Mysterious Revival

The bus started up again.

As the lights in the carriage came on once more, Yang Jian immediately understood that the most dangerous moment had passed. As long as he could get back on the bus, he would temporarily be safe, at least not having to worry about being targeted by these ghosts.

"Let's get out of here," he murmured.

Yang Jian's gaze shifted subtly. He felt that if he continued to stay outside, he would definitely be caught by the Dried Corpse Bride. Although the Crying Tomb Ghost was temporarily suppressed by the Ghost Rope, the danger was not yet averted.

Without delay, he moved backward.

In the Ghost Domain, the next moment he found himself at the side of the bus. He then retracted the Ghost Rope.

With the Ghost Rope restriction lifted, the Crying Tomb Ghost fell to the ground with a thud, the sound muffled, like a corpse dropping, its posture twisted and strange.

But as the Crying Tomb Ghost fell, Yang Jian noticed a piece of white cloth falling next to it. This cloth, which the Crying Tomb Ghost used to cover its face, had the clear contour of a human face on it. The outline was hollow and eerie, with a sad crying expression.

Acting on a certain instinct, Yang Jian felt that this piece of face-covering cloth dropped by the Crying Tomb Ghost was special.

"You almost cried me to death. Taking a little something as compensation shouldn't be too much, right?" He didn't hurry off but instead went back to where the face-covering cloth had fallen, picked up the item, and while the Crying Tomb Ghost was still twisting on the ground trying to stand up, he swiftly made his escape.

After snatching the face-covering cloth, Yang Jian immediately chose to board the bus.

But as soon as he got on, the sight of the driver's seat made him tense up.

The body of the middle-aged driver who had been lying on the ground was now, inexplicably, sitting upright in the driver's seat, its cadaverous hands gripping the steering wheel, its silent, gray eyes open, staring at the road ahead as if prepared to drive.

"Did this corpse move while the engine was off?" Yang Jian immediately realized the gravity of the situation.

Could it be that the ghost on this bus was that of the driver's corpse?

No, that's impossible.

Someone had touched the body before, even stepping over it without any issue. Besides, the body had been on the ground for several hours with no abnormality. He had watched from the back seat very carefully; he couldn't possibly have mistaken that.

Or could it be that there was nothing wrong with the body, but the ghost inside the bus had propped it back up?

He couldn't make sense of it.

With all the strange things he had encountered today, everything was a huge mystery. Just trying to survive was difficult enough, let alone having the leisure to ponder the reasons behind it all.

"Forget it, as long as nothing goes wrong, that's okay. Right now, the priority is to wait for the bus to start driving away from this haunted place. Can't drag this out any longer; it would be bad if those ghosts followed onto the bus."

Yang Jian swiftly retreated toward the back of the bus, ignoring the corpse at the driver's position.

Out of caution, he didn't sit at any random seat but chose to sit in his original spot.

Uncertain if the fourth ghost was still present, it might still be inside the bus.

When Yang Jian sat down, he didn't relax. Clutching the piece of face-covering cloth in his hand tightly, he observed the scene outside.

Would the Crying Tomb Ghost come after him for taking its cloth?

At that moment, the Crying Tomb Ghost had already stood up.

Without the face-covering cloth, Yang Jian could finally see half of the creature's face—only half, due to the angle.

But it was this half of a face that gave Yang Jian a spine-chilling sensation.

Instead of a face, it was more apt to say there was no face at all. The inside of the face was a gaping hole, as if someone had brutally scooped out the facial bones, a pitch-black abyss so deep it seemed bottomless, exuding an indescribable terror.

Yang Jian couldn't see anything inside that facial hole with his Ghost Eye, only darkness.

After the Crying Tomb Ghost stood up, fresh blood began seeping out from the face hole as if Yang Jian's taking of the cloth had disrupted some kind of balance.

However,...

Whether Yang Jian chose to take it or not was of little significance, as the cloth had already fallen. He had only thought that the item was valuable and didn't want it to be a wasted trip.

The Crying Tomb Ghost, which had lost its face-covering cloth, did not get on the bus to trouble Yang Jian, suggesting that perhaps the cloth hadn't been important to it.

The Crying Tomb Ghost had stopped crying and turned to walk back into the woods by the roadside.

No longer being affected by the beckoning of Zhang Haw from earlier.

Next to the woods where the episode had unfolded, a narrow path had appeared out of nowhere. The Crying Tomb Ghost quickly disappeared into the woods along the winding path, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye, leaving no trace and no sound of crying, as if it had left the area.

"Did a ghost just leave?"

Only after watching the figure leave did Yang Jian regain his hearing. He couldn't help but look down at the piece of white cloth in his hands.

The cloth was coarse and old. Instead of calling it white, it had been stained to a dingy gray, somewhat grubby, with the outline of a crying face on it. He flipped it over to the other side.

Still, the same outline of a crying face.

There was nothing else particularly remarkable about it.

But Yang Jian felt that this piece was special, not because of the cloth itself, but because of the crying face.

Because once the crying face was removed, the Crying Tomb Ghost stopped crying.

Perhaps it wasn't the ghost crying, just the face itself...

The crying face?

Yang Jian was reminded, for some reason, of Tong Qian—Tong Qian's face was a smiling one, however.

Crying and smiling, two similar ghost faces.

Before he could ponder further, suddenly,

a loud crash came from outside the bus.

A hand slammed violently against the glass window next to him, followed by another hand grabbing the windowsill, and then a body vaulted into the bus.

It was the man in the duckbill cap.

By now, the cap had been lost, revealing a bald head, like that of a monk.

"It wasn't easy to survive, I almost got killed in my sleep. You can't possibly imagine that nightmare. An evil ghost appearing constantly beside you, and if you're killed by that thing, you die for real. But luckily, I woke up. Hey, I never thought the revival of the fierce ghost would actually save me."

The man in the duckbill cap glanced at Yang Jian with a self-deprecating smile, "You're special. Among the three of us, you'd have the easiest time surviving. You even suppressed the Crying Tomb Ghost, something a newbie just couldn't do. Xu Feng really misjudged you. What's your name? Do you mind getting acquainted?"

"Yang Jian, the person in charge of Dachang City," Yang Jian said calmly.

His information was easy to verify, so there was no need to hide it.

"My name is Lin Bei, a student at the Buddhist College. Although I haven't graduated, I'm kind of a monk," the man named Lin Bei said.

Yang Jian stared at him, "What about the ghost that was clinging to you?"

"I don't know."

Lin Bei touched his bald head, "Maybe it's waiting on me to fall asleep to attack again, or perhaps it has given up on me as its target, or maybe it's returned to this bus. That thing has no physical form; it seems it can enter dreams. And I'm just unlucky because the way I fend off fierce ghost attacks is by sleeping."

"Once asleep, I enter a special state where I'm very safe. But as it turns out, it's not useful in all situations."

"Now doesn't seem to be the time for this discussion. There is no absolute safety in front of a fierce ghost, even on the bus," Yang Jian spoke, his gaze drifting outside the window.

He saw that the Dried Corpse Bride was still there, seemingly motionless, with that withered palm still clasping the dead body of Zhang Haw, standing like a couple on the opposite side of the road.

It seemed that the ghost had no intention of boarding the bus again.

If that was the case, it was good news.

But then he noticed that Xu Feng's corpse had disappeared; it had just been lying there before.

"You almost killed me just now," came the grinding voice of Xu Feng. Seizing an opportunity, he had managed to get to the side of the bus and then immediately sprinted aboard.

He survived?

Yang Jian was taken aback upon seeing him.

Trapped under that Dried Corpse Bride for three minutes, yet wasn't killed by that ghost?

Indeed a tough life.

"That's not exactly fair to say. Given the circumstances, a no-exit situation was forming. I was just fighting to save myself. If I hadn't stopped Zhang Haw's body from attracting more ghosts around us, do you think there would have been any chance for you to return alive to the bus?"

Yang Jian's face remained calm, his eyes harboring slight hostility as he looked at Xu Feng.

"Your body is a very special item. It's a pity to use it just for self-defense; it's most suitable for suppressing ghosts. Moreover, this time you suppressed a female ghost, which should be a fair trade for you."

Xu Feng glared back, "You were just taking the chance to try to kill me. Suppressing the ghost is nothing but an excuse."

"Even if it were, so what?" Yang Jian stared back, undaunted, "If you're dead, just lie there quietly and don't stir up trouble. You nearly killed me just for the sake of improving your chances of survival. I've been more than polite to you. If we weren't on this bus, do you believe I would bury you ten thousand meters underground? Let you lie there enough?"

He could tell that Xu Feng's abilities were formidable against fierce ghosts, with very strong self-preservation skills, stronger even than Lin Bei's.

But the weakness was clear.

Too strong a self-preservation often meant a lack of proactive offensive capabilities.

Perhaps, for this reason, these two men had managed to survive on the bus so far. Others from their batch, or those who appeared even earlier on the bus, had long since perished.

"Don't be overconfident for too long. You only survived this time by luck. The ghosts attacked us, but next time you may not be so lucky. Acting tough here is useless. The last one standing is the winner," Xu Feng spoke coldly, not finding anything wrong with his capabilities, but rather feeling fortunate to have such a capability for self-preservation.

In the past, he remembered those he knew who managed ghosts; they either died during the revive of fierce ghosts or fell inexplicably in some strange paranormal event. One by one, the news of their deaths came.

Only he had been a person in charge in Xiaochun City, coasting through life and surviving to this day.

Yang Jian, with a hint of mockery, "How long I'll live, I don't know. But one thing I'm sure of is that I'll outlive you. You'll know if you ever get the chance."