The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 103: Mobius Strip

The air thickened with tension. Without himself noticing, Old Wang began to speak with increasing urgency.

According to him, the second team of the Hundred Rivers Union consisted of nine people with Cheng Xin being the leader, and him, Wang Fei, being the vice-leader. All of them got into the last car of the subway train. At the time, the doors between the cars weren’t locked.

After staying in the car for a while, they moved to the next one. It was then the train reached a stop, and a few passengers boarded. The atmosphere was eerie, to say the least.

While the second team weren’t exactly seasoned veterans, they were well-trained, and they didn’t lose their calm. Pretending to be regular passengers, they stayed seated in the car without a word.

The train continued moving, and it made a stop every five to ten minutes to pick up and let off passengers like a regular subway train.

After a few stops, the members of the second team lost their composure.

It was then an old woman struck up a conversation with a girl on the team. Her name was Jingjing, a 21-year-old girl who had just joined the Hundred Rivers Union not long ago. Fear led to her making a mistake, and the old woman noticed.

Unfortunately, the old woman was a summoner. It immediately transformed and awakened all the passengers in the car, triggering their transformation and frenzy.

What followed was a chaotic, bloody fight.

Jingjing was the first to die. The summoner broke her fair neck with a bite and left her to be torn apart by the other monsters. She had only just accepted her boyfriend’s proposal the day before, and she was wearing the ring he gave her on her ring finger.

After two minutes, the second team won the bloody fight in the car at a heavy price; one of them was killed, and another was seriously injured.

They didn’t even have the time to regroup and mourn the loss when the train made a stop again, and the door slowly opened.

Naturally, the terrible scene in the car awakened the incoming monsters, and thus another struggle for survival commenced.

This time, they lost two members, one of whom was the member who had been critically injured in the previous fight.

The surviving members ran to the next car and locked the door. There were six of them.

In ten minutes, the train stopped once more. Again, the incoming passengers transformed. It was thanks to Old Wang covering for his companions with Iron Skin that they were able to quickly flee to the next car for a short reprieve.

Under the weight of great despair, they reached a breaking point.

A fight broke out among them. As the vice-leader of the team, Old Wang had been opposed to Cheng Xin’s reckless decision for them to get on the train. However, Cheng Xin was an obstinate man who blindly pursued glory. He should take full responsibility for the death of their companions, yet the man believed Jingjing was to blame; if she hadn’t exposed herself out of nervousness, he reasoned, the nine of them could’ve explored the Rune Cave as regular passengers.

The fight didn’t lead to anything productive. They calmed themselves and discussed their plan.

Moving and hiding in different cars wouldn’t get them out of this crisis. The train would keep making stops, and every time there would be new passengers—all monsters—boarding the train. None of the cars would be truly safe.

To ensure their safety, they must make it to the head of the train to stop it.

Once they reached a consensus, they started with their plan. And whenever they moved past a car, they would lock the door to make sure their back was clear.

“We reached the first car soon.”

Old Wang’s suppressed anger began to simmer. “The train made a stop, and the door opened to let in about a dozen passengers. They transformed immediately. Unfortunately, the door to the cab was locked, and it would take time to open it. Cheng Xin ordered me to block the platform door and stop the monsters from boarding.”

He clenched his teeth and fell silent.

“You blocked the door with your Iron Skin. Cheng Xin and the others abandoned you after getting into the cab.”

“Yeah.” Old Wang smiled wryly. “I knew what would happen when Cheng Xin told me to block the monsters, but I hadn’t expected him to shut me out without hesitation.”

With a sigh, Officer Huang offered Old Wang a cigarette. “Want one?”

Old Wang waved his hand. “Thanks, but I quit after my child was born.”

“You’ve got a kid?” That got Officer Huang’s attention.

“Yes, a daughter.” Old Wang’s eyes glinted. “She’s entering elementary school next year.”

“Stay on track and don’t get distracted,” White Rabbit cut in.

“Right.” Old Wang narrowed his eyes and continued with his retelling, “I blocked the door with Iron Skin. Only three monsters managed to get through me when the train started again.”

Old Wang’s lips curled into a pained smile. “With my temporary invincibility, I put all I had into killing the three monsters. Then I knocked on the door as I cursed out that bastard of a team leader, Cheng Xin...”

He paused and took a breath.

“No one opened the door. I was so pissed that I started throwing myself at it. It took a long while for me to knock down the door. And what I saw then made me lose hope.”

“Let me guess.” War Tiger’s eyes shifted. “You found yourself back to the start.”

“How do you know?” Old Wang gaped.

War Tiger didn’t respond. “Keep going.”

“I found myself back in the last car we had gotten into at the beginning. Before I could figure out what was going on, however, the train made a stop, and in came a group of passengers. Lo and behold, there was a summoner among them, and the monsters instantly ran wild.”

Old Wang said with cold sweat covering his forehead, still reeling from the fear, “How was I supposed to fight more than ten monsters on my own? I turned my skin into metal immediately and did my best to endure, to survive for a second longer if it was at all possible. All I could think of was my wife’s and my daughter’s faces.”

“I didn’t know how long it’d been. Then I heard the sound of battles in the next car and people having conversations. I wondered if it could be my brain playing tricks on me near death, but I decided to give it a go, and you let me in and save me...”

“Shit.” War Tiger cursed. “So it is all connected.”

He gave White Rabbit a look. She took out the segment of finger in her waist pack without missing a beat. “Is this Jingjing’s?”

Old Wang closed his eyes, his expression tight. “It was hers. She was barely into twenties.”

Gao Yang didn’t say anything. He had been pushing himself to figure out the situation quickly. Now that he had gotten to an initial hypothesis, he gave War Tiger an urgent look, and War Tiger raised an eyebrow at him.

“Speak.”

Gao Yang licked his lips and organized his thoughts. “While I don’t know the exact reason, the tail and the head of the train are connected, like a Mobius strip.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“So I dare speculate that while the train has been moving the whole time, it hasn’t actually moved.”

“What do you mean?” Old Wang was confused.

“It’s what it sounds like.” Gao Yang made gestures with his hands. “Think of the subway as a prostrating ferris wheel. It’s been moving non stop, but it’s actually rotating in place.”

“That’s why it’s so steady!” Officer Huang said in realization.

“That’s right. Every car is a pod of the ferris wheel. While it looks to us that the cars are connected, there actually is a strange space in between.”

“Every few minutes, the train stops, and passengers come in and get off. They are all monsters playing the role of humans, and they have been repeating the process in this rotating subway train like inmates in a prison—until our trespassing.”

“Well.” Gao Yang sucked in a breath. “Doesn’t that sound familiar to you?”

“The Gu Family's Village,” Qing Ling said on instinct.

“Bingo.” Gao Yang nodded. “This is a Rune Cave, and there must be a Rune Circuit.”