Chapter 6: Chapter 5 I Look Like This!!! Chapter 6: Chapter 5 I Look Like This!!! Having books passes the time; lacking them, time drags. Suddenly, it was already dusk and the prison van had arrived at another remote suburban area.
“We’re here, everyone get off!” the guard next to Chen Xiao shouted as he pushed open the van’s door.
Chen Xiao and the burly man walked down from the prison van. Not far away was a building resembling a schoolhouse. It was three stories high, with its white plaster somewhat peeled off, revealing the cement bricks beneath. In front of the building was a small yard featuring a swing, a seesaw, and a small soccer goal.
A primary school? No, too remote—it was an orphanage! Chen Xiao realized.
At that moment, outside the orphanage, there were many people, roughly twenty or so. Most of them were wearing lab coats, with a few in black suits and some guards.
These people were all busy around several machines that resembled large computers.
In an instant, Chen Xiao had figured out what was about to happen and then he adopted a dead fish-eye look, muttering powerless in his mind, “Ah… based on this vibe, we’re indeed here to be guinea pigs.”
“What are you standing there for, trash! Move it!” the guard behind him snarled viciously, jabbing Chen Xiao with the barrel of a gun.
“Damn it, I want to smack you across the face!” Chen Xiao felt irritated within.
Thus, the two of them were herded by gunpoint into the crowd, which seemed completely indifferent to their presence. Instead, they continued to focus on the screens in front of them or spoke into headsets, all engrossed in their tasks with grave expressions.
At that time, a skinny old man approached. He wore a lab coat and glasses, the type you could tell was very intelligent just by looking at him. Although his back was straight and his face had few wrinkles, making him appear young, Chen Xiao knew he was at least fifty years old.
“Oh—finally here. We need to start quickly!” he said as if burdened. “Get those two over here as well!”
“There are others, for sure…” Chen Xiao thought.
…
After a while, two more men joined Chen Xiao and the burly man, both male. One was under 30, wearing glasses, with somewhat long hair and appearing very thin. The other was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man in his forties, slightly overweight, and always wearing a smirking grin, though Chen Xiao knew, this was the type who chuckled eerily while killing.
The man in the lab coat then said, “Hello everyone, you can call me Mr. Zou, of course, that’s not my real name,”
He shrugged his shoulders and continued.
“… You standing here signifies that you are either death-row inmates, life prisoners, or some other trash, which I don’t care about. Let’s cut to the chase, starting now, you have two options: 1, follow my instructions, and after it’s all done, you get a second chance at life, something you should be aware of from signing the contract. Second, disobey, and you will be executed immediately!” After speaking, he nodded towards a guard nearby, who nonchalantly pumped his shotgun and fired it at the ground.
Dust flew up high, but except for the thin man with glasses who shuddered, the others hardly reacted, at most furrowing their brows.
Mr. Zou nodded, looking pleased, then continued, “Next, you will wear headsets and enter the building in front of you. All you need to do is convey everything you see through the headsets to me…” As he spoke, he glanced at Chen Xiao and frowned, “Hey! Somebody, take off this guy’s mask! It’s really bothering.”
Immediately, a guard walked behind Chen Xiao and, “click,” drew a dagger, cutting the strap of his mask.
“Alright, you’re quite well-equipped!” Chen Xiao thought, meanwhile flexing his jaw.
At this, everyone’s expression briefly froze.
“Uh… seems even more awkward now.” Mr. Zou remarked.
Then, he looked past everyone’s shoulders, signaling to someone, “Hey, bring over the headsets!”
Soon, a person came over with a bunch of headsets and put them on all four.
Chen Xiao glanced at the headset, clearly modified, and thought, “This headset doesn’t happen to have a bomb in it, does it?”
“Good, now I must explain, to prevent you from doing something foolish inside the building, these headphones have been embedded with microexplosives,” Mr. Zou then declared.
Chen Xiao’s face fell: “Yeah, I really am damn smart.”
“Of course, as long as you all follow instructions and don’t act too out of line, these will just be ordinary headphones,”
As soon as he finished speaking, Mr. Zou stretched his neck and shouted, “Hey, somebody come over here again, unlock these guys’ chains, we are about to start working!”
Then, the man with glasses spoke up, “I know I shouldn’t be asking, but I’d like to know what’s going on with this orphanage and why we need to go in? It might help us understand the task ahead.”
Mr. Zou’s expression darkened slightly as he coolly stated, “Kid, don’t try to be clever, you don’t need to know anything. Just go in, then relay everything you see to me, got it!”
The man with glasses quickly nodded and said, “Okay, I understand!”
“Good, you can introduce yourselves to each other. We’ll start in about ten minutes,” Mr. Zou said.
As their restraints were unlocked, everyone instinctively flexed their stiff muscles. The tattooed burly man even rotated his neck, causing a series of “crackling” sounds.