What was the purpose of sending her back to the murder scene from three years ago and making her one of the victims?
Was it to stop the killer from murdering people and successfully escape using Mu Ling’s body?
Su Cheng knelt on the seat, poking her head out to search for Chen Renping.
Scanning the front and rear seats, she locked eyes with Chen Renping, whose expression was panic-stricken in the seat behind her.
Unexpectedly, Chen Renping was in his original body, without the facial disguise of a passenger overlaying him.
The passengers were sitting sparsely and casually. Since Su Cheng wasn’t far from him, she quickly walked over to his seat to rendezvous.
With a tense expression, Chen Renping lowered his voice. “There are 3 minutes left before the train enters the tunnel!”
Su Cheng remembered from the dream Mu Ling had shown her that the killer possessed a gun and a knife, beginning his massacre after the train entered the tunnel.
In other words, they only had three minutes to come up with a suitable plan.
The most dangerous aspect of the killer was that he had a gun. Meanwhile, Su Cheng only had cold weapons, and Chen Renping had no offensive weapons at all.
A massive disparity in firepower.
Su Cheng racked her brain, recalling every detail from Mu Ling’s perspective in the dream, trying to figure out how to act…
Su Cheng: “The killer will appear near the carriage junction, while we are in the rear half of the carriage. If we smash the lights when entering the tunnel, the darkness can buy us a chance for a sneak attack…”
“Just the two of us definitely won’t be enough.”
Chen Renping nodded. “Time is tight and there’s no other way right now, so we can only give it a try. Let’s split up and mobilize the rest of the passengers without alerting the front!”
Su Cheng grabbed Chen Renping just as he turned to leave. “There’s one more thing.”
“I suspect Xun Fang has entered the killer’s body, but she could also be among the passengers. Be careful.”
Looking thoughtful, Chen Renping nodded. “Got it.”
There was no time to lose. Crouching low, the two of them left their seats from front to back.
A three-minute window was exceptionally pressing.
Though urgent, absolute chaos had to be avoided.
Based on the positions of the ceiling lights, Su Cheng selected the nearest passengers.
“There is a dangerous individual on the train who could strike at any moment. When we enter the tunnel shortly, the passengers need to unite…”
Su Cheng explained amidst the passengers’ hesitant gazes. She had to keep it brief without causing excessive panic.
Some were half-doubting and willing to cooperate with Su Cheng’s plan, while a minority refused to take risks and timidly hid beneath their seats.
In the rear section of the carriage, Su Cheng and Chen Renping successfully mobilized 8 out of 10 people—all tall male and female passengers.
Each of them guarded a seat beneath a ceiling light, waiting to stand on the tray tables and smash the pre-targeted lights once they entered the tunnel.
The weapons could be high heels, metal keys, or other items with sharp properties…
Clutching her dagger tightly and staring straight ahead, Su Cheng saw the tunnel appear in her field of view.
6… 5… 4…
A tall, thin figure stood up in the front row.
3… 2… 1!
“Bang!”
It wasn’t a gunshot, but the sound of the carriage lights shattering simultaneously.
The lights in the rear section of the carriage went out, plunging into darkness under the shroud of the tunnel.
“Bang!”
The masked man raised his handgun and fired two consecutive shots toward the seats in the darkness.
His facial expressions were entirely hidden beneath the mask, but the irritable displeasure radiating from his entire body was palpable.
“Ah!”
“Damn it, he has a gun!”
Uninformed passengers in the front row let out gasps, while hidden passengers in the rear muttered curses.
Two front-row passengers fled in panic toward the aisle, attempting to escape the carriage, only to be mercilessly gunned down by the masked man.
Crouched beneath the seats, Su Cheng carefully crept forward row by row, slowly closing the distance to the masked man.
The masked man walked unhurriedly toward the rear section of the train, stopping at the boundary between darkness and light as he laughed in a measured, unhurried tone:
“How about this? One person comes out right now and tells me where the others are, and I can let them go.”
“My gun doesn’t have eyes, and only one person gets the chance to leave safely, oh. If you give up and someone else beats you to it, don’t blame me…”
Finished speaking, the masked man slightly sidestepped to clear a path.
Su Cheng looked back. Quite a few passengers had already wavered. They didn’t entirely trust the killer, but the chance to leave safely was simply too tempting…
The passengers had no weapons capable of rivaling a gun, and in a moment of crisis, nobody wanted to die.
Besides, the passengers present didn’t really know each other; even if they used betrayal to trade for their own survival, it wouldn’t weigh too heavily on their conscience…
The psychological prodding tactics used by the masked man right now felt extremely familiar to Su Cheng… Weren’t those the exact kind of tricks Xun Fang loved to use?
She no longer doubted it.
Inside the masked man’s body was Xun Fang!
Yet why were she and Chen Renping ordinary passengers while Xun Fang was the killer?
What connection did she have with the killer Lin Jie?
A certain passenger hiding beneath a seat in the dark finally gave in to fear and asked tremblingly, “Are you really not lying?”
“Of course, I’ve always been very honest.”
The smiling mask felt like a real face at that moment. He must have been smiling, matching the smile on the mask… brimming with mockery.
The first person to waver acted like a signal, pressing a crisis of urgency onto the others. Driven by the fear of being betrayed first, someone else might rush out ahead of time.
To a group lacking unity and trust, just a few casual words from the killer were enough to turn them against each other and dissolve them from within.
She couldn’t wait any longer.
Treading lightly and quietly, Su Cheng slipped through the seats until she was hiding directly underneath the row just one seat away from the masked man.
The moment he lowered his head to search, he would discover her.
Crawling flat on the floor, Su Cheng slowed her breathing, resembling a hunter waiting for the precise moment to strike and secure the kill.
Keeping her eyes fixed on his neck rather than staring directly into his eyes—since she remembered this person was exceptionally sensitive to gazes…
The masked man urged, “So, who wants to be the first? I’m starting a five-second countdown.”
“5…”
“Xun Fang!”
“Bang, bang, bang!”
Chen Renping had barely uttered those two words when the masked man—as if striking a nerve—fired three consecutive shots directly toward the direction of the seat where the voice originated.
“Bang, bang, bang!”
The hand holding his gun trembled with extreme rage, unable to hide his ferocious menace even behind the mask. “Shut up!!!”
Su Cheng felt a minor jolt of shock. He fired three consecutive shots just over a name—why such an intense reaction?
Taking advantage of the masked man’s complete distraction toward Chen Renping’s direction, she seized the moment, sprang up abruptly, and lunged at him.
The dagger in her hand plunged fiercely into his shoulder. Letting out a cry of pain, he dropped his gun, which was immediately kicked far away.
With his free hand, the masked man drew the hidden knife from his waist, but as he slashed toward Su Cheng, she rolled aside to evade it.
The blade sliced across Su Cheng’s arm, leaving a bloody gash.
Though Su Cheng’s dagger remained wedged in the masked man’s shoulder and blood soaked the entire right half of his upper body, he acted as though he felt nothing at all.
He hurriedly bent down to retrieve the gun on the ground, only to be tackled to the floor by Chen Renping, who suddenly lunged out from hiding.
Chen Renping smashed a window-breaking hammer down onto the masked man’s head. “Xun Fang, stop this!”
With murderous hatred in his eyes, the masked man roared, “Shut up, shut up, shut up! How could this disgusting body ever be worthy of that name—!”
Injured as he was, he erupted with absolute strength, flipping over to pin Chen Renping beneath him, snatching the window-breaking hammer with one hand and smashing it into Chen Renping’s face.
Clearly harboring bitter resentment over Chen Renping repeatedly shouting the name “Xun Fang,” the masked man discarded the hammer, raised his knife with both hands, and thrust downward…
“Go to hell! Go to hell! I could kill you once, and I can kill you a second time!!”
Struggling desperately, Chen Renping grabbed the masked man’s wrist, but he still couldn’t stop the blade’s tip from pressing down inch by inch!
The instant Xun Fang had spoken those words earlier, Su Cheng understood everything.
With the situation critical, she ignored the pain in her arm and kicked the gun even further away.
Though a gun was the most powerful weapon, she didn’t know how to use it, and firing blindly risked injuring herself or her teammates.
Wrapping her forearm around the masked man’s neck from behind, she bought Chen Renping a window of respite, allowing him to twist the masked man’s wrist.
Before Chen Renping could wrest the knife away, however, the masked man violently jerked backward, slamming his weight against Su Cheng. Seizing the opening, Su Cheng swiftly yanked the dagger free from his right shoulder.
As his knife swung toward Su Cheng, she beat him to the punch, driving her dagger straight into his neck.
The blade pierced the carotid artery, and a geyser of blood sprayed directly onto Su Cheng’s face.
The masked man’s movements instantly went limp. Su Cheng immediately counter-attacked, pinning him to the floor. Pulling the dagger free, she watched blood splatter across the ceiling and walls of the carriage.
With an unblinking, calm expression, Su Cheng gripped the dagger and drove it savagely into his chest once more.
Squelch.
The blade tore through flesh.
Blood overflowed from the edges of the mask. His body shuddered a few times before falling completely still…
Yet the dagger did not stop, repeatedly thrusting in and out, over and over again…
The surrounding environment peeled away like an outer shell, shifting completely from beginning to end into a gray-black tone, with only the bright red blood refusing to fade within the gloom.
Caught in some sort of obsession, even though the masked man had already ceased breathing, Su Cheng gripped the dagger and continued her mechanical stabbing. With a fierce, hateful glare in her eyes, her hands, face, hair, and dress were completely drenched in blood…
“You ruined me, you ruined me, you ruined me…”
It was Su Cheng’s voice, yet it sounded somehow unlike her own.
Clatter…
As if exhausted, the dagger dropped from her hand onto the floor with a crisp sound.
Rousing from the grip of resentment, her consciousness snapped back into a daze.
The masked man’s corpse transformed into Xun Fang in her red dress.
Her eyes wide open, blood foam spilling from the corners of her lips, her red dress stained a deep, heavy crimson by the blood.
The stark red corpse looked chillingly natural inside the blood-drenched carriage.
Chen Renping leaned limply against the side of a seat, his head hanging down powerlessly.
The fabric around his abdomen was soaked in a large patch of blood—he had actually been shot right at the very beginning…
What about those passengers just now?
Su Cheng looked back.
Those living passengers had long since vanished.
Standing behind her were the 14 passengers who had died long ago… fat and thin, tall and short, adults and children.
Their faces were a lifeless, cold white, with wisps of red smoke flowing through their semi-transparent bodies, and their dead eyes stared quietly at her…
This scene ought to have been horrific and terrifying, yet Su Cheng felt an eerie, profound calmness.
She even thought that this was simply what people naturally looked like—wasn’t she in this exact same state herself?
Sluggishly extending her finger, Su Cheng counted them one by one:
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 13, 14.”
Why were there only 14?
Su Cheng murmured, “Where is the 15th?”
The 14 passengers raised their hands in unison and pointed straight at her.
Am I the 15th?
Lowering her head, Su Cheng looked at her blood-stained yellow dress. Her hands were completely coated in blood, yet the chain on her wrist remained immaculate.
Her name was clearly engraved on the wooden bead:
Mu Ling.
So her name was Mu Ling.
Mu Ling had died three years ago.
Therefore, she should have died long ago.
Picking up the dagger from the floor once more, Su Cheng pressed it against her neck. She remembered she had died by having her throat slit… She had bled so much when she died, and it hurt so, so much…
A pale hand grabbed her wrist, stopping the blade’s movement.
Dazed, Su Cheng raised her eyes. It was Chen Renping’s ghost.
He shook his head. “You are not Mu Ling. You don’t belong here.”
Then who was she?
Where should she go?
Su Cheng lowered the knife. Her mind was sluggish, as if something was blocking her ability to think.
What she didn’t realize was that wisps of red smoke were also curling around her entire body.
“Then where should I go… I need to return…”
Apartment.
The moment that word surfaced in her mind, it struck like a heavy hammer breaking free from shackles.
Her body shuddered, and her consciousness snapped back into absolute clarity, transitioning from a state of haze back into reality.
She was Su Cheng; she was not Mu Ling.
This was an instance, and she had to return to… the apartment!
The yellow dress Su Cheng wore faded back into a trench coat, the bracelet vanished, and the black wristband reappeared.
Touching her pocket, the pop-up storage slots and the chocolates inside provided a grounded sense of cognitive security.
Mu Ling’s soul seemed expelled by a certain force, leaving her body alongside the red smoke that drifted away from Su Cheng.
Mu Ling returned to the group of 14 passengers.
Now there were 15.
Glaring at Mu Ling among the passengers, Su Cheng asked somewhat irritably, “You wanted me to die?”
Seeing Xun Fang’s bloodied, mangled body clearly now that she was sober, Su Cheng had pieced everything together through the events that had just transpired.
Xun Fang was none other than the serial killer Lin Jie from ten years ago! Perhaps for the sake of concealment or due to gender dysphoria, he had undergone full-body plastic surgery to transform into a woman.
This explained why Chen Renping had never suspected Xun Fang of being the fugitive killer while on the train.
It also explained why Xun Fang felt so seamless alongside the masked man—that had originally been his original body from the very start.
Regardless, killing Xun Fang with her own hands could be considered avenging Mu Ling. Yet the other party had tried to possess her body to lure her into committing suicide as a burial companion—did ghosts really practice such heartless abandonment of their tools?
Mu Ling shook her head. Lowering her head so that her draped long hair concealed her face, she retreated behind the other passengers.
Furrowing her brow and failing to understand what Mu Ling meant, Su Cheng turned around and cast a grateful glance at Chen Renping. “Thank you!”
Having turned into a ghost only recently, Chen Renping’s soul was fragile and lacked the condensed solidity of the passenger ghosts, yet his form lacked the wisps of red smoke carried by the others.