Chapter 18 The New Owner

After dinner, Fatty finished cleaning the kitchen as quickly as possible. Before it was completely dark, he put on his coat and went out for a run. Afraid that Jiang Cheng would worry, he specifically told him that he would stay nearby and wouldn't go far.

Jiang Cheng leaned leisurely on the sofa, drinking coffee. Once Fatty's footsteps had completely faded away, he picked up his coffee cup and went upstairs to his bedroom, sitting at the small table there.

A gust of wind blew in, raising a corner of the curtain. Through the half-open window, he could see the distant neon lights turning on one by one. Soon, the night would take over the world again.

Having experienced more and more missions, the boundaries between the missions and reality were gradually becoming blurred.

Outside the window, figures bustled about in busy, yet futile, activity, like tireless ants. There was a woman dressed as a white-collar worker, a man on the phone looking anxious, an old man picking up his child from school, and carefree children stepping on the paving stones of the road...

All kinds of people made up this world full of life. Such a world had once disgusted Jiang Cheng, but now, although he was unwilling to admit it, he did feel a long-lost warmth.

He didn't know when it had started, but he had more connections with this world.

He withdrew his gaze, bent down slightly, and carefully pulled open the bottom drawer. Then he reached in, expertly finding a clasp. Inside was a hidden compartment.

Opening the wooden panel of the compartment, he pushed aside the stacks of money inside and continued to reach in, finally taking out a notebook.

After a moment of silence, Jiang Cheng picked up a pen and drew a picture of a man on the latest page of the notebook. The man was sitting in a chair, looking out with a gentle expression. The background was a room filled with dense piles of corpses behind the man.

And on the wall behind Jiang Cheng, a shadow slowly opened its eyes, its expression complex.

"I know you're comforting us," Jiang Cheng seemed to feel the gaze from behind him. After putting down the pen, he closed the notebook carefully. "Huai Yi is dead. Even if we defeated the bus, it would be difficult for him to come back to life, right?"

No words appeared on the wall, nor on the ground. The dark room was eerily quiet for a moment.

Jiang Cheng leaned back in his chair, turned around, and looked at the slightly awkward shadow on the wall, saying very seriously, "Thank you. You left hope for Fatty, otherwise I really wouldn't know how to persuade him."

"Does Huai Yi himself know?" After a pause, Jiang Cheng asked softly.

Wu nodded after a moment of silence.

Jiang Cheng's body trembled. The whole play acted by the four of them was just for Fatty to see. Jiang Cheng was not surprised by this result, but he was sad.

He had originally held a glimmer of hope, expecting that Huai Yi could still come back, but reason told him that he needed to confirm the truth from Wu.

Slowly, the shadow on the wall moved. A strange ripple appeared on the black shadow, and then Wu, dressed in black, walked out of the wall. The sharp aura had disappeared. Standing in front of Jiang Cheng now was just his friend.

"It's not completely hopeless, but it's very difficult." A line of words slowly appeared on the ground, continuing to extend: "If we had just escaped from that bus, Huai Yi would definitely not have had a chance to survive, unless..."

Wu's attitude became unusually hesitant.

"Unless what?" Jiang Cheng pressed, "Unless we kill the guy driving the bus?"

Wu raised his head, and the look in his eyes as he looked at Jiang Cheng became complicated. "Unless we kill the guy driving the bus, and then you become the new owner of this bus."

...

When Fatty returned from his run, Jiang Cheng was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the computer. Seeing him acting furtively, as if he hadn't recovered from some sage mode, Fatty kindly reminded him to take care of his health and be moderate.

After changing his clothes, Fatty went to the kitchen and gulped down a large glass of water, then came back, poking his head at Jiang Cheng and asking, "Doctor, are you done? If you are, lend me the computer. I want to watch a movie."

He had decided during his run that he would turn off the lights, put on his headphones, and challenge another high-scoring horror movie by himself.

He saw that the online rating was very high, and many people said that this movie was a childhood trauma. When they watched it again after growing up, they didn't expect it to become an adult trauma.

One top-rated comment said that this movie had scared three generations of their family into trembling together, which aroused Fatty's great interest.

Finally sitting in Jiang Cheng's position, Fatty prepared a thin quilt to wrap around himself. Seeing the doctor preparing to go upstairs with his water glass, Fatty suddenly panicked a little and couldn't help but say, "Doctor, if you have nothing to do tonight, just stay downstairs. I'm alone downstairs too. It's too quiet for me to be alone."

Jiang Cheng turned his head and said in a gloomy voice, "Don't worry, you're alone now, but it'll be lively after a while." After speaking, he used the same terrifying eyes to point out sensitive places like under the table, the sofa, the kitchen, the bathroom, and even behind Fatty.

Fatty swallowed, already imagining the scene of something popping out of those places and watching with him as he watched.

But the final result was beyond Jiang Cheng's expectations. Although this Fatty was scared, he still insisted on opening the movie and putting on his headphones, his eyes staring at the screen, his expression as solemn as if he were going to his death.

Jiang Cheng sighed inwardly. Judging from Fatty's performance, he knew that Fatty was serious this time. So, after going upstairs for a short while, he pretended to come down unintentionally, then poured himself a glass of water and sat on the sofa to play with his phone, not far from Fatty.

Fatty, who was staring intently at the screen, didn't notice this. His attention was focused on the movie.

At the beginning of the movie, a line of bloody words popped up, saying that this movie was based on a true story. Fatty of course knew that this was just an eye-catching gimmick, but as he watched, his face changed. It wasn't pure fear, but the strangeness revealed everywhere in this movie actually gave him a sense of immersion.

He wanted to stop more than once, but perseverance and curiosity finally overcame his fear, and he continued to watch, until a shot flashed in the movie.

With a loud "thump," Jiang Cheng, who was checking information on his phone, was startled. He turned his head and saw that Fatty, who was originally watching a horror movie, had fallen to the ground with his chair. At this moment, Fatty was crawling out from under the table.

It was the middle of the night, and there were no lights on. Suddenly, with such a crash, Jiang Cheng was also a little scared. "What's wrong?" Jiang Cheng asked, instinctively thinking that Fatty was frightened.

"The...the movie!" Fatty's voice was trembling.

Jiang Cheng realized that something was wrong and quickly walked over. After helping Fatty up, the latter grabbed his arm, his face full of fear, and said, "Doctor, there's something wrong with this movie. I saw... I saw..."