Chapter 4 - Hunger

The executive proactively took out his ID, “My name is Li Fei, and I’m the general manager of Feiyue Group.”

“I see there are people in the carriages ahead and behind us, we in the same carriage should unite first to avoid being unprepared in case of an emergency.”

Since Evolvers appeared a month ago, many people had encountered their kin; the executive’s words made some sense.

Everyone was a grasshopper on the same string, and compared to passengers in the same compartment, they had to be more vigilant against Evolvers from the adjacent carriages.

Everyone returned to their seats as the man in pajamas and the woman in a strappy dress stated their names respectively.

“My name is Chen Yi, but I didn’t bring my ID card.”

“He Yang.”

“Xu Huo.” After briefly stating his name, Xu Huo lit a cigarette.

“My name is Yan Jiayu.

I’ve just left the convent.” The girl next to him tousled her tomboyish short hair and shyly asked him, “Could you go outside to smoke?

Secondhand smoke is harmful to your health.”

Xu Huo paused, couldn’t help but look at her once more, and then nodded.

“Tsk!” The heavily made-up woman across scoffed, “Nowadays, even nuns renounce their vows.”

Yan Jiayu’s face turned slightly red as she fiddled with a small cloth bag on her Patchwork Clothes, “Amitabha…

My master said I still have worldly ties.”

However, the heavily made-up woman didn’t pester her and instead said coldly, “Play your nice game of ‘everyone looking out for everyone’ if you want, just leave me out of it.”

Li Fei persuaded, “This is for the good of us all, knowing each other’s names and identities, no one will dare to cause trouble.”

“Now, the state is investigating Evolvers who eat humans.

Everyone knows this, right?”

“To put it bluntly, if someone had eaten another person, as long as someone gets off the train after three days, no one can escape.”

The justified words didn’t suppress the heavily made-up woman.

Standing tall at one meter eighty, she strode over and grabbed Li Fei,

“What kind of good person you’re pretending to be, have you seen the nameplate at the front of the carriage?

“Second Class Seat, Top-Class Seat, First-Class Seat, Second Class Seat, Third-Class Seat, the wealthier you are, the closer to the front you sit.

Compared to those little hooligans in Third-Class Seat who are overwhelmed with debt, everyone in this carriage is a pauper!”

“You’re an executive, and Feiyue Group has quite the reputation.

You must have an annual income of several hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Otherwise, how did you end up in such a state?”

“So the game’s notice about asset allocation for seats meant this.” Professor Han subconsciously said, “It’s roughly a 100:1 ratio compared to cash.”

Li Fei’s face turned pale, “I lost some money in the stock market, that’s not illegal, is it?

I just want everyone to safely get through these three days, I didn’t mean any harm.”

The heavily made-up woman obviously didn’t believe him and let go of him to scan the other people in the carriage, intensifying her tone, “I advise you not to trust others too much.

It’s not hard to get a fake ID these days.

Don’t naively spill out everything about yourself.

Even if they let you get off the train alive, can you guarantee you’ll make it to report to the police?”

Sharing identities seemed to add a layer of insurance, but if there was an Evolver in this compartment who ate people, the risk was obviously greater.

No one was a fool; with mutual distrust, they were all a bit more cautious with Li Fei.

“Do you know the situation with the initial screening train?” Xu Huo’s cigarette shaking stopped.

“Not much.

Once you board this train, there’s only one thing to do, and that’s to get off alive,” the heavily made-up woman snorted.

“I know there must be someone here who has eaten a person.

I’m warning you, don’t even think about targeting me, otherwise…”

She punched down on the table, leaving a deep dent on the metal surface, which showed a significant deterrent effect.

Ordinary Evolvers hadn’t reached the strength to dent steel with bare hands.

Xu Huo lifted his heel, feeling no change.

It seemed after the professional differentiation, everyone’s characteristics varied.

“Sister, is there anything else?” The ponytail girl timidly asked, “How exactly are we supposed to play this game?”

“Didn’t I say just survive honestly until you get off the train?

Why all the nonsense!” The heavily made-up woman impatiently sat down, glowering at the person opposite her.

Xu Huo, with his cigarette, moved to cooperate towards the front door.

Just as he grabbed the doorknob, Li Fei stopped him, “The announcement said we shouldn’t randomly go to other compartments.

What if you trigger something dangerous when you open the door, wouldn’t that endanger us all?”

Xu Huo pointed to the restroom outside, “We can’t go to other carriages, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go out.”

After being repeatedly snubbed, Li Fei glared at him with displeasure.

Xu Huo slid open the carriage door and stepped out.

The connector section outside was half the length of a Second Class Seat carriage, with the restroom on the left and some emergency items beside it, and the entrance and exit doors on the right.

He tried but couldn’t open it, and the entire train kept speeding in a straight line, with the scenery on both sides unchanged.

The carriage wasn’t very soundproof.

Seeing people in the carriage ahead getting up and moving around, Xu Huo took out another cigarette, reached for the door of the carriage ahead, but after two seconds, he opted to press the bell instead.

A moment later, the door opened, but it was a tattooed muscular man from the First Class Seat who opened it, speaking rudely, “What do you want?”

Xu Huo spotted a familiar face inside and casually offered a cigarette, “Got a light?”

Although the tattooed man looked impatient, he still tossed him a solid brass lighter and hastily shut the door with the remark, “Don’t run around if it’s nothing.”

Through the door, Xu Huo saw Nie Xuan, whom he had met by chance, nod at him and then head to the restroom.

When Xu Huo returned to the Second Class Seat carriage, Li Fei and the others were already discussing the train’s rules.

“I can understand the need to make purchases, but why do they turn off the lights?” The elegantly featured woman with a melon-seed-shaped face, who had moved from a middle-aged woman’s table to Li Fei’s side, complained, “This dump doesn’t even have beds, making it impossible to get some sleep.”

“You still want to sleep?” The square-faced man snapped back at her, “You might die without understanding why.”

“There’s a switch over there, you can turn it on,” Li Fei said.

“What’s there to argue about over such a trivial matter?

Let’s not let this affect the internal atmosphere—remember, there are other carriages before and after us.”

“Li Ge is right,” the woman with the melon-seed-shaped face agreed.

“Fox spirit!” The middle-aged woman muttered under her breath in anger.

“Professor Han, I’m scared,” said the ponytailed female student as she clung tightly to Professor Han’s arm, seated next to Xu Huo.

“Don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you,” said Professor Han, sweating and pale, lacking the confidence he verbalized.

“What’s there to be afraid of?” He Yang’s hands moved rapidly on her phone as she said, “If someone messes with you, just hit back.

We’re all Evolvers, and the younger you are, the quicker you evolve.

I can easily take on two or three grown men now.”

Xu Huo took note that among the twelve people, small groups had started to form.

Executive Li Fei, Pajama Man Chen Yi, the melon-seed-faced woman, and the square-faced man had formed a group, moving to the same table.

Sling-Top He Yang and the female student, who had keychains from the same summer camp, along with Professor Han, were tentatively grouped together.

Then there were the middle-aged woman, heavily made-up woman, Xu Huo, and Yan Jiayu beside him, as well as the elderly man sitting alone in the last row, had not joined any factions yet.

“If they’re teaming up, we should too,” the middle-aged woman said positioning herself next to the heavily made-up woman.

“They have four on one side, three on the other, being alone is at a disadvantage.”

After saying that, she looked at Xu Huo, “Young man, out of the remaining people, you seem the most capable.

You need to step up.”

Xu Huo just smiled, “Auntie, have you ever eaten human flesh?”

The middle-aged woman stiffened, “What nonsense are you talking about?

How could I possibly eat people!”

Xu Huo’s stomach rumbled with hunger, but he paid her no further attention.

The middle-aged woman snorted and went back to her original seat, swaying her hips.

Never eaten human flesh?

Since boarding the train, Xu Huo felt his compulsion to binge eat had doubled.

Even he, who could still resist the “delivery woman,” had to suppress the urge just to look at the other players.

Getting too close, engaging in conversation, moving back and forth, arguing— it all magnified the craving to binge.

Yet Li Fei and the others seemed composed, which indicated they hadn’t boarded the train on an empty stomach.

The middle-aged woman still had the leisure to curse at the melon-seed-faced woman, totally lacking the tautness of someone driven to the brink by hunger.

This kind of uncontrollable hunger couldn’t be eased with regular food, so the chance that Li Fei and the others hadn’t tasted human blood was slim.