Beep, beep.
Inside Carriage 1, Lin Xian lay on a comfortable Simmons mattress, a warm, soft body nestled against him. After two sleepless nights, he had finally gotten a good night's rest.
He checked the time. 14:00. Thankfully, the night had passed without incident.
It was still dark outside. Lin Xian had set an alarm in advance so he could check exactly when daylight returned.
The nights were too long, and they had slept too long as well.
Chen Sixuan, lying against him, had woken some time ago but remained silent. When Lin Xian rolled over and got up, she hurriedly dressed, her face red, then whispered to him.
"I think they blocked the tracks with rocks."
Lin Xian drew Chen Sixuan close and gave her a light kiss on the lips. "I know. I took care of it before I got on the train."
Chen Sixuan slipped out of his arms, still shy. She picked up the Logbook and said, "Including the distance from Yushan Station, we covered fifty-four kilometers yesterday. If the survivors' reports are right, daylight should come before 17:00 today."
After their passionate night together, she still avoided his eyes as she spoke.
"We'll see." Lin Xian glanced at his watch. "That distance might not be enough to make any noticeable difference."
"Mm."
Since it was still pitch-black outside, they kept their voices low and had something to eat and drink.
Lin Xian leaned into the aisle and pressed a hand to the floor, checking the area outside the train. He also examined his injuries. Just as he had expected, they were healing remarkably fast.
An Esper's body was fundamentally different from an ordinary person's. And after his fight to the death with Liu Wei yesterday, his Wind Cannon skill had improved enormously.
[Wind Cannon LV.1 25/100] [Ice Shield LV.1 6/100]
Lin Xian had truly fought for his life yesterday. For the first time, he had learned just how ruthless and decisive he could be, and how completely calm he could remain at a critical moment. He was impressed with himself.
The minutes ticked by.
Lin Xian watched the time change on his watch.
15:00. Still no daylight.
16:00. Still dark.
The later dawn came, the faster they would have to flee.
What Lin Xian feared most, though, was that the time of dawn would not change at all. That would be the most crushing outcome.
The temperature had fallen to around zero degrees. Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan had both put on long sleeves against the cold. Luckily, he had brought back a pile of new quilts and Simmons mattresses from the furniture store. Otherwise, they would have been sleeping on hard boards in this weather.
At 16:48, a streak of light flashed across the sky. The dark curtain suddenly receded, and the low sun hung overhead!
"It's daylight!" Chen Sixuan cried, delight shining in her eyes.
By their estimate, dawn should not have come until 17:00 today. Instead, it had arrived a full twelve minutes early!
Lin Xian opened the passage door, and he and Chen Sixuan entered the cab. As they looked out at the sunlight, surprise and worry mingled in their eyes.
The good news was that dawn had come twelve minutes earlier than expected. It was not much, but it proved they were escaping the Polar Night!
The bad news was that twelve minutes was a drop in the bucket.
Chen Sixuan recovered first. She picked up the Logbook and began to calculate.
"Dawn came twelve minutes early. If we base that on yesterday's fifty-four kilometers, then to get dawn back to 17:00 tomorrow, we'll need to cover at least 270 kilometers!"
"More or less." Lin Xian nodded. "That's close to what we heard on the radio. But we shouldn't be too optimistic. We aren't traveling in a straight line, and covering 270 kilometers will take us at least three hours unless we speed up."
Chen Sixuan's eyes dimmed again. "Right. But we can't go too fast either. Someone might have left another car or rocks on the tracks..."
In just two days, something had gone wrong almost every day, and each time their lives had been at stake. The thought left Chen Sixuan deeply worried.
Vroom~
The Infinite's Ten-Cylinder Heavy Gas Turbine began to roar. Lin Xian took the driver's seat and looked back at Chen Sixuan.
"Hold on tight, Teacher Chen."
Chen Sixuan opened her mouth. Hearing Lin Xian still call her "Teacher" left her flustered and awkward. After all, the two of them had already...
Did he have some kind of fetish? Did he like the forbidden feeling of it?
Lin Xian had no idea what was going through Chen Sixuan's head. He put the train in reverse!
Chen Sixuan started at the sight of the train backing up.
"We're going back?"
"Yes," Lin Xian said grimly. "We're going to take a look at Yushan Station."
He had killed Liu Wei. With night approaching, the convoy was bound to fall into chaos without its leader. And without Liu Wei, an Esper, the remaining thugs with guns could do nothing to them as long as Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan stayed aboard the train.
He had taken out their boss. If he came away with nothing to show for it, that fight would feel like a terrible loss.
Besides, he now had some reason for hope. If they kept moving, they could escape the Polar Night. For Lin Xian, who had spent months trying to survive, that was undoubtedly an encouraging sign.
Clack, clack~
Before long, the heavy locomotive slowly backed into Yushan Station. The sight that greeted them changed both Lin Xian's and Chen Sixuan's expressions.
The platform was devastated. The entire Oasis convoy had fallen. The parked off-road vehicles and Jeeps were smeared with grisly blood, and the platform floor was almost dyed crimson. Several convoy members had turned black all over and become walking corpses, standing in place and moaning.
Among the Zombies, Chen Sixuan recognized the bespectacled, mild-mannered middle-aged man who had pretended to be the "father" of a family of three yesterday.
She had never expected everyone to be dead after a single night.
"Ah!"
"Lin Xian, look!"
Chen Sixuan cried out and pointed toward the waiting hall at Yushan Station. The small hall had been almost completely destroyed. But what startled them most was what lay scattered by its entrance: several legs that looked as though they belonged to some kind of insect!
Chen Sixuan's face turned grim. "My God, what kind of monster was that...?"
Lin Xian frowned. He remembered the insect's shadow at Warehouse 14, and a chill ran through him.
He had traveled more than fifty kilometers yesterday. Could that thing have caught up with them?
Lin Xian had no idea what to make of the Strange Bug or the White Giant Monster. They seemed to appear from nowhere in the darkness, then vanish when the sun rose. If those enormous legs had not been lying there, who would believe such terrifying monsters had appeared in the world?
Lin Xian stopped the train and leaned against the cab window, studying the scene for a while before he spoke.
"Don't be afraid. It's daytime now. That thing probably won't come out."
He wanted to curse. He had only just begun considering traveling at night, and reality had immediately slapped him in the face.
If that thing was following him, how the hell was he supposed to travel after dark?
"Are we still going down there?" Chen Sixuan asked.
"Yes."
Lin Xian gritted his teeth. They had come all this way. With the Oasis convoy wiped out, he might as well take the chance to scavenge whatever supplies remained.
"Okay. I'm coming too." Chen Sixuan clenched her fists, but Lin Xian raised a hand to stop her. "Not yet. Let me go down first and deal with those Zombies."
"Mm." Chen Sixuan nodded obediently.
Short blade in hand, Lin Xian opened the cab door and leaped out. The moment he landed, he fired several Wind Cannons, blowing apart the heads of the Zombies on the platform.
It cost him some energy, but Lin Xian did not want to alert anything else. The Wind Cannons were quiet, making them perfect for surprise attacks.
Thud, thud, thud~
The Zombies fell one after another. Only then did Lin Xian notice the thick smell of blood washing over him, and he frowned.
Bullet marks covered the platform, along with severed limbs and other remains. A brutal fight had clearly taken place here last night.
Lin Xian had seen how unnatural that monster was. Ordinary guns were unlikely to do it much harm.
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