Pei Ran noticed some other patterns.
Shige Ya seemed to dress meticulously, had followers, and came from a wealthy family. He likely didn’t need to earn a living, yet his painting skills were extremely proficient. He had even published a comic collection, suggesting a genuine love for comics. After becoming a fusion entity, his special ability turned out to be drawing.
The original host graduated from a purely technical major like Intelligent Systems Engineering in university, but in their spare time, they secretly wrote a few lines of poetry in their memo app. The manifestation of their special ability was writing.
As for Ai Xia, her hand seals were so proficient that after obtaining the green light, she could use them to flip over an excavator.
It seemed that everyone’s special abilities were somewhat related to their usual hobbies.
After performing a series of dazzling hand seals, Ai Xia finally interlocked her fingers, forming the same seal she had started with.
She pointed into the distance with this seal, symbolically firing a “shot.”
Pei Ran understood—she was saying that only this seal was useful now.
The ability could grow gradually, so there was no rush.
Ai Xia pointed at herself, wagged her finger, then pointed at Pei Ran and tapped her own head.
She was saying that she used hand seals to launch attacks, so did Pei Ran just need to think with her head?
After all, Pei Ran hadn’t moved at all, yet the mechanical monster had been sent flying.
That wasn’t wrong, so Pei Ran nodded.
She pulled up Ai Xia’s virtual screen and drew a mouth on it, adding a zigzagging wavy line between the lips.
W guessed, “A zipper? You want to remind her not to casually tell others about her special ability?”
“Yes,” Pei Ran praised. “Your comprehension is getting better and better.”
W humbly replied, “It’s just that I’m getting more accustomed to your style.”
Pei Ran went through the trouble of drawing a zipper instead of simply putting an “X” over the mouth because she wasn’t sure if symbols like an “X” would be recognized as text by whatever mysterious force was responsible for the attacks. It wasn’t worth risking her life over.
As it turned out, Ai Xia adapted to Pei Ran’s style even faster.
She immediately nodded and made a motion of zipping her lips shut.
Ai Xia then pointed to her mouth, gestured as if a lot of words were spilling out, and pointed at Pei Ran.
She meant: It’s only because it’s you that I’m saying so much. I wouldn’t do this with others.
She then turned her head and pointed to the metal ball on the control panel, her face full of curiosity. She had probably noticed that Pei Ran had been carrying this ball and found it intriguing.
Pei Ran remained calm, reached out, and slapped the back of the ball with a pa sound.
The lights turned on brightly.
W: “…”
W, with its lights on, coldly remarked, “Is it strange that you’re carrying me around? Isn’t she also carrying a pot of white crane taro?”
“That’s different,” Pei Ran said. “The flower is ornamental. When it blooms, it’ll probably look quite beautiful. It’s like keeping a cat—a kitten isn’t particularly useful, but it’s cute.”
What she didn’t say out loud was that his shabby ball couldn’t bloom, wasn’t cute, and lacked aesthetic appeal. Its only justification was its practicality.
Like providing light.
W fell silent for a moment, then suddenly turned off its lights on its own.
Turns out, even artificial intelligence can throw a tantrum.
Suddenly, there was a knock knock knock from behind—someone was gently tapping on the door of the cockpit.
Ai Xia immediately closed the virtual screen she was drawing on and went to open the door.
It was the group of college students they had encountered at the ticket gate.
One of the tall boys rotated the virtual screen on his wristband to show Ai Xia and Pei Ran.
They had come prepared. On the screen, they had already drawn:
Two tracks extending forward, with a square next to the tracks and a signpost, clearly representing a station. The boy used his hand to mimic a train, moving it to the station and stopping.
W spoke up: “Look. The two tracks he drew converge at a single point in the distance. If the station’s edge lines were extended, they would also meet at the same point. This is called ‘one-point perspective.’”
“So what if it’s perspective or not,” Pei Ran said. “It still just means stopping.”
The tall boy’s meaning was easy to understand—he wanted to get off.
W explained: “At the current speed, we’ll reach the next station in a few minutes. It’s a small town near Yehai City, called Xingta. This boy is also a student at Yehai University, named Jin Hejun, majoring in finance, a senior. His home isn’t in Xingta, but he probably plans to get off here and walk the rest of the way home.”
The train had escaped the burning Yehai City and reached the suburbs. Someone wanted to get off.
Of course, that was fine. Pei Ran nodded at them, and they, reassured, quietly stepped back and closed the door for Pei Ran and Ai Xia.
Sure enough, after just two or three minutes, a small town appeared ahead.
The situation in the town was much better than in Yehai City. From a distance, the black smoke was sparse, with only a few scattered fires.
The sightseeing station for Yehai No. 7 was located on the outskirts of the town, open-air and seemingly untouched by the chaos.
Pei Ran pulled the lever to slow the train down. Yehai No. 7 gradually rolled into the station.
The platform was empty, eerily quiet, with no one in sight.
Once the train came to a complete stop, Pei Ran, just like before, picked up the wrench, opened the cockpit door, stepped onto the footboard, and leaned halfway out to strike the side of the train with the wrench.
Clang—
Clang—
A signal to let everyone know they had arrived.
W asked, “Do you think being a train conductor is kind of fun?”
Pei Ran replied, “I don’t.”
W patiently called her out: “I’ve observed that your eyebrows are raised, and your forehead is relaxed, which indicates you’re in a rather cheerful mood.”
Pei Ran stayed silent. To be honest, driving the train, transporting a whole carload of people, and letting them disembark at their stops was indeed quite enjoyable.
The doors of the carriages behind them opened one after another, and many people, families in tow, began to step off the train.
W explained, “Many of the people on board are residents of Yehai City who boarded Yehai No. 7 because of the fire in the city.”
Now that they had escaped the city, there was no need to continue riding the train further.
The group of college students were the first to get off. Only Jin Hejun carried a large backpack, while the others didn’t have any bags, suggesting they were just there to see their friend off.
Jin Hejun hugged each of his friends goodbye, waved at them, and then even waved at Pei Ran from a distance before turning around and striding toward the station exit with the others who had disembarked.
He hadn’t gone far when his steps suddenly slowed. He turned his head, looking toward the direction of the exit, and then came to a complete stop.
After a moment, he suddenly bent over.
The backpack on his shoulder slid down and hit the ground with a heavy thud, the sound piercing through the silence of the platform.
Everyone turned to look at him, utterly shocked.
Jin Hejun ignored his backpack. Curled up like a shrimp, he raised both hands and frantically clawed at his face, his fingers digging in so hard that his knuckles turned white.
He was breathing heavily, his body suddenly arching backward. His fingers clawed into his own eyes.
Blood streamed down.
Whether it was because his mouth was sealed with tape or because he was relying on sheer willpower, he didn’t make a sound.
At that moment, someone in the crowd exiting the station suddenly raised their arm in panic, silently pointing toward the direction of the station exit.
Everyone, whether on the train or on the platform, followed in panic, their eyes darting toward the direction of the exit.
Pei Ran also looked toward the station exit.
The exit had a row of ticket gates, square and unassuming, showing no signs of being fusion entities. The streets outside were quiet, the roads gray, the buildings gray, the sky gray—silent as a lifeless gray city.
Pei Ran asked W, “What’s over there?”
The metal ball was still on the control panel in the driver’s seat. W replied, “My angle is limited; I can’t see what you’re looking at.”
He paused, then suddenly said, “But Pei Ran, take a closer look at the buildings outside.”
From the station’s vantage point, Xingta Town didn’t have many tall buildings, certainly nothing like the skyscrapers of Yehai City. Most were only ten to twenty stories high and not densely packed.
Suddenly, Pei Ran understood.
Every building within sight was subtly writhing.
A few years ago, while collecting supplies on the surface, she had encountered a rare day of intense sunlight. The scorching sun had baked the earth, and the hot air had shimmered like water, making the abandoned city’s buildings seem alive, gently undulating in the heat.
Now, even though the sky was overcast, with no trace of the sun and a cold wind blowing, the buildings in the distance were writhing just like they had on that sweltering day, as if they had come to life.
The crowd exiting the station noticed this eerie phenomenon. After a moment of stunned silence, they turned and fled back in a panic.
In the midst of the chaos, Jin Hejun remained crouched on the ground, clutching his eyes in pain.
Two of his friends—a girl in a red knitted hat and a boy wearing a navy-blue scarf—rushed over, grabbed his arms, and dragged him back.
Jin Hejun’s eyes were injured, but he seemed to regain some clarity. Stumbling, he followed them back to the train door. His companions, terrified, scrambled to push him back onto the train.
At that moment, Pei Ran spotted Yulianka, whom she hadn’t seen in a while.
He got off from one of the rear carriages and ran to the door of a forward carriage.
There, an elderly woman was struggling to climb the high step in her panic. Yulianka rushed over, supporting her by the waist and helping her up. He then turned around and handed a child up to the train.
Seeing that everyone was back on board, he helped close the doors and then sprinted toward the next carriage.
As he ran, the hem of his white coat fluttered, stark and blinding.
People hurried back onto the train as quickly as they could. The platform emptied, and Pei Ran returned to the driver’s seat. She pushed the lever, and Yehai No. 7, at full power, sped away from the station.
There were actually giant fusion entities as large as buildings.
This world was becoming more and more insane.
The train raced forward, gradually leaving Xingta’s colossal fusion entities behind. Pei Ran stared at the tracks ahead, at the vanishing point of W’s “one-point perspective,” and remained silent.
W said in her ear, “Pei Ran, I think something was off about what just happened.”
Pei Ran replied in her mind, “Yes. I feel the same.”
W continued, “I suspect that someone was tampering with the entrance of Yehai No. 7 earlier, using some kind of special ability to deliberately send people to the ticket gates to test what would happen when they passed through the fusion entity. That person is still on Yehai No. 7.”
His reasoning aligned perfectly with hers.
Pei Ran responded, “Right. It happened again just now.”
Earlier, Jin Hejun had slowed his steps, turned his head in confusion, and acted exactly like the boy who had been split in two at the ticket gate, as well as the two others who had been drawn to the gates.
Pei Ran said, “It feels like hypnosis.”
W asked, “The question is, what is the purpose of this hypnosis?”
At the entrance of Yehai No. 7, the motive for hypnotizing others was easy to explain—the person wanted to enter the station without taking the risk themselves, so they pushed others into the danger zone.
But here, why did they make Jin Hejun gouge out his own eyes?
If the goal was to warn everyone that the buildings outside the station had become fusion entities and were extremely dangerous, there was no need for such a brutal method.
Pei Ran pondered, “I can’t think of any other reason. It seems like someone doesn’t want people to leave the train.”
Such a harsh scare tactic was undeniably effective.
W said, “Possibly. But what benefit would keeping everyone on the train, not letting anyone disembark, bring to this person?”
Pei Ran didn’t know either.
She said, “W, I’ve noticed that the abilities of fusion entities are usually related to their personal hobbies. Can you check if any of the passengers on board have hobbies that might connect to things like hypnosis or controlling others?”
She thought for a moment, then added, “I know you can access their profiles, but can you find information about their hobbies?”
W replied, “Although the citizen database doesn’t include that kind of information, I might be able to find clues by scanning their personal histories. I’ll need to scan their faces one by one.”
Pei Ran stood up, grabbed the strap attached to the metal ball, and slung it over her shoulder.
“I’ll take you through the carriages. I also want to ask Jin Hejun what he saw and why he gouged out his own eyes.”
W wasn’t optimistic. “Right now, we can’t speak or write. Jin Hejun’s eyes are injured, so he can’t see you gesturing or drawing. How do you plan to communicate with him?”
Pei Ran answered honestly, “I don’t know.”
W: “…”
Well, they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
Ai Xia had been standing at the cockpit door, peering back at Xingta Town and the massive fusion entities fading into the distance.
Pei Ran patted her back and pointed to the driver’s seat.
Ai Xia’s eyes immediately widened, brightening with excitement. Her expression clearly said: Really? I can drive the train??
Everyone seemed to think being a train conductor was fun.
Pei Ran walked over, touched the control handle, and gave Ai Xia a questioning look: Do you know how to drive it?
Ai Xia nodded immediately.
She sat down in the driver’s seat, quickly formed a hand seal with her hands, and then gave a thumbs-up, meaning: Her hand seals were working again.
If she could flip anything with a hand seal, handing the train over to her was the best choice at the moment. Pei Ran pointed toward the back of the train, picked up her backpack, and pulled open the door leading to the next carriage.
Between the two carriages was a short, swaying connecting passage. Once through it, they entered the next passenger carriage.
The passenger carriage was filled with four-person seating arrangements, with two seats facing each other and a small table in between. The seats were covered with thin blue patterned seat covers, which didn’t look particularly comfortable.
In this era of flying hovercars, sitting on a train and slowly moving along the ground had become a novelty. Some people even paid for tickets specifically to experience this kind of discomfort.
Grandmother Jiang was sitting in the first set of seats. On the small table in front of her was Ai Xia’s lush white crane taro plant.
She was leaning in the corner between the seatback and the carriage wall, her eyes closed, seemingly asleep. A thick blanket covered her legs, and she held a fluffy, bulging bag—probably one of those self-heating types.
Next to Grandmother Jiang was Ai Xia’s large bag, which had a noticeably deflated section, likely where the blanket had been stored.
Ai Xia wasn’t just carrying a pot of soil; she was also carrying things to keep her grandmother warm.
Pei Ran didn’t disturb her and continued walking through the carriage.
The carriage wasn’t crowded, with passengers sitting sparsely. For safety, everyone kept their distance, sitting only with their companions.
The next carriage, Carriage No. 2, was the same.
After what had just happened, it was clear that the world outside the train was no longer safe. Terrifying monsters were everywhere, and many who had planned to disembark now had no choice but to stay in their seats, staring out the windows with anxious eyes.
Pei Ran’s gaze was suddenly drawn to a young man.
He was sitting by the window, and the thing covering his mouth was particularly strange.
During this time when speaking wasn’t allowed, many people had come up with various methods to seal their mouths—using tape, clips, scarves, masks, medical patches, or even stuffing their cheeks with something. Some, like Ai Xia, had gotten creative, holding a small stick between their teeth.
This young man was different. He had a small ball in his mouth.
The ball was attached to straps that looped around the back of his head, securing it in place. It looked quite professional, with adjustable holes in the straps and small breathing holes in the ball itself.
Pei Ran stared at the boy in surprise and asked W, “What is this equipment? It looks so professional.”
The boy’s face flushed red instantly under her gaze, and he turned his eyes away.
W seemed a bit helpless: “Pei Ran, stop staring at him.”
Pei Ran didn’t understand. “Why?”
W: “That’s a ball gag. It is indeed a professional device used in certain scenarios. To me, it’s really no different from a face mask—but I was afraid being too blunt might lower your opinion of me.”
Pei Ran asked, “What kind of scenarios?”
W was speechless, momentarily choked for words.
He said nothing, and Pei Ran suddenly had an epiphany on her own.
She couldn’t help but glance once more at the boy and the little ball in his mouth, sighing, “W, your knowledge is really extensive.”
W choked again, then spat out a few words: “No shit. I’m an AI.”