Chapter 101 - Parents

Many people saw Li Hao take the initiative to walk over and they all looked over.

Li Hao had already grown accustomed to this kind of attention and didn’t feel anything. He responded to Su Min’s words: “You’re welcome!”

He spoke in a very bold and straightforward tone. It was as if he was using a lot of strength when he said that, and Su Min even feared that his head would bleed again.

Fang Shu Juan tried to hold back his laughter.

He used to think that brother Hao would be like those from the underworld but right now he looked a little stupid and not savvy at all.

Su Min lightly coughed: “Do you need anything else?”

Li Hao scanned across the room. The people secretly watching their interaction quickly looked away.

He then turned back and lowered his voice: “At noon today, did you see who pushed me?”

Although he felt that something wasn’t right, his first conclusion was that it was something done by a human.

Su Min said: “No.”

Li Hao repeated himself: “You really didn’t see anything?”

Su Min thought seriously for a moment and replied: “It’s not that I didn’t see. I just didn’t see anyone push you.”

Li Hao said with frustration: “Isn’t that fucking the same thing?”

“Of course it’s different.” Fang Shu Juan who sat to the side advised him. “The meaning behind those two sentences are completely different.”

Su Min nodded, “Yes, that’s right.”

Li Hao wanted to ask how it was different but he then thought of how that could affect his image here so he only snorted a few times and returned to his seat.

He was extremely angry. He felt like he was being played with.

Zhang Jian whispered: “Brother Hao, did they do something?”

Li Hao glanced at him, “What could they do?”

“If they disrespected brother Hao,” Zhang Jian said: “Then we’ll teach them a lesson and let them know how powerful brother Hao is.”

Li Hao reached out and slapped his head.

Zhang Jian covered his head in grievance.

There were still a few more minutes until it was time to return to their rooms. Li Hao picked up his chopsticks and quickly finished off his remaining food while continuing to mull over today’s events.

What was the difference?

Li Hao didn’t have much education, so he wasn’t able to process it very quickly. He spent a long time thinking about it but nothing came to fruition.

When he was done eating, the speaker sounded.

All the prisoners returned to their rooms. One by one, they walked along like zombies repeatedly performing the same action every single day.

Li Hao walked ahead with a toothpick in his mouth.

When he was just about to reach his room, he suddenly snapped his toothpick in half and spat it out. His expression changed greatly.

He finally understood the meaning behind Su Min’s words.

A chill ran up his spine. It clung closely to his bones. It went all the way up his spine, to his neck and it suffocated him.

Li Hao was so shocked, he was speechless.

After taking a few more steps, he finally could gasp for air. He looked back and instantly saw Su Min and the others amongst the crowd.

They were chatting and weren’t looking over here.

Li Hao breathed in and out deeply a few times and turned back around. He entered his room with heavy steps and the door was locked again.

Seeing the same metal bars in the window, the incident at noon once again appeared in his mind. He fearfully took a few steps back.

His roommate who was in the same room didn’t understand what was happening and only looked at him in confusion.

………..

At the door to room 8.

The prison guard looked at Fang Shu Juan hesitantly. He scolded him: “What are you doing here instead of going back to your room?”

Because it was a different prison guard, he didn’t know about the social meetup last night.

Fang Shu Juan said: “I now live here.”

The prison guard said: “Hurry and move aside or I’ll use force.”

“I really live here.” Fang Shu Juan pulled Yin Ze over, “I had a social meetup with him yesterday, so I’ll live here from now on.”

As soon as those words were spoken, silence followed.

It was then followed by a loud jeers: “Social meetup!”

Such bold confessions were rare and, with the very limited fun and entertainment here, it easily led to a loud outburst from the other prisoners.

The prison guard asked Yin Ze: “Is this true?”

Yin Ze said stiffly: “yes.”

Fang Shu Juan said: “I’ll stay in this room in the future.”

The prison guard no longer wanted to look at them. He directly pushed Fang Shu Juan and Yin Ze into the room, “Hurry and get in.”

Su Min followed behind them.

The door was locked again.

After the prison guard disappeared in the distance, Yin Ze shook off Fang Shu Juan’s arm. His expression was stiff, and he clearly wasn’t happy about the earlier incident.

Fang Shu Juan on the other hand was acting the same as before. He didn’t seem to be affected by it at all.

Su Min had already grown accustomed to this.

No matter how dense he was, he had noticed it. What’s more, with all the strange things happening to them, they could be called the so-called “ill-fated pair”.

Only those uninvolved in something like this would be aware of it.

Su Min didn’t want to interfere with something like this, He just wanted to uncover the mystery, solve the case and then leave the movie and return to reality.

Every time he entered a movie, it was a very unique experience.

Su Min’s life until now had been too bland. In his memory, he was mostly studying. Because he was too self-disciplined, he didn’t dabble much with entertainment and games.

His same aged classmates were either immersed in the 2D world or living a very rich life involving basketball, club, dating etc……

The club Su Min was in was even a reading club.

He slowly sighed.

He sat back down onto his bed. Su Min’s eyes moved back over to the window. The corridor outside was filled with people’s voices. Prisoners at noon were always filled with energy.

From his bed, he could only see the room opposite and diagonally opposite. He couldn’t see brother Hao’s side at all and would need to go over to his window to see brother Hao’s room.

Su Min couldn’t help but say: “I hope Brother Hao is still alive this afternoon.”

Afterall, if he died then he would be gone forever.

Although this was a movie, it looked very realistic.

Hearing this, Fang Shu Juan said: “Having avoided it the first time, I don’t know if it’ll happen again. If it was just once, then it would be okay.”

But if it was multiple times………

Su Min couldn’t help but think of a particular horror movie that was filmed in several parts. The current situation was a little similar to that horror movie.

He really liked that horror movie.

The headless ghost here was like the death god and it appeared to have Li Hao’s name on its list. It wasn’t something as simple as avoiding it once to hide from this ghost.

And they weren’t certain what happened to Li Hao during noon today. If he delayed it a little longer, he would have died.

It was as if the prisoners staying here, like the protagonists and their inmates, already had their order of death predetermined.

***

It was already past two when they were taken out in the afternoon to work.

Su Min had taken a short nap, so he was quite refreshed.

There wasn’t any strange commotion outside so Li Hao was probably still alive and/or his missing roommate was still nowhere to be found.

The prison guards were already opening the door outside.

After coming out of their room, Li Hao was unsurprisingly lining up ahead of them. He still had the bandages wrapped around his head and a look of death on his face.

Fang Shu Juan was surprised: “I thought he was doomed to die.”

Su Min said: “There’s still nine more hours. It’s still too early to say that.”

Their job this afternoon was to once again weed.

But this time they had changed locations. It wasn’t far from the prison and they were working on the opposite side.

Su Min could see the other side of the prison from here. The structure was no different from his side, but some facilities were different.

Nothing strange happened as they weeded.

Su Min didn’t have to work too hard and spent most of his time watching Li Hao.

On the contrary, Li Hao found this very strange. As if there were needles under him, he sat stiffly. He wanted to rush over and ask but he was also afraid of hearing something equally or scarier than the things he had heard during lunch.

His heart wasn’t strong enough to sustain such a blow.

In the evening, the prison guards took them back to the cafeteria. As they passed by the door, Li Hao yelled and then ran through.

Su Min: “……….”

He only saw a figure flash by.

He didn’t expect brother Hao to be quite apt with long distance running.

After arriving at the cafeteria without any problems, Li Hao was very excited. He sat at his seat with a face filled with smiles.

When Su Min came in, Li Hao even smiled at him.

Fang Shu Juan couldn’t help byt laugh, “He’s a real treasure.”

Now that Li Hao was safe, there was nothing they needed to worry about.

Meal times were always the happiest time for the prisoners. For some reason, tonight’s meal was also a little richer than usual.

Fang Shu Juan picked out a minced meat and said leisurely: “This reminds me of the school cafeteria. Stir-fried green peppers with meat. It was always stir-fried green peppers with meat.”

Hearing him say this, Su Min recalled the food from his school’s cafeteria and suddenly felt that it wasn’t too bad.

There were also inedible dishes at school but none of them were as extreme as the ones described by Fang Shu Juan. At most, they would just mix together different kinds of fruits and vegetables and stir-fry them.

For example, in order to let the students, enjoy mooncakes during Mid-Autumn Festival, the school had stir-fried mooncakes with some vegetables.

Although Su Min didn’t eat there much, he felt that the xiaolongbao available there every morning was quite good.

When they were about to finish dinner, the door to the cafeteria was opened.

A man who appeared to be an officer suddenly appeared in the cafeteria.

The cafeteria suddenly became quiet.

Su Min whispered: “Have you seen him before?”

It was Su Min’s first time seeing him. This person had not shown up for so many days and had suddenly appeared today.

Yin Ze shook his head.

He hadn’t been here very long, and he didn’t have a chance to see this person. It was also his first time seeing him and no one had mentioned it to him before.

Su Min was quite puzzled by this.

This person didn’t look too different from the other prison guards but, perhaps because they were in different positions, his tone of speech carried a commanding aura.

When everyone’s eyes were on him, he slowly spoke up: “Tomorrow you will have some time for visitors. Everyone will only get five minutes.”

As soon as he said that, the entire cafeteria fell into discussions.

“Why is it shorter now? Wasn’t it eight minutes before?”

“I can only say a few words in five minutes. I won’t even be able to reach the key point like this. What is this?”

“No one will be visiting me so five minutes of freedom is enough for me.”

“Can’t you make it a little longer? It’s getting shorter every time. Can’t we add ten minutes from the weeding time?”

“………….”

Su Min was a little surprised. It was too short.

What kind of prison would only give them five minutes for visitors? At the very minimum, most would give ten minutes. Five minutes was too short for them to do anything.

The man standing before them was expressionless like a robot.

Strangely, the entire cafeteria suddenly became quiet. It was as if the discussions just earlier were his imagination.

Su Min quietly assessed him.

He didn’t know who his visitor would be this time.

According to his memories, his character’s family background was quite complicated. They were all in the arts field and very rich, so his parents didn’t care much about him. This eventually resulted in some levels of paranoia.

And eventually his characters current predicament.

Su Min didn’t know if it would be useful mentioning something about this prison during his parents’ visit here.

It didn’t seem easy to escape from here.