Chapter 15: The Wedding Banquet in the Ghost Village

Chapter 15: The Ghost Village Wedding Banquet

"Driver, the bus seems to be picking up speed."

Su Bai gazed out the window. Beyond the fog, there was still only fog, yet through it, he could vaguely discern the silhouettes of obscured buildings. These fleeting shapes, coupled with the bus's increasingly violent jolts and bumps, confirmed Su Bai's suspicion: the Route 444 Last Bus was now traveling at a speed no ordinary land vehicle could possibly attain.

"The closer we get to the final stop, the faster it goes," the Driver responded promptly, as it was Su Bai who had spoken.

"Why?"

"Passengers, I've answered enough questions for today." The Driver, despite driving at high speed, twisted his head like a snake around the partition of his seat, his expression troubled as he addressed everyone. "Disturbing the driver while they're driving can lead to serious trouble."

"And..." The Driver's neck stretched longer and longer, leaning towards Su Bai. "Don't give the Driver a hard time. The Driver is just the driver."

With that, his elongated neck swiftly retracted.

"But you seem to know a great deal." Su Bai found himself more intrigued by the Driver than by the game itself. After all, neither the white *qipao* paper doll nor the other passengers had paid him any special attention. Only this Driver, from the moment he first saw Su Bai, seemed to have sensed the presence of his eerie betrothed.

"Because I have the virtue of never speaking out of turn, I've driven for some important figures," the Driver said, shifting gears with a "creak," and the bus seemed to accelerate even further. "But I still prefer coming back to drive this route."

"Coming back—so you're one of the story's participants. In this road-trip narrative, the 'Driver' is at least an important character," Su Bai analyzed with ease. "But you're not the protagonist, because the protagonist remains trapped in the story until its conclusion, unable to escape. The Driver, who can leave here and go elsewhere, is a participant, but certainly not the main character."

"..." Silence fell from the driver's seat.

"For a story that unfolds on a journey, the starting station might not be the beginning, but the final stop is undeniably linked to the story's end," Su Bai stated with conviction, more a declaration than a guess. "Since the final stop is Ghost Village, it implies the main storyline is you, Driver, delivering a special passenger to Ghost Village."

"And just now, when you were chatting with our friends, you meticulously recounted the origins of the other passengers. Most of us on this bus, including ourselves, are merely transients on this route."

"The only one you didn't mention must be the passenger sitting in the very last row, right?" Su Bai concluded with a smile. "Whether in the past or present, the main storyline is you, Driver, delivering that bride to Ghost Village."

Still no response from the driver's seat, but Su Bai continued, at least for the benefit of the three newcomers who needed to grasp this method of deducing the game's background story.

"Why would so many people board at Ghost Village Station?" Su Bai toyed with the blood-red string of beads on his wrist. "Is there some major event in the village? An activity? A festival? Or... a wedding banquet?"

SCREECH—

The speeding bus suddenly slammed on its brakes, sending all the passengers lurching forward from the inertia. However, the white *qipao* paper doll, sitting beside Qin Ge, despite being little more than a thin layer of paper and a *qipao*, remained firmly glued to the seat, completely unaffected by the sudden stop.

"Lover's Lake Station has arrived." Perhaps in a foul mood, the Driver's announcement was significantly more succinct than before.

Almost the instant the bus doors opened, two soaking wet figures, one after another, sloshed onto the bus.

Before Su Bai could even clearly see what the two drenched figures looked like, he first heard the incessant dripping of water onto the bus floor.

"Ugh, why are today's passengers such a headache!" The Driver's head, wearing an exasperated expression, stretched out again. He waved at the two newly boarded passengers. "You two, don't go any further inside. Just sit in the first row and don't move!"

"Sorry, sorry!" both passengers apologized profusely, their voices sounding young.

This was the first time Su Bai and the others had heard actual "special passengers" speak—the eerie laughter of the white *qipao* paper doll didn't count.

Looking closely, Su Bai saw that the special passengers were a man and a woman. Although they were completely soaked and covered in unknown aquatic plants, they both appeared quite young.

After boarding, the man, who seemed to be quite a chatterbox, spotted Wan Shasha closest to him and eagerly blurted out, "You must be wondering why we're all wet, right?"

*Who asked you?!*

Wan Shasha's face registered wariness and discomfort. As the man approached, she instinctively covered her nose, as if detecting a strange odor. Then, perhaps fearing her reaction was impolite, she quickly lowered her hand.

"We're going to the wedding banquet at Ghost Village, the next stop," the man blurted out, astonishing the trio.

What? Ghost Village at the final stop is really hosting a wedding banquet? Is the purpose of the Route 444 Last Bus truly to deliver that ghost bride to Ghost Village?

Wan Shasha and the others couldn't help but turn to look at the very last row of the bus again.

"It's all because of this jerk!" The woman next to the man immediately grabbed his ear. "You said Lover's Lake was so beautiful we absolutely had to get off and see it. Now look, we fell right into the lake! Everyone said couples who go to Lover's Lake will die, but you didn't believe it. Now that we're dead, you finally believe it, don't you!"

"If we're dead, we're dead. Now we can just go to Ghost Village for the banquet!"

"You jerk!"

"..."

Despite sounding like a lively lovers' quarrel, listening to their conversation, the trio dared not utter a single word.

The drenched man, or rather, the male water ghost, soon noticed Su Bai, who was only partially dry, and curiously walked closer while asking, "Did you fall into a river too? Where's your partner? Did they also drown in the river—"

"Shut your mouth!!" The Driver suddenly roared in a fit of rage, his elongated head flying over to coil around the male water ghost's neck. His eyes, besides anger, held a hint of terror. "If you can't speak properly, then just shut the hell up! Get to the first row and sit down!"

Perhaps taken aback by the Driver's fury, the two water ghosts quickly clamped their mouths shut and obediently sat in the first row of the bus, not daring to utter another word.

After dealing with the two new passengers, the Driver cast a deep glance in Su Bai's direction before retracting his head.

"There really is a wedding banquet at Ghost Village, the final stop." After a long moment, Qin Ge in the back row finally spoke. "But I don't understand why a bus is delivering the bride to the wedding."

"My deceased brother once told me in a dream," Su Bai began, as if reciting a well-rehearsed line, "that the spirits in the Nightmare World are different from humans. Humans have short lifespans of just a hundred years, but the ghosts in the Nightmare World might have existed for hundreds or even a terrifying number of millennia."

"Cities might once have been rural villages, and skyscrapers might once have been straw huts. As more and more humans entered the Nightmare World, it became increasingly modernized. Even malevolent spirits in robes might have switched to suits and skirts."

Su Bai said, glancing back at the rear: "The more terrifying the spirit, the longer they've existed in the Nightmare World. Therefore, in the era when that bride came into being, buses simply wouldn't have existed. It's just that the bride's original mode of transport has, with the passage of time, transformed into a modern vehicle."

"Driver, what did this Route 444 Last Bus originally look like? Was it a carriage or a wedding sedan? Were you a coachman or a sedan carrier in the past?" Su Bai asked bluntly.

"It was never anything so luxurious. In the past, it was just a beat-up oxcart," a faint, somewhat resentful response came from the driver's seat.

"Ah!" Wan Shasha suddenly realized. "No wonder the Driver said he used to raise oxen!"

"More accurately, no wonder this bus can't carry more than 10 passengers. An oxcart couldn't handle that much weight; any more and it might have collapsed," Su Bai joked, half-seriously.

"..."

"Is the joke that bad?" Su Bai looked around; everyone seemed to have been frozen by his humor.

"But what do we do when we reach the final stop?" Zhang Yibu, perhaps the most sheltered among them, was more prone to panic when facing the horrors of the Nightmare World. "We should get off now!"

The Route 444 Last Bus was still stopped at Lover's Lake Station, both front and rear doors open.

"Get off and walk into the fog?" Wan Shasha glanced out the window. This time, through the mist, she could vaguely make out a small portion of a vast lake, its dark surface faintly teeming with countless struggling ghostly figures. "As long as I can stay on the bus, I absolutely won't get off in a place like that."

"I can't leave even if I wanted to," Qin Ge said helplessly. "If you want to get off, you can."

Zhang Yibu didn't want to go to Ghost Village, but the thought of getting off alone at Lover's Lake Station made him shrink back into his seat.

"Don't worry. As long as no one gets off at Ghost Village, this bus will return," Su Bai said, offering Zhang Yibu what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"After all, Ghost Village is hosting a wedding banquet, isn't it? Those two passengers just said they'd get off at Ghost Village to attend. Perhaps the other passengers are also guests of Ghost Village. Plus, the bride is still on the bus, so the banquet probably hasn't started yet. Why would there be so many passengers boarding?"

Perhaps comforted by Su Bai's words, the trio, though still anxious, chose to remain seated.

Route 444 Last Bus, current passengers: 9.

"Next stop, the final destination, Ghost Village." The sound of the Driver closing the door and starting the engine echoed through the bus. "Passengers getting off, please prepare in advance."

As the final destination drew nearer, the bus's speed and the rhythm of its stops and departures accelerated.

It was as if Ghost Village was calling to its bride.

Though Su Bai wore a carefree smile on the surface, he couldn't help but wish the bus would never reach Ghost Village—a place devoid of goodwill, a death trap for everyone on board, including the Ghost Bride A Xi.

"Ding—ding—"

"Clink—"

As the Route 444 Last Bus embarked on its journey to the final stop, unfamiliar sounds, never before heard by the trio, emanated from the back of the bus.

Everyone's gaze turned to the last row of the carriage, where they saw the Ghost Bride, who had been sitting quietly, begin to move!

But her movements weren't an attempt to rise from her seat. Instead, she trembled and struggled in place, as if bound by invisible chains to the last row of the bus. She fought desperately but could not break free.

No, it wasn't "as if"!

Among the sounds the passengers heard, besides the jingling of the bells on the Ghost Bride's bridal veil, there was indeed the clashing of iron chains.

Those invisible chains seemed to bind her feet and hands, causing her to struggle in a bizarre manner, yet to no avail.

After struggling for a few minutes, the Ghost Bride fell silent again, sitting with her head bowed as if nothing had happened.

"Sigh." A soft sigh came from the direction of the driver's seat.

Su Bai's right hand instinctively clenched into a fist.