◎ The Secret of Train Coins’ Creation: Will the Train Conductor Appear in the Dungeon? ◎
Everything happened in an instant.
The prison door swung open, and the Lie Rong inside rushed out, followed by two gunshots.
Before anyone else could react, Jiang Qi had already grabbed 1A’s collar and pushed him over Lie Rong’s corpse.
1B, Dong Shengfeng and Cui He’s teams were both stationed at the door, alert and ready.
In their view, all panels and white light were invisible—they could only see Jiang Qi’s slender arms pulling the tall man into an awkward position.
Soon, 1A stiffened completely, then a pained expression crossed his face as he clutched his head tightly.
Jiang Qi watched until the player panel fully merged into 1A’s mind, then released him. He immediately rolled on the ground, clutching his head and howling.
Jiang Qi said in a calm, gentle tone, “It’ll be painful. Bear with it. Try to accept the panel.”
In reality, it wasn’t just “painful”—it was the extreme agony of feeling as if one’s head was being split in two. Jiang Qi remembered in her previous life that she had passed out directly from the pain. Luckily, no one had come to her place during that time, and she had lain there until she woke up again.
Jiang Qi continued, “Hold on, just a bit longer.”
Her Train Conductor panel suddenly popped up again:
[Ding! You killed a passenger. You have actively executed the absolute authority of a Train Conductor over players’ lives, gaining 0.001 Internship Experience.]
[Ding! You are helping a native player seize another passenger’s identity credential. You are poaching under a Train Conductor, challenging their authority, breaking survival train rules—this is extremely risky…]
Jiang Qi froze, holding her breath, waiting for the panel to continue—was it going to punish her again?
[…Alright, corners are made to be dug into, Train Conductor authority is made to be trampled, rules are made to be broken. You are brave. Reward: 0.001 Internship Experience.]
Jiang Qi: “…”
This little trick makes you happy, huh?”
Suddenly, she felt an urge to pull out the panel and give it a good smack.
However, from the train conductor’s perspective, a player = a passenger, a player panel = identity credential. To hide from the train conductor, she would have to manipulate this player panel.
She looked at 1A, whose struggling had lessened, and crouched to check Lie Rong’s body on the ground.
Earlier, it seemed a card had appeared in this person’s hand, which gave her a strong sense of urgency—as if killing him a bit later would cause a leak.
Finally, she found a pile of powder in the corpse’s right hand.
This was…
Card powder?
Cards are a major type of player item. Once used, a card turns into powder. If a card is forcibly crushed before use, it also becomes powder.
So, had it been used already, or not?
And what kind of card was it?
Finally, 1A calmed down, struggling to rise from the ground, drenched in sweat as if pulled from water. Veins bulged on his forehead, neck, and arms; his eyes were bloodshot.
Jiang Qi gave a thumbs up. “You didn’t faint. Impressive. Can you sense the player panel?”
Gasping for breath, 1A tried. Slowly, a player panel materialized, floating before him.
“Did it… work?” he exclaimed in surprise.
Jiang Qi saw the panel too, but couldn’t see its details. She smiled and nodded, “Yes, it worked. You’ve obtained Lie Rong’s player panel. From this moment on, you’re a player too.”
The people at the door hurried over, asking what happened.
1A joyfully said, “I can see the player panel! Right in front of me!”
The others, however, saw nothing.
Jiang Qi said, “Check the item usage history. Any card records?”
1A quickly followed instructions and found the record: “Yes, there’s a record for a [Message Card], but it shows ‘Usage Interrupted’.”
Jiang Qi let out a sigh of relief. As long as it was interrupted, it was fine.
She asked again, “Can you see who the other end of the message card is linked to? That’s the person Lie Rong wants to send the message to.”
“No display.”
“I see. Well, as long as the use was interrupted, it means the message didn’t go through.”
Still, this was only the second dungeon, and for Lie Rong to have such a rare Message Card was surprising. In her past life, card-type items only appeared gradually in official dungeons.
It seemed she couldn’t underestimate any player; everyone could have unexpected items.
Suddenly—
[Ding! As the Train Conductor, the corpse of the player you killed is about to undergo automatic resource conversion, gaining 0.001 Internship Experience.]
Jiang Qi was startled. Understanding the meaning, she turned sharply toward the corpse.
White smoke rose from it, and the body slowly dissolved. In a moment, only several shiny, round coins of various sizes remained on the ground… Train Coins!
Jiang Qi stepped back in shock, staring at the coins in disbelief.
How could this be?
Train Coins actually came from converting player corpses?!
At the same time, a sharp pain shot through her mind, accompanied by dim, blurry images.
Several people appeared together, drinking in a lively, noisy environment. One said, “I heard you got a batch of newbies again. In each newbie dungeon, at least 20,000 die. You’ve got a profit.”
Another said, “Pfft, how much can those brats be worth? Always making a fuss, messing up my train. I’d rather stick to old-timers—fewer people, better quality, less trouble, and the stronger they are, the more energy they produce when they die.”
Someone else added, “In the end, dungeons with more natives are the most profitable. Even if one native only gives you ten coins when they die, hundreds of thousands add up to a fortune.”
Jiang Qi groaned, covering her head. The images began to shatter, and the world around her swayed.
Who were these people? Were they all Train Conductors?
She tried to open her eyes wide to see their faces and hear more, but a sharp pain in her head made the images shatter completely. Her vision went black, and she lost control of her body.
“Jiang Qi!” Dong Shengfeng shouted beside her.
And then, her Train Conductor panel beeped again—
[Ding! You have independently discovered the secret of Train Coin creation. This is information only formal Train Conductors should know. You learned it ahead of time. Congratulations, you have gained 1 Internship Experience points.]
…
Half an hour later.
In the command center conference room, everyone had arrived. Every face was grave and solemn as they took turns examining the eleven freshly produced train coins placed inside a transparent case.
On the front of each coin was a simple line drawing of a train. On the back was a gray silhouette of a head.
After everyone had looked them over, a currency research specialist said, “Compared with the train coins carried by those players, these coins have several differences. First, there is no train number on the front. Second, the portrait on the back is gray, which should mean that there is not yet an official portrait. Likewise, the place where the train conductor’s honorific title should be engraved is also blank.
“From this we can conclude that these eleven train coins belong to Comrade Xiao Jiang. It is just that she is still in the internship stage. She has neither her own train nor her own title, so these eleven coins are still semi finished products.”
Someone asked, “So the train coins in that player’s hands all came from this?”
At this moment, no one could know the answer to that question.
Zhang Zhengtian asked, “Has Xiao Jiang not woken up yet?”
“Yes. She is still unconscious. All medical checks are normal, but for some reason she cannot wake up. The doctors do not dare to force it.”
Zhang Zhengtian frowned tightly. “She must not be forcibly awakened. Wait for her to wake up naturally.”
Then he pulled the topic back, and everyone continued discussing the unexpectedly produced train coins.
“So does every player drop coins when they die?”
“Haven’t we killed several players before? There have also been plenty of deaths from conflicts between players. Those bodies were all normal. Nothing dropped.”
“This Lie Rong dropped a total of eleven coins, but the values are all different. The total value is 241. Do different players drop coins of different values?”
As the discussion went on, everyone looked toward one place. “Xiao Zhou, what do you think?”
Xiao Zhou, or 1A, sat there looking awkward. How could he know? He just got the player panel and hadn’t even figured it out himself.
He could only say, “I inherited Lie Rong’s player panel and also obtained his assets. His backpack still contained train coins with a total value of 1,277.”
Everyone fell silent. Fine then. You only took the player panel. You could not know things at a higher level anyway.
Everyone was at a loss. Without Jiang Qi, they suddenly became blind, completely confused when facing many issues.
At this moment, they once again clearly realized that without a vanguard charging ahead, they would never be able to know anything about matters at the train conductor level.
Jiang Qi’s upper limit determined their upper limit. That statement was fully valid at this moment.
Someone else asked, “So, the train conductor kills players, producing coins with personal marks, and then uses those coins as currency for players. What’s the purpose? Could it really be, as the rumors Jiang Qi mentioned, that train conductors control players through these coins?”
At this moment, a somewhat weak voice sounded. “Not control. Train coins do not have the function of controlling players.”
Everyone turned toward the door and saw Jiang Qi, her face somewhat pale, being supported by Dong Shengfeng as she appeared in the doorway.
Everyone stood up. “Xiao Jiang is awake!” “Xiao Jiang is here!”
Zhang Zhengtian asked, “Is Xiao Jiang alright?” He hurriedly had someone bring her a chair.
Jiang Qi sat down and said, “I am fine. I just learned some things from the Train Conductor panel. It might be a bit early for my current qualifications to know these things, so my brain could not quite handle it for a moment.”
She took a breath and said seriously, “The train conductor’s purpose is actually very simple. To accumulate energy. To put it more bluntly, to make money.”
She looked at the box of train coins. Someone immediately passed it to her.
Looking at the eleven coins, she said, “The essence of train coins is energy. Train conductors can roughly obtain train coins through three methods. First, by personally killing players. The player’s corpse will automatically convert into train coins. The stronger the player, the more coins produced after death and the higher the total value. Second, after a player dies, before the energy in the corpse fully dissipates, the train conductor needs to actively convert the corpse. Third…”
She paused, her gaze heavy, her words coming with some difficulty, as she looked at everyone and said, “Third, after dungeon natives die, the train conductor converts their corpses into train coins.”
Everyone’s expressions changed in shock. “What!”
Someone stood up abruptly, knocking over a chair. “Even natives can become train coins!”
Zhang Zhengtian asked the more critical question. “How does a train conductor turn natives into train coins?”
Jiang Qi pressed her slightly throbbing forehead, took a breath, and spoke the answer no one wanted to hear. “After a dungeon ends, when the players return to the survival train, the conductor will come to the dungeon location to convert all the corpses in the entire dungeon, and at the same time reclaim the train coins the players spent in that dungeon.”
She said hoarsely, “This is the train conductor’s reasonable and legal income. This is how they make money.”
Silence.
The entire conference room fell silent.
A few seconds later, it erupted into overlapping curses, the sounds of tables being slapped and chairs kicked.
“Damn it, they do not even leave a whole body!”
“So the arrival of players and the arrival of dungeons are actually their means of harvesting dungeon natives, right? Using methods that look reasonable and legitimate to kill off ordinary people so the train conductors can harvest energy!”
“Damn that @)&!~$, that #$%!~! I knew this %$@!~$ game was rotten to the core! I’m going to kill that @#%!~$!”
Normally composed, these people were now shouting at the top of their lungs, dropping one curse word after another. Jiang Qi’s head hurt even more from the noise.
In the end, Zhang Zhengtian slammed the table hard and shouted sternly, “Everyone calm down. Is this the time to lose your temper? If you all shout louder here, will the train conductor not come?”
Everyone could only swallow their anger and quiet down.
Zhang Zhengtian said, “Alright, everyone sit down and get back to the meeting. Our task is to respond to the crisis and solve the problem.”
After everyone sat down, Zhang Zhengtian asked Jiang Qi in a serious, calm tone, “Xiao Jiang, do you mean that the train conductor will definitely come to our Spring City after the dungeon ends?”
Jiang Qi nodded. “If it is a relatively difficult and complex dungeon, the train conductor might even mix in with the players from the beginning and come to the dungeon together. But Spring City is a beginner dungeon. For the train conductor, it poses no challenge at all, and in theory there are no variables. So with a 99 percent probability, they will come to harvest only after the dungeon ends.”
“Damn it, that Train Conductor!” someone muttered.
Zhang Zhengtian continued calmly, “So when the train conductor arrives and discovers that Spring City has not suffered many casualties and there are not enough corpses for conversion, what will they do?”
Jiang Qi sighed. “First, we need to understand one thing. Most train conductors are responsible for their own profits and losses. If you compare them to truck drivers, they first need to have a big truck, then find cargo on a platform and transport it to earn freight fees. After deducting postage, tolls, vehicle wear and tear, and their personal transportation expenses, what remains is profit.
“Train conductors are the same. The difference is that their trains are not bought by themselves. After obtaining conductor qualifications, they receive approval from the survival game to get a train, or they seize one through competition with other train conductors. The players they transport are also drawn by lot or matched by the game. Transporting players, handling their food, drink, and daily needs on the train, and delivering them to dungeon entrances all consume energy.
“So where does their profit come from? Aside from some rewards from the survival game, when a dungeon ends is when they profit. They come to that dungeon and convert all the energy in the corpses there into train coins. Some of the train coins are given to players as currency, but ultimately, ownership belongs to the train conductor personally.
“Because there are too many players in the beginner stage, some must be forcibly eliminated to reduce the burden on the train and to let train conductors taste profit at this stage. That is why there is a rule that every beginner dungeon must eliminate at least twenty thousand people.
“These twenty thousand people, these twenty thousand corpses, are the train conductor’s guaranteed minimum income.”
“As for the income from the natives, that depends on luck.”
Jiang Qi paused. Some of this information came from the fragments of memories she had, and some from the train conductor panel—basically, it couldn’t be wrong.
It was also because she had access to information only an official train conductor could know that the shock had been too much for her to handle, causing her to faint suddenly.
She drifted into thought, realizing that in her previous life, she must have truly infiltrated the train conductor’s inner circle; otherwise, she wouldn’t have known so much.
The entire conference room was silent except for the sounds of people recording her words with various tools—no one interrupted her.
Jiang Qi continued, “Some dungeons have no natives, some have few, and some have stronger natives. The more energy left in a native’s body after death, the more train coins are generated. Some dungeons are the opposite. Therefore, for a train conductor, which dungeon they are assigned isn’t something they can decide.
“But correspondingly, after receiving the location of a dungeon, the train conductor will get a rough summary. They’ll know how many natives are there and their general level, allowing them to estimate how much benefit the dungeon will bring once it’s completed.”
“A train conductor cannot directly harm the natives, but with expectations in mind—if they thought they could earn tens of millions but then see they can only make tens of thousands, the psychological gap could drive unpredictable actions. Especially in our case, with this sly ‘Cunning Snake’ train conductor, he belongs to the scheming and vengeful type.”
Hearing this, everyone’s faces darkened, and the room grew even more oppressive.
After a moment, Zhang Zhengtian asked Jiang Qi, “So, Xiao Jiang, what do you think we should do?”
Jiang Qi held her warm cup of water and said, “There’s no way we’re going to let Spring City have a lot of native corpses just to satisfy this train conductor, right?”
Needless to say, even a few would be unacceptable!
If Spring City weren’t isolated from the outside world, they could pull in naturally deceased bodies from elsewhere to fake it.
“And for our plan to send people onto the train, we also can’t have the players suffer heavy casualties, right?”
“Of course not. No matter what, the plan to send people on the train is top priority. If all the players die, how could we make anything of it?”
Jiang Qi shrugged. “So, it’s a deadlock. The train conductor’s future wrath is unavoidable. Right now, the primary concern is one thing: we can’t let him catch on. Train conductors have reporting rights!”
If the other party discovered something fishy about the dungeon and filed a report, the entire Blue Star could suffer.
Zhang Zhengtian paused for a moment, then decisively said, “Our next step is to vigorously build crematoriums.”
Everyone looked at him.
Zhang Zhengtian continued, “Once the temperature drops to minus fifty degrees, reports of deaths will gradually come from different areas. The government will send vehicles to transport the ‘bodies’ to the crematorium for immediate cremation.”
Since in the end there won’t be many corpses, this gives a legitimate reason for the absence of bodies—once someone dies, they’re cremated immediately.
This seems perfectly normal and rational. If the train conductor comes back and finds no corpses, it’s not our fault. We’re a civilized city; corpses are cremated immediately. Otherwise, would we have bodies lying everywhere?
In this way, at least everything looks legitimate on the surface.
Everyone nodded.
Zhang Zhengtian said, “All departments must cooperate to make it convincingly real. Even in this freezing weather, the rites must be performed properly: memorial halls, mourning, ceremonies, household deregistration, inheritance disputes—everything. I want to see the whole city in mourning, with nearly every house empty.”
“Understood!”
With a clear direction, everyone immediately started discussing vigorously, and the conference room came alive again.
As for how furious the sly train conductor would be upon finding no corpses, no one mentioned it—for now, it was useless to speculate.
Jiang Qi, seeing that her part was temporarily over, prepared to leave, casting a glance at Zhang Zhengtian as she stood.
Three minutes later, in Zhang Zhengtian’s office, Jiang Qi met him alone. “Commander Zhang, I actually have an idea regarding the Cunning Snake coming to Spring City. After the players return to the train, that is, after I board the train, I might be able to try activating it. The Cunning Snake will sense it and rush back, probably leaving no time to do anything to Spring City…”
Zhang Zhengtian raised his hand to interrupt. “No. If you do that, you risk a direct confrontation. You’re not yet strong enough to face him.”
In a deeply solemn tone, Zhang Zhengtian said to Jiang Qi, “Comrade Jiang Qi, the more dangerous the enemy, the more important you are. Until you are strong enough, you must not reveal yourself. We will find a better way.”
“You must keep moving forward to protect more people in the future!”
Jiang Qi was silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
Zhang Zhengtian continued, “Xiao Jiang, we’re here for you. Don’t worry too much. Keep your pace steady. You should continue making and collecting train coins. Although they’re only half-finished now, by the time you become the train conductor, the half-finished ones will be complete.”
For the natives, a train conductor is a hateful presence, but precisely because of this, Blue Star urgently needs a train conductor from their own side to oppose these detestable enemies.
They can spare no effort and spare no cost to achieve this.
Zhang Zhengtian then brought up another matter. “This Lie Rong has hidden clone talents and a message card. He is much stronger than he appears. If it weren’t for you today, our operation would have completely failed. We can’t take these players’ cleverness lightly.”
“And since Lie Rong has a message card, other players may have similar cards. We need to be more cautious. That one called Mi Fei cannot be left alive. Anyone suspected of seeing the train conductor must also be eliminated to avoid future trouble. Can you handle it personally?”
By now, Zhang Zhengtian was no longer the worried leader who had treated Jiang Qi like a precious child.
He looked directly at her, expecting this young girl to take responsibility.
Jiang Qi said, “Of course.”
Zhang Zhengtian nodded, patted her shoulder solemnly, and said: “Our operation is officially named [Departure Operation]. From this moment, you are the leader of the task force, responsible for practice projects and replacing players. Your authority is just below mine and you can mobilize all departments to cooperate with you.
“Jiang Qi, the future rests in the hands of young people like you.”
…
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