Ominous Journey on Hades Road
A bus heading to Fung City collided with an oncoming truck, resulting in no survivors among the passengers. However, a passenger named Kaleb Clark was reborn back to the time before the accident. He desperately tried to prevent the accident but save only his wife, his wife’s father, mother and brother. He thought everything will be okay, but he was unaware that death had already set its sights on everyone. The survivors started to die one after another. No one can escape.
EP 1: Kaleb Clark and his family, along with other passengers, are on a bus heading to Fung City when they enter the ominous Hades Road. Kaleb feels uneasy about the road, but his family dismisses his concerns. A mysterious cat appears, adding to the eerie atmosphere as Kaleb's paranoia grows.Will Kaleb's growing sense of dread lead him to uncover the truth about Hades Road before it's too late?
Deadline Rescue: When the Raven Flies at 4:43
Let’s be honest: most bus rides are boring. You stare at the back of someone’s head, scroll through your phone, maybe nap. But this bus? This bus is cursed. Not in the supernatural, ghost-in-the-backseat way—though, fair warning, there *is* a black raven keychain with glowing red eyes involved—but in the far more terrifying way: it’s haunted by *awareness*. Every passenger knows, deep down, that something is wrong. They just can’t agree on what it is. And that dissonance? That’s where Deadline Rescue lives—not in the crash, but in the silence *before* the world breaks. We meet Zheng Hao first—not by name, but by posture. He sits upright, shoulders tense, eyes scanning the cabin like a man checking for landmines. His jacket is worn at the cuffs. His jade pendant—a serene Buddha, carved with delicate folds of robe—swings slightly with the bus’s motion, but he doesn’t touch it. Not yet. He’s waiting. For what? A signal? A sound? The way he glances at Zhou Ya—his wife, draped in white silk, her hair pinned neatly, pearl earrings catching the dim light—isn’t tender. It’s anxious. He’s watching her sleep, yes, but he’s also watching *for* her to wake up. As if her consciousness is the only thing holding the timeline together. Meanwhile, in the front row, Li Huilan—the mother-in-law, dressed in a maroon qipao that shimmers like dried blood—doesn’t sleep. She watches the road. Not the scenery. The *road*. Her fingers trace the edge of her phone case, a habit she repeats every 17 seconds, like a metronome counting down. Behind her, Zhou Jianye—father-in-law, glasses perched low on his nose—argues with someone unseen. His voice is calm, but his left hand taps a rhythm on his knee: three short, one long. Morse code? A prayer? Or just the nervous tic of a man who’s seen too many accidents on this stretch of highway? The subtitle tells us who they are, but their actions tell us who they *fear* they might become. Then there’s Jia Hang—Zhou Ya’s younger brother—grinning as he peels an apple with a pocketknife. The blade is ornate, Damascus steel, the kind you buy online after watching too many martial arts films. He doesn’t eat the apple. He slices it, rotates it, examines the core, then drops it into his lap. The fruit rolls toward the aisle, unnoticed. No one picks it up. Not even the little girl—Zheng Mengxue—who sits two rows back, knees tucked under her chin, the raven keychain dangling from her fingers. She doesn’t smile at it. She *questions* it. Tilts her head. Whispers something too soft to hear. When the camera zooms in, the raven’s eyes aren’t just red—they pulse. Like a heartbeat. And when Zheng Hao finally stands, gripping the seatbacks as the bus shudders, Zheng Mengxue lifts the raven and points it toward him. Not threateningly. Invitingly. As if saying: *You remember now, don’t you?* Because here’s the truth no one admits aloud: they’ve done this before. Not literally—though the looping timestamps suggest otherwise—but emotionally. The tension in the cabin isn’t about the road. It’s about the unsaid. Zhou Ya’s hand rests on Zheng Hao’s arm, but her thumb rubs a scar on his wrist—a scar he got years ago, during an argument she refuses to discuss. Jia Hang’s headphones hang around his neck, but he’s not listening to music. He’s listening to the silence between his own thoughts, where guilt hums like a broken wire. And the driver? He’s not tired. He’s *resigned*. His eyes flick to the rearview mirror not to check traffic, but to confirm that Zheng Mengxue is still there. Because if she disappears, the loop resets. And he’s already lived it three times. Deadline Rescue isn’t a race against time. It’s a confrontation with inevitability. The road sign—‘Huangquan Lu’—isn’t just a location. It’s a confession. In Chinese cosmology, the Yellow Springs is where souls wait before judgment. This bus isn’t traveling *to* a destination. It’s circling the threshold. Every turn, every lurch, every moment the passengers close their eyes—it’s a gamble. Will they wake up in the same seat, or in the wreckage? The clues are everywhere, if you know how to read them. The rosary beads that spill from a passenger’s lap—wooden, polished by decades of prayer—don’t just roll. They *arrange themselves* into a circle on the floor, perfectly centered beneath Zheng Hao’s foot. The boy with the toy jeeps? He doesn’t crash them randomly. He aligns them nose-to-tail, then flips the red one onto the black one at a precise 45-degree angle—the exact angle the bus will tilt when it hits the guardrail. And the watch? BIHAIYINSHA. A fictional brand, yes, but the name echoes ‘Bi Hai Yin Sha’—‘Sea of Sorrow, Silver Sand’—a phrase from a Tang dynasty poem about irreversible loss. When the digital overlay flashes 4:43, it’s not the time. It’s the *countdown*. 4 minutes, 43 seconds until the moment of choice. The moment Zheng Hao must decide: reach for the pendant, or let go. What does the pendant mean? Not protection. Not luck. It’s a tether. A reminder of the life he almost saved. The Buddha isn’t serene because it’s enlightened. It’s serene because it’s *done*. It’s accepted the fall. Zheng Hao hasn’t. He keeps touching his chest, not to comfort himself, but to reassure the stone that he’s still here. Still fighting. Still refusing to cross. Then—the cat. Gray, sleek, eyes like polished obsidian. It doesn’t dart. It *steps* into the road, deliberate, unhurried. The bus slows. The driver’s foot hovers over the brake. For three seconds, the world holds its breath. Zheng Mengxue leans forward, raven raised. Zhou Ya grips Zheng Hao’s arm so hard her knuckles bleach. Jia Hang stops peeling the apple. Even the sleeping passengers stir, eyelids fluttering open just enough to register the shape in the road. And then—the truck. Not a surprise. A fulfillment. The red Iveco dump truck doesn’t swerve. Doesn’t honk. It simply *exists* in the lane ahead, as if it’s been waiting since the beginning of the route. The impact isn’t loud at first. It’s a deep, resonant *thoom*, like a drum struck underwater. The windshield doesn’t crack. It *dissolves*, glass turning to mist in the afternoon light. The camera lingers on details: a pearl earring rolling down the aisle, the raven keychain suspended mid-air, Zheng Hao’s hand still reaching for his pendant, fingers inches away. The fire comes next—not as an explosion, but as a bloom. A slow-motion eruption of orange and black, consuming the bus’s rear axle, licking up the side panels, igniting the spilled gasoline in a halo of heat distortion. The white coaster flips, wheels spinning uselessly against the sky, and for a moment, everything is silent. No screams. No metal groaning. Just the hiss of burning rubber and the soft *tick-tick-tick* of the BIHAIYINSHA watch, still strapped to Zheng Hao’s wrist, now buried under debris, its hands frozen at 4:44. But here’s what the edit hides: in the reflection of a broken side mirror, we see the bus *before* the crash. Passengers laughing. Zheng Mengxue handing the raven to her father. Zhou Ya adjusting his collar. The driver humming. And the cat? It’s sitting on the roadside, tail curled, watching them drive away. Deadline Rescue isn’t about escaping death. It’s about surviving memory. Zheng Hao will wake up again. He’ll feel the weight of the pendant against his chest. He’ll see Zhou Ya’s hand on his arm and wonder why it feels colder than yesterday. He’ll glance at his watch and see 4:43. And he’ll know—this time, he has to let go of the stone. Not because it won’t protect him. But because holding it is what keeps him trapped in the loop. The raven isn’t evil. It’s a messenger. Its red eyes don’t glow with malice—they glow with urgency. *Time is running out. Choose.* And as the final frame fades to black, we hear a single sound: the *click* of a seatbelt unlatching. Somewhere, on Yellow Spring Road, the bus starts moving again.
Deadline Rescue: The Jade Pendant and the Cat on Yellow Spring Road
There’s something deeply unsettling about a bus ride that begins in quiet exhaustion and ends in fire, smoke, and shattered glass—especially when every passenger seems to carry a secret. This isn’t just a road trip; it’s a slow-burn descent into collective dread, where the real horror isn’t the crash itself, but what each character *knew*, or *refused to see*, before the red dump truck appeared around the bend. Let’s talk about Deadline Rescue—not as a title, but as a ticking clock buried in the fabric of this journey, one that no one noticed until it was too late. The bus, a beige Toyota Coaster with license plate A·A0062, winds through mist-draped hills like a creature trying to outrun its fate. From the opening aerial shot, we’re already positioned as voyeurs—watching from above, detached, yet drawn in by the sheer ordinariness of it all. People sleep. A man in a black shirt with a fingerprint-patterned design dozes with his mouth slightly open. A woman in a white blouse rests her head on her husband’s shoulder—Zhou Ya, introduced with elegant text overlay, ‘Zheng Hao’s wife’. Her eyes flutter shut, then open again, not with alarm, but with a quiet unease, as if she’s been dreaming of something she can’t quite name. That’s the first clue: this isn’t fatigue. It’s premonition. Zheng Hao himself sits upright, wearing a dark denim jacket over a black tee, a jade pendant—carved with a seated Buddha—hanging low on his chest. He doesn’t sleep. He watches. His gaze drifts from the window to the aisle, to the back of the seat in front of him, to the little girl with pigtails and white bows—Zheng Mengxue, ‘Zheng Hao’s daughter’, who clutches a small black raven keychain with glowing red eyes. She smiles at it. Not playfully. Reverently. As if it’s whispering to her. And maybe it is. Because later, when Zheng Hao finally stands up, gripping the seatbacks as the bus lurches, he looks directly at her—and for a split second, his expression isn’t fear. It’s recognition. Like he’s seen this moment before, in a dream, or in a memory he’s tried to bury. Then there’s Zhou Jianye—‘Zheng Hao’s father-in-law’—a man in glasses and a navy blazer, gesturing emphatically as he speaks to someone off-camera. His voice is firm, authoritative, but his hands tremble just slightly. He’s not arguing about traffic or timing. He’s trying to assert control over a narrative that’s already slipping away. Beside him, Li Huilan—‘Zheng Hao’s mother-in-law’—wears a deep maroon qipao embroidered with phoenixes. She doesn’t speak much. But her eyes? They scan the bus like a security camera. When the young man in the black graphic tee—Jia Hang, ‘Zhou Ya’s younger brother’—leans forward to whisper something to her, she doesn’t flinch. She just tightens her grip on her phone, her knuckles pale. That phone? It’s not being used to scroll. It’s being held like a shield. And what about the boy in the back, the one with the messy hair and the red toy jeep? He’s not playing. He’s reenacting. He lifts the jeep, flips it, lets it drop onto his lap—*thud*. Then he picks up a second, black vehicle, and smashes it into the first. Again. And again. No laughter. No sound. Just the mechanical click of plastic wheels on denim. When the rosary beads—wooden, smooth, worn—slip from someone’s lap and scatter across the floor, rolling toward his feet, he doesn’t look down. He keeps smashing. Because he knows what comes next. He’s rehearsing the impact. Deadline Rescue isn’t about saving lives. It’s about the seconds *before* the unspeakable happens—the ones where time stretches thin, where a glance lasts too long, where a breath catches in the throat and never quite releases. At 4:43 PM, Zheng Hao checks his wristwatch—BIHAIYINSHA, a brand that sounds like a curse whispered in Mandarin. The digital overlay flashes red: 4:43. Then 4:43:45. Then 4:44. The numbers don’t move smoothly. They stutter. Like the bus engine when it hesitates before the final turn. Outside, the road sign reads ‘Huangquan Lu’—Yellow Spring Road. A poetic name, yes. But in Chinese folklore, ‘Huangquan’ refers to the Yellow Springs, the underworld river souls cross after death. It’s not a place you drive through casually. It’s a threshold. And the bus is crossing it, unaware. The driver—broad-shouldered, wearing a black T-shirt with a white fingerprint design, earbuds in, humming under his breath—doesn’t see the cat. Not at first. A gray tabby darts across the asphalt, tail high, eyes wide. It doesn’t run *away* from the bus. It runs *toward* the curve, then stops, turns, and stares directly at the windshield. For three full seconds, it holds the driver’s gaze. Then it vanishes into the bushes. The driver blinks. Swallows. His knuckles whiten on the wheel. He glances in the rearview mirror—not at the passengers, but at the empty space behind the last row. Where Zheng Mengxue was sitting moments ago. She’s gone. Or rather, she’s crouched between seats, still holding the raven, her lips moving silently. Saying what? A prayer? A warning? A name? Zheng Hao feels it then. A pressure in his chest. He reaches for the pendant—not to touch it, but to *pull* it. As if he could tear it free from his body and stop whatever is coming. Zhou Ya notices. She places her hand over his, her fingers cold. ‘It’s okay,’ she mouths. But her eyes say the opposite. She’s been here before. In another life. In another bus. On another Yellow Spring Road. The red dump truck appears—not suddenly, but *inevitably*. It rounds the curve with no horn, no swerve, no hesitation. It’s not reckless. It’s *meant* to be there. The bus driver slams the brakes. The tires scream. The passengers lurch forward, arms flailing, phones flying, rosary beads scattering like seeds. Jia Hang grabs the seat in front of him, his face twisted—not in fear, but in fury, as if he’s angry the universe didn’t give him more time to prepare. Li Huilan closes her eyes and whispers a phrase in classical Chinese, one that translates roughly to ‘May the gates remain closed.’ Zhou Jianye shouts something, but his voice is drowned out by the screech of metal. Then—impact. Not a crunch. A *shatter*. The windshield explodes inward, not in shards, but in a million glittering fragments suspended mid-air, caught in the golden-hour light that somehow still filters through the trees. The camera lingers on the debris—glass, plastic, a single white hairpin, the raven keychain spinning slowly in the air, its red eyes glowing brighter than ever. And then—the fire. Not a small flame. A detonation. Gasoline, sparks, the ruptured fuel line—all converging in a pillar of orange-white fury that lifts the bus’s roof clean off its frame. The white coaster flips, wheels in the air, chassis exposed like a dying insect, and the explosion blooms outward, swallowing the red truck, the road, the trees, the sky. But here’s the thing they don’t show in the aftermath: no bodies are pulled from the wreckage. No sirens wail in the distance. The scene fades not to black, but to a close-up of Zheng Mengxue’s hand, still clutching the raven, now resting on a different seat—one with tan leather, not gray fabric. The bus interior is pristine. Sunlight streams through clean windows. Outside, the road is dry. The sign reads ‘Huangquan Lu’. And the clock on Zheng Hao’s wrist? Still 4:43. Deadline Rescue isn’t a rescue. It’s a loop. A karmic reset. Every passenger boarded that bus knowing, on some level, that they were returning to the moment they failed to act. Zheng Hao didn’t wear the pendant for protection. He wore it as an anchor—to keep himself tethered to the life he’d already lost. Zhou Ya didn’t fall asleep. She stepped out of time, just long enough to watch herself make the same choice again. And Zheng Mengxue? She’s not a child. She’s the keeper of the threshold. The raven isn’t a toy. It’s a psychopomp—a guide for souls who refuse to cross quietly. The most chilling detail? When the bus flips, the camera catches a reflection in the side mirror: not the crash, but the *previous* version of the bus, driving calmly down the road, passengers smiling, Zheng Hao looking out the window, peaceful. As if the disaster hasn’t happened yet. As if it’s still waiting. And maybe it is. Because in the final shot, the camera pulls back to reveal the entire mountain pass—and there, on a distant ridge, another bus, identical, just beginning its descent. License plate: A·A0063. Deadline Rescue isn’t about survival. It’s about repetition. About the unbearable weight of choices unmade, words unsaid, love unspoken. Zheng Hao will wake up again. Zhou Ya will lean her head on his shoulder. Jia Hang will peel an apple with a knife that gleams too brightly. And somewhere, a gray cat waits at the curve, tail raised, eyes fixed on the approaching headlights. The Yellow Spring Road doesn’t lead anywhere. It *is* the destination. And the only way out is to finally, truly, see what you’ve been refusing to witness—for 4 minutes and 43 seconds, you had a chance. Did you take it?