Those pale, ice-green eyes reflected the glow of the glass lamp. Three seconds later, his eyelashes lowered marginally.
“The time warp in the cell started on January 15,” Anfield said.
Yu Feichen, “You know this?”
“Two prisoners disappeared from here on the morning of January 15.” Anfield spoke indifferently.
“I received some testimonies during the day,” Anfield said. “One of the two prisoners who escaped was an architect. He had once tried to dig a tunnel to break out and had continually received many unreasonable punishments for this infraction. At 1 a.m. on the 14th, he was even brought out of the barracks by a drunk soldier to write a work report for him.”
Yu Feichen had known that Anfield was deployed here to investigate the case of the prisoners’ disappearance. However, it mustn’t have been easy for this senior officer to obtain useful testimonies considering the enmity Oak Valley Concentration Camp showed the investigator. He recalled the faint whiff of blood from Anfield that day, as well as the chief warden’s hateful and fearful attitude.
In the cell that they were in, once it passed the stroke of midnight, time would be different from what it once was in the concentration camp. If someone peered in from outside, everyone inside would appear asleep. But perhaps if they opened the door, they would be spirited into the future as well.
Whereas on the morning of January 14, soldiers were still able to bring the people inside out, which was indicative that during that time, everything was normal.
So, the time anomaly started on January 15.
Yu Feichen wrote on the paper. “Then we don’t have much time.”
Anfield nodded imperceptibly.
In the sombre atmosphere, Bai Song’s puzzled voice rang out. “What are you talking about?”
Looking at Bai Song, Yu Feichen sighed, just as though he was looking at his previous employers.
“Since January 15, the people in this cell were able to see the state of the concentration camp eight days later.” He said, “The question is, what exactly are we looking at, and in what form does it appear to us?”
“Perhaps the gods are sending a prophetic vision as a warning to us,” Bai Song said.
“The friar thought so, too. And now he is not even a speck of dust,” Yu Feichen said.
Certainly, this couldn’t be any kind of prophecy of the Gods, but a fault that had appeared in this world, whereas the cell was like a node that connected the two different time points.
But the question now lay in whether or not the future shown to them was real.
If it was an accurate portrayal of the future, then why would it change according to the events that occurred in a new day? No continuity existed between what they saw on the 28th and the 29th.
But if it was simply a prophecy presented based on the unfolding of events, then why did the friar and the short-statured man die?
Anfield opened his mouth.
“It is real and it follows rules. Also, its sphere is limited to this concentration camp,” he said.
Yu Feichen also believed so as well.
It might not be their real future, but it was still a real time point that existed. Otherwise, the short-statured man wouldn’t have disappeared upon seeing his corpse.
As for how they knew the sphere was limited to this concentration camp—that was obvious. Once the friar opened the gate and walked outside, he vanished. Where he was now was anyone’s guess. Perhaps, just like that, he had vanished into the unending void, because where he was heading was a place that never existed.
Since it was a real and not a so-called prophecy or illusion, then there must be a way in which the actual time point they were in and this time point in the future intersected.
“The anomaly began from January 15,” he said. “In that case, it will likely end on the 22nd.”
The gobsmacked expression returned to Bai Song’s face. “Why’s that?”
“After midnight on the 22nd, we’ll arrive to the 23rd.”
Bai Song nodded.
“Right,” Yu Feichen said. “However, the 23rd had already appeared on the 15th.”
Bai Song gave a start.
“In other words, it has already been prophesised.” Yu Feichen changed his wording.
“And… and so?” Bai Song asked.
“So it won’t end well for us once we pass the 22nd.”
“You don’t make sense.” Bai Song gave it a thought then said, “Based on the rules in these few days, the 15th allows a vision of the 23rd, and when the actual time turns to the 23rd, we should see the 31st.”
“There’s that possibility,” Yu Feichen said. “But if that’s the case, it has nothing to do with us.”
—it would be like a movie of a parallel world was being broadcasted at a fixed timing every day and had nothing to do with them whether or not they watched it. It didn’t represent anything, nor did it allude to anything. They only needed to go on normally and work hard to escape.
Bai Song still maintained that expression of ‘you don’t make sense’, saying, “Then if it’s as you said, what does that have to do with us?”
Anfield chuckled when he heard this.
He said, “Then, it becomes relevant.”
“Generally, 23rd should come after the 22nd,” Anfield said. “But will it really?”
“Yeah it should.” Bai Song’s eyes widened. “Time… time moves forward. The 23rd should come after the 22nd.”
“But the 23rd has already passed.” Yu Feichen broke the silence, saying, “It has already happened with the 15th.”
Bai Song was dazed. A while later, he seemed to suddenly grasp something beyond terrifying. His befuddlement was exposed in his eyes, the way humans always reacted when encountering something that they couldn’t comprehend.
After a long time, he finally spoke, “So… what is going on here?”
Yu Feichen took out the notepad that he had been scribbling on just now.
The page that he flipped open to had the sixteen digits between 30 to 15 written vertically downwards.
“Normal time flows like this.” He drew an arrow pointing upwards from 15 to 30 with the pen.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 ... 15 ←
Bai Song nodded.
“However, based on our present circumstance, there’s a fault in time. It has disconnected.”
As he spoke, he drew a horizontal line splitting 22 and 23 apart.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 | 22 ... 15 ←
He flipped to the next page on the notepad. It was still those numbers, but they had turned from one into two lines at the cut-off point. 30 to 23 ran downwards on the left side, whereas the right side showed 22 to 15. Also, accordingly, there were 8 lines in total.
“After time breaks off, it overlaps like this. This is what we’ve experienced in the past few days,” he said.
Stupefied, Bai Song took those two iron barbs that were used to pick the lock, separating them and sticking them together.
Yu Feichen felt fatigued; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to explain, rather that he had spoken too much tonight. If this fatigue persisted, he would quickly enter the state that had triggered all those complaints against him.
As though able to see his fatigue and also in light of Bai Song’s confusion, Anfield took over the paper and pen, drawing a horizontal line between 15 and 23, then another line from 16 to 24, 17 to 25, continuing as such until 22 to 30.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23
| | | | | | | |
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 ←
“These overlapping dates are what we’ve been encountering. The 23rd appears to us on the 15th, the 24th to us on the 16th, and so on.” His tone was cool and crisp, and his diction precise and clear. “This cell is the line that connects them.”
“It appears to be that way,” Bai Song nodded. “And so?”
Anfield wrote a ’14’ underneath the ’15’ and a ’31’ above the ’30’. Then, he drew an upwards arrow on the side. “However, time needs to move forward.”
Stupefied, Bai Song staggered the two overlapping barbs slightly, letting sharp tips show on the two ends.
“We move from the 14th to the 31st. But the sixteen days between are overlapped due to the anomaly,” Anfield said. “So, when the 15th passes, 23rd has also become yesterday.”
Bai Song hesitantly nodded his head.
“Today is the 21st. The overlap will disappear at the end of the 22nd. The question is, what will we encounter when we reach midnight of the 23rd?”
“It could be that nothing at all would happen, and we would arrive at a new 23rd, not here.” He pointed at the 15 and corresponding 23 with the tip of the pen.
“Or, if we arrive at this 23rd that has been prophesised before—that won’t bode well, I’m afraid.”
Yu Feichen gazed at the notepad, recovering slightly from his fatigue. He said. “Or, we could be forever stuck where time disconnected. The 22nd.”
Anfield nodded. The tip of the pen shifted over 31. “It is also possible that time would forever move forwards; After the 22nd has passed along with its corresponding 30th, we might directly join back to the concentration camp on the 31st. But we don’t know what the concentration camp will look like on the 31st. Perhaps it’s all corpses, just like today.”
“So what you mean is,” Bai Song’s stupefaction turned into despair, “regardless, once the 22nd is over, we’re screwed.”
Anfield, “Yeah.”
“Then,” the brawny blonde seemed to also finally understand some of it, “which is the most likely?”
“I’m leaning towards the last,” Anfield said. “In the past few days, we have only been observing a few possible futures through a channel or a window. But once we reach the 23rd, the real future will arrive.”
Yu Feichen looked at Anfield. Tin Cloud Military Academy teaches ‘observation’ huh, he thought coldly.
“At that time, it would be useless to keep our eyes closed to this. In reality, it’s impossible to have two identical people.” His voice had a subtle misty quality to it.
Yu Feichen took the notepad away from Anfield’s hand, keeping it.
“Sleep,” he said.
Bafflement was written all over Bai Song’s face. “Just… Just like that?”
“What do you want to do then?” Yu Feichen asked.
“Continue…” Bai Song looked at his notepad. “Continue doing math, or something.”
Yu Feichen said, “I don’t like doing math.”
After giving a long lecture on this math question, he ultimately came to a simple conclusion:
Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress
Before the 22nd passed, he had to bring every single one of his fellow Koroshans out of this damned place.
He had forty hours left.
This could very well be the mission the Gate of the Eternal Night had entrusted him.
Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress
“The sphere of the anomaly is limited to the concentration camp.” He heard Anfield speak lightly. “I will attempt to communicate with the Sr. Colonel to transfer all of you out before then.”
“You…” Bai Song had switched to address him more formally.
“What did Tin Cloud send you over for?”
Tin Cloud was the capital of the country to which the Black Badge Army belonged.
This question was very incisive, especially when it was asked from a Koroshan prisoner to a Tin Cloud captain.
“Investigate the disappearance of the prisoners and verify that there are no lapses in the management of the Oak Valley Concentration Camp.” Anfield answered him.
“Then, are you going to treat the prisoners well?”
Anfield glanced at him.
“There’s still some controversy regarding the treatment of prisoners in Tin Cloud,” said Anfield.
This answer fell within Yu Feichen’s expectations.
Controversy. This implied that the Black Badge Army didn’t have a strict policy for the treatment of prisoners. This also meant that in the present at least, all their actions have been tacitly approved. Once something cruel happened, it could only get even more so.
No one spoke after that. The first shaft of daylight shone into the cell, and the cell quietly transformed.
The brawny blonde’s corpse suddenly vanished from the cell. The person himself was, conversely, still alive and well, sitting there blindfolded.
The short-statured man’s smiling corpse was still lying on the ground; the corpse from the future had replaced the actual person.
At the same time this scene appeared, a loud gunshot split the air.
Blood sprayed everywhere. The smiling face of the short-statured man was reduced to a mass of rotting flesh by the bullet, and the smile could no longer be seen.
Panicked screaming rose from the other cells. The soldiers standing guard at the door, who initially had drowsiness heavy on their eyelids, now were with their eyes flying wide, glancing inside.
—Anfield kept his silver-white gun with an icy expression.
None of the soldiers dared to question him.
Terror showed on the faces of the others in the cell. They couldn’t understand Anfield’s intention.
Yu Feichen kept silent. Oak Valley Concentration Camp had built high walls, not only to control the prisoners but primarily to conceal their activity in the concentration camp, especially their research into the toxic smiling gas. Once Oak Valley caught a whiff of possibility that the information would be leaked, they wouldn’t be able to keep their lives.
The chief warden quickly came to the door. Seeing the prisoner’s corpse in the cell, he turned to Anfield with a wide, genial smile across his face, a far cry from his usual grimace.
“Esteemed captain, did that Koroshan mongrel do something to you?” The chief warden said, “Did his filthy hands try to touch your hair? You should know, these people are beyond hope.”
Anfield didn’t say anything. He crossed right past him, leaving this place.
The chief warden spoke to his soldiers, triumph in his voice, “The captain finally dropped his squeaky clean stance. Now, Oak Valley welcomes him. I’ll report this to Sr. Colonel at once.”
A new day began at the brick kiln. The local foremen today were much more vicious than they were yesterday. Oak Valley was such a place; those who treated the prisoners well were bound to be ostracised, whereas those who tortured them received recognition. Over time, everyone became accustomed to it.
Again, Yu Feichen sought out those people—the ones who he had requested cooperation from yesterday.
Naturally, he brought something else today as well. It had a schematic diagram of a route drawn on one side of the senior officer’s notepad, and the other side detailed the task assigned to them.
Yesterday, they refused him; but today, they all kept the paper from the notepad.
Yu Feichen didn’t know whether or not they would act when the time came and how well they would execute it. He hoped that it would go smoothly.
Once, during the time that the complaints he received had peaked, the God of Contract, Mogrosh, would often invite him for tea—that was his synonym for an appointment to discuss the complaints filed against him.
“I know that you’re used to working alone.” Mogrosh’s gaze, at those times, would be benevolent. “But you need to learn to trust your teammates. You will have to learn it sooner or later.”
But that was still something he wasn’t capable of in the present. He spent the rest of the day rehearsing countless scenarios in his mind, whether it was one person dropping ball or everyone, he didn’t miss a single possibility.
Late in the night, midnight of the 22nd approached. As before, Anfield came on time. If everything went as they expected, this would be their last night in the concentration camp—also the last night for them to observe the concentration camp. The previous night, they had seen all the Koroshans being ‘purified’.
The night before, they had seen Gerold leaking the toxic gas, killing everyone. And tonight, what would they be looking at?
Bai Song voluntarily suggested for himself, the big-nosed man, and the brawny blonde to be blindfolded to avoid the worst possible tragedy. Yu Feichen thought it was a feasible idea.
So Bai Song tore off the hem of his shirt, dividing it into three strips, and blindfolded each of his two compatriots, then himself.
Yu Feichen was still revising the escape route.
While revising, he caught Anfield moving out of his peripheral vision, taking out a black ribbon from his right breast pocket.
Then, he saw Anfield turn towards him.
The silhouette was hazy under the moonlight.
Anfield said, “Wear it too.”
Yu Feichen didn’t feel that there was any need for him to be blindfolded as he could refrain himself from looking. However, since the senior officer was willing to go the extra length to ensure his safety, he didn’t have any reason to refuse.
He kept the pen and paper, watching as Anfield leaned in towards him—the ribbon covered his eyes and the dark night descended. Aside from the hazy halo of light, there wasn’t anything before his eyes.
Yet, because of this, Anfield’s presence seemed to amplify manifold. The glacial chill of frost neared him.
Yu Feichen suddenly bumped into something. It was that person’s long hair that hung down, brushing against his cheek.
He wasn’t used to being in such close proximity to someone else. He raised his hand, intending to shift it away.
—and his fingers bumped into those platinum-blonde strands of hair that carried with it a faint chill. He could even hear Anfield’s breathing, close at hand, almost within reach.
He felt a gentle pressure around his eyes. The ribbon was tied.
He was inept at social interaction. However, this didn’t mean that he didn’t understand people. He had encountered too many people of every sort across the various words, and he had dealt with people travelling between the various worlds in Paradise.
In terms of knowledge and understanding, there was a wide chasm between those from a normal world and those not bound to an individual world. Put bluntly, the temperament was different. Unless one was extraordinarily gifted, this difference was miles apart.
The overly close proximity gave off a disconcerting illusion that they were no strangers to each other; he asked Anfield a question that he had wanted to ask for a very long time.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Have you heard of the Gate of the Eternal Night?”
Anfield’s breathing paused minutely.
He clasped Yu Feichen’s wrist, pulling him outside.
Yu Feichen couldn’t see anything. He could only feel those smooth strands of hair sliding abruptly away from between his fingers.
Anfield’s voice rang quietly in his ears.
“Mind yourself.”
Those pale, ice-green eyes reflected the glow of the glass lamp. Three seconds later, his eyelashes lowered marginally.
“The time warp in the cell started on January 15,” Anfield said.
Yu Feichen, “You know this?”
“Two prisoners disappeared from here on the morning of January 15.” Anfield spoke indifferently.
“I received some testimonies during the day,” Anfield said. “One of the two prisoners who escaped was an architect. He had once tried to dig a tunnel to break out and had continually received many unreasonable punishments for this infraction. At 1 a.m. on the 14th, he was even brought out of the barracks by a drunk soldier to write a work report for him.”
Yu Feichen had known that Anfield was deployed here to investigate the case of the prisoners’ disappearance. However, it mustn’t have been easy for this senior officer to obtain useful testimonies considering the enmity Oak Valley Concentration Camp showed the investigator. He recalled the faint whiff of blood from Anfield that day, as well as the chief warden’s hateful and fearful attitude.
In the cell that they were in, once it passed the stroke of midnight, time would be different from what it once was in the concentration camp. If someone peered in from outside, everyone inside would appear asleep. But perhaps if they opened the door, they would be spirited into the future as well.
Whereas on the morning of January 14, soldiers were still able to bring the people inside out, which was indicative that during that time, everything was normal.
So, the time anomaly started on January 15.
Yu Feichen wrote on the paper. “Then we don’t have much time.”
Anfield nodded imperceptibly.
In the sombre atmosphere, Bai Song’s puzzled voice rang out. “What are you talking about?”
Looking at Bai Song, Yu Feichen sighed, just as though he was looking at his previous employers.
“Since January 15, the people in this cell were able to see the state of the concentration camp eight days later.” He said, “The question is, what exactly are we looking at, and in what form does it appear to us?”
“Perhaps the gods are sending a prophetic vision as a warning to us,” Bai Song said.
“The friar thought so, too. And now he is not even a speck of dust,” Yu Feichen said.
Certainly, this couldn’t be any kind of prophecy of the Gods, but a fault that had appeared in this world, whereas the cell was like a node that connected the two different time points.
But the question now lay in whether or not the future shown to them was real.
If it was an accurate portrayal of the future, then why would it change according to the events that occurred in a new day? No continuity existed between what they saw on the 28th and the 29th.
But if it was simply a prophecy presented based on the unfolding of events, then why did the friar and the short-statured man die?
Anfield opened his mouth.
“It is real and it follows rules. Also, its sphere is limited to this concentration camp,” he said.
Yu Feichen also believed so as well.
It might not be their real future, but it was still a real time point that existed. Otherwise, the short-statured man wouldn’t have disappeared upon seeing his corpse.
As for how they knew the sphere was limited to this concentration camp—that was obvious. Once the friar opened the gate and walked outside, he vanished. Where he was now was anyone’s guess. Perhaps, just like that, he had vanished into the unending void, because where he was heading was a place that never existed.
Since it was a real and not a so-called prophecy or illusion, then there must be a way in which the actual time point they were in and this time point in the future intersected.
“The anomaly began from January 15,” he said. “In that case, it will likely end on the 22nd.”
The gobsmacked expression returned to Bai Song’s face. “Why’s that?”
“After midnight on the 22nd, we’ll arrive to the 23rd.”
Bai Song nodded.
“Right,” Yu Feichen said. “However, the 23rd had already appeared on the 15th.”
Bai Song gave a start.
“In other words, it has already been prophesised.” Yu Feichen changed his wording.
“And… and so?” Bai Song asked.
“So it won’t end well for us once we pass the 22nd.”
“You don’t make sense.” Bai Song gave it a thought then said, “Based on the rules in these few days, the 15th allows a vision of the 23rd, and when the actual time turns to the 23rd, we should see the 31st.”
“There’s that possibility,” Yu Feichen said. “But if that’s the case, it has nothing to do with us.”
—it would be like a movie of a parallel world was being broadcasted at a fixed timing every day and had nothing to do with them whether or not they watched it. It didn’t represent anything, nor did it allude to anything. They only needed to go on normally and work hard to escape.
Bai Song still maintained that expression of ‘you don’t make sense’, saying, “Then if it’s as you said, what does that have to do with us?”
Anfield chuckled when he heard this.
He said, “Then, it becomes relevant.”
“Generally, 23rd should come after the 22nd,” Anfield said. “But will it really?”
“Yeah it should.” Bai Song’s eyes widened. “Time… time moves forward. The 23rd should come after the 22nd.”
“But the 23rd has already passed.” Yu Feichen broke the silence, saying, “It has already happened with the 15th.”
Bai Song was dazed. A while later, he seemed to suddenly grasp something beyond terrifying. His befuddlement was exposed in his eyes, the way humans always reacted when encountering something that they couldn’t comprehend.
After a long time, he finally spoke, “So… what is going on here?”
Yu Feichen took out the notepad that he had been scribbling on just now.
The page that he flipped open to had the sixteen digits between 30 to 15 written vertically downwards.
“Normal time flows like this.” He drew an arrow pointing upwards from 15 to 30 with the pen.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 ... 15 ←
Bai Song nodded.
“However, based on our present circumstance, there’s a fault in time. It has disconnected.”
As he spoke, he drew a horizontal line splitting 22 and 23 apart.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 | 22 ... 15 ←
He flipped to the next page on the notepad. It was still those numbers, but they had turned from one into two lines at the cut-off point. 30 to 23 ran downwards on the left side, whereas the right side showed 22 to 15. Also, accordingly, there were 8 lines in total.
“After time breaks off, it overlaps like this. This is what we’ve experienced in the past few days,” he said.
Stupefied, Bai Song took those two iron barbs that were used to pick the lock, separating them and sticking them together.
Yu Feichen felt fatigued; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to explain, rather that he had spoken too much tonight. If this fatigue persisted, he would quickly enter the state that had triggered all those complaints against him.
As though able to see his fatigue and also in light of Bai Song’s confusion, Anfield took over the paper and pen, drawing a horizontal line between 15 and 23, then another line from 16 to 24, 17 to 25, continuing as such until 22 to 30.
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23
| | | | | | | |
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 ←
“These overlapping dates are what we’ve been encountering. The 23rd appears to us on the 15th, the 24th to us on the 16th, and so on.” His tone was cool and crisp, and his diction precise and clear. “This cell is the line that connects them.”
“It appears to be that way,” Bai Song nodded. “And so?”
Anfield wrote a ’14’ underneath the ’15’ and a ’31’ above the ’30’. Then, he drew an upwards arrow on the side. “However, time needs to move forward.”
Stupefied, Bai Song staggered the two overlapping barbs slightly, letting sharp tips show on the two ends.
“We move from the 14th to the 31st. But the sixteen days between are overlapped due to the anomaly,” Anfield said. “So, when the 15th passes, 23rd has also become yesterday.”
Bai Song hesitantly nodded his head.
“Today is the 21st. The overlap will disappear at the end of the 22nd. The question is, what will we encounter when we reach midnight of the 23rd?”
“It could be that nothing at all would happen, and we would arrive at a new 23rd, not here.” He pointed at the 15 and corresponding 23 with the tip of the pen.
“Or, if we arrive at this 23rd that has been prophesised before—that won’t bode well, I’m afraid.”
Yu Feichen gazed at the notepad, recovering slightly from his fatigue. He said. “Or, we could be forever stuck where time disconnected. The 22nd.”
Anfield nodded. The tip of the pen shifted over 31. “It is also possible that time would forever move forwards; After the 22nd has passed along with its corresponding 30th, we might directly join back to the concentration camp on the 31st. But we don’t know what the concentration camp will look like on the 31st. Perhaps it’s all corpses, just like today.”
“So what you mean is,” Bai Song’s stupefaction turned into despair, “regardless, once the 22nd is over, we’re screwed.”
Anfield, “Yeah.”
“Then,” the brawny blonde seemed to also finally understand some of it, “which is the most likely?”
“I’m leaning towards the last,” Anfield said. “In the past few days, we have only been observing a few possible futures through a channel or a window. But once we reach the 23rd, the real future will arrive.”
Yu Feichen looked at Anfield. Tin Cloud Military Academy teaches ‘observation’ huh, he thought coldly.
“At that time, it would be useless to keep our eyes closed to this. In reality, it’s impossible to have two identical people.” His voice had a subtle misty quality to it.
Yu Feichen took the notepad away from Anfield’s hand, keeping it.
“Sleep,” he said.
Bafflement was written all over Bai Song’s face. “Just… Just like that?”
“What do you want to do then?” Yu Feichen asked.
“Continue…” Bai Song looked at his notepad. “Continue doing math, or something.”
Yu Feichen said, “I don’t like doing math.”
After giving a long lecture on this math question, he ultimately came to a simple conclusion:
Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress
Before the 22nd passed, he had to bring every single one of his fellow Koroshans out of this damned place.
He had forty hours left.
This could very well be the mission the Gate of the Eternal Night had entrusted him.
Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress
“The sphere of the anomaly is limited to the concentration camp.” He heard Anfield speak lightly. “I will attempt to communicate with the Sr. Colonel to transfer all of you out before then.”
“You…” Bai Song had switched to address him more formally.
“What did Tin Cloud send you over for?”
Tin Cloud was the capital of the country to which the Black Badge Army belonged.
This question was very incisive, especially when it was asked from a Koroshan prisoner to a Tin Cloud captain.
“Investigate the disappearance of the prisoners and verify that there are no lapses in the management of the Oak Valley Concentration Camp.” Anfield answered him.
“Then, are you going to treat the prisoners well?”
Anfield glanced at him.
“There’s still some controversy regarding the treatment of prisoners in Tin Cloud,” said Anfield.
This answer fell within Yu Feichen’s expectations.
Controversy. This implied that the Black Badge Army didn’t have a strict policy for the treatment of prisoners. This also meant that in the present at least, all their actions have been tacitly approved. Once something cruel happened, it could only get even more so.
No one spoke after that. The first shaft of daylight shone into the cell, and the cell quietly transformed.
The brawny blonde’s corpse suddenly vanished from the cell. The person himself was, conversely, still alive and well, sitting there blindfolded.
The short-statured man’s smiling corpse was still lying on the ground; the corpse from the future had replaced the actual person.
At the same time this scene appeared, a loud gunshot split the air.
Blood sprayed everywhere. The smiling face of the short-statured man was reduced to a mass of rotting flesh by the bullet, and the smile could no longer be seen.
Panicked screaming rose from the other cells. The soldiers standing guard at the door, who initially had drowsiness heavy on their eyelids, now were with their eyes flying wide, glancing inside.
—Anfield kept his silver-white gun with an icy expression.
None of the soldiers dared to question him.
Terror showed on the faces of the others in the cell. They couldn’t understand Anfield’s intention.
Yu Feichen kept silent. Oak Valley Concentration Camp had built high walls, not only to control the prisoners but primarily to conceal their activity in the concentration camp, especially their research into the toxic smiling gas. Once Oak Valley caught a whiff of possibility that the information would be leaked, they wouldn’t be able to keep their lives.
The chief warden quickly came to the door. Seeing the prisoner’s corpse in the cell, he turned to Anfield with a wide, genial smile across his face, a far cry from his usual grimace.
“Esteemed captain, did that Koroshan mongrel do something to you?” The chief warden said, “Did his filthy hands try to touch your hair? You should know, these people are beyond hope.”
Anfield didn’t say anything. He crossed right past him, leaving this place.
The chief warden spoke to his soldiers, triumph in his voice, “The captain finally dropped his squeaky clean stance. Now, Oak Valley welcomes him. I’ll report this to Sr. Colonel at once.”
A new day began at the brick kiln. The local foremen today were much more vicious than they were yesterday. Oak Valley was such a place; those who treated the prisoners well were bound to be ostracised, whereas those who tortured them received recognition. Over time, everyone became accustomed to it.
Again, Yu Feichen sought out those people—the ones who he had requested cooperation from yesterday.
Naturally, he brought something else today as well. It had a schematic diagram of a route drawn on one side of the senior officer’s notepad, and the other side detailed the task assigned to them.
Yesterday, they refused him; but today, they all kept the paper from the notepad.
Yu Feichen didn’t know whether or not they would act when the time came and how well they would execute it. He hoped that it would go smoothly.
Once, during the time that the complaints he received had peaked, the God of Contract, Mogrosh, would often invite him for tea—that was his synonym for an appointment to discuss the complaints filed against him.
“I know that you’re used to working alone.” Mogrosh’s gaze, at those times, would be benevolent. “But you need to learn to trust your teammates. You will have to learn it sooner or later.”
But that was still something he wasn’t capable of in the present. He spent the rest of the day rehearsing countless scenarios in his mind, whether it was one person dropping ball or everyone, he didn’t miss a single possibility.
Late in the night, midnight of the 22nd approached. As before, Anfield came on time. If everything went as they expected, this would be their last night in the concentration camp—also the last night for them to observe the concentration camp. The previous night, they had seen all the Koroshans being ‘purified’.
The night before, they had seen Gerold leaking the toxic gas, killing everyone. And tonight, what would they be looking at?
Bai Song voluntarily suggested for himself, the big-nosed man, and the brawny blonde to be blindfolded to avoid the worst possible tragedy. Yu Feichen thought it was a feasible idea.
So Bai Song tore off the hem of his shirt, dividing it into three strips, and blindfolded each of his two compatriots, then himself.
Yu Feichen was still revising the escape route.
While revising, he caught Anfield moving out of his peripheral vision, taking out a black ribbon from his right breast pocket.
Then, he saw Anfield turn towards him.
The silhouette was hazy under the moonlight.
Anfield said, “Wear it too.”
Yu Feichen didn’t feel that there was any need for him to be blindfolded as he could refrain himself from looking. However, since the senior officer was willing to go the extra length to ensure his safety, he didn’t have any reason to refuse.
He kept the pen and paper, watching as Anfield leaned in towards him—the ribbon covered his eyes and the dark night descended. Aside from the hazy halo of light, there wasn’t anything before his eyes.
Yet, because of this, Anfield’s presence seemed to amplify manifold. The glacial chill of frost neared him.
Yu Feichen suddenly bumped into something. It was that person’s long hair that hung down, brushing against his cheek.
He wasn’t used to being in such close proximity to someone else. He raised his hand, intending to shift it away.
—and his fingers bumped into those platinum-blonde strands of hair that carried with it a faint chill. He could even hear Anfield’s breathing, close at hand, almost within reach.
He felt a gentle pressure around his eyes. The ribbon was tied.
He was inept at social interaction. However, this didn’t mean that he didn’t understand people. He had encountered too many people of every sort across the various words, and he had dealt with people travelling between the various worlds in Paradise.
In terms of knowledge and understanding, there was a wide chasm between those from a normal world and those not bound to an individual world. Put bluntly, the temperament was different. Unless one was extraordinarily gifted, this difference was miles apart.
The overly close proximity gave off a disconcerting illusion that they were no strangers to each other; he asked Anfield a question that he had wanted to ask for a very long time.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Have you heard of the Gate of the Eternal Night?”
Anfield’s breathing paused minutely.
He clasped Yu Feichen’s wrist, pulling him outside.
Yu Feichen couldn’t see anything. He could only feel those smooth strands of hair sliding abruptly away from between his fingers.
Anfield’s voice rang quietly in his ears.
“Mind yourself.”
