Chapter 3

Chapter 3

That bus looked like it had driven straight out of an old photograph.
The paint was peeling in patches, the windows filmed with dust, and a wooden sign hung on the front.
Yet there it was, parked beside a freshly paved road, completely out of place among the ride-hailing cars and electric scooters.
My mom stood up.
I grabbed her arm.
“You’re not going.”
hhe didn’t pull away, just looked at me. “Zhixia, I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t go, you twenty years in the future will die inside it.”
Those words hit me like a slap.
I stared at her, my voice trembling. “You even have to meddle in something twenty years in the future?”
Her eyes were red, but she smiled.
“I’m your mom.”
Just those four words, and I couldn’t say anything cruel.
Liang Yan had already paid the bill.
He walked to the door and looked back at us.
“The bus will stop for three minutes.”
I asked, “What happens if you get on?”
“You might see her.”
“And you might not come back.”
He didn’t lie to me.
And precisely because he didn’t lie, I was even more afraid.
My mom patted my hand.
“You wait here for me.”
“In your dreams.”
I pulled her toward the door.
“If we’re going, we go together.”
Liang Yan frowned. “You can’t get on.”
“Why?”
He was silent for a beat.
“Because this bus came here to pick you up in the first place.”
Just then, the bus doors creaked open.
The driver’s seat was empty.
hcattered passengers sat inside the carriage.
They all had their heads lowered, their faces invisible.
In the very last row by the window, a woman raised her head.
hhe wore a beige trench coat, her hair pinned back.
hhe looked to be in her forties, but her features were identical to mine.
My mom’s breath caught.
“Zhixia.”
I heard her call.
Not to me.
She was calling my future self inside the bus.
The woman inside the bus looked at me through the glass.
Her eyes were very red, as if she had already cried many times.
Then she raised her hand and wrote three words on the fogged-up window.
Don’t get on.
My scalp went numb instantly.
Liang Yan grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.
Those lowered heads inside the carriage all lifted at the same time.
I finally saw clearly.
They had no facial features.
Only faces that looked like they had been soaked white by rain.
My mom stumbled back half a step, terrified.
But suddenly a hand shot out from the bus door and seized her wrist.
That hand was cold and bluish, its strength impossibly strong for anything living.
I lunged to grab my mom.
Liang Yan was faster than me.
He planted one foot on the edge of the bus door and clamped his right hand around that pale, blue-tinged wrist.
Voices rose from inside the carriage.
Men and women, old and young, all jumbled together, like static stuck in an old radio.
“Zhou Lan.”
“It’s time for you to come.”
“Your daughter owes us.”
My mom’s face went white.
I was furious. “What does she owe you?”
The forty-something me inside the bus stood up and shook her head fiercely through the glass.
Liang Yan clenched his jaw and hauled my mom outward.
The scars on the back of his hand split open inch by inch, as if cut by invisible threads.
I wanted to help him, but he shouted at me: “Don’t touch the bus!”
The next second, he shoved my mom back into my arms.
The doors closed.
Liang Yan didn’t make it out in time.
He stood on the inside of the doors, looking at me through the glass.
I heard myself scream his name.
But he just smiled.
In that instant, his face aged several more years.
The bus slowly pulled away.
By the time its rear disappeared around the corner, all that was left on the ground was a puddle of rain.
Even though it hadn’t been raining just moments before.
My mom leaned against me, trembling all over.
My mind went blank.
Suddenly my phone chimed.
It was a text from an unknown number.
[Senior, don’t come rescue me.]