Before the middle-aged man looked up, Qing Chen thought he was deaf. Such a commotion was happening beside him, yet it had not affected him in the slightest.
However, once the middle-aged man looked up, Qing Chen nearly thought he himself had gone deaf. The originally noisy square fell silent in an instant, without a single extra sound.
The surprise in the surrounding crowd's eyes, along with some inexplicable emotions, seemed to underscore the middle-aged man's identity.
Because in the past, this middle-aged man had never responded to anyone's pleas for help.
Qing Chen suddenly let out a breath of relief, because all of this proved that he had gambled correctly.
The middle-aged man said nothing to him. Instead, he calmly moved Red's front pawn forward one.
As for the Black side controlled by the middle-aged man, he chose to retreat the elephant from five to seven, capturing the pawn that had just charged forward so fiercely.
Qing Chen quietly watched the board from afar. This Four Bandits Capturing the King endgame was a fairly famous chess problem even on Earth. It had two variations, and the one before him was the more dangerous of the two.
An endgame generally referred to a position where Black was guaranteed to win, while Red could not even force a draw. If Red managed a draw, then the endgame would be considered solved.
But Qing Chen was not satisfied with a draw.
The Four Bandits Capturing the King endgame was rather unusual. Red's four fierce pawns had already crossed the Chu River and reached the back rank, while both chariots remained on the board.
The position looked evenly matched, but in truth, every step in this endgame was murderous and every corner hid a trap. Black needed only one move to win, while Red could only struggle desperately. One careless moment, and Red might think victory was within reach, only to be killed in return.
It was a dead end that seemed full of hope, yet slowly dragged people into despair.
"Continue," the middle-aged man said flatly.
"Pawn two across to three," Qing Chen said.
The middle-aged man's eyes lit up. He seemed to have finally become interested. He could not even be bothered to move the pieces anymore, instead closing his eyes and playing blind chess with Qing Chen. "General six forward one."
Qing Chen closed his eyes as well. "Rear chariot forward four."
"Elephant seven back to nine."
On the sixth move, Qing Chen suddenly said, "Chariot one forward seven!"
The middle-aged man's closed eyes opened again. He looked at Qing Chen in surprise. "Elephant five back to seven."
For the first five moves, their exchanges had been ordinary and unremarkable. But after the sixth move, they began trading pieces at every turn!
You kill me! I kill you! Blood flowed like rivers, and fallen soldiers covered the field!
Both sides were incomparably ruthless and decisive on the chessboard.
The two were like the calmest commanders on a battlefield, willing to sacrifice everything for final victory.
The Four Bandits Capturing the King position had somehow produced a fierce martial spirit under their hands, but behind that boldness lay deep calculations from both sides.
At the beginning, Red's four pawns that had crossed the river clearly looked more aggressive, yet Qing Chen sacrificed them one by one in exchange for other plans, leaving only the final pawn behind!
Chariot one across to four.
General four across to five.
Cannon four across to five.
Chariot three across to five.
On the fifteenth move, Qing Chen finally let out a long breath. "Pawn five forward one!"
The map was revealed, and the dagger appeared.
Capture the king!
Only at that moment did the solution to the Four Bandits Capturing the King endgame finally burst forth with an indescribable charm. The two sides had fought and countered each other across the boundary between the Chu River and Han Realm, making the middle-aged man feel as though he were truly facing off against a strategist on a battlefield.
Every move in this game was perilous to the extreme.
What surprised the middle-aged man most was that the youth before him was not very old, yet he had not hesitated in the slightest when sacrificing pieces to reshape the board.
It was certainly important not to abandon or give up, but war was war. How could war possibly come without sacrifice?
He quietly looked at the youth before him. Qing Chen was staring back at him, his expression solemn and unyielding.
It was as if Qing Chen intended to carve out a path to survival from this desperate situation and open up a new life for himself.
He understood now. He was playing chess, while Qing Chen was struggling to survive amid steel beasts that surrounded him on all sides. Their attitudes had been different from the start.
No one noticed that at that very moment, eighty-one of the 210 surveillance cameras in this prison fortress turned directly toward Qing Chen.
Vortices within the cameras' black lenses contracted, as though they were focusing on Qing Chen's face.
No one knew who was watching from behind those cameras.
The middle-aged man smiled and turned Black's old general upside down on the chessboard. "Interesting. Not many people play Chinese chess these days. Continue tomorrow."
After saying that, he clasped his hands behind his back and headed toward the library area, leaving the chessboard on the dining table, where no one dared touch it.
The gray cat on the table stood up and silently followed behind the middle-aged man.
When it curled up, the cat looked like a ball of fur and did not seem very large.
But once it stretched out, Qing Chen realized that it was over a meter long, enormous and exceptionally agile.
Ordinary cats walked lightly, in what people called a catwalk. This cat, however, carried itself with the bearing of a tiger.
Everyone in the square who had been watching was stunned. The youth had actually won this endgame?
To be honest, they did not understand Chinese chess either. Once the two began playing blind chess, they understood even less.
There were too many forms of entertainment in this era, and every one of them was more exciting and enjoyable than Chinese chess.
They could use chips to directly experience pleasure, or upload their consciousness into the virtual network. This was an age when happiness was incredibly cheap. Hardly anyone played Chinese chess anymore, and no matter how well one played, could they beat Artificial Intelligence?
Yet what shocked them about Qing Chen defeating the middle-aged man was this: how could that middle-aged man possibly lose in their eyes?
Whether in chess or combat, how could he lose?
To be honest, Qing Chen found it strange as well. This middle-aged man clearly had no mechanical limbs, nor did either of the two attendants beside him. Why, then, did he hold such high prestige in this prison full of steel beasts?
The young man who had stopped Qing Chen earlier winked at him. "Impressive. I'm Lin Xiaoxiao, and he's Ye Wan. See you tomorrow."
After saying that, he left with the other young man, Ye Wan, following the middle-aged man.
Qing Chen did not even know the middle-aged man's name yet. He only knew the names of the two attendants, but this was undoubtedly a very good beginning.
The frozen atmosphere in the square slowly came alive again only after the middle-aged man, Ye Wan, and Lin Xiaoxiao had all entered the reading area.
The prisoners who had been welcoming the newcomers were still dragging them into the cells. Including Qing Chen, there were twelve newcomers in total, and nine had already been dragged away.
When Qing Chen looked toward those prisoners again, however, no one dared set their sights on him anymore.
Suddenly, a young man with mechanical legs ran up to Qing Chen and said in panic, "We just got here too. Help me, and I'll listen to you from now on."
The surrounding prisoners watched coldly. They still could not quite figure out the situation. Qing Chen was definitely untouchable now, but if this youth wanted to protect other newcomers, they would not agree to it.
However, Qing Chen turned a deaf ear to the young man's words, his expression calm as though he had heard nothing.
The prisoners laughed and forcibly dragged the young man away.
The young man shouted, "My uncle is a director at City Changming Company No. 17! You people—"
Before he could finish, the other prisoners burst into laughter. "Other than The Five Great Companies, every other company is worthless. Forget you—even if your uncle came to this prison fortress, he'd still have to behave himself."
Qing Chen silently listened to everything, gathering every useful piece of information. He had just been distinguishing the identities of these newcomers, wanting to see whether any other people from Earth were hidden among them.
He himself had crossed over without any memories belonging to this world. Even now, he did not know how many years he had been sentenced to.
Qing Chen believed that the others had no memories either, so someone like this young man, who could mention connections outside prison, was probably not one of his "fellow townsmen."
Among the twelve new inmates, the only people from Earth should have been that distraught youth and himself.
For some reason, Qing Chen did not feel disappointed at all. Instead, he felt somewhat expectant about his utterly different... life.
A completely different life.
Those words sounded incredibly tempting.
When your own life had already become a complete mess, and someone placed a button before you and said: Press this, and you'll have an extraordinary life.
But after pressing it, there were two possibilities.
It might become better.
Or it might become worse.
Would you press it?
Qing Chen felt that he probably would.
Back on Earth, he had always seemed like an unnecessary person. His father found him burdensome, his mother had a new family, and his relatives rarely kept in touch with him.
Qing Chen had already spent two Spring Festivals alone.
So if your past life had been nothing but bleakness, then no matter how dangerous, unknown, or terrifying the new world was, it would still make you feel some anticipation.
This world was different. Coming here from Earth felt like an adventure born of rebellion in Qing Chen's life, but also like a release from his past.
If not for the anomaly involving the countdown, he would probably have studied hard, worked to support himself, then used his exceptional memory to get into a very good university far away and never return.
But that kind of life still seemed rather meaningless.
He believed that not many people had crossed over from Earth with him. Even if there were thousands or tens of thousands, it was still a tiny proportion compared to the total population.
That made him feel special.
Countdown 39:31:29.
Qing Chen silently studied everything around him. He wanted to record every piece of information he could see, so he could slowly analyze it once he returned to his cell alone.
Above an alloy gate beside the square, a blue holographic projection displayed a changing time: AM 8:29.
The three-dimensional hologram looked so novel and eye-catching. Eight twenty-nine in the morning.
At that moment, a young man waited until everyone else had shifted their attention before suddenly approaching Qing Chen and whispering, "You finally came in. You're indeed as good-looking as the rumors said. I'm Lu Guangyi. Qing Yan arranged for me to come in three months ago. Just call me Little Lu."
Qing Chen: "???"
He froze for a moment and looked at the man.
This young man named Lu Guangyi appeared to be around twenty-four or twenty-five. He had short black hair, a mechanical right arm and left leg, as well as mechanical eyes. Qing Chen could even see spiral patterns in his eyes shifting to adjust their focus.
Unlike the mechanical limbs worn by most prisoners, this set looked exceptionally refined in both streamlined design and materials.
Qing Chen searched through his memories, tracing the man's behavioral patterns.
Only then did Qing Chen realize that Lu Guangyi had looked at him twenty-one times in the past hour alone, and that was only the number of times Qing Chen had noticed him.
Qing Chen did not know who this person was, but his manner of speaking clearly indicated that he knew Qing Chen, and he was even using honorifics.
From what Lu Guangyi said, Qing Chen's entry into this prison fortress seemed to have another purpose.
But Qing Chen was afraid of exposing the fact that he had crossed over, so he did not want too much contact with Lu Guangyi for the time being. "I don't need your help yet. There are some things I can handle myself."
Lu Guangyi shook his head like a rattle drum. "No, no. I have to take good care of you."
Qing Chen shook his head as well. "No one's dignity is nobler than anyone else's. You don't need to use words like 'take care of.'"
At that moment, Lu Guangyi said ingratiatingly, "Don't say that. You can order me around however you want from now on. Just think of me as your bootlicker, the ** kind!"
Qing Chen was speechless. What kind of person could say something so utterly shameless? "Then what if I have athlete's foot?"
Lu Guangyi replied without the slightest embarrassment, "Then I can lick it better for you!"
Qing Chen fell silent for a long while. "...Impressive."
Even though he had been trying very hard not to speak carelessly, he could not help but marvel at it.
Qing Chen was completely baffled now. His body and consciousness had clearly crossed over together, so why did he have such bizarre past relationships?
In other words, in the eyes of the people in this world, had he really lived here for all those years?
Seeing that Qing Chen was not speaking, Lu Guangyi whispered, "This morning, I was still wondering why you hadn't come looking for me immediately. Turns out you planned to approach Li Shutong as a newcomer. Brilliant. In Prison No. 18, if we can gain Li Shutong's help, our plan will proceed much more smoothly."
Qing Chen: "..."
What plan?
What are you talking about?
Could you explain it more clearly?!
Lu Guangyi continued as though talking to himself, "I've been in here for over three months, and I've gathered a group of people who can be of use to you. Don't worry, they won't let you down."
The young man chattered nonstop.
Qing Chen felt that Lu Guangyi seemed rather talkative, while he himself only listened silently, not knowing how to respond.
It was like playing "Who's the Undercover?" while holding a blank card. You had to wait until everyone else had spoken before opening your mouth. Otherwise, if everyone else's word was "urine" and you were the first to say it could be drunk, that would cause a huge problem.
He searched through his memories and discovered that during breakfast, more than a hundred people had vaguely gathered around Lu Guangyi. Every one of them had mechanical limbs.
It seemed these people were the "subordinates" Lu Guangyi had recruited after entering the prison.
Seeing that Qing Chen still was not speaking, Lu Guangyi lowered his voice again and asked, "But you should be careful around Li Shutong too. Getting involved with someone like him is like seeking a tiger's skin. Things could easily put us at a disadvantage... Sorry, I spoke out of turn."
At that moment, Qing Chen realized that the Li Shutong he mentioned was probably the middle-aged man.
Lu Guangyi had seen him immediately go play chess with Li Shutong after entering and mistakenly believed that he had come carrying out a mission.
But Qing Chen had not approached Li Shutong for any damn plan. He had approached him to stay alive.
"What instructions did you bring in this time?" Lu Guangyi suddenly asked.
Qing Chen slowly turned his head to look at the young man. "A lama came from the south."
Lu Guangyi: "???"
Qing Chen ignored him, turned, and walked away, leaving Lu Guangyi standing there in a daze. "A lama came from the south? What lama?"
Chapter Six is out. Please vote and send monthly tickets.
Thanks to Nan Gengchen, Ferocious Little Alpaca, Shenyin, Baili Tongyun, and Lonely Lonely Lonely Widowed Widowed for becoming Alliance Leaders of this book!
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