Chapter 33 Part 1

The darkness was mere inches away.

Zhu Ming held onto Yin Yu, her expression as dark and unreadable as the night sea. “You are not trustworthy.”

“Mingming, I have never lied to you.” Yin Yu’s smile was unrestrained. “Everything has its pros and cons. Come, make your choice.”

Whoosh—the wind at the tunnel’s entrance surged like a tide.

In the very last second before darkness swallowed the light, Zhu Ming exerted force in her arm and yanked Yin Yu violently back inside the car. In the same motion, she backhanded her long knife, hurling it to pierce the right Yin Yu, who had silently crept up behind her in an attempt to push them both out.

Yin Yu backhanded the window shut behind her, but she was still a fraction of a second too slow. Her back scraped against the thick, inky darkness, which instantly unleashed a horrifying sizzling, corrosive sound that set teeth on edge.

Yin Yu pitched forward, crashing straight into Zhu Ming’s arms.

Zhu Ming stiffened. Her arms wrapped around a soft body, and her every breath was filled with the other woman’s scent. She snapped back to her senses quickly and irritably tried to shove Yin Yu away. “What are you doing?! I pulled you back in, but that doesn’t mean I want to be lovey-dovey with you! Get off, get off, get off!”

Yin Yu clung like a medicinal plaster. She was a bit taller than Zhu Ming. To say she fell into her arms was true, but the moment she did, she wrapped her arms around Zhu Ming, firmly locking her in place. She tilted her head down slightly and asked, “Do you really want me to let go right now?”

Zhu Ming’s face was smothered by her loose, flowing hair. She pushed it aside and said coldly, “Let go!”

Yin Yu: “Alright then.”

She slowly loosened her hold just a fraction, pulling her body that was pressed flush against Zhu Ming back by a small distance. The pervasive, faint scent of pear blossoms, which had completely enveloped Zhu Ming, receded a little. Zhu Ming let out a silent sigh of relief.

However, the next second, Zhu Ming’s expression changed. Her glance downward unintentionally caught a glimpse of something pink and lacy. Hurriedly, she said, “Wait.”

Yin Yu looked at her innocently, the tip of her nose brushing against Zhu Ming’s cheek. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you tell me to let go?”

Without waiting for Zhu Ming’s reply, she pasted on an expression of sudden realization. “Oh, I see. Mingming is shy. But wasn’t it just earlier that Mingming was so proactive in asking me to seduce you?”

Zhu Ming: “…………” This again. It’s never going to end, is it?

In an instant, Zhu Ming’s face burned. She ground her teeth and tried to explain, “That was me testing whether you were real or fake, okay?! Don’t twist my words!”

Yin Yu chuckled softly. Her hands hovered on Zhu Ming as she said, “In for a penny, in for a pound. The clothes on my back were corroded. If I let go now, I’ll be completely exposed. And the button was torn off by you. You should take responsibility.”

Faced with this kind of shameless coercion, Zhu Ming’s bottom line lowered again and again. “Can’t you just hold it up yourself?”

Yin Yu replied, “Lifting my arms high hurts. And I’m afraid you’ll ditch me if I let go.”

Zhu Ming was speechless. “…” This bastard is such a problem.

But Yin Yu wasn’t lying. Zhu Ming saw that the entire back of her outfit was corroded away. The fabric from collar to waist had completely disappeared. The skin and flesh underneath were a bloody, mangled mess, as if badly burned. Large patches of blood had dyed the white dress into a sorry, ragged state.

An injury like that would be agony with the slightest movement, yet Yin Yu acted as though she felt no pain. Aside from a pale complexion, her clinging actions weren’t affected in the slightest.

Zhu Ming thought about just letting her fall and make a spectacle of herself, but the thought of those unknown entities in the train getting an eyeful made a powerful wave of revulsion rise within her.

She didn’t think it was because she was going soft on her or anything. It was just… her moral bottom line hadn’t fallen that low yet.

She couldn’t shake her off; if Zhu Ming let go, the front half of her clothing would just fall right down. She had no choice but to let her stay pressed close.

Yin Yu’s back was severely injured, so Zhu Ming didn’t want to touch it. She grabbed her by the waist and said irritably, “Get lower, you’re blocking my view. Let’s get one thing straight first: this time is out of necessity. If you so much as twitch suspiciously, our cooperation is over. Don’t blame me for not being polite.”

Yin Yu simply kicked off her high heels, instantly shrinking in height by a noticeable margin. She hugged Zhu Ming’s waist and laughed. “Don’t worry. Since I proposed cooperation, I won’t go back on it. Although my heart has been deeply wounded by Mingming—still, Mingming is too formidable. This time I can only submit under duress.”

Zhu Ming: “…” Her fist hardened.

Her body pierced by the long knife and slammed against the side of the car, blood staining her dress and pooling on the floor, the other Yin Yu looked over weakly. She said, “Mingming, you’ve decided to cooperate with a ghost to kill me? You’ll regret this… Without me, my attendant won’t open the window of Carriage No. 60 for you. The last car with participants now is only No. 44. If you want… to go further back, it will waste a lot of time.”

Zhu Ming sneered. “Alright, stop pretending. I told you, I knew who was human and who was ghost before you even came in. I wanted to kill this ghost first and team up with you, the real one, then deal with you afterwards. I didn’t expect you, you old shady fish, to just coast along and not do a damn thing!”

The real Yin Yu: “?” Wasn’t she basically cursing herself?

The old shady fish struggled on death’s door. “No… you must have mistaken me… cough, cough… how, how did you do it?”

Zhu Ming, with Yin Yu still clinging to her, stepped forward and wrenched her knife back. The old shady fish crumpled to the floor, barely breathing. Yet even at this moment, she hadn’t dropped the act.

Zhu Ming knew that for stubborn ghosts, you had to make them give up completely. So she said, “Didn’t I say? No matter how alike a ghost and the original are, they’re still not the same. Even if it can copy a person’s body, abilities, and memories, a ghost is ultimately not human. The stances of human and ghost are naturally opposed. The moment I said I had a way to tell you apart, you couldn’t suppress your killing intent. Foolish!”

The truly chilling thing about Yin Yu was that she never had a sharp, obvious killing intent towards Zhu Ming. She wanted to extract her soul the way one wants to pick a flower—without malice, purely to achieve her goal.

The real Yin Yu leaned on Zhu Ming’s shoulder and laughed. “Mingming is so bad. You knew who the real one was long ago and still deliberately attacked me.”

Zhu Ming responded righteously, extending a finger to poke her face away. “I said ‘which one is the ghost is obvious.’ I didn’t say it was you.”

Hearing this, the old shady fish finally stopped pretending. Her body gradually twisted and changed color, transforming into a short, dark male ghost.

Remembering that this sort of creature had just been impersonating Yin Yu, Zhu Ming couldn’t help but find it a bit funny and a bit nauseating. She flicked the black blood off her blade and put some distance between them in the corridor.

What a headache. Having Yin Yu hanging on her was a hindrance. She wondered what kind of ability this old shady fish had. Zhu Ming wanted to push Yin Yu away to get some clearance.

After the old shady fish reverted to its true form, all the injuries it had sustained vanished completely. It rolled its body, and with a sickening, squelching sound that set teeth on edge, five or six new arms sprouted from its sides.

The old shady fish laughed hoarsely. “You two are clearly enemies, yet you chose to cooperate. How interesting.”

What was so interesting about it? The reason for the cooperation was something he had stated himself.

That’s right. Zhu Ming had always been hung up on the peculiar, spotlight-like objects that appeared solely in Car No. 1 and Car No. 60. She had a feeling that this train wouldn’t stop so easily, and those points of difference from the other cars must serve a unique purpose.

If Yin Yu died, her attendant might block the way to Car 60 for revenge. Even if they did nothing, everyone would waste precious time just trying to enter Car 60.

Her lifespan had been stolen from her for no reason. Zhu Ming was incredibly pissed off, and she was going to get revenge for this quiet loss!

As Yin Yu had said, there were plenty of opportunities to settle their score later. But this damn train—she wanted to blow it up right now!

However… Zhu Ming looked at him and fell silent. The old shady fish felt uncomfortable under her stare and couldn’t help but bluster, “What are you looking at?!”

Zhu Ming’s eyes were filled with probing curiosity. “Why didn’t you try to tempt me into cooperating with you?”

Old Shady Fish: “Eh?”

Whether a person is smart or stupid, omniscient or ignorant, strong or cowardly—as long as they have desires and emotions, their actions will reveal things. The old shady fish shouldn’t have immediately switched to the opposing side after being exposed. Because he wasn’t facing ordinary participants; he was facing two people with a grudge!

“Based on what the sister said, ghosts can copy a person’s memories. You did indeed know Yin Yu and I have conflict—so you should have known, you could’ve used Yin Yu’s information to entice me into cooperating with you. Even if I chose to cooperate with Yin Yu for the sake of clearing this, you knew there were greater benefits you could offer to lure me.” Zhu Ming verbally cornered the ghost. “Why did you give up on that immediately? What are you so afraid of?”