But Qin Sang never expected things to go wrong so quickly.
Explosions rang out one after another—boom… boom… Qin Sang struggled to her feet, surrounded by the wails and cries of injured people.
Ten minutes earlier, everyone had been chatting in the subway car about how many points they would get after this trip, and how they were going to go home and eat a chicken leg to reward themselves.
Ten minutes later, a violent explosion erupted ahead. The driver slammed on the emergency brakes, and the train derailed. In that instant, everyone was tossed around like they were on a roller coaster. If the train hadn’t been underground, with mountain walls on both sides, the entire train might have flown off the tracks.
Even so, after the train collided back and forth with the mountain walls several times, most people in the cars were injured. Some severely—some died on the spot.
Qin Sang didn’t know if she was lucky or not. Both her legs were fine, but one of her arms was broken. She must have been thrown up and smashed her arm directly against the handrail.
After struggling to sit up, Qin Sang ignored her arm injury for the moment. She first looked outside through the cracked window. There was no sign of anyone outside the car. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be later.
Someone had planted explosives on the tracks ahead of the train and timed the detonation perfectly. This was a premeditated attack. The enemy had a purpose. And there was definitely an accomplice inside the train.
In that moment, Qin Sang felt she couldn’t trust anyone.
She struggled to move her body against the side of the car. Then she took out bandages from her spatial storage and began immobilizing her arm. She couldn’t run for her life with a floppy, broken arm—that would be even more unrealistic. As for treatment, she would go to the hospital after getting out of this.
——
“Is everyone okay?”
Just then, shouts rang out from nearby. Some of the less severely injured people, after the initial shock, finally came to their senses and started checking on those around them.
After securing her arm, Qin Sang immediately looked for Auntie Er. She soon spotted her in the next car. Auntie Er was holding tightly onto a handrail, looking very sturdy—probably not seriously injured.
Still, Qin Sang supported herself against the car wall and slowly made her way toward Auntie Er.
“Qin Sang…” Shen Zhu’s voice came from behind her. He had one hand pressed to his forehead and the other against the car wall.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a cut on my forehead. Do you have any medicine?” He pointed at the bandages on Qin Sang’s arm.
Qin Sang nodded.
Shen Zhu said immediately, “Great. Lend me some. I’ll pay you back as soon as we get back.”
Spatial ability users all carried some medicine. Qin Sang wasn’t worried about him not repaying her. She took a bottle of hemostatic spray from her bag and tossed it to him. Then she continued toward Auntie Er.
By then, Auntie Er had come to her senses. Hearing Qin Sang calling her, she let go of the handrail and looked over.
Seeing that Auntie Er was perfectly fine—not a single scratch on her face or body—Qin Sang was full of admiration.
“Auntie, you’re the best!” Qin Sang gave her a thumbs-up.
Auntie Er smiled. “Not really luck. I just got thrown directly onto the handrail.”
Qin Sang thought: I got thrown onto the handrail too, but I was unlucky. The angle was wrong, and my arm broke.
By then, others had gradually been organized. After the team leaders and security personnel took a headcount, there were 9 seriously injured and 1 dead. The number of minor injuries varied. Among over a hundred people, the ratio wasn’t too high.
——
“So? When will rescue arrive?”
“There’s no signal. How are we supposed to call for rescue?”
“This is really bad luck…”
Everyone was in chaos, asking the lead team leaders and security personnel.
“Let’s get out of here first. The train isn’t safe. There’s a station about five kilometers ahead. We’ll walk there and wait for rescue,” Team Leader Lin Feng announced loudly. The other team leaders nodded in agreement. This was clearly a decision they had made together.
“Which station is next?” Qin Sang muttered quietly, pulling out her phone to check the map.
Early on, when she knew the apocalypse was coming, Qin Sang had downloaded offline maps from every major mapping app. The map files were huge, but extremely useful when there was no internet—except for a certain navigation app.
She quickly confirmed from the map that they were in a mountainous area. This was the largest mountain range on Hainan Island. The subway ran through it entirely via tunnels. That was why the distance between stations here was longer.
Qin Sang checked the surrounding terrain and determined that walking to the next station was their best chance of rescue.
Meanwhile, some people who had heard they would have to walk five kilometers were already complaining loudly.
Mainly because they were injured and worried they couldn’t handle the walk. Others complained about the heat.
Indeed, after the derailment, the air conditioning might have been damaged, and many windows were shattered. The temperature inside the cars was gradually rising. Even though they were inside a mountain, it was only slightly cooler. With so many people crowded together, all injured, the smell was almost suffocating.
——
“Everyone, stop arguing. Staying here is very dangerous. You all heard the explosions. We don’t know who did this, but the enemy might come back. Most of us are ordinary people. Having spatial abilities doesn’t make you bulletproof. Getting to the next station quickly is our best chance of survival,” another team leader announced loudly.
Someone retorted, “Why can’t we just wait here for rescue?”
“Ha, wait here? How would anyone know something happened to us?” Shen Zhu, irritated by the whining, shot back immediately.
That logic was sound.
The subway had long since stopped running. They had been on an urgent mission today and left in a hurry. The subway group had only arranged this single train. No one would be stationed at any of the stops along the way, because everyone was busy with the relocation work—that was the top priority.
The airport staff would eventually realize something had happened to them. But that would take time. They would only know something was wrong after they noticed the team had never boarded the plane.
As for heading to the station, the main reason was that the station had landline phones that could call for help. Plus, the station had exits leading to the surface. Even if it was in the middle of a mountain range, any subway station with an exit would definitely have residential areas nearby. That would shorten the rescue time.
Many people came to their senses and understood this, so they stopped complaining.
“The injured are coming with us. Everyone, please help carry them.”
Subway cars were equipped with a fair amount of emergency supplies, including simple stretchers—just pull them open and they were ready to use.
Of course, everyone would take turns carrying them.
Soon, the large group was organized again. One by one, they jumped down from the broken windows. Only then did they get a clear look at the explosion wreckage ahead in the tunnel.
“Good thing the mountain wall is solid,” Auntie Er sighed after Qin Sang helped her down.
Qin Sang looked at the tunnel, half-collapsed from the blast, and couldn’t help but feel they had gotten lucky. If it had completely caved in, they would have had to turn back. And the nearest station behind them was nearly ten kilometers away.
Past this tunnel was the airport.
See? Just their luck.
—
Fortunately, after crossing the explosion wreckage, the path ahead was normal. It was just pitch black in the tunnel, with only the occasional small guiding light. Everyone had to use their phones for illumination.
Qin Sang had a headlamp, but she followed the crowd.
Because she felt the attackers wouldn’t let them off so easily. There was definitely a mole in the group. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so—the team leaders and security personnel were certainly thinking the same.
That was why they had been walking in formation the whole way. Everyone lined up, kept their distance, and turned on their phone lights. This might temporarily deter the enemy.
“Ah, I can’t go on. Too tired.”
Among the group, a dozen or so people with leg injuries said they couldn’t walk anymore after just ten minutes.
The tracks were already hard to walk on, the lighting was poor, and their legs were injured—it was perfectly normal that they couldn’t keep going.
“Captain, we can’t keep this up.”
Qin Sang was not far from Lin Feng and said quietly, “Haven’t you noticed people’s breathing is getting faster?”
Although she wasn’t a human doctor, as a novice veterinarian, Qin Sang had noticed this a while ago. She thought it might be related to the oxygen levels in the tunnel.
It was a confined tunnel, too many people walking at once, pitch black, with empty space and echoes all around.
All these factors combined could lead to unnecessary casualties if prolonged.
Lin Feng nodded slightly and immediately walked over to the other team leaders. After a brief discussion, they finally decided to take a break on the spot.
Everyone cheered and immediately sat down, not caring about anything else. Some even pulled out food and started eating.
Qin Sang pulled Auntie Er down to sit as well and pressed a chocolate bar into her hand.
“I have food,” Auntie Er refused.
Qin Sang said, “Eat it first, Auntie. This will replenish your energy quickly.”
Seeing the expression on Qin Sang’s face, Auntie Er knew something was about to happen.
Yes, Qin Sang had noticed the atmosphere in the group suddenly shift. Something was likely about to happen.
Sure enough, just after she had finished stuffing a chocolate bar into her stomach, someone suddenly shouted, “Ah, my phone is dead.”
Then a corner went dark.
Immediately after, another person shouted that their phone was almost out of battery.
Anxiety seemed contagious. Some people still had thirty percent battery left but joined in the shouting anyway.
Then, someone started—one by one, phone lights were turned off. Their reasoning was: if their phone died and something happened, they would still be able to walk to the station.
After all, other people’s phones still had power and kept their lights on. They could just use their flashlights.
This thinking spread like an epidemic. Within a minute, only scattered points of light remained in the tunnel.
The people who had turned off their lights were startled at first, but then thought, We’re resting here anyway. No light is fine. It doesn’t affect eating.
Then, people started complaining that the authorities had made them empty their spatial storage completely to pack more supplies. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in such a predicament right now.
Qin Sang didn’t turn off her phone light. She leaned against the tunnel wall with Auntie Er. Her eyes weren’t fixed on the crowd, but her psychic energy kept scanning nonstop—more diligently than WiFi searching for a signal.
But minutes passed. Nothing happened. The team leaders and security personnel, who had been tense, seemed to relax a little.
Everyone else felt they had just been too nervous.
Then, a muffled groan rang out.
At that moment, Qin Sang’s psychic energy traced the sound to its source.
What she saw was almost unbelievable.
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