Infinite Train
Chapter 672: See you in the future
The train roared as it hurtled into the distance.
The wheels struck the tracks, emitting a rhythmic, metallic friction sound. Outside the window was a blur, leaving only a lightless, shadowless, soundless, and formless chaotic darkness.
In the corner of the empty carriage sat a solitary figure.
If one didn’t look closely, it was almost hard to notice his presence… His elbows rested on his knees, his back arched, his head lowered, and his expression unreadable. He remained motionless, hiding in the flickering shadows inside the train, looking as if he had vanished into the darkness.
Since boarding the train, Wen Jianyan had maintained this posture without ever changing it.
Silence enveloped him.
If not for the occasional rise and fall of his back, one would almost suspect he had fallen asleep, or had long been dead.
“…”
The train just kept moving forward, forward—as if it had no starting point, no endpoint, and would never stop.
Footsteps echoed from afar.
The faceless ticket collector walked over from the distance, stopping in front of the only occupied seat.
Only then did the young man in the seat finally move.
He raised his head, revealing half of his expressionless, pale face in the light.
His face held no emotion. His cheeks were dry and his eyes calm, as if he were wearing a perfectly still mask. However, his eye sockets were a glaring, piercing red… like a crack that could not be ignored across a flawless disguise.
He reached out and handed the spirit money to the ticket collector.
The ticket collector took the spirit money and then fell into a long, almost stagnant standstill—just like the last time he boarded the train with Wu Zhu. However, back then Wen Jianyan thought it was due to Wu Zhu’s unusual identity. Now it seemed it was the train’s internal rules taking effect—it was thinking, judging, and searching for the passenger’s destination.
After an unknown amount of time, it finally moved.
The ticket collector sluggishly raised its hand, opened its satchel, took out a ticket, and handed it over.
Having done all this, it turned around and walked towards the end of the carriage.
The footsteps gradually faded, drowned out by the clattering of the moving train, and eventually vanished completely without leaving a trace.
The empty carriage returned to silence.
Shadows prowled back, once again ruling this area.
“…”
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes and cast a glance at the ticket in his hand.
Unlike Wu Zhu’s dark red, almost black ticket, his was a very bland grayish-white. Only two lines of text stood out starkly.
[Terminus: ■■■■]
…Another string of garbled text.
His gaze lingered on that string of garbled text, but he wasn’t too disappointed.
Last time, Wu Zhu had merged himself into the heart to help him escape the Nightmare’s pursuit, causing the train to misidentify him as Wu Zhu and send him to the station of the origin. This time… all he brought from the land of origin was the other party’s heart, without any additional conditions. Therefore, the train “recognized” his human identity and gave him currency belonging to a human.
And this fact in itself contained even more information.
After all, in Wen Jianyan’s own timeline, the stations leading to the human world no longer existed, yet the train still provided coins and a ticket.
This meant that the notion of “the train will take passengers where they most belong” was probably just a relative concept. The “Terminus” was merely the farthest station the train could take him relative to the station where he boarded—which made sense. Time and space restrictions didn’t exist for this train. If there were no limits set for the terminus, the entire order would immediately fall into chaos.
Following this logic, he would most likely be sent back to Changsheng Building, or to any station in his own timeline.
Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze and placed the ticket on the table.
The Dead Sea Scrolls could not be taken out of his backpack for the time being, so he couldn’t figure out the true meaning of this garbled text just yet.
However… regardless of which station this train took him to, it didn’t seem to make much difference to his current self.
The past cannot be changed.
Even though he already understood this truth during the Xingwang Hotel instance, this time, he truly experienced the unshakable, terrifying power hidden beneath this sentence.
Wu Town was destined to be destroyed, A-Yuan was destined to become the female corpse in red in the mansion, Wu Zhu was destined to be imprisoned, dismembered, and exploited… and the Nightmare was equally destined to descend.
“…”
Wen Jianyan closed his eyes, tightened his fingers, and took a deep breath.
…Right, Wu Zhu.
He tried to say it in his heart, as if he had only just remembered this person.
Wu Zhu’s heart was quietly hidden beneath his collar, clinging tightly to his skin, endlessly radiating a melting warmth. Like a faint candle lit in the dark night, it declared an unparalleled presence.
That guy.
Even now, Wen Jianyan still couldn’t quite figure it out. How did an existence he had desperately tried to shake off ever since entering the Nightmare forcefully wedge his way into his life step by step? How did he gradually occupy an increasingly important position in his plans and his mind, to the point of being completely impossible to ignore now?
Whether it was disgust or fear, hatred or loathing, or… something else entirely.
It seemed that as long as that guy existed, all the emotions related to him in his heart had nothing to do with so-called “peace” and “gentleness.” There was only sharp, profound, intense, chaotic, and complex stuff…
Just like his name, Wu Zhu himself was like a flame, unreservedly burning everything to ashes, causing pain to everyone who approached.
Wen Jianyan was not someone who played with fire.
Smart people only seek advantages and avoid disadvantages; only fools play with fire and burn themselves.
Wen Jianyan was fittingly and precisely a smart person—the kind who stood out no matter where he was placed.
Precisely because he was too good at playing with people’s hearts, he knew how dangerous, complex, and unreliable this thing was.
Because of this, he didn’t want…
Didn’t want it.
In the tug-of-war of emotions, his fingers continued to apply force until his fingertips turned slightly white.
Amidst the pain, he felt an intense sense of absurdity.
Inviting fire to burn himself.
…
…Fuck it.
Fuck it all!
Wen Jianyan found it almost impossible to curb the urge to curse.
He lowered his head and buried his face in his palms again, as if only by doing so could he control the complex emotions clashing left and right in his heart.
He hated Wu Zhu to death right now, even more than when the other party carved marks on him, placed constraints on him, forced him, and controlled him.
Why, at a time like this, was that guy conveniently trapped on a boat?!
Carefree, relaxed, and with complete peace of mind!
“…”
A long time later, Wen Jianyan finally suppressed that wave of manic emotion, swallowed all his unresolved thoughts whole, forcefully set them aside, and forced himself to calm down again.
He took a deep breath and slowly raised his eyes.
Calm down. Now is not the time to settle the score with that guy.
Wen Jianyan turned to look out the window. His pale, blurry profile was reflected on the glass.
Outside the window was pitch black, impenetrable to any light, like an endless nightmare.
Born of sin, and breeding more sin.
It had shrouded this world for too long. The countless massacres and despair sucked everyone in like a vortex.
Whether it was what it did to him, to all his friends around him, or to Wu Zhu, or to this world…
The Nightmare’s evil deeds were innumerable, its sins unforgivable.
If he just simply regained his freedom and left this place, it would be entirely meaningless—of course, this option had clearly been denied by the Nightmare long ago anyway—as long as the Nightmare was allowed to remain in this world, sooner or later, it would suck the marrow from the bones of this world and devour it completely, like a parasite.
—It must be thoroughly destroyed.
Not a single trace can be left.
“…”
In the reflection, the young man’s eye sockets were still red, but not with grief. The brief vulnerability shown earlier was swept away, replaced in the blink of an eye by an emotion as cold as iron.
He lowered his head, picked the ticket up from the table again, and his gaze fell on the blurry terminus.
The past cannot be changed?
Fine then.
Tearing away all disguises, his gaze was sharp, his pupils contracted, burning in the dark like cold fire.
—We’ll meet in the future.
The train rumbled into the darkness. Just like when he came, this time, even though Wen Jianyan didn’t feel the slightest bit sleepy, he was still uncontrollably pulled into a dream.
An unknown amount of time passed…
A faint red light shone on his eyelids, dragging him out of his already shallow slumber.
Wen Jianyan twitched his eyelids and opened his eyes.
Before he could shake off the grogginess brought by sleep, he was immediately stunned by the sight outside the window.
This world should have been a pitch-blackness where one couldn’t see their own fingers, but right now, it was plated with a shallow layer of red light.
On the lightless sky canopy that should have been completely black, a narrow slit had been torn open at some unknown time. Like a slender, bleeding fresh wound, an eerie red light emanated from within, like viscous blood flowing incessantly.
And deep within that red wound, something seemed to be squirming, spinning around.
That seemed to be…
An eyeball.
The moment he clearly saw the thing inside the wound, Wen Jianyan suddenly shuddered.
An eyeball?!
He was no stranger to this thing.
It had also appeared in the Fantasy Amusement Park instance. However, because the amusement park was a unique instance with no real-world blueprint, Wen Jianyan had always believed that the amusement park was actually a microcosm of the Nightmare’s internal rules—and this view had been proven right time and time again. All anchors pulled into the Nightmare would mutate, merging with this behemoth bit by bit against their will, until they became the Nightmare’s nourishment—and now, this thing actually appeared in this land of death…
Wen Jianyan only felt the hairs on his back stand on end as a bizarre chill crept up.
What was going on?
Why?
Did something happen to this world during the time he was gone?
Before he could come up with an explanation, a sharp screech— pierced the silence, and the entire train body vibrated violently several times. Wen Jianyan failed to steady himself in time and nearly fell to the ground.
Accompanied by the ear-piercing roar of friction between the wheels and the tracks, the train decelerated bit by bit, eventually coming to a slow halt.
Wen Jianyan realized almost immediately that this situation was different from when the train arrived at a station.
This time, it did not stop on its own accord.
But was forced to stop operating under some kind of power.
“That guy is on here?”
Anise frowned, looking ahead with a face full of doubt.
Not far ahead was a railway track lying silently in the darkness. On the track was a roaring, vibrating old-fashioned train. Although the train was no longer moving forward, it hadn’t completely stopped operating. Two beams of light shot forward from the front of the train, dispelling the pitch-black darkness ahead.
On the tracks in front of the train lay dozens of pale corpses. Their bodies were being crushed by the train, yet there were almost no wounds, let alone any blood, and they were still continuously moving.
Clearly not human.
Hugo glanced at him, a faint mockery in his eyes.
“Do you not believe me… or do you not believe the Nightmare?”
“No… of course I don’t mean that.” Anise gave a dry laugh. “I just think this whole thing is quite bizarre… that’s all.”
Knowing Pinocchio’s exact location wasn’t because they possessed some vast magical powers and could divine the future, but rather it was a direct directive given by the Nightmare.
And the Nightmare never makes mistakes.
“But I have to say, the durability of this train is really somewhat ridiculous.”
Anise’s gaze fell on the train, his expression somewhat grave.
Even now, the train was still roaring incessantly. The wheels spun without pause, continuously crashing into the corpses blocking the tracks ahead—at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before those corpses lost their blocking effect, allowing the heavy steel behemoth to crush and run over them.
“We need to hurry. Those ghosts probably won’t be able to hold on for much longer.”
Anise licked his lips, his gaze landing on the tightly closed windows of the train, a snake-like viciousness appearing in his eyes.
For some unknown reason, he looked even more inhuman than the last time at Changsheng Building.
His back was thin and hunched, bent as if it couldn’t straighten up. His bones jutted out beneath his pale skin, making him look like a monster draped in human skin.
“Last time at Changsheng Building, we already let that kid escape once. If we still don’t get the result the Nightmare wants this time, then I’m afraid both of us will have to pay the price… there will be no exceptions.”
It was clearly meant to be an admonishing tone, but beneath Anise’s voice hid deep fear and trembling.
“In short, no matter what, we must succeed this time.”
“We absolutely, absolutely cannot fail.”
“…”
Hugo held a cigarette between his teeth. The blurry red light illuminated his deep-set eyes.
He was expressionless.
“Yeah.”
