The Beginning
Chapter 37: The Twenty-First Time Loop

"Okay."

As quickly as possible, Li Shiqing edited the entire message and sent it to Officer Zhang's mobile phone.

Gang Wu New Village A bomb was found on a 45 bus just leaving the station, licence plate XXX. A bomb was found in a pressure cooker carried by a woman wearing a flowery shirt in the sixth row by the door. The driver is an accomplice. The pressure cooker will explode if the valve is removed, and the timer is set for 13:45. Please send a police officer in plain clothes to the 'East River Road' station immediately.

After sending it, she dialed Officer Zhang's number again.

When the phone picked up, she heard Officer Zhang on the other end asking.

"Who are you? Did you just send that text message ......"

"I'm in the car right now, I can't call."

Li Shiqing tried to be more natural in the way she answered the phone, "It's almost too late, can you please do as you've been texted? I'm not a scammer, if it's a scam, I'm willing to take the consequences."

Fearing that she would lose valuable time by continuing to talk, she said this and hung up the phone.

Li Shiqing looked nervously out of the window and waited until they reached the spot they had agreed on last night, hastily abducting Boy's arm to remind her to pay attention.

"Here it is!"

This is the smoothest part of the road between the two stations, where there is less traffic and fewer pedestrians, and where it is less likely that vehicles will slow down.

Boy gives a knowing reach.

"Pervert!"

Li Shiqing screamed, slapping him on the back of the hand and screaming.

"Master driver, there's a pervert in the car!"

This time, Li Shiqing is asking the driver by name for help.

"What's going on?"

The timing of the drive being made really slowed down and twisted around to see what was going on.

"Driver, this guy next door to me is touching me indiscriminately!"

Li Shiqing is quick to get into the act.

"Can you turn around and go to the police station?!"

You can't make a U-turn, you'll have to turn around if you do.

"There's no way to turn around here!"

Sure enough, the driver had absolutely no intention of doing so.

The next time, as they had done on previous occasions, one insisted that he had touched him and the other that he hadn't. They argued and argued all the way to the driver, demanding that he comment.

The driver didn't care much about Boy touching or not touching people, he just shouted annoyedly, "If you want to argue, go argue in the back, don't interfere with my driving here!"

"Who's arguing? I'm not trying to reason with her?"

Boy is still huddled near the driver and refuses to leave.

"Besides, who said I touched her? Did anyone see it?"

Boy raised his voice, "No witnesses, and she just opens her mouth and kicks me out?"

He put on a scoundrel's face and shouted into the car.

"Did you guys see that? Who saw me touch her?"

As on previous occasions, most people were either sleeping or resting, and Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun were again sitting at the back of the room, largely unseen, and Boy shook his head when asked.

When Li Shiqing asked for help, the passengers on the bus said they didn't know and didn't want to mess with it.

Although it was only an act, Li Shiqing couldn't help but sigh in relief when this isolation reared its ugly head.

As her mood dips, the girl stands next to the driver with her head hanging in a particularly pathetic manner.

"Hey, what kind of person blackmails someone for no reason, you don't look like a rich guy either, you wouldn't be blackmailed if you were."

The old grandfather selling melons shook his head.

"If you did do it, apologise to the little girl and say it properly!"

Boy certainly doesn't recognise it.

When Li Shiqing saw that the driver was still driving and did not look like he was going to slow down, she gritted her teeth and once again used the "get out of the car and call the police" tactic to ask him to stop.

"The next stop is just around the corner, so wait a little longer, little girl."

The driver looked at the two young men and his voice was not loud.

"You'll get off at the next stop."

At this point, not only was Li Shiqing stunned, but Boy, who was standing next to her, was also a bit confused.

"I'm going down there now."

Li Shiqing looked out of the car and noticed that the speed had not decreased much and became anxious.

"I couldn't last a minute with people like that!"

The passengers on the bus were not happy to see the two young men getting more and more rowdy next to the driver.

"What's wrong with you guys? You're interfering with the driver's driving like that, the driver's going to have an accident!"

The goon uncle with the keys shouted louder than anyone else.

"Can you solve any problems on your own? Don't you have a mobile phone? Won't you call the police yourself?"

As soon as Uncle Goon said "call the police yourself", the driver's speed suddenly dropped.

"Then I'll call ......."

Li Shiqing, seeing that there was a game on, faked his way to his mobile phone and checked the time in the meantime.

13.25, a few minutes short of Officer Zhang's previously estimated earliest time of attendance.

"Forget it, I'll pull over and let you down."

When Li Shiqing wanted to call the police, the driver suddenly agreed to Li Shiqing's request and drove the car slowly to the side of the road.

When Boy and Li Shiqing saw that the driver had slowed down and stopped, they were both delighted.

Li Shiqing dawdled to the rear door and did not go down immediately.

The driver waited for a while, saw that the young girl did not get out of the car, frowned and asked.

"What's going on? I thought we were getting off?"

"Uncle Driver, I'd better not go down."

Li Shiqing shamelessly yells at the front while looking at the time on her phone.

"I thought it might be too late to get a taxi down there, so I'll ask you to take me to Jiangbei! I'm in a hurry."

"What the fuck!"

The driver's uncle clearly showed the displeasure in his heart, but said nothing, shutting the rear door sharply and driving off again.

After this scene, although they didn't get out of the car, they couldn't sit together anymore. Li Shiqing chose to sit in the empty seat near the back door, while Boy sat in the front row in front of Li Shiqing in spite of the scorn of many people.

After such a delay, they managed to extend the time between the two stops by five or six minutes and it was now 13:29.

According to Mr. Zhang, they should have reached the East River Road station at 13.30 if they had been there as soon as possible.

Probably because of the delay on the road, the driver drove very fast for the rest of the journey and within a few minutes Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun saw the bus stop ahead of them and could faintly see several figures standing underneath it.

Li Shiqing and Boy, who had turned his head, looked at each other with excitement in their eyes.

The police did come!

At every previous time loop, the only person to board at this station was the masked man!

They were staring out of the window, watching the car approach "East River Road Station", their mouths dry with tension.

Closer, closer, closer ......

"No, why isn't the car slowing down?"

Li Shiqing was the first to notice that something was wrong.

She immediately stood up, ran to the back door and shouted at the driver's uncle.

"Uncle, I want to get off! Stop the station now!"

By now, the car had pulled up near the stop sign and she could even see the familiar figure standing there through the glass of the back door.

Officer Zhang and Officer Jiang, with two other officers, were waiting at the stop sign in their normal casual jackets, disguised as passengers about to board the train.

The masked man who had boarded the bus at this stop earlier was nowhere to be seen, presumably persuaded to leave by the police officers.

"What the hell is wrong with you today, one minute you want to get in and the next you want to get out!"

The driver yelled in an unpleasant voice.

"Didn't you just say you were in a hurry?"

"But someone wants to get on the bus!"

Li Shiqing points out of the car window and shouts.

"There's someone at the stop sign!"

"Too late, too much time delayed on the road, no way to stop now!"

However, the driver ignored Li Shiqing's "reminder" and, without looking back, accelerated straight through the station and headed for the crossroads before the bridge.

When the driver didn't stop, Officer Zhang's plan didn't work and Li Shiqing and Boy panicked.

Boy is in his seat, peering out of the window.

The car was already driving some distance away from the station, and a few policemen who had just been at the bus stop could be seen rushing ahead, shouting something as they followed the car some distance behind.

When it became apparent that the car had absolutely no intention of stopping, they stopped the chase and turned around and sprinted in the direction of the road.

"It's over!"

Li Shiqing's heart was racing with panic as she stood at the back door, a wave of despair welling up in her heart.

"How come they can't get on the bus!"

Oo-ooh-ooh...

Just then, there was a sudden ringing of the bell behind the bus that only police cars have.

"Pull over, the bus ahead, pull over immediately, all personnel, get off the bus immediately!"

In the police car, the police were using a loudspeaker and shouting at the bus.

Two ordinary-looking cars with police lights on their roofs tried to stop the bus in which Li Shiqing was riding.

At this point, the two young men's hands and feet were completely cold.

The shrill ringing of a police car can be unsettling even on a normal day, let alone at this nerve-wracking juncture.

The passengers in the bus panicked when they saw a police car catch up with their bus.

"Driver, what's going on? Pull over now!"

"There's not some fugitive in the car, is there? Driver, stop the car!"

Spell it out!

Boy reacted faster than Li Shiqing, his eyes fixed on the older woman in the flowery shirt.

It's not on the bridge yet, better to get into a car accident than get blown up, as long as we can snatch the bomb down first, there's still time before it explodes!

He looked up and locked eyes with Li Shiqing with a look of determination in his eyes.

Li Shiqing understood what he meant, nodded at him and, amidst the panicked shouts of the passengers, rushed in unison towards the older woman seated in the back row.

Outside the window, two police cars, with no regard for danger, wrapped around the bus, forcing it to slow down and pull over, forbidding it to drive towards the more heavily trafficked cross-river bridge.

Just as Li Shiqing grabbed the older woman's hand, Boy jumped on top of her ......

But it was too late.

With the violent jolt of the driver's uncle slamming hard into the police car in front of him, the woman in fancy dress reached out and kicked over the pressure cooker under her seat as hard as she could.

Li Shiqing watched as the pressure cooker's pressure limiter was slammed down and the red limiter rolled bone-dry onto the floor of the car, and with the shock caused by the collision, it just rolled off into the distance ......

"No!"

Boom!