A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

An elderly man sat on the right side of the second row, wearing a Zhongshan suit and holding a newspaper. He was holding the newspaper upside down, but he was still "reading" it attentively.

A fat man sat on the left side of the third row, wearing a chef's uniform with brown stains on his apron. He held a cleaver in his hand—the cleaver was casually placed on his lap, blade facing outwards.

In the fourth row on the right sat a child, about seven or eight years old, wearing a blue suit and holding a teddy bear. He was smiling, his mouth stretched to two-thirds of his cheek.

There were eight empty seats left. Old Zhang sat in the first row on the right, right next to the girl in the school uniform—he seemed oblivious to everything, still drinking his beer. Shen Hong sat in the fifth row on the left, as far away from those things as possible. Xu Lei sat in the last row.

Lin Chao put in his coin and pulled Xiao Yu onto the bus. The two huddled in the sixth row, Xiao Yu burying her face in Lin Chao's shoulder.

Han Yingying scanned the carriage and chose a seat on the right side of the fifth row, across the aisle from Shen Hong.

The car door closed.

The bus started moving and began its journey.

No one spoke in the carriage. The engine's sound was low and hoarse, like the snoring of an old man on his deathbed. The scenery outside the window began to change—dense forests appeared on both sides of the dilapidated asphalt road. The trees were black. Not because of the dim light, but because the trees themselves were black, even their leaves were jet black.

The bus swayed and rattled as it drove.

Shen Hong leaned closer and whispered, "You really cleared Rank C?"

Han Yingying nodded.

Shen Hong sized her up for a moment, then took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth without lighting it. "You don't look like someone who's ever done a C-level. You're too clean."

"Thanks."

Shen Hong scoffed and didn't press the matter further.

Suddenly, a commotion came from the front row.

Xu Lei stood up at some point and walked towards the third row. He stared at the fat man in the chef's uniform—or more precisely, at the cleaver on the fat man's thigh.

"What are you doing?" Shen Hong frowned.

"Grab a weapon," Xu Lei said softly.

"Are you crazy? Don't touch those things!"

Xu Lei ignored her. He walked to the third row and reached for the kitchen knife.

The fat chef didn't react. Xu Lei easily pulled the knife away.

But just as the knife left—the fat man turned his head.

It turned 180 degrees.

The bones in his neck cracked, and his face was directly facing Xu Lei. His face had no features, smooth as a hard-boiled egg, except for a crack in the very center—that was his mouth.

He uttered a single word: "Return."

Xu Lei's hands were trembling, but he didn't let go of the knife.

"还" (pronounced with a second tone).

"Return!" (Third tone)

On the third note, the fat chef stood up from his seat. He was two meters tall, a head taller than Xu Lei. The crack widened, extending from his face to his neck, revealing a dense array of teeth—not human teeth, but triangular, shark-like sharp teeth.

Shen Hong sprang up from her seat, grabbed Xu Lei by the back of his collar, and pulled him backward.

"Give the knife back to it!"

Xu Lei gritted his teeth.

Han Yingying watched all this from a few rows behind. She noticed a detail—although the fat chef stood up, his feet didn't leave the area in front of his seat. It was as if he was tethered to the seat by some unseen force.

"It can't get out," Han Yingying said.

Shen Hong and Xu Lei both looked at her at the same time.

"Its movement is limited to its own seat. You just need to take a step back."

Han Yingying wasn't sure either, but the con artist's skills made the statement sound particularly convincing.

Xu Lei took a step back.

The fat chef's body had indeed reached its limit, and he bounced back as if pulled by a rubber band, sitting back down in his seat. But the crack in his skin remained open, and his teeth inside ground together, making a sickening sound.

"Give the knife back to it," Han Yingying said again.

"Why? Is it bad to have weapons?" Xu Lei's voice was a little rough.

"If you take something from it, it will keep watching you. It's the same when you get to the guesthouse."

Han Yingying is talking nonsense. She has absolutely no idea what the rules are. But what she said is reasonable enough, at least in this context.

Xu Lei hesitated for a few seconds, then tossed the cleaver back onto the fat chef's lap.

As soon as the knife fell back down, the fat man's head turned back to face him, the crack closed, and he returned to his previous motionless state. The whole process took no more than two seconds.

The carriage returned to silence.

Shen Hong returned to her seat and glanced at Han Yingying. The look in her eyes was much more complex than before.

The bus continued on its way. The dark forest outside the window grew denser and denser, like giant fingers reaching out from the ground, trying to tear the sky apart.

Five minutes later, a new problem arose.

The kid in the fourth row—the one holding the teddy bear—stood up from his seat.

Unlike the fat chef, he wasn't restricted. He simply stood up confidently, hugged his teddy bear, and started walking down the aisle.

The child walked slowly, each step firm and deliberate. His leather shoes clattered on the carriage floor, making a steady "tap, tap, tap" sound, as rhythmic as a metronome.

He started walking from the fourth row and moved to the back.

As they passed the fifth row, Shen Hong turned her face towards the window, gripping the armrest tightly. The child didn't stop and continued walking backwards.

When they reached the sixth row, it was Lin Chao and Xiao Yu's seats.

The child stopped.

He tilted his head and looked at Lin Chao and Xiao Yu, his wide smile particularly glaring in the dim carriage light.

"Sister," the child said in a clear, childish voice, "your seat is so pretty. I want to sit here."

Xiaoyu's body was trembling violently. Lin Chao shielded her behind him, his lips trembling so much he couldn't utter a complete sentence.

"No...no, this is ours..."

"I want to sit." The child's smile remained the same, but his tone changed. It wasn't a pleading, but a statement—I want to sit, so I will sit.

Shen Hong whispered from the fifth row, "Give it to them."

Lin Chao and Xiao Yu quickly stood up and retreated into the aisle. The child sat down in the sixth row, placed the teddy bear on the empty seat next to him, and patted it with satisfaction.

"Thank you, sister."

Then he stopped moving. He turned back into the smiling sculpture he had been before.

Lin Chao and Xiao Yu stood in the middle of the aisle, their faces almost completely drained of color. There were only two empty seats left in the carriage—one in the second row on the left, right next to the old man reading the newspaper backwards. The other was in the fourth row, the seat the child had just been sitting in.

"Sit there," Han Yingying pointed to the fourth row. "The child is gone, it should be safe."

Lin Chao pulled Xiaoyu to sit down next to him. Xiaoyu kept her eyes closed the whole time, tears streaming down her face.

Shen Hong looked at Han Yingying. "You seem quite experienced?"

Han Yingying didn't answer. She was just quick-witted. As for experience—what experience could someone with amnesia have?

The bus slowed down.

The black forest outside the window disappeared, replaced by a vast wasteland with a building standing in the center.