Chapter 98: Chapter 98: A Hidden Train! The Insane Move to Blockade the Station!

Outside the structural walls of the terminal, absolute blizzards raged with unrelenting fury. Yet, quite unusually for this frozen sector, a massive, flattened expanse of rock and ice carved out a clear path right alongside the perimeter of the hub.

A lone locomotive, heavily caked in sheets of thick ice and packed snow, rolled through the whiteout. However, it didn’t immediately cross the threshold into the terminal docks. Instead, the heavy iron engine hissed to a grinding halt just a short distance away from the giant, triangular structural canopy that marked the station’s boundary.

Inside the lead conductor cabin, a young girl—bundled up so heavily in a thick, padded winter jacket that she looked exactly like a stuffed zongzi—stared deeply through the front viewport toward the dark station interior.

Her gaze was deep, her brow furrowed slightly as if she were running complex calculations in her mind.

After a long silence, she pulled a dark, flowing black robe over her winter gear, threw open the heavy pressurized door, and stepped out alone into the biting cold, stepping carefully toward the looming triangular structure.

The moment her boots neared the edge of the canopy, she reached out a gloved hand, pressing her palm firmly against the structural frame. In a split second, a brilliant, piercing blue light flashed deep within her eyes as the natural atmospheric elements around the terminal began to surge violently.

Swif—!

Inside the main concourse, the resting Qing Niao’s golden eyes snapped wide open. Sensing an immediate structural intrusion, the massive avian warrior shot into the air with a screech, his wings blurring as he launched a volley of razor-sharp arrow feathers straight toward the far corner of the entrance!

Boom!

The spatial projection of the girl’s tracking sense, which hadn’t even fully materialized inside the room, was instantaneously torn apart by the gale-force projectiles.

Outside the terminal walls, the cloaked girl’s face visibly paled, her breath catching as she staggered back a step.

"An Elite-grade flying retainer I’ve never seen on the regional boards before... That casting signature definitely doesn’t belong to Bai Cheng," she muttered, her frown deepening. "Could it be Leng Ningxue or Niu Dali? Only those two high-tier rankers still have completely unmapped movements in this zone..."

Realizing the first-place conductor had left a high-grade sentry at the gate, she turned on her heel and retreated back to her train cars. Sitting cross-legged on the cold steel floor, she closed her eyes to quietly bide her time.

A multi-person station was notoriously overflowing with rare baseline logistics. Even if she couldn’t claim the first-arrival milestone bonuses, tracking second in the queue still guaranteed a massive, game-changing harvest of resources.

And in a dangerous world like this, waiting patiently was always the optimal survival strategy.

After all, could the first-place train really clean out an entire structural station down to the bare walls?

Inside the terminal concourse, the answer to that question was already being written. The two expanded spatial backpacks strapped to Bai Cheng and Yu Nian were already bulging to their absolute maximum limits.

However, although the variety of the commodities was staggering, the layout mechanics of this special shop dictated that there was only one single stock unit of each item displayed on the racks. Once a product was lifted from the shelf, it was permanently gone.

Even with that limitation, the sheer volume of the spoils was far too massive to be transported back in a single haul.

Stepping back inside her primary carriage, Bai Cheng didn’t hesitate, casually retrieving all of her upgraded high-tier spatial backpacks from her personal warehouse slots.

In the hours that followed, the two girls worked without a single moment of rest. They transformed into absolute hardcore grinding demons, frantically transferring every single piece of loot inside the station back to their storage cars. They left absolutely nothing behind—completely clearing the racks regardless of whether an item had an immediate survival utility or not.

Torn, neon price tags were left scattered across the floor, and the entire interior of the convenience store looked as if a category five hurricane had ripped through it.

In reality, even with their current financial reserves—which were considered incredibly wealthy and elite among the regional survivor baseline—they wouldn’t have been able to legitimately purchase even a tenth of the goods displayed in the Lava shop.

The system’s fixed prices for these luxury commodities were ridiculously extortionate!

"A single pack of sanitary napkins costs 50 whole coins?! Is this broken system explicitly targeting female consumers?!"

Yu Nian angrily kicked the base of an empty metal rack. With her backpack stuffed to the brim with looted resources, she marched over to the convenience store’s primary cash register, checking to see if there were any loose [Infinite Coins] stashed inside the drawer.

Unfortunately, since they were technically the first customers to ever force their way through the shop’s protocols, the automated register was completely hollow.

After running a final sweeping diagnostic and confirming that not a single item container remained on the premises, the two girls, flanked by their powerful retainers, finally marched out through the shattered main entrance of the storefront.

This legendary sweep would undoubtedly elevate their daily quality of life on the tracks to a level other survivors couldn’t even dream of.

Wiping a bead of sweat from her brow after the frantic manual labor, Bai Cheng pulled up her system interface to audit the remaining timeline. To her surprise, only two hours had slipped past.

With four hours still remaining on the lock, they had more than enough time to fully enjoy the station’s premium infrastructure!

"Let’s see what’s hiding inside that vending machine over there," Bai Cheng noted, her eyes sparkling with intense curiosity as she locked onto a neon-lit dispenser flashing in the far corner of the concourse.

"Then I’m going to go raid the restaurant to see what kind of high-tier delicacies they have locked behind the kitchen!" Yu Nian cheered, bouncing off toward the adjacent dining storefront like a happy puppy.

The legendary glutton Zi Yuan, having received a firm nod of permission from Bai Cheng, followed right on her heels with a rare look of anticipation. That left the towering Chi Yan and the quiet Lü Duo to maintain a hard perimeter guard around their captain.

Just looking at the grand external architecture, one could tell the restaurant’s operational layout wasn’t small. If the premium food inside could also be systematically hoarded and stored in their train’s freezer compartments, it would be another massive addition to their logistics.

However, while Bai Cheng was still analyzing the mechanical interface of the vending machine, she spotted Yu Nian and Zi Yuan walking back out of the dining hall, their faces completely masked in heavy disappointment.

"What a complete scam! That place is literally just a pre-made, automated instant-food kitchen!" Yu Nian huffed, crossing her arms.

Zi Yuan sighed, cleaning her teeth with a small toothpick as she explained, "Young Miss, every single cooking node in there operates exactly like a locked vending machine. The internal structures are hardened by system code and cannot be physically breached by our blades."

Hearing the report, Bai Cheng was slightly startled, but quickly understood the system’s balancing limitations.

The restaurant required survivors to feed coins into an automated terminal just to synthesize basic, pre-packaged meals. For a top-tier faction that already possessed an abundance of fresh beast meat, wasting their capital on low-value machine food was a terrible investment, which is why the two had completely abstained from buying anything.

And since those culinary machines were protected by system invincibility frames, Bai Cheng smoothly abandoned any tactical concepts of trying to smash open the automated vending unit in front of her.

She offered a comforting smile to her crew. "It’s fine. Our haul today is already more than enough to completely destabilize the local economy. A few automated snack packs aren’t worth worrying about."

As for the standard vending machine standing before her, a quick structural inspection revealed that its inventory listings were almost completely identical to the basic dispensers she had encountered in previous lower-tier stations. There was absolutely no logical need to waste their currency on its contents.

"Let’s go utilize the station’s bathing facilities, and then we can prepare to officially clear out of this sector," Bai Cheng suggested, scanning the messy terminal floor. Her gaze suddenly drifted over toward Lü Duo, and a sly, incredibly mischievous smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Lü Duo, bury that vending machine completely and lock down the entrance to the restaurant."

Lü Duo’s eyes blinked in realization before she offered a firm, compliant nod. Channeling her wood-element core, she violently activated her skill.

Rumble—!

Several incredibly thick, armored green vines erupted violently from the cracked floorboards, coiling around the neon vending machine like constricting pythons until it was entirely crushed and buried beneath dense wood.

Immediately after, the main entrance to the automated restaurant, the public bathrooms, and the surrounding utility corridors were completely sealed off by a massive, impenetrable wall of interlocking thorny branches, entirely obscuring their original structural appearance from view.

Combined with the shattered concrete fragments and scorch marks left behind from their brutal battle with the spatial boss, absolutely no one arriving late to the platform would ever guess that this was Station #3—a mandatory logistics hub on the regional route.

"Xiao Cheng, you are seriously so naughty!" Yu Nian giggled, raising both her thumbs in absolute, glowing approval of the petty blockade.

After all, in a ruthless world where everyone was competing for survival, they had absolutely no logical reason to be overly generous and leave comfortable amenities behind for complete strangers or potential rivals.

With the trap firmly set, Bai Cheng tossed the heavy inventory backpacks over to Chi Yan’s massive arms and walked toward the final, highly critical building remaining on the platform map.

That was the station’s premium accommodation wing—a structure laid out exactly like a high-end luxury hotel, complete with hot water bathing facilities and pristine bedding cores.

Conditions aboard the basic train cars were notoriously rugged and cramped; she certainly wasn’t about to pass up a rare, system-provided opportunity to wash away the grime of travel.

Yu Nian hurried her steps to catch up, her laughter ringing out through the halls. "Xiao Cheng, wait up for me!"

Outside the heavy suite doors, the three elite retainers silently took up defensive positions, tracking the perimeter as the entire station gradually fell back into a profound, suffocating silence.

Inside the luxurious, steam-filled bathroom suites, a sharp voice suddenly cut through the mist.

"Why in the world do we have to take a shower together?!" Bai Cheng cried out, her face flushing pink.

"Doesn’t it save a massive amount of operational time this way? We’re still actively inside a system station, you know!" Yu Nian retorted, speaking with such absolute, deadpan confidence that it sounded like the most natural logical conclusion in the universe.

Without waiting for her captain to formulate a proper counter-argument, she unceremoniously began peeling off her thick layers of winter gear. Within seconds, her flawless, stunningly perfect figure was completely revealed under the ambient glow of the bathroom lights, entirely devoid of even a single shred of bashfulness.

Tilting her head with a playful grin, she looked over at Bai Cheng, who was still sitting frozen on the changing bench, and asked curiously, "Xiao Cheng, why are you just sitting there like a statue?"

"Oh... right, fine!" Bai Cheng snapped out of her daze, gritting her teeth as she stood up.

If her eccentric best friend wasn’t showing any hesitation, what did a hardened hardcore grinder like her have to fear?!

Steeling her resolve, Bai Cheng swiftly stripped away her own clothes as well, and the two pale, slender silhouettes stepped into the central shower stall.

Soon, the soothing sound of rushing hot water filled the tiled space, and a thick, misty white steam rapidly enveloped the entire bathroom, blurring their outlines.

"Xiao Cheng, want me to scrub your back for you?"

"Mm... alright."

Bai Cheng didn’t overthink the offer, turning her body around and placing both her palms flat against the warm tiled wall to let her friend work.

But suddenly, before the water could even rinse away the soap, a pair of slender arms reached around from behind, wrapping tightly around her waist. Their damp skin pressed flush against each other, and the soft, undeniable warmth of Yu Nian’s body registered vividly against Bai Cheng’s back, sending a jolt straight to her brain.

"Ah... it really is such a massive tragedy," Yu Nian sighed softly against her shoulder, her voice laced with a strange, sudden nostalgia. "I literally transmigrated into this brutal apocalypse world before I could even attend my first day of university. Talk about the absolute worst luck."

Bai Cheng’s mind was still processing the sudden, intimate physical contact, her heart racing slightly. Why was this girl suddenly dropping such random, sentimental complaints right now?

"A high school diploma from the old world must be pretty watered down anyway," Yu Nian continued, her tone shifting into a deeply playful, investigative purr as her hands shifted slightly. "As your trusted vice-captain, I think I need to thoroughly audit your metrics right here and now..."

"Huh?!" Bai Cheng’s eyes went completely wide as she finally realized the trap she had walked into. Her face turned an explosive crimson through the steam. "Wait... what are you doing?! Stop auditing me right now, hey—!"