2.
It was around two o'clock in the morning when we arrived in Rongcheng. There were not many passengers taking this train, and I was the only one who got off at Rongcheng Station.
Rongcheng Railway Station is very small and there are very few people. At this time of two o'clock in the middle of the night, it looks deserted and desolate. I carried my backpack drowsily, yawned, and suppressed my sleepiness. I took the address that Ah Jin had told me on the phone before and looked under the bus stop sign near the train station to see if there was still twenty-four. hour bus.
The Banyan City at midnight was like an empty city, as quiet as death. The streets extend in all directions, looking wide and desolate under rows of dim street lights. There was not a single car on the road. There was no one on the sidewalk except me. I checked online on my mobile phone and found out that there are no 24-hour buses in this city. I have always been very courageous, but the atmosphere in this small town at midnight was really depressing. Walking on the deserted road, I felt waves of inexplicable panic.
I'm going to find a quick hotel to stay and wait until dawn tomorrow morning to find Ah Jin. But at this moment, I suddenly heard a low roar of the engine. Before I could look back, a bus had already stopped in front of me.
It was an extremely shabby bus. The uneven wear marks on the car body, as well as the marks that seemed to have been burned by fire or hit by stones, suddenly appeared strangely under the illumination of the street lights. It stands to reason that if a bus is in such a state of dilapidation, it would no longer be allowed on the road.
I looked up at the sign light on the forehead of the car. The blood-red numbers showed Route 44. This is bus number 44. It was the bus Akin told me I should take. But there is obviously no 24-hour bus service in this city.
The front door of the bus opened in front of me with a whoosh, as if it was specially designed to welcome me. Through the space in the car door, I could vaguely see the driver's neck. The driver was a middle-aged man with a chubby face and short stubble hair that could clearly see his blue scalp. He turned his head and smiled at me. The weird smile in the middle of the night not only did not make me feel scared, but made me feel at ease, as if I had found a place where I belonged.
The driver kept his lips tightly closed and said nothing. In the haze, I felt a powerful force calling me to get in the car. I couldn't even control my legs and jumped into the car involuntarily. There was another slamming of the door closing behind me, and the car started to move.
The interior of the bus was even more shabby than the exterior. There were no interior lights, and through the yellow light from the streetlight outside the car window, it could be seen that the seats that should have been fixed in rows were arranged in a mess, and some seats were crookedly lying on the ground. There was a lot of colorless dirt on the interior walls of the car.
I'm not the only passenger on this midnight bus. Besides me and the driver, there were five other people in the car. Through the figures in the dim light, one could vaguely see that among them were a child, a woman, a teenager, a middle-aged man about the same age as the driver, and an old man whose gender could not be distinguished. I sat in an empty seat in the front row, and they were all behind me. No one spoke, and the environment in the car was unusually quiet. I couldn't even hear their breathing. All I could hear was my own heavy heartbeat.
In this way, the car drove forward leisurely. In order to relieve my overly tense nerves, I took out my mobile phone and dialed Xiaoyi's number. But the voice that rang on the phone turned out to be: The user you dialed is temporarily unavailable. I looked at the phone screen again, and an "x" popped up suddenly. After the "x" number it says: Call prohibited! I tried to send a text message again, but it showed again: Failed to send.
I tried my best to steady my rapid and nervous breathing, and strained my ears to listen to the movement behind me. There was really no movement at all. Can't hear breathing. To embolden myself, I turned on the music player on my phone, turned the volume up to the maximum, and played a Mayday rock song. The music of "Crazy World" suddenly sounded in the stagnant air.Ashin sang: Youth is irreversible water
Disappear in the blink of an eye
If you waste your efforts, you will regret it again.
Why does this world always make people feel sad?
I can't understand and I don't want to understand
….
3.
I recalled what Ajin said when he called me, and I recalled Akin's different tone, and I felt that the whole thing was becoming more and more suspicious. I suspected that I was trapped in a supernatural world with no beginning and no end.
I'm a horror novel fan. Since junior high school, I have read a lot of horror novels, and I have been obsessed with the weird and thrilling horror events. I even imagined myself as the protagonist in the novel, facing those supernatural beings that made my heart tremble and my fingers numb. I attribute all the unsolved mysteries in this world to the influence of the supernatural world. I firmly believe that everyone has a supernatural body around him, and everyone actually exists in a form divided into two. Half of them live in the real material world full of desires. The other half lives in the subconscious world of ideas. And our world of thoughts is part of the supernatural world.
But in fact, I have never really experienced any supernatural events personally. The reason why I am very interested in researching supernatural beings and publishing lengthy articles about them is because I simply do not believe in the existence of supernatural beings. People are always like this, and the research and understanding they impose on things that do not exist can always reflect their unique sense of mystery.
But now, the midnight bus I was riding, the unfamiliar environment I was in, and everything happening in front of my eyes had completely disrupted the inherent concepts in my mind. I felt my brain rolling and exploding, bubbling like lava that had just been ejected from a volcano. I know it was caused by indescribable fear. I thought that my courage supported by my strong curiosity and heart of exploration was amazing, but now I finally understand that human beings' courage is all because of their ignorance. How vulnerable people are in the face of ignorance and the incredible unknown.
The fear is not because of the fear of death, but because of the waiting in the distance between life and death, and because I don’t know how I will die next.
The car drove for nearly half an hour, and I didn't hear a single movement from the figures behind me. The music was still on. I turned on the phone screen, held it in my hand, closed my eyes tightly, mustered up the courage, and gently turned towards the motionless figures behind me. I waited for five or six seconds with desperate determination, not waiting for the imaginary attack, and then slowly opened my eyes. I wanted to see if these strange figures were human. Even if they are ghosts, I want to see what they look like before I die.
I held up the blue-light mobile phone screen in my hand, facing the faces of those figures at the angle I felt. I think I should be able to see their appearance clearly from this angle. But the moment I tried to open my eyes, what I saw was empty seats and masses of suffocating air.
There is nothing behind me. The driver and I were the only two people in the whole car.
Like a hallucination, I suddenly felt dizzy and fell down in my seat.
4.
I don't remember how long I slept. I just felt the car's spinning shaking, shaking me out of my drowsiness. I looked and saw that the car was parked right in front of the factory that Ajin told me about. The driver didn't say a word again, and the door opened with a roar.
It seemed that this midnight bus was really sent by Ah Jin to greet me. Without me saying a word, it appeared beside me at the right time. I didn’t need to tell it the destination, and it took me to my destination safely.
When I got off the bus, I took another look at the messy seats. They were all empty, with no sign that anyone had sat on them. I patted my head, took a deep breath of air, and regarded the disturbing scenes I experienced when I first got in the car as my hallucinations.
I said thank you to the driver and jumped out of the car. The driver didn't respond to me and drove away in a hurry.
This factory is located in the wilderness on the edge of the city, without even a shadow of a bird. Only the sad crows could be heard in the dark night. There is a high-wattage light bulb hanging on the door of the factory, and it is almost possible to see the surrounding environment clearly.
The lights were still on in the factory's guardroom. I knocked on the door and saw a short old man walking out of the guard room. He was about sixty or seventy years old, with silver hair and wrinkles on his face. He was shining a powerful flashlight on my face. I squinted my eyes, blocked the dazzling beam of light with my hands, and called him uncle.
I told me my origin and Ajin’s name. But he didn't seem to care about my origins, and he was indifferent to Ajin's name. He opened the door for me directly and led me across a dry lawn to the staff dormitory building. During this period, he remained expressionless, occasionally coughing, rarely spoke, and ignored my words, only giving me a cold and warning look. He was stooped and walked very lightly, with only his two old legs moving slowly, and his upper body motionless as if at rest, resting on his legs in an extremely disharmonious manner.
In the middle of the night, in a quiet place, it was really unlucky to meet such a strange old man. It made me panic and go crazy, and I returned to the depressed mood I had on the bus. I was anxious to get him to take me to see Ah Jin, but seeing his terrifying look, I swallowed the words that came to my lips.
From the moment I set foot in Rongcheng, strange and strange things happened one after another. And because I took the train for a whole day and night, I was exhausted physically and mentally. I didn't care about the strange and lifeless environment in this dormitory, so I fell asleep. .
By the time Xiao Yi called me, I had already slept until noon the next day. Xiao Yi knew that I had left her and came to Rongcheng to find Ah Jin alone. It was like eating explosives, and she bombarded me in turn. The speaker of my mobile phone almost exploded from her voice.
He asked me where I was last night and why I couldn’t get through on the phone.
I said, what time did you call me?
She said, it's past two o'clock in the middle of the night!
I was confused when I heard it. I knew I couldn't explain it clearly, so I confessed my mistake to her and comforted her. After all the good words came out of her mouth, she calmed down a little.
She said, I will go to Rongcheng to find you tomorrow!
From the moment I got on the No. 44 bus, I vaguely felt that I had fallen into an abnormal life. I haven't met Ah Jin yet, and I haven't found the answer to my doubts yet. I can't leave Rongcheng like this for Xiao Yi. But I can't let Xiao Yi come here. I tried my best to persuade her not to come, and promised her that she would go back soon. But I didn't have enough reasons to convince her not to come. I understand Xiao Yi's temper. It seemed she was here to make a decision.
After hanging up the phone, I immediately got up from the bed and went to the human resources department of the factory. But their words gave me a blow. There is no such person as Ah Jin in this factory.
5.
The address Ah Jin gave me was obviously this factory. There's no way I'm looking in the wrong place. Since the phone call I received from Ah Jin before I came here, Ah Jin has never contacted me again. And his phone has been turned off. Thinking of what Ajin said to me on the phone that night, I immediately felt the seriousness of the situation.
Ajin is missing.
Ah Jin was called to Rongcheng by a friend of his, and according to what he said at the time, the place where he was going to work was his friend's factory. Since Ah Jin gave me the address of this factory, then all the secrets must be hidden in this factory. The most important thing right now is to find Ah Jin's friend. But I have never met Ah Jin’s friend, and I don’t even know his name. There are over a thousand people working in this factory, so it is quite difficult to find them.
There seems to be a mysterious force controlling everything. I only asked a few employee friends about A Jin and his friend, and then I found this person.
His name is Fang Zi, and he once worked as a security guard in the same hotel as Ah Jin. He wears a pair of black-rimmed glasses, is thin, has a short haircut, and looks very polite and honest.
From his mouth, I learned that Ah Jin never came here after leaving Yucheng. So where did he go? Why did he lie to me to come here, but then stopped contacting me? These questions were tangled up in my mind about the 18-year-old bus arson case , but I had no clue.
I suddenly remembered the weird bus I took last night and the weird attitude of the old doorman towards me. So he told Fang Zi all this. Unexpectedly, after hearing what I said, Fang Zi's face changed drastically and he ran out of my dormitory in a panic.
Just when I had no clue, I finally heard the strange rumor that was widely spread in Rongcheng and everyone knew it.
6.
Just a month ago, a bus caught fire in Rongcheng. The bus that caught fire was one of the No. 44 buses. Everyone in the car died in the fire, and no one survived. The deceased's entire body, including his head, was burned beyond recognition by the fire, making it impossible to identify the deceased. So the party responsible for the accident announced the news on TV news and waited for the family of the deceased to come and claim the body. In the end, only a few locals came to claim the bodies, leaving a dozen unclaimed and mutilated bodies that were buried together in the largest cemetery in Rongcheng.
From then on, every midnight, when all the buses got off work, this burned bus would appear on the streets of the city. It will drive through every street and alley in the city, pulling in everyone who passes by. People who believe in this rumor call it the soul bus.
It is said that as long as someone unfortunately encounters this soul bus, he will involuntarily walk in through the open door, and then be pulled to an unknown place, never to return. Therefore, strange disappearances occur every day in Rongcheng. So in the middle of the night, no one dared to go out.
However, if this rumor is true, then why did I not disappear mysteriously like those missing people, but was taken to this factory by that car?
First, I suddenly received a call from Ah Jin, and then I came to Rongcheng. Could it be that Ah Jin was also a missing person on the No. 44 bus at midnight? My brain went into chaos. I felt completely confused and helpless about this weird and bizarre town. But at this time, Xiao Yi came to Rongcheng again. I could only put down these things that I had no clue about, and went to the train station early with an uneasy mood.
The train that Xiao Yi took was the same train that I took when I came here. It arrived at the station after two o'clock in the morning. Late at night in Rongcheng, the atmosphere was still so depressing and panicked. After picking up Xiao Yi, I planned to take her straight to a hotel near the station to wait for dawn. Xiao Yi looked at the time, it was already half past two. It's the summer season, and it gets light after five o'clock. When Xiao Yi came to a new place, she seemed novel and excited, without feeling sleepy at all. I had no choice but to accompany her on the road before dawn. I also want to take this opportunity to find out the strange rumors about this night in Rongcheng.
But until dawn, the midnight bus No. 44 I took never showed up. Xiaoyi and I had breakfast, went shopping, and then took her to the factory on the outskirts of the city.
Xiao Yi suddenly asked me about Ah Jin. I just told her that Ajin was missing. As for the strange things that happened to me, I keep my mouth shut. I know that Xiao Yi is naturally timid. If she finds out, she will drag me back to Yucheng at all costs.
7.
Before I found Ah Jin, I had to live in the factory. I firmly believe that all the unsolved mysteries are related to this factory. I applied for a private dormitory and lived in it with Xiao Yi.
By the time Xiao Yi fell asleep at twelve o'clock in the evening, and all the employees had gone to bed after get off work, I quietly slipped out of the dormitory building alone.
There was silence in the factory, and the street lamp as high as one person on the side of the small road gave off a faint blue light. I walked along a dead lawn to the long-closed workshop.
This is what Fangzi told me. Fang Zi said that this workshop has been closed for more than ten years. No one is allowed to enter. No one knows what kind of hidden secrets there are.
I found the entrance to the workshop by relying on the dim light from my phone screen. Due to the continuous cloudy and light rain in the past few days, the night wind howled, the sky was covered with dark clouds, there was no star, and only one-third of the moon showed its desolate light. There were no street lights around the workshop, and the entire workshop was pitch black. From the gap in the iron door at the entrance, nothing but darkness could be seen.
Just as I was trying to figure out a way to enter the workshop, a bunch of candlelight appeared in the silent darkness in the workshop. Then, a face glowing with yellow light appeared in the candlelight. It was a figure holding a candle, getting closer and closer to me. I quickly moved my eyes away from the crack in the door.
I heard a slight gasp from the crack in the door. So he gently moved his eyes to the crack in the door to see. That figure turned out to be the old man who led me in that night. He placed the candlestick on something, and with the dim light of the candle, I finally saw clearly that this was not a workshop at all, but a mourning hall filled with spiritual tablets. The old man guarding the gate seemed to be the worshiper of these spiritual tablets. He knelt down slowly in front of the densely packed rows of spiritual tablets.
He was still mumbling words, like scriptures or some kind of mantra, which I didn't understand at first, but then, he suddenly called Ajin's name.
He lowered his head and whispered: It's time for Ajin to get off the car. Someone is here to see you. Ajin is back. Don't wander around anymore. The fire is out. Everything that should come has arrived. Just take a look. Don't miss it. Don't miss him, Ah Jin is gone, it's time to rest in peace.
His words were like a knife, cutting a big hole in my heart. I seemed to suddenly understand my true purpose of coming to Rongcheng.
I just felt a strange force controlling my nerves and settling into my consciousness. I had to believe what that weird old man said.
The fire is out, it’s time to rest. Ah Jin died in the No. 44 bus fire incident.
Ah Jin, it's time to get out of the car. Someone is here to see you. I finally understood that the midnight soul bus was really sent by Ajin to greet me. Maybe he has been in the car, beside me, watching me, listening to Mayday that we both like with me.
Sadness is like an electric current, starting from the soles of my feet, passing through every inch of skin and every organ in my body, and heading straight to my forehead. My emotions started to get out of control, tears burst out wildly, and the world in front of me became hazy.
I can't believe that the Ajin who grew up with me, the Ajin who just called me a few days ago, has now left this world.
8.
I stared at the old man closely, observing his every move. I saw him calling Ah Jin's name, picking up a spiritual tablet, and walking towards an exit of the workshop. He walked through a forest and walked out of the factory through a hidden door. I suppressed the excitement in my body and followed him quietly.
The moon was dark and the wind was high, and everything was completely silent. I couldn't care less about the sadness of Ah Jin's death, and fell into the terrifying environment around me. I followed the old man to a bumpy and overgrown place. After stumbling for a long time, I discovered that this place was actually a cemetery. In the cold wind and cold moon, clumps of tall and thin grass swayed from side to side on the grave.
At this moment, I saw the midnight soul bus roaring from the direction of the factory into the cemetery. What shocked me was that Xiao Yi actually got off the bus. I hid behind a grave from a distance and watched all this nervously.
Xiao Yi held a bouquet of flowers expressionlessly and knelt down in front of a desolate new grave. The old man walked towards Xiao Yi holding the tablet.
The old man began to mutter something again.
He shouted angrily: Ah Jin was killed in the bus arson case on 18th , come out, come out, someone is coming to see you, after that I should send you on your way.
After listening to the old man's words, my legs began to tremble involuntarily, and I stood up and walked towards the old man and Xiao Yi uncontrollably. The old man held the tablet in his hand and called Ah Jin to me. I finally saw Ah Jin’s name written on that tablet.
I finally remembered, my name is Ajin. He called me Ah Jin, and that was my tablet. I died in the No. 44 bus fire.
I came to Rongcheng to look for a job. When I was going to apply for a job at that factory that day, the No. 44 bus I was riding suddenly caught fire on the way. I died in that fire. I was burned beyond recognition and lost my identity. Afterwards, they buried me in a pit with many other dead people I didn't know. It's a dirt pit here, in a cemetery behind the factory where I'm going to work.
I'm not willing to die in such an unknown way. I didn't even have time to make a farewell call. The night after I died, I ran into the street and screamed at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me or see me. I know that I have died in this world and I no longer belong to this world.
I saw a man about my age using his consciousness to call Amin.
Amin is my best friend. We grew up together and dropped out of school to work together. We even liked the same girl. Her name is Xiao Yi. But I know in my heart that Xiao Yi likes A Ming.
After Xiao Yi and A Ming got together, I suppressed my admiration for Xiao Yi, left them, and came to Rongcheng to work. But on the first day I came to Rongcheng, I encountered misfortune.
After calling Amin, I came to the factory where I could have started my new life. After that, I met an old man in the factory. He was the janitor of that factory. But he also has a profession that no one knows about, and that is the requiem of the cemetery behind the factory. In that workshop that had been closed for more than ten years, all the souls of the deceased were placed. But their souls are still wandering around this city with unfulfilled wishes. And his duty is to arrange farewells for life and death one after another, so as to cut off the last nostalgia of the undead in this world and return to reincarnation with peace of mind.
Ghost House November 8, 2022 [Long Ghost Story] Font:
Introduction 1. When Ah Jin disappeared, we were separated for less than a month. My name is A Ming, and A Jin and I grew up together, and our relationship is better than that of real brothers. No matter where they go, they are inseparable. At that time, the two of us were working together in our hometown of Yucheng. Ah Jin said that a friend of his had found a good job in Rongcheng, and he wanted to try it too, and even asked me to go there. Because of Xiao Yi, I couldn't leave Yu Cheng, so I said goodbye to Ah Jin. The day Ah Jin left, it was around five or six in the afternoon. Xiao Yi and I went to the train station to see him off.The trip from Rongcheng to Yucheng spans two provinces and takes more than 20 hours.
9.
In a daze, I saw Ajin's smiling face. He said thank you to me and then walked away in a distant direction. When I woke up, I was already in the dormitory of the factory.
Xiao Yi is still sleeping. I got up and my shoes were covered in dirt and grass clippings. Thinking back on what happened last night and everything I experienced when I came to Rongcheng, I felt inexplicably at ease.
I wake up Xiao Yi. Xiao Yi told me that she had a very strange dream, in which she dreamed that Ah Jin and I were the same person.
I just smiled and said nothing.
When we were about to leave, we met the old doorman again. He was still the same mysterious and weird look as when I first met him.
I said thank you to him, and then left the factory and Rongcheng with Xiao Yi.
Tags: Requiem Journey
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