Chapter 53 Red Double-Decker Bus 4 Props
The middle-aged man became agitated and said to the male passenger who had provoked him and the others, "You've really got it wrong! I'm just an ordinary passenger, and I don't have any of the problems you're thinking of."
However, the other party sneered and persisted: "Ordinary passenger? Heh, do you think an ordinary passenger would keep an eye on everyone else's every move? Hmph, you must be the ticket inspector, a lackey of the bus company!"
The middle-aged man's face went from white to red, then to ashen, his fingers gripping the hem of his suit jacket tightly. He instinctively glanced at the row in front, his gaze landing on the pink-haired man and his backpack.
"If I could get their help..." He clearly had this thought, but quickly looked away. He knew the two girls possessed powerful tools, but they obviously didn't want to get involved. Forcing them into the situation might backfire.
Without much hesitation, he turned around, his eyes shining, and pointed at you: "You've mistaken her for someone else! She's the ticket inspector! I'm just an ordinary passenger like everyone else!"
His voice was loud, his pronunciation clear and standard, and his incredibly confident attitude instantly drew everyone's attention to you. The questioning and scrutinizing gaze made you feel like you were being pricked by needles.
"Me?" You pointed to yourself like that meme, your mouth slightly agape. You can imagine how blank your face must have looked.
“Yes, it’s you!” Before you could react, the middle-aged man continued, “You can tell from her behavior just now that she’s not an ordinary passenger. And her coat—we found her ID hidden in the seams of that coat. Don’t you find that strange? Would an ordinary person hide their ID in their clothes?”
His speech became faster and faster, his tone more and more urgent, as if he had already "convicted" you.
Some people whispered among themselves, analyzing whether what he said made sense.
"What he said seems to make some sense," a passenger muttered.
“Yeah, she’s been too calm the whole time. Most people would have panicked in that situation, right?” another person chimed in.
“This gentleman has always been very outgoing and talkative; he doesn’t seem like the kind of immigrant who’s specifically here to scam us,” someone else said.
You feel a cold sweat breaking out on your back. What's more terrifying than the coping strategies is your complete lack of understanding of the situation.
What ticket inspector? Who is the ticket inspector? Are you the ticket inspector? Are they the ticket inspectors?
No, the main question is, why is there such an adversarial relationship between the ticket inspectors and the passengers? What is the connection between them?
Before this, you had almost never taken a bus. Whenever you went out, you would choose to walk if you could, and of course, you avoided going out most of the time.
As for the ticket inspectors here, you have seen some complaints on Xiaolvshu about the real-world situation, saying that they hide among the passengers and randomly check some passengers' tickets. Many times, they deliberately cheat people who look like tourists, completely disregarding the fact that tourists may just be unaware of the ticketing rules and fine them heavily. Although these behaviors of acting in accordance with the rules are not wrong, they may indeed cause resentment among those who do not intentionally evade fares.
Is this the current situation?
But then the residence card suddenly appearing in your coat leaves you wondering what's going on. Could it be that you really are a ticket inspector who doesn't know your own identity? That's absurd!
You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down. You knew that in terms of eloquence, your spoken language was no match for a middle-aged man's, and your shabby clothes would only put you at a disadvantage if you were included in a comparative evaluation system.
We can't let them believe what middle-aged men say.
"Ladies and gentlemen," you say, trying to keep your voice steady, "I don't know why he's slandering me, but I can assure you that I am not a ticket collector."
You point at the middle-aged man: "On the contrary, I think his behavior is more suspicious. Did you notice that from the beginning, he was trying to get along with everyone and make them believe he was innocent? But would a truly innocent person be in such a hurry to jump out and shout that he is innocent from the very beginning?"
These words seemed to strike a chord with the others in the carriage. Some nodded and began to look at the middle-aged man with suspicion again.
"People from Yazhou are generally quite shy, so why is he so talkative?"
"Perhaps he was influenced by the culture of Yingguo and thus discarded the shortcomings from Yazhou?" someone countered.
The middle-aged man clearly hadn't expected you to retaliate: "You're talking nonsense!" He raised his voice, trying to mask his unease. "I'm naturally cheerful, so what? Besides, I'm a Japanese woman, and I'm proud of it!" Was he using common rules to increase his credibility? "So much so that your behavior just now is questionable! Who knows who you really are!"
He continued to sway the other passengers in the carriage: "Ladies and gentlemen, she looks so calm, as if she was prepared for this situation. She must be the ticket inspector. And," he suddenly smiled slightly, "if she weren't the ticket inspector, wouldn't it be easy for me to make a mistake by directly pointing her out? And if I were the ticket inspector, why would I jump out and point out the other ticket inspectors? Ticket inspectors help each other out, don't they?"
"Stand up! Stand up!" A woman's shrill voice rang out in the carriage, and all the passengers' eyes fell on you.
“I’m just a passenger,” you insist.
Unfortunately, the suspicious and disgusted gazes remained unmoved. The middle-aged man sat there, watching all this with a smug look on his face, clearly believing he had successfully shifted the blame and absolved himself of all responsibility.
What should I do?
The words "Stand up?" suddenly struck a chord within you.
Come to think of it, you've always used the actions of those who boarded later as a guide for your own behavior. You've always assumed that the unspoken rule of this bus is that "passengers" like you can't freely change seats. But what if you and they weren't the same type of passenger?
Other passengers could walk around, but they were forced to remain seated. If they were ticket inspectors who needed to conceal their identities, and not changing seats arbitrarily was their rule, then unless you were a ticket inspector, you could certainly stand up.
Your first reaction is to categorize yourself with them, which leads you to overlook or try to rationalize many irrational aspects. In reality, you and they had different information from the start, so how can you be considered the same? Furthermore, you were simply a "passenger" who boarded the train with a ticket; no one gave you any tasks, and you're quite certain you didn't unknowingly accept any part-time job as a ticket inspector.
So, you slowly stood up.
You stood there for a few seconds, and nothing happened. No alarms sounded, no monsters appeared out of nowhere, and nothing else was amiss.
You took a few steps, and in that instant, those who had been staring intently at you held a complex look in their eyes—a look that seemed to hold both doubt and a hint of resentment. But in any case, the suspicion against you had vanished.
"That's impossible!" the middle-aged man shouted, pointing at you. "She must have cheated! She must be the ticket inspector! How could she not be..."
"Since you're so sure, why don't you stand up and try it yourself?" the pink-haired man said lazily, his voice tinged with disdain.
"Yeah, stand up!" The male passenger who had been grabbing him earlier attacked again, grabbing the middle-aged man's collar. "Don't you ticket inspectors love to find fault with passengers? If she isn't, then you definitely are!"
"I...I'm really just an ordinary passenger!" The middle-aged man's voice had changed, but he had nothing more to say as he struggled to break free from the man's grasp.
However, the man clearly had no intention of letting him off so easily. He pulled hard, dragging the middle-aged man up from his seat.
The moment the middle-aged man's buttocks left his seat, his body underwent a terrifying transformation. Like a rapidly inflating balloon, his limbs and torso swelled at an unnatural speed, his skin became transparent, and his veins were clearly visible.
"Ah! Help!" The middle-aged man let out a desperate scream, his voice becoming shrill and distorted in his swollen throat.
You silently moved a few rows forward, watching the middle-aged man's body grow larger and larger until it finally exploded with a "bang," turning into a viscous liquid that splattered across almost every corner of the back of the car.
"Salty!" The local man who was originally sitting in the back cursed, but didn't seem to care about the dirt and swaggered back to his seat.
However, the only thing intact in that slime was the briefcase he had been clutching. The briefcase lay there quietly, almost beckoning you to look inside.
What was that prop that the middle-aged male nurse had been unable to use all the way to the end?
After the instance cleaned up all the mess, you walked up to it, glanced down at the briefcase, and then kicked it away.
With a "whoosh," the briefcase was opened, but it was completely empty.
Was the whole thing just a charade?
"Tch." The pink-haired man was also curious about the briefcase, let out a cold laugh, and turned around.
But after this incident, the atmosphere in the carriage did not cool down because of his disappearance. On the contrary, the passengers seemed to have found an outlet for their emotions, and the whispers gradually turned into a thorough "catching the undercover agent" operation.
“There must be other ‘ticket inspectors’ on this train,” a woman wearing glasses said, licking her philtrum.
“Yes, these locusts always move in swarms,” another middle-aged man in a cheap coat chimed in.
Their gazes swept back and forth in the carriage, finally settling on the three most conspicuous people—the pink-haired woman, the backpacker, and the middle-aged woman.
"You two, let's start with you." The woman with glasses pointed to the two sisters sitting in the back row.
The pink-haired woman lazily raised her eyelids, glanced at her, and said with a sneer, "Don't any of you have any memories?"
The backpacker didn't even look up, seemingly engrossed in some game, her hands moving rapidly as she said in a flat tone, "I suggest you think it over. We don't like being disturbed."
These two sentences immediately silenced the woman with glasses. She hesitated for a moment, then changed the subject: "I'm just respecting your human rights. But there are always some unclean things mixed in, and we can't just ignore it."
Her gaze, along with the others', turned to the middle-aged woman.
The middle-aged woman nervously clutched her bag, her voice trembling as she said, "I... I'm just an ordinary passenger! What reason do you have to doubt me?"
"Ordinary passengers?" The man in the cheap jacket wasn't buying it. "That's what the other guy said too, and what happened?"
"No, no, I didn't..." The middle-aged woman's voice trailed off, her eyes darting around. She wasn't as shameless and unscrupulous as the middle-aged man, nor did she have the powerful tools of the pink-haired sisters. She had reached her limit!
"Stop talking nonsense, just pull her up!" The man in the cheap coat reached out and grabbed the middle-aged woman's arm, trying to replicate his actions towards the middle-aged man.
As you look at all this, a sudden, indescribable feeling of disgust wells up inside you.
There are many strange and terrifying locals in the dungeon, but none of them are like these people here, as if they represent a collection of all the ugly faces that exist in real life.
"That's enough," you said coldly as you stood up.
The man in the cheap jacket turned to look at you, his expression a mixture of confusion and defiance: "What, mind your own business!"
You didn't answer, but walked straight up to her, slammed the baseball bat against the back of the chair, and while the man in the jacket was stunned, you used the other blow of the bat to shove the middle-aged woman's hand away.
The other party clearly didn't expect you to make a move, and in pain, stumbled back several steps.
Just make room. Then, you plopped down next to the middle-aged woman, completely blocking her view with your body.
“She’s sitting here without doing anything wrong.” You look up and stare at the passengers who have gathered around you, holding a baseball bat in your hand and slamming it on the ground.
Your attitude was very good and it intimidated these passengers. They looked at each other for a few moments, whispered among themselves, but none of them dared to step forward again.
The middle-aged woman breathed a deep sigh of relief, turned to look at you, her eyes filled with gratitude: "Thank you, thank you so much... I don't know what would have happened if it weren't for you."
"It's alright," you said softly. "It doesn't affect me at all; it's just a small favor."
While expressing her gratitude, the middle-aged woman pursed her lips tightly, her expression desolate.
She's the oldest person you've encountered in the instance so far, probably around the same age as your mother. She should be nearing retirement, enjoying her golden years, but instead, she's forced to suffer in this place. Physical abuse is bad enough, but to suffer mental anguish on top of that is truly heartbreaking.
"It's alright, these passengers shouldn't attack you anymore," you reassured them.
The middle-aged woman looked down at her hands, remained silent for a moment, and then said in an almost inaudible voice, "Thank you, but... let's wait and see."
Her tone was tinged with sadness, and her face grew increasingly pale. "By the way," she looked up and forced a smile, "my name is Li Mei."
Your heart sank; you sensed something was off about her. There seemed to be a deep despair hidden in her eyes. You roughly guessed what their "mission" might be, but you still nodded and whispered, "I'll remember."
After a few minutes, the car suddenly stopped.
Looking out the car window, all you could see was a thick fog, nothing was visible. Just as you were wondering what was going on, you noticed the driver didn't open the door this time.
The carriage was eerily quiet; everyone stopped talking and whispering, their eyes fixed ahead. Then the driver's deep voice rang out: "Tickets checked."
Is this the moment they've been waiting for?
Li Mei, who was standing next to her, stood up, then took out an ID card from her pocket and said weakly, "Ticket inspector, please check my ticket."
The pink-haired girl and the girl with the backpack also stood up at the same time, and they took out similar identification documents from their respective bags.
"Ticket inspector, check tickets." They were much more confident than Li Mei.
Once this point is reached, all the passengers are no longer arrogant as before; no matter how dissatisfied they are, they just keep it to themselves.
"Let me see your ticket," Li Mei said gently, extending her hand to you.
You had several tickets in your pocket, so you simply took them all out and handed them to her. To your surprise, she froze, then quickly stuffed your tickets back into her pocket.
She gave you several winks, so you quickly put the ticket away and pretended nothing was wrong.
Watching Li Mei and her two sisters check tickets one by one, I noticed that unlike the normal ticket checking process, here, every ticket they checked was scored by the passengers. If a ticket received an extremely low score, the consequences were obvious.
Only passengers who genuinely do not have tickets are ineligible to give scores.
No wonder "looking around randomly" has become a way for passengers to catch ticket inspectors. Ticket inspectors probably need to predict in advance who is going to evade fares, and as long as they catch them accurately, there is no risk. Or, like the middle-aged man before, they might painstakingly cultivate a talkative and outgoing image, which might slightly reduce the hostility of passengers when they check tickets.
Ha, is that why he insisted on grabbing the last row?
interesting.
But, "Li Mei..." you whispered her name. Li Mei has a very low opinion of the passengers; can she get through this?
Whenever Li Mei took out her ID to check tickets, the passengers would frown. Some even assumed she was there to check tickets as soon as she got close and gave her negative scores on the scoring device.
"Negative five, negative ten, some people even gave negative twenty." You silently calculated in your mind, feeling both absurd and a little sympathetic.
She seemed to have given up. You watched as she calmly stepped aside, voluntarily handing over the "performance" to the pink-haired and backpack-wearing sisters.
In stark contrast to Li Mei's failure, the pink hair and backpack seemed like an invincible combination. Their movements were swift and their eyes sharp; any passenger in their presence trembled with fear.
"Where's the ticket?" the pink-haired man asked coldly, his voice not loud but full of intimidation.
The passenger being questioned trembled as he handed over his ticket. She glanced at it quickly and let out a soft snort: "Fake."
As she spoke, she grabbed the man's collar and dragged him into the aisle. Then she pushed him hard, pinning him to a seat where he couldn't move.
If the other party tries to resist, the backpacker will take out their red stamp, show it to the other party, and say coldly, "Trying to sneak in without paying? I'll give you one more chance. Hand over the compensation."
The passenger shakily pulled out a wad of banknotes, the backpacker nodded in satisfaction, and released his grip.
"Who else?" The pink-haired man looked around, his eyes sharp.
Some passengers quickly raised their hands to show they hadn't evaded the fare. Several fare evaders tried to struggle, but the two sisters quickly subdued them.
You've also noticed something: even without using the stamp prop to threaten them, the two of them have a 100% success rate in catching fare evaders.
While you are also amazed by the high rate of fare evasion, is the sisters' ability to be so accurate really just due to their exceptional observation skills?
Before long, the two of them received a thick stack of compensation money, and the passengers with tickets were forced by the props to automatically give them high scores, so their scores soared.
"95 points! This is a good sign for us." The backpacker looked at the scoreboard, pleased.
"Yes, and with what we've accumulated so far, we can finally be free from social work duties after today." The pink-haired man nodded.
While they were checking tickets with a smug look on their faces, Li Mei had already returned to sit down next to you, looking increasingly haggard.
"You..." You didn't know what to say, after all, you were a complete outsider. "Why don't you try to team up with them?"
You still followed your previous assumptions and tried to give Li Mei some advice.
"Why should they team up with me?" she said with a wry smile. "Our points are based on a comprehensive comparison of the compensation and ratings we collect. The more people share the points, the less each person gets. They get all the good ratings and compensation for the whole car, so why should they share with me?"
"That's good too, after all, they don't have to do social work anymore." Li Mei wiped her eyes.
"Social worker?" you ask. Yet another word completely out of place in the current context.
“It’s okay, I’ll tell you everything. Anyway, I…” Li Mei shook her head and told you, “People who have harmed others will become social workers once they are caught. We will be assigned different tasks, and we can only leave our social worker status if we complete them within the specified period. Otherwise, we will be eliminated.”
"It's actually similar to a labor camp," she said.
What? You've never heard anyone talk about this before, and Xiaoming... You remember what happened at the very beginning of this instance.
“I accidentally killed someone, and then I turned myself in,” Li Mei said. “I just felt so guilty. I really didn’t mean to, but that person was trying to kill me, so I grabbed something nearby and hit him, and he died…”
"So, were you arrested by the police here?" you pressed.
“It was the police,” she said, then added, a little uncertainly, “I think so, anyway, a young girl helped me call the police.”
After a moment of silence, Li Mei suddenly spoke: "That's it. Now, I've messed up, and I'm probably going to die."
Her voice was filled with despair, and her eyes had lost all life.
You felt a lump in your throat, and in the end you just touched her arm.
Li Mei raised her head and smiled bitterly: "If there's anything else you want to ask, you can ask while I'm still conscious."
"Okay," you said. You asked them all about their identities and actions, and it was pretty much as you guessed.
They weren't in a strong competitive relationship, but having more people vying for a spot meant losing a lot of points, which is why that middle-aged man acted so meanly.
The number of people who can get on the bus each time is fixed at 6, so there will always be some people who can't get on the bus and are eliminated right at the beginning.
Ticket inspectors can indeed tell who their partners are, but with the help of props, they can hide it. It was only because you carefully imitated their behavior from the beginning that you were perceived as a ticket inspector with special props.
You hesitated for a moment, then asked, "What's going on with those police officers? Why did they suddenly get in the car to check?"
Li Mei shook her head and gave a wry smile: "This... I don't know either. This isn't part of our procedures."
"Could it be related to fare evasion?" you ask. "Or are they enforcing some kind of rule?"
Li Mei's expression became somewhat confused, and she said in a low voice, "Maybe. But you have to understand, the trains we have to check tickets for are different each time, and the rules are never fixed."
You stare at her intently, a sense of unease rising within you.
Her face grew paler and paler, her lips turned purple, and she seemed to have lost all color in her body. You noticed that her fingers were trembling slightly, as if she didn't even have the strength to lift her hand.
"Li Mei, are you alright?" you couldn't help but ask.
She didn't answer, but simply lowered her head and shook it gently.
“I messed up,” she repeated, her voice filled with deep regret. “I really messed up. I shouldn’t have been found out, I shouldn’t have received a negative score.”
"I shouldn't have killed him."
“That wasn’t murder,” you said. “This isn’t the real world. Even in our world, it was just self-defense. There’s nothing wrong with using violence to stop violence.”
"By the way, your ticket... you're not a passenger on this train." Li Mei's eyes were almost completely covered by white film, and in the last few seconds, she suddenly forced herself to speak.
As soon as she finished speaking, the expression that belonged to Li Mei on her face completely disappeared. Her head drooped down, and when she raised it again, it had become the face of a strange person from the Ying Kingdom.
Li Mei. If you keep this name in your heart, at least you'll remember her existence.
Feeling a little sad, just then, the pink-haired girl and the backpack finished their ticket check and were overjoyed, but the backpack walked towards you.
"May I speak to you privately?" She showed none of the arrogance and indifference she had displayed when speaking to others.
You followed her to a relatively empty corner.
She showed you her phone right away. You were taken aback because there was clearly a human face on the screen.
It's not a video call, but rather—a person who lives inside the phone.
You thought of Sister Y. That female ghost who pretended to be Liu Zi and tried to scam you with writing services and then swap you for someone else.
"Her body was damaged while performing ticket checking duties, but thankfully there's this phone. It can hold her soul. Here, as long as the soul doesn't perish, it's not death." The backpack explained the situation directly, and the girl on the phone screen waved to you.
“The three of us have always been together. She has the ability to see many things that we can’t see. She told us to come find you, so we’ve been a little concerned about you from the beginning. It’s not that we have any ill intentions towards you, sorry,” said the backpacker.
“It’s alright, I don’t really care about that,” you said. “But what do you want from me?”
"She said she couldn't tell you, but hoped you could remember our faces, so that in the future..." The backpacker lowered his head and fiddled with his phone for a while, then continued talking to you with a frustrated expression, "Anyway, that's it. You can ask us anything you want to know. We're getting off the bus soon, but maybe we can still help you a little."
You processed her words and said bluntly, "Fine, I'll remember you. But where did you all get these items? Will they accompany you to different dungeons?"
The backpack chuckled and said, "As long as you keep courting death, pushing the limits of the rules, and constantly trying to stage accidents, you'll eventually get some good items."
"Oh, I see. Thank you." You pondered these words.
"Nice to meet you." The girl in the backpack reached out and shook your hand, then tried to slip away. But her phone screen lit up again, and she stopped, looking disappointed. She continued, "By the way, you're in the wrong seat. She said your seat is upstairs." She pointed to the ceiling of the bus.
"Sometimes she really gives me the creeps. You know, where does this second floor of our bus come from?" The backpacker murmured to herself before walking off to meet up with the pink-haired girl. The two of them—no, the three of them—happily got off the bus and disappeared into the mist.
You're left standing there.
You stare at the elevator leading to the second floor right at the back door of the bus, lost in thought.
First of all... you definitely didn't get on the wrong bus. If you had, the general rules would have eliminated you immediately.
Therefore, it can only mean that the first and second floors are different spaces, and they appear differently to different people.
This explains why you were completely bewildered the whole time and didn't understand the significance of sitting there.
Secondly... you fall silent as you look at the upper deck, which is clearly decorated like a tour bus and filled with the cheerful laughter of tourists.
No wonder the police raided a car full of people who looked like ordinary Chinese (and you foreigners) and checked their identification. No wonder there was a wallet and identification sewn into your coat. Since your identity is "a tourist," it's understandable that you're being cautious.
Sitting on the wrong floor is probably not a serious mistake; it's just that your presence disrupts the original order of the lower floor.
After verifying your ticket at the self-service card reader, you found a seat.
The roof of the car is a transparent glass dome. Through the glass, the night in London is free of fog, and you can see sparse starlight and a desolate night.
On the small table in front of the seat was a booklet that read: "Midnight London Sightseeing Guide".
The first page features a striking line of text: "Please do not leave your seat while sightseeing, and do not attempt to interact with the images outside the glass."
That being said, the journey was filled with the tranquil night scenery. You put on the headphones distributed by the flight attendants, adjusted the language and volume, and listened carefully to the commentary along the way.
The bus drove along the banks of the Thames, the water shimmering, the lights on both banks creating shimmering patterns on the surface. In the distance, the London Eye slowly rotated in the night sky, its lights outlining a dreamlike silhouette along its rings, like a giant lamp guarding the city.
Big Ben's golden clock face gleamed under the lights, and although the midnight chimes did not ring, it still exuded a solemn aura, echoing the nearby Westminster Abbey.
Next, the bus drove toward Tower Bridge. The bridge lights were arranged symmetrically, and the spires of the towers drew graceful outlines against the night sky.
Then we turned to Covent Garden, a place you know is bustling during the day, but you might not know how tranquil it is at night. The arcade lights have a soft, yellowish glow, and the windows of the bookstores and cafes, bathed in their ever-bright lights, warmly invite people's curiosity.
The car drove into Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, and Piccadilly Circus in succession. Before we knew it, we had toured half of London.
"Madam, this is a small gift for you." The flight attendant handed you a small box before you got off the train. His smile seemed forced, and the subtle gold lettering on the box shimmered like a giant smile with every glimmer of light.
"Thank you." You take it and get out of the car.
Your apartment building is right in front of you.
The fog was just about to dissipate. You quickly went inside.
After cleaning yourself up, you opened the box.
"A fog can." You read the instructions on a small spray bottle inside. "Just press it, and the fog will come out, blurring boundaries, blocking vision, and making trackers lose their way. Use with caution."
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Author's note: Merry Christmas!
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