Chapter Twenty-Two: The Disappearance of Wang Feiyang

With a loud bang, I saw with my own eyes as Wang Feiyang’s body was struck and hurled seven or eight meters away. The heavy truck showed no sign of slowing, vanishing at high speed into the boundless night. In that instant, I felt as though my mind had gone blank. I screamed Wang Feiyang’s name and dashed madly toward the spot where he had landed.

But what greeted me next plunged me into a different kind of frenzy.

Wang Feiyang was gone!

How could this be? I had clearly seen him flung by the truck, crashing to the ground over there, and only a few seconds had passed. Yet when I reached the spot, Wang Feiyang had vanished without a trace.

Frantically, I searched everywhere nearby, scouring every corner, but there was no sign of Wang Feiyang’s body. For a moment, I even wondered if what I had just witnessed was nothing but a hallucination. But when I turned back, I saw a pool of blood beneath my feet, undeniable proof that what I had seen had truly happened.

I stood there in a daze, clutching at my hair, at a complete loss. None of this made any sense; it was beyond explanation.

I hurriedly rushed back to the coffin shop, desperately hoping that Wang Feiyang would be there waiting for me, as if nothing had happened. But the empty interior woke me from my hopes—Wang Feiyang had indeed been hit by a car while sleepwalking, and in the space of a few seconds, his body had disappeared.

In my panic, I immediately found the slip of paper the bus uncle had given Wang Feiyang earlier, and I dialed the number written on it.

When the call connected, I quickly recounted everything that had just happened. The bus uncle was clearly shocked too—I could distinctly hear him slapping his thigh on the other end. He cursed his own miscalculation, saying that he had pasted a talisman to ward off evil on the front door of my coffin shop before leaving, thinking that so long as the ghost couldn’t enter, we would be safe. But he had overlooked one point: while it couldn’t get in, it still had ways to lure us out.

That made sense now—no wonder Wang Feiyang had started sleepwalking earlier. All of this was likely a scheme orchestrated by that female ghost.

Now, the ghost was making moves again, and ever since we opened the coffin, her actions had grown increasingly strange and unpredictable.

I couldn’t guess what benefit we’d brought her by opening that coffin, but one thing was certain: she seemed far more terrifying than before.

The bus uncle told me not to panic, to stay inside the coffin shop and under no circumstances step outside, no matter what I saw—even if I saw my grandfather or Wang Feiyang standing at the door, I was not to go out. He would come over right away.

I agreed, then sat at the Eight Immortals table, chain-smoking as I waited for the bus uncle’s arrival.

About half an hour later, the modified double-decker bus of route 104 finally stopped in front of my coffin shop. The bus uncle leaned out from the driver’s seat and beckoned me to get on.

I rushed to the door, but just as I was about to step out, something occurred to me. Instinctively, I pulled my foot back.

The bus uncle frowned and called out, “What are you dawdling for? Hurry up and get on!”

I hesitated for a moment, then said, “You come in first.”

He grew impatient, snapping, “What are you dragging your feet for? Don’t you want to save your friend? We can’t waste any time—come out and get on the bus, let’s go save Wang Feiyang!”

“You’re not the real one!”

I suddenly pointed at him and cursed, “Don’t even think about fooling me. The real bus uncle told me not to go out no matter what I saw. If you’re really him, you wouldn’t be waiting outside—you’d come in. I’m sure of it now, you can’t set foot inside this door.”

The bus uncle’s face twisted in fury as he stomped off the bus and headed straight for my shop. But as he was about to cross the threshold, the yellow talisman pasted above the door began to emit a sharp, crackling sound. He stopped short, glaring at the talisman in anger, and tried to tear it down, but the moment his finger touched it, he shrieked and recoiled.

At that moment, all my fear melted away. So ghosts, too, had things they feared. I laughed from inside, taunting, “Come in, then! If you dare, come in and kill me!”

The thing outside shook with rage, and just as it seemed about to force its way in, a shrill blast from a horn rang out. Startled, it shuddered, and in a flash, both it and the bus vanished without a trace.

Wiping cold sweat from my brow, I let out a sigh of relief. That was close.

At that moment, another bus stopped in front of my shop. The real bus uncle stepped off and entered without a word, then asked if there were any security cameras in my house.

I hurriedly replied that there were, in my bedroom.

He told me to pour him a glass of water, then ran straight upstairs to my bedroom.

I quickly made him a cup of tea and brought it up. By the time I arrived, he had already turned on my computer and was pulling up the surveillance footage.

I was stunned and asked, puzzled, “But my computer has a password—how did you know it?”

Without glancing back, he answered coolly, “I used to work as an internet café manager and did some hacking on the side. Your little number code isn’t much of a password.”

I was impressed—this bus uncle was truly a man of many talents.

Soon, he rewound the footage to the moment Wang Feiyang started sleepwalking. On the screen, we saw Wang Feiyang sit up from my bed.

To my shock, he didn’t go downstairs right away. Instead, he reached under his pillow and pulled out a knife—his bamboo-handled blade.

He pressed the blade to my throat, ready to strike.

Seeing this, cold sweat broke out all over my back. My scalp tingled as I instinctively touched my neck.

At the critical moment, Wang Feiyang’s numb expression twisted in torment. This lasted for about half a minute—several times, he nearly brought the blade down, but at the last instant, he hesitated and withdrew, as if two souls were struggling within him: one desperately trying to kill me, the other fighting to stop.

In the end, Wang Feiyang tucked the knife back into his waistband, let his arms hang limp, lowered his head, and opened the bedroom door, shuffling step by step downstairs.

That was when I woke up and chased after him. But I soon realized that once he reached the bottom of the stairs, Wang Feiyang’s pace sped up so much that I couldn’t catch up. By the time I reached the door, he was already outside.

“Is there any outdoor footage?” By this point, the indoor cameras could no longer capture Wang Feiyang’s movements, so we needed to check the surveillance outside.

I nodded quickly and had the bus uncle open another file containing the stored videos.

We soon found the footage of Wang Feiyang leaving the house. At first, I was afraid to watch, dreading the sight of him being struck by the truck.

But what I saw left me stunned.

In the video, after stepping outside, Wang Feiyang didn’t encounter any truck at all. He simply walked to the center of the road and, in the blink of an eye, vanished from sight.

“How is this possible? I saw him get hit by that truck with my own eyes—how could there be no truck at all?”

The bus uncle replayed the footage in slow motion, frame by frame. Finally, we noticed something astonishing: as Wang Feiyang stepped into the middle of the road, a shadowy figure suddenly appeared. Despite the footage being slowed, the shadow moved unnaturally fast, rushed straight at Wang Feiyang, and in an instant, spirited him away.

After a long, careful study, we finally discerned the true face of the figure—it was none other than Yang Li, the one with the Ziwei destiny.