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Ch4 - Three People Become Ghosts
Everyone started to search through their belongings. In order to save time, Liu Rongrui volunteered to take inventory with Zhao Guanglu. Zhao Guanglu went from front to back while Lin Rongrui went from back to front. After the search, the two men publicly searched each other in front of everyone.
The results of the inspection weren’t satisfactory. Before getting on the bus, everyone accepted a simple check by the volunteers to avoid accidents or criminals taking the opportunity to commit crimes. Most people had left their homes in a hurry and didn’t have time to bring anything. For example, Li Yinhang only went out with her mobile phone.
Some didn’t even bring anything. For example, Jiang Fang only had a white v-neck sweater and soft trousers. It was useless except for giving him a divine light in the sun. Xie Yangyang brought a small electric shock device and a can of protection spray which was taken away by the volunteers.
At present, portable IDs had been promoted national wide and scanning the face + fingerprints could replace all the functions of the original ID card. It was just that the bus didn’t have such an identity detector. They had to go to the entrance of a ‘cocoon room’ to verify their identities. Therefore, none of them had direct evidence to prove their identity.
After getting nothing again, another wave of uneasiness surged in the bus. Zhao Guanglu tried to ease everyone’s eagerness and tension. “Yes… just now, that thing mentioned Forces of Temptation. Have you heard of it?”
The grumpy university student Wu Yukai wondered in a bad tone, “You don’t know it? You’re so old and you don’t know?”
“This…” Zhao Guanglu was so stunned that his reaction was slow. “I… don’t know.”
He made blueprints for a company and was mainly responsible for technical work. He wasn’t good at dealing with people whose hearts changed rapidly in extreme situations.
His hesitation caused Wu Yukai to scoff contemptuously. “The holographic online game that had a huge accident! Hundreds of players fell into a coma because of this holographic online game! It was a huge topic on the Internet and all social networking sites were talking about it. You are telling me that you don’t know it?”
Zhao Guanglu was tongue-tied. “I don’t usually play games or visit those websites!”
Wu Yukai spoke like he found it strange. “There is such a coincidence?”
Zhao Guanglu became upset. “Are you doubting me?”
He glanced at Li Yinhang. “Miss Li saw me when she got on the bus, right?”
“Are you standing together at this time?” Wu Yukai pressed harder. “Didn’t you say you didn’t see her?”
Zhao Guanglu ignored his condemnation and walked quickly to Li Yinhang’s seat, anxiously repeated, “Girl, you saw me at that time right?”
Li Yinhang took a deep breath. “I did see him. At that time, Brother Zhao was sleeping with his face covered by his clothes…”
Wu Yukai asked back, “Then how can you be sure that he is the one under the clothes?”
Li Yinhang, “……” She got goosebumps at the words.
Zhao Guanglu turned his head angrily. “Then according to your logic, how do I know you are you and haven’t been replaced by something?”
“I know what happened a few months ago!” Wu Yukai argued back tit-for-tat. “Can a ghost do that?”
“Then I also know that three months ago, an international school called Nord was built in Jiangnan Distract. I was responsible for that project!”
Wu Yukai shrugged. “What project? I’ve never heard of it.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“You—”
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Nevertheless, Li Yinhang still believed in her own feelings. After the bus passed through the tunnel, there were indeed more people. She just couldn’t rule out that the ghosts had been mixed in from the time she got on the bus.
The situation had become more complicated. How to judge? Countless speculations exploded in her head at the same time. Her brain that wasn’t very good had to work harder.
As Li Yinhang fought fiercely with herself, the atmosphere in the bus became more and more explosive. Sun Ruowei and Lin Xiangjun, who were sitting in the same row, formed an alliance almost instantaneously. The two of them attracted Xie Yangyang who had little opinion.
Xie Yangyang didn’t think too much. She just wanted to be with a girl of the same age. Li Yinhang also met this requirement but Xie Yangyang didn’t trust the Ukrainian mixed-blood man who was on the same team was Li Yinhang. She had lived in Donghua for a while. There was indeed an area of foreigners there but it wasn’t too big. There were only a few familiar faces coming in and out. Xie Yangyang had never seen Jiang Fang’s face.
At this time, Wu Yukai seemed to believe in his own judgment so strongly that he pulled Zhao Guanglu’s arm up and made a mark on the silver bracelet around his wrist. All the veins on Zhao Guanglu’s forehead bulged. Zhao Guanglu was anxious and angry. He dragged back Wu Yukai’s hand and forced a vote on Wu Yukai’s bracelet.
Wu Yukai exclaimed, “—Fuck! What are you doing?”
Zhao Guanglu wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Why do you want others to die so much? You are the ghost!”
Wu Yukai exclaimed to everyone, “What the hell are you doing? How much time is left? If you don’t vote soon, do you want to just wait for death?”
Zhao Guanglu realized that if he kept being led around by Wu Yukai like this, everyone would follow the flow and vote for him. After all, only three people were needed. Three people could sentence him to death. Thus, Zhao Guanglu fought back hard. “Who can’t splash dirty water? Did anyone see you get on the bus?!”
Wu Yukai sneered and looked at the fat man closest to him confidently. They were sitting diagonally. Who would’ve thought that the fat man would honestly shake his head. “I fell asleep when I boarded and was woken up by a woman screaming.”
Wu Yukai, “……”
Xie Yangyang who screamed, “……”
Wu Yukai’s eyes were red with anger, “Are you fucking kidding me? Didn’t the mess with the Forces of Temptation game happen long ago? If I was the ghost, would I know this?!”
Liu Rongrui muttered, “What if the ghosts know everything?”
Wu Yukai immediately fired back at him, “What do you mean? Do you think I am a ghost?”
He pointed to Liu Rongrui. “Yes, I have no proof. Do you have any?”
Liu Rongrui raised his mobile phone. “Yes, you are right. I got on the bus and played a stand-alone game by myself. However, I’m not like you who is so anxious to accuse others.”
Then he stood up. “However, since you doubt me, I have the right to doubt you.”
Wu Yukai’s bracelet received another vote. Wu Yukai sucked in a breath but it was too late to retaliate. He could only hide the left hand wearing the bracelet. He jumped like a thunderbolt and was sweating like a waterfall.
“Are you crazy? Are you sick?” He jumped around and scolded people. “Instead of catching ghosts, you are catching me?”
It was silent. It was a long silence.
Qin Yadong who was sitting behind the fat man finally couldn’t stand it anymore. The man who looked gentle and good tempered interrupted, “Okay okay, don’t quarrel. Let’s calmly analyze it. If we keep quarreling then it will just be an emotional battle.”
Wu Yukai had received two votes and his mentality was obviously close to collapse. He protected his wrists and roared, “Then you fucking analyze it!”
Qin Yadong was stunned. He obviously hadn’t expected his kindness to be regarded as nothing by Wu Yukai. Still, he didn’t get angry. “Think about it, when did you get on the bus? Can you tell us again?”
To the side, Li Yinhang couldn’t think due to the outbreak of the noisy dispute. Her brain was buzzing. She only noticed that when Wu Yukai received the second vote, a twisted look appeared on Zhao Guanglu’s face. This made her shudder.
If Zhao Guanglu was a ghost, was he about to successfully kill a human? If Zhao Guanglu was a human being then…
It meant that in less than 20 minutes, his originally normal psychological state had been slightly distorted by this high pressure environment.
The surrounding noise really made Li Yinhang unable to think quietly. Then within a short time, the noise in the car died down along with the appearance of darkness.
…The second round was still a blank ballot. The reappearing light in the bus didn’t bring hope to everyone. They were walking on thin ice in the bright sunlight. There were only four voting opportunities left.
Passing through the tunnel meant the last round of voting was over. Wu Yukai’s votes were reset to zero again.
After experiencing the big ups and downs, Wu Yukai temporarily escaped the crisis. He couldn’t help weakening and sank down to the ground. He rested one hand on the side of the seat and breathed heavily. Seeing that he was no longer babbling and learned to shut up, Li Yinhang was relieved for him.
Luo Yan, whom everyone suspected earlier, sat in the front row and chose to remain silent instead of participating. The problem with Wu Yukai was that he hadn’t secured one or two credible witnesses before he started to speculate and vote hastily. It would be weird if people liked this type of crazy person who muddled things up like this.
Li Yinhang also knew that putting one’s safety first wasn’t an effective method. She set her gaze on Jiang Fang, wanting to find a breakthrough from him.
To be honest, Li Yinhang didn’t completely trust Jiang Fang even now. If it wasn’t for him helping her, she might be the one who was doubted by everyone. However, Jiang Fang’s silver hair and face were too eye-catching. How could she not notice if such an eye-catching person got on the bus and sat in front of her? Thus, Li Yinhang wanted to test him.
Just as she finally controlled her emotions, Jiang Fang sitting in front of her turned his head as if he felt something. His voice was very low and his words were clear. “Hello, can you do me a favor for a moment?”
He said something else to Li Yinhang. Before Li Yinhang could agree, there was a clear sound in her ears.
Ding.
This long, clear sound struck everyone’s tight nerves.
Wu Yukai looked at his bracelet incredulously. The fat man had voted for him. He was sitting on the side where Wu Yukai’s arm was resting and he stared at Wu Yukai coldly. Wu Yukai stared at the fat man with trembling lips.
The fat man looked back and spoke confidently, “You are so strange. I still doubt you.”
Then he glanced around at the group. “Rather than waiting for death, it is better to just vote.”
Behind the fat man, Qin Yadong showed a disapproving expression. “You…”
After getting rid of the crisis with difficulty, he fell into the whirlpool of doubt again. The hostility on Wu Yukai’s face soared. He jumped up suddenly, reaching out for the fat man’s body and tightly grabbing the fat man’s throat. His eyes were red as he shouted, “Didn’t that thing say that ghosts can’t kill people? I’ll kill you and show if I’m a ghost or not—”
Before he could finish, Wu Yukai was stunned as his entire body was suddenly lifted up by a force. He fell and was pushed to the opposite window. As he fell freely from mid-air, his face hit the armrest of the set and a large bloody tooth flew out.
…Nan Zhou stood in the aisle, his hand gracefully sweeping over the back of Wu Yukai’s clothes. As everyone felt shock and respect toward him who dared to stop the farce of killing people in public, they heard Nan Zhou slowly say, “If you kill him, we can’t tell if he is a ghost or not.”
“The mushroom said that the only way to identify a ghost is for the head to explode.”
“If you do this, it will make it difficult for us to judge how many ghosts are left among us.”
Everyone, “……” Fuck.
Was this the reason for stopping him?
Nan Zhou let out a sigh. The situation wasn’t optimistic. For this time, the duration was short and the space was limited. It was natural for new players who had just entered the game to not be calm.
Only three people were needed to determine the life or death of a person. Therefore, it was possible for everyone to get out of control emotionally in a very short period of time. This wasn’t so much a game of intelligence and lies as it was a psychological game. Thus, he had to find a way to clear this game as soon as possible.
Just as the group’s mood reached a tight threshold, Jiang Fang suddenly stood up. In this cramped vehicle, no one could move without others noticing. He walked to Nan Zhou’s side and his hand naturally touched the shoulder of Nan Zhou standing in the middle, patting it. “Excuse me.”
Nan Zhou hadn’t opened his mouth when someone wondered, “Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry,” Jiang Fang was polite. “I just made a small discovery.”
Jiang Fang’s arrival made Nan Zhou a bit distracted.
It was because of Nanji Star. He didn’t know what medicine Nanji Star took but he excitedly climbed to the collar of Nan Zhou’s coat, crouched in the hollow of the collarbone and excitedly reached out for Jiang Fang’s hand that was on Nan Zhou’s clothes.
However, the eyes of the others were focused on Jiang Fang. Jiang Fang didn’t try to keep them in suspense. He looked at the front of the bus and pointed while speaking gently, “That thing seems to be a dashcam.”
Everyone, “……”
“It is also a two-way one. It can take scenes outside and inside the bus.” Jiang Fang’s voice was gentle. “In addition, I remember that things like dashcams aren’t affected by signal jammers.”
Upon hearing this, Nan Zhou’s heart skipped a beat. If something was recorded then his own lie…
After a short delay, someone hurried to the front row with joy and took down the small dashcam. However, their hopes were soon dashed. There was nothing recorded in the dashcam, only static. The emotional ups and downs in a short period of time made people unable to lift their heads.
“Oh, I’m really stupid.”
Jiang Fang lowered his head as he played with the removed dashcam with both hands, laughing at himself. “How could that mushroom leave us with such ready-made evidence?”
“…It was supposed to be a good thing, right?” Jiang Fang raised his pale grey eyes. Under the cover of his long eyelashes, his eyes looked gentle and unpredictable. “So Mr Liu Rongrui, the evidence is gone and you don’t have to be as nervous as you were just now.”