Chapter 509 - 450: Mai Mingle: Special Seat

Chapter 509: Chapter 450: Mai Mingle: Special Seat

It might have been a coincidence, but Ashley’s voice rang out at the exact same time as the bus’s announcement, drowning it out for a moment.

Since Mai Mingle had already heard the announcement once after the bus started moving again, she subconsciously knew what it was saying—

"This bus is now departing. The vehicle will be unsteady as it starts. Until the ride stabilizes, seated passengers are advised not to stand up or walk around. Newly boarded passengers, please find a seat as soon as possible."

The young woman in the raincoat seemed to treat it as a normal announcement, paying it no mind at all.

Her full attention was captured by the police badge Ashley had flashed.

"Thank God,"

The young woman let out a long sigh of relief. She walked over to Ashley’s side in a few steps, gripping a handrail tightly. "I don’t know what’s going on tonight... I thought I was going crazy. I-I saw... Never mind, that’s not important."

"You must be crazy,"

The man who had boarded with her was still standing far away. He sneered at her words. "Just because I was going the same way, that means I was following you? You think you’re some kind of goddess? With all these puddles around, couldn’t you have looked in one to see what you actually look like?"

The young woman shot him a furious glare but didn’t dare get into an argument. She just said to Ashley, "Puddles! Yes, the puddles... Wait, I-I’ll start from the beginning. On the road just now, I kept looking back and I could always see him following me, not too close but not too far. I don’t know what was wrong with tonight, but I couldn’t see anyone else on the street, just him and me. I was terrified, so I sped up and made a few turns, but he was still following me. I couldn’t shake him..."

Seeing the man was about to open his mouth again, Ashley cut him off with a sharp command. "Don’t interrupt. One at a time."

The man still grumbled a few words but plopped himself down into a seat.

It must have been a safe, ordinary seat; the two male "pregnant" passengers with empty stomachs glanced at him, but neither of them moved.

The man only then seemed to notice the outfits of the three "pregnant" men on the bus. He looked them up and down, then decided to say nothing.

Mai Mingle watched everything unfold, but it felt as if everyone was behind a pane of glass; both the sounds and sights were muffled and hazy.

For a moment, she couldn’t think about anything except for the punishment and fate that awaited her.

"I was too scared to go home, afraid I’d lead him right to my house. Out on the street, there was at least a chance of running into someone... After I crossed a road, I looked back and saw him on the other side, about to follow me. Just then, an oil tanker came rumbling through, completely ignoring the red light."

’Was that one of the Knight Family’s oil tankers?’

"I immediately realized it was an opportunity. While the tanker was blocking him, I took off running, ducked into a small alley, and hid behind a car."

The man clicked his tongue loudly.

"I heard the tanker drive off, so I peeked out. It had been raining hard all night, and in a large puddle at the mouth of the alley, I saw his reflection... His reflection was looking left and right, searching for me. It’s useless for him to deny it; I saw him looking for me."

Even under the lights and with a police officer right next to her, the young woman’s voice couldn’t help but tremble, whether from lingering fear or anger.

"He entered the alley soon after. I knew I’d definitely be caught if I kept hiding, and it was so dark in there... I jumped up and ran. I didn’t dare look back, but I could hear him right behind me, getting closer and closer..."

She wiped the tears from her face and said, "As I was running, I suddenly came to my senses and realized I was on a bus, with no idea when I’d gotten on. I must have been so scared that I don’t even remember boarding."

As the young woman finished her story, her gaze swept around, and she seemed to finally realize that something about the bus wasn’t quite right.

It was no wonder. Besides her stalker, there were three men in maternity dresses and a woman with a blank, dazed expression... Mai Mingle gave a bitter, silent laugh to herself.

The young woman was about to speak when her eyes suddenly froze.

She was staring at a seat behind Mai Mingle. For a moment, her overwhelming confusion was like a solvent, gradually melting her features, pushing them apart until her face was just a blank slate.

"...’Stalked Person’s Special Seat’?" she murmured. "What is... What is this?"

’What?’

A jolt went through Mai Mingle. She finally snapped out of her daze and quickly turned to look—that was right, the seat behind her was indeed labeled "Stalked Person’s Special Seat."

Ashley looked at it, thought for a moment, and smiled.

"It’s a new feature, set up to protect people in need," she said, her tone almost friendly. "Why don’t you sit there for now? I’ll take care of questioning that man."

It felt as if someone had suddenly squeezed Mai Mingle’s brain, hard.

"Wait, don’t sit there!" she snapped, halting the young woman in her tracks. "Find a seat with no markings."

Ashley shot her a cold glance.

"Why can’t I sit behind you?" the young woman asked, misunderstanding as she frowned.

Mai Mingle wanted to explain, but her own thoughts were still a tangled mess. She didn’t know where to begin, and her words came out knotted. "No, it’s not about it being behind me. I—This bus isn’t as simple as you think—"

Based on surface logic, a "stalked person" should sit in the "Stalked Person’s Special Seat."

However, they were in a Nest’s trap.

If they acted according to surface logic, how was that any different from obeying the residents’ commands?

Whether the outcome of this action would be good or bad, there was simply too little information to judge at the moment.

The safest method was to forgo the special seat with its unknown consequences and sit in an ordinary seat that was one hundred percent safe.

But this whole line of reasoning—where could she even begin to explain it to an ordinary person who didn’t even know what a Nest was?

Just as Mai Mingle’s desperation to explain made her words more jumbled, Ashley shook her head at the young woman.

"Can’t be helped," she said, lowering her voice as if sharing a secret with the young woman. "You’re bound to run into crazies on the bus, aren’t you? Go on and sit. It’s fine. A seat’s a seat."

"Yes," the young woman said with a smile, though her eyes still betrayed her nervousness and confusion. "That’s so true..."

As she spoke, she took a step toward the "Stalked Person’s Special Seat"—her foot landed with a loud SPLASH, and before Mai Mingle could react, she had already settled into the seat.

Mai Mingle turned back around and looked down at the floor.

The young woman was also looking down at her feet.

"I-It rained today..."

In the puddle on the bus floor, the young woman’s dim, blurry reflection was staring back at the person outside the water, its mouth opening and closing. "My raincoat is wet, too... But why is there so much water collected here?"

No one answered her.

The young woman kept staring at the puddle that shouldn’t have been on the bus floor.

Her rational mind didn’t yet understand what was happening, but her intuition and instincts already had the answer—she numbly wiped her face, as if only then realizing that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Wh-what’s happening?"

She looked at Ashley for help, but Ashley turned her face away. "In the puddle... why is there another person?"

The puddle at the young woman’s feet should have only reflected her own image, but now, for some reason, another face was floating above her reflection.

At almost the exact same time, both Mai Mingle and the young woman looked up.

On the ceiling of the bus, the face of the man who had been stalking her materialized. It was now leaning down toward the young woman, like a snake descending from a tree.

His earlier expression of being falsely accused was gone. His eyes were glued to the young woman, the muscles in his cheeks twitched uncontrollably, and his mouth hung half-open as if he were panting heavily.

Amidst the young woman’s irrepressible screams, Mai Mingle numbly turned her head.

The man’s body was still sitting in the ordinary seat at the front of the bus, but the space where his face should have been was empty, leaving only the bald back of his head.

It was as if he had suddenly learned how to traverse space—his body sat at one end of the bus, yet he could extend his face, ears, and head from the ceiling at the other end, gradually leaning toward the young woman, getting closer and closer.

In just a few breaths, the better part of his body had emerged from the ceiling, hanging upside down, pressed tightly against the young woman’s back.

When he exhaled, the loose strands of hair by the young woman’s ear fluttered.

The features on his face had become like a Picasso painting; everything was there, but all in the wrong places, as if they had rearranged themselves just to get closer to the young woman. One eye was pressed against her temple, while the other rested on her collarbone, peering down her shirt.

His nose was buried deep in the hair by her ear, taking one deep sniff after another.

His mouth... Mai Mingle couldn’t bear to look at it a second time.

Back in the ordinary seat at the other end of the bus, all that remained was a pair of legs, disconnected from any torso, floating emptily in front of the seat.

The young woman had long since fallen silent and still.

She stared straight ahead, her eyes empty, tear tracks still visible on her face.

Mai Mingle reached out a trembling hand, wanting to brush away the eye on the woman’s collarbone.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Ashley watching her quietly.

Mai Mingle’s hand froze in mid-air. After a few seconds, it finally, slowly, retracted.

"The bus has now resumed stable travel. Passengers who need to stand up or walk around may now do so safely. However, please continue to pay attention to the announcements."

The moment the announcement ended, Ashley leaped up from her seat.

She strode to the other end of the bus, to the pair of lone legs. She gave them a swift, hard kick, knocking them aside—they fell to the floor with a THUD, rolling and wobbling a couple of times with the bus’s jolts.

...As if they were nothing more than an umbrella a passenger had left behind.

Ashley tentatively sat down in that seat—a few seconds passed, and nothing happened.

Mai Mingle sucked in a sharp breath.

If she had been holding onto any shred of luck or confusion before, seeing Ashley’s actions now made everything crystal clear.

"You... Don’t tell me you figured it out? So you deliberately tricked her into sitting there..."

Ashley glanced at her.

"You’re quite the good person," she said, her tone flat, making it impossible to tell if she was being sarcastic. "To be in such deep trouble yourself and still worry about someone else’s safety."

Her words were like a cue for the bus announcement; the moment Ashley finished speaking, it rang out again.

"Passenger Mai Mingle, please proceed to the exit door now to receive your punishment."