"It’s coming, it’s coming!" Wang Xiyi whispered excitedly.
"Looks like this urban legend is true." Sun Hang nodded.
"From this direction..." Wang Xiyi looked towards the direction the train was coming from, "Is this thing... coming out of the rocks?!"
"Where it comes from isn’t important, what’s important is where it can take us!" Sun Hang climbed over the second-floor railing, landing on the platform.
Sun Hang glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, and the three women displayed three distinctly different expressions: Wang Xiyi was excited, Zhong Ling was calm... As for Xue Yue’s expression, it was a mix of worry and a hint of fear.
Sun Hang couldn’t help but sarcastically think to himself: Not fair... Among us four, your ’human quotient’ is clearly the lowest, but how come you’re the most timid too... If this gets out, it’ll be quite disgraceful for the spooky beings.
"Xue Yue, have you sensed any emotions?" Sun Hang asked, "Surely you know what I mean?"
Xue Yue shook her head, her eyes locked on the approaching headlights.
A grating sound of brakes echoed, as an extremely old metal train slowly came to a stop in front of the platform.
The exterior paint on the train cars was so mottled it was impossible to discern their original color, the rust-covered shell and old-fashioned structure of the train body made one doubly doubt how these wheels could match with this modern subway track—In other words, this train should be parked in the exhibition hall of a train museum, not appear in the dead of night at an already shutdown subway station.
With a "clack," the train doors in front of Sun Hang slid open to the sides.
The lighting inside the carriage was very dim and would occasionally flicker, just like those street lamps with aging circuits in old alleys.
Sun Hang took a look inside the carriage, the compartment before him was empty, but in other compartments, there seemed to be faint figures of some "passengers."
"Sh-Should we go in?" Even Wang Xiyi, usually bold, couldn’t help but hesitate in the face of such eerie scenes.
"Go in." Sun Hang nodded, "But you all stay behind."
"No! I’m coming with you!" Wang Xiyi resolutely refused.
"Your task is to protect Zhong Ling and Xue Yue’s safety." Sun Hang’s gaze turned to Zhong Ling, "Act according to the original plan."
Zhong Ling nodded, and from the storeroom of flood-prevention supplies in the metro came a spine-chilling sound, a few seconds later, two skeleton figures, which had been hidden there in advance, crawled out and came to Sun Hang’s side.
These two skeleton figures were the only "guards" Sun Hang had for this action.
"Why not let the skeletons go in and test the waters first?" Wang Xiyi suggested.
At that moment, the monitor hanging from the ceiling, which had been off, suddenly lit up with a bright red countdown: The train will depart in nine seconds, please board promptly if you haven’t.
"Don’t worry, I have other cards to play." Sun Hang said.
Even if this ghost train was a trap, at least he had three apes to back him up... whereas if Wang Xiyi and the others fell in, it’s hard to say if they’d get out.
Sun Hang gently pinched Wang Xiyi’s arm, then turned and slid into the carriage, with the two skeleton figures following immediately under Zhong Ling’s control.
The countdown quickly ended, and the carriage doors instantly closed. As soon as the doors shut, the presence of Wang Xiyi and the others in Sun Hang’s perception vanished!
Even though he could see them standing outside just five meters away through the yellowed glass of the carriage door, the door seemed like a space-time barrier, completely isolating Sun Hang from them.
The two skeleton figures beside Sun Hang began to twitch, while Zhong Ling kept signaling to Sun Hang from the platform—Sun Hang didn’t hesitate, he directly grabbed the necks of the two skeletons, instantly draining the memes from their bodies.
These two skeleton figures were originally meant to be test subjects... Sun Hang intended to test how far the train had to travel before Zhong Ling would lose connection with them, but he didn’t anticipate that moment the door closed, the two skeleton figures went out of control.
After dealing with the skeletons, the ghost train slowly began to move, and the scenery outside the windows started to blur.
"Very fast speed." Sun Hang nodded, then raised his wrist for a glance.
The Hunter wristband had already lost signal, and all the positioning devices he carried had failed.
"This spooky entity seems to possess the capabilities of Space-Time System Rules." The voice of the main brain echoed in his ear.
The communication between Sun Hang and the main brain had also been severed; now this voice was actually from a "mini-main brain" downloaded to Sun Hang’s personal terminal for local storage. But limited by the personal terminal’s computing power, this essentially AI-driven mini-main brain could only offer Sun Hang limited assistance, lacking the powerful functions of the main brain’s central entity, and certainly lacking the "premonition" capabilities derived from half of the Sphinx’s brain.
Sun Hang looked around, he could feel some weak meme reactions, emanating from the train itself—its body, seats, handrails... Everywhere the train released such meme reactions, seemingly telling Sun Hang that this train is the spooky entity’s main body.
"Is this a rule-type, phenomenon-type, environment-type, or artifact-type thing?" Sun Hang couldn’t help but mutter softly.
"Strictly speaking, humans are not rigorous in classifying spooky entities." The mini-main brain replied, "The classification of spooky entities is mostly to help humans archive different entities, this classification is highly subjective, and cannot become a standard for determining the nature of spooky entities."
"So... it’s all for naught, huh?"
As Sun Hang spoke, he cautiously moved toward another carriage.
Ten meters ahead of him, on a seat, sat a "passenger" wearing a rumpled suit.
For some reason, Sun Hang found this passenger very reminiscent of a laborer who had just gotten off the metro not long ago. The body shape, clothes, and shoes of the two were extremely similar... The only difference was that the "passenger" on the ghost train, the clothes were not only rumpled but also very old.
It wasn’t mere dirtiness; these clothes had a sheer aged quality—The heavily oxidized fabric fibers gave this "passenger’s" clothing an appearance like an artifact excavated from an ancient tomb, the gap at the cuff even allowing direct view of the yellowed radius and ulna inside.
Alright then, aside from the clothes, this "person" wearing them is probably also dug out of a tomb.
Its face was hazy, like it was pixelated, making its features indistinguishable, and below its neck, there was not a bit of flesh, the clothing propped up entirely by a skeletal frame.
Apart from the head, the only "fleshy" point on its body seemed to be those exposed hands—However, even the hands were hard to discern, making it impossible for Sun Hang to judge age and health status based on skin smoothness or muscle fullness.
Though these aspects probably no longer mattered to this "passenger."