After being watched by Chen Ge for a long time, the man tightened his clothes around the collar and coughed lightly.
"Have we met before?"
His voice was cold and vicissitudes of life, as if he didn't care about anything in the outside world.
Chen Ge didn't expect that the other party would speak suddenly. He paused for a moment, and then followed the man's words: "You look very much like a friend of mine. Your temperament is almost the same. Have we met somewhere?"
The man turned his head, with a hint of fatigue hidden in his eyes: "You may have admitted your mistake."
"Impossible, I must have seen you somewhere." It was only the first time for Chen Ge and the man to meet. He just said this to chat with the other person for a few more words and obtain more useful information.
The man was silent for a while. Seeing that Chen Ge didn't seem to be lying, he hesitated, raised his hand, and took off the mask on his face.
The man had a high nose bridge, pale skin, and blue lips. After taking off his mask, the man coughed violently and said, "You made a mistake. I am not the person you are looking for."
After saying that, he put on the mask again, with a hint of emotion in his eyes that was difficult for others to understand: "I have no friends."
This man was not afraid of Chen Ge. He was a passenger who got on the bus later and was a living person. He didn’t know what was hidden in Chen Ge’s shadow. Maybe in his eyes, Chen Ge and the other passengers didn’t have much in common.
different.
Chen Ge wanted to find out what happened in the eastern suburbs, and also wanted to take all the ghosts on the hearse back to the haunted house, but to his surprise, there were two living passengers on the hearse tonight.
He didn't want to reveal his secret, and it was inconvenient to do anything out of the ordinary in front of two living people, so he temporarily changed his plan and kept a low profile first. After the two living passengers got off the bus, he would follow
Have a good chat with other passengers.
Sitting obediently in his seat, Chen Ge moved his eyes away from the man and looked out the window.
Rain fell on the glass, and the buildings on both sides could no longer be seen clearly. The surroundings were pitch black, and the No. 104 hearse they were riding in seemed like a small island floating on the black ocean.
The car suddenly became quiet, and the man realized that Chen Ge had not spoken since he finished speaking to him, and thought he had said something wrong.
He put his hands on his knees and suddenly asked Chen Ge in a low voice: "Do you want to take this car just to find that friend of yours?"
Chen Ge's eyes gradually focused, and the expression on his face began to change. It was as if the man had guessed the secret in his heart. He was a little uneasy, a little painful, and a little self-blame.
Nodding slowly, Chen Ge looked at the man next to him: "How do you know?"
"The passengers on this bus all have their own stories and secrets, otherwise no one would come to take this bus after midnight."
"From your tone, this isn't your first time taking this bus?" Chen Ge's lips twitched, showing the same smile as when he got on the bus, but there was a trace of deep and suppressed pain in his eyes, which made people feel distressed.
"I took the No. 104 bus when I went to work, and I took it for almost 20 years." The man seemed to have not talked to anyone for a long time, and his tone of voice was very slow: "At that time, the department was very busy and there were not enough staff. I often worked overtime and was always busy.
Take the last bus home. At first I liked taking the last bus because there were very few people and it was very quiet. But then I took it more often and looked at the dark buildings on both sides, which made me feel a little lonely."
"Department? What did you do before?"
"Doctor, doctor from the burn department." The man emphasized the three words "burn department." There was a wave in his eyes, as if he remembered something.
"Burn department?" Chen Ge had only dealt with psychiatrists before and didn't know much about the burn department.
"Surgery, skin grafting, rehabilitation, this is our job." The man said it calmly, but Chen Ge could hear a hint of heaviness behind these words.
The man also noticed the deep suppressed pain in Chen Ge's eyes. He seemed to see his own shadow in Chen Ge, and subconsciously regarded Chen Ge as someone like him.
After a brief conversation, the two fell silent again. After a long time, Chen Ge spoke: "Are you taking this car to find someone?"
The man nodded slightly and pressed his gloved hand on the scarf.
"Did your wife knit this scarf for you?" Chen Ge found the right moment and asked casually.
Hearing Chen Ge's words, the man was stunned for a moment. He took his hand away from the scarf and slowly shook his head.
"Isn't it from your wife?" The facts were different from Chen Ge's previous guess. He was a little curious: "Can you tell me your story?"
The rain was getting heavier, and the raindrops hit the windows, making a constant sound.
The man pondered for a moment, took off his mask, and took a deep breath: "Patients in the burn department are different from other departments. Their bodies are completely mutilated, their faces are disfigured, their heads are battered, and their skin is torn. They are everywhere here. When I was an intern, I once thought that
I came to hell until I gradually got used to the bloody flesh, the stench and all kinds of strange smells."
"At that time, I thought that I would never have too many emotional ups and downs when facing patients."
"It wasn't until I was thirty years old that I met a patient."
"Her back was severely scalded by boiling water. It took me half an hour to separate her clothes from her skin."
"That girl is very quiet, doesn't cry or make trouble."
"To prevent any impact on her brain nerves, I did not use general anesthesia. When I separated her clothes and skin, she opened her eyes and looked at me."
"Her back and her face are two extremes. I comforted her like I comfort other patients."
"After the wound was treated, I found the adult who sent her to the hospital and prepared to explain some precautions. However, after questioning, I found out that it was a neighbor who sent her to the hospital. The injury on her body was not due to an accident, but to her parents.
Do it.”
"I called the police." When the man spoke, he would occasionally cough. His physical condition was very poor.
"The girl's father has serious violent tendencies, and her mother is deaf-mute and has a cowardly personality."
"The police detained and educated her father for a month. Later, her mother took the initiative to go to the police station to plead for mercy. After all, the family relied on her father to support her."
"During the treatment of the girl, I stayed with her. The child was like a little white wild flower blooming on the roadside. Accompanying her also made me, who was used to seeing cruelty and smelling the stench, feel the pain for a long time.
A touch of joy.”
"One day two months after she was discharged from the hospital, I suddenly received a strange phone call, and it was her voice on the other end of the phone."
"Unable to bear her father's drunken violence, she ran away from home."
"I took her in, hiding it from the police and her family."
"I know I may have done something wrong, but I can't imagine what kind of things will happen to her if I send her back at that time?"
At this point, the man paused for a moment, and seeing that Chen Ge's expression did not change much, he continued: "When she was twenty years old, she confessed her love to me."
"I was thirty-six years old that year, which saved me the process of falling in love. We didn't get a certificate, and we held a wedding that year with just the two of us."
"I spent the happiest five years with her, but also endured unimaginable pressure."
"When I was forty-one, her parents found her, insulted her, beat her, and made trouble at school and the hospital where I was."
"Life changed all of a sudden. People's words were terrible. I could bear it, but she gave up."
"When I was taking the last train home that day, I called her several times, but no one answered."
"When I opened the door and returned home, there was a prepared meal on the table and a long letter she wrote to me."
"Finally I found her in the bathroom. Her body was soaked in water and she was no longer breathing."
The man's face turned frighteningly pale, and his coughing became worse and worse. Chen Ge reached out and patted his back.
"Thank you." The man did not put on a mask, and the exhaustion in his eyes could not be concealed: "Actually, the passengers in this car have their own stories. During the day, everyone is busy and hides their hearts. At night, these helpless and painful people
Yes, desperate people will take this bus to the terminal."
From the man's words, it seemed that he didn't know that the other passengers were ghosts, or perhaps he already knew, but he regarded ghosts as humans.
"Do you know anything else?"
"There are too many, like the mute next to me. I have met him before." The man said with a hint of sympathy in his tone: "He has an intellectual disability and can't speak. He works as a porter in a supermarket and is often bullied.
, and even smiled and said good things about others."
"Then why did he get into this car? A simple-minded person should not be worried about dirty things." Chen Ge was a little confused.
"He went to the terminal to find his daughter." The man couldn't bear to say any more: "For some reason, her daughter never said anything, and finally couldn't bear it and ended her life."
Chen Ge's eyes darkened. These things did happen. He had seen them before: "Did the police call the police? How did the police deal with it?"
The man sitting next to him has an intellectual disability, is uncoordinated, and falls when he walks. It is very difficult for people like him to defend their rights.
"Call the police?" The man asked, "This father, who was born with intellectual disabilities, unable to speak, and unable to walk unsteadily, knocked out the gangsters and the culprit and locked them up in an abandoned building in the eastern suburbs.
building, then poured gasoline on them and set them all on fire."
"He is in poor health and has some mental deficiencies, so how did he do all this alone?"
"The police couldn't figure it out either, so the murderer hasn't been caught in this case yet."
The burn doctor and Chen Ge looked back at the man at the same time. He seemed a little embarrassed and smiled stupidly at the two of them.
"Replacing violence with violence will leave more problems in the future. A heart that is already damaged by being hurt will find it difficult to withstand the pressure of revenge and murder. He may go from one extreme to another." Chen Ge couldn't go.
Evaluate what the father did and think about it from his perspective. If he were that father, he couldn't guarantee what he would do.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, I think this is fair. Not to mention him, I have seen people in this car who were in more serious condition than him." The burn doctor said casually: "There was a heavy rain, and I got on the car.
I saw a young man in a suit and tie behind the car. He was dressed smartly and looked different from the other passengers, but who could have known that this man was a complete lunatic."
"What has he done?"
"The young man was a wedding officiant. He had been in the industry for several years and had officiated hundreds of weddings. Finally it was time for him to get married. He wore a suit and ties to marry the bride, but he had a car accident on the way back."
"The bride was not rescued. Although his life was saved, his appearance was disfigured."
"The wedding company fired him, and later he changed his career to become a funeral designer. When someone found him, he would help them design the funeral, and when no one was around, he would guard the cemetery."
"These are quite normal, but then during the conversation, he accidentally revealed a piece of information."
"In the dead of night, he would arrange ghost marriages for those corpses, and then he would host them himself."
The man said something a bit scary: "He got in the car to find his wife, and then he was planning to organize a special wedding at that time."
After listening to the stories of the burn doctor, the mentally retarded father and the funeral designer, Chen Ge discovered that the last bus on Route 104 was different from what he had thought before. This bus seemed to have become a passage for living people to enter the shadows of the city.
People ride it to find their last thoughts.
Chen Ge didn't know how to tell the burn doctor that everyone regarded this bus as their last hope, but they were destined to fail because the terminal of this bus was made of the deepest despair and pain.
Chen Ge even suspected that the reason why the mastermind behind Dongjiao sent out such a bus was to collect despair and all kinds of negative emotions.
"The Ghost Stories Association has been producing ghost stories for the sake of despair and negative emotions. The ghosts inside the door need these things. In addition, only people who are desperate, painful, and dominated by negative emotions can become the containers of ghosts."
There are people and ghosts on the last train. They arrive at the terminal with the last glimmer of hope. However, what greets them may be another world of endless despair.
"I can't let this happen again. It seems I can only drive this car away. Maybe I can get a new route directly to the haunted house."
These abnormal living passengers in the car reminded Chen Ge of the game he played at Fan Cong's house.
In that game, there were not only ghosts and red clothes, but also many perverted murderers. Chen Ge now suspected that those murderers were the living passengers on the No. 104 bus.
"The whole town is full of ghosts and murderers, and the mastermind behind the scenes in the eastern suburbs is much crazier than the Ghost Story Association."