And what was eerie was that, looking out through the windows of the bus, it was clear that it wasn't raining outside at all.

Yet the man was drenched, obviously having just experienced a downpour.

The arrival of this middle-aged man with a goatee made the entire atmosphere even more unsettling.

Chen Miao didn't pay attention to the middle-aged man. Instead, he took the opportunity before the bus started moving to head straight for the exit. There were two steps by the door for the convenience of passengers, which usually just took a step to get off the bus.

But today, for some reason,

Chen Miao took dozens of steps but was still circling around these two steps, as if he had run into an invisible wall.

After trying for a long time and having confirmed he could not exit the bus and at the moment the doors were slowly closing, he suddenly laughed, gave up on the idea of leaving the bus, and did not return to his original seat.

Instead, he sat in a single seat opposite the middle-aged man, took out a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it, put it in his mouth, and said with a smile, "Do you believe that after a burst from my gun, this bus will turn to ash?"

"Don't believe it."

The middle-aged man shook his head seriously, "Not just one burst, but even ten bursts would leave it untouched."

Then the middle-aged man suddenly lost interest in the conversation, his brow furrowed as he stared into the void in front of him, as if looking at some panel or perhaps reading friend messages.

Chen Miao glanced at the Hungry Monkey, who had resumed dozing off in the back seat, and without saying a word, his eyelids drooped slightly as he began to send a barrage of messages to his friends.

'Hungry Monkey' 'Yuan Buping' 'Zhou Shen' 'Doctor Gou' and so on.

He contacted everyone on his friend list, sending over ten messages to each, but no one replied. It was only just past ten at night and it wasn't likely that everyone was asleep already.

Meanwhile, the news was still being broadcast on the in-bus television.

"Urgent Notice: On November 24th, at 10:21 PM, a bus with the license plate number Fengtian·GA182 on route 119, entered a bridge pit in the suburbs due to the driver dozing off. There were only two passengers on the bus; including the driver, all three died."

"The bodies of the two passengers were unrecognizable. We hereby notify their families to come to the Western Third Law Enforcement Bureau to claim the bodies."

The bus with the license plate number Fengtian·GA182 on route 119 was the very bus they were currently on.

"Are you from Fengtian City?"

At this moment, the middle-aged man in the straw raincoat suddenly looked up at Chen Miao and said with a smile, "Looks like the starting station this time is Fengtian City, ah no wonder, that place is said to have a lot of gunmen."

"Interesting, Fengtian City actually has the qualification to be the starting station."

But at this moment, a flash of shock crossed Chen Miao's eyes as he looked at the journey route on the bus's interior display. At some point, the route under his very eyelids had changed. Originally, there were just two stops before reaching the final destination, Eternal Cemetery.

But now the journey route had undergone a drastic change.

Previous station 'Fengtian City' - Current station 'Gaobei City' - Next station 'Jingjiu City' - Next station 'Broken Pot City' - ...

What was once a local bus line operating solely within Fengtian City had become a federal bus line traversing multiple cities. What a joke, never had there been a bus that could cross so many cities.

"Are you from Gaobei City?"

Chen Miao looked at the middle-aged man. This was the first time he had spoken to the man since he got on the bus; prior to this, whether the man tried to start a conversation or offered a cigarette, he did not dare to respond, fearing he might trigger some taboo.

But now, since it was confirmed that he was likely caught up in some event,

his previously anxious heart settled down instead.

This is like when you're trading stocks, and as long as the stock doesn't fall, you're constantly worried, but once it keeps falling and you're completely trapped, you stop worrying, because there's no need to worry anymore. Just wait to die.

Although things have gotten worse, the mindset has improved.

"Hmph."

The middle-aged man said with a smile as he took off his hat to reveal his bald head, "See, isn't this easy to recognize? Is there anyone in Gaobei City who isn't bald?"

Every city has its own stereotype, and the one outsiders have of Gaobei City is that there are no hair salons and almost everyone is bald. The city-state effect allows you to sacrifice any part of yourself to gain resources, and hair, being a non-critical product, naturally becomes the best choice.

In reality, that was indeed the case.

Out of ten men from Gaobei City, seven are bald.

"I've got some good news for you, and some bad news."

After pausing, the middle-aged man began to speak in a complex tone, "Let's start with the bad news, it looks like we have to go through at least five stops this time. It's not displayed on the screens ahead; we don't know if there are even more stops. The difficulty of this incident is probably going to be very high, and it's likely very hard for you to survive."

"We might as well chat for a while, as this could be one of the last opportunities you have to speak in your life."

"The good news is, I'm most likely not going to make it either. Having someone accompany you on your way out isn't so lonely."

At this point,

the middle-aged man scratched his head irritably, "If I had known there were so many stops, who would come? Damn, why is my luck so rotten this time."

"Don't even think about contacting the outside world. Once you're on this bus, you're in an environment that is absolutely isolated from the outside world. And don't blame anyone else. If you have to blame someone, blame yourself for getting on this bus in the first place."

Chen Miao didn't speak; through the experiment just now, he had already confirmed that he had lost contact with the outside world. Now, his only question was whether Hungry Monkey was involved, whether Hungry Monkey was possessed, or if this Hungry Monkey was a fake.

...

Meanwhile, on the streets of Fengtian City.

"Hey, Miao, do you think we should take some food back with us?"

Walking ahead, Hungry Monkey hesitated and patted his stomach. He was getting a little hungry, but no one responded from behind. It took him a moment to turn around and look back, but after searching amidst the crowd for a long time, he couldn't find Miao's figure.

In confusion, Hungry Monkey sent a message to Chen Miao.

But he didn't get a reply for a long time.

The previously bewildered Hungry Monkey's gaze suddenly became clear, and he began to mutter with a finger in his mouth, "Miao couldn't have been kidnapped, could he?"

Without any hesitation, he immediately contacted Zhou Shen.

Zhou Shen arrived quickly, and without any delay, he went to the Enforcement Bureau in charge of the area to access the street surveillance cameras. After meticulously reviewing the footage, which showed Hungry Monkey and Chen Miao walking down the street,

he spoke in a deep voice with a furrowed brow.

"Miao might have been involved in some kind of unpredictable major incident."

"But... there were no forewarnings."

In the footage, Chen Miao disappeared from the screen suddenly. One moment, he was on the roadside, laughing and talking with Hungry Monkey, and in the blink of an eye, the moment Hungry Monkey turned his head, he vanished into thin air, with the pedestrians nearby responding as if they saw nothing.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com