Chapter 20: The Awakened Bride

Chapter 20: The Awakened Bride

The nurse's sobs gradually faded within the bus, replaced by the piercing, agonized wails of the ghost bride as she struggled fiercely against her restraints.

Tearing at invisible chains and shackles, the ghost bride had already pulled free from the last row of seats, yet her hands and feet remained bound. Her limbs thrashed wildly outward, accompanied by the constant sound of splintering metal, as if just one more step—just one more step forward—and the ghost bride A Xi would break free!

But it was precisely this one step that the ghost bride, no matter how hard she tried, could not take.

Perhaps it was this very step that had trapped the ghost bride on this road for decades, or even centuries!

"There’s no need to worry anymore," Su Bai said, standing before the ghost bride and grabbing her right hand. "And there’s no need to fear them anymore."

In the reflection of the bus window, two identical ghost brides clasped hands.

Qin Ge seemed to sense something and turned to look at the reflection in the window, freezing in stunned disbelief.

The nurse’s weeping had been effective but could not last until the end. So, to help the ghost bride complete the final step of her awakening, Su Bai chose to channel all his strength, awakening A Xi within the Evil Ghost Puzzle to resonate with the ghost bride before him.

Su Bai knew that the likelihood of resonating with the ghost bride now was extremely slim. After all, the chance of a human resonating with a supernatural being was one in a thousand, and even rarer for a supernatural being still holding onto humanity—one in ten thousand.

But if it were the ghost bride herself, even if resonance was impossible, A Xi could still awaken herself in her own way.

Of course, Su Bai’s actions were not without risk. The not fully awakened ghost bride might lash out at him, and the white qipao paper doll nearby might seize the opportunity to attack. If all else failed, Su Bai might have to seek help from the Mist Shop and the child Xiao Wu.

In the nightmare world, Su Bai was never one to rely on cunning intellect. Among the game’s players, many were willing to trade their wits for protection, so Su Bai’s approach to combat had always been the most straightforward.

In his previous life, Su Bai had never found a way to clear Route 444's Last Bus. Even with ten years of experience in this life, he could only find this one path. And judging by Driver’s earlier reaction, Su Bai’s move was clearly not wrong.

Moreover, Su Bai did not want to leave the ghost bride behind on the bus.

Even if Xiao Wu said this ghost bride was different from A Xi in the Evil Ghost Puzzle, and even if Su Bai was accustomed to indifference and ignoring strangers, for A Xi, who had accompanied him for ten years… sometimes, evil spirits were more worthy of his help than humans.

Su Bai’s right hand gripped the ghost bride’s left hand. The body of the supernatural entity was cold and stiff, yet the force of its struggle was terrifyingly strong. Su Bai could already foresee his right hand being dislocated.

But it didn’t matter.

Fully awakening the ghost bride was the best way to ensure everyone’s survival.

To achieve this, Su Bai needed to take one more step toward the ghost bride!

With this thought, Su Bai closed his eyes and began to channel all his strength, draining the limited power within his body at an almost frantic pace, using it to fully activate the Evil Ghost Puzzle.

The puzzle was a part of Su Bai’s body. From the moment he chose to accept this ability, Su Bai had also become a piece of the puzzle—just a much larger piece than the others.

So when Su Bai chose to fully utilize the power of one piece of the puzzle, he would merge closely with it, exchanging memories during resonance, feeling the pain of the puzzle’s body, and even transforming into the evil ghost within the puzzle!

The more powerful the Evil Ghost Puzzle, the more "aftereffects" Su Bai would experience after resonating and merging with it.

But borrowing A Xi’s power did not cause Su Bai discomfort. After all, she was his first puzzle piece, and over ten years, they had become as close as siblings.

"A Xi—!"

Su Bai shouted the ghost bride’s name at the moment his power surged. At the same time, blood suddenly bloomed on Su Bai’s chest, as if stabbed, and began to flow outward.

Su Bai felt no pain. As blood stained his old school uniform, a blood mist spread around him.

The blood mist vanished in an instant, but within it, Su Bai now wore the familiar, ornate red wedding dress. A bridal veil adorned with silver bells covered Su Bai’s face, but though his build, which differed from A Xi’s, he now wore the ghost bride’s attire, his body remained his own.

Only his temperature was as cold as an evil ghost.

In his previous life, he was often called a "monster," perhaps because many of the powerful entities in his Evil Ghost Puzzle were female. When Su Bai borrowed their power at full strength, he would resonate with their abilities and even their appearance, so…

Yes, sometimes Su Bai was misunderstood as having a fondness for cross-dressing.

Hmm.

The only consolation was that only powerful evil ghosts would occasionally cause such resonance in appearance, and the more powerful ghosts, having existed in the nightmare world for longer, tended to have more conservative personalities from centuries past, saving Su Bai from total social humiliation.

Transformed into the ghost bride, Su Bai tightly gripped the ghost bride before him. After fully holding her cold, stiff hands, he whispered, "Come with me. Do what you want to do."

Sensing the right moment, Su Bai quickly stepped back, pulling the ghost bride forward in an instant. The sound of chains and shackles shattering completely echoed through the bus like heavenly music.

"Last stop, Ghost Village," Driver’s voice floated eerily from the front, and the bus doors opened with a creak.

The two ghost brides standing at the back of the bus, along with the third ghost bride reflected in the window, all turned to look toward the bus door. Outside, torches and pre-banquet bonfires of Ghost Village were visible, with countless shadowed figures standing in the firelight, gazing toward Route 444's Last Bus.

"The bride…"

"Feast time…"

Perhaps driven by impatience for the ghost wedding, Ghost Village seemed as restless as the white qipao paper doll when welcoming the bus for the second time. Voices filled with craving for the bride and feast echoed outside the bus door.

Su Bai moved aside in the bus, released his grip, and watched as the ghost bride, bleeding, passed him.

"Thank you."

The shadowy figures outside the bus door made as if to board, but as the ghost bride stepped toward the front door, a certain force suppressed them, forcing them to retreat step by step.

Before being awakened, the ghost bride had been a senseless creature, bound by instinctual fear and her past, stripped of her freedom. Despite her power, she was more helpless than a common animal, unable to do anything.

But now, she was an evil ghost returned from hell.

A Xi’s figure was slender and graceful, her movements dignified as she descended the steps before the bus door, as if elegantly stepping down from a wedding carriage. But the moment the ghost bride left the bus, fire exploded outside, raging fiercely.

Shadowy figures were thrown into the flames one by one, and the sound of silver bells echoed like a ceaseless song—the ghost bride’s song of vengeance.

Su Bai’s power continued to drain due to using the puzzle. He intended to step out and help the ghost bride, but he still had something he must do now—

"Don’t move!"

Su Bai reached out and seized the white qipao paper doll by its neck. Though it was made of paper, Su Bai felt the material was as hard as metal.

"Hmph." Su Bai was not surprised. In the next moment, the power of the Evil Ghost Puzzle turned his hands into pale white ghost hands, with sharp nails slicing effortlessly into the paper doll’s neck.

The paper doll’s body began to tremble.

Evil spirits fear neither humans nor being destroyed by them.

But when faced with a stronger, more terrifying ghost, even evil ghosts feel fear.

Su Bai could not know what thoughts filled the empty head of the white qipao paper doll—perhaps regret for not acting against Qin Ge sooner, or for revealing its malice too early.

Su Bai only watched as the white qipao paper doll, its neck pierced, instantly reverted to a thin sheet of paper, streaking away with a "whoosh" toward the crevice behind Qin Ge. Not allowing the paper doll to escape, Su Bai lashed out, his sharp nails gleaming like metal blades under the bus lights.

Almost the moment Su Bai raised his hand, Qin Ge, who had been forced to sit still, reacted swiftly. He stood up and sidestepped smoothly, exposing the paper doll hiding behind him to Su Bai’s attack.

A metallic flash, and the white qipao and lower half of the paper doll were sliced off by Su Bai’s ghost hand.

Unfortunately, judging by the paper doll’s attempt to flee toward the window after abandoning Qin Ge, losing its lower half mattered little.

Perhaps blinded by the oppressive aura emanating from the Evil Ghost Puzzle, the paper doll failed to see that Su Bai’s strength was actually insufficient and on the verge of exhaustion. Too convinced it was no match against Su Bai, the paper doll dared not confront him directly. Ditching its useless lower half, it fled toward the gap in the window.

It vaguely remembered the driver’s earlier words: the paper doll had originally flown in through the window as a special passenger.

But before it could successfully escape, a hand had already grabbed its flimsy paper arm. The white qipao paper doll instinctively tried to rip its arm off and flee again, but weirdly found that it couldn’t move?

Its thin head turned to look at Su Bai’s hand gripping its arm.

It was Su Bai’s left hand, bearing the Mist Shop’s mark. A bloodred string of beads was wrapped around his wrist, and one of the beads was emitting a light that seemed blinding to the paper doll.

"No worries, I’ll prepare an excellent container for you," Su Bai’s calm voice sounded from beneath the bridal veil. "Goodbye!"

In a split second, the white qipao paper doll turned into a cloud of blood in full view of everyone, then dissipated into nothing.

Only Su Bai knew that the paper doll evil ghost had not disappeared but had been sucked in by the brand on his left palm and the bloodred string of beads on his wrist. Only Su Bai noticed that one of the beads on the string had gradually taken on a peculiar dark, reddish-black shade.

*Huff—*

Beneath the bridal veil, Su Bai breathed out a huge sigh of relief, even leaning unsteadily against a nearby seatback for support.

Though he had acted decisively moments earlier, Su Bai knew that his body was running on empty. If there had been another special passenger on the bus intent on causing trouble, he would have had no choice but to flee into the Ghost Village with the trio.

The weakness that followed the exhaustion of his strength washed over him like a tidal wave. Suppressing the urge to sit down on the nearby seat, Su Bai straightened up and walked toward the bus’s rear door.

With each step, the wedding dress on Su Bai faded bit by bit.

By the time he reached the rear door, he had returned to his original appearance. Even the wound on his chest and the bloodstains that had seeped through earlier had vanished without a trace. The only difference from before was that his school uniform had dried completely, no longer looking as disheveled as it had been.

Su Bai looked out the bus door. Though he had only captured one evil ghost, the Ghost Village outside was almost entirely engulfed in flames. Whether it was the silent shadows representing the villagers or the dilapidated structures of the village, everything was burning fiercely.

For the human players on the bus, this game might have reached its happy ending.

Only in the center of the Ghost Village was there a path stretching from the entrance deep into its heart. This path was free of flames, and by the light of the fire, one could even see a figure in a wedding dress strolling leisurely along it.

At this moment, the Ghost Village became a living hell—but it was a hell only for its villagers.

"Just who are you?"

Just as Su Bai was about to step off the bus to meet the ghost bride, Qin Ge’s voice rang out behind him—

"Everything that just happened... surely it wasn’t just the power your brother passed to you in a dream, was it?"