Chapter 69 – Sin City (3)
◎ Who to Send to Prison? ◎
Half an hour later, it was time for the meeting.
Considering the chaos in Sin City, it’s always wise to be more cautious.
Su Cha and others entered the room. Su Cha, with hands adorned with black fingerstalls, carefully inspected inch by inch along the door seams, walls, windows, and ceiling, confirming that there were no listening devices. He nodded to them.
As Lin Youyou entered the room, she casually asked, “What happened to both of you?”
Song Ke and Zhuang Qingyan had red marks on their foreheads, looking slightly swollen upon closer examination.
Song Ke concealed and said, “It’s nothing, just… bumped into something.”
Lin Youyou didn’t think much of it initially, but since Song Ke seemed guilty, her gaze lingered on their foreheads for a few seconds, smiling meaningfully. “Oh, how coincidental, the bump is in the same place.”
Song Ke cleared her throat. “Let’s start the meeting.”
The six individuals either sat or stood, finding their respective places. Song Ke was surprised to find that Fang Zhixu was also present.
It wasn’t unusual for Fang Zhixu to be there. They never avoided him when having small meetings before, and he would usually sleep through them, impossible to wake up even with thunder. But his state was noticeably different today, with disheveled hair tied in a messy bun at the back of his head, and his gaze was unusually clear.
Song Ke recollected and realized that since they departed for F180 District, Fang Zhixu had significantly reduced his sleeping time. Although he remained as silent and unnoticeable as ever, that gloomy and world-weary face of his hadn’t shown up for a long time.
Zhuang Qingyan organized the existing intelligence. “Clearly, Sin City is very different from what we initially thought. The existence of the Death Prison is not a secret, and ordinary people have a casual attitude towards it, speaking of it without hesitation.”
They had initially thought that the Death Prison was a forbidden place for incarcerating serious offenders, expected to be remote, heavily guarded, and little known. Even if ordinary people knew about it, they would avoid discussing it. However, they underestimated the madness of this sinful place, where almost everyone had a criminal record.
“I just went around near the Underground Sea,” Su Cha opened the terminal and projected the images and videos he had taken.
In half an hour, if he went all out, it would be enough for him to make a round trip to the Underground Sea.
A pitch-black ocean appeared on the screen, with a still and waveless surface. There were no guards around the edges, only the familiar tetrahedral structures towering above the sea surface.
“It’s difficult to dive in,” Su Cha frowned and said.
The Death Prison is located beneath the Underground Sea, with no place to land around it. The elevator on the sea’s surface is the only entrance, but like the desert, it requires specific permissions to activate. Even Su Cha felt it was difficult to infiltrate, and the others were equally helpless.
“No need to dive in,” Zhuang Qingyan said after a moment of thought, “there’s a simple way to enter the Death Prison.”
“What method?” Others looked at him one after another.
Zhuang Qingyan placed Mia’s badge on the table. “The way the people here enter is the same way we will.”
“You mean, commit a crime?” Song Ke realized.
“That’s right, cause a bit of trouble, get our people sent in, but not too serious. They can be released after a while.”
“The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into the tiger’s den,” Zhuang Qingyan quoted an ancient saying.
It sounded absurd, but upon careful consideration, it made sense.
The oversight in the supervision of the Death Prison was unimaginable. Who would go to such lengths to get themselves imprisoned?
“But who do we send in?” Song Ke asked a crucial question.
At this point, they still didn’t know the specifics of the Death Prison. Sending everyone in was definitely inappropriate. The person chosen to enter the Death Prison would bear both hope and risk, requiring strong agility and responsiveness.
“I’ll go,” Su Cha said.
“I’ll go too!” Little Xu Xing, afraid of falling behind, raised his hand and shouted.
“…I can go too.” Surprisingly, Fang Zhixu volunteered.
“Or, I’ll go.” Song Ke stood up.
Zhuang Qingyan stopped her. “Your injury hasn’t fully healed. Take it easy.”
He then turned to Fang Zhixu. “Although you are A-level, your ability isn’t quite suitable.”
“Children should learn something good.” Xu Xing was directly excluded.
Finally, Zhuang Qingyan looked at Su Cha. “Among us, you are the best candidate.”
Su Cha, hailing from the rainforest, excelled in stealth, concealment, reconnaissance, and assassination. He had top-notch individual combat skills and was an A-level poison-type awakener. Going into the Death Prison, at least, his self-defense was assured, and the others didn’t need to worry too much about his safety.
He had always followed behind Lin Youyou, often overlooked, but in reality, Su Cha was a powerful awakener.
“The remaining task is to figure out how to get you in,” Zhuang Qingyan said.
Lin Youyou voiced her concern, “But we don’t have any assurance about how long a crime would be incarcerated for.”
F180 District was isolated from the outside world by yellow sands, with no internet connectivity within the area. In this dark and lawless underground city, there were no rules or regulations to follow; everything relied on their own exploration.
If it was just a minor offense and they were detained for a few days, that would be fine. However, if they were imprisoned for several months or even a year or more, their plans would be in jeopardy.
Determining the degree of offense for “committing a crime” was extremely difficult.
Song Ke recalled something, “The people at the city g-gate weren’t arrested.”
When they first arrived, they witnessed a street fight, with one side even committing murder, but the murderer was not apprehended.
“I have another question: How does the Death Prison apprehend people?” Lin Youyou asked.
When a criminal record reaches five bars, what does the Death Prison deploy to capture the criminals? Is it something like the awakener security squad in Tongwan, or the AI patrol robots in Ferrara?
In case the criminal is an awakener and is unwilling to surrender, can they ensure they’ll be able to subdue the target?
Zhuang Qingyan tapped his fingers on the wheelchair, deep in thought. “What you all have said is correct, so before taking action, it’s best to find a demonstration first.”
As they were discussing, there was suddenly a commotion from upstairs.
They were on the third floor, and the noise was coming from the fourth floor, sounding like a fight.
Song Ke made a quick decision, “Let’s go check it out.”
In the stairwell of the fourth floor, a desperate-looking waiter covered his face and said, “Why is there another fight? Are we not allowed to do business?”
A burly man stood in the corridor, his arm suddenly swelling four or five times its size, turning into a massive chunk. It slammed down with a ‘bang’, shattering the door, and the person inside didn’t even have time to cry out before meeting a sudden death.
The man momentarily lost control of his supernatural ability, smashing a hole through the hotel wall, allowing the cold wind to rush in.
“Four bars,” Su Cha reminded in a low voice.
Song Ke and the others looked intently, and indeed, the man’s badge on his arm had lit up with four bright red bars. And just at the moment when he killed the guest and smashed the hotel wall, the fifth bar slowly lit up.
With all five bars filled, the Criminal Record rebooted, and the person committing the crime would be sent back to the Death Prison.
“Lucky break,” Zhuang Qingyan said, referring to the demonstration he mentioned.
Just as Song Ke was about to see the people coming to arrest him, something strange happened.
The man suddenly clutched his head with both hands, violently trembling all over, his upper body bending into a strange shape, writhing in agony.
After a few seconds, it was as if he was being choked, and his voice abruptly stopped. Then the man stood up stiffly, with a vacant look in his eyes, losing consciousness. He moved forward with rigid limbs, guided by the five glowing bars, passing by Song Ke and the others who were watching.
“What is this… Cotard’s Syndrome?” Fang Zhixu suddenly spoke up.
Zhuang Qingyan nodded slowly. “Exactly. The cause should be his Criminal Record.”
Lin Youyou asked in confusion, “What are you talking about? What’s Cotard’s Syndrome?”
Zhuang Qingyan gestured to the side. “Let Dr. Fang explain it to you.”
Fang Zhixu looked serious. “Cotard’s Syndrome, also known as the Walking Corpse Syndrome, is caused by pathological changes in the parietal and frontal lobes of the brain, with delusions of emptiness and negation as the main symptoms.”
“During an outbreak, a normal person will briefly enter a state of a walking corpse, believing that their organs have decayed, leaving only an empty shell of a body, with the whole world devoid of anything. This is accompanied by dullness of sensation, disintegration of personality, and other abnormal behaviors.”
The man faced the direction of the Death Prison, moving stiffly. He stepped into the nearest elevator, and he actually turned himself in this way!
There was no need to send someone to arrest him. All criminals triggering the effects of the five bars would voluntarily return to the Death Prison like a walking corpse.
“But how is this achieved?” Song Ke found it hard to understand.
“Criminal Record,” Zhuang Qingyan brought out Mia’s badge again. “I guess the particle currents embedded inside contain the triggering frequency range of Cotard’s Syndrome, which forcibly stimulates the brain. This shouldn’t be achievable with the technological level expected in District F; it seems the Alliance has put a lot of effort into constructing and maintaining the Death Prison.”
Lin Youyou frowned, “With such an electric current stimulating the brain, wouldn’t it lead to dementia?”
“In the long run, it’s possible,” Fang Zhixu said in a deep voice.
“But what about Su Cha…” she hesitated, looking at Su Cha.
“It’s fine, I don’t have a criminal record yet,” Su Cha replied.
For Sin City, they were still newcomers, and their past sins were defaulted to be cleared. Currently, they were as clean as a “blank sheet.” However, new problems had emerged. Since he was a first-time offender and didn’t have a Criminal Record monitoring, how could Su Cha voluntarily turn himself in to the Death Prison?
It was a headache.
“Let’s put the matter of the Criminal Record aside and focus on how to do something bad,” Zhuang Qingyan suggested.
The others all looked at Su Cha, after all, he was the one going to prison, and he was also the one to commit the “bad deed.”
“We’ll do our best to send you to jail?” Song Ke blinked, wearing a sincere expression.
Su Cha: “…”
…
At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the temperature on the desert surface approached 70 degrees Celsius.
This was the hottest time of the day, and the scorching sun in the sky almost made people dizzy. The scorching hot quicksand could cook raw eggs.
A group of awakeners was hunting zombies in the oasis camp.
The zombies in the desert were noticeably different from those in the city, with slender bodies, dry skin, and visible cracks on the surface, but their movements were exceptionally agile, leaping and jumping like monkeys. The one they had their eyes on, conservatively estimated, was an evolved level-two zombie.
This group fought with the zombies for a full forty minutes, exhausted and with throats almost smoking, but they were close to succeeding.
Suddenly! Another group of people jumped out from the side.
“Robbery!” The leading girl held two crescent moon-shaped knives, rotating them crosswise, shouting aggressively.
Another elusive figure flashed from behind them, surrounded by a ghostly green poisonous mist, charging towards the barely breathing zombie.
“Swish!”
The blade flashed, and the zombie let out a miserable scream, falling slowly.
In the shattered head, a green crystal faintly sparkled. Before anyone could see clearly, it was instantly snatched by the man.
“Damn! Daring to steal my crystal, you’re tired of living! Watch me chop you all up!” After struggling hard for half a day, they were intercepted at the last moment. The awakeners were infuriated and wished they could smash the intruders’ heads.
“You coward, I hate that you’re such a coward~”
A sweet and soft singing voice rang in their ears, and this group of people felt their bones turn soft as if melting, and their mental strength was extinguished in succession, unable to lift their arms.
In the shadows, the poisonous mist man used his knives to cleanly topple the people at the scene and leisurely retreated with the crystal.
“You forgot to shout the slogan!” Behind the sand dune, a clear child’s voice sounded.
The knife-wielding girl also looked at the poisonous mist man and urged, “Hurry up, shout the slogan.”
The man frowned, his expression looking extremely strange, and there was a fleeting distortion at the corner of his mouth. In the end, he convinced himself and, with a blank expression, said to the stunned people on the ground, “V587, who’s the coolest of them all? Silent but cool, I’m called Su Cha, remember my name.”
After saying that, amidst the shocked gazes of the fallen people, the man hastily retreated like a sandstorm and disappeared without a trace.
The group of awakeners stood still for a long time, cursing in a daze, “Damn, where did this show-off come from?”
…
“Hahahaha!” Lin Youyou laughed heartily, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, completely losing her image as the sweet girl she used to be. She wiped her tears while exclaiming, “Oh my goodness, who thought of this slogan? It’s too refreshing!”
Song Ke puffed up her cheeks in silence. “I… I thought of it.”
Wasn’t it quite good? Despite being just a few short sentences, it revealed their team name and the name of the suspect, Su Cha, making it clear who was the wrongdoer. If those people wanted to report a case, they could find the person.
Song Ke looked proudly at his companions, but they were all holding back laughter except for Su Cha. As for Su Cha… his face was as dark as a boiler.
Song Ke felt inexplicably guilty.
“Alright, stop laughing, everyone. Su Cha, do you have any adverse reactions?” Zhuang Qingyan said, telling everyone to stop laughing, but his own lips had a faint upward curve.
“No,” Su Cha shook his head.
Was robbing allowed? Or perhaps, it couldn’t be done in the desert?
“Let’s try it back in the underground city.”
The group took the elevator back underground, but there was still no abnormality.
“It seems the degree is not enough. Committing robbery in Sin City doesn’t even qualify for a trial.”
“Let’s discuss something,” Su Cha, usually reserved and quiet, spoke up for the first time, “I can cooperate with any experiments you want to try, but can we change the slogan?”
“Well… you’ll have to ask the captain.”
Zhuang Qingyan’s eyes curved, unreservedly passing the responsibility.
Song Ke felt deflated.
**TN
The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into the tiger’s den (idiom); Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Metaphorically, you can’t succeed without experiencing the danger
