EN CH5

Chapter 5: Smiling Gas 01

After the final word fell, that entity abruptly went silent.

Often, a sudden stillness is meant to brew something ominous, yet Yu Feichen felt no fear. Although the vast majority of the Paradise’s residents were devout believers willing to go through fire and water for the Main God, not a single law explicitly forbade disrespecting a deity.

At last, the voice spoke again, no longer as deafening as before.

“Beyond the Gate of Eternal Night is not a place where you fight alone.” The deep, somber voice echoed from all directions. “Those who follow you wholeheartedly ought to be brought back. One adventure, one brought back.”

Yu Feichen asked, “Must be brought back?”

After a brief pause, he added, “What lies beyond the gate?”

The owner of the voice did not answer any of his questions.

Within the pitch-black, lifeless void, only a single indifferent sentence rang out.

“Good luck.”

As if the dark night had deepened in an instant, an invisible force shoved Yu Feichen heavily forward.

The sensation felt like leaping off a cliff, yet the freezing darkness clung to him like a shadow. Rather than falling, it felt more like plunging into water.

When he finally gasped his first breath, damp, chilly air flooded his lungs. He opened his eyes and found himself inside a narrow, constantly jolting space. People surrounded him on all sides, and soft sobbing echoed nearby.

He was sitting on the floor against a corner. The sheet-metal floor was covered in black smudges, and a rhythmic clanking rose from beneath. He quickly deduced that he was inside a train car.

Yu Feichen looked up to see people packed tightly around him, sitting or lying down. The carriage was dim, illuminated only by a small window on the far right. He pinched a bit of the black substance on the floor between his fingers.

Coal cinders.

This was a coal train, yet it was packed full of people.

A sudden sob came from not far in front of him. A gentlemanly dressed man was holding a woman wrapped in an overcoat, and she was the one crying. “Where on earth are we going?” she asked, her voice trembling as her hands clutched tightly at her abdomen.

The gentleman, who looked to be her husband, simply kissed her cheek and hair over and over to comfort her. “I’m right here with you. I’ll always be with you… Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, Leanna.”

“We’ve been heading north the whole time,” another young male voice spoke up from the right. “After this long, we’re definitely no longer in Korosha.”

The sobbing grew heavier, and low murmurs broke out among the others in the carriage.

“Where are they taking us?”

“May the gods protect us.”

Yu Feichen looked toward his right.

“What happened?” The moment the words left his mouth, he realized his voice was terribly hoarse.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the married couple politely offering each other water from a thermos. It seemed everyone had been thirsty for a long time.

“You’re awake,” the young man beside him said. “You were out cold for so long we thought you were dead.”

Yu Feichen replied, “Not dead yet.”

Everyone in the carriage was in low spirits, yet this boy alone seemed to maintain a sense of optimism. He even struck up a conversation, asking Yu Feichen, “What’s your name?”

Yu Feichen’s fingers brushed over his right shirt cuff, where several raised letters were embroidered.

“Jans Adams,” he said.

“I’ve heard of you,” the boy replied. “Big-shot lawyer.”

So his identity here was a lawyer.

Yu Feichen accepted this premise. The overcoat and dress shirt he was wearing were indeed made of expensive fabric and well-tailored.

He leaned back against the wall and stretched his limbs, his joints popping a few times. This body had broad shoulders, long legs, and a decent build, which counted as a stroke of good luck.

“And you?” he asked.

“Bai Song,” the boy said. “I served in the port for a year as a corporal. Right before all this happened, I had just answered the call-up to head to the front lines. The very next day, the Black-Badge Army occupied Korosha.”

Front lines, occupation, Black-Badge Army.

Stringing those three terms together, Yu Feichen knew without a doubt that he had arrived in an era of war. And during wartime, the only people packed onto coal trains for transport were prisoners of war.

The Black-Badge Army had captured a city and herded its original residents onto trains to ship them elsewhere.

The rhythmic clanking suddenly slowed, and a piercing whistle tore through the carriage. The young boy named Bai Song abruptly grabbed Yu Feichen’s forearm, his hand trembling slightly.

It turned out he was scared, too.

An earsplitting screech rang out as pale daylight flooded in. The sliding doors of the car had been pulled open. “Get off! Line up!” a harsh, brutish voice barked from outside.

Three seconds passed, and nobody stepped down. A soldier in a black military uniform standing below suddenly fired a shot into the sky, prompting people to finally file out one after another. A scream pierced the freezing wind as a woman who climbed down too slowly was kicked.

People poured out of the dozen or so adjacent train cars. At a glance, there were at least six hundred of them. Two armed soldiers stood in front of each carriage. Once almost everyone had disembarked, the two soldiers began walking forward, forcing the captives to form a long line and follow them.

The married couple stood directly ahead of Yu Feichen, the wife still pressing her right hand against her abdomen, while Bai Song stood behind him. Ahead of them loomed a gray compound enclosed by an electric fence.

The entrance to the compound was a black iron gate flanked by guards. Hanging crookedly to the right of the iron gate was a dilapidated sign reading “Oak Valley Chemical Plant.”

Mounted above the old sign was a newly forged iron plaque bearing another string of letters:

“Oak Valley Internment Camp.”

Yu Feichen surveyed his surroundings. The facility sat on a plain surrounded by mountains on three sides. Beneath a leaden-gray sky, it was the dead of winter. All the escorting and guarding soldiers were armed with live ammunition; this camp was clearly no safe haven.

After being pushed through the Gate of Eternal Night, the power from the Paradise within him had vanished completely, leaving him feeling just like an ordinary person born and raised in this world. It had been a very long time since he had felt this kind of absolute freedom.

Another obvious difference was that every previous world had come with a clear mission objective, immediately recalling him the moment the task was done. Before sending him here, however, that entity at the Gate of Eternal Night hadn’t mentioned a single objective.

Even so, since he had been brought here, whatever needed to be accomplished was certainly tied to this internment camp.

Stepping through the main gate, a newly built long wall blocked their line of sight, preventing anyone from seeing the camp’s full layout. Several dark tables were set up at the base of the wall, with a few military officers and two doctors in white coats seated behind them.

The cold wind howled as the lined-up captives hunched their shoulders and shuffled forward. The crowd included ordinary civilians as well as properly attired gentlemen and ladies. Yet upon reaching the tables, they received only a single command.

“Strip.”

At the head of the line stood an elderly man wearing round-rimmed glasses. He wore a khaki suit, and his snow-white hair was meticulously groomed. He stared straight at the officer before him without moving a muscle.

The officer’s eyes bulged slightly, the corners of his mouth tight and unreadable, as he repeated, “Strip.”

“You have no right to demand that of me,” the old man said.

The officer raised his hand. A gunshot cracked through the air.

Screams erupted from the crowd.

A dull thud followed as the body collapsed to the ground, blood splattering far across the dirt.

The second person in line trembled as he unbuttoned his shirt, continuing to undress under the officer’s watchful gaze until he was left in nothing but his trousers.

A soldier took his clothes, fished the banknotes and pocket watch out of the pockets to drop them into a tin box, and tossed the garments into a much larger cardboard carton. Then, they handed him a gray, long-sleeved work uniform.

“Not a scrap of supplies on the entire train,” muttered a black-uniformed guard standing not far from Yu Feichen.

His companion replied, “They’re shipping plenty of trash here by the carload, though.”

“Good thing you can still pan gold out of trash.”

The wife standing in front of Yu Feichen shuddered slightly, pressing closer to her husband. Her hand never left her abdomen for a second. As the freezing wind whipped her clothes tight against her frame, her silhouette became unmistakable: her waist and belly were slightly swollen. She was pregnant.

The line inched forward. Able-bodied young and middle-aged men along with some sturdy women were separated into one group, while the elderly, children, and remaining women were placed into another. In addition, a man with a limp and an albino were grouped together. A moment later, another pregnant woman was added to their group as well.

Everything else around them was open ground with an unobstructed view. The only notable sight was a black military vehicle parked off to the side of the line.

Yu Feichen had initially assumed a squad of armed soldiers was sitting inside. However, as the line crept forward and he caught a glimpse from behind and to the side, he realized that wasn’t the case. Through the car window, the seats were completely empty save for a single figure sitting in the front passenger seat, head slightly bowed.

It was impossible to tell what the person was doing, or if they were doing anything at all.

The figure wore a black military uniform. Beneath a peaked cap, a hint of white was visible; looking closer, it was long platinum-blond hair spilling down.

“Where’d that little pretty boy in the car come from? Didn’t see him yesterday,” one soldier said.

“Not a girl. Just graduated from Xiyun Military Academy this month and already made Black-Badge Captain. No idea who pulled strings to send him here,” another soldier remarked mockingly. “The Senior Colonel plans to knock him down a peg, so he’s leaving him out here to cool his heels.”