Chapter 32 Part 1

Miss Legs declared with righteous indignation, “It seems we can’t just slack off. We have to get the locomotive open and stop the train.”

She wasn’t wrong; everyone was thinking the same thing. But thinking was all they could do. No one knew where the red Ride Permit actually was.

Wenren Tu suddenly spoke up. “Wait, aren’t we all forgetting something? After a participant dies, their Ride Permit should end up in the hands of the ghosts. They all want Ride Permits, so what’s the use for them when they have one?”

More importantly, did a Ride Permit that fell into a ghost’s possession still display the original participant’s information? If it changed, could it turn red?

That was it! Perhaps the red Ride Permit they needed was the very one obtained by a ghost! At this thought, everyone’s spirits were rekindled. At least now they had a tangible goal to hope for.

But the question of how to find the ghost that had taken a red Ride Permit became the new problem.

No one had any real ideas, and this ‘spring’ season was about to end.

Wenren Tu glanced back. She knew Zhu Ming was a person who held grudges—after suffering a loss, she would definitely seek revenge. Hmm… judging by her quiet and demure appearance sitting in the back, her mind was surely full of wicked schemes.

A night passed, and they entered the fifth cycle, ‘summer’. The corpse on the floor vanished, and the train car returned to its pristine state.

As luck would have it, opportunity presented itself right as they were stumped. Just after discovering the clue about the red Ride Permit, someone poked their head down from the roof of the train.

It was a rarity, given that it was always Zhu Ming doing the traveling between cars. The visitor was a member of the other team’s five-person group. He asked, “Hey, friends, has anything strange happened over here?”

The people in Car No. 1 exchanged glances. Wenren Tu replied, “What a coincidence. Absolutely, something has.”

The newcomer was a young man with blond hair. Upon hearing this, he scanned the car and was visibly delighted. “Great, looks like you’ve already found a solution! Could you tell us?”

Wenren Tu said, “We haven’t solved everything. You’ve had people die mysteriously too, right? We analyzed it and realized that every time this train runs through a full cycle of four seasons, it devours a year of a participant’s lifespan. That’s why people are dying. A red Ride Permit might be able to stop the train, but that thing is probably in a ghost’s hands. We haven’t figured out how to find the ghost yet.”

Blondie looked stunned for a moment. After digesting what she said, he responded, “What do you mean, lifespan? Dead people? No one died in our group. We got an extra person!”

It seemed that other participant was right about one thing: as the true second day began, the ghosts’ abilities evolved.

According to Blondie, they had been in Car No. 37 for two ‘days and nights’. But when the fourth seasonal cycle’s first day turned to night, the lights in the car flickered. When they could see clearly again, everyone was shocked.

Because aside from the few ghosts, one of the members of their five-person group had become two!

This incident threw the five-person group into utter chaos for a while. The two had identical Ride Permits and Invitation Letters. Their expressions, tone of voice, memories, and abilities were exactly the same. No one could tell who was the ghost and who was the person.

Left with no choice, they tied both of them up first.

Fortunately, the same thing didn’t happen again the following night.

The five-person group tried countless methods to tell the two apart. Because this man happened to enter the dungeon with his younger sister, they had her test them with things only the siblings would know. But to their shock, both ‘brothers’ answered identically, down to the smallest detail.

The five-person group had no other options and came to seek help.

But instead of finding a way to identify them at Car No. 1, they received another piece of disastrous news. Why was riding this train shortening their lives? This was way too terrifying!

Naturally, the occupants of Car No. 1 weren’t thrilled upon hearing about the bizarre events in Blondie’s group either.

Zhu Ming rubbed her chin. “No wonder I didn’t sense anyone dying in your car earlier, though the atmosphere felt a bit off.” At the time, they had their backs to Zhu Ming. Zhu Ming had just glanced over without paying much attention, so naturally she hadn’t spotted that one person had doubled.

Wenren Tu joked, “I remember this plot. It’s from Journey to the West. Back then, the Six-Eared Macaque transformed into Sun Wukong, and no one could tell them apart. In the end, Buddha himself had to step in to deal with the impostor. The ghosts on this train have evolved this ability; seems they’re quite ambitious.”

Hearing this, Blondie’s mood soured further. He could barely muster a laugh. There might be a Six-Eared Macaque here, but there was no Buddha!

Their five-man squad was cobbled together from unaffiliated participants joining forces. The only ones with a real-world connection were that pair of siblings. Now the brother was in trouble, and the sister wouldn’t just abandon him.

After several cycles of four seasons, everyone’s food tickets were nearly exhausted. Before they knew the window movement rule, it was every person for themselves, which meant nearly every car still had leftover ghosts lying in wait.

Plus, they didn’t know each other in real life and hadn’t built much camaraderie. Faced with this situation, no one was willing to risk their own neck to get food tickets to support two entities, not knowing which was human and which was ghost.

The five-man squad was already showing signs of splitting. They wanted to separate from the siblings. Blondie felt this wasn’t exactly honorable, but if Car No. 1 had no solution either, then his own survival took priority.

Silence fell for a moment. According to Blondie, even the biological sister couldn’t tell which was her real brother. What could an outsider possibly do?

Zhu Ming had rested enough. She stood up and said, “I’ll go take a look.”

Some things needed to be seen firsthand to be sure.

She continued, “I’m wondering, if the ghosts have all evolved this ability, why not just copy everyone? Anyway, which car are you in now? And before you entered, was there anything special about that car?”

Blondie thought for a moment and said, “We’re in Carriage No. 37. Special? How could a car be special? Oh right, I remember now. There was a participant in Car 37 before. He was calling for help through the small window, but by the time the door opened, he was already dead.”

If that was the case, Car No. 37 might very well have a red Ride Permit!

Zhu Ming said, “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

“Wait, take this.” Wenren Tu tossed her knife over. “I won’t need it.”

No further words were needed as they split up to act. Wenren Tu had a powerful Supernatural Ability but weaker physical skills, so she would hold down Car No. 1. Zhu Ming, with her superior mobility, was better suited to adapt on the fly.

Climbing out of the car and onto the roof, Zhu Ming felt the cool breeze amidst the blazing summer heat. Gazing at the dense forest in varying shades of green stretching endlessly, she sighed, “Maybe in my past life, I was Spider-Man.”

Carriage No. 37 was located towards the middle-rear of the train. The two of them moved quickly and soon approached it. But before they could reach Car 37, someone suddenly stuck their head out a window and called out:

“Blondie, we’re over here!”

Blondie looked down, surprised. “How did you guys end up here?”

This was Carriage No. 33, a relatively safe car where the local ghosts’ food tickets hadn’t been scavenged much. The one calling out to Blondie was one of the other two members of the five-person group, and there were other Ability users in the car as well.

“Even the little sister can’t tell her brother apart—do you really think someone else can? We weren’t connected to those siblings to begin with. Splitting up saves us the trouble. They’re family; if the sister wants to support two brothers, that’s her choice. If not, it’s their family business, none of ours. Blondie, you’re not planning on going back, are you?”

On one side was a new, safe group with no strange incidents; on the other was the sibling pair with an unresolvable duplication dilemma. Blondie was momentarily torn. Going into Car 33 was definitely safer, but they had fought together before. Wouldn’t abandoning them be a bit too cold?

A sudden idea struck Blondie, and he said, “Speaking of which, I just heard something in Car No. 1. Every time this train completes a cycle of four seasons, it’s like a year has passed, and participants lose a year of their lifespan. Other participants probably haven’t noticed this yet. Since I’m already outside, I’ll go warn the others first.”

With that, he turned to Zhu Ming and said, “Friend, I’ll leave Car 37 to you. I’m going to notify the isolated participants!”

And like a cat with its tail on fire, he scrambled away in a panic, afraid his former squad members would press him to pick a side. Heh heh, he wasn’t choosing so quickly. He’d wait and see if the weird situation with the siblings could be resolved before deciding!

Blondie going car-to-car to spread the word was actually perfect; it saved Zhu Ming the trouble. She knocked on the window of Carriage No. 37 and said, “I’m from Car No. 1. I came by earlier to ask about the red Ride Permit, remember?”

The little sister recognized a familiar face and opened the window to let her in. “Of course I remember. Blondie sent for you, right? Has your car had this situation?”

Zhu Ming shook her head. “No, it hasn’t. But this opportunity is too rare to pass up.”

The sister was a little taken aback. Zhu Ming explained to her about the train stealing lifespans and the solution of using a red Ride Permit to open the locomotive.

“The red Ride Permit is very likely in the possession of the ghost that obtained it.”

Zhu Ming sat down in front of the two bound ‘brothers’. She scrutinized their expressions as she spoke. “But the problem is how to find this kind of ghost. Blondie described you two as identical. My guess is that the ghost who got the Ride Permit, after its ability evolved, might now be able to perfectly mimic a living person. If it stole a dead participant’s identity and gained the ability to appear human during the night, it would be extremely difficult for us to tell them apart.”

At this point, both brothers voiced their confusion simultaneously: “What does that have to do with me splitting into two? / Why wouldn’t he just turn into someone else?”

Zhu Ming’s eyes curved into a smile. “Because the rules only upgraded after the first day ended. During the first day’s three four-season cycles, people already died, and the number of participants clearly decreased. This means that even if a ghost obtained a Ride Permit on the first day, it lacked the ability to impersonate a living person and was still confined to its own seat.

The second day is different. The new rules allowed a ghost with a Ride Permit to appear among the living. You just happened to be in this car and had already spent several ‘nights’ here.

When the first night of the second day arrived, it had no choice but to appear. You all realized that a participant had suddenly appeared out of thin air, so of course, you’d catch it immediately. To avoid instant exposure, it naturally had to disguise itself as one of you.”

During the night, the doors would open, giving participants a chance to move between cars. But they couldn’t climb outside in the tunnel to observe whether other cars had suddenly gained an extra person. This made identifying the ghost difficult.

So, the situation in Car 37 was a double-edged sword. Regardless, one of these two was definitely a ghost, and this ghost had the highest probability of possessing a red Ride Permit!

The little sister felt dizzy after hearing all this. She was desperate to find her real brother. Now, only she and her brother remained in Car 37. She could barely manage the next three and a half days alone.