Chapter 4

Translator: Lordbluefire

Return countdown 47:59:58.

Return countdown 47:59:57.

Transmigration?

So, the end of the countdown was a transmigration into another time and space, and the return countdown showed the time of return.

Qing Chen breathed a sigh of relief upon having this realization. It was a good thing that he could return.

However, there was a possibility that no one would be concerned about him. His mother had her new life, and she wouldn’t have time to be concerned about him. As for his father… he was probably at the detention center now.

He probably wouldn’t have the time to be concerned about Qing Chen either.

Even then, Qing Chen still hoped that he could return and have a look.

And what he needed to do right now was to survive 48 hours.

Then… this was the first day of the countdown.

Qing Chen had another look at this “new world”.

During the moment this new world pieced together, Qing Chen noticed the prisoner’s uniform on his own body and immediately understood his circumstances.

He was in a dark and gloomy room. Apart from an alloy door that was brimming with a sense of technology, sealed walls covered everything else.

There was a small window on the 90 centimeters wide door, but it was currently shut.

The prisoner’s room was a single cell. There was a bed and a thin bed sheet atop it.

Beside it was an installed shelf. Apart from a blanket, toothbrush, and towel, there was nothing else on it.

The cell’s walls were gray. However, what Qing Chen didn’t understand was the metallic glow on the walls where the outdoor light hit.

Metallic walls?

Qing Chen sat up and gently stroked the wall in a daze. What kind of place would disregard costs and use such construction materials?

This place was no longer the world that he once knew. That much was obvious.

He swiftly lowered his head and looked toward his palms. The fingerprints on these hands were the same as before, even the position of the pores was as they were.

This was his body.

After transmigrating to this world, Qing Chen’s boning knife was gone, and the original clothes he had on were gone as well. But his body was his without a doubt.

Fingerprints and the position of his pores couldn’t be faked.

Qing Chen sat on the bed, hugging his knees to his chest while looking at the heavy alloy door. It wasn’t clear what he was thinking about.

Slowly, it got noisy outside. There were even sounds of someone pounding against the alloy prison door with substantial force.

Qing Chen walked slowly to the side of the door, attempting to hear what they were shouting about outside. In the end, before he could listen clearly, the alloy door let out a coherent sound of air pressure shifting and opened.

Hence, Qing Chen looked outside and saw a return-type corridor.

The square prison fort comprised seven floors, and they cramped every floor with neatly lined prison cells.

Within the massive yet empty prison fort, only a few sporadic lights were lit. Inside the opened alloy doors were dark prison cells, as though they were imprisoning monsters.

Qing Chen remained inside the room. It was as though taking a step out would lead him to an unknown life ahead.

In the vast prison, a broadcast suddenly rang from an unknown origin. It was a pleasant voice of a lady. “Seven in the morning, breakfast time. All personnel serving a prison sentence, please line up in order and head toward the dining hall for your meal.”

The voice lingered in the prison fort, but Qing Chen remained staring at the threshold in front of him.

It felt as though everything would be different once he stepped out.

In fact, he felt as if he was already different from a certain point on.

When did it start?

It was probably… When he realized he only had two and a half hours left in his life. He did what he had most wanted to do; the thing he had never dared to do in the past.

He had already turned his father in. What else was there that he couldn’t face?

Hence, he stepped out of the prison cell.

But he froze at the next moment.

Outside, along the not-too-wide corridor, stood a prisoner in front of each cell.

Qing Chen’s pupils constricted abruptly.

An old man with a hunched back looked over at him. Unexpectedly, his eye socket was filled with only a mechanical eyeball, suffused in a red glow. The old man’s entire eye socket was a mechanical structure, and it extended to his right temple.

The mechanical eyeball didn’t look exquisite. On the contrary, it looked like a rough piece of work. However, Qing Chen couldn’t explain the sense of pressure he felt from this staring eye.

It was as if… the other person was analyzing the details of his physique.

Just like how he used his memory to analyze others.

At this moment, a burly middle-aged prisoner, with his right arm fully assembled from machinery parts, moved his fingers. Qing Chen could hear the metallic sound of mechanical parts turning when this prisoner opened and closed his hand.

The strong metallic arm was like steel muscles, violent and unyielding.

Within this entire prison stronghold, practically half the people had mechanical body parts.

A civilization of machinery.

The four words sprung into Qing Chen’s thoughts.

Before he could continue his deliberation, he saw the burly prisoner beside him laugh. “Hey, newcomer, don’t eat too much for breakfast. It will be an unpleasant sight if you puke it out otherwise.”

The moment he delivered those words, it filled the corridor with many roars of laughter. “I heard there were 12 newcomers last night. Today will be entertaining.”

“This rascal doesn’t have a single mechanical part. From the looks of it, it won’t matter if he’s outside either.”

Upon hearing the word “newcomer”, it startled Qing Chen. He thought the other person knew he had just traveled here from Earth.

However, he reacted quickly. The word “newcomer” should refer to his entry into prison. The other person probably didn’t know his identity as an Earthling.

Right now, Qing Chen furrowed his brows as he pondered. The so-called entertainment that they mentioned might, unfortunately, turn out to be a disaster for him.

But the problem was, how could he survive among this bunch of mechanical “monsters”?

He restrained the restlessness and dread which filled his heart. He was a regular sophomore student that was shoved into such a sudden and unexpected malicious situation. The only thing Qing Chen could do was force himself not to divulge any abnormalities.

Because he didn’t know what awaited him if the fact that he was from another world got revealed.

Suddenly, a young man on the fourth-floor corridor opposite him went into a frenzy. “What is this place?! I want to go home! I don’t want to stay in this wretched place. Who are you people?! I am Huang Jixian, and my father is the president of Luo City’s Eternal Profit Conglomerate. You people stay the hell away from me!”

As he said this, the young man sprinted frantically along the corridor.

The others did not move, observing from their places as though they were watching a show. They remained in line, which was formed to prepare for heading to the dining hall.

Some of them were confused. “Where is Luo City?”

Suddenly, Qing Chen heard a buzzing sound overhead. As he lifted his head, he was shocked to find that on the tall and deep ceiling, four drones with the appearance of a metal casing had detached from the wall and begun their descent.

Qing Chen’s gaze remained fixated on the ceiling. On the alloy walls, a neat line of six forts of machine guns that looked like 18 Gatling guns was “embedded” and hung upside down.

Following the panicked young man’s run, the barrel from one of the machine guns began spinning as well!

“Please stop moving.” The drone emitted a female voice. “Last warning, please stop moving.”

Immediately after, the prison fort broadcast a lady’s voice. “All prisoners, please stay on your spot and await instructions.”

In barely 10 seconds, the four drones had cornered the young man somewhere along the corridor. Beneath every drone was a barrel targeted at the young man.

A gate opened at the bottom of the prison fort at the same time, and nine robots with unknown firearms entered at full speed.

The young man was terrified beyond his wits as he fell against the wall, and Qing Chen watched indifferently as all of it unfolded.

The other person’s behavior was a little overly agitated, but it helped Qing Chen gain a lot of information.

Machine guns, drones, robots, mechanical body parts—countless information flooded his mind at the same time.

He suddenly realized it when he watched the young man’s outburst, but what Qing Chen thought was the strangest was that he might not be the only person who came here from Earth.

Not the first and probably not the last.