Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Food
It took Luo Kai less than ten seconds to finish everything. He looked hopefully toward the fierce-looking Prison Guard outside the iron door. Sometimes, the Prison Guard would have a rare bout of kindness and give him an extra bowl of thin porridge. But today, the Prison Guard was clearly in a bad mood. He spat a thick glob of phlegm right at him, then left with the food bucket, cursing and muttering.
Luo Kai expressionlessly wiped the phlegm from his forehead and sat back down. He closed his eyes heavily, trying to force himself back to sleep. It wasn’t just because life in his dreams was so wonderful; it was because after each dream, his muddled head would feel a bit clearer, and his resistance to hunger would also grow much stronger.
"SQUEAK SQUEAK."
Just as he was drifting off, a faint squeak came from beside him. Luo Kai didn’t open his eyes. He had already sealed the rat hole airtight, and the cell’s iron-barred window was nearly two meters high; there was no way a rat could climb the smooth granite walls.
This big rat had been in here for three days. It would slowly grow as weak as he was, and eventually become a meal in his belly. In a daze, Luo Kai returned to his dream. His mother was about to make his favorite dish, white-cut chicken, but the old-fashioned rural earthen stove just wouldn’t light, making him pace anxiously in front of the wok...
"RUMBLE!" A deafening clap of thunder echoed. A frigid wind carrying icy rain blew in from the iron-barred window. Luo Kai jolted awake. He scrambled to his feet, stood on his tiptoes, and pressed his mouth to the window. He soon collected a large mouthful of water. Once inside his stomach, the cold rainwater turned into a warm current, nourishing his body.
He drank the rainwater greedily until his stomach could hold no more. A heavy downpour like this was an incredible rarity; in the nearly a year he’d been locked up, he had only encountered it three times.
His thirst quenched, Luo Kai moved to a spot the rain couldn’t reach, satisfied and ready to sleep again. Just then, the rat poked its head out. It cautiously walked to a spot wet with rain and gently licked the damp floor.
When it saw Luo Kai looking at it, the rat didn’t run away as it had before. Instead, it stood there, trembling. Through the dim light filtering in from the window, he could see its beady little eyes held a trace of Fear and pleading.
It was hard to imagine a rat’s eyes could express such emotion. A strange feeling stirred in Luo Kai’s heart. He struggled to his feet, removed the stone he had used to block the rat hole, and then slowly backed away.
The rat scurried into the hole, but a moment later, it poked its head back out, gave two squeaks toward Luo Kai, and then disappeared for good.
Luo Kai smiled wryly to himself. ’I don’t even know how much longer I have to live, and yet I have the luxury to be kind?’ He went over and covered the rat hole again, then returned to his corner, curled up, and fell back into his dreams.
The deathly Silent and desperate days seemed endless. More than ten days and nights passed. Luo Kai felt himself growing weaker and weaker; even urinating became difficult. In the reflection of the Muddy Yellow urine in the bucket, he saw the figure of a man as gaunt as a dried corpse. Lack of movement for so long had caused his muscles to atrophy, and severe malnutrition was causing some of his organs to fail. ’I don’t have much time left!’
Late that night, Luo Kai woke up on schedule. While dreams offered an escape from reality, they couldn’t alleviate the weakness of his body. He had intended to continue his work, but he could no longer drag his exhausted body...
Luo Kai stared with Void eyes at the bleak moonlight spilling in from the iron-barred window. His past and present lives flashed through his mind like fleeting clouds. It was just as the old saying went: "Worldly affairs are but a grand dream; how many cool autumns does one’s life see?"
He sighed inwardly. He should have died back in the plane crash. Clinging to life for so long had been meaningless. For him, death might be the best release. Rather than starve to death, it would be better to end it himself.
He slowly took out the iron spike from under his arm. He had found it while digging the tunnel, and over the days, it had been sharpened to a fine point. He took a deep, sighing breath and aimed it at his chest...
"SQUEAK... SQUEAK!"
Just then, a faint squeaking suddenly came from the floor beneath him. The sound was intermittent, stopping and starting.
Luo Kai lowered the iron spike and looked around in a daze. Hunger had made his thoughts sluggish. After a long moment, he remembered something. He struggled to move his body and once again lifted the stone slab covering the rat hole.
The fat rat was back. In the past dozen days, it had grown even bigger. Its gray fur reflected a sleek, satin-like sheen in the moonlight.
Luo Kai’s throat bobbed as he couldn’t help but swallow.
The rat poked its head out and looked around cautiously. When it saw Luo Kai, it gave a soft squeak and then ducked back into the hole. When it emerged again, it was dragging a small strip of salted fish in its mouth.
The rat continued in this fashion, going in and out, and soon, a variety of foods were laid out in front of Luo Kai: small pieces of bread, flatbread, cured meat, and smoked fish.
After it was done, the big rat sat half-upright like a person, panting heavily with its tongue out.
The sight of the food made him feel dizzy. Luo Kai rubbed his eyes, then pinched his own waist hard. The faint pain proved he wasn’t dreaming.
The rat nudged the food toward Luo Kai’s face with its head and squeaked twice, as if to say, ’Hurry up and eat.’
For a man on the verge of starvation, there is nothing more important than food. With trembling hands, Luo Kai picked up a piece of cured meat and stuffed it into his mouth. The waves of satisfaction from his taste buds told him this was truly not a dream.
The food in his stomach immediately triggered a reaction from his stomach acid. A warm current rose from his stomach and quickly spread throughout his body. It felt as if his body belonged to him again.
The night was too quiet, and he didn’t dare make too much noise. He didn’t even dare to chew, swallowing whatever food it was directly into his stomach.
Life seemed to be looking up. The rat would bring some food every few days. Though it wasn’t much, it was enough to pull Luo Kai back from the brink of starvation.
This young body was immeasurably stronger than his previous one, which had been ravaged by debauchery. His weak body made a swift Recovery, and his muddled head also cleared up. With this newfound Power, the efficiency of his tunnel digging increased countless times over. In just a few days, he had dug more than ten meters, until he was blocked by a granite foundation wall.
The granite foundation was long and deep; it was not something he had the Ability to break through. Moreover, the soil here was soft. Rerouting the tunnel might be fine for a short distance, but a longer one would risk collapse at any moment.
Luo Kai had spent over a hundred days and nights digging this tunnel. Now, all his efforts seemed to have been for nothing. Fate was always so fickle. The hope that had just been born was extinguished once again.
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