Chapter 18: Please Cry Your Heart Out

Chapter 18 Please Have a Good Cry

"Nurse, could you please have a good cry?" Su Bai asked with a smile, then turned to the driver's seat. "Driver, that shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"..." This time, even Su Bai's inquiry received no response from the driver.

Perhaps this was just the second round of the game.

Su Bai didn't particularly care about the driver's opinion, taking the silence as tacit consent.

What mattered was...

His smile faded, and his eyes—which had been half-squinted from amusement—now opened wide, fixing on the weeping nurse with a gaze no ordinary high school student could possibly possess.

Having struggled for ten years in the nightmare world in his previous life, how could Su Bai still exhibit the innocent, pure eyes of a high schooler yet to graduate?

Even if some were skilled at discerning the emotions hidden in others' eyes, they would likely only perceive the indifference toward everything in the world concealed beneath Su Bai's gaze when his smile vanished. Su Bai needed to carry the wish of the Evil Ghost Puzzles for him to "survive," but that was all.

Whether in his previous life or this one, perhaps only players and supernatural entities with special "mind-reading" abilities could unearth the true madness deep within this outwardly handsome young man, hidden beneath Su Bai's deeper layer of apathy!

Su Bai's madness wasn't solely forged by the events preceding his entry into the nightmare world.

His mother's death and his brother's betrayal, the abrupt end of his academic future, and the crushing weight of overwhelming debt might indeed break a person. But for Su Bai, given time, even if he had to start from the most menial labor, he would still carve out his own path in life.

Su Bai's madness stemmed from the shattering reality of the mundane world and the nightmare world from which escape seemed almost eternally impossible. His madness was born from enduring too many torments to survive in the nightmare world when he initially lacked sufficient strength.

Su Bai always believed he could conceal his madness perfectly, unaware that those who called him a "monster" did so not merely because of his strength, but because—though rarely—there were still people and supernatural beings who could perceive the destructive, self-annihilating frenzy in his eyes.

Just like the nurse who met his gaze at this very moment.

Her bloody tears dried, the nurse tilted her head to look at Su Bai, her eyes filled not only with confusion but also as if pondering something. Her gaze locked with Su Bai's for a long time, as though contemplating a complex problem.

"Cry, Nurse." No longer smiling, Su Bai leaned closer to the nurse, his left hand, adorned with a blood-tinged string of beads, gripping her pale neck. Faint, eerily familiar chimes seemed to echo around him. "Please, by all means, don't stop easily."

The sound of those bells was very similar to the silver bells on Gui Xin Niang A Xi's bridal veil.

"Evil Ghost Puzzle."

Faced with Su Bai's suggestion, or rather threat, the nurse's reaction took him by surprise—she actually extended a pale hand, attempting to touch Su Bai's cheek.

Su Bai avoided the touch of the supernatural entity, and the nurse did not reach out again. Instead, with a voice tinged with sobs, she asked a bewildering question: "You... aren't you in pain?"

"..."

"So many, so many, cracked seams." The nurse hugged herself as if experiencing some unimaginable pain, burying her head. "It hurts, it hurts so much. Why... aren't you crying?"

Su Bai didn't understand what the supernatural entity before him was saying, but sensing that it was capable of communication, he attempted to engage: "Since you think I'm in pain, would you cry for me? How about that?"

The nurse looked up at Su Bai, and in the next second, bloody tears gushed from her eyes. A soul-wrenching cry instantly filled the bus.

"Woo—"

The cries gradually shifted from suppressed to cathartic. The weeping, imbued with special power, seemed to be drawn from the nurse's very soul, spreading through the bus, layering it with a crimson-hued sorrow.

"If you don't want to be bewitched, cover your ears!" Su Bai stood up the moment the nurse began crying, raising his voice to shout at the trio.

At the same time, the sound of silver bells faintly encircled Su Bai, and he also made a show of covering his own ears.

The cries were sorrowful, bringing everyone's past sad memories to the forefront of their minds. Covering their ears could only dull the effect slightly. However, the nurse's power wasn't very potent against ordinary people; for someone like Zhang Yibu, a child, it would at most evoke memories of failing exams, being punished by parents, and being grounded from their phones.

The sadder one's past experiences, the more susceptible they were to the influence of the cries.

So, the ones on the bus who would be affected the most were likely Su Bai, who had struggled in the nightmare world in his previous life, and Ghost Bride A Xi, trapped on this road due to her obsession!

Trapped and bereft of reason and consciousness, Gui Xin Niang A Xi couldn't break free from her shackles, nor could she stop the white qipao.

But if, like in his previous life, they could use certain means to awaken Gui Xin Niang A Xi, to retrieve her humanity, combined with Su Bai's "Evil Ghost Puzzle," their odds of completing the game would increase!

To awaken Gui Xin Niang A Xi, the first method Su Bai considered was to resonate with her using his own fate, as he had in his previous life. But having been reborn, Su Bai couldn't bank on this unpredictable method with one hundred percent certainty; he didn't even know if he could still resonate with Gui Xin Niang A Xi now.

Thus, the nurse, whom Su Bai hadn't encountered in his previous life, caught his attention. If the nurse's cries could make Gui Xin Niang A Xi remember something, it might very well awaken her.

Amid the cries, Su Bai covered his ears, borrowing some power from the Evil Ghost Puzzle, using the sound of the silver bells to shield his mind. However, Su Bai's eyes remained fixed on the movements of the two ghosts in the back—the white qipao and Gui Xin Niang A Xi.

As Su Bai had anticipated, the white qipao remained unaffected by the cries. This was probably because the white qipao's original form was merely a funeral paper effigy, devoid of any human sad memories, having only gained the primal urge to consume humans after mutating under the red moon, becoming a pure evil ghost.

"Ding—"

A sound of silver bells, similar to those around Su Bai, rang out. Gui Xin Niang A Xi, who had been sitting upright since leaving the ghost village, trembled slightly amidst the cries. Clearly, the nurse's cries were having an effect on her!

"Woo woo—"

The nurse's cries grew louder, as if she had found her rhythm. Even the largely unresponsive white qipao seemed annoyed by the cries in its ears. Its left hand, which had been gripping Qin Ge, dropped, and its now-solidified form stiffly turned toward Su Bai and the nurse.

"Clang— Ding dang—"

The cries grew increasingly loud, their influence on Gui Xin Niang A Xi also strengthening. Her struggles in the last row grew more intense, the bloody hole in her chest once again gushing anew!

Not to mention Gui Xin Niang A Xi, even Su Bai, who had covered his ears and had the help of the silver bells, couldn't help but fall into maddening memories.

He saw the back of that bastard Su Xuan walking away the last time they met.

He saw his mother rushing out of the shop to bring back her son who had gone astray, heard the sound of a truck braking hard after hitting something heavy, saw the expanding stain of blood on the commercial street...

He saw players dying one after another beside him in the nightmare world, saw that well-intentioned veteran who swore to help them newcomers survive, only to turn around and sacrifice them to the evil ghosts.

He saw his supposed closest friend cutting wound after wound into him, just to let his blood cover the entire altar.

...