Chen Yang blinked in astonishment. The former literary youth looked younger now, but his personality hadn't changed, his way of doing things was still the same, and even his dressing style hadn't changed.
But Miss Qiao has changed a lot. Her cheongsam, long wavy hair, and fiery red lips are all gone. Instead, she wears a high ponytail, no makeup, a black short-sleeved shirt and overalls, looking hot and capable.
There was no perfume on her body, only a faint smell of sweat.
In Chen Yang's impression, Miss Qiao's exposed skin was always snow-white, so white that it was dazzling. He never expected that she used to have a tanned skin from the sun, and he didn't know how she got her skin white again.
"Sister Qiao." Chen Yang exhaled and shouted.
Miss Qiao propped up the back of the chair with one arm, and raised a lazy arc at the end of her eyes: "Hmm?"
Chen Yangxin said that his personality didn't seem to have changed much. Just as he was about to look at his ID number, his peripheral vision inadvertently glanced at the aisle next to him, and he suddenly stopped in his tracks while trying to unzip his backpack.
Sitting on the other side of the aisle was a man, very thin and gentle-looking, with a clean and pure scholarly air about him, like a teacher.
Chen Yang heard his own voice: "Wang Kuanyou?"
Wang Kuanyou stroked the briefcase on his lap and turned his head when he heard this: "Ah."
Chen Yang's breathing, Wang Kuanyou was actually one of his former teammates!
Wang Kuanyou saw that Chen Yang was just looking at him without saying anything. The nervousness in his eyes was about to overflow: "Mr. Li, did you find anything?"
"No." Chen Yang found that Wang Kuanyou's condition was not as good as the time in Laoji Village.
and…
Chen Yang's eyelids twitched. Laoji Village was Wang Kuanyou's second mission. But he learned from the memory of the first half of this mission that Wang Kuanyou introduced himself as the fourth mission at the beginning of this mission.
This means that Wang Kuanyou of Laoji Village at that time was reset for the second time.
Chen Yang took a deep breath. The Wang Kuanyou of the past might not stop here.
I have already seen Wang Kuanyou off once in Laoji Village. It is impossible that I have seen him off once before, he thought.
While Chen Yang was preparing himself mentally, he retracted his gaze and scanned the bus compartment. This time, he felt motion sickness.
The bus is made of paper. Not white paper, but newspaper. It's made entirely of newspaper, pieces of which are seamlessly connected together. It would be extremely painful for someone with trypophobia to stay in it.
The seats in the car were not full, and there were quite a few empty seats.
The driver and passengers are all paper people!
Chen Yang swallowed his saliva. This was just one of the stops in his revolving door. It had already happened. He came in just to review it. The people and events were all set in stone.
But the feeling of suffocation is still clear and strong.
Chen Yang reached into his backpack and tightened his grip on the white card. Twenty-three teammates had to sit for twenty-three stops.
A ghost will get on at each stop, and the rules will randomly assign a tasker to help the other party find the murderer and tell the driver the murderer's name.
The ghost will get off at the next stop.
If the answer is wrong, the tasker will turn into a paper man, sit on the ghost's position, and be possessed by the ghost.
The source of information for finding the murderer is this bus covered with newspapers, and all the information is on the newspapers.
The interval between each station is the same, five minutes. During the tasker's search for clues, other teammates can help, but they cannot be forced, and they must do it voluntarily.
This task is a bit like delivering a courier. It is both a solo task and a group task.
The paper figures in the car are all teammates. They failed in their mission and died, and became paper figures. There is a ghost on each paper figure.
There are six people alive now. Four of them, including Chen Yang, have completed their mission, leaving only Wang Kuanyou and Miss Qiao.
Chen Yang was not surprised at all, because those two people in the team were the only ones he knew. This was the rule left for him. To be precise, it was his own decision.
Because Chao Jian said that he had done too many tasks in the past, too many to count, so it was impossible for him to review each one. The only things he could review were the people and things that had left more traces on his path.
Some important moments in life.
When the node is reviewed and lit up, the entire colorful light of memory will light up.
Chen Yang looked at Miss Qiao and Wang Kuanyou calmly. He originally thought that his revolving lantern illusion would be more sad than Chao Jian's. But now he realized that he was wrong and got it the wrong way around.
Chao Jian entered the final level madly. He was the only one in his life, and naturally the revolving lantern was all about him. However, he brought Chao Jian not only happiness, but also pain. Therefore, every stop of Chao Jian's revolving lantern would be cut into two halves, one half was sunny and the other half was cloudy.
Chao Jian passed through one station after another, and the one who finally walked out was a sickly and dilapidated Chao Jian.
Chen Yang thought that there were all kinds of people in his revolving lantern.
The rule hopes that what he feels will be slightly different from Chao Jian's. After Chao Jian has experienced falling from heaven into the abyss of hell again and again, he can still hold on to the flame of hope in his hand. He should be... not forgetting his original intention
Chen Yang murmured silently: "Don't forget your original intention."
What is my original intention
Xiang Zimu’s voice appeared in Chen Yang’s mind. She said: Brother Yang, you do missions to make friends.
Make friends.
My original intention was to make friends.
Chen Yang looked at the two acquaintances and friends next to him again...
Hearing sobbing sounds from behind, Chen Yang's thoughts were disrupted. He turned his head and saw that the person crying was a young female white-collar worker. She curled up on the ground beside a chair, crying to the paper mannequin diagonally opposite her.
That was her fiancée who had been with her since high school. When the five-minute time limit was up and the train arrived at the station, he had not found the murderer and died.
The paper man also wears a bright red scarf around his neck.
Chen Yang glanced at the situation inside the car. The other paper figures also had objects on their arms and legs. Those were the belongings of the ghosts that possessed them when they were alive.
Chen Yang put the white identity card into his backpack. His fingers suddenly froze. The next moment he opened the backpack in disbelief and stuck his head inside. What he saw was a very thick black notebook.
Chen Yang slowly reached for the notebook and grabbed it tightly. He had clearly handed it to Xiangdong before leaving. Why was it in his bag now
This was not in the previous station's revolving lantern...
Chen Yang took out the notebook with trembling hands and opened it quickly. His breathing became irregular.
The notebook is brand new and blank, with not a single word written in it!
This is a new notebook. Chen Yang remembered the part about it that he bought at a roadside stall. The stall owner's appearance was vague and he couldn't remember it.
Chen Yang only knew that he came in here after buying the notebook and had no time to take it out.
"This notebook is quite thick, it can hold a lot of things." Miss Qiao next to her showed a hint of inspiration on her face, "Xiao Yangyang, I have an idea."
Chen Yang vaguely guessed something. His eyes widened slightly, and his fingertips holding the notebook felt a little numb.
Without waiting for him to speak, Miss Qiao handed him a pen and raised her soft yet neat chin to him: "Let's do something ceremonial."
"What?" Chen Yang's voice was hoarse.
"How about each of us write down our own experiences and contact information in our notes?" Miss Qiao curled her pale pink lips.
"No, I've tried. If I leave my contact information in the mission world, the rules will be tampered with when I go out, and it won't be the same as before." The man with glasses in front turned around and reminded.
Miss Qiao's eyebrows are naturally sharp and heroic. They are not trimmed, but look very natural. When she frowns slightly, it gives people the feeling of a sword being unsheathed: "Maybe a miracle will happen."
The aura of the man with glasses suddenly weakened, and he coughed: "Impossible."
"If it doesn't work once, then let's do it a few more times, just in case we catch the rules being lazy or having a bug." Miss Qiao leaned close to Chen Yang's ear and whispered to him, "Right, Xiao Yangyang."
Chen Yang smiled: "Yeah, that's right."
The other people in the back row all looked over, even the sobbing female office worker turned her head away.
Miss Qiao looked at the street scene that was constantly receding outside the window and said, "It's too stuffy in the car. We need to do something to distract ourselves."
"Okay." Chen Yang involuntarily opened his notebook and wrote on the first page. When he came to his senses, he had already written a full page.
There were seven tasks on it, but they were not detailed. The task points were all places he had been to before, and he remembered them all the moment he finished writing.
Chen Yang's gaze moved downward and stopped at the end of the page, looking at the signature he had written unconsciously.
—cy.
Chen Yang thought his mood would be turned upside down, but in fact he was very calm. The notebook was his, no wonder...
No wonder when he came back from the mission in Laoji Village and was standing in the kitchen writing notes, he felt like he had written like that before.
Is it a residual memory, or a perceptual response
Chen Yang gave the notebook and pen to Miss Qiao, watched them stay in her hands for a while, passed to the man in front, and then passed down in turn, one after another.
There is only one reason why this notebook could be lost: he died.
After his death, the rules erased all traces of the notebook's first use. By chance, it was obtained by another tasker, who added new content and then passed it to him by the reset Wang Kuanyou.
Reincarnation in general.
After a moment, Chen Yang stroked the black notebook with six more records and closed his eyes with a complicated and indescribable mood.
Now it is with Xiangdong. If it can finally return to his hands and be returned to him by Xiangdong, that would be really... great.
"Xiao Yangyang, when you go out, remember to try to call your sister." Miss Qiao said with a smile.
"I will." Chen Yang responded.
"If you can get through, come and see me. I'll treat you to coffee, delicious food, and give you small jade stones. I have a lot of those things."
Chen Yang heard a small rustling sound, and he opened his eyes quickly. Miss Qiao was holding a medicine bottle in her hand, and she was about to take medicine. He was very familiar with that medicine bottle, as he had seen it during the audit mission of Sanlian Bridge.
Was she already addicted to sex at this time? She didn't give him the impression that he was.
Chen Yang looked at her medicine bottle: "Sister Qiao, what are you doing..."
"My family is rich. I was kidnapped when I was in high school and I got sick when I came back." Miss Qiao tilted her head back and swallowed a few pills, speaking in a joking tone.
"It's troublesome to take medicine." She closed the medicine bottle and said softly as if complaining.
Chen Yang was silent. He stopped himself from imagining what the scene was like and changed the subject abruptly: "You..." He wanted to ask her if she knew Chao Jian, but it was as if an invisible hand strangled his neck, preventing him from saying anything.
Chen Yang came out of the state of hypoxia, touched his dry neck and exhaled. The rules were watching him and he could not violate them.
The bus suddenly started to slow down, and the third to last stop was just ahead.
Wang Kuanyou took two or three deep breaths and stretched his head out of the dark window. Miss Qiao crossed her arms in front of her, looking very calm.
"There's a passenger coming up!" the driver in front shouted, "Everyone move back! Everyone move back!"
The aisle in the car was empty, and the driver's words sounded creepy.
The car door covered with newspapers was not opened, so naturally no one would get in. However, a black leather bag appeared on an empty seat in the front!
Chen Yang's pupils shrank slightly. That was the passenger who got on board! He looked at Wang Kuanyou and Miss Qiao.
There was a blood-red mark on Wang Kuanyou's face.
It's his turn this time!
As long as you find the murderer and complete the task within one stop, the bloodstain will disappear.
The bus started moving again, and the driver said, "The next stop is Yumen Station."
The mission begins.
Wang Kuanyou dropped his briefcase and staggered away from his seat, his face pale and his eyes dazed.
Chen Yang's eyes fell on Wang Kuanyou's nervously clenched hands. Did he have PTSD? Was it brought on by the previous mission? He was like this before, and it was not ruled out that it was related to his real life experience that was not replaced by the rules.
This is not the most important thing at the moment. The important thing at the moment is how to complete the mission and get out. Chen Yang stood up. Just as he was about to ask Miss Qiao to make way for him to get out, she also stood up and started reading the newspaper in the car.
Except for the female white-collar worker whose fiancé had died, the other taskers all started looking for clues.
After a while, the female office worker also adjusted her sad mood and joined in. Wang Kuanyou had helped her before when it was her turn. This time, when he needed help, she had to lend a hand.
As long as they can ensure their own protection, most taskers are willing to lend a hand when their teammates are in trouble.
Chen Yang was looking at the black leather bag on the seat. The bag had been used for a long time, and several corners were badly worn. The leather in other places was also cracked, and the zipper was broken.
There is a water stain on the lower left corner of the bag.
Chen Yang took a closer look, but couldn't see Mingtang. He scraped a little with his fingers and rubbed it repeatedly. It was very sticky and he could smell a little lychee fragrance.
"Mr. Li, what is that?" Wang Kuanyou asked.
"The sugar liquid from the lollipop." Chen Yang said, "There are children at home."
Wang Kuanyou's gloomy eyes brightened, but he became negative again: "Can't she just like to eat it? Lollipops are not just snacks for children."
"Not only that clue, there's also this." Chen Yang pointed to the grinning bag. The tasker couldn't rummage through the ghost's belongings, but the zipper of this bag was open, and the bag was placed upright with the opening facing upwards, so one could see something inside.
At the suggestion of his teammates, Wang Kuanyou looked into the bag and saw a pink hairband with little stars on it, a children's version.
Female ghost, with child.
This was the information obtained in half a minute. Wang Kuanyou followed Chen Yang closely, as if he had regarded him as his life-saving straw.
"Mr. Li, the key clues that enabled Qiao Yan and the others to complete the mission were all found by you. You must help me this time." Wang Kuanyou clenched his hands and pleaded.
Chen Yang paused. What he was doing now was what he had done before, and he was unconsciously re-doing it. At that time, Wang Kuanyou also followed him like this...
Then it is even more impossible for Wang Kuanyou to stop here.
Chen Yang was very confident in his past self. He didn't believe that even with his help, Wang Kuanyou would still fail and stop here.
The bus was driving very steadily, so steadily that it seemed to be stationary, but the scenery was indeed receding.
Chen Yang walked towards the front door. All he could see were densely packed newspapers. His eyes hurt a little. This was because he had overused his eyes. The words on the newspapers were too small.
The seats, the floor, the armrests, everything is made of newspaper, even the driver's steering wheel.
You can imagine how difficult it was for them to find clues in the newspapers.
Chen Yang stood in the front row and looked back. Each paper figure was sitting upright on a chair, each with a different expression. He frowned. Generally speaking, paper figures do not have eyes.
But they all have eyes. They are paper people, but also not paper people.
Chen Yang calmed himself down. He did not look around like a headless fly, but stayed where he was, recalling the memories in his mind.
Seventeen teammates have already done the task. While each teammate was doing it, he would carefully check the newspapers in the car. After seventeen times, he might not have read them all, but at least more than half of them passed by him.
Now let’s look for any information about Wang Kuanyou’s mission in the more than half of the news reports.
Wang Kuanyou was also thinking about which newspapers he had read. He was very anxious, and his eyes were bloodshot: "Mr. Li, do you have any..."
"Don't argue." Chen Yang interrupted.
Wang Kuanyou tugged at the collar of his shirt, forcing himself to calm down, calm down...
After a few dozen seconds, Chen Yang strode to a seat and squatted down close to the paper man on the seat.
It seemed to be smiling at him, which was very eerie.
Chen Yang lowered his eyes and didn't look at the paper man. He leaned forward and moved towards the armrest of the seat.
The newspaper is not pasted together piece by piece, but in blocks. For a report, this part of the content is here, and the rest of the content is pasted in various corners.
Taking photos with your mobile phone is a taboo.
The rules of this task are simple and crude, which is very beneficial to the tasker who has a photographic memory. But the people in this world are basically ordinary people, so they want to die when they do it.
In the mission world, luck and character are important.
Just like that female white-collar worker, the important clue she wanted to find was right under her butt. When she stood up, she habitually looked at the chair and accidentally saw it, and the task was quickly completed.
But some people still get nothing when the deadline comes and find no information at all.
Wang Kuanyou is lucky.
"A female corpse was found in Laomin Mountain," Chen Yang read from the newspaper on the armrest. "There was only a worn-out Volkswagen-style black leather bag at the scene. The police found multiple injuries on the victim's face and initially determined it was a homicide."
Chen Yang narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to try to read the words. He wanted to throw the paper man away and pounce on the chair.
"The handbag in the photo is the same as that one!" Wang Kuanyou pointed at the handbag of the female ghost who had just stood up, his expression extremely excited.
"Old Minshan, a female corpse?" Miss Qiao's voice came from behind, "I have found something."
She looked at the newspaper on the roof of the car. "The deceased is Wang Mouling, 19 years old, a full-time housewife who takes care of a two-year-old child. Her husband Liu Moumou, 33 years old, is a taxi driver."
"An old man and a young wife, their conflicts are more numerous than the rice they eat every day. The murderer must be her husband." The female white-collar worker said, "These days, if one of a couple gets into trouble, the first suspect is the other one."
The man with glasses and the yellow-haired man wanted to refute, but were stopped by Chen Yang.
"Stop discussing this and quickly find other clues!" Chen Yang urged with a stern face. The murderer's name would not be written in the newspaper, so he had to make a guess.
Five minutes, half of the time is spent looking for the newspaper, and the other half is spent organizing the clues for reasoning.