15: Please don't let anything else happen to them... Su Chen, I beg you.

The ear-piercing sound of brakes echoed through the deep tunnel, kicking up a cloud of dust mixed with the smell of mold.

Su Chen violently jerked the steering wheel to the left. The survival bus, like an enraged giant beast, swung its tail and smashed aside the wrecks of two scrapped private cars, wedging itself firmly into the narrowest corner deep within the tunnel.

Behind them, infrared laser beams swept frantically through the curtain of rain at the tunnel entrance, but due to the angle, they couldn't reach this blind spot.

Su Chen didn't rush to turn off the engine. He panted heavily, his palms feeling a faint numbness.

During that extreme drift just now, his inner energy had almost completely filled his entire arm.

He glanced at the rearview mirror. Qin Ya was pale-faced, comforting the frightened girls, while Lin Hongyao gripped the handrail so hard her knuckles were white from the exertion.

Suddenly, the green fluorescent glow on the dashboard extinguished instantly, replaced by a piercing blood-red light.

[Warning: Sunset Value detected at zero and entry into a special zone. Night Mode activated.]

[Doors and windows automatically locked. Current Zone: Fear Jungle Border.]

[System Prompt: If emotional fluctuations exceed the critical threshold, 'Rift Infiltration' will be triggered.]

[Please remain absolutely calm; otherwise, the things outside the carriage will crawl out from your shadow.]

The faint emergency light in the carriage shattered with a pop, and the world fell into a deathly silent darkness.

This damn system doesn't even give people a moment to catch their breath.

Su Chen keenly sensed the air drop several degrees in temperature.

His ears twitched.

In the silence, a 'sizzle—sizzle—' sound came from the roof of the bus.

"Everyone... everyone huddle together, don't run around."

Zhao Wanting's voice rang out in the darkness, carrying a habitual tone of command, but the tremble at the end betrayed her fear.

She seemed to want to demonstrate her leadership, but as she passed Wang Li, she deliberately lowered her raspy voice.

"Li Li, did you hear that just now? Last night I saw two girls screaming outside. When they were dragged out of the bus, the sound of their bones snapping lasted for a full half-hour... Their tongues were apparently made into road signs."

Wang Li was just an ordinary art student; how could she have ever heard such intimidation?

Her breathing instantly became rapid, her chest heaving violently, even starting to sob.

"Stop it... please stop it..."

Wang Li curled up on the seat, her whole body shaking like a leaf.

With the enhancement of his Extreme Yang Sacred Body, Su Chen's vision allowed him to see the window glass clearly.

As Wang Li's emotions collapsed, several hair-thin cracks actually appeared on the thick bulletproof glass.

The cracks spread extremely fast. In just a few seconds, a sharp claw covered in black fur and dripping with viscous green liquid forced its way through the spiderweb-like gaps.

It was the claw of a Rotten-faced Dog, carrying the stench of a fermenting corpse.

"Shit."

Zhao Wanting, are you seriously looking for trouble for no reason?

Su Chen cursed inwardly and stepped in front of Wang Li in one stride.

If this woman completely broke down, everyone on the bus would become dinner for that dog!

He didn't use brute force to resist the claw; instead, he reached out with his broad, warm palm and pressed it firmly onto Wang Li's ice-cold shoulder.

"Wang Li, look at me."

Su Chen's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unquestionable magnetism, like a ray of warm sunlight cast into this cold abyss.

Wang Li looked up in terror, meeting Su Chen's deep, almost eerily profound pupils.

"What kind of candy does your daughter like most?"

Su Chen suddenly asked a completely irrelevant question.

Wang Li was stunned. Her brain stalled for three seconds in extreme fear before she subconsciously blurted out a few words.

"Straw... strawberry flavor, it has to be the kind with the filling."

"Hmm, strawberry flavor is good. When it's light, I'll take you to the supply station ahead to find some."

Su Chen replied calmly, but the Yang Energy in his palm quietly circulated at that moment, flowing from her shoulder into her heart and lungs.

The Yang Energy was like a warm little stream, instantly soothing her erratic heartbeat.

The frantically twitching claw of the Rotten-faced Dog seemed to be branded by fire, letting out a 'screeching' cry of pain.

As Wang Li's emotions calmed, the cracks on the glass actually began to slowly heal at a visible rate, forcefully trapping the severed black claw in the gap before snapping it off and flinging it away.

The temperature inside the carriage rose slightly.

In the darkness, Lin Mengyao watched Su Chen's back, her inner shock beyond words.

Although she came from a financial magnate family and had seen countless elites who remained calm under pressure, a man like Su Chen who could resolve such a bizarre crisis with just a word and a hand was unique.

She immediately understood, dropped her cold heiress act, took a deep breath, and walked toward the back rows.

Imitating Su Chen, she lightly patted the girls' backs one by one.

"It's okay now. Think about the first thing you want to do when you get home, or a small thing that makes you feel most at ease."

The rapid breathing in the carriage gradually stabilized, and the sensation of being watched like needles on one's back also faded.

"Su Chen..."

Qin Ya groped her way over from the side.

As the 'observer' or rather 'test subject' of this vehicle, she knew better than anyone what had just happened.

That was suppression at the genetic level.

She had been guarding Zhou Xiaomeng; just now, the little girl had been crying out in a nightmare, nearly triggering another infiltration.

Qin Ya instinctively wanted to grab Su Chen's sleeve, but her foot tripped over a scattered supply crate, and she fell straight into Su Chen's arms.

Su Chen felt a soft, warm body with a faint jasmine scent press firmly against his chest.

Qin Ya usually maintained the image of an intellectual and restrained teacher, but now she was trembling all over.

Her slender fingers gripped Su Chen's shirt collar tightly, her voice choked like a helpless child's: "Don't let anything happen to them again... Su Chen, I'm begging you."

This embrace lasted for a full five seconds.

The Extreme Yang Sacred Body within Su Chen seemed to sense a fated compatibility. Yang Energy surged wildly between their touching skin, like a warm current circulating in the narrow space.

[Detected 'Intellectual Resonance' bond. Sacred Body intimacy has surpassed the critical point.]

[System Judgment: Vehicle defense mechanism triggered directional evolution.]

"Click!"

A crisp mechanical clicking sound came from the roof.

Su Chen looked up to see a fragment of bulletproof glass glowing with a faint blue light automatically drop from the bus ceiling, then precisely attach itself like a magnet to the damaged window position.

The texture of that material was more than a grade higher than the original.

Even this can drop loot?

The corner of Su Chen's mouth curled into an arc, and he wrapped his arm around Qin Ya's waist.

This feeling was much more interesting than simply repairing the bus and killing monsters.

In the corner, Zhao Wanting gripped her pocket watch, the metal casing leaving deep red marks in her palm.

She watched Su Chen move with ease among the girls, seeing those classmates who once only listened to her now staring at that man with eyes bordering on divine worship.

Her mother's shrill warning before her death echoed in her ears again.

"Wanting, in this man-eating system, never trust any man. They only want to exploit our genes..."

But looking at Su Chen, who was currently mending fear with his body heat, her heart wavered violently for the first time.

The rain outside seemed to have stopped.

The cold wind blowing into the tunnel entrance carried the rustling sound of withered leaves.

The turbulence of the first night gradually subsided. The girls huddled together on the seats and fell into a deep sleep, letting out soft snores.

Su Chen leaned back in the driver's seat, resting with his eyes closed.

But his perception in his sea of consciousness expanded like radar to a hundred meters outside the bus.

Just then, the navigation screen flickered slightly.

A line of extremely small characters flashed in the darkness, as if a prelude to some deeper horror.

[Detected excess male aura in the carriage. Matching corresponding 'Enforcer'...]

Su Chen slowly opened his eyes, the golden light in his pupils becoming colder than ever before.

He looked into the endless darkness deep in the tunnel, knowing in his heart that this night's peace was merely the final meal before an execution.