Skeletons and Rats

Chen Nan was locked in a dark little room. His eyes were filled with darkness, so dark he could not see a thing. He shuffled his feet along the ground to avoid tripping over any clutter, but this place seemed remarkably flat.

So Chen Nan cautiously widened his stride. He wanted to get familiar with the surroundings.

Who knew that in a moment of carelessness, his foot would step on a round stick, sending his whole body tumbling down.

He landed on a pile of something with a crisp clatter, his face pressed directly against it.

From so close, Chen Nan finally made out what it was.

Pale ghostly light gleamed with an eerie green sheen from the friction. It was clearly a skeleton!

And what Chen Nan's face was pressed against was the skeleton's skull!

He did not scream, but fear seeped into every inch of Chen Nan's skin like grease.

He felt weak all over, yet he still forced himself to struggle back to his feet.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the vague outline of the room gradually emerged before Chen Nan.

There was more than one skeleton. In the four corners, sitting, half-reclining, or lying flat, there were at least five or six of them.

Having transmigrated here from an Earth with such advanced technological civilization, Chen Nan was not frightened out of his wits by a few skeletons. His fear came from what those skeletons represented.

At first, he had thought his punishment would merely be for show. Could they really lock him in here for a week without food? People would die like that. How could that be possible?

Yet these skeletons told him plainly that it was entirely possible!

The fear of death made Chen Nan's stomach churn. His poor stomach had truly been unlucky enough—first it had to endure hunger, and now it had to endure its master's physical reactions brought on by terror.

"No, I can't die here no matter what," Chen Nan muttered. "That would be far too suffocating. At the very least, I..."

He had almost said that he was, at the very least, a transmigrator, but decided it was better to be cautious.

Yet his desire to live only grew fiercer.

"Grrr~"

His stomach and intestines were rebelling. Chen Nan could only force them down and try to calmly think of how he could escape.

He began inspecting the entire room. It seemed quite possible to escape, but unfortunately, that only applied to a well-fed adult with strength.

And he was only a child of around ten, one who had been malnourished for a long time. Hungry as he was now, how could he possibly get out?

Helplessness, fear, and the anger born from them left Chen Nan muddled. He suddenly shouted and hurled himself at the door.

He hoped a miracle would happen, but he had not considered what he could do even if he got out this way.

Reality gave him a bloody lesson.

"Ah!"

A piercing pain shot through him. Several nails with their sharp ends facing inward had stabbed into his shoulder from the door.

Chen Nan covered the wounds, tears nearly falling. He hated the people here for being so vicious that they had nailed spikes into the door, and hated himself for failing to notice them when he had inspected it earlier.

A moment later, something even more terrifying occurred to him: a particularly dreadful disease called tetanus.

In such a vile environment, who knew how filthy those iron nails were? And those wounds were so narrow and deep...

Chen Nan slumped onto the floor. It was so damp that it seemed to have been soaked in water, but after all that struggling, he no longer wanted to get up.

The merciless cold was like Black and White Impermanence, hooking the warm soul from his body bit by bit. At that moment, Chen Nan was like a cold-blooded animal, his body so cold it nearly matched the surrounding temperature.

Only his chest retained a trace of warmth, because he was complaining—complaining as though grinding his teeth and sucking blood:

Damn it, is this what transmigration is!?

We both transmigrated, so why is the gap this huge?

At least give me the cliché of a useless good-for-nothing whose engagement gets broken off, or a drunken father or something! Why did I have to transmigrate into an orphan? Does this mean my parents were sacrificed to the heavens, granting me boundless power?

But I haven't seen any old grandpa, any system, or any random junk in my brain either.

In truth, Chen Nan had never believed in those transmigration novels. Yet now, he could not help letting his imagination run wild. But no matter how he tried to coax it along, nothing strange happened.

In the end, he could only helplessly admit that he was just an ordinary child. So ordinary that all he could do was wait here to die.

This lousy room would be his final grave.

Perhaps this counted as a reward for him? He could clearly have died instantly and painlessly, yet he had been made to transmigrate here and slowly taste death's approach.

Fine, maybe it could only be considered a punishment.

But he had never done anything bad, had he? Haha, then who told him not to do bad things? That girl had made it obvious that she was willing to get a room and sleep with him, but he had insisted on pretending to be a decent man. In the end, she married someone else.

On the day of her wedding, her explanation to him had been: "You're a good person, but we have no fate together."

A good person!

Haha!

A good person!

Chen Nan muttered the words aloud, though he did not know what he was thinking. Then, in a daze, he actually fell asleep.

Bang, bang!

There was a faint knock at the door. Chen Nan thought he was dreaming, but he immediately sat up and asked, "Who is it?"

"Shh, keep it down!" It was Little Black Ox's voice. "Chen Nan, I saved some dinner for you. Hurry and take it in to eat."

Chen Nan did not know what sort of feeling it was. There was bitterness, excitement, and perhaps even a trace of warmth.

He went to the door. Through the gap at the bottom, barely two fingers wide, he could see the chilly moonlight outside.

A small hand passed half a thin flatbread through the gap. It got covered in dirt as he took it, but Chen Nan could no longer care about that. He wolfed it down in two bites.

His stomach was like a tranquil pool into which metallic sodium had been thrown—it exploded at once. Waves of agony, like red-hot blades carving through him, made Chen Nan double over like a shrimp.

After enduring it for a long while, his stomach finally recognized that it was food and stopped making trouble. Yet like a miser, having gained this tiny bit only stirred up immense greed. Chen Nan suddenly felt even hungrier.

But he knew that eating a little was still better than eating nothing.

"What's wrong?" Little Black Ox asked when he heard Chen Nan groan.

"I'm fine. I'm much better now. Thank you, Little Black Ox," Chen Nan said earnestly.

"We're friends, aren't we? Why say that?" Little Black Ox said with a smile. "I'll bring you some food every day. I hope you can hold on through these days, that you can—can come out alive."

A stretch of silence followed. Chen Nan wanted to ask some things, such as whether, in this Orphanage, a child's life was worth less than a tree.

But he did not ask. There was no point anymore.

Staying alive was what he should care about most. So he said to Little Black Ox, "Food isn't the biggest problem. Can you get me water to drink? Without water, I won't survive."

Little Black Ox said, "I'll think of something tomorrow. I have to get back quickly. If they catch me leaving the dormitory in the middle of the night, it'll be bad."

With that, he quickly left.

From his own experience, Chen Nan could believe just how severe the consequences would be if Little Black Ox were caught.

What was more, Little Black Ox was not very smart. His forehead was short and flat; one look told Chen Nan that he was a child with impaired brain development. Sigh, that only proved it—good people were all fools.

Having just received a little warmth, Chen Nan lay on the floor, unable to sleep. His thoughts were as quiet as the night itself.

The summer insects' chirping, the sound of flowing water in the distance, and the occasional breath of fresh air drifting in from outside made the transmigrated Chen Nan truly unwilling to die here.

But what could he do?

There were no transmigration benefits, and this body did not seem to possess any special power. Getting out of here was simply impossible.

Because even if he got out, the outside world would still be extremely dangerous.

He had to persist and stay alive here. That meant solving the problem of food and drink, with water being the main issue.

He hoped Little Black Ox could steadily keep bringing him those things, yet he also hoped Little Black Ox would not come again. It would drag him down.

But without Little Black Ox, who else could he rely on?

Who can help me?

Squeak, squeak~

It was the sound of Rats, but that was only how it registered in Chen Nan's ears. In his heart, it carried another meaning.

It was a vague concept, but the moment Chen Nan grew excited, that concept slipped away like a loach.

He knew there were many Rats in this dark room, and not just Rats. Some unpleasant insects had crawled over his body as well. But when he could barely save his own life, how could he care about so much?

For a moment, Chen Nan had considered eating those insects, but he ultimately abandoned the thought.

What had just happened? It had seemed as though the Rats were communicating with him.

Chen Nan grew excited, but the more excited he became, the harder it was to recover that feeling. So he took several deep breaths and let his thoughts return to calm.

Those natural rhythms once again merged with his heart. Chen Nan did not speak, lest words disturb his state of mind.

Then, as though it were only natural, certain sensations appeared in his heart. He felt that his consciousness seemed able to connect with those weak little creatures, such as insects and Rats.

Very quickly, several Rats scurried toward him and nestled beneath him.

Chen Nan had not expected Rats' bodies to be so warm. They made him feel extremely comfortable and warm. But he still wanted food, and so the Rats suddenly hurried away.

They crawled out through the crack beneath the door. About a quarter of an hour later, they returned, dragging flatbread and smoked meat with them.

Two flatbreads and four pieces of smoked meat were laid out before him. The little Rats stood upright with their front paws clasped together, squeaking as they looked at Chen Nan.