Chapter 1: The Unclaimed Train Plays the Role of an Engineer...
"Dear passengers, boarding for train K0027 bound for No Man's Land is about to begin. Please board..."
The broadcast suddenly blared, startling Jiang Yang.
The surrounding passengers didn't notice anything unusual, and the hall remained a chaotic and noisy place until the cold, mechanical voice repeated its urging again, finally confirming that the voice was coming right next to his ear.
I couldn't help but shudder.
The glass doors of gate A6 opened automatically to both sides, and the cold wind outside seemed to find an outlet, instantly blowing black mist into the entire hall.
The howling wind grew stronger, and Jiang Yang squinted. The dark opening of the ticket gate made it difficult to see clearly.
In an instant, he was the only one left in the hall.
Jiang Yang tightened his backpack on his shoulder and strode toward the ticket gate.
"Verification successful, please proceed quickly..."
The ticket to the no man's land suddenly appeared in Jiang Yang's backpack.
At first, Jiang Yang thought it was a prank by one of the patients in the sanatorium when he wasn't paying attention, but when it reappeared on the table after being thrown twice, Jiang Yang finally felt a little incredulous.
【Starting Station - Nanshi South Station】
【Final Destination - No Man's Land】
Then, as the search bar showed "No such place found," Jiang Yang felt as if his head had been pricked by needles. After the intense pain subsided, all he could recall was a blurry figure.
This is the third year since Jiang Yang lost his memory after the car accident.
He suddenly remembered that he seemed to... have a boyfriend.
As Jiang Yang slowly moved down the escalator to the platform, he couldn't help but pause. Apart from a dim yellow light hanging in the center of the platform, the surrounding environment, including the train, was shrouded in heavy darkness, and he couldn't help but feel nervous.
The steps behind him were swallowed up by darkness, one by one; at this point, he had no way back.
As if aware of Jiang Yang's concerns, the logo on the car was no longer hidden by the night, and "K0027" was revealed.
It was the car he wanted to ride in.
Two sudden beeping sounds rang out from my body.
Jiang Yang realized that the sound was coming from his shirt pocket. He tentatively reached in and found an old-fashioned cell phone that had appeared in his pocket. He pressed the power button, and a blue panel magically appeared in front of him.
There was nothing else; only two lines of text slowly appeared on the panel.
You are an experienced train engineer. The train has been damaged and is currently unable to operate normally. Please find the cause of the damage and complete the repair work.
Putting aside the various supernatural phenomena at present, Jiang Yang felt that he had probably entered into a large-scale role-playing game, so the first step was to play his role as an engineer well.
I boarded the train through the front door of carriage 09 and managed to navigate the carriages with the dim light of my phone screen. Fortunately, after only one carriage, I found a flashlight in the train attendant's rest room.
The lens shattered into two cracks. Standing at the junction of the two carriages and shining it into one of them, the refracted light barely penetrated to the middle of the carriage before being blocked, making it impossible to see completely. However, it was enough for Jiang Yang to notice the thick layer of dust covering the windows and seats.
It doesn't look like it was recently parked here.
Pointing the flashlight downwards, the beam of light gradually approached, revealing drag marks on the ground, crisscrossing and appearing quite messy.
I crouched down to take a closer look, and as my fingers brushed against the underside of the left-side seat, the hairs on my body instantly stood on end.
The shoe prints were layered on the dust, as if they had been left recently.
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Yang moved his backpack to hang in front of him, took out the small knife he had prepared in advance and held it horizontally in front of him before getting up and continuing forward.
The trail stopped in front of the train conductor's rest room in car 02. Further ahead was roughly the driver's cab, with a blue curtain hanging in the middle, blocking Jiang Yang's view forward.
Turning around, I peered through the glass window of the lounge, squinting inside. Unlike the 08 car, the interior seemed to be filled with an impenetrable black mist.
As I raised my flashlight to get a closer look, the black mist seemed to find an outlet, coalescing into a ball that crashed heavily against the glass.
"I... damn it..."
Jiang Yang was so frightened that her breath caught in her throat. She hurriedly turned off the flashlight. Without the light source, the black mist bumped around a few more times before slowly coming to a stop.
He could see clearly that inside was a row of densely packed, sharp fangs. He could imagine that if it weren't for the glass, he would probably be torn to shreds in no time when the thing pounced on him.
Jiang Yang began to doubt whether this role-playing was really as he had imagined.
After the collision, the black mist dissipated considerably. Mustering up the courage, I went closer to take a look and saw a hard card protruding from the table.
A blue panel popped up to answer Jiang Yang's questions at the right time.
The Fool
The 0 position in a Tarot deck.
This is also one of the few photos that Jiang Yang is familiar with.
I first saw this sign in the office of the sanatorium director.
After waking up from the car accident, Jiang Yang worked at the sanatorium, doing volunteer work and occasionally helping the director organize documents. That day, she happened to be in the office.
Tarot cards flew between the dean's nimble fingers. Jiang Yang glanced at them a few more times out of curiosity, and then the dean's fair and slender hands turned the cards face down and handed them to him.
"Pick one."
Jiang Yang pushed it forward a little more, then pouted, "Let's go with this one."
The first one on the far left, I took it out and handed it back.
“Fool,” the dean chuckled softly.
"Are you mocking me?" Jiang Yang was not happy.
"Jiang Yang, your future is full of infinite possibilities," the voice said gently yet powerfully.
"Jiang Yang, your future is full of endless possibilities."
This was also said by his boyfriend who abandoned him.
The figure in my memory has faded away, leaving only the Fool card lying on the ground.
For a time, Jiang Yang even misunderstood whether her feelings for the dean had crossed a certain boundary in a normal relationship. But once she put herself in that situation, all that remained was a strong sense of resistance.
So...maybe I really do have a boyfriend.
In order to find him and to recover her lost memories, Jiang Yang decides to follow the directions on her ticket and head to the no-man's-land.
Pulling his thoughts back, Jiang Yang pondered how to obtain the Fool's card from the black fog.
Nowadays, the only light source inside a car is a single beam of light, so it is essential to brighten the interior.
Moreover, power supply is absolutely essential for the operation of trains.
The generator car is usually located in the driver's cab. Jiang Yang let out a heavy sigh, held the knife horizontally in front of him again, and walked behind the blue curtain.
A campervan has been added in front of the rest area. Lifting the curtain reveals several small huts with bunk beds on the right, while the left side is left with only a narrow path less than a meter wide.
I carefully made my way through the narrow gaps, cautiously shining my flashlight inside each room I passed, until I reached the second to last room.
The beam of light shone on the wall, and a gust of wind suddenly blew in from outside the window. A faint stain of clothing appeared in the light and shadow, and Jiang Yang's steps came to an abrupt halt. Even her breathing became much lighter.
3!
He counted silently in his mind.
2!
Take off your backpack.
1!
It was thrown in heavily.
The sound of a backpack hitting the ground came from inside the house. Leaning forward slightly, he forcefully stabbed the knife in, and shone the flashlight in the direction of the impact.
It was a work uniform hanging by the window.
The wind blew, making her clothes flutter, but Jiang Yang couldn't relax.
It should be noted that there was only this one gust of wind in the entire train carriage.
I walked over and picked up the bag, patting it with one hand. But my attention was suddenly drawn to the notebook that had fallen to the ground. I could barely make out the contents inside.
【□□□□□□□□】
[First time □□□]
...
【□□□ Storage 483】
...
[152nd time 535 (crossed out) 415? Disappeared?]
Jiang Yang couldn't understand the data, so he quickly flipped to the back.
The disorganized words conveyed the writer's excited emotions, and Jiang Yang picked out only three sentences that were relatively clear.
Borderlands doesn't need useless things.
We've been abandoned.
Traitor! Traitor! There is a traitor among us!
What followed was a whole page of scribbled characters, so I simply gave up, closed it, and stuffed it into my bag, planning to find another opportunity to continue deciphering it.
With less than two meters to go before reaching the driver's cab, Jiang Yang quickened his pace, but the cab door remained closed.
I mentally prepared myself and looked inside. Everything seemed normal. I pressed the handle to open the door. I don't know how long it had been through wind and rain, but when I pushed it open, it made a rusty, creaking sound that echoed in the empty carriage.
The power supply box's wires had been deliberately cut and were scattered on the ground. Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow as if remembering something, returned to the small room where he had just found the laptop, and knelt down to search under the bed.
After rummaging around for a while, he pulled out a small box, opened it, and rummaged through it; the tools were fairly complete.
He suddenly remembered what he had seen in his notebook before.
【K00□□ Project□】
Although the handwriting was blurry, it was still possible to identify the person.
The blue panel pops up again.
[Congratulations on finally finding the tools left behind by the train engineer after overcoming numerous difficulties. Passengers who had been lingering on the platform have heard the news and are now queuing up.]
Passengers will be boarding in ten minutes, please don't keep them waiting!
[Countdown: 600s]
they...
A timer appeared above their heads, and rustling sounds came from outside the car. More than a hundred dark figures surged towards the various doors, instantly creating a chaotic scene at the entrance.
Damn it, I was sitting with them while I was getting my car repaired!
Jiang Yang was very reluctant, but without hesitation, he picked up his toolbox and ran towards the driver's seat.
Overlapping with Jiang Yang's footsteps were the slightly heavy footsteps from the carriage behind him, which were not obvious at first.
It wasn't until his appearance caused quite a commotion outside the car that Jiang Yang turned his head as if sensing something, and he roughly knew where the fresh footprints on the ground came from.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, Jiang Yang returned to the driver's seat, picked up a handy tool from the toolbox, clipped it to the door handle, pulled it a couple of times to make sure it wouldn't open, and then squatted down to examine the tangled mess of wires on the ground.
Jiang Yang had only helped the gatekeeper connect the power strip when he was at the sanatorium. He was nervous when he tried to do it alone, and a layer of sweat appeared on his forehead.
[Countdown: 500s]
The shadow had already reached the door of the driver's cab. The black mist that squeezed in through the gap climbed up to Jiang Yang's ankles, and the bone-chilling cold seeped into the loose hem of his shirt, climbing up his half-arched spine.
[Countdown: 400s]
A series of roars came from outside the carriage. Jiang Yang noticed that the shadow was retreating. Then, the iron chain dug into his flesh, and the roars were filled with pain and resentment.
As the dragging noise faded into the distance, he forced back a sliver of reason and quickened his pace.
[Countdown: 300s]
Jiang Yang quickly stripped the copper wire, wrapped it with the corresponding colors, and then covered it with tape. To prevent electric leakage, he wrapped it several more times. He looked up.
[Countdown: 200s]
After confirming the color again, Jiang Yang stood up, leaning on the iron door of the power supply box, and pressed the green power button forcefully.
The lights inside the carriage flickered continuously, then gradually stabilized.
[Countdown: 100s]
The train lit up with white light, and Jiang Yang rushed to the lounge. On the ground, there were still fragments left from the fight between the shadowy figures. A crack tore open from the front and back of the carriage, gradually overlapping around Jiang Yang and instantly swallowing him up.
[Trial observation is in progress...]
[Trial observation link successful]
[This trial is a reserve agent assessment competition - an untimed trial]
[Trial clearance condition: Train arrives at the station]
[Winning condition for the assessment match: A final judgment will be held, and rankings will be based on the judgment score]
The panel kept updating, the train slowly started moving, and Jiang Yang held onto the inner wall of the carriage to keep his balance.
"Dear passengers, welcome aboard this train. To ensure a pleasant journey, please note the following..."
"First, please keep your ticket with you at all times..."
"Secondly, carriages 02-04 and 08-09 are hard-seat carriages, carriage 05 is a hard-sleeper carriage, and carriage 07 is a soft-sleeper carriage. To upgrade your sleeper ticket, please go to the train attendant's rest room in carriage 02 or 08 to find a train attendant. This train has two train attendants..."
The broadcasts were monotonous and empty.
Jiang Yang keenly noticed that the train rest area...
Looking up and around, I noticed that the blue curtains had now covered the entire train rest area as well.
The countdown above my head was stuck at one minute. The black fog in the lounge through the transparent window had disappeared. I took a breath and pressed the handle to pull it outward.
The countdown restarted, and Jiang Yang realized he only had one minute left.
It wasn't hard to find, but it took a lot of effort to find it stuck in the gap.
The moment I got it, I ignored the notification sound in my ear and quickly closed the door.
There is a red button on the left side of the door frame, with the label below it reading "Press to call a flight attendant".
Jiang Yang had no recollection of whether she had seen this on the original train.
[Countdown: 0]
【Hello player, congratulations on obtaining The Fool. Would you like to bind it?】
The card surface gleamed with a bright gold, just like in my dream.
The broadcast continues.
Fourth, if you encounter darkness, please do not panic, and do not move around inside the carriage...
Finally, I wish you a pleasant journey.
A note from the author:
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