Suddenly, her right leg grew heavy—the fishman had grabbed her ankle. Nancy Clark had just gotten onto the platform and was almost dragged back down by the fishman.

At the brink of life and death, everything was done on instinct. Nancy Clark lifted her foot and kicked hard at the fishman’s face.

Boom—

A high-speed train roared past. Nancy Clark’s foot loosened, and the fishman fell back onto the tracks. She heard a muffled thud as the rails crushed something.

Whoosh—

Nancy Clark’s throat was completely hoarse. The prolonged lack of oxygen made her vision go black. She took a couple of seconds to recover. The train didn’t stop and sped by again.

Nancy Clark looked at the tracks. Lying beneath them was a fish that had been run over, blood gushing everywhere, scales scattered. The fishman’s lower body had been mangled by the rails. If Nancy Clark hadn’t reacted quickly, she would have been the one down there.

Still not dead. No contamination spores released.

Having survived a zombie world, Nancy Clark’s survival philosophy was: always make sure to finish the job!

Nancy Clark immediately turned back to the platform, smashed the glass, and came out carrying a fire axe. While the fishman was still weak, she didn’t mind giving him a couple more chops.

Nancy Clark walked over with the axe, but paused when she saw the fishman’s state.

“I…” The fishman rested his head on the tracks, like a real salted fish, mouth weakly agape. “I can’t find the last train.”

Still the same words—the core of the mental contamination was repetition. The fishman kept repeating this.

“I can’t go home. Taking a cab would mean working a whole week for nothing,” the fishman said to Nancy Clark.

The fishman choked on the blood in his throat. “I can’t bear to spend the money. They scold me…”

“They call me… useless, poor, incompetent, can’t even afford a cab.”

“They think I’m… pretentious, can’t endure hardship.”

Nancy Clark listened for a while. The fishman’s obsession was actually very light. He hadn’t lost the love of his life or anything—he just missed the last train. Such a small thing, yet it was enough to crush a person.

The final straw in life is just a single blade of grass. The last train was that blade.

“Am I pretentious?” The fishman lifted his head. His fish head was covered in debris, bloody and mangled.

She felt the fishman was waiting for her to speak. Nancy Clark didn’t really want to respond—this black-hearted fish had just tried to kill her. She wasn’t that kind.

Nancy Clark stood at the edge of the platform, holding the axe. Nancy Clark looked at the fishman’s face and said coldly, “No.”

Can’t endure hardship—Nancy Clark always thought that was nonsense. Who wants to suffer for no reason?

The fishman was stunned, then let out a low laugh. “Hahahahaha, you’re just like me.”

Nancy Clark frowned. What do you mean, just like me?

“The apocalypse is coming, hahahaha—” The fishman coughed twice, the sound mixing eerily with his laughter. “The apocalypse is coming.”

The apocalypse? What apocalypse?

The fishman propped up his upper body, his vitality astonishing. He was crawling toward Nancy Clark, not running weirdly like before, but inching toward her step by step, like a friend approaching another friend.

With a slap, the fishman’s hand touched the platform.

Nancy Clark quickly retreated three meters, gripping the fire axe. If the fishman tried anything again, she’d chop him into spicy fish head.

“You’re just like me.” The fishman pressed one hand to the platform, but even with all his strength, he couldn’t lift his upper body.

One fish eye peeked over the edge of the platform. “You… you’ll become just like me… like me… like me…”

With a thud, the fishman’s corpse fell backward, making a muffled sound.

Nancy Clark didn’t loosen her grip on the axe. She cautiously edged toward the platform, ready for the fishman to come back to life at any moment.

Creak, creak—

A rusty sound echoed from the darkness. The train was coming again, but unlike before, it wasn’t roaring in. It sounded like a broken windmill, creaking, all its parts rusted.

It began to fall apart before even reaching the station, quickly collapsing like a melting wax figure.

The train stopped.

A salted fish lay on the tracks. After death, its body rapidly decayed, slowly turning into a pile of rotten flesh. Blood-red contamination spores began to emerge from it.

One, two, three…

Hundreds of blood-red spores floated in the air. The contamination spores seemed alive, swimming like aquatic creatures. They left their host, struggling upward.

But Nancy Clark was still wearing her work uniform, with no exposed skin. The contamination spores couldn’t find a host.

They simply drifted around Nancy Clark, floating slowly by her side. One spore landed on Nancy Clark’s axe, affectionately rubbing against the tip, creating a cruel yet strangely beautiful scene.

Ding—

A mechanical system voice sounded in Nancy Clark’s mind: [Congratulations on completing the side quest: Disappearing Last Train Line 1, Purification Rate 100%]

[Main Quest: Purify the Homeland, Completion 1%]

[Reward settlement in progress…]

[Congratulations, you have received the basic reward, activated part of the panel data, and your mental value has been restored to 100]

[Congratulations, you have received a purification value reward of 500. Current accumulated purification value: 545]

[Congratulations, you have received the fishman reward: Rotten Fish Head]