Chapter 4

Time became an abstract concept. My brain felt like a runaway machine. One moment I was thinking of my daughter lying on the operating table, the next my severed finger, then the manager who beat me, and then that failed “robbery”… When I finally snapped out of it and looked at the clock, it was already three o’clock.

Had six hours passed, or eighteen?

My sleepiness had completely vanished, confirming my suspicion that they had indeed added something to the water. The hall was a total disaster area. People kept getting injured. There was a woman dancing tirelessly; how long had she been dancing? She must have surpassed the limits of human stamina, yet her face still bore an expression of pure ecstasy.

I wanted to find the mysterious man who spoke to me, but the room was too chaotic. I circled the room twice but couldn’t spot him.

As for Xiaodie, she was curled up in a corner near the door, like a sheep surrounded by beasts.

“Ring ring ring…”

That ear-piercing bell rang again. The doors were reopened, and the man with the gold-rimmed glasses walked in smiling, followed by a line of men in black.

“Congratulations to you all. You have completed the first experiment. Please collect your payment, and then follow our staff to rest. The next experiment begins tomorrow morning.”

The man waved his hand, and two men in black opened their briefcases and began distributing cash.

The crazed participants became even more excited at the sight of the money, the hall devolving into a chaotic din.

“Excuse me, can I quit now? I don’t want to continue the experiment anymore.” Xiaodie timidly raised her hand, her face still showing shock and terror.

“Every volunteer has the right to choose to participate or withdraw. Of course you can quit,” the man replied politely.

Xiaodie let out a long sigh of relief, took her money, and prepared to leave with the men in black.

“The reward for the second experiment is five hundred thousand dollars. You can all go rest now and prepare yourselves,” the man continued speaking into the microphone.

Five hundred thousand dollars. That was more money than many people could make in a lifetime.

My heart gave a violent tremor. With that money, my daughter could finish her surgery, and our family would have hope again.

Xiaodie also stopped in her tracks. She bit her lip and walked back into the crowd.

The man adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, revealing a contemptuous smile, as if this was all exactly what he had expected.

Originally, there were eighty-two subjects. Five were eliminated for sleeping. Twenty-nine lost their mobility during the experiment (mostly due to being beaten into critical condition). The remaining forty-eight were divided into pairs and led to separate rooms in batches. The rooms were luxuriously decorated. Although they weren’t large, they had everything you could need—even the faucets were gold-plated. I couldn’t help but wonder: who exactly were the masterminds behind this experiment?

Glasses Guy had said the experiment was funded by the Qinlian Financial Group. I remembered the city news from last month. Qin Wenyou, the eldest son of the Qinlian group, was kidnapped and taken into the deep mountains. He survived ten days without food or water by eating a corpse. When he was rescued, he had gone completely insane. Later, in the psychiatric hospital, he bit his own biological brother to death. The company’s stock plummeted for half a month, and a secret ledger detailing Qin Wenyou’s bribes to government officials was leaked to the media by a mysterious figure, plunging the city into chaos. With such an absolute mess on their hands, how did the Qinlian Group still have the mood to fund such a twisted experiment?

The door was kicked open with a bang, interrupting my thoughts. The heavily tattooed bald man walked in, panting heavily. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and chugged down more than half of it.

Just my luck, my roommate was him.

“Um… it’s best not to drink the water here casually,” I reminded him out of kindness.

He ignored me completely, sitting on his bed and watching TV. I leaned against my pillow, wanting to sleep for a bit, but bizarrely, even after seventy-two hours of no sleep, I still didn’t feel tired at all. I remembered the “Black Room Experiment” the mysterious man had mentioned. If humans lose sleep, what exactly do they become?

I don’t know how much time passed, but the bald guy began to mutter to himself. At first, I thought he was sleep talking, but as I listened, something felt off. Sleep talk wouldn’t be this logical.

“Boss, that girl… I didn’t kill her. I told her from the start not to snort so much powder, but she didn’t listen. I tried my best to save her.”

“The cops are after me, and people on the streets are looking for me too. I have no choice. I started following you when I was seventeen. When something like this happens, I can only come to you for help, right?”

“You shouldn’t have slapped me, and you shouldn’t have made that call. I always treated you like my own big brother. I want to live! I had no choice but to kill your whole family. Your seven-year-old son, he kept hugging my leg, hehehe, just like a little meatball…”

My heart raced. I stood up and quietly crept closer. The bald man had his back to me, facing the wall, confessing his deepest, darkest secrets.

I’m dead. This gangster is also a homicidal maniac. My palms were sweaty as I tried to back away to my own bed.

Right at that moment, the ear-piercing bell rang abruptly. The bald guy jerked as if he’d been electrocuted and snapped his head around. His pupils were suffused with a violent, bloodshot redness. It was no longer the expression of a human being.