MDT Chapter 284 Part 1

Chapter 284 Part 1: Why Discriminate Against Flesh Trains!

“First task, Li Shiji, complete.”

This line of text appeared on the Iris Chip of every train member who had entered the abandoned factory to explore.

It was a major confidence boost for Lao Zhu and the others, who had been on edge. They'd been a little worried—after all, there were thirty-six tasks in total. But they'd only just entered the abandoned factory, and Li Shiji had already completed the first one. The oppressive atmosphere lightened considerably.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"Biaozi... Biaozi..."

The abandoned factory was huge, and everyone had split up to explore. Biaozi entered the factory's basement level, examining it closely. The floor was piled with large-capacity tanks, long since abandoned. Dust and cobwebs matted together, dangling from the edges of the tanks.

Biaozi muttered to himself nervously, trying to build his courage. He meticulously scanned every corner—not just searching for tasks, but trying to memorize every image so as not to miss a single clue.

Just then—

A shrill telephone ring suddenly echoed through the level.

Ring-a-ling...

It shattered the silence.

Biaozi spun toward the source, clutching the Tidal Wave Gatling to his chest. He saw an old-fashioned landline phone hanging on the wall, ringing incessantly. A pale-yellow question mark glowed beside it.

"What era is this? Who still uses these old landlines? Is the Mechanical Civilization really this nostalgic?"

He took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on that faint marker. He stepped forward and picked up the phone.

"Hello? Help me ask if Lao Zhang has arrived yet, this side is already—"

Static was intense.

He could only make out the first half of the sentence; the second half was completely inaudible, drowned out by a piercing electronic squeal.

"Lao Zhang?"

After the other party hung up, Biaozi glanced around frantically. He didn't even know what this task was. Was he supposed to find Lao Zhang? But there shouldn't be any living people left in this mechanical factory, right?

The next moment—

[Biaozi has triggered a task. Need to find Lao Zhang. Provide any relevant clues immediately.]

A message flashed across the Iris Chips of all train members who had entered the abandoned factory.

Soon, several more lines appeared on Biaozi's screen.

“Sentinel Team Three Captain says he saw a Lao Zhang business card on the desk in the factory entrance security room. He's a mechanical repairman, probably called in to fix the giant gear set in the Central Control Room. I've already contacted the person closest to the security room to go read the card info.”

“One moment.”

“Found it. The card has Lao Zhang's contact number, XXX-3148. No other information. The first three digits are covered by a coffee stain, can't make them out for now... Wait... Lao Zhu has entered the Central Control Room. There's another Lao Zhang business card there. The first three digits are 652.”

"Thanks!"

Biaozi took a deep breath and said his thanks before picking up the phone again. He dialed the number. No one answered. The call automatically disconnected after 45 seconds.

But—

The pale-yellow question mark on the wall had turned into a green exclamation mark.

Clearly, the task was just to find Lao Zhang's phone number and call it.

“Second task, Biaozi complete.”

"Awesome!"

Biaozi punched the air excitedly, cheering himself on. He felt like he was getting the hang of this, and his confidence was growing. Especially with Chief Ai's support—they were all merging into a single unit, sharing clues and information.

…

Abandoned Factory, Central Control Room.

The control room was glass on three sides, with only a single console inside. It was perched high up. Below stretched a massive underground space, holding several giant gear sets, all currently motionless.

"There's nothing here but this vending machine."

Lao Zhu stared at it, his voice urgent. "Chief Ai, help me ask if anyone has any coins."

The casing had a pale-yellow question mark on it.

“Already guided Team One member Shanmaozi to return to the employee dormitory and grab the coin from the desk. Have planned the fastest route for him to reach you.”

Xiao Ai's message quickly appeared before Lao Zhu.

Every train member who came to explore had a Mechanical Eye clipped to their chest, back, and both sides of their waist. Every place a train member passed, all visual information entered Xiao Ai's database, allowing for immediate analysis of any clues they'd walked past.

About five minutes later, hurried footsteps came from outside the Central Control Room. Shanmaozi pushed the door open, panting, holding a coin in the air. "Vice-Captain Zhu, here!"

Lao Zhu quickly took the coin and walked to the vending machine. He glanced down and saw it was marked "100." He randomly selected an item that cost exactly 100 and inserted the coin.

Clang.

The sound of metal hitting metal rang out inside the machine. A line of text slowly appeared on the screen, and the coin was returned.

[Insufficient change. Cannot break.]

[Please insert a 5-point coin.]

Almost simultaneously, a message appeared on the Iris Chips of all exploring train members.

[Need a 5-point coin. Everyone, watch for clues.]

"Let's check other places first. Go!"

Lao Zhu didn't linger. He and Shanmaozi strode out of the Central Control Room, splitting up again. He'd already searched this area; there was no 5-point coin. The coin had to be in some corner elsewhere. There was no point waiting here. Once it was found, they could just come back.

“Zhang Damei, that family photo on the ground by your left foot has a lot of holes in it, like someone stabbed it with a screwdriver. It's probably a clue. Pick it up and check the back for info.”

“Let me see... ‘They all deserve to die, betraying me…’”

“Pocket it.”

“Everyone, do your best to explore every area completely. I'm building a 3D model of the factory based on your visual data, but some parts don't line up. There are secret rooms in this factory, more than one.”

“Biaozi, the safe embedded in the wall in front of you probably isn't a safe. Based on the data, there should be a 20-square-meter secret room behind that wall. And this is an office. It's most likely a love nest for an affair. Try entering the birthdays of the factory director and his mistress.”

“Zhang Damei, the woman in your family photo, might be the factory owner's mistress. See if you can find her birthdate.”

"Found it!"

Li Shiji stood in the archive room, rapidly flipping through a paper file in his hands. "The man in the family photo is Lao Zhang, an external repair contractor for the factory. The woman is his wife; she's not an official employee."

"Every time Lao Zhang came for repairs, he would bring his wife along."

"His wife's birthday is April 27, 7229."

"I'll try it."

Biaozi, standing in the director's office, looked at the safe's keypad. The safe was embedded in the wall, hidden behind a painting and blocked by a bookshelf. If he hadn't been so thorough, he really would have missed it.

Next to the safe, a pale-yellow question mark was printed on the wall.

After entering the code and pressing confirm, the indicator light on the safe turned green. Immediately after, the entire wall section containing the safe began to recess inward, revealing a private, hidden space.

"There really is a secret room."

Biaozi quickly scanned the room. The pale-yellow question mark on the wall had also turned green.

“Sixth task, Biaozi complete.”

The secret room contained only a huge bed, a bathroom, and a massive floor-to-ceiling glass window. The glass looked dark, like one-way glass—you could only see out from the inside. The outside couldn't see in.

He walked up to the glass. From this angle, he could look right down on the giant gear set in the factory's center. Two bloody handprints smeared the glass, and the floor was covered in dried bloodstains.

Following the bloodstains, he looked toward a nearby wardrobe.

He opened it.

All the clothes were piled in a corner. At the bottom, a photograph.

It was candid, slightly blurry, taken secretly through the crack of the wardrobe door. In the photo, a petite woman was pressed against the glass, and behind her stood an extremely obese man.

In the corner, there was a 5-point coin.

"Chief Ai, contact Lao Zhu. I found that coin."

"And I have a new clue."

Biaozi's voice was quick with excitement. "It's obvious. Before this factory was abandoned, the perverted director frequently and deliberately broke the giant gear set, called Lao Zhang in for repairs, and then brought Lao Zhang's wife into this secret room, making her watch her husband toiling away below."

"Then this affair was discovered by Lao Zhang, who flew into a rage with a knife. Blood was spilled."

"But—"

"When this photo was taken, Lao Zhang must have been below repairing the giant gear set. Otherwise, the director would have had no reason to bring the woman here, and the woman's face wouldn't have that bizarre mix of guilt and ecstasy."

"In other words, although Lao Zhang planned a murder and manufactured an alibi for himself by being down below repairing, he had someone else hide here in advance to commit the murder. He even took photographic evidence. This person must have had feelings for either the director or the director's wife. Otherwise, they wouldn't have clutched the photo so tightly. That's an instinctive emotional reaction. I'm guessing it was most likely the director's original wife."

“Your reasoning is excellent.”

Praise from Chief Ai appeared on Biaozi's Iris Chip.

Immediately after, Xiao Ai relayed this information to everyone.

“Everyone, pay attention to any traces of the director's wife. This is very likely a new task and an important clue.”

“And Lao Zhu, your 5-point coin has been found. The optimal route has been planned for you. Please proceed to the director's office immediately.”

"Heh."

Biaozi glanced at the countdown. Five and a half hours remaining. They had already completed six tasks. He felt that finishing the remaining thirty tasks in five and a half hours was more than enough.

He excitedly lit a cigarette, then got on the floor to look under the bed.

He felt great right now.

Even better than the first time he beat Biohazard on extreme difficulty.

He had never imagined that one day he could make a living using his brain. He was already so strong as a pure martial artist; if he had a bit of a brain too, he couldn't even imagine. Had God been too partial when creating him, loading him up with so many advantages? It was almost embarrassing.

…

Abandoned Factory, Archive Room.

Li Shiji rapidly sifted through all the paper files. Although there were no tasks here, there might be a lot of clues.

The director was having an affair with the contract repairman's wife.

Then he designed a secret room specifically to watch the husband working while they had their affair.

Could this be true love? No way. Pure perversion.

In that case, why use his mistress's birthday as the password? There was definitely something fishy going on here.

…

And at this very moment, sitting in the control car of the Stellar, Chen Mang's face was flushed red as he kept making strange noises.

"Ngh! Ngh!!! Nngh-hmm!!!"

"Nngh-hmm!!!"

The first wave of zombies was already dead, wiped out by the Carriage Blades, not the firepower accessories. They were currently in the rest period. In one minute, the second wave of Level 2 zombies would attack.

Xiao Ai, standing in the control car, glanced at Chen Mang and met his gaze. The characters for "Con" and "Fusion" appeared on his cheeks. He didn't understand why the Train Captain was making such strange sounds.

He looked around. Ji Chuchu wasn't in here. Xiao Fang was standing obediently to the side. What was wrong with the Train Captain? Was he getting himself off?

After waiting a moment and seeing the Train Captain said no more, he refocused the bulk of his processing power on the abandoned factory. That side was more important right now; it required more of his attention and energy.

"Cough, cough, cough!!!"

But the Train Captain's violent coughing sounded in his ear again.

"Train Captain, perhaps you should go to the Medical Bay?"

"Motherfucker!"

Chen Mang's face darkened with anger. He stalked to the floor-to-ceiling window on the side of the control car, slapped the glass, and roared, "These damn mosquitoes! Damn it! Damn it all!!"

"Why are there always mosquitoes in this place!"

"Damn it!"

Xiao Ai walked over to Chen Mang, somewhat bewildered, and instinctively looked where the Train Captain had slapped the glass. He looked outside the train. A pile of zombie corpses was heaped up. Amidst the minced flesh, one relatively intact body was extremely conspicuous.

All the other zombies were naked, bits of flesh hanging off them. Only this corpse was wearing a uniform. It looked like a repairman's uniform.

Xiao Ai, reacting quickly, immediately contacted Shanmaozi, who was closest to the factory.

“Shanmaozi, get back to the train, fast! There's a zombie corpse outside the train—it could very well be the repairman Lao Zhang!”

"Hoo..."

Chen Mang's brow gradually relaxed. He walked back to the control console, exhausted, and let out a long sigh. He slumped into the chair, lit a cigarette, and stared blankly, looking utterly weary.

Being unable to speak his mind was as agonizing as holding in a fart.

He didn't dare give a more obvious hint, terrified of being judged as cheating, which would cause the mission to fail.

This level barred the Train Captain from participating. It was a test of the train's overall strength, excluding the captain. But a clue this huge—if they missed it, how could they possibly pass?

So he'd finally gotten the message across. Otherwise, he would have definitely dismantled the train's auxiliary AI when he got out. Damn it. This was killing him.

…

"Found it!"

Li Shiji, kneeling on the floor of the archive room, was surrounded by a massive, chaotic pile of files he had rapidly flipped through. Finally, in one file, he saw an announcement.

“Wang Ziru marries the factory director's daughter, inherits the old director's position, and becomes the new factory director.”

“His former girlfriend, disheartened, leaves the factory.”

"The truth is out."

Li Shiji murmured, his lips slightly pale. "This director and the repairman's wife were probably truly in love at first. Later, for his career, the director abandoned his girlfriend, married the old director's daughter, and married into wealth."

"But his heart still loved this woman, so he used her birthday as the password for his love nest."

"Who knows how much time passed."

"Only when the repairman Lao Zhang came to the factory to inspect the equipment did the director discover that the woman he had abandoned was now this repairman's wife. The two met, old flames rekindled, and they began their affair."

"The plot makes perfect sense."

"But... where can I use these clues?"

…

And at this moment, on another, unknown side, a Level 17 mechanical train sat in a plaza. Overhead, tens of thousands of "glass pods" filled with various mechanical organs were densely packed.

A bald man sat in the control car, his face grim, looking up at the ceiling.

His deduction was correct.

Those glass pods overhead were indeed a Lianliankan puzzle, but they required Level 20 attack intensity to eliminate. His train's resources were completely depleted; he was out of Iron Ore and Copper Ore. He had already eliminated nearly seventy thousand glass pods.

And the glass pods were still being endlessly replenished.

As if they were infinite.

"Ten thousand at most."

The man murmured. Ten thousand was a round number. If this Encounter Map wasn't a complete scam, then there should be ten thousand medical pods. But the problem was, his train was completely out of resources.

His train's resource reserves were already quite large, but they were completely insufficient here.

The other nineteen trains were all holographic images, all fake.

"I wonder if the other trains have passed this level yet."

The man looked toward the cliff opposite, a trace of unwillingness in his eyes. He had clearly deduced the solution, but he was stuck here due to a lack of resources. Wasn't this supposed to be a puzzle map? His current feeling was like knowing the answer to the final math problem on the college entrance exam, but his pen was out of ink.

That feeling was more disgusting than eating a cockroach alive.

He would rather not have known the answer; then he could have just given up peacefully.

But he didn't choose to give up.

He still jumped out of the control car and began searching the plaza for other clues. This Encounter Map couldn't possibly have such high requirements for a train's resource reserves. Perhaps there was a large amount of Copper Ore somewhere, but he needed to find it.

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