Ch 240: Apocalypse Star House Hoarding

Yu Xi wasn’t in a hurry. As she slowly unfastened her wingsuit, she patiently waited for the woman’s response.

The woman stared at her, scrutinizing every inch as if trying to burn a hole through her with her gaze. With the bulky wingsuit gone, the girl’s appearance became even clearer.

Dark chestnut hair, cut short and tousled; bright, striking features; skin smooth and youthful. She looked like a young girl, but there was a calm self-assurance in her posture and a steadiness in her gaze that belonged to someone far older.

The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly. The girl was pretty, yes—but it wasn’t the same face she remembered.

The two times they’d crossed paths before, she’d worn the same face, regardless of age. That false familiarity had led the woman to dismiss her as just another traveler.

Since entering the world of the Endless Train, the woman had passed through two stations already. She knew the odds of meeting someone familiar so early were slim. But she’d always been patient. Her strength gave her that luxury. For her, these stations were like immersive survival movies—dangerous, yes, but exhilarating. A refreshing change from the mechanical grind of her old task worlds.

She hadn’t expected this station to be any different. Still, she’d left breadcrumbs along the route, hoping to find a familiar presence before the countdown ended.

And now, here she was.

The woman’s lips twitched into a smirk. “My high-school boyfriend,” she said softly, eyes glinting. “He’s curious how many years little Xi spent drowning in the rain after ‘he’ left.”

“Six years,” Yu Xi answered without hesitation.

“And in the end? Did you make it out?”

Yu Xi shook her head. “No. When the last patch of land disappeared, the fragments stayed fragments. But everyone’s doing fine. The base turned into a floating city. Humanity’s spark… survived.”

The conversation meant nothing to anyone else. It was code, layered with references only they could understand. The words danced between them like threads re-stitching a frayed connection.

For Yu Xi, the moment she uttered her first question, she already knew who she was speaking to. The voice, the posture, the faintly amused yet cautious glint in those eyes—there was only one person it could be.

As for the woman? She’d known even sooner.

Unlike most taskers, she’d entered the System Tower fully equipped: a stocked space, a hoard of gear and resources, points to spare. She’d always used disguise cards to mask her appearance in every mission. But this time was different.

The Endless Train had stripped her of her space. Half her resources were gone. With limited item slots, she’d been unable to find the card that would let her change her face.

And now here she was, exposed.

Only one person would recognize her like this. Only Yu Xi.

The woman spread her arms wide and barked, “You little brat! What are you waiting for? Get over here!”

Yu Xi’s lips curled into a smile. She took three quick strides and hugged her tightly.

Behind them, the woman’s crew gawked.

“Wait, huh?”

“Is… is Boss actually into girls?”

“Hey, it checks out. She’s always been hanging with us dudes—drinking, smoking, cracking jokes, brawling with travelers—uh, I mean, conducting fair trade negotiations. Never seen her act like a woman before.”

“Yeah. And that girl’s a looker, ain’t she?”

“Shut it, idiots,” snapped the man who’d spotted them first. “Eyes front and mouths shut.”

Meanwhile, Ya Tong patted Yu Xi’s back, her smile softening into something almost wistful.

If they’d been from the same mundane world, they could’ve stayed in touch with phones, social media, endless connectivity. If they’d belonged to the same task system, they could’ve reconnected back at the System Tower.

But they weren’t.

And now, here, at the far edge of a wasteland in the Endless Train’s twisted world, they’d found each other again.

Yu Xi and Ya Tong walked side by side through the crumbling stone corridor. The golden light of dusk cast long shadows on the ground as Ya Tong casually draped an arm around Yu Xi’s shoulder, guiding her toward the waiting pickup truck.

“Come on, let’s go back and talk properly,” Ya Tong said, her voice light with genuine excitement.

Yu Xi turned back to call Lin Wu over, and that was when Ya Tong’s gaze shifted. She gave him a thorough, head-to-toe scan.

Now that the wingsuit was gone, his features were clear: tall, lean, with sharp eyes that reflected the cautious wariness of someone used to danger.

After a long moment, Ya Tong arched an eyebrow and tugged Yu Xi closer. With a teasing smile, she said, “Not bad. Good build.”

Yu Xi: …
Lin Wu: …

**

Ya Tong had arrived in the Desolate Land thirty days earlier—when it was still classified as an A-grade station.

The eerie Black Crawlers at the station platform, the relentless nighttime predators, the endless struggle for food and water, the giant worms beneath the Death Sand Sea—none of these dangers were new to her. But the greatest threat here came from the locals.

The native inhabitants lived beyond the sand sea, near the underground ruins. These people, descendants of exiles, survived through ambushes and raids. Every traveler who tried to cross the Death Sand Sea eventually faced them.

“Leave your goods if you want to pass”—that was their creed. The locals considered it their right, their only means of survival.

Raids usually went one of two ways: either the travelers were weak, and the locals overwhelmed them, or the travelers were stronger, forcing the locals to scatter and retreat into the underground city.

Ya Tong, however, broke the cycle.

She had arrived alone, and when the locals surrounded her for the usual ambush, she didn’t run or negotiate. She dismantled their group with brutal efficiency.

Traditionally, that should have been the end of it—she’d leave, and they’d lick their wounds. Instead, she followed the locals back to their underground base.

Once inside, she didn’t take their resources. Instead, she studied the terrain, understood their survival challenges, and then stayed.

She reorganized their tactics, introduced a trade system, and turned their hideout into a “Mutual Aid Association.”

“Help travelers survive; trade what they need for what we lack,” she explained to her new subordinates. “We make it worth their while, and we make sure no one walks away empty-handed.”

It took less than a week for the locals to embrace her as their leader.

No more ambushes. Instead, the association became a desert trade hub for travelers. The locals got better resources; the travelers gained safe passage.

“Five days ago, I got a notification,” Ya Tong said as she guided them through the ruins. “The station’s difficulty level dropped from A to B. That’s when I figured someone like you might show up.”

Yu Xi stopped abruptly. “Wait—you mean the locals know about travelers like us?”

Ya Tong nodded. “Of course. The station is divided into two zones: inside the black wall and outside it. The people inside the wall live in relative safety. The ones out here? They’re the descendants of exiles. They know travelers come and go. And they know that when travelers show up, things tend to…change.”

Yu Xi exchanged a glance with Lin Wu.

Change often meant destruction.

Ya Tong had spent thirty days in the Desolate Land and had long since gathered every detail about this station.

Yu Xi followed her through a seemingly unremarkable opening in the rock wall, stepping into the entrance of the underground city.

The moment her foot crossed the threshold, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She took it out to check. The countdown timer on the screen had been replaced with a new message:

Notification: Fragment detected (the most precious gem of the barren world).
Initiating fragment collection countdown: 23:59:46

Yu Xi’s heart skipped a beat.

**

The underground city was part of an ancient ruin. The structures above ground had long since been eroded by wind and sand, reduced to crumbling walls and scattered debris.

The underground portion hadn’t fared much better. Most areas had collapsed from age and neglect. The only reason this section remained intact was the natural spring at its center. Over generations, the locals had protected and maintained the site, knowing it was their lifeline.

Yu Xi crouched by the spring, pressing her fingertips to the damp ground, then lightly skimming the water’s surface. Her phone remained silent. No new signals.

“Maybe it needs a hidden task to activate the fragment collection,” Ya Tong suggested. Her own fragment feature, like Lin Wu’s, was inactive.

“Could be,” Yu Xi mused, straightening. “Lin Wu and I completed a hidden task together, but his reward was a second skill: spatial storage. And the message said ‘the most precious gem of the barren world’—this spring is essential, but it’s probably not what we’re looking for.”

She turned to Ya Tong and Lin Wu. “Let’s move somewhere else to talk. The locals guard this water source like their lives depend on it.”

Ya Tong led them up a winding stone staircase to the topmost level of the underground city. There, they entered a medium-sized cave with natural air vents drilled into the rock. The airflow kept the space cool without making it cold, and the sturdy walls provided safety from any desert predators.

Ya Tong and Lin Wu were both in the same situation as Yu Xi—travelers from outside this world. Before entering the Endless Train realm, she had discussed this scenario with both of them.

When she first met Lin Wu, his fragmented memories and unfamiliarity with the world hinted at the truth, but she’d kept her guess to herself. After meeting Ya Tong here, her suspicion solidified. Now, she knew for certain: all three of them shared the same countdown, meaning they’d leave the Desolate Land together.

Yu Xi took out her phone. A few taps later, her team list refreshed.

New teammate added: Yu Qi

The name wasn’t unfamiliar. In the Meteor Apocalypse world, that was the name of Yu Xi’s elder sister—her best friend.

Ya Tong gave a sheepish shrug. “Honestly? I didn’t choose that name. I woke up here with it already set. Never used it in any previous mission world.”

She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “My situation’s a lot like Lin Wu’s. I woke up in this station with just the clothes on my back. My weapon is now a skill, my spatial storage is gone, and all my resource cards and points disappeared. The only things left in my inventory were a couple of basic survival items, a handful of defensive cards, and…”

She patted the MP5 slung over her shoulder with a faint smirk. “This beauty. Luckily, my weapon had maxed out before I came here, so infinite ammo saved my ass.”

“Which station did you start from?” Yu Xi asked.

Ya Tong stretched her legs out in front of her and gave them a lazy grin. “Hope City.”

“Hope City?” Yu Xi and Lin Wu both blurted in surprise.

“Yeah. Why?”

Lin Wu sat up straighter. “That was one of the two possible destinations I could’ve picked when we left Wu Kong City.”

Ya Tong whistled lowly. “Well, you dodged a bullet then. Hope City wasn’t just an A-level station—it was a war zone.”

Yu Xi exchanged a glance with Lin Wu. The connections between them—and the mysteries of the Endless Train world—were becoming more tangled with each passing day.