A Manual for Surviving a Weird World

Chapter 407: The Study of Scarlet Words
Ding Wei stiffly turned his head, not daring to look directly at the girl's smiling face, his shirt soaked with cold sweat.

"Awei, what's wrong?" Miao Miaomiao, who was in front of the line, asked in a low voice.

Ding Wei lowered his voice and whispered, "A little girl touched my neck just now, and it felt very cold... Her fingers had no body temperature, like a corpse that had been frozen in a morgue for a very long time."

Miao Miaomiao turned pale with fright and dared not speak. She and her boyfriend had only wanted to see who was so bored and to see if they could capture some material from urban legends to make a video, but they never expected to actually encounter a ghost.

Feng Yushu tilted her head slightly, looked around at the passersby, and whispered to Ning Zhe, "Especially since we can't see their shadows, these people are not living people."

"Let nature take its course, don't act rashly," Ning Zhe said in a low voice. "Let's get on the train first and see where it goes."

“But…” Feng Yushu hesitated, “I don’t have a ticket.”

Ning Zhe glanced back at the long queue for ticket inspection. Zhang Genshuo and Xu Beichen were already in line. He said calmly, "There will be."

The ticket check line moved forward quickly, and it was soon Ning Zhe's turn. Only when he got closer could he see that the ticket gate was empty, with no staff checking tickets, which saved him the trouble.

Ning Zhe stuffed the ticket with the name "Fenwu" on it into his pocket, stepped across the empty ticket gate, and Feng Yushu followed closely behind him into the carriage.

The temperature inside the carriage seemed to be several degrees lower than in the waiting room. As soon as you entered, you could feel the drop in temperature. It was a chilling sensation that penetrated to the bone. This pervasive coldness felt somewhat familiar to Ning Zhe. He had felt the same way when he was face to face with the strange messenger who delivered the tickets. It was as if even his soul was being frozen.

The carriage was sparsely populated with passengers, who all turned around the moment he entered. Their faces were blank, and their numb, lifeless gazes fell on him.

A little further away, a passenger standing with his back to Ning Zhe also stopped at the same time, turning his head 180 degrees. His head and body seemed like two separate parts, with only empty eyes staring at him silently.

The carriage was well-lit, and you could see directly outside through the glass, so there was no feeling of being enclosed. But Ning Zhe, who was being stared at like this, felt like he was walking on pins and needles, and the air was filled with a gloomy and oppressive atmosphere.

Ning Zhe took Feng Yushu's hand and walked into the carriage as if no one else was around, slowly looking for a suitable seat.

Throughout the process, the heads of the passengers kept turning with his steps, their necks cracking and snapping, and no matter where he went, their eyes remained fixed on him.

Fortunately, the passengers' gazes were just that—gazes; their bodies remained perfectly still, only their heads were turning.

Ning Zhe found an empty seat by the window and sat down next to Feng Yushu. Soon, two more people came and sat down next to them. They were Ding Wei and Miao Miaomiao, while the Zhang brothers and Xu Beicheng were still waiting in line behind them.

Like Ning Zhe, Miao Miaomiao also received a lot of attention from the passengers when she entered.

“You look scared.” Ning Zhe looked at her pale face and asked with some curiosity, “I thought you would just turn around and go home.”

Miao Miaomiao shook her head repeatedly and hurriedly said, "I... I originally wanted to go home, but as soon as the thought of 'going home' appeared in my mind, I suddenly felt a cold wind blowing through my body, mixed with a sound like a child crying, and then I... I was very scared."

"What are you afraid of?" Ning Zhe asked again.

"I don't know," Miao Miaomiao said through gritted teeth. "I don't know where that feeling of fear comes from, but I just have that feeling, is it some kind of intuition?"

"My intuition tells me that since I've already signed my name on the ticket, I must board the train and follow a predetermined path, otherwise something unspeakably terrifying will happen..."

“It does resemble A-Zhi’s ‘inspiration’ somewhat…” Feng Yushu thought to herself, glancing subtly at Ning Zhe, meeting his thoughtful gaze. Clearly, they were thinking the same thing. Ning Zhe’s carriage quickly filled up, and the Zhang brothers and Xu Beichen, who were behind him, followed the queue into the next carriage.

Gently kneading and playing with the aunt's soft hands, Ning Zhe glanced at the 'passengers' around him who were staring intently at him, and chuckled: "Let me see where this train will take us."

Time ticked by, and as the train doors closed, the ticket gates in the waiting hall stopped checking tickets, and the train was about to depart.

Suddenly, it got dark outside the window. The platform and waiting room that were visible through the train window were now completely dark, and nothing could be seen.

Several lines of bloody words slowly appeared on the dark car window:
Do not open windows.

[Once the train has started moving, looking out the window is prohibited.]

No disembarking is permitted before the destination station is reached.

If anyone dies inside the carriage, please leave the carriage.

Keep your ticket safe.

The blood-written words were of varying sizes and were scattered across the windows on both sides of the carriage, with many instances of repeated writing, seemingly to ensure that everyone who boarded the train would see these notices regardless of where they were seated.

“This is…” Ding Wei held up the camera, recording the bloody words one after another, while Miao Miaomiao beside him grabbed his arm in fear.

"It seems we weren't the first passengers to board the train," Ning Zhe said quietly.

"What do you mean by this?" Ding Wei quickly asked.

"The literal meaning." Ning Zhe's expression remained unchanged: "This is probably a reminder left by previous passengers for us who come later."

Miao Miaomiao was puzzled when Ding Wei suddenly grabbed her wrist, startling her: "Awei?"

"Ticket! Hide the ticket!" Ding Wei said in a low voice, but his tone was firm and urgent.

Miao Miaomiao was taken aback when she heard this, and hurriedly stuffed her ticket into her pocket. In order to deal with possible ticket inspection, she had been holding the ticket in her hand from the beginning, and had not put the ticket into her pocket even after finding that there was no one at the ticket gate.

Beads of cold sweat the size of soybeans seeped from Ding Wei's forehead. He suddenly understood why the girl had reached out to touch his neck while they were queuing. It turned out that she had never wanted to touch his neck, but rather the train ticket in Miao Miaomiao's hand.

"There's no one at the ticket gate, which means you don't need a ticket to board. So what's the use of this ticket?"

The answer is obvious—it's used to get off the bus.

Miao Miaomiao covered the pocket containing the train ticket with one hand. Across the carriage, a woman holding a child stood there.

A little girl with two braids sat in her mother's lap, her small body leaning slightly forward, stretching out her two chubby little hands, her plump face giggling.

(End of this chapter)