The Annihilated Convoy

Beep, beep.

Inside Carriage 1, Lin Xian lay on the comfortable Simmons mattress, savoring the soft warmth in his arms. After going two nights without sleep, he finally had a good rest.

He checked the time. It was 14:00. Fortunately, the night had passed without incident.

Outside, it was still night. Lin Xian had set the time in advance so he could observe the exact moment dawn arrived.

The nights were too long, and they had slept for too long as well.

Chen Sixuan had long since awakened. She remained silent, and when she saw Lin Xian sit up, she quickly got dressed with a flushed face, pulled on her panties, and whispered to him.

"They seem to have blocked the railway with stones."

Lin Xian pulled Chen Sixuan into his arms, lowered his head, and lightly pecked her fragrant lips. "I know. I already dealt with it before getting on the train."

Chen Sixuan shyly slipped out of his embrace, picked up the Logbook, and said to herself, "Including the distance we traveled after leaving Yushan Station, we covered fifty-four kilometers yesterday. Based on the information spread by the survivors, dawn today should be before 17:00."

After a night of indulgence, she kept avoiding Lin Xian's gaze as she spoke.

"Let's wait and see." Lin Xian looked at his watch. "With such a short distance, we might not be able to see any change at all."

"Mm."

Since it was still pitch-black outside, the two of them kept their voices low as they took out some food and water and had a little.

Lin Xian leaned against the aisle, one hand pressed to the floor as he investigated the situation outside the train. At the same time, he checked his injuries. Just as he had expected, they were recovering exceptionally quickly.

An Esper's body was already qualitatively different from that of an ordinary person. At the same time, after yesterday's life-or-death battle with Liu Wei, Lin Xian's Wind Cannon skill had improved tremendously.

Wind Cannon LV.1 25/100

Ice Shield LV.1 6/100

Thinking back on yesterday's battle, Lin Xian felt that he had truly fought with his life on the line. It was the first time he had realized he could be so ruthless and decisive. He could remain absolutely calm at critical moments, and he rather admired himself for possessing such a state of mind.

Time passed second by second.

Lin Xian watched the time tick by on his watch.

15:00. It was still dark.

16:00. It was still dark.

The later dawn came, the faster they would need to flee.

But what Lin Xian feared most was that the time of dawn had not changed at all. That would be truly despairing.

The temperature had already dropped to around zero degrees. Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan had both put on long-sleeved clothing to keep warm. Thankfully, he had gotten a large pile of new quilts and Simmons mattresses from the furniture store beforehand. Otherwise, in weather this cold, they would have had no choice but to sleep on hard boards.

Just as the time reached 16:48, a streak of light flashed across the sky. The black curtain suddenly faded away, and the slanting sun hung high in the sky!

"It's dawn!" Chen Sixuan cried out, joy appearing in her eyes.

According to the expected time, dawn should not have come until 17:00 today. Yet it had arrived a full twelve minutes early!

Lin Xian opened the passage door and entered the driver's cab with Chen Sixuan. As they watched the sunlight outside, their eyes held both surprise and deep concern.

The good news was that dawn had come twelve minutes earlier than expected. Though it was not much, it was enough to show that they were escaping the Polar Night!

The bad news was that such a small gain was merely a drop in the bucket.

Chen Sixuan was the first to react. She picked up the Logbook and began calculating.

"Dawn came twelve minutes earlier. If we only count yesterday's fifty-four kilometers, then if we want dawn to return to 17:00 tomorrow, we need to travel at least two hundred and seventy kilometers!"

"More or less." Lin Xian nodded. "It's not far off from what we heard on the radio. But don't be too optimistic. We aren't traveling in a straight line, and covering two hundred and seventy kilometers at our speed would take 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 block the tracks with cars or stones again..."

In just two days, one crisis after another had arisen almost every day, each time placing them in a life-or-death situation. Thinking of this, Chen Sixuan began to worry.

Vrooom—

Infinite's Ten-Cylinder Heavy Gas Turbine began to roar. Lin Xian sat in the driver's seat and turned back to Chen Sixuan.

"Teacher Chen, hold on tight."

Chen Sixuan parted her lips. Hearing Lin Xian still call her "Teacher," she suddenly felt flustered and awkward. The two of them had already...

Could he have some kind of fetish? Did he enjoy that forbidden feeling?

Lin Xian had no idea about the thoughts running through Chen Sixuan's mind. He started the train moving backward!

Seeing the train reverse, Chen Sixuan's expression changed in alarm.

"We're going backward?"

"Yes." Lin Xian said in a low voice, "We're going back to Yushan Station to take a look."

Liu Wei was dead at his hands. With night approaching, Liu Wei's convoy would inevitably fall into chaos without a leader. Besides, with Liu Wei, the Esper, gone, as long as Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan remained on the train, the remaining gun-toting thugs would be unable to do anything to them.

He had even dealt with their leader. If he did not gain something from this, Lin Xian would feel that fight had not been worth it.

Moreover, he now had a little more confidence. As long as they hurried onward, they could escape the Polar Night. For Lin Xian, who had struggled to survive for several months, this was undoubtedly a positive sign.

Clank, clank—

Before long, the heavy locomotive slowly backed into the Yushan Station platform. But the scene before them made both Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan's expressions change.

The platform was a complete wreck. The entire Oasis convoy had fallen. The parked off-road vehicles and jeeps were covered in gruesome bloodstains, and the platform floor had nearly been dyed crimson. Several convoy members had already turned pitch-black, becoming walking corpses as they stood there, whimpering.

Chen Sixuan spotted one of the men who had turned into a zombie. It was the bespectacled, mild-mannered middle-aged man from yesterday who had pretended to be the "father" of a family of three.

Who would have thought that after just one night, everyone would be dead?

"Ah~"

"Lin Xian, look!"

Chen Sixuan cried out and pointed toward the waiting hall of Yushan Station. The small waiting hall had almost entirely fallen, but what shocked them most was that several insect-like legs were scattered on the ground outside its entrance!

Chen Sixuan's face turned grim. "Oh my god, what kind of monster is this..."

Lin Xian frowned. He recalled the insect shadow in Warehouse 14, and lingering fear rose in his heart.

He had driven more than fifty kilometers yesterday. Could that thing have caught up?

Lin Xian had absolutely no clue about either the Strange Bug or the White Giant Monster. They seemed to appear out of nowhere in the darkness, then suddenly vanish after sunrise. If not for the enormous legs before them, who would believe that such terrifying monsters had inexplicably appeared in this world?

Lin Xian stopped the vehicle and leaned against the window to observe for a while before saying, "Don't be afraid. It's daytime now. That thing probably won't come out."

Inside, he really wanted to curse. He had only just started considering moving at night, and reality immediately slapped him across the face.

With that thing following behind him, how the hell was he supposed to move around?

"Are we still going down?" Chen Sixuan asked.

"Yes."

Lin Xian gritted his teeth. Since they were already here, and the Oasis convoy had fallen, this was the perfect chance to loot whatever supplies they had left.

"Okay, I'll go too." Chen Sixuan clenched her fists, but Lin Xian raised a hand to stop her. "Don't rush. Let me go down and take a look first. I'll deal with those zombies before anything else."

"Mm." Chen Sixuan nodded obediently.

Short blade in hand, Lin Xian opened the train's cab door and jumped out. The moment he landed, he fired several Wind Cannons, blowing the heads off the zombies on the platform.

Though it cost him a bit of energy, Lin Xian did not want to alert anything. Wind Cannons were nearly silent, making them perfect for sneak attacks.

Thud, thud, thud~

Several zombies fell in succession. Only then did Lin Xian notice the intense Smell of Blood rushing toward him, making him frown deeply.

The entire platform was riddled with bullet holes and strewn with severed limbs. It was clear that a brutal battle had taken place here last night.

Lin Xian had seen how bizarre that monster was. Ordinary firearms probably could not inflict much damage on it.

Please keep reading the new book!