An Apocalyptic Call for Help

The next day, by the time the sky brightened, it was already 1:00 p.m.

The dark veil receded. There was no sunrise; the sun was simply there, already edging down through a clear sky.

Daylight had come another hour later than yesterday. By Jiang City's daylight saving time, sunset would be around 6:45 p.m. At this rate, dawn would stop coming here in about five days.

Inside the apartment, Lin Xian slipped a short blade into his backpack, jumped from the balcony into the neighboring room, and followed his planned winding route downward. He entered a subway tunnel through the apartment building's underground civil defense passage.

This had once been a maintenance section of University City Station. Since the apocalypse began, the entire line had shut down.

Lin Xian had cleared all the Zombies from the platforms. The station had become his train preparation area.

He walked deep into the tunnel. On the weathered, long-neglected tracks stood a Juying 03E heavy-duty gas turbine locomotive.

This two-hundred-ton steel behemoth was the secret weapon he intended to use to escape the Polar Night!

Click.

He switched on his flashlight. A beam of white light pierced the dark, hollow tunnel, and unease swelled in his chest as he looked at the giant before him.

Built thirty years ago by Alstom and CRRC Group, this masterpiece was a ten-cylinder, high-powered gas turbine locomotive for mainline freight. It had been developed on Alstom's Prima locomotive platform.

The locomotive stretched over thirty-six meters long and measured 3.2 meters wide. Its imposing frame concealed astonishing power: 18,500 horsepower, the equivalent of dozens of supercars combined, enough to haul tens of thousands of tons of heavy freight!

It was almost the perfect platform for Lin Xian's Mechanical Esper Ability. Discovering it had inspired his Infinite 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.

Put simply, once he understood how a machine worked, he could control and repair it merely by touching it. He could also scan it to generate a holographic blueprint. None of the three passive skills could be upgraded.

The Juying 03E normally ran on fuel, with electricity providing auxiliary power. Fuel was among the scarcest resources in the apocalypse, but Lin Xian's Mechanical Heart let him drive the locomotive directly with his ability, without any fuel or other power source. That was absurdly powerful.

His output was limited by his physical stamina, so there was still a limit to how far he could drive it for now. But with himself as a human battery, he could devour machinery and gather resources along the way. If he later found a generator or even a small nuclear power unit, he would never have to worry about energy again.

Besides preparing the locomotive, Lin Xian had set up three carriages to store supplies and serve as living space. All three had been converted from passenger cars.

He reached the last carriage and placed a hand against its side. At his command, the Mechanical Heart lowered a custom hydraulic lift. A motorcycle stood inside Carriage 3, ready for supply runs after the train stopped.

He climbed aboard and brought down a welding machine. Beside the tracks lay piles of steel: mainly rolled plate, High-Hardness Tungsten Steel, and High-Manganese Steel. Originally intended as armor for combat vehicles and tanks, the materials had come from a specialty steelworks warehouse in Jiang City. They were ideal for building his Steel Fortress.

Hum.

A glowing screen flickered before Lin Xian's eyes, displaying several armor blueprints he had drawn himself. There were also firearm blueprints, including one for a .40-caliber Glock 23 he had taken from a gang of thugs. Mechanical Scan had turned the gun into a stored blueprint.

There was just one problem.

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

Just looking at the list gave Lin Xian a headache.

Rather than reproduce an exact copy of a scanned device, it was far easier for him to use Mechanical Manufacturing and the materials on hand to put something together himself.

Clack, clack—clang!

A faint light appeared in Lin Xian's eyes. The steel in front of him rose into the air, then rapidly rolled into shape and fused together under tremendous pressure. Just ten minutes later, a composite armor plate measuring 1.5 by 0.9 meters hung before him.

Manufacturing and assembly demanded intense concentration. Working alone, Lin Xian had to make the most of the daylight to prepare the train.

Hours later, he finally finished several sets of barred "outer windows" with double-layer composite armor. He pushed a small mobile crane out of the rear carriage, moved the heavy panels to the carriage walls one by one, and began welding them into place.

The driver's passage in the heavy Juying 03E locomotive connected to every carriage behind it. Each connection also had a sealed door.

Lin Xian had named the entire train Infinite. He had converted Carriage 1 into a simple living area that also held most of his supplies. Carriage 2 remained empty for now; he planned to grow vegetables and other plants there.

Ideally, he wanted a cultivation area that recycled water and oxygen. But he knew nothing about setting one up, so he had left the carriage empty. Carriage 3 held his tools, motorcycle, crane, and welding machine, with room for materials he gathered later.

Just as he was hard at work building his mobile fortress, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Lin Xian jolted. Most satellites were already gone, and satellite calls rarely worked anymore. He kept his phone charged mainly for stored reference materials, maps, and emergencies. He had not expected a call to come through.

He answered. A tense woman's voice came from the other end.

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

The caller was Chen Sixuan, his university teacher. In the first few days after the apocalypse, she had been the only person in his contacts he had managed to reach.

Chen Sixuan was twenty-seven, beautiful, and single—a rarity in River City, where people tended to marry and have children young before the apocalypse.

Lin Xian remembered the tall foreign-language teacher from a highly educated family. She was the picture of a wealthy urban beauty, admired by everyone at the university.

He had told her about his train plan early on, but she had refused. He had not revealed his ability, so the plan had sounded unbelievable to her. At the time, she had still naively believed a rescue team would come for her.

Then Jiang City suffered its first Polar Night. Countless people died in despair, while horrors in the darkness ate away at the survivors' last traces of sanity. Lin Xian had seen plenty of atrocities after social order collapsed. In that environment, a woman who was not an Esper could be worth less to some survival groups than a barrel of gasoline.

He had assumed Chen Sixuan had either left with a group or died. Hearing from her now surprised him. If she had not escaped, how had she survived all this time?

In an apartment elsewhere, the door was locked and the curtains tightly drawn. Chen Sixuan sat curled in a corner of the sofa, her hair disheveled and her casual clothes rumpled. She stared at the last sliver of battery on her phone. Her once soft, full lips had gone deathly pale and would not stop trembling.

The past two months had been the darkest stretch of her life. Food was running out, and the long nights seemed endless.

Terrifying noises woke her every night. Her mind had grown muddled, and she had lost a noticeable amount of weight.

At first, she had waited for an official rescue team. Several men who had once fawned over her had even left supplies at her door. But when she learned that order had collapsed across the world and the Polar Night was coming, she realized how desperate her situation was.

So she began asking for help.

After the Polar Night, most people in Jiang City seemed to have vanished. The rest were gradually fleeing. Groups willing to take her in opened by demanding a nude photo so they could see what she had to offer.

Only then did she fully understand. She was no longer the adored teacher at the university, nor the Chen Sixuan whom Jiang City's wealthy young men had competed to pursue. She was a burden. In the apocalypse, even her beauty would earn her only a glance if she offered herself up first.

When she was nearly out of options, she suddenly remembered Lin Xian.

Every power bank she owned was drained. Her phone had only a trace of charge left.

At that moment, it did not matter how wild his plan was. If the call connected, she still had hope.

"Teacher Chen, are you all right?"

Lin Xian's voice sounded calm and steady over the phone, easing the tension in her chest.

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

Chen Sixuan bit down hard on her finger.

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

"I am."

A tremor ran through her, and she let out the breath she had been holding. Hope flashed in her eyes as she hurriedly asked,

"Where are you? Can you come get me..."

The moment she said it, she regretted it.

It sounded ridiculous. A few days earlier, she had reached a group preparing to flee east and asked the same thing without thinking. They had practically mocked her as they berated her. Their message had been clear: At a time like this, you still think you're a princess?

She quickly corrected herself. "No, no... I mean, where are you? Could I come to you?"

She had to risk asking if she wanted to live. Once her phone died, she would have only two choices: stay in the apartment and wait to die, or wander outside until Zombies tore her apart.

"Teacher Chen," Lin Xian said, "do you have supplies? Or have you awakened an ability?"

Her heart sank.

She looked around her empty apartment. Her lips shook, and her voice came out close to a sob. "No... I haven't."

"If... if you want me to..."

Chen Sixuan would never have imagined that one day she would abase herself like this before one of her students.

But before she could finish, Lin Xian interrupted. "Sorry, Teacher Chen. My supplies are limited too. Anyone joining my plan needs to bring something of value. Sex means next to nothing to me."

If no one believed in his train plan, he would build his own way out of the Polar Night. He was not doing this out of charity.

Lin Xian's even voice gave Chen Sixuan a profound sense of safety—and, at the same time, plunged her into despair.

"All right, then..."

"Good luck, Teacher Chen." Lin Xian's expression remained impassive. He sighed inwardly and prepared to hang up.

On the other end, Chen Sixuan went cold all over. Just as he was about to end the call, she snatched up the phone and shouted as though she had lost her mind,

"Wait!"

Her eyes widened and her chest heaved as she cried,

"Construction of the Orbital Ring began in 2039! Starting in the Dragon Nation, it spans 126 countries and 34 regions across nine continents and four oceans, including all thirteen Star Abyss Annihilation Zones that have appeared so far. Its tracks stretch more than 320,000 kilometers! My father was a senior maintenance engineer for the Orbital Ring. I know the locations of all 1,266 stops and 625 spare track sections used for maintenance..."

"I also speak several languages. I can translate for you, and I don't eat much. I know how to cook, too. Just... just take me with you, and I'll agree to anything you ask!"

She put every last bit of strength she had into those final words.

A long silence followed on the other end.

Chen Sixuan sat rigid, her body trembling. Her nails had dug bloody marks into her thigh.

"Your address. I'll come get you."

The brief reply left Chen Sixuan dizzy. When she came to her senses, she blurted out,

"I... I'm at Jade Water Garden Building 3, Apt 901, on Jiangzhou Road!"

Beep.

Before she could repeat the address, her phone screen went black.

She pressed the power button again. Nothing happened. Unsure whether Lin Xian had heard her address, she bit through her lower lip in panic.

"Ah!"

With a frantic scream, she hurled the phone against the wall, shattering it.

"He heard me. He must have heard me..."

All Chen Sixuan could do was reassure herself. To keep despair at bay, she got up and began searching her home for every book she had about the Orbital Ring.

Elsewhere, Lin Xian looked at his disconnected phone and sighed.

He had once admired and respected Teacher Chen immensely. Now she had begged him, even offered him sex. This damned apocalypse really could turn people into demons.

What Chen Sixuan had said had convinced him. The Orbital Ring circled all of Blue Star, and the journey ahead was full of unknowns. Someone familiar with the route would be better than static maps that had lost their navigation functions. Besides, maps did not mark maintenance sections or special connecting tracks.

There was another reason, too: Chen Sixuan was someone he knew. In the apocalypse, people instinctively wanted to band together, and familiar faces were the easiest to trust.

He put away his phone, checked the time, and immediately returned to welding.

There was not enough daylight left. He could not afford to delay the train's preparations.

Beep, beep.

6:00 p.m. Forty-five minutes until dark.

Drenched in sweat, Lin Xian looked at the armored window guards on both sides of Carriage 3. They were as thick as a tank's armor, and he felt a surge of pride.

"Next, a generator, heating, water purification, a refrigerator, a smart surveillance system..."

"And armed defenses, automatic weapons, radar..."

"Oh, and the living area needs a big bed and a bathtub. I should set aside an entertainment area and a gaming area, too. Can't forget to store a few tens of thousands of movies, shows, and games."

Lin Xian's eyes grew brighter. He was starting to feel it more and more.

Life in the apocalypse was looking better by the day!

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