After that false alarm, I slowly turned my head and pointed at the Souls in front of us. I asked the old man, "Can you see them?"
The old man snorted. "With that many people standing there, what do you take me for, blind?"
No sooner had he spoken than the hunting rifle pressed against my back began to tremble. Bangs—the punk behind me—spoke in a terrified voice, "Aren't there just six of you? Who else is there?"
"Bangs, are you blind or what? You don't see all those living people?" The old man turned to his other nephew. "Right, Er Dumbass?"
Truth be told, the old man was trying to bolster his own courage with that line. He knew his nephew well—Er Dumbass was cowardly, sure, but not someone to joke around in a moment like this. And now even the old man could see that the hundred-plus people ahead of them weren't exactly right. Most of them kept their heads bowed, staring blankly at their feet, as if completely unaware of the three armed men standing before them. Their indifference was unnerving. At the far end of the carriage, three or four other people were seated. Those few kept glancing in this direction. One of them—a tall guy—was even rubbing some strange, scribbled symbol on the carriage door with his hand.
"Uncle, enough talking. Let's just get it over with. The finals of The Voice rerun tonight. We finish early, maybe I can still catch the end." Er Dumbass really lived up to his name. Without waiting for his uncle's reply, he stepped forward and pointed his shotgun at the Soul closest to him. "You know the drill—head up, hand over your money…"
His voice cracked on the last two words. Because the moment he started speaking, the Soul lifted its head—and the face that emerged twisted in that instant. The gray-white pallor turned to a ghastly pale. One eyeball dangled grotesquely from its socket, with blood relentlessly gushing out. The other eye looked intact at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it was a blank milky white—no iris, no pupil. The Soul bared a mouthful of jagged, broken teeth and exhaled at Er Dumbass, a freezing gust of air striking his face.
Er Dumbass began trembling violently. Frost instantly formed on the tips of his hair and eyebrows. The Soul's mouth opened and closed, as though speaking—but not a single word could be heard. At the same time, every other Soul in the carriage underwent a similar transformation.
"Uncle!" Er Dumbass was no longer dumb. His body was shaking uncontrollably.
"Uncle, my ass! Run!" the old man shouted. Er Dumbass was too far to save, so the old man grabbed Bangs and made a break for it. When they reached the door of the carriage, they found it had been shut at some point. No lock was visible, but no matter how he pulled or kicked, the door wouldn't budge.
Now the old man was truly panicked. Without a second thought, he raised both pistols and opened fire wildly at the door. Bangs followed suit, firing his hunting rifle in the same direction. Later, I learned the carriage doors had been modified—they looked like old aluminum train doors but were actually made of alloy. The bullets couldn't penetrate them. Instead, they ricocheted in all directions.
After only a few shots, both the uncle and nephew had been hit by their own bullets—right in the thighs. The two of them collapsed to the ground. The old man was tougher, gritting his teeth and crawling forward to claw futilely at the doorframe. But he kept glancing back nervously at the gathering Souls. Bangs was less lucky—rolling on the floor, wailing like a child.
Behind them, Er Dumbass couldn't hold it together any longer. His arms trembled so violently that the shotgun in his hands misfired. Bang! The blast tore through the Soul in front of him, spraying pellets into the wooden seat behind it and carving out a huge crater. But the Soul didn't flinch. It merely grinned at him, its teeth bared.
That did it—Er Dumbass couldn't take it anymore. He collapsed in front of the Soul, limbs twitching uncontrollably, a stream of white foam bubbling from the corner of his mouth.
Sun Fatty glanced at the uncle and nephew sprawled behind us, then looked at Er Dumbass on the floor. "I'm just saying," he muttered, "with nerves like that, they had the balls to rob a train?"
"What's wrong with him—heart attack?" I asked, bending down to move the shotgun away from Er Dumbass. While unloading the shells, I replied, "Not a heart attack. This guy's having a seizure."
Once I'd emptied the shotgun, I flipped it around and pried open Er Dumbass's mouth, sliding the barrel between his teeth—preventing him from biting his own tongue.
As he started to stabilize, Sun Fatty dug around in his pockets and retrieved both his wallet and the MP3 player. Then he followed me over to where the old man and Bangs were lying. He picked up the old man's knockoff Type 54 from the floor.
Bangs was still sobbing. Sun Fatty couldn't stand it anymore. He crouched down, stared at him for a moment, and then leaned in to whisper something in his ear. As soon as the last word left his lips, Bangs' eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out cold.
"What'd you say to him?" I asked while taking back the handgun from Bangs' jacket.
Sun Fatty grinned. "I told him that with that soft skin and tender meat, he looked delicious. Said we'd eat him first."
"Didn't think he'd actually believe it. A guy that gullible really shouldn't be trying to rob trains."
As we spoke, we walked over to the old man. Just then, Xiong Wanyi arrived too. The remaining investigators from his team, led by Ximen Lian, were busy redrawing the symbol that had been smeared earlier by Xiong Wanyi. That symbol was meant to conceal the ghostly aura of the Souls inside the carriage. When the robbers barged in and held Sun Fatty and me at gunpoint, Ximen Lian and the others hadn't dared act rashly. In the end, it was Xiong Wanyi who had come up with a way to disrupt the concealment spell.
The old man watched us approach with terror etched on his face. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet and pointed his pistol at us, shouting, "Stay back! I don't care if you're human or ghost—if it comes to it, I'll take you down with me! If I die, I'll come back as a ghost too! I ain't scared of nothing!"
Sun Fatty stopped in his tracks and said with a chuckle, "Mutual destruction? Don't joke about that. I'm just saying, when you were still human, we couldn't touch you. But once you turn into a ghost, that's exactly within our jurisdiction. You better think carefully — do you want to go down with us now, or wait until you become a ghost to do it?"
Sun Fatty's words almost made the old man spit out a mouthful of blood. "Who exactly are you people?"
Sun Fatty laughed and said, "My surname's Niu." Then he pointed at me, "His surname's Ma. Do I really need to be any more specific?"
At this moment, the old man's facial features were already distorted. Tonight's experiences were more than enough for him to digest in the rest of his life. But after a while, the old man's terrified expression twisted into something ferocious. I once heard someone say that extreme fear is often followed by anger — I don't know if that's what happened to him. But I didn't give him the chance to show any anger. While the old man's attention was fully on Sun Fatty, I raised my hand and fired a shot, knocking the old man's handgun out of his hand. Almost simultaneously, Xiong Wanyi's collapsible baton struck the old man right on the forehead. The old man didn't even grunt; he collapsed backward, unconscious.
I went over to check the old man's injuries. He wasn't going to die, but a concussion was certain — there was no way he was getting away now. Most likely, after recovery, he'd be left with some kind of lasting impairment, maybe difficulty moving. Sun Fatty looked at Xiong Wanyi retrieving his baton and said, "Xiong thing, not to criticize, but the guy's gun's gone and you still hit him that hard?"
"Of course, Sun Fatty, do you think Lazi would shoot at the wrong moment?" Xiong Wanyi shot a glare at Sun Fatty and continued, "That gun was pointed at you just now. If Lazi hadn't fired, and if I'd delayed even one second longer, you wouldn't be babbling nonsense now."
Sun Fatty showed no gratitude for this life-saving favor: "Well, then don't hit the head, hitting the hands would do just fine." Xiong Wanyi's face darkened and his voice dropped a few tones, speaking bitterly, "I was aiming for the hands!"
In the blink of an eye, the uncle and nephews trio were all lying on the ground. We didn't have the authority to decide what to do with them. After tidying up the mess, I pulled out my phone and dialed Xiao Heshang's number. Looking up at the surveillance camera above, I said, "Old Master Xiao, what do we do with these three?"
After a brief silence on the other end, Consultant Xiao finally spoke: "Since they're on the train, don't let them off. Keep an eye on those three clowns together, and when you get to the place, ask your Director Gao what to do. I've been in Special Case Handling my whole life and have never encountered a living person daring to snatch dead ghosts. That's all."
Sun Fatty was eavesdropping nearby. When he heard Xiao Heshang about to hang up, he snatched the phone from me: "Don't hang up so fast, Old Master Xiao. I'm just saying, what kind of crappy train is this? It moves as slow as a bicycle, and now there are outsiders boarding without us even noticing. The Bureau has private planes — shouldn't it be able to afford a decent train too?"
"Little Fatty, you really have some nerve," Xiao Heshang replied without losing patience. Besides scolding him once when boarding, he rarely raised his voice. Consultant Xiao explained to Sun Fatty, "This train was retired by the Ministry of Railways, originally supposed to be scrapped, but your Director Gao borrowed it. This operation is too large in scale to use vehicles. Plus, with so many souls gathered, some residual baleful aura inevitably remains in the train. This train is no longer suitable for use, so they borrowed this one, which will be destroyed after this mission. And considering how little time they had, it's already impressive how much it's been modified. Alright, I've said enough to you two. If there's nothing else, when you get there, go ask Fatty Gao."
Sun Fatty still looked puzzled and wanted to ask more, but the phone had already been hung up by Xiao Heshang. He handed the phone back to me. Meanwhile, Xiong Wanyi and the others gathered the three unconscious men together and separated them from the other souls. At this time, the talisman that Xiong Wanyi had brushed off was redrawn by Ximen Lian. The souls in the carriage also returned to their previous state, just as when we first boarded — heads bowed, eyes staring blankly at their own feet.
The train continued moving forward. Maybe it was just my illusion, but after the bandit incident, the train seemed to be moving a bit faster. Still, our destination felt endlessly far away. The clock was about to strike midnight, but the train showed no signs of stopping.
Not only Sun Fatty and I, but the other investigators in the carriage were losing patience. Xiong Wanyi had come over earlier and didn't go back. He sat on a nearby seat, staring at the hundreds of souls in front of him, then turned to me and said, "Lazi, at this rate, we probably won't get there until tomorrow morning. Did Consultant Xiao mention where our destination is?"
I shook my head. "He didn't say anything about the destination, but I guess we still have to wait a bit longer. The Ghost Gate isn't a place you can just arrive at so easily." I looked down at the three men lying on the floor and said, "Old Xiong, has the Bureau encountered cases like this before? What do they usually do?"
Xiong Wanyi, who joined the Bureau a few years before Sun Fatty and me, was somewhat of a veteran. He glanced at the uncle and nephews and said, "There have been a few similar incidents. Usually, we don't do anything — we just let the parties involved talk it out. Lazi, you know how it is — these things only get more exaggerated and more unbelievable the more they're talked about. After a few retellings, there are dozens of versions. Nobody believes any of it. After a few months, the truth even turns into fiction. But it looks like these three are going to be locked up for a long time."
Sun Fatty listened with interest for a while, then asked Xiong Wanyi, "Xiong thing, why the hell did they choose today to send these restless souls to the Ghost Gate? Isn't the real day the Fourteenth of July during the Ghost Festival?"
Xiong Wanyi looked at Sun Fatty and smiled before answering, "Sun Fatty, that's the Ghost Festival, when all sorts of underworld officials and ghostly emissaries are everywhere. If they'd chosen that day, not only would the Ghost Gate know right away, but even leaving the Bureau's front door would have been known by the underworld. As for why today was chosen, I guess it's because today's the Kitchen God's festival — the underworld emissaries have to go to temples to eat the offerings, so things are relatively less strict."
Speaking of the underworld emissaries, I suddenly remembered the last time when Yang Xiao's wife reincarnated — that dark, misty, humanoid figure was absorbed by Yang Xiao's puppet. I still don't know what happened to it afterward. If those are the emissaries of the underworld, besides looking a bit weird, there really wasn't anything extraordinary about them.