Chapter 86: A Bizarre Car Accident

“Did we really just get in like this?” Tanya asked in a tone of bewilderment, still unable to believe they had managed to hail a taxi so effortlessly.

Li Han had frightened her so badly that the odds of them ever getting a ride had seemed almost nonexistent.

Chu Ning rolled his eyes in exasperation. Yet here they were, indeed riding comfortably. He leaned back against the front passenger seat and settled into a more relaxed posture. Judging from the distance on the navigation app, the journey ahead was a long one.

For a city of such immense size, they would have to cross it from end to end to reach the far side, where their destination lay.

“Driver, head for the chemical plant near Chuhe Road,” Chu Ning said, filling in the silence when the car still had not started. “The one that’s been abandoned for years. If you don’t know the way, I’ve got navigation on my phone. Just follow the route it gives you.”

Seeing that the car still had not moved, he took the initiative to add the rest. He was also worried that the ghost, whose sanity was not fully intact, might have lost its memory or become sluggish in its reactions and the like.

His concern was not misplaced. Li Han looked extremely dull, his eyes devoid of any life. Occasionally, when he could no longer control his state, half his face would reveal a ghastly mass of slash wounds, with blood streaming from the sockets of his eyes.

A careful look at the left side of his head would reveal pale bone beneath the skin. The left side of his clothing had been torn into strips. Through the gaps one could see the bloodied flesh underneath, and the arm on that side was swollen to nearly twice its normal size, about a second-degree swelling.

His left wrist was bent at ninety degrees in an open fracture, the jutting bone spikes exposed so sharply that they could serve as weapons for murder. Tanya looked uneasily at Li Han’s left hand, uncertain whether he could endure all the way to their destination.

The dim orange light inside the taxi fell upon Li Han. Every so often, his body would uncontrollably shift into the state it had been in at the moment of death. Fortunately, he remained normal more often than not, sparing Tanya the shock of a gruesome spectacle.

“Driver, you can go now!” Chu Ning reminded him with a smile, fastening his seat belt in preparation for the car to start.

They were in something of a rush, but they still could not behave like they were in a reckless street-racing game, ignoring every rule and flooring it without restraint. Chu Ning considered himself a lawful evil sort of fellow, one who could still keep his reason while facing everything life threw at him.

And yet Li Han gave no response at all, or perhaps he was simply far too slow. His mouth opened and closed stiffly, and then he uttered a sentence that left Chu Ning speechless.

“What did you say?” Tanya covered her face and laughed helplessly. Truly, what goes around comes around.

“Please pay the fare first. Thank you for your cooperation!” Li Han repeated mechanically, staring fixedly at Chu Ning in the front seat, with the air of someone who meant that no payment meant no departure.

Chu Ning pointed at the fare meter, which had not yet even been activated. He had never heard of paying for a taxi in advance. This was outrageous! And Li Han had not even been a freelance driver in life, someone whose fare could be negotiated beforehand.

Could it be that Li Han had another, hidden side?

Chu Ning thought this with malicious amusement. As for paying first, that was impossible. He could not even scrape together a single copper coin on his person; letting him pay would be easier than simply killing Li Han and stealing the taxi so they could drive themselves to Chuhe Road.

“Fine, fine. Here, take the money. Is this enough?” Tanya saw the tense standoff ahead and knew it was her turn to step in.

She handed Li Han a thick stack of ghost money without even counting it carefully. The denominations of spirit currency had grown larger and larger, until offerings for the dead were burned in bundles. Even the living likely had no idea how much such money was actually worth.

Li Han snatched the ghost money from Tanya without ceremony, even shooting Chu Ning a disdainful look while he was at it. He did not bother to consider whether the amount was sufficient for the fare. Asking for payment first was simply an instinct carried over from his life.

Even if Tanya had handed over a little less, Li Han probably would not have cared. What mattered to him was the act of obtaining it, not the final amount gained.

The taxi set off along the planned route. Tanya had more or less figured it out by now: a hearse was much like an ordinary car. The fantastical images she had imagined—flying through eaves and walls, slipping across space, leaving burning tire tracks behind—never appeared. She was a little disappointed by that.

For the rest of the journey, Li Han did not make any more bizarre demands. Instead, he proceeded strictly according to the navigation instructions.

The taxi became especially quiet. Everyone inside had their own thoughts, and no one tried to chat to pass the dull journey.

Chu Ning was thinking about continuing the investigation through the clues and earning enough money to live out his old age in comfort. Tanya was pondering the conspiracy hidden beneath the series of events, and why she had become entangled in it so deeply.

As for Li Han, he was, unusually, the purest of them all. Right now he had emptied his mind entirely, focusing only on the act of driving, and on the comfort he felt at having received the fare.

From the state of death Li Han displayed, Chu Ning could infer that he had likely died in a car accident. He could not understand Li Han’s death.

Could it have been that he had truly been tainted by ghostly energy, leaving his mind in a dazed and hazy condition, so that when the blinding headlights appeared ahead he failed to turn in time and accidentally crashed into some obstacle?

That was all Chu Ning could come up with. Most of the car-accident plots in ghost stories he had read followed just that pattern. If one were to explain it from a professional standpoint, Chu Ning felt that Li Han’s car accident was probably not chiefly their fault.

They had not come to harm him for money, nor had they hounded him like a resentful spirit every waking moment. Ghosts, in matters like this, had the greatest right to speak for themselves. Chu Ning said they should not be blamed for things that could not be explained. They would not take this burden.

In any case, the journey was dull beyond measure. Chu Ning could not even strike up a conversation with the driver—who knew whether he might trigger some taboo in Li Han? Even though Chu Ning’s strength far exceeded Li Han’s, and to him crushing a newborn ghost would be no harder than crushing an ant.

But when Chu Ning saw Li Han’s forms changing, the taxi changed with them. Especially after the accident, thick black smoke poured from inside the car, and the hood was flung open, making one wonder when the vehicle might explode.

Chu Ning still had to ensure Tanya’s safety, so he chose the prudent course. It was not that he was actually afraid of the scene before him. By human instincts, in such a situation one should run as far as possible.

Thus, reconstructing the sequence of Li Han’s death became his way of passing the time. In any case, no matter how he observed Li Han, there would be no reaction at all; he stood motionless like a mountain.

Chu Ning even suspected that he could press right up against Li Han’s face and inspect him closely without any problem.

But Chu Ning had no intention of making such a sacrifice, so he gave up the chance to look more carefully. To press close and study another man in detail was simply too much to bear.