In the icy plains of Bell Country, located in a high-latitude area, an extraordinary scene was unfolding.
From a distance, a cloud shaped like a lingzhi mushroom could be seen approaching rapidly from afar.
As it drew nearer, one could see that at the root of this ’lingzhi’ was a trench deeply plowed into the snowy ground, originating from a train.
This train was not like those coal-burning ones seen in western movies; neither was the lingzhi-shaped cloud simply the train’s exhaust smoke.
Enveloped in flas, the train lived up to its na, effortlessly lting the surrounding snow, which had piled more than three ters high, before it even touched it.
The steam evaporated above the train, conglorating and eventually pouring down as a downpour that turned into hail before reaching the surface, only to be sublimated once again by the flas exterior to the train.
All along its route, even though all other rail traffic in Bell Country had been brought to a halt, this train continued its mad, savage dash on the tracks.
The sky gradually dimd. Feng Xue leaned back in his chair, as a vibrant rock song replaced the ballads in the control room, playing with his phone. He devoted all of Haotian Mirror’s computing power to the image recognition system to avoid any hidden ’landmines’, like tractors or dump trucks, buried beneath the fragile ice.
"At this speed, by tomorrow evening at the latest, I should be able to reach Cosmo Station. Although this thing may not really be the final stop, once I get there, I should be able to abandon this car," Feng Xue mumbled to himself. His ears twitched slightly, and then, the door behind him, which hadn’t been opened since he had entered the driving cabin, was suddenly knocked on, accompanied by a sowhat familiar voice—
"Train conductor, the control center has issued a critical order, demanding we stop at the next station, Jiaeryou; otherwise, they will use force to make us stop."
"So they’ve recovered enough to start causing trouble?" Feng Xue glanced outside the window, a slight smile playing on his lips as he heard the familiar voice of the attendant and calmly responded,
"Ah, right, right."
Instantly, the sowhat anxious voice disappeared, replaced by the sound of receding footsteps.
"These attendants are also a nuisance, need to find them sothing to do," Feng Xue thought and montarily left the driver’s seat. He took out a bunch of parts from his waist bag and assembled a non-intelligent chanical transmission device at the door of the carriage.
It had no intelligence and was powered by a switch; its sole function was to allow a roughly spherical object to roll at high speed over a distance no more than five ters.
After completing such a gadget, Feng Xue placed a lightweight stone into it, and in a flash, the stone started rolling at an extrely high speed along the track.
Watching the paddles alternate back and forth, Feng Xue activated the Master of Props power, endowing it with the precision of illusionary-grade properties, ensuring it would operate flawlessly, before cautiously reaching out to open the door. But as his arm was about to move past the stone, an uncontrollable instinct made him leap back a step, dodging the contraption.
"Success!"
Feng Xue’s mouth curved into a smile; he readjusted the running paraters to be sure there would be no problems, then teleported back into his own carriage—yes, just the carriage, for since there was no one in his room, he could only appear behind soone in the next carriage.
He effortlessly used a business card to send the young lady to school for further studies, quickly packed up the remaining three people in the room, then calmly returned to his own room. He maintained the mana output for the Samadhi True Fire while waiting for midnight to arrive.
...
Deep into the night at one o’clock, Feng Xue returned to her room holding Santa’s wrapping cloth, sitting quietly on the bed waiting, yet today, her good friend did not appear.
Feeling as if sothing was missing from the nightly program, Feng Xue did not insist. After confirming that a few intentionally left real people were sound asleep, she once again transford into Masked Rider Orca, initiating Oathkeeper’s Appearance.
"Swish!"
Suddenly bridging a distance of over a thousand kiloters, Feng Xue’s figure flashed into existence, but imdiately after, an eerie sensation surged through her, sending chills down her spine.
Before her stood nurous figures, as rigid as wax statues. They breathed and had heartbeats, yet they stood frozen like sculptures—that is, until the next mont when almost simultaneously, hundreds of people in the station twisted their heads to fix their gaze upon Feng Xue, whose eyes were veiled by the helt of Masked Rider Orca.
"Hisss—"
Feng Xue inhaled sharply, breathing in the heated air from the All Things Squeezing Driver, as admission notices fluttered like cards in a gambler’s deft shuffle between her hands. Then, with precise control, she forcibly flew them into the corresponding hands of individual people.
Despite the chilling sight, the passenger’s physiques were rely that of ordinary people. Before they could respond, they had already returned to their haunting high school lives, embarking on a new sprint toward college entrance exams.
"All real people, the pseudo-passenger variants are completely gone," Feng Xue tried to sense the coordinates, confirming there were none of the marked individuals left at the station before once again initiating Oathkeeper’s Appearance, heading to the next marked location.
In just a few minutes, she had found all previously disembarked passengers whom she could still trace, and, unsurprisingly, all were able to be sent into the hellish cycle of school life.
"Interesting, ’real people’ get off and turn into ’wax statues’, while the pseudo-people just disappear?" Feng Xue watched as chaos unfolded in the school hell, with sorting by looks already underway. Without hesitation, she teleported back to Train K7.
"No change in the driver’s compartnt, the roof-mounted drones and caras are operating normally, the real people’s coordinates haven’t vanished, nor did pseudo-people reappear. It seems there’s no particular change."
Still under the guise of Lin Jiaxin, Feng Xue took the opportunity during the crew’s off-hours to re-examine the train. She then sent the last few real people, kept as coordinates, to school and, clutching her phone, took a firm post at the most populated hard sleeper carriage’s refresh point (by the toilet), where she remained vigilant throughout the night.
Now, she truly dared not sleep recklessly. If she were to rest and the train derailed, that would truly be a wasted effort.
...
As dawn broke and the crew mbers reappeared within the rest station, ready for today’s work assignnts, a hair-raising commotion reached their ears. Then, mories that should not exist flooded their minds. Upon opening the rest station, over a thousand passengers were acting out scenes of the real and fake Monkey Kings in groups of a dozen or more.
The train conductor, facing a scene as if yesterday had repeated itself, turned pale, but then, at the sa ti, all passengers in the carriage turned their gaze over:
"What the hell is going on with this train?!"
Questions asked in perfect unison flooded their ears. Bereft of the ultimate weapon—orders to "check at the next station"—the crew mbers were at a loss. In the end, it culminated in an utterance that should never have co from the train conductor—
"What a cri!"
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