Naming Technique of the Night

Chapter 811: 487, give life a thumbs up

Is it really okay?

To be despised by more than 2,900 prisoners, standing in this stinking pigsty, being taunted by Jindai soldiers as if watching monkeys, is it really okay?

Qing Chen asked himself if his heart was strong enough, but he had to start learning to understand.

Understand the hardships of the human world.

Understand the helplessness of small people.

When he was at Los Angeles Foreign Language School, many students felt Qing Chen was suffering, having to earn his own tuition and living expenses.

But now looking back, what was that compared to today?

Even when he was in Prison No. 18, before becoming a Knight, what he had experienced was not even one ten-thousandth of what he was going through now.

The past hardships were eased out with the help of Uncle Li Dong, and now it was his turn to walk through it himself.

Jindai Yunzi looked at those prisoners, very satisfied that they had finally succumbed to the temptation of food, smiled at the Jindai soldiers and said, “Let them move stones for another hour, tonight distribute 2,900 synthetic protein bars to 2,921 people.”

He broke his promise, saying they wouldn’t have to do any labor today and each would get a protein bar, but he could arbitrarily change his own words.

Jindai Yunzi seemed to be deliberately announcing.

In this A02 secret military base, he alone had the final say.

The prisoners lowered their heads numbly, no one glared at Jindai Yunzi, Qing Chen knew that these people must have often faced such situations over the decades.

Opposition and complaints would only bring a beating.

Jindai Yunzi walked up to Qing Chen, smiling and said, “Is it ironic that those who once swore allegiance to the Qing’s Family now despise you for a bite of food? You know, Qing Mu didn’t commit suicide because he wanted these people to keep living.”

Qing Chen smiled and said, “Your mom is dead.”

Jindai Yunzi’s expression froze.

He thought Qing Chen would talk about the Qing’s Family’s faith, talk about the persistence of Qing intelligence personnel, but he didn’t expect the crudest of curses.

Qing Chen continued, “If you think you have the ability to make me submit, then try it. From the moment I knew you couldn’t kill me, I knew your ending. I’m ready to face that day, are you?”

Since Jindai wouldn’t kill him, the worst situation would be enduring hardship here for a lifetime.

If that’s the case, why bother submitting?

Jindai Yunzi turned and walked away: “Relax, you’re going to be trapped here for a long time, we can play slowly.”

After saying that, he told the soldiers, “First starve him for three days and nights, then feed him the pig feed, let’s see if he’s still that tough then.”

The night fell.

Qing Chen saw the prisoners slowly walking towards the detention area under the organization of the Jindai soldiers.

In the dark, more than half of the prisoners formed a line, with the people behind putting their arms on the shoulders of the people in front, like a childhood game of playing train.

The people at the back had unfocused eyes, like blind men.

Qing Chen was stunned for a moment, but quickly realized it was because the prisoners had long suffered from nutritional deprivation, that they had developed night blindness.

They had to be led by those with good vision so they could return to the barracks in the dark.

Qing Chen looked at these prisoners, their clothes were thin synthetic winter jackets, and their feet were just a pair of thin rubber shoes.

Many people’s ankles were swollen from the cold, their bloated feet barely stuffed into their original shoes, looking extremely awkward.

Qing Chen sat in the pigsty’s mud, looking at the empty stone trough, he patted a black pig, “You guys are really unlucky, having to suffer hunger for three days because of me.”

The prisoners were silent for a while, and one prisoner, who had been jailed for stealing a high-caste vehicle, whispered, “Is this guy a bit nuts, caring about the pigs at such a time?!”

Someone behind him reminded, “Silence.”

The nights in this cold place were extremely freezing, with temperatures at minus 30 degrees, making Qing Chen feel as if he was frozen in the mud.

This temperature couldn’t kill a C-Class expert, but it would bring pain.

He seriously felt all of this, keeping everything he experienced in his mind.

In the past, he would want to hide away his painful experiences, but now, he wanted to feel them more profoundly.

Those past hardships, he brought them out one by one and examined them.

…

…

The next morning.

The prisoners were driven like sheep to the stonyard.

Everyone labored, occasionally glancing towards Qing Chen.

They found the young man sitting in the pigsty, his hair and eyebrows covered in frost.

Everyone knew how difficult the night here was, especially since Qing Chen’s clothes had been wet with saliva and he hadn’t eaten anything.

At this moment, an airship floated over, and several military clerks disembarked holding filming equipment.

The prisoners knew this was to record Qing Chen’s embarrassment and spread it to destroy the morale of Qing intelligence personnel.

Previously, the Jindai Consortium was forced by Qing Chen to return Qing Mu and was made a mockery in the intelligence community due to the rupture of the intelligence alliance initiated by Qing Chen.

Now, the Jindai Consortium captured Qing Chen, making him follow Qing Mu’s footsteps, a most ironic counterattack.

The clerks set up their equipment, focusing on the disheveled Qing Chen.

Some wanted to get closer to take close-ups but a Jindai soldier at the A02 base hesitated and stopped them: “Don’t get too close, it’s dangerous.”

The clerks were puzzled, they looked at the soldier, then at the struggling and disheveled Qing Chen in the pigsty, not understanding where the danger came from.

However, when these Jindai Consortium clerks stood in the pigsty ready to photograph, all the prisoners saw Qing Chen, with heavy shackles, stand up.

The shackles rattled, and Qing Chen’s frozen clothes made the sound of ice shards tearing, like a frozen towel being forcibly twisted.

At that moment, everyone noticed the Jindai soldier in charge of guarding Qing Chen instinctively retreated a step.

But the soldier quickly realized, Qing Chen was fully shackled and couldn’t even lift his arms, having no ability to hurt anyone.

He adjusted his expression and said to the clerks, “You can shoot now, hurry up.”

The clerks raised their cameras, only to be utterly shocked seeing through the lens that the young man slowly raised his right arm.

The heavy shackles made his arm muscles tremble, the single-hand 800-kilogram alloy shackles, used to restrain B-Class experts, made just watching feel suffocating.

The prisoners silently watched, seeing the young man slowly lift his arm bit by bit.

Then he brightly smiled and made a V-sign with his right hand.

“Peace out!” Qing Chen said.

The clerks were stunned, they came to capture Qing Chen’s embarrassment, but at this moment, where was any embarrassment in him?

The clerks, frustrated, said to the soldiers, “Your commander told us to come here to shoot, but you haven’t even subdued him, how can we shoot? Where’s Jindai Yunzi?”

Jindai Yunzi led over ten military officers from the distant barracks, coldly saying, “Since when can those hiding behind clerks yell at me?”

The clerks hesitated in their momentum, mumbling, “Top order is to get the propaganda material within seven days, do as you see fit.”

Jindai Yunzi frowned, saying, “You’ll stay in the barracks for three days, after that you can do it. Lieutenant, take them hunting in the wild, let them taste some game they can’t get outside.”

A lieutenant beside him nodded, “Understood.”

“Alright, that’s on you, see you in three days,” the clerks took the equipment and followed the lieutenant.

Qing Chen lowered his arm and smiled, “Hey, I think your situation in Jindai isn’t good, even clerks are so bold in front of you, why don’t you defect to Qing’s Family? You can clean the PCA office toilets, I’ll ensure your lifetime safety.”

Jindai Yunzi glanced at him, then said to the prisoners, “Stop your work, each person pick a stone and throw it at him. Same as yesterday, those who throw stones get synthetic protein bars, if one person doesn’t throw, none get food. Whoever throws lightly gets a whip.”

Then, Jindai Yunzi whispered, “Don’t let anyone actually kill him.”

Having said that, he walked away.

A prisoner jailed for courting a high-caste woman picked up a fist-sized stone, ran over, and threw it at Qing Chen’s head.

Qing Chen just tilted his head and dodged it.

But with the shackles limiting his movements, he could dodge one but couldn’t dodge thousands.

One prisoner after another walked to the pigsty and threw stones.

Qing Chen’s body was covered in wounds, except for his face.

Qing’s Family intelligence personnel walked up, holding stones hesitantly, even as soldiers whipped them, they didn’t throw the stones.

Watching those men bleed from the lashes.

Qing Chen calmly said, “It’s okay.”

It was these four words again.

Qing intelligence personnel eventually threw the stones, hitting Qing Chen with loud thuds, reopening his wounds.

Blood soaked into the mud, and the pigs cowered back into the corner in fright.

No one spoke, and Qing Chen didn’t speak again.

When all the prisoners had left, he gasped in pain and sat in the pigsty, prisoners who were perpetually underfed didn’t have much strength to throw stones.

But being hit by over two thousand people, even with his strength, the pain sank into his bones.

The third morning.

When all the prisoners came out of the detention area to work, the first thing they did was look towards the pigsty, to see if that young man was dead.

But the next scene stunned them.

The originally leaky pigsty surroundings had been built up by the young man with the stones thrown at him yesterday into a wind-blocking wall.

He didn’t succumb to self-pity nor submit, continuing to show his will through his actions.

A Jindai soldier madly rushed over, pushed down the stone wall, but Qing Chen’s expression didn’t show any frustration.

At some point, Qing intelligence personnel even felt that the young man looked at the Jindai soldiers with some pity.