More Than One

Return countdown 47:59:58.

Return countdown 47:59:57.

Had he crossed over?

So the end of the countdown meant crossing into another time and space, while the return countdown referred to the time until he went back.

At that thought, Qing Chen first let out a sigh of relief. Being able to return was a good thing.

Though there might not be anyone over there thinking about him. His mother had a new life and had no time to think about him. His father... was probably in detention.

So he probably had no time to think about him either.

Even so, Qing Chen still wanted to go back and take a look.

And what he needed to do now was survive these forty-eight hours.

So... this was the first day of the countdown.

Qing Chen began reassessing this "New World" before him.

The instant the world came back together, Qing Chen saw the prison uniform on himself and immediately understood his situation.

He was in a dim gray room. Apart from an alloy security door brimming with a sense of technology, the other sides were completely sealed walls.

There was a small window in the thirty-five-inch-wide door, but it was closed at the moment.

The cell was a single room with only one bed, covered by a thin sheet.

There was also a storage rack beside it. Other than a quilt, toothbrush, and towel, it was completely empty.

The walls of the cell were gray, but what Qing Chen could not understand was that under the faint light outside, those gray walls clearly gave off a metallic sheen.

Metal walls?

Qing Chen sat up and blankly touched the wall. What kind of place would use such extravagantly expensive building materials?

Clearly, this place did not belong to the world he had once known.

He quickly lowered his head to look at his palms. The fingerprints on them were exactly the same as before; even the positions of the pores on his hands were not the slightest bit different.

This was his own body.

After crossing into this world, the boning knife in Qing Chen's hand had vanished, as had the clothes he had originally worn. But this body was undeniably his own.

Fingerprints and pore placement could not lie.

Qing Chen sat on the bed with his knees drawn up, staring at the heavy alloy door, unsure what he was thinking.

Gradually, the outside of the door began to grow noisy. He could even hear people pounding hard on the alloy cell doors.

Qing Chen slowly walked to the door, intending to press against it and listen to what was being shouted outside. Before he could make it out, however, the alloy door gave a clear pneumatic hiss and opened.

He looked outside. Beyond the door was a square-shaped corridor.

The square prison fortress had seven floors, each one lined with densely packed, neatly arranged cells.

In the vast, empty prison fortress outside, only scattered lights were on. Behind the opened alloy doors were dim cells, as though each one held a beast.

Qing Chen stood in the doorway. It seemed that as long as he took this step, he would head toward an unknown life.

A pleasant female voice suddenly rang out from somewhere over the prison's broadcast system. "It is seven o'clock in the morning. Breakfast time. All inmates, please line up and proceed to the cafeteria for your meal."

The voice echoed through the prison fortress, while Qing Chen continued looking at the threshold before him.

It seemed that if he stepped over it, everything would become different.

In truth, he felt that he had already changed from a certain moment onward.

When had it begun?

Probably... when he thought he had only two and a half hours left to live, so he went and did what he had always wanted to do but had never dared to do.

He had even reported his own biological father. What else was there to fear?

He stepped out of the cell.

But the next moment, he froze again.

In the not particularly wide corridor outside, a prisoner stood in front of every cell door.

Qing Chen's pupils suddenly contracted.

An old man with a hunched back looked toward him. In one of the man's eye sockets was a mechanical eye glowing faintly red. His entire right eye socket was mechanical in structure, the metal components extending all the way to his right temple.

The mechanical eye did not look refined; it even seemed somewhat crude. Yet for some reason, Qing Chen felt an oppressive force from the eye staring at him.

It was as if the other man were analyzing every detail about him.

Just as Qing Chen analyzed others with his memory.

A burly middle-aged prisoner had an entire right arm made of machinery. As the man flexed his fingers, Qing Chen could hear the metallic clatter of mechanical parts turning when his hand opened and closed.

That thick metal arm was like knotted muscles of steel, tough and violent.

In this entire prison fortress, half the people actually had mechanical limbs.

Mechanical Civilization.

Those two words sprang into Qing Chen's mind.

Before he could think further, the burly prisoner in the neighboring cell smiled at him. "Hey, newcomer, don't eat too much breakfast. Otherwise, it'll look ugly when you throw it up."

As soon as he spoke, laughter erupted from quite a few people in the corridor. "Heard twelve newcomers arrived last night. We can have some fun today."

"This kid doesn't have a single mechanical limb. Looks like he doesn't have any connections outside either."

When Qing Chen heard the words "newcomer," he froze. He had thought they knew he had just crossed over from Earth.

But he quickly realized that "newcomer" likely meant he had just entered prison. They probably did not know he was from Earth.

And Qing Chen frowned as he considered it. The "fun" they spoke of would probably be a disaster for him.

But the question was, how was he supposed to survive among these mechanical "beasts"?

He restrained the agitation and fear in his heart. Faced with such a sudden, vicious turn of events, the only thing Qing Chen, an ordinary second-year high school student, could do was force himself not to reveal anything unusual.

Because he did not know what consequences would follow if it were exposed that he came from another world.

Suddenly, a teenager in the corridor on the fourth floor opposite him snapped. "What kind of place is this?! I want to go home! I don't want to stay in this godforsaken place! Who are you people?! I'm Huang Jixian! My dad is the chairman of Yongli Group in Luo City! Stay away from me!"

As he spoke, the teenager actually began running wildly down the corridor.

No one else moved. They stood where they were watching as if enjoying a show, still maintaining the lines formed to head to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Someone asked in confusion, "Where is Luo City?"

All at once, Qing Chen heard a buzzing above his head. He looked up and was shocked to find four drones resembling iron boxes detaching from the wall of the high, deep ceiling and descending.

Qing Chen's gaze remained on the ceiling. Eighteen Gatling-like six-barreled machine-gun turrets were embedded upside down in the alloy walls in neat rows.

As the panicked teenager ran, the muzzles of nine of the machine guns turned with him!

"Please stop moving," a female voice said from the drones. "Final warning: please stop moving."

Immediately afterward, the female broadcast voice rang through the prison fortress. "All inmates, remain where you are."

In little more than ten seconds, the four drones had completely blocked the teenager in one section of the corridor, with a gun barrel beneath each drone aimed at him.

At the same time, a hatch below the prison fortress opened, and nine robots carrying unknown firearms rushed in at full speed.

The teenager slid down the wall in terror, while Qing Chen watched it all coldly.

The other boy's actions had been somewhat extreme, but they had helped Qing Chen understand a great deal.

Machine guns, drones, robots, mechanical limbs—countless pieces of information flooded into his mind all at once.

But what surprised Qing Chen most was that, as he watched every aspect of the teenager's behavior, he suddenly realized that he might not be the only person who had come here from Earth.

He was not the first, and probably would not be the last.

(Chapter Four: Please Vote and Send Monthly Tickets)