Apocalyptic Distress Call

The next day, when the sky brightened, it was already 13:00 in the afternoon.

The darkness receded, and without a sunrise, the sky was already clear and slanted.

Dawn was another hour later than yesterday. Calculated according to the daylight saving time of the Jiang City region, if sunset is around 18:45, then in about five more days, there will be no more dawn here.

In the apartment, Lin Xian put away his short knife in his backpack, jumped from the balcony into the next room, detoured downwards along a predetermined route, and entered a subway tunnel through the entrance of the apartment's underground civil defense facility.

This was the maintenance section of the original University Town Station, which had completely collapsed after the apocalypse broke out.

Lin Xian had already cleared all the zombies from the platform, making it his train preparation area.

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

This steel behemoth, weighing 200 tons, was Lin Xian's secret weapon for escaping the extreme night!

Click~

He turned on his flashlight, and a white beam illuminated the dark, hollow tunnel. Lin Xian looked at the colossal machine before him, his anxiety rising.

This masterpiece, jointly created 30 years ago by Alstom Transportation Co., Ltd. and CRRC Group, was a mainline freight ten-cylinder gas turbine high-power traction locomotive meticulously developed based on Alstom's "Prima" locomotive technology platform.

The locomotive was over 36 meters long and 3.2 meters wide, with astonishing energy hidden beneath its majestic body. Its traction power reached an incredible 18,500 horsepower, equivalent to dozens of supercars combined, enough to haul tens of thousands of tons of heavy cargo!

This was almost a perfect platform for Lin Xian's mechanical abilities, and it was this discovery that gave him the idea for the Infinite special train plan!

"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, any mechanical object he touched, as long as he understood its principles, he could directly control it at a basic level, repair it, and even scan it to generate a holographic blueprint of the device. These three passive skills could not be upgraded.

The Juying 03E required fuel for propulsion and electricity for auxiliary drive. Fuel was now the most scarce resource in the post-apocalyptic world. However, Lin Xian's "Mechanical Heart" ability could directly drive it with his own power, requiring no energy, which was incredibly overpowered.

However, because the output power was limited by personal stamina, the driving distance was still somewhat restricted by Lin Xian's current physical limits. But with him as a human battery, supplemented by consuming mechanical objects and collecting resources along the way, if he could later find a power generation device or even a small nuclear power unit, the energy problem would be completely solved.

In addition to driving the locomotive, Lin Xian had already prepared three carriages as living quarters for storing supplies and as living spaces, all modified from original passenger carriages.

Lin Xian went to the last carriage and placed his hand on its body. He activated his Mechanical Heart, and a specially made hydraulic lift board was lowered. Inside the fourth carriage, a motorcycle was parked. This motorcycle was intended for collecting supplies after parking later.

He climbed onto the carriage and took down a welding machine. Beside the tracks lay a pile of steel, mainly rolled steel plates, high-hardness tungsten steel, and high-manganese steel. These materials, originally used for the armor plating of battle tanks and armored vehicles, were found by Lin Xian in the warehouse of a special steel plant in Jiang City and were ideal materials for building his steel fortress.

Vroom~

A light screen flickered before Lin Xian's eyes, displaying several armor blueprints he had drawn himself. In addition to these, there were also some firearm blueprints, such as a Glock 23 .40in Pistol blueprint. He had obtained it earlier while fighting a group of thugs, and after using his [Mechanical Scan] skill, it had been converted into a blueprint and stored.

However, the problem was...

"High-alloy chromium-molybdenum steel 120 grams, basic steel 300 grams, plastic 195 grams..."

Lin Xian's head started to ache when he saw this.

Compared to these standard items scanned, Lin Xian found it much more convenient to use his mechanical manufacturing skills combined with existing materials for DIY assembly.

Clank~ Clank~ Bang~

A faint light flickered in Lin Xian's eyes, and the steel in front of him suddenly floated up as if by magic. Under immense pressure, it was quickly rolled and fused together. In just ten minutes, a 1.5*0.9 meter composite armor plate appeared before him.

Manufacturing and assembly required extreme concentration, and since he was alone, Lin Xian had to seize the daylight hours to prepare the train.

After a few hours, several sets of 'outer windows' with grilles and double-layer composite armor plates were finally assembled. Lin Xian then pushed out a mobile small crane from the rear carriage and moved these heavy armor plates one by one to the edges of the carriages, where he began welding them with a welding machine.

The driver's compartment of the Juying 03E heavy-duty gas turbine locomotive was connected to all the carriages behind it and was equipped with isolation gates.

Lin Xian named the entire train "Infinite." He had converted the first carriage into a simple living area and stored most of his collected supplies there. The second carriage was temporarily empty, as he planned to use it for growing vegetables and cultivating some green plants.

Ideally, it would be a hydroponic plant cultivation area, but Lin Xian knew nothing about it, so he could only leave it empty for now. The third carriage contained various tools, the motorcycle, the crane, the welding machine, and materials to be stored later.

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

Lin Xian was startled. Most satellites had failed, and satellite phone calls rarely worked anymore. He kept his phone powered mainly for storing data, maps, and emergency use later, but he never expected to receive a call.

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

"Lin Xian, are you still in Jiang City? I... I want to join your rail train plan."

The person on the other end was Chen Sixuan, Lin Xian's university teacher. In the days after the apocalypse, she was the only person he could contact in his address book.

Chen Sixuan was twenty-seven years old, beautiful, and single. Before the apocalypse, in Jiang City's culture of early marriage and early childbirth, she was a rare find.

He remembered her as a tall university foreign language teacher, born into an intellectual family, a typical wealthy and educated urban woman, and the center of attention in the academy.

Initially, Lin Xian had mentioned his train plan to her, but Chen Sixuan had refused because Lin Xian hadn't revealed his abilities, making the plan sound unbelievable. At that time, Chen Sixuan still held the naive belief that rescue teams would come to her aid.

However, after Jiang City experienced its first extreme night, countless people died in despair. Strange occurrences in the darkness continuously devoured the last vestiges of sanity of the survivors. Lin Xian had witnessed many scenes of human tragedy after the collapse of social order. In this environment, women, unless they were ability users, were valued less than a barrel of gasoline in those survival teams!

He had originally thought Chen Sixuan had left with a team or had already died. Receiving her call now, he was somewhat surprised. If she hadn't escaped, how had she survived all this time?

At this moment, in an apartment, the door was locked, and the curtains were completely drawn. Chen Sixuan, with messy hair and in casual clothes, was curled up in a corner of the sofa, her expression tense. Looking at the last bit of battery life on her phone, her once soft and full lips were now pale, even trembling uncontrollably.

For two months, she had experienced the darkest period of her life, with food shortages and endless nights.

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

At first, she waited for official rescue teams to appear. Many former admirers even delivered supplies to her doorstep. But only when she learned that the entire world order had collapsed and the extreme night had arrived did Chen Sixuan realize she was in dire straits.

So, she began to seek help.

But after the extreme night, most people in Jiang City seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. The remaining people had already begun to migrate and flee. As for the teams willing to take her in, they immediately asked her to send a nude photo first to assess her value.

At this moment, she finally realized that she was no longer the popular teacher at the university, nor was she Chen Sixuan, the girl that the rich young men of Jiang City vied for. She was a burden. In this apocalypse, even with some looks, she had to offer herself up to get someone to spare her a glance.

Just as Chen Sixuan was about to run out of options, she suddenly remembered Lin Xian.

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

At this moment, any crazy plan, as long as the call could connect, offered her hope.

"Teacher Chen, are you okay?"

Lin Xian's voice on the other end of the line sounded calm and steady, instantly easing Chen Sixuan's tension.

"Classmate Lin, I... I'm still alive. Are you... still in Jiang City?"

Chen Sixuan bit her fingers tightly.

After a long silence, Lin Xian's voice finally came through the phone again.

"Yes."

Chen Sixuan trembled all over, and her tense mood relaxed with a long sigh. Hope flickered in her eyes, and she quickly said into the phone, "Where are you? Can you come pick me up..."

As soon as she finished speaking, she immediately regretted it.

The words sounded ridiculous. She remembered that a few days ago, she had contacted a team preparing to flee east, and when she called them, she had subconsciously said the same thing. The response was a torrent of insults in a mocking tone, implying: It's this kind of time, and you still think you're a princess?

So she quickly changed her words, "No, no, no... I mean, where are you? Can I come to your place?"

To survive, she had to take a gamble. Otherwise, once her phone died, she would only have two choices: stay in her apartment and wait for death, or wander out aimlessly to be torn apart by zombies.

"Teacher Chen." Lin Xian said on the other end of the phone, "Do you have supplies, or have you awakened any special abilities?"

Hearing this, Chen Sixuan's heart sank.

She looked at her empty apartment, her lips trembling, and said in a voice that was almost a sob, "No... no."

"If, if you want me..."

Chen Sixuan would never have imagined that one day she would say such a groveling thing to one of her students.

But before she could finish, the voice on the other end interrupted her, "Sorry, Teacher Chen. My supplies are also limited. If you want to join my plan, you must have corresponding value. Sexual needs are not worth mentioning to me."

Since no one believed his train plan, he would build it himself to escape the endless night. He wasn't doing this out of kindness.

Lin Xian's voice was neither warm nor cold, giving her a great sense of security, but also filling Chen Sixuan with despair.

"Alright then..."

"Good luck, Teacher Chen." Lin Xian said indifferently, sighing inwardly, preparing 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 like a madwoman and shouted, "Wait!"

Her eyes widened, her chest heaving, and she shouted loudly, "The Orbital Ring was first built in 2039. Starting from the Dragon Country, it covers a total of 126 countries and 34 regions, spanning nine continents and four oceans. It includes the thirteen Star Abyss Annihilation Zones that have appeared in the world today. The total length of the orbit exceeds 320,000 kilometers. My father was a Level 1 maintenance technician for the Orbital Ring. I know the locations of all 1266 docking stations and 625 reserved track sections for maintenance..."

"Also, I am fluent in multiple languages and can act as your translator. I eat very little and know some cooking. As long as... as long as you take me with you, I will agree to all your demands!"

She shouted the last part with all her might!

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

Chen Sixuan's expression was tense, and her delicate body trembled. The fingernails on her thighs had already drawn blood from the excessive force.

"Location, I'll pick you up."

With just six words, Chen Sixuan felt her head spin. When she came to her senses, she quickly and urgently said, "I... I'm at 901, Building 3, Jade Water Garden, Jiangzhou Road!"

Beep~

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

She tried pressing it again, but there was no response. Unsure if Lin Xian had actually heard her address, she anxiously bit her lower lip.

"Ah!"

She let out a mad shout and threw her phone against the wall, shattering it into pieces.

"He heard me, he must have heard me..."

At this moment, Chen Sixuan could only keep comforting herself. To alleviate her negative emotions, she immediately got up and began searching her home for any books related to the Orbital Ring.

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

Teacher Chen, whom he had once admired and respected immensely, was now begging him in an almost pleading tone, even offering him sexual favors. This hellish apocalypse truly turned people into demons.

Chen Sixuan's words had indeed moved him. The Orbital Ring circled the entire Earth, and the journey was fraught with unknowns. Having someone relatively familiar with the route would be better than a dead map with no navigation. Moreover, a map wouldn't mark maintenance sections or special connection lines.

Of course, there was another point: Chen Sixuan was an acquaintance of Lin Xian. In the apocalypse, people unconsciously developed a herd mentality, and familiar faces were the easiest to trust.

Putting away his phone, Lin Xian checked the time and immediately returned to his welding work.

There wasn't enough time today, and the progress of the train preparation couldn't be delayed.

Beep, beep~

18:00, 45 minutes until dark.

Lin Xian, covered in sweat, looked at the armor plating on both sides of the third carriage, as thick as a tank's, and felt a sense of accomplishment.

"Next up are the generator, heating equipment, water purification equipment, refrigerator, and a smart monitoring system."

"Also, armed defense, automatic turrets, radar systems, and so on..."

"Oh right, the living quarters need a big bed, a bathtub, and it would be best to plan an entertainment area, a game room, and such. We'll need tens of thousands of movies and games, right?"

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

Life in this apocalypse was becoming more and more hopeful!

Seeking collection and follow-up reads for the new book.