Infinite Train
Chapter 676: Long time no see
The glaring lights illuminated the originally dark campus as bright as day. The figures of Anise and Hugo were trapped in the center, as if locked onto by invisible eyes.
At the same time, Wen Jianyan’s voice came from above.
…The ugly one on the left?
Anise froze, replaying his and Hugo’s positioning in his mind, his expression involuntarily twisting for a moment.
What did that guy just say?!
However, before he could lash out, his body violently shuddered.
Before his brain could react, his body’s warning radar had already started blaring—the ghostly aura in the air thickened at a terrifying speed, reaching a point where it made breathing difficult in the blink of an eye.
Startled, Anise quickly looked around.
In the areas the light couldn’t reach, countless silhouettes flickered in and out of sight.
They silently approached step by step. Expressionless, pale faces were submerged in the shadows, and pairs of emotionless, bizarre eyes firmly locked onto them.
Wait, this is—
Alarm bells instantly rang loudly in Anise’s heart.
He couldn’t help but raise his voice, questioning the only person who might know the cause: “Hey, Hugo, this—”
“…” Hugo remained staring fixedly at the two figures on the platform. Without turning his head, he said in a low voice, “Twelve o’clock direction.”
“Three.” He began to count down.
“What exactly is going on? How did Pinocchio—”
“Two.”
Hugo didn’t answer Anise’s question. In contrast to his calm voice counting down, his body was already taut as a bowstring.
“One!!”
Fuck.
Anise cursed inwardly. Unwillingly swallowing all his questions back into his stomach, he hurriedly followed Hugo’s pace to break through the encirclement.
The fragile balance in the plaza completely collapsed.
The true intentions were revealed, and a chaotic battle broke out instantly.
Countless “students” closed in, their ghostly aura attacking fiercely. Eerie smiles hung on their pale faces; the lineup was almost enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
Compared to them, Hugo and Anise in the encirclement seemed so isolated and weak—in such an open area, surrounded in such an organized manner, they held absolutely no advantage.
However, in the next second, a soft crack sounded from overhead.
Wen Jianyan paused and looked up.
He saw that on the lightless black sky, the red wound had unknowingly grown larger. Between the torn gaps, blood-red eyeballs jostled against each other, spinning round and round as if trying to pour out from within.
Blood-red light cascaded down.
In the plaza, the figures of the horde of ghosts stagnated slightly.
However, in a confrontation of this level, a split second could determine many things.
With an angry shout from Anise, the vengeful ghost closest to the two of them fell under control. It stiffly turned around to block the path of its companions. Meanwhile, invisible smoke instantly changed its properties, acting like a flexible net to forcibly maintain an outward path through the ghost horde.
They broke through the enemy lines like a hot knife through butter, escaping the encirclement in the blink of an eye.
Seeing this, Yun Bilan frowned.
The university was no longer an instance now, so naturally it lacked the coercive force it had when it was one. Even though she still controlled this area, the campus reconstruction was ultimately not yet complete, and there were various ways to leave the school. If Hugo and Anise were truly determined to leave, it would still be very difficult for her to stop them.
But Wen Jianyan seemed to see through her thoughts.
“No…” He shook his head, his tone helpless but certain. “They won’t leave.”
Normally, humans couldn’t walk normally in that no-man’s land, yet Hugo and Anise not only could, but even chased him onto the train… This was clearly something the Nightmare had done.
Although he didn’t know the specific terms of the contract Hugo and the others had signed with the Nightmare, Wen Jianyan understood the Nightmare.
For every point it gifted, it demanded ten points in return.
Their failure at the Changsheng Building last time had probably already reached the limit of its tolerance. This time, Hugo and the others would have no way out.
“At least until they catch me, they absolutely will not give up,” Wen Jianyan shrugged.
Yun Bilan turned her head, looked closely at Wen Jianyan, and raised an eyebrow: “…To be feared by the Nightmare to this extent, it seems you’ve made quite a bit of progress while I was away.”
The Nightmare’s various actions now were far beyond extreme.
Although she still didn’t know exactly what Wen Jianyan had done, judging by the Nightmare’s current reaction, this guy had clearly done something right.
“Yeah,” Wen Jianyan shrugged. “I really figured out quite a lot of things during this time.”
“But…” He paused.
Yun Bilan: “Hmm?”
Wen Jianyan: “But, I’m still one step away from truly achieving my goal… and it’s a very crucial step.”
Up until now, he had figured out how the Nightmare entered this world, how it changed this world, and how it completely intertwined with this world, eventually growing into a towering behemoth. It could be said that he had basically grasped the vast majority of the context. However, the only truly crucial thing was still in the mist—and that was, how he should make it perish.
Wen Jianyan could feel that he was already very close to the answer.
But, even though it was just this one step, it seemed so far away at this moment, leaving him completely clueless.
“However…”
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan seemed to think of something. He looked up at Yun Bilan opposite him:
“On this matter, I think, maybe you can help me.”
Yun Bilan was somewhat surprised: “Me?”
“Yes,” Wen Jianyan nodded affirmatively. “In fact, in this world, you might be the only one who can help me.”
Yun Bilan’s expression also turned serious. She leaned forward slightly and nodded: “Alright, tell me.”
Wen Jianyan opened his backpack and took out a box.
“I wonder if you still remember this.”
Yun Bilan’s gaze fell on the box: “Of course.”
Of course she remembered it.
The crucial existence that transformed Yuying Comprehensive University into a ‘womb’ and the lake water into ‘amniotic fluid’ was exactly this box.
Because of this, it also became the thing Wen Jianyan persistently pursued during his time in this instance.
During the interval when the Yuying Comprehensive University instance collapsed and the Nightmare severed its connection with the instance, she used all the Principal authority she had at the time to deliver this item into Wen Jianyan’s hands—as the only “graduation gift” she could give.
Even now, Yun Bilan could still feel that invisible, secretive connection between it and the campus.
“Anyway, after leaving the university, in order to figure out what was inside, I followed the clues onto a ship in the Nightmare and obtained a book from it, named the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Wen Jianyan took out that heavy human-skin book and placed it aside.
He took a deep breath and looked up:
“It told me that the thing inside this box is a ‘Contract’.”
“Contract?” Yun Bilan paused, seemingly realizing something. “Wait, do you mean to say…”
“Yes.”
Wen Jianyan nodded.
“This is the contract the Nightmare signed when it entered this world.”
Logically speaking, this contract should have been strictly controlled by the Nightmare—just like the deed of indenture he had signed.
However, because Wu Zhu, as the furnace core, was too difficult to control, the Nightmare was forced to cultivate a new god belonging to it in this world. That was why it had to take it out and utilize it, which was how Wen Jianyan got the opportunity to acquire it in this instance.
Wen Jianyan looked up steadily at Yun Bilan, pushing both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Contract towards her, and said earnestly:
“I need to figure out the specific contents of this contract—and I’m afraid only you can do this.”
As an item for cultivating a god, this contract created this instance. It also served as the core existence of this instance, connected to Yuying Comprehensive University in a way humans couldn’t understand. If there was anyone in this world who could decipher the contents of this contract, there was no second person besides the University Principal.
Yun Bilan lowered her eyes to look at the “Contract”.
In the dark, that feeling of being pulled by something grew increasingly intense.
She took a deep breath, raised her hand, and took the Dead Sea Scrolls: “Alright, let me try.”
Although there were vengeful ghosts in hot pursuit behind them, Hugo seemed very familiar with the topography and terrain here.
The two darted left and right, quickly leaving the freezing aura behind them.
Ahead, a circular building appeared in the darkness.
Hugo: “Go in.”
Only after entering did Anise realize that this seemed to be a cafeteria.
A crooked fissure ran through the entire floor, as if trying to tear the whole building apart. The tables and chairs on the ground were tilted and fallen, but one could still tell what this place used to be used for.
“What was that situation just now?” The moment they stopped, Anise impatiently asked, “What exactly is the identity of that woman standing up there just now? Why does she listen to Pinocchio so much? And this instance—”
“…” Hugo leaned against the wall and lifted his eyelids. “I thought you had seen her.”
“How could I—” Halfway through his sentence, Anise suddenly stopped. He seemed to think of something, his pupils violently shrinking. “Wait, it’s her?!”
During the Xingwang Hotel instance, they had kidnapped a member of Pinocchio’s team, originally intending to use her as a sacrifice and then throw her away. Unexpectedly, she was rescued by Pinocchio—that face he had tossed to the back of his mind surfaced, overlapping perfectly with the pale, cold face from just now.
Hugo snuffed out the remaining half of his cigarette butt, his movements carrying an irritability even he hadn’t noticed:
“At the end of this instance, she was left behind and became the principal of this school.”
Anise’s expression instantly darkened.
This was not very good.
If the other party was just an instance NPC Pinocchio knew, it wouldn’t be a big deal. They wouldn’t be bound too tightly, at least leaving them some room to maneuver. But now, a principal who controlled the entire instance was standing unreservedly on the other side. To them, this was simply the worst possible news.
“So, she’s absolutely going to protect Pinocchio to the end?”
“Yeah.” Hugo replied coldly.
“Fuck!!” Anise cursed, violently kicking the main door next to him, making a loud boom. He gritted his teeth, “This is fucking great news!”
If it were just Pinocchio alone, everything would be easy to handle. But, if an entire instance—from the boss controlling this instance, down to all the ghosts and monsters under her control—was acting as his protective umbrella, then everything was different. How were they supposed to snatch Pinocchio back under such a massive power disparity?
Judging from the strength of the ghosts and monsters they just experienced, they clearly still maintained their initial terror level. This would make the task of “catching Pinocchio” practically impossible.
“Unless we wipe out this instance, there’s absolutely no way we can drag Pinocchio out—!”
Hugo’s eyes flickered slightly. He seemed to want to say something, but fell silent.
“Wait,” Anise scrutinized Hugo’s expression and seemed to realize something. He abruptly took a step forward. “You have a way, don’t you?”
Indeed, Hugo had also cleared this instance at Platinum level. His understanding of this instance was probably no less than Pinocchio and the woman’s. If it were him… he might really know how to break the deadlock.
His malicious gaze slowly swept over Hugo.
He hadn’t spent a long time with Hugo, but he still had some basic understanding of the guy.
Hugo was someone with a very strong sense of order.
Recalling it now, whether it was “fleeing,” or shaking off the pursuers and entering this current building, it all carried a strong sense of purpose. In other words, Hugo very likely had already figured out what to do next at the time, but just didn’t act immediately for some unknown reason.
He took another step forward, his tone carrying an uncontrollable urgency: “You know how to enter the core of this place?”
“…”
Hugo raised his eyes. The dim, flickering light fell on his face, making his expression look obscure and difficult to read.
After a long silence, he straightened up and spoke slowly.
“I know.”
Entering the kitchen from here, there was a secret passage below that led all the way to the Principal’s Office. And that was the core of the entire Yuying Comprehensive University—this was also why he had brought Anise into this place.
This place was already tottering on the brink of collapse.
With just a gentle push, it would scatter and fall like building blocks.
“Good… very good… excellent!” Anise’s eyes flashed, the smile on his face gradually expanding. His lips twisted slightly, bearing an almost gleeful ferocity. He turned to look at Hugo, his face full of impatience, “Then what are we waiting for?”
“Let’s go! I really want to see what kind of expression that Pinocchio brat will have when he sees his protective umbrella destroyed.”
Under the dim light, Yun Bilan lowered her head. Her bloodless face looked ghostly, and the remaining bit of living human aura on her seemed to have vanished completely the moment she entered the identity of “Principal.”
Wen Jianyan remained quiet, but his gaze was constantly, nervously focused on Yun Bilan.
…
Finally, after an unknown amount of time, a loud smack sounded as the book was heavily closed.
Yun Bilan had her eyes closed, the back of her hand pressing against the book. The veins on the back of her hand bulged, seemingly having exerted an immense amount of strength.
Wen Jianyan subconsciously took a step forward: “Are you okay?”
Yun Bilan still kept her eyes tightly shut, her tone tense, as if suppressing something: “I’m fine, but…”
“…This book is highly unusual,” she opened her eyes and looked at Wen Jianyan. After that short ordeal just now, Yun Bilan’s face was as pale as a ghost, her eyes deep and complex. “Every page of the book seals a soul. Their voices are very noisy. A large portion of them have been twisted by the long passage of time, full of malice towards outsiders. The vast majority of the rest have lost their sanity and become very mad. Every time I read a page, it’s like talking to hundreds and thousands of people at the same time.”
If she weren’t the Principal, she would probably have gone insane the moment she established communication with them.
“However, your source of information was very accurate… It is indeed the only thing that can help me decipher the contents of this contract.”
Yun Bilan took a deep breath and continued:
“—Fortunately, there are still individuals among these souls who retain their sanity. With its help, I did figure out many of the specific clauses inside.”
“The contents are numerous and very complex, the vast majority of which are about how the Nightmare will ‘serve’ humanity. In principle, it cannot directly harm the contractor and the contractor’s descendants. As long as the contractor’s bloodline remains, it will be bound by the rules. Furthermore, if the contractor and all their descendants disappear from this world, the contract will be terminated.”
“Unless the Nightmare has already pocketed the entire world, otherwise, it remains an outsider. The world has its own rules of operation. For the Nightmare, although it brings constraints, it is also the anchor that fixes it in place. Once the contract is broken, its anchor disappears, and it can no longer stay.”
Yun Bilan frowned,
“So, I don’t know why things have developed into the current situation…”
Now, the town was already empty of people, yet the Nightmare still raged on and had not left as stipulated in the contract.
Wen Jianyan froze.
What a coincidence, he also loved playing word games.
As the drafter of the contract, the Nightmare clearly exploited the loopholes in the rules very cleverly.
It couldn’t directly act against the contractors and their descendants, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t kill with a borrowed knife. Strictly speaking, the appearance of the Xingwang Hotel did not directly kill any member of Wu Town… However, Wu Town still marched towards destruction under its induction, with not a single resident surviving.
Almost the instant Yun Bilan mentioned this point, he realized the key mechanism within—
“Bloodline remains” and “all disappear” were not completely equivalent.
The opposite of the bloodline remaining was physical death.
And the opposite of “disappear” was preservation in various senses.
He abruptly looked up: “…Those portraits on the Lucky Cruise.”
Those portraits with blurry faces and pale hands were exactly the same as the ones hanging in the gallery inside the town—this meant that the people in the portraits should also have been members of the town. However, their portraits were not hung in the gallery, but were preserved on the cruise ship.
Connecting this to Wu Zhu’s abnormal reaction when he saw them…
The people painted on those portraits were the very townsfolk who had betrayed Wu Zhu and signed the contract back then, and what these portraits preserved were exactly their souls!
The Nightmare escaped the constraints of the rules by killing all the residents in the town, but it carefully preserved the portraits of the contractors to maintain the continuation of the contract… Precisely because of this, this world had become what it was today.
“But,” Wen Jianyan’s brow furrowed tightly, his mood sinking, “if we want the contract to automatically disappear, we have to eliminate all the people who signed the contract and the ghosts their descendants turned into?”
The portraits on the Lucky Cruise were one thing, but the problem lay with the sheer number of ghosts remaining in the Xingwang Hotel instance… With his power alone, how was he supposed to eliminate them all?
“How it began is how it must end.”
Yun Bilan said slowly.
“Back then, they held a blood oath by dripping fresh blood onto the contract. To break it, the same step is needed. You need to gather a part of the bodies of all the contractors and their descendants—blood, skin… anything will do.”
Wen Jianyan forced a bitter smile: “That doesn’t sound any simpler than eliminating all the ghosts in the town.”
“On the contrary.”
Yun Bilan shook her head.
“In fact, besides those contractors who were taken onto the cruise ship… you already possess the flesh and skin of everyone else.”
…What?
Wen Jianyan paused and looked up.
Yun Bilan slowly pushed the Dead Sea Scrolls in front of him, staring at him, enunciating every word solemnly:
“Uncle De says hello.”
“He says long time no see, and, well done.”
