I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

Jiangcheng is surrounded by rivers on three sides, and its geographical location is unique. Due to some historical issues, the actual permanent population of some urban areas is not as large as that of the districts and counties of ordinary third-tier cities.

With a large area and a small population, the densely built-up areas that remain can easily appear eerie and sinister.

There are many long-standing urban legends in the area, such as the haunting of Qixinggang, the suicide at Jinshui Bridge where someone seeks a substitute, and the water ghost crying at the grave in Lingxiu Lake...

A simple search can provide a constant stream of creative inspiration for the late Song Dynasty.

Although ghost stories and urban legends come in all shapes and sizes and are all told in great detail, the one that is mentioned most often is a paranormal event called "Bus No. 404".

This rumor has been circulating on local forums and online communities for at least a decade, with similar versions:

It is said that every night after midnight, a No. 404 bus will run on the road between Taiping Cemetery and Furniture City.

It is said that this vehicle does not carry living people, but is specifically for transporting wandering ghosts who have nowhere to go.

Some night shift taxi drivers swore they had seen it, while some migrant workers returning home after overtime said they had seen the car full of people from afar, all of them pale-faced.

Some people said that their relatives had mistakenly boarded the train once, and when they bent down to pick something up, they saw that none of the other passengers had feet, which terrified them.

Not long after he got off the bus, his relative also died.

……

By the end of the Song Dynasty, he had searched through all these posts and compiled a relatively complete route map.

Taiping Cemetery is in the east of the city, and the furniture market is in the north; you have to pass seven stops in between.

The route passes through the old town and an industrial area that has been abandoned for a long time. Usually, apart from fishermen and hearses, there are hardly any other people on this route.

However, amidst the various discussions, some people came out to debunk the rumors, saying that the bus company did indeed have route 404 more than ten years ago, but it was later merged due to urban redevelopment and bus route planning.

As for the ghost stories, most of them are lies, because that 404 bus was actually a converted old model.

Later, the entire group changed car models, and after the 404 was phased out, it was sent to the Jiangcheng History Museum for people to visit.

Some bus enthusiasts even posted photos: an old-fashioned white bus was quietly parked in the exhibition hall, with its "work history" written in dense detail on the information board next to it.

Isn't this exactly the material she needs?

Song Mo's eyes lit up, and he had an idea.

……

……

At one o'clock in the morning, a crisp rooster crowed through Song Mo's headphones.

[Rooster's Crow and Ghostly Concealment (Skill): The rooster's crow governs Yang and dispels Yin at dawn. Ghosts that hear the rooster's crow between midnight and dawn will transform into green smoke, increasing their movement speed and making them undetectable.]

The next second, Song Mo's entire body began to become illusory, and with a "poof," he turned into a wisp of green smoke and fell to the ground. The wind blew it away, and then it reformed.

This feeling is wonderful—

First, there's the visual aspect. In this state, everything within sight at the end of the Song Dynasty was an extremely monotonous mix of black, white, and gray.

The shimmering neon lights and starry sky outside the window looked to her like a faded black and white photograph.

The buildings are gray-white, and the roads are gray-white.

The streetlights cast eerily pale shadows.

The entire city seemed to have become a ghost town.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, it floated lightly out of the window, as light as cotton wool, and finally wobbled and landed on the ground.

The height of the five-story building meant nothing to her.

"...This is so interesting, so interesting."

Song Mo excitedly licked his lips, as if he could feel his stopped heart pounding violently.

A gentle breeze passed through her body without her feeling anything.

She could hear the wind, but she couldn't feel the temperature.

This feeling was absolutely mesmerizing for Song Mo, but fortunately, she only indulged in it for a short while before remembering her business.

She's going to kidnap a decommissioned bus tonight.

……

……

At the end of the Song Dynasty, he first went to Hongguang Community.

In her wisp of smoke form, Song Mo's speed was terrifying; a distance of several kilometers seemed to be covered in the blink of an eye.

As soon as she got closer to the area, she clearly sensed that something was wrong:

Several streets surrounding Hongguang Residential Area were cordoned off, and the yellow isolation tape swayed slightly in the night breeze.

A temporary guard post was set up at the entrance of the residential area, and several high-powered lights illuminated the surrounding area as bright as day.

Soldiers in camouflage uniforms patrolled back and forth within the cordon, their steps orderly. Each of them had a walkie-talkie clipped to their waist, from which came occasional low static and brief communications.

The end of the Song Dynasty seemed to be drawing closer.

She saw two military trucks parked next to the guard post, their bodies covered with tarpaulins, making it impossible to see what was inside.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, it drifted to the other side of the community.

Near the back gate of the residential area, the cordon was also tightly set up, and even the alley next to it, which is usually deserted, was guarded.

Two soldiers stood at the entrance of the alley, one of them holding a cigarette between his fingers, but not lighting it, just holding it there, occasionally exchanging a few words in hushed tones.

"How long do you think we'll have to hold out?" one of the younger soldiers asked.

"They didn't say anything, just keep watch," another older man replied in a low voice. "Don't ask around."

The young soldier hummed in agreement, remained silent for a few seconds, and then couldn't help but whisper, "...I heard that everything that was cleared out of there...was all transported to the research institute."

The older soldier glared at him, and the young man immediately shut up.

Song Mo heard the gist of it and had a general idea of ​​what was going on.

What happened that night really caused quite a stir.

The official explanation was a gas pipeline explosion, but this explanation clearly doesn't fool everyone.

Especially those onlookers who witnessed the zombies pouring out of the stairwell.

Seeing that he hadn't been discovered, Song Mo floated around the area again.

The cordon area was larger than she had imagined; not only was the Hongguang residential area itself sealed off, but the two adjacent streets were also placed under control.

All the shops along the street were closed, their roller shutters pulled tight, and signs on the doors read "Undergoing renovations, temporarily closed."

One convenience store had a large padlock hanging on its door, and through the glass you could see that the shelves inside were still stocked with goods, and takeout boxes were on the tables.

The shop owner clearly left in a hurry.

Just then, Yu Guang, at the end of the Song Dynasty, caught something else.

At first, she thought it was her imagination.

After turning into a wisp of smoke, her vision was different from usual. Everything looked as if it were covered by a hazy filter, and the colors were completely stripped away.

She saw something else—many gray shadows were moving around on the street.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, he didn't pay much attention and thought it was just a passerby.

But she soon realized something was wrong:

It's almost 3 a.m., and apart from patrolling soldiers and the occasional passing vehicle, there are hardly any living people on the street.

But these gray shadows are everywhere.

She stopped above the streetlight and carefully examined the shadow closest to her.

It was the image of a middle-aged man, slightly overweight, wearing an indistinguishable shirt, with his head down, slowly walking along the sidewalk.

His steps were mechanical, each step almost the same distance, neither fast nor slow, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, they looked in another direction.

Across the street, an old woman's shadow stood under the bus stop, hunched over, motionless, as if waiting for the bus.

Further away, there was a child's shadow squatting by the flower bed, holding a ball in his hands, but it was so blurry that the outline was almost indistinguishable.

[Low-level material discovered: Shadow (can be captured)]

material?

Song Mo's heart stirred, and he drifted closer to carefully observe the old woman's shadow.

This thing doesn't seem to be a ghost.

It has no physical form, no expression, and can't even be perceived as having any "consciousness".

It seemed to be just a gray outline of a human figure, as if someone had drawn a stroke in the air with very light ink.

She couldn't explain what it was.

However, since the system indicates it's low-level material, it's possible to capture it—

At the end of the Song Dynasty, he tentatively reached out and tried to touch that gray shadow.

A faint light, visible only to her, flashed by.

[Capture Successful]

The old woman's shadow seemed to have been wiped away by something, disappearing completely in an instant.

A single line of ink-wash text floats in the air: [Low-level Shadow *1 (Can be used to synthesize mid-level materials or for deployment)]

In the upper right corner of the view at the end of the Song Dynasty, the bamboo basket icon representing a "backpack" moved slightly.

They really know how to catch them.

Song Mo's interest was immediately piqued.

She immediately turned and floated towards the shadow of the child squatting by the flower bed across the street.

This shadow was even more blurred than the old woman's, its edges almost blending into the night.

Touch.

[Capture failed]

The ink-wash text prompts are concise and to the point, without any unnecessary explanations.

After the child's shadow was touched, its outline swayed slightly for a few seconds before returning to normal.

"The capture may fail."

Song Mo frowned and silently recorded his experience, "...Capturing is not 100% successful; the clarity of the shadow may be related to the success rate."

She tried again, but failed. It wasn't until the third attempt that she managed to capture the child's shadow, which flickered and eventually transformed into words.

[Capture Successful]

[Shadow (low-level material) *2]

Song Mo checked the time; it was just past 2 a.m., and she had almost two hours left.

This is going to be busy.

……

3:30 a.m.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, it transformed into a streak of blue smoke, swept across the empty main road, passed through the quiet ring road, and headed straight for the Jiangcheng History Museum in the eastern suburbs of the city.

Of course, she also took a few rides from night shift drivers while she was being lazy.

The smoke had no physical form, and the drivers were completely unaware of it, only muttering complaints about how cold the night wind was.

The museum at night should be the quietest place in the whole city.

A tall, heavy stone wall encloses the entire park, and the main building stands silently in the dark night, its glass windows reflecting the pale light of the streetlights.

The exhibition hall, bustling with activity during the day, is now deathly silent.

The park is sparsely lit, with dim lighting, and 24-hour surveillance cameras silently scan every corner.

Security guards patrolled regularly, their steps steady as they went back and forth.

The high walls that ordinary people could not climb over were practically useless to the Song Dynasty in its slumber.

She floated lightly through the tempered glass exhibition hall and went straight into the museum's interior exhibition area.

The interior was pitch black, with only the emergency indicator lights providing a faint glow.

Rows of neat display cases, old exhibits, and historical artifacts appeared before our eyes at the end of the Song Dynasty.

[Found a high-quality, fully gilded, carved family shrine (my drawing skills are too poor to capture it)]

[Found high-quality material: a Ningbo-style canopy bed from the Republican era (but my drawing skills are too weak to capture it)]

[Found high-quality material: a carved wooden bed with eight pillars and six eaves from the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty (my drawing skills are too poor to capture it)]

[Found a high-quality material: a Qing Dynasty Tongzhi period six-pillar, five-eaved, fully gilded carved bed (my drawing skills are too poor to capture it)]

【Discover……】

The late Song Dynasty was like a mouse that had fallen into a rice jar but whose mouth was too small to eat fine grains—

Ancient porcelain dating back a thousand years, century-old furniture, yellowed old photographs, dusty old newspapers, retired old-fashioned equipment...

Various materials are laid out one by one in the black and white vision, full of the deathly atmosphere of time.

But none of them were what she could capture, and she could only leave with regret, her gaze finally locking onto the deepest part of the Urban Transportation Changes Exhibition Hall.

This place displays models of all the modes of transportation that have evolved in Wuhan over the past century:

Old-fashioned rickshaws, Republic of China era bicycles, old-fashioned green bicycles from the 1970s and 80s, first-generation taxis, and early bus route replicas.

In the most secluded spot of the exhibition hall, a No. 404 bus, covered in the dust of time, stands quietly.

Upon seeing it, Song Mo breathed a sigh of relief.

We finally found it.

This is not an ordinary exhibition model.

This is the original car that was directly scrapped when the model was replaced, and countless people in Jiangcheng firmly believe it to be a "ghost car".

This provided a fairly good foundation for creative works at the end of the Song Dynasty.

For more than a decade, countless people in Jiangcheng have heard its supernatural legends, and countless rumors, speculations, fears, and delusions have been added to this long-obsolete bus.

It has no physical activity, no autonomous intelligence; it is just a dead object.

But this seemingly inanimate object has accumulated the supernatural essence of an entire city.

[Intermediate-level creative material detected (can be captured for 20 Scriptwriting Points)]

[Material Identification: Incomplete Supernatural Vessel - Route 404 Yin-Yang Bus]

[Special Note: This work carries the weight of Jiangcheng's century-old urban legends and possesses the potential to transform into a spirit or ghost. Successful creation of this work will link it to the copy "Taiping Cemetery".]

The cold, impersonal notification text floated around, and Song Mo's eyes practically lit up.