Chapter 253: Train No. 444-16

Chapter 253: Train No. 444-16

The dimly lit carriage was eerily silent.

Initially, when the announcement said, "Please do not leave your seats unless necessary," some players had entertained the idea of testing what constituted a "necessary situation."

However, after both Black Feather and Dark Fire members attempted to move, they all despondently gave up.

— The moment their butts left their seats, the rotting corpses in the aisle would turn their eyes towards them as if equipped with searchlights, creating a scene that sent shivers down their spines.

As night deepened, the players sat rigidly in their seats, surrounded by rotting corpses with heads bowed, seemingly asleep.

Qin Fei turned his face and quietly gazed out the window.

The train traveled through endless darkness, and the reflection of Qin Fei's face on the window glass gave him an eerie sense of unfamiliarity, as if it were no longer him but someone he had never met before.

Tonight, unless someone foolishly sought death, it should be a peaceful night.

But this did not bring any comfort.

The restriction of movement throughout the night would only intensify the competition among players tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon, the train would make its first stop at a real station.

Before then, all players would strive to gather information.

And the time left for them was just a few short hours during the day.

Thinking about tomorrow, Qin Fei felt a vague unease, as if the dark night was warning him.

Which station would the train stop at tomorrow?

What kind of strange tale awaited them at the "true destination"?

The last soul fragment of the pollution source might very well be hidden within that strange tale. Would everything end after passing through it?

End.

Leaving the strange world.

Gaining complete liberation.

This sounded like a beautiful dream, almost unreal.

Although Qin Fei had been entangled in the rule world for only a few months, he knew deep down that he had been here before and stayed for quite some time.

What had happened back then?

How did he escape the scenario, and why did he lose all memory of that period?

Countless chaotic questions crowded his mind, continuously assaulting his thoughts like waves crashing against rocks.

The young man's brows gradually furrowed.

"Do you want to sleep for a while?"

A cool hand suddenly covered Qin Fei's hand, and he turned to meet a pair of deep blue eyes, as vast as the sea.

The pollution source was looking at Qin Fei. Sitting beside him, He seemed to have isolated this corner into a small world separate from the rest of the train.

The rest of the carriage was filled with monsters, the air mixed with blood and stench, yet this corner remained peaceful, quiet, and fresh.

Qin Fei was slightly taken aback.

The scene before him evoked a sense of familiarity, as if a similar scenario had occurred countless times in a forgotten corner of his memory.

"It's fine; don't worry about me." Qin Fei shook his head.

Allowing himself to be engulfed by emotions was not something Qin Fei would do. It was better to focus on recalling where else on the train clues could be found.

The pollution source looked at him deeply and suddenly raised his hand, gesturing towards the aisle.

Qin Fei followed his gaze and noticed that the familiar attendant lady had appeared at the other end of the carriage.

The attendant lady was not afraid of the rotting corpses, and they instinctively made way for her as she passed.

She lifted her head, saw the pollution source, and her eyes brightened. "Sir, is there anything you need?"

"Can you give me a blanket?" the pollution source asked calmly. "If you have hot drinks, please bring one too."

"Certainly, sir." This time, the attendant lady carried a flashlight instead of a trolley. Soon after she agreed to the pollution source's request, an unfamiliar NPC arrived at Carriage No. 1, delivering the items requested.

Throughout the process, the other players in Carriage No. 1 acted as if blind, not even glancing in their direction.

Qin Fei lowered his eyelashes thoughtfully.

Though the pollution source did not explicitly say so, Qin Fei sensed that His abilities were growing stronger over time.

In previous scenarios, the pollution source always took great care to hide His presence.

Now, He could openly appear in live broadcasts and even interact with NPCs in front of countless viewers, transcending the rules of the scenario.

— For instance, Qin Fei noticed with a hint of jealousy that the attendant lady did not ask the pollution source for payment when He bought items.

This was a blatant provocation to the system.

Yet the system remained oblivious.

Qin Fei blinked, holding the blanket and hot cocoa, feeling as if he was not in a scenario but rather on a spring outing.

...

The first night on Train 444 passed without any major incidents, as expected.

As Qin Fei had anticipated, it turned out to be a peaceful night. The menacing gazes of the rotting corpses were enough to deter any player from daring to plunge into the horde in search of hidden clues, whose existence was still uncertain.

At 7 AM the next morning, the train slowly came to a stop, and the rotting corpses receded like a tide, moving outside the train.

Players scattered throughout the train compartments sprang up from their seats like rockets!

"Move, everyone move!" In Carriage 1, Cui Wenxuan urged the players from Dark Fire.

The same went for Black Feather; Xie Jingtian squeezed into the horde of rotting corpses the moment the train stopped, heading towards Carriage 6.

In his hand, he held the money they had collected in advance—the last bit of cash Black Feather had found before nightfall yesterday.

Due to Cen San Ya's foresight regarding the importance of food, Gala made a temporary decision to use all their money to exchange for food at the dining car.

The boxed meals for dinner and lunch were too expensive, but breakfast might be slightly cheaper.

About ten minutes later, Xie Jingtian returned to Carriage 1 with great excitement.

"I got them!" He ran up to Gala.

Gala was currently facing Qin Fei, studying a blue-and-white porcelain bottle they had found in the driver's cabin.

They had already thoroughly examined this bottle, and there was a pile of other bottles on the table, also collected from elsewhere.

The porcelain bottle was undoubtedly an important item, but no matter how they observed it, Qin Fei couldn't find anything unusual about it.

They were indeed ordinary porcelain bottles. Even if there were any special features, they would likely only become apparent when the strange tale's plot progressed to the appropriate point.

The source of contamination followed Qin Fei as usual, sitting at another table just one row away.

The others had left Carriage 1, heading elsewhere.

"I bought fifteen buns and five cups of soy milk," Xie Jingtian displayed his spoils on the table, a proud smile on his face. "I guess other teams probably found some clues related to the dining car; there were quite a few people lining up there this morning."

Although Xie Jingtian was far away, he ran fast and managed to get to the front of the queue.

"The vendor sold the buns to those in front of me for five yuan each; I was shocked! When it was my turn, I said, 'Are you robbing us?'"

Xie Jingtian recounted his experience earlier.

The dining car in Carriage 6 was indeed too dark. They could have directly taken the money, yet insisted on giving him a bun for free.

Xie Jingtian only had fifty yuan, so he decided to haggle with the vendor.

"Some people tried to bargain before me, but none succeeded," Xie Jingtian said, a bit embarrassed, touching his earlobe.

He glanced secretly at Qin Fei: "So I directly mentioned Xiao Qin."

Qin Fei raised an eyebrow in surprise: "?"

Xie Jingtian explained: "I said, why did you give others a discount last night but not now? Is that guy your relative?"

A huge black pot was thus placed on the NPC's head.

Qin Fei's lips twitched.

Xie Jingtian licked his lips: "I know it wasn't nice to say, but he really gave me a significant discount."

The dedicated NPC was unwilling to wear the hat of collusion and kickbacks.

Xie Jingtian successfully brought down the price of breakfast by invoking Qin Fei, but this action seemed to have put the vendor in a bad mood.

After selling to Xie Jingtian, the vendor packed up the steaming baskets on the table and disappeared.

Qin Fei: "..."

He finally understood why Xie Jingtian had run back so quickly.

If he had been slower, the players behind him might have been enraged and beaten him up.

Black Feather's breakfast purchase plan was successful, but it didn't bring a good start to their second day in the strange tale.

Throughout the entire morning, players from Black Feather who had dispersed to various carriages returned to Carriage 1 dejectedly, having found no valuable new clues.

This oppressive atmosphere wasn't confined to Carriage 1; the other carriages were similarly affected.

At noon, the dining car posted a sign for limited purchases.

Lu Cheng, responsible for gathering information, reported from the front: "Several teams got into fights."

Everyone had seen the bustling scene at the dining car in the morning, so players who hadn't found relevant rule cards started to think about alternatives.

This time, both Black Feather and Dark Fire managed to stay out of the fray, purely because they had no money left.

The disputes at the dining car at noon were not the only ones of the day; they marked the beginning of increasingly tense and chaotic conditions on the train.

For several hours after noon, the rotting corpses didn't board the train again, but the conflicts among the players escalated.

Unable to find new rule cards, the players focused their attention on each other.

"The Butterfly Guild has been trying to recruit players from smaller guilds, stirring up trouble everywhere," Lu Cheng frowned deeply.

Apart from the Butterfly Guild, other players were also cautiously testing each other, and factions gradually formed among the less than a hundred passengers on the train.

The chaos continued until 4 PM in the afternoon.

At four o'clock sharp, the announcement sounded within the vehicle.

Amidst the tense anticipation of countless players holding their breath, the train slowly came to a stop.