On the first night the world changed, Du Wang suddenly gained seven years' worth of memories.
He remembers how the rail lice hunt by sound, that the key is hidden in the maintenance cabinet's inner panel, and how every person around him died.
But when he cut the red wire as his memories instructed, he nearly got his teammates killed. When he reached for the access chip, all he found behind the window was pressurized dead water.
Were those seven years real?
After the sky split open, beings calling themselves "Observers" looked down upon humanity, turning people's struggles into a show for their viewers to tip.
And survival means following the rules: you need a ticket in your own name to board, twenty points in shielding fees to spend the night, and a completed maintenance request form before you can switch a set of tracks.
A brass ticket punch made Du Wang the temporary conductor of K19. Passengers could voluntarily lend him one-tenth of their attributes in exchange for a ticket that would keep them alive until tomorrow.
Someone offered him a deal: abandon the entire train and leave alone.
He turned it down.
From Yanshiqiao to Suisui, from forty-seven passengers to seventy-three, he would lead this carriage, where the lights could go out at any moment, through one rewritten station after another.
Until he found a manifest beneath the remains of an enemy:
[Compatible subject: Du Wang. Scenario memory: Version Seven.]
The reborn memories he'd relied on to survive were actually a script someone had planted in his mind in advance.
There were no answers beyond the script.
"I've got the tickets. If you want to board, sign your name."
