Chapter 3: Inviting Spirits (2)

Even the passengers who had long since boarded the train and already completed missions, and who knew just how perilous the train’s assignments were, could not help but change color at that moment.

The mission time limit was only twelve hours. Never mind that there were men in the group—no woman could become a pregnant woman in twelve hours.

No one wanted to die, so no one wanted to draw that mission.

What brought Lu Jinzhao a little relief was that the train required a random draw. At the very least, she did not need to worry about being assigned the hardest task simply because she was a newcomer.

The atmosphere had grown chilly. The newcomer with glasses looked as though he might burst into tears; helpless, he turned to the others and said, “Isn’t this just sending us to our deaths?!”

Jiang Yingzhi frowned when she heard that. Lu Jinzhao quietly sighed to herself. As expected, when people are afraid, reason goes offline. This newcomer named Zhou Wenbo had already forgotten the warning Jiang Yingzhi had given long ago:

Even if a mission was obviously one that would send you to your death, it still had to be done.

Right now, the issue was not whether the train was sending them to die. The real question was: if you drew that mission, how were you supposed to break a situation that seemed certain death?

Lu Jinzhao looked around. This Chinatown, for reasons unknown, seemed rather desolate. It carried a damp, eerie chill, faintly steeped in ghostly atmosphere, but fortunately people still lived here, and the shops were all open. If they needed to buy anything, there were places to find it.

“By the way, if we need props to complete the mission, how do we pay for them?” Lu Jinzhao asked from the side of the street.

“With the ticket,” Jiang Yingzhi said, answering Lu Jinzhao instead of Zhou Wenbo. “It’s expensive to buy your life back.”

Lu Jinzhao nodded, understanding the implication. The currency on the ticket was probably not on the same scale as the currency inside the station instance.

After being ignored, Zhou Wenbo looked displeased, but said nothing more. The others also did not pay much attention to the newcomer’s complaint. They only looked at Lin Shuyue and asked, “Random draw, so how are we drawing?”

“Let’s draw lots. Slips numbered one to ten. Whatever you draw is what you get,” Lin Shuyue replied. No one objected. After deciding the order, Lin Shuyue went to a nearby convenience store, borrowed pen and paper from the owner, made the slips, and placed them in her palm.

“You should all know that with the train’s rules in place, I can’t possibly cheat for myself. So let’s begin.”

Lu Jinzhao was fourth in line. Not good, not bad. She did not pay much attention to the expressions of the people drawing before her. After all, it would not change the outcome in her hand.

Even before she opened the slip in her palm, she could already feel a slight dampness there. She knew it was because she was too nervous.

As long as it wasn’t number nine, she could accept any other result.

Holding that thought, Lu Jinzhao did not hesitate any longer and quickly unfolded the slip.

Eight.

Lu Jinzhao let out a breath. Eight. Transplanting a dead person’s cornea was among the worse options of the lot, but compared with a pregnant woman’s suicide, it was clearly far better.

The numbers were drawn one after another. The one left without a match was the umbrella in the room, while the person who drew pregnant woman’s suicide was Jiang Yingzhi.

Some people visibly relaxed, while a few others looked at Jiang Yingzhi with concern and pity. In their eyes, Jiang Yingzhi was probably already a dead woman.

Lu Jinzhao had no time to care about anyone else’s feelings. The task she had drawn, in her own view, was the hardest one aside from pregnant woman’s suicide.

How was she supposed to complete it smoothly?

Her companions beside her were discussing the order. Clearly, no one intended to act alone; instead, they planned to carry out the ghost-seeing ritual one by one, in sequence.

When the question reached Lu Jinzhao, she seemed to be in a daze.

“What is it?” Lin Shuyue turned to look at her, not understanding why this newcomer was still spaced out at a time like this.

Lu Jinzhao came back to herself slightly. “Uh... I was just thinking about my cornea transplant.”

“Indeed, yours is a bit troublesome,” Lin Shuyue said, her brow tightening slightly.

Her own draw was the cup immortal, and the preparations were simple. Lu Jinzhao’s dead cornea transplant, aside from Jiang Yingzhi’s, was the most troublesome among them.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much of an idea either...” She shook her head regretfully, not lying just because she feared trouble.

Lu Jinzhao had not expected the others to give her any suggestions or help. She did not answer again, only kept thinking as before, her gaze roaming constantly around her.

Chinese restaurants, gold shops, herb stores, rice noodle shops, residential buildings, old women carrying vegetable baskets, red signboards everywhere, curious children peeking at them from the corners of their eyes, a puppy just born from some house by the roadside, and, not far away, a bookstore.

Lu Jinzhao’s eyes brightened. She moved quickly toward Lin Shuyue and asked with some urgency, “Senior Shuyue, you said the train wouldn’t make things hard for passengers by using a language barrier. Then does that mean there must also be a doctor here who can perform my surgery?”

Lin Shuyue thought about it for a moment, then nodded in confirmation. “Yes. The train usually won’t make things difficult for us in this way. Unless something goes wrong, there should definitely be conditions here that allow you to have the operation.”

Usually...?

Lu Jinzhao weighed those two words in her mind, but did not dwell on them. Having confirmed her guess, she immediately said to Lin Shuyue, “Senior, please wait. I’m going to the bookstore to buy something. I’ll be right back.”

Then she turned and ran briskly back in the direction she had just come from. That was the bookstore where she could buy the book Ten Ways to See Ghosts.

It did not take long. In less than ten minutes, Lu Jinzhao came out of the bookstore. Seeing her, Lin Shuyue asked curiously, “What did you buy?”

Lu Jinzhao took a business card from her pocket. “The address of a shady doctor who’d dare perform any surgery.”

“What?” someone asked in confusion. “How did you buy that?”

It was undeniable that, aside from the pregnant woman’s suicide mission, one of the ghost-seeing rituals no one wanted to draw was Lu Jinzhao’s. Not only was it dangerous, it was also terribly troublesome. With only twelve hours, how was she supposed to successfully transplant a dead person’s cornea?

Seeing that a newcomer had drawn this task, several of them had already assumed in their hearts that Lu Jinzhao would probably die because she could not complete it.

Yet now, this unremarkable newcomer had quietly obtained the key item needed to finish the mission?

“Because the train won’t make things hard for us in places like this,” Lu Jinzhao answered as if it were only natural.

“And so?” Zhou Wenbo frowned, still completely unable to follow the logic.

Lu Jinzhao looked at him and thought that if he did not get off this train, he probably would not live very long. Then she glanced at the others, all of whom were also looking at her with curiosity. Clearly, only two or three of them understood what she was saying.

So she simply explained, “If it won’t make things hard for me in that way, then this place must have the conditions for surgery. Time is tight, and it’s impossible for me to search blindly like looking for a needle in the sea.”

“There will definitely be clues. Just think about it a little and you can figure it out. The bookstore owner.”

“Didn’t he say when we were buying books that the people who bought books from him last time all died? He obviously knows something.”

“That’s all?” Zhou Wenbo asked with a furrowed brow, his tone full of bafflement.

“That’s all,” Lu Jinzhao said with a nod.

To her, it had been an obvious hint.

And indeed, she had successfully used five life-buying coins to buy the doctor’s address and contact information from the bookstore owner.

After hearing Lu Jinzhao’s explanation, Lin Shuyue glanced at her sideways and took another look at this newcomer she had not paid much attention to before.

Smart, with an excellent memory, and most importantly quick on the uptake. She had managed to think of a way to solve the current predicament from something Lin Shuyue had said offhand. That kind of nimble reflexes was exactly the sort of thing needed to survive on the train.

“Lucky break,” Zhou Wenbo muttered under his breath.

Lu Jinzhao heard that not-so-soft self-talk and shot the unfamiliar man a strange look.

For some reason, she felt that this person had inexplicably started “competing” with the other two newcomers. She did not even know what he thought he was competing over. Did he believe he was the best among the newcomers?

Was this really the time to care about such things?

He was clearly scared, yet still insisted on quibbling over meaningless things. Somehow, he seemed... a bit useless.

Lu Jinzhao looked away, still wearing a friendly smile, and said nothing more.

“All right, Xiaolu’s problem has been solved by herself. The ghost-seeing rituals we need to do all require some preparation, so everyone go buy the items you need first. We’ll meet again in forty minutes.”

Lu Jinzhao also used this time to find the doctor and make an appointment for the surgery. With the introducer and the money, the doctor agreed quickly, but a cornea like that needed some preparation time. She would have to wait six hours before the operation could be performed.

When she came out of the clinic, the life-buying coins left on her ticket were only forty-five. The doctor had taken one hundred and fifty outright.

The sudden shortage of life-buying money made Lu Jinzhao feel a twinge of crisis, but for the moment there was nothing she could do.

Everything was finally ready. The ghost-seeing ritual was about to begin at last.

Lin Shuyue took the lead. First, because her draw was not especially difficult; second, because she intended to test how deep this station’s waters truly were.

The cup immortal game was one Lu Jinzhao had also heard of. Similar to pen immortal, and not far removed from plate immortal, it was usually played by several people together, though it could also be played alone.

At this moment, Lin Shuyue would be the one participating alone in the ritual.

The yellowish light in the room fell upon Lin Shuyue. Her face, which already carried more authority than most people’s, looked especially solemn now. She sat upright at the table. On the worn tabletop lay a sheet of paper covered in large writing, with a porcelain cup turned upside down on it. Beside it were a blank sheet of paper and a pen. These were all the items the ritual required.

Lin Shuyue sat quietly at the table for about two minutes. The others stood not too near and not too far behind her, silent and still. No one spoke. Their shadows stretched long in the dim light, reaching all the way to the corners of the room.

Then, at last, she moved. Drawing a deep breath, she placed one finger on the base of the cup and closed her eyes.

In a loud voice, she chanted:

“Cup immortal, cup immortal, please show yourself...”

“Cup immortal, cup immortal, please show yourself!”