If I don't have money to go to college, I can only go to slay the dragon.

It wasn't until the tall buildings were no longer visible outside the window of the Aston Martin that they finally escaped from the steel forest city. Looking up, they could see the low mountains that turned slightly yellow after autumn in the suburbs of BJ rising at the end of the road. When you rise up, you can occasionally see beautiful golden and red gleams in the yellow mountains. They are apple groves that are already fruitful in the golden autumn.

The mountains can already be seen, which means that Lin Nian and Li Hueyue have arrived at the outskirts of Beigan. You can find ecological orchards of fruit farmers everywhere. The apple orchards belong outside the West Fifth Ring Road, and the line tower stands alone under the woods. Like a hollow giant overlooking the prosperity within the Bei'an City Ring. The flow of people here is not usually large, and after the Aston Martin escaped from the crowded traffic, it continued to speed up like a fish swimming into the sea, shortening nearly one-third of the expected time and arriving at their destination.

Following the directions given by the co-pilot Li Hueyue, the car turned and stopped in front of a row of old low-rise buildings with red walls next to the ticket window outside the open-air subway station. Although there was no clearly designated parking space, locals were used to parking here. , the transportation bureau will not come to tow the truck out of nowhere.

Lin Nian got out of the car and threw the car key over the roof. Li Huanyue, who also got off the car, raised her hand to catch the key while closing the door, and walked straight to the open-air ticket window not far away, which may be the only remaining open-air ticket window in Bei'an.

Lin Nian followed Li Hueyue while quietly observing the surrounding environment. This is the terminal station of Bei'an Metro Line 1. From another perspective, it is also the starting point for passengers getting on the train. As early as 1973, it was The first phase of the Beigan Metro line is in trial operation. It can be regarded as a public transportation facility that is older than our parents.

As the terminal and starting station, the current Pingguoyuan platform is very deserted, not because there are few people in the suburbs, but because the service here is temporarily suspended. The notice of station closure is posted on the window of the open-air ticket office, and all the windows of the ticket office are also closed. It is closed, and there are no people around. Only a few cars occasionally drive by on the road in the distance. It is so deserted that it doesn't look like the subway system in Bei'an.

Li Huanyue walked to the window in front of the open-air ticket sales station, stretched out her hand and knocked on the closed window glass. After waiting for a while, the window opened from the inside, but no one spoke. Li Huanyue took out a window shaped like A token of the jade ring was handed in through the window. It was a token given by the head of the Sima family when they left.

Lin Nian had seen photos and analysis of this thing in his archeology class. Different from the jade finger, this small product is called "阘(shè)", which means "shoot", and it is worn by shooters on their fingers. In addition to jade, there are also ornaments made of tiger bone and metal to hold the bowstring.

The color of the 韯 presented by Li Hueyue was dull yellow. The color was very pure and had no color deposits. The dullness was only due to its own color problem. The surface was very smooth, almost topaz, but Lin Nian recognized that it was made of bone. As for what kind of creature it was. The skeleton is probably pretty close to what he guessed.

After the token was handed in, it was quickly returned from the window. The person inside still held it out with both hands, which was enough to show the respect for the owner.

"Meeting Yue is like meeting a person." Li Huoyue put away the token and said, "Lead the way."

After a while, the iron gate next to the open-air ticketing station was opened, and a young man in a white formal suit walked out. After seeing Li Hueyue, he quickly came up and bent slightly, "Miss Li Hueyue, my name is Jiang You." Si, Lang Juxu Gengchen is raising an army, I have seen the tokens and there are no problems. We have been waiting here for a long time."

Lin Nian noticed that there was some suppressed excitement on the young man's face. His eyes looking at Li Hueyue were full of respect and admiration. They were not emotions of love between men and women, but pure expectations for the superior leader.

"What's going on down there now?" Li Huoyue asked.

"Also, have you heard about the related 'projects' we developed under the apple orchard?"

"I only know that it is related to the Dragon King's 'domain'."

"Then please come with me. I may not be able to explain it for a while. Maybe I can only understand the complexity and dangers inside by seeing it with my own eyes."

Li Huanyue nodded slightly. The development of the Dragon King Nibelung was completely outside her knowledge. The clan leaders did not seem to want her to get involved in this matter. If it were not for Lin Nian and her cooperation, I am afraid that the earth and the mountains would be destroyed. She had no chance to be transferred to the battlefield until the King's battle was over.

This is already a very serious crisis of trust, and it is no different from being thrown into the "cold palace". That is to say, because of the special nature of Li Hueyue's own "moon", he can't find the slightest difference on weekdays, but now he digs deeper and immediately... She could feel the opinions of the orthodox upper class towards her and the silent methods of dealing with her.

"Is this the collaborator sent by the secret party?" Jiang Yousi looked at Lin Nian and nodded with due respect, "Please follow us closely, Li Si has arranged what you expected. Appropriate but please be more careful.”

Lin Nian didn't say much. He followed the young orthodox to the entrance hall on the ground of the subway. The facilities here were no different from other ordinary exits. The only difference was probably that the ticket gate was located on the ground. The station entrance is far less spacious than other subway stations.

Jiang Youbin stopped in front of the turnstile with the green hook light above his head. He turned to face Lin Nian and Li Chengyue who had stopped behind him. He handed over two magnetic cards for subway tickets in a very formal manner. Lin Nian I took the magnetic card and looked at the front and back, and found that it was an ordinary Beibei subway IC card. It was readable and writable, had a large capacity, had an encryption function, was made of PP, and had no paint on both sides. It was pure white and had just left the factory. look like.

"What do you mean?" Li Huanyue noticed Jiang Yousi's seriousness when handing over the card, and knew that the IC card in his hand was not really a pass for them to travel on the subway.

"Please keep it safe and don't lose it. If you lose it, please ask us to get a replacement. The IC cards in your hands may be the only passport to enter that 'unknown territory'." Jiang Yousi said seriously, although the words were absurd, But it doesn't look like he's joking.

"Use the IC card to enter the Dragon King's Nibelung." Lin Nian turned over the white-sided traffic card again, "This is an IC card, not an IQ card, isn't it?"

"I know this sounds absurd, but this is indeed a way to enter the 'unknown territory'. The 'tickets' in your hands have not yet been truly activated. Only after successful activation can you use the 'tickets' to call the train into that area. Domain." Jiang Yousi explained calmly.

Lin Nian caught the key word "train" and before he could continue to ask, Jiang Yousi scanned the card and passed through the gate, and motioned for Li Hueyue and Lin Nian to follow. The two looked at each other and chose to believe for the time being. They scanned the card at the gate and passed. Judging from the green light and prompt tone at the gate, they were indeed holding genuine Bei'an transportation cards, possibly the same type as the all-in-one card.

There are no escalators at the Apple Orchard station. You have to rely on stairs to get down to the platform, and the space seems a bit cramped. Lin Nian played with the white card between his fingers and observed the subway station, which was a lot older than him.

The further you go, the narrower the surrounding area becomes. The so-called platform is nothing more than a narrow closed corridor, with a grille ceiling above your head. A two-meter white grille lamp illuminates the orange-red tile floor, suspended The LED light sign shows the time at three o'clock in the afternoon. A three-meter-long column separates the subway track adjacent to the right side. This is also the only subway station in Beigen that does not have a screen door. There is only a bright yellow blind path to distinguish the narrow platform corridor from the railway track.

The warm-toned decoration style did not bring any warm feeling, which may have something to do with the fact that the space is really closed and narrow. Lin Nian felt cramped and dangerous when walking on this gallery-shaped platform. Maybe any office worker would slip if he didn't wake up. It would fall into the railroad tracks. I don’t know if there have been any similar accidents in the past few years.

Take two steps forward and you can already see people in front of you. Complex lines are laid in the narrow platform passage. Instruments and equipment are piled up in front of the wall with advertisements for Deyun Society. The instruments Lin Nian recognizes are... There are "light cone power contact probes", "topographic mappers", "radiation rate meters", "induction detectors", "piezoelectric detectors", "laser detectors" and so on.

Many people in formal attire were having heated discussions around the pillars and in front of the instruments. On the subway track next to the platform, you can still see someone holding a circle of black cables and slowly retreating to lay it. The supervisor on the platform While turning back to pay attention to the LED light sign, I was thinking about something while urging the people who were directing the work below to speed up.

Jiang Yousi led Lin Nian and Li Huoyue inside. People along the road actively came to say hello after seeing Li Huoyue, and a few even reached out to shake hands with her, with smiles on their faces. They were all expressions of excitement and excitement, and Lin Nian looked at them frequently.

"What are you doing?" Lin Nian passed by a terrain surveyor and saw a winding track distribution map in the image on the screen. It was probably the subway line of Apple Orchard, and it was marked with many red dots. .

"We are trying to find the node into the 'realm', which is the entrance to the 'Nibelungen' in your understanding."

"I thought you had already found the entrance."

"We just found a way to enter the Nibelungen, not its entrance." Jiang Youbo patiently explained, "The Nibelungen has its own set of operating principles, and we discovered its rules. , but this law has not been cracked yet, that is, knowing the reason but not knowing the reason, there is an essential difference between the two."

"You found a way to enter, but you didn't find an entrance?" Lin Nian frowned, not quite understanding the meaning of this sentence.

"Let me explain this." In front of the platform, a man walked over, wearing a pair of thick glasses and a plaid shirt. He wiped his hands on the clothes and extended his hands to Lin Nian and Li Hueyue respectively. He held out his left and right hands, "Let me introduce you, I am the person in charge of the 'project' here, Liu Yong. Miss Yue, I haven't seen you for a while. Is the 'Seven Stars' that was entrusted to you still considered useful?"

Lin Nian awkwardly stretched out his left hand to shake his hand. Li Hueyue on the side shook hands normally and replied, "Long time no see. I didn't expect you to be in charge here. The Seven Stars have been destroyed in the battle."

"It's all the expectations of the old people above. I can't live up to their expectations. I can only lead by example and come to sit on the front line. But is the 'Seven Stars' destroyed? It doesn't matter, I will prepare new weapons for you, Tianji The things that Ge made should have died on the battlefield. I heard that the enemy in Miss Yue's last battle was suspected to be the Dragon King. The 'Seven Stars' can be destroyed in the hands of an enemy of that level. It can be regarded as getting what you want. As a producer, I am very proud of it.”

Liu Yong gently pushed the glasses on his face with the ring finger of his right hand, with a formulaic polite smile on his face, and turned his eyes to Lin Nian beside Li Huoyue, "This is the famous Dragon Slayer of the Secret Party, isn't it Lin Nian? Really? I have admired his name for a long time, and today I finally met him in person."

"Long-term admiration for a great name doesn't count." Lin Nian shook his head.

"Liu Yong, deputy chief of Tianji Pavilion." Li Huanyue once again introduced Lin Nian to the identity of this unattractive man with glasses.

Tianji Pavilion. Lin Nian probably understood that this department should be of the same nature as the Equipment Department in the orthodox world, so the imitation of the Seven Deadly Sins came from the Tianji Pavilion. As the deputy cabinet minister, his position is probably the same as the deputy director of the Equipment Department? It's quite a professional title.

"I have admired the name of Tianji Pavilion for a long time." Lin Nian greeted him sincerely after learning about the other party's identity.

To be able to produce something like the New Seven Deadly Sins, the level of Tianji Pavilion may far exceed that of the Equipment Department in some aspects.

"Hahaha, somewhere else, the Equipment Department in Kassel College is really famous. We have learned a lot of new technical concepts from the Equipment Department. It can only be said that we each have our own strengths and weaknesses, and we help each other and make progress together." Vice Minister Liu also speaks plain English, "You are here for the Nibelungen, right? Do you need me to explain to you the current situation here?"

"Thank you very much. I don't know what this orthodox friend just said: found a way to enter, but can't find the entrance. What does it mean?" Lin Nian asked.

Vice Minister Liu waved his hand gently, and Jiang Yousi silently stepped aside. He followed the two of them, turned around and walked along the yellow warning line beside the platform rail, and said, "First of all, let's be clear. , we have indeed found a way to enter the Nibelungs, and have sent several people into the Nibelungs for survey."

Lin Nian was slightly shocked. The other party gave the answer he really cared about as soon as he opened his mouth. Orthodoxy had indeed begun to secretly enter the Nibelungs of the King of Earth and Mountains!

Vice Minister Liu reached out and rubbed his stubbled chin and said, "How can we explain the twists and turns in it? Well, let me give you an example, using the meaning of Nibelung itself. In Nordic mythology, The entrance to the Middle Nibelungen is shrouded in fog all year round. On the other side of the fog is the 'Land of Fog'. If you want to reach Niflheim, you need to go through the fog, but no one knows it. How the road in the fog stretches, this is the defense mechanism of the 'Land of Fog' itself!"

"But you said you found a way to enter, which means you have a guide." Li Huanyue said.

Vice Minister Liu looked at Li Hueyue and nodded approvingly, "I think quickly. In Nordic mythology, if you want to enter the kingdom of the dead, you always need a god of death to guide you. It's the same situation we are encountering now. When we enter Nepal Borungen also needs to rely on a 'guide'. Saying it is a 'person' is somewhat inaccurate, because the guide we are relying on now is a [train]."

"Train?" Lin Nian's expression changed slightly. He thought of the urban legends he had heard about Bei'an, many of which were related to the subway. The disappearance of the secret party commissioner that Sima Xuxu told them in the courtyard was also related to the subway. Now it seemed that the clues were beginning to match up.

"A train, this is the only way for us to enter the Nibelungen. Get on the train from the Nibelungen, wait for it to pass through the tunnel and then stop. When the hatch opens, outside is what we have been waiting for for a long time. The kingdom of dragons." Vice Minister Liu's glasses slightly reflected the white light of the grille lamp, and the expression below was still a smile, but a quiet fanaticism could be read in the smile.

"A subway train can take us to the Nibelungen. It sounds ridiculous." Li Hueyue looked at the track next to the platform. Beyond the track was the dark tunnel entrance. It was so dark inside that it was impossible to see anything. .

"It does sound absurd. At least when I first learned about this method, I thought it was someone's gibberish. But indeed, we gradually discovered that there is actually a car hidden in the subway transportation system in Bei'an that is not on the subway transportation system. The train, we don't know where it comes from, and the subway system does not have its number. When the 'conditions' are met at the right time, it will drive out of the tunnel and then stop, carrying people who meet the conditions to get on the train and enter Nepal. Borungen. These are established 'rules' that we have tried many times and have achieved results," said Vice Minister Liu.

"You mean, there is a train that can take us all the way from Apple Orchard Station where we are standing to Nibelungen?" Lin Nian sorted out his words and confirmed again.

"Yes." Vice Minister Liu nodded simply.

"Then this should still be the subway line 1, right? I mean this tunnel should connect the 'Old City' and 'Bajiao Amusement Park' stations?" Lin Nian has seen the subway traffic map of Bei'an. Line 1 starts from Apple. There is a separate line going down the park, and it will not start to intersect with other lines until the 'Fuxing Gate' stop.

"It is indeed connected."

"So where did that train come from?" Lin Nian asked, "It can't appear out of thin air."

"We don't know." The deputy minister shook the finger behind his back. "Now it seems that it did appear out of thin air. We tried to drive from the 'ancient city' back to the platform here, and used surveillance cameras to record the traffic in the tunnel along the way. According to the monitoring situation, there are no forks in this line. There is no place to hide a second train on such a simple and straight road. So when we parked a train at the ancient city station, the mysterious train that was not numbered You can still drive through the tunnel into the Apple Orchard platform, it’s like a ghost train appearing out of thin air!”

"Have you considered laying surveillance cameras in the tunnel, one at a certain distance, until every blind corner of the tunnel from Apple Orchard to the ancient city is exposed to surveillance? If a train appears in this tunnel, it will The moment it appears can always be captured." Lin Nian immediately gave his thoughts.

"750 surveillance cameras, one every 3 meters is enough to cover a 2.25-kilometer subway tunnel from Apple Orchard to the ancient city." Vice Minister Liu gave the answer directly, "This is the first order I issued after taking over this project. , 750 surveillance cameras, all installed within one day." He turned to look at Lin Nian and smiled, pushing up his glasses with his ring finger, "By the way, I am a materialist, and I don't believe in 'ghosts'. Believe in 'Ghost Train'."

"So what's the result?" Lin Nian looked at this man who still firmly believed in materialism in the world of dragons.

"As for the result?" Deputy Minister Liu stopped. He and the two people behind him stood at the edge of the tunnel entrance, looking at the vast darkness close at hand with an intriguing expression.