Chapter 129: Urban legend: a monster born from fantasy.
Lin Zhuyue asked doubtfully, "Half a member of the Ling family?"
Shi Can didn't want to explain any more. He nodded and said:
"You'll understand when you see it."
Lin Zhuyue was filled with doubts, but she agreed. Shi Can was on her side and treated her well. The likelihood of him harming her was even lower than the probability of her grandparents selling her off.
"I've contacted logistics, they're investigating and will get back to us later."
Lin Zhuyue opened the food delivery app and said,
"I want milk tea. Can I get you a cup of brown sugar milk without the tea base? If it doesn't have the tea base, you won't be able to stay up all night. Do you want pearls?"
Shi Chan shook his head: "No pearls."
Shi Can loves milk tea, but he hates all the toppings that come with it. He can barely tolerate pearls, but pudding, coconut flakes, and popping pearls are completely in his zone. Even if he were to jump from one place to another, there's no way he'd ever have even a sliver of coconut flakes in his milk tea.
About half an hour later, the hotel manager brought the milk tea to the door.
At the same time, Lin Zhuyue received a reply from the Spiritual Master's Mansion.
"Student Lin Zhuyue, we've reviewed the relevant information and can confirm that Dongli City did in the past have a circular bus service with its starting and ending points at Lishan Funeral Home. The bus route was K3."
The intelligence officer on duty at the logistics office said,
"This K3 bus has been plagued by all sorts of scary rumors since its inception. But it's actually very safe, having been accident-free until its closure. While there have been many online rumors, our investigation has found no actual reports from drivers or passengers of anything unusual on the K3 bus."
Lin Zhuyue frowned and hung up the phone.
"The logistics point is that the horror stories online about the old K3 Road are not true."
Lin Zhuyue took her mint milk tea from Shi Can, stuck the straw into the cup, and said distressedly,
"The fog is getting thicker."
Shi Can pulled the chair next to Lin Zhuyue. He sat down and shook the milk and brown sugar in the transparent plastic cup. Without any distress or worry on his face, he said:
"I think things are clear now."
Lin Zhuyue blinked blankly: "Hmm?"
"You know what? Some evil spirits don't come from human resentment or malice. They're born from fantasy, grow in rumors, and then find the right moment to break the boundary between truth and falsehood and emerge into reality."
Shi Chan explained,
"That K3 bus full of paper figures is a fantasy monster born from urban legend. Because it's fantasy, no matter how terrifying it is, it doesn't have any sinister aura."
Lin Zhuyue had never heard of urban rumors coming true. She was filled with astonishment and confusion and asked:
"The traffic accident on the new K3 road..."
"Two months ago, the rollover on Xin K3 Road was supposed to be an accident. But the sheer severity of the accident, and the intense resentment of the deceased, gave credence to what was once a fantasy urban rumor, transforming it from a fictional world into reality."
Shi Can put the brown sugar milk on the table, raised his two hands, put his palms together, and said,
"The combination of resentment, negative energy, and urban rumors created this terrifying bus we saw, filled with both ghosts and paper dolls."
Lin Zhuyue asked again:
"Why does it keep pestering Wang Hexu?"
"It might not have been solely focused on harassing Wang Hexu. It's just that Wang Hexu narrowly missed the rollover accident, which led to an inexplicable connection between him and the K3, making him an easier prey."
Shi Can said,
“So, this K3 road, which is a combination of urban legends and rollover accidents, will be more likely to appear in front of him.”
Shi Can took the computer, opened the document, and his ten fingers moved quickly on the keyboard, summarizing and recording the conversation between himself and Lin Zhuyue, and clarifying the nature of the K3 road that was entangled with the victim.
Lin Zhuyue asked: "Then how do we solve this K3 road problem?"
Shi Can paused and said:
"A fantasy monster born from rumors, also known as an immortal monster—as long as the rumors exist, it will be reborn. Sounds tricky, right?"
Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can drank milk tea while discussing how to deal with this tricky and rare K3 bus, and stayed up until the second half of the night.
Although Shi Can was drinking brown sugar milk without tea base, he was not sleepy at all. He insisted on dragging Lin Zhuyue to eat a local special breakfast in Dongli City that was sold in the early morning. After eating and drinking, they returned to the hotel and lay in bed to prepare to sleep.
I slept until three in the afternoon.
Lin Zhuyue groped around the bedside several times in a daze before finding his cell phone and checking the messages.
Shi Chan sent her nearly a hundred messages.
Lin Zhuyue thought he had something important to tell her, so she forced herself to read the message, trying not to miss any information.
But from the looks of it, Shi Chan had nothing serious to do. He'd simply gone to the cat cafe near the hotel to play with the cats, snapping photos while doing so. In the photos, he was holding a kitten in his left hand and a Maine Coon in his right, and he kept repeating things like, "What cat lover doesn't steal food? They must not have seen enough of the feline world."
Lin Zhuyue: "..."
Ever since he started dating, Master Shi has become very talkative.
If I see something interesting online, I have to send her a copy. If I see promotional photos of tourist attractions, I have to ask her if she wants to go there in the future. Even the small matter of not being able to eat a whole baguette and having to ask the owner to help tear open the frozen chicken breast has to be mentioned several times. I say good night to her at night and good morning in the morning... She is talkative and nagging.
Lin Zhuyue: [Angry.jpg]
Lin Zhuyue: [How dare you tell your girlfriend about cheating?]
Shi Chan: [Are you awake?]
Shi Chan: [Come over and steal together?]
Shi Can: [Don't worry, take a good shower and change clothes before returning to Tiancheng. Baguette and Xiaoyu will definitely not be able to smell it.]
Lin Zhuyue: [Just wait for me!]
Lin Zhuyue quickly got up, washed, and changed her clothes before heading straight to the cat cafe where Shican was. She rushed in, sat down next to Shican, picked up the kitten that Shican had handed her, and licked its head twice.
Lin Zhuyue had just sucked the cat twice when Shi Can took the cat back and sucked it a few more times.
Kitten: "Meow~"
"You are so cute, are you a brother or a sister?"
Shi Can lifted the kitten's tail and said,
"Oh wow, there's a bell, and it's heart-shaped."
Lin Zhuyue said: "Let me see, let me see——"
Kitten: “…”
Cats are so annoying, people.
After petting the cat and drinking coffee, the two of them went to a nearby mall. There was a new restaurant specializing in eel in the mall. The restaurant's signature three-way eel dish was well received, and the sashimi was also of good quality, with the salmon belly leaving a lingering aftertaste.
After dinner they went shopping in the mall.
Shi Can saw a men's bag in a luxury store, and Lin Zhuyue generously swiped his credit card and bought it. Shi Can took a photo of the bag and posted it on his Moments with the caption:
My cat-raising partner loves me.
Ye Yangjia: [How much did it cost? ]
Shi Can: [Fifty-two thousand.]
Ye Yangjia: [I'll give you 60,000, get out of my circle of friends.]
Gong Yongyuan: [Can you please be a human being?]
Wen Miyan: [@林朱月, I want a little black dress, buy it for me. rub face.jpg]
Lin Zhuyue: [Send me the link.]
Shi Chan: [? ]
Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can stayed in the mall for a long time before leaving. After eight o'clock in the evening, they arrived at the bus stop outside the gate of Dongli City Municipal Middle School, sat on the bench next to the bus stop, and waited quietly.
The lights are dim and the night is quiet.
Lin Zhuyue felt a little sleepy and asked, "Will it appear?"
"I don't know. After all, we are not the target."
Shi Can opened his coat and put it on Lin Zhuyue's shoulders, saying,
"If it doesn't show up, we might need Wang Hexu to come over and help us lure it out."
The night fog gradually thickened and the lights became dimmer.
The headlights pierced through the misty and humid fog, and a bus emitting a faint glow came from a distance.
Lin Zhuyue stood up: "Here I come."
The driver held the steering wheel steadily with both hands, raised his head, and looked through the front window at Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can standing in front of the bus stop.
His face gradually changed from a blurry human face to a pale paper face with a blush on its cheeks. The paper man's eyes were fixed on Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can, and after a moment, he grinned.
The black mouth is like an upward-curved crescent moon, opening and closing, as if smiling happily.
The bus began to slow down and stopped steadily in front of the bus stop. Inside the crowded carriage, the ghosts and the paper figures turned their heads and looked at Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can standing in front of the door, asking in unison:
"Two little students, would you like to get in the car?"
"Yes, of course."
Lin Zhuyue took a step forward and stepped on the pedal to get on the car.
Two paper figures stood up to make room for Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can.
Quite polite.
Lin Zhuyue thought.
Shi Can followed Lin Zhuyue onto the bus. He took out four copper coins he had prepared long ago and threw them into the cash box. He then tore off two tickets from the booklet on the cash box.
Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can sat down in the empty seats one after the other.
The bus doors closed.
The car's loudspeaker began to broadcast:
"The K3 bus you are taking, with its first stop being Lishan Funeral Home, is about to depart. Please hold on tight."
The bus began to move, gradually picking up speed as it raced along the night road. From time to time, the bus passed through caves and tunnels. Outside the window, the illuminated streets disappeared, leaving only a dark sky, endless yellow sand, and the crimson Manjusri spider flowers.
In the crowded bus, the lifeless ghosts instinctively approached Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can, who exuded vitality and yang energy.
The paper figures weren't as anxious as the ghosts, but they were also swaying as they gradually moved closer. Their expressions grew increasingly ferocious, and from their gaping mouths emerged two rows of shark-like triangular teeth, as if they were about to tear Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can into pieces and devour them whole.
Less than twenty minutes after Lin Zhuyue and Shi Can got in the car, they were surrounded by enemies.
"One corner, two corners, three corners, four corners—"
Lin Zhuyue took out a piece of white paper and read,
"Paper becomes the wall, spirit becomes the cage, rise!"
The white paper burned and turned into ashes. A square golden barrier spread out, swallowing up the souls of the dead and isolating the paper figures outside.
Shi Can stood up and stepped into the paper barrier.
He summoned the Absolute Blade, held the knife in his yang hand, and faced the nine resentful souls who had died violently alone.
Lin Zhuyue stood outside the paper barrier, surrounded by golden petals. She asked calmly:
"You are paper people, and paper people are naturally afraid of fire, right?"
The next moment, nearly a thousand petals exploded, golden flames ignited, and engulfed the entire bus in the blink of an eye.
The bus horn blared shrilly—
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