Song Mo moved quickly. She moved out of the rented apartment that very day, and she didn't even bother to haggle with the sub-landlord over the remaining three hundred yuan deposit, simply letting it go.
—Heaven knew if this place could even be rented out again after what happened to Wang Dazhi's family.
The original owner didn't have many personal belongings, mostly paper books, screenwriting guides, and such. With just one suitcase, two cardboard boxes, plus some miscellaneous daily necessities, packing went by very quickly.
Cui Lili and Ma Aiyuan were probably both at home, but neither of them came out of their rooms.
Song Mo didn't say goodbye to them either. After all, they were just flatmates. Her departure would actually make Cui Lili feel more at ease.
The moving truck drove across most of the city. Queues formed outside supermarkets on the streets, and many pharmacy windows had red paper signs pasted on them reading 【Glutinous Rice in Stock】.
The phrase “public panic” was the most accurate description for Jiangcheng over the past few days.
...
Her new residence was a low-rise, six-story building converted from a work-unit dormitory built in the late 1980s.
The exterior walls were covered with old-fashioned white mosaic tiles. Over the years, a layer of dusty grime had accumulated on them, and in some places, the plaster had peeled off, exposing the grayish-black concrete underneath.
The security door at the entrance of the stairwell was actually new, made of stainless steel and covered with layers of small advertisements for locksmiths, key makers, and drain unclogging services.
Song Mo was currently carrying her luggage upstairs by herself.
After all, she was broke.
It happened to be the time students were finishing school. On her third trip upstairs, she bumped into someone in the first-floor hallway.
It was a high school girl who seemed to have just returned from outside, walking upstairs with her head lowered.
She wore a blue-and-white school uniform with a light blue school badge on the collar.
Her clothes were crumpled and looked as if they hadn't been washed in a long time, with a dusty gray hue staining the cuffs and collar.
Her hair was also a messy, loose ponytail with many stray strands sticking out. Her bangs were long, covering half of her forehead and obscuring her eyes.
—She looked rather gloomy overall.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm sorry.”
The girl quickly apologized. She had a very ordinary face that would easily blend into a crowd, with a round face and somewhat rough skin.
One of her backpack straps was broken, tied together with a red plastic string. The backpack was stuffed so full that the zipper looked ready to burst.
“It's fine. You go ahead.”
Song Mo stepped aside to let her pass. As the girl brushed past her, she raised her head slightly, and their eyes met briefly.
Only then did Song Mo notice that her eyes were red, as if she had just been crying.
The girl quickly lowered her head and hurried upstairs.
Her footsteps were very light, as if she were intentionally trying not to make any sound. Then came the sound of keys unlocking a door, the door opening, and immediately after, a man's roaring voice:
“So you finally decided to come back?!”
“Where's the money your mother gave you? Hand it over!”
A man's voice drifted down from the third floor, clearly audible even through the apartment building's main door.
“What time is it? Why aren't you coming straight home after school? What were you doing fooling around outside?”
The door slammed shut with a bang, and the subsequent sounds became muffled, followed by a long stream of intolerable, foul language.
Then came a clattering sound, as if someone had crashed into something, followed by the dull thud of a belt striking something.
Song Mo stood at the turn of the second floor with an unreadable expression. After listening for a few seconds, she continued carrying her things upstairs.
...
Moving took Song Mo the entire afternoon. By the time she had settled everything, it was already evening.
Song Mo walked to the window and pushed it open. Outside, the streetlights flickered on, casting a dim yellow glow onto the cement pavement of the residential area and projecting slanted shadows of the trees.
The barren hill opposite had turned into a mass of dense, pitch blackness in the night, rendering everything invisible.
During the evening rush hour, the courtyard downstairs was quite lively.
As Song Mo leaned against the window frame, the voices of people chatting downstairs drifted up.
She looked down and saw several elderly residents gathered around the flowerbed near the building entrance, chatting with groceries and shopping bags in hand, likely having just returned from work or grocery shopping.
“Let me tell you, when you buy glutinous rice, you must get the long-grain kind. The round-grain ones don't work.”
An old lady with permed, curly hair spoke the loudest, holding a red plastic bag in her hand.
“Oh, come on. Long-grain, round-grain, it's all glutinous rice. What difference could there be?” An old man in a plaid shirt waved his hand dismissively.
“A huge difference! The long-grain kind is stickier, so it absorbs more radiation and evil energy!”
The old lady argued righteously, her expression as serious as if she were at an academic conference. “Haven't you seen what the experts on the internet are saying? It has to be long-grain glutinous rice. You have to soak it in water and drink it to prevent zombies. The round-grain ones are only half as effective!”
“Where did you read all this?”
“It was shared in our group chat! It's internal data from an expert, not meant to be leaked to the public!”
More and more people gathered downstairs, and the topic drifted from glutinous rice to other matters.
Someone mentioned that there were more patrol cars on the streets lately, wailing all day and night, wondering if something else had happened.
Another person chimed in, saying they heard the cordon at Hongguang Community still hadn't been removed, and no one knew what was going on inside.
Then someone lowered their voice, but Song Mo could hear them perfectly from the fourth floor—the person said that people from the subdistrict office had come to register resident information a couple of days ago, asking very detailed questions, even inquiring if anyone in the household worked night shifts.
As they talked, the topic somehow shifted to the high school girl on the third floor.
“Liu Laosan beat his kid again today,” a middle-aged woman in a floral shirt said, shaking her head, her expression a mix of sympathy and disgust.
“I heard it in the hallway this afternoon. He was swinging that belt like it was free. The child didn't cry or scream, just endured it. It was unbearable to listen to.”
“That girl and her mother are truly pitiful. Having a father like that, they might as well be dead.”
The old lady with permed hair chimed in, placing her bag of glutinous rice on the ground. “Her mother, Cao Fang, works as a cleaner outside, earning a meager pittance, and Liu Laosan takes every single penny of it to drink and gamble.
What kind of lowlife is Liu Laosan? He doesn't work a single day, just hangs around the mahjong parlor. When he wins, he goes out to drink, and when he loses, he comes home and beats his wife and child.”
“Exactly,” another woman lowered her voice, though she couldn't suppress her gossipy excitement.
“But there's nothing that can be done. The police have been here several times, but since no one died, they just give him a lecture and leave. Once the police are gone, Liu Laosan beats them even harder.”
“She's such a big girl now, already in high school, and he still whips her with a rice cooker cord.”
The woman in the floral shirt clicked her tongue. “He whips her until she's covered in black and blue bruises. She can't even cover them up with short sleeves in the summer. What a sin.”
“It's not about fate; it's just that the father isn't human! Her mother, Cao Fang, is also useless. She can't control her husband and gets beaten right along with the child.”
...
Song Mo leaned against the window frame, hearing every single word.
There was no expression on her face.
The discussion downstairs continued, with the topic shifting back to panic-buying glutinous rice and zombies.
It was as if the conversation about domestic violence just now was merely an insignificant interlude.
To these people, Liu Laosan beating his child was nothing more than casual gossip over tea.
—It was of the same nature as what another family ate today or what was on sale at the supermarket. Once the chat was over, it was over; no one would actually do anything about it.
The police couldn't manage it, the neighborhood committee couldn't manage it, and the neighbors upstairs and downstairs certainly couldn't manage it.
Life went on as usual. Those who played mahjong kept playing mahjong, and those who scrambled for glutinous rice kept scrambling for glutinous rice.
Song Mo shut the window, blocking out the noise from downstairs, and turned to walk toward her desk.
It was time for her to get to her own business.
...
【Draft 1: ...In the dead of night, an old bus born of fear appears creakingly in the thick fog. Only those who obtain a ticket can reach the final stop, Taiping Cemetery... Of course, there are exceptions to everything. There are always one or two unlucky bastards who encounter this fully loaded Route 404 in the middle of the night...】
【Materials Invested: Route 404 Yin-Yang Bus, Low-grade Material: Shadow × 15】
【Script performing... Instance script rewards will be distributed after materialization.】
【...】
【Script pre-performance complete. Would you like to make modifications?】
Song Mo quickly watched the script performance and chose to modify it.
【The current plot is a deduced plot. Modifying it will cost 20 Screenwriter Points. Would you like to proceed with the modification?】
Wanting 20 Screenwriter Points from her before she even got her rewards?
The poor and helpless Song Mo very righteously... chose “No.”
...
That night, neon lights flickered on the Jiangcheng Bridge, and the river was calm.
Old Zhou, a night-shift police officer, had been on the force for fifteen years and had seen all kinds of scenes.
His mission tonight was to patrol the riverside route—for some unknown reason, the higher-ups had ordered all night-shift patrols to double their frequency over the past few days, requiring them to report any abnormalities immediately.
Every half hour, the dispatch center would call over the radio, requesting status reports from each post.
“Riverside Group Two, all clear.”
Old Zhou raised his radio to reply, then drank the strong tea in his cup in one gulp.
Sitting in the passenger seat was his apprentice, Xiao Wang. The kid had graduated from the police academy less than a year ago and was currently exhausted, curled up and dozing off.
Old Zhou didn't wake him. He put a cigarette in his mouth without lighting it, just keeping it between his lips as he drove leisurely.
The time approached two in the morning.
The riverside road was as empty as a gray river, with streetlights on both sides stretching far into the distance.
Occasionally, a boat would sail past on the river, its low hum drowning out the sound of the water.
As he drove, Old Zhou spotted three figures in the distance, swaying as they walked along the sidewalk.
They were slinging their arms over each other's shoulders, walking a bit and then throwing up by the bushes. They were clearly hammered.
They frequently encountered this kind of situation on patrol. There were plenty of drunks, either causing trouble or passing out on the ground, only to wake up with their clothes, pants, wallets, and phones all gone.
“Xiao Wang, wake up. We've got a situation ahead.”
Old Zhou patted his apprentice, preparing to pull over and pick them up—it wasn't safe to be wandering the streets like this in the middle of the night.
“Master, I'm awake now. Why don't I drive and you take a break?”
Xiao Wang rubbed his eyes and sat up. Just as he was about to speak, he rubbed his eyes again. “A bus at this hour?”
A bus slowly pulled up in front of the three men.
The doors opened, and the three drunks boarded the bus with their arms still draped over one another.
Old Zhou slowed down the patrol car while Xiao Wang squinted, trying hard to make out what was ahead.
The headlights cut a white fan-shaped beam, and both of them saw the signs hanging on the back of the bus.
Hanging at the rear of the bus were two metal plates. One was the license plate, an old-fashioned white-and-red plate with blurry, completely illegible characters.
The other was a route sign with two characters written on it: “Da Qu,” along with a number: 404.
...
“Da Qu? What route is that?”
Xiao Wang leaned closer to look, utterly bewildered. “Aren't they usually Jiangjin District, Nanba District, or Beian District? Since when did we get a 'Da Qu'?”
“With the citywide control tonight, all commercial vehicles have been suspended. Why would a night bus be running here?”
Old Zhou's eyelids twitched. “It might be an illegal commercial vehicle. Let's follow it and check its license plate to prevent any accidents.”
The patrol car slowly pulled up, intending to stop and inspect the vehicle.
Yet neither of them could say for sure when the anomaly began.
Whoosh—
A chilly river breeze carrying moisture swept ashore, and the ground became hazy, as if massive sheets of fog were growing out of the earth from thin air.
The grayish-white fog suddenly swept across the entire riverside avenue.
It had been clear and cloudless just a moment ago, but in an instant, dense fog surged. The grayish-white, hazy mist swallowed the headlights in the blink of an eye, and the blue-and-white police lights flashing against the fog looked somewhat eerie.
Although Jiangcheng was also known as the “City of Fog,” Old Zhou had truly never seen a fog so thick that he could barely see his own fingers.
Outside the car windows, even the streetlights were gone, replaced by a solid sheet of white.
“What a massive fog. Master, what... what do we do?”
Xiao Wang instantly sat bolt upright, tensing like a wooden board. “Did we... did we run into... that?”
The word “ghost” was kept under his tongue, as if he didn't dare speak it aloud for fear of provoking something.
How could fog just appear out of thin air?
Old Zhou was highly experienced. Drawing on his instincts, he brought the car to a steady stop by the roadside, waiting for the moment when the thick fog would shift slightly and clear up his vision—
Only to see that the empty road ahead was completely vacant.
The old, dilapidated bus and the three passengers who had boarded it had vanished.
As the fog dissipated, the unobstructed riverside avenue was completely empty from the hood of the car to the end of the road.
There were no vehicles, no figures, and no tire tracks.
It was as if the heavy fog and the bus from just now were both merely their illusions.
An absolute, dead silence instantly enveloped the entire patrol car.
Old Zhou's foot froze on the accelerator. His blood turned cold, and his scalp tingled with numbness.
Impossible!
Absolutely impossible!
This riverside avenue was a closed, straight road. On both sides were guardrails and the riverbank, with no side roads, no service lanes, let alone any turns or blind spots where a vehicle could hide!
The bus had been parked right in the center of their field of vision just a moment ago. With only three or four seconds of fog blocking their view, how could it vanish into thin air?
“Where's the bus?! Where are the people??”
Xiao Wang's voice trembled, his eyes filled with disbelief as he suddenly poked his head out the window.
The two of them immediately pushed open the car doors, rushed out, and repeatedly searched the spot where the bus had just been parked.
The road surface was flat and clean, with no brake marks.
District evening breeze blew along the riverbank, and the river surface was calm. Everything was normal, yet eerily quiet.
Old Zhou stood in place. As the night wind blew, it hit the sweat on his back, making him shiver with cold.
He suddenly realized something.
—That wasn't “Da Qu.”
Those two characters should have been “Taiping.”
Taiping Cemetery.
It was a “Taiping Cemetery” with missing strokes.
So, what exactly did they see just now?
Old Zhou suddenly began to tremble.
This shaking wasn't due to the cold skin, but a numbness that traveled all the way from his spine to the back of his head. Finally, his entire scalp tightened, as if an icy brush had scraped across his backbone.
Xiao Wang also realized something, his face turning pale bit by bit.
“Hello? Hello?”
Old Zhou shakily picked up the radio. His throat felt as if it were being choked, and it took him a long time to squeeze out a few words:
“Riverside Group Two... calling dispatch center... we have a situation...”
【Riverside Group Two, go ahead.】
“We... we saw a bus...”
Old Zhou swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. “Route 404, heading toward Taiping Cemetery... There were passengers on board, and then... then the bus disappeared.”
Silence fell on the other end of the radio for a few seconds.
【Please repeat that.】
“It didn't drive away; it disappeared. Right in front of us, the fog cleared for a second, and the bus was gone.”
【Riverside Group Two, confirm your location. Have you ruled out visual error?】
“Ruled out. Two pairs of eyes saw it.”
Old Zhou's voice finally steadied a bit. “I request to pull the surveillance footage for the eastern section of Riverside Road, from two minutes ago.
Also... also, I want to ask dispatch, are there any reports of abnormalities at Taiping Cemetery tonight?”
Another long silence ensued on the other end of the radio.
【Riverside Group Two, please stand by on-site and do not move. Backup will arrive shortly.】
Old Zhou hung the radio back on his waist, leaned down with his hands on his knees, and gasped heavily for breath.
Xiao Wang stood beside him, his face as pale as paper. His lips moved, his voice almost inaudible:
“Master... do you think those three drunks knew what kind of bus they were boarding?”
Old Zhou didn't say a word. He finally lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
He had a premonition that something terrible was going to happen tonight.
Rate on N.U.
