Chapter 59

The two people who were dragging the body were startled by Liu Guoyou's voice.

"There's something moving under the corpse, it's not the corpse itself moving," Liu Guoyou said, standing to the side and shining his flashlight, so he saw more clearly than Li Xuewu and the other man.

Li Xuewu told Wang Yimin to let go, then he himself used force to lift the corpse's crotch area to the side, flipping the body over.

The neck of the corpse was still bleeding, but after being flipped over, the arms were still clutching a bundle tightly, and there was some slight movement inside the bundle.

Even Li Xuewu, who had licked blood on the battlefield, felt a bit daunted, especially since the surroundings were silent, with only the sound of a few people breathing.

At this moment, a breeze blew by, and Li Xuewu and the others couldn't help but shiver.

Li Xuewu took a breath, steadied his mind, and squatted down, wanting to force open the corpse's arms to take out the bundle, but for some reason, he couldn't pry them open no matter what.

Li Xuewu mustered his courage and lifted the bundle, only to see a chubby little face yawning and looking around.

"It's a child!" Wang Yimin exclaimed at this moment.

Liu Guoyou and Han Dache were also quite surprised; they never expected there to be another person under the train, and a child at that.

Li Xuewu tried to pull the child out from above, but the infant was held so tightly that he didn't dare to use force for fear of hurting the baby.

Just as Li Xuewu was reaching out to try and find a way, the infant in the bundle freed its little hand, reached out from the gap in the loosened bundle, and patted Li Xuewu's palm.

Li Xuewu touched the infant's hand; it was a little cold. He gripped the corpse's arm again and said, "I'm on official business and can't afford to be delayed. I'll only try one more time. Give me the child, and I guarantee I'll deliver it to your relatives or hand it over to the local authorities to raise. If you don't give it to me, we'll just pretend we never saw it."

After saying this, Li Xuewu applied force again, and before he could even exert himself, the corpse's arm loosened.

Li Xuewu reached out to hold the infant and handed it to Liu Guoyou behind him, then turned back to grip the corpse's legs and pulled it out from under the train with one tug.

"Let's just leave it here for now, let's go check the other one," Liu Guoyou said in a low voice.

Seeing the infant looking at him, Li Xuewu took it and held it in his arms. This child had gone through such a big event and hadn't even cried; as soon as Li Xuewu held it, it pursed its little lips and started to doze off.

Li Xuewu wrapped the bundle tightly, left an air hole, held it in his arms, and followed Liu Xuewen and the others as they walked forward.

The stoker saw Han Dache returning and hurriedly stepped forward, saying, "Driver Han, this person isn't dead yet, she's still fluttering there."

Liu Guoyou shone his flashlight on the person lying on the embankment of the line, and Wang Yimin and Li Xuewu, who arrived shortly after, also saw it: it was a woman wearing black trousers on the lower half and a blue floral cotton-padded jacket on the upper half. Because they were far away, they couldn't tell how old she was.

The five of them took their flashlights down the embankment and came to the woman's side. Driver Han kicked her foot and called out loudly, "Hey, can you talk?"

Walking closer, Li Xuewu saw clearly that the woman was about twenty years old, her facial features were uninjured, and she looked extremely beautiful.

It was just that there was a blood hole the size of a duck egg on her head. Although she was still fluttering and breathing, every time she breathed, blood would spurt out from the hole in her head, and at the same time, blood was gradually bubbling out from her nostrils and mouth. She was already dying.

"What are you doing? The person is like this, what's the point of talking?"

Seeing that the person was almost gone and her pupils were starting to dilate, Liu Guoyou couldn't help but say this to Driver Han, seeing him kicking the person.

Driver Han also saw that the person was done for; calling out to her loudly was just out of habit.

Seeing that Liu Guoyou had spoken, he stopped making noise. He looked at the woman lying on the ground, then at Liu Guoyou, and said, "Train Captain Liu, how do you think we should handle this? We've been stopped for more than ten minutes; if we don't start the train, the dispatcher will get anxious."

Liu Guoyou understood what Driver Han meant. If she had been killed like the first person, they could find someone to guard the body and then start the train, reporting it to the dispatcher and the station's public security office at the next stop.

If they couldn't find anyone to guard the body, they could also start the train; the procedure was the same.

But now that one person was still alive, they had to find a way to save her.

In the middle of the night, in a place where there were no villages ahead or shops behind, there was simply no way to find an ambulance to take her to the hospital for treatment.

The only way was to lift the person onto the guard car and hand her over to the station at the next stop, where the station would be responsible for sending the injured person to the hospital for emergency treatment.

What Driver Han meant was that he wanted Liu Guoyou to lift the person onto the guard car first, and then start the train.

They couldn't delay too long in the section, otherwise, it would affect the operation of other trains.

The line they were currently on was not a double track, but a single track; a one-minute delay could potentially affect many other trains.

Li Xuewu and Wang Yimin were encountering this situation for the first time and had no idea what to do, so they could only look at Liu Guoyou in silence.

Liu Guoyou thought for a moment and said, "Driver Han, wait a little longer, let me see if she has any identification or valuables on her."

"Okay, but you need to be quick."

What Liu Guoyou said was reasonable and was also the standard procedure for handling people hit or crushed in a section; Driver Han had no reason to disagree.

Liu Guoyou said he was going to look for any identification on her.

He squatted down, but his hand didn't reach into her trouser pockets; instead, he supported her shoulders and hips and slowly flipped her over, then flipped her back.

Li Xuewu didn't know what Liu Guoyou was doing, and seeing that Wang Yimin was also standing there silently, he could only watch without saying a word.

Driver Han and the stoker also felt something was a bit off, but they didn't speak up either.

Liu Guoyou didn't say anything either; he flipped her over again, waited for a while, and then flipped her back.

Just then, the woman let out a long breath, her stomach sank, and she stopped breathing, never to rise again.

Only then did Liu Guoyou touch her two trouser pockets and say, "There's nothing in her pockets!" Then he stood up.

Midnight.

Seeing that the woman had stopped breathing, Driver Han let out a long sigh of relief and looked at Liu Guoyou, saying, "Train Captain, the person is already dead. There's no one here to guard the body. Let's start the train immediately; if we delay too long, the dispatcher will hold us responsible."

Liu Guoyou waved his hand and said, "Okay, Driver Han, we'll give you the signal once we get to the guard car; just start the train when you see it."

Driver Han agreed, and he and the stoker walked quickly toward the locomotive. Liu Guoyou, carrying the child, led Li Xuewu and Wang Yimin quickly toward the guard car.

Arriving at the guard car, Liu Guoyou let Li Xuewu and Wang Yimin get on first, then he got on himself, stood on the car ladder, and signaled the train to start toward the front.

After Driver Han saw his signal, he blew the whistle once, and the train slowly started to move.

As the guard car passed the place where the woman was lying, Li Xuewu saw clearly that this was a simple, unmanned crossing.

There was a small village a few hundred meters south of the crossing; it was estimated that these two adults and one child were from this small village, but it was unknown what they were doing at the crossing in the middle of the night.