Chapter 4: Hunger
The executive man took the initiative to pull out his ID card: "My name is Li Fei, the general manager of Feiyue Group."
"I noticed people in the carriages ahead and behind us. Those of us in the same carriage should stick together first, so we don't get caught off guard if something happens."
It had been a month since Evolvers appeared, and many people had encountered their own kind. Li Fei's words made some sense—they were all in the same boat. Compared to their fellow passengers, they should be more wary of the Evolvers in the carriages ahead and behind.
Everyone returned to their seats. The pajama-clad man and the woman in the tank top gave their names respectively.
"My name is Chen Yi, but I didn't bring my ID."
"He Yang."
"Xu Huo." Simply stating his name, Xu Huo lit a cigarette.
"My name is Yan Jiayu. I just left the monastic life." The young girl beside him tugged at her choppy, dog-chewed short hair and said shyly to him, "Could you go outside to smoke? Secondhand smoke is bad for your health."
Xu Huo paused mid-motion, couldn't help giving her another look, then nodded.
"Ha!" The heavily made-up woman across from them sneered. "These days, even nuns are leaving the monastery."
Yan Jiayu's face flushed slightly. She lowered her head and fiddled with the small cloth pouch on her patchwork robe. "Ami... my master said my worldly ties aren't severed yet."
But the heavily made-up woman didn't press her. Instead, she coldly said, "You can play your 'let's all be friends' game if you want, but don't drag me into it."
Li Fei tried to persuade her, "This is for everyone's good. If we know each other's names and identities, no one will dare act recklessly."
"Everyone knows the country is hunting down cannibal Evolvers, right?"
"To put it bluntly, if someone has eaten human flesh, as long as someone gets off the train in three days, they won't escape."
His righteous words didn't intimidate the heavily made-up woman. The burly, nearly six-foot figure stood up like a drill bit, strode over, and grabbed Li Fei by the collar:
"Who are you trying to fool? See the nameplate at the front of the carriage?"
"Second-class seat, premium seat, first-class seat, second-class seat, third-class seat. The more assets you have, the further forward you sit. Compared to those debt-ridden punks in third-class, everyone in this carriage is dead broke!"
"You're an executive, and Feiyue Group has a decent reputation. You must be making hundreds of thousands a year at least. So tell me, how did you end up here?"
"So that's what the game meant by 'asset-based seating,'" Professor Han muttered. "The exchange rate with cash is roughly 100:1."
Li Fei's face turned pale. "I lost some money in stocks. That's not a crime, is it? I just wanted everyone to get through these three days peacefully. I had no ill intentions."
The heavily made-up woman clearly didn't believe him. She shoved him aside, scanned the others in the carriage, and emphasized, "I advise you not to trust people too easily. Faking an ID isn't hard these days. Don't be stupid and spill everything about yourselves. Even if you make it off the train alive, can you guarantee you'll live long enough to call the cops?"
Sharing identities seemed like adding an extra layer of insurance, but if there was a cannibal Evolver in this carriage, the risk was obviously greater.
No one was a fool. Amid the mutual wariness, they directed a bit more suspicion toward Li Fei.
"Do you know anything about the preliminary train?" Xu Huo paused in tapping his cigarette.
"Not much. On this train, there's only one rule: get off alive." The heavily made-up woman snorted coldly. "I know there are people here who've eaten human flesh. I'm warning you, don't even think about messing with me, or else..."
She punched the table, leaving a deep dent in the metal surface—a powerful show of force.
Ordinary Evolvers hadn't yet reached the level of bending steel with bare hands. Xu Huo lifted his heel slightly but felt no change.
It seemed that after the class division, everyone's traits were different too.
"Sister, is there anything else?" the ponytailed girl asked timidly. "How do you actually play this game?"
"Didn't I say? Just live until you get off the train! What's with all the questions!" The heavily made-up woman sat down impatiently and glared at the people across from her.
Xu Huo cooperatively held his cigarette and walked toward the front door.
Just as he grabbed the door handle, Li Fei stopped him. "The announcement said we can't go to other carriages at will. If you open the door and trigger something dangerous, you'll drag all of us into it."
Xu Huo pointed at the restroom outside. "It said we can't go to other carriages, not that we can't go out."
Li Fei, having been publicly embarrassed twice, stared at him with displeasure.
Xu Huo pulled open the carriage door and stepped out.
The transition car outside was half the length of a second-class carriage. The restroom was on the left, with some emergency supplies nearby, and the boarding doors were on the right.
He tried to open them but couldn't. The entire train was speeding along a straight track, with the scenery on both sides unchanging.
The carriage wasn't very soundproof. Seeing someone in the front carriage stand up and move around, Xu Huo lit another cigarette, pulled the door to the front carriage, and after two seconds, switched to pressing the bell.
A moment later, the door opened, but it was a burly man with tattooed arms from the first-class carriage who opened it. He growled, "What do you want?"
Xu Huo spotted a familiar face inside and casually handed him a cigarette. "Borrow a light."
Though the tattooed man looked annoyed, he still tossed him a solid copper lighter and muttered, "Don't wander around if you don't have to," before quickly closing the door.
Through the door, Xu Huo saw Nie Xuan, whom he had met once, nod at him before turning toward the restroom.
When he returned to the second-class carriage, Li Fei and the others were already studying the train rules.
"I can understand having to spend money, but why do they have to turn off the lights?" The man and woman who had been sitting with the middle-aged woman had moved next to Li Fei. The delicate, almond-faced woman said unhappily, "This dump doesn't even have a bed. I can't even get some sleep."
"You still want to sleep?" the square-faced man retorted. "Don't end up dead without knowing how."
"There's a switch over there. We can turn them on," Li Fei said. "What's there to argue about over something so trivial? Don't let it ruin the atmosphere. Remember, we still have carriages ahead and behind us."
"Brother Li is right," the almond-faced woman chimed in.
"Vixen!" the middle-aged woman muttered angrily under her breath.
"Professor Han, I'm scared," the ponytailed female student beside Xu Huo said, gripping Professor Han's arm tightly.
"Don't be afraid. Teacher will protect you." Professor Han was sweating on his forehead, his face pale, lacking the confidence his words suggested.
"What's there to be afraid of?" He Yang's hands flew across her phone as she said, "If someone messes with you, mess with them back. We're all Evolvers. The younger you are, the faster you evolve. I can easily take on two or three grown men now."
Xu Huo noticed that small groups had already formed among the twelve people.
The executive Li Fei, the pajama-clad Chen Yi, the almond-faced woman, and the square-faced man had banded together, moving to the same table. The tank-top woman He Yang and the female student had keychains from the same summer camp on their bags, and counting Professor Han, they were tentatively a group.
As for the middle-aged woman, the heavily made-up woman, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu beside him, and the old man sitting alone in the last row—they had no faction yet.
"They're teaming up, so we should too." The middle-aged woman circled around to the heavily made-up woman. "Over there, it's four on one side and three on the other. Being alone is too much of a disadvantage."
Then she looked at Xu Huo. "Young man, you're the most capable-looking one left. You need to step up."
Xu Huo smiled. "Auntie, have you ever eaten human flesh?"
The middle-aged woman's face stiffened. "What nonsense are you talking? How could I possibly eat human flesh!"
Xu Huo's stomach growled with hunger, and he ignored her.
The middle-aged woman snorted and waddled back to her original seat.
Hadn't eaten human flesh?
Ever since boarding the train, Xu Huo felt his gluttonous urge had doubled. Even with the "delivery woman," he had managed to restrain himself, but now he had to fight the impulse to stare at the players around him. Getting close, talking, moving around—it only amplified the gluttonous desire. Yet Li Fei and the others looked composed, clearly not boarding the train on empty stomachs.
The middle-aged woman even had the energy to curse at the almond-faced woman, showing no sign of being pushed to the brink by the gluttonous urge.
This gluttonous desire couldn't be alleviated with normal food. It was highly unlikely that Li Fei and the others hadn't tasted human blood.