Chapter 27: Seeing a Ghost
Fengcheng County was just a small town, with a population of around 500,000. But its nightlife wasn’t any less lively than in a big city.
Around 7 PM, the town’s pedestrian street completely turned into a night market. The whole street was filled with vendors on both sides, and many teenagers who were rarely seen during the day also came out in large numbers.
The internet cafes and karaoke bars on both sides of the street were packed at night. It was the first night of the National Day holiday, and students were eager for fun to let out the pressure from school.
At the crossroad where the pedestrian street began, several cars were parked by the roadside. Ren Tianyou stood on the sidewalk, a cigarette in his mouth, waiting for a ride order to pop up on his phone while also glancing toward a nearby bar.
It was still early. If it got a bit later, some totally drunk girls might appear at the bar entrance.
“Hey, Brother Long, I heard the security around here at night isn’t that good?”
Ren Tianyou suddenly remembered a warning he got from the kid next door earlier that day.
“Oh, that? Yeah, I’ve heard about it,” said the man called Brother Long, also a ride-share driver. He walked over, took a cigarette from Ren Tianyou’s hand, lit it, and slowly said, “I heard three people had something happen to them this week, chopped up right on the street. Really terrible.”
“They haven’t caught the killer?”
“Who knows. They say no one even knows what the killer looks like.” Brother Long blew out a puff of smoke and started complaining about how useless the police were.
Ren Tianyou ignored the rest of Brother Long’s rant. He knew this guy had once been arrested for picking fights and causing trouble. He even had a criminal record and had spent time in jail. So now, whenever the topic of police came up, he would always complain.
Honestly, Ren Tianyou couldn’t figure out how someone with a criminal record even got into ride-share driving.
“Cops in neighboring countries are better. If it were in neighboring countries, the killer would’ve been caught in one day.”
“Yeah, and if it were in the neighboring countries, you’d probably already be six feet under,” Ren Tianyou joked.
As they were talking, Ren Tianyou’s phone vibrated. Without checking the details, he quickly accepted the ride.
“I got a ride,” he waved to Brother Long and walked to his car.
Only then did he look down at the ride information.
“Lotus Road? That’s near Xiao Mu’s school, right? Kinda far. No wonder no one else took it,” he mumbled as he got in the car and started driving toward the pickup spot.
About ten minutes later, Ren Tianyou arrived at the Lotus Road intersection.
At the edge of the pedestrian island, he saw an old man waving at him.
He stopped the car in front of the old man, rolled down the window, and asked, “Going to Buxing Street?”
But the old man didn’t answer. He just opened the door and got in.
Ren Tianyou glanced at the rearview mirror and looked at the old man in the back seat. He felt a bit uneasy.
It’s not even raining... why is he wearing a raincoat?
Also, why is it suddenly getting cold?
“Sir, do you want me to turn off the air conditioning?” he asked while stepping on the gas.
As a professional driver, he needed to be polite and offer good service. He didn’t want to get a bad rating.
But the old man didn’t say a word. He just leaned back in the seat, head down, as if he was taking a nap.
Ren Tianyou turned off the cold air, worried that the customer might catch a cold and leave a bad review.
Still, it was rare for older people to use ride-hailing apps these days. This one seemed pretty modern.
Before working as a ride-hailing driver, he used to drive a taxi. So he knew every road in the county very well. He didn’t need to check the map on his phone and kept the car within the speed limit, driving as fast as he could to take the old man toward the pedestrian street.
Five minutes later, the car started to slow down.
He looked around in confusion, noticing that there were fewer and fewer cars on the road, and the streets outside the window looked unfamiliar.
His phone suddenly vibrated. He quickly glanced down and picked up the call.
“Hey, I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes. Why haven’t you arrived yet?”
“Why is your car getting farther away on the map? I haven’t gotten in the car, so why did you mark it as ‘passenger picked up’?”
Oh no, he picked up the wrong person.
Ren Tianyou smiled awkwardly while listening to the complaints and explained, “Sorry, I picked up the wrong person. Please cancel the order on your side.”
“You crazy or what?!”
The call was cut off. Ren Tianyou parked the car by the side of the road, turned around, and spoke to the old man.
“Sir, you can’t just get in someone’s car like that. I asked if you were going to the pedestrian street and you didn’t answer. What if I was a bad guy trying to kidnap you?”
“Now look what happened, I’m probably going to get a complaint, and the person you were waiting for is probably still looking for you.”
He rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.
“What’s your family’s phone number? I’ll call them to come get you.”
But the old man kept his mouth shut and didn’t say a word.
Ren Tianyou stared at him for a moment, then muttered, “You’re not... you don’t have dementia, do you?”
After all, the old man was wearing a raincoat even though it wasn’t raining. And he was all wrapped up in thick clothes in the middle of summer. He really did look like someone with dementia.
The old man's hunched figure gradually straightened up, lifted his head, and gave Ren Tianyou a fixed smile, staring right at him.
“......”
The longer Ren Tianyou looked into the old man’s eyes, the colder he felt. The temperature inside the car started dropping fast. In just a few seconds, it felt like he was standing naked in Siberia in the middle of winter.
“Why is it getting colder?”
He shivered and looked away. But the moment he looked elsewhere, he saw something. A chopping knife suddenly slipped out from under the old man’s big raincoat and was held in his hand.
Without a second thought, Ren Tianyou jumped out of the car.
“All I said was you might have dementia, was that really necessary?!”
Terrified, he ran to the sidewalk, yelling, “Old man! What the heck is wrong with you?! Why are you carrying a knife around?!”
He turned around, and saw that the old man was still sitting in the car.
That gave Ren Tianyou a bit of relief. He reached into his pocket… only to realize his phone was still in the car.
He couldn’t even call the police.
The old man slowly stepped out of the car, still holding the chopping knife. He had the same frozen smile on his face, like he was wearing a creepy mask.
Ren Tianyou took two steps back and looked around. But the area felt completely unfamiliar. At some point, thick fog had filled the air. He could now only see about ten meters ahead.
Panic started to rise in his chest.
“Where am I? How the heck did I get so lost after driving all these years?!”
Luckily, the old man was slow and stiff. Even if he tried to attack, Ren Tianyou figured he could just run away.
As for fighting back… well, with that knife, even if he could win, Ren Tianyou was worried he might still get blamed afterward.
The cold started to creep into his body. He backed away, his limbs getting stiff from the chill.
No matter how clueless he might have been before, he now realized something terrifying.
The old man he picked up… might not be human.
Just then, a regular food delivery guy passed by on an electric bike.