Author: 唇亡齿寒 / Lips Gone, Teeth Cold
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 3
With his nostrils stuffed with two cotton balls, Alois Lagrange felt like he had never been more humiliated in his life as he returned from the infirmary. To make matters worse, his fellow inmates were staring at him with envy, whispering in small groups, “Did you hear? Johnson attacked one of Alois’s men and got sent to the infirmary!” “What’s wrong with Alois’s nose? Did Johnson hit him?” “No way! I heard from Von Neumann that he had a nosebleed from being too excited with that silver-haired beauty in the shower.” “Oh, what good fortune!”
Alois silently decided that anyone who dared to mention “good fortune” in front of him again would get their nose broken.
Back in his cell, Alois threw himself onto his bed and hugged his beloved pillow. He wished he could sleep and wake up to find that the weird cellmate and nosebleed in the shower had been just a dream.
Joshua put down the bamboo basket full of clean clothes and was about to climb to the top bunk. Suddenly, the pile of clothes moved, and a small black head popped out.
“Meow.” Schrödinger called to the silver-haired man.
Alois rested his head on one arm and made a shooing gesture with the other. “Shoo, shoo, go find your daddy! Or your daddy will come to check the cells at night!”
The cat jumped out of the laundry basket, circled Joshua’s feet, and rubbed against his ankles. “Meow.”
Joshua poked Alois. “Is it hungry again?”
“Even if it is, I have nothing to feed it. All I have is cigarettes! Do cats smoke?”
“I saw you have half a pack of jerky under your pillow.”
“What do you want to do? That’s my emergency food supply!”
Without waiting for an answer, Joshua lifted the pillow and grabbed the half pack of jerky hidden underneath. Alois grabbed his hand, but Joshua quickly broke free. The silver-haired man stepped back a few steps, threw a piece of jerky to the cat, and stuffed another piece into his own mouth before quickly climbing to the top bunk. The cat picked up the jerky, gave Alois a provocative look, and jumped onto the bed.
“You two bastards!” Alois roared as he climbed to the top bunk, his movements clearly less agile than Joshua and the cat.
“Don’t come up here. The bed will collapse,” the silver-haired man said, lying flat with the black cat curled up beside him.
“It won’t! I’ve done exercises up here, and it never collapsed!” Alois pressed down on Joshua, staring into his black and gold eyes. Neither spoke for a moment. They were so close now, they could almost accidentally kiss. If someone saw their position now, they would definitely think the two were about to do something. In fact, Alois did have such a thought for a moment, given how close they were… He could feel Joshua’s heartbeat through his muscles and clothes and the warm breath on his face. The freshly washed silver hair was still damp, scattered on the pillow, feeling cool and silky, like some kind of precious fabric. Joshua’s skin was so pale it was almost transparent, and the collar of his prison uniform had an unbuttoned button, revealing a beautifully shaped collarbone.
Alois’s breathing quickened as he carefully touched the hollow between the collarbones, then slowly moved his hand down, slipping it into the clothes.
“No.” Joshua pressed down on the misbehaving hand, bent one knee, and it just so happened to press against Alois’s groin.
The movements stopped. Alois trembled, recalling Joshua’s rough “treatment” earlier. Now the silver-haired man’s expression seemed to say, “If you dare to touch again, I’ll kick your balls.” Damn, it was still aching even now. Would it be alright? He’d better see a doctor tomorrow.
“Lagrange, you better get up.”
“I won’t!”
“If you don’t get up, Schrödinger will be crushed to death by you.”
Alois looked down and saw the black cat glaring at him with a pitiful expression, trapped under his arm.
“What…what are you looking at! If you dare, go complain to your daddy!” He grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck and threw it off the bed. The black cat meowed a few times and persistently jumped back up.
“When did you get so close to the cat?” Alois grumbled.
Joshua smiled and gently stroked the black cat. “You don’t understand. Fatten it up, and it can become a mobile emergency food…”
Schrödinger shivered.
“Are…are you serious?”
“Just kidding.” Joshua tore the last piece of jerky in half, giving one part to the black cat and holding the other in his mouth.
“You son of a…” Alois wanted to curse but found himself at a loss for words. Finally, he could only say angrily, “Save some for me!” He bit the half piece of jerky in the silver-haired man’s mouth and swallowed it without chewing.
Joshua blinked. “Was that a kiss just now?”
“That was ‘snatching food from a beast’s mouth’!”
……
Joanna Begrel sat cross-legged, eating potato chips while watching TV. Hecate treated her quite well. She didn’t have to work in the sewing factory, laundry room, or kitchen like other female prisoners. She just had to stay in her cell every day. Compared to where others lived, her cell could almost be considered a pleasant environment: a wooden bed with soft bedding, a barely tolerable but manageable sofa, an old flat-screen TV (receiving twenty-six Empire channels, twelve free city state channels, and three Federal channels, far inferior to the holographic projector on the spaceship, but thank God, Joanna was always easygoing and never picky), and a 24-hour surveillance camera monitoring her. Except for the lack of freedom and poor food, she had almost everything she needed.
Now the female pirate was leisurely watching a midnight drama: a zombie suddenly sat up from a coffin, and several women screamed in terror.
“Lisa, we need to get out of here quickly!” one woman waved to her companion.
The companion took two steps back and spoke in a man’s voice, “Hey, Joanna, good morning. Is the drama good?”
Joanna calmly crunched on a potato chip. “Leo, it’s midnight.”
The woman on TV continued in the man’s voice, “According to the interstellar standard calendar, it’s now 6 AM. How long have you been here to have your biological clock messed up?”
The female pirate said, “Alright. I’ll adjust to the time difference. Leo, did you hack into Hecate’s computer system?”
“Yes.” This time, it was the zombie speaking. “I can see you through the surveillance camera. God, is Hecate really a prison, not a star hotel? Seeing how comfortable you’re living, I almost don’t want to rescue you. You could live like this for the rest of your life, really.”
“Leonard!”
“My bad, Captain.” The voice had no remorse at all. “I’m dealing with Hecate’s tactical satellite. In twenty minutes, ‘Lady of the Night’ will enter the atmosphere. Then I’ll unlock all the prison doors and drop a gondola to the ground. You’ll have seven minutes to take the gondola back to the mothership. If you exceed the time limit, we’ll be blasted to space dust by the tactical satellite.”
“You can only hold out for seven minutes?”
“Trust me, Captain. Anyone else wouldn’t even last seven seconds.” The voice was somewhat sullen. “Hecate has five tactical satellites, each equipped with different mid-level artificial intelligence. I have to control all five simultaneously. Do you know how difficult that is?”
“Alright, alright, don’t explain such complex stuff to me!” The female pirate ate the last potato chip.
“You’re the kindest captain in the entire universe! I’m starting the countdown!”
A small timer appeared in the upper right corner of the TV screen. At first glance, it looked like an electronic clock that appears at the top of every hour. The numbers changed from 00:20:00 to 00:19:59.
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