Chapter 2: The Doomsday Distress Call

The next day, when the sky brightened, it was already 1:00 PM.

The curtain of darkness receded without the process of a sunrise; the sky was already clear with the sun at a slight angle.

Daylight arrived an hour later than yesterday. According to the summer time in Jiang City’s region, if the sun set around 6:45 PM, then in about five more days, dawn would no longer appear here.

In his apartment, Lin Xian slung his short knife into his backpack, jumped from the balcony into the neighboring room, and followed his planned route down into a subway tunnel through the entrance of the apartment’s underground civil defense facility.

This was the maintenance section of the old University City Station. After the apocalypse broke out, it had fallen into complete paralysis.

Lin Xian had already cleared out all the zombies on the platform, turning this place into his train preparation area.

Lin Xian walked deep into the tunnel. On the dilapidated, mottled tracks, a Giant Whale 03E heavy-duty gas turbine locomotive was parked.

This 200-ton steel behemoth was the secret weapon Lin Xian had prepared to escape the polar night!

Click~

He turned on his flashlight, and a beam of white light cut through the dark, empty tunnel. Lin Xian looked at the massive object before him, a sense of unease rising in his heart.

This masterpiece, created 30 years ago as a joint venture between Alstom Transport and Dragon Country’s North Vehicle Group, was a high-power mainline freight locomotive with a ten-cylinder gas turbine, meticulously developed based on Alstom’s “Prima” locomotive technology platform.

The locomotive was over 36 meters long and 3.2 meters wide, its majestic body hiding astonishing power. Its traction power reached a staggering 18,500 horsepower, equivalent to the combined total of dozens of supercars, enough to pull tens of thousands of tons of heavy cargo!

This was an almost perfect platform for Lin Xian’s mechanical ability, and it was this discovery that had sparked his Infinity Train project.

“Check the drive shaft, brake shoes, power turbine…”

Lin Xian’s Mechanical Heart had three basic skills: Mechanical Scan, Mechanical Repair, and Mechanical Operation.

Simply put, for any machine he touched, as long as he understood its principles, he could directly perform basic control and repairs. He could also generate a holographic blueprint of the device through scanning. These three passive skills could not be upgraded.

The Giant Whale 03E required fuel to run, with electricity for auxiliary power. Fuel was now the most scarce resource in the apocalypse, but as it happened, Lin Xian’s “Mechanical Heart” ability could directly power it with his own energy, requiring no external power source, which was incredibly overpowered.

However, because the power output was limited by his personal stamina, there was still a limit to the distance he could drive it based on his current physical limits. But with him as a human battery, coupled with devouring machinery and gathering resources along the way, if he could later find a power generation unit or even a small nuclear power device, the energy problem would be completely solved.

Besides powering the locomotive, Lin Xian had already set up three towed carriages as living quarters to store supplies and serve as a living area, all modified from original passenger cars.

Lin Xian went to the last carriage and placed his hand on its body. The Mechanical Heart activated, and a special hydraulic lift plate lowered. Inside the fourth carriage was a motorcycle, intended for gathering supplies after the train stopped.

He climbed into the carriage and brought down a welding machine. Beside the track lay a pile of steel, mainly rolled steel plates, high-hardness tungsten steel, and high-manganese steel. These materials, originally used for the protective armor of combat vehicles and tanks, had been found by Lin Xian in the warehouse of a special steel factory in Jiang City. They were the ideal materials for building his steel fortress.

Bzz~

A light screen flickered before Lin Xian’s eyes, displaying several armor blueprints he had drawn himself. In addition, there were some firearm blueprints, such as one for a Glock 23 .40in pistol, which he had taken from a group of thugs in a fight. It had been turned into a blueprint and recorded by his [Mechanical Scan] skill.

The problem was…

“120 grams of high-alloy chromium-molybdenum steel, 300 grams of basic steel, 195 grams of plastic…”

Lin Xian’s head ached just looking at it.

Compared to these standardized items from scanning, it was currently more convenient for Lin Xian to use his Mechanical Crafting skill and existing materials for DIY assembly.

Clank~ Clank~ Thud!

A faint light glowed in Lin Xian’s eyes. The steel in front of him suddenly floated into the air, then under a powerful compressive force, it was rapidly rolled and compounded. In just ten minutes, a 1.5 by 0.9-meter composite armor plate appeared before him.

Manufacturing and assembly required extreme concentration, and since he was alone, Lin Xian could only seize the daylight hours to work on the train.

Several hours passed, and a few sets of ‘outer windows’ with grilles and double-layered composite armor plates were finally assembled. Lin Xian then pushed out a small mobile crane from the rear carriage, moved the heavy armor plates one by one to the edge of the carriage, and began welding them on.

The driver’s passage of the Giant Whale 03E’s heavy gas turbine locomotive was connected to all the carriages behind it, and all were equipped with isolation gates.

Lin Xian had named the entire train the “Infinity.” Carriage 1 had been converted into a simple living area, where most of his collected supplies were stored. Carriage 2 was temporarily empty; he planned to use it for growing vegetables and cultivating some green plants.

The ideal state was a plant cultivation area with a water-oxygen cycle, but Lin Xian knew nothing about that, so it was left empty for now. The final carriage, number 3, held various tools, the motorcycle, the crane, the welding machine, and would be used to store materials later.

Just as he was enthusiastically building his mobile fortress, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Lin Xian was startled. Since most of the satellites were dead, satellite calls rarely worked anymore. The main reason he kept his phone powered was to store data, maps, and for emergencies. He never expected a call to actually come through.

He answered the call, and a somewhat nervous female voice came from the other end.

“Lin Xian, are you still in Jiang City? I… I want to join your railway train project.”

The person on the other end was named Chen Sixuan, Lin Xian’s university professor. In the days after the apocalypse, she was the only person in his contact list he had managed to reach.

Chen Sixuan was twenty-seven, as beautiful as a flower, and had no boyfriend. In the pre-apocalypse atmosphere of Jiang City where early marriage and childbirth were common, she was a rare species.

He remembered his university foreign language professor as tall and slender, born into a highly educated family, a typical wealthy and beautiful city girl who was the center of attention at the university.

In the beginning, Lin Xian had mentioned his train project to her, but Chen Sixuan had refused. Because Lin Xian hadn’t revealed his ability to her, the plan sounded unbelievable. At that time, Chen Sixuan still clung to the naive idea that a rescue team would come for her.

But after Jiang City experienced its first polar night, countless people died in despair, and the horrors of the night continuously devoured the last vestiges of the survivors’ sanity. Lin Xian had witnessed many tragic scenes of human morality after the collapse of social order. In this environment, if a woman wasn’t an ability user, her value in those survival groups was less than a barrel of gasoline!

He had originally thought Chen Sixuan had either left with a group or was already dead. Receiving her call now was surprisingly startling. If she hadn’t escaped, how had she survived for so long?

In a certain apartment, the door was tightly locked, and the curtains were completely drawn. Chen Sixuan, with messy hair and dressed in loungewear, was curled up nervously in a corner of the sofa, looking at the last bit of battery on her phone. Her once moist and full lips were now pale and even trembling.

For two months, she had experienced the darkest period of her life. Food was scarce, and the long nights were hard to endure.

Every night, she was awakened by terrifying sounds in the darkness. Her mind was in a trance, and she had lost a significant amount of weight.

At first, she waited for the official rescue team to appear. Many of her former admirers had even delivered supplies to her door. But when she learned that the entire world order had collapsed and the polar night had arrived, Chen Sixuan realized she was in a desperate situation.

So, she began to ask for help.

But after the polar night, most of the people in Jiang City seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. The remaining people had begun to migrate and flee. The groups willing to take her in demanded she send a nude photo first to see her “quality.”

It was only then that she finally understood that she was no longer the popular professor at the university, nor the Chen Sixuan pursued by the city’s rich young men. She was a burden. In this apocalypse, even with her looks, she had to offer herself up to even be considered.

Just as Chen Sixuan was about to reach a dead end, she suddenly thought of Lin Xian.

All her power banks were dead, and her phone had only a sliver of battery left.

At this moment, no matter how crazy the plan was, just the fact that the call connected gave her hope.

“Professor Chen, are you okay?”

Lin Xian’s voice on the other end sounded calm and steady, which instantly eased Chen Sixuan’s tense heart.

“Student Lin, I… I’m still alive. Are you… still in Jiang City?”

Chen Sixuan bit her finger tightly.

After a long silence, Lin Xian’s voice finally came through again.

“I am.”

Chen Sixuan trembled, letting out a long breath of relief. A glimmer of hope shone in her eyes, and she quickly said into the phone, “Where are you? Can you come and get me…”

As soon as she said it, she regretted it.

The sentence sounded ridiculous. She remembered contacting a group preparing to flee east a few days ago. She had subconsciously said the same thing on the phone, only to be scolded with a mocking tone. The gist was: It’s the end of the world, and you still think you’re a princess?

So she quickly corrected herself, “No, no… I mean, where are you? Can I come to you?”

To survive, she had to risk it all. Otherwise, when her phone died, she would only have two choices: continue to hole up in her apartment and wait for death, or go out aimlessly and be torn to shreds by zombies.

“Professor Chen,” Lin Xian said from the other end of the line. “Do you have supplies, or have you awakened an ability?”

Hearing this, Chen Sixuan’s heart sank.

She looked around the empty apartment, her lips trembling, and said in a voice almost choked with tears, “No… I don’t.”

“If, if you want me…”

Chen Sixuan never thought she would one day say such a fawning, begging thing to one of her students.

But before she could finish, the voice on the other end interrupted her. “Sorry, Professor Chen, my supplies are also limited. To join my project, you must have corresponding value. Sexual needs are not worth mentioning to me.”

Since no one believed in his train project, he would build his escape from the polar night himself. He wasn’t doing this out of charity.

Lin Xian’s voice was flat and emotionless, giving a great sense of security while also bringing Chen Sixuan endless despair.

“Alright then…”

“Good luck, Professor Chen.” Lin Xian’s expression was indifferent. He sighed inwardly and prepared to hang up.

On the other side, Chen Sixuan felt a chill run through her. Just as Lin Xian was about to hang up, she suddenly grabbed the phone as if possessed and shouted, “Wait!”

Her eyes widened, her chest heaving rapidly as she yelled, “The Circum-Star Railway was first built in 2039. Starting from Dragon Country, it covers a total of 126 countries and 34 regions worldwide, spanning nine continents and four oceans, including the thirteen Star Abyss annihilation zones that have currently appeared. The total length of the track is over 320,000 kilometers. My father was a first-class maintenance engineer for the Circum-Star Railway. I know the locations of all 1,266 stations and 625 backup track sections used for maintenance…”

“Also, I’m fluent in multiple languages. I can be your translator. And I eat very little and know some cooking. As long as… as long as you take me with you, I can agree to all your demands!”

She shouted the last part with all the strength in her body!

On the other end of the line, there was a long silence.

Chen Sixuan was tense, her delicate body trembling. Her fingernails, digging into her thighs from excessive force, had drawn blood.

“Location. I’ll come get you.”

Just those six words made Chen Sixuan feel a wave of dizziness. When she came to her senses, she quickly said, “I… I’m at Imperial Water Garden, Building 3, apartment 901 on Jiangzhou Road!”

Beep~

Before she could repeat the address a second time, her phone screen went black and shut down.

She tried pressing the power button again, but there was no response. Unsure if Lin Xian had actually heard her address, she bit her lower lip in anxiety.

“Ah!”

She screamed like a madwoman and threw the phone against the wall, shattering it into pieces.

“He heard it, he must have heard it…”

At this moment, Chen Sixuan could only keep comforting herself. To alleviate her negative emotions, she immediately got up and began to search for all the books in her home related to the Circum-Star Railway.

On the other side, Lin Xian looked at the disconnected call and couldn’t help but sigh.

The Professor Chen he had once admired and respected was now begging him in an almost pleading tone, even willing to offer him sexual services. This hellish apocalypse truly turned people into demons.

Chen Sixuan’s words had indeed moved him. The Circum-Star Railway circled the entire planet, and the journey was filled with all kinds of unknowns. Having someone relatively familiar with it would be better than a dead map with no positioning or navigation functions. Moreover, a map wouldn’t mark maintenance sections or special connecting lines.

Of course, there was another point. Chen Sixuan was an acquaintance of Lin Xian’s. In the apocalypse, people would unconsciously develop a sense of wanting to band together, and familiar people were precisely the easiest to trust.

Putting away his phone, Lin Xian checked the time and immediately threw himself back into his welding work.

There wasn’t enough time today. The progress of the train preparation could not be delayed.

Beep, beep~

6:00 PM. 45 minutes until dark.

Lin Xian was sweating profusely. Looking at the tank-thick armored windows on both sides of the third carriage, his heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment.

“Next up are the generator, heating equipment, water purification system, refrigerator, and a smart surveillance system.”

“And armed protection, automatic firepower, radar systems, and so on…”

“Oh, and the living area needs a big bed, a bathtub, and it would be best to plan an entertainment area, a gaming area, or something. I’ll have to store tens of thousands of movies, TV shows, and games, right?”

Lin Xian’s eyes grew brighter and brighter. At this moment, he felt more and more that…

In this apocalypse, life was becoming more and more worth looking forward to