Monster Dismantling Company

Chapter 52 Little Dragon Palace

After everything around him quieted down, Li Lin was the first to wake up.

He didn't sleep.

Actually, he hasn't slept since last night.

He doesn't necessarily need to sleep. He can adjust his work rhythm by controlling his schedule.

Even such an impact wouldn't have put him to sleep if he hadn't wanted to. He thus experienced the entire descent—he could feel the train carriage landing on something soft at the end. Furthermore, the descent seemed to be along the more frictional tube walls, so the speed wasn't very fast.

When he landed, he didn't feel any impact; it was just like his whole body had hit an airbag.

"Hmm..." He stood up.

From the moment he got on the bus. When he was falling, he subconsciously pressed Lin Zhiqing into the seat, which is why Lin Zhiqing is now sitting next to him unharmed.

However, Chen Feiran, who was standing next to him, wasn't so lucky—Li Lin hadn't yet included him in the scope of his subconscious need to protect him. At this moment, he had already fallen to an unknown location.

The emergency lights in the carriage were already on, indicating the direction from which one could leave the carriage.

Li Lin took a deep breath—the airtightness of the carriage had been broken during the fall. However, the air here seemed to be breathable.

This also means that everyone in the vehicle will be fine.

"What do you think?" Aren asked.

"Interesting...it seems someone specifically brought this whole carload of people here."

After all, it takes a lot of effort to avoid being completely smashed to pieces after falling from such a height.

It's obvious that all that effort wasn't for this busload of people to go bungee jumping.

He glanced out the window—there seemed to be no other carriages around besides them. In the darkness, they were all alone.

After confirming that Lin Zhiqing was alright, Li Lin stepped over the people lying haphazardly in the corridor, and followed the signs for the emergency exit to the luggage rack: his luggage was in the public luggage area.

"Ah...it's all a mess." As expected, the luggage was completely scattered during the descent, and he had no idea which layer it was buried in.

What are you going to do?

"Put my food away. With so many people here, food distribution will be a problem. I don't want to get involved in those problems, so the best option is to put all the food away now."

He's not very generous and is rather pessimistic. If it really comes down to fighting over food, he won't steal from others, but he also won't share his food with them.

However, looking at such a large pile of luggage in front of him, he couldn't find it easily in a short time.

"If I had been in the dining car, none of this would have happened."

Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs." It just so happened that their train carriage fell off the bridge.

"But this is truly a strange place."

It was pitch black, and he couldn't make out the colors. But he could see the outline of the outer perimeter—it seemed to be a rather vast space. Unlike the abdomen of Taba that he had entered before, which, if one considered Taba's abdomen as a climbing wall, this place was practically the size of an underground city.

Above them was endless darkness, with no idea how high it was. And the pipe they had just descended through seemed to be just one of the passages into this space.

Through the gap in the car door and the safety light below, he could vaguely see the terrain outside: the ground was furry with moss-like structures, but he couldn't tell whether they were animal or plant-like.

He took another step forward—

"Hmm?" He kicked something familiar, it felt like the backpack.

"I didn't expect my luck to be so good." He reached for his backpack and patted the dust off the outside.

Wait... I thought you brought a lot of luggage. Is this one bag enough?

"Tsk tsk tsk, don't underestimate me. Do you think I've been slacking off every day for all these years? This bag of mine is full of treasures."

"for example?"

"Clang! Clang!" Li Lin pulled a cylindrical object from his backpack. "A solar-powered flashlight! It will stay lit as long as there's sunshine!"

[…] Aren paused for a moment, [“Based on my limited human knowledge, this seems to be a useless thing.”]

"Tsk tsk tsk, you jumped to conclusions too soon."

Li Lin raised the flashlight. The light came on the moment his hand touched it.

[Isn't this a solar-powered flashlight? Where's the solar power?]

"I am the sun; I make it shine, and it must shine."

The flashlight beam didn't shine very far, only faintly illuminating a small area in front of the car door. And in that area, something seemed to be reflecting light intensely.

Li Lin stepped out of the carriage and shone his flashlight on the reflective area, which appeared to be a sign, a road sign.

The words on the road sign clearly read:

Continue straight for 2.4km towards Xiaolonggong.

...

Sitting in his seat, Li Lin silently watched the passengers gradually awaken. Many of those who had woken up took out flashlights, and they immediately noticed the sign outside the door. Soon, a message spread throughout the entire carriage.

"Dragon Palace?" Lin Zhiqing heard this from someone else. "Li Lin, did you hear that? There's a road sign outside that says... says we're actually near the Dragon Palace? But what's the Dragon Palace?"

"Don't omit the word 'small'... But I also want to know why there's a Dragon Palace here."

At the bottom of the Yangtze River, in this black hole where there is no signal, Li Lin had already checked his phone, and naturally, it was unusable.

The carriage was now in a state of commotion and chaos—but this chaos did not last long.

Because they are soldiers. In such situations, the first thing soldiers need to do is reorganize themselves.

Soon, everyone began to line up according to their military rank. Not far from Li Lin, a captain temporarily took command and began to manage the situation again.

"You two aren't one of ours, are you?" The captain saw Li Lin and Lin Zhiqing. "Please stay where you are. We'll prioritize your safety; just don't move around."

"Really?" This surprised Li Lin. "You...you're not letting us work?"

"It's fine if you volunteer to help. But as soldiers, our duty is to protect the people, so how can we let you take risks? However, there's a problem: does anyone have a drone? The road sign says there's a 'Little Dragon Palace' not far ahead. It's quite far, and sending people there would be too dangerous. We plan to send one drone to scout it out, and the rest of you can stay put and defend."