Information Center

At that moment, everyone turned to look at Lin Xian.

Lin Xian took a deep breath. After thinking it over all night, he still decided to explain his abilities by saying he possessed multiple powers. "It's true that I have more than one ability. Besides making the train move, I can repair machinery and manufacture machinery. It was precisely because of this that I had the confidence to launch this Infinite Train Project."

Lin Xian couldn't keep secretly devouring and manufacturing machinery forever. Since they were teammates, it was better to be honest.

"If I have materials and blueprints, I can directly manufacture weapons, equipment, armor—anything related to machinery, I can handle."

The Lou siblings exchanged astonished looks. Lou Shasha sucked in a breath and said, "Wow, Brother Lin, you're that amazing? I knew I didn't save the wrong person!!"

Lin Xian then looked at Kiki with great interest.

"Little girl, the manufacturing I mentioned includes the radar system, sentry system, weapons system, defense system, drones, railcars, medical and life-support systems, powered armor, and so on that you envisioned... Do you still think my Infinite Train Project is a fantasy?"

Kiki froze slightly. She opened her mouth, then stubbornly met Lin Xian's smiling gaze.

"So... so what? Can you design and control all those systems by yourself?"

"No."

Lin Xian narrowed his eyes and smiled at Kiki. "That's why I need a genius girl like you to join us. Without your Information Center, wouldn't all those things just be empty shells?"

A hint of secret delight flashed through Kiki's eyes. She cast Lin Xian a sly glance and smiled, clearly pleased.

"Oh my... why do those words sound so nice today? Fine. If you can get the heating working, then this young lady will consider it."

"Alright."

Lin Xian let out a long breath, looked at Chen Sixuan, then at the others.

"At first, I only wanted to build a mobile safe haven, somewhere we could cling to life through this godforsaken darkness and apocalypse. But ever since this train started moving, we've lived amid all kinds of terror and danger every day. You're probably the same as me—never knowing whether we'll see tomorrow, running everywhere just for a breath of air or a sip of water. Polar Night killed so many people, and the survivors are almost being driven mad..."

"So I realized that in this apocalyptic winter darkness, this train needs many friends. Only together can we live longer and travel farther."

"The Orbital Ring is 320,000 kilometers long. We may not be able to travel all of it, and we may not be able to escape Polar Night. There may be countless troubles along the way. But as long as there's a chance to live one more day, I don't want to give up. As long as I have even a shred of strength left, I won't let this train stop. So I hope that everyone who gets on this train can become family, facing whatever life and death await us together."

He spoke casually and calmly, as if he were merely chatting.

Yet the gazes of the others quietly changed.

Kiki put away her sly expression and stared steadily at Lin Xian, seemingly lost in thought.

Lou Shasha bit her lip. There seemed to be less timid nervousness in her eyes now, and more hope.

Da Lou looked at his sister, then at Lin Xian, and nodded. Though he said nothing, his gaze became much firmer.

Chen Sixuan's eyes had reddened. At first, she had relied on Lin Xian only to save herself. But now, hearing him lay out his plans and thoughts again, she couldn't help feeling deeply moved. For one brief moment, she even felt that perhaps they would spend their days fleeing disasters from now on, but one day, the sun would rise as usual!

"Alright, let's first divide up the work."

After saying that, Lin Xian relaxed. As the team gradually grew, he felt more secure as well.

"Okay!" Shasha was the first to raise her hand, her face full of enthusiasm. "Brother Lin, I can stand watch at night too. Don't treat me like a child!"

Lin Xian gave a wry smile. "You handle that grenade launcher so skillfully. How are you like a child?"

"Hehe." Shasha looked very proud.

"I support this!" Teacher Chen said with a radiant smile, raising her hand as well. Since Polar Night began, she hadn't felt this carefree in a long time.

"Brother Xian, just give the orders," Da Lou said.

"Me too." Kiki smiled at him, her expression unusually serious for once.

"Alright!" Lin Xian nodded. Aside from taking inventory of their spoils, he began assigning everyone simple duties.

From then on, Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan would take turns driving the train. When it stopped, Da Lou would stand guard. Since Da Lou also knew a thing or two about mechanical repairs, Lin Xian had him help with inspections and maintenance as well.

After all, the train was getting bigger and bigger. It wasn't realistic for Lin Xian to use his ability to repair everything himself, especially minor issues.

As for Kiki, Lin Xian planned to redraw the train's future design plans with her. Once the radar and sentry systems were online, they would have an additional layer of safety warnings.

This massive haul had given Lin Xian tremendous confidence in the Infinite Train Project—not only because of his expectations for his future abilities, but also because the Lou siblings had become two powerful new allies.

Lou Ye was honest and straightforward, diligent and hardworking. He possessed an enhancement-type ability, and combined with his tower-like build, he gave people an immense sense of security.

With him standing guard at night, Lin Xian felt much more at ease.

Moreover, he knew quite a few skills involving weapons and machinery. Whether in combat or practical expertise, he was an excellent teammate.

Although Lou Shasha was still young, she was fairly mature and very loyal. Lin Xian had her follow Chen Sixuan and Kiki to help out. Now that she had her own little bed and the protection of the train fortress, she no longer had that previously tense, anxious manner. Happily, she helped arrange and prepare the train's interior.

According to their route, once they left the Clustered Mountains, they would soon enter Yubei. As a first-tier city far from the Star Abyss disaster zone, it had entered Polar Night relatively late. Both Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan felt that the situation there was bound to be incredibly complicated.

But the train had to pass through its main hub to enter the true Orbital Ring. Before that, the Infinite still had much to prepare and many systems to complete, so the situation remained extremely grim.

The gas turbine locomotive had a steam heating system, while the passenger cars were equipped with warm-air systems. In theory, either would work. The quickest method would be to connect the circuits and directly use the passenger cars' warm-air system.

However, Carriages 1 and 2 were different models from Carriages 3, 4, and 5, with decades separating their production dates. Moreover, Lin Xian was considering building a train-wide water and air circulation system later on. So he simply decided to design, together with Kiki, an electrically powered steam circulation and filtration system connected to Carriage 1. It would provide heat while also using a distillation system to recycle clean water, ensuring that there was clean drinking water in the carriages at all times—and perhaps even allowing them the luxury of taking a bath...

As for the electro-optical observation system and compact phased-array radar, Kiki and Lin Xian planned to install them at the front of the train for emergency warnings. The train-wide surveillance and sentry systems, however, would be much more troublesome.

For one thing, they required a large number of infrared motion monitors, and they also had to account for external armor and other factors.

The weapons and defense systems would be even more troublesome. If they wanted to mount a close-in weapon system on the train, then aside from power and maintenance, they would need ammunition supply capabilities on the level of a small arms factory.

But those were only Lin Xian's ideas for now. You couldn't grow fat in one bite. Medical systems, plant cultivation, and oxygen circulation were all things that couldn't be completed overnight.

So for the moment, Lin Xian would first help Kiki install the information system they had moved out of the air-raid shelter's combat command center in Carriage 2. Then they would deal with the electro-optical observation system, the compact phased-array radar, and... the heating.

There was another potentially major problem: if they encountered damaged railway tracks, how could they carry out repairs? That was a huge challenge.

This had always been one of Lin Xian's biggest headaches.

No matter how powerful the train was, what was the point if there were no tracks left...? Wouldn't that make it a joke?

So Lin Xian still had far too much to do, but there were simply too many troubles along the way.

In Carriage 2, a simple Information Center with multiple screens had already been set up for Kiki. Once it was connected to the electro-optical observation system and radar system, everything within a three-kilometer fan-shaped area ahead of the train could be detected in advance. However, they still needed to design a response module so the system could identify which situations during travel were critical, issue warnings, and stop the train in time.

Lin Xian knew absolutely nothing about that, so he could only leave it to Kiki.

"Bzzzt..."

"Bzzzt..."

"Strange. We should already be far away from the ionization effects of the Star Abyss zone, and it's daytime now. Why can't we receive any longwave signals at all?" Kiki fiddled with Lin Xian's radio for quite a while, then sighed and gave up helplessly.

"What about the network?"

"Don't even think about that." Wearing headphones, Kiki's fingers flew across the system controls as she said flatly, "I know the Federal Government still has some communications satellites in orbit, but they've gradually become impossible to locate. Either they've been damaged, or they've been subjected to specialized shielding interference."

Lin Xian secretly clicked his tongue. He had been able to receive a call from Teacher Chen in Jiang City not long ago, yet before much time had passed, communication functions had completely gone kaput.

And the longwave radio he had placed such high hopes on was unusable as well. That was what gave Lin Xian the biggest headache.

On the radio, the train traveling through the mountains could currently receive only shortwave frequencies from within one or two hundred kilometers. But surrounded by mountains, there was little to pick up besides village and town broadcasts, let alone messages from other survivors.

And so, Lin Xian and the others spent the calmest yet busiest day since leaving Jiang City. Drawing on the electric locomotive's stored energy, the train ran from dawn until nightfall. Lin Xian was truly feeling exhausted, so for safety's sake, they stopped on a relatively flat plain to rest.

After night fell, every blackout curtain in the train was drawn. Yet from outside, one could still see a faintly glowing giant train sitting silently on the tracks. Even Carriages 3 and 4 were now covered in heavy armor.

However, unlike the original carriages, the armor here was made of ordinary steel, supplemented by a small amount of the high-strength steel he had left over. It would have to do for now.

After Lin Xian assigned everyone their tasks, Chen Sixuan moved about like a warm family elder, carrying the allotted food and water through the carriages to distribute to everyone. When she arrived at Carriage 5, she discovered that Lin Xian was not inside. Instead, he was outside on the final flatbed carriage, tinkering with that machine-armor-like thing.

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