Players, Please Board the Train

"Hey, why did you open the door?!" The man inside the city shouted at the driver in a rough voice, but the driver, whose neck was wrapped in piano wire, didn't dare to speak and desperately signaled to the others with his eyes.

There were quite a few people on the bus. Fourteen young and beautiful girls with terrified expressions, and five men who looked like weathered fugitives. One of them was wounded in the chest and bandaging himself in the back seat. Two girls lay at his feet - one with her skirt flipped up, unconscious, and the other covered in blood, dazed and confused.

The girl who had appeared at the window earlier was being pinned down by a bald man, her head pressed against the seat. The other three men were scattered in the middle of the bus, huddled close to the trembling girls.

When Xu Huo appeared, the pinned girl suddenly surged up and threw the bald man off, opening her mouth in a silent scream: *Help!*

"Slap!" The bald man backhanded her across the face, knocking her down. He grabbed her hair and yanked her up, sneering darkly, "You think just because you've become an Evolver you can play hero? I'll kill you however I want!"

This was said for Xu Huo to hear. The bus door had already closed, and the curtains in front and back were drawn. Inside this sealed space, the three men besides the wounded one all stood up.

Xu Huo's gaze swept over them. "I don't know how long this traffic jam will last. Why don't we sit up front and have a chat?"

It wasn't a suggestion. It was a demand.

One of them, a tall, burly man with long hair, flicked his locks back. "Who the hell do you think you are, acting all big in front of us..."

Xu Huo's gaze settled on him, and the burly man instantly choked on his words. He was much more physically imposing than Xu Huo, but when their eyes met, the muscles in his face twitched involuntarily, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

He hadn't said a single harsh word, yet just standing there made the men on the bus feel an unprecedented pressure. They had no idea where this pressure came from, but they instinctively feared it.

The three men blocking his path lost their smiles but weren't willing to let it go either. They stood frozen, not moving.

Seeing this, the bald man shoved the girl aside and strode aggressively toward Xu Huo. Xu Huo's fingers twitched, but at that moment, the wounded man in the back suddenly shouted, "Big Head!"

Everyone turned around. Xu Huo even spun around to face him directly, leaving his back completely exposed to the bald man.

The wounded man's eyes swept over Xu Huo's shoes, and he forced a stiff smile. "Actually, we just wanted to rest in the bus for a while. If you want the bus, take it. We'll leave first."

As he spoke, he stood up and moved toward the aisle. But the moment he stepped into the walkway, Xu Huo appeared in front of him... and the next second, the wounded man crashed backward, blood spraying from his severed throat, splattering all over the face of the girl who had just woken up.

The people on the bus seemed to be affected by some item that prevented them from making sound. The two girls screamed silently, while Xu Huo picked up the short knife that had slipped from the man's hand. He flicked it backward, and the blade pierced accurately through the driver's hand as it reached for the door.

"AAAAHHH!!!" The driver screamed in agony. The bald man and his group's faces changed color, and they immediately moved to grab the nearest girls as hostages. But the moment they turned around, Xu Huo was standing right in the middle of them, repeating his earlier words, "Go up front and have a chat."

Cold sweat poured down their faces. They didn't dare pull any tricks and obediently walked forward.

Xu Huo scraped the blood off his shoe, waved for the girls to move to the back, and sat down behind the men himself.

The men were terrified out of their minds but didn't dare look back, afraid their heads would leave their shoulders any second. But Xu Huo genuinely wanted to talk to them.

"Where are you coming from?" he asked.

"A... a small city. The whole place was nearly burned to the ground by players. We escaped," the burly man said immediately.

"Besides the officially announced safe routes, don't you players know any other paths?"

"There used to be... but not anymore. I personally saw several players get swallowed by Random Dungeons that just spawned... Now only the government-announced routes are relatively safe... but you never know. Now that the road is blocked, something bad probably happened up ahead." The bald man spoke in one breath, then added ingratiatingly, "Big brother, where are you headed? We brothers know this area like the back of our hands. We can guide you or lend a hand—no problem at all!"

"I'm going to Mao City. Heard of it?" Xu Huo said.

"Mao City is famous," the bald man quickly replied. "We used to deliver goods there all the time."

"Oh? What kind of work did you do before?" Xu Huo asked.

"I delivered meat," the bald man said. "Can't do that business anymore, though. But I visited plenty of nice places while delivering. Mao City is the most prosperous area around here. There's even a top-tier hotel there—even its kitchen is fancier than most hotel lobbies!"

Xu Huo searched on his phone. That top-tier hotel was the one built by the Shang descendant. After the Shang descendant committed suicide, the hotel had been donated to the local government and was now outsourced to other companies.

"This entrepreneur with the surname Shang is quite famous."

"Famous, very famous. He built lots of hotels, shopping malls, and even welfare homes. If you don't believe me, ask the girls behind us—two of them came from Shang's Welfare Home." The bald man didn't dare turn around, just pointed backward with his thumb.

The group of girls was huddled together, trembling. After being herded to the back, they had tried to call for help, but the whole world was in chaos now—neither the government nor their agency could spare any attention for them. They had knocked on the windows, begging passersby for help, but when people saw the blood on them, they just rolled up their windows and turned away.

They couldn't break the windows either. The tour bus had been specially reinforced, and they couldn't smash it no matter how hard they tried. The emergency tools were all by the driver's seat.

Xu Huo had killed someone, but that didn't guarantee he was any better than the bald man and his crew. The young girls, their faces smeared with makeup, pressed themselves together to make themselves as small as possible, praying that Xu Huo and his group would just leave soon.

"Welfare Home?" Xu Huo turned around.

The girl who had begged for help and been hit by the bald man stepped forward two paces, her swollen cheek prominent. She bravely pointed at her throat.

Xu Huo tapped on the seat back in front of him.

The bald man immediately blew the whistle. The girl touched her throat, and in her surprise, tears streamed down her face. She dropped to her knees, "Please, save us! We're a girl group under a Mao City entertainment company. Several members are children of well-known entrepreneurs. If you take us to a safe place, the company will definitely pay you a lot of money... and any items you want, they'll find a way to get them!"

Xu Huo handed her a handkerchief and motioned for her to get up and sit down. "Wipe your face. Did you just become an Evolver?"

The girl took it nervously, wiped her face as instructed, and then answered in a trembling voice, "Just a day or two ago. I haven't hurt anyone..."

#