Chapter 764: I Sincerely Want to Talk
"Hey, why did you open the door?!" The man inside the city shouted hoarsely at the driver, but the driver, with strings wrapped around his neck, didn't dare speak and desperately signaled the others with his eyes.
There were quite a few people on the bus: fourteen young, pretty girls with terrified expressions, and five men who looked like hardened fugitives. One of them was injured in the chest and was bandaging himself in the back seat, with two girls lying at his feet—one with her skirt flipped up, unconscious, and the other covered in blood, dazed.
The girl who had appeared at the window earlier was being pressed face-down on a seat by a bald man, while the other three were scattered in the middle of the bus, huddled close to the trembling girls.
When Xu Huo appeared, the pinned girl suddenly struggled, throwing the bald man off, and opened her mouth to scream silently: Help!
"Slap!" The bald man slapped her to the ground, grabbed her hair, and lifted her up, sneering, "Think just because you've become an Evolver, you can play hero? I'll decide how you die!"
This was said for Xu Huo's benefit. The bus door had already closed, and the curtains were drawn. In the sealed space, aside from the injured man, the other three stood up.
Xu Huo swept his gaze over them. "No idea how long this traffic jam will last. How about we move to the front and have a chat?"
It wasn't a suggestion—it was a demand.
One of the men, tall and burly with long hair, flicked his locks and said, "Who the hell do you think you are, acting tough in front of us..."
Xu Huo's gaze lingered on him, and the burly man immediately choked on his words. Though he was much more physically imposing than Xu Huo, when their eyes met, the muscles in his face twitched involuntarily, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
He hadn't said a single harsh word, but just standing there, he made the men on the bus feel an unprecedented pressure. They had no idea where it came from, but they instinctively feared him.
The three men blocking his path lost their smiles, but they weren't willing to back down so easily, frozen in place.
Seeing this, the bald man threw the girl aside and stormed toward Xu Huo. Xu Huo's fingers twitched, but then the injured man in the back suddenly shouted, "Big Head!"
Everyone turned around. Xu Huo even fully faced him, leaving his back exposed to the bald man.
The injured man's eyes flicked to Xu Huo's shoes, and he forced a stiff smile. "Actually, we just wanted to borrow the bus to rest. If you want it, take it. We'll leave."
He said this as he stood up to move out of the seat, but the moment he stepped into the aisle, Xu Huo appeared in front of him... The next second, the injured man fell backward, blood spraying from his throat, splattering the face of the girl who had just opened her eyes.
The people on the bus seemed to be affected by an item that prevented them from making sounds. The two girls screamed silently, while Xu Huo picked up the short knife that had slipped from the man's hand. With a flick of his wrist, the knife flew accurately, piercing the hand of the driver reaching for the door.
"Ahhh!!!" The driver screamed in agony. The bald man and his crew's faces changed, and they immediately moved to grab the nearby girls as hostages. But as they turned, Xu Huo was already standing among them, repeating his earlier words, "Go to the front and chat."
Cold sweat poured down their faces. They dared not pull any tricks and obediently walked forward.
Xu Huo wiped the blood off his shoe with a scrape, waved for the girls to move to the back, and sat down behind the men.
The men were terrified but didn't dare look back, fearing their heads would be separated from their bodies the next second. However, Xu Huo genuinely wanted to talk to them.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"A... a small city. The whole place was almost burned down by players. We escaped," the burly man quickly replied.
"Besides the official safe routes, don't you players know any other paths?"
"There used to be... but not anymore. I saw with my own eyes a few players get swallowed by a newly spawned random Instance... Now only the government-announced routes are relatively safe... but you never know. The road being blocked now probably means something happened up ahead." The bald man finished in one breath, then added ingratiatingly, "Big brother, where are you headed? We brothers know this area well. We can guide you or lend a hand, no problem!"
"I'm going to Mao City. Heard of it?" Xu Huo said.
"Mao City is famous," the bald man quickly replied. "We used to deliver goods there all the time."
"Oh? What kind of work did you do before?" Xu Huo asked.
"I delivered meat," the bald man said. "Business went south, but I visited plenty of nice places during deliveries. Mao City is the most prosperous spot around here. There's even a top-tier hotel there—the back kitchen is brighter than most hotel lobbies!"
Xu Huo searched on his phone. That top-tier hotel was built by the descendant of the Shang family. After that descendant committed suicide, the hotel was donated to the local government and is now outsourced to other companies.
"This entrepreneur surnamed Shang is quite famous."
"Very famous! He built many hotels, shopping malls, and even welfare homes. Ask the girls behind you—two of them came from the Shang family welfare home." The bald man didn't dare turn around, just pointed backward with his hand.
The group of girls was huddled together, trembling. After being pushed to the back, they had tried to call for help, but everywhere was chaos now. Neither the government nor their agency could spare them. They knocked on the windows to signal outsiders, but seeing the blood on them, those people just closed their windows tightly.
The windows couldn't be broken because the van was specially reinforced. They had no way to smash it, and the emergency tools were all near the driver's seat.
Although Xu Huo had killed someone, that didn't guarantee he was any better than the bald men. The young girls, their faces smeared with makeup, shrank back to minimize their presence while silently praying that Xu Huo and his group would leave quickly.
"Welfare home?" Xu Huo turned around.
The girl who had begged for help earlier and been slapped by the bald man stepped forward with her swollen cheek, bravely pointing at her throat.
Xu Huo tapped the back of the seat in front.
The bald man immediately blew a whistle. The girl touched her throat, and tears of joy streamed down her face as she dropped to her knees. "Please save us! We're a girl group under an agency in Mao City. Several members are children of famous entrepreneurs. If you take us to a safe place, the agency will definitely pay you a lot... and they'll find a way to get you any item you want!"
Xu Huo handed her a handkerchief, signaling her to get up and sit properly. "Wipe your face. Just became an Evolver?"
The girl nervously took it, wiped her face as instructed, and answered with a trembling voice, "Just a day or two. I haven't hurt anyone..."