"Old Zou, Old Zou, can you hear me?
"If you're still alive, hurry up and say something."
Another middle-aged man's muffled, hoarse voice came through the two-way radio.
These taxi drivers had their own circles. Since using a mobile phone while driving was inconvenient, they communicated about nearby traffic conditions, passengers, and gas stations through their two-way radios.
The driver stopped at a red light and impatiently shot back:
"I'm in the middle of a fare. If you've got something to say, spit it out.
"Old Huang, stop wasting my time."
The voice on the radio, Old Huang, sounded anxious.
"Don't take any fares near Pingshui Apartment.
"There's something wrong with that place. Everyone on an entire floor of the apartment building died. It has to be one of those dirty things. A lot of the residents have already noticed something is off and fled with their families."Let the other brothers nearby know too. Don't drive over there until that dirty thing leaves. It's one thing if old men like us die, but if we accidentally cross paths with it, bring it home, and pass it on to the kids, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives."
Gao Tian's heart turned ice-cold.
Because Pingshui Apartment was exactly where he had just come from.
He never expected that thing to be so vicious. It had probably gone crazy venting its anger after failing to find him on the Third Floor.
Old Zou shot back an impatient "Got it" into the two-way radio and hung up.
The red light ahead turned green, and the taxi rolled forward.
Silence lingered in the car for a while.
Eventually, the driver, Old Zou, broke the silence, his voice raspy.
"That dirty thing... is it fierce?"
He had obviously noticed. Gao Tian had fled straight from the road near Pingshui Apartment. When he got in the car, his face was ghastly pale, looking exactly like someone running for his life.
The passenger had initially wanted to go to the police station but abruptly changed his mind. Clearly, even that safe haven was no longer safe.
At this point, there was no need to hide anything.
Gao Tian said, "Very fierce...
"I provoked something I shouldn't have, and it chased me the entire way."
The taxi bypassed the overpass ahead. Instead of heading up, it pulled over to the edge of the main road and slowly rolled to a stop.
The driver rolled down the window a crack and lit a cigarette.
"Young man, you heard it just now. We all have wives and kids. It's not easy supporting a family. I'm the only breadwinner; if I die out here, they won't have any money for tuition or living expenses.
"I've heard a bit about those things too. They're vicious. We can't afford to provoke them.
"Try to understand where I'm coming from. There's a park just up ahead. I'll drop you off there. This is as far as I can take you."
Gao Tian didn't say anything. He pulled out his mobile phone, ready to pay.
They had agreed on double the fare, and he had no intention of backing out.
The driver turned around and pressed his calloused hand over Gao Tian's mobile phone.
"Don't worry about it, you don't need to pay.
"This ride is on me.
"I'm truly sorry, young man. If I were twenty years younger, my temper might have flared up. I would've taken you straight onto the highway and fought that dirty thing no matter what.
"But I can't do that now. The older you get, the more you fear death. When I think about going home to my nagging wife, and my two daughters going through their rebellious phases and refusing to listen... I wouldn't dare die even if I wanted to."
Gao Tian got out of the car and shut the door. Behind the window, the middle-aged man wasn't in a hurry to drive off. Instead, he looked at the young man with a hint of pity in his eyes.
The driver knew very well that the moment he stepped on the gas and left, this young man he was leaving behind would certainly die.
Judging by his age, the young man was about as old as the driver's own daughters.
Gao Tian also looked at the driver.
"You guys seem to know a fair bit about those things?"
The driver said, "I wouldn't call it knowing a fair bit.
"We drive around the city all day. We see a lot, and when we chat with the other brothers in the fleet, we end up hearing about a lot of things that get covered up on the news.
"Truth is, messed up things like this happen every day. These things are getting more and more active. They probably won't be able to keep it hidden on TV and the internet for much longer.
"Right now, I'm working my life away to save up. I drive from day to night just to gather a large sum of money. Before things spiral completely out of control, I at least want to send my two daughters somewhere safe abroad."
Gao Tian still wasn't ready to give up.
"Tell me, is it of any use to call the cops?"
The man slowly shook his head.
"It's useless. Once they set their sights on you, it's a dead end. What could normal people possibly use to fight them?
"The police are there to catch criminals. They solve disputes between the living.
"Those things aren't living, and the police can't do anything about them."
Gao Tian asked, "Then who in this world can deal with them?
"Monks? Daoist priests? Pastors?"
The driver replied, "I don't know.
"Maybe the army.
"When all of society is on the verge of total panic and collapse, that's when the army will deploy in full force. They'd be the last hope for us ordinary people..."
The car window slowly rolled up.
Gao Tian lifted his head, watching the taxi disappear into the distance as if it were fleeing.
Now, only Gao Tian's lonely figure remained beneath the circle of light cast by the streetlamp.
This park was quite secluded to begin with, and few people ever came here. Combined with the late hour, he couldn't spot a single person even after walking for about five minutes.
Knowing his death was imminent, Gao Tian found a bench by the path and sat down.
The red-eyed person had not yet appeared. He had no idea when it would arrive to take his life. Still, Gao Tian's survival instincts pushed his mind to race, calculating and searching for even the slightest chance of making it out alive.
He read a lot of web novels in his spare time and knew that, under this kind of horror worldbuilding, absolute death sentences in supernatural events were rare. Behind the seemingly unsolvable Killing Rule of these ghosts, there was usually a deeply hidden path to survival, giving ordinary people a chance to make it out alive.
But web novels were web novels, and reality was reality.
Web novel protagonists had plot armor, and authors had to consider how to stretch out the story. If the supernatural Fierce Ghosts were entirely unsolvable, the story would end too quickly, and the author wouldn't be able to bait out any more clicks.
Yet ghosts in reality were completely unsolvable. There was absolutely no need to consider leaving any path to survival for an ordinary person.
Perhaps his luck was just terrible, and he had encountered an absolutely unsolvable Fierce Ghost on his very first try. The moment he clicked on that Black Envelope in the Chat Group, Gao Tian was already a dead man.
No wonder Ghost Cave was so confident. According to his scheme, the living person in the group was one hundred percent guaranteed to die.
Ghost Cave... that guy.
When he was alive, his intuition must have been terrifyingly accurate.
Even though Gao Tian hadn't said a single word in the group, Ghost Cave had somehow managed to root him out based on pure feeling. The excuse was so far-fetched that Gao Tian suspected he was cheating.
Creak, creak.
A chill wind swept past. While Gao Tian was still deep in thought, an empty swing in the small playground opposite the bench began to sway.
Gao Tian slowly raised his head. Even though he was mentally prepared for it, he was still overwhelmed by endless despair and terror in the face of approaching death.
'Pull yourself together,' he thought. 'Don't embarrass humanity in front of a ghost.'
A figure had appeared on the swing at some unknown point. Through the sparse trees, that deathly pale face flashed an eerie smile in his direction.
A single eye had grown once more on that massive, deathly pale face that originally had no features.
Even though both the pupil and the sclera of that eye were blood-red, it was undeniably looking more and more like his own.
It looked like a "Gao Tian" with morbidly pale skin and a single, blood-red eye.
That "Gao Tian" didn't seem to be in any rush to kill him. It just sat on the swing opposite him, rocking back and forth, waiting for something.
Perhaps it was waiting for its face to completely turn into Gao Tian's before coming over to finish him off.
Until the red-eyed figure fully acquired Gao Tian's appearance, it was temporarily "reluctant" to kill him.
This was exactly why Gao Tian had been able to safely leave the neighborhood and escape this far in a taxi. It wasn't because he had slipped from the Fierce Ghost's demonic grasp at all; rather, the Fierce Ghost had been toying with him, tailing him from behind the entire time.
Now, the new "Gao Tian's" face was mostly complete. This boring game was about to end.
Gao Tian realized then and there that web novels were all lies. Fucking lies.
On the internet, people claimed they could slide-tackle a tiger to gut it, or suplex a black bear into unconsciousness; in reality, seven or eight strapping men would be just about enough to feed a starving tiger to bursting.
A Fierce Ghost was far more terrifying than a wild beast, and the power gap between them and humans was like an uncrossable chasm. To act like a web novel protagonist and defeat a Fierce Ghost by calmly observing its weakness... was that really something a human could do?
'How is that possible... is there really no way to escape at all?'
Right at that moment, as if his brain had been struck by lightning, Gao Tian suddenly froze in place. His entire body locked up, unable to move a single inch.
The answer... it might actually be that simple.
The only way to survive had been sitting right in front of him all along, but he had been far too stupid to realize it until now.
Whoever tied the bell must untie it. Why was he being hunted by a Fierce Ghost in the first place? Because of that bizarre Chat Group filled with ghosts.
Naturally, the hope for survival lay within it as well.
Gao Tian glanced at the swing opposite him and was shocked to find that although it was still swaying back and forth, the silhouette of the figure on it had vanished. The surrounding path was completely deserted. At some point, that dirty thing had abruptly disappeared again.
However, he had no time to worry about that. It was better that it left; he might have gained just a tiny bit more time to keep struggling.
Gao Tian lowered his head, opened the Chat Group as fast as he could, and frantically scrolled up through Ghost Cave and the others' chat history.
After confirming that the living person in the group was dead for sure, Ghost Cave and the rest hadn't sent a single message. Clearly, he was extremely confident in this Black Envelope. It was an open trap—no matter what the living person chose to do, there was no escaping the fate of death.
Naturally, Gao Tian wasn't going to beg Ghost Cave and the others for mercy.
They were dead set on killing this sole living person. The moment Gao Tian dared to speak up in the group and expose his identity, he would only die faster.
"It's here.
"Found it!"
The moment he scrolled to his hope for survival, Gao Tian felt as if a lifetime had passed, like he had been granted a new lease on life.