As they reached the fifth-floor stairwell, a massive metal gate stood in their way.
"Can't get through?" Zhou Ke asked, stepping forward with curiosity.
A scanner probe suddenly extended from the top of the door. Then, a palm-sized panel lit up in the center, and glowing text began to scroll across the screen. A cold mechanical voice followed:
"Identity verification failed. Personnel not registered. Time: 85:35:39. Record has been sent to administrator's inbox."
The screen blinked off. Red warning lights flashed on both sides of the door.
"Identity verification failed. Personnel not registered. Time: 85:24:21…"
"…85:25:24…"
"…85:25:29…"
"Back off!" Zhang Chi shouted.
Zhou Ke stood frozen, finally realizing he had been the one triggering the scanner over and over. In a panic, he scrambled back down the stairs.
"What the hell is this?" he stammered.
Zhang Chi frowned and stepped toward the gate.
A soft click came from the panel.
The text changed, and the mechanical voice rang out again:
"Identity verified. Access granted."
The gate opened with a hiss.
Zhang Chi stepped through and gestured for Zhou Ke to follow.
Zhou Ke hesitated, then took a step back.
It looked like the gate could detect who was authorized for the fifth floor. What if it closed behind him? What if he could get in—but not back out? And the administrator's inbox—did that mean the prison guards were already watching?
Zhou Ke's face turned pale. "N-never mind... I think I'll skip the tour."
He turned and left.
Zhang Chi headed to Room 505 and opened the door. To her surprise, the room was slightly different from those on the third floor.
First of all, it was a single—no bunk beds. Maybe it was because she was the only female prisoner in the group. The room had standard-issue toiletries, bedding, and a desk. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust, and the floor was stained with old, brownish-red marks. The air smelled foul.
Musty, sour, and cold.
She sneezed as the stench hit her nose.
There were no windows. The only ventilation came from a small opening in the door, right below the room number.
Zhang Chi propped the door open to air the place out. She stepped back into the hallway, glancing up and down.
Each door had the same layout. Through the little window, she could see that some rooms were empty, others occupied. All of them were singles.
Her gaze landed on the metal gate that led to the fifth floor.
Why was there a scanner only for the fifth floor? This prison was already sealed tight, patrolled, and monitored to the teeth. Even if someone tried to escape, those mounted machine guns would rip them apart in seconds.
So then... what was the point of the gate?
To keep people out?
Or to keep something in?
Zhang Chi leaned on the railing, peering down.
Surely the guards didn't let them go back to their rooms out of trust. It was confidence—total, absolute confidence in the prison's surveillance.
More than twenty cameras.
Heavy-duty radiation-proof lead doors—the kind used in military bases.
Five mounted machine guns per floor. Twenty-five in total.
The ceiling was a huge skylight made of reinforced glass. On both sides, black boxes were installed—possibly alarm systems.
Creak.
The door to Room 503 opened. A man emerged.
He was nearly two meters tall. The standard prison uniforms came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. His muscles were so overdeveloped that even the largest size looked like it might split at the seams. His arms swung like whips as he walked, far longer than average, his upper body grotesquely broad.
He leaned on the railing and looked over at Zhang Chi.
Then, he smiled. A strange, crooked smile.
He started walking toward her.
Zhang Chi calmly stood, turned, and ducked back into her room, closing the door just before he reached it.
He knocked.
Zhang Chi didn't answer.
"Wanna say hi?" came a deep, gruff voice from outside.
After a pause, she answered through the door, "You need something?"
"What crime did you commit?" he asked.
"Does it matter?"
"Not really. Just curious."
"Curious about what?"
"About why you're on the fifth floor."
"…Then why are you on the fifth floor?" Zhang Chi asked.
He didn't answer the question.
"I knew the last person who lived in that room," he said.
"So?"
"That room has bad feng shui."
Zhang Chi raised an eyebrow. Feng shui? In a place like this?
"Oh," she said, voice flat.
"It's a cursed room," he added.
"…Right."
What prison cell wasn't cursed?
"You're not gonna ask how I know that?" he pressed.
Zhang Chi took a breath. "How do you know?"
"I'm the one who killed him."
Silence.
Then footsteps.
Zhang Chi stood on her toes and looked out through the small window.
She watched him walk away, arms swinging like ropes.
Only much later did she realize: this was a show of dominance.
She turned on the faucet at the washbasin, eyes darting between the single rag on the rack and the pillow on the bed.
Eventually, she took the pillow apart and used the pillowcase as a rag. She scrubbed the sink, the bedframe, and the desk—over and over until the surfaces were clean.
Then she washed the pillowcase, hung it up to dry, and did the same with the towel, pressing it to her face afterward.
Finally, she looked into the mirror.
Early twenties. Full cheekbones, lean jawline, symmetrical features.
She looked a bit like her old self—but not quite.
She had thought she was dead.
But clearly, she wasn't.
This was another world.
A post-apocalyptic era, where technology had surged forward in the flames of war—between humans, between humans and the undead. Once that tech tree forked, like the split between arthropods and vertebrates, there was no going back.
So when did this world diverge?
And what exactly had it turned into?
She thought back to the moment on the transport truck. The rush of adrenaline. The fear. The heightened awareness.
She raised her hand and gripped the metal bedframe.
Twisted it. Pulled.
Nothing.
Her jaw tightened. Again.
Still nothing.
Was she imagining things? Maybe the dent on the truck was always there. But if so, why hadn't she noticed it earlier?
Even if she'd undergone some kind of augmentation… could her body really overpower these alloys?
She inspected her hand.
Long fingers. Calloused pads. Soft flesh.
If that strength had come from within her, then what had triggered it?
She placed her palm on the bedframe, trying to recreate the moment in her mind—darkness, uncertainty, the loud crash, the surge of fear…
Fight-or-flight.
Creak—
Her palm grew hot.
The frame softened.
A moment later, her fingers sank into the metal.
Zhang Chi yanked her hand back.
What the hell was this?
She touched the dent she'd just made.
The heat had faded. The alloy was once again cold, solid, unforgiving—but twisted.
The frame looked warped, caved in. The bed even shifted slightly.
She took a deep breath.
Kneeling, she pressed her hands to the dent, trying to smooth it back. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Eventually, she got it flat enough that the bed was stable again.
She gave up.
Night fell.
Lying in bed, she remembered what that musclehead had said:
"Curious why you're on the fifth floor?"
If she wasn't mistaken… his hand had a red stamp too.
So the fifth floor wasn't randomly assigned.
Downstairs was all shared cells.
Up here—solitary.
What did that mean?
And why had the guards told Zhou Ke his sentence… but not hers?
Was it an oversight?
Or something else?
Zhang Chi had no answers.
Eventually, she fell asleep.
6:30 A.M. The cafeteria opened, and people began to trickle downstairs.
The cafeteria was located in the prison's underground section. It had two levels—the lower level was for inmates, the upper one for prison guards. The -2 floor was a wide-open hall; the -1 floor had private booths. The space between had been hollowed out, so standing anywhere along the second-floor corridor gave a full view of the entire hall below.
Zhang Chi arrived neither early nor late. Half the hall was already filled. The food looked worse than what you'd get on a budget airline. The main course was some yellow-white mush, plus one boiled egg per person. Nothing else.
As she stepped in, dozens of curious gazes immediately shifted toward her. Zhang Chi lifted her head, and those gazes quickly withdrew, pretending not to look.
Feigning ignorance, she pulled the top tray from a tall stack, scooped some mush, grabbed an egg, and found an empty table in a quiet corner.
She was halfway through the bland meal when someone walked over.
"You're early," Zhou Ke said, slamming down his tray and plopping into the seat across from her. "Classes don't start till 7:30."
Zhang Chi nodded.
Zhou Ke leaned in and lowered his voice. "A guard came to talk to me last night."
Zhang Chi: "Hm?"
"They told me to stop wandering around the fifth floor."
Zhang Chi: "…"
Zhou Ke grinned. "He's from my hometown. Seemed pretty nice, actually."
They continued eating in silence for a moment, until Zhou Ke suddenly perked up like he'd just remembered something. He bounced in his seat. "Hey, do you know why your record has a red stamp?"
Judging by his tone, it seemed like he actually knew.
"Why?" Zhang Chi asked.
"Because everyone on the fifth floor gets a red stamp."
Zhang Chi: "…"
Zhou Ke chuckled. "What's with that look?"
Zhang Chi was speechless. Smoke might as well have been coming out of her ears.
"Oh—right, you know what kind of people end up on the fifth floor?" Zhou Ke asked, smacking his forehead.
Zhang Chi: "...?"
"Top-tier sentences. 500 years. High-risk inmates. No parole. No reduction."
"You're saying I'm going to be locked up here for five hundred years?"
"Come on," Zhou Ke said. "Nobody lives that long."
Zhang Chi: "…"
For the first time, Zhang Chi genuinely wanted to punch someone.
Zhou Ke realized a bit too late that he'd probably said the wrong thing. He let out a nervous laugh.
"What I mean is… Did you notice the gate we walked through when we came in?"
"What about it?"
"The writing on the door."
"You mean 'Peace to the Righteous'?"
"No, above that," Zhou Ke said, slowly enunciating: "Re-for-ma-tion Camp."
"And?"
"This is a reformation camp. Not a prison," he whispered.
Zhang Chi frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means we're here to be reformed. Not incarcerated."
Not… prison?
Zhang Chi narrowed her eyes, about to press further—but just then, a loud crash echoed through the hall.
Every head turned toward the sound.
By the food counter, two people had gotten into a fight.
Stacks of plastic trays, bowls, and utensils crashed to the floor. Mush splattered everywhere. Eggs rolled in all directions. One of the fighters stepped on an egg and slipped hard with a loud thud, falling flat on his back. The other immediately straddled him and started smashing a plastic tray against his head.
A sharp whistle rang out from the crowd.
"Woo-hoo!"
Inmates were fired up. They abandoned their meals—some stood on chairs, others on tables—clapping and cheering like it was a live show.
A bald guy shouted, "Yeah! Hit him harder! Beat him to death!"
The guy on the ground, face already bruised and bleeding, still managed to locate the voice. He grabbed an egg and hurled it like a dart—quick and precise—landing it square on the bald guy's head.
The bald guy lost his balance and slipped. As he fell, his long limbs knocked into a tray from the next table, sending it flying. The mush inside launched through the air and landed straight onto the lap of someone who had just started eating.
"What the fuck!"
Before the bald guy could even react, he was tackled to the ground and pummeled.
"Ughhh—ahhh!"
Seeing stars, the bald man lashed out with a desperate kick, slamming into the guy whose lap got slopped. That guy flew backward, landing on the next table and knocking over another set of trays.
The two people eating there yelled "Fuck you!" and joined the chaos.
What started as a two-person fight turned into a full-scale brawl—like a line of falling dominoes, it spread instantly across the hall. Broken eggs, flying trays, blood, and snot flew in every direction.
The fight lasted ten full minutes before the guards upstairs finally appeared.
They stood on the second-floor walkway, shouting down at the melee below.
No one listened. The brawl only intensified.
Panicked, the guards rushed downstairs.
The entire cafeteria was a war zone. Bodies sprawled across the floor blocked the main doors. Guards pounded on them with batons, trying to get through. But the roars and chaos inside drowned everything out.
And then—
A gunshot.
The noise stopped instantly.
A bullet had pierced the forehead of a man standing on a table in the middle of the cafeteria, exploding out the back of his skull.
Silence fell.
All eyes turned to the second floor.
Standing there was a man in a deep blue uniform, buttons and cuffs perfectly aligned. His face was cold, jaw sharp, and his hands gloved in white.
He held a sniper rifle.
The muzzle still smoked.