Translator: AnubisTL
Amidst a sea of greedy gazes, Chen Mang slowly devoured two steaming buns with pickled mustard greens. After finishing the last drop of his Mineral Water, he finally exhaled deeply, feeling a semblance of fullness. He had nearly starved to death these past few days.
He had done his best to protect his vital areas during the fight. Now, he only felt aches throughout his body, but it didn't significantly hinder his movement. His joints were intact.
If only he had a cigarette right now. After a satisfying meal, he always craved a smoke.
He scanned the carriage. Leaning against the metal wall behind him, he remained silent, lost in thought. The sudden transmigration to this world and the events of the past few days had been overwhelming. He had been abruptly thrust from a life of comfort and security into this apocalyptic wasteland.
How to survive had become his paramount concern.
As for cigarettes...
What was he thinking? In this world where starvation was a constant threat, where could he possibly find cigarettes?
Just then—
"Big Brother..."
A bald man, covered in mud, approached cautiously, maintaining a safe distance before plastering his face with a fawning smile. He carefully pulled a piece of cloth from his chest and unwrapped two slightly crumpled cigarettes, offering them with a mixture of flattery and trepidation. "Big brother, would you like a smoke?"
"..."
Chen Mang glanced down at the two wrinkled cigarettes laid out on the cloth, then back at the bald man. He knew everyone in this carriage was on the verge of starvation, with no supplies to their name. How had this man managed to secretly hoard two cigarettes? If word of this got out, they would have been snatched up long ago.
As expected, Chen Mang saw several men casting greedy glances at the bald man's back. If he refused now, the bald man's fate would likely be grim.
The bald man was acutely aware of this, his eyes pleading and anxious.
After a long pause, Chen Mang accepted the cigarettes, placing one in his mouth and carefully wrapping the other in the cloth before tucking it into his pocket.
Seeing this, the bald man immediately breathed a long sigh of relief. He hurriedly pulled out half a box of matches from his pocket and, with a fawning expression, leaned forward. In the dim carriage, he struck a match and carefully held the flame to Chen Mang's lips. "Big brother, here's a light."
Huuu
Chen Mang, leaning against the carriage's metal wall on a straw mat, exhaled a long plume of smoke. His brow furrowed slightly, and he couldn't help but cough a few times. The tobacco tasted stale and was quite harsh.
But in this environment, after a full meal, what could he complain about when he had a cigarette to smoke?
He inhaled deeply again.
After flicking the ash onto the metal floor of the carriage, he waved his hand at the bald man and said softly, "From now on, you'll sit beside me."
As soon as the words fell, the greedy glint in the eyes of the other passengers, which had been fixed on the bald man, quickly faded.
"Yes, yes, thank you, Big brother!"
The bald man's eyes were filled with excitement. He quickly stood up and carefully sat on the metal wall beside Chen Mang, making sure his buttocks didn't touch even a single strand of the straw mat.
The crimson tip of the cigarette flickered in the dim carriage.
Soon...
A cigarette burned to its end. Chen Mang crushed the butt against the metal floor of the carriage, paused for a moment, and then asked softly, "Where did you get that cigarette?"
He knew little about this world. He needed to gather as much information as possible through conversation. At first, he hadn't engaged in dialogue because the people he encountered lacked the means to communicate. This bald man who had voluntarily surrendered was the first person he'd met who could truly converse.
He didn't mind the surrender; in fact, he welcomed it. After all, one person's strength was limited. Many hands made light work.
As for whether the man was sincere...
Dwelling on that question was as pointless and tedious as a teenage boy's fantasies of first love.
"This..." The bald man glanced around, lowered his voice, and whispered, "Big Brother, I used to be a deputy train conductor. But it was on a small train, nothing like this one."
"Then, during a disaster, that train was completely destroyed. When I was wandering the wasteland, this train caught me and turned me into a slave. I had a pack of cigarettes back then, but I never finished it. I've been saving the last two ever since."
"This train has three slave cars, each holding 100 slaves, totaling 300 slaves."
"It's probably a Tier 2 train, possibly even close to Tier 3."
"This train is heading to the mine. Mining is physically demanding and dangerous, with occasional deaths. But during those days, everyone gets their fill of food. No one goes hungry."
"It's just..."
"Big Brother, could you please arrange a low-risk job for me?"
Chen Mang remained silent for a long time, absorbing all the information. Finally, he turned to the middle-aged man whose head was pressed against his ear while his buttocks remained firmly planted outside the straw mat.
The posture was rather comical, bordering on excessive in its display of deference, but Chen Mang found it quite pleasing.
This was a man who knew his place.
"Deputy Train Conductor?"
"Yes." The bald man chuckled self-consciously. "I've always been a deputy. Before the apocalypse, I was a class monitor in school and a deputy manager at the company. After the apocalypse, I was fortunate enough to become a deputy train conductor."
"I've never done anything right in my life, and I never thought about doing anything right."
"My abilities are limited."
"It's just luck, really. I've managed to scrape by before and after the apocalypse."
"..."
Chen Mang remained silent, his eyelids slightly lowered. Based on his observations over the past few days and the information the man had revealed, this post-apocalyptic world seemed to consist of only two types of people: Train conductors and slaves.
Each train had Tiers, with higher-Tier trains boasting superior defenses and offensive capabilities.
For the first three days after transmigrating to this world, they had remained stationed in a desolate wasteland. Though they were forbidden from leaving their carriages, the occasional glimpses through the gaps in the connecting passages revealed that the thugs remained on high alert, as if expecting monsters to burst out at any moment.
In this post-apocalyptic world, there were no true settlements. All settlements were trains, and the larger the settlement, the larger the train.
To survive long and thrive in this world, one had to become a train conductor and own their own train.
Train conductor...
He fell into a silent reverie, no longer speaking. The bald man, a former deputy train conductor, likely knew more about trains than any other slave. He was too valuable to die—a true talent.
Most importantly, despite his high-ranking past, he now lived as a slave without a trace of resentment, as if he had been born into servitude.
And when he sensed an opportunity, he immediately produced his prized possessions, ingratiating himself in an attempt to secure protection.
A true veteran.
Silence once again descended upon the carriage, broken only by the occasional sound of someone relieving themselves in the corner.
The bald man sat obediently beside Chen Mang, his head resting on his arm as he dozed. His eyes betrayed his deep anxiety about the journey ahead.
In this world, only within the constantly moving carriages of the train could one find a semblance of safety. Once they stopped at a desolate wasteland or a mine, the risk of being overrun by a massive zombie horde skyrocketed.
He didn't want to die.
No one in the carriage wanted to die.
No one did.
But someone always had to.
(End of the Chapter)
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