Eternal Night

white smoke in the southeastern side.

“What’s that?” Someone asked.

No one answered him.
There were some who stared in confusion, and others who showed no reaction.
There were also a few others who gazed at the fleeting white smoke with deep sadness etched on their faces.

A full three minutes passed before one of the foremen raised an eyebrow.
He sneered and said, “The furnace.”

Yu Feichen lowered his gaze.

It was impossible that this concentration camp would treat the prisoners well.
He knew that he had to hurry.

—

Work in the brick kiln finally ceased when dusk approached.
By then, the prisoners were already covered in brick dust and were therefore given the opportunity to shower.
To Yu Feichen, this made the day somewhat more bearable.

He brought back two iron barbs that had fallen off a leather whip from the kiln.
On the other hand, Bai Song knocked the ball right out of the park—he had actually brought a brick back.

“I can’t sleep, sir.” He said to the foreman, “I need a pillow, even if it’s as hard as this.”

The foreman looked at his blistered hands, then gave a nasally grunt, saying, “Fine.
That’ll be your reward for a full day of atonement.”

As dust had entered their lungs, everyone in the cell kept coughing that night.

“This is like hell.” The friar shuddered.
With a nervous tremor in his voice, he said, “What exactly have we done wrong?”

“The motherland will save us,” Bai Song said to the friar as he pillowed his head, turning over.

The friar’s lips quivered.
“But do they know where we are?”

One hand supported against the wall, Bai Song got up.
He was about to pat the friar’s shoulder when he suddenly froze.

A shudder ran through his entire body.
He looked at the foot of the wall in horror—

When he got up, the blisters formed on three of his fingers had streaked three fresh bloodstains across the wall—

In the exact image of the three bizarre marks that had appeared last night.

How could this be? Just how could this be?

Yu Feichen put his right hand on his shoulder.

Bai Song breathed in deeply and seemed to calm down slightly.

“You can rest for a while first,” Yu Feichen told them.
“I’ll wake all of you up before twelve.”

“What do you mean?” The brawny blonde asked him.

“After midnight,” Yu Feichen weighed his words.
“Something… strange might happen.
You’ll find out when the time comes.”

After a brief pause, he said, “Or, it could be our escape ticket.”

With this, ignoring their questions, he shut his eyes.

The previous night, two men had gone missing from this cell.
Last night, a strange turn appeared in the cell.
Most certainly, this night would be no exception.

At midnight, the bell tolled.

Yu Feichen opened his eyes.

He used his lighter to illuminate the foot of the wall—the three bloodstains from not long ago had changed from fresh red to faded marks.
Bai Song looked nervous and fraught.

He wasn’t good at comforting people, so he simply picked up the brick that Bai Song had brought back.

After the senior officer had effortlessly picked the iron lock with a piece of wire, the chief warden changed the lock on the door to a new brass lock that looked much sturdier.

Yu Feichen slammed the brick against the lock.
The clay in the land here was sticky; the burnt bricks were hard as stone.
After slamming it a few times, he heard the lock core loosen.

“What are you doing?” The friar screamed.
“They’ll hear you.”

Yu Feichen stopped moving.
He let the dead silence around them answer the friar.

Putting down the brick, he twisted the two iron barbs together, sticking them into the lock hole.

After a few attempts, the brass lock popped open with a click.

And with a creaking noise, Yu Feichen pulled the iron-barred door open and stepped out.

The corridor was deathly silent.

So were the other cells.

He walked to the lavatory and used the lighter to heat up the tin soap box next to the sink.
In it, the inferior quality butter soap bar for communal use quickly melted into a translucent pool of grease.
He then ripped a thin strip of cloth from his shirt and dipped it in the grease, leaving only a short end exposed.
The linen was flammable and could be used as a barely passable wick.

Using the lighter to ignite the cloth, the soap box was turned into a rudimentary oil lamp.

Dim light shone upon the empty corridor.

He checked the cell next door first.
It was empty.
The other cells, as well.

Bai Song caught up to him.

“Those marks—” Bai Song said, “I am probably the one who made them.
But they appeared even though I hadn’t done that last night.”

He looked around them.
“So, this… Now… Is this now the here in the future?”

His wording was confusing.
But Yu Feichen understood what he meant.

Last night, three faded bloodstains appeared on the wall after midnight.

On this night, Bai Song left three marks on the wall because of the bleeding blisters on his fingers.

Which also meant to say, the barracks after midnight, had possibly transformed into the barracks from a certain point in the future.
Whereas they were still the same as before.

He answered Bai Song, “I believe so.”

“Then James, what should we do?”

The name James still hadn’t quite stuck with Yu Feichen.
His memory of names was as poor as his memory of faces.
Surprisingly, Yu Feichen was the one name that he could clearly remember from the many names that he had been given in the various worlds—so from then on, he just kept using it.

He said, “You can call me by another name.”

He had bought the translation sphere in Paradise.
No matter which world he was in, he wouldn’t encounter any language barrier.
After a brief moment of thought, he said a syllable to Bai Song that was more easily pronounced by the people in this world: “Yu.”

“Yu,” repeated Bai Song.
Then he said, “What are you going to do?”

“There’s no one here now,” Yu Feichen said.
“There might not be anyone outside either.
We can get out of here.”

“Escape?”

“We’ll scout out the route first.” Yu Feichen said, “Once we have it down, we can take our time to find an opportunity.
I’ll get all of you out of here.”

At night, time in this barracks seemed to have mysteriously warped.
There was no telling what would happen if they escaped in the night.

—And this was precisely what Yu Feichen found strange.
He had done missions in many types of worlds before, and those worlds were always consistent.
If it was normal, it would always be normal; if there were the supernatural, there would always be the supernatural; if time could be changed, then the principle of the change would be well documented like a nursery rhyme in a textbook.

Instead, there was a sudden shift in the timeline in a world that had only developed to the stage of thermal weapons.
It was similar to a lace bow that appeared on the chest of a military uniform; it wouldn’t match, nor would it look aesthetically pleasing.

If there was such a twisted land beyond the Gate of Eternal Night, with even him having to surmise the mission objective himself—then, perhaps his choice to stay away from the Divine Lord was a mistake.

“Get us out of here?” Bai Song said, “There are seven of us.
It’d be hard to escape, no?”

“Not seven,” Yu Feichen said.
“What I mean is, everyone.”

Bai Song’s brain jammed.

Yu Feichen looked towards their cell and the remaining five men in it.
“Are you coming with me?”

The brawny blonde hesitated, but was the first to go over to him.
He was followed by the big-nosed man, and the chemistry teacher.

With only two men left in the cell, the empty barracks felt much more foreboding.

“I want to get out, I want to get out.” The friar muttered, “God be with us.”

And he, too, came along.