Gu Mian knew life had always been relentlessly trying to kill him. This grand assassination attempt started during his childhood and had continued to this day, never stopping. Most people in the world harbored illusions of their own greatness, conceiving themselves as different from the foolish, average folk. Gu Mian, however, was different. He dreamed of becoming a foolish, average person, but life would not allow it.
"Stop dawdling!" he yelled, grabbing Fatty who was beside him. "The bomb will explode fifteen seconds after it starts smoking! What are you waiting for? Run!"
As he shouted, Gu Mian quickly moved towards the front of the vehicle.
Fatty reacted quickly and followed closely. "Which way are we running, Doctor? No matter where we run, we’re still in the carriage."
The bomb was also in the carriage. Even distancing themselves slightly wouldn’t alter the inevitable outcome. Their only chance to survive was to jump from the carriage, but then they would be shot to pieces by the people following behind.
Gu Mian was already used to such life-and-death situations. In a flash, he thought of an escape route: We’ll climb to the top of the engine, and then have Chu Changge uncouple the carriages. Hurry!
As he formulated the plan, he raised his voice towards the engine, "Chu Changge, get ready to uncouple and step on it!"
Leave the bomb and the carriage behind in this ghost place, Gu Mian thought. Let those followers deal with the imminent explosion.
With this in mind, Gu Mian raced forward.
Chu Changge furrowed his brows, making a non-committal "MMM."
The roof of the engine was slightly lower than the carriage. Hearing the orders, Fatty scrambled towards the engine like a rabid dog, using both his hands and feet. Climbing from the carriage to the engine was extremely dangerous, as their entire bodies would be exposed to the pursuers behind them.
Having been through many survival trials, Gu Mian was particularly agile. He crouched and sprinted a few steps, then, grabbing the front wall of the carriage with one hand, he vaulted over and crashed heavily onto the engine’s roof.
Chu Changge heard a loud thud from above his head.
Simultaneously, gunfire erupted from behind. Several bullets whizzed over Gu Mian’s head, while a few lodged themselves in the carriage.
Fatty followed suit. Although his movements were not as swift as Gu Mian’s, he desperately rolled from the carriage onto the engine.
Gu Mian caught Fatty as he tumbled down.
The engine’s windscreen was long broken, with only a few shards of glass remaining. He shouted whilst scrambling through the window opening into the engine, "Uncouple!"
Time was of the essence. The moment Gu Mian yelled, the large iron hook connecting the carriage to the engine detached. Subsequently, the engine, free from the carriage’s load, shot forward.
In that frantic moment, Gu Mian and Fatty rolled through the window into the engine’s cabin, almost crashing into Chu Changge in the driver’s seat.
Right before tumbling into the cabin, Gu Mian glanced back at the detached carriage. He spotted thin white smoke rising from within it and guessed the bomb was seconds away from exploding.
"Floor the accelerator!" Gu Mian shouted to Chu Changge the moment he hit the floor of the driver’s cabin, without even trying to get up.
Of course, Chu Changge understood. If the bomb in the carriage exploded, it could potentially cause the entire mine to collapse, burying them inside.
Chu Changge floored the accelerator, and the engine shot out like an arrow loosed from its bow. "The tunnel entrance isn’t far," he said.
Only then did Gu Mian let out a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to stand, he noticed Chu Changge’s follow-up device.
His and Fatty’s follow-up devices were probably thrown off by the engine’s sudden acceleration; they just weren’t catching up. Meanwhile, Chu Changge’s follow-up device was resting on his head, probably because the engine was moving too fast for it to fly and keep up.
Gu Mian was always conscious that he was being live-streamed. He looked at the follow-up device and announced, "Next, I’ll perform a grand explosion of the bio-chem squad for you all..."
He hadn’t forgotten that he was participating in a variety show—he didn’t even know the name of the team behind them, so he just bluffed.
「At this moment, Mr. Slaughter in the live broadcast room was on the verge of jumping out of his chair.」
He saw the bomb about to detonate in the carriage, and he also saw these lower-class people uncoupling and abandoning it.
Now, the Order Guard team behind was about to meet the exploding bomb!
This was not quite what he had anticipated!
His originally pale face turned slightly green. Through the communicator, his voice was urgent, "Run, quickly!"
「Inside the mine, some still-confused Order Guards responded through their communicators, ’What’s happening, Mr. Slaughter?’」
They didn’t understand why the people ahead would risk being shot by abandoning the carriage and fleeing.
The captain confidently replied, "You needn’t worry, we just hit one of them. The remaining two will also..."
But before he could finish, he sensed something was wrong. Smoke was slowly rising from the abandoned carriage ahead.
At this moment, Mr. Slaughter’s voice came from the communicator, trailing off, "Explo..."
It was as if in response to Mr. Slaughter’s unfinished word. The very moment he spoke, a violent explosion echoed through the entire mine.
A giant wave of fire rolled in, engulfing the stunned people.
The initial darkness was replaced by firelight. The whole mine seemed to wail weakly, then began to collapse from the point of the explosion.
「In the broadcast room, Mr. Slaughter listened to the explosion, his face turning from green to pale, then pale to flushed.」
After the massive explosion, the communicators of the Order Guard team inside the mine lost their signal.
They had been blown to death—everyone understood that.
Mr. Slaughter clenched the corner of the table, falling silent.
Silence also struck the audience in front of their screens. They had never seen such a thrilling twist before, but they did not want to witness such a plot at all.
An audience member finally questioned, "Can anyone tell me what just happened? Is this an Easter egg from the production team?"
Blowing up an Order Guard team! It was unheard of, unseen!
After a while, Mr. Slaughter finally spoke again. His voice, no longer as high-spirited, was now particularly low. "Due to some mistakes, we lost contact with the third Order Guard team, but no need to worry. I’ll contact the remaining two teams..."
As he spoke, he picked up the communicator and pressed a few buttons, but there was no response from the device.
What’s going on? He felt a jolt of unease and tried to contact another team, but there was only silence from that end as well.
Mr. Slaughter’s face darkened. All three Order Guard teams that had entered the restricted area seemed to have lost contact.
Now, they could only get information about the restricted area through the follow-up devices tracking the participants.
At this moment, only about a dozen feeds on the screen were still active, which meant there were only about a dozen survivors left in the restricted area.
Among these dozen or so participants were the ones who had caused the mine to collapse.
The locomotive driven by Gu Mian and his two companions was also affected by the bomb. However, because they were not too close to the explosion, they weren’t blown away. Instead, the blast gave them a push, making them move even faster.
A large section of the mine collapsed due to the explosion, but luckily their locomotive was fast enough that they weren’t crushed by the collapsing tunnel.
「The locomotive stopped at the mine entrance.」
Outside, nothing had changed; it was still pitch black, though brighter than the dark mine interior.
Gu Mian’s headlamp had fallen off earlier, but Fatty’s was still tightly buckled on his head. The dark-colored cap was slightly skewed, covering half of Fatty’s face, which looked somewhat comical.
He was currently leaning haphazardly beside the passenger seat, and Gu Mian noticed something was off with him.
Fatty, seemingly aware of Gu Mian approaching, struggled to get up. "Doctor..."
Gu Mian held him down with one hand. "Were you shot?"