Horror revival: I Own a Ghost Bus

"Break the bus?"

Hearing Jiang Yan's plan, the man in the black hat paused, a flicker of disappointment crossing his face. Clearly, this wasn't the answer he'd expected.

"I don't know why you'd come up with that idea," he said, "but you saw what happened to the blond youth. He put all his strength into it and couldn't make a dent. This bus isn't something from our reality. In our field, we call something like this a ghostly entity."

"I know. And that's exactly why I've decided to do it," Jiang Yan replied firmly.

At that moment, the bus engine died, and the speed began to slow. The murmurs from the tour group passengers gradually faded, and the air turned icy cold, filled with the stench of rotting corpses.

The remaining female streamer—the team's makeup artist—was terrified. She'd seen three of her companions die and understood that the bus stopping was a prelude to another death.

"Save me, please! I don't want to die!" she begged, clutching the man in the black hat's arm, her voice trembling.

The man gave her an irritated look, saying flatly, "The killings when the bus stops are random. You won't necessarily be the one this time."

His words seemed to calm her a bit, though she continued to murmur prayers under her breath: "Buddha, please, not me… not me…"

The bus slowed to a crawl, then came to a complete stop with a long, screeching sound. The lights went out, plunging the interior into darkness.

Just as before, Jiang Yan felt the familiar cold wind drifting through the cabin—but this time, the icy chill was sharper, cutting into his bones.

After a few seconds, the engine roared to life, and the dim, yellowish lights flickered back on.

Jiang Yan let out a slow breath. It seemed his luck had held again.

As soon as the lights returned, he turned to check on Zhang Tiantian. She, too, had survived.

Which meant the one who'd died this time was the makeup artist.

Turning around to confirm, Jiang Yan found her blood-soaked corpse slumped in the seat beside the man in the black hat. Her eyes—bloody, hollow, and filled with terror—seemed frozen in an eternal scream. It was unimaginable what horrors she'd endured in those few seconds of darkness.

Jiang Yan was hardly surprised that the man in the black hat had survived yet again. Given his calm demeanor since boarding, Jiang Yan was convinced he had some hidden means of protection.

"Your luck is something else," Jiang Yan remarked, eyeing him.

"Luck?" The man in the black hat sneered. "There's no such thing as luck in the supernatural world. Don't rely on something so intangible to keep you alive."

"You're right," Jiang Yan nodded in agreement. "We each need to control our own fate."

"Easy to say," the man scoffed. "But keeping yourself alive here isn't so simple. And breaking the bus? You think that's going to save you?"

Seeing his skepticism, Jiang Yan decided it was time to explain. "I have a reason for wanting to break the bus. I've discovered a third rule—a crucial one."

"A third rule?" The man in the black hat immediately perked up, sitting straighter.

"Yes. The first two rules dictate how people die, but they don't explain why. This third rule, however, sheds light on that. It reveals the purpose behind this bus's existence."

"The bus's purpose?" The man looked skeptical. "Nobody has the time to sit around wondering why a ghostly entity exists."

"And that's exactly why so many fail to escape," Jiang Yan replied confidently.

The man's expression darkened. He knew Jiang Yan was onto something, but curiosity compelled him to ask, "You seem very sure of yourself. So, what is the purpose of this bus?"

"To be honest, I don't know for certain," Jiang Yan admitted. "But think about this: while the bus is in motion, everything on board looks like a regular bus. These corpses are all dutifully playing the roles of passengers and driver."

The man in the black hat was silent, seemingly beginning to understand.

Jiang Yan continued, "These passengers stick to their roles when the bus is moving, talking among themselves but staying in their seats. Even when the blond youth made a scene, they only watched him without leaving their seats. The driver, too—his focus was on the road, and no matter how much noise the blond made, he didn't turn back."

"But the moment the blond youth interfered with the driver, the bus stopped."

"So," Jiang Yan concluded, "the third rule is that everything on this bus must function like a real bus. We, as outsiders, aren't part of this rule. And because we don't belong, the bus stops and kills one of us each time to maintain order."

The man in the black hat's expression shifted, finally grasping Jiang Yan's line of thought. "So, breaking the bus is meant to disrupt that order… to destroy the entity itself?"

"Yes," Jiang Yan replied, though the man still seemed uncertain.

"But how do you plan to break the bus? You saw what happened with the blond—he couldn't damage it. This bus is held together by supernatural forces, and only something supernatural can counter it."

"You're right—only the supernatural can confront the supernatural."

With that, Jiang Yan stood up from his seat and walked toward the center of the aisle.

His sudden movement startled both the man in the black hat and Zhang Tiantian, who couldn't understand why he was stepping out of the "safe" zone.

The moment Jiang Yan left his seat, the tour group's eerie gaze followed him, a chilling aura settling over him.

But the freezing stares didn't deter him. He reached over two of the corpses and grabbed something off the window.

Then, swiftly, he returned to his seat.

The man in the black hat caught sight of what Jiang Yan had taken—a red emergency hammer.

The type of hammer meant for breaking windows in case of emergencies.

"How did you manage to take that?" the man asked, visibly shocked. He remembered the blond youth's failure to operate the door switch—by that logic, Jiang Yan shouldn't have been able to remove anything from the bus either.

"It's simple," Jiang Yan replied. "Because it's allowed. In an emergency, it's perfectly normal for a passenger to grab the hammer to break the window. But when the blond tried to mess with the driver's controls, that wasn't part of the rules."

He raised the hammer, aiming it at the window, and prepared to strike.

Realizing what Jiang Yan intended, the man in the black hat's eyes widened, and he lunged forward, trying to stop him…