Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Welcome to the Infinite Survival Game.”

When the cold female voice broadcasted from above, I was sitting in the seventh row of an old-fashioned green-skinned train. Outside the window, there was no night sky, only a sea of white mist churning like paper ash. There were twenty people in the carriage; some were crying, some were cursing, and others were clutching their phones, desperately trying to dial out. Naturally, there was no signal.

The broadcast continued:

“The current Novice Dungeon is ‘Last Train.'”

“Novice Real-Time Survival Rate: 3%.”

Someone gasped.

I, however, looked up at the yellowed electronic sign above the train door.

The first set of rules had already appeared.

1. While the train is stopped, do not look back at the figures on the platform.
2. When the Conductor checks tickets, if you find he has no shadow, close your eyes immediately until the sound of footsteps fades away.
3. After midnight, Seat 13 must remain empty; no one is allowed to sit there.
4. If you hear someone whispering your real name in your ear, do not answer.

As I finished reading, I almost laughed out loud.

I wrote this.

To be precise, these were the rules from the first chapter of the Infinite Flow novel I wrote three years ago, *Night Train with No Return*, which had flopped during serialization. Not even the punctuation had changed. Back then, to make the readers feel more immersed, I had intentionally written the third rule vaguely, saying it “must remain empty” without specifying that objects couldn’t be placed there.

Just as I was about to stand up, a short-haired woman sitting next to me asked with bloodshot eyes, “What are you laughing at? Have you gone mad?”

“I’m not mad.” I pushed aside the old armrest, which felt as stiff as a seatbelt. “I just know how to survive.”

The carriage fell silent instantly.

A burly man sneered, “Who do you think you are? Some pro-gamer streamer?”

“No.” I looked at the red characters slowly flickering on the electronic sign. “I’m the one who wrote these rules.”

No one believed me.

The train soon decelerated, the wheels grinding against the tracks with a shrill, teeth-aching screech. Within the white mist outside the platform, a row of black figures slowly emerged, looking as if someone had hung corpses one by one behind the fog. Cries erupted at that moment as several people instinctively turned to look.

“Don’t look!” I practically roared.

But it was too late.

The first young man who turned back suddenly stiffened, as if something had hollowed him out from the back of his head, and his entire face flipped backward. He was clearly still sitting, yet his eyeballs were now staring at his own spine. A second woman screamed and lunged toward the window; a second later, an extra face was reflected on the glass behind her neck.

The carriage descended into chaos.

I threw my backpack directly onto the empty Seat 13.

The burly man was stunned. “What are you doing?”

“Claiming the seat,” I said. “The third rule only says no one can sit there; it doesn’t say you can’t put things on it.”

With a loud *clack*, the train door was pulled open. A cold wind from the platform swirled in, carrying a damp, moldy smell of earth. The shadowless Conductor entered, holding a ticket puncher.

This time, I didn’t close my eyes.

Because the second rule was written for ordinary readers, not the solution. The true hidden line was in my discarded drafts: *If the Conductor has no shadow, he can only confirm the living through ‘being watched.’* Closing one’s eyes can hide you once, but by staring at his chest badge, you would discover that the badge number corresponds exactly to the ticket number.

I looked down at my ticket.

07.

The Conductor walked up to me and flipped his badge over.

07.

The corners of his mouth pulled back as if he were smiling.

“Lin Zhaowan,” he said in a voice that was almost a whisper, calling my name. “Welcome back.”

The fourth rule suddenly exploded in my mind.

*If you hear someone whispering your real name in your ear, do not answer.*

I didn’t speak. I simply raised my hand and pressed my ticket against his badge, saying in a low voice, “Ticket check complete. Please proceed to Seat 13.”

That was the smallest logical loophole I had buried for him in the original manuscript.

The Conductor froze.

Then, he actually turned around and walked toward Seat 13.

Everyone in the carriage looked at me as if they were seeing a ghost.

I was looking at him, too.

Because I suddenly realized something.

When I wrote this segment back then, I had never given the female lead the name “Lin Zhaowan.”

Yet, the Conductor knew exactly who I was.