94: Chapter 94 Missing the Last Bus

The Prophet's second set of data arrived quickly.

This time it wasn't a table, but a passage that looked like it had been written in a rush, with quite a few typos and messy punctuation.

"The Night Bus has two sets of rules."

"Those who board will be taken off their real-world path."

"Those who haven't boarded but have been named by it will be marked as 'Missed the Previous Bus'. Every time a station opens thereafter, it will drag them into a waiting state."

"Chen Shi is in the second category."

Zhao Ye finished reading and couldn't help but curse: "What were you doing before, holding onto this kind of intelligence?"

The sprite immediately replied on behalf of the Prophet: "He says he just confirmed it himself. If you could confirm it in advance, then you would be the Prophet."

"My name is Zhao Ye, thank you."

Shen Qinghe didn't join in the banter. The faint ringing of the Fate-Illuminating Bronze Bell still echoed in her ears, like a small insect burrowing into her bone joints. She could hear the rhythm between the station sign, the bus doors, and the text messages, but she could also feel her heartbeat being dragged out of sync, bit by bit.

This remnant artifact was very powerful.

And very annoying.

It didn't give one power like a weapon; instead, it stuffed the moment just before an anomaly's rules closed into her ears. It was fine to hear it once, but hearing it several times in a row made one dizzy.

Zhao Ye noticed her expression was off and lowered his voice: "You step back."

Shen Qinghe pressed her temples: "It's not time to retreat yet."

"You sound like you haven't slept in three days."

"Shut up, I can still hear it."

Bai Ya added gloomily over the channel: "Doesn't sound like you can still hear."

Shen Qinghe wanted to curse him, but the bronze bell rang again. She had no choice but to suppress her anger.

The Night Bus didn't continue to approach; it stopped outside the rain and fog, as if deliberately waiting for them to make a mistake. The names on the station sign flickered, and every time they flashed, subtle changes appeared around the people who had been named.

Chen Shi's phone time slowed down by another minute.

A faint grey mark appeared on Chen Jue's wrist.

The youth sat in the Safe House and suddenly heard someone knocking on the window.

Li Xi was supporting an old person at the entrance of the pharmacy when the phone in her pocket lit up automatically, displaying an electronic bus ticket.

She looked down and saw her own name, her face turning green.

"I didn't even board the bus, why is it issuing me a ticket?"

No one answered her. Because this was the unreasonable part of the anomaly.

Lin Zhao led Chen Jue behind the warning line. Chen Jue had struggled the whole way, only stopping when they reached this point. He watched Chen Shi being protected by Li Xi and Shen Qinghe at the pharmacy entrance, his fists clenched tight.

"I didn't mean to cause trouble." He said in a low voice.

Lin Zhao didn't comfort him.

"I know."

Chen Jue looked up, fire still in his eyes: "What do you know?"

"When I first stood on the perimeter, I also felt I could rush in." Lin Zhao looked at the driverless bus in the distance, "Later I realized, being able to hold back and not rush in is sometimes harder than rushing in."

Chen Jue was stubborn: "Are you satisfied with that?"

Lin Zhao smiled, very briefly.

"Not satisfied, which is why I'm still alive."

This sentence choked Chen Jue up.

On the other side, Bai Ya was trying to separate the four names within the Grey Net. He quickly realized that the Night Bus wasn't naming people randomly. Chen Shi was a recorder of time displacement, Chen Jue was Chen Shi's relative most easily induced, the youth had seen the Old City East Station, and Li Xi had long-term contact with patients contaminated by the Night Bus.

It was looking for people around the Torch anchor points.

It wasn't touching core members, but rather the periphery that hadn't yet been truly enveloped by the fire.

"It's learned to be smart." Bai Ya said in a low voice.

Zhao Ye stood at the very front, the evil-breaking short staff gripped in his palm, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

"Then let's teach it some pain."

Shen Qinghe heard the rhythm of the bus doors approaching again.

"No. It's not opening the doors to pick people up, it's opening them so we'll attack it."

"Are you sure?"

"Seventy percent."

Zhao Ye laughed in anger: "What about the other thirty percent?"

Shen Qinghe endured the ringing in her ears: "The other thirty percent is that if we attack wrong, people will die."

This sentence was more effective than an order. Zhao Ye reined in his actions.

Within the outer layer of the Grey Net, the Prophet sent another message.

"Those who missed the bus will be repeatedly dragged back to the station. Don't just protect Chen Shi. Protect his daily routes: home, pharmacy, school, bus stops, shops he frequents. Otherwise, it will be able to open doors from new places every time."

Lu Chen watched this message in the Xinhuo Hall, his finger pausing on the map of Jiangbei.

This wasn't an anomaly that could be solved in a single mission. It was turning the daily paths of ordinary people into stations.

He had Zero mark the frequently visited locations of Chen Shi, Chen Jue, the youth, and Li Xi into the outer protection range of the Jiangbei First Anchor. But the range was too scattered, and there were too few Fire Seals; the Grey Net could only form a blurry grey zone, unable to cover everything completely.

The Jiangbei anchor point was still too weak. The Safe House wasn't a fortress either.

The Night Bus ultimately didn't force the doors open. It seemed to have completed a test and slowly backed into the rain and fog.

When the station sign returned to normal, Chen Shi's legs went weak, and he almost sat on the ground.

Chen Jue rushed over to support him, not shouting wildly this time.

But before they could even catch their breath, the phones of everyone who had been named rang simultaneously.

Chen Shi was arranged to sit on the innermost chair of the pharmacy, far from the door and windows. Chen Jue crouched beside him, staring at his phone time as if watching a bomb countdown. Every time it slowed by a second, he would look up at Shen Qinghe.

Shen Qinghe grew annoyed from his staring and finally said: "Even if you keep staring at me, time won't speed up."

Chen Jue blushed: "I'm staring at the phone."

Zhao Ye walked past and casually added a verbal jab: "Your eyeballs are practically glued to her face."

Chen Jue wanted to curse, but remembering the strength with which Zhao Ye had held him down earlier, he could only grit his teeth and lower his head.

This petty irritation didn't eliminate the danger, but it made the air in the pharmacy less dead than before. Li Xi took the opportunity to pour hot water for the few affected ordinary people. She didn't say "Don't be afraid," because she knew that phrase was useless. She said: "Hold the cup in your hand; if it burns, that means you're still on this side."

An old person held the cup, fingers shaking violently, but really stopped looking toward the direction of the station sign.

Shen Qinghe heard the fate-illuminating bronze bell vibrate again. She frowned, nearly losing her balance.

Zhao Ye reached out to steady her. She instinctively wanted to dodge.

"Don't push yourself." Zhao Ye said.

"I'm not pushing myself."

"You almost face-planted just now."

Shen Qinghe closed her eyes and finally didn't retort. She knew she needed ten seconds of rest, but she wasn't used to admitting that on a mission.

Bai Ya saw all of this on the channel and said softly: "Record this: continuous use of the fate-illuminating bronze bell leads to brief instability in the judgment position. We'll need to assign her a secondary judge in the future."

Shen Qinghe immediately replied: "I can hear you."

Bai Ya said calmly: "That means your ears aren't broken yet, congratulations."

At the end of the data, the Prophet added a very unpleasant sentence: "If you only save the people right in front of you, the next list will be even longer."

Zhao Ye almost cursed out loud at the terminal after seeing it. Shen Qinghe didn't refute it, however, because the sentence was harsh but true. Torch saving Chen Shi now didn't mean Chen Shi wouldn't be named again tomorrow at his doorstep, outside the pharmacy, or downstairs at his company. The Night Bus had already begun turning people's daily routes into stations.

The text message content had only one line.

"Your next station has been changed."