The System Teaches You How to Be Human

The warmth from the bus’s heater enveloped everyone, making them feel cozy. Many of the newcomers even temporarily believed they had escaped the shadow of the escape game.

Though led by Qi Muyang, the veterans sat in their seats, they were all on high alert, prepared for any crisis that could arise at any moment.

Anyone observant enough would notice that the female driver operating the bus wasn’t only gloomy-faced and dressed peculiarly but also had unnaturally rigid hands that couldn’t bend. Her wrists, partially hidden by her sleeves, faintly revealed horrific corpse spots. From the beginning, it was evident that she wasn’t alive!

This explained why the bus swerved erratically, jostling the passengers so much that it felt like it would churn their guts before it finally stopped.

Si Yisi closed his eyes, trying to rest. The bumpy ride hadn’t lasted long before he heard a faint rustling sound above him. The sound mingled with the warm air blowing from above, making it intermittent and difficult to notice.

Si Yisi opened his eyes.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, someone scrambled out of their seat in panic, falling and crawling away.

Si Yisi heard the scream, and tears streamed down his face instantly, blurring his vision.

Si Yisi: “…”

He cried hard, his frail body trembling uncontrollably. But then, a disheveled female ghost, emerging as liquid through the gaps of the air conditioner, was about to fully materialize when she was abruptly…

Grabbed by the tongue!

Even as he wept, Si Yisi yanked on the ghost’s tongue as though it were a tug-of-war rope, pulling it fiercely and repeatedly.

The ghost howled, her deathly pale, stiffened face contorting into an even more terrifying expression as her tongue stretched longer and longer, far beyond its normal length.

Plop!

The sound of something wet hitting the ground echoed.

Si Yisi looked up and saw the female ghost’s eyeballs fall from her sockets, dangling by a single thread of sinew that connected them. From the ghastly, bloody cavities where her eyes had been, two human-faced beetles suddenly burst out!

The beetles’ grotesque appearance was horrifying. Their human-like faces were shriveled as though drained of blood, their features grotesquely twisted together, and patches of corpse-like discoloration covered them, making them utterly repulsive.

The beetles darted out, and blood dripped down from the decaying, dangling eyeballs.

Si Yisi raised his arm, revealing Ah Tu coiled within his sleeve.

“Hiss—!”

Ah Tu, seeing the hideous monstrosities, shivered violently and let out an ear-piercing screech that could only be described as a wail of utter despair.

Zzzzt!

The two human-faced beetles were immediately zapped back into the female ghost’s eye sockets, dragging the eyeballs back in with them.

The female ghost: “…”

She frantically clawed at her eyes, scratching so hard that her rotting skin began to peel off in chunks.

Si Yisi found the sight utterly disgusting. Wiping away his tears with one hand, he suddenly let go of the ghost’s excessively stretched tongue!

Whoosh!

The recoil sent the female ghost flying back into the air conditioner.

Si Yisi tilted his head to look up at the air conditioner and began crying even harder.

The sudden attack had resulted in the deaths of only a bratty child and a female player. The female player’s phone had slipped from her hand and lay shattered on the ground, yet it still played a melancholic English song.

No one mourned her death. Among the remaining players, seven were still alive. Of those, three had left their seats, trembling as they stared at the female ghost’s partially exposed head.

No… not three.

Four.

Si Yisi shifted slightly, his entire body trembling in a convincingly realistic manner. His unrelenting tears only made him stand out even more. Even Ah Tu, hidden within his sleeve, laid stiff like a dead fish, its dragon-like eyes welling with large, glistening tears.

Ah Tu: QwQ! Scary!

Who had ever seen a grown man cry so fiercely? Si Yisi’s dramatic display drew many peculiar stares from the other players.

Chen Mengxi, witnessing the scene, showed a faint trace of disdain in her eyes.

This expression didn’t escape Si Yisi’s notice, hidden as it was behind his disheveled bangs. However, he figured Chen Mengxi wouldn’t have the time to dwell on such matters for long.

The next wave of chaos in the escape game was about to unfold.

***

When Si Yisi noticed the seats changing from dull gray to a mix of blue and red, he knew trouble was coming.

The grim-faced female driver spoke stiffly from the front of the bus. Her voice was disjointed and jerky, like rusty gears grinding together. “Plea-se, pas-sen-gers, sit pro-per-ly in your seats.”

Sit properly in the seats? After what just happened, who would dare sit down? They must have a death wish!

“I suggest you sit down. Otherwise…” Qi Muyang held a compact gun. Si Yisi had seen him use it earlier to shoot at the ghost. It seemed to be a dual-purpose weapon.

One purpose was to kill ghosts, and the other… was to kill people. Such a specialized item being openly revealed was risky; it was bound to attract the greed of others. Desperate people do desperate things. While the weapon might not be particularly high-grade, to some players, it represented a lifeline.

“Plea-se, pas-sen-gers, sit pro-per-ly in your seats.” The female driver repeated the command.

As the driver finished her sentence, she gripped the steering wheel tightly, and her neck began to emit a series of crackling bone collision sounds. Suddenly, her neck twisted 180 degrees!

“Ah!”

The female driver turned her face; pale as a corpse, towards the passengers, her lips curling into a wide grin.

The smile revealed her sharp, white teeth, which were stained with blood-red liquid and bits of unidentifiable flesh lodged between them. She licked her lips, her lifeless, black eyes filled with an unmistakable, predatory hunger as she stared at the passengers.

“Alright, sitting, sitting!” The passengers who weren’t already seated turned pale with fright, scrambling like headless flies to the nearest available seats.

Most of them chose green seats because red seats were often associated with blood and death. No one wanted to be the first to tempt fate.

Si Yisi stepped over and sat down in the seat he had occupied earlier.

The hurried sound of movement beside him drew his attention. Glancing over, he saw someone plop down onto a green seat nearby.

It was a young man, taller and sturdier than Shen Chen, probably in his early twenties; a carefree guy by the looks of it.

What was his name again… Mo Wuchang? Si Yisi searched Shen Chen’s memories and finally found this Wuchang’s fate buried in a forgotten corner.

Ah, he died in his very first game as a newbie. A quick death, fitting his ominous name, ’Wuchang’.

(T/N: Wuchang = Impermanence.)

However, there was now a discrepancy. Mo Wuchang wasn’t sitting in the second-to-last row’s green seat, as Shen Chen’s memories suggested he should. Instead, he was seated right next to Si Yisi.

Mo Wuchang leaned in cautiously and gave Si Yisi a meaningful wink.

Si Yisi, still trembling and crying, looked back at him.

Si Yisi: “…” He didn’t have mind-reading powers and had no idea what Mo Wuchang was trying to convey.

The two maintained this bizarrely “harmonious” stare-off, as though determined to outlast each other until the end of time.

During the exchange, Si Yisi glanced at his red seat and then at the green seat beside him.

Anyone paying close attention would have noticed a pattern; the red seats corresponded to positions previously attacked by the female ghost.

The green seats, on the surface, seemed safer, but the driver’s cryptic instructions suggested otherwise. A hidden danger lay within them as well. Compared to the unknown perils of the green seats, the red seats were slightly more predictable and manageable.

But in a state of panic, how many people could discern that?

For the newbies, this was a devastating situation. In truth, it was a deliberate means of weeding them out.

“Is every-one seat-ed now?” The driver turned her head again to confirm, her unsettling grin still plastered on her face.

“Y-yes, we’re all seated,” stammered the man who had been sitting beside the strangled woman earlier. His legs trembled as he spoke.

“Good.” The driver gave an eerie smile before turning her head back, leaving the back of her skull facing the players.

“You may… begin dining now.”

“W-what!” Mo Wuchang stammered, his voice trembling.

In an instant, all the players realized who was about to “dine”—the ghosts!

For those seated in the red chairs, the situation was somewhat manageable. The air-conditioning ghost repeated her earlier antics, making her actions relatively straightforward to deal with.

But for those on the green chairs, it was a nightmare. Ghosts with bluish-purple, translucent bodies silently emerged, their forms flickering as if not fully anchored in this world. The moment they appeared, the green of the chairs turned blood-red.

The players in the green seats watched in horror as the terrifying shadows collided with their bodies. Then, they felt something horrifying—like their very bodies were being seized and invaded.

The ghosts from the green seats were possessive spirits!

Si Yisi’s eyes were swollen from crying, his vision clouded with tears. Keeping up his pitiful, wretched act, he once again confronted the air-conditioning ghost.

Si Yisi: “…”

He extended his hand.

The ghost: “!!!!”

Si Yisi could vaguely hear a shrill, eerie wail echoing from inside the air conditioning unit.

Before he could even resume his makeshift tug-of-war game, the air-conditioning ghost retreated in a flash, diving back into her hiding spot and refusing to come out. It was as if she feared he might chase her down, so she tossed two human-faced beetles bound in black hair at Si Yisi’s feet as an offering.

The beetles struggled in fury, letting out high-pitched squeals, “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!”

Squish!

Si Yisi mercilessly stomped on one of them, its insides splattering out in a burst.

***

What was it like to be possessed by a ghost?

It was bone-chilling, a cold that seeped deep into the marrow. Simultaneously, his soul felt as though it was being tossed into a furnace, seared with unbearable pain. Mo Wuchang desperately wanted to move, to thrash around in his seat, but the ghost had completely “frozen” his body in place.

Mo Wuchang swore that if he survived this ordeal, he would dedicate himself to learning talisman drawing from his master; without any shortcuts or hesitation.

Si Yisi cried until he was gasping for air, each sob making it harder to breathe. His tear-streaked, resentful gaze landed on Mo Wuchang, whose face, twisted in terror, resembled a grotesque statue. Si Yisi sniffled and, through his sobs, gave Mo Wuchang a “gentle” pat.

Smack!

To his surprise, that pat jolted Mo Wuchang enough to regain control of his body!

Mo Wuchang rolled off his seat and tumbled onto the floor in a cloud of dust. Then, miraculously, he sprang to his feet, looking invigorated.

Si Yisi: “…”

Mo Wuchang quickly grabbed Si Yisi’s hand, offering his own jacket to wipe away the tears with an almost servile enthusiasm. His eyes burned with determination as he solemnly declared, “I was just thinking, if I could survive this, I’d definitely stick with you from now on!”

Si Yisi: “…”

Disdain. No words.

Just the urge to cry.