss, quietly leaned over to Dong Xiushen.
Dong Xiu felt pleased by his respectful tone and patiently explained, “There are two most suspicious points. One is that rabbit doll; it’s impossible for it to sit on the bus by itself, and it’s quite strange for it to appear alone on a seat. The other is the baby that woman is holding; up until now, it hasn’t cried a single sound, and we still can’t see its face. Who knows, the demon might be hiding in the swaddling.”
His analysis struck a chord with Xiong Jiabao, who nodded vigorously; at least that eerie rabbit doll scared him quite a bit.
However, another problem arose. The card said, “Find it before the next stop.” So what does it mean to find it? Is it just pointing and shouting “demon”? If it were that simple, what if they pointed at each one?
Xiong Jiabao’s brain finally sparked with an idea, and he immediately said, “Then let’s just point at each one! It doesn’t matter if we get it wrong!”
These NPCs have no thoughts or wisdom; even if they pointed incorrectly, no one would jump up to hit them. It was simply too convenient!
Saying it, he did it! Xiong Jiabao rushed into the bus compartment, pointing at the rabbit doll and the swaddling, shouting, “I found you! You are the demon! Demon! It’s you! It’s you!”
The bus compartment was silent, and nothing happened.
The woman holding the baby raised her head and put her finger to her lips, saying to Xiong Jiabao, “Shh—don’t wake my child.”
Xiong Jiabao nodded blankly, and the woman lowered her head again, half-closing her eyelids, gently looking at the swaddling in her arms.
Rabbit Doll: “Chirp chirp chirp… chirp chirp chirp…”
Xiong Jiabao: “…” Scared, scared the baby to death… QAQ
Dong Xiu adjusted his glasses, crossing his arms, “Looks like it’s not.”
Xiong Jiabao pointed at the other people in the compartment in a frenzy, but still, nothing happened.
“Why is it none of them?” Xiong Jiabao scratched his head in frustration, “Could it be that it’s not a person, but something else?”
He tried pointing at other things again, and eventually, even Li Yougen overcame his mental barrier to help, nearly pointing at everyone and everything in the compartment. The two jumped around like they had lost their minds, yet still couldn’t find the “demon” mentioned on the card.
“Damn it!” Xiong Jiabao kicked the first row of seats in frustration, “How the hell are we supposed to find it! Not a single one is it!”
Qi Xiaokui had been watching them jump around with a smile, looking at them as if they were performing monkeys. Leaning against the door, she mockingly said, “I already told you how intelligent this game is. How could it possibly just have a few thoughtless NPCs without any restrictions, allowing you to pass by luck?”
Having played an NPC last time, Qi Xiaokui seemed to understand this game better than all of them, in other words, she knew how terrifying this game could be.
Xin Meng quickly understood her meaning, “A game this intelligent can’t just revert to the 2D game era. Its intelligence might not be reflected in the NPCs, but could be in other aspects. For example, we might only find it when we truly determine which one is the demon?”
Qi Xiaokui nodded.
The others exchanged glances. If it were in the past, anyone who told them there would be a mind-reading game like this would be scoffed at, called a daydreamer. But after experiencing so much, none of them could say such things anymore.
Just as everyone fell into silence, suddenly, a piercing scream echoed through the compartment without warning. Everyone turned their heads immediately, and at that moment, Li Yougen was standing between the two rows of seats, his body stiff like a dead branch, his skin turning a deep blue. With a bang, like a puff of smoke, he instantly vanished before everyone’s eyes!
“Li Yougen!” The crowd was horrified and began to retreat. Xiong Jiabao, closest to him, was so scared he screamed and ran to the front of the bus, but before he could reach the others, Li Yougen suddenly reappeared in the spot where he had just vanished!
His face was pale, and a fluorescent green mark appeared on his forehead, flickering with the number “4”.
“You, you’ve already died once?” Dong Xiu asked in disbelief, staring hard at the number, but it only appeared for a very short time, about six or seven seconds, before it flickered and disappeared.
Li Yougen’s lips trembled, unable to speak, his legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground, wetting his pants again.
“What on earth happened?” Dong Xiu pressed on, “How did you suddenly die? What did you see just now? Did you see that ghost?”
Recalling the scene he had just witnessed, Li Yougen felt his blood run cold, cold sweat soaking through his shirt, and he began to scream like a madman, “Demon, demon… it’s a demon… it’s a demon ah ah ah!”
He shouted and flailed his arms and legs uncontrollably. Xin Meng and Xiong Jiabao tried to calm him down, but it was useless. In the end, it was Qi Xiaokui who stepped forward, raised her hand, and with a loud slap, hit him across the face!
The crisp sound of the slap echoed in the bus, and Xiong Jiabao couldn’t help but cover his cheek, gritting his teeth; judging by the sound, it must have hurt a lot…
It hurt, but it was effective. Li Yougen was stunned by the slap, and when he came to his senses, he didn’t continue to scream, but still looked dazed, his body trembling.
“That’s not the point; the card already told us to find the demon. You only just realized this with your brain full of water?”
Qi Xiaokui, who had been quiet all along, was surprisingly good at cursing, which opened the eyes of the others. Of course, except for Li Yougen, who had just been slapped, his cheek quickly turned red and swollen, the pain making it hard for him to close his mouth. Being scolded, he immediately got angry, slamming his palm on the ground, shouting, “You know nothing, you filthy woman! You don’t understand how terrifying that thing is! It will kill us; we will die! We will definitely die!”
“What exactly did you see?” Dong Xiu frowned and asked.
“It was… it was a mountain made of corpses…” Li Yougen stammered, his words coming out in a shaky manner, his fingers nervously tearing at the hem of his shirt, ripping it into shreds. “A monster, yes! A monster! A monster covered in tentacles like an octopus was lying on the mountain of corpses, I couldn’t count how many there were, and its red tentacles, dripping with blood, waved like the claws of a demon, each one grabbing a dead person, the tips piercing through their mouths and coming out of their noses…”
As if recalling that scene, Li Yougen couldn’t help but turn his head and dry heave a few times, his face losing all color.
The others imagined along with his description, feeling nauseous, but they weren’t as terrified as Li Yougen, who had seen it firsthand. Xiong Jiabao, who had been covering his cheek, quickly covered his nose and mouth with one hand, whimpering, “You weren’t also pierced by it, were you?”
“No, no,” Li Yougen gasped for breath, “At that time, I seemed to be suddenly pulled into that space, still a bit away from the monster. I was stunned when I took a glance; that monster had eaten many people, its head… should be its head, moving all around. Once, it just happened to make eye contact with me, and as soon as I saw its eyes, I came back.”
“Before you died, was there anything special that happened? Like something you saw or something you did?” Xin Meng leaned over to ask, “For example, did you see anything, or did you do something?”
Li Yougen paused for a moment, shaking his head, “I didn’t do anything; I was just trying to walk from the back to the front, and when I passed by that… that rabbit doll…”
“It really is that thing!” Xiong Jiabao exclaimed excitedly, “I said it was that doll, right?! The core prop of a horror movie! Don’t say it’s a demon; it could even be the demon king’s incarnation!”
“But you shouted at it, and it didn’t react,” Xin Meng said, “If it really was it, then we should have found it from the start, so it shouldn’t be.”
“Maybe it’s because we weren’t sincere?” Xiong Jiabao said whimsically, excitedly, “Come on, let’s all think together in our hearts—‘The demon is this rabbit doll!’ If we all think it at the same time, we can definitely make this demon appear! I’ll count to three, one, two…”
Dong Xiu couldn’t take it anymore, raising his eyebrows and scolding, “Enough! You, a simple-minded imitation of a Shamate, shut up!”
With no progress being made, everyone had no clues and could only keep asking Li Yougen about what happened at that time. But Li Yougen stubbornly insisted he hadn’t done anything, yet he was extremely resistant to the suggestion of trying to go back there again, his eyes flickering. Xin Meng always felt he was hiding something, but couldn’t get it out of him.
However, after this incident, no one dared to walk towards the middle of the bus anymore, and for a moment, they all stood frozen at the front.
“Pay attention to the time.” Suddenly, You Yi, who had been silently listening to them, spoke up. He looked at Xin Meng and said, “In fifteen minutes, we will arrive at the next stop. If we can’t find it before we arrive, all players will be deemed to have failed the mission.”
Xin Meng was taken aback; he remembered the card indeed said, “Before the next stop.” This was a time limit. He had noticed it at the time, but after getting on the bus and being troubled by the bizarre situation, he had completely forgotten about it.
“How do you know the exact time?”
You Yi extended his hand, and Xin Meng and the others followed the direction of his finger to see a small, unremarkable round clock hanging above the empty driver’s seat, only the size of a bowl, with no second hand or hour hand, just a long black minute hand pointing towards “9.”
This clock was very inconspicuous and was missing two hands. If one didn’t pay attention, it would be easily overlooked or mistaken for a decorative item.
“There’s still a time limit!” Xiong Jiabao shouted, seizing on the point, “Hurry! Chant with me! Say the doll is the demon!”
Perhaps his expression was too determined, or maybe everyone didn’t have a better idea at the moment, they unconsciously followed Xiong Jiabao’s words and thought in their hearts, and then Xiong Jiabao pointed at it. However, it was useless; that eerie-looking doll was not the real demon…
“Chirp chirp chirp… chirp chirp chirp…”
The doll’s transparent, bright red pupils seemed to spin continuously under the refraction of the light, full of mockery.
Author’s Note:
Little Theater:
Shamate Unites the Jianghu: You really weren’t pierced?
I’m a Party Member: Get lost! My mouth is fine!
Shamate Unites the Jianghu: Who asked you about your mouth?
