1.
My name is Truong Hao, and I drive a taxi on the night shift.
Every night, I meet all kinds of passengers: drunk businessmen, heartbroken young women, students who’ve run away from home, or couples heading to a hotel together.
For three years, everything went smoothly. But a month ago, I suddenly decided to quit.
Whenever I think back on what happened that night, I still get chills.
I’m not telling this story to get clicks, of course. I’m telling it because I really need to get it off my chest.
One night a month ago, I parked outside a karaoke bar.
It was already one in the morning, and I was exhausted. So I sat in the driver’s seat, resting while I waited for a fare.
I’d been asleep for a little while when I suddenly heard someone call out.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a beautiful young woman.
She looked about twenty-three or twenty-four. She had wavy, curly hair and smooth, fair skin, and wore a white blouse with a short black skirt—a business outfit that looked very alluring.
What stood out most was her smokin’ hot figure.
At the time, I couldn’t help thinking, “If I had a wife like her, I’d gladly give up ten years of my life.”
The young woman smiled and asked if I was going to thôn Đại Nam.
At first, I was pretty happy. After driving a night taxi for so long, I’d finally picked up a beautiful passenger. But when I heard the place name, I hesitated.
thôn Đại Nam was in the southern suburbs, about a forty-minute drive away. More importantly, there’d been a fatal accident there just the week before. I really didn’t want to go there in the middle of the night.
But the young woman pleaded with me pitifully, saying her mother was sick and she had to hurry home to see her. To get me to take her, she even offered 500 yuan for the fare.
I wasn’t sure I’d make 500 yuan in a whole night.
So, for the money, I told her to get in.
The young woman thanked me.
Once she got in, she transferred the money to me right away.
When she smiled, she had dimples, making her both cute and alluring.
There was just a red mark on her neck that looked like a scar, taking away a little of her beauty.
We headed south.
As we chatted on the way, I learned the young woman’s name was Vương Lộ Dao. She was a hotel lobby manager—a classic “rich, fair, and beautiful” woman.
Vương Lộ Dao was easy to talk to, and we chatted away as the time flew by.
We were approaching the stretch of road where the accident had happened.
Just then, a man and a woman appeared up ahead by the side of the road. The woman was pregnant and looked ready to give birth.
The man supported his wife with one arm and waved for me to stop with the other.
I slowed down, pulled over, and opened the door for them, inviting them in.
After they got in, I asked where they were headed.
The man said they wanted to go to the city’s No. 3 Hospital, but I’d have to turn around first.
There was nothing else I could do, so I told him we’d have to wait a little before I could turn around.
He said nothing.
When we reached the entrance to thôn Đại Nam, I stopped the car.
Vương Lộ Dao looked at me in surprise, as if there were something on my face. I was baffled.
I was sorry to part ways with her. But I knew perfectly well that she was a hotel manager and I was just a taxi driver. The gap between us was too great; we could never be together.
So after turning the car around, I drove the couple to the city’s No. 3 Hospital.
After dropping them off, I called lão Dương and asked if he wanted to grab a late-night meal.
When you drive a taxi on the night shift, you have to eat in the middle of the night if you want to make it till morning.
But lão Dương was busy that night.
With no other choice, I went to eat by myself.
After eating, I scanned the WeChat QR code to pay, but the system switched over to my bank card payment instead.
I immediately thought it was strange. Hadn’t Vương Lộ Dao transferred 500 yuan to me?
But when I checked my WeChat Wallet, I froze.
2.
There wasn’t a cent in my WeChat Wallet.
That was impossible!
I clearly remembered that when Vương Lộ Dao scanned to pay, I’d watched carefully. It had definitely been 500 yuan.
Who would’ve thought a hotel manager that beautiful would skip out on the fare? I’d completely misjudged her.
And that couple was even worse. They’d given me a hell banknote.
I just couldn’t understand people like that.
The next night, I went back to wait for fares outside the karaoke bar, but I arrived half an hour later than I had the night before.
As soon as I parked, someone knocked on the window and asked if I was available.
I answered automatically, “Yes.”
When I looked up, it was Vương Lộ Dao again.
I flew into a rage and immediately asked her why she’d skipped out on the fare the night before.
Vương Lộ Dao insisted she’d never skip out on a fare and that she’d definitely paid the night before.
I opened the transaction details and showed her. Where had the 500 yuan gone?
Vương Lộ Dao stubbornly maintained that she’d paid.
Then she transferred another 500 yuan to me and told me to drive.
I said no. She had to make up the 500 yuan from the night before, too. It wasn’t easy for me to earn a few hundred yuan, and I wasn’t going to let myself get cheated—even if she was beautiful.
Vương Lộ Dao got angry, then transferred another 500 yuan to me.
This time I watched closely. There were definitely 1,000 yuan.
On the way to thôn Đại Nam, neither of us said a word. The atmosphere was heavy.
She stared out the window, clearly with no intention of talking to me. I didn’t try to start a conversation either. Could I really have been mistaken?
As we neared the stretch of road where the accident had happened, I saw the couple standing by the roadside again.
Hmph. They sure knew how to pick their moments. Were they deliberately pestering me?
I stopped the car. Before I could say a word, they got in.
When I got back into the car, I asked them to pay the fare, including what they owed from the night before.
The man was pretty generous and gave me 200 yuan.
I checked twice to make sure it was real money before letting them off. But when I turned back to start the car, I suddenly saw that the passenger seat was empty.
Where was Vương Lộ Dao?
I frantically looked around the car, but she was nowhere to be seen. I got out and checked the area, but still couldn’t find her.
Where could she have gone in the blink of an eye?
I was genuinely afraid something bad had happened to her.
If something really had happened to her, I’d be held responsible when they investigated.
Just then, the man asked what I was looking for.
I said the beautiful girl had just been sitting in the passenger seat.
He looked at me in surprise and asked, “What girl?”
I said in a panic, “She was sitting in the passenger seat last night too. You saw her.”
His expression changed at once. He said there hadn’t been anyone in the passenger seat last night. What girl was I talking about?
His wife was frightened too. “Handsome, there was a fatal accident here just a few days ago. Now you’re saying things like this—could you please stop scaring me?”
Seeing how frightened they both were, I suddenly felt a chill run through me too.
No wonder I’d clearly heard the WeChat notification saying I’d received 500 yuan last night, yet there wasn’t a single cent in my wallet. So I really had run into one of those things.
I shuddered, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
I hurried back to the car, quickly turned around, and drove away.
How strange. This was downright bizarre.
3.
On the third night, I went back to waiting for passengers.
I never expected Vương Lộ Dao to show up again.
Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?
On instinct, I was about to drive away.
But she grabbed the car door and hurriedly asked why I was running.
It went without saying what I was running from.
She opened the car door, got in, then scanned the code to pay me again.
Trembling with fear, I thought, Could you stop pretending already? Even if you scan the code, I’m not going to get any money.
By the way, the 1,000 yuan Vương Lộ Dao had paid me by scanning the code last night had disappeared too. Worse, the 200 yuan the couple had given me was gone as well. Now even the hell banknotes were gone.
I strongly suspected Vương Lộ Dao was behind all of this.
After completing the payment, she showed me her phone and told me to look carefully. She’d paid already, and I had no right to accuse her again.
I hurriedly smiled and apologized, my palms so sweaty I could barely hold the steering wheel.
As the car started, I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t know what else to do, so I could only hope she’d spare me. Once I’d dropped her off, I swore I’d never drive a taxi at night again.
Vương Lộ Dao seemed to be in a better mood today. She took the initiative and asked whether I came here to pick up passengers every night.
I immediately shook my head and said the time and place were never fixed; it was all random.
I was genuinely afraid she’d follow me.
Then she told me not to drive a taxi at night anymore after tonight. The more nights I spent driving, the more likely I was to run into something unclean.
I stole a glance at her, not daring to say anything.
When she saw I wasn’t saying anything, she asked if I didn’t believe her.
I replied, “No.”
She immediately turned to look at me, deadly serious. She said the couple I’d picked up over the past two nights were actually unclean things. She even called me an idiot for daring to let such filthy things into my car.
I thought to myself, You’re the unclean thing here, and you’re blaming someone else.
She angrily asked if I still didn’t believe her.
I said, “No.”
After dropping Vương Lộ Dao off in Đại Nam Village, I hurriedly turned the car around and drove back to the city.
I couldn’t drive this car anymore.
On the way, lão Dương called me.
We had a group of taxi drivers who worked the night shift. lão Dương was the oldest and the big brother of the whole group.
He asked if I wanted to grab a late-night bite tonight.
I answered, “Of course.”
When I got there, he was the only one there.
He said the others were all busy and couldn’t make it, so it would just be the two of us tonight.
As soon as I sat down, I poured myself a cup of tea and gulped it down to calm my nerves.
When I finished, I told lão Dương I wasn’t going to drive a taxi at night anymore, starting tomorrow.
lão Dương asked what was wrong.
I immediately told him everything that had happened over the past few nights.
When I finished, I suddenly sighed and said that the first time I’d met Vương Lộ Dao, I’d had some improper thoughts about her.
It was a good thing I’d realized in time. Otherwise, I might have died without even knowing when it happened.
lão Dương shook his head and called me an idiot for believing a ghost’s words.
I stared at lão Dương in confusion and asked what he meant.
lão Dương put on a serious face and said the couple was the real problem. If I believed them, sooner or later they’d get me killed.