Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The bus driver’s name was Yu Guangping. He was already in his fifties and close to retirement.

He looked steady and dependable, with graying hair at his temples and few words to spare. For a moment, he reminded me of my late Master.

We arranged to meet at a small stir-fry restaurant.

He came in carrying a worn leather bag. The moment he sat down, before he even started talking, he pulled twenty thousand yuan out of it.

The money was wrapped in a plastic bag. He pushed it across the table toward me.

“I’ve heard of you, Brother Long. You’re Kong Jia’s apprentice. When you were hauling freight, you often did Chongsha runs.”

I didn’t take the money right away. I just looked at Yu Guangping and said, “Master Yu, when truckers talk about Chongsha, what it really means is having an experienced driver scout out a new route first, get familiar with the conditions, and smooth over anything on the road so it’s easier for the drivers who come after him.”

“You drive a long-distance coach. Most of your route is on official roads, and you’ve got a whole busload of passengers with you. You shouldn’t be particular about things like that, should you?”

“We don’t have the custom of Chongsha, true, but I know the rules.”

Yu Guangping said, “Anyone who can do Chongsha often must have a hard enough fate. Travel enough night roads, and you’ll see plenty of things most people never do. That’s exactly the kind of person I need.”

“I want to hire you to ride with me and keep the bus steady until the end of the month. This twenty thousand is for your trouble. If anything happens on the road, I’ll add another twenty thousand.”

“Why only until the end of the month?” I found that a little strange. There were only seven days left.

“My route runs from the city to Tongxiang. The second half is all on the Old Road. The expressway has already been built through there, and it’ll open at the end of the month. Once that happens, our route will be canceled.”

At that, Yu Guangping’s brow twitched. In his weathered eyes, I saw a trace of melancholy and reluctance.

“I’m from Tongxiang myself. I remember all the passengers who ride my bus often. A lot of them are old neighbors of mine.”

“I’ve been carrying them for nearly twenty years, and I’ve never had an accident. Now that it’s about to end, no matter what, I have to get them safely through these last few trips.”

Master Yu didn’t look like a man from a well-off family. He had prepared that forty thousand yuan out of his own pocket, all to buy peace of mind for the passengers on his final stretch.

I didn’t ask anything more. I accepted the job.

Then Master Yu told me about the strange things that had been happening on his bus lately.

To be honest, it wasn’t anything too outrageous.

Master Yu simply said that for the past half month, the number of passengers on his bus had always ended in seven.

Seven, seventeen, twenty-seven, thirty-seven…

Master Yu’s coach seated forty-eight people. In the past, the run from the city to Tongzhuang was almost always full, because there were several villages and towns around Tongzhuang.

The road conditions out there were poor, and the villages were scattered. Master Yu’s bus was the only one that went directly to the area near the city’s train station.

But lately, every time Master Yu departed from the city, there were exactly thirty-seven people on board.

On the return trip, after passing the stops in those villages and towns, the final count was always seventeen or twenty-seven.

Long-distance coach drivers were especially wary of passenger counts ending in seven or four. They believed those two numbers carried heavy malign energy and could attract evil things.