The boy had a ball gag in his mouth, and his face was flushed as red as a cooked shrimp.
Pei Ran asked curiously, "Doesn't that thing make you drool?"
W stammered, "Maybe… probably… yeah."
Pei Ran raised an eyebrow silently. Didn't he just say this thing felt like wearing a face mask to him?
Whatever it was originally for, it seemed pretty useful right now.
In the quiet carriage, a voice suddenly rang out:
"Hi there, what's your name?"
"What's your name?"
Everyone in the train car turned their heads in terror.
Someone even jumped straight into the aisle, scrambling to put distance between themselves and the speaker—no one wanted to be caught in an explosion.
The voice had come from a window seat nearby.
But instead of the expected sickening "pop" of flesh and blood, there was only silence.
Pei Ran quickly walked over.
Sitting calmly in the seat was a woman in her twenties. Her skin was slightly tan, her hair jet black, each strand tightly curled and braided behind her head. Her large black eyes were heavy-lidded, her eyelashes so thick they looked like fans.
She wore a black coat over a light gray hoodie, and poking out from the hoodie's neckline was a small parrot head. The bird had soft beige fluff on its crown and white feathers on its chest.
It tilted its head, looking at Pei Ran with its beady black eyes.
"Hi there, what's your name?" it said again, tilting its head to the other side.
"I'm Nuomi Tuan," it added.
Pei Ran exhaled in relief but also felt a tinge of disappointment. Still no one who could actually talk.
In her head, she replied: Hi, Nuomi Tuan. I'm Pei Ran.
W observed the bird. "Seems like animals aren't limited to just squawking—they can use human language too."
Pei Ran replied, "So those gorillas with vocabularies of thousands of words—could they be stand-ins for human communication now?"
A few steps further up the car, they reached Jin Hejun.
He was slumped in his seat, both eyes seriously injured. His eyeballs looked beyond saving, and blood streamed steadily from the sockets.
He was in immense pain, trembling, curled up in himself. His classmates looked helpless as they tried to stop the bleeding. Piles of bloody tissues had been tossed aside.
A boy with a navy scarf had already taken it off, busy tearing it into strips to bandage Jin Hejun's eyes.
Pei Ran dropped her backpack, rummaged through it, and pulled out a roll of gauze and a plastic water bottle that once held meds.
She unscrewed the cap. "These blue-and-white capsules—are they antibiotics?" she asked W.
"You remembered right," W said. "Should help with surface wounds. One capsule, twice a day."
Pei Ran poured some into her palm, picked out a few, and silently handed them over with the gauze.
That was the best she could do. They had no better supplies on hand.
The college students had no medicine themselves. Seeing what Pei Ran offered, they accepted it gratefully, though they couldn't speak to thank her.
Pei Ran pulled up her wristband display and tapped out a message using emojis: a sun, a capsule, a moon, another capsule.
They understood right away—twice daily, once in the morning, once at night—and nodded in unison.
They got to work opening the gauze roll and gently held up Jin Hejun's head to start wrapping it. He had no idea what was happening, writhing in pain and reaching for his face in confusion.
The boy who had given up his scarf held Jin's hand and tapped a rhythm on it.
Sometimes he used his knuckle, sometimes the flat of his palm. There were pauses between patterns.
Tap—thump, tap—tap—
Tap—tap—tap—
Thump, thump, tap—
Thump thump thump.
…
Morse code.
Jin Hejun understood—and calmed down.
Communication was a human instinct. In a world where no one could speak or write, everyone was trying whatever they could to connect.
The cautious ones stayed alive. The brave ones blazed paths through the danger. Some died along the way; some survived and passed on what they learned.
Morse was simple and effective. It was used in the bunker cities too.
Pei Ran listened carefully. If the palm "tap" was a long tone and the knuckle "thump" a short one, then it matched what they used underground.
But she didn't need to decipher it herself—W was already translating in her ear. "It's Morse. He's saying: We've got gauze and medicine. We're bandaging your wounds."
The black metal sphere's eyes landed on the boy tapping out the message. "His name is Tang Dao. He's also a senior at Yanghai University, majoring in finance—same as Jin Hejun."
After some effort, the bleeding had slowed, though it still hadn't stopped.
Pei Ran knocked on the small table with her knuckle.
Thump, tap—tap—
Tap—tap—tap—
Tap—thump.
…
Tang Dao immediately looked up, eyes shining.
Ever since the silence deepened—when not even writing was safe—communication had become the hardest part of surviving. Morse was one of the few safe options left.
The only downside? Few people knew it.
And without the ability to speak or write, teaching it was nearly impossible.
He and Jin Hejun had both been members of their school's Morse Code Enthusiasts Club. For the past two days, they'd been trying to teach it to others in their group.
They'd thought about displaying dots and dashes on their wristband screens—it would've made things much easier. Drawing dots and lines was still safe, technically. But no one knew whether regular patterns might still trigger a reaction, so they hadn't dared.
Tang Dao never imagined he'd meet someone on this train who could actually use Morse code fluently.
It was like hearing your native dialect in a foreign country—your heart just melts.
Even W sounded surprised: "You know Morse?"
Pei Ran replied casually, "Yeah, dabbled in it back in college. Never thought it'd come in handy like this."
Tang Dao understood her message. She was asking: Can I talk to him for a bit?
He nodded quickly and made space for her.
Pei Ran sat beside Jin Hejun and tapped his hand gently.
She tapped a long sequence—slow, deliberate, patient: Why did you gouge out your eyes?
Jin Hejun calmed slightly, though his face remained contorted with pain.
He didn't reply in Morse. Instead, he used his hand and arm to mimic a slithering wave.
A snake—or some kind of worm.
He turned the motion toward his eyes, then clutched his head.
W guessed, "He's hallucinating. Something terrifying, like a creature crawling into his eyes… and trying to invade his brain."
Pei Ran nodded and stood. "Someone created the illusion."
And it was so vivid, it made someone claw their own eyes out.
She had only taken two steps when someone grabbed her arm.
It was a girl in a red knit hat.
She had long curly hair, bright features, and clear eyes. Her beige peacoat shimmered softly in the light—the kind of texture that screamed privileged upbringing.
She rummaged through her bag quickly and pulled something out—
A wide roll of black duct tape, patterned with wavy lines along the inner rim.
She showed Pei Ran her bag, which held more, then handed one roll over.
She understood how precious medicine was and wanted to give something in return. Right now, many people were sealing their mouths shut with tape. It was genuinely useful.
Pei Ran didn't stand on ceremony—she took the roll and continued walking.
W said, "Twenty-three thousand."
Pei Ran blinked. "What?"
"That girl's name is Sheng Mingxi. President of the Yanghai University Drama Club. Her family controls Deep Cosmos Corporation," W explained. "The tape she just gave you? I looked it up. It's this year's new model from Jiasheba. 23,000 federation credits per roll."
Pei Ran: "Huh?!"
Pei Ran: "You said how much??"
"Twenty-three thousand."
Pei Ran did the math lightning-fast. "That's over eight hundred bowls of beef noodles! For one roll of tape?!"
W: "Impressive mental math. Almost as fast as an AI."
Pei Ran: "…"
W: "That was a compliment."
Pei Ran still felt indignant. "It's just tape. What gives it the right to be worth over eight hundred bowls of delicious beef noodles?!"
The tape was matte black. The inner rim had those wavy lines. While the lines weren't actual writing, just to be safe, Pei Ran peeled off the printed layer as she walked.
W commented, "And just like that, its value dropped from twenty-three thousand to two."
It now looked indistinguishable from any $2 roll.
The tape Pei Ran had been wearing on her face was starting to come loose. She casually tore a strip off the new roll.
Pei Ran said, "This little piece alone is worth at least one bowl of noodles."
And it hurt.
She peeled off the tape on her face and replaced it with a new strip.
Even W couldn't hold back his curiosity this time and asked, "Does it feel any different?"
Pei Ran considered it for a moment, then imitated his way of speaking: "Maybe… probably… yeah? The allergic spots don't sting as much."
W guessed, "Maybe, out of the 23,000 yuan this thing costs, they actually put 23 yuan into giving the manufacturing subcontractor better adhesive."
Pei Ran shot back, "What kind of glue costs twenty-three yuan? I don't care if the emperor himself made it, this tape couldn't cost more than five."
As she bantered with W in her mind, her eyes never left the passengers in the compartment, scanning them one by one. She knew that W, like her, was also scanning faces and running quick background checks.
The last time he did this was on Bus F305.
It had only been a few days, but the world had turned upside down. Thinking back to that bus now felt like remembering another lifetime.
Pei Ran moved through one carriage after another until she reached Car 4.
It was quiet here, too. Almost everyone was staring silently out the window. When Pei Ran entered, a few turned to look at her.
There was a middle-aged couple with a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, nestled tightly in her mother's arms. Only half her face showed, but her wide eyes, black and bright like a startled animal's, fixed on Pei Ran.
They looked exactly like the eyes of the sister from her dreams.
Pei Ran immediately looked away.
Across the aisle sat an elderly couple. Both had white hair and were hunched together, using their fingers to scribble on a virtual screen projected from their wristbands.
They were drawing symbols — at first glance, it looked like stick figures, but the shapes were orderly, more like characters than pictures.
Pei Ran paused. "Pictographs are allowed?"
Someone was writing pictographs and still sitting here unharmed. That shouldn't be possible.
"Not actual pictographs," W replied after one glance. "I'm comparing with the database. These don't match any known symbolic language."
A beat later, he added, "I get it. They've distorted a pictographic script — that's why it looks kind of right and kind of wrong. I've checked: both are retired experts in ancient scripts from Nightsea University."
The old couple had invented their own system to communicate.
No one knew how long it would remain safe.
Through the glass of the carriage's rear door, Pei Ran spotted Kirill and Yulenka.
They were huddled in the tiny space between compartments, working with tools to pry open the door to the last car.
The last car was locked.
W explained, "Car 5 on Nightsea No. 7 is supposed to be the dining car. Worth checking out — it should have a refrigeration unit for long-term food storage. Nightsea No. 7 stopped service so suddenly, there might still be supplies inside."
There were so many people onboard who had escaped the Nightsea fire — some of them must have come without food.
Yulenka turned, spotted Pei Ran, and brightened. He immediately tapped Kirill on the shoulder.
Kirill, crouched with a large screwdriver, looked over, first at Pei Ran, then at Yulenka, clearly confused.
Everyone else had seen Pei Ran use her mechanical hand to gut a steel barrier — she made it look easy.
A locked train door was nothing to her.
Pei Ran stepped forward, gripped the handle with her mechanical hand, and gave it a slight twist. The lock crumbled like a cracker, dropping off the door. The door swung open instantly.
The dining car was empty. Like the others, it had booth seating in pairs, though the tables here were wider and covered with pristine white cloths.
Kirill seemed to know this place well. As soon as he entered, he strode straight to a hidden compartment in the wall and opened it.
It was the refrigeration unit W had mentioned.
It had multiple shelves, each packed neatly with silver foil boxes — pre-packaged meals in aluminum containers.
Pei Ran immediately became wary. "Kirill isn't planning to keep it all for himself, is he?"
Before the thought even finished, she saw Yulenka step forward and pull out one of the boxes.
He turned to her, pointed toward the passenger cars, and gestured as if handing items out one by one.
Ah, that's better.
Pei Ran noticed that the box Yulenka was holding still had its paper label — it said "Chicken Rice" and showed the manufacturer and production date.
All the boxes in the cabinet were labeled.
Just like the scattered documents and IDs back in Nightsea, these labels were vulnerable. They hadn't caught fire yet — but that didn't mean they wouldn't.
Just because it was safe now didn't mean it would stay that way. The Silence was evolving. To be safe, these had to go.
Pei Ran gestured for Yulenka to rip off the labels.
Then the light flickered.
Yulenka flinched, and the box in his hand dropped to the floor.
Everyone recoiled, stepping back in alarm.
Then they saw it: the label on the packaging had scorched black, as if something white-hot had seared it.
And not just that box — black smoke was rising from inside the cabinet. Every label was burning.
The air filled with the sharp stench of scorched paper.
Pei Ran crouched, cautiously picked up the box. The aluminum was still hot to the touch, but it hadn't changed — only the label had been incinerated.
She slowly peeled back the lid. A puff of steam rose up. The aroma hit her — the chicken rice inside was perfectly fine.
Whatever energy had burned the labels was weaker than what had torched wristbands earlier — it targeted the material precisely, burning only what needed to be destroyed. Not a joule of energy wasted.
W commented, "The Silence has leveled up. The next wave of text-clearing has begun."
Last time, it had targeted building signage, neon lights, car displays, digital screens, wristbands. Now even tiny paper labels weren't safe.
The Silence had finally reached the stage Pei Ran had long feared:
Anyone who still had clothing tags or similar items on them was probably in danger.
Another flicker of light — and then a blood-curdling scream.
"AHHHHH—"
Pei Ran jumped back, still clutching the chicken rice box.
One of Yulenka's companions was clutching his face. His eyes — both eyeballs — were blackened and burnt.
He'd had several pieces of medical tape crisscrossing his mouth. They'd been ripped off in his panic, now dangling loose.
Three seconds later — BOOM. Blood and flesh exploded everywhere.
A shiver ran down Pei Ran's spine.
Did he see the writing on the box? Did the image of the words burn into his eyes?
But then she realized — no, that couldn't be it. When Yulenka had been holding the box, plenty of people had been looking at it. No one else had been harmed.
So what happened?
W answered: "I've got it. It's the contact lenses. His name is Viktor. I found his medical records in the federal healthcare database. He's a long-term contact lens wearer. I checked his purchase history — the brand he uses has lettering printed on the lenses."
There had been letters printed on his contact lenses. He'd overlooked them. He forgot to take them out.