14: Chapter 14 The Mystery Inside the Car

The taxi drove through the darkness.

Chen Mo sat in the backseat, his right hand gripping the cleaver, his eyes fixed on that pair of pure black eyes in the rearview mirror.

The driver did not speak again.

He simply drove the car, occasionally turning the steering wheel as if traveling along an invisible road.

Chen Mo did not know how much time had passed.

Just as he was about to lose his patience.

The driver spoke.

"The first task."

"There is something in the car that is not yours," he said. "Find it and give it to me."

Chen Mo's Pupil of the Sequence activated instantly.

A golden field of vision swept across the entire cabin.

There was one spot where the golden lines were particularly dense.

The headrest of the passenger seat.

That headrest looked no different from the others.

In the vision of the Pupil of the Sequence, there was a writhing black shadow inside it, as if something was hidden there.

Chen Mo did not hesitate.

He leaned forward, reached out to grab the headrest, and pulled hard.

The headrest was pulled off.

There was a hollow space at the bottom, stuffed with a mass of black material.

Chen Mo pulled that thing out.

It was a cloth doll.

It was the size of a palm, handmade, and wearing a red dress.

Its face was embroidered with black thread, two crosses representing eyes and a straight line representing a mouth.

But those cross-shaped eyes were looking at Chen Mo.

【Hidden Ghost Shadow discovered: F-Class "Doll Wraith"】

【Status: Dormant】

【Threat Assessment: Low】

Chen Mo handed the cloth doll to the driver.

The driver took it, glanced at it, and then casually threw it out the window.

The cloth doll disappeared into the darkness.

"First task, complete," said the driver.

His tone did not change, but Chen Mo noticed that the pair of pure black eyes in the rearview mirror seemed to blink.

"The second task," said the driver.

"Remain absolutely still until I say you can move."

Chen Mo was stunned for a moment.

"Starting now," the driver said. "If you move, the task fails."

Chen Mo instantly controlled his body.

He even slowed his breathing, so slow that the rise and fall of his chest was almost imperceptible.

The taxi continued to drive.

Darkness swept past the windows; there was no sound, no light, nothing at all.

Chen Mo maintained that posture, his right hand gripping the cleaver, his left hand resting on his leg, his body leaning slightly forward.

His muscles began to ache and go numb, but he did not move.

Slowly, ten minutes passed.

The driver's head slowly turned around, rotating 180 degrees, his face directly facing the backseat.

The corners of his mouth slowly split open, stretching to an impossible angle.

"Are you not moving?" he asked.

Chen Mo kept the driver's rules in mind: he could not speak, as speaking counted as moving.

The driver's face continued to split, all the way to the earlobes, revealing an empty oral cavity.

In Chen Mo's field of vision, there was only a mass of writhing golden threads.

That split face leaned close to Chen Mo.

Close enough to almost touch his face.

"Are you really not moving?"

Golden threads surged out from that split mouth, wrapping around Chen Mo's arms, his neck, and his face.

Chen Mo struggled to control his body.

The threads wrapped tighter and tighter, digging into his skin and bringing sharp pain.

He could feel that those threads were probing, searching for his flaws.

As long as he moved, even the slightest tremor, those threads would tighten and crush him into pieces.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

He remembered Old Zhou's words: "Do not answer the questions it asks."

Now he knew that not only could he not answer questions, but he could not make any movements either.

Any response would trigger the rules.

He let his consciousness sink within himself, entering a state similar to meditation.

Not thinking about those threads, not thinking about that split face, not thinking about anything.

Just maintaining existence.

He did not know how much time had passed.

Those threads suddenly loosened.

Chen Mo opened his eyes.

The driver's face had already turned back, resuming its normal posture, gripping the steering wheel and looking ahead.

"Second task, complete," he said.

The driver was silent for a long time this time.

Then.

He spoke.

"The third task."

He did not turn back, but Chen Mo could see from the rearview mirror that his pair of pure black eyes were undergoing some kind of change.

The black was receding, replaced by... something else.

"Answer me one question," the driver said. "If you answer correctly, you can leave; if you answer incorrectly..."

He did not continue.

But Chen Mo knew what the result of an incorrect answer would be.

"What question?"

The driver was silent for a second.

Then he asked:

"Why am I crying?"

Chen Mo was stunned.

Why was he crying?

Crying Face Driver—the name contained "Crying Face," but from the moment he got in the car until now, that face had always been ordinary, never crying, and even devoid of any expression.

But that question was real.

The driver turned his head and looked at him.

Those eyes had completely changed.

They were no longer pure black, but had become the eyes of a normal person, with whites, pupils, and something reflected in the pupils.

Chen Mo observed carefully.

Inside, a woman holding a child was reflected.

Chen Mo stared at the reflection in those eyes.

The Pupil of the Sequence was spinning frantically, its golden field of vision piercing through the driver's body, through that shell of the Ghost Shadow, and seeing inside.

There was a man.

A real man, a man who used to be human.

He was trapped inside, wrapped in golden threads, bound by the rules.

Tears were streaming down his face, and he was weeping silently.

Those tears were golden.

【Core weakness detected】

【Target true form: Trapped human Soul】

【Weakness: Memories from before death—he had a wife and a child. On the first day the Ghost Realm descended, he drove them to the hospital, and then... he never saw them again】

【He has been looking for them】

【And has been crying ever since】

Chen Mo looked at the reflection in those eyes.

That woman, that child, was the answer.

He spoke.

"Because you cannot find them anymore."

The driver's body trembled violently.

The reflection in those eyes began to distort and blur, as if it would disappear at any moment.

"You drove them to the hospital," Chen Mo continued.

"Then the Ghost Realm descended, you were separated, you have been searching, but you cannot find them, so you cry."

The driver's mouth opened, emitting a sound.

Not the sound of a Ghost Shadow, but a human voice.

Hoarse, broken, as if he hadn't spoken for a very, very long time.

"Are they... still alive?"

Chen Mo was silent.

He did not know.

He truly did not know.

But he looked at the reflection in those eyes, looked at the man's silent tears, and said the only thing he could say:

"I do not know, but you can go look for them."

The driver's body trembled even more violently.

Those golden threads wrapped around him began to loosen and break.

His face was changing, from that ordinary, drawn-on face to a real face.

A middle-aged man's face.

Weary, sorrowful, but finally capable of expression.

He smiled.

Not the smile of a Ghost Shadow, but a human smile.

"Thank you," he said.

Then his body began to disintegrate.

Golden threads surged from within him, no longer wrapping around him, but drifting freely.

His outline became paler and more transparent, and finally...

Disappeared.

Leaving behind only one thing on the seat.

A tear.

Golden, crystal-clear, solidified like amber.

【Obtained: tear of the ghost shadow】

【E-Class Materials, can be used to refine D-Class potion "Infiltrator"】

【Obtained: sequence fragment × 10】

【Current fragments: 89】

The taxi began to disintegrate.

The car door opened automatically, and the darkness outside was receding.

Replacing it were the familiar road, the gray sky, and a road sign faintly visible in the distance.

Chen Mo pushed the car door open and stepped out.

He looked back.

That taxi was still there, but it had turned into an ordinary car.

An abandoned, rusted, old taxi that had been parked for who knows how long.

The driver's seat was empty.

Only a steering wheel remained, with a set of keys hanging from it.

The keychain was a small cloth doll.

A cloth doll wearing a red dress.

Chen Mo looked at that cloth doll.

Then he turned and walked toward his pickup truck.

The pickup truck was still where he left it, parked on the side of the road; the black rain had stopped.

He pulled the door open, sat inside, and put that golden tear into the glove box.

He started the engine and pressed the gas pedal.

The pickup truck drove off into the distance.

In the rearview mirror, the taxi grew smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared at the end of the road.

Chen Mo gripped the steering wheel, looking at the road ahead.

He had completed all three tasks.

But he did not feel relieved.

He just remembered the man's final smile.

"Thank you."

Thank him for what?

Thank him for answering that question?

Or thank him for telling him—that he could go look for them?

Chen Mo did not know.

He only knew that the man finally did not have to cry anymore.