Chapter 614

"Alright, Godmother, Uncle Zhuzi, you can let go."

Pang Dakun squeezed half his body into the maintenance platform, easily brought the ladder up, and used the pre-modified hooks to lock it firmly onto the edge. A convenient ladder for going up and down was set up.

The ladder was less than half a meter from the ground, so even Wu Lue, who was the worst at physical arts, could climb up easily.

"Master Jia, you stay behind and watch the cars."

Zhang Su instructed Jia Shiqin to stay below and guard the fire-breathing zombie. The rest of the people climbed onto the railway bridge one after another. Although the altitude was only ten meters higher, when they looked around, the feeling was completely different, with a sense of openness that was refreshing.

It seemed that everyone had a tacit understanding and deliberately did not move their gaze toward the carriage windows.

"Eh?"

Qi Xiaoshuai looked at his feet with some curiosity: "Why isn't there any crushed stone? Shouldn't there be stones pressing down on the tracks?"

"This is called a ballastless track, which is more advanced, has better overall rigidity, higher stability, and lower maintenance costs. In short, it has many advantages, but the construction cost is relatively high, and the drainage is average. However, since we have little rain here, it is very suitable for building this kind of ballastless track."

Pan Guoliang explained, sounding somewhat professional.

After everyone understood what a ballastless track was, they seemed to have prepared themselves mentally and turned their heads slowly in unison, casting their gaze toward the windows.

In front of everyone was the fifth carriage. The black, opaque glass was stained with dried mucus. Even though it was an overcast day outside, it was very difficult for everyone to see the situation inside, except for one person.

Zhang Su, through his sunglasses and the black glass, could still see the situation inside the carriage quite clearly.

Tachibana Mai Sakura was observing Zhang Su secretly and found that his brow, exposed outside the sunglasses, was tightly furrowed. She knew in her heart that the situation inside the carriage must be bad.

Of course it was bad. Inside the carriage now, it could no longer be described by the simple word "miserable." Frozen severed limbs and internal organs were everywhere, but they were not well preserved.

At the beginning of the disaster, the temperature was lower than in previous years, but overall it wasn't cold. It was only after the big temperature drop that it reached below zero, so those human remains in the carriage that hadn't been eaten by zombies were already in a state of decay! The low temperature was like a camera, freezing the scene inside the carriage in a very miserable moment, but for some reason, no disgusting maggots had grown on the decaying torsos.

On the seats, on the backrests, on the dining tables, on the walls...

It was a dye shop in the true sense of the word, and various colors had become dull after being washed for four or five months.

What was incomplete were the people, and what was complete were the zombies. Of course, there were also some incomplete zombies...

The zombies were in various forms, but they had one common characteristic: they were like they had crashed, maintaining stiff postures and not moving at all, just like a super-realistic horror house without power, waiting for someone destined to step in.

The bold Zhao Dezhu, Lu Yubo, and others pressed their eyes against the glass to peek inside, but still didn't disturb the zombies in their stiff state.

The skin of these zombies was more withered and wrinkled than the zombies they usually saw; rather than calling them zombies, it was more like calling them mummies.

"My, oh my... big brother, tsk tsk tsk, did you like taking the high-speed train before?"

Zhao Dezhu must have seen the situation inside the carriage clearly, and with a twisted face, he asked a particularly useless question.

"Someone has passed by the railway!"

Zhou Haotian said from the side.

"Hmm? How so?"

Zhang Su looked at Zhou Haotian, who was studying the train body.

"Brother Su, look, these fingerprints and scratches were obviously made later..."

Hearing this, everyone walked to Zhou Haotian's side and indeed saw some relatively new traces. Compared to the thick dust around, the shallow floating dust shouldn't have been there for too long.

"It should be that someone was moving to another place along the railway line before. I have to say, it's also a pretty good method."

Zhang Su observed the traces carefully and felt that they should have been left one to two months ago.

"The railway line is relatively quiet, and there are relatively few zombies. Hmm... I wonder if anyone will come along the railway again."

Zheng Xinyu looked at the traces left by fingers on the train body, where the fingerprints were still vaguely visible. As a survivor, she had many feelings in her heart.

"Forget whether anyone is coming, let's do our own work!" Zhang Su waved at everyone and began to observe the situation inside the carriage again.

"Brother Su, why are these zombies not moving at all? Have they all died because they haven't received nutrients for such a long time?"

Wang Xin covered the light with both hands to peek inside the carriage.

After a moment of buffering, everyone also gathered around to look inside the carriage. Even with the strong hearts of everyone who had been baptized for more than a hundred days in the apocalypse, they couldn't help but gasp when they saw the miserable state inside the carriage.

"It would be good if they were really dead, but I don't think it's very likely!"

Zhang Su raised his hand, signaling everyone to step back, then he took the fire axe from Zhao Dezhu's hand and swung it at the metal part of the train body.

Dong! A dull sound rang out, making the alert people look around immediately. This sound didn't sound very loud, but it could travel very far.

"Come, come, come, take a look!"

Zhang Su carried the fire axe and pointed at the inside of the carriage.

Everyone was curious because there was no movement inside the carriage. They couldn't see clearly, but Zhang Su could. Those motionless zombies, after feeling the vibration and sound, were like machines that had been sealed for a long time being turned on again. First, there was small-scale shaking, then the joints gradually regained flexibility, and then they began to struggle to stand up!

By the time everyone got close to the window, they happened to see zombies with awkward steps and twisted postures also heading toward the window...

Dong! Pfft, pfft, slap, slap, slap!

Before long, in about half a minute, the zombies in the fifth carriage piled up in front of the south window and began to slap it violently. The double rows of sharp teeth looked particularly sharp against the backdrop of their withered lips.

"Damn..."

Zhao Dezhu swallowed his saliva and turned to look at Zhang Su: "Big brother, what the hell do we do about this? How about we blow up the carriage?"

"No way!"

Wu Lue on the side heard this and immediately denied it: "We are mainly here to dismantle various equipment and devices on the train. If we blow it up, what the hell are we going to play with... It's better to leave it here and ignore it; it would also waste explosives."

Zhao Dezhu glared at Wu Lue and said, "Can't you tell I'm joking? Of course I know we can't blow it up... But how do we get in?"

Zhang Su looked at Pang Dakun: "Can that door be opened?"

Pang Dakun walked to the train door, lowered his head to look, touched it here and there, turned his head, and gave everyone a strange smile: "This thing... can only be broken open by force."

Everyone was very discouraged after hearing this. Qi Xiaoshuai teased: "Dakun, you are still not skilled enough. Just opening residential doors doesn't count as a skill. Let alone a high-speed train, you might have to open the hatch of a warship in the future!"

"This high-speed train has been parked here for several months and has long been out of power. If you want to open this door properly, you can only operate it manually from the inside. From the outside, you can only break it open by force."

Pan Guoliang helped explain.

Unexpectedly, Pang Dakun said very seriously: "Little Handsome is right. Actually, it's just that I'm not skilled enough. To open this kind of door, you can't use conventional means; you need to use more professional lock-picking equipment and also cooperate with a laptop. I'm not very good at those."

When talking about his professional field, Pang Dakun seemed to have become a different person, very serious and solemn.

"Then how do we get into this iron can? How about breaking the window? But it's not good to go in; there are so many zombies, it's too dangerous."

"You're really stupid. We can lure the zombies to one side from the outside, and people can go in from the other side..."

"Hey, that's true. No, can we blow up the door, wait for the zombies to fall under the bridge, and then kill them, so..."

"Shh!"

While everyone was discussing how to open the carriage and clear out the zombies, Zhang Su suddenly pressed his palm down and made a silent gesture to everyone.

"Someone is coming!"

The voices of the crowd stopped abruptly. Immediately after, they picked up their weapons and lowered their bodies. The two temporary members followed suit. Their hearts jumped into their throats, and they looked around vigilantly in all directions, but unfortunately, it was calm and there was no movement.

(End of Chapter)