Gou Zai Punishment Division

The crack in the screen just barely missed the 1% red battery indicator in the upper right corner.

Chen Mo rubbed the screen with his thumb, staring at the blank page of the briefing that he had to submit that night.

The dialog box had only popped up halfway when the screen went completely dark, reflecting the dark circles under his eyes.

He put his phone back in his pocket.

The subway tunnel in the distance swallowed the last glimmer of red light from the taillights.

On the empty platform, an electronic sign flashed the message "Last train has departed."

Chen Mo clutched his briefcase tightly, pondering in his mind.

After getting off at the station, I had to transfer to a night bus, and it was already 2 a.m. by the time I got back to my rented place.

If I'm late for tomorrow's morning meeting, I'll lose my 600 yuan attendance bonus, and I'll have to pay next month's rent.

He leaned against a plastic chair on the platform, his back aching, and thought he might as well go back to the office and sleep on the floor.

The fluorescent light emitted a faint buzzing sound.

Chen Mo kept his head down.

His dark shadow, which belonged to him, had somehow crept across a crack in the floor tiles.

The edges are a bit blurry, and it looks thicker than usual.

Chen Mo's back stiffened slightly.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his dry eyes vigorously.

After staying up for three consecutive all-nighters, I can see ghosts even when I see a shadow.

He suddenly couldn't remember—

Am I working overtime today, or have I been working overtime for three days already?

He put his glasses back on, pulled out a paper report from his briefcase, and checked the data by the dim light.

A butterfly flapped its wings and circled repeatedly in front of the electronic GG sign.

The electronic sign flashed: "Next bus: Arriving in 3 minutes."

A muffled rumbling sound suddenly came from deep within the tunnel.

The cement ground beneath my feet felt slightly numb.

A train not on the timetable slowly glides into the platform.

Chen Mo looked up at the electronic GG sign and wondered if it was a system error.

He didn't think too much about it.

Being able to get back to bed as soon as possible was the best thing he could do, so he stepped into the open car door.

The car door slammed shut with a dull thud, as if a breath had been sucked out, and then it locked shut with a clang.

The carriage was filled with the distinctive smell of coal smoke from an old, green train, and the bottom floor smelled of sour preservatives.

Instead of cool air, the air conditioner vents were blowing out gusts of hot, humid air with a fishy smell.

Chen Mo wiped the fog that instantly formed on his glasses and looked up.

The carriages were old-fashioned green models, with rusty oscillating iron fans hanging from the ceiling.

Chen Mo recalled riding this kind of green train when he was a child.

It's the kind of bus where you pay the coin when you get on. I remember my father even helped him pay the coin once.

This kind of old relic should have been sent to the junkyard long ago.

Is the railway bureau using scrapped cars to run night shifts?

Chen Mo suddenly had a strange idea: Should we insert coins or scan a QR code?

He couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

Looking back at the train, passengers were scattered around, each person precisely spaced two empty seats apart.

Out of the professional habit of office workers checking data, he subconsciously began to count in his mind:

"There was a high school student in a school uniform in the front row, and a man in a Zhongshan suit in the corner... Including myself, there were five of us in total. It's so late, and there are still quite a lot of people on the bus."

The older generation says, "Don't count heads in an empty car at midnight."

Once you've clearly identified them, those things will know that you can see them.

The moment Chen Mo finished counting, he glanced at the reflection in the car window out of the corner of his eye.

In the empty last row of seats, the blurry outline of the "sixth" figure was starkly reflected, stiffly sitting upright.

His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly lowered his head, pretending to look at the report in his hand.

The high school student in the front row had his neck folded back and was sleeping soundly.

The man in the corner, wearing a Zhongshan suit, had his head down, and yellow water mixed with mud and sand was dripping from the corner of his clothes.

Chen Mo had just steadied himself by holding onto the back of the chair.

The train emitted a screeching sound as its speed suddenly increased, and it became completely dark outside the window.

He gripped the handrail tightly. Something was wrong with this bus; he had to get off at the next stop.

The GG signage outside the window and the interior lighting went out at the same instant.

The friction of the tracks turned into a piercing shriek.

The train seemed to have derailed, and the carriages appeared to be thrown up and then crashed down.

Chen Mo was thrown towards the car door along with his bag, his back slamming heavily against the cast iron door panel.

He was briefly suspended in mid-air, and the feeling of weightlessness almost made him kneel down.

The LED lights on the roof of the carriage made a few crisp sounds, the light struggled to flicker twice, and then went out completely.

Several dim tungsten filament lamps lit up, buzzing overhead.

With the help of the dim light, Chen Mo was able to see his surroundings clearly.

The non-slip plastic mats underfoot were gone, replaced by rotten wooden planks.

The electronic GG sign had turned yellow and curled up, turning into a tattered missing person notice.

The person in the photo has wide-set eyes and a deep, bone-revealing gash on their cheek.

After a long and intense shaking, the train gradually stabilized.

Beneath the faded route map, several passengers lay sprawled haphazardly in the aisle.

Chen Mo, panting heavily, approached the man in the Zhongshan suit at the edge of the aisle.

He instinctively reached out to help. "Sir..."

Touching the back of the other person's hand with my fingertips felt like touching a piece of thawed, rotten flesh.

The man's chest remained still. Following the open collar, large patches of dark purple lividity could be seen on his ashen neck. His fingers were stiffly curled.

Chen Mo stopped breathing.

My gaze swept across the carriage. The bodies, twisted and contorted, were all motionless, none of them breathing.

The car body shook violently again.

A corpse fell heavily, making a dull thud as it slid down the wet, slippery floor to a spot diagonally in front of Chen Mo.

The train didn't stop at all, but a dull thud of chains being dragged could be heard outside the windproof door.

Foul-smelling black water seeped from the gaps in the sheet metal.

The iron gate was forced open.

The monster's face was covered with layers of rotten old newspapers, emitting the sour stench of sewers that had been rotting for half a month. Its bloated flesh filled the entire door frame.

The coin box in his arms was covered with blackened moss.

With each step it took, the muddy ground trembled.

Chen Mo pressed himself tightly against the metal sheet, a chill creeping up his feet. But the coldness stopped a mere inch from the tips of his shoes, eerily halting.

The shadows on the ground were even darker than they had been on the platform.

Like a pool of unyielding asphalt, it lay lifelessly at his feet.

The monster stopped in the first row.

The body, which had been completely dead just moments before, stiffly rose to its feet, its joints creaking and grinding.

His bluish-gray lips parted slightly as he slowly raised his hand. Between his fingers, a translucent webbed finger was visible.

An old copper coin slipped through his fingers and fell into the iron box with a clatter.

The monster moved to the next row and stopped in front of the high school student whose neck was bent backward.

The high school student's dangling fingers were empty.

From within the monster's bloated body came a series of rigid "click-clack" sounds, like old gears jamming.

The giant hand with translucent webbed feet slowly reached out and gently covered the high school student's head.

Chen Mo watched helplessly.

The flesh and bones made a dull cracking sound, like a wet cardboard box being forcibly crumpled and collapsing inward.

In just a few seconds, the entire person silently "melted" into the depths of the monster's greasy uniform, without leaving a single drop of blood.

In the black water, only a blank student ID card remained, lying there.

Chen Mo's back was pressed tightly against the sheet metal. His Adam's apple bobbed laboriously.

The sound of coins being inserted drew closer, and the footsteps in the muddy water felt heavy and sticky.

A coin box covered in moss was handed over.

Chen Mo didn't bring that kind of money.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye towards the diagonal front.

A coin had fallen from the fingers of the corpse that had just collapsed on the ground and was now lying in the mud under the seat.

He doesn't want to die.

Chen Mo squatted down, plunged his palm directly into the foul-smelling black water, wiped it across the stiff surface of the corpse's shoe, and tightly gripped the cold object.

Everyone has to get through tonight.

Just as I grasped the coin, my fingertip was accidentally scratched by a sharp-edged paper report from inside the briefcase.

A drop of warm blood trickled down his fingertip and landed precisely on the ashen surface of the corpse's shoe, instantly seeping in.

When a living person passes through the underworld, they should not leave any money as a toll; if they are stained with blood, it means their life has been changed.

This coin became the "IOU" he earned with his life.

Chen Mo straightened his back and tossed the copper coin, stained with blood and mud, into the coin slot.

The coin fell into the metal box.

With a click, an old-fashioned train ticket was ejected from the bottom of the metal box.

On rough mimeograph paper, handwritten, incomplete characters read: "...Found you, Chen Mo..."

This is not about buying tickets.

This is buying your life.

The monster carried the coin box to the next row.

Chen Mo leaned back in the moldy chair and turned to look out the window.

The dried black mud on the carriage walls peeled off, revealing the four characters "Ximen Bao Temple" at the location of the final stop.

Behind me, I heard a faint sound of bones grinding together.

Chen Mo's eyelids twitched slightly as he looked diagonally ahead through the reflection in the car window.

The butterfly that was on the platform just now was now eerily perched on the corpse from which he had taken the toll.

The butterfly flapped its wings, one flap after another.

The glaring bloodstains on the corpse's shoes had completely disappeared.

Instead, the corpse's slightly open fingers were now making a cracking sound as if the bones were dislocating.

Inch by inch, I gripped it tightly again.