Chapter 5: 5

Translator: Lordbluefire

Qing Chen thought about it once too. Would there be others with a countdown timer on their forearm?

It was because of this exact speculation that he had erred on the side of caution and taken a subway to a faraway place to verify some things, avoiding any traces to be discovered.

However, after a series of unfortunate events, Qing Chen had practically forgotten about this guess.

From the looks of it, his guess had turned into reality.

There must have been many others who transmigrated here from Earth. There were two of them from this prison alone, much less the world outside of this prison.

How many transmigrators were there? Hundreds? Thousands?

And what caused them to transmigrate?

Qing Chen had no way to confirm it.

“It seems this round of newcomers is interesting, huh? He’s not a fool, is he?” Someone who was watching the young man’s meltdown snickered. “I heard they sentenced him to seven years because of tax evasion? He didn’t cry when he came in here yesterday and only started now.”

“What is he but a fool if he dared to cause trouble for the personnel at the Taxation Service Agency…”

Qing Cheng looked toward the source of the voice, and it was a youth with a pair of mechanical legs. Upon noticing Qing Chen’s gaze on him, the corner of the youth’s lips curled up. “Hey, newcomer. Are you ready?”

The surrounding people roared with laughter, as though they were all waiting to see a show.

This place was teeming with the advanced technology of science fiction, but it seemed like the malevolence of human beings did not change.

Qing Chen frowned but did not pay this youth any heed. He then returned his attention to the young man who was surrounded by the drones.

Unfortunately, Qing Chen might be the only one to know why the young man did not cry the day before and started only today. He and Qing Cheng were in the same boat; they had both transmigrated from the “greenhouse” that was Earth, but this guy couldn’t accept the fact.

This wasn’t a guess. It was because Qing Chen had met the young man before.

Qing Chen was 17 this year, a sophomore at Luo City Foreign Language School.

And the young man experiencing a meltdown was a freshman there.

The two of them did not have any past interactions, but since Qing Chen had an eidetic memory, it was hard for him to forget a face he had seen before.

This left Qing Chen flabbergasted. Could it be that if their locations before transmigration were close, then they would remain near after transmigration?

He had no way of confirming it.

However, Qing Chen realized something: the people here all spoke in Mandarin Chinese, with none speaking in dialects.

At this moment, the robot guards were rushing up the staircase, taking five steps at a time, followed by a unique sound from the hydraulic drive.

The young man was already wailing in despair by now.

Half the people in the prison fort had mechanical body parts installed. Hence, to meet an Earthling in a place surrounded by such ferocious steel beasts made Qing Chen feel akin to meeting a close friend from his hometown.

Under normal circumstances, people would usually feel an unexplainable sense of security upon meeting a person from the “same village”* in a foreign land.

However, Qing Chen did not feel that way. Watching the young man who was on the brink of falling apart, he realized something. Someone from the ‘same village’* might not always be able to help, instead, they could be a burden.

Not everyone could keep their composure in the face of a civilization of machinery when they were fresh off the boat.

What he needed now was to stay alive through the two days as a newcomer and then strive to understand the reason behind all of this when he returned to Earth.

Hence, Qing Chen kept a low profile and observed quietly. He didn’t know why, but he felt calmer than before.

Even until now, all the prisoners stayed unmoving in their original spots.

He took another look around the prison fort. From the nine robots that rushed forth from outside the gate of the supervision area, three remained in the plaza downstairs to impose emergency measures. The others headed upstairs to take the panic-stricken young man away.

The plaza downstairs was spacious, almost the size of a football field.

This open-style plaza was separated into a few zones: dining hall, gym, entertainment zone, reading zone, recorded media zone, etc.…

However, these zones didn’t have a separation between them. It was like a huge free-activity center. Only eight steel gates spread across the boundaries of the plaza.

With the immense size of the steel gates, it was dreadful to think that it might be for an armored car to drive straight through.

Suddenly, Qing Chen was stunned. He noticed that there were already three people beside the dining table of the plaza. It was unclear when they had arrived.

A man who looked to be in his forties sat down, and two other young men guarded each of his side with a smile on their faces. He lifted his head and sized the prisoners up with interest.

In front of the middle-aged man was a chessboard, and an endgame was arranged on the board.

What was even more amazing was the cat napping on its paws beside the chessboard at the dining table. It had gray ears, and atop its ears were two pointy tufts of hair. It held some resemblance to a lynx, though it wasn’t one.

A Maine Coon.

This prison even allowed raising cats?!

Qing Chen was a little stunned by this. His “same village”* pal had attracted his attention earlier, to the extent where he didn’t even notice when the combination of three men and a cat had arrived in the plaza.

At this moment, he watched the middle-aged man with his full concentration, as though whatever was happening upstairs was of no concern to him.

Besides, the most astonishing thing to Qing Chen was that even the robots at the plaza treated the three men and a cat as though they didn’t exist.

Compared to the nerve-wracking and severe tension upstairs, the calm atmosphere downstairs seemed so contrasting as if they were in different worlds.

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Among the three men, the two young ones were wearing regular prisoner uniforms with blue and white alternating. On the other hand, the middle-aged man was wearing a white training suit.

In this dark and depressing environment, the smear of white was extremely unworldly.

Qing Chen thought to himself, could he be the prison warden?

No, even though his training suit differed from the other prisoners, there was still a small embroidery of black serial numbers on the chest of the outfit.

The middle-aged man was also serving a sentence in prison. He was just the most extraordinary out of them all.

As though they felt Qing Chen’s eyes on them, one of the young men beside the middle-aged man turned abruptly and returned his gaze with a smile.

Qing Chen withdrew his gaze immediately.

Once the robots had escorted the collapsed young man from Earth away, the prison fort sounded a broadcast again. “Please head toward the dining hall for your meal according to the sequence.”

Right after the sound, Qing Chen saw all the prisoners turn right and line up into a long formation, advancing along the stairs and toward the plaza.

It was only until this moment that Qing Chen counted the total number of prisoners. Including him, there were 3102 of them.

The prison fort had seven floors in total. On every level, the prisoners formed a queue with the first prisoner taking the lead. Thereafter, they headed toward the dining hall in an orderly fashion.

Nobody cut or left the queue during this period. Qing Chen thought everyone there seemed to follow a set of pre-set programming, and everything was “restricted” by someone.

This sequence only ended after everyone had collected their meals from the robot by the window.

It was like they could move freely after they had collected their food.

Qing Chen and the others were on the fifth floor. When it was their turn to collect the food, the people on the first floor had finished with their meals. After that, he witnessed the sight of two muscular prisoners dragging a young man, heading straight toward the nearest prison cell from the dining hall. There were several others following them, heckling.

Someone even instructed, “Drag him into the prison cell quickly. Don’t hurt him in the plaza. Careful not to let the robot prison guards interfere.”

The prisoner dragging the young man replied heedlessly, “Don’t worry. I’m not a blockhead like Yang Jie.”

The young man was struggling with all his might, yelling, “Let go of me!”

However, just as he was about to be dragged into the prison cell, the young man’s tone turned into a plea. “I beg you, please spare me!”

No matter how he said it, nobody paid any mind to his request. Instead, it drew even more raucous jeering.

Suddenly, the old man with the mechanical eye in front of Qing Chen turned back and laughed. “Stop looking around already. It’ll be your turn later.”

Qing Chen spared him a glance calmly. Looking at this young man’s eyes, the old man suddenly thought they felt different. He didn’t know why, but his chest suddenly tightened.

Once they collected their meal, the formation dispersed.

Around him, Qing Cheng realized that he could faintly discern three men approaching his direction, as though they wanted to exercise control over him!

In a split second, he picked up his pace, and the others followed along, surrounding him!

In the next moment, the detailed image of the prison fort played in Qing Chen’s mind.

18 steel beast-like machine guns awaited instructions in silence on the vault overhead, like ferocious sleeping tigers.

72 drones hung in the slots of the gray alloy ceiling, like sleeping wasps.

210 security cameras were slowly turning angles, and 3 robots with guards were standing guard within the plaza.

Just like this, the prisoners retrieved their meals from the window one by one. Someone complained that today was yet another unsavory synthetic meat.

Someone was washing their plate by the washbasin and even helped others with their plates.

As more prisoners finished their meals, it started becoming rowdier. Everyone traveled back and forth; some headed to the fitness zone, while others crowded around to watch the newcomer’s initiation.

However, subconsciously, everyone seemed to avoid the middle-aged man who was staring at the chessboard.

The man was still looking at the chessboard, serious as ever. No one neared him within five meters radius, just like a calm yet sturdy reef above sea level. Rough waters and boats had no choice but to retreat in front of it.

Qing Chen held onto his dining plate and slipped past the three men surrounding him abruptly, heading toward the middle-aged man.

Watching the direction in which he was going, many people suddenly realized what the newcomer was up to.

Slowly, more people turned their attention toward him and whispered among themselves. Based on each prisoner’s expression, it was as if they were waiting to see Qing Chen make a joke out of himself.

Many newcomers noticed the middle-aged man’s peculiarity, and just as many of them wanted to rely on him to escape their predicament. Qing Chen was never the only one.

But the truth was, every one of them failed.

It was just that Qing Chen turned a deaf ear to the ridicules and continued maneuvering through the crowd with his plate in hand.

However, before he could get close, the young man beside the middle-aged man stopped him and told him with a laugh, “Newcomer, I know what you are up to, but we will not help you.”

The other party had seen through Qing Chen’s plans, but Qing Chen focused his attention on the person behind the young man.

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The middle-aged man seemed to have turned a deaf ear to everything that was happening around him as well, as though he didn’t hear any of it.

Hence, Qing Chen looked at the middle-aged man seriously and spoke up, “Advance pawn by 1 rank. I can solve this endgame.”

It was only at this moment that the middle-aged man looked up, and the whole plaza fell into silence. Even the cat opened its eyes.

Footnote:

[1] “Same village” is usually used to describe someone from the same hometown. Most of the time, it comes with a sense of affinity/familiarity when you meet someone like that while in a foreign land.

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