Free Web NovelChapter 393: Chapter 395: A Trap?
The voice appeared out of nowhere. Su Nian frowned, suddenly aware that something was wrong with the bus.
It was as if the bus had transformed, becoming more dilapidated and decrepit.
At the sound of the eerie voice, a flicker of emotion crossed Su Nian’s face. The online viewers immediately sensed something was amiss as well.
[What’s going on? Didn’t the streamer say these resentful spirits were only here because the bus was in an accident and they wanted to devour the passengers’ souls? Why are they on the phone too? This seems to have a pretty wide reach!]
[Maybe that resentful spirit is just really powerful! The streamer has never made a mistake before!]
The other viewers were convinced and said no more.
Another group watching the live stream, members of the Taoist Association, were now frowning deeply.
Their cultivation was still shallow, so they couldn’t perceive the specifics, but having dealt with ghosts before, they had some experience.
Right now, they could just make out dense, overlapping layers of black energy covering the passengers’ faces.
They looked as if they were on the verge of death.
Su Nian subtly scanned the bus, her eyes moving up and down as she took in every detail.
She seemed to notice a few strange things. This was a bus running late at night, so why were there elderly people on board?
’What kind of elderly person would be riding a bus in the middle of the night? Especially one heading to a remote suburb.’
Su Nian narrowed her eyes, looking at the small screen displaying the stops. There was only one station left before the end of the line, and that last stop was Mushan.
Mushan!
’That’s one of the city’s burial grounds. Are all these people really getting off at that stop?’
Su Nian’s heart jolted. ’Something’s wrong!’
’But why am I only noticing all of this now?’
Seeing the clear text on the display, her expression grew solemn. In that instant, she understood.
’The signs on this bus... they were deliberately concealed by ghosts. And the ghosts... are every single person on board.’
Su Nian pretended she hadn’t noticed the changes in the passengers, as if she hadn’t seen the cracks in their performance.
Meanwhile, the passengers continued their clumsy performance.
"Ah, what’s happening?"
Someone else pleaded incessantly, "Streamer, you have to come quick! It’s too scary here, we’re all too afraid to move!"
Coincidentally, the bus was in the same city as Su Nian, making it feel like a trap laid specifically for her.
Su Nian agreed, her expression remaining placid and betraying nothing. Just then, the system, which had long been absent and completely silent, began to pulse frantically.
Su Nian had been in this world for a while now. During that time, she had helped many people through her live-streamed fortune-telling, accumulating a great deal of merit.
The system had vanished without a trace, only to reappear at this very moment.
[Streamer, are you going out again?]
[The streamer is so strong, I’m sure this time will be no different!]
[I don’t know why, but just looking at that bus gives me the creeps. Something feels off.]
[Totally. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but ever since the streamer said they were about to die, the more I look at their faces, the weirder they seem. It’s like they’re already dead!]
These two comments were quickly buried by a flood of others. Most were praising Su Nian, eagerly awaiting her to deliver a satisfying smackdown.
In the dead of night, some viewers were confused. ’If Su Nian is so powerful, can’t she just use a talisman paper through the screen?’
’Why not solve it remotely?’
[Can’t believe she has to go all the way over there in the middle of the night!]
[Seriously, nothing is easy these days.]
[What’s the point of acting so noble? It’s all for the money in the end!]
Su Nian drove as the rain outside grew heavier, drumming against the car windows. Her thoughts grew increasingly clear.
She had felt something was off as soon as the ghosts began their performance, but she had been overconfident at the time.
She hadn’t expected the incense stick to have had an effect, but it did, revealing the bus’s true form.
It was what allowed her to spot the discrepancies.
The bus was stopped motionlessly on the road.
Whether it was intentional or not, the bus wasn’t too far from Su Nian’s location. With few cars on the road at night...
Pushing her car to its top speed, she arrived in just over forty minutes.
Some of the viewers had grown tired of waiting and had gone to sleep, but many more were still waiting for the show to begin.
A private message popped up. It was from Daoist Qingran.
Although his cultivation was shallow and nowhere near Su Nian’s level, his intuition was incredibly sharp. He tried to persuade her with heartfelt earnestness.
[Fellow Daoist Su, I feel like something is off about that bus.]
He couldn’t make out the specifics of the situation, but he had an inexplicable feeling that something was strange.
Su Nian had never been wrong before, yet the black luxury car she had mentioned never appeared.
Some viewers explained it away as a butterfly effect. Since the bus had stopped, it didn’t crash into the black sedan, so the car simply drove off without incident.
The explanation was plausible enough, but it was a far cry from what Su Nian had foreseen.
After driving for a long time, Su Nian finally found the bus.
Under the headlights, the bus looked even more sinister.
The wide road was pitch-black. Parked on the shoulder was a brand-new bus.
The bus’s lights were on, and while it looked perfectly normal at first glance, it inexplicably sent a chill through one’s heart.
[That deathly aura the streamer mentioned... I think I can feel it too. It’s so eerie, just looking at it is terrifying!]
[Whoa, it hasn’t even started and I’m already shivering. What the heck is going on?]
Just then, no one noticed that the expression of "I Love Work" had changed. The corners of her mouth lifted into a faint smile.
"She’s here!"
But her tone held a hint of smug satisfaction.
Dressed in a trench coat, Su Nian strode toward the bus. The closer she got, the thicker the resentful energy grew. By the time she reached the doors, it washed over her in a suffocating wave.
In her eyes, the bus had completely transformed.
The bus’s interior looked dilapidated. The seats were covered in stains, and on the floor of the carriage was a red liquid. It looked ancient, dried into a crust that seemed impossible to wash away.
The moment Su Nian stepped aboard, her surroundings changed.
Her once neat hair was now a tangled mess. Everything she saw had transformed—the environment, and even herself.
It was as if the entire world had changed!
Su Nian looked down at her small, grimy hands, her expression unperturbed.
’I wonder what kind of new trick these ghosts are playing.’
Before her very eyes, a man was holding a woman down and beating her.
’Domestic abuse?’
The collar of the woman’s blouse was torn. With tears in her eyes, she desperately tried to dodge the blows but didn’t cry out.
She just looked at Su Nian with a miserable gaze, her lips moving slightly. Su Nian read her lips and voiced the words.
"Go to sleep?"
The man continued to curse as he beat her. "You can’t even cough up two hundred yuan! Do you have any idea how much face that makes me lose? Where’s the money?! Where did it go? If you make me late for my card game, I’ll kill you!"
A torrent of vile insults filled the air. The woman seemed accustomed to it; even while being beaten, she still had the presence of mind to tell Su Nian to go back to sleep.
The man grew even more violent, grabbing the woman by her hair as if to drag her into the bathroom.
But in the next second, Su Nian grabbed a chair. She dragged it behind her as she strode across the wooden floor.
She walked right up to the man who was lording his strength over the woman, raised the chair high, and swung. Her movements were wide, her face was blank, and she showed no mercy.
She brought the chair down on the man’s head without holding back in the slightest.
It all happened so fast the other woman didn’t even have time to react.
The man still had his hand raised, ready to strike again, when Su Nian smashed him to the ground.
His head rang, and he felt completely dazed.
"*HIC...*"
The shock caused the man to let out a sudden, drunken belch. The stench was nauseating.
The pain and shock sobered him up considerably. He looked up to see a small figure holding the chair, staring down at him with a blank, imposing expression.
The next second, the chair came crashing down again.
