The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

The warehouse door at station number 51 was half-open.

It wasn't blown open, nor pried open—it was opened normally fourteen years ago and then left unclosed. The door gap is 1.2 meters wide, just enough for the front of a car to pass through. An old Blue Star seal is pasted on the door frame; the paper is brittle, and the lower half has fallen to the ground, broken into several pieces. The upper half is still stuck on, the lettering faded to a pale yellow.

The seal reads "Traction Brain Backup Archive - Open only to holders of the Great Wall Key".

Wang Hu jumped down from the side of the 012 protective shell, his boot landing on the accumulated ash in front of the threshold. The ash shell was thick and hard, only crumbling when stepped on. He tore open a bag of lime powder and sprinkled some onto the threshold. The powder landed on the surface of the ash shell, neither absorbed nor shaken into ripples. It simply lay there, motionless.

"There's no wind," Wang Hu said. "There's no suction."

The small torch projected thermal images onto the main screen. The temperature inside the warehouse was normal, with no hot spots, no cold spots, and no signs of mechanical operation. Three rows of backup racks stood empty in the darkness, the metal partitions on the racks reflecting the cold light of the red hand lamps.

The Devourer had traveled a kilometer and a half when its front wheels rolled over the threshold. As the carriage passed the door frame, the steel plate on the side wall of carriage 013 scraped against the rust on the door edge, making a short scraping sound. Tang Lan pressed the brake lever in the cockpit, his eyes fixed on the stress curve at the rear.

Su Yuan did not allow it to stop.

The lead vehicle was fully inside the warehouse. The red hand light swept across the three rows of backup racks. The racks were completely empty. Not empty because they had been moved out—the racks were designed to hold things, but nothing had ever been placed on them. The anti-static mats on the partitions were still there, smooth and without dents or scratches.

The door of the central incubator was open. The chamber was two meters high and 1.2 meters wide, with an internal partition divided into upper and lower compartments. Only dried condensate stains remained in the compartments, forming light-colored scale along the walls. The thermometer inside the door displayed the last record: fourteen years ago, constant temperature four degrees Celsius.

Xiao Huo scanned it once.

"The shelf once housed sixteen sets of backup interfaces for traction brains." The scan results from the small torch were projected onto the main screen. "The interfaces, numbered from T01 to T16, were all removed. Only the base bolts remained. The anti-loosening washers on the bolts were intact, indicating that no force was used during disassembly—they were removed normally."

"Remove it normally?" Wang Hu squatted down to examine the incubator base. "Why is the seal still on the door?"

"Because you don't go through the door to pick up your package."

Su Yuan's voice was flat. He stared at the warehouse structure diagram that Xiao Huo had just scanned on the main screen. Directly below the constant temperature chamber, there was an old-fashioned maintenance passage, 60 centimeters wide and 40 centimeters high, leading from the bottom of the warehouse straight to the drainage ditch on the outer wall. The maintenance passage was welded with an iron fence, three of which were rusted and broken, the breaks being old.

"Ji Yun crawled in from underneath," Wang Hu said, pointing the red hand lamp at the maintenance area. "She's thin."

Su Yuan looked towards the 020 isolation box. The isolation box was hanging on the outside of the 005 hull, the green light was stable, and the internal life monitor had stopped beeping. But since just now, there had been a constant knocking inside the box. It wasn't the rhythm of the 009 steel plate, nor was it Qin Yan's iron plate markings. It was muffled—like knocking on an iron plate through lead, each beat heavy.

Xiao Huo translated: "There's something inside the empty shell. It's hiding behind the incubator."

Su Yuan pointed the small torch at the back of the incubator. There was only a 40-centimeter gap between the back of the incubator and the back wall of the warehouse, and the gap was filled with thick dust. The thermal imaging didn't capture anything at first—then, at the angle between the back wall of the incubator and the ground, a dark red heat source with an irregular outline appeared.

Temperature: 63 degrees Celsius. Constant temperature. The outline is torn, with irregular edges, and the area is about the size of a palm.

The fragments are consistent with the living debris in the water jacket of the No. 7 locomotive boiler.

"How did it catch up?" Tang Lan's voice came from 013.

"It's not related," Qin Yan typed in reply. "It was left here before. Stations 50 and 51 share an old heating pipe. The residual heat from the No. 7 locomotive boiler was conducted along the pipe, and the heat formed a constant temperature point under the constant temperature box base at Station 51. It has been dormant here for fourteen years."

Qin Yan's fingers paused on the stretcher armrest for a moment, then tapped again: "It's awake now. Because we brought the Zhenshan Core in, the residual heat from the energy conduction tube's outer shell activated its constant temperature sensing."

The loudspeaker suddenly came on.

It wasn't the mechanical female voice from the system broadcast, nor was it the synthesized voice from the storage system. It was coming from inside the constant temperature chamber—a female voice, with the sound of a tape traveling and rubbing in the background, from the same tape as stations 48 and 49.

"The backup library is intact. The 001 lead car can be connected to the traction brain nerve conduction calibration."

Behind the constant temperature chamber, three dark silver tentacles emerged from a crack in the wall. Each tentacle was about one centimeter in diameter, with a smooth surface and an old Blue Star certification chip at its end. The chip's surface was coated with an oxidized layer, but the pins were intact, emitting a faint green light when powered on. The tentacles simultaneously released low-frequency pulses, the frequency of which matched the idle rhythm of the Zhenshan core.

Wang Hu's crane arm was already extended above the incubator, about to hook onto the lifting lugs. Hearing the announcement, he paused. The crane arm stopped in mid-air, the hook at the end of the arm only ten centimeters away from the lifting lug.

Qin Yan's hammering suddenly exploded. The metal sheet slammed against the stretcher armrests, the rhythm both rapid and heavy.

"It's not an interface. It's its protruding tongue."

Wang Hu abruptly retracted the crane arm. The hook grazed past the lifting lug, scraping off a piece of rust.

The pulse frequency of the antennae changed. It switched from an idle rhythm to a neurally transmitted handshake signal—the identification code for the standard Zhenshan series backup interface. The three authentication chips flashed simultaneously, and a green light illuminated the dust accumulated on the back wall of the temperature-controlled chamber in the dark room.

The steel plates on the side walls of carriage 013 began to vibrate.

It wasn't the low frequency coming from the rails—it was the steel plates of the carriage itself vibrating, the frequency matching the nerve handshake signal released by the tentacles. The wristband on the frostbite patient's wrist was loosened by the vibration, and a section of the bandage slipped off his wrist. The patient didn't speak, but pressed his right hand against his left wrist, his fingers pressing down on the bandage until his knuckles turned white.

In the third section, the old mechanic squatted in front of four water glasses. Simultaneously, the water in all four glasses formed standing waves. Not circular ripples—they were standing waves, with concentric ripples rising from the glass walls towards the center, then rebounding. The glass with the cracked bottom was almost empty, leaving only a small puddle at the bottom; the standing waves there were even more pronounced.

"Standing wave." The old mechanic pressed down on the cup holder. "The frequency is the same as the whisker signal."

In the control room of Base 04, the veteran engineer snatched the microphone from the technician. He stared at the signal spectrum of Station 51 on the screen; the neural handshake signal emitted by the antennae was magnified into a waveform—the waveform was exactly the same as the standard Zhenshan backup interface. But at the bottom of the waveform was superimposed an extremely narrow high-frequency pulse, the frequency of which was almost beyond the upper limit of voiceprint acquisition.

"That's not a backup signal." The veteran engineer pressed full channel. "It's the parasitic fragment simulating traction pulses in the brain. It uses high-frequency pulses as a carrier wave, hiding the real signal in the lower layer—the lower layer is the neural signal induction code. Once connected, it will read the neural signals of the entire crew of the Devourer in reverse."

Lu Mingyuan immediately highlighted station number 51 in red. On the screen, station number 51 changed from gray to a red frame, with a note next to it: "Pseudo-backup signal, access prohibited."

But the whiskers had already started to move.

Three dark silver tentacles extended simultaneously, protruding outwards from behind the constant temperature chamber. The first extended towards the core energy guide pipe interface of the Mountain-Suppressing Core on the inside of the front beam of the Devourer, the second towards the coupling sensor on the 013 tail beam, and the third towards the 020 isolation box on the outside of the 005 naval compartment.

Wang Hu picked up the hydraulic shears. "Cut them?"

"Severing the grappling hook will trigger premature nerve needle injection." Su Yuan pressed the communication button. "Small Fire, Mountain-Suppressing Frequency Disguise Device. Switch to the Cold Furnace Extinguishing Frequency Band. Launch outwards."

The tail of the small flame stopped beside the control panel. The disguise device hadn't been used since it was reforged from Station 50, and it had a built-in database of the entire Zhenshan series' idle frequency bands. She switched the mode from "Standby" to "Cold Furnace" and selected the shutdown frequency band.

The faker is activated.

The Devourer's energy tube casing emitted a low-frequency signal—the frequency simulating the thermal imaging characteristics of the Zhenshan locomotive boiler after complete shutdown. The energy tube temperature plummeted from its normal operating temperature of 120 degrees Celsius. In the thermal image, the energy tube changed from a high-temperature bright area to a dark, cold bar. The casing temperature dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius.

Simultaneously, the spray arms of carriage 014 deployed. Low-temperature coolant was sprayed onto the outer casing of the energy conduction pipe, causing the temperature to plummet further—to minus twenty degrees Celsius. Minus thirty degrees Celsius. A thick layer of frost formed on the outer surface.

All three whiskers froze simultaneously.

The living metal relies on recognizing heat sources to determine the target location. The cold furnace signal made it mistakenly believe that the Devourer was a decommissioned locomotive that had been shut down—the boiler was cooled, the energy pipes were losing temperature, there were no biological nerve signal fluctuations, and it was just a pile of cold iron, like the scrapped backup racks in the warehouse of Station 51.

The authentication chip at the tip of the antennae stopped flashing. The green light went out.

Qin Yan tapped out: "It's blind."

The broadcast voice changed. The female voice disappeared, replaced by a mechanical prompt.

"Force access protocol. Enable hydraulic locking claws."

Four sets of hydraulic locking claws popped out from the base of the constant temperature chamber. Each set of claws was mounted on an independent slide rail, with an old Zhenshan traction brain nerve conduction needle built into the claw tip—the needle was four centimeters long and 0.3 millimeters in diameter, and the needle tip was quenched with blue light, which was the reflection of the old-style nerve signal reading coating. The four sets of claws locked onto the front beam of the Shihuang, the Zhenshan core energy conduction tube interface, the 013 tail beam, and the 005 naval compartment, respectively.

The locking claw advances at a speed of three centimeters per second. Hydraulic oil is supplied from an independent pump station at the bottom of the constant temperature tank, and the oil pipes are buried in the base interlayer and are not connected to the main network of the station.

Su Yuan stared at the trajectory of the grappling hook. "Turn down the fire, analyze the fuel supply line."

The structural diagram was retrieved using a small torch. The independent pump station was located directly beneath the incubator, with the pump body buried in a sealed compartment to the right of the underground maintenance passage. Three dark silver tendrils were coiled above the sealed compartment, and the compartment cover was welded to the base of the incubator. The only point that could be breached was the waste liquid discharge valve at the rear of the incubator—that was the auxiliary pipe used in older incubators to drain condensate, with a diameter of two centimeters, leading directly to the pump station's hydraulic oil tank.

Control room at Base 04. The veteran engineer grabbed the microphone, his voice drowning out the technician's keyboard clicks: "Backflush from the waste liquid valve! Use waste brine from Station 46!"

Before the words were even finished, the three frozen tentacles suddenly turned. The authentication chips at the ends of the tentacles lit up again—this time not green, but dark red. The tentacles detached from the back of the incubator and slid down the floor toward the waste valve. The living fragments seemed to have heard.

The veteran engineer gripped the microphone tightly. "It understands."

Lu Mingyuan stood up. "It didn't understand. It's voiceprint recognition. It remembered the high-frequency noise when the waste brine was poured into the boiler—the sound from the microphone was being broadcast across all channels from Base 04, and the broadcast system at Station 51 was connected to our frequency. It's eavesdropping."

He pressed all channels, his voice steady. "All personnel at Base 04, please remain silent. Shut down repeater at Station 51."

The base station channel was cut off. The radio relay icon for station 51 on the screen changed from green to gray.

But the tentacles were still moving. It wasn't navigating by broadcast—that last movement had already locked onto the waste valve's location. The three tentacles formed a triangular shape around the valve body, their ends, including the authentication chip, sliding along the ground and leaving three shallow marks on the accumulated dust.

Su Yuan pressed the communication button. "012. Press the outer cover of the waste liquid valve."

The 012 forward trolley slid out from under the front beam of the Devourer, its heavy wheelset rolling over the accumulated dust, and stopped directly above the waste liquid valve. The valve body cover was made of cast iron, thirty centimeters in diameter, with rusted bolts. The 012's lower guard plate pressed down on the edge of the cover, and the weight of the vehicle pinned the cover to the ground.

The tentacles touched the chassis of 012. The dark silver tissue slid along the protective ring of 012, attempting to crawl into the valve body through the gap between the chassis and the ground. The bottom of 012 was solid—the heavily armored chassis of the military train recast by Station 30, without access ports or drainage seams. The tentacles repeatedly probed the edge of the chassis, unable to find an entrance.

Wang Hu walked around from the side of 012 to the back of the waste liquid valve. The lifting arm was extended, and the hook at the end of the arm was loosely hooked into the bolt holes of the valve body flange. He didn't use any force—he was just letting it hang there to prevent the valve body from being deformed by pressure.

"Refining furnace," Su Yuan said. "Dark gold conduit. Backflow from the valve."

The dark gold conduit of the mobile refining furnace slid along the ground. The pipe end was aligned with the drain port of the waste liquid valve—the port was an old-fashioned quick-release clamp, which was rusted shut. The end of the conduit was replaced with a drill bit, which was slowly screwed in to drill open the rusted clamp.

The conduit is inserted into the valve port. A mixture—waste brine from station 46 and liquid nitrogen from station 28—is pumped out from the inner wall at a ratio of three to one and a temperature of minus fifty-five degrees Celsius.

The mixture is poured into the waste liquid valve and flows through the secondary pipe into the hydraulic oil tank of the constant temperature chamber base pump station. When the hydraulic oil comes into contact with the low-temperature mixture, its viscosity increases sharply—the oil changes from a liquid to a semi-solid state, and its color changes from dark yellow to grayish-white.

The advancing speed of the four sets of locking claws plummeted. From three centimeters per second to one centimeter per second, and then to less than half a centimeter per second. The hydraulic pistons on the locking claw rails emitted a sharp friction sound, and a layer of white frost formed on the surface of the piston rods.

Frost began to form on the surface of the three tentacles. When the constant heat source of 63 degrees Celsius came into contact with the mixture of minus 55 degrees Celsius, the surface temperature plummeted—from 63 degrees to 41 degrees Celsius, and then to 30 degrees Celsius. The tentacles moved more slowly, like frozen snakes.

Wang Hu's crane boom was still hanging on the valve body flange. He felt the valve body vibration decrease—the hydraulic oil in the pump station was almost frozen solid. "It needs to stop."

Su Yuan didn't let it stop.

"Refining furnace. Dive into the pump station. Drain the hydraulic oil."

The dark gold conduit withdrew from the waste liquid valve, changed angle, and pierced into the gap between the incubator base and the ground. The conduit tip drilled into the sealed chamber, puncturing the pump station's outer shell. The conduit's inner wall reversed—not filling, but pumping.

The hydraulic oil in the pumping station was being pumped out. It wasn't a mixture, but rather semi-solid sludge. The sludge was pumped out from the inner wall of the conduit and flowed down the ground into the recovery tank at the furnace opening of the refining furnace. The hydraulic pump was running idle, with only air left in the piston chamber, and the oil pressure dropped from 0.2 MPa to zero.

All four sets of locking claws lost pressure simultaneously. The nerve conduction needles at the claw tips stopped in mid-air—the first set was three centimeters away from the front beam of the Devourer, the second set was two centimeters away from the energy conduction tube interface, the third set was four centimeters away from the tail beam of 013, and the fourth set was five centimeters away from the 005 nacelle.

The locking claw is stuck.

Su Yuan stood up. "Eight cables. Hang them on the four corner lugs of the incubator."

Eight steel cables were thrown out. The first cable was attached to the left front corner lug of the incubator, the second to the right front corner, and the third and fourth to the rear corners. The cables were taut.

"Wang Hu, remove the base bolts."

Wang Hu picked up the hydraulic shears. The incubator base had eight bolts, old-fashioned hexagonal heads, the nuts rusted. He gripped the first nut with the shear jaws, applied pressure, and cut it off. Then the second, the third.

When the fourth chip was cut, a stream of condensation suddenly seeped out from the base's interlayer. It wasn't the dried white residue from the incubator—it was fresh, at room temperature, seeping out from the gaps in the base's steel plate. The condensation spread along the ground, where it froze into ash upon contact with accumulated dust.

The thermal imaging is zoomed in with a small flame. Condensate is seeping out from an extremely narrow gap in the base's interlayer—not a crack, but a weld joint. The interlayer was originally welded shut, but something has corroded the weld points from the inside, leaving the solder with honeycomb-like holes.

"There's something in the interlayer," Xiao Huo said.

Su Yuan didn't let him stop. Wang Hu continued cutting the bolts. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh. The last nut was cut off, severing the connection between the incubator base and the ground.

"Hang."

Eight steel cables were simultaneously wound up. The incubator was pulled away from its original position—the incubator was two meters high and weighed four hundred kilograms, and was suspended by eight cables, with a forty-centimeter gap between the base and the ground.

Beneath the crevice lies the actual living fragment.

A palm-sized, dark silver fragment was attached to the weld joint of the base interlayer. Its edges were torn, its shape irregular, and its surface bore old scars—scars burned by high temperatures, carbonized into a black shell. The fragment was clinging to the remnants of an old backup interface, absorbing a tiny current to maintain its dormant state. The interface remnant had been removed from the bolts of the backup rack base—not the sixteen main interfaces Ji Yun had dismantled, but a spare electrode inside the bolt, emitting a very small current of only 0.03 milliamps, just enough to maintain the living fragment at a constant temperature of 63 degrees Celsius.

"It survived for fourteen years on electrodes." The scan results from Little Torch were pushed onto the main screen. "The electrode current isn't from the warehouse's main network—it's from a backup power source buried underground by the old Blue Star expeditionary force. The battery's nominal lifespan was fourteen years, and it just ran out last month. It's starving to death."

"That's why it deliberately exposed itself," Su Yuan said. "If it hadn't exposed itself, the battery would have completely run out, and it would have truly died."

The living fragments began to vibrate violently. The constant temperature heat source of 63 degrees Celsius dropped to 30 degrees Celsius as the mixed liquid was poured in, but it was still moving—not moving, but vibrating. Dark silver filaments squeezed out from the torn wounds at the edges of the fragments, and the filaments crawled out along the base interlayer, trying to touch the remaining condensate pipes in the constant temperature chamber.

"Refining furnace," Su Yuan said, "Reverse heating. Bring the temperature of the fragments down to ten degrees."

The dark gold conduit is attached. The conduit opening does not touch the fragment—it is one centimeter away from the surface. The inner wall of the conduit is reversed to draw away the heat from the surface of the fragment and direct it into the coolant in the waste liquid tank.

The temperature of the fragments dropped from 30 degrees Celsius. 25 degrees Celsius. 18 degrees Celsius. 12 degrees Celsius. 10 degrees Celsius.

The vibration stopped.

The dark silver reflection on the fragment's surface faded to grayish-black, the fine filaments at the edges hardened, and it broke easily with a touch, the fracture surface turning into powder. In thermal imaging, the fragment jumped from a dark red heat source to a deep blue cold block—the temperature stopped at ten degrees and no longer dropped.

The living fragments were completely frozen.

The broadcast went silent. A grating electrical whirring came from the speaker above the incubator, followed by the sound of a tape spinning idly in the recorder—the tape kept spinning, but no one was speaking. The idling lasted for twelve seconds, then stopped.

Three tendrils hardened and broke. The dark silver tissue lost its elasticity and snapped at the root, the break clean, like a frozen, brittle icicle. The authentication chip detached from the tendril tip, fell onto the accumulated dust, and the green light went out.

The small torch was used to transfer the thermal imaging to the interlayer of the constant temperature chamber base.

After the fragments solidified, the internal structure of the base's interlayer became clear. A thin tube, only three millimeters in diameter, led from the interlayer to the inner wall of the incubator, hidden beneath the condensate and scale. At the end of the tube was a separate circuit board—five centimeters long and wide, with an outer casing resembling a standard shielding box from the old Blue Star Expeditionary Force, its surface engraved with text.

Spark enlargement for lettering.

"Traction brain nerve conduction redundancy module." Below that is a smaller line of text: "Ji Yun · Artificial line backup."

Qin Yan's tapping sound rang out. The rhythm was not fast, but the force was heavy, and the metal sheet made a dull thud as it struck the stretcher armrests.

"This is the real backup," Xiao Huo translated. "All sixteen sets on the shelf are fake bait. Ji Yun hid the real goods under the fakes, using the constant temperature requirement of the living fragments as a disguise—to keep warm, the fragments will actively stick to the module to absorb the heat dissipation current, while stabilizing the module's temperature below sixty degrees. Anyone scanning the warehouse will assume the fragments are due to abnormal heat dissipation of the module. They won't open it up to check."

In the control room of Base 04, all the technicians stood up. The veteran engineer stared at the photo of the shielding box on the screen, his lips moved a few times, but he didn't say a word.

Lu Mingyuan took off his hat and clenched it in his hand. "She hid the real thing under the fake."

The old engineer shook his head and then nodded. "She's even wary of her own people."

"She wasn't protecting herself," Su Yuan said. "She was protecting herself from living metal. If the fragments weren't just sticking to the surface absorbing current, but instead directly infiltrated the module, they could read all the neural transmission protocols within thirty seconds and then upload them to any connected vehicle via the Zhenshan frequency band. She deliberately made the fragments think the module was just a battery, not a backup."

He pressed the communication button. "Small fire. Take it apart. Separately package it."

Before the eight cables could be retrieved, Wang Hu climbed into the gap in the base of the constant temperature chamber himself. He pried open the outer shell of the shielding box with a blade—the box wasn't welded shut; the quick-release clips on both sides opened easily. Inside was an old-fashioned neural conduction circuit board, its surface gold-plated, the gold layer intact and without oxidation. A separate storage chip was inserted into the side of the board, its casing engraved with the number: TB-BACKUP-001.

He put the shielding box and the circuit board together into an anti-static bag, sealed the bag, and hung it on the independent backup hanging point on the side of the 009 commemorative hanging rack.

"Mobile refining furnace." Su Yuan pressed the communication button. "Constant temperature chamber, fake backup interface fragments, living fragments and zombie blocks, locking claw hydraulic system—collect them all."

The furnace opening was open. Wang Hu's crane arm lifted the entire constant temperature chamber and lowered it into the furnace opening. Next came the sixteen sets of dummy interface fragments in the base's interlayer. Each set was the outer shell of a standard backup interface, with no internal circuitry, only a thin copper sheet to simulate conductivity. The third batch consisted of living fragments—dark silver tissue that had hardened into grayish-black lumps. They showed no reaction when placed in the furnace, at a temperature of ten degrees Celsius, just like scrap iron. Finally, there were four sets of locking claws. The nerve conduction needles on the claws were pulled out, and the blue coating on the needle tips was cracked by liquid nitrogen, peeling off into fragments.

The furnace walls glowed a dark red. The molten metal rose, engulfing all the material.

The ejection area has begun discharging materials.

The first item produced was a shielding layer for traction brain nerve conduction. It was recast using copper sheets from a dummy backup interface, a lead liner for the constant temperature chamber, and a hydraulic pipe shell for the locking claws. The shielding layer was installed outside the core energy conduction tube of the Zhenshan (镇山) system, which could block the detection of living metallic nerve pulses and withstand continuous heat radiation below 600 degrees Celsius.

The second component is the backup core redundancy access module. It was recast using the original backup circuit board left by Ji Yun, the old-style neural conduction chip base, and the residual temperature control parts of the constant temperature chamber. The module is independent of the main system and can directly read the neural signals of the old Zhenshan vehicle head without triggering network identification. The access port is connected to the backup mounting point of the 009 mounting bracket.

The third component is a cryogenic suppressor for living metal. It was recast using waste brine spray pipes, remnants of liquid nitrogen storage tanks, heat extraction pipes from a refining furnace, and slag residue from living metal fragments. The suppressor is a flat, rectangular box, hung on the outside of the 005 emplacement. Once activated, it can lower the temperature of living metal fragments within three meters to below ten degrees Celsius, inducing slag formation. The cooling medium is a mixture of waste brine from Station 46 and liquid nitrogen from Station 28, in a 3:1 ratio. A single injection provides an effective suppression time of forty minutes.

The vibration of the steel plate on the side wall of carriage 013 stopped.

It didn't stop gradually—it vanished instantly. The wristband on the frostbite victim's wrist was still loose, but the steel plate no longer trembled, and the rust that had accumulated in the rivet seams no longer dripped down. The victim tightened the wristband again, and when he pressed his fingers against the bandage, his knuckles no longer turned white.

In the third section, the water in the old mechanic's four cups simultaneously calmed down. The standing waves disappeared, leaving only a slight arc on the surface—the normal swaying of a wheel rolling over dust, not resonance. The cup with the cracked bottom had leaked only a few drops of water left; the surface was calm, reflecting the glow of the red hand lamp.

Wang Hu crawled out from the gap in the base of the incubator. His knees were covered in dust and dried condensate stains. In his hand, he held a thin piece of steel—pried out from the deepest part of the base's interlayer. The steel piece was the same size as the 009 road sign, its edges corroded with solder, and a line of text engraved in the middle.

"The real backup brain is incinerated on waste line number 52. Don't burn it—it's part of your own brain."

He read the words aloud.

A knocking sound came from inside the 020 isolation box. Not the muffled knocking from before—the rhythm was perfectly synchronized with the 009 steel plate. Xiao Huo translated: "Something's burning at Station 52. Its heartbeat is the same as the Zhenshan core idling."

Xiao Huo retrieved the structural diagram of station No. 52.

Waste incineration line. The platform is long and narrow, with a prototype of the old Zhenshan Traction Brain still in operation in the center. The furnace temperature is 1230 degrees Celsius, and there is an independent heartbeat signal emanating from inside the furnace—not mechanical vibration, but a biological pulse waveform, with a frequency of 72 times per minute, completely synchronized with the fluctuation rhythm of the Zhenshan core of the Devouring Wasteland when its parallel stability is 73%.

Thermal imaging magnification. The heartbeat signal inside the furnace is not uniform—there are slight fluctuations, each fluctuation synchronized with the idle speed deviation of the core. When the core stability jumps to 81%, the heartbeat inside the furnace speeds up by one beat; when the stability drops back to 73%, the heartbeat slows down by one beat.

Qin Yan's metal sheet slipped from his hand. It landed on the stretcher armrest, bounced, and then hit the floor. He didn't pick it up.

"That's 001's brain," he typed. "It's not dead."