“Anything is fine, as long as it’s not a ghost," the fatty muttered softly.

As he spoke, the five people had already walked up to them. They could sense that the others were equally wary of them.

"Who are you people?" Huai Yi asked.

"Don't be nervous, we're the same as you," a middle-aged man with a beard said. "We all got off that bus."

Mentioning the bus, the expressions of those accompanying him turned visibly unnatural.

Jiang Cheng sized up the middle-aged man and asked, "I was on the bus too, how come I didn't see you?"

"You were sitting in the front, we were in the back," another man spoke up, about 25 years old, with a soft voice and a generally weak appearance.

Jiang Cheng then asked a few more questions, which the others answered plausibly, but a disagreement arose when the old woman was mentioned.

"We didn't see any old woman," the middle-aged man said, looking at Jiang Cheng with a strange expression. "Our mission was the missing person notice broadcast over the radio."

"Broadcast?"

"Yes," the middle-aged man said. "It was playing on that bus. What, didn't you hear it?"

"No."

There was actually a broadcast on the bus, which Jiang Cheng hadn't expected. It seemed there were more secrets to this bus than he thought.

After a moment of contemplation, Jiang Cheng seized on a loophole in the middle-aged man's words, "You said you saw us, but the old woman was right beside us, talking to us. Why didn't you see her?"

Hearing this, the middle-aged man explained, "We only saw you getting on the bus for a moment, then you disappeared into the fog. We didn't dare go over there."

"Did you hear any other sounds on the bus besides the broadcast?" Jiang Cheng asked, looking at the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man thought carefully for a moment and shook his head. "No, the only sound was the broadcast. But we did see some things."

After a pause, the middle-aged man turned his head to look at a woman behind him. "Miss Shen, why don't you tell them?"

A tall woman with light makeup said, "I was sitting further back. In the fourth row directly behind me, there was a person holding a black umbrella, blocking their face. But my intuition tells me it was a man."

"In the fifth row to my right, by the window, there was a woman wearing a floral dress, with blonde hair, like a doll."

"And then?" Jiang Cheng asked. "After noticing these two people, did anything strange happen?"

The woman glanced at him and said coldly, "No."

Jiang Cheng was slightly surprised.

Seeing Jiang Cheng's expression, the woman retorted, "Are you a newbie?"

Hearing this, after a few seconds, the calm expression on Jiang Cheng's face began to show a hint of panic. Although he tried his best to hide it, he couldn't escape everyone's eyes.

"Don't be nervous. If you were experienced, you wouldn't ask such a question," the woman said in a lecturing tone. "After noticing them, I chose to stop observing and maintain the status quo. Disturbing them rashly could be dangerous."

"I'm not nervous," Jiang Cheng said stubbornly.

While they were talking, a small door by the school gate opened, and a woman in her forties walked out, wearing a high-necked sweater and glasses, dressed conservatively.

Seeing Jiang Cheng and the others, the woman walked up quickly, her eyes scanning over everyone as if counting heads. "You must be the new transfer students?"

"Yes," someone answered.

It seemed that this was their new identity.

The woman turned around. "Follow me," she said, leading them into the campus.

Although the school gate was old, the internal facilities were quite good. The campus was also very large. They walked for about 15 minutes before being led to the front of a classroom.

"You can attend a few classes first to get familiar with our school's teaching style. As for the formalities, I'll take you to take care of them later tonight. The classes are important," the woman said, adjusting her glasses.

So as not to disturb the class, Jiang Cheng and the others quietly slipped in through the back door. It was a lecture hall with tiered seating, capable of holding hundreds of people.

A very old professor with a hunched back was writing on the blackboard at the front of the room.

There weren't many students, and they were all concentrated in the last few rows. As for the front rows closest to the podium, there were only a few scattered students, craning their necks to look at the blackboard, looking rather silly.

The students in the back were gathered in twos and threes, all looking down at their phones.

"There are no seats left," the fatty said reluctantly. "We can only sit in the front."

Just as everyone was about to walk forward, Jiang Cheng stopped them and pointed to one of the female teammates, indicating that he wanted her black handbag.

This was a woman in her thirties, with relatively dark skin, who had been silent the whole time, with a very low profile.

The woman first looked at the middle-aged man. After realizing that the middle-aged man had no objections, she handed the bag to Jiang Cheng. Everyone looked at him with strange expressions, not understanding what he was going to do.

After taking the bag, Jiang Cheng straightened his clothes while walking towards a male student who was chuckling to himself while staring down at his crotch, completely unaware that someone was approaching.

Jiang Cheng picked up the bag and slammed it on the back of the boy's head, startling him so much that he almost dropped his phone.

Just as the boy turned his head, Jiang Cheng smoothly tucked the bag under his arm, his eyes looking down at him with a cold voice, "What are you doing?"

His voice wasn't loud, but his imposing manner was ample.

Before the boy could recover, Jiang Cheng turned his head and said to the fatty in a commanding tone, "Teacher Wang, write down his major and class. After the meeting today, I want to hear his counselor explain this to me."

"Understood, Director Jiang." The fatty reached into his pocket, as if he could pull out a notebook and pen from it.

The boy panicked instantly, and quickly explained, "Director, please don't... please don't do this, give me a chance. I'm a student union cadre. If I do well, I'll be promoted to department head next year."

"Go to the front and listen to the lecture!"

"Yes, yes, I understand, I understand, Director." The boy nodded and bowed, grabbed his bag, and ran to the first row.

As Jiang Cheng's gaze shifted, the faces of all the students sitting in the back turned pale, and then they all stood up, not daring to make a sound, and went to the first row.

After the first row was full, everyone started fighting for seats in the second row.

The old professor who was lecturing heard the noise behind him, stopped writing, turned around, and stared dumbfounded at the swarm of students.

Then he took off his thick reading glasses, trembled as he opened his glasses case, took out a glasses cloth, wiped them again and again, and quickly put them back on.

After confirming that it wasn't a hallucination, the old professor's eyes welled up with tears.