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Chapter 355: Chapter 355: Makers of History

Chen Xuan suddenly realized.

No wonder they didn’t dare to send anyone to the fifth floor to repair the water purification system.

Doesn’t this mean that all the shelters built in subway stations are actually under threat from large nano-living bodies?

"What if it climbs up?" Little Pigeon asked fearfully.

"Hahaha... don’t worry, it only moves along the tracks, it can’t reach the floors above the tracks," Mizuko reassured, "We’re also trying other methods to avoid the tracks and reach the fifth floor, like digging tunnels."

Ryan added in agreement, "Actually, as long as we ignore it, it’s as if it doesn’t exist. There’s even a program at Sha River Station called ’Guess the Train’: lying next to the stairs between the third and fourth floors, you can closely watch the true form of the ghost train and bet on its appearance time and passengers. The closest guess earns credit points."

"Passengers?" Chen Xuan frowned, "Who dares to ride it?"

Zhuang Yu, Ryan, and Mizuko exchanged glances.

"Haven’t you seen those killed by the large nano-living bodies?" Ryan finally said, "Unlike small ones, they use some of the deceased as reserve food, hanging them on themselves like dried meat... the passengers we’re referring to are these."

Chen Xuan suddenly recalled the corpses dangling from that gigantic leg — they swayed like cocoons in the sandstorm.

"Ugh..." Little Pigeon showed a nauseated expression.

"Ahem, I personally detest such programs," Ryan coughed twice, hastily adding, "It’s utterly disrespectful to the dead and should be strictly prohibited by the leader!"

The other two nodded repeatedly.

But Chen Xuan could tell that only Zhuang Yu genuinely rejected it.

"Can you tell me about the five masters? Besides the ghost train, what else is there?" Jiang Siqi asked with great interest.

"Of course... this is information every Searcher must know." He counted on his fingers, "They are the Lushan Radio Station to the north, the Doomsday Chariot to the south, the Yulong Dredger to the east, the Kirin Nuclear Power Plant to the west, and the ghost train in the center."

"Wow!" Jiang Siqi couldn’t help but exclaim, "They sound amazing."

"Of course... once a nano-living body becomes large, its strength grows exponentially. With the size of these masters, even exhausting the weapons of every stronghold wouldn’t be enough to cause fatal damage to them."

"Isn’t the Celestial Patrol included?"

"There are six in the five masters, this is common knowledge." Wang Baihu replied to his companion.

But seeing everyone’s eyes on him, he suddenly felt a bit nervous, "Uh... isn’t that so?"

"Of course not, the Celestial Patrol is in a different league," Zhuang Yu replied, "It’s far too large, not on the same level as other nano-living bodies. I’ve heard... people on the space station can see it directly, as if a huge mountain has sprouted up on Earth without reason."

"Space station?" Chen Xuan immediately became alert, "It’s not called the Crystal Palace, right?"

The three shook their heads in unison.

"It seems to have no name."

"I only know it was built by the Dimensional Limit Mechanism to serve as a gateway to the Moon base."

As long as it wasn’t called the Crystal Palace, Chen Xuan felt slightly relieved.

"A nano-living body as large as the Celestial Patrol is terrifying," Honglian intentionally feigned a worried expression, "I wonder if there are such super nano-living bodies elsewhere..."

"That I don’t know," Ryan said, "But it seems unlikely... after all, we’ve never heard any related reports. Besides, most cities in this world were destroyed by war, and a ruined place is less likely to have a nano-bug outbreak."

"Yeah..." Zhuang Yu looked pensive, "When I was a child, my family used to say Jiang City was the safest place in the world, but who would have thought the Celestial Patrol would emerge there."

"Jiang City the safest?" Chen Xuan couldn’t associate these words.

It’s not even considered a first-tier city domestically.

Plus, with the Mechanism’s misconducts, several Ability User crime incidents had dragged the city’s reputation to the bottom; many residents left after the New Year and never returned to Jiang City.

"Yeah... because heroes drove the Mechanism away!" Mizuko said, her tone suddenly rising several degrees, "I wouldn’t believe it if history didn’t teach it — this used to be one of the main strongholds of the Dimensional Limit Mechanism!"

"Indeed!" Ryan nodded repeatedly, "If the Mechanism hadn’t left, their war with the Evangelical Association would have first affected Jiang City, the whole city would have suffered, the neighboring city is the best example."

"Neighboring city?"

"My hometown," Mizuko sighed, "After the Mechanism withdrew from Jiang City, they moved the Asia-Pacific department to Higashi Sakura City, which then took hundreds of nuclear hits, the entire city leveled."

Chen Xuan didn’t know what to think for a moment.

The others felt the same.

But from each other’s eyes, they caught glimpses of shock.

If the current Jiang City felt too unfamiliar to allow them to form a direct emotional connection... then this part of history was different. Everyone present was a participant in these events, people like Honglian, Wang Baihu, were even members of the Mechanism... Whether they took the initiative or were forced to accept it, for the first time everyone strongly felt they were "creators of history."

...

In the following half month, Chen Xuan and the Honglian squad basically stationed themselves at the Sha River shelter.

Only after it was nightfall here would they return in batches to the past Jiang City. The flow of time in both places was not completely synchronized. Once everyone left the future, time there would accelerate considerably, as if the future was sprinting away. Only when Chen Xuan himself was in the future did the time flow approach a one-to-one ratio.

Although the principle was unknown, it didn’t prevent everyone from summarizing based on experience: Chen Xuan was the key person. To reduce exposure risk, he had to stay in Sha River Station as much as possible.

As for the others, even if they were away all day, not many would miss them.

The result of the ability test spread rapidly, making Chen Xuan a celebrity in the shelter within days. Now, wherever he went, he could see people’s eyes filled with awe or curiosity. Some called him "Super Kid," others "Brother Three-Nine," which left Chen Xuan amused and helpless.

The benefits were just as he expected, in that merely playing dumb made people eagerly share with him the information he wanted to know.

Even if these pieces of information were just some old, well-known historical stories to the shelter residents.

For instance... there were still many people alive in Jiang City.

As the city that expelled the Mechanism, it attracted many residents due to its distance from warfare, with its permanent population once exceeding eighty million. The nano-bug disaster didn’t spread globally overnight, when it frequently appeared in Jiang City, people were somewhat aware of its dangers, leading many families to move entirely to the countryside, far from the highly developed core city area, causing a human settlement to spring up around Jiang City. A massive network of smart trains and unmanned stations connecting urban and rural areas was established towards the end of the 21st century.

Until the Celestial Patrol appeared... it broke this balance.

Some refuges considered the incoming trains with loaded materials proof that those residents were attempting to rescue Jiang City.

Nowadays, the population in Jiang City’s core area was less than a hundred thousand, scattered all over the city, half of them were Evangelicals. The number of survivors at Sha Jiang District Station was about two thousand, roughly matching Chen Xuan’s expectations.

What concerned him the most, naturally, was the Mechanism war that affected the world.

At first, Chen Xuan found it hard to understand how two superpower organizations could cause such devastating global impact in their conflict. After all, there were many national forces in this world, and the Dimensional Limit Mechanism wielded numerous high-tech companies, along with a strong private army, facing a newly risen Evangelical Association shouldn’t have been so difficult.

However, the survivors’ answer was straightforward.

Nuclear weapons.

No one knew how the Evangelical Association did it, but they indeed controlled many nuclear launch devices. Land-based, sea-based, air-based... tens of thousands of nuclear warheads soared from around the world, targeting the Mechanism’s major bases to execute a decapitation strike, instantly plunging the globe into a dark nuclear cloud.