Chapter 158: Let Aurora City... Hear Your Shouts

After saying this, Chen Ling moved on to the next person. The woman holding the child sat there in a daze, a flicker of hope seemingly awakened in her empty eyes. She began to tremble uncontrollably.

Yes… as long as they could enter Aurora City, her child would surely live!

Chen Ling’s words acted like a powerful stimulant, injecting into the woman. Her eyes gradually regained their luster—or rather, their intense longing for Aurora City.

“Your husband died in the flames, but you are still alive.” Chen Ling approached the next person.

It was a woman in her late twenties, half her face burned by the fire. She was curled into a ball, unmoving like a stone statue.

“Did he know you were pregnant?”

At these words, she suddenly lifted her head, looking at Chen Ling with a startled expression.

“Me? No… that’s not right, I’m not…”

“My eyes do not deceive me,” Chen Ling replied calmly. “You carry his flesh and blood. He is dead, but you still carry your shared hope…”

After saying this, Chen Ling continued forward, leaving the woman sitting there in a daze, two lines of tears welling from her eyes. She covered her burned face with her hands, unsure whether she was laughing or crying.

Chen Ling moved through the crowd like this, his voice calm, yet in just a few words, he could awaken a desperate survivor. They were like exhausted drowning victims who had given up everything but now saw hope again… They began to struggle in the quagmire of despair!

This struggle was a hundred times more intense than when they first boarded the train. Only those who had truly been lost in the mire of despair could genuinely appreciate the preciousness of hope in that moment. The oppressive, desperate atmosphere in the carriage gradually dissipated, replaced by an unprecedented longing for life!

Dressed in his blood-red coat, Chen Ling stood among the crowd and repeated his earlier question:

“Tell me… do you want to live?”

“Yes!”

“Do you want to live?!” Chen Ling roared.

“We want to live! We want to live!!!”

Chen Ling’s roar completely ignited the emotions of everyone in the carriage. The former oppression and despair became fuel in that moment, making their desire for life burn fiercely. Their gazes were like torches!

A slight smile played on Chen Ling’s lips. He tossed the megaphone into the crowd.

He turned and walked towards the control room.

“Let Aurora City… hear your cry.”

Aurora City, on the city wall.

“Officer, that train still hasn’t slowed down,” the enforcer said, lowering his binoculars and turning to the five-stripe enforcer beside him.

The five-stripe enforcer’s brow furrowed deeper. He raised his loudspeaker and spoke again: “This is the final warning… stop, or be destroyed.”

Clang, clang, clang—

The train sped across the icy wilderness, showing no signs of slowing. Its dark locomotive was like an arrow of steel, pointing directly at Aurora City!

The five-stripe enforcer’s eyes narrowed. He turned to look behind him and saw that the other two five-stripe enforcers had also arrived. Three five-striped windbreakers fluttered on the city wall, like dark-clad deities guarding this side of the city gate.

The three exchanged glances and nodded slightly. Just as they were about to act, an abrupt voice echoed from the distant wind and snow.

“Don’t… don’t kill us…”

The moment the female voice sounded, everyone froze. The enforcers exchanged bewildered glances, seeing the same confusion in each other’s eyes.

“That’s not right, Chen Ling is a man. This isn’t him… then who’s speaking?”

“Are there others on the train??”

As everyone wondered, the voice continued: “Why… why must you abandon us?” The female voice trembled slightly. “We barely escaped the hell of District Three… my father was eaten by the calamity, my husband was shot by your enforcers… I only have my child left…”

“You don’t have to let me into the city, but I beg you, please let my child in… He’s so young, he doesn’t understand anything. I just want him to live!”

After that voice faded, there was a rustling sound, as if the megaphone had been passed to someone else, who spoke hoarsely:

“Aurora City, you’re listening, right?

I’m a carpenter from District Three. My father, my grandfather—our family has been carpenters for generations… We poured our hearts and sweat into crafting wooden goods and sending them to Aurora City. We’ve dedicated all our youth for generations to Aurora City… Now I want to exchange all of that for a chance… I want to enter Aurora City.”

“Please… I beg you! I’m carrying my husband’s child, and I don’t want him to die with me in the maw of the calamity! Whatever it takes… I beg you, please let me into the city…”

“We have a child here who is burned all over. For the sake of all we have dedicated to Aurora City, please open the gates… I don’t know what grievances or resentments you have towards the Seven Districts, but children are innocent.”

“It hurts so much… I’m really in so much pain… Kill me! Please kill me!!”

“Daddy… are we going to die?”

Distinct voices emerged one after another from the speeding train—some were old, some were children. They were angry, or desperate, or pleading, or rational… Their voices intertwined, growing clearer and louder, a final reverberation of life burning out!

Everyone was stunned. They hadn’t expected so many people to be inside that train. They hadn’t imagined that even with the land outside Aurora City having become a desolate gray zone, so many survivors could still reach the city’s doorstep.

What had they endured?

What kind of despair had they witnessed?

No one inside Aurora City knew, nor did anyone dare to imagine. They had always stayed behind that city wall, never having seen the deadly wind and snow.

Amidst the endless shouts from within the train, the enforcers and officers on the city wall fell silent. They looked at each other in confusion, momentarily unsure of what to do.

Immediately afterward, they heard the clamor of a crowd from within Aurora City behind them. It seemed some people had begun shouting angrily, and that sound, too, grew louder and more intense. A chaos was rapidly coalescing within the city!

Meanwhile,

In Dove Square, on an unnoticed wooden chair.

Gu Yuan, his hair frosted white, frowned and glanced towards the city wall. Then, as if sensing something, he looked to his side. There, a man in a black windbreaker was trembling slightly, like an enraged person desperate to break free from a mountain’s suppression, slowly and stubbornly lifting his head inch by inch. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Gu Yuan!” Han Meng’s voice was like a beast’s roar. “I warn you… if Aurora City dares to harm them, I will rebel against Aurora City!”