36: The bus got jealous, and a woman's mouth grew out of its fuel tank.

Su Chen stared at that wriggling piece of metal, his eye twitching.

The pair of dark red lips looked as if they had been torn directly from a human face and welded onto the fuel tank cap; a half-torn, blood-stained pink hair tie was stuffed into the fine wrinkles.

That was the item Zhao Wanting had dropped earlier when her consciousness was being "drained" in the secret room.

How freaking sinister.

Su Chen cursed inwardly; this survival game seemed intent on taking the Lovecraftian style to the very end.

"Yang Energy... not enough... want kisses..."

A plaintive, longing murmur drifted from the fuel tank, the voices of several girls overlapping, giving Su Chen goosebumps all over.

The girls around who were preparing to board all stepped back in unison; the timid ones had already begun covering their mouths and gagging.

Lin Mengyao's face was pale, yet she habitually stood in front of Su Chen.

The chaebol heiress probably hadn't recovered her wits from the "forced kiss ceremony" just now, instinctively trying to protect the "asset" she had just stamped.

"Back up."

Qin Ya suddenly reached out and grabbed Lin Mengyao's arm.

This beautiful Class Teacher, who had been trembling before the blackboard just moments ago, now had a sharp, almost intuitive glint in her eyes.

"It's not trying to take your life; it's demanding 'emotional validation' from you. This bus... has come to life."

Su Chen glanced at Qin Ya. It seemed the "Tactical Guidance" bond attribute had started to take effect; this woman's understanding of the situation had instantly leveled up.

Lin Mengyao and Qin Ya exchanged a look. Though there was still a hint of friction between the chaebol heiress and the aloof teacher, under this eerie survival pressure, the two showed a surprising amount of chemistry.

They each bit their fingertips, letting two translucent drops of blood fall onto those metal lips.

A red and a purple drop of Essence Blood slid down the fuel tank's casing.

The strange mouth was like a cat smelling fish; it snapped open, revealing forest-white, needle-like metal teeth that greedily sucked the blood dry.

However, that tooth-aching cracking sound did not stop.

Instead, the muscle-like textures on the fuel tank casing throbbed even more violently, like a prisoner starved for three days and nights frantically pounding on an iron door.

Su Chen was in no hurry to draw blood.

He walked around the bus, his sharp gaze sweeping over the mottled rust on the body.

The patterns of this rust were very strange; he hadn't noticed it back in the underground secret room.

Now, under the sunlight, he realized these lines were constantly overlapping and converging.

As the descendant of a Martial Arts Family, he was all too familiar with this kind of composition.

This wasn't freaking rust; it was clearly a miniature blueprint of the Lin family's ancestral home's foundation.

Recalling the marriage contract in that Bronze Coffin earlier, the absurd theory in Su Chen's mind fully took shape.

What survival bus? This was essentially a "Mobile Yang Energy Cauldron" forged by the Lin family ancestors to cope with the apocalypse, using female emotions as the catalyst and Yang Energy as the ink.

This bus was a bottomless pit that lived off others.

And he was the sole power source.

And Zhao Wanting—that poor girl who used to fill love letters with his name—had likely become the bus's first "catalyst" because of her obsessive unrequited love.

Su Chen's gaze turned fierce. He sliced a gash into his palm and pressed his hand heavily onto those nauseating lips.

"Boom!"

Violent Sacred Yang Qi poured down from his palm. Su Chen's voice was deafening in the deathly silent bus.

"How much do you want? Name your price! Once you've taken my energy, you'd better be a good dog. If you dare to bite back, I'll tear you into scrap metal!"

The bus vibrated violently, as if experiencing some indescribable pleasure.

The needles on the dashboard spun wildly before suddenly snapping into place.

A translucent, illusory panel popped up before Su Chen's eyes:

【Contract Signed: For every new person who offers sincere loyalty, one Privilege Carriage will be unlocked.】

【Warning: If betrayal is detected, the Artifact Spirit will devour all of their memories as fuel.】

"Cough..."

Zhao Wanting, sitting in the hidden compartment beneath the driver's seat, suddenly sat bolt upright.

Her previously festering face, bathed in golden light, miraculously regained its clarity.

She turned her head, her pupils reflecting Su Chen's indifferent profile, a morbid yet satisfied curve lifting the corners of her mouth.

"I'm willing... to be the first."

As soon as she spoke, Zhao Wanting's body shattered inch by inch before everyone's eyes, turning into a brilliant stream of golden light that roared into the hood.

"Vroom—Rumble!"

The originally dilapidated bus let out a roar akin to a waking beast.

The metal plates at the rear surged and elongated like waves, constructing a brand-new carriage out of thin air.

The narrow, crowded space expanded instantly, the scent of high-grade agarwood overpowering the smell of gasoline.

The rear cabin door slowly opened, and the soft, warm light emanating from within made all the girls, exhausted by the apocalypse, stare wide-eyed.

There were rows upon rows of luxury bunks covered in snow-white silk duvets, with dark gold patterns on each headboard flowing with a reassuring power.

But on the headboard closest to Su Chen, a line of bloody small characters was particularly eye-catching:

【The loyal get a warm bed; the hypocrites feed the zombies. Su Chen, please begin your inspection.】

Su Chen withdrew his palm, watching the wound heal rapidly, then looked at the "goddesses" whose eyes were filled with fanaticism and longing.