Chapter 92: Work (6th update, seeking monthly votes!)

In the dark carriage, the heating was running hot, insulating them from the freezing cold outside the heavy armor. Lin Xian lay on the bed, looking at Chen Sixuan, who had already fallen into a deep sleep beside him, a hint of relief showing in his eyes.

Under the apocalypse, a short period of time had taught him many things.

Food and water were extremely scarce, and the zombies and anomalies were certainly deadly, but the pressure of loneliness and fear under this survival stress was no less than the former.

Without Chen Sixuan's support, without Kiki's ability, and without the help of Dalou and Shasha, even summoning the courage to go on living would be incomparably difficult.

The wind and snow intensified. Lin Xian got up, put on his clothes, and quietly arrived in the Giant Whale's cockpit, beginning to operate the Mechanical Heart to perform a full vehicle inspection and repair.

That giant anomaly in the sky was like a dark cloud pressing down on his heart. Lin Xian couldn't sleep, so he simply spent some time making minor repairs to the vehicle's armor.

Now that the entire vehicle's armor had been upgraded, the weight had increased. Coupled with the fact that the heating inside the carriages required consuming the reserve power within the electric locomotive, this directly resulted in Lin Xian's consumption for driving the train becoming even greater.

"If I don't upgrade the Mechanical Heart to Level 3, running 300 kilometers a day might be a struggle."

"I hope there will be useful energy devices in that underground city, so I can catch a break..."

After simply repairing some of the severe armor deformations, Lin Xian returned to the bed, set an alarm, and began to sleep.

Because he had used the Soul-Oscillation Detector, Lin Xian only let Dalou stand guard at the rear of the train tonight. The front of the train had the radar early-warning system, which made him feel slightly more at ease. He also needed to recover his strength; otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with tomorrow's troubles.

Beep, beep.

8:00, late night. Lin Xian woke up upon hearing the alarm on his watch, feeling that most of his energy had been restored.

Chen Laoshi was still fast asleep. As one of the only two ordinary people on the train, Chen Sixuan's physical fitness could not compare to the other three; she was even considered weak compared to Shasha. Having been highly tense for several days, it was rare for her to finally get a good night's sleep.

Lin Xian did not wake her. He got up and opened the gate to Carriage No. 2, discovering that Kiki was already sitting in front of the computer, working.

"Hello, Boss~"

Kiki hadn't turned on the lights. She was squatting in front of the computer, the fluorescent light shining on her face, which suddenly gave Lin Xian a descriptor.

Internet-addicted girl...

"So early?"

"I've slept for a long time, okay?" Kiki stretched and looked at Lin Xian, spirited. "Now I'm the most energetic person on this train."

"Not bad, energetic girl. Are you working on the water-oxygen circulation system?"

"Well~"

Kiki pointed at the screen and smacked her lips, saying,

"It's not that simple. First is the water storage tank; we have to separate our domestic water from the train's water tank. Then there's the water purification system—this also depends on the water purifier blueprint you're preparing to manufacture. If you want to build a heating system, you'll have to connect the train's water tank and the domestic water tank in a circulation series. That way, you can add the distillation stage right in the middle; it can both purify water and provide heating. Domestic water can be added to the circulation; although it's been used, it's definitely cleaner than black rain. And then there's the water-oxygen system; that's even more troublesome. If you want to set up a planting carriage, not only do you have to do soil-less cultivation, spray irrigation, and so on, which also needs to be separated individually, not to mention solving the air problem, you'd have to seal the entire train to have any chance of getting the oxygen circulation done..."

Lin Xian became interested. He pulled up a chair and sat down, saying,

"Right, my initial idea was just to modify the original carriage's water usage. It's just that now we have to consider the problems of purification, recycling, heating, and planting, so it's become a bit more complicated. But we can get the purification and recycling done first. As for the heating, the current warm air system is barely enough."

"I'm thinking that a super-large project like Underground City No. 9 must have a perfect system inside. Although we can't copy it directly, we can learn from it, and maybe there's something ready-made..."

Kiki's eyes lit up. "Oh, right! An underground city project like this definitely has a green plant cultivation area, and it definitely has a medical system..."

*Slap! *

She clapped her hands as she spoke, looking at Lin Xian with eager, glistening eyes.

"There's one more critical thing."

"What?"

"An AI system module!" Kiki widened her eyes. "If we can obtain extremely high computing power, we can directly use the AI system to generate available plans according to our carriage for us to choose from. Isn't that better than us just guessing?" Lin Xian nodded. "That makes sense."

"And, and..." Kiki became more and more excited as she spoke. She turned her swivel chair, and because she was only wearing shorts, her pair of jade legs were facing Lin Xian openly.

"Maybe the underground city itself has an Eternal-class orbital train used for external material transport or emergency escape. This kind of super train is equipped with a small train-level nuclear power device. If we could get our hands on that..."

Lin Xian watched her talk with such animation and couldn't help but lift the corners of his mouth.

Of course, he hoped that everything she said could be realized, and he also knew that such a giant underground city would have all kinds of high-precision equipment. For his mechanical ability, it was simply a dreamland of *deus ex machina*.

However, he also knew that one shouldn't be too optimistic about anything.

First of all, the underground city was an asset of the former Federation government and belonged to the former official authorities. Whether the underground city was still being maintained and operated under the New Apocalypse Federation after the disintegration was unknown. Even if everything was fine, for such a large apocalyptic underground city, the security and protection must be extremely tight. Kiki being able to get in didn't mean he could. And the most critical problem was:

Time was running out...

The No. 1 high-altitude passage of Yubei City had only 3 days left before closing. Excluding the travel time, he had at most less than two days to visit that underground city...

However, looking at Kiki's exceptionally excited appearance, Lin Xian didn't pour cold water on her directly, only nodding and saying,

"If things go smoothly, our train might be able to get a huge upgrade. By then, after passing the No. 1 high-altitude corridor, we could get from Jiazhou City to Jinhai in less than a week."

Who would have thought that as soon as these words were out, Kiki seemed to have sniffed something. The smile on her face suddenly sank, and she looked at him with sharp eyes.

!

"What did you say?!"

"What's wrong?" Lin Xian frowned slightly. Did he get the route wrong?

*Thump, thump, thump! *

But before he could react, Kiki suddenly jumped off the swivel chair, ran over barefoot in a few steps, and jumped onto his lap, straddling him like a cat. Then she grabbed Lin Xian's collar, pulled him to her face, and stared into Lin Xian's eyes with a slightly angry gaze.

"Jinhai? What, do you want to kick me off the train again?"

Lin Xian looked at that pair of beautiful big eyes in front of him, his gaze flickering. He understood instantly and gave a sheepish smile.

"How could that be? You're our information expert. I was just talking about our travel route."

"Re... ally?" Kiki's big eyes stared fixedly at Lin Xian. Lin Xian could almost feel the girl's breath hitting his face.

It was tingly and numb.

"Really." Lin Xian nodded solemnly.

After the words fell, the air went quiet. Kiki sat on Lin Xian's lap just like that, their gazes crossing.

"That's more like it..."

After Kiki finished speaking, she stared blankly into Lin Xian's eyes for a while. Suddenly, she stretched her neck, opened her mouth, and quickly took a bite of Lin Xian's nose, then pushed him away. "Go away, go away, don't disturb this young lady's work..."

Lin Xian's expression was a bit slow to react. He reached out and touched his nose, looking at Kiki with surprise, only to find that the latter ignored him directly, put on her headphones, and began to work while humming a song.

Damn...

What kind of move was that?

New book is out, kneeling and begging for monthly votes, Infinite Train, rushing into the clouds!

Thank you very much!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 93 =====