Chapter 106: The Prison Cage (3)

Li Cheng pressed his finger joints to reset his thumb, then picked up the handcuffs and tried to stash them in his backpack slot.

【Unable to pick up】

A system prompt popped up before his eyes, informing him that the item's ownership did not belong solely to him.

"Alright, that makes sense." Li Cheng tossed the handcuffs onto the bed and glanced down at his ankle shackles. Their mechanism was similar to the handcuffs, but the gaps were smaller, making it impossible to escape by dislocating bones. Unless he cut off his heels and applied wound-sealing gel.

"The cell door, like the handcuffs, is made of alloy and cannot be damaged. The lock core is a Class C 8-track lock—prying it open would take at least two or three hours."

"Considering the system set the objective of escaping this single-cell prison, that means, even if the inmate next door refuses to help, the cell must contain everything I need to escape."

Li Cheng rubbed his palms and meticulously searched the room inch by inch.

The cell was small, with only a few pieces of furniture. He first picked up the pillow—it felt brand-new, with no hairs, dandruff on the surface, or smell of scalp oil. The sheets and mattress were the same.

It's surprisingly clean.

In the real world, in countries like France, America, and Britain, bedbug infestations have become a serious public health issue—bedbugs are everywhere in theaters, hospitals, subways, and apartments, with nursing homes and prisons being the worst. News frequently surfaces of elderly, immobile people or prisoners being bitten to death by bedbugs hidden in mattresses.

"Considering the inmate next door said there are no guards here, and that before me, this single cell once housed another prisoner—how did the pillow and blankets stay this clean?"

As Li Cheng tore open the pillow to inspect the cotton inside, he speculated, "Assumption one: prisoners have scheduled activity time and are allowed out for fresh air; during that time, guards come to replace daily necessities."

"Assumption two: prisoners must perform their own labor—washing bedding, clothes, and so on. That's fairly common in some prisons."

Li Cheng muttered, then suddenly noticed something, "Huh? Why is the mattress positioned so far forward?"

The mattress was ten centimeters shorter than the bed frame, shoved into the farthest corner of the head end—meaning a man of Li Cheng's standard height would have his heels hanging off the mattress, making sleep uncomfortable.

"Could it be…"

He squinted, moved the pillow aside, and squeezed himself into the bed's corner—sure enough, he found something unusual.

Directly beneath the headrail, aligned with the position of the head, were numerous fine, deep scratches.

Li Cheng extended his finger and carefully traced the scratches—they followed a pattern, as if some unknown script had been repeated countless times.

【I am Isaac Lord】【I am Isaac Lord】【I am Isaac Lord】

The system's translation function activated, rendering the unknown script for Li Cheng.

"Uh…"

Li Cheng blinked—each scratch varied slightly in depth and stroke curvature, clearly made over a long period, repeatedly.

"Probably one of the prisoners in this cell—likely the previous one. Due to prolonged confinement, he developed psychological trauma and resorted to this method to remind himself of his identity, to avoid going insane."

Of course, he might just have been bored out of his mind.

Like someone who, before graduation, carves "I love ABC!" or "Good luck, younger brothers—sister's waiting for you in college" or "Young man Bin's high school grades weren't great" into their dorm bed.

"According to the Mohs hardness scale, human fingernails are about 2–3—slightly harder than talc and gypsum, but softer than steel's 4.5 and glass's 6. Unless Isaac Lord was some kind of alien with nails harder than steel, he must have used a tool to carve these."

What tool could it be…

Li Cheng imagined himself as that inmate, groping around the room, "Found it!"

He rolled over and plucked a thin needle from the outer side of the metal bed leg.

"That's some damn sneaky shit."

Li Cheng rolled his eyes—the needle was positioned right in the corner, magnetically attached to the metal bed leg. If he'd been careless and tried to dismantle the bed violently, he might've shaken the needle loose, sending it tumbling into a shadowed corner where the light didn't reach. Finding it then would've taken forever.

He examined the needle closely—its tip was nearly worn flat, and a thin brown thread was tied to the end, apparently meant for sewing.

"Brown thread…"

Li Cheng scanned the room—his prison uniform was blue and white, the sheets black and white; the only brown thing was… the mattress and bedding.

He removed the mattress, searched it, and indeed found a secondary stitching seam on the underside.

Rip.

He tore open the seam, revealing the coconut fiber inside—and nestled beside it was a thick, hardcover book.

"Bingo."

Li Cheng whistled, pulled out the book, brushed off the coconut fiber debris, and held it under the light to examine it.

Then he lost it.

The book was hardbound, its cover adorned with intricate, ornate black-and-gold patterns; in the center was a blurred portrait of a holy woman. She wore a long robe, arms outstretched, head slightly bowed, gazing down with benevolent eyes upon all beings.

The book was titled The Chai Scripture. It looked like a serious religious text—but the book's belly band was anything but serious.

【Ten-year revised edition, billions of copies sold—one of the universe's best-selling religious texts, granting readers astonishing wisdom!】

【The ultimate guide to governing a nation, managing a household, cultivating the self, and pursuing learning. Understand ancient sages' wisdom through accessible interpretation, practice the saints' words in daily life.】

【Dedicated to all carbon-based, silicon-based, sulfur-based, boron-based, atmospheric, planetary, spiritual, conceptual, and constructed beings in confusion—may you carry fire in your heart and light in your eyes.】

The belly band's background was filled with countless portraits of readers—each bizarrely different, clearly alien lifeforms, each holding a copy of the book, grinning with twisted, pathological smiles, their eyes blazing with light rivaling the Spacium Ray.

Literally, eyes full of light.

"What the hell is this? Is this some kind of interstellar cult brainwashing bible? I have a bad feeling just opening it will trigger something terrible."

Li Cheng's eye twitched—the book's side bore a three-digit digital lock, and its back was smeared with a tar-like black viscous substance.

The substance was nearly impossible to remove; beneath it, faint lettering was visible—likely the digital lock's password.

Li Cheng tried turning the lock, entering 000—of course, it failed. Inside the lock, a faint, unsettling click echoed, carrying the ominous sense that if the correct code wasn't entered within a limited number of attempts, it would self-destruct.

(End of chapter)