An office worker forced to work overtime has resentment comparable to a fierce ghost; even the Evil Sword Immortal would have to call them “senior.”
The female corpse, controlled by the ink-like text threads, moved faster and faster.
Countless ghosts that had been harvesting human lives just moments ago now lay quietly on the floor, like reeds bent by the wind.
The third carriage, the fifth carriage...
She walked the entire length, “picking” them as she went.
Aside from the initially deployed Instance NPCs and the newborn vengeful spirits generated by the dead players, all the extra ghosts were treated as “Materials” and harvested clean.
Three hundred and seventy-two ghosts, no more, no less, were all stuffed into the Material database.
The Instance's capacity value finally fell back below the safety line.
The text notifications slowly faded away.
This also meant that the out-of-control Instance had stabilized once again.
Song Mo propped up her chin, looking at the Instance's status as she fell into deep thought:
She had almost crashed and burned.
Like the dagger hidden in Jing Ke's map, the crisis truly hidden beneath the surface was rising bit by bit.
Song Mo had originally thought that the Screenwriter System's pressure on her was limited to her continuously decreasing lifespan and lighting up the acupoint map on her body.
But now it seemed that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Unedited Limited Instances would descend upon reality.
The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons in Neon Tokyo, the weeping La Llorona appearing in Texas, and the Jersey Devil hunting and eating humans in broad daylight.
And now, this London Instance had attracted countless non-Instance NPCs, causing a total wipeout of the players inside, and almost bringing the Instance into reality.
Just think about it. If a death train packed with ghosts and vicious spirits appeared in the middle of a bustling downtown—
An invisible pressure weighed down on her.
Song Mo rubbed her temples, feeling a bit of a headache.
“I need to leave myself a backup plan... I can't consume a massive amount of Screenwriter Points to rewrite the ending every time something goes wrong.”
She was a rancher. If wild goats broke into the sheepfold, crazily biting the sheep and affecting the harvest, what should she do?
Put a few sheepdogs in there.
Sheepdogs are loyal to the rancher and will never betray them. They can drive away hungry wolves while also catching the wild goats that sneak in to attack the sheep.
Thinking of this, Song Mo glanced at her meager remaining Screenwriter Points, raised her hand, and generated a long string of text:
...
...
The female corpse sporting Nina's head returned to the place where she had first appeared.
In the first carriage, the corpses of Zhao Weilai and the others still lay on the floor.
The corpse's hollow eyes stared straight ahead, “looking” at the bodies of the other players.
Time in the entire Instance suddenly stopped.
Blood droplets that had been dripping down just a second ago hung suspended in mid-air.
The severed heads on the floor still bore expressions of terror.
Fluttering book pages, scattered breadcrumbs, the distorted afterimages of ghosts outside the window...
Everything came to a standstill at this moment.
Even the clattering of the tracks, which had served as constant background noise, vanished.
The flickering lights froze at their brightest instant.
The female corpse stood in place like a puppet controlled by text, frozen at a certain instant along with the static oil painting before her.
Suddenly, a massive amount of ink-colored text surged out of the void.
It was a sea of text.
Like a rising tide, countless dense streams of text-sea fell from the void, boring into the carriage ceiling and the cracks in the floor—
The overbearing, unquestionable text swept over the corpses, the seats, and the dead-silent space.
The text flowed.
Time wound backward.
The blood droplets suspended in mid-air flew backward along their original trajectories, bit by bit, returning to Zhao Weilai's severed neck.
Every drop of blood splattered on the walls and seats fell back along its parabolic arc.
The heads on the floor flew backward onto their shoulders.
The wounds on the necks healed from the outside in, with muscle, blood vessels, and skin... growing back layer by layer.
The shredded Mu Xiao—her shattered flesh and bones crawled back from all directions, restoring her original form strand by strand like assembling building blocks.
The terrified expression on her face slowly receded.
Her footsteps stepped backward, and she retreated to the side of her seat.
—The scattered pages of the Bible flew back one by one, binding themselves into a complete book again, and fell back into Margaret's embrace.
—The crucifix that had fallen to the floor hopped up on its own, landing back in the priest's hand.
People's actions began to play in reverse.
The Indian man backed away from the carriage connection, sat back in his seat, and the vomit he had spewed flew back into his mouth.
Everyone was moving backward.
The movements went from fast to slow, then slow to fast, like a videotape being rewound.
Every change followed the most perfect program, running without interfering with one another.
It was so perfect that even the most fastidious person in the world would be moved by it.
"[...em tel, oahZ-ieS...]"
"[?kcab semoc retsnom taht fi tahw...rof gnitiaw ew era tahw...]"
"[...hcaer nac ew...]"
Countless snippets of dialogue drifted over in reverse, muffled and distorted like the static of a rewinding cassette tape.
From the deathbed mumblings, back to conversations, and finally returning to silence.
The ink-colored text grew more and more abundant, nearly filling the entire carriage.
If one were to look from inside the tunnel, they would see the ink-colored text enveloping the entire train like a gently flowing tide, carrying everything backward, winding back.
Rewinding to before the anomaly occurred.
Rewinding to before the ghosts' carnival had even begun.
The boundary between life and death blurred beneath Song Mo's pen.
Death shrieked as it fled—like a toy in her palm, entirely at her whim.
She controlled everything; all things were dominated by her text.
And she was the one pulling the strings behind the scenes: the 【Screenwriter】.
...
...
...
Zhao Weilai's head rested against the window once more, her eyes closed, still fast asleep.
She frowned as if having a bad dream, her fingers twitching slightly.
Mu Xiao held her handbag, curled up in her seat.
Margaret prayed in a low voice.
The priest lowered his eyes, looking at the corpses, performing rites for the deceased.
The Korean couple held hands, and the Indian man muttered to himself neurotically.
The clattering of the tracks rang out once more.
Returning to the second before Zhao Weilai was about to wake up.
The ink-colored text slowly receded like a tide, vanishing into the void without leaving a trace.
The fluorescent lights overhead suddenly flickered.
Time resumed its flow.
...
...
...
Zhao Weilai was awakened by a dull ache in her neck.
Leaning against the cold window, she hadn't slept well. Her light slumber had been filled with fragmented nightmares—
Zhao Weilai sat up straight, holding the saber in her arms as she looked out the window.
06:17.
Before resting, her phone had shown 02:17.
She had rested for a full four hours, but even now, there was still not a speck of light outside.
People always experience moments of déjà vu, feeling as though “I've been in this exact situation before” or “I've visited this place in a dream.”
Though scientists have explained déjà vu in very scientific terms,
the moment one actually experiences it, they still briefly question the reality of the world around them.
A familiar doubt welled up in her heart.
Zhao Weilai couldn't shake the feeling that she had lived through this scene before.
Fortunately, the déjà vu was fleeting and quickly vanished.
“Z-Zhao...”
The Indian man's stuttering voice came over: “You've been asleep for four hours...”
The sense of incongruity grew stronger and stronger.
But no matter how hard she tried, Zhao Weilai couldn't remember anything. She could only force herself to ignore the discomfort and turn to look at the priest praying over the corpses.
Several corpses were piled together.
Sitting next to Margaret was a chestnut-haired woman wearing a trench coat.
“God will arrange everything. He will surely send a revelation, send an angel to save us.”
Zhao Weilai was stunned for a moment.
The chestnut-haired woman sitting next to Margaret was supposed to be named “Nina.”
She was alive?
Wait, why did she have such a question?
Nina had experienced the anomalies of the first night with them. Although she had a heart condition, she had fortunately pulled through yesterday.
Zhao Weilai dismissed all this subtle déjà vu as “hallucinations caused by tight nerves.”
...
Sitting next to Margaret, Nina wore a cramped smile, her fingers twitching uneasily.
She hung her head.
Her chestnut hair concealed the tattoo-like suture line on her neck.
Rate on N.U.
