Main Brain: "Yes."
"If I click, won’t I be transported to some kind of Main God space or something?"
"Unable to determine," the Main Brain replied. "In theory, 187 bytes of text shouldn’t contain any complex program, but considering this pop-up window might be a type-beta or even type-alpha mysterious entity, my suggestion is not to click, and to seal this device for further research."
Sun Hang glanced at the top right corner of the pop-up window. Unlike those usual pop-up ads that have a bunch of fake close buttons meant to mislead you into clicking, this window had only one close button and there was an unobtrusive line of red text beneath it: "Time until pop-up automatically closes: 18 seconds."
What is this supposed to mean?
Playing hard to get? Luring the target into the trap?
While hesitating, the countdown already had less than ten seconds left.
Sun Hang thought for a moment and decided to use the "wish fulfillment" ability.
However, he didn’t directly use the "wish fulfillment" to parse the content behind the pop-up window. Considering the opponent might be a type-beta or even type-alpha mysterious entity, using the ability to go head-to-head with it might directly reduce him to nothing.
Sun Hang didn’t use his hand to click the pop-up with the mouse, but instead issued a command to the mouse, letting the mouse "click" on the pop-up itself.
Type-alpha mysterious entities often emphasize a "causality theory," and Sun Hang leveraged his "wish fulfillment" ability to create a bug, positioning himself outside of this causality.
Even if something strange were to happen after opening the pop-up window, the bearer of those events would be the mouse itself, not Sun Hang as a "bystander."
"Click."
The mouse click was crisp. After a slight delay, the flashy pop-up ad disappeared, replaced by a very simple TXT interface.
The TXT document contained only a few lines of Chinese characters, and simultaneously, the Main Brain’s voice sounded in Sun Hang’s ear: "Parsing complete, no hidden programs found, no memetic reaction detected."
Which means, it really was just the simplest possible TXT file.
Sun Hang shifted his attention to the content of the text.
The text indeed talked about Chunming City’s urban legend—the supposed ghost train on the Chunming City’s Metro Line 23. It said that at the terminal station, on the twenty-third day of each month at 23:23, nearly half an hour after the subway operations had stopped, an "undetectable ghost train" would arrive at the station. Passengers holding the corresponding metro card could be taken by the ghost train to the station associated with the card.
"What does this mean?" Sun Hang was slightly stunned. "Wait a minute... does it mean if I can find a Cairo Metro card, the ghost train can directly take me to Egypt?"
"From the literal meaning, yes," the Main Brain answered. "If the ghost train truly exists, it’s undoubtedly a type-alpha rule-based mysterious entity."
"Even if there are metro stations in Egypt right now, they should have been destroyed by the Sinking Sand Giant Worm... wouldn’t the ghost train directly head to the Sinking Sand Giant Worm’s nest?" Sun Hang muttered.
The Main Brain did not respond to this question.
"First help me retrieve information about this station, and then search for Cairo region metro cards across the Xiazhou Federation," Sun Hang added. "With so many people in Xiazhou Federation, someone must have traveled to Egypt and got a metro card and brought it back home. If we really can’t find one, have the technical department find a way to replicate one!"
...
Chunming City’s subway has a total of 29 routes. Ideally, such a massive, multi-dimensional city would require more than 29 metro lines. However, as Chunming City began developing into the sky, the faster and safer "air rail transport system" gradually replaced the subway, becoming citizens’ primary mode of travel.
Additionally, with the development plans of the "Zodiac" layer and the "Post Earth" layer, the extensive underground road network’s installation stopped Chunming City from creating new subway routes, maintaining the original 29 lines.
The 23rd line is a secluded route that travels from the Celestial Market Wall Mao Su District to the southwestern outskirts, with a total of seventeen stations.
Only one-third of this route is located within Chunming City’s main urban area, with the remaining two-thirds in outskirts with very low population and building density.
As for the terminal station "Xiaojiacun Station" on this 23rd line, it goes directly into the mountain valleys, with a daily passenger flow of even less than five thousand.
The Main Brain immediately provided Sun Hang with the surveillance footage from last month’s 23rd at Xiaojiacun Station—the station’s closing time is 22:35 every day, and after completing cleaning and maintenance work, staff leave at 22:55. After 23:00, Xiaojiacun Station is as quiet as a tomb, with only a few always-on safety lights providing faint light in the darkness.
Sun Hang watched from 22:35 on the 23rd all the way to the 24th minute at zero hour, but no abnormal phenomena occurred in the subway station.
"Seems like it really can’t be captured on surveillance..."
"If the ghost train appears every month on the 23rd, we can arrange investigators to stay on guard in the subway station," the Main Brain said. "There are still six days left until the 23rd of this month."
"No need to send investigators, I will investigate personally," Sun Hang said. "Since this pop-up appeared on my computer, maybe I am the only one who can see this train."
...
Two days later.
An urgent package was delivered to Sun Hang’s desk, within the delivery box was a metro card with slightly worn edges. The front of the metro card had "Cairo Metro" inscribed in Arabic, English, and French, while the back held usage notes in these three languages.
The card came from a doctor in Shen City. The doctor’s grandfather used to be an engineer for a Xiazhou Federation energy company and lived in Egypt for a long time due to work.
This metro card was an heirloom of the engineer—the doctor found it in a compartment of his grandfather’s suitcase where it had been forgotten and preserved it as a memento of the grandfather’s life until today.
Sun Hang picked up the metro card to scrutinize, the Main Brain’s voice timely accompanied him: "The metro card has undergone detailed testing, the chip can still function normally, but our equipment can only detect a segment of identification code, nothing more."
Metro card information, including cardholder identity, usage history, and balance, is stored in the respective metro company’s server, and Cairo Metro no longer exists in this world. The information behind this identification code naturally vanished.
"Chunming City Metro’s gates can’t recognize this card," the Main Brain stated.
"But type-alpha mysterious entities might," Sun Hang replied.
```