Aus Furniture City stood on the outskirts of Jiang City. It was usually quiet, and no other survivors had thought to hide out in a furniture store. That gave Lin Xian free rein.
Lin Xian checked the time: 4:30 p.m. There were still more than two hours until dark.
He started with an expensive but understated sectional leather sofa, loading it onto the truck with a forklift. Then he found a folding steel bed frame.
The doors of Carriage 3 were fairly large, but cramming a big wooden bed through them would hardly be practical. Lin Xian planned to weld the steel frame inside the carriage instead. With a folding Simmons mattress and a latex topper, it would be comfortable enough.
And he couldn't forget pillows and blankets.
The more Lin Xian loaded, the happier he got. Then he spotted a sixty-inch screen mounted on the wall of a brand-name store, and his eyes lit up.
"Hmm. An entertainment area would be nice. We could play games or watch movies when we had time."
"I'm taking it!"
Without another word, Lin Xian dismantled what he could and soon packed the flatbed truck to the brim.
If the bathroom in Carriage 1 hadn't been so small, he might even have taken a toilet and bathtub.
Vroom—
A faint glow shone in Lin Xian's eyes as he sat in the truck and activated Mechanical Heart. The engine roared to life again. With his haul aboard, he drove around the parking lot toward the green strip beside the tracks, floored the accelerator, and knocked down the wire fence separating them. The truck lurched onto the gravel railway embankment.
Chen Sixuan had been waiting on the train for over an hour. When she saw Lin Xian charging toward her in a truck, she was stunned.
Then she saw the sofa, mattress, and even a television in the back, and grew more bewildered.
Did those count as supplies?
In an apocalypse, shouldn't finding water and food come first? Or weapons, at least? Chen Sixuan couldn't make sense of it, but when Lin Xian pulled up behind Carriage 3, she hurried over to help.
Clank—whirr—
The liftgate of Carriage 3 slowly lowered. Lin Xian climbed aboard with his short blade on his back and moved the motorcycle and crane out of the way. Then the two of them carried the sofa, bed frame, mattresses, pillows, blankets, rug, and television into Carriage 1.
By the time they finished, the sun was setting.
Both were drenched in sweat.
Beep, beep—
His watch alarm went off. Lin Xian's expression turned serious as he said to Chen Sixuan,
"Go on ahead. Have something to eat and get settled. I need to deal with this truck."
He had a bold idea. Now that the truck was right here, why not use this chance to devour it?
Even if danger appeared, he could raise the carriage's protective liftgate immediately.
It was a risk. The dangers of the Black Night were nothing like ordinary Zombies. But Lin Xian didn't want to waste this rare chance to upgrade, so he decided to gamble.
"Oh, okay."
Chen Sixuan obeyed at once, like a dutiful wife who did whatever he asked.
After she left Carriage 3, Lin Xian took the tow-hook cable he had made from behind the carriage door and looped it around his waist. Before night fell, he climbed down from the train, placed a hand on the truck, and activated Mechanical Devour without hesitation.
[Devouring progress: 1%]
The familiar sensation of devouring a vehicle washed over him again. Lin Xian felt his energy draining faster, while the progress on the screen before his eyes crept along far more slowly than it had with the small appliances.
He kept one hand pressed against the truck and gripped the metal tow hook tightly with the other.
Lin Xian had attached the cable mainly so he could control the Infinite at any moment. His ability only worked on machinery he touched; even a connection through a metal cable would fail if he got too far away.
[Devouring progress: 2%] [Devouring progress: 3%]
Minutes slipped by in silence. With no lights anywhere, his surroundings grew darker as the sun sank. Lin Xian's expression hardened.
For a moment, he even had the strange feeling that the earth was breathing...
Was this the Dark Tide?
6:45 p.m.
The sky abruptly went black. There was no gradual fading, making the change deeply unsettling.
After more than two months, the survivors seemed to have grown used to it.
All they could do was pray for the night to pass quickly. Only at daybreak did some survivors dare leave their shelters to search for supplies that might keep them alive.
But everyone knew that, after Polar Night, their food and water would run out one day. Whether Dawn would ever come again, no one knew.
Hiding in a shelter was a slow death, but fleeing was an even greater gamble. Steel, concrete, and iron doors couldn't always stop the horrors of the Black Night. What chance would they have out in the open or hiding in a vehicle?
Neither choice offered certain safety.
So Espers became the leaders of survivor groups. Their abilities were beyond those of ordinary people, offering a sense of security stronger than steel and concrete.
Before Polar Night, while the internet still worked, Lin Xian had seen plenty of Espers with strange abilities online. They quickly became sensations, the apocalyptic leaders people flocked to follow, and subjects of official research and cooperation.
When Lin Xian first posted the Infinite Train Recruitment Project on a forum, he had considered revealing his ability to attract a large following.
But he soon abandoned the idea.
He didn't think he could manage hundreds or thousands of survivors in an apocalypse. His ability was extraordinary, but he could barely protect himself with it. As a leader, the most he could offer was driving the train and repairing machinery. If he failed to become a leader and ended up as someone else's human battery instead, he'd be in real trouble...
Events had proved his concerns justified. Barely two months into the apocalypse, atrocities over supplies and killers turning on each other had become commonplace. Some Espers possessed power beyond comprehension. By comparison, Lin Xian's ability looked unremarkable at this stage.
[Devouring progress: 63%]
An hour after nightfall, the devouring was finally more than halfway done. Lin Xian remained completely focused, alert to the pitch-black surroundings.
He had turned off every light on the train. He seemed to merge with the darkness, even slowing his breathing as he held a hand against the truck and quietly devoured it.
To keep the faint glow in his eyes from giving him away, Lin Xian closed them and listened carefully. Wire fences lined both sides of the railway; he should hear anything disturbing them. And if something approached along the tracks, surely it would make a sound.
[Devouring progress: 77%]
Almost there. Just a little more...
Crunch—
Just then, gravel shifted with a faint crackle.
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