"Get on that damn bus? Get lost—fade like smoke!"

Nana Toki stood by the platform, flipped a dagger of a middle finger at the Route 14 driver. "I’m not boarding your junk heap; what can you do?"

The Soul Carriage driver in this crummy side quest came back for a parting jab, like a boomerang in a narrow alley; Nana hadn’t expected it.

Her heart was broad as a river; after the first splash of shock, it went flat as a pond. He’s a ghost, driving a Soul Carriage; a chill is normal.

Even if every bus that rolled up next was Route 14, Nana wouldn’t wear that startled mask again; her face would be granite under rain.

"So."

"What’re you staring at? Keep staring and I’ll punch your steering wheel into orbit, like a bat swatting a moon."

Nana glared, eyes like blades, sleeves rolled, small fists popping like hail, and she kept needling the driver.

Bus driver: "..."

Is this she‑ghost nuts? If she won’t board, fine; why howl like thunder over tin roofs? I’m not deaf.

System: "..." Host, if you’re skipping the side quest, don’t stir a hornet’s nest of aggro for nothing.

"Psycho."

He fired up the engine, the rumble crawling like a beast; if looks could skewer ghosts, Nana would’ve died a dozen times.

After slicing the one human and one ghost on the platform with knife‑eyes, the Route 14 driver shut the doors and slid off like an iron whale.

No wonder this she‑ghost died young; that tongue is a blade, and trouble is the sheath she refused to use.

Watching Route 14 drift away like a dull fish, Xiaoxiao Ji gnawed a meat bun under steam and still couldn’t get why Nana Toki refused that bus.

To her, the driver looked like any street‑corner driver, a face like worn leather; nothing odd, yet Nana just wouldn’t board, as if tiptoeing past nails.

"Sister Ling Jiang, did you have a grudge with drivers like that when you were alive, like thorns under skin?"

"Grudge my foot; didn’t you feel that driver was wrong, cold as a shadow at noon?" Nana shot Xiaoxiao a look. "He can see me in full ghost‑light; what do you think he is?"

Nana’s words landed, and Xiaoxiao’s face went purple like bruised plums under frost.

"Y‑y‑y‑you mean that bus driver was a ghost?" Her hand shook, the half bun wobbling like a moon on a hook.

If Nana hadn’t grabbed her, she’d already be ferried across like a paper boat on the river of the dead.

"Not just that. That bus might be a Soul Carriage, and every passenger could be a ghost, like crows lining a bare branch." Nana smiled, savoring Xiaoxiao’s cute, scared‑stiff look like a cat at a mirror.

"Sister Ling Jiang… please stop. I’m starting to get scared, like a turtle tucking its neck."

She glanced around the platform—empty as a dried lake save for her and Nana—and shrank into herself, breath a thin reed in wind.

Hauntings kept piling up like thunderheads; Xiaoxiao felt one day she’d be scared to death, a candle snuffed by a draft.

"Relax. Daylight means you rarely meet a Soul Carriage, pale sun like a shield. Those two runs were bad luck; we’ll wait and catch another bus."

Nana leaned and peered toward the right‑hand entrance; the clock was nearing seven, its hands like insect legs, yet the sky stayed bruised.

Dark clouds sheeted the heavens like iron scales; no hint of day broke the lid.

It felt less like daylight and more like a normal night at seven or eight, a street under a black dome.

After a brief look, Nana lost interest and floated back to the platform bench, mind counting how to earn back her good‑fortune points after ditching the side quest, like picking coins from river silt.

Seeing Nana’s easy, careless air, Xiaoxiao swallowed her words, then pulled out her phone like a lantern and scrolled news to reroute her thoughts.

"Capital Express: A residential block’s mysterious fire two years ago has new progress, the perpetrator Li captured; citizens, don’t play with fire at home, or embers become storms."

"Special: Last night, a female high‑schooler fell from a sixth‑floor dorm like a broken kite; suspected campus bullying."

"Capital Express: At an appliance mall, a visitor self‑ignited like a match, triggering blasts—seventeen injured, three unconscious; firefighters and medics arrived fast, and the damage didn’t spread."

"A certain college’s female dorm has nightly sobbing since the school opened, like rain behind walls; students say someone hanged herself at midnight. Many dorm residents have filed for a move."

"..."

Headline after headline stood up on her screen like porcupine quills, and Xiaoxiao shivered, a leaf in cold water. Knowing ghosts are real made the world feel full of cracks.

Muttering in her heart, she pocketed the phone, and a high beam blossomed ahead like a pale sword.

Is that the Route 11 bus? The thought flickered like a firefly.

She squinted, raised her chin, and saw a bus round the corner like a slow beast, easing into the stop.

"Sister Ling Jiang, the bus is here."

"Oh, got it." Nana rose from the bench, footsteps light as smoke, just as the bus doors sighed open like a wave.

"You again?"

Seeing the familiar number marked above the door, Nana’s face caved into shadow like a storm cellar. Was this Soul Carriage driver set on her, needling like a splinter?

Third time already? Even a boomerang act should have limits, not circle like a hungry hawk forever.

"Boarding?" The driver’s eerie voice rolled across the empty stop like fog, far and thin.

Beside Nana, Xiaoxiao felt the cold she’d shed creep back like frost, and her legs trembled like reeds.

"S‑Sister Ling Jiang… what do we do…" Her teeth clicked like icicles.

She remembered Nana’s warning. This Route 14 might be a Soul Carriage carrying the dead; she didn’t want that ride to her academy exchange, like a hearse to a festival.

"What else? We don’t board, and we outwait him, stone against tide." Nana’s tone was level, her calm a lake under wind, ignoring Xiaoxiao’s fear.

This Soul Carriage circling the stop meant it fancied one of them, fly to honey; otherwise it wouldn’t make loops. Honestly, the driver was getting on her nerves like sand in a shoe.

If he kept it up, Nana might stroll over and take the bus apart like a can, metal peeling like bark.

But her mood was decent, blue sky behind clouds, so she chose to spare him this round.

If he didn’t accept it, tearing him down later would be as easy as ripping a paper lantern.

"..."

"Sister Ling Jiang…" Suddenly, Xiaoxiao stiffened, as if the bus had shown its teeth; her pupils pinched into pinpoints, voice trembling like a plucked string. "There’s a ghost on board staring at me."

"How do you know it’s a ghost?" Nana’s look turned odd, then she followed Xiaoxiao’s finger like an arrow, gaze traveling the length of the bus.

At the rear door, she saw a girl in blood‑red robes standing like a crimson flag, watching the one human and one ghost with wide, pale eyes.

It was the Red Robed Wraith she’d handed to Lu Ming last time; no wonder Xiaoxiao recognized her, memory like a moth to flame.

But why was she here, planted on this iron carriage like a scarlet blossom?

Nana didn’t buy that someone the Protagonist Lord had turned from foe to friend would just appear on a Soul Carriage; the air around her felt tight as drumskin.

The wraith seemed to want to speak, but the scene was wrong, mouths stitched by circumstance; she could only stare, eyes all whites like chalk moons, pinning Nana in place.

No way…

Meeting the wraith’s gaze, Nana felt trouble coil like a snake; by her guess, the Red Robed Wraith was here because the Protagonist Lord was inside, light behind a curtain.

She remembered the original plot: the Protagonist Lord overslept, missed the school bus, and had to wait at the stop for a public bus, clock hands sagging like tired reeds.

But in the original, that bus was normal; how did her path twist it into a Soul Carriage, a river ferry for ghosts?

It made sense though. In the original, the Protagonist Lord had no aid from the Red Robed Wraith; with Nana’s meddling, he gained that red shadow, and Heaven’s Dao might be cutting him down through butterfly ripples.

Beep‑beep‑beep—!

While Nana weighed Heaven’s petty streak like a cat batting yarn, the driver grew impatient and leaned on the horn, sound rolling like tin thunder, urging them aboard.

"Sister Ling Jiang, let’s get on." Xiaoxiao stared at the red‑robed figure by the back door, gears turning like mills; after a few seconds of gnawing indecision, she bit down and stepped forward.

Soul Carriage or not, short pain beats long dread; better to jump the cold river than freeze on the bank.

This cute girl is going all in, heart thudding like a drum.