It was Ai Xia.
She hadn’t replied to the message because she had already arrived and had spotted Pei Ran from a distance.
Ai Xia was wearing a thick brown coat, with a white scarf covering her mouth, and carrying a large, fully stuffed backpack.
Finally, Pei Ran understood what the green additions to the little figure pedaling furiously in the emoji Ai Xia had sent were.
Hanging from the side of Ai Xia’s backpack was a woven net bag, inside of which was the potted plant she kept in her office.
Pei Ran was silent for a moment. In this apocalyptic world, this girl had traveled such a long distance, laboriously carrying a pot of soil.
W also noticed it. “Spathiphyllum, also known as peace lily. A perennial evergreen herb in the Araceae family.”
Pei Ran was slightly surprised: it looked like just a bunch of green leaves, but it could actually bloom.
There were no flowers in the bunker.
There were special planting zones underground, but the artificial light there consumed energy, which was precious and limited. It was all used to grow useful crops, not flowers.
Even if some of the crops in the planting zones bloomed, ordinary people couldn’t enter and wouldn’t be able to see them.
Growing flowers, especially ones with no practical use, was a luxury.
Pei Ran wondered what Ai Xia’s plant looked like when it bloomed.
Beside Ai Xia was a silver-haired woman, likely in her sixties or seventies. She wore a thick beige sweater under a black padded coat and a charming knitted hat. Despite her age, her posture was still upright.
This must be Ai Xia’s grandmother.
She followed Ai Xia’s gaze and, with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, raised her arm and waved at Pei Ran.
Pei Ran quickly waved back and jumped down from the footboard.
Ai Xia had already run over, grabbing Pei Ran’s arm and pulling down the scarf covering her mouth.
Pei Ran noticed that Ai Xia was using a special method to prevent herself from speaking—
Ai Xia had a small wooden stick horizontally between her teeth, with ribbons tied to both ends, hanging around her neck. (TL: Nezuko what are you doing here?)
By biting the stick, she could avoid making any noise in her daily activities. When she needed to drink or eat, she could simply release the stick, which would hang in front of her chest, ensuring it wouldn’t get lost or dirty. It was a convenient and reusable solution.
Pei Ran had read about this in books before. In ancient times, during military marches, soldiers would sometimes “gag the horses and have the men hold sticks in their mouths.” The so-called “holding sticks” meant soldiers would keep a stick-like object horizontally in their mouths to ensure silence during the march.
Ai Xia’s idea of “holding the stick” was quite ingenious.
As soon as Ai Xia arrived, she energetically raised both hands.
Her eyes were bright, her expression determined, as she pointed to her mouth, then her feet, then here, then there.
Pei Ran silently watched her.
Ai Xia, with her extraordinary courage, had clearly invented her own set of sign language and was demonstrating it to others.
Thankfully, she was still alive—it seemed she really did have nine lives.
This indicated that, in the current dormant state, while writing in the air wasn’t possible, gestural communication was still allowed. If only everyone knew sign language.
The only problem was that Ai Xia’s pointing and gesturing were completely incomprehensible.
This was some next-level communication barrier.
Pei Ran stared at her movements, trying to decipher them: Ai Xia was pointing to many different parts of her body, as if she had assigned each part a letter of the alphabet.
In situations where verbal communication was impossible, the alphabet system had to be intuitive.
So, what did the mouth represent? M or Z? And what about the nose?
As Pei Ran focused on decoding, Ai Xia suddenly made a “pause” gesture.
She must have realized her system was too hard to understand and decided to switch to a new code.
This time, she still held her hands up in front of her, but her movements were much smaller. She used her left hand to tap different joints on her right fingers, and then her right hand to tap the joints on her left fingers.
W suddenly spoke up: “So, this is your friend who sends you kissy and huggy emojis? Her name is Ai Xia?”
Pei Ran, while still trying to figure out Ai Xia’s new code system, replied, “Yes. And you don’t need to tell me how much tax she paid last year or whether her career is successful.”
“Alright,” W agreed, “but…”
Pei Ran: “…”
W continued, “But you’ll definitely want to hear about her grandmother’s career. Her grandmother, Jiang Zhaoxue, was an engineer before she retired. I just looked up her resume, and she personally participated in the upgrade and modification of Yehai No. 7’s internal combustion engine system back in the day.”
Pei Ran: !!!
No wonder they knew about this antique train in Yehai.
Now, there was no need for Ai Xia to keep gesturing wildly. Pei Ran darted onto the footboard and reached out to help Jiang Zhaoxue up.
Ai Xia: ???
Ai Xia: Did Pei Ran actually… completely understand all that??
The set of homemade sign language she had been working on for the past two days—Pei Ran had grasped it so quickly and thoroughly.
Amazing.
Ai Xia gave Pei Ran an earnest thumbs-up, then followed her onto the footboard.
However, the cramped driver’s cab was packed with people.
The three of them were completely blocked by the crowd, with no room to squeeze in.
Jiang Zhaoxue was determined to get a look at the control panel and tried to push past the person blocking the doorway. The person glanced back at her, saw a petite elderly woman, and turned away with an indifferent expression.
Pei Ran paused for a moment, then extended her mechanical arm and tapped the person on the shoulder.
The person turned back lazily, his gaze first landing on the black mechanical hand on his shoulder. He froze.
He looked up and saw that it was Pei Ran who had tapped him.
The scene of her using this very hand to disembowel the monster at the ticket gate was still fresh in his mind. The mixture of machinery and human remains she had pulled out was enough to make anyone nauseous.
This time, the person moved aside quickly, making space for the three of them to enter.
Yulianka turned around and also saw Pei Ran. He immediately reached out and tapped his companions, signaling them to make way.
Finally, Pei Ran managed to squeeze through with Ai Xia and her grandmother to the driver’s control panel.
Kirill was still hammering at the panel, growing increasingly frustrated. When he saw Pei Ran approaching again, he immediately frowned, his expression clearly saying: What are you doing here, crowding this already cramped space?
Jiang Zhaoxue gently pushed Kirill aside and leaned over to inspect the panel. Seeing the dents left by his hammering, she glanced up at Kirill.
For some reason, Kirill felt a pang of guilt under the old woman’s gaze.
Ai Xia set down her large backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a compact toolkit. Inside, various components and tools were neatly arranged.
Jiang Zhaoxue rummaged through the toolkit and picked out a small flathead screwdriver, only about two or three inches long.
Kirill immediately raised an eyebrow—
He had already searched carefully earlier and found no screws on the control panel. If there had been any, he would have removed them by now.
Jiang Zhaoxue, holding the screwdriver, didn’t look for screws. Instead, she inserted the tip of the screwdriver into the seam along the edge of the control panel.
Kirill became even more dismissive.
Of course, he had already tried that. The panel was installed extremely securely, and there was no way to pry it open. Besides, the old woman was using such a tiny screwdriver—there was no way she could generate enough force to lift the panel. It was wishful thinking.
Jiang Zhaoxue gently pried at one spot, then moved to another.
She inserted the screwdriver into a different seam, gave it a slight twist, and then moved to yet another spot, prying again.
With a soft click, the entire metal panel of the control console lifted up.
Kirill’s eyes widened, and he quickly leaned in to look. Only then did he notice that there were three hidden latches along the edges of the panel, securing it firmly to the console. From the outside, they were completely invisible.
He glanced at the old woman in surprise, wondering how she had managed to find these invisible latches.
To Jiang Zhaoxue, removing the panel was no big deal.
She moved the panel aside and began working on the burned-out wires and components inside.
After studying them for a moment, she turned to Pei Ran and Ai Xia and nodded.
Pei Ran understood: the problem wasn’t serious, and it could be fixed.
Now that she knew it could be repaired, Pei Ran felt relieved.
She turned around and immediately pointed toward the outside of the train, directing her gesture at Kirill and the others.
With so many people crammed in here, it was too dangerous. Jiang Zhaoxue was a treasure—whether Yehai No. 7 could move or not now depended entirely on her. They could die, but Jiang Zhaoxue absolutely could not.
Kirill hesitated, but Yulianka reached out and tugged at his companions, opening the door from the driver’s cab to the rear carriages.
The group of them filed out in a hurry.
With the driver’s cab now free of unnecessary people, it felt much more spacious, and Jiang Zhaoxue began working in earnest.
Pei Ran watched for a while, then tapped Ai Xia, pointed to her feet, then pointed to herself and gestured toward the outside.
Ai Xia understood: Pei Ran wanted her to stay here and help her grandmother repair the train while Pei Ran went outside to handle something. She nodded immediately.
Seeing that Ai Xia understood, Pei Ran leaned out of the driver’s cab.
The smoke pouring down from the entrance had grown thicker, its acrid smell strong enough to choke a person. The platform was shrouded in gray smoke, denser than fog, making it impossible to see far. Pei Ran vaguely noticed that Yulianka and the others were organizing the people on the platform to board the train.
That was the right idea—the train carriages were enclosed, at least keeping the choking smoke out.
In a matter of moments, the platform was empty.
Pei Ran waited a little longer before slipping along the wall, using the heavy smoke as cover, and quietly made her way up the escalator back to the entrance.
Above ground, the fire had grown to terrifying proportions.
Every building within sight was ablaze, thick black smoke billowing into the sky, completely blotting it out. Even though it was still afternoon, the darkness made it feel like night had fallen early.
The only light came from the raging flames. The streets were also burning, igniting the scattered paper debris everywhere. The crackling of flames filled the air, and the heat was so intense it burned her cheeks. There was no sign of anyone on the streets.
Yehai had become a sea of fire.
There was no way back now. Returning to the train was the only option.
Pei Ran tightened the scarf over her nose and made her way through the thick smoke to the disemboweled ticket gate’s metal box. She bent down and rummaged through it.
The green light inside the ticket gate was gone.
Pei Ran decided to use her mechanical arm to pry open the adjacent metal box and inspect it as well.
She discovered that the metal boxes were connected underground by threaded pipes thicker than a leg. However, there was still no trace of the green light.
Pei Ran closed the lid of the box she had opened and, without hesitation, moved on to the next one. She went through an entire row of metal boxes but found no sign of the green light.
After killing the three deranged pipeworker fusion entities last time, the green light had stopped moving and obediently stayed at the pipe’s opening. Unless, like Shige Ye’s green light, it had flown off on its own.
But another possibility was more likely.
W spoke up: “Someone stole your spoils of war?”
He was thinking the same thing as her.
“Yeah,” Pei Ran replied. “Someone else got the prize.”
The one who stole the green light might very well be the person who could hypnotize others.