A-Class?!
There was an A-Class monster in Li Jianyang’s bag?!
Ye Sheng instantly recalled the rotten, bloody smell he’d noticed when boarding the train, and a chill ran down his spine. However, he took a deep breath, quickly suppressing the emotions in his heart. His eyelashes trembled as he tossed his phone aside and chose to close his eyes and sleep.
Ning Weichen was right—it was best to stay quiet.
Supernatural incidents were handled by specialized agencies. As an ordinary civilian, he just needed to live his life honestly.
Curiosity killed the cat. If he wanted a stable life, he couldn’t indulge in unnecessary curiosities.
For instance, he wouldn’t ask Ning Weichen when he had woken up, nor would he ask just how special his special identity was.
Ye Sheng thought that after experiencing so much tonight, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Unexpectedly, he slept deeply and soundly. By the time he woke up the next day, it was already noon. How could he have slept so soundly? He’d completely overslept.
Sunlight pierced his eyelids. When Ye Sheng opened his eyes, he first heard a stream of fluent, indifferent English, like a cold spring flowing past his ears.
Ning Weichen was standing against the light, talking on the phone.
Ye Sheng’s mind was muddled, and he could only catch a few fragmented words in a language that wasn’t his mother tongue. Andrew… Ning Weichen’s personal doctor?
Ning Weichen noticed he was awake, ended the call with a few brief words, and turned around, a smile flickering in his eyes. “You’re awake?”
“Mm.” Ye Sheng propped himself up on the bed, casually ran a hand through his hair, and then asked, “What time is it?”
Ning Weichen: “Eleven in the morning. Would you like to get something to eat?”
Ye Sheng shook his head.
His gaze immediately turned toward the restroom at the end of the carriage.
Seeing this, Ning Weichen explained, “The police came this morning. Both of those young men were killed in the restroom. When they died, their heads, hands, and legs were torn apart, leaving them a bloody mess. Ye Sheng, we underestimated how dangerous Xiao Fang was. However, Li Jianyang’s daughter is fine. She’s been taken to safety now.”
Ye Sheng frowned. “Did the police say anything?”
“No.” Ning Weichen: “They’ve temporarily sealed off the news about Carriage 44.”
Ye Sheng noticed that only the two of them remained in the carriage now. Li Jianyang was gone. The bag Li Jianyang had placed under the bed had also been opened, revealing a jumble of items—a quilt, clothes hangers, a kettle, and a few small jars that had been resealed. It seemed they had all been inspected.
Ye Sheng asked, “Was Li Jianyang taken away too?”
Ning Weichen: “Yes, he was taken away on charges of human trafficking.”
Ye Sheng: “What about us?”
Ning Weichen raised an eyebrow. “Us?”
Ye Sheng: “People died in the restroom of Carriage 44. Shouldn’t we be taken in for investigation?”
Ning Weichen chuckled lightly. “Of course not. When the Bureau of the Unnatural intervenes, innocent humans are ruled out first. Your record is clean—why would they investigate you?”
Ye Sheng let out an “oh” and began packing his things.
Ning Weichen looked over. “What are you doing?”
Ye Sheng said, “This place is too unsafe. Let’s move back to the hard seats. I’ll feel more at ease with more people around. We’ll arrive at the station tomorrow afternoon anyway.”
He didn’t like his life veering off course. Ye Sheng only wanted to go to Huai City peacefully, attend university peacefully, graduate peacefully, and return to his hometown peacefully. No marriage, no relationships—born in Yin Mountain, die in Yin Mountain. But Carriage 44 was filled with things that contradicted his life’s stable plans. While packing his things, Ye Sheng glanced at Ning Weichen again, thinking this person was also off-track—better not stay in touch after getting off the train.
Ning Weichen didn’t stop him, letting out a couple of ambiguous chuckles as he said with a hint of regret, “How disappointing. I thought it would just be the two of us from now on.”
Ye Sheng ignored him, dragging his luggage back to the bustling hard-seat carriage. By now, the train had passed many stations, and passengers from all over had boarded, their various dialects blending into a noisy clamor. Even the smell of braised beef noodles no longer turned his stomach.
After sitting down, he opened his phone and, as expected, found no new messages.
Ye Sheng returned to the home screen, his finger hovering over the red-eyed app. He paused, then pressed and held to delete it, but nothing happened.
—This was a rogue app; once downloaded, it couldn’t be removed.
The app even seemed sentient. As though sensing his intentions, rows of white teeth appeared above and below the open red eye. When the eye blinked, it resembled a mouth snapping shut, biting down on the pad of his finger in retaliation.
The moment pain shot through him, Ye Sheng nearly threw the phone away. Only his poverty stopped him.
He couldn’t understand why the old man had left him such a thing.
Was it so he could learn about the ghost monsters and at least know what had killed him?
Ning Weichen handed him a bottle of mineral water.
“Want some water?”
Preoccupied, Ye Sheng shook his head. “I’m not thirsty.”
Since he couldn’t delete the rogue app, he let it be.
Ye Sheng turned to look at the mountains rushing past outside the window, rubbed his temples, and after several rounds of mental preparation, let out a sigh. He decided to forget all the bizarre things on the train and focus on his real-life matters.
He opened his phone and searched for the Xie family of Huai City.
The Xie family was a prominent and well-known clan in Huai City. He’d only known Huang Yiyue had married into wealth, but he hadn’t realized just how wealthy.
The Xie family’s industries spanned various fields, with healthcare as their main business. Nearly half of Huai City’s private hospitals were under their control.
The information also clearly listed the family members.
Before Huang Yiyue married into the family, the head of the Xie family and his ex-wife already had two sons and a daughter.
The eldest son, Xie Ji, was groomed as the heir, while the younger daughter, Xie Wenwen, and younger son, Xie Wenci, were spoiled from childhood, growing up arrogant and domineering. Ye Sheng’s half-brother, Xie Shaorong, was the fourth young master of the Xie family, but his position was awkward. Huang Yiyue’s past as a mistress was no secret, and even after ascending to her position, she couldn’t expect kindness from the ex-wife’s children, treading carefully in the wealthy family.
Ye Sheng thought it served her right.
He closed his phone, suppressing his disgust.
Beside him, Ning Weichen was politely declining a young woman’s invitation.
Her eyes sparkled, cheeks flushed—clearly, her interest wasn’t in the game. “We’re short a player for cards. Would you like to join us?”
Ning Weichen was long accustomed to such advances. “Sorry, I’m not really available right now.”
“It won’t be inconvenient! Our seats are right nearby, very close!”
“I need to keep my friend company.”
“Your friend? What’s wrong with him?”
“He refuses to eat or drink.”
Ye Sheng: “…”
Ye Sheng quickly noticed the girl’s gaze lingering on him: assessing, admiring, surprised, and puzzled.
Unable to bear it any longer, he picked up the bottled water on the table, unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink. By the time he set the bottle down heavily with an expressionless face, Ning Weichen had already skillfully dismissed the person trying to strike up a conversation with a few words and turned to look at him, a faint smile playing on his lips.
“Is something on your mind?”
Ye Sheng felt a headache coming on, just thinking about the mess Huang Yiyue had left him with. He was to be taken to the Xie family as soon as he got off the train, making the journey his last chance to relax. His fingers tightened around the water bottle, his handsome brows slightly furrowed. His lips, damp from the water, took on a rosy hue, but his dark eyes remained cold as frost.
Ning Weichen watched him for a moment, then propped his chin on his hand and smiled. “I’ll be staying in Huai City for a while. If you run into any trouble, you can come to me.”
Ye Sheng shook his head calmly. “No need.”
Ning Weichen frowned, a little frustrated. “I don’t have much experience trying to please people. Ye Sheng, is my approach wrong? Is that why I keep getting rejected by you?”
Ye Sheng met his gaze. How could Ning Weichen’s approach be wrong? It was precisely because it was too right that Ye Sheng dared not accept it.
An orphan who had never formed close relationships with anyone, fresh out of the mountains, no matter how cold and aloof he appeared on the outside, was filled with anxiety and unease about everything in the big city.
The backward environment of Yin Mountain had only ever given him ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination.
Yet Ning Weichen, this dazzling, favored son of heaven, upon their first meeting, had shown him intelligence, kindness, and sincerity without a trace of impurity.
Ye Sheng said, “No, it’s too right.”
He stood up, intending to go to the restroom, but paused as he passed Ning Weichen.
Perhaps Huang Yiyue’s matter had put him in a foul mood, with all sorts of complex and sharp emotions swirling inside him. Ye Sheng’s throat tightened, and he couldn’t help but voice the thoughts in his heart.
He lowered his head, his voice soft but unusually firm.
“Ning Weichen, you don’t like me, do you?”
Ning Weichen’s expression remained unchanged, his smile as gentle as ever, as he raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“Hmm?”
Ye Sheng said indifferently, “Are you doing all this just to toy with me? There’s no need.”
Without waiting to see Ning Weichen’s reaction, he walked toward the restroom in the hard-seat carriage.
Ignoring the gaze fixed on his back, Ye Sheng entered the restroom and decisively closed the door.
Leaning over the sink, he turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face.
He needed to calm down.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, Huang Yiyue was a name that easily stirred up the resentment in his heart.
The closer he got to Huai City, the heavier that resentment grew.
During his impoverished, bleak, and fever-ridden childhood, the most common sight was his grandmother’s tears.
The frail, hunched old woman had given him the last warmth of her life’s remaining embers.
She taught him to be a kind person.
Later, when his grandmother fell seriously ill, Huang Yiyue took her to a hospital in Huai City for treatment, only for her to die within a week.
He had walked ten kilometers to the phone booth in town and called Huang Yiyue for the first time, just to ask about his grandmother’s condition.
He had rehearsed the words in his mind all night, and as a young child, he spoke politely and cautiously: “Hello, I…”
But Huang Yiyue, upon hearing his voice, reacted as if she had encountered a stubborn, dirty stain clinging to her, letting out a sharp scream!
She broke down and berated him.She said, “Ye Sheng, why won’t you just leave me alone?!” “Ye Sheng, why don’t you and your father just die together!”
The woman’s heart-rending shrieks left Ye Sheng stunned.
Blisters had formed on his feet, and he was exhausted and in pain, without even the strength to open his mouth.
After venting, Huang Yiyue added with hatred and venom before hanging up, “I don’t know why that old hag insisted on keeping you. I bet her illness was caused by you, you jinx. Ye Sheng, how dare you even ask about your grandmother? The old woman is dead, and you’re the murderer!”
You’re the murderer.
Snapping back from the memory, Ye Sheng sneered. He used his wet finger to lightly draw an “X” on the mirror, thinking with complete indifference: Huang Yiyue, you’d better not provoke me.
Just as he was about to pull his finger away from the mirror, he suddenly felt a resistance.
Ye Sheng froze—something in the mirror was tugging at his fingertip.
Immediately after, a hazy gray mist began to form inside the bathroom.
The air grew damp, cold, and sticky. Ye Sheng’s hand was gently pulled by something. In the mirror, a wrinkled, reddish face of a baby girl appeared, pressed tightly against the glass. At her age, she couldn’t stand yet, so the ghost infant in the mirror lay on all fours, her pitch-black eyes staring unblinkingly at him.
—Exactly the same gaze he had met last night.
Li Jianyang’s… daughter.
Ye Sheng’s blood ran cold as he locked eyes with her.
The baby girl gave him a cute, innocent smile and made a strange sound, but Ye Sheng understood it perfectly.
“I remember you.”
The baby girl said, “My sister is missing. Can you help me find her?”
Ye Sheng struggled to stay calm and refused, “No.”
The baby girl’s expression instantly turned cold, her eyes filled with venomous resentment as she glared at Ye Sheng. “Bad person.”
Then, Ye Sheng watched as the ghost infant’s face in the mirror crumpled up, her mouth opened, and she began to scream and cry.
Her cries were like deafening noise pollution. Besides the stinging in his ears, Ye Sheng also smelled an overwhelmingly strong scent of blood filling the bathroom. Drip, drip—something foul and cold fell onto his hair.
Ye Sheng looked up with difficulty, his pupils contracting.
A monster seeped out from the cracks in the floor, growing taller and taller until it appeared behind him.
The monster was stitched together from countless scattered body parts and organs—eyes, ears, noses, mouths, necks, and limbs—all crookedly sewn onto a massive lump of flesh with black thread. In its hand, it held a large, blood-stained bone, its asymmetrical eyes glaring at him with eerie malice.
Guided by the ghost infant’s cries, the monster raised the bone high and was about to bring it down on him.
“Fuck.”
Ye Sheng cursed inwardly, his body reacting swiftly as he dodged the monster’s strike. He quickly pulled out the yellow talisman from his pocket, bit his fingertip, drew a few strokes on it, crumpled it into a ball, and hurled it at the monster.
This kind of talisman could only deal with the simplest ghost monsters, and Ye Sheng watched anxiously, his eyes fixed on it.
Fortunately, the yellow talisman burst into flames upon touching the monster. The monster, originally stitched together with thread, began to falter as the threads ignited in the fire. It let out a sharp scream, its arm starting to break apart, organs and body parts clattering to the ground from the seams.
Ye Sheng quickly regained his composure, took out his phone, opened search, and snapped a photo of the monster.
He looked at the information displayed on the screen.
【Category: Story King】
【Aberration Name: Corpse Monster】
【Aberration Rank: F-Class】
【Overview: On Yin Mountain’s Train 1444, unwanted things always appear. Xiao Fang was deeply troubled. Unable to stand incomplete corpses, she could only turn them into her collectibles.】
The corpse monster’s scattered organs lay strewn across the ground, dissolving into bloody water that seeped into the earth.
F-Class.
The ghost infant in the mirror stopped crying.
Ye Sheng concealed his shock and looked at her. F-Class Aberrations were low-level entities without any consciousness and would not actively attack humans. As one of Xiao Fang’s collectibles, the corpse monster should normally be an inanimate object.
It was this infant girl who had brought the corpse monster to life—the ability to control Aberrations meant her rank was definitely above Xiao Fang’s.
Ye Sheng couldn’t help but recall the photo he had taken of Li Jianyang’s bag last night.
A-Class.
Fetus Girl.
…She was the Fetus Girl.
Fetus Girl crawled inside the mirror, her pitch-black, venomous eyes embedded in wrinkled, reddish skin, silently staring at Ye Sheng.
She murmured, “You’re a bad person.”
Ye Sheng said nothing.
Fetus Girl then revealed an innocent smile and said, “But you’re not that bad.”
Ye Sheng froze.
Knock, knock, knock! Soon, a series of urgent knocks broke the stalemate inside the restroom.
Someone outside shouted impatiently, “Hey, are you done yet? How long have you been in there, man? I’m about to burst, let me in!”
Fetus Girl giggled from within the mirror.
Ye Sheng stood motionless in front of the restroom sink.
He understood what Fetus Girl meant.
The train was traveling from Yin Mountain to Huai City, with a day and night left on the journey. No one knew when the Unnatural Bureau would arrive, but Pandora’s box had already been opened.
He could leave, but what would happen to the next person who entered the restroom?
Fetus Girl could control corpse monsters.
For decades, this train had been plagued by ruthless criminals. How many corpse monsters had been assembled from the discarded organs of the slain?
Ye Sheng took a deep breath and calmly said, “Don’t do anything reckless. I’ll help you find your sister.”
Fetus Girl giggled again. She raised a hand and gently patted the mirror, leaving behind a small, bloody handprint—a mark of agreement to cooperate.
Ye Sheng asked, “What does your sister look like?”
Fetus Girl replied, “She’s very tiny and especially cute. You’ll definitely find her.”
Ye Sheng looked at her. “Alright, I understand. Tonight at midnight, in the restroom of Carriage 44, I’ll return your sister to you.”
Fetus Girl was delighted and patted another bloody handprint on the mirror.
“Come alone.”
Ye Sheng nodded. “Alright.”
“Bro, my bladder’s about to explode. Open the door already!”
The man outside cursed angrily.
The smell of blood in the restroom dissipated, and the bloody handprints on the mirror vanished.
Ye Sheng washed his hands and opened the door.
The man outside, unable to hold it any longer, didn’t even glance at him as he rushed inside in a frenzy.
