Chapter 11: A Tin Can Full of Ghosts Screee—CRUNCH. Metal screamed. The world outside the grimy, reinforced window snapped into reverse. Seven’s hands rested on the controls, knuckles pale. Not from fear. From focus. The train—this groaning, patchwork beast he’d woken up inside—was an extension of his new body. A cold, metal shell for a cold, new reality. [ SCENARIO WORLD ASSIMILATION: 14% ] [ DESIGNATION: “NULL” CONFIRMED. MECHANICAL HEART INTERFACE: ONLINE. ] The messages hovered in the edge of his vision, ghostly and persistent. He ignored them. The real world was the one rushing past the slit of a window. Jiang City. Or what was left of it. A dead city shouldn’t have eyes. But it did. As the Infinity rumbled along the elevated light rail tracks—a sound that hadn’t been heard here since the sun died—shadows moved in the skeletal buildings. A curtain twitched. A pale face, hollow-eyed, pressed against glass three stories up, tracking the train’s progress. Survivors

Chapter 13 The sky bled out over Jiang City, the last of the sun’s light a dirty smear on the horizon. It was 16:30. Two hours. That was the grace period Seven had carved in his head. The time between now and when the world would truly go to hell. He wasn’t Lin Xian. Not anymore. The name felt like a discarded skin. He was Seven. A Null. A ghost from another world stuffed into this dying one. His new memories—fragmented, panicked—told him this was a Scenario. An “Infinite Train Plan.” The details were fuzzy, but the core directive was clear: survive. Adapt. Use the tools. The tool right now was a battered flatbed truck, idling in the vast, silent parking lot of Aus Furniture City. The place was a graveyard of domestic aspirations. No survivors. No movement. Just the wind whistling through shattered showroom windows. Perfect. Seven killed the engine. The silence that followed was absolute. He scanned the lot, his eyes—calm, analytical—missing nothing. A survivor didn’t indulge. A

Chapter 15: Chen Sixuan's Thoughts CLANG. CLANG-CLANG. The freight train’s steel wheels screamed against warped rails. Rolling through a dead city at night was suicide. Every metallic shriek echoed off silent skyscrapers, summoning answering howls from the dark. Good. Call them. Let them come. Let’s see what’s hungry. Seven stood in the cockpit doorway, his new body thrumming with a low-level, persistent adrenaline. He watched the wasteland blur past. The stink of rust and old blood filled his nose. This was his now. This train. This meat-grinder of a world. “We’re approaching the three-ring elevated line,” a voice said, thin with frayed nerves. Chen Sixuan. The teacher. Her hands were white-knuckled on the controls. In the green glow of the instrument panel, she looked ghostly. Hollow. “We could stop up there,” she suggested, not looking at him. “It’s… higher. Safer.” Seven grunted. “Do it.” The overpass. Good tactical choice. Most of the shamblers down on street level coul

Chapter 17: Ambushed Crunch. Steel wheels ground against frozen rails. The Infinity slowed to a crawl, a black serpent slithering through the corpse of the city. From the cockpit, Seven watched the ruins slide by. Buildings with shattered windows stared back like dead eyes. He kept the speed down. Noise was a death sentence. Attention was a curse. Click. He switched lines, merging the Infinity from the skeletal light rail onto the broader Jiangyu mainline. The world opened up. Warehouses and rusted cranes replaced apartment blocks. Derelict freight trains sat on sidings like discarded toys. Scrape. Thump. Something moved between the tracks ahead. A shambling figure in tattered office clothes. It didn’t even look up before the Infinity’s cowcather plowed into it. A wet, final crunch. The train didn’t shudder. Seven’s expression didn’t change. Nulls didn’t flinch. He passed turnouts, each one a branch into industrial decay. Sidings sprawled out, packed with stationary trains.

CHAPTER 19: LOCKED IN WITH THE HUNGRY CRACK. The sound wasn’t loud. Just a single, dry snap from the other side of the cold room door. Seven’s hand, pressed flat against the frosted steel of the industrial freezer, didn’t even twitch. His breathing remained a shallow, controlled rhythm, misting faintly in the subzero air. His eyes, cold and observant, stayed fixed on the nothingness in front of him, tracking a progress bar only he could see. [ DEVOURING PROGRESS: 87% ] Thud. A heavier impact this time. A shoulder or a boot hitting the metal. Muffled, frustrated voices slithered through the insulation. “—fucking thing won’t budge!” “Just find the crowbar! The other one!” Seven’s internal monologue cut through the noise, sharp and clinical. Two adult males. Impatient. Poor coordination. The one who fired the rifle is the volatile one. The other is trying to lead. They’re scavengers, not soldiers. Their biggest weapon is their desperation. He tuned them out. The cold was a phys