Her hair was dishevelled, and her hands didn't know where to cover herself. Tears of despair dripped down her face.
Ning Wei's eyes grew colder. She looked at the robbers as if they were already dead.
She cursed softly, then kicked one of the men.
Her movements were swift, unnaturally so. The man she kicked rolled off the bus.
Seeing this, the others immediately got up and started fighting the robbers.
However, as they looked around, apart from Ning Wei, her group, and the driver, everyone else remained still, as if they were in a different dimension.
Although Ning Wei alone could defeat these five men, she couldn't let the other passengers just sit there.
"Why aren't you helping!" Ning Wei berated them.
But the passengers' backsides seemed glued to their seats. They remained completely indifferent to the sounds of fighting from Ning Wei's group and the desperate cries of the flight attendant outside on the grass.
Ning Wei became angry. After kicking over a robber, she grabbed a passenger and forced him to join the fight.
But the moment she reached out, the scene inside the bus changed.
They were back on the side of the road, and the pile of stones was burning brightly.
"What's going on?" One second they were fighting robbers, the next it was broad daylight, and they were back by the roadside.
Judging by the ashes in the pile of stones, it was shortly after they had gotten off bus 444.
"Time has jumped," Mei Nan's brows furrowed.
"Everyone, quickly recall if you did anything to trigger the rules, causing us to return to this time," Song Zhi was very sharp and immediately grasped the key point.
"Wasn't it just fighting those robbers?" Everyone looked at each other, unsure of what they had done wrong.
Ning Wei fell silent for a long time, feeling as if she had grasped something, but couldn't quite recall it.
"What do we do now?" Yuan Yuan asked softly.
"What else can we do? Just wait. If everything is a repetition, the bus will arrive in a few hours," Zhu Yilian sat down on the ground without any pretense.
She had been fighting with the robbers, and her arm had been cut. The pain was still there, but there was no visible wound.
"It seems that besides time moving forward, all we have left is our memories," Mei Nan stated, as everyone else had also noticed this.
They remembered everything that had happened on the bus vividly, but the wounds from the fight on the bus had vanished without a trace.
It felt like a cycle, and they didn't know how many times they would have to go through it before they could truly escape this situation.
"I thought getting off the bus was the beginning, but it turns out everything started when we got on," Tang Tang mumbled softly.
"No, it should have started from the moment we left bus 444," Zhu Yilian countered.
"Then won't we just keep repeating it?" Yuan Yuan was a little scared. They had no food or water here, and nowhere to sleep.
"Who knows? First, we need to figure out what we did wrong so we can break this repeating process," Wang Jing shrugged.
Everyone now understood clearly. They must have touched upon something they shouldn't have, which caused them to return to the present.
As long as they found this rule and avoided repeating it, everything should proceed smoothly until the end.
Since the bus was still a long way off, everyone sat down in a circle. Bathed in the warmth of the fire, each person began to recall everything they had done.
Except for the fight, when everyone was too busy to pay attention to their companions, so they were unclear about what everyone else had done. Other than that, all the events that happened were witnessed by everyone.
They went through everything from beginning to end, not expecting to find an answer immediately.
It was merely to ensure everyone had memories, so that the next time it happened, they wouldn't be completely clueless.
After a heated discussion, they took turns guarding the roadside. Mei Nan, meanwhile, observed the depth of the ashes to gauge how much longer until the bus arrived.
Indeed, this detail Mei Nan noticed quickly helped them estimate the bus's arrival time more accurately.
"The bus is coming," Mei Nan said to Tang Tang, who was guarding the roadside.
"I'll go keep watch. You guys get the sand ready. When you hear movement, put out the fire," Ning Wei stood up, casually dusting off her pants, and took Tang Tang's place by the road.
She hadn't stood there for long before everyone heard Ning Wei's clear voice: "The bus is here."
This time, they were prepared and not in a panic.
They quickly extinguished the fire in the pile of stones. Although this was about passing a test, safety was still paramount.
As they walked towards the roadside, Mei Nan stirred the ashes with a wooden stick several times, ensuring there were no embers before he stood with them, reassured.
The bus soon arrived. Seeing the familiar bus, they felt a mix of emotions.
Just like the first time, they stood by the roadside, not boarding immediately.
The flight attendant leaned out of the bus door and asked impatiently, "Are you getting on or not!"
Her desperate plea was still fresh in their minds, a stark contrast to her energetic demeanor now.
Seeing the passengers' dazed appearance, Wang Chunxia grew even more impatient and shouted, "Are you still taking the bus?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Mei Nan shouted back, then pushed Ning Wei onto the bus.
They didn't want to repeat this so soon, so they even followed the exact same boarding order as the first time, with Ning Wei first and Song Zhi at the rear.
They boarded one by one, sitting in the same seats they had occupied the first time.
As they passed the seats of those who had remained indifferent the first time, Ning Wei snorted, looking very displeased.
Unfortunately, those people didn't realize the young girl was angry with them. Their faces were turned towards the window, completely unresponsive.
Ning Wei paid for the tickets again, and they followed the exact same procedure as the first time.
Considering the fierce battle ahead, they all closed their eyes and started to rest. The driver's skills were passable, and they would wake up as soon as he stopped.
Drowsily, accompanied by Ning Wei's voice talking to the flight attendant, the bus stopped.
They immediately saw the five burly men standing by the roadside and tensed up, straightening their backs.
But the driver and the flight attendant were unaware of this. They followed the usual procedure for passengers.
This time, as the flight attendant got off to open the rear door for them, they noticed her expression had changed.