There must be quite a few people who have crossed over from Earth to this world—there are already two just in this prison, not to mention the world outside.

“This new guy is kind of interesting, looks like an idiot,” someone joked. “I heard he got seven years for tax evasion?”

“These days, if you dare mess with the tax authorities, what else could you be but an idiot…”

Brian Brooks looked toward the source of the voice. It was a young man with mechanical legs. When the man saw him looking, he curled his lips into a smile and said, “Hey, newbie, are you ready?”

The crowd around them burst into laughter.

Brian Brooks frowned but ignored them. He turned his gaze back to the boy surrounded by drones—he had seen him before.

Brian Brooks was seventeen this year, a second-year student at Luo City Foreign Language School.

That boy on the verge of collapse was a first-year student.

This surprised Brian Brooks a bit. Could it be that if you were close together before crossing over, you’d end up near each other after crossing too?

Brian Brooks also noticed something else: everyone here was speaking Mandarin—there wasn’t a single person using a dialect.

At this moment, mechanical guards were charging up the stairs, each step spanning five steps at a time, accompanied by the distinctive sound of hydraulic transmission.

That boy was already crying uncontrollably.

Normally, when people meet a “fellow townsman” in a strange place, they feel a strange sense of security.

But Brian Brooks didn’t feel that way. Looking at the boy on the verge of collapse, he realized that a “fellow townsman” might not be able to help you—in fact, they might even become a burden.

Not everyone can stay calm when faced with this strange mechanical civilization.

Brian Brooks stood where he was, surveying the prison fortress.

The nine robots that had just rushed in from the outer gate went upstairs and took the panicked boy away.

The plaza downstairs was very spacious, divided into several areas: dining hall, gym and recreation area, reading area, audio-visual area, and so on…

At the edges of the plaza, there were four large steel gates.

Suddenly, Brian Brooks froze. He saw that three people had appeared at a dining table in the plaza below—he hadn’t even noticed when they’d arrived.

A middle-aged man, looking to be in his forties, was seated, with two young men standing beside him, smiling as they looked up with interest at the prisoners upstairs.

In front of the middle-aged man was a Chinese chessboard, set up with a half-played game.

Next to the chessboard, a cat was napping with its paws tucked under it—gray, with two tufts of pointed fur on its ears. It looked a bit like a lynx, but wasn’t.

A Maine Coon.

You can keep a cat in prison?!

Brian Brooks was a bit shocked. His attention had just been drawn by the “fellow townsman,” so he hadn’t noticed when these three people and the cat had arrived in the plaza.

At this moment, the middle-aged man was focused intently on the chessboard, as if what was happening upstairs had nothing to do with him.

Even the robots in the plaza acted as if the three people and the cat didn’t exist.

The tense seriousness upstairs and the relaxed ease downstairs formed a stark contrast, like two different worlds.

Of the three, the two young men wore standard blue-and-white prison uniforms, but the middle-aged man was dressed in a white martial arts outfit.

In this gloomy, oppressive environment, that touch of white was strikingly out of place.

The warden?

No, although he was dressed differently from the other prisoners, the martial arts outfit had a small black inmate number embroidered on the chest.

As if sensing his gaze, one of the young men beside the middle-aged man suddenly turned and looked back at him with a bright smile, as if sizing him up.

Brian Brooks immediately looked away.

After the panicked Earth boy was taken away, the prison fortress broadcast sounded again: “Proceed to the dining hall in order by group.”

As soon as the announcement ended, Brian Brooks saw all the prisoners turn right, lining up in a long formation and heading down the stairs toward the plaza.

Only now did Brian Brooks have a chance to count all the prisoners: including himself, 3,102 in total.

While getting food, he saw two burly prisoners dragging a young man toward the cell closest to the dining hall on the first floor, with quite a few others following and jeering.

Someone instructed, “Hurry up and drag him into the cell, don’t hurt him in the plaza, or the robot guards will step in.”

At the same time, the young man struggled desperately, shouting, “Let me go!”

But no matter what he said, no one paid him any attention—instead, it only drew louder jeers.

Suddenly, the old man in front of Brian Brooks with mechanical eyes turned and smiled, “Stop looking around. It’ll be your turn soon.”

Brian Brooks looked calmly at the old man, who, for some reason, suddenly felt a chill in his heart.

Brian Brooks noticed that three people beside him were subtly moving closer, as if they were about to restrain him!

He suddenly quickened his pace, breaking away from the food line, and the others sped up as well, tightly surrounding him!

In the next moment, the scene in this prison fortress seemed to play out in Brian Brooks’s mind in vivid detail.

Eighteen machine guns, like steel beasts, waited silently atop the dome, as if they were sleeping tigers.