Chapter 4

On November 21st, at 15:10, in Linyi, at the Sunshine Youth Behavior Correction Center.

After a twenty-minute "initial treatment," Zilin "sobbed and wept" as he bid farewell to his "parents." Then, he was carried by two burly men and thrown into a solitary confinement room.

The room was completely empty, except for a squat toilet in the corner and a roll of toilet paper on the floor. There was no light bulb or window to the outside. The only source of light was a small window above the door, through which a bit of light from the corridor could be seen through the iron bars.

Zilin was confined in this solitary room for several hours, with no one paying him any attention. He had undoubtedly missed dinner, and it was uncertain whether he had missed the night snack as well.

Finally, when the lights in the corridor outside the door automatically switched to "night mode," a "warden" who had just finished a hearty meal and was slightly tipsy opened the door to the room.

He was a burly man in a white uniform with the center's name printed on it. Without knocking or greeting, he opened the electronic door with his fingerprint and swaggered in.

His demeanor and actions clearly indicated that he brought neither politeness nor respect.

However, he did bring something.

"Change into this," the warden said, casually tossing a set of camouflage clothes to the ground.

His words were undoubtedly a command, not a request.

Zilin didn't say anything in response. He wanted to give the impression of an ordinary teenager who had been "shocked" earlier in the day. So, when the warden spoke, he obediently picked up the clothes from the ground and began to change without a word.

As I mentioned, the room was empty, so there was no privacy. Zilin had to undress in front of the warden, down to his underwear, and then put on the clothes provided.

The warden, in turn, stared at Zilin without any hesitation as he changed, his eyes showing a mix of disdain and impatience.

It was clear that the warden was not particularly interested in watching boys change clothes. If it were girls, that might be a different story... But that wasn't the point. The point was that even if he wasn't interested, he still had to watch, because there had been incidents where someone attacked a warden from behind when the warden turned around. For his own safety, he couldn't be careless in a "one-on-one" situation.

"Give me your clothes and stand over there," the warden ordered once Zilin had changed into the camouflage uniform.

Zilin didn't say anything, just lowered his head slightly, handed over his old clothes, and stepped out into the corridor.

At this point, the warden's vigilance decreased slightly. While they didn't consider far-fetched scenarios like "hiding something inside his body" or "tattooing information on his skin," they were still cautious about things like "hiding sharp objects in clothes," as similar incidents had occurred before.

"Your clothes will be stored with your personal items and returned to you when you are discharged," the warden said in a routine manner, standing behind Zilin. As he spoke, he shook the clothes to check for any hidden items.

To be honest, Zilin was the one who found these trivial matters tedious. He had already made meticulous arrangements for all "controllable details" before his operation.

The personal items taken from him when he "checked in" in the afternoon, including the clothes and items just taken, were all prepared two weeks in advance: cheap clothes and wallets from online stores, a new smartphone, a low-end I-PEN, etc.

Not only had he bought these items in advance, but he had also deliberately made them look "used." He had even hacked into the e-commerce platform's database to modify the "purchase date" and "recipient" information for these items.

Even the apps on the phone were carefully selected, filled with the most popular apps and games among teenagers, and each app had detailed usage traces forged to look authentic. Even if someone cracked the password and checked, they wouldn't find anything unusual.

As for the "parents" he had hired, they immediately boarded a flight from Longjun to Nanzhixing County after dropping him off at the center. They still had a role to play in another of Zilin's plans.

To put it simply, even if the warden were replaced by a prison guard and the environment by a high-security federal prison, Zilin's infiltration wouldn't be detected... at least not in the short term.

"Uh-huh," Zilin responded softly a second later, to avoid arousing suspicion or anger by remaining silent.

After shaking the clothes, the warden raised his hand and gestured for Zilin to walk in front of him: "Go forward."

"Where are we going?" Zilin asked, knowing the warden's routine but pretending not to.

"Just go forward. I'll tell you when to stop," the warden said coldly.

This was one of the rules here: when only one warden was present and the "patient" was not restrained, the warden had to walk behind the patient.

Thus, Zilin walked down the corridor, climbed a set of stairs, and passed through two electronic doors that the warden had to open, finally arriving at the door of a dormitory room.

Upon reaching the destination, the warden scanned his fingerprint on the touchscreen, opened the door, and gestured for Zilin to enter. After Zilin walked in, the warden said, "This is your room. Wake up at 6:00 AM every day and complete your morning routine within half an hour." Then he left, closing the door behind him.

The dormitory room had a light, but it was already past the curfew, so the light was off, and there were no switches in the room.

Fortunately, the room had a window to the outside, though both sides of the glass were covered with a mesh of iron bars. This didn't prevent the moonlight from shining in.

Under the moonlight, the vague outlines of the room's interior became visible.

It was a double room, with two beds placed parallel on either side of the room. When Zilin entered, one of the beds was already occupied. The person on the bed seemed to have been asleep before Zilin came in, but he was startled awake by Zilin's entry.

"New here, huh..." the person mumbled in the darkness, not waiting for Zilin to respond. "Sigh... Go to sleep quickly. We can talk tomorrow."

With that, he turned over, pulled the blanket over himself, and went back to sleep.

In the darkness, Zilin smiled slightly but quickly suppressed it.

A few seconds later, Zilin stretched his neck a couple of times, walked to the empty bed, and lay down.

Then, he began to think...

He wouldn't sleep.

Not tonight, not tomorrow night.

Since he could remember, he had never slept.

He didn't need sleep, and he couldn't sleep.

For most people, this might be a terrifying experience that could drive them mad, but Zilin found it beneficial. Instead of spending a third or more of his life sleeping, he preferred to use that time for thinking.

While others ended their day's work and life, allowing their brains to rest, Zilin organized his memories, reviewed details, categorized information, and made predictions and assumptions about future events.

It was like the meditation training athletes do in competitive sports, except Zilin's meditation was not for a single match but for a much larger game.

"Six people from the center staff I met today, including the one who brought me here. With the boy next to me, that makes seven people I've seen so far, and all of them are recorded in the known data.

"However... this doesn't prove anything...

"'The Faceless' can disguise themselves as anyone, not just in facial features but also in height, body type, voice, gender, and fingerprints. Short-term contact is not enough to identify them.

"But since the intelligence indicates that 'that person' is here, they must be here. As long as they are in the same place as me, I will find them. All I need is patience, acting skills, and... a bit of luck."

Zilin had two tasks to complete by infiltrating this internet addiction center. Finding "The Faceless" was just one of them. The other plan would proceed simultaneously, but it was the first task that was more complicated and challenging.

He closed his eyes, pretending to sleep, and continued to think. Unconsciously, an hour passed.

At exactly midnight, Zilin suddenly opened his eyes a crack.

At that moment, he was very clear that a figure had stood by his bed and was... staring at him.

"Impossible..." Since Zilin was lying on his side facing the wall, he didn't have to worry about being seen from the other person's angle. "Even without using my eyes, I can immediately sense any movement within a ten-meter radius... but this person... managed to approach me silently?"

As he thought, the figure began to move.

The figure slowly bent down, leaning over, and brought its face close to Zilin's head.

At that moment, a dark cloud covered the moon, and the room suddenly became pitch black.

In the darkness, a voice, a woman's voice, whispered so softly that only Zilin could hear it, "He is my prey, and I found him first. If you know the rules, leave tomorrow. Otherwise... I will come back at a different time, in a different way."

As the last word "you" reached Zilin's ears, the figure disappeared.

Immediately, the moonlight shone through the window again.

Zilin turned over and looked back... The boy on the opposite bed was still sound asleep. Apart from him and Zilin, there was no one else in the room.

Outside the window, a few cold stars and a crescent moon hung in the night sky. There was no sign of any dark cloud that could have blocked the moon.

Everything that just happened seemed like a brief nightmare.

But Zilin never dreamed.

"Hmm..." After a few seconds, Zilin murmured, then took a deep breath and successfully caught a faint scent of hair in the air. "Ah..." He couldn't help but chuckle. "This is interesting... I thought I was just coming for a hotpot, but it seems I've been served dessert as soon as I sat down..." He licked his lips and said, "That guy definitely knew about this but deliberately didn't tell me... Hmm... He said there were 'two tasks,' but now there are at least 'four,' right?"