Chapter 82: Investigation

…

On a stretch of wilderness leading out of Yuchi toward Great Luo Mountain, a heavy train was parked quietly.

The night was as black as ink, and white snow drifted down.

With Lin Xian gone, the Infinity had stopped moving. The two hours of daylight passed quickly. When night fell, the three could only return to the car to confer and continue waiting.

Chen Sixuan brought over a few blankets, adding another layer for the unconscious Kiki and giving one to Dalou.

Car 5 had already been converted into a simple sleeping cabin where Dalou stayed. The other areas were welded with tool racks, storing a large amount of steel and equipment.

“How is it?” Chen Sixuan asked.

Shasha sat on the sofa, looking at the radio from a distance, her face showing a hint of fear as she said, “I don’t know why, but I keep feeling like that thing is still making noise…”

The air fell silent.

Chen Sixuan stood where she was, her chest heaving. She stared at the radio, trying to control her emotions.

Reason told her not to dwell on things she couldn’t understand. Since someone could control the train, she was certain that person was Lin Xian!

“We haven’t heard any noise for the past few hours. Lin Xian might have… run into some trouble…”

“Sister Chen…” Shasha’s expression was grim. For a person to vanish into thin air, no one could think of it in a positive light.

“It’s okay, he’ll definitely find a way.” Chen Sixuan’s words sounded like she was trying to comfort herself.

Lou Shasha nodded.

Chen Sixuan turned off the train’s lights and heating, conserving critical power.

At the same time, she, Shasha, and Dalou divided the labor. The three of them took up positions at the front of the train, in Car 1, and in the rear car, respectively, keeping watch on the situation outside.

Outside the armored windows, it was pitch black. In the wilderness under the dark curtain of night, it seemed as if strange whispers were always sounding, and piercing shrieks echoed in the darkness, making one’s hair stand on end.

Inside the cold cockpit, Chen Sixuan wrapped herself in a blanket and leaned against the driver’s seat, looking out at the darkness with an unsettled heart.

The inside of the train was considered safe. The front car’s radar detection system was running on low power. Dalou had gone out to inspect it earlier, and the train’s exterior armor, including the top armor, was still intact.

Last night, they had made a perilous escape from Yuchi Station. Besides that white climbing monster, there was no telling how many others were out there.

The collisions, the tearing, the attacks—all of it had put immense pressure on everyone. They had probably not even scratched the surface of how many unknowns and horrors the night held.

But to have escaped smoothly from such a dangerous situation meant that Lin Xian’s latest armor upgrade had been effective. If it had been before, the roof of the train might have been torn open by monsters, and the outcome would have been obvious.

However, one wave had yet to settle before another rose. They had just broken through the encirclement of dark, strange creatures, only for a bizarre radio frequency to appear on the train.

In the darkness, Chen Sixuan carefully let out a breath.

The thought of that strange radio station that had started playing on its own sent a chill down her spine. Could it be that some things couldn’t even be stopped by steel armor?

More and more strange things were happening: zombies, insectoid monsters, fog, mutations… one terrifying event followed another. In a short period, Chen Sixuan felt as if she had lived through countless nightmares.

“He’ll definitely be okay…”

She encouraged herself inwardly.

Currently, besides the reserve energy in the Huanxing 7F electric locomotive, the Infinity also had over a thousand liters of gasoline scavenged from Tang Hai. Part of this gasoline had been poured into the gas turbine’s fuel tank, while Lin Xian had set the rest aside as a backup.

At the same time, their supply reserves were ample. The few of them could be considered temporarily worry-free on the train. The only problem was that if they stayed put, the encroaching Night Tide would plunge the entire Yuchi City into polar night within a few days. When that happened, they could only leave their fate to the heavens.

Wooo~

On the winding mountain road in the distance, several sets of car lights flickered continuously. It seemed to be a convoy of survivors. Chen Sixuan noticed the sound getting closer and her expression immediately grew cautious.

But not long after, the string of vehicles drove off along a highway several kilometers away, heading in the direction of Yubei City.

Chen Sixuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Throughout the night, they could occasionally hear convoys of various sizes speeding through the darkness. However, because the railway line and the highways were far apart, not many people noticed this giant train parked in the wilderness.

Coupled with the fact that the radio was unusable and couldn’t receive any outside information, the train was currently like a lone boat on a dark ocean, making a sense of despair inevitably rise in one’s heart.

Beep beep, beep beep…

The alarm on her watch rang, startling Chen Sixuan from a light sleep. The time was now 1:00 AM, deep in the night.

She immediately got up and went to Car 1. Kiki was still unconscious, and there was still no sign of Lin Xian.

Even the footsteps from before had vanished.

“Sister Chen.”

A slightly sleepy voice broke the silence in the car. Shasha slowly sat up from the sofa, the thick blanket sliding down to her waist. She rubbed her still-drowsy eyes and looked toward Chen Sixuan. “Is it time to switch shifts? I’ll go watch the front.”

Chen Sixuan waved her hand and said softly, “It’s fine, you sleep a while longer. I’ll come over here and observe for a bit, see if there’s any other movement.”

“I can’t sleep anymore,” Shasha mumbled. “With Brother Lin not back, I can’t really sleep either.”

“Alright, but don’t worry too much. Lin Xian is a metahuman, he definitely has more ways to handle things than we do.” Chen Sixuan forced a smile. Even though her own heart was pounding with anxiety, she did her best to comfort Shasha.

“Mm,” Shasha nodded.

The lights in the car were off, and all the blackout panels were closed, leaving only a faint bit of light.

Car 1 was currently the most well-equipped car on the Infinity, the one Lin Xian had spent the most time building. Within the twenty-meter-long car, there was a living area, a sofa, a dining table, and supply cabinets stocked with food, water, and some weapons.

That A33K heavy sniper rifle was also stored here by Lin Xian. The black rifle had a total length of 1557 millimeters and weighed 14.8 kilograms. It used 12.7mm (.50 BMG) tungsten-core armor-piercing rounds. According to Kiki, this thing was a true anti-materiel superweapon.

Lin Xian had originally wanted to give it to Dalou, but Dalou said his eyesight wasn’t very good and his hands were clumsy, making it no better than a fire poker in his grasp. He preferred light and heavy machine guns with plenty of firepower, so Lin Xian had temporarily placed it here.

“Shasha, can you teach me how to use this?” For some reason, looking at the gun, a strange idea suddenly popped into Chen Sixuan’s head.

“Huh?!” Shasha was stunned by her words. “Sister Chen, this thing is really heavy!”

Chen Sixuan took a deep breath. “I know.”

“But if I can help provide covering fire, we’ll have an extra point of firepower when we encounter monsters, and I can also share some of the pressure for everyone.”