Blood Moon Country, Shattered Lake Prison, dining hall.
Yaxiu looked at the dishes laid out before him: Hibiscus Crab, lemon-berry milk cake, Ultimate Lalafell, and golden pineapple juice. His nose was filled with the tantalizing aroma of rare delicacies, yet he couldn't summon the slightest appetite.
These dishes were anything but ordinary. They existed solely on the dining hall's hidden menu, impossible for inmates to order under normal circumstances even if they were willing to burn through contribution points.
Supposedly, even in the outside world, these were exceptionally high-end, rare gourmet fare. Take this Ultimate Lalafell, for instance—the raw ingredients alone cost a third of an average person's monthly wage.
And their flavors certainly lived up to the price. Yaxiu suspected the chef had employed sorcerer techniques; as an urbanite who had weathered years of MSG and chicken powder, he had nearly swallowed his tongue after his very first bite. It was so delicious one would feel content dying on the spot.
But the moment he remembered that he was actually about to die soon, his appetite vanished.
The other condemned convicts, suffering the same plight, felt much the same. Some took a bite here and there, mechanical and detached; some wept as they ate; and some turned their knives and forks backward against themselves. Luckily, the cutlery wasn't sharpened, or it would have triggered the "Suicide Prohibition Warning" in the chips at the napes of their necks.
Only two death row inmates were eating normally in hearty mouthfuls: one was a blue-skinned ogre, and the other was the elf, Valkas.
The two of them genuinely seemed not to care about the impending Blood Moon Trial. The ogre shoveled food directly into his mouth with his bare hands, ordering dish after dish, while Valkas demonstrated ten different ways to use a knife and fork, dining with such elegance that he might as well have been seated in a revolving restaurant atop a skyscraper.
"Having trouble eating? Do you need some help?"
Prison Guard Nagu's pleasant voice lashed through the air like a whip soaked in brine, instantly jolting every death row inmate. Heads snapped down as they began shoveling food into their mouths with frantic vigor.
Even Yaxiu was no exception.
The inmates were terrified because an entire afternoon of "supervision" had thoroughly ground down their arrogance. Faced with Prison Guard Nagu, who could control the chips at the back of their necks, even the most belligerent troublemaker was forced to behave—and if you refused to behave on your own, you'd be made to behave by force.
To be fair, Nagu hadn't done anything excessive to them.
He hadn't so much as touched a hair on their bodies.
He hadn't harmed them in the slightest.
He had merely insisted that every death row inmate follow his schedule to the letter.
For example, at mealtime, if someone refused to eat, Nagu would activate the chip's override system and guide them via voice commands:
"Open your mouth. Put the food in your mouth. Chew once, twice, three times. Swallow..."
Or during film screenings, if someone wasn't watching or moved around, Nagu would turn them into a model moviegoer:
"Sit upright. Place both hands on your knees. Look at the large light screen. Remember to blink once every five seconds."
Or when they were on the Ocean View Rooftop to get fresh air, Nagu claimed that higher-ups had ordered commemorative photos of all the prisoners, complete with the following requirements: neat attire, smiling faces, a demonstration of positive spirit, and an exhibition of Shattered Lake Prison's harmonious community atmosphere...
Naturally, the condemned convicts alone were incapable of meeting these standards, so Nagu gave them a little "assistance."
Yaxiu's role hadn't been too bad—he'd just lain on the ground, leaning his head close to another's and flashing a smile. Valkas, however, had it far more spectacular: he was perched on the ogre's shoulders, hands resting on his head curled like cat ears, his thin, brooding face beaming a sweet smile toward the camera.
And one picture hadn't been enough; they had to shoot multiple poses. From acting dashing and cool to embracing each other in suspiciously homoerotic hugs, every conceivable demonstration of positive spirit was documented.
Having been arranged into all eighteen postures by Nagu, the inmates had gone completely numb. Their only thought was to satisfy his demands as quickly and efficiently as possible, to the point where they wished they could just fast-forward to the Blood Moon Trial.
*Just destroy everything. Hurry up already. I'm exhausted.*
So the moment Nagu spoke up, they immediately abandoned their pointless wallowing in sorrow and resumed shoveling food down.
At this moment, the pressure Supervisor Nagu exerted on them far surpassed that of the Blood Moon Trial.
After all, they hadn't seen "death" yet.
But "a fate worse than death" was right before their eyes.
Yaxiu glanced around the empty dining hall and asked in a low voice to the man beside him, "Why is no one coming to eat right now? Fine if they skipped lunch, but it's not like the other inmates would skip dinner too, right?"
The inmate beside him was named Archibald Harvey. Dark-skinned with a head of curly hair, he looked like a daytime laborer, but in truth, he worked the night shift: a cleaner specializing in disposing of corpses.
One might wonder: wouldn't disposing of a body merely amount to desecrating a corpse? How could that warrant the death penalty?
This naturally had to do with the definition of death: in the Blood Moon Country, a corpse was only officially a corpse once a licensed medic declared it dead.
Without a medic's declaration, even if your head was severed, legally speaking, you were still a living person.
Because medics could genuinely resurrect someone whose head had been cut off. Although many bodies had stopped breathing, they could still be resuscitated.
Consequently, logistics personnel like Harvey, who disposed of bodies for underground syndicates, naturally didn't receive lenient treatment as mere "accomplices." Instead, they were treated as "egregious serial killers." He had handled over a hundred bodies; if each corpse was treated as a living human being, few inmates in the entire prison could rival Harvey's sheer volume of crimes.
That didn't mean Harvey was an innocent, wrongly accused man, however.
Though during their afternoon of idle chat there hadn't been much time for him to divulge his sordid past, two details—that he was a necromancy faction sorcerer and had remarked, "What's so great about a warm woman anyway?"—were enough to deduce that his sexual preferences were centuries ahead of modern humanity.
Still, whether a person was villainous had little bearing on whether they were an amicable conversationalist. After an afternoon of shared misery, Yaxiu had quickly grown familiar with him.
Harvey answered, "They came early and finished eating before five o'clock."
"Huh? Why?"
"Because they want to avoid us. Aside from the eight of us, the other inmates will try their best not to leave their dorms today. Those with plenty of contribution points to spare order room service directly, and those without make sure to steer clear of our dining hours."
"I get that, but why avoid us in the first place?"
"A traditional virtue."
Yaxiu blinked.
It wasn't that he didn't understand the words, but using them to describe the death row inmates here felt decidedly bizarre.
Harvey explained, "First off, the eight chosen inmates are summoned by the supervisor at noon to gather in the dining hall, so nobody comes out all morning. Granted, candidates are supposedly drawn according to the trial sequence, but who knows if you might bump into a supervisor on the way, and that supervisor decides you're strutting too cockily and puts you on the trial roster?"
"The supervisors have that kind of power?"
"No idea. Do you dare to gamble on it?"
"I don't."
"Exactly," Harvey shrugged. "Even after noon, once the eight have been selected, still nobody dares to wander around. The first reason is, of course, the supervisors again. What if a supervisor takes a disliking to you and swaps you out with one of those lucky bastards? Wouldn't your blood vessels burst from pure regret?"
Yaxiu nodded.
Indeed.
Nothing infuriated someone more than seeing others profit from their misfortune; the mere thought of it was enough to burn a hole through one's gut.
"The second reason is somewhat superstitious. The inmates believe that anyone seen by us jinxes has a very high chance of being selected for the next Blood Moon Trial."
Understandable. Everyone feared catching bad luck. If a jinx caught your eye in the afternoon and you became constipated that evening, it definitely wasn't a bodily issue—it had to be the jinx throwing off gravity.
"And the third reason: they simply don't know how to face us."
"Hmm?"
"Greetings? Encouragement? Comfort?" Harvey dabbed his mouth with a napkin. "Put yourself in their shoes... Ah, no, Yaxiu, you're the one facing the trial right now. At this very moment, if you were to see other inmates who dodged the Blood Moon, wouldn't you feel that every single punctuation mark coming out of their mouths dripped with condescending superiority?"
Yaxiu parted his lips, thinking it over, and realized it was true.
Knowing that I am about to die while you don't have to, I'd undoubtedly feel you reeked of a sickening, loathsome stench from head to toe.
Not just your words.
Just seeing that you could still draw breath.
Would make me feel mocked.
Encouragement? Sarcasm!
Comfort? Ridicule!
Pity? Contempt!
No matter what kind words they spoke, to Yaxiu and the other seven, it would all sound like curses.
Out of the sheer terror of death, a wretched, thick barrier had arisen between the eight prisoners and everyone else.
"So on the day of the Blood Moon Trial, all inmates voluntarily stay inside their dorms and don't go out. It's to protect themselves, and it's also to protect those facing the trial."
Harvey looked at Yaxiu. "If you survive, when the next Blood Moon arrives, you must abide by this traditional virtue as well. It's the only kindness we can—and must—hold onto. Though..."
"Though what?"
"I've seen the news reports about you." Harvey shrugged. "To be blunt, the one dying tonight is very likely you."
"Isn't it a random execution of one person?"
Yaxiu felt a surge of tension. When he first learned that the Blood Moon Trial selected one person out of eight for execution, he had assumed it was definitely a randomized ritual—otherwise, there would be no need to pick eight and draw one.
"It's random, but not quite that random. Besides, sometimes multiple people die... Have you really never watched the Blood Moon Trial?"
"Really, never! I have no idea what the rules of the Blood Moon Trial even are!"
Harvey chuckled. "Then you'll find out shortly... When I first watched the Blood Moon Trial as a kid, I was profoundly shaken by the show. I never imagined such wondrous entertainment could exist in this world. I'm not going to tell you the truth. What necromancy sorcerers despise most is prophecy; exploring the unknown is a sorcerer's most delightful pleasure, and death is the greatest mystery of all."
Yaxiu clicked his tongue, feeling puzzled again. "If I'm definitely the one who's going to die, what are the rest of you so nervous about?"
Harvey shrugged. "Because the Blood Moon Trial isn't fixed. Sometimes unexpected twists happen, which makes prisoners so anxious that they accidentally get themselves killed... You have a point, though. Once we reach the venue, I'll just close my eyes, lie down, and sleep. As long as I'm certain I won't be the chosen one out of eight, doing nothing guarantees I won't die."
With Harvey putting it that way, Yaxiu grew tense even as he chewed his Lalafell.
*No way, am I really done for just like that?*
*Is there truly not a single chance left?*
*Things were going so smoothly in the Void Realm Exploration; I even pulled the Void Realm Telescope this morning, and maybe tonight I could have gathered all the sorcery spirits for the Severing Self miracle...*
*Sword Princess and I are clearly getting stronger, and the sorcerer world has only just begun to unveil its mysteries to me...*
*I literally just defeated Valkas and thwarted Sirin's conspiracy...*
*I'm still in the farming phase! Couldn't you give me just a little more time?!*
Yaxiu felt just like an ADC in a game who was diligently saving up gold for a core item, only to be dragged abruptly into a teamfight.
With victory beckoning in the distance, he was being mercilessly battered by the miserable reality right before him.
He suddenly remembered a post his former boss had shared on Moments: *Life isn't stir-frying; it won't wait until all the ingredients are prepped before turning on the stove. When you see cumin sprinkled over you, you should realize you've become the dish.* Who could have guessed that the very day after posting that, the boss would announce that the entire company was switching from alternating six-day workweeks to a mandatory 996 schedule?
"Dinner time is over. Wipe your mouths, proceed to the restrooms to attend to personal hygiene, and assemble in the central hall within half an hour."
Mind you, Supervisor Nagu wasn't merely "issuing an order"; he was "inputting commands"—everyone wiped their mouths with their napkins at the exact same moment, then rose in unison and headed for the restrooms to relieve themselves.
Just before Yaxiu entered the restroom, he heard Nagu's final instruction:
"Arrive promptly at 7:45 at the Blood Moon venue to await the start of the broadcast."
Chapter 49