Woooo—!
As the Steam Train's deafening whistle echoed through the station,
an armored Steam Train rolled over the tracks with a shriek of grinding metal, slowly pulling into the platform of Steam Capital's Upper City.
"Miss, we've arrived."
"Mm."
Chen Xing, who had been resting with her eyes closed for some time, opened them and turned to look out the window.
From this angle, she could take in Steam Capital's sharply divided Upper and Lower Cities at a glance.
Beyond the platform, the prosperity and bustle of the Upper City were plain to see.
Special steam-powered cars traveled along the broad roads, sounding their horns from time to time to urge the vehicles ahead to move faster.
On both sides of the road stood clusters of brass buildings intertwined with all kinds of billboards.
It somehow gave the place a distinctive urban beauty of the post-apocalyptic age.
Yet compared with all that, what truly held Chen Xing's gaze
were the enormous steam pipes crisscrossing the boundary between Steam Capital's Upper and Lower Cities like the city's blood vessels.
These pipes extended downward along the slope of the terrain,
eventually vanishing into Steam Capital's Lower City, known as Rust Iron Purgatory.
Unlike the bright glamour of the Upper City, Chen Xing's exceptional eyesight allowed her to vaguely make out a different sight in that "hell at the bottom of the valley."
Dilapidated sheet-metal shacks were crammed into the gaps and shadows between countless intersecting pipes.
Mountains of metal scrap and all kinds of industrial waste were piled up around them.
Even without setting foot in the Lower City, Chen Xing could imagine the sour, rotten stench of engine oil mixed with rust in the air.
And the harsh environment was only one aspect of it.
Not far from that mountain of