Chapter 60: One Went Mad

Yuan Feng walked over to me, fingering his switchblade. "That girl never had much of a presence to begin with. Everyone was busy arguing over whether to stay or go. When we can barely protect ourselves, who's going to worry about someone else?"

"That's right. Let's just look out for ourselves first instead of worrying about so much else," Wang Chunfu chimed in from the side. They all thought I was a Daoist cultivator with some real skill and wanted to tag along with me.

On the Route 14 Bus, the driver urged us again, "Hurry up and get on! You have one minute. If you don't get on, I'm leaving!"

The group turned their eyes to me in unison. "You're a cop. We'll listen to you. Give us the word!"

I didn't answer them directly. Instead, I looked over each of their faces. Even if the driver and the missing little girl were both ghosts, out of the six people in front of me, only two were human.

Until I confirmed their identities, I didn't dare speak rashly. If I let a ghost stay behind, my situation would be even more dangerous.

"I think you guys might have the wrong idea about me. I'm not a Daoist priest with magical powers. A week ago, I didn't even believe there were demons and ghosts in this world, so you don't need to make the same choice as me." Holding Yi Yi's hand, I walked over to the side with her, staying out of the others' discussion.

"I choose to stay."

"Jianye, let's stay too. That guy probably still has a trump card up his sleeve."

Two minutes later, the Route 14 Bus drove off. Except for the guy in the hospital gown, the rest of them stayed behind.

Watching the Route 14 Bus drive away, I could only gamble on my luck now, hoping that the patient and the driver were both ghosts.

"We don't have a choice anymore. Where are we going now?" Yuan Feng called everyone over to gather around me.

"I'm not planning on going with you." I refused flatly and pulled Yi Yi aside.

Seeing my attitude, the group immediately grew anxious. "Don't be like that. We're all grasshoppers on the same rope here—there's safety in numbers, and we can look out for each other."

"That makes sense. It's still two or three hours until dawn. Gathering together keeps our Yang Qi strong."

"Do whatever you want, but I'm not going with you, and you'd better not follow me either." I spoke with absolute finality, leaving no room for negotiation. "Look out for yourselves. And here's one last piece of advice: don't trust the people next to you."

After saying that, I took Yi Yi's hand and walked off into the distance.

"Uncle, are we really leaving everyone? I think it's safer to stay together." Yi Yi was a little scared. With her backpack on her shoulders and her hand gripped tightly in mine, she had no choice but to follow me obediently.

"I won't hurt you. None of those people are any good!" I looked back and saw the three men wearing miserable expressions. None of them had noticed that Zhang Rong, who was sprawled on the ground, seemed to be having a seizure—her eyes rolled back as she began to twitch.

We walked all the way around the crematorium. Aside from joss paper scattered across the ground and gloomy tree shadows, there was nothing else.

'Could she have run inside the crematorium?' Walking around to the back entrance, I looked at the iron gate creaking back and forth in the wind.

'Even though I want to uncover the truth, isn't going into a crematorium in the middle of the night a bit too much?' The commission from the Underworld Live Show involved a girl, but there had been two children on the bus. This meant one of them was human, and the other was a ghost.

I had been protecting Yi Yi the entire way, while overlooking the other child. I knew almost nothing about her.

'Should we go in and look for her?' If Yi Yi was the girl from the commission, I could naturally rest easy. What I feared was the alternative.

"Yi Yi, you said you came to find your mom. We're already at the final stop, so why haven't we seen her yet?"

"I don't know either. The phone call just told me to take the Route 14 Bus to the final stop, and I'd be able to see Mom when I got there."

"A phone call?" A sudden connection clicked in my mind. The reason the woman with the perm had gotten on the bus late at night was also because of a phone call—a phone call from a malicious ghost.

"Who called you?"

"It was Mom."

"Are you sure? Could someone have been impersonating her? For instance, was anything different from usual in her tone of voice, the words she used, or the way she paused?"

"It was definitely Mom!" Yi Yi was adamant. I pinched her stubborn cheek, not knowing what else to say.

Based on my rational analysis, every conclusion I came to was terribly cruel to this little girl.

"Alright, then we'll wait here for your mom to come out." I had just made up my mind not to go inside the crematorium when the shouts of several men rang out in the distance.

"Run! Fuck, that crazy woman is coming after us!"

"Officer, save me! Help!"

Frowning, I looked over and saw Jianye, Yuan Feng, and Wang Chunfu sprinting wildly, as if some bizarre animal scrambling on all fours were chasing them.

"No, that's not an animal." My eyes widened. Chasing hysterically right behind them was actually Zhang Rong!

"Run!"

Outside the crematorium lay open wasteland with no cover in sight. Gritting my teeth, I scooped up Yi Yi and climbed over the back gate of the crematorium. "Damn it, I ended up coming inside this godforsaken place after all."

Seeing me jump the wall, the three men followed suit.

Yuan Feng, who was running at the very front, was agile. Leaping high, he grabbed the top of the wall and vaulted straight over.

Jianye stepped on the iron gate's chain for a boost and followed right behind him. The two of them made it over in one smooth motion, but things weren't so easy for Wang Chunfu, who had fallen to the rear.

He was pot-bellied and getting on in years. Grabbing the edge of the iron gate, he kicked against it several times to boost himself up, but couldn't heave himself over.

"Save me! Save me!" he screamed as he struggled. Jianye and I hurriedly grabbed his hands, but that brief delay was all it took for Zhang Rong to catch up.

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I really wouldn't have believed that a human could tear into prey like a wild beast. Wang Chunfu's lower body was clawed into a bloody mess. In the end, his strength gave out, his grip slipped, and Zhang Rong dragged him away into the dark night.

"That was way too close."

I looked at the two men leaning against the wall, drenched in sweat. "What happened?"

"Honestly, it's all that fat guy's fault. He saw that there was no one around and tried to make a move on Zhang Rong. Who knew that bitch would go completely insane and start biting everyone in sight?" Yuan Feng gave a sleazy smile, looking at me with the little girl in my arms. "Sorry for interrupting your private time together."

"Watch your mouth, and don't go looking for trouble." I shot the two of them a look. There was no telling when Zhang Rong might come back, and staying outside right now was too dangerous.

"Since we're inside, we might as well look for that missing little girl. Listen closely, you two: we go our separate ways, and nobody gets in anybody else's way."

Yuan Feng kept his hand in his pocket—he was probably clutching his switchblade. "Why do you keep looking for that little girl? Is she someone you're protecting too?"

This murderer had already sensed there was something off about the girl, so I didn't bother hiding it. "She's very likely the key to whether or not we survive tonight."

Yuan Feng stood thoughtfully in place while I set Yi Yi down, took her hand, and led her inside the crematorium.

Although I had seen my fair share of dead bodies over the past few years, this was my first time at a crematorium.

"Offices, storage, memorial hall, columbarium, morgue, cremation room..." Most of the doors were locked, but a few rooms could be reached by going around through other passages.

To guard against anything unclean suddenly popping out, I held my phone up in front of my face, keeping an eye on the activity in the livestream as I walked.

The paths inside a crematorium are generally split into two types: pedestrian walkways and corpse transport routes.

After work, employees would chain up the transport routes, while the pedestrian walkways would be blocked off by a wooden sign reading "No Entry."

The path Yi Yi and I were on must have been a pedestrian walkway, except its large red wooden sign had been knocked over by someone.

Walking deeper into the building, I noticed a door behind the disinfection room standing open outward, as if deliberately telling me that someone had just gone in that way.

'Could it be Yuan Feng and Jianye?' Drawn by curiosity, I walked up to the door of the disinfection room. Looking up, I saw a Bagua Mirror hanging right above the doorframe. The mirror's surface bulged outward, which looked quite odd.

"There's something off about this room. Should I go in or not?" Looking at my phone, I asked my livestream viewers.

Half-immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "Bagua Mirrors are divided into two types based on their surface: convex and concave. Concave mirrors are generally used to 'attract wealth and treasure,' while convex mirrors are mostly used to 'protect the house and ward off evil.' The convex mirror in front of you is shaped like a turtle shell, curving outward in a rounded arc. Ordinarily, when something carrying evil energy comes at it, a convex mirror can deflect that energy. But look closely—the mirror's surface is already cracked. It's obvious that evil entities have been inside this place for years!"

"Then Half-immortal, do you think I should go in or not?"

"Little friend, there has to be a limit to courting death, right? Have I not made myself clear enough?"