Global Collapse-Chapter 553 - 521: Urban Ghost Story Gu Bong Bong_1

Chapter 553: Chapter 521: Urban Ghost Story Gu Bong Bong_1

"Gu Mian himself called the car. We were staying close enough to the company to walk," Xia Jianren said, sucking in several sharp breaths, perhaps because wincing tugged at his injuries.

"Yes," Cang Yue nodded, looking out onto the deserted highway. Street lamps cast their dim glow on the road, a few moths orbiting them. "He had the car ready when we escaped."

When they fled from the perilous employee dormitory, they had hastily jumped into a taxi without much thought.

Could it be that he already anticipated that the driver was a ghost when he called the car! A preposterous notion suddenly popped into Wang Chuan’s head.

"That’s likely the case," Cang Yue let out a long sigh, feeling utterly exhausted.

Of the eight missing people, the driver’s death had been confirmed, and the remaining seven were likely in dire straits, which made it hard to find a path to survival through them.

But if all eight were dead, then why hadn’t their bodies been found?

Keke, who was supporting Zhao Shuang, asked, "Do we continue towards the company?"

Cang Yue snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Zhao Shuang. This NPC must have suffered quite a fall from the car and was unable to walk independently. Luckily, her head wasn’t injured, and she looked quite lucid, though her face was etched with fear.

"We must. The company should be close by. We’ll walk there," replied Cang Yue, patting her pocket, which contained a fruit knife. Luckily, the knife hadn’t shifted when she jumped from the car, or she would have stabbed herself.

Wang Chuan and Xia Jianren were already hobbling forward. Wang Chuan turned and called back to them, "Let’s go quickly. In our current state, every second we spend here is dangerous."

By "here," he meant this instance.

Ordinarily, uninjured and agile players faced a slim chance of survival in instances, let alone a group like theirs, with injured legs and feet, unable to run quickly.

Cang Yue tried to ignore the pain in her foot and quickened her pace to join the two men, putting distance between them and Zhao Shuang, who was being supported by Keke further behind.

She glanced back at Zhao Shuang, who was struggling to advance, then whispered to the two men, "Now that we all have mobility issues, passively clearing this instance is impossible. If we encounter a ghost, we can’t outrun it in our current state."

Wang Chuan nodded. "So you mean..."

"We can’t run. Every second we spend in this dangerous environment could be our last. What we need to do now is make this instance no longer dangerous," Cang Yue’s voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.

She cast another glance at Zhao Shuang. "Meaning, we have to find a path to survival as soon as possible. My guess may not be entirely accurate, but we can be sure that the path to survival in this instance is definitely related to the memory Zhao Shuang lost. As long as she can recall what actually happened on October 1st, we can deduce the path to survival from it."

Why did the bus overturn and fall down the mountain, and what did it have to do with Zhao Shuang? As long as she could remember, everything would be resolved.

They had already investigated the employee dormitory and obtained some clues.

The chat history on Xia Jianren’s cellphone showed that Zhao Shuang had a dispute with him before she lost her memory. Her current attitude, however, indicated that she might have forgotten about it.

Cang Yue hobbled forward. "At any rate, let’s head to the company and do our utmost to find any clues that could stimulate her memory..."

Wang Chuan nodded in agreement.

Xia Jianren looked at the dimly lit road and remembered the taxi. "I wonder how Gu Mian is doing."

"Right," remembering the taxi prompted Xia Jianren to recall another incident. He turned to Cang Yue. "Why did you ask about ’Crazy Guessing Words’ in the taxi? Have you been in that instance too?"

Hearing Xia Jianren’s question, Cang Yue frowned. "No, I didn’t know it was an instance before this. I heard the name from Gu Mian. Do you remember when we just escaped from the residential area and saw Gu Mian making a call in the phone booth?"

Both men nodded.

"I was close enough to hear him ask the person on the phone if they knew about a place called Sweet Manor and if they had watched the two variety shows, ’Crazy Guessing Words’ and ’Sweet Lovers’."

Xia Jianren’s jaw dropped. "There are only five players in this instance... He must have been talking to an NPC. Does this mean he was asking an NPC in this instance about another instance?"

It was truly mind-boggling.

Cang Yue continued, "I don’t know what answer he got. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Maybe there is some connection between these game instances?"

Compared to Cang Yue and Xia Jianren, Wang Chuan was more concerned about the matter at hand. "This is not the time to discuss these things. If you really want to know the answer, ask Gu Mian the next time we see him."

Xia Jianren pursed his lips, seemingly not very hopeful about meeting Gu Mian again. "We may not see him again. He went with the ghost driver. I fear the worst for him... Wait, what’s that up ahead?"

Upon hearing his words, everyone followed Xia Jianren’s gaze and saw two beams of light on the empty road ahead—evidently, they were car headlights.

A car was slowly approaching from ahead with its headlights on. The crucial thing was, this car looked incredibly familiar. They had just jumped off that car not too long ago!

"That ghost is back!" Xia Jianren nearly jumped up at the sight of the familiar car.

Cang Yue reacted quickly. The moment she saw the front of the car, she turned and ran, shouting to the others, "Split up and run!" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

One ghost, five people. Splitting up was undoubtedly the best strategy to buy time and the safest option.

They scattered in an instant and ran as hard as they could.

However, the road they were on was straight with no forks for them to split up, so they could only flee together in one direction initially.

But how could people with impaired mobility outrun a four-wheeled car? Xia Jianren, who was lagging at the very back and almost out of breath, was the first to be overtaken.

In just a few seconds, the car caught up to him and moved forward parallel to him.

Xia Jianren didn’t dare, nor did he have the energy, to turn his head to look at the car running side by side with him. He just kept running forward, his legs throbbing with excruciating pain, desperately trying to escape the car’s vicinity.

He thought he was likely to die, to die in this horrifying and cold instance. After his death, he would lie sprawled on the road, wondering if his corpse could even return to the real world.

Gu Mian pressed the gas pedal, unhurriedly rolled down the window, and looked out at Xia Jianren, whose profile was perfectly visible from this angle.

He could see Xia Jianren’s face was pale and bluish, his eye sockets and the tip of his nose red, tears almost pouring out.

Gu Mian estimated that if he let him run for a few more minutes, he would collapse and die on the spot.

"Are you guys racing?" Xia Jianren, who was trying desperately to escape, suddenly heard this sentence from beside him.

The voice didn’t sound like a ghost’s, and it was quite familiar.

He instinctively slowed down and glanced at the car by his side. He saw that the car window had been rolled down at some point, revealing Gu Mian’s face.

Upon seeing this familiar face, Xia Jianren’s foot slipped, and he plopped onto the ground, twisting his previously uninjured leg in the process.

Following that, what erupted in Gu Mian’s ears was an outburst of loud sobbing.

After plopping onto the ground, the man, his eyes already red, finally couldn’t hold back any longer. He began to sob loudly.

Gu Mian looked through the car window at Xia Jianren sitting on the ground, not quite understanding why he was crying.

The sound of sobbing also reached the others who were fleeing up ahead. Cang Yue had been expecting to hear screams, the final sounds a person makes before dying, but instead, she heard crying, unending sobs. The crying wasn’t cut short by death; the ghost in the car seemed very patient, as if waiting for the person to finish crying before making a move.

She glanced back curiously and saw that the car had stopped. The car door was open, and the driver’s seat was empty. Shifting her gaze slightly to the side, she saw Gu Mian squatting beside Xia Jianren, who was wailing, while Gu Mian offered him a tissue.

Xia Jianren snatched the tissue and fiercely wiped his nose, while Gu Mian, who was squatting beside him, pulled out another tissue and handed it over.

Cang Yue, too, stopped running.

The others apparently had also realized things weren’t as they’d imagined, and they all stopped to watch Gu Mian hand tissues to Xia Jianren.

The scene was heartwarming, but also somewhat bizarre.

"So, you’re saying it wasn’t the ghost driver who drove the car back, but you, Gu Mian? You drove the car back to pick us up?" Once they had calmed down, the group quickly gathered and boarded the car. Cang Yue was asking Gu Mian about what had just happened.

Only Xia Jianren, in the front passenger seat, was still whimpering, not yet fully recovered.

"Indeed, that’s the case," Gu Mian said, turning the steering wheel. "As it happened, I saw you guys racing when I came back."

The racing part wasn’t important. Cang Yue twitched her eyebrows and asked, "Wasn’t the driver a ghost? How did you manage to come back safely? And you even brought the ghost’s car back."

Who could have imagined that what was the ghost’s car a moment ago had become Gu Mian’s in the next?

"I saw you all fall off, so I told the driver that some people were left behind and asked him to go back and pick you up."

"Well, you’re quite something!" Xia Jianren said, fiercely wiping his nose again.

Gu Mian continued his account. "But he was silent, ignoring me. I thought, What an unprofessional driver. I’ve met such unprofessional drivers before, but I always managed to persuade them by appealing to their reason and emotions."

"So, I told the driver it was unethical of him not to go back and pick you all up. He ignored me at first. But after I talked to him at length, he was moved. He cried profusely, admitting his fault, and said he was too ashamed... he couldn’t bear to face you all. So, he gave me the car and told me to come back and find you."

What the hell? Cang Yue thought inwardly upon hearing Gu Mian’s account.

Looking at the expressions of the others, it was clear they were thinking something similar to Cang Yue. However, with tacit understanding, none of them voiced their thoughts; they just nodded awkwardly in feigned agreement.

They increasingly felt this man was abnormal, and none of them dared to refute him, fearing that Gu Mian might go crazy.

Just as everyone was trying to figure out how the car ended up in Gu Mian’s hands, Xia Jianren in the front passenger seat suddenly said, "Look on the right."

Everyone in the car looked out the right window. On the right side of the road, something lay curled up and motionless, as if it had been beaten to death and dragged there. A closer look revealed it was a person, still wearing clothes. Most importantly, the clothes were distinctly familiar!

They were the ghost driver’s clothes!

But Gu Mian’s car was moving fast, and it was gone from sight in a flash as they sped past.

The moment they saw that thing on the roadside, Keke thought she could hear the chattering of teeth from the others in the car.