Chapter 7: The Overwhelming Respect Is Kinda Scary

Despite possessing the muscle memory of his predecessor, Feng Xue found himself unable to complete the morning routine of waking up, washing up, and using the toilet within five minutes like a true convict might.

After more than ten minutes of frantic scrambling to finish cleaning up, he braced himself for a missed breakfast and possible punishment. Yet, to his surprise, he found a guard standing respectfully at his cell door, devoid of any trace of the menace or mockery he might have expected.

The guard, with an air of respect, opened the cell door without waiting for Feng Xue to speak, and apologized in a tone laden with regret, "I'm sorry, Mr. Feng, you know, it's the rules."

Caught off guard by this respectful demeanor, Feng Xue was momentarily at a loss for words. It seemed the guard took his silence as consent and proceeded to produce a small remote control. Pressing a button, the bands on Feng Xue's wrists and ankles hummed softly, pulling taut with a gentle force that made movement restrictive.

Feng Xue tested the limits of the high-tech shackles, noting a harsh tug when his hands exceeded a certain distance from each other.

"High-tech restraints, huh? Seems like the technological level of this world is higher than I thought…" Feng Xue mused internally, following the guard with a growing sense of unease.

Single cell accommodations, no punishment for being late, and a guard who handles restraints with extreme care—Feng Xue couldn't help but wonder if his predecessor was some sort of high-profile assassin known across the world like a character out of an action film.

As he was escorted to the dining hall, Feng Xue noticed that most prisoners had already finished their breakfast and were lining up. Only a few still sat at the tables, leisurely finishing their meals. His sharp eyes caught sight of his opposite cell neighbor—well, opposite cell—among those still seated.

"So, eating slowly is a privilege for single-cell inmates?" Feng Xue thought, somewhat sarcastically. The guard who had brought him seemed to catch onto something and interjected, "Please wait a moment."

Before Feng Xue could respond, the guard headed to the serving window and retrieved a breakfast tray from a secluded corner, placing it before him. Although the meal was a simple affair of salted vegetables, plain congee, an egg, and steamed buns, Feng Xue noticed that not all single-cell prisoners were served eggs and vegetables.

Normally, that would have been end of it, but Feng Xue could clearly sense that both the single-cell inmates nearby and the lined-up prisoners regarded his treatment as something entirely expected—unlike their glaring discontent when viewing others who lingered at their meals.

"Who exactly was my predecessor? Or did he manage to subdue every prisoner in this jail?" Feng Xue mused, feeling a mix of amusement and concern.

He quickly finished his meal, the portion proving to be just right for his new body, and joined a few other single-cell inmates in line. They were led to a workshop where, standing at the door, Feng Xue could see rows of sewing machines that looked somewhat different from those he knew before crossing over.

"Legendary sewing machine labor?" he thought, worriedly. While he had a basic understanding of how to operate a sewing machine, he wasn't skilled in sewing. Typically, prisoners receive some training before starting work, but unfortunately, his predecessor had left no such memories.

When it came time to collect materials, Feng Xue once again noticed he was receiving preferential treatment—his materials were about a third of what other prisoners received.

"Good grief, just who was my predecessor? Does he own this prison? Will there be a plot twist like 'I spent three days here because my father wished it so'?" Feng Xue half-joked to himself as he took his materials and mimicked another prisoner's actions to begin edging a garment. Though slower than others, the workload was manageable thanks to his reduced quota.

The morning passed quickly and without physical strain, leaving Feng Xue with energy to spare to ponder over his mysterious abilities. Despite progressing through several nodes in his dreamscape, he hadn't acquired memories as he had expected.

His own past memories were sparse, limited to being abandoned on a snowy night and first painting as a child in the orphanage. Memories of fighting with peers or encountering monsters during a nap didn't integrate with his own, leading Feng Xue to speculate about the nature of his powers.

He considered two possibilities: either the dreamscape was a reconstruction of his predecessor's memories turned into a "meat pigeon" scenario, or it was like a simulator novel where the simulated outcomes could rewrite reality. If the latter, the lack of new memories could mean his choices hadn't impacted history significantly.

"If that's the case, and considering how I need to follow the original events to a degree to maintain consistency, certain historical nodes like the snowy orphanage must remain unchanged for me to exist. Therefore, those nodes are invariable, but why did the painting node integrate?"

Recalling the painting node where he chose to draw a portrait, which seemed to have a profound effect on later events, possibly even leading to his incarceration, Feng Xue couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity: "Drawing a portrait led to prison, really?"

This ponderous start to the morning left Feng Xue intrigued but wary about the powers and past of his mysterious predecessor, whose influence seemed to permeate every corner of the prison life he now faced.