Chapter 1: Train Conductor Logbook
Two railway tracks were polished to a shine, gleaming brightly under the sunlight.
A train roared past, and the “crowds” wandering in the fields and villages came swarming, running and jumping.
Among them, in several carriages, a group of passengers seemed infected by this “enthusiasm,” sticking their bodies out the windows one by one, shouting loudly in response.
In the remaining carriages, although packed tightly with people, there was cold indifference without a single sound.
……
“There are 1226 people on this train, 670 men and 556 women.”
“But only 2 people can live in the front of the train, and the remaining 1224 people can only live in the rear carriages.”
“You say you want to join us, why?”
Su Huan had a faint smile on his face, scrutinizing the girl in front of him without restraint.
The girl wore a gray T-shirt, small size with a cinched waist, and below a pair of dark blue jeans that hugged her leg curves perfectly, the pant legs flaring open at the ankles like a simple and elegant little flower.
The girl calmly analyzed, “I’m a mechanical and electronic engineering major, bachelor’s and master’s continuous program, currently in graduate school. My father is a railway engineer. If you need repairs or modifications to the train, I can help, and I exercise regularly, so I’m healthy and won’t hold you back.”
Su Huan was quite surprised in his heart, not expecting real talent among these people. Though a bit green, his armored train plan absolutely needed her.
“You can say your name now.”
“Yu Jing”
“Alright, classmate Yu, you’re hired.”
“Wait!” The girl interrupted Su Huan, “I have one condition.”
Su Huan frowned; he didn’t like others bargaining with him, but given that she was talent, he held back.
“Condition?”
“Take one person.” Yu Jing dragged a woman out from the rear carriage behind her; the woman had worry between her brows and looked at him anxiously.
“My mom is a nurse and can handle some simple illnesses.”
Su Huan’s eyes brightened.
The woman in front of him was seventy percent similar to Yu Jing, essentially the mature version of the young girl, wearing a beige knitwear, long hair cascading over her rounded shoulders, with a gentle temperament. Her pale lips parted slightly, her soft voice carrying a shy tremor.
“Mr. Su…”
Very pretty, but not much help for the plan.
But he was, after all, a man tempered by the apocalypse; his bottom line was much lower than ordinary people.
“No problem, classmate Yu. Come to my room tonight; I want to test your professional knowledge.”
Yu Jing raised an eyebrow; though she felt this person’s speech was a bit odd, she didn’t overthink it.
But the woman, experienced in the ways of the world, naturally saw something wrong. Holding her daughter’s arm, her tone carried a plea, “She’s still a child…”
Su Huan nodded to show understanding, “Then come with her tonight.”
“Next.”
The crowd buzzed for a moment, and a chubby, greasy middle-aged man squeezed out from inside.
Su Huan instantly lost his appetite and waved his hand, “Forget it, that’s it for today. Go back.”
The middle-aged man’s eyes widened, shouting, “Why does it end when it’s my turn? You’ve only interviewed five people total!”
Thinking of going back to squeeze with a crowd in a cramped space, and possibly being eaten by zombies from the rear carriages at any time, the middle-aged man’s tone rose uncontrollably, getting more agitated.
“Out of five people, you picked two good-looking ones. What interview? Just pick all the good-looking women directly!”
The people behind also grew restless.
“Just say what conditions you want!”
“Do you want money or something? I have a gold necklace here.”
“I still have a little food; can you let me live in the front…”
“I can sleep with you tonight!”
The smiling expression on Su Huan’s face vanished, suddenly turning ice-cold.
He held up one finger to his lips, saying coldly, “I’ll give you one more chance: get back there.”
The middle-aged man felt the face was already torn, plus the pressure since the apocalypse, completely broke down, pointing at Su Huan and cursing, “You bastard, why do you occupy the front of the train, squeezing over a thousand of us in the back? You deserve to die!”
“And you two bitches, this bastard just wants to sleep with you two. You’ve delivered yourselves and are still smug. Once he’s done playing, he’ll feed you both to the zombies. With so many women on this train, do you think you can stay safe for a few days—”
The middle-aged man’s voice stopped abruptly with a hole appearing on his forehead.
His bloodshot eyes still held anger and malice.
“Bang”
The corpse fell to the ground, but no blood flowed from the wound.
The crowd originally squeezed in the corridor between the two carriages suddenly retreated a big step.
Feeling the slight burning sensation from his fingertip, Su Huan said indifferently, “Drag him back.”
The crowd hesitated, but under Su Huan’s intimidating power, two people still came out to drag the corpse back.
Su Huan stepped forward and locked the passageway door, looking at the faces full of impotent anger behind the glass, revealing a malicious smile.
He took out a notebook and wrote on it.
“Apocalypse first week, people are still very obedient.”
The notebook page folded down, revealing several bold large characters above.
“Train Conductor Logbook”.
……
Su Huan turned his head and saw no change in Yu Jing’s expression, inevitably thinking higher of her.
“The last private room is yours. Don’t come out until I call you. There’s a pack of biscuits and a bottle of purified water inside; that’s your food for today.”
Su Huan said indifferently.
The woman hesitated to speak, then was pulled by Yu Jing into the soft sleeper compartment, and with a click, the room door was locked from inside.
Su Huan covered the glass on the passageway door and walked forward along the corridor to the deluxe soft sleeper carriage.
Just as he pushed open the compartment door.
“Bang!”
A muffled thud came from the window in front of him.
A large patch of scarlet bloodstain spread on the window, and the black shadow was flung off by the high-speed train.
This horrifying scene didn’t faze Su Huan at all. To others, this was the apocalypse first week, but to him, it was four years and one week into the apocalypse.
The first thing he did after rebirth wasn’t gathering supplies or building a safe house.
It was buying a ticket for the global retro train sightseeing tour.
Because only he knew that the land under his feet would continuously heat up over the next month, reaching a terrifying over 100 degrees.
Water sources dry up, society collapses, plus a massive zombie virus outbreak, turning cities instantly into hell. (Note: Regional, not global high temperature)
Surviving humans, discovering lower temperatures in the north, began fleeing north in droves.
In his previous life, he escaped with nine deaths and one life, then faced all kinds of terrifying heavenly calamities, struggling four years before dying in despair.
So after rebirth, the first thing he had to do was head north.
Looking at the sweat gradually beading on his arm, and at the thermometer hanging on the wall, the red line had reached 27°C.
Su Huan calmly took out his logbook.
Flipped to the latest page.
“December 16, early winter, temperature 23°C-27°C”
Scattered words were written above, several circled emphatically: [Vehicle][Sixteen days][Resources][Team]…
One month later over 100 degrees, but that doesn’t mean people can live until then.
The most suitable temperature for humans is 22°C; fluctuations up or down cause discomfort.
Over 35°C in humid conditions, over 50°C in dry conditions, and there’s risk of death.
So the real time left for him was only sixteen days.
Seven days had already passed, nine days left.
And three thousand kilometers to escape the high-temperature zone.
The train speed was 120 km/h at full speed; two days to escape the high-temperature zone.
But other areas were equally dire.
Purified water, food, medicine, shelter, clothing…
Every resource extremely hard to obtain.
So the escape vehicle needed not only strong defense, ultra-long range, but also extreme load capacity.
This ruled out household vehicles and airplanes.
After screening, only the train fit.
In the early apocalypse, even this long-out-of-production sightseeing train could provide strong shelter.
Once talent and supplies were in place later, armoring the train.
It would become a mobile fortress.
The train selected by Su Huan was an old-style electric transmission diesel locomotive, simply put, burning oil to generate electricity.
The entire train had forty-two carriages: two for luggage, forty for passengers. Right next to the front of the train was the VIP dining car, then a two-story sightseeing carriage, two deluxe sleepers, ten standard soft sleepers, twenty-six hard seats.
Currently, Su Huan directly occupied the front five, driving all the rest to the back.
But this was only temporary.
These people, including the zombies pulled on the train, were all part of his plan.
And these large panes of glass on the carriages were great for sightseeing, and could handle the current zombie strength.
But against later corpse kings and mutated beasts, tempered glass was no different from biscuits.
So he planned to armor this train, tear through zombie tides, and flee north all the way.
Imagine: outside, thunderstorms flashing, floods raging, a corpse king with half its body sheared off could only futilely leave long bloodstains on the armored train’s steel armor, roaring futilely, watching them sit in the warm, comfortable train, eating hotpot and singing, roaring away.
That feeling was even better than sprinting on the overpass on a night of pouring rain.
……
“About time to eat.”
After simply recording today’s events in the notebook, Su Huan put down the pen.
This was the habit he kept from four years in the apocalypse, using records to combat the increasingly collapsing sense of time.
He locked the room door and went to the dining car ahead.
The dining car was very quiet, only the muffled thuds when the train wheels passed over the railway track joints.
Warm sunlight sprinkled on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, the green plant in the porcelain vase trembling slightly in the vibration.
Outside the car window, scattered zombies were startled by the sound, gathering into a zombie horde on both sides of the railway track, howling as they chased the train.
Then slamming headfirst into the carriage metal skin.
“Bang!”
Su Huan closed the refrigerator door.
He placed the last green pepper on the cutting board, deliberately rinsing his hands with water to awaken his sense of touch, feeling the cool water slide through his fingers; Su Huan felt a decadent pleasure of luxury.
Such precious vegetables could only bring full joy when personally prepared and finally eaten.
After prepping the ingredients, Su Huan casually tapped the induction cooker.
The unplugged induction cooker emitted a crisp “ding” sound.
This was the core ability of the energizer, lv1 general energy conversion, currently converting his body’s energy into light, heat, electricity, etc., at 10% efficiency.
He had used a heat energy trick earlier to kill that middle-aged man.
Normally, at this stage, energizers could only activate small electrical appliances and electronic products, but Su Huan had four years of experience and could use some advanced small skills.
Like—point and kill.
This was the name given by the rear passengers; weird, but very effective.
Last time, a woman incited her brother, husband, seven or eight others, and some smart alecks wanting to seize train control, launching a night assault.
They used tools to brutally smash the carriage bridge door in five or six minutes.
Then queued up like idiots in the narrow carriage to die.
By the third death, Su Huan could see the front ones didn’t want to advance, but were pushed up by those behind, then point-killed by Su Huan one by one. He killed over a dozen in a row; the ones pushed up cried like pigs and dogs.
That night, the door stayed open.
Unfortunately, no one crossed those dozen corpses all night.
The next day, half the people had run.
Some came back at night; by the new place, numbers recovered to the start.
New idiots and self-proclaimed “leaders” appeared again.
Restarting this boring cycle.
At first, Su Huan explained the rules, but people turned over too fast; capable ones preferred to believe in themselves and get off to survive alone.
Only these new boarders, and cowards unwilling to face the outside apocalypse alone but unable to kill, stayed.
These cowards even formed a special tacit understanding: pushing forward the hot-blooded, ambitious ones to provoke Su Huan, then getting them killed by Su Huan.
Of course, no one said outright that they would do this.
But that’s exactly what they did.
Su Huan really looked down on these guys, so he stopped bothering with rules.
At first, he killed seriously; later, more perfunctorily.
The incited hot-blooded idiots decreased.
Strangers, who would fight to the death for others?
……
Su Huan’s ability was also the core of the armored train plan.
The train’s energy source.
Of course, that was for later; now the fuel tank was full, enough time for him to grow to drive the train.
Dry the moisture in the pot, turn on the range hood, pour oil… boom, the range hood emitted a low hum.
Trees on both sides of the railway track blocked the sunlight, casting flickering light on Su Huan’s face.
Add seasoning, add ingredients; the sizzle of stir-frying drowned out the roars outside.
Su Huan looked up in surprise; a ashen-faced lucky one was coincidentally stuck outside the car window—no whites in the eyes, entire eyeballs a dull reddish-black, mouth agape, as if wanting to eat him through the glass.
Su Huan smiled amiably, “Share with all who see.”
Casually sliding open the car window, he stuffed the remaining packaging bags and such into the zombie’s mouth.
Zombie: “＼（〇_ｏ）／”
The off-balance zombie hadn’t even closed its teeth before being flung off by the roaring train.
As its body was crushed by the steel wheels, faint speech could still be heard.
“Remember to eat well…”
【Purely fictional world view work, no allusions whatsoever; chronology, place names, and all settings entirely fictional. Do not bring into reality! Do not bring into reality!】
