Only once they were seated again aboard the driverless bus did the two of them truly breathe out.
"We... we made it, right?"
The bushy-bearded Liu Chengfeng panted, watching through the window glass as the horrifying, spindly ghost-woman in the distance went back into the villa—and only then did he realize his legs had gone soft as mud.
"Yes."
Ning Qiushui answered.
Then neither of them spoke again.
Five days on, of the seven this bus had once carried, only two remained.
Liu Chengfeng felt a strange hollowness in his chest.
He hadn't been especially close to any of the others, but watching them die so miserably before his eyes, it struck far too close to home.
Because he, too, had come that close to death.
Without Ning Qiushui, his end would most likely have been the same as theirs.
Not long after they boarded, the bus closed its door and slowly pulled away.
Soon, they passed out of the curtain of rain and back into the fog.
Drowsy and dazed, the two of them fell asleep right there on the bus.
When they woke again, it was the next morning.
Ning Qiushui worked his stiff body loose and looked out of the bus.
They had already arrived outside the black villa's little courtyard.
"Hey. Big Beard. Wake up."
Ning Qiushui prodded Liu Chengfeng, who jolted awake with a yell:
"Ghost! The ghost is coming!"
"Run!"
Ning Qiushui watched the flailing Liu Chengfeng, speechless, thinking the poor guy really had it rough—hunted by a ghost inside the Blood Door task, and then pulling 'overtime' in his dreams.
Only after confirming that the person beside him was Ning Qiushui did Liu Chengfeng wipe the sweat off his face, panting:
"Bro, you scared me half to death!"
Ning Qiushui pointed at the black courtyard outside:
"Off the bus. We're here."
One after the other, they got off and walked into the black villa.
When they entered the main hall again, they found only one person left in it.
It was that strikingly beautiful youth.
He was like a porcelain doll—skin white with a flush of pink, frame small and delicate. If he didn't open his mouth, almost no one would ever guess he was a boy.
"How come it's just you?"
Liu Chengfeng frowned.
Seeing the two of them come back alive from behind the Blood Door, the youth's manner had warmed considerably from before.
"Uncle Yan had matters to handle—he went back to the world before. Sis Xiaoxiao is out carrying newcomers through a Blood Door. And one of us is in the kitchen cooking."
Ning Qiushui's eyes flickered.
"We can still go back to the world we came from?"
The youth stirred the charcoal in the brazier.
"Why couldn't you?"
"You rode the bus here; naturally you can ride the bus back."
"Hahh..."
Somewhere in the middle of that he sighed, rubbing at his long hair.
"I hate this part the most. Every time new people come, I have to explain so, so much, until my mouth runs dry... and what's worse, sometimes I teach them the rules one day and they're dead within the week."
"But you two at least came out of a Blood Door alive. Whatever you want to ask—ask now."
The two exchanged a look. After a moment's thought, Ning Qiushui said:
"What exactly are the Blood Door and the fog?"
The youth said:
"A curse."
"We are all cursed people. The fog is a world unto itself, separate from the world outside. Only by riding the fog world's bus can you come in or leave."
"This villa compound we live in is called an eerie lodge. There are many lodges like ours in the fog world—and likewise, many Blood Doors."
"Every so often, we have to enter the horror world behind the Blood Door to complete the task written on it. While doing everything we can to survive, we also have to gather puzzle pieces wherever possible."
"Collect all twelve puzzle pieces, and we can carry the completed puzzle onto the bus and ride to the end of the fog world."
As he spoke, the youth pointed a finger at a picture frame high on the hall's wall.
The two looked. The frame was already half filled in.
The picture appeared to be... a rotting human head.
In its forehead was a bleeding hollow, like an extra eye—an altogether gruesome sight!
"What's at the end of the fog world?"
Ning Qiushui asked. The youth shrugged.
"That I wouldn't know."
"None of us has ever been there, after all."
"Also—don't hold our earlier coldness against us... You've seen it yourselves: in this world, death is an everyday thing. If you truly made a bosom friend, and he died behind a Blood Door, you'd grieve terribly."
As he said this, something in the youth's expression turned heavy and shut-in.
"Did something happen at the lodge before we..."
Ning Qiushui seemed to grasp something, but before he could finish the question, the youth nodded.
"Right before you two arrived—about half a month ago—Uncle Yan's best friend, Uncle Mang... died behind a Blood Door."
"And Sis Xiaoxiao's best friend, Zhizi... followed him in death."
"So honestly, everyone's spirits have been low."
The two thought back to the crushing atmosphere in the hall when they had first entered the lodge, and suddenly it made sense.
"All right, food's nearly ready. After we eat, if you don't want to stay here, you can wait at the bus stop outside the villa."
"In a week, when it's your turn to enter the Blood Door for your second task, the bus will come for you ahead of time..."
At the dinner table, the four of them sat facing one another in silence, heads down, eating hard.
"Honestly, your cooking really isn't much..."
After a few bites, Liu Chengfeng couldn't help griping.
Meng Jun, who had cooked, raised his head and gave Liu Chengfeng a cold look:
"If you don't like it, pour it out. Or cook it yourself."
Liu Chengfeng was a careless, brash sort with a temper of his own, and he opened his mouth to snap back—but when his eyes met Meng Jun's, his neck shrank down of its own accord.
Meng Jun's gaze was terrifying.
For an instant, Liu Chengfeng could have sworn there was a blade resting against his throat!
He was almost certain: this man called Meng Jun... had killed before!
Still, Liu Chengfeng wasn't one to swallow a loss in silence. He stiffened his neck and said:
"Cook it myself? Fine, I will!"
"Mark my words—starting today, I, Liu Chengfeng, am head chef of this place. From now on, as long as I'm here, none of you set foot in that kitchen. Whatever you want to eat, I'll make it!"
He delivered the most cowardly capitulation in the firmest possible tone.
Ning Qiushui couldn't help chuckling.
Over the meal, he learned that four veterans remained in this lodge. Liang Yan was the lodge head, and the earliest to enter the lodge.
The youth was called Tian Xun—an orphan who had only his younger sister in the world.
Meng Jun was Liang Yan's close friend from the outside world; a former soldier who had seen combat on the border.
The last of them, the bewitching beauty Bai Xiaoxiao, was a mystery. No one knew much about her identity—only that out in the world... she was formidable.
At one point, Ning Qiushui brought up the red-clothed ghost-woman from their first Blood Door. To his surprise, Meng Jun and Tian Xun heard him out and said not a word.
"Hey... why'd you both go quiet?"
Seeing the two fall so silent, Liu Chengfeng couldn't help pressing.
The moment his voice fell, Meng Jun picked up his tray and walked toward the kitchen.
"I'm full."
He said it flatly.
But both of them could feel the shift in Meng Jun's attitude toward them.
The change was jarringly abrupt...
As if spring, only just turned warm, had plunged overnight back into the dead of winter.