Translator: CinderTL
"Who's singing?" Huai Yi shivered, Jiang Cheng's words conjuring deeply unsettling images in his mind.
Fatty looked at Huai Yi, bewildered. After a few seconds, he tentatively ventured, "Warming the loneliness?"
Huai Yi: "???"
Jiang Cheng: "Why don't I just leave you two here? You can sing until you're satisfied, then head home whenever you're done."
Fatty looked like he was about to cry. "Doctor, please don't be angry! Huai Yi started it all. If anyone should be abandoned, it's him!"
"Can we focus?" Huai Yi pleaded, his face twisted in distress. "It's getting late. We need to run. I have a bad feeling about this place. I think something's following us. It might even be in the lake." He gestured vaguely toward the dark water.
The singing seemed to be audible only to Jiang Cheng, though he couldn't be certain. The melody was eerie—a fleeting, ethereal tune he had caught earlier when he wasn't paying attention. Now that he tried to listen carefully, it had vanished completely.
One thing was clear: both he and Huai Yi sensed something was wrong with the dark, still lake nearby. The earlier singing had definitely come from that direction.
The sensation instantly reminded Jiang Cheng of the ancient mission, when Old Master Huang had stood in a lake singing opera. But this felt far more sinister.
After a few seconds, Jiang Cheng chose a direction, and the group quickly moved away.
Strangely, the further they got from the residential area, the faster their unease dissipated. It wasn't until they were completely outside the compound that the oppressive feeling of being watched finally vanished.
"Whew..." Huai Yi exhaled deeply, turning to glance back at the darkness behind them, still shuddering with lingering fear. If they had reacted even a moment slower, they might have been done for.
"Brother Fugui," Huai Yi said, squatting down and massaging his leg, "your phone should be working now. Call for a taxi to pick us up." This area was pretty remote, and waiting for a ride here could take forever.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng shook his head. "It's too late. We're already too far in." His gaze swept across the road. After a moment, he added, "We've been walking for ages, and not a single car has passed."
Fatty blinked at Jiang Cheng, as if doubting the doctor's sanity. "Doctor, what are you talking about?"
Ever since they left the residential area, cars had been passing regularly. That's how they knew they were beyond whatever influence that thing had exerted.
As if to confirm Fatty's words, a car appeared in the distance the moment he finished speaking. Its snow-white headlights pierced the night, briefly dispelling the gloom in their hearts.
"See, Doctor? Isn't that a car?" Fatty said eagerly.
"White sedan, license plate ending in 419," Jiang Cheng calmly observed as the vehicle approached.
Fatty and Huai Yi exchanged surprised glances. From this distance, they couldn't even make out the car's color, let alone its license plate number.
About half a minute later, the car finally pulled up beside them. "White sedan, license plate... LD0419," Huai Yi stammered, his lips trembling.
Fatty immediately turned to the doctor, but before he could speak, Jiang Cheng was already staring back into the darkness from which the car had emerged. "A black SUV with license plate ending in 808 will be here shortly."
As if to validate the doctor's words, another vehicle materialized from the distant darkness, seemingly out of thin air. Judging by its silhouette, it was clearly larger and more imposing than the white sedan.
The sleek black SUV roared past them, leaving Fatty and Huai Yi pale with fear. Jiang Cheng had been right again.
Black SUV, license plate ending in 808.
But what was even more terrifying was that through the tinted window, the driver's seat appeared to be empty—no one was behind the wheel!
"We're trapped," Jiang Cheng said. "The same few cars keep circling around, their order and timing fixed. This is a new supernatural event, and we've been dragged into it."
Under the astonished gazes of Huai Yi and Fatty, Jiang Cheng picked up a stone from the ground, hefted it a few times, and then hurled it at a lighted window on the second floor of a nearby apartment building.
The glass shattered instantly, the sound echoing loudly through the night, followed by the clatter of the stone landing.
As their breathing quickened, Huai Yi and Fatty noticed that not only was there no reaction from the apartment whose window had been broken, but the entire neighborhood remained eerily silent.
Now they were convinced: they hadn't escaped at all.
Meanwhile, Huai Yi realized something else. If they had let Fatty call a taxi earlier, who knew what kind of creature might have shown up instead of a car?
"Don't panic," Jiang Cheng said calmly, brushing the dirt off his hands. "We're already here."
Fatty, unable to shake his nervous habit of rambling, especially in moments like this, protested, "Doctor, please don't talk like that! If you want to act cool, fine, but don't drag us into it. The ghosts might get the wrong idea!"
Huai Yi managed to keep his composure slightly better, though he was just as panicked inside. His voice trembled as he pleaded, "Brother Jiang, please, show us a way out."
"Just keep walking this road. We'll figure it out as we go. We're bound to find something," Jiang Cheng replied, continuing onward. The other two cautiously followed behind.
They paid no attention to the occasional cars that sped past.
When they reached an intersection, they finally noticed something out of place.
About fifty meters to their right stood a bus stop with a sheltered waiting area. Most importantly, several people were standing nearby, seemingly waiting for a bus.
"Are they ghosts or people?" Fatty whispered.
Huai Yi glanced around before quietly delivering the grim news: "Whether they're ghosts or people, we have to approach. Look around yourself."
Fatty lifted his head and scanned the surroundings. Though they were at an intersection, the streetlights only illuminated about a hundred meters of the road. Beyond that, darkness reigned supreme, like a massive, gaping maw swallowing the road's end whole.
They had nowhere else to go except for the bus stop where "people" were gathered.
"Let's check it out," Jiang Cheng said, taking the lead as usual. Fatty followed close behind, with Huai Yi bringing up the rear. The three of them walked toward the bus stop in a single file.
The streetlights cast their shadows on the ground. If Fatty had been more observant, he would have noticed that Jiang Cheng's shadow was distinctly different from his and Huai Yi's.
Though all three shadows were black, Jiang Cheng's possessed a unique texture, shimmering with an eerie, lake-like ripple.
More crucially, Jiang Cheng's shadow moved out of sync with his body, lagging half a beat behind as if deliberately distancing itself from the bus stop.
A pair of crimson eyes, flickering with curiosity and apprehension, briefly flashed in the darkness before disappearing.
(End of the Chapter)
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