Apocalypse: I Built the Infinite Train-Chapter 301: Linglong Group

"I’ll talk, I’ll talk, just don’t kill me! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, please, don’t kill me!"

Lin Xian's intimidating presence made Tang Yun’s face go deathly pale. She finally seemed to realize the danger she was in and blurted out, "It... it was that organization called Crimson World that brought us here. They said… they said this place could connect to a quasi-digital consciousness. That... that we could avoid Dark Invasion, and… and safely and happily hide through the Polar Night and wait for the Apocalypse to end!"

“You guys?” Lin Xian narrowed his eyes. “Who else besides you?”

“My husband!” she cried, as if suddenly remembering, and started looking around the hive-like center in a daze. “My husband... where is he…”

Tang Yun’s mental state was extremely unstable. She was clearly losing control of her emotions, searching wildly. Fortunately, some survival instinct still lingered, keeping her just coherent enough to speak.

Long-term stasis had nearly wrecked her motor coordination. She tried standing, but kept collapsing, even her sense of direction was off.

From her fragmented explanation, Lin Xian learned that Tang Yun had come here with her husband Wen Dong and several of his Wen family relatives to join this project. As senior members of Crimson World, they enjoyed privileged treatment.

They had been introduced to Crimson World’s ideas about the Fungal Network and Zero Element Plan, and had personally participated in an experiment where they were temporarily exposed to Illusion Spores, experiencing the surreal euphoria of entering a dreamlike consciousness.

The goal of the Zero Element Plan was to use life-sustaining pods equipped with specialized biological isolation devices to allow temporary access to a kind of tender mycelium, enabling consciousness to connect to the Fungal Network. This allowed people to achieve joy and spiritual ascension while avoiding infection from the Underground Polar Night. The entire Zero Element Center was automated, ensuring absolute secrecy and safety. The isolation device would sever the connection at timed intervals based on the activity levels of the fungal network to prevent brain overload and uncontrollable fungal spread.

The problem was, even a nine-hour neural overload was beyond what ordinary people could endure. The pods’ life-support systems couldn’t save them. People were dying every cycle. Crimson World had long anticipated this. But in the words of the Descent Faction, this kind of death wasn’t real death—they believed the consciousness had been successfully uploaded, living eternally inside the fungal network. After the darkness passed, it could be re-downloaded into a cloned body and reborn, even reverted to a youthful state.

So for these Crimson Members, whether it was rebirth after the Apocalypse or eternal life through consciousness, it was the ultimate escape. That’s also why most of those lying inside were over forty years old.

“They said... the fungi here are a higher form of life than humans,” Tang Yun stammered, her voice trembling, eyes darting nervously at Lin Xian. “If your brain connects to the network, you’ll be safe from Dark Invasion and immune to Eerie Entities. That’s why no staff are allowed here—it’s to keep the environment 'clean', to coexist in harmony with the fungal network.”

“Coexist?” Lin Xian snorted. “And people actually believe that kind of bullsh*t?”

Tang Yun pulled the blanket Luo Yang had given her tighter around herself and muttered, “They said there were multiple safeguards. The AI would automatically cut off the network regularly to let us rest and survive. And the backup plan... even if we died, our consciousness would still live on in the network. Forever. And happily, too.”

Her pupils drifted as she stared at the floor, almost in longing. “We all tried it… inside that consciousness, anything you want—you have it. Wealth, freedom, sex, power, flavors, scents, sensations… every beautiful feeling. It wasn’t like a drug high or a delusion—it felt real. As if that was the real world…”

“But isn’t it still just a fantasy?” KIKI frowned. “Your body’s still lying there, nothing’s changed.”

“Yes!”

Wen Dong suddenly rebutted in a low voice, “It’s the same. What we say is right. Life isn’t about the body—it’s consciousness. What difference is there between what you feel in the outside world and what you feel in the fungal network? None. Sixty, eighty years of sensations—sour, sweet, bitter, salty—you won’t feel them in reality anymore either. So if you can’t have a life with everything, why keep living in fear under the Apocalypse and dread the Polar Night?”

“Even if the world is destroyed, your mind lives on forever. The others are the ones who’ve truly died. So at that point, who’s really alive, and who’s dead? What’s reality, and what’s illusion?”

“But you know it's just a hallucination created by the brain! How can that be real?” Lin Xian couldn't help but retort.

“And who says it isn’t real?” Wen Dong countered immediately. “The Buddhists say, ‘A world in a grain of sand, a bodhi in a single leaf.’ Maybe your Blue Planet, your galaxy, is just one neuron in some cosmic being’s mind. Maybe your entire life is just a flicker of thought in its brain. Ever thought of that?”

The more Wen Dong talked, the slower his speech became. Blood-red veins burst at the corners of his eyes, blood trickled from his nose, staining the blanket behind him crimson.

Seeing this, the Wen family members looked uneasy, remembering the massive global debates triggered by the post-Digital Life Prohibition Act. The philosophical chaos over what “life” really meant had never stopped.

Supporters of digital life believed consciousness—not the body—was the essence of existence. As long as the mind survived, it didn’t matter if it was housed in a robot, a computer terminal, or floating in the internet. For them, digital immortality was the ultimate form of life extension.

But the key reason the prohibition was passed wasn’t philosophical. It was because we couldn’t determine whether a data-simulated consciousness truly possessed the recursive thought structure of a human brain. In other words, we couldn’t verify if it was real life, or just advanced AI with fundamentally different ethics.

I used to think Crimson World was just a cult scamming rich apocalypse preppers. But now... they actually combined digital life theory with Fungal Network tech and created a whole worldview around it. And they didn’t hesitate one bit.

“No saving this one,” KIKI sighed and looked toward Tang Hui.

“Wen family,” she muttered. “What now?”

“No... no…” Tang Yun muttered, still struggling to get up from the floor. Her limbs had atrophied from disuse, and she couldn’t even remember how to stand properly. “I need to go back… I need to go back. My son, my husband... they’re still inside. I can’t wake up now!”

“You still want to go back?! Seven out of ten people in there are already dead. The fact that your brain wasn’t fully consumed by the Fungal Threads is sheer dumb luck.” Lin Xian stared at the fungal fragments still clinging to Tang Yun’s scalp, inwardly shocked. He had no idea what tech Crimson World was using to prevent the fungi from physically invading the brain while still enabling neural connection to the network. It was baffling.

“She’s a rare case,” Ding Junyi said, walking over with her mobile terminal. “Her mental strength is extremely high, which is why her body stayed alive. The others couldn’t resist—brain overload took them out in no time.”

“So Crimson World didn’t tell them that part?” Lin Xian asked.

“They did,” Shu Qin replied with a complicated expression. “They said once you die, your consciousness is uploaded—eternal life.” freeweɓnovel.cøm

“Wow,” Luo Yang pushed up his glasses. “A perfectly closed logic loop. These people are wild.”

KIKI stood next to Lin Xian, arms crossed. “Well, duh. How else do you trick rich people into buying in?”

Hearing all this, Tang Yun’s expression twisted in disbelief. “No… no way…!” She suddenly lunged toward the glass wall. “My husband and son are still in there!”

“What are their names?” Luo Yang asked.

“My husband is Wen Dong. My son is Wen Jiacheng. And... and Wen Qi, they’re the same age,” she said, looking at KIKI.

“Found him... Wen Jiacheng. Pod 09112...” Luo Yang reported while tapping on his terminal. He was already connected to the monitoring system. Frowning, he quietly said, “Vital signs show… he’s been dead for a while.”

“What?!” Tang Yun screamed. “That’s impossible! No way! He was with me—he was right there with me!”

Lin Xian frowned, now suspicious. He turned to Ding Junyi. “Director Ding, could it be that his consciousness really was uploaded?”

“Yes! That must be it! That has to be it!” Tang Yun cried hysterically.

But Ding Junyi remained calm, her tone even. “The data I found in the Zero Element Center isn’t enough to confirm whether this fungal network has the characteristics of a distributed cloud system for data transfer and storage. Even if it did, it’s not logically feasible.”

“What do you mean?”

Ding Junyi explained, “This mycelium—from a species of dark fungi—has an unknown biological logic. Let me give a simple example: the original digital life project relied on quantum computers to simulate neural networks, compressing consciousness data into quantum bits for ‘upload’ and ‘eternal life’. Quantum logic operates on qubits—0 or 1. Traditional computers use binary—also 0 and 1. But either way, both are based on human logic systems.”

She paused. “So if a Fungal Network were to function similarly, it would have to be compatible with human brain neural logic. Does that make sense?”

“Oh yeah,” KIKI nodded. “You’re saying these alien things run on a different ‘OS’ than we do.”

“Exactly. But that’s just my logic,” Ding Junyi admitted. “My thinking is limited by my humanity and my education. Abilities might touch on higher lifeforms, so my logic might not be the correct one. But practically speaking—there’s another guess. What she saw—her son—might have been a hallucination, simulated by her own brain. We’ve seen that before, so it’s not hard to understand.”

Lin Xian nodded, brows furrowed. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying.”

At that moment, Luo Yang spoke again while still checking his terminal. “Something’s off. I searched several times—aside from Wen Jiacheng, there’s no other Wen listed. Wen Dong’s name isn’t in the system at all.”

“What?!”

Hearing this, Tang Yun suddenly found the strength to stand. She lunged at Luo Yang, snatched the device from his hands, and scrolled madly. She checked every name, one by one. Her husband was nowhere to be found.

Slowly, her face went even paler. Her fingers froze. She collapsed to the floor, stunned, muttering, “Impossible...”

KIKI used her telekinesis to take the device back, handing it to Lin Xian, who glanced at it and seemed to realize something.

“Seems your husband didn’t fully believe in that perfect immortality plan.”

Tang Yun turned to him, trembling. “You… what are you trying to say?”

Everyone else understood instantly.

One possibility—Wen Dong got cold feet and backed out at the last second.

The other—he planned this all along, sending his wife and son here for a reason only he knew.

Tang Yun wasn’t stupid. Even though her mind was foggy, she remembered what had happened after arriving. She thought back to how calm and indifferent her husband had been—not curious, not excited, not like the others who were eagerly speculating about eternal life. And now, with no record of him in the system, it all clicked.

Her earlier panic and tension vanished. She collapsed, white as a ghost, not even caring that she was exposed in front of everyone—just lost in disbelief and despair.

Lin Xian sighed, looked over to KIKI, and asked quietly, “She’s kind of your acquaintance. What now? Up to you.”

From KIKI’s earlier words, this woman wasn’t evil. Somehow surviving the mycelium cocoon and still dreaming of eternal life... she was a pitiful figure. If she were a stranger, Lin Xian might’ve just handed her off to a northbound Survivor Convoy heading for the Dawn Center. Let fate decide. But since she was a relative of KIKI’s, he figured he’d ask.

KIKI nodded but glanced at Lin Xian with a strange expression. “Saving her is easy. But aren’t you curious why she came here? What happened with the Wen family in Jinhai?”

Lin Xian blinked. Damn, why hadn’t he thought of that? KIKI was always sharp—always thinking about her family’s assets. In peacetime, she’d be the perfect wife.

With that brief interlude over, Lin Xian had someone bring Tang Yun some warm water and clothes from the vehicle. Luo Yang and the others finished handling the situation inside and went out to patrol the tunnels, leaving Lin Xian, KIKI, and a few others behind.

Tang Yun was in no condition to respond. She didn’t even touch the clothes or water. KIKI took a deep breath, walked over, and said:

“Hey. We’re still in the middle of the Polar Night. Danger could hit any second. If you want us to save you, at least cooperate a little. Sitting there naked isn’t helping anyone.”

Her hair was a mess, her face blank. She buried her head, her eyes dull. “It’s just some flesh. Doesn’t matter. Men and women all look the same lying in those pods…”

Then she slowly lifted her head and studied KIKI’s face. After a long silence, she spoke.

“We all thought you and your father were dead, Wen Qi. Auntie doesn’t have much to offer you, but here’s a word of advice—be careful of that Wen family…”

“I don’t even use the Wen name. My last name is Zhao,” KIKI shot back.

Tang Yun glanced down at the clothes and water, her eyes shifting. “I know you don’t care about the Wen family. But the fact that you survived that plane crash... maybe that’s fate.”

KIKI’s brows furrowed, instantly alert. “What do you mean?”

Tang Yun took a deep breath. “I don’t know much. But based on how your aunt and the others reacted after the incident with you and your dad… I think… they might’ve known it was going to happen.”

Lin Xian, listening from the side, was immediately intrigued. He stepped forward and asked, “You’re saying her dad was set up?”

Tang Hui shook her head. “I can’t be sure. Before Apocalypse Day, Wen Qi’s father held full authority in the family. He controlled the family’s fate in the coming doomsday. He leveraged the construction and maritime business resources with both the Federation and Phoenix. Apart from the Surface City Project, he was also planning to divert three 50,000-ton grain freighters to Dawn City, trading them for a Federation flagship—the Wen Jiacheng, plus a full escort fleet for underwater escape.”

She paused. “And he also partnered with Noisy City to retrofit an Eternal-Class Doomsday Train in Jinhai’s rail industrial center. It was meant to carry the family inland toward the Dawn Center.”

“Damn. Surface city, sea route, and a land-based train. Putting all the eggs in multiple baskets,” Lin Xian muttered in awe.

It had to be said—Linglong Group was one of the chosen few. After Apocalypse Day, most of the world’s top 700 companies had their assets wiped out. Money was no longer money. But some corporations survived.

Take Fengge Group, for example—home to Silver Star and Jian Xuwei. It controlled logistics, machinery, manufacturing, and energy—everything essential in a post-apocalyptic world.

Linglong Group, meanwhile, specialized in construction and maritime shipping. On the surface, not ideal. But in truth, they were deeply involved in the Surface City Project, one of the Federation’s flagship survival strategies. Plus, they owned their own security forces. That gave them immense leverage when dealing with governments.

And as for maritime shipping—well, that was vital. A single bulk ship could carry over 50,000 tons. And Linglong Group had more than 410 vessels under its name. During the chaos of the apocalypse, a single ship carrying grain or fuel was worth more than gold.

KIKI’s father had been able to mobilize those resources quickly, amidst global collapse, riots, and population decline. He exchanged them for vital alliances and technology. That alone proved he was bold and decisive.

As for this Dragon Whale vessel Tang Yun mentioned—it sounded absurd. But Lin Xian knew the Federation, or now Dawn City, had shifted entirely toward underground living. Their surface fleets were useless. Trading an obsolete flagship for 150,000 tons of grain made sense. That much food could feed a million people for over a year.

“Oh, I get it now,” KIKI’s eyes lit up. “You’re saying the Wen family had four separate survival routes: an Eternal-Class Train Fortress, the Dragon Whale vessel chasing Phoenix, a Surface City Project seat, and... you, here in this Crimson World?”

“Four, yes,” Lin Xian added, gesturing toward Tang Yun on the floor. “She’s the fourth.”

Tang Yun shook her head. “All those plans were your father’s. After he was gone, your aunt—Wen Hui—took over. She canceled every one of his projects. She planned to donate all the family’s resources to Dawn City, just to secure a Federation Council seat. She believed that way, the Wen family wouldn’t splinter. That they could still hold onto their upper-class status in Dawn.”

“What?” Lin Xian’s brows shot up. “Wow. A true ‘let’s all die together’ approach.”

“Are you kidding me?” KIKI jumped up, furious. “What kind of pig-brained logic is that?! The world’s ending and she’s still thinking about being a councilwoman? I was actually getting excited about all those trains and ships and whatnot… and she went and ruined it all?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Tang Yun said softly. “I only know the Eternal-Class Train was already halfway built… the rest…”

“So that’s why you think your father was set up?” Lin Xian asked.

Tang Yun shook her head. “No.”

“I think that because… I found out my husband, and your aunt Wen Hui... had already been secretly contacting Crimson World.”

She looked up.

“And it’s very likely… even before Apocalypse Day.”