Chapter 214: You Don't Unite, I'll Help You Unite

That evening, Xiang Ergou found his lost self; his whole being seemed to have shed the shackles on his soul and returned to his true nature.

He slept deeply, like a carefree dog.

"Brother Dog?"

A groggy call drifted into his ears; he slowly opened his heavy eyelids, only to see a circle of heads surrounding his pillow, each one looking down at him from above with baffled expressions.

A chill ran through his heart, and then he saw a pillow come crashing down hard, pressing tight against his face.

He struggled in panic, but felt that his arms, forearms, stomach, thighs, and ankles were all pinned down tight by invisible hands scrambling to be first.

If this were when he had just entered prison, he would absolutely have had the strength to break free.

But now, everyone eats the same sticky gruel every day — not enough to fill you, not enough to starve you — so the difference in strength mainly comes down to a difference in numbers.

Nine to one!

Xiang Ergou could not move; his head buried in the pillow let out broken, intermittent whimpers.

"Who goes first?" A tense atmosphere permeated the air; a cold voice shattered the silence.

"Me!" The prisoner who had been beaten the hardest by the prison guards this morning grinned savagely.

He was seen gripping a toothbrush sharpened to a keen point in a reverse grip; then he raised his arm high and brought it straight down, stabbing viciously into Xiang Ergou's heaving chest.

Tss!

Scalding blood spurted out, spraying onto those savage faces and onto those arms with veins bulging.

"Next!"

The toothbrush made the rounds like a game of passing the flower while beating the drum, passing from left to right in a full circle.

Some stabbed true, some stabbed lightly, but under the murderous gazes of everyone present, no one dared let the "passing the flower" game stop in their own hands.

Before long, Xiang Ergou's chest lay flat again; nine blood holes of varying depths encircled his chest, and black blood welled up steadily through the holes.

Xiang Ergou probably never had the chance to understand, even in death, why he would die so miserably when he had already submitted and acted like a dog.

The reason is simple: he realized wolves get beaten to death by men, but forgot that dogs get bitten to death by wolves.

"Whoever pays first dies; he is the example." The cold voice moved the pillow away, revealing the twisted face beneath, contorted in utter terror.

One by one, bloodstained hands released their grip and withdrew into sleeves, exchanging a glance; in every eye showed thick vigilance and wariness.

"Sleep!"

On the long communal bunk, Xiang Ergou's corpse still bled; the other prisoners had already silently burrowed back into their blankets, pressed tight against one another, eyes half-open, half-closed.

Nine prisoners to a bunk; they were both accomplices in murder huddling for warmth, and bedfellows with utterly different dreams; every hand hidden under a pillow clutched a toothbrush tight.

On this quiet night, similar scenes played out silently in one dim cell after another, as if Fate had handed every prisoner an identical script.

Outside the corridor, the surveillance probes' "pores" seemed to tremble faintly, then silently contracted.

A slender needle slid from the probe's concealed part, drawn by a nearly transparent silk thread, floating lightly back into Chen Ya's cuff.

He pressed close against the cold wall, moving with a pace both swift and leisurely, like an intangible shadow, yet also like another invisible night-duty prison guard, silently patrolling, observing one cell after another.

Most of the time his steps never paused, but occasionally he would suddenly halt and enter a certain cell.

This was a helpless measure; there are always some cells that, due to various complex factors, cannot unite well.

But it doesn't matter; he can help them unite as one, in their sleep.

Chen Ya slipped in quietly, just as he slipped away quietly; he flicked his sleeve, taking only a few hypnotic silver needles, leaving behind a corpse lying quietly on the bed, silently leaking the juices of life.

This corpse was no different from the other fallen figures in the cell; the only difference was that its chest did not have so many holes — only a single toothbrush stood upright, plunged in, one hole.

But nine holes and one hole, the difference isn't actually that great, because when the living prisoners wake from their dreams, the look in their eyes as they regard each other is no different from the look of those who all struck together.

Chen Ya liked tonight's job very much, and was also very skilled at tonight's job.

How to put it~

The base color of Fate is unity; precisely because of this, the people Fate produces are also very willing and know how to help those scattered, disunited people unite as one, binding each other's fates tightly together.

Circling around easily, Chen Ya even dropped by to exchange feelings with his own teammates, then returned to his own cell fully satisfied.

He is now very satisfied with the activation of his party's uplink.

After all, previous uplinks, every time they activated them the missions they gave were simply kill, kill, kill; over time, it made them feel more and more like the villains the Upper City Council had framed them as.

Unlike Feng Mu's missions — although they are also kill, kill, kill, the starting point is noble, it is helping others toward goodness, helping the majority unite; it is very positive energy, making him once again firm in his belief that he is a romantic and idealistic pioneer.

With a tug of his hand, several bloodstained silver needles shot out from the cellmates' heads and drilled back into Chen Ya's sleeve.

Wang Jiao woke from his dream, twisted his stiff neck, and looked toward Chen Ya washing his hands at the sink.

"Cell Boss, you haven't slept yet?" Wang Jiao asked casually.

"Oh, got a bit of dirty stuff on my hands, washing it off before sleep." Chen Ya shook off the water, picked up the towel hanging nearby, and wiped his hands.

Wang Jiao let out an "oh," then hesitated, lowering his voice: "Are we really going to move tomorrow?"

Chen Ya looked at Wang Jiao calmly: "You have other ideas?"

Wang Jiao sighed long: "I just feel Feng the Prison Guard is really pretty good; look these two days, other cells have been forced into what state by the prison guards, but Feng the Prison Guard has never laid a hand on us, never forced us to pay up."

Wang Jiao said worriedly: "If we really kill Feng the Prison Guard, and get replaced by another prison guard, our days from then on will all be suffering."

Chen Ya looked deeply at Wang Jiao; as Cell Boss, he had the responsibility and obligation to help his lost and hesitant inmates find their direction in life, so he spoke from the heart:

"The future is a very distant thing; you first must firm your stance, survive tomorrow, before you can consider the future."

Wang Jiao's face tightened; he nodded heavily, full of admiration: "Cell Boss, your heart is really big; you never hesitate, do you?"

Chen Ya answered as a matter of course:

"I never hesitate, because my stance has been firm from beginning to end; you should learn from me too, firmly carry out your own stance; thus, whatever happens tomorrow, it will be the fate you chose yourself, and you won't blame others, but face it calmly without regret or resentment."

Wang Jiao felt Chen Ya made a lot of sense; he nodded as if realizing something: "Cell Boss, you're right, I understand."

Time, like the black hand manipulating everything, silently and irresistibly dialed everyone's time forward to April 25th.

(End of Chapter)