Chapter 0085 You are the new No. 44
The corridor slowly lit up with dim lights.
"Dinner is ready!" A rude and cold voice came closer and closer, accompanied by the creaking sound of a cart.
I held onto the railing with both hands and looked hard towards the end of the corridor.
A man in a black security uniform came slowly, pushing a metal cart. He had an electric baton and a bunch of keys on his waist, which made a jingling sound when he walked.
From the gaps in the metal railings, pale and skinny hands stretched out, holding a tattered lunch box, waiting for food.
Their movements were very gentle, without making any sound, and every hand showed caution.
There was an eerie silence in the corridor.
The squeaking of wheels and the jingling of keys seemed unusually clear.
The man stopped at the first window, took out a long spoon, scooped a spoonful of black stuff from the large metal bucket on the cart, and poured it into the lunch box.
The action was very rough and some of the paste spilled onto the ground. Immediately, several hands began to silently scramble for it.
The man didn't even bother to take a second look. He pushed the cart forward with an expressionless face. Holding a large metal spoon, he routinely poured black paste into the old lunch boxes.
In the quiet cell, the suppressed sound of eating could be heard.
"Brother Yunfeng, is someone here? Who is it?" Zhao Xiaohai, who was lying on the bed, heard the noise, sat up with difficulty, and looked at me nervously and expectantly.
"It shouldn't be your brother. Shush, lie down and don't make any noise." I made a gesture to him to keep quiet.
Zhao Xiaohai's eyes showed disappointment. He gritted his teeth and lay down again.
It seemed like I was at the end of the cell and would be the last to get my turn. As the cart approached, I smelled a strange fragrance.
It's the taste of medicine mixed with food.
The fragrance is out of tune with the dirty and dark environment.
I thought about it, turned around and looked around the room, and sure enough, I found an old lunch box at the end of the bed. The lunch box was unexpectedly clean, but it had an unpleasant odor from being licked by saliva for a long time.
I followed the example of those people and held out my lunch box waiting for food.
"These new recruits are so smart! Don't they have to go to class?" The man glanced in my direction, and I lowered my head and squinted at him out of the corner of my eye.
His face was covered with pockmarks, rosacea, and he looked fierce and ugly.
"Did someone say something to him?" The pockmarked man's rude voice echoed in the corridor.
The cell was as silent as a mouse, as quiet as death.
The hand that stretched out from between the iron railings opposite me was shaking violently.
"Haha, that's good too. It saves me time!" The pockmarked man glanced at his trembling hands, laughed coldly twice, and his eyes were vicious.
"But don't even think about eating the pig food today! If I don't teach you a lesson, you animals won't obey me!"
The hand suddenly shook violently, and silently put the lunch box back.
The man with the pockmarked face scooped a spoonful of the black stuff and poured it into my lunch box.
"You're new here. If you don't eat your first meal, you won't have the energy to work later! This is good stuff, enjoy it! Hehehe!"
The pockmarked man threw the spoon into the metal bucket, sneered, and pushed the cart away.
The lights in the corridor went out, and darkness returned. Then the suppressed sounds of eating could be heard.
I withdrew my hand and held the contents of the lunch box under the light for a closer look.
It was a black mass mixed with rice grains and black leaf fragments. I had no idea what kind of vegetable it was.
It looks even worse than pig food, but it exudes a rich aroma that makes people hungry.
"What is that? It smells so good." Zhao Xiaohai sat up again and swallowed.
"Xiao Hai, you can't eat this!" My stomach was also rumbling. Resisting the temptation, I prepared to find a place to dump out the contents of the lunch box.
"If you don't want to eat it, give it to me! Give it to me, give it to me!" A hoarse voice came from the cell opposite again, very anxious.
"What is this?"
"Eat, if I don't eat I'll be worse than death! I only have one chance a day, give me some food, please!" The voice was trembling, two dry and white hands stretched out from the railing, and the black fingertips scratched at the air.
A haggard face emerged from the darkness, with sparse and messy hair, deeply sunken cheeks and no flesh at all, as if there was only a piece of skin wrapped around the skull, not much better than a skeleton.
“Give it to me, give it to me…”
The bulging eyes revealed an immense desire, the lips wrinkled like dead leaves kept opening and closing, the man repeated weakly and anxiously, his black fingertips kept scratching.
How come this is like a drug addiction?
"Give it to me, give it to me!"
"Give it to me, please, give it to me!"
In the deep and dark corridor, pale hands like skeletons stretched out from other cells. Faces that were just skin and bones were pressed against the railings, looking eagerly at the lunch box in my hand, like starving ghosts.
This scene is creepy.
"I can give you this, but you have to tell me everything you know."
"No problem, I'll do anything you ask me to do!"
I put the lunch box on the ground and pushed it hard to the other side.
The lunch box hit the metal railing and was immediately grabbed by a dry hand. The skinny man opposite shrank back into the darkness holding the lunch box, and soon the sound of eating could be heard.
The people in the other cages looked over there with disappointment and jealousy, licking their dry lips continuously.
After a few minutes, the smacking sound disappeared, and it was followed by the sound of a tongue licking the lunch box.
I finally know why the lunch box is so clean.
Not until the skinny man opposite had finished eating completely did the people in the other cages shrank back into the darkness dejectedly.
"Can you keep your promise now and tell me what you know?" I said, staring at the other party.
After a while, the man's haggard face emerged from the darkness and he pushed the empty lunch box back to me.
"Thank you, but you will die if you don't eat." The man leaned on the railing, and his face, which looked like dry bark, had no expression.
" Why did he die?" I took the lunch box back and threw it back on the simple bed.
"I don't have the energy to work. I'll either be beaten to death by them or die of exhaustion. There's no good outcome." There was no apology in the man's tone, only endless numbness.
"What kind of work?" I frowned.
"You'll know in a minute." The man glanced at me and said, "My name is No. 39. Look at your clothes. Where is your name?"
serial number?
I looked down and saw a number on my chest.
44.
During this period of time, I seem to have a special affinity with the number 4.
“Number 44?” Hearing the number I reported, the man smiled indifferently, “The previous number 44 just died, and the new number 44 appeared. There is never a shortage of dead people in hell.”
Just died?
I was startled and looked at the bloodstains on my clothes. They seemed to have dried up not long ago and there was still a faint fishy smell.
