The Highest Bounty-Chapter 212 - The Altered History
Chapter 212: The Altered History
The prison door opened wide the next morning. It was time for the prisoners to go to work after breakfast.
Youth reform prisoners had to serve time in prison and conduct heavy labor.
Biggie and Bel’s job was to help out in cleaning the spaceships at the spaceship repair shop. This job was the easiest among all the jobs, which was the reason why they were constantly bullied.
This job had a change of personnel every three months, and they were picked by drawing lots. No one was allowed to exchange their jobs with another person. Biggie had drawn the lot twice in a row and Bel had also drawn the lot a second time for this particular job. Some people were sure that Biggie had cheated by drawing the lot two consecutive times, and everyone became convinced of it when Bel, who shared a room with Biggie, had drawn the lot too. The most important factor was that this job was a requirement for only one spaceship repair shop and there were only two vacancies for it, giving cause for anger among the other youth reform prisoners.
The other youth reform prisoners were always giving both of them trouble over this issue of drawing job lots. Brie was convinced that Biggie knew how to cheat it and was always trying to force the secret out of Biggie, which was why he always gave Biggie a hard time whenever they met. However, the truth of the matter was that Biggie was just lucky enough to have drawn the lot twice.
Biggie and Bel were transported to the spaceship repair shop near the harbor very quickly after they had breakfast. The boss of this spaceship repair shop was a very calculative man who refused to give them even a sip of water. However, it came as no surprise that someone like him, who hired youth reform prisoners on the grounds of low wages, was someone of bad character. A special liquid was used to clean the spaceships in the shop, and not drinkable water. If they wanted to have a drink of water, they had to go to the washroom. There was a sink outside the washroom with a rusty tap. However, even if they wanted to drink from the tap, they had to do it in secret, out of fear they would be caught by the boss.
They worked at the spaceship repair shop for the whole morning and were only transported back to prison during the afternoon.
After having lunch in the afternoon, it was time to let out the prisoners. This meant allowing the prisoners free time. During this period, the gates between each prison room were opened.
Biggie would usually hide inside his cubic space, refusing to come out. Brie and the others would normally drag him out for a beating, but this time, Biggie did not hide in his room. He walked out graciously into the open field instead.
He was no longer that helpless child all those years ago. Besides, he has met many powerhouses during his adventures with Gu Ding and had even gotten wounded in battle. In fact, physical wounds were the least serious.
Brie and the others stormed toward the field angrily when they could not find Biggie in his room. When they finally found him, the group immediately surrounded him.
“How dare you come onto the field? It seems you’re getting braver by the day,” Brie said with a sarcastic expression.
Biggie replied calmly, “I’ll not only be here today, but I’ll take a walk here every day from now on. B*stards who bully the weak and fear the strong is exactly how you should be described.”
No one had expected this weak fellow to be so cheeky. Everyone looked at Biggie with a shocked expression.
Brie was taken aback when he heard Biggie’s retort. It took quite a while for him to react. “You’re asking for death! Beat him, beat him up real good!”
The group immediately came up to Biggie in a circle. Biggie curled up his body and hugged his head with both his hands as he quietly took the beating. Between the gap in someone’s legs, Biggie saw the sword he had grabbed all those years ago for the massacre. It was hanging on the waist of one of the guards. When he spotted the sword, he frantically squeezed away from the group and snatched the sword, making a direct slash at Brie’s head. This time, however, he did nothing. He quietly endured the pain brought upon him by everyone’s punches and kicks, waiting for the ordeal to be over. Biggie did not even howl out in pain.
The group surrounded him and beat him up for more than ten minutes, but not a sound was uttered. Some of them started to worry that Biggie was dead from the beating and stopped their attacks.
However, Biggie stood up instead. “If this is over, can I leave?”
“Continue with the beating!” The more Brie thought about it, the angrier he was. How could Biggie be so stubborn this time? Brie had not expected this and was determined to break Biggie down.
Everyone surrounded Biggie again as they continued beating him up for more than half an hour. It was only when their hands and feet were starting to feel numb that they stopped.
Biggie stood up once again and wiped the blood from his nose. “Can I leave now?”
“He must have secretly cultivated in some defense ability. He’s much sturdier than before,” someone whispered into Brie’s ear.
Brie’s hand and feet were aching too, and he had hardly any strength left. Even though he was unhappy about this, he knew that it would be pointless to continue. Besides, they only had one hour of free time, and they had wasted more than forty minutes. So, he threatened Biggie instead. “We’ll continue this tomorrow. We’ll beat you until we break both of you!”
It was at this moment that Brie spotted Bel, who was sneaking some looks in their direction from nearby. Brie motioned everyone over with a wave of the hand and they made a beeline for Bel.
Bel knew something was wrong and tried to evade them but was quickly surrounded by the group.
Biggie frowned slightly. He wanted to stand up for Bel, but there was a jolt of pain from his internal organs. He realized that he was not just physically wounded. This body of his was too weak. His internal organs had suffered serious damage from the attack. If he continued to suffer from it, it would have caused his internal organs to be displaced. This would be lethal for an ordinary person. He had no choice but to stand by and watch what was transpiring as Bel covered his head with his hands while being beaten savagely by the group.
Bel’s screams of pain did not deter the group in the slightest, rather, it spurred them further. They finally found the satisfaction of the beating with Bel, something that was absent when they were beating up Biggie. This had driven them to attack even more viciously. Bel clenched his head as his eyes looked helplessly at Biggie. The look was a desperate cry for help. However, Biggie could only slowly close his eyes. Bel may be small and skinny, but Biggie knew he had a better physique than Biggie had. He would not encounter severe injuries, and Bel would only end up with physical wounds. There was no need for Biggie to risk his life with this in mind.
However, Bel did not think so. He was very sure that Biggie had secretly cultivated in some defense ability, which was why he did not fear Brie and the others. He felt a little resentful of Biggie when his call for help was completely ignored. Biggie clearly had the ability but was not willing to help him out, even secretly training in that defense ability without sharing it with Bel. The thought of this made Bel feel deeply disappointed. The more he thought about it, the more he hated this world.
Suddenly, Bel saw a sword hanging on a nearby guard’s waist from between someone’s legs. A crazy thought popped into his head. ‘Get your hands on that sword and kill every one of them!!!’
When this thought arose in his mind, he scuttled out from the beating from between one of their legs and sprinted toward the guard, snatching the sword from him. Bel pulled out the sword and ran toward the group, right toward Brie.
Biggie was shocked into a daze when he saw what had happened. “How is this possible? I was the one who snatched the sword back then and Bel didn’t even suffer any beatings… Was history altered because I made a different choice?”
All control was lost on the field. Bel lifted the sword high as he went after Brie, who was always bullying him, for the kill. Brie’s subordinates had made a run for it, leaving Brie to be chased to death by Bel.
There was confusion among the guards as well. This was just a juvenile prison. No one had expected such a thing to happen. Many of the prison guards had gotten the job through unorthodox means and were not even official Army personnel. They had no experience with handling such a situation. Moreover, there were no long-range weapons equipped in this prison and the guards could only give chase behind Bel.
Despite that, whatever that should happen, happened in the end. Brie had tripped on his shoelaces in the confusion and Bel had immediately chopped Brie’s head in half when he managed to catch up to Brie.
His brains fell over the floor like pink tofu as the sticky blood flowed out continuously. Soon, the blood had covered a range of about 2 meters of the surroundings.
Biggie clenched his fists. This scene was like a bootleg version of what happened to him all those years ago, but with some different details.
Bel did not stop at killing one person. He held on to the sword and continued giving chase toward one of the people who had beaten him. That person was still in shock and by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. Bel thrust the sword into his stomach and a clean sword pierced his chest, exiting out the back, completely drenched in blood.
The juvenile prison descended into utter chaos at the second death. Screams could be heard from every direction. It was impossible to tell if those people were screaming for help. If Brie’s death had shocked them, the second person’s death had them in total panic mode because it meant that Bel, who still had the sword, was now in a psychotic state. There might be a third and fourth person who was about to get killed…
This scene played out exactly like the one in Biggie’s memory, except that the main character was someone else.
“If this continues, he will kill everyone in this prison. What should I do?” There was a frown on Biggie’s face. He knew what would happen if this continued and it was something he was not willing to see. Moreover, if this situation continues, Biggie will also end up being killed by Bel, which will only result in him falling from the third level to the fourth level of his dream.
Once he falls to the fourth level, things would become much more complicated. The time would be extended into a ratio of ten thousand to one. One day in the real world would be equivalent to close to thirty years in the dream. He could live to one thousand and two hundred years, which means he would probably last forty days at most before dying of old age.
“It would be impossible to grab the sword from him. Someone must have done something to that sword back then, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to slaughter everyone like sitting ducks. This sword should be the same as well. Someone must have tweaked it. However, with my current body build, it would be impossible to fight against Bel, must less snatch that sword from his hands. What do I do now?” Biggie’s frown tightened. When the crew had met with problems, Gu Ding and Neptune would be the ones who came up with solutions most of the time. Everyone else would give simple suggestions and Biggie would normally act as an audience. This time, he had to make his own decision and he had no idea what should be done.
