Even Yulianka’s eye color had dimmed, his pupils gray and hazy, as if he had cataracts. His expression seemed devoid of reason, no longer resembling a human but more like a deranged fusion entity.
He stared into the driver’s cabin.
In his pale gray eyes, a flash of green light suddenly appeared.
Engineer Jiang, sitting in the driver’s seat, was startled by his ghostly face and instinctively leaned back. Ai Xia, standing beside her, did not retreat but suddenly turned around.
Her expression was blank, her pupils pitch black, her hands still forming hand seals, and her gaze fixed on Pei Ran.
As soon as Pei Ran saw Ai Xia’s abnormal expression, she immediately clutched the metal ball and darted toward the rear compartment.
With a loud bang, the door of the driver’s cabin behind where Pei Ran had been standing flew off.
Murky water rushed into the driver’s cabin.
Yulianka, pressed against the glass, saw that Ai Xia had missed Pei Ran and suddenly slid down the vehicle into the turbid water below.
After this strike, Ai Xia’s expression immediately returned to normal. She stared blankly at the blown-open cabin door and the surging water, then quickly turned to look for the culprit outside the window.
W, wrapped in clothing and unable to see outside, sensed something was wrong and asked Pei Ran, “What happened?”
Pei Ran had already figured it out.
If she had only suspected before, she was now certain.
“It’s Yulianka,” she said. “He just controlled Ai Xia and used hand seals to attack me. W, you lost the bet.”
It seemed Yulianka had a strange ability—not any power of his own, but the ability to control others who had powers.
When Inaya had stood in the compartment aisle before, staring straight at Pei Ran, ready to hypnotize her, her vacant expression and dark, hollow pupils were exactly the same as Ai Xia’s just now.
Fortunately, Ai Xia had just formed hand seals once, and the second attempt was far less effective than the first. Otherwise, Pei Ran would have been done for.
The driver’s cabin was at the front of the vehicle, the highest point, but the water rushing in still reached their thighs. The lower halves of all three were submerged in the cold, murky water, though no one had time to care about that now.
The water level was still rising rapidly, as if determined to drown everyone.
There was no time to waste. As Pei Ran spoke to W in her mind, she fixed her gaze on the wall ahead and activated the green light.
In that instant, countless possibilities flashed through Pei Ran’s mind.
She could only write two characters.
If, as in the past, she wrote “explode,” “tear open,” or “blow open,” she wondered if it would be like Ai Xia’s situation—after dealing with one wall, she might find another wall behind it.
If she included the character for “wall” in the two characters, specifying the target as the wall, she wondered if it would work better, affecting all the walls.
This was a dam, and she wasn’t sure if calling this structure a “wall” was appropriate.
Two characters were far too few to describe things precisely; she could only make do.
The green light moved swiftly, writing two characters:
[Wall None]
Pei Ran drew a period.
Yet nothing happened. The concrete wall remained intact.
Making something disappear out of thin air seemed like a powerful ability, and Green Light One wasn’t capable of it yet.
Pei Ran quickly erased the characters and rewrote:
[Wall Open.]
Engineer Jiang had mentioned that when Yehai No. 7 entered the Tanggu Dam along the tracks, this opening would eerily open and close on its own. She hoped it would now open like a door.
The gray-white concrete wall showed no reaction.
Pei Ran immediately rewrote:
[Wall Split.]
After writing these two characters, something felt off.
If the wall could split open, at least the surging murky water would have somewhere to go.
As soon as she finished the period, a deafening roar echoed through the air.
The high wall in front, which Ai Xia’s hand seal had already blasted a hole through, instantly split apart. From bottom to top, it extended upward to an invisible dome, as if something had torn it open, splitting it directly in two.
It wasn’t just this wall that split—the one behind it also divided in half.
Looking ahead, there were layer upon layer of identical gray-white high walls, stacked tightly together like an onion, at least five or six layers deep. But now, every single wall was forcibly torn apart, splitting to either side.
Pei Ran had seen the structural diagram of the Tanggu Dam that W had sent her. This was definitely not the dam’s original structure. After becoming a fusion entity, its interior had undergone eerie changes.
Only the wall Pei Ran had been staring at had split open. The high walls on either side of the train showed no reaction.
Large waves of murky water churned and surged forward through the massive fissure, and the water in the driver’s cabin receded instantly.
The situation turned out better than Pei Ran had expected. Not only did the water recede, but the tracks on the ground were also revealed ahead where the high walls had been torn open.
At the end of the split layers of concrete high walls, a dim, yellowish glow hung in the air.
It was the moon.
Without needing Pei Ran’s prompt, Engineer Jiang immediately pushed the throttle.
The front of the train had just been submerged in water. She hoped the circuits weren’t damaged and that the train could still move.
Pei Ran silently prayed in her heart: Move. Move.
Yehai No. 7 lived up to expectations. As soon as the throttle was pushed, it accelerated instantly, rushing through the layers of split concrete high walls.
The entire train was silent, but everyone was cheering inwardly.
The bizarre high walls were left behind, but Engineer Jiang’s expression remained grave. After driving a short distance, she slammed on the brakes and brought the train to an abrupt stop.
In the rear compartments, people opened the doors to drain the water that had flooded in. Pei Ran leaned out from the driver’s cabin door to look outside.
Behind Yehai No. 7 was indeed the deformed Tanggu Dam. Its main body still sat on the Yala River, but a tentacle-like extension had stretched out and slanted onto the shore.
From the dam’s structural diagram, the tentacle-like part on the shore was originally supposed to be slightly curved and folded. Now, however, it had shifted position, fully extended, blocking Yehai No. 7’s tracks.
This was where the train had just drilled through.
Now, a large gash had been torn open in the tentacle, but the dam itself showed no reaction, lying motionless in the darkness.
Ahead of the train, under the faint moonlight, they could see a Y-shaped switch not far away—the same one they had passed while reversing earlier.
Ai Xia also leaned out to look and pointed: [Is this the switch?]
Pei Ran replied: [It should be.]
She pulled the metal ball out from her coat and asked W, “Is this the switch you mentioned?”
The metal ball’s eyes rotated as it looked. “Yes, this is it. We’ve backed up to it. The left leads to the old circular track, which loops back to Yehai. The right one is the new track leading toward Black Well.”
Tonight, the train had taken the left circular track, and the switch was still set to the left. It needed to be switched to the right.
Pei Ran asked W in her mind: “How should we switch this track? Can we manually switch it here?”
W replied: “No.”
He explained: “Yehai No. 7 is a vintage sightseeing train, and its tracks are old ones. Its control system is completely different from the rest of the Federation’s trains. When the new sightseeing route was built, an electric switch was specially installed for it, along with a small control room. You need to press a button in the control room to send a signal, and the mechanical part of the switch will receive it and automatically switch the track.”
This is the era of hover vehicles; trains no longer run on tracks. Yet, they specially built something like this for Yehai No. 7.
W said, “The old-fashioned control room built for it is even a listed tourist attraction. Whenever the train passes by, staff in vintage uniforms open the door and wave to the train…”
He was an information fanatic and tended to ramble. Pei Ran cut straight to the point:
“So where is the control room?”
“According to the map I queried, the control room should now be…”
W paused.
“…inside the dam.”
The Tanggu Dam had come to life, shifting the position of its shore tentacle. Not only had it swallowed Yehai No. 7’s tracks, but it had also devoured its control room.
While Pei Ran was conversing with W in her mind, Engineer Jiang approached and patted her and Ai Xia on the shoulders, gesturing toward the rear of the train.
She also knew where the control room was. Earlier, while reversing, they had continued backing up after passing the switch, trying to park the train next to the control room, only to end up inside the dam.
W said, “Based on the distance on the map, the control room should be just behind where we stopped earlier.”
Fine. They had just managed to get out, and now they had to go back in.
“Alright,” Pei Ran decided. “I’ll leave you with Ai Xia. You two stay on the train. I’ll go back into the dam once more to find the control room and switch the track.”
W calmly rejected her plan. “I’m going with you.”
“No,” Pei Ran said. “If the dam floods again, I can’t guarantee you won’t short-circuit.”
“The control room might be complicated. You’ll need me.”
W paused, then suddenly slipped into his natural language mode, level ten.
He said lazily, “Besides, I’m an artificial intelligence. The only reason I’m putting in so much effort to go to Black Well with you is for the sake of human interests. If they don’t even care, then short-circuiting doesn’t matter to me either.”
He had been acting unusually all night, like he was drunk.
Pei Ran earnestly tried to reason with him. “You might not care, but I do. I’m still counting on you for my medicine.”
The drunk version of W suddenly became stubborn.
He said, “If you don’t take me in, you won’t get your medicine.”
Pei Ran: “…”
Even artificial intelligence could be unreasonable.
Pei Ran relented. “Fine. Since you’re so determined, I’ll take you to commit suicide.”
As Pei Ran continued her mental conversation with the seemingly deranged W, she gestured to Ai Xia, pointing behind them and mimicking the action of switching the track.
Ai Xia, who also understood the direction of the control room inside the dam, nodded in comprehension.
She immediately pointed to herself and then to the rear, indicating she wanted to come along.
Pei Ran shook her head, pointing at Ai Xia and then at the train beneath their feet.
If Pei Ran left, someone had to stay and watch over Yehai No. 7, and Ai Xia was the best choice.
There was another consideration: Yulianka could control Ai Xia. If they encountered him again and he made Ai Xia attack her once more, it would be unbearable.
Pei Ran also had something to explain to Ai Xia.
She tapped her knuckles: [Be careful of that doctor. He can control your abilities and make you attack others.]
Ai Xia nodded. She had likely already figured this out when she was forced to attack Pei Ran earlier.
Pei Ran took a wrench from Engineer Jiang’s small toolbox and handed it to Ai Xia, continuing to tap her knuckles: [If you see the switch move, knock three times on the compartment wall. That way, I’ll know the switch has been set, and I can come back.]
Ai Xia took the wrench and nodded solemnly.
Tang Dao and several other passengers had gathered near the driver’s cabin, gesturing and seemingly asking why the train had stopped again.
He and Ai Xia—one who knew Morse code, the other who used self-created sign language—couldn’t understand each other’s systems.
Without the ability to speak or write, communication became difficult and inefficient.
Pei Ran didn’t have time to explain. She put her coat back on, left her backpack behind, and slung the metal ball over her shoulder before jumping off the train.
Her lower half, soaked from the water, was wet up to her thighs, dripping continuously. Her shoes were completely soaked, squelching with every step, and her coat wasn’t much better, damp from the water splashed throughout the compartment.
Now, the cold wind from the wilderness outside hit her, making the situation even more delightful.
Her nose itched, and Pei Ran felt a sneeze coming.
Coughing was safe, but she wasn’t sure about sneezing. She didn’t want to risk her life experimenting with it, so she pressed her finger hard against her philtrum, forcing the sneeze back.
“Ah—choo!”
Suddenly, a sneeze came from behind her. Pei Ran was startled and immediately turned around.
It was Tang Dao. He was also half-soaked and had accidentally sneezed, leaving him stunned.
His sneeze caused chaos. Ai Xia reacted quickly. The driver’s cabin was too small, so she grabbed Engineer Jiang and jumped off the train. Others who had followed Tang Dao also scrambled to hide in the rear compartments.
Thankfully, after three quiet seconds, no explosion occurred. Tang Dao was still alive.
After brushing with death, Tang Dao’s face turned pale.
Sneezing, like coughing, was safe. Pei Ran felt a bit relieved.
Under the night sky, the Xipu Plain stretched out in silence, with a crescent moon hanging on the horizon. The broad surface of the Yala River shimmered faintly in the darkness.
Not far away, the main body of the Tanggu Dam stood dark and imposing across the river, its lights completely extinguished. It resembled a tall, wide fortress, its high walls dividing the massive water level difference between the upstream and downstream.
Fortunately, the main body of the dam hadn’t moved yet, still holding back the 15 billion tons of water in the reservoir.
W suggested, “We should go check the switch first.”
Pei Ran understood his meaning: if the switch had been damaged during the earlier attacks, they needed to find a way to repair it.
The switch wasn’t far ahead of the train. Pei Ran approached it, circled around, and W carefully observed it before concluding:
“It doesn’t seem to be affected. It should still work.”
That left only the task of switching the track back to its normal position.
Pei Ran, with the metal ball slung across her shoulder, ran along the tracks toward the rear.
Everyone on the train watched her silently from the windows. Though they didn’t know what she was doing, they understood that the sudden stop and her running back meant she was undertaking something crucial.
The gaping crack in the dam’s tentacle, like a dark, gaping mouth, soon swallowed Pei Ran’s figure.
Inside the crack.
Without the train’s lights, the interior of the dam was pitch black. The ground, however, was dry, as the water had already drained out through the crack.
Pei Ran patted the metal ball hanging at her side, turning on its light.
W sighed, “You could have just asked me to turn on the light.”
Pei Ran glanced around and casually replied, “But that wouldn’t be as fun.”
She just had to give it a good pat.
W: “…”
Pei Ran asked, “Will your energy run out? Can you make the light brighter?”
“It’s just for lighting. Of course, that’s not a problem. You can make it as bright as you want.”
“Alright, then make it brighter.”
Pei Ran slapped the back of the metal ball’s “head” again.
W: “…”
W was speechless: “Does slapping it make me brighter?”
Even as he said this, he cooperated fully, brightening the light the moment her hand slapped down.