Chapter 3

Something wasn’t right. At an inexplicable point in time, the people in the room began to get incredibly hyper.

Someone was singing loudly, another stood up and started dancing. That bald guy was doing push-ups on the floor and showed no signs of stopping even after ten straight minutes. There was also a heavily made-up woman who actually took off her top and started dancing seductively…

Under the dim lighting, the scene in the room looked incredibly bizarre, as if the world was slowly sinking—sinking into an irrational, primitive era.

“Brother Zhou, why did they suddenly turn like this?” Xiaodie’s face was pale with fear as she huddled next to me, shivering.

“Did you drink the water or eat the food just now?” I remembered what that mysterious man told me and turned to ask her.

“No, I was afraid eating would make me sleepy.”

“Come on, let’s go sit in the corner. I have a feeling something bad is going to happen.” I grabbed Xiaodie’s arm, pushed through the crowd, and sat down in a peripheral corner.

Just as we sat down, the incident occurred.

The bald guy was still doing push-ups when a man nearby accidentally stepped on his hand. The bald guy sprang up like a broken machine, letting out a wild roar, and punched the man to the ground. The man’s head hit the floor, and blood began to slowly pool out like wet paint.

This accidental act of violence triggered a chain reaction. These people began to brawl and beat each other aimlessly. Some women started screaming at the top of their lungs, the piercing decibels nearly rupturing our eardrums.

“Hehehehe…” an eerie laugh sounded right by my ear. I backed away out of reflex and saw a man with a small mustache, his eyes glowing red, bite down hard on my arm.

“Are you fucking crazy?!” I shouted in pain, shoving him away and staring at the ring of teeth marks on my arm.

Something was wrong. Something was absolutely wrong.

The mustached man acted like a zombie from a movie, pouncing at me again with that eerie laugh. I grabbed Xiaodie and dodged to the left, causing him to crash into someone else. It was a woman in her forties. He bit into her shoulder, and a chilling scene unfolded: the woman acted as if she felt no pain whatsoever and actually kept singing loudly, her tone not even wavering.

Fear made my adrenaline skyrocket. I fought my way through the crazed crowd to the door and pounded fiercely on the iron gate.

“Open the door! Open the door, we want to quit!”

“Experiment in progress. Withdrawals are not permitted,” came the icy reply from outside.

“What kind of experiment are you running?! What the hell did you put in the food you just gave us?” I hammered the iron door until it clanged loudly. My hands became red and swollen, but strangely, it didn’t hurt that much.

“Regarding potential unexpected dangers and accidental bodily harm, these are all written in the treaty. You all signed it.”

I was still making my futile resistance when Xiaodie let out a piercing scream nearby.

I looked back. A man wearing a baseball cap had grabbed Xiaodie by her hair, pinned her to the ground, and was repeatedly driving his knee into her abdomen. Xiaodie’s body twisted in agony, tears streaming down her face.

“Let her go.” I shoved my way over and grabbed the man’s neck.

But the man acted as if he couldn’t hear me, continuing to beat her.

“I said let her the fuck go!”

I punched the man in the eye socket. He lost his balance and fell to his knees, but quickly tried to stand back up. Terrified he would keep hurting Xiaodie, I kicked him in the head. He still tried to struggle up. I completely lost my reason, using every ounce of strength I had until I was panting heavily. The man was beaten into a bloody pulp, his pupils dilated wide. I couldn’t tell if he was still conscious.

“It’s… it’s okay now.” I reached out, wanting to pull Xiaodie up.

But Xiaodie shrank back against the wall, her face devoid of color. She looked at me, her eyes filled with fear and unease.

She was afraid of me.

I suddenly realized that I had never been in a real fight since I was a kid. How could I have been so brutal this time? If what that mysterious man said was true, that there was something maddening in the water, I had swallowed a few mouthfuls too. Would I soon become an animal like them?