The water tank, like a giant metal drum, crashed to the ground with a resounding boom, startling all the zombie crows on the Infinity in an instant, and a deafening cacophony of cawing immediately erupted.
The swarming black zombie crows madly flew towards the rolling metal water tank.
The metal water tank, meanwhile, rolled down the hillside, its thunderous noise continuing all the way.
At this moment, Lin Xian and others suddenly realized that the entire platform’s canopy and the airspace above the passenger building were densely packed with black zombie crows, swooping down like a dark cloud.
"We had no idea there were so many above us..." Kiki watched the scene, feeling a chill.
Lin Xian immediately started operating the train: "Girl, help me switch the tracks, we’re going to drive into that maintenance workshop to rescue Shu Qin and the others."
The Infinity started up again, taking advantage of the attention of the swarming black zombie crows, quickly heading towards the maintenance warehouse.
At this moment, the people from Shu Qin’s team inside saw Lin Xian’s train approaching, immediately began to push open the warehouse’s large doors, facilitating the Infinity’s entrance.
Shu Qin was standing at the warehouse entrance holding a walkie-talkie, continuously waving towards the approaching Infinity.
Once the Infinity entered, Shu Qin’s subordinates quickly closed the sliding doors again.
The sound of the door closing echoed in the spacious maintenance workshop.
Shu Qin breathed a sigh of relief seeing the Infinity enter, and as the train door opened, Lin Xian and others got off, their gaze sweeping over. All seven vehicles of Shu Qin’s team were still there, but they were covered in black blood stains and a lot of crow feathers, indicating a dangerous escape from the siege of zombie crows last night.
"Why are you hiding in here?" asked Lin Xian as he got off the train and looked around. The place was a large train hoisting workshop, with an arched ceiling made from metal, quite sturdy.
Most of Shu Qin’s team of thirty-something people were still hiding in their vehicles.
"It’s a long story," Shu Qin replied, looking exhausted. "Last night, we came down from the skywalk, originally planning not to enter the city immediately but to find a safe place to camp for the night and wait for you all. But just as a large number of our caravan had just left Jiazhou Airport, we encountered these strange birds attacking. It was terrifying. Many vehicles were in accidents, so most people couldn’t even stop and just drove out of the city. However, these creatures fly very fast, and we don’t know how many made it out successfully."
"We also found this place amidst the chaos. It was also the noise from Silver Star and Dragon Mountain No.1 that attracted those strange birds, which allowed us to fortunately hold out until now."
Lin Xian frowned. "Were these birds also present during the night?"
"They don’t differentiate between day and night." One of Shu Qin’s team members came over, looking terrified. "The sky was filled with them, and we saw those who died were eaten clean in the blink of an eye, not even bones left, it was horrifying."
"Eating people?" Kiki gasped coldly. "No wonder we haven’t seen a single zombie, they’ve all been eaten!"
"That’s probably right."
At this time, Ding Junyi, wearing a pair of sterilized gloves, used tweezers to pick up a slowly wriggling black worm from a windshield of Shu Qin’s team. She spoke calmly, "This thing, it even eats inorganic matter."
She pointed at a nearly invisible tiny scratch on the windshield.
Originally, she prepared a test tube, but upon witnessing this scene, she switched to a thick metal box, placing the black thread-like worm inside before immediately taking it to the vehicle for analysis.
"This is powerful!" Chen Sixuan was startled: "Could it be that the black worm on the crow’s face just now was trying to devour our portholes?"
Lin Xian looked at Shu Qin’s vehicles, now riddled with holes, and spoke gravely: "However, it seems that those crows are extremely sensitive to sound but have no vision, if that’s the case, it might be manageable."
He said this and turned to look at KIKI, whose abilities were often too handy and could save them a lot of trouble.
"What should we do now?"
"Right." Shu Qin then turned around, pointing towards the far end of the maintenance workshop: "We also found this here by the way, not sure if it can be of any use to you."
On that track, a city passenger train and a freight train were parked, both locomotives suspended on the maintenance rack for repairs, and they appeared relatively new.
At every major station, Lin Xian would look for usable cars or locomotives, and he had paid special attention just now at the passenger center and on the branch lines. The external branch rails were lined with many rusty oil tankers and various types of decommissioned freight trains, many overgrown with weeds, resembling a graveyard of trains.
These scrapped vehicles were generally of no use, yet here, Shu Qin had found him some good ones.
The freight train aside, it was primarily the city passenger train that caught the eye; still in a clean white paint job, excluding the locomotive, it counted five cars in total, its model not too outdated, and the passenger facilities inside were probably quite complete.
"Wow, what a beautiful carriage," Sha Sha commented.
"This is the original first-class passenger carriage, highly equipped, but..." Chen Sixuan’s gaze shifted to Lin Xian.
Lin Xian smiled, "Just a bit thin-skinned, right?"
Upon hearing this, Shu Qin glanced at Lin Xian with a twinkle in her eye: "Captain Lin, the members of our fleet and I have discussed it, if possible, we would like to join your vehicle..."
As Lin Xian listened to her, he noticed numerous eyes looking towards him from all directions—some standing outside, others hiding in vehicles, all with a hint of expectation.
From the fire at Qu Guan, to entering Yu Bei City via Daluo Mountain, Shu Qin’s Bigfoot Caravan had made it this far with only a few vehicles remaining. Currently, there were about thirty people on board; if it wasn’t for the alliance with Xu Jin’s fleet, and then following Infinity into the airport, they wouldn’t have made it this far.
Now Xu Jin’s fleet still had over a hundred people, Lao Mo was a combination of several large families, friends, and relatives, not in urgent need of a patron like Shu Qin. Perhaps there would be another opportunity to ally with Captain Lin’s fleet once it grew stronger, but now they had been scattered by the Jiazhou City Zombie Crows, and any future cooperation would depend on fate.
"I said, if we can survive crossing Dazhu Plateau, we’ll unite and form a fortress train, living together. I wasn’t joking about that."
Lin Xian looked seriously at Shu Qin, faced with her appeal, without a moment’s hesitation.
Hearing this, Chen Sixuan, KIKI, and others were relieved and eager.
Shu Qin looked at Lin Xian in surprise, then excitedly said: "Thank you, Captain Lin."
"Wow! Really, that’s great!" The members of Shu Qin’s caravan were thrilled.
"I’m truly grateful."
"We have new companions now!!"
At this point, Shu Qin’s eyes seemed to hold more hope, as she turned to address the members of her caravan: "From today onwards, Bigfoot Caravan formally merges into Unlimited Fleet, all of us, including myself, must follow Captain Lin’s commands!"
"Captain Lin, we will all follow your arrangements."