Armed Train in the Apocalypse

After all the tinkering and continuous accumulation, it’s turned into what it is now.

Just the locomotive alone has hundreds of different systems; take the "communications" system for example, it’s split into internal and external: internally there’s whole-train broadcasting, personal communicator positioning, combat communications, sound monitoring, and so on.

Externally there’s ultra-long-distance communications, directional amplification, whistles, environmental sound management, strategic sound projection, and so on.

Behind each item lies the sweat and wisdom of more than five thousand flight attendants.

These functions might look very ordinary, nothing high-tech about them, but all these basic features piled together make for an almost invincible Armed Train.

Practical and useful is far more important than some damned sense of high-tech.

Just finishing the introduction to the locomotive took an hour, and Su Huan’s head was crammed full of knowledge and terms that didn’t used to belong to him.

He moved into the following carriages.

The armament hall was retained, still serving as the train’s fast passageway, with rows of small armory lockers on both sides holding heavy firearms that weren’t convenient to bring back to the dorms.

Because the Carrying Capacity had been increased, the armament hall gained another level, used as a recreation hall for everyone; its ceiling was much higher than the armament hall’s. When Su Huan went up, He Zhenzhen was playing badminton with Qu Hang.

The girl even enthusiastically invited the conductor to play badminton; Su Huan declined with a squinty smile.

The interior of the carriages had also undergone large changes. Aside from Huang Sea’s carriage farm, most laboratories had been moved to the Cultivation Pods in the rear. The carriage farm’s area had doubled, becoming a square plot thirty meters long and twenty-six meters wide, looking more like a park now.

Huang Sea and Xiaowang had even set up a stream winding through the carriage; the water flow could automatically irrigate the plants inside, and there were tiny fish about a finger long living in it.

"This is the fish you said you wanted to raise?"

Su Huan asked.

Huang Sea, hands still stained with soil, laughed and said, "That fish pond is over at Li Han’s place. My space here is too small, I can only raise some small fry..."

Listening to Huang Sea’s excited introduction, Su Huan casually asked, "How’s your evolution coming along?"

Huang Sea looked slightly embarrassed. "Still not Tier Two yet, but my skill has evolved. Just short on level."

Su Huan neither approved nor disapproved of this result. He didn’t really need Huang Sea’s combat strength anyway; he was just asking about his progress. He was actually quite satisfied with it—everyone on the train had reached Tier One overall, and the outstanding ones were closing in on Tier Two.

If after following him for more than a year they were worse off than in the previous life, he might as well find a block of tofu and smash himself to death.

After that, Su Huan checked in on the wounded in the medical carriage, inspected the learning progress of the kids in the school, took a stroll through Little Box’s tailor shop, and finally had lunch in the cook’s dining car.

The train’s lunch standard was three dishes and one soup: luncheon meat fried with iron-skin squash, cumin tiger meat slices, stewed big bones, and softshell turtle soup. The staple options were plentiful—coarse noodles, rice, compressed biscuits, and so on.

The free meal standard for a Level 1 Flight Attendant was one meat dish, one bowl of soup, and one portion of compressed biscuits or coarse noodles.

If you wanted extra dishes you had to spend points; if you wanted to have a special meal like a rice bowl, you needed not only points but also the appropriate level permissions.

Also, vegetables were far more expensive than meat. The train fought almost year-round, and the corps would drag back a few hundred or even over a thousand kilos of meat from time to time; like this time, Su Huan had directly brought back tens of thousands of kilos of meat.

Vegetables, on the other hand, were quite scarce. Apart from canned vegetables—eat one can and there’s one less—the main source was the plants from Huang Sea’s place; their growth was slow and quantities small, so most people could only afford to buy them once or twice a month to scratch the itch.

But after the Four Nations campaign, everyone had a lot more on hand. Su Huan saw that many people could now afford three dishes and a soup.

Hu Shuo carried his tray over and sat opposite Su Huan. As for Su Huan’s meal, the cook had personally dished it up and brought it to him; even the plating was different. Other people’s soup came in a double-layer stainless steel bowl, while his was served in a ceramic tureen on a solid wood tray.

As he carefully set it on the table, the cook smiled and said, "Conductor, you haven’t come in a long time. Try it and see if my cooking’s improved?"

Although his words sounded familiar and relaxed, there was still a lingering nervousness in his eyes.

Su Huan took a taste and let out a light sigh.

The cook’s heart instantly jumped into his throat.

Squinting his eyes, Su Huan said, "Your craftsmanship is still a bit worse than mine back then."

The three of them let out a few soft chuckles at the same time. The cook also sat down beside Su Huan, muttering about things from when he had just boarded the train, slipping in a couple of flattering remarks.

His flattery was really clumsy though. If Ma Hongyu were here, that guy could flatter for half an hour without saying a single honest word.

Su Huan ate slowly while listening.

In reality, his body no longer needed normal food intake; eating this kind of nutritionally useless stuff was worse than sitting on the roof doing photosynthesis. One breath of fresh Energy was more effective than eating a ton of this.

The only thing even slightly useful to him was that Tier Three tiger meat. Unfortunately, the great tonic that would make others nosebleed after two bites was no different from regular meat slices for him. Still, the cook’s skills had indeed improved a lot after more than a year of practice.

Though he still couldn’t compare to Yu Yue, it was enough to make him eat with relish.

"Oh right, Conductor." The cook leaned in and said mysteriously in a low voice, "I’ve already brewed the tiger bones, tiger penis, and tiger heart into wine. I’ll send it over to you later?"

Su Huan’s eyelid twitched slightly. "You didn’t give it to anyone else, did you?"

A hint of pride showed on the cook’s face. "Of course not. Other than you, Conductor, who else on this train is qualified to drink that?"

Su Huan breathed a sigh of relief. The flesh and blood of a Tier Three Evolution Beast was not easy to digest. Even the cumin tiger slices had been carefully processed into a hard dish for everyone to nourish themselves with.

A weaker Tier One Evolver could get killed just from one sip of tiger heart wine.

The Pan Energy in the heart was far greater than in other parts, equivalent to a second bloody resonance. If you managed to push through that threshold you might gain some benefits, but if you couldn’t, you’d just drop dead on the spot.

If it wasn’t for the initial evolution awakening, it was completely pointless.

"Send it to logistics, put a price on it, and let them redeem it."

Su Huan said flatly.

Let them digest it. With his physique, would he really need to supplement himself with some petty defeated tiger?

By the time Su Huan sat down on the orange-cat sofa, the sun had tilted slightly westward. The light was scorching, washing away much of the autumn chill.

The little chef girl was busy behind the counter, stir-frying something.

Hu Shuo sat opposite him. "The fourth-phase refit is basically complete. The remaining time will be for inspections. We’re expected to finish two days ahead of schedule."

Looking down at the outpost that had just taken shape below, Su Huan asked, "How many people are staying here?"

Hu Shuo replied calmly, "The Four Nations outpost’s construction progress is at 80%. There are a total of two thousand people, led by former outpost platoon leader Zhao Yuan and the Black Bandits’ leader. Most are survivors, but quite a few come from Donghuang Heavy Industry. I’m worried the train will lose its grip on the outpost."

"Grip?" Su Huan chuckled lightly. "If they manage to survive, that’s their own ability; if they don’t want to live, that’s their choice. The train isn’t a nanny, we don’t need to meddle that much. Let things go as they will."

"Understood."

"Advance according to plan."

As he finished speaking, Yu Yue came over carrying two large steaming bowls of noodles. "Spicy tiger-bone ramen, try it and see how it tastes."

Seeing the sea-sized bowl larger than his face in front of him, Hu Shuo’s eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly, then he glanced at the conductor’s expression.

When he saw that Su Huan was already eating the noodles like he hadn’t just eaten a meal, he could only silently pick up his chopsticks.

He didn’t have the terrifying digestion that Su Huan did. The tiger meat he’d just eaten was still working inside him, sending out waves of heat, but under Yu Yue’s expectant gaze, he could only bite the bullet and eat.

...

"March 13, 2037, Gravity balanced."

"The Four Nations outpost is complete; the train will set off for the Plant Zone."

"Toot——"

With a long, deep whistle, the Armed Train that had been stationed on the Four Countries Peninsula for so long slowly lifted into the air and headed toward He Shui.

To enter the Plant Zone, they had to go inland first.

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