Time ticked by, second by second. Now wasn't the time to hesitate. After a brief pause, I said, "Us guys should get off together and move the body."
"Move the corpse?" Everyone inhaled sharply.
"The hell! Are you out of your mind?" Wang Chunfu was the first to yell. "If you want to go, go ahead—I'm not messing with bad luck!"
"Yeah, I say we just drive over her. She's already dead anyway," Yuan Feng said even more coldly, completely devoid of humanity.
I turned to the driver. "What do you think?"
"I—I can't leave this spot," he stammered. "My master said, once the driver steps away, the bus moves on its own." His face flickered between pale and green, and I couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth or just babbling.
I glanced down at my phone. A little over fifty seconds remained.
"Screw it. Open the door. I'm going down to move the body. If the rest of you don't want to die, come help me!"
Left with no choice, the driver opened the rear door again. "You can only exit through the rear. That's the rule."
I pocketed my phone and waved to the people inside the bus. The only one who responded was Yiyi. She put down her backpack and ran up to me.
"What are you doing? Go back to your seat!" I barked. Getting off was dangerous—moving a corpse even more so, practically begging for a vengeful ghost's attack.
"Let me help. You can't move her alone."
Time was ticking down. I sighed and scanned the rest of the bus. "Fine. Move fast."
Yiyi and I jumped out through the back door. The cold hit us instantly—clearly, a ghost was nearby.
We rushed to grab the pregnant woman's legs. "Lift!"
It shouldn't have been hard. Back at New Hu High, I'd sprinted a hundred meters carrying Guo Junjie on my back.
But this corpse felt like it was made of lead. Yiyi and I pulled with all our might and managed to drag it only a few centimeters.
"Why is it so heavy?"
"Hurry up!" People inside were shouting. "We're out of time!"
We were sweating from the effort, but no matter how hard we tried, it felt like something was anchoring the corpse in place, draining our strength.
"Screw this! Just floor it and drive over her!" Yuan Feng yelled, his face pressed against the windshield. The driver's foot hovered over the gas, his eyes locked on the digital timer.
"Somebody get down here and help! She's getting heavier!" I yelled toward the bus, veins bulging on my forehead. "Come on!"
"I didn't kill her, I didn't kill her, it wasn't me," someone mumbled—and to my shock, the one who came to help was the lunatic in the hospital gown.
He grabbed the corpse's waist. With three people now, we finally started making progress.
"Almost there!" The body inched away until, suddenly, it became lighter—like the thing possessing it had just left.
"We're good! Back on the bus!" I grabbed Yiyi's hand and ran for the rear entrance. But since only the rear door was open, we had to loop around.
"I didn't kill her, I didn't kill her, it wasn't me..." The hospital-gown man knelt by the corpse, kowtowing.
"Shit!" I pushed Yiyi onto the bus and ran back to drag the man up just as the engine roared to life. Only a few seconds left.
"Go! Drive!" Yuan Feng banged on the driver's shoulder.
The permed woman, previously hiding at the back, suddenly screamed, "She's following us! She's coming up! Drive! Drive now!"
"Wait! Someone's still not on!"
"No time! Go!"
The woman completely lost it and lunged for the wheel. "Are you trying to get us all killed?" Yuan Feng blocked Zhang Rong, but she was already insane from fear. Her nails tore into Yuan Feng's face.
"Damn it! She's lost it!" Yuan Feng shoved her away. Jianbang rushed in, holding Zhang Rong and gently helped her into a seat by the rear door. "Rest. Don't worry. Us bros are here. Nothing will get to you."
I dragged the hospital-gown man aboard just in time. It seemed the danger had passed.
"Shut the door! Go!" I slammed him onto a seat and collapsed next to him, gasping for air.
The bus sped up, but the back door didn't close.
"Driver! Shut the door!"
"I did! I already did!"
"What?!" I turned my phone toward the door.
On screen—a woman in red, soaked in blood, clung to the entrance. She couldn't board, but her long hair slithered into the bus like water snakes from a lakebed.
"Shit!" I shouted a warning too late. The bloody hair had already wrapped around Zhang Rong and Jianbang. They didn't even notice they were being dragged toward the open rear door.
"Watch out!" I lunged forward—but Zhang Rong, cruel and calculating, stomped hard on Jianbang's foot. As he flinched, she shoved him out the door.
Thud!
The rear door finally closed. The young man vanished into the night.
Everything happened in a blink. The others only realized someone was gone after it was too late.
"Jianbang!"
"Bro!"
Wang Chunfu and Jianye looked out into the night. Jianbang was nowhere to be seen.
"Stop the bus! I'm going to find my brother!"
"We can't stop. Not unless we reach a stop—driver's orders."
Jianye grabbed the driver's collar, eyes red. "Stop the damn bus!"
"Calm down." Yuan Feng blocked him. "What's done is done. Getting off now won't bring him back."
"You bastard! What the hell were you even doing earlier?" Wang Chunfu grabbed Zhang Rong and slapped her hard. "We saved your life, and this is how you repay us?! I'm tossing you off this bus to keep my bro company!"
He yanked her hair and dragged her toward the window.
"No! Please, no!" her screams pierced the bus like glass shards.
But most of us stayed silent. The ugliness of human nature was on full display.
"Stop it!" The one who stepped up was the frailest—Yiyi. She clung to Wang Chunfu's sleeve. "You can't do this!"
"Outta my way! I don't need a damn kid telling me what to do!" He shoved her down, but she scrambled back up and latched on again.
"Enough!" I stepped in, massaging my temples as I separated them.
"Now's not the time for fighting. Like it or not, we're all here together on this bus. Call it fate."
"Who the hell's got fate with you?" Wang Chunfu sneered. If I weren't big and strong, he probably would've swung at me.
"You were the one who insisted on stopping. If we had just run her over, none of this would've happened!"
The people who didn't help with the body earlier were the first to point fingers. I shot him a cold smile and said no more—there's no reasoning with a mad dog.
I held Yiyi's hand and sat her back down. I gently patted her head. "It's okay. Leave it to me. Just stay calm."
At the rear, Zhang Rong sobbed quietly. After Wang Chunfu had vented his rage, she was left bleeding and curled up.
"She's bleeding…" Yiyi looked over, feeling pity.
"Compared to what she's done, a little blood is nothing." I tried to smile warmly. "Don't worry. We're almost there."
The gloomy, eerie bus fell into silence again. I bowed my head, waiting for the next broadcast.
"This night… is too damn long."
About half an hour later, the driver slammed the brakes.
"Why are we stopping? This isn't a stop."
Yuan Feng rushed up front, but the driver just pointed outside, hand trembling.
"What is it?" I turned to look.
At the edge of a barren rose garden stood a massive billboard for investment recruitment.
"Uncle, haven't we seen this before?" Yiyi's cold hand gripped mine, trembling.
I held her hand tighter and nodded with difficulty. "Yeah… we're back at the Garden Community."
In the distance, the corpse still lay in the middle of the road, eyes wide open in death—unmoved, unburied.