A Transcendent Status

Qing Chen had once wondered whether countdowns had appeared on other people's arms as well.

It was precisely because of that suspicion that he had been so cautious, taking the subway far away to verify certain things, lest someone follow the clues and find him later.

But then a series of upheavals had followed one after another, causing Qing Chen to nearly forget that suspicion.

Now, it seemed his suspicion had ultimately become reality.

There had to be quite a few people who had crossed over from Earth into this world. There were two in this prison alone, not to mention the world beyond it.

How many crossers were there? Hundreds? Thousands?

And why had they crossed over?

Qing Chen couldn't be sure.

"This new guy is pretty interesting. Don't tell me he's an idiot," someone said with a laugh as he watched the collapsed teenager. "I heard he got seven years for tax evasion? He didn't cry when they brought him in yesterday, but he's crying now."

"Anyone who dares mess with the tax collection authorities these days has to be an idiot..."

Qing Chen looked toward the source of the voice. It was a young man fitted with mechanical legs. Seeing Qing Chen look over, the man curled his lips into a smile. "Hey, newbie, are you ready?"

The surrounding crowd immediately burst into laughter, seemingly all waiting to watch a good show.

This place was clearly so futuristic and advanced, yet humanity's uglier side seemed not to have changed at all.

Qing Chen frowned but ignored them, turning his attention back to the teenager surrounded by drones.

He was probably the only one who knew why the other boy hadn't cried yesterday but was crying today: like Qing Chen, he had only just crossed over from Earth's "greenhouse" today and was having trouble accepting reality.

This wasn't a guess. Qing Chen had seen him before.

Qing Chen was seventeen this year and in his second year of high school at Luo City Foreign Languages School.

The collapsed teenager was a first-year student.

The two had never interacted before, but Qing Chen had an excellent memory. Once he had seen something, it was hard for him to forget.

That surprised Qing Chen somewhat. Could it be that if people had been close together before crossing over, they would also arrive close together afterward?

He couldn't be certain.

However, Qing Chen had noticed something: everyone here spoke Mandarin. Not a single person spoke in a dialect.

At that moment, the robotic guards were charging up the stairs, each step spanning five stairs at once, accompanied by the distinctive sound of hydraulic transmissions.

The teenager had cried until he was utterly disheveled.

Half the people in this prison fortress had mechanical limbs. Meeting someone from Earth in a place surrounded by steel beasts gave Qing Chen a strange sense of encountering an old friend in a foreign land.

Ordinary people would feel an inexplicable sense of security upon meeting a "fellow countryman" somewhere unfamiliar.

But Qing Chen didn't feel that way. Looking at the teenager on the verge of collapse, he realized that a "fellow countryman" might not necessarily help him. They might instead become a burden.

Not everyone could remain calm when facing this unfamiliar Mechanical Civilization.

What he needed to do now was survive these first two days, then return to Earth and figure out why all this was happening.

Qing Chen watched silently and unobtrusively. For some reason, he felt even calmer at that moment.

Even now, all the prisoners remained standing in place without moving.

He looked around the prison fortress. Of the nine robots that had rushed in through the outer gate of the prison block, three had remained downstairs to maintain martial law in the square, while the others had gone upstairs to take away the panicked teenager.

The square downstairs was spacious, about the size of a football field.

The open square was divided into several areas: a dining hall, a fitness equipment and recreation area, a reading area, an audiovisual area, and so on...

There were no partitions between these areas. It resembled a large open activity space, while eight enormous steel gates were positioned around the edge of the square.

Those gates were so large that armored vehicles could probably pass through them directly.

Suddenly, Qing Chen froze. He saw that three people had somehow appeared beside a dining table in the square below.

A middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties sat there, while two young men stood beside him with smiles on their faces, looking up at the prisoners upstairs with interest.

A Chinese chessboard sat before the middle-aged man, with an endgame already arranged upon it.

Most astonishingly, beside the chessboard on the dining table lay a cat dozing with its paws tucked beneath it. It was gray, with two pointed tufts of fur on its ears. It looked somewhat like a lynx, yet not quite.

A Maine Coon.

They could keep cats in prison?!

Qing Chen was stunned. His attention had been drawn to his "fellow countryman" earlier, so he hadn't even noticed when the three men and the cat had arrived in the square.

At that moment, the middle-aged man stared intently at the chessboard, as though what was happening upstairs had nothing to do with him.

What surprised Qing Chen even more was that even the robots in the square acted as though the three men and the cat didn't exist.

The solemn tension upstairs and the relaxed composure downstairs created a stark contrast, as though they belonged to two different worlds.

Of the three men, the two young men wore ordinary blue-and-white prison uniforms, while the middle-aged man wore a white martial arts uniform.

In this gloomy, oppressive environment, that patch of white seemed exceptionally detached from the world.

Qing Chen silently pondered whether this man might be the warden.

No. Although the man wore a martial arts uniform unlike the other prisoners, a small black inmate number was embroidered over its chest.

This middle-aged man was also a prisoner here, just the most special one.

As though sensing his gaze, one of the young men beside the middle-aged man suddenly turned around and smiled back at him.

Qing Chen immediately looked away.

After the collapsed teenager from Earth was taken away, the prison fortress broadcast sounded again. "Proceed to the dining hall in order by queue."

The moment the announcement ended, Qing Chen saw all the prisoners turn right, then form long lines and head down the stairs toward the square.

Only then did Qing Chen have a chance to count all the prisoners: including himself, there were 3,102.

The prison fortress had seven floors in total. The prisoners on each floor formed a queue, led by the prisoner at the front as they proceeded to the dining hall in orderly succession.

No one cut in line, and no one left their queue. Qing Chen felt that everyone here was operating according to a predetermined program, as though everything had been "restrained."

That order only ended after everyone had collected their food from the robot serving windows.

It seemed that once they had collected their meals, they could move freely.

Qing Chen and the others lived on the fifth floor, so by the time it was their turn to collect food, the people from the first floor had already finished eating. He saw two burly prisoners dragging a young man directly toward the first-floor cells nearest the dining hall, with quite a few people following alongside and jeering.

Someone even called out, "Hurry up and drag him into the cell. Don't hurt him in the square, or the robot guards might interfere."

One of the prisoners dragging the young man replied casually, "Relax. I'm not an idiot like Yang Jie."

At the same time, the young man struggled desperately and roared, "Let me go!"

But just as he was about to be dragged into the cell, his voice turned pleading. "Please, spare me!"

Yet no matter what he said, no one paid any attention to his pleas. Instead, he only drew louder laughter.

Suddenly, the old man with mechanical eyes in front of him turned around and smiled. "Stop looking around. It'll be your turn soon enough."

Qing Chen looked at him calmly. The old man suddenly felt that the teenager's gaze was somehow different. For no apparent reason, his heart tightened.

After receiving their meals at the window, the formation fell apart.

Qing Chen noticed three people subtly moving closer to him, as though they intended to seize him outright!

He immediately quickened his pace, and they did the same, tightly surrounding him!

The next moment, the entire prison fortress seemed to play through Qing Chen's mind in meticulous detail.

Eighteen machine guns, like steel beasts, stood silently on standby along the dome, like sleeping tigers.

Seventy-two drones hung in slots in the gray alloy ceiling, like dormant hornets.

Two hundred and ten surveillance cameras slowly rotated, while three armed robots stood in the square.

The prisoners collected their meals from the serving windows one after another. Some complained that today's synthetic meat was disgusting again.

Some people washed their trays by the sinks, while others washed trays for others.

As more and more people finished eating, the square grew lively. People moved back and forth, some heading to the fitness area while others gathered to watch the newcomer initiation.

However, everyone instinctively avoided the middle-aged man staring at the chessboard.

The man continued studying the board seriously. No one came within five meters of him. He was like a calm, unyielding reef upon the sea, forcing all raging waters and ships to yield.

Holding his tray, Qing Chen suddenly accelerated through the encirclement of the three men and headed toward the middle-aged man.

Seeing where he was going, many people suddenly realized what this newcomer intended to do.

Gradually, more and more people turned their eyes toward him and whispered among themselves. The expressions on the prisoners' faces seemed to say they were waiting to watch him make a fool of himself.

There were many new prisoners who noticed the middle-aged man's unusual status, and many who wanted to rely on him to escape their predicament. Qing Chen had never been the only one.

But in truth, everyone had failed.

Still, Qing Chen turned a deaf ear to the mocking voices and continued through the crowd with his tray in hand, as though no one else existed.

Before he could approach, one of the young men beside the middle-aged man stopped him. Smiling, he said, "Newbie, I know what you're planning, but we won't help you."

The young man had guessed Qing Chen's intentions, but Qing Chen shifted his gaze past him.

The middle-aged man remained oblivious to everything happening beside him, as though he hadn't heard a thing.

Qing Chen looked seriously at the middle-aged man. "Advance the front pawn one square. I can solve this endgame."

Only then did the middle-aged man raise his head. The square suddenly fell silent, and the cat opened its eyes as well.

Thanks to Haihunyi for becoming this book's Silver Alliance Leader.

Thanks to Liren, Teacher Ren, Snoring Mouse, Big Ice-er, Making Saucy Remarks to Reach Hot Comments, Yanzu Zu, and Wang Jianing for becoming Alliance Leaders of this book!