"To go to Gushi Town, the usual route is to go back and forth between here and the urban area, then pass through Jinma Tunnel and get on the South Ring Expressway. Is this bus really going to take us to Gushi Town now?" Ma Xingyou said in surprise.
Although he had guessed the destination, seeing the bus carry the eighteen of them away under the control of some mysterious force, Yan Ao found it equally incredible.
What kind of person was the entity behind Death Option? Aliens? Immortals? Or some large-scale organization? Yan Ao kept thinking about it, but in the end, he could not come up with a reasonable explanation.
With a flash of purple light, a Dove chocolate appeared in his hand. Looking at the packaging on the chocolate, Yan Ao frowned slightly.
One-Cubic-Meter Mobile Warehouse.
This skill was still here, proving that everything that had happened in the mall until now was not a dream.
Tearing off the chocolate wrapper, Yan Ao took a bite without hesitation, and his mouth was soon filled with the fragrant, smooth chocolate and nuts.
The sweetness of the chocolate cleared Yan Ao's head quite a bit. After he closed his eyes, a small warehouse quickly appeared in his mind, piled high with all sorts of things. Although the skill "One-Cubic-Meter Mobile Warehouse" seemed a bit useless and could currently only be used to store items, Yan Ao did not regret his initial choice.
Especially now, trapped in unknown danger while the entire Hengzhou City had turned into a dead city, possessing supernatural abilities gave Yan Ao an inexplicable sense of security.
"Besides food and water, there are a few kitchen knives in the warehouse. They might come in useful later..." As Yan Ao thought this to himself, his hand unconsciously touched his chest. Even though it was already wrapped in thick gauze, the stinging pain of the wound still came through from time to time, making him realize that this world had become extremely dangerous.
Most of the piece of chocolate was quickly eaten. Perhaps because the sound of chewing was a bit loud, a man sitting next to Yan Ao soon noticed that Yan Ao was eating.
"Hey, little brother, you have food? Can you give me some?" The man was around thirty years old, wearing a blue jacket with some bloodstains on him, obviously having escaped here after experiencing some terrifying events earlier. Yan Ao clutched the remaining half of the chocolate in his hand and said with some hesitation: "I only have this piece of chocolate, there's no other food left."
Although there was still plenty of food in the warehouse, after much consideration, Yan Ao still did not plan to share the food with the other party.
For one thing, Yan Ao was afraid that his skill would be exposed. For another, Yan Ao had a hunch that food might become a scarce resource in the future. Besides this man, there were other people on the bus. If he took all the food out, it would definitely be looted...
Keeping to the principle of avoiding unnecessary trouble, Yan Ao ruthlessly rejected the man's request, and then swallowed the remaining half of the chocolate in one bite.
Realizing that Yan Ao had no other food, the man did not press the matter, gave an awkward smile, and sat back down.
Time flew by. The bus drove steadily, and half an hour later it was back in the urban area of Hengzhou City. Although it was not the first time coming to this place—in fact, a few hours ago, Yan Ao and the others had even escaped from the urban area.
Yet when everyone sat in the bus and saw the city, which looked like the end of the world, they were still deeply shocked. The once bustling streets were filled with abandoned cars, broken storefronts, fallen lampposts, scattered debris, and buildings with severely peeling walls that looked like they had been abandoned for a long time. Twisted iron gates lay on the streets like rotting scrap metal.
It was hard to imagine what kind of disaster this city had suffered to become like this overnight. Yan Ao and the others even thought they had traveled through time and space to a strange, unfamiliar world.
Although they had many questions in their hearts, under the power of Death Option, the people sitting on the bus were forced to return to the urban area of Hengzhou City once again. Yan Ao even caught a glimpse of the mall they had escaped from yesterday. The moment he saw the mall, his hands clenched involuntarily, and the feelings of the others were much the same. As the bus drove into Jinma Tunnel and prepared to leave it, the appearance of an option woke everyone on the silent bus.
○: Route change. After leaving the tunnel, stay in the left lane and enter the city roads.
X: Drive along the original route, stay in the right lane, and get on the South Ring Expressway.
Prompt: Please make a choice within 4 seconds. Operations exceeding the time limit will be considered abstentions, and those who abstain will die.
This time, the choice allowed only 4 seconds, and the bus was about to drive out of the tunnel. Without time for overthinking, Ma Xingyou was the first to react, shouting to the people on the bus: "Hurry up and choose!" The 4 seconds were simply too short. Yan Ao didn't even have time to think about which option was better, and directly chanted his choice of "X" in his mind.
The selection time passed in the blink of an eye. The moment the bus drove out of the tunnel, the bloody text on the screen changed immediately.
○ option: 12 people. X option: 5 people. The minority obeys the majority. The ○ option takes effect. Route changed. After leaving the tunnel, stay in the left lane and enter the city roads.
With the appearance of this line of bloody text, the bus steering wheel jerked half a turn and quickly changed lanes, driving the terrified crowd into the adjacent left lane.
"Bang!" Before the crowd had recovered from their shock and could even let out a sigh of relief, a muffled sound rang out in their ears. The head of a woman in the back row of the bus exploded without warning, and plasma mixed with bits of bone and flesh splattered across the faces of the people sitting next to her.
"Ah, ah, ah..." The few people who were splattered turned pale and screamed, while those sitting farther away instinctively shrank their necks, their expressions ugly.
"Wh—why did this happen?" Yan Ziyu asked with a trembling voice.
Yan Ao seemed to have thought of something. He fixed his gaze on the bloody text on the screen and said after a long moment: "When the choice was made just now, there were only 17 people. One person was missing..."
Ma Xingyou understood as well, took over the conversation, and said in a heavy tone: "She didn't make a choice within 4 seconds, so she was killed for violating the rules."
Never expecting that someone would die so soon, the people who had just relaxed immediately tensed up with bated breath. After the bus entered the city roads, it drove steadily again, but the atmosphere on the bus was anything but stable.
The dead woman was still sitting in her original seat. Her headless corpse maintained the posture she had before she died, with blood bubbles emerging from her severed neck, surrounded by brain matter and bloody flesh fragments.
The people around her tried their best to sit as far away as possible, none of them daring to look at the corpse. The bus continued driving, and when it turned into a straight road ahead, it encountered a crossroads. Just at that moment...
"Screeech!" With a harsh screech of brakes, the moving bus suddenly stopped. Yan Ao was thrown forward by inertia, and the others were similarly startled. At the same time, the screen lit up again.
○: Select half of the people on the bus to play a red-light, green-light game crossing the street.
X: Continue driving, with a random 1/3 of the people on the bus dying.
Prompt: Please make a choice within 4 minutes and 44 seconds. Operations exceeding the time limit will be considered abstentions, and those who abstain will die.
Seeing the content of the bloody text, everyone could not help showing terrified expressions. Although this time they had nearly five minutes to make a choice, both options looked equally perilous.