Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 318 Old Backbone

Feeling uneasy under the strange gazes of the passengers on the bus, Mo Li suddenly tugged at Ran Qing's hand gently and asked in a low voice, "What are these things?"

On the minibus, the engine roared and the vehicle shook.

The swaying minibus made its way through the thick fog.

The winding road tilted from time to time, making the three people in the car feel dizzy and nauseous.

But those strange passengers showed no reaction to the shaking of the vehicle.

Their bodies, sitting in the darkness, swayed and rose with the minibus, as if they were part of the minibus itself.

Immediately afterwards, the minibus stopped at an intersection, and the old doors creaked open.

A hunched, elderly figure coughed as he boarded the minibus.

In the dim, greenish light, one could vaguely see the old man's wrinkled, aged face.

Those deep-set eyes, cloudy and strange, gave off a chilling and terrifying feeling.

After she boarded the minibus, she immediately looked at the three people standing by the door.

Their eyes met, and the hunched old man grinned, a rather happy smile on his face.

"...Oh dear, three little kids, you want Klaron ore too?"

The old man was hunched over, grinning, his voice hoarse and unpleasant.

Unlike the pitch black surrounding the other passengers on the minibus, Ran Qing and her companions could vaguely see the old man's face.

He noticed that the old man had a simple bamboo basket on his hunched back.

The old man, grinning strangely, had his hands hanging awkwardly at his sides, dragging something thin and sharp.

Like a sickle used for farm work...

Long Zongshu suddenly stepped forward, protecting Ran Qing and Mo Li.

He stared warily at the strange old man, remaining silent. But the three burning flames danced silently on his shoulders.

The flickering light, which could only illuminate Long Zongshu's face in the darkness but not the other flames, indicated a certain stance.

Seeing the three flickering flames, the hunched-over old man carrying a bamboo basket grinned even more broadly.

She looked deeply at the boy with three flames burning on his shoulders, smiled, walked to the front of the vehicle, and plopped down on the engine hood of the minibus.

The eerie old man stopped speaking, but Ran Qing and the other two recognized the creature's identity.

"...Old man with a back."

Long Zongshu murmured the name of the monster.

In Zangke folklore, there is a strange monster that appears frequently, much like the Old Woman.

But unlike the old woman who peels off human skin to disguise herself, the old woman who is said to look just like a human from birth.

There are also rumors that Lao Beibei is a monster that turned out of a living person who went mad.

The image of the old man carrying a load of water varies from place to place in local legends.

Some were hunched old people, some were dirty and fierce middle-aged men, and some were vicious and treacherous middle-aged women.

This kind of monster is even rarer than the Bianpo, but it is also more sinister and ferocious.

After all, Old Back doesn't need to lie; it just wields its sickle and chops people down...

This midnight minibus, which departed from the intersection of Knife Road and headed to the Laro Mine, had a strange old man among its passengers.

Mo Li muttered uneasily, "Won't the old hag and the mountain demon come up later?"

Mo Li spoke of a terrifying conjecture.

A midnight minibus heading to the Laro mine carries many strange shadows and monsters roaming the mountains along the way.

The driver remained silent and showed no concern for the passengers.

The passengers on the bus all stared at Ran Qing and the other two living people with strange looks. After another ten minutes or so, the swaying minibus stopped at the head of a broken stone bridge.

The water flows gently beneath the bridge, its surface barely visible through the thick fog.

After a while, there was a splashing sound of water, and suddenly something climbed onto the minibus.

But the thing didn't go inside the vehicle; instead, it climbed up the roof along the handrail at the back of the minibus.

The heavy, sluggish body made a rustling vibration as it rubbed against the minibus.

Ran Qing and the other two looked up at the same time, but they couldn't see what was lying on top of them through the roof of the car.

After the giant object climbed onto the roof of the car, it stopped moving and became completely silent.

The minibus seemed to be moving a little slowly through the fog.

Inside the car, all was still deathly silent.

The eerie old man sitting on the hood of the car just smiled sinisterly in the darkness, his turbid, sunken eyes staring straight at Ran Qing and the other two.

But the old man stopped making a sound, and neither did the other passengers on the bus.

An eerie silence seemed to have become the rule on this midnight minibus, and no one dared to break it easily.

Infected by this eerie atmosphere, Ran Qing and the other two also shut up and dared not speak anymore.

The longer they stayed on the bus, the more they realized a certain rule—it seemed that as long as they remained silent, nothing would happen.

But after they fell completely silent and didn't speak for a long time, even the strange passengers on the bus stopped looking at them.

They seemed to ignore them.

In contrast, every time they whispered, no matter how softly they made it, it would instantly attract the attention of everyone in the car.

In this silent passage, the minibus swayed as it drove on.

Time ticked by, and Ran Qing would occasionally look down at her watch.

They had been away from the headless road for half an hour, and according to Zong Shu's directions, they would reach the Laro Mine in about ten minutes.

Perhaps the destination of this journey is actually the Laro mine?

This minibus was just a means of transportation to take them to their destination.
If you think back to the legends of the midnight minibuses, people always say that if you jump off the minibus halfway through the journey, you can escape back to the human world.

Although those who jumped off the train midway to escape would generally become insane or mentally unstable for the next few years.

But at least it proves that the danger of this midnight minibus trip was not on the journey itself, but at the destination.
Such a thought had just surfaced in Ran Qing's mind.

The minibus, swaying along in the thick fog, suddenly braked sharply.

The screeching sound of brakes exploded in the thick fog, as mournful as a ghost's wail.

The passengers on the bus staggered forward due to the inertia of the sudden braking.

The shadowy passengers were alright; they only experienced a violent jolt.

Ran Qing and the other two who were standing, Xiao Mianhua who was lying down, and Lao Beibei who was sitting on the hood of the engine... they were all in a terrible state.

Ran Qing, who was holding onto the handrail of the minibus but still almost flew out, looked at the driver in surprise.

The next second, he learned why the minibus had suddenly stopped.

music……

The shrill music rang out from the thick fog ahead.

The crisp sound of gongs striking, the explosive sound of suonas playing, the eerie sound of reed pipes playing in unison, and the powerful pounding of drums...

From the thick fog ahead, a terrifying, shrill, wailing sound rang out.

Ran Qing's face suddenly turned pale.

(End of this chapter)