Underworld Player

According to Murphy's Law, "anything that can go wrong, no matter how unlikely, will".

Bai Zhi watched the scenery as it slowly reverted from the strange vistas of the Underworld back to normalcy. The journey back from the Underworld took a mere twenty minutes, compared to the hour that it had taken to get there in the first place. Nevertheless, as other vehicles and the noise of regular traffic began to appear around the bus, Bai Zhi couldn't help sighing in relief.

However, the feeling was short-lived, as he began to recognize the locations he was passing. Bai Zhi's expression grew sterner with each passing mile, and by the time the bus stopped to let him off, his face was black as thunder—he had not expected the driver to deal him such an underhanded blow.

As Bai Zhi got off the bus, he was greeted by the sight of the same bus station where he had boarded the accursed bus. He gritted his teeth in silence for a moment, then turned to give the long-necked, chrome-domed driver a piece of his mind.

...I paid, for God's sake! Do you not understand the concept of exchanging currency for goods and services?! The paying customer is your god! Would it kill you to make an effort and deliver your god to His desired destination?! I even gave you a pack of smokes and a lighter!

But in the few seconds it had taken him to disembark and turn around, the large vehicle behind him had disappeared, and in its place was a different bus with a middle-aged driver, who was clearly fast-asleep.

In short, Bai Zhi had lost three hours only to end up back where he started.

"Fuggin... Tickets aren't cheap, you know!"

Huffing angrily, Bai Zhi looked up at the darkening sky and ripped up his ticket, dumping the pieces into the nearest trash can. With leaden feet, he trudged sadly out of the bus station—he wasn't just sad, he was despondent.

One bus ticket, tens of yuan; a pack of Yellow Crane Tower cigarettes and a knockoff Zippo, another tens of yuan each. But the three hours lost... priceless.

It came back to that old chestnut: "Should time and gold before you lie, 'tis time that gold can never buy". He felt robbed of a million yuan—but how could something as common as money even be used to denote the worth of the precious time taken from him?

His original plan had been to spend the night at the orphanage, but instead, he had been put through the wringer, forced to take another bus home, then get a new ticket the next day for yet another three-hour coach ride...

Bai Zhi felt like the universe must have a vendetta against him.

It was now almost 5 p.m., and Bai Zhi had hardly eaten anything. He had gone the whole morning on an empty stomach, and then, in the afternoon, had nothing to eat but that most despicable of foods, chocolate—hardly an improvement. Overall, the whole ordeal had drained him physically and mentally, and he was so hungry he could eat a horse.

While on the bus that would take him back to his rental apartment, Bai Zhi went online with his phone to look up all traffic accidents that had transpired in the past week. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for.

Yesterday at 2 p.m., there had been a fatal multi-car collision on the highway, which was directly responsible for the deaths of a young woman and her daughter, as well as two delinquent youths. Ten others involved were severely injured and had been sent to the ICU at the nearest hospital. Dozens more were injured.

So, the passengers on the Shuttle Bus to Hell had been dead! But then... what did the little girl mean to warn me about at that time?

Turning off his phone, Bai Zhi sighed and turned to look outside—the bus was still in the city, and through the window, the bustling traffic and flashing lights were a sight for sore eyes.

After getting off the bus, Bai Zhi found himself so weak that he could barely stay standing. He would have preferred to have dinner before going back home to rest, but as the one-hour time limit on the PODS buff expired, it left him nearly helpless, and he had no choice but to change his plans.

Just to make it from the bus stop to the lift, and then to his apartment door, took every last ounce of his strength and he drew considerable attention as he staggered the whole way.

In the lift, he even heard some lady lecture her son not to stay up late at night surfing the internet, or they would grow weak and sickly "like that young man over there, swaying on his feet like he's about to faint all over the place..."

Bai Zhi memorized their unit number as they got off the lift, vowing to smash their windows in the very next day.

Ah, the virtue of vengefulness.

When Bai Zhi returned to his apartment, he immediately flopped onto the couch.

"Mrrhh... I should just get some food delivered," he mumbled into the seat.

Turning himself around, Bai Zhi lifted his phone into the air and soon put in an order for a hundred yuan worth of food from a delivery platform called U-hungree.

As for why he spent so much on food, one might as well as why he was so rich.

The rich can afford to be reckless!

Come to think of it, there must have been tons of other Players who've been ferried to that village. Even if the risk of dying to its challenges is unreasonably high, collecting the 300 Hell Dollars to get back shouldn't be that hard...

After resting some more, Bai Zhi got up from the couch and brought his laptop to the coffee table, then turned it on and went online. With nimble, practiced taps of the keyboard, he soon arrived back at the Player's Forum on the dark web, and a search for several terms related to "Hell", "Underworld", and "Bus" soon returned a few threads.

Without wasting any time, Bai Zhi clicked on the top thread to read more, but was surprised by the notification that popped up.

[ Would you like to spend 1 point to read this thread? ]

"Points? Huh, so there are such things on this forum."

After looking it up, Bai Zhi found the Forum's guidelines for acquiring Points simple enough—users got 1 Point for posting 1,000 responses.

It's positively primitive. Which bozo designed this system?

Considering that he had nothing better to do for the next twenty minutes while he waited for his food delivery, Bai Zhi shrugged and proceeded to reply to about three hundred forum threads with a couch emoji...