Underground Elevator

The other information warfare room was relatively spacious, with tables, chairs, and benches piled haphazardly together. There were even traces of people having slept on the floor.

"This will do." Lin Xian dragged out a chair and looked at Kiki. "Get some rest first."

Kiki looked disdainfully at the filthy floor. On the other side stood a command console with more than a dozen screens and information devices, but with the power completely out, those electronics were worth less than a piece of bread.

Her eyes lit up, and she walked over with great interest. "Hey, bad guy, can you move all this stuff onto the train and convert it into an Information Center for me?"

"An Information Center?"

Lin Xian's heart stirred. He had noticed outside earlier that the base had a sentry warning system, but the entire system was incredibly complicated. It was not something he could simply dismantle and haul away.

"Easier said than done. How are we supposed to move it back...?"

Kiki pouted. "Are you stupid? Isn't there a freight railway outside? That must connect to the railway at Beiwan Station."

"I know." Lin Xian gave a bitter smile. "What I mean is, we're trapped in the fog and can't get out. We barely have time to escape—where would we get the chance to move this stuff?"

"Uh... you're right." Kiki deflated, then stretched lazily and looked at Lin Xian with tired eyes.

"I can't anymore. I need to rest for a while."

Lin Xian found a corner and leaned back against it without bothering her. He knew Kiki was already utterly exhausted.

Whether it was Qian Yu or Tang Hai, Lin Xian knew they each had their own agendas. In an environment like this, everyone was thinking, better you die than me. The reason these people were so polite to him and Kiki now was entirely because they were Espers.

Once everyone escaped the fog, Lin Xian would become their greatest threat.

Of course, some probably wanted to rely on Lin Xian and Kiki as though they were sturdy trees. But everyone's fate was still uncertain, and there were only two days left until the Polar Night. Whether they could even survive was another question.

"Places like this should have backup power or generators." Lin Xian looked at the survivors in the hall outside, who were lighting candles on the ground. That meant the ventilation system here was still intact, but the power had been completely lost.

"It's in the armory. It stinks."

Kiki sat down beside Lin Xian, rested her head against his shoulder, and fell asleep.

Lin Xian turned to look at the girl, his expression somewhat complicated.

Yesterday, after using her ability twice against Big Bug, she had fainted immediately. Yet today, she had forced herself to hold on until now without changing expression. She was clever. If the others learned that her ability could not last long at all, Qian Yu and Tang Hai would never be so wary of the two of them. Even though Lin Xian had displayed his ability as well, the pressure he gave off was clearly nowhere near as shocking as Kiki's.

Thinking of how she had deliberately pretended to sleep for three days, Lin Xian even began wondering what identity this girl truly had. How could a rich young heiress possess such tenacity?

Night fell. Whether it was the various convoys in the sentry station yard outside or those inside the air-raid shelter, everything was silent.

No one deliberately made a sound. Tonight was destined to be sleepless—not only because of the fear of darkness, but also because everyone was preparing to charge out of the fog tomorrow. It was a plan whose outcome, life or death, remained completely unknown.

Lin Xian did not rest. Instead, he placed his hand on the command console and activated the Mechanical Heart to establish a connection.

But he quickly realized that this command system was not merely a set of servers and information equipment. It was an integrated hub connected to the entire sentry station system.

The sheer scale of the system exceeded his expectations, rapidly draining his energy. Lin Xian was shocked. Just as he was about to stop the Mechanical Heart's spread, he suddenly discovered something strange: beneath this underground facility, there was actually a secret elevator.

And at that moment, the elevator was moving downward!

Lin Xian frowned and immediately stood up to look toward the hall outside, but there was no movement at all.

Then where had this elevator been entered from?

And this underground facility no longer had electricity, so how could the elevator still be operating?

"Backup power?"

Lin Xian looked at the sleeping Kiki and recalled her saying there was a backup generator in the armory.

The moment Lin Xian noticed the anomaly, he became cautious. The first person he thought of was Tang Hai.

In truth, both he and Qian Yu felt that something was off about Tang Hai. Although everyone accepted his stated purpose, Lin Xian and Qian Yu both felt that his appearance had come at too convenient a time.

Lou Shasha had arrived the day before yesterday, while Qian Yu's group had arrived a day earlier still. Logically, Tang Hai should have known the moment they arrived. Yet he had waited until today to appear, even risking an attack from the corpse horde.

But as a local, Tang Hai had directly led them to this shelter, which was obviously safer than the square, dispelling some of their suspicions.

So although the teams all distrusted one another, being trapped in the fog meant they were all in the same boat. Tang Hai had even opened the doors to the underground air-raid shelter, so Lin Xian could only suppress his concerns for the moment.

Out of caution, Lin Xian still decided to investigate.

He set Kiki down, found an abandoned sleeping bag for her to lean against, and walked out of the operations room.

The survivors outside watched Lin Xian with strange looks. Since Feng Yuming had brought him in, no one said much. They all seemed rather taciturn.

Lin Xian ignored them and entered the armory again. Sure enough, at the very back, he saw a large diesel generator and energy-storage system.

But when he investigated it with his ability, he discovered that the generator set had long since broken down and had no fuel either. His expression immediately changed.

"What's going on? There's clearly no power. Could there be another backup power source?"

This discovery immediately made him suspicious.

He searched around for a while, then simply returned to the hangar entrance of the air-raid shelter. The iron door was tightly locked now. Lin Xian quietly opened it with the Mechanical Heart and found that the dozens of survivors' vehicles in the sentry station yard below the hillside were parked silently. Faint light shone through gaps in quite a few vehicles. Indeed, many people had no intention of sleeping peacefully; they were preparing to stay on guard all night.

Lin Xian made a round of the area. Not only did he fail to find the elevator entrance, he also found no sign of Tang Hai or Feng Yuming. He had no idea where the uncle and nephew had gone.

A nameless unease rose in his heart. Lin Xian closed the iron door and returned to the operations room. He took a deep breath, then directly drove the Mechanical Heart at full power, attempting to use this command hub to connect to the routes throughout the entire base. Before long, it felt as though a great deal of vitality had been drained from his body, leaving his face somewhat weary.

But after Lin Xian used the command center hub to scan the mechanical structure and routes of the entire base, he suddenly snapped his eyes open. A fierce flash of lightning seemed to pass through his gaze. After a long moment, he cursed coldly.

"Fuck!"

Lin Xian's expression changed drastically, cold sweat pouring from his forehead. After thinking for a moment, he directly picked up Kiki, carried her into the armory, and locked the door.

The stench in the armory made sleeping Kiki furrow her brow slightly. Lin Xian switched on his flashlight and moved her beside the generator at the very back. It was close to the ventilation duct, so the smell was relatively weaker there.

After setting Kiki down, Lin Xian turned off the flashlight. Listening to her faint breathing in the darkness, he placed his hand on the generator set and scanned it again.

"Just as I thought!"

In the darkness, Lin Xian's expression turned grave, and even his heartbeat quickened.

"It stinks..."

Half-asleep, Kiki mumbled beside him.

"Little girl."

Lin Xian pinched Kiki's cheek. Exhausted as she was, Kiki was abruptly jolted awake by the pinch. Catching the foul stench around her, she frowned and struggled to sit up.

"Hey... you!"

Before she could finish, Lin Xian clamped a hand over her mouth.

Click. Lin Xian switched on the flashlight and pointed gravely at the wall beside her.

"What is it?" Seeing Lin Xian's expression, Kiki became serious as well. Forcing herself awake, she asked, "Did the monsters come?"

Lin Xian's gaze darkened. "I think it might be even more troublesome than that..."

New author seeking follows and recommendations!