Armored train in the apocalypse

Chapter 336 Summary
Zhijin, outside Chenxi Square, on the 26th floor of a resettlement community for scavengers.

Because of the apocalypse, most scavengers loathe these high-rise buildings. Once surrounded by a horde of zombies, they don't even have time to run and can only wait in despair in their rooms for the Night Demon to open the cans.

Therefore, when allocating housing, they tend to concentrate on those with six floors or less, especially in old school areas with complex terrain and many illegal buildings, which are most popular among scavengers.

On the contrary, those buildings that are well-organized and have an unobstructed view below are the most disliked.

If something happens, there's nowhere to hide.

A fat man with a face full of scars stared at the city in the dark, his eyes filled with malice.

The city was mostly silent, with only the city hall and trains emitting steady lights that appeared and disappeared in the sandstorm.

"Boss, Brother Hui has arrived."

The younger brother knocked on the door and whispered a reminder.

The fat man came out and saw the tall, thin figure standing in the living room. His bald brows furrowed. "Why are you the only one here?"

The tall, thin figure turned around abruptly, and upon seeing his face, suddenly let out a bitter laugh, his pupils revealing a deep-seated fear: "Because they are all dead."

"If I hadn't been coordinating from behind the scenes, you wouldn't even be able to see me now!"

"Armed train...armed trains are killing us like animals!"

The fat man recalled the series of gunshots from the recruit camp, his face twitched, and he sighed, "I never expected the plan to fail so completely. It seems that Black Star and the train have a connection that we don't know about."

"A scheme?" The tall, thin man seemed to be provoked, his eyes red as he growled, "They don't play those games at all. They don't care whether Zhijin is balanced or not; if it's not balanced, they'll just shoot and wipe it out!"

"Alright! Are you afraid the train won't hear you?!"

The fat man roared, his face fierce.

Seeing that the tall, thin man had realized what was happening, the fat man's expression softened slightly. He lit a cigarette for the man and waited until he calmed down before continuing to ask, "Have you contacted the leader of Tie Jiancheng?"

"call……"

The tall, thin man exhaled a smoke ring and sneered, "They don't play with us at all. They're bossed around by that kid Black Star every day. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were his dogs!"

"If the hard one won't work, then let's try the soft one."

The fat man thought for a moment and said firmly.

The tall, thin man was startled. "Again? Just the two of us. Are you worried there won't be enough targets for the new recruits? With over ten thousand new recruits, each of us from both families would have to take on an average of more than a hundred bullet holes."

The fat man shook his head. "You can't fall into the same trap twice. I don't believe he'll kill us even if we send him women."

"What benefits do we get?"

"Build a relationship first, then there's something else to do. You can't catch a wolf without risking your cub."

The tall, thin man reluctantly agreed to the fat man's suggestion, but still worried, "Wouldn't that be too deliberate? And wouldn't he look down on most women?"

The fat man asked with a hint of mystery, "What kind of woman do you think is the most precious in this world?"

"nice?"

"Sexy?"

"Powerful?"

The tall, thin man guessed three names, but the fat man shook his head and denied them all.

Seeing that he really didn't understand, the fat man said directly, "It's clean!"

The tall, thin man was taken aback. "Where am I supposed to find him a clean woman in this situation?"

The fat man grinned lewdly, "There's always some left. We can just lower the age..."

……

Late at night, a tall, thin man emerged from a residential building with his henchmen. After looking around, he disappeared into the darkness.

This entire scene was captured in an inconspicuous car parked on the side of the street.

"Captain Ke, Leng Hui must have gone to see the person behind him. Should we arrest him?"

Fatty Ke, sitting in the passenger seat, narrowed his eyes. "Arresting them now is useless and will only make other forces uneasy. We need to keep a close eye on them and report to the train as soon as they make a move. They keep tripping me up. Do they really think I, the commander of the city defense army, am just sitting around doing nothing?"

……

The energy generated by the machine of the "collective" when it is in operation is terrifying.

The operation of armed trains, a purely war-oriented organization, produced immediate and significant results.

After the meeting, Hu Shuo and others assigned tasks to each group, and each flight attendant took full control of Zhijin that day.

The train's domineering attitude naturally aroused dissatisfaction among the Zhijin administrators, who had barely settled in.

But all the management members who had complained openly or covertly showed up at the recruit training camp shooting range that very night.

Gunfire echoed all night.

One-third of the city hall was empty.

The two-day unrest did not cause panic among scavengers; instead, it attracted even more scavengers to Zhijin, with the number soaring to 120,000 at one point and continuing to increase.

Hu said he led the logistics team to conduct a population census and resettlement.

The 120,000 people were divided into ten major regions, and each person was issued a temporary identity certificate. The identity certificate was made using a combination of energy and identification methods, including physical photos, electronic files, and evolutionary abilities. Everyone had to carry it with them at all times, otherwise they would be killed as intruders.

Identify the convoy and gang members, and disperse them across the district.

The population census problem that had plagued Li Xinlong for a month was completely resolved on the fifth day after the armed train was freed up.

Li Xinlong, who was originally confused, felt as if he had opened the door to a new world.

Feeling ashamed of his own inferiority, he humbly sought advice.

Every day, he would follow Hu Shuo around as an assistant, accompanied by managers from the three bureaus and two academies, asking questions about every single step.

Once the housing problem was initially resolved, Hu Shuo directly announced that everyone owed the train conductor a life-saving debt and had to repay it with work. He then introduced the train's points system, but the two were separate and had different exchange rates.

Tens of thousands of people who helped the armed train collect materials in the early stages have obtained official resident status at the Zhijin station.

As a formal resident of Zhijin, you enjoy the following rights:
1. Housing will be allocated within the inner city (the first ring outside the City Hall and Dawn Square).
2. Each person is entitled to purchase 1.5L of purified water and 500g of food per day (including fruits and vegetables).

3. Right to purchase weapons. (Excluding rocket launchers and other explosives, and excluding weapons with a caliber of 20mm or larger)

4. Children have the right to education.

5. Qualified to run for management positions at Zhijin Station, such as in the Municipal Hall, City Guard, or Garrison Corps.

6. Ordinary people can receive Pan-Energy Crystals for free at the City Hall for use in evolution.

……

In addition, there are more than a dozen articles customized by professional legal experts, such as some basic safety protections, but even these six articles are a great attraction for scavengers who struggle on the line between life and death every day.

The complaints about "working to pay off debts" were immediately drowned out by a deluge of praise.

The remaining people complained, but they worked even harder every day.

The train is generous to these people, ensuring their basic safety and daily sustenance.

The factory, which stretches for a kilometer around the train, has an unlimited energy supply and operates around the clock. Everyone works in three shifts to ensure that everyone has a shift, and you can't see a single idle person on the street.

In addition to materials for upgrading the armed trains, the factory also produced some basic daily necessities. Zhijin, which could only sit and wait for its resources to run out, now had a steady stream of supplies, although the types were scarce and the output was low.

Besides factory work, "energy providers" can work at the Energy Administration, where they receive food for discharging electricity every day, and also receive an additional energy crystallization subsidy.

"Defenders" can join the city guard or the outer sentry garrison.

The former is safer, while the latter offers higher subsidies.

Some individuals who awaken special skills or professions can enter the Food Production Bureau to care for mutated plants and raise mutated animals, or they can enter the Academy of Sciences or the Medical Institute.

After the train's explanation, the ability to evolve is no longer a mysterious power, but a skill that everyone possesses, and every evolver can find their place in city construction.

The giant glass pit in Chenxi Square has been transformed into a large auction center.

The train construction team built two hundred permanent shops around the giant pit. The shops had two floors, with walls made entirely of metal by Xiao Ba and interiors filled with sand and soil from Chen Shan, resembling a war fortress surrounding the city hall.

In fact, these shops also serve this purpose.

The underground area was also cleared out, and the originally interconnected underground passages were all sealed off. The passages were replaced with shops on the ground floor to ensure that the city guards could protect the city hall through the shops in case of any problems.

Ten shops were set up to sell daily necessities to residents, such as food, controlled firearms, and evolution items.

The rest will be used for rentals and preparations for the train conductor's planned big trading day.

The most troublesome task was clearing out the underground beetles, but the train conductor had already killed most of them that day. The remaining giant rock beetles were subdued by the city guards led by Lao Xie. With the help of these beetles, the underground clearing work was carried out much faster.

Under the high pressure of the train, the entire city of Zhijin was transformed. What the various gangs, large and small, couldn't even finish sorting out in a month, took on the form of a city in just twenty days under the train's control.

The recruit camp also had many more vivid targets.

After this period of selection, the number of recruits in the recruit camp has surged from 2,000 to 13,000, exceeding one-tenth of the total population.

This is only because the second brother and others have been working hard every day, eliminating or automatically withdrawing a large number of people; otherwise, the "fighting power" of Zhijin could exceed half of the total population.

However, Zhijin is currently unable to support so many combat personnel who have taken time off work.

In addition to regular training, these new recruits are often taken out to do construction work. For example, they were responsible for cleaning up the area under Chenxi Square, and their efficiency was twice that of the train construction team.

According to He Jie and others' training plan, 10,000 of these people will be eliminated in the next few months. Of the remaining 3,000, only the best will be selected, and only 500 will be able to enter the armed train. The remaining 2,500 will all be assigned to the city defense army and garrison corps.

Today is the first assessment, and the bottom 5,000 people will be eliminated.

……

The four bridges leading to the northern part of Zhijin have long been blocked by a large number of low-level intelligent zombies.

The zombies, having run out of food, tried to disperse, but the zombies attracted from behind pushed their way in, making it impossible for those inside to get out and for those outside to get in. If it were other creatures, even if things were chaotic at first, they would eventually clear up the mess on their own after a while.

But the zombies were incredibly stubborn, refusing to give way, which resulted in all four bridges being blocked.

He Jie instructed Xiao Ba to build a second wall behind the first iron wall, which included some of the city's buildings. Then, he opened a gap in the first iron wall and let in several thousand zombies at a time, along with a dozen or so Tier 1 zombies, to let the new recruits practice.

Of course, it wasn't always accurate. In the short time it took Colonel He to light a cigarette, a dozen or so first-tier Night Demons sneaked in.

Jiang Rong, who had been brought in for training due to a shortage of manpower, frowned and asked, "Isn't the intensity a bit too high?"

"Intensity?" He Jie waved his hand to disperse the smoke in front of him, just in time to see an unlucky guy get his head stomped off by a jumping creature that fell from the sky because he was too engrossed in killing. He chuckled and said, "Are you going to lower the intensity now, and then send your son to protect these useless zombies when the zombies break through the iron wall?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Rong fell silent.

Looking down at the battlefield and listening to the shrill screams around him, He Jie felt as if he were drinking fine wine and said calmly, "The train conductor said that you can choose a group to stay after you finish training."

"But we can't choose number one."

He Jie added another sentence.

He had made a solemn pledge to the train conductor. If Jiang Rong were to kill all of these elite soldiers, how would he explain himself to the conductor?
Out of consideration for the relationships we've built up over the years, we can offer some leniency, but we cannot harm the interests of the train too much.

This is a principle that every senior executive tacitly understands.

"I see."

Jiang Rong sighed inwardly, feeling that she owed the train another debt.

But she couldn't repay the train conductor's money now, so she stopped worrying about it and instead focused on observing the outstanding soldiers below.

By then, these will all be his son's trusted men.

But my gaze kept getting drawn to a bright red head.

On the rooftop of a low-rise residential building, Bomb, sporting a head of red hair, peered down at the scene. After seeing a Tier 1 Slayer fall with a single shot, he muttered, "This Tier 1 zombie just looks tough; in a fight, it's no different from a regular zombie."

Xiao Hong, who was holding a sniper rifle, sighed, "That's because we have the Truth in our hands and happen to have enough range to fire. Look at that group of people down there, nine out of twelve were killed, and they didn't even have time to fire the flare."

Bomb glanced at it, then looked at the sniper rifle in Xiao Hong's arms and said eagerly, "Let your brother Bomb have some fun."

Xiao Hong decisively refused, "There are only twelve bullets left. Whether we can advance or not depends on him."

The bomber had anticipated this and wasn't angry; he just chattered away about some gossip.

"I heard that after this assessment, we'll be divided into groups at the end of the month."

Xiao Hong felt a slight stirring in his heart, but remained silent.

"That's not the key point. I heard that people in the same work group have to live together!"

"Isn't this normal?"

"Normal? We have female soldiers in our training camp!"

As Bomb spoke, his eyes lit up, and his rooster-comb-like hair trembled.

'Mixed housing? '

Xiao Hong subconsciously felt that it was unreasonable, but then he thought that this was the end of the world, so there was nothing unreasonable about it. Wasn't he still living with more than thirty women?

Although he felt his will was very firm, he still did what he could and couldn't do under the constant whispering and whispering.

So he had some suspicions that a group of hot-blooded male and female soldiers were living together...

That scene is a bit hard to imagine.

Suddenly, a black star flashed in the corner of Xiao Hong's eye, and his heart skipped a beat.

"go!"

He gave a low shout, picked up his sniper rifle, and left.

"Huh, they've moved their positions so quickly. How can they surpass that bastard Liu Zi if they don't kill a few more?"

Despite his constant chatter, the bomber was incredibly fast, having already triggered several pre-arranged mechanisms on the rooftop. He rushed down after Xiao Hong entered the doorway.

The moment the gate was locked, a Tier 1 Night Demon rushed onto the rooftop.

But the pungent smell of gasoline instantly disrupted his senses.

……

Armored train, train modification laboratory.

Various robotic arms hang haphazardly yet orderly from the ceiling, and under the control of the flight attendants, they perform various processes on the parts on the assembly line.

A man who looked to be thirty or younger stood beside the assembly line, carefully observing each step of the process.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned around with a slight smile.

Dean Zhou, dressed in her flight attendant uniform, walked over with her students. A month had passed, and the black hair at her temples had grown another inch. Her hair was now half black and half white, and the passage of time seemed to have settled on her, giving her a weathered air that seemed to have transcended life and death.

"Excuse me, Professor Luo, Chief Flight Attendant Hu has something come up, so she asked me to explain it to you."

Dean Zhou said apologetically.

The two shook hands. Luo Jingyi didn't dwell on who came, and humbly said, "I've been working down here for a while now. This is my first time working on the bus, so I hope you can give me some guidance."

Dean Zhou smiled and said, "I didn't achieve what you did when I was forty."

"The fact that such an assembly line could be installed in the cramped space of the train carriage is a testament to the ingenuity of the design..."

"This was all left behind by the old factory director, and Professor Wang Duoyu succeeded him. It has nothing to do with me..."

"..."

When it comes to small talk, both of them are seasoned pros. If they really started chatting, they could go on for three days and three nights. After a brief probing, they got down to business.

Dean Zhou gestured for him to proceed, saying, "Let me first introduce the train to you."

"Appreciate further details."

A glint of light flashed in Luo Jingyi's eyes.

The two walked out of the train modification laboratory at the end of the train and headed forward. Zhou Qing introduced the various carriages in the train one by one, including their functions, responsible persons, and projects.

If it were an ordinary train attendant, they could be thrown in and let him learn on his own, but Luo Jingyi is a highly skilled technical person and must have a thorough understanding of all aspects of the train system.

"So you mean there are two types of flight attendants?"

Luo Jingyi asked curiously.

Zhou Qing nodded, "Yes, we usually refer to the person in charge of Group Four as the Administrative Chief Train Attendant, and the person in charge of the laboratory as the Responsible Chief Train Attendant. The former is responsible for train operation, while the latter is mainly responsible for laboratory output. Their actual compensation is the same; they just have different areas of responsibility..."

'This isn't just about having different areas of responsibility...'

With Luo Jingyi's keen sense of power, he quickly noticed the problem of "power content".

Hu Shuo, the logistics team chief, has access to far more resources than Zhou Qing, the lab chief. The only difference between the two chiefs is probably their treatment.

According to Zhou Qing's account, Luo Jingyi quickly constructed a power hierarchy diagram of the flight crew in his mind.

Train conductor (Su Huan) – Secretary-General (Shu Wei) – Executive Chief Physician (Hu Shuo, Lao San, Xiao Zhao, Deputy General Manager Deng) – Responsible Chief Physician (Deputy General Manager Deng, Yu Jing, Director Xu, Professor Ma, Wang Duoyu, Ban Yunzhang) – Executive Deputy Chief Physician (Zhou Qing, Tian Tu, Lao Jiang, Su Leiya) – Level 5 Attendant (Huang Hai, Li Han, Glasses…) – Responsible Deputy Chief Physician (Big Brother, Tan Yunxi…)
Then come the regular secretaries and regular flight attendants.

In this context, the actual power of a Level 5 flight attendant exceeds that of the responsible deputy flight attendant.

Although the salary of a Level 5 flight attendant is not as high as that of the deputy flight attendant in each laboratory, they are at least the head of a department, while the deputy flight attendant mainly assists the flight attendant in conducting research.

Their power is naturally much weaker.

(The general group is full, so a butler group has been created, which can be seen in the profile.)
(End of this chapter)