Chapter 110 The Final Deadline: "I've Seen the Final Deadline"
"Stop laughing! Why aren't you all laughing anymore?"
The atmosphere was deathly silent. The oblivious newcomer was still asking questions, and the one who spoke first already regretted provoking her. However, some eyes were secretly cast over her, urging her to quickly resolve the trouble she had caused.
Why is it me again? Everyone was laughing just now...
Discarding his absurd thoughts, he took a deep breath before his departure and asked the strange newcomer, "Being able to enter the Cross Prison proves we all deserve to die. But do you know which three types of people here are the most dangerous to mess with?"
"Oh? Which three categories?"
"First, sheriffs are all lapdogs of the wealthy, but anyone who dares to offend Christina Fisher and still survives is a ruthless person, and it's best not to mess with them."
"Secondly, here, those who offend the tycoons die the fastest, and the tycoons hate those associated with the rebels the most. People who are about to die are capable of anything, so it's best not to mess with them."
"Third, the characteristics of superhumans are extremely diverse. Even a superhuman who has reached the A-level and whose mental strength has reached its limit can be killed by a superhuman who has just reached the A-level. Therefore, it is best not to provoke those whose minds are different from ordinary people and whose thought processes are unpredictable."
After rattling off a long string of words in one breath, he paused for a moment, then heard the newlyweds next door ponder for a moment before letting out a long "Oh," their tone surprisingly proud: "Then I've got it all, haven't I?"
The gazes fixed on them abruptly shifted away. Linqi closed her eyes briefly, a dull ache throbbing in her forehead. She could tell that the pride in the newlyweds' voices next door was entirely genuine… This was even more terrifying, wasn't it?
Going to jail is annoying enough, and now we have a "colleague" with a weird brain!
Is this a warning sign from fate, hinting that my time is up?
Du Yu had no idea that her casual reply had plunged the neighbors into a state of self-destructive infighting. Without the restrictive clothing, she was finally able to see her surroundings clearly.
Du Yu had never been to prison in her previous life, but she had seen many related movies and TV shows with Wen Xi. The cells in the Cross Prison weren't particularly high-class either. The surroundings were pretty much as she had imagined: a cramped little room of less than ten square meters. At one end of the wall was a single bed, a simple washbasin, and a toilet. Then there was the smart door she had just entered through, which was also the only piece of "furniture" with a strong sense of technology. It was completely black, with a narrow strip of light at a height of about 1.9 meters.
Strangely, mysterious patterns were carved on the walls, floor, and some corners of this small cell.
Du Yu didn't know much about the mystical rituals of this world, but by using his spiritual vision to "see" the flow of energy attached to them, it wasn't hard to deduce that these patterns in the cell, like the metal cross on top of the prison clock tower, were used to restrict the use of superpowers by those with superpowers.
After all, it's a prison specifically for people with superpowers, so it's not surprising that it has these kinds of arrangements—but in addition to the patterns that restrict the flow of superpowers, Du Yu also discovered some other patterns that were rare and whose function was unknown.
Before she could figure out the purpose of these patterns, footsteps sounded again in the corridor, which had been quiet for a short while. The sound was dull and slow, growing louder as it approached, and finally disappeared when it reached the door of Du Yu's cell.
The one who could come and go freely in the cell must have been the sheriff. However, the sheriff was extremely tall, and through the window at the top of the smart security gate, Du Yu could only make out the shoulder badge made of several interwoven silver threads on the person's shoulder.
"1503, come out."
The smart door opened with a "beep" sound. "1503" was the prison number of this alias Zhang Wei. Du Yu came out of the cell he hadn't even settled into yet, and struggled to look up at the person in front of him in the pale corridor light—could this thing be a person? It was about two and a half meters tall, and its whole body was wrapped in a layer of translucent crystal, with only a sheriff's uniform on the outside.
Du Yu heard someone exclaim in surprise not far away, "X-TI Type III android!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a nameplate with the character "Li" hanging on the android's chest. He then saw the "human's" chest cavity vibrating, and a sound emanating from some unknown organ.
"Project LG-021 is short of personnel. Voluntary inmates will be rewarded with 50 redemption points. No one has responded. Random selection will begin in three minutes."
The original owner didn't have much information about androids in her memories. She only knew that by adding a special crystalline material during the creation of androids, she could create advanced androids that could use similar "superpowers".
The reason it is described as similar is that the production conditions for such advanced androids are not only demanding, but also subject to many restrictions in the use of superpowers, making them far inferior to normal humans and only a low-end version.
However, in terms of loyalty and secrecy, androids are far superior to superhumans. Upon seeing the "X-TI Type III android" in front of her, Du Yu felt that Bian Shaoyan, who seemed to have "come back to life," was somewhat similar to this advanced android, but the feeling she had just received from Bian Shaoyan was not as rigid as that of an android.
The crystals used to create advanced androids are only produced in the mist, and the principle behind them is still unclear. However, among all the androids that the original owner had ever seen, none of them used that strange green liquid.
Quark Pharmaceuticals has always conducted some strange human experiments. Is this their latest achievement? Turning living people into androids? Preserving the lives of the seriously injured in this way? I wonder if Bian Shaoyan's superpower can be preserved in this way... He didn't use his superpower when the conflict just started.
As Du Yu's thoughts wandered, the voice of the "X-TI Type III" android in front of him, whose vocal organ was installed somewhere, spoke again: "The countdown is about to begin..."
"Never mind, I'll go."
The cell door next to Du Yu opened, and a tall, slender figure stepped out. He shrugged at her, and a familiar voice continued, "Fourth, stay away from projects with LG, KK, NY, or hospital-related names. If anyone comes out of these projects alive, run as far away as you can if you see them."
"Then why did you come out?"
The android's smooth, blank head turned towards the two of them—Du Yu could tell the front from the back of its head by the uniform hat on its head. As if the information was confirmed, it immediately turned around and walked back the way it came.
Du Yu felt a sudden heaviness in the shackles on her wrists and ankles, pulling her to keep up with the android's pace. The woman beside her, who called herself "nearing her due date," did the same. She lowered her eyebrows and let out a long sigh.
"Why did I come out? Sigh, because I'm afraid of dying, but I don't really want to live either."
Du Yu was taken aback by this unexpected answer and couldn't help but engage in a small talk befitting the atmosphere of the Cross Prison:
"What did you do wrong?"
"What a coincidence."
Linqi sighed again. She was clearly good-looking, but she always had droopy eyebrows and was filled with a kind of melancholy that seemed to worry about nothing.
The androids only cared about the mission, never caring whether the mission objective was to beat each other up or to communicate. As the expiration date approached, their gaze swept over the tightly closed cells. They didn't know where they got so much to sigh about, and they slowly sighed again: "Just like you, it's a thought crime."
Thought Offense, a bizarre charge encompassing everything from advocating for a rebellion to overthrow the City of the Sun to slacking off at work and causing losses to the company. If someone with legal knowledge from a past life saw this law, they'd probably scream, but in the City of the Sun, it's perfectly normal.
Du Yu pondered the state of mind of the impending expiration date: "Did your boss sue you because you were too negative at work?"
"No."
As they chatted, the two had already left the prisoner supervision area. Suddenly, their eyes lit up, and even though the force applied to their joints was almost enough to crush their bones, Du Yu couldn't help but slow down.
The outer layer was a wall guarded by sheriffs, the inner layer was a prison cell supervised by more loyal androids, and there were ubiquitous ritual arrays that bound supernatural abilities. Although these things were novel, they were all within Du Yu's expectations.
But who can tell her why, in the prime real estate of Upper East Side, in the middle of Cross Prison, a large number of prisoners are farming?
Outside the prison area, vast tracts of cultivated land stretched into the distance, eventually meeting the towering walls in the distance. The fields and ditches connected, resembling a giant chessboard, dotted with shackled "farmers."
The all-too-familiar farmland scene almost made Du Yu think he had traveled back to his past life, but the moment he saw the crops clearly, the daze that had just arisen vanished instantly.
In the familiar farmland, what grew was not any crop that Du Yu was familiar with, but clusters of grayish-white crystals—the same crystals she had just seen on the "X-TI Type III Bionic Human".
The crystals grown in the farmland are dull in color, grayish, and lack the translucent texture and mystical aura of the androids. They are no different from ordinary stones by the roadside.
"puff."
Du Yu's eyes narrowed. Not far away, a prisoner was wiping a crystal when his eyes suddenly went blank. He fell straight forward, and the blood-stained gray-white crystal pierced right through his chest. He twitched a few times and then lay still.
The people around seemed unfazed. Several prisoners who were also squatting down to wipe the crystal didn't even bother to look at them. In just a few breaths, the prisoner's body, like a wax figure under high temperature, quickly melted into a pool of gray slime and merged into the soil.
The blood-stained crystal surface seemed to have become slightly smoother.
"Making androids requires gray crystals, making prosthetic bodies requires gray crystals, and replacing parts on the central AI Yuanfu machine also requires gray crystals. With such a huge shortage, how can those poor bastards in the lower city risk their lives in the gray fog?
To get to the laboratory, one had to cross an arched bridge. Standing on high, the prisoners squatting in the field polishing crystals appeared even smaller. Linqi strolled over to Du Yu's side, his eyes downcast, his eyebrows still drooping listlessly. Coupled with the mockery in his eyes, he inexplicably exuded a cold sternness.
"—Of course, more importantly, gray crystals are very expensive. As long as it's profitable, even though gray crystals are said to only appear deep in the gray fog, the conglomerates still managed to grow them in the Upper City."
Why build a prison for people with superpowers in the prime real estate of Shangcheng District? The answer is surprisingly simple: it's profitable.
"Didn't you ask me why I came in?"
The gaze of the approaching official drifted from the farmland beneath the corridor, through the distant, faintly visible walls, all the way to the horizon, fixing on the pale, luminous sun illuminating the upper city:
"I was just telling the truth—I, you, them, this prison, this city, this world, are all like my name, about to reach their final deadline, the imperfect ending of the story."
Suddenly, Linqi laughed, the silver light of "Destiny" shimmering in her eyes:
"I have seen the final deadline; the end is fast approaching."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
