Chapter 650: Chapter 385: The World Wears People Down (Part 2)
Shu Wei only shook her head, her expression complicated.
If this had happened to her, it would’ve been a twisted kind of punishment; happening to Yu Yue, it just ended so muddily and inexplicably.
"Cold-hearted man."
...
The corpses were carried aside by the crew; for the scattered limbs, they tried to piece them back together as much as possible, but for those piles of mangled flesh, even the train could do nothing.
A few young people finally found the pile that belonged to them beside the mass of bodies.
Their wailing sounded like evil spirits.
Jiao Ting sat by a heap of junk, holding a wooden frame in his hands, staring dry-eyed at the wailing youths.
"Found them?"
Hearing Su Huan’s voice, Jiao Ting forced out a dry smile. "I’m not like them. I don’t have family, so when it all collapses, it collapses. My heart doesn’t hurt."
Su Huan knew he was talking about those young people.
Their luck was that their families were all up there, so they could cry; their misfortune was that their families were all up there, so they cried themselves hoarse.
Su Huan handed him a cigarette, but Jiao Ting only smiled and shook his head.
Su Huan was a little surprised. Out in the wild, there are only people who have no cigarettes, hardly anyone who doesn’t smoke. Even the decent gentlemen from before the end, in this world, can’t help but have one; smoking or not doesn’t make any difference anymore anyway.
The two of them, one standing, one sitting, chatted idly.
Mostly it was Jiao Ting talking and Su Huan listening.
The conductor didn’t like listening to stories, because he saw them every day.
What surprised him a bit was that before the apocalypse, Jiao Ting had been a college counselor who taught oil painting. When the end first came, his parents died; in the first month, his wife died; in the third month, his child starved to death.
At the time he was about to starve to death too, but was later saved by someone.
That man was the original leader of the Iron Wolf Corps, only that a few months ago that man also died, and Jiao Ting became the current leader of the Iron Wolf Corps.
The people around him gathered and scattered, scattered and gathered again.
It had only been a few months, but when he talked about it, it felt like many years had passed.
The oil painting in his hand was what he’d painted back when he was chasing his wife. The linen canvas was good quality; although it had been heavily smashed, only the frame was broken, the cloth was fine. The paint on it had gotten much dirtier, and the rubbing had worn the face beyond recognition.
"...Everyone thinks I’m this deep, devoted guy, taking my wife’s portrait everywhere I go. But there’s something I never told anyone—I can barely remember what she looks like anymore, hahaha."
The short, stocky man laughed dryly, like an old grandpa, not cheerful in the least.
In truth, he wasn’t even that old.
It was just that this world ground people down.
The young people had already cried themselves quiet; some had almost no reaction at all, rummaging through the junk pile. Who knew what good stuff they’d found—there were even smiles on their faces.
Sometime during this, the world around them had become more and more familiar to Su Huan.
There were more people who liked to laugh.
He Jie strode over, cursing through his teeth, "Those sons of bitches—over three thousand people, all dead, not a single one left alive."
Su Huan didn’t look at him; instead he asked Jiao Ting, "What are you planning to do next?"
"Don’t know... rebuild the Iron Wolf Corps, I guess? Anyway, we’ve got to keep living."
"That works. The train happens to be stopping here for a while."
He Jie looked thoughtfully over the field of ruins, lit a cigarette, and didn’t ask about what was going on with Qu Hang.
"Let’s leave early. Nothing worth clinging to here."
Jiao Ting urged.
He hadn’t forgotten that Su Huan had offended the armed train; he didn’t want this youngster to end up like him.
Su Huan only answered with a faint hum, neither saying he’d leave nor that he wouldn’t.
The cleanup went on till night. In truth there wasn’t that much to tidy up; the Iron Wolf Corps didn’t have many belongings. With the help of the Evolvers, what needed burning was burned, what needed burying was buried.
Only the conductor was nowhere to be seen.
Still, Hu Shuo and the others kept production running; the train slowly headed north, and Jiao Ting’s group walked along with it.
First they stayed one day on the corpse tide battlefield, clearing all the materials.
Then He Jie, unhurried, wiped out a pack of Evolution Beasts trying to steal the spoils.
On the third day, they reached the floating land of the East City Association.
The core members had long fled; only a handful of dazed survivors remained. He Jie thought this place was pretty good and could serve as the Iron Wolf Corps’ new home, plus there were plenty of supplies up there; they didn’t need to start from scratch.
Jiao Ting accepted this suggestion, and the Iron Wolf Corps settled on this neighbor’s turf a dozen kilometers away.
Five days later, on another gray, hazy morning, Jiao Ting was on the floating land leading the Scavengers in building houses, when he suddenly saw a figure leap up from the edge of the floating land. Without using any tools, he simply jumped on the spot, clearing the twenty-plus-meter height.
It was the conductor who had been missing for a full five days.
Su Huan was holding a round, hefty object in his hand, a dense killing aura clinging to him.
Only when he got closer did Jiao Ting see that it was a human head.
The head’s expression was slightly twisted, the pale face still frozen in incredulous terror.
Su Huan casually tossed the head into the pit Jiao Ting had just dug, then sat on a log nearby and, like a magician, pulled two cans of beer from his coat, throwing one to Jiao Ting.
The latter didn’t refuse; a genuine smile appeared on his dark face.
The two of them said nothing, just watched the sunrise on the horizon, sipping their beer in small mouthfuls, neither speaking a word.
The edges of the clouds were scorched by invisible flames into the thinnest golden lines, as fine as cracks drawn on raw rice paper with the sharpest needle tip.
Beautiful—maybe even more beautiful than before the end.
There was no endless beer, and no feast that never ended. Just as Su Huan was about to say something, a dull thud sounded behind him.
"Thought I put it in the wrong place."
Those long, sharp eyes narrowed to slits, his smile curving.
He pinned the rolling beer bottle under his foot, tore open the metal shell, took out the green dates inside and swallowed them in two bites, then the conductor gave a single bound and jumped off the floating land.
...
Roughly a hundred kilometers due north of the East City Association’s floating land, an elite convoy was tearing across the shattered earth at 160 km/h. On some especially bad stretches of road, the off-road vehicles almost had all four wheels off the ground, practically skimming the surface.
Yet the convoy always just managed to avoid the abandoned buildings and obstacles, showcasing the drivers’ excellent control.
In the front passenger seat, a man in a suit impatiently cracked his knuckles.
The snapping of joints was louder than the tires pounding the ground.
In the back, Wei Dong clutched the grab handle, almost being shaken to the point of throwing up, but he still clenched his teeth, looking like someone under torture, until the familiar scenery outside the window came into view and he finally looked a bit better.
"No wonder Lord Lian’s the Boss. At our speed, we’ll be there in no time!"
"You’re sure what you saw was the train and not some other vehicle, right?"
Lian Jin’s voice was very low, like the prelude to a storm.
But the more it sounded like that, the more excited Wei Dong felt. The angrier Donghuang Heavy Industry was, the better—as for who that anger was directed at, it couldn’t be him, could it?
The angrier Lian Jin was, the more miserable those people running the train would be!
And the train was so far from the provincial capital, plus Donghuang Heavy Industry seemed so busy now, they wouldn’t waste a lot of time on the train. So in the end, who would the train fall to?
Thinking of this, the ambition in Wei Dong’s eyes burned bright, and he hurried to fan the flames.
But he didn’t see that with his back to him, Lian Jin’s gaze was growing darker and darker, almost on the verge of exploding.
It was only Yang Ruoyu, driving beside them, who reminded him that they were almost there and to hold on a bit longer, that made him force his temper back down.
Recently, two Tier Three Evolution Beasts had been discovered near the provincial capital. Although they hadn’t formed a large group, they still put huge pressure on Donghuang Heavy Industry. Lord Lian’s intention was to let the train and Deep Blue Data tangle with each other and not get involved in that mess, as long as they could take down those two Tier Three Evolution Beasts.
Then he would have a shot at Tier Three!
By then, whether he wanted helpers or profits, he could advance or retreat as he pleased.
But at this critical juncture, this bringer of bad luck, Wei Dong, showed up, spicing things up by saying he’d formed a mortal feud with the armed train—and even dragged Donghuang Heavy Industry into it!
In an instant, all of Lord Lian’s plans were thrown into chaos, and he could only hurriedly send Lian Jin out to set things straight.
