"I don't deserve the praise." Jiang Cheng waved his hand, smiling freely.

Tang Qisheng didn't care about saving face anymore; what was face compared to life? He only hated himself for being so muddleheaded as to forget the killing god outside—someone who could slaughter the chairman of the Night Watch.

"Mr. Tang, your benefactor needs your help with something," Jiang Cheng said with a smile.

Tang Qisheng very consciously walked to the blackboard, picked up a box of chalk, and held it in his hand. "What do you mean, 'needs help'? Benefactor, just give your orders. Besides, it's just talking about folk customs and feng shui, right? That's my old profession, I love lecturing. Benefactor, please take a seat."

Jiang Cheng, Fatty, Yao Shunyu, and Li Bai sat on the chairs below. Although Tang Qisheng was opportunistic and his character was questionable, he knew a lot about feng shui and folk customs, at least more than Li Bai. After listening to the lecture for a few hours, Jiang Cheng benefited a lot. Fatty went to get a notebook and took notes very seriously.

Zhu Jie, who was beside them, would also supplement some of the things Tang Qisheng didn't explain carefully. Unknowingly, the night had deepened. Jiang Cheng had supper brought in, and everyone ate and chatted, the atmosphere very harmonious.

When he heard that the entire building he was in was filled with Crimson members, the despair on Tang Qisheng's face was visible to the naked eye. However, Fatty comforted him, saying that as long as he didn't get lost and wander around at night, he shouldn't encounter those Crimson members, and that most of the Crimson members were friendly most of the time.

Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie were arranged in the room next to Jiang Cheng on the other side. Now, the survivors of the last mission were all gathered together.

Lying on the bed, Jiang Cheng opened his phone. Lin Wan'er and Old Mr. Luo had each sent messages, saying that they had already begun organizing specialized personnel to investigate the missing Crimson members. Lin Wan'er even offered an analysis, believing that the missing Crimson members might be carrying out another top-secret plan, and that the plan was most likely aimed at himself and his group. Now it seemed that the chairman's last plan had been too hasty, and this plan was likely to serve as the Night Watch's backup plan.

"You mean they'll still use those guys to deal with me?" Hearing this, Jiang Cheng was actually a little interested. A clash between the old and new Crimson members sounded like a pretty attractive topic.

"In any case, Xiao Cheng, be careful in everything." Lin Wan'er's voice didn't sound as optimistic as Jiang Cheng.

At the same time, Lin Wan'er also revealed a top-secret message to Jiang Cheng: The current head of the Zhong family had spoken. They had obtained the exact time and coordinates of the next appearance of that bus in the real world. They had already sent people to verify it, and it should be fine.

After a moment of silence, Jiang Cheng asked, "If it's true, who are you planning to send on the bus?"

"In addition to the people who must stay behind to cooperate in cleaning up the remaining members of the Night Watch, all the remaining high-level combat forces will be dispatched—the Crimson, the Dark Army, as well as other major families, and the experts recruited by the country. This time, I will personally lead the team."

After a pause, Lin Wan'er's voice was full of complexity. "It's been too long. This... it's time to end it all."

This was a war of termination, whether for them or for the Night Watch. If the old chairman wasn't eliminated, the Night Watch would make a comeback sooner or later.

Putting down his phone and lying on the bed, he could even hear his own heartbeat in the silence. After struggling in nightmares for so long, the final battle had finally arrived. Too many people had fallen on the eve of this final battle. Scenes from the mission world lingered in his mind.

The night gradually deepened, and the fatigue of the past few days eroded him bit by bit, as if to drag him into the mire. His eyelids drooped uncontrollably, and Jiang Cheng slowly closed his eyes.

The room was still decorated as it had been 20 years ago. The ancient bronze clock on the wall was still swinging back and forth, and everything around seemed normal. But in that instant, something changed silently.

Slowly, the second hand of the clock seemed to be hindered by something, moving slower and slower, until finally, with a "tick," it stopped.

The second hand stopped precisely at the 12.

At that moment, Jiang Cheng, who had been motionless, suddenly opened his eyes. He sat up uncontrollably, his chest heavy, heavier than ever before. He gasped for breath, his lungs as if filled with smoke.

He walked to the door, opened it, and the lights in the corridor went out silently, but the corridor was shrouded in a faint, cold light.

As his door was opened, the nearby doors also opened one after another. Fatty, Yao Shunyu, Li Bai, and Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie—the six of them came together again.

This time, there was no more fear on everyone's faces, as if they had all been waiting for this moment, and had been waiting for a long time.

Walking down the stairs, the building was eerily quiet along the way. The sound of footsteps echoed in the empty building, as if there were only a few living creatures here at this moment.

Pushing open the door of the hostel, sure enough, the old bus was parked not far outside the door, lonely and with a rusty, spotted exterior like an old man suffering from a terminal illness.

Without hesitation, the group walked towards the bus with firm steps. The bus door trembled a few times and then opened with a "creak."

Jiang Cheng took a deep breath and was the first to board the bus, followed by Fatty, Yao Shunyu, Li Bai, and finally Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie.

Unlike in the past, the fog on the bus had actually dissipated this time. The hazy mist was gone, and standing where they were, they could see directly to the front of the bus at a glance.

And this time, they saw the strangeness of this bus more directly. The distance from the door where they boarded to the driver's seat was unusually far, with at least dozens of rows of seats in between.

And all of these seats were now empty. The bloodstains and splattered blood that had been all over the place before were gone, as if someone had carefully wiped them away. However, the scars of knife and axe cuts on the seats, windows, and ceiling were still there.

Just looking at these scars was enough to imagine the tragic extent of the previous battle, and this time, it would only be worse.

After getting on the bus, Fatty looked left and right, his expression gradually becoming tense. Jiang Cheng understood that he wasn't afraid, but that he couldn't find Mother Dahe, as well as Huai Yi and Wang Qi.

Yao Shunyu gently pushed him from behind. "Let's go."

Led by Jiang Cheng, the group walked step by step towards the front of the bus. This time, their goal was clear: the driver's seat where the old chairman was.

While holding on to the seats and moving forward little by little, Jiang Cheng couldn't help but feel a little dazed. Once, when he first entered the nightmare world, he had boarded a bus that looked like this one. And now, whether successful or not, this would be the last time he would ride this ghost bus. It seemed to complete a cycle in some sense.