"Whew, thank goodness. You're still alive."
"But I'm going to die soon. I'll die of illness before they can behead me tomorrow morning. I can't hold on anymore," he said.
"No, you can hold on. There are still thirteen full hours left."
"Right, how did you get here? Weren't you locked up in the cells on the fourth level all this time?"
"I killed two jailers so they'd decide to execute me and put me in a beheading cell on the third level. That was the only way I could find you and make sure you were still alive."
"Ah, you shouldn't have done that. Now you'll die too."
"Then let me die. Compared to spending my whole life down here, death would be a release."
The two whispered to each other with a cell between them, their voices too low for anyone else to hear. Only Zeng Mu, in the cell between theirs, could hear every word clearly.
They had barely spoken for a while before the man ran out of strength to continue. After several violent coughs, he curled up on his straw bed and seemed to slip into unconsciousness again.
The sixth prison block finally returned to its usual bustle. Some prisoners crazily slapped the iron bars with their palms; others punched and kicked the walls, venting their pent-up emotions to keep themselves from going mad. Some lay on their beds pleasuring themselves while imagining beautiful women, while others muttered incomprehensibly like shamans.
Besides these noises, screams and the sounds of whipping could be heard from the fifth prison block. Any prisoner with a little experience knew some unlucky bastard was being taught a lesson with a jailer's iron whip.
Those damned bastards. Even as a ghost, I won't let them off. Whenever screams rang out, almost