Xiang Yi continued along the mine tunnel.
The tunnel wasn't straight and had many forks, but he easily found the correct path. As he continued on, he managed to leave the rustling sounds from the darkness behind.
But he didn't relax. He remained cautious and alert, doing his best to avoid making any noise.
「A short while later.」
Xiang Yi suddenly stopped, slowly pressing his ear against the rough rock wall and slowing his breathing.
He heard something.
It wasn't the noises from the darkness behind him, but sounds from up ahead. He could hear faint voices.
First, a voice that sounded somewhat terrified asked, "Is it really okay to just leave him like that? I'm afraid he..."
A harsh voice immediately shot back, "What's there to be afraid of? This isn't the first time we've done this. If you want to survive in here, you have to be ruthless."
"But..."
"But nothing! Kid, if you weren't Brother Long's little brother, I'd want to toss you in there, too."
"I was wrong, Brother Kun."
"If you know you were wrong, then shut up and wait. We'll head up in the last three minutes."
After the man called Brother Kun finished, another, rougher voice chimed in. "I reckon he's about done for by now. When the time comes, don't say a word. We'll do the talking with the guards, got it?"
"Got it, Brother Long."
The tunnel fell silent.
However, Xiang Yi, who was pressed motionlessly around the corner, had heard every single word.
His brain throbbed with pain again as fragmented memories resurfaced.
The voices of the three men were familiar to him—very familiar. They were people he knew. They were... his fellow inmates.
This place was a prison.
He'd actually realized this moment earlier, when he took off the damaged protective suit and saw the prison uniform he was wearing.
It was just that his wounds were bleeding continuously at the time, so he hadn't paid much attention to the uniform.
But now, hearing these familiar voices had awakened memories in his mind. Connecting that to the wounds on his body, he now fully understood the terrible predicament he was in.
It was those men up ahead who had brought him deep into the mine, cut wounds on his arms and legs, and left him there to die.
Xiang Yi's expression darkened instantly.
However, he didn't make any rash moves. He stood there, thinking and trying to remember.
The memories continuously surfacing in his mind told him more.
He was in a private prison that only held felons and death row inmates.
Since he was here, that meant he was also a criminal, and one who had committed a fairly serious crime.
This was hard for Xiang Yi to comprehend, because his memory had no record of why he was in prison. He didn't even know what crime he had committed.
'What could I have possibly done to end up in a situation like this?'
Xiang Yi shook his head, deciding not to dwell on that question for now.
'It's useless to get hung up on it. Getting out of here alive is what matters most.'
He took another step, continuing to creep silently forward.
「One minute later.」
As Xiang Yi poked half his head around the corner of the tunnel, three figures in protective suits came into view.
Two of them looked to be at least six-foot-one and were extremely burly. The remaining one looked thinner, but was just as tall.
All three were peering into the dark depths of the tunnel, as if waiting for something.
Thankfully, Xiang Yi had been careful enough and hadn't been discovered.
Suddenly, one of the burly men sitting on a protruding rock—the one called Brother Long—reached for the collector attached to the Mining Gun at his side. He pulled out an irregular, polygonal, blood-red crystal and began to toy with it idly.
Xiang Yi's gaze was involuntarily drawn to the Blood Crystal, and more memories surfaced in his mind...
In this prison, all inmates had to work. The job was simple: go down into the tunnels and mine.
The main thing they mined was an ore called "Blood Crystal," which appeared as a blood-red crystalline mineral.
This ore seemed to have significant research value, as people in white lab coats were occasionally seen walking around the prison.
Xiang Yi thought that was the end of it, but new memories continued to appear.
In addition to memories about the mining work related to Blood Crystals, his mind also conjured up mysterious rumors he had heard piecemeal from fellow inmates after arriving at the prison.
The rumors said that there were some unknown presences in the mine tunnels that posed a danger to the miners—that is, the convicts.
And it wasn't just talk. The prison had a significant number of missing persons; from what Xiang Yi could remember, he knew of five people who had vanished after he'd first heard the rumors.
Adding to that was the broadcast Xiang Yi had heard earlier: "Personnel who fail to return to the decontamination room on time will be considered missing. No rescue attempts will be made."
And the fact that this prison had over a dozen mine tunnels, with several being periodically sealed off. Most of these closures happened around the time of rumors about someone going missing...
All this information only served to confirm the truth behind the rumors.
The memories finally finished playing.
Xiang Yi shook his head, digesting it all.
But his thoughts on the memories didn't stop. In fact, at this moment, the questions that had been bothering him for a while now all bubbled to the surface.
'Why did those three guys outside do this? Why bring me deep underground only to leave me here to die?'
'I have no memory of ever clashing with them. Besides, if they could bring me this deep into the tunnels right before they're sealed, they could have just killed me outright if they had a grudge. This whole charade is unnecessary.'
'There must be a special reason for doing this.'
But Xiang Yi couldn't think of any reasonable explanation for their actions.
'Unless... I connect my current situation with the missing people from my memories and the related rumors.'
Xiang Yi took a deep breath.
'The disappearances in this prison definitely aren't simple acts of revenge or some kind of accident.'
'In a private prison, every inmate is, in a sense, property of the prison. How could the warden or his superiors allow their property to kill each other for revenge? There must be another reason behind it all.'
'I have to figure out these reasons, and what's really going on with these rumors.'
'Otherwise, even if I get back, I might just get dragged deep into the mines again someday.'
'And next time, it might not be just a few cuts.'
But forget next time; it was still uncertain if he would even survive this time.
Xiang Yi had already confirmed it—the body he was in was still his own; his face hadn't changed at all.
He knew his own physical condition best. Having spent years being exploited by his advisor in a lab, his actual fighting ability was practically nonexistent.
Trying to fight those three men outside was completely unrealistic, not to mention it was highly likely one of them was armed with a sharp weapon.
Having confirmed this, Xiang Yi simply retreated a considerable distance, plunging himself back into the darkness to ensure the three men wouldn't spot him.
'I have to think of a way to resolve this situation.'
Just then, the familiar rustling sound reached Xiang Yi's ears again, coming from the darkness behind him.
He instinctively glanced back.
Although the tunnel was very dim, he could still see the few drops of blood that had oozed from his bandaged wounds and dripped onto the ground, forming a trail from the depths of the mine right to his feet.
Xiang Yi's heart tightened, and an uncontrollable wave of anxiety washed over him.
'Those things have caught up. I don't have much time left.'
If he didn't do something soon, he would either be killed by the three men outside or end up as another missing person, claimed by the "rumors" that haunted the darkness.
He didn't want his life to end like this.
'I've actually made it to a new world. I have to seize this chance.'