Chapter 61: The Spirit Bus Sets Off

"I understand the logic, but there might be a very important girl in there. I won't be satisfied if I don't at least try." Mere evil spirits couldn't dissuade me.

"Kid, normally even a crematorium wouldn't hang a Bagua Mirror so casually. At most, they'd bury Five Emperors Copper Coins in the four corners of a room, or place carved statues of deities and bodhisattvas. With people coming and going, they wouldn't leave something like that out in plain sight."

"Half-immortal, what do you mean by that?"

"I mean the crematorium you're in isn't clean. A yin-natured building constructed on land inherently tainted with malevolent energy acts like a black hole, a vortex that gathers yin energy and makes it grow stronger and stronger. Forget ordinary people—even highly accomplished Daoist masters wouldn't lightly set foot in a place like this."

The Half-immortal spoke with absolute sincerity, but the other livestream viewers in the chat just kept egging me on.

"Streamer, go inside and take a look! I've never been to a crematorium in my entire life!"

"What kind of degree does the Half-immortal have to know about black holes? I'm a third-year quantum physics major at Oxford, and I'd like to discuss the steady-state universe and thermonuclear explosions with you, Half-immortal."

"Tch, scientists are just hack philosophers!"

"I just want to ask everyone here, are there any Harvard alumni?"

"I'm the president of the Cambridge Student Union! Cambridge alumni, please raise your hands!"

"Lanxiang Tractor College begs to differ!"

Half-immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "All things in the universe originate from nothingness, and nothingness is a grand heavenly book. Your Daoist master here never went to private school, but when it comes to understanding the universe and humanity, I'm a hundred times better than those self-righteous blind men feeling an elephant."

Through the screen, I could almost picture an old man in a Daoist robe huffing and glaring at the livestream. I gave a wry smile. "Livestream viewers, it seems we've gone off-topic again..."

Half-Immortal Liu started a flame war with a bunch of pseudo-scientists. The comments flew by rapidly, leaving him no time to pay attention to me.

I held Yi Yi's little hand and entered the disinfection room. "There used to be a lock on the door, but it was pried open. Looking at the color of the scraped wood shavings, it must have been done recently."

The room was completely empty, with all items neatly stored away in cabinets. I looked around but didn't find any signs of theft.

"Is anyone there?" Yi Yi called out into the room, but unfortunately, only an echo answered her.

The disinfection room was much larger than I had imagined. Only after walking further inside did I realize it connected to another room.

"Uncle, are we still going to look in that room?"

There were no lights around us; the only illumination came from my phone screen.

"Since we're already here, let's go take a look." Halfway there, my leg bumped into something, making a loud rattling noise.

I looked down and saw a long metal chain blocking the passageway.

"This path is used to transport corpses..." After a moment of hesitation, I stepped over the iron chain and continued inward. "Where does it lead?"

After tracing the wall for six or seven meters, Liu Yiyi and I both smelled a pungent odor.

"Uncle, l-look over there." She shook my hand and pointed to a sign on the wall.

"Mortuary?"

I stood there stunned for three full seconds. "How did we end up here?"

I had seen this room from the outside earlier. Its main door was locked, and when I walked past it, I had even felt a bit of relief, glad I wouldn't have to worry about the girl running inside. I never expected I wouldn't be able to avoid it in the end.

"Stay close to me."

There were three rows of iron tables, three in each row. In the darkness, I could only see white cloths draped over them. As for what lay beneath those white cloths, it was hard to make out.

"Uncle, let's go out. I'm scared." Fear was a normal reaction. Let alone a little girl like her, even an adult like me felt a sense of panic welling up.

"Hold on, let's look around first." Gathering my courage, I lifted the white cloth on one of the tables. Underneath was just a clean surface with absolutely nothing on it.

"This is pure torture." Lifting each white cloth was a challenge. I was terrified of finding something horrifying, yet simultaneously hoping to discover a clue.

Caught in this contradictory state of mind, I lifted the white cloths in the first row one by one.

"False alarm." The white cloths were draped over the tables. At first glance, the uneven lumps looked suspicious, but most of it was just random clutter. "Makes sense. This isn't a hospital morgue. A corpse left overnight would have started to stink."

After comforting myself, I moved to the second row. I lifted the white cloth on the first table—nothing underneath. Just as I was about to grab the cloth on the second table, I looked up and saw Half-Immortal Liu in the livestream rapidly spamming the chat with comments.

"Do not lift it! Absolutely do not do it!"

"Keep your face toward the iron tables and get out of that room!"

"Little friend, do not provoke this malevolent entity! You can't handle it—leave quickly!"

Half-Immortal Liu sent comment after comment. It seemed the situation was truly urgent.

"Why? I lifted all the white cloths in the first row and nothing happened."

Half-immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "You really don't know the immensity of heaven and earth! Look up—is there a structural beam right in the center of the ceiling?"

I looked up, and sure enough, he was right.

"In feng shui, this is called a beam overhead. If someone sits under a beam for too long, it causes dizziness, headaches, poor health, and blocked fortune. It's a spot that ruins both wealth and health."

"A physical deficit and blocked fortune aren't huge deals. Why so nervous?"

"If it were a living person pressed under the beam, it would be exactly as you say. But don't forget where you are!"

I was taken aback by Half-Immortal Liu's words. "A crematorium mortuary."

Half-Immortal Liu quickly fired off another comment: "Exactly! The beam overhead in that room isn't pressing on a living person, but on a corpse! Think about it: a beam pressing down on a corpse tangled in resentment, and the bed positions just so happen to align with the number of nine nines. This place definitely hides an immense peril! I can't be there in person to use a Compass to read the feng shui, so I can't help you resolve this disaster. As things stand, the safest approach is to restore everything to how it was and go back exactly the way you came."

"Leave just because there's a wooden beam overhead?" To be honest, I really wanted to see if there was anything unclean on the middle bed. My hand was almost touching the cloth.

"In ancient times, Daoists could tell autumn had arrived just by seeing a single falling leaf. Little friend, proceed with caution!"

"Alright, since you put it that way, I'll listen to you." I turned around, just about to restore the messy white cloths to their original state.

Yi Yi gripped my hand tightly. She was so nervous she stuttered, "Uncle, l-look!"

"Look at what?" Turning my head to check, I was left dumbfounded. The white cloth on the middle table was moving on its own!

Like an unrolling scroll, it revealed everything on the table to Yi Yi and me.

A head, a chest, arms, legs...

Lying on this middle table was a corpse reeking of rot!

Bang! Stumbling backward in a hurry, I accidentally knocked into the iron table behind me. The loud noise echoed far across the empty mortuary.

"Uncle..." Yi Yi hugged me tightly, burying her face in my chest, too afraid to open her eyes and look in that direction.

"D-don't be scared." I patted her back, trying to calm her down. "Is anyone there?"

Only after subconsciously asking that did I look back at the corpse on the iron table. He was wearing a bus driver's uniform and looked as though he had just been fished out of the water. His clothes clung to his skin, and clumps of uncleaned waterweeds were still tangled around his body.

I gathered my courage, approached, and reached out to pull off his hat.

"It's him!" His youthful face looked even younger than mine, covered in a sticky layer that made it impossible to tell whether it was river water or sweat.

"The Route 14 Bus driver!" A living, breathing person I had seen just half an hour ago was now lying dead in the crematorium's mortuary. "How is that possible?"

I shifted the driver's clothes to inspect the corpse, deducing that the time of death must have been several hours ago.

"It seems the driver's identity has been fully confirmed." I took out my phone and carefully reread the news report I had looked at earlier on the bus: "Today at around 5:00 PM, a severe traffic accident occurred at the entrance of Jiangcheng Huayuan District. A private car collided with the Route 14 Bus. The accident resulted in two deaths and one injury. One of the deceased was an advanced-age pregnant woman. Her identity has now been confirmed as Yang Rou."

"The other deceased was the bus driver. When the accident occurred, the driver took active emergency measures, keeping all passengers safe. However, he was thrown out of the vehicle and into a ditch alongside the highway, dying on the spot."

"The injured individual was a pedestrian. He is emotionally unstable and has been taken to the hospital."

"The Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost, the driver, and the hospital gown!" I read it over several times and was finally able to confirm the identities of all three people.

The driver had died several hours ago; only his soul was still trapped on the wicked Route 14 Spirit Bus. That man in the hospital gown must be the pedestrian who was injured in the accident. That meant he was one of the only living people on the Route 14 Spirit Bus!

"Then how did the other few people end up on the spirit bus?" Having finally figured out a crucial point, I kept my back to Yi Yi and secretly pulled out the yellow paper the Daoist from Qingtu Temple had given me.