Chapter 84 Part 2: Divine Song

“You’ll find yourself humming along uncontrollably, and the more you hum, the harder it is to stop.”

“Once your consciousness fully merges into its melody, your lingering thoughts will become part of it, trapped here in an eternal loop.”

Little Frost: “What if other living people pass by here? What would happen?”

White Peace: “This street has been abandoned for so long. No living person has passed by recently.”

“Any who did pass by have mostly been taken by it already.”

“It just hangs here, singing day after day, waiting for the next living person who can hum along with its melody.”

Mu Yingying thought for a moment, then said softly, “In that case, let’s take it in. Stop letting it harm passersby.”

Little Frost: “But if we take it, what about those trapped voices inside? Those people’s lingering thoughts? What will happen to them?”

White Peace: “They’ll disperse.”

“They were always just the lingering thoughts of the dead, barely held together by this melody. They can’t hang here forever.”

“For them, dispersing a day earlier means ending this endless cycle a day earlier.”

Mu Yingying: “Then… that mother who kept calling for Xiao Jun, will she also disperse?”

White Peace paused.

“She’ll disperse too.”

“She’s been calling here for years.”

“The child she was waiting for died on Doomsday itself. She didn’t survive either.”

“After all these years in this loop, she’s long forgotten why she was calling. She’s just repeating that name out of instinct.”

“Making her stop now, so she doesn’t have to call out hopelessly anymore, that’s the real relief for her.”

Little Frost said nothing more.

She pushed the bike back a short distance, moving White Night to a safe spot.

Mu Yingying drew her Tang Dao and stood it beside White Night’s bike basket.

She wasn’t going to fight; you can’t fight something like this. It was just habit to pull out the blade.

White Peace stood still.

She raised her right hand.

Black Light began to extend from her fingertips.

Not splashing, not spreading, but growing outward one strand at a time, like vines.

Those black threads emerged from her fingers, crossed over the rubble, and slowly climbed up the body of the electric pole.

Starting from the base of the pole.

Coil after coil, winding upward.

The electric pole began to vibrate.

The singing grew frantic.

The melody’s tempo was forced faster, like a broken tape recorder pressed to fast forward.

The lyrics became more chaotic, eventually turning into a hissing noise.

All the human voices that had been suppressed beneath the singing burst out.

“Xiao Jun—”

“Mom, I’ll be home soon.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Sis, save me.”

“Overtime, I can’t make it—”

“Ticket, please show your transit code.”

“Honey, I bought groceries.”

“I don’t want to live anymore.”

“Xiao Jun—Xiao Jun—”

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Mom—”

“Mom—”

They came out one after another, jostling to get out.

Like water boiling in a pot.

Like final goodbyes.

The woman calling for Xiao Jun was left with only sobbing.

Her sobs were harsh and real, the kind that comes from knowing you can’t call them back but refusing to give up.

The man’s “Mom, I’ll be home soon” eventually turned into “Mom, I can’t come back.”

The one who always said “sorry” stopped after his last sentence.

The child shouting “Mommy, I’m hungry” was left with only “Mommy.”

When the Black Light coiled around the top of the electric pole, all the voices reached their climax at once.

Then White Peace clenched her fist.

The electric pole let out a hum.

Like a lid being pressed down.

All the sounds were instantly extinguished.

Nothing was left.

The ruins fell completely silent.

The wind still blew, but there was no singing, no human voices, no echo of any kind in the wind.

Little Frost stood there, taking a moment to collect herself.

She let out a breath.

“That’s it? It’s over?”

White Peace: “Mm. It’s over.”

A Ghost Crystal condensed at the top of the electric pole.

Very small.

It slowly fell down.

Mu Yingying reacted, ran over, and caught it.

The Ghost Crystal was very light, warm in her palm.

She brought the Ghost Crystal to her ear.

Inside, there was a faint remnant of singing.

Like a recording with most of it erased.

Only the first two light, airy notes remained.

Very soft, very soft.

Mu Yingying listened for a moment, then tucked the Ghost Crystal into White Night’s Eerie Crystal Pouch.

The group set off again.

After a few dozen meters, Mu Yingying suddenly stopped.

She turned back and looked at the electric pole.

The pole still stood.

But it was completely silent.

It was just a dilapidated, abandoned electric pole, standing alone in the middle of the ruins.

If a passerby came by, they wouldn’t even notice it.

Mu Yingying watched for a moment, then turned back and kept walking.

As she walked, she subconsciously hummed the opening tune of that Brainwashing Divine Song under her breath.

She hummed to that point, then froze.

The lyrics after that…

She couldn’t remember them.

She had clearly remembered them just now.

She even remembered that this was that Brainwashing Divine Song.

But what did the song sing after that—

She couldn’t recall.

She tried to hum the melody of the second verse.

Couldn’t remember that either.

She only had those first two repeated notes left; all the lyrics after were empty.

The rest, completely empty.

Little Frost heard her humming and turned back to look at her.

Little Frost: “What, you can’t remember the lyrics after either?”

Mu Yingying: “You forgot too? You can’t remember either?”

The two exchanged a glance.

Little Frost: “•Just now it was crystal clear. I remembered every line.”

Mu Yingying: “Damn, that’s weird.”

Little Frost thought for a moment: “Was it that thing from just now? Did it take away our memories of this song?”

White Peace answered from ahead.

“When it left, it took away all the memory fragments related to it that it could carry.”

“Anyway, this song is useless to you.”

Mu Yingying was stunned for a moment, then laughed.

“Let it take it. Good riddance.”

“There used to be a woman at the nail salon downstairs. I don’t know if she had a hearing problem or was brainwashed, but she’d play this kind of song on loop every day, from morning till night. I could hear it from upstairs—the subwoofer made my floor shake.”

“I talked to her a couple of times. She said, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll turn it down,’ but the next day she’d play it again. My ears were practically calloused. It drove me crazy.”

Little Frost: “But before, even when you were annoyed to death and wanted to forget it, you couldn’t. It would pop up in your head while showering, while walking—sometimes you’d wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and your brain would flip a switch and start broadcasting it on its own.”

“A crappy song looping in your head that you couldn’t shake off. You cursed it, hated it, wished you could drag out whoever wrote it and ask him why he wrote it.”

“Now it’s really and completely gone. That spot in your head is empty, and somehow you’re not used to it, right? Like that neighbor who used to honk under your building every day suddenly moving away. The world is quiet, but you have to get used to that quiet.”

Mu Yingying waved her hand: “I wouldn’t say not used to it, just feels… pretty weird.”

“Something that’s been lingering in your ear for years, you’re annoyed by it every day and wish it would disappear. You felt it was taking up space in your brain, and you resented that it was wasted on that.”

“Now it’s really completely gone, and that spot in your head that it occupied every day suddenly feels empty. Empty and clean, like a small chunk was dug out.”

“You reach out to touch it, but there’s nothing there. You want to fill it, but you don’t know what to fill it with.”

Little Frost didn’t respond.

She pushed the bike and kept walking.

White Night was in the basket.

She also tried to recall that song, but she only remembered the opening notes. The rest was gone.

She didn’t know if she had also lost something.

They reached the next intersection.

A new row of storefronts appeared in the ruins.

Little Frost stopped for a moment, looking ahead.

“Peace, look at that thing up ahead.”

White Peace looked up.

At the left side of the intersection, a Bus No. 728 was parked.

The electronic sign on the front was still lit.

Red LED, three characters.

Terminal Station

Mu Yingying squinted.

“No way? It’s been abandoned for years, and this bus still has power?”

White Peace didn’t answer.

She was already walking toward the bus.

Little Frost pushed White Night and followed.

As they approached the bus, they could see inside through the windows.

The bus was full of people.

Everyone was looking down at their phones.

Their posture was very natural.

Just like a bus during evening rush hour before Doomsday.

But there was no sound inside.

Mu Yingying’s steps slowed.

“Oh my god, what’s going on in there?”

White Peace didn’t turn around.

Her hand was already on the bus door.

The door opened with a click.

A faint smell drifted out.

Not the smell of death, but the peculiar smell of a pre-Doomsday bus.

Plastic, metal, a hint of sweat, a hint of disinfectant.

Very familiar.

White Peace stood at the door.

She didn’t look back at the group.

She just said one sentence.

“Everyone, follow me. Get on the bus.”