章 22: Chapter 14: Battle for Memory IV
With the "gurgle gurgle" sounds, Chen Xiao's memory began to trickle away, and finally, he fell into a coma.
...
A white expanse filled the space, all around nothing but emptiness.
In the void floated a cage, inside which a person was trapped.
This person was thin, wearing a purple suit, but it was wrinkly. At the moment, he lay right in the center of the cage, spread-eagled in the shape of an X.
He was sleeping.
A pointed nose, a sharp chin, a face so pale it was frightening, and a mouth stretched so wide it could reach the ears, smeared with something crimson— he looked just like a ridiculous clown.
Suddenly.
Another person appeared in the void, silently standing before the cage.
This man had a hooked nose, a somewhat broad chin, he wore a deerstalker cap, was cloaked in deep brown, and had a pipe in his mouth.
He looked indifferently at the "clown" in the cage, his gaze utterly calm...
"Hey, brother, you've finally come...." the clown began to speak, his shrill voice grating to the ears.
He opened his eyes.
Inverted triangles, mostly white, with no aesthetic appeal against his ghastly pale face— but anyone who had seen these eyes wouldn't care about their looks.
Because people would only notice what was reflected in his gaze.
No one could clearly say what his eyes contained; strange and chaotic, one second they showed bitter sadness, the next they morphed into the bloodlust of a homicidal maniac. Numerous emotions continuously shifted within those eyes, chaotically mixing together until only one word could describe them.
Insane!
The clown, using his hands and feet, pressed himself against the side of the cage, desperately trying to squeeze his head through the bars—a futile effort known to all—but he persisted, all the while speaking.
"Please! Let me out! I beg you! I can't stand it anymore! Ahhhh!"
He pleaded, he screamed, sounding in agony, but his expression was one of utter excitement, and he was... laughing!
The smile was grotesque, best described as chilling.
But the man with the pipe outside the cage had no reaction whatsoever.
"I know, you will let me out." The clown continued, "Stop pretending, I understand you, because we are the same kind of people!"
The man with the pipe still did not speak, his gaze unchanging. He kept all emotion deeply hidden, his thoughts inscrutable.
The clown didn't care about the man's indifference, continuing to press his face against the bars, his inverted triangle eyes fixed on the other's still-water-like eyes.
"You... bored, are you?"
The man with the pipe removed it from his lips, tapping the ashes into the void below.
"Hahahaha!!!!" The clown watched him do this and burst into hysterical laughter, hugging his stomach and rolling across the cage floor.
"Last time I let you out, you bit someone to death and mutilated his mouth with a knife!" said the man with the pipe dispassionately.
Upon hearing this, the clown adopted an innocent look, "You can't blame me for that, just look at him back then; he wasn't happy at all. I had to help him! You see, now he's always smiling!"
The man with the pipe remained silent.....
"You're powerless now, there are things only I can do!" The clown continued babbling, "Both of us know, we're in a deadlock now. He'll never get out, only pondering the same question, day after day. My God, how torturous that must be for you."
"So... you can't stand it anymore, let me out! Let me entertain you!"
The man with the pipe did not respond, instead, he tucked the pipe back into the cloak's inner pocket, turned around, and disappeared into the void.
"Hahahahahaha——————"
The space echoed only with the clown's manic laughter.
...
...
...
Chen Xiao opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.
He sat up and rubbed his face, pausing briefly at a wound at the corner of his mouth.
"Hehehe~"
He let out a mysterious chuckle, then quieted down.
"Thud thud thud!" The sound of a nightstick hitting the iron door rang punctually, followed by breakfast being pushed through the slot beneath the door.
Chen Xiao walked over, glanced at it, then picked up the bread and took a bite.
"Mmm~~" He let out a content sound, nodding with satisfaction.
Then he tossed the bread aside and spat out the mouthful onto the floor with a "ptui".
Following that, he picked up the cup of milk, undeterred by the scalding temperature even through the cup, and gulped it down in one go.
"Burp~~~"
Chen Xiao burped with contentment and licked his lips.
Next, he picked up an apple and began aimlessly wandering around the room, visibly bored.
Time passed.
For lunch, he ate a few bites before tossing and turning in the bed.
In the afternoon, he rolled the bedsheet into a strip and folded it like the street vendors who sell long balloons, shaping it into a small dog.
All day he busied himself with meaningless tasks, never contemplating the memories he had lost nor making any marks, simply like a child waiting for a party to begin.
It was boring, but filled more with anticipation and excitement.
Half an hour after dinner, footsteps sounded outside the door again. Two people's.
So, was it finally about to begin? Chen Xiao was very excited, the corners of his mouth involuntarily curled upwards twice before immediately being pressed back down.
The door opened. The two guards, as they did every day, shook their batons in their hands.
"Hey, come out!"
Chen Xiao didn't say anything and obediently walked out of the cell.
The three of them walked together, Chen Xiao in the front, the guards on his left and right behind him.
On the way, they passed through the burnt-black corridor again. The cleaners had almost finished the cleaning, but one could still make out some darkened traces.
"Hey! After you got off work yesterday, you checked the duty roster, right?" Guard A said to the cleaner with a tone full of schadenfreude.
The janitor put down his cleaning spray, turned around, his eye sockets obviously had been hit, swollen and purple.
But his mood was very good: "Yeah, we had a talk! You know, he weighs less than 160 pounds!"
"Hahaha, so what?" Guard A asked, eager to hear such gossip.
The janitor stuck out his chest as if boasting: "In the end, he had to apologize to me and bought me a few drinks!"
As he said this, he waved his fist like a victor: "Because that's what I demanded!"
Guard B, although not too keen on getting involved in these matters, found it quite funny and chimed in.
"You guys can't imagine what he went through when he got home, he's super scared of his wife!"
"Hahaha!" The three of them laughed together.
At that moment, amidst the laughter, there suddenly came a sharp, piercing sound
"Hehehehehehe!"
The three looked inexplicably at Chen Xiao.
"What are you laughing about?"
Chen Xiao took a moment to catch his breath and said, "This... it's funny, isn't it!"
The three were taken aback. They thought Chen Xiao was laughing at their conversation.
But that wasn't it. Chen Xiao was laughing at the three of them for joking around here before the arrival of fear.
It was truly hilarious!
"Hehehehehehe!" Chen Xiao began to laugh again, unable to stop.
One guard, unable to bear it, pushed him with a frown: "Hey! Stop laughing, it's really unpleasant, oh, and that disgusting face of yours."
The other guard also had a look of disgust: "Let's get going and get today's work done. This freak!"
Before long, the three arrived at the door marked "D-391." The guard expertly entered the code and opened the door to the room.
"Get in!" Just like before, another guard pushed Chen Xiao into the room and casually closed the door.
Chen Xiao still wanted to laugh, but he held it in forcefully, which made his face look particularly strange.
The old man put down the newspaper and looked puzzled at Chen Xiao.
"What's up, you seem very happy today?"
Upon hearing this, Chen Xiao couldn't hold it in any longer. He began to laugh loudly again, as if drained of energy, he lay on the table, hammering on it with his hands while laughing.
"Hehe~ What exactly is going on?" The old man didn't know what had happened, but seeing Chen Xiao in that state, he felt like laughing as well.
"Haha, what's so funny to laugh like this... hahaha!"
Laughter is contagious, so the old man started to laugh along.
"Hahahaha ahhaha—"
"Hahahaha hahaha—"
...
...
After a while, the two had finally laughed their fill.
Chen Xiao suddenly looked up and asked, "You're going to eat my memories soon, right?"
The old man was startled.
"You... how do you know that?"
Chen Xiao smiled and replied, "It doesn't matter, start now, I don't have much time!"
The old man frowned, feeling that there was something different about this young man today, but couldn't pinpoint what it was.
"Not much time?" What did that mean?
The old man only pondered for a moment and did not dwell on it.
Just as nobody paid attention to Chen Xiao's abnormal behavior today.
Nobody noticed him suppressing the smile at the corners of his mouth over and over again.
Nobody saw the madness he deliberately hid in his eyes.
Nobody cared that, in the corner of the cell, instead of apple cores, there was an apple with only one bite taken out of it.
That bite had unintentionally formed the shape of a crescent moon, and it looked like a big, laughing mouth.
...
...
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