I'm Actually Panicking Because My Heart Doesn't Beat (GL) - Chapter 57

The child was pushed down, and the woman panicked. She quickly picked up the child and comforted the little one in her arms, shouting at the man, “What can I do if the kid’s crying? How can you, an adult, be so cruel to a child?!”

The man yelled back at her, “You don’t have money for a private car, so why have a child?”

The woman, who had been relatively calm until now, was clearly angered by this. Her face flushed red as she snapped back, “You don’t have money to buy a private car either, yet you still take the bus!”

“What did you say?” the man growled.

“You pushed my child and shouted so loudly. If you were really capable, why would you still be stuck on the bus?” she retorted coldly.

Looking at the young man, the woman snorted, “We’re both powerless, but who are you to judge me? At least I have a child. What do you have?”

It was unclear if it was her words that enraged him, but Guan Xiaoxuan immediately sensed the young man’s mood shift. He seemed to have been holding back for a long time, and now his despair and pain spilled out so strongly that even Guan Xiaoxuan in the back row could feel it.

Suddenly, the man pulled out a thin spring knife from somewhere and lunged at the woman, stabbing her neck.

Bl00d erupted instantly. The young man pressed down on her, stabbing her repeatedly in the neck and chest. Chaos broke out inside the bus. The driver noticed the trouble, panicked, and lost control of the steering wheel, causing passengers to stagger left and right.

The crying child was pushed aside by the mother, now sitting on the floor, covered in bl00d and sobbing.

The man seemed to have gone mad. Even though the woman stopped moving, he kept slashing wildly with the knife.

No one dared to intervene. Guan Xiaoxuan wanted to get up and pull the child away, but the shaking bus made it impossible to stand.

Finally, the man seemed to realize the woman was dead. The bus filled with the sharp, choking smell of bl00d. His black suit was stained dark with her bl00d, and his face was splattered as well. But he looked almost relieved, laughing maniacally.

“This is how it should be! This world deserves this!” he shouted.

He got up and stood in the middle of the bus aisle, addressing the terrified passengers squeezed at both ends.

“When you’re wronged, you have to vent it out. Endless tolerance only makes some people take advantage.”

“The kids raised by bad parents are just as rude,” he glanced at the child.

Guan Xiaoxuan thought he was going to hurt the child, but he didn’t. Instead, he straightened up and looked toward the front of the bus.

At that moment, Bus 444 was crossing the Jiang Bridge, unable to stop anywhere or find a station. The driver, sensing the man’s bloodstained gaze, gripped the wheel tightly, trembling.

“No… no, please no…” the passengers whispered.

The man walked over, stood beside the driver, and told everyone, “I’m beyond saving. You’re all going down with me.”

Then, he plunged the knife into the driver’s heart.

The bus veered wildly on the bridge, smashed through the guardrail, and plunged into the river!

Before the bus sank, Guan Xiaoxuan grabbed the child sitting next to the woman’s body and held the kid tightly.

“Please save us…”

As the bus hit the water, Guan Xiaoxuan heard the child in her arms say, “We’ve repeated this death over and over. I can’t change the past, and I can’t escape reality.”

“If you can stay conscious in the darkness, please save us. Stop him, stop him, let us be free…”

The raging river water surged from all sides. Guan Xiaoxuan smelled bl00d and the scent of the river and sea.

The feeling of weightlessness and suffocation hit her at the same time, and she finally understood why Xu Long’s body was found on the riverbank below the bridge. If she guessed right, Xu Long must have gone through this same moment.

Could it be that she, too, was going to drown here, just like Xu Long?

Just as despair closed in, Guan Xiaoxuan felt a sudden burst of strength from the child in her arms. The kid pushed her away with surprising force, breaking through the glass, the river surface, and even space itself.

Suddenly awake, Guan Xiaoxuan still felt the choking sensation from underwater. She clutched her mouth in pain and gagged, then gasped for fresh air.

The sudden noise made everyone on the bus turn to look at her, their eyes cold and terrifying.

Chen Man quickly grabbed Guan Xiaoxuan’s hand, anxiously asking, “Are you okay?”

After calming her breathing, Guan Xiaoxuan stood up firmly. She passed by Qiu Nan and moved to the young man in the suit.

His suit was marked with dark irregular stains—bl00d splattered from the woman earlier.

The bus 444 endlessly looped through the late-night streets of Xinglin City, replaying the last moment before death over and over.

Pain and suffocation spread through the bus. Guan Xiaoxuan saw the woman in the front row, holding the child.

The woman’s body was covered in wounds. When she first got on, everything seemed normal. Everyone was neat and well-dressed, but now it was as if a mask had been torn away. The bus 444 darkened, algae from the river started to grow everywhere, and the passengers gradually looked terrifying.

The child in the woman’s arms swelled up, eyes pale and bloated, staring at Guan Xiaoxuan.

“I promise, I will end this cycle,” Guan Xiaoxuan said to the child.

She glanced at the kid, then pulled out her pistol from behind her waist and aimed it at the young man.

Turning to Qiu Nan, she said, “This guy caused the bus 444 to crash into the river. If we can control him, we can get off the bus!”

The man looked at Guan Xiaoxuan, then suddenly burst into a laugh filled with black hatred.

He looked like he had suffered for a long time. His eyes were bloodshot when he looked at her.

“What’s so good about this oppressed world anyway?” the man asked, standing up fearlessly in front of her gun.

“When someone bullies you, makes you suffer, don’t you want them all dead?”

Guan Xiaoxuan stepped back two paces. Qiu Nan immediately pulled out her talismans.

“I’m under so much pressure,” the man said, voice full of pain. “My parents say I’m useless, my girlfriend hates that I don’t make money, and my company treats me like a dog. I fake smiles all day, and then they’re the first to lay me off.”

“Who did I offend? Why do all these terrible things happen to me?”

“All I wanted was to quietly die. But even on the bus, people argue with me.”

“That woman laughed at me, saying she has a child. What do I have?”

“What do I have?”

“I have nothing. I’m already half dead. What do I have to be afraid of?”

He gripped the knife, smiled at Guan Xiaoxuan, and shouted, “You’re all coming with me! Die! Die! All of you die!!!”

The black hatred exploded and spread rapidly. Guan Xiaoxuan aimed at the man’s head and fired.

The golden bullet pierced through his forehead and exploded behind his head. But the man seemed unaffected, still holding the knife and advancing on her.

“Guan Xiaoxuan, come this way!” Qiu Nan shouted.

Guan Xiaoxuan rushed over as golden talisman papers flew around the man, hovering in the air.

With the sound of continuous explosions, Guan Xiaoxuan smelled something burning.

Qiu Nan stayed alert. She took out a green talisman from her bag, held it to her mouth, and blew on it. Immediately, a gust of wind swept through the bus, clearing away all the smoke from the explosion.

As the fog cleared, Guan Xiaoxuan saw that the spot where the man had been sitting was now a complete mess. A mangled body stood there crookedly—the man’s suit was torn apart, with chunks missing here and there. His head, however, was intact and hanging loosely on one shoulder. He looked at Guan Xiaoxuan and gave a twisted smile.

Then suddenly, his broken body started to swell, like it was inflating. Thick black tumors covered him, almost stretching so far that they would burst through the bus ceiling!

Qiu Nan held a peachwood sword with several talismans tied to it like a string of candied hawthorn berries. She told Guan Xiaoxuan, “Shoot him in the head three times, then I’ll rush in!”

Guan Xiaoxuan quickly raised her gun and fired three shots at the man’s head—bang, bang, bang.

Two weeks of shooting lessons hadn’t been wasted. At such close range, Guan Xiaoxuan had no excuse to miss. All three bullets hit the man’s face, leaving three deep holes.

“Good!” Qiu Nan praised her without holding back, then charged forward to fight the man who was no longer fully human.

It was the first time Guan Xiaoxuan had seen Qiu Nan actually fight. Back at her place, Qiu Nan had acted like a spiritualist, pacing around the room and messing with her, but this was the first real fight she had seen her in.

Unlike Xing Tianqing and the others, Qiu Nan was clearly a trained fighter. She swung the peachwood sword fiercely, and with the steady stream of talismans from her bag, Guan Xiaoxuan felt like Qiu Nan was a human machine gun.

No wonder she didn’t need any points or items—if Guan Xiaoxuan had her skills, she wouldn’t need those things either.

Watching Qiu Nan struggle with the man, Guan Xiaoxuan instinctively touched her face. Luckily, after falling into the water, she had a feeling and changed back to her original appearance. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known what was wrong with her face after waking up.

As Qiu Nan fought the man, the strange surroundings stayed still. The eerie figures around them just turned their heads and watched with indifferent expressions.

All disguises were gone now. Guan Xiaoxuan could only see pale or bluish-purple faces, and thick seaweed covered the floor, making it slippery with every step. Looking out the bus windows, she couldn’t tell exactly where they were—still in the city, but the exact location was unclear.

She wondered if Xing Tianqing could find them.

Just as Guan Xiaoxuan was on guard, Qiu Nan suddenly stabbed her peachwood sword into the man’s eye, stepped back two paces, and shouted, “Shoot him!”

Guan Xiaoxuan snapped back to focus, raised her gun, aimed at the man’s head pierced by the peachwood sword, and pulled the trigger with a bang.