“I want to challenge the final stage.”

 

Actually, the seventh stop was when the rebirth would occur, but that was only Xing Ye’s guess, and a very bold one at that, even containing an element of gambling.

First, almost all the passengers on the train had been reborn; they all knew about the train accident at the seventh stop, but everyone’s accounts were different. Some said it happened half an hour from the terminus, others said ten minutes from the terminus. The exact timing could not be determined.

Second, all the reborn individuals had disembarked at the sixth stop, leaving only a few behind at the seventh stop. For a high-speed train, this was completely unreasonable. The starting and ending stations of a train are always set after careful research; if almost no one intended to go to the terminus, it would lose its meaning. The system leaving so few people on the train, against common sense, must have a reason.

Third, the setting of the plot’s difficulty. As the final world before the final stage, the difficulty of the train world was incomparable to previous worlds. First, there was the 11th large-scale “battle royale” hunting game, and then the final station’s train driver was set to be one of the 19 players that Xing Ye had to eliminate. This alone was already extremely difficult. Adding the fact that there were no hints about the exact location of the disaster, placing the players completely in a desperate situation, did not align with the system’s usual game rules.

Finally, the male disguise of the female psychological counsellor, along with the guided nature of the character choices, seemed to suggest that this passenger was concealing a clue.

Based on these points, Xing Ye believed that the game would definitely have a turning point at the last moment, which aligned with the rule of leaving a glimmer of hope in a desperate situation. So he decided to boldly take a gamble, trusting his judgment.

Of course, if the game chose to go all-out in the final stage, giving no hints at all, Xing Ye would have no choice but to rely on his own judgment of the external environment.

He conveyed all of his thoughts to Lu Mingze, who shared “Hearts connected as one” with him. Lu Mingze sensed an unprecedented tension in Xing Ye, even though Xing Ye still appeared calm in the train carriage, confidently telling Yan Hebi: “Just focus on driving properly, leave the rest to me.”

This time, Xing Ye’s disguise was so perfect that even Lu Mingze’s “Eye of Truth” could not detect anything. If it weren’t for their “Hearts connected as one,” Lu Mingze might have thought Xing Ye was merely confident.

Xing Ye was the kind of person whose more tense he felt internally, the calmer he appeared externally. As a leader, he would never show weakness.

Lu Mingze asked, “Why are you so tense? Worried about your initial skills?”

“Not really,” Xing Ye thought to himself, “because I want to challenge the final stage.”

Lu Mingze listened quietly to his words.

Xing Ye said: “Xing Shuo died in the final stage. Before he died, he showed me a QR code and entrusted me with his initial skill. In the Cemetery World, I understood that he wasn’t asking for help, nor was he asking me to avenge him — he was unwilling to lose in the game. It was precisely because of this unwillingness that he entrusted me to defeat the system and challenge the final stage.

“You are now a tool. It is very likely that in this world or after the final stage, you will receive a QR code that restores you. You’ve been unconscious for too long; I hope you can wake up.

“Countless players — Cao Qian, Yan Hebi, Guan Ling, Swan Crystal Linlin, and many others — are trapped in this game. From start to finish, no one has successfully challenged the final stage. Everyone is like a trapped beast in a cage, struggling with all their strength, suffering. Someone must succeed in the final stage to bring hope to everyone.

“So I cannot lose. I must win this battle. In the next stage, I must also defeat the system.”

Hearing this, Lu Mingze let out a soft sigh. The invincible Xing Ye was so tense this time, not for himself, but for others — for the wishes of the deceased, to save the living, for the sake of his companions.

Lu Mingze said, “Now I understand why Xing Shuo considered you a sun.”

He stared quietly at Xing Ye’s handsome face in the mirror, suddenly feeling his heart race uncontrollably.

Fortunately, the real-world time in the game did not pass, or else his body would have had to enter the ICU again.

Lu Mingze remembered how, after falling into the mirror in the final stage, he experienced an endless, sunless stretch of time in the game. In the real world it was a month, but in the game world he had no idea how much time passed. In the dark mirror, he didn’t know if he was asleep or awake, and no one told him what the future held.

It wasn’t until he received a mission in a small village in the game world that he desperately climbed from the riverbed and was rescued by a girl named Claire.

At that moment, he saw the light.

The mirror is an object that only shines doubly bright when illuminated, and after meeting Xing Ye, Lu Mingze shone even brighter.

Thinking of this, Lu Mingze said firmly, “I trust your reasoning. From the first world until now, your deductions have never been wrong. This time will be no different. We will succeed.”

Because Xing Ye was not fighting alone — he carried the belief and hope of countless people. If hope was the only way to defeat the game, then Xing Ye already had a lot.

As if echoing Lu Mingze’s words, rain began to fall outside the train.

The psychological counsellor, Mr. He, had been reading, but hearing the raindrops on the glass, she couldn’t help but put down her book, frowning at the window.

After a while, she held her head and groaned in pain. Xing Ye immediately sat beside her, offering a cup of water, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“No… no… I can’t…” Mr. He clutched her head. “Stop… stop the train, stop it now… the mountain is collapsing! The train… the train is trapped underneath… dead, all dead…”

“How soon?” Xing Ye asked calmly.

Mr. He was still recalling the sensation of being crushed under the mountain, unable to answer calmly. But Xing Ye had a solution. He quickly drew a “Empathy” QR code, and with his strong self-control, forced her to calm down.

“Try to recall the exact moment of the landslide?” Xing Ye asked.

Mr. He suddenly felt inexplicably calm. Whenever she felt fear, an almost commanding emotion forced her to stay composed.

“I… I don’t remember that precisely…” Mr. He said. “And… you actually believe me?”

“I believe you,” Xing Ye said, “here is the map and the train schedule. Approximately what time we will reach each location is all on it. Try to recall carefully. We need to accelerate and pass through that area before the landslide occurs.”

The train schedule had been obtained by Yan Hebi from headquarters for Xing Ye; as the driver, he had to know this information.

Guided by Xing Ye, Mr. He thought carefully and said, “I remember that at the time, I was listening to soft music while reading, feeling my eyes a bit tired. I looked up at the window and saw countless boulders falling from the sky. The train shook violently… After that, I can’t remember much. My last memory is being in excruciating pain, everything around me pitch black, trapped under something I couldn’t escape from.”

“Did you not check the time on your phone at that moment?” Xing Ye asked.

Mr. He shook her head in confusion: “No, I was just resting my eyes.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at your phone?” Xing Ye extended his hand to Mr. He.

“Sure.” Mr. He unlocked the phone and handed it over.

Xing Ye discovered that all the music she had been listening to was stored locally on the phone, playing in sequential loop order. He asked, “Do you remember which song was playing when the accident happened?”

“Well…” Mr. He thought with difficulty.

At that time, she had been reading, her attention divided. She was just enjoying the atmosphere of the music and hadn’t paid attention to which song it was. On her own, she couldn’t remember.

Xing Ye, who had studied memory, began clicking through the music list in order. Upon reaching the fifth song, Mr. He said: “Yes, this is it!”

“Which part?” Xing Ye fast-forwarded the track to help her recall.

Hearing the third minute of the song, Mr. He said: “Yes, yes! I remember, when the rocks started to slide, the music was at this point!”

Xing Ye calculated the duration of the songs and said, “The landslide will occur in 22 minutes.”

He then compared the train route map and schedule with the current train speed and finally pinpointed the location of the landslide on the map!

“Twenty minutes from the terminus. When we exit the mountainous section, we’ll encounter the disaster,” Xing Ye confirmed.

He immediately moved through the charred, pitch-black 1st carriage into the cockpit and told Yan Hebi the exact time and location, asking, “Can you get out of this area in 22 minutes… no, 15 minutes?”

Yan Hebi, seeing that Mr. He really would reborn before the seventh stop, was greatly encouraged. Nervously driving the high-speed train, he said, “I… I don’t think so. Two problems: First, to leave this area in 15 minutes, the train speed must exceed 400 km/h. It’s a mountain route and raining heavily. At that speed, derailment is highly likely.

“Second, after leaving the mountains, there is a train junction. At such high speed, the train’s inertia is too great to decelerate in time, and the other train is hundreds of meters long. We might collide directly with the train passing through the junction.”

Yan Hebi, being a science student, had excellent physics knowledge and had considered these issues thoroughly.

Xing Ye looked at the route map and quickly ran calculations in his mind, recalling the skills he had, the train speed, and the terrain. He asked Yan Hebi, “What’s our current speed?”

Yan Hebi said, “On the mountain route, only 150 km/h.”

“How fast before derailment becomes possible?”

“Over 300 km/h is extremely dangerous. Accelerating to 300 will take seven or eight minutes,” Yan Hebi said. “Boss, the two of us are Fate-defying players. I think derailment is 100% certain.”

“Don’t worry,” Xing Ye said. “Accelerate. There’s still time. Let’s speed up and leave the danger zone.”

“What about the junction?” Yan Hebi asked. “I calculated the other train’s speed, its length, and our speed — collision probability is also 100%.”

“No problem,” Xing Ye said confidently. “Just drive normally. I have a way.”

 

Translator : DarNan