Chapter 5: The Sixth or Seventh Cycle of Time

A person who has had a bad experience tends to run away from reality.

And the easiest way to escape reality is to fall asleep and not wake up.

So, when Li Shiqing realised that she was slowly regaining consciousness, she wouldn't even open her eyes and continued to pretend to sleep.

Who knows what will happen when you wake up? What if it's another fatigue bombardment of "questioning"?

"Nope!"

After a few moments of sleep with her eyes closed, Li Shiqing began to feel something unusual.

Does the hospital bed have this rocking sensation?

Besides, she doesn't seem to be lying down!

Could it be that they are moving themselves to some other place?

Li Shiqing was so shocked by the thought that she could no longer pretend to be asleep and opened her eyes in a hurry.

She was absolutely right in thinking that she was now in a bus and was moving with it.

Looking out the opposite window, a blue road sign has just been passed, the car is not going fast and the words " River Road" can be faintly seen on it.

Didn't the two officers say that the River Road section was closed due to a car accident?

Were they going to drive her to the scene to see it and stimulate her to recall some of the circumstances?

Li Shiqing, desperately trying to keep the panic out of her mind, looked around her, but it didn't look right.

It wasn't the police car she had imagined, it was just an ordinary bus anyhow.

She didn't look like she was being escorted anywhere either. There wasn't a single person in a police uniform on the bus, and apart from a few young people, most of them were old men and women.

Probably because of her movements, the passenger next door, who had been resting with his head against the window, was also awakened by her movements and opened his eyes in a daze, rubbing them.

"Crikey, what's going on!"

As he rubbed, his movements just stopped and his eyes widened as he looked around.

Then, all at once, he jumped up and kept touching himself like a psychopath, shining his face in the car window and picking his ears, like a psychotic narcissist.

Li Shiqing didn't care what people were surprised about, she had had enough surprises for a while and now she just wanted to call her family.

Speaking of phone calls ......

Is that a mobile phone sinking into your pocket?

Officer Jiang didn't say she wasn't allowed to communicate with the public? Why did you give her back her phone?

As Li Shiqing panicked and pulled her phone out of her pocket, the inexplicable person next door tapped her on the shoulder and looked at her as if she had seen a ghost.

"How is it you? Why are you here? No, how come we're still here?"

His voice was dry and harsh, and he couldn't stop rubbing his ears as he spoke.

"Who are you?"

Li Shiqing holds the phone and looks at Boy with glasses in confusion.

"Do I know you?"

The Boy with the glasses actually froze for a moment when he heard what Li Shiqing said, looking agitated, "You don't know me? You made me suffer so much! After you pulled me off the bus, I ......"

After a moment, he froze again and said instead, "No, I should thank you, if you hadn't been so good to me ......"

"I don't know you!"

At the sight of his agitated and incoherent face, Li Shiqing recoiled in horror, almost falling backwards into the car seat.

Could it be that she had met an onset psychopath?

When she saw an empty seat at the back, she got up without thinking and changed seats, running to the back, away from that inexplicable person.

As soon as she sat on her butt, she immediately called her mother.

While waiting for the call to be dialed, Li Shiqing's eyes saw the boy with glasses look out of the car window for a while, then suddenly jump up and run straight to the driver.

"Hey mum, I'm telling you, I ......"

When the call was finally answered, Li Shiqing spoke excitedly at the familiar voice on the other end of the line, wanting to tell her family about the strange events she had encountered earlier.

Her voice, however, was completely drowned out by someone's roar.

"Driver, pull over now! Something's going to happen to this car!"

Boy with glasses looks terrified and stands next to the driver shouting, "This car can't go on the bridge! It's dangerous!"

"Who told you something was going to happen? What's going to happen?"

It was probably the first time the driver had encountered such a thing, and his voice was a bit flustered, "What are you talking nonsense about!"

"Hey, what did you just say? You seem to be making a lot of noise over there? I didn't hear it ......"

On the other end of the line, Mum seemed startled by the sudden shouting and hurriedly asked, "Did something happen on your end?"

Li Shiqing stretched her neck to watch the scene unfold before her, her heart leaping with fear, but a terrible suspicion came to her mind.

Buses, parking.

Something will happen.

No access to the bridge.

Is ......

The eyed Boy was behaving so strangely that a passenger finally sensed something was wrong and stood up to try to stop the agitated Boy in front of him.

"What's going on? Is there something wrong with this lad?"

Old men and women pointing and pointing.

"How can you curse the car you're riding in to be in trouble?!"

"Come on a couple of guys, help hold the lad down!"

An uncle with a bunch of keys around his waist went to pull Boy's glasses, but he almost fell over when he threw his hands away, shouting in anger: "What's going on in the bus! Even if something happens to you, it's your fault!"

As soon as he called out, many people followed him as if they had found their backbone and "attacked" him, pinning him down in front of the car and holding him down.

"Driver, driver! Turn around now and take the lad to the police station!"

The older man who was so proudly directing the passengers to "subdue" Boy shouted, "It's no good keeping him pinned down like this!"

"Hmm?"

The driver, probably startled, froze and nodded in a hurry.

"Oh, well, okay."

"Emotion? Hello? Emotion? What's going on over there?"

Mum was still asking repeatedly on the other end of the phone.

"Mum, something seems to have happened on my side ......"

Li Shiqing, cold with fear at her own suspicions, spoke unconsciously, "There's a strange man in the car on my side, saying the car will ......"

Halfway through her sentence, she felt the car suddenly lose control, the whole car flung out as if she had failed to control the direction in a sharp turn and hit something straight away.

"Boom!"

She was stunned by the sudden wave of heat that kicked up.

--

When she woke up again, Li Shiqing was still on the bus and the whole thing was fine, nothing had happened.

Half of the people on the bus were dozing, most of the rest were playing with their phones, and there were a few who opened their eyes and looked out of the window like she did, but with an expression that looked like they were worried they had overstayed their seats.

It was a bizarre event, but Li Shiqing's heart was strangely at peace.

Because she knows that what she is experiencing now is not real.

Her body should still be in that ward.

The police who questioned her would not allow her to leave until they had an answer.

Her door was guarded by two sturdy plainclothes policemen, anyone entering or leaving was questioned, and no one could steal her out from under their noses just to put her on an inexplicable bus.

To top it all off, her mobile phone now happens to be lying raw in her own pocket.

In reality, her mobile phone was kept by hospital staff during a cranial CT and has not been returned to her since. Li Shiqing guessed that it had been taken by the police.

So, she's either being questioned too much during the day and is having a bizarre dream ......

Either the concussion has shaken the head and it is now reconstructing the memories of that time, thus creating some kind of cognitive disorder or delusion.

Either way, since it's all fake, one just has to be quiet and accept that perhaps when these fragmented pieces are experienced, one's memory will return.

Looking at the Boy with glasses beside her, Li Shiqing wonders if the scene she has just seen is something that has happened before.

Both officers said she had been on that bus, and there was also CCTV footage to prove it.

Now that she has lost her memory due to concussion, the memories of the car should still be there in her mind and it is normal to dream about what happened in that car.

The Boy with glasses next door to her, then, is most likely a real person and not a figment of her imagination.

Could it be that he was the cause of the bus tragedy?

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Li Shiqing stammered with emotion.

This Boy looks like a human being, not like a madman.

As Li Shiqing sighed, the Boy came to his senses.

As he had just done, he rose emotionally as soon as he was awake and looked down at Li Shiqing again.

Li Shiqing silently averted her gaze.

Even if it was a dream or a misplaced memory, she didn't want to lock eyes with a madman.

"Sorry, let me out for a minute."

Instead of shouting, as Li Shiqing remembered, this Boy restrained his emotions and asked her to move aside while trembling slightly.

Li Shiqing rushed to her feet and, as she had done last time, moved to the nearest available seat.

It's horrible!

A calmed down lunatic is worse than an emotional one!

Boy got out of his seat and looked around the carriage, finally locking his eyes on the safety hammer fixed to the window.

Li Shiqing drew a breath of cold air when she saw Boy's eyes move to the safety hammer.

Is this the rhythm of a broken window?

This man is not only crazy, but I'm afraid he has serious tendencies to endanger society!

As she watched the Boy reaching for the safety hammer in the window, Li Shiqing finally stopped herself.

"What are you doing? That's not very nice, is it?"

The safety hammer he was about to take off was directly above her head.

Hearing Li Shiqing speaking, he glanced down at me, looking at her with a look that was both strange and odd.

"Are you asking what I'm up to?"

He smiles softly at Li Shiqing and asks himself a question.

"I'm going to make the car stop."

Then, the safety hammer was removed.

The moment the safety hammer was pulled off, an ear-splitting alarm sounded in the carriage.

The siren was so horrible, not only was it extremely loud, but it was also sharp and thin, and when the sharp siren sounded overhead, Li Shiqing felt a "buzz" in his right ear, and then he couldn't hear anything at all.

Does this dream world even come with five senses?

This is not scientific!

She covered her right ear in pain and watched as a number of dozing people in the carriage were startled awake and covered their ears as she had done.

Boy, however, stood there as if nothing had happened and read the instructions posted next to the hammer before trying to tap on the window.

"Driver, stop the car! Someone's trying to break the window!"

Someone in the car shouted in panic.

"Stop the car quickly!"

"What's happening? What's going on back there? Ah what's rattling!"

The driver was even more flustered than the passengers, and it was probably the first time he had met a passenger who had taken the safety hammer off.

"Someone has taken off the safety hammer and is breaking the window! Stop the car, driver!"

The car was a mess and the windows began to crack a little as Boy pounded on them.

The commotion inside the bus drew the attention of many people on the road. Li Shiqing saw some cars either slowing down or speeding up, all trying to stay away from the bus, after all, no one knew what was happening on it.

Soon, a large empty space on the road near this vehicle became available.

The angry passengers pounced on Boy with glasses behind her, subduing him once more, and the car, too, began to slow down slowly and more.

Li Shiqing did not panic at the sight of the subdued Boy and did not even struggle, allowing people to pin him to the ground and grab the hammer.

When he saw Li Shiqing looking at him, Boy, who was pinned to the ground and covered in wreckage, even hooked a smile at the corner of his mouth at her.

It's really crazy!

Li Shiqing rubbed the goose bumps that had risen on her arms, not quite sure it was just a dream.

So plain she couldn't dream up such a perversion.

So it's still her brain that's broken?

If you tell the officers about your "memory", you won't be believed, will you?

Just as Li Shiqing and the subdued Boy with glasses thought the car would pull over, a motorbike came out of nowhere and crashed straight into the bus, which was about to pull over.

Squeak!

The driver was startled and reflexively jerked the steering wheel to dodge. The car's tyres made a harsh scraping sound and the car lost control once again, crashing into the opposite lane.

Amidst screams, Li Shiqing watched as the bus crashed into the oncoming tanker ......

Author's Note: Changed to third person