Clown Game

Chen Xiao opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

"Where is this?" The first thought appeared in his mind.

Almost at the same time, a severe dizziness, accompanied by an unprecedented sense of emptiness rushed over him, as if a chunk of his brain had been forcefully scooped out!

He couldn't help but clasp his head with both hands and let out a low exclamation, "Fuck!"

...

It took a long while before the spinning sensation gradually faded, and Chen Xiao slowly opened his eyes to look around.

He discovered... this was an enclosed room!

It was roughly only 10 square meters, surrounded by white walls. Chen Xiao reached out to touch them, not stone or cement, nor painted, but a strange, smooth yet sturdy material, similar to some kind of metal.

There were no windows, no bars, not even a ventilation duct, just a door. Below the door was a small rectangular opening, just the right size to slide food through. Against the wall was a very simple single bed, with clean bedding, underneath which barely enough space for a person to lie down. At a diagonal from the bed was a partition, behind which stood a toilet that seemed quite decent.

"It seems this is a prison cell," Chen Xiao thought, then looked up at the ceiling. He was a little surprised to find that there wasn't even a light, yet the whole room was filled with a bright but not glaring light. Chen Xiao also sniffed the air around him, very fresh.

"If this is really a prison cell, it's excessively luxurious, and it even has a hint of 'high-tech' feel," Chen Xiao couldn't help remarking.

At that moment, he suddenly felt a strange sensation on the inside of his lip. He licked it with his tongue and found a bite mark, bitten so hard it had slightly swollen.

"Must have accidentally bitten it while passed out," he thought, but didn't pay it much mind.

After that, he sat on the bed, crossed his fingers in front of his mouth, and began to recall...

His memory stopped at the old man, who called himself Mr. Zou, dodging a bullet and then knocking him out.

"So, this must be that so-called 'mysterious organization'!" Chen Xiao nodded to himself and then went to the door... and delivered a kick.

"Smack!" And down he sat on the floor. (Why the "again"? Hehehe)

The door didn't budge, not even a sound: "Hmm, looks like there's no getting out."

After that, he got up as if nothing had happened, checked the toilet, sniffed it, and found nothing noteworthy. The whole room was so clean there was practically nothing in it...

For a moment, Chen Xiao didn't know what to do.

"Ah..." He sighed, "Wonder how those guys are doing. Probably eight or nine out of ten are locked up in cells like this, too. What happens next to the lab rats that didn't croak? Of course, on to the next experiment, right? No need for a brain to figure that out."

It was like tossing a coin; heads, you're dead, tails, congratulations, you get another toss.

Waiting to be drained by others was an awful feeling, but Chen Xiao didn't seem too repulsed by it.

"What about Naoko? Maybe she's been locked up, or maybe she's being researched on, who cares. Anyway, her treatment is definitely much better than ours, the 'consumables'!" Chen Xiao lay on the bed, legs crossed, and thought.

That's when he noticed his hand and frowned.

The tip of his right index finger's nail was sharp, nibbled on!!

"Huh?" Chen Xiao was puzzled for a moment, because he didn't remember ever nibbling on his nails.

"Could someone have... while I was passed out?" The thought made him uncomfortable: "Come on, who would have a hobby that specific?"

Though he said so, he still skeptically put his finger to his teeth and mimicked a few bites.

"Hmm... Seems like I did bite it. But why can't I remember it at all?" Chen Xiao wondered.

Then, footsteps were heard outside the door, followed by someone coming near, who knocked on the door several times with something hard, probably a baton or a stun stick.

A meal was slid through the slot, and then the footsteps walked away.

Chen Xiao went over and took a look.

Wow~ Just by looking, it's breakfast! Not bad at all, bread, milk, eggs, even shelled, and even paired with an apple! What kind of weird organization is this, treating lab rats so well? Should I consider posting an ad for public recruitment or something.

...

Chen Xiao joked to amuse himself.

But then, he didn't go to eat his breakfast right away. Instead, he paused as if he had remembered something, then started running around the room, jumping and hopping.

As he ran, he muttered in confusion:

"Not hungry?"

"Hmm... Indeed, not hungry!"

"What the hell? Why am I not hungry?"

From the time of signing that contract until now, Chen Xiao's memory meant he should have only eaten once in his "private room" at the psychiatric hospital, as he had already started feeling hungry at the orphanage yesterday.

Thinking of this, he exercised more vigorously as if to challenge the fact, increasing the intensity until he began to sweat before finally stopping.

"So, it seems I must have eaten!" he thought: "But I don't remember at all, am I missing a piece of my memory?"

No sooner had this thought crossed his mind, than Chen Xiao sprang up and rushed to the toilet to induce vomiting.

"Wow... Wharrgarbl!!" He vomited!

Of course, who wouldn't?

Chen Xiao didn't even bother to wipe his mouth, immediately bent over and examined the disgusting vomit carefully.

"Overnight food! I ate last night! So, I really am missing part of my memory."

"That means, I've been here for at least more than a day, maybe much longer."

Chen Xiao's gaze turned to his fingernails...

Then he immediately scurried to the bed, lay over it, and began a frantic search with his butt in the air.

Finally, he found two traces where the threads had been cut on a corner of the sheet.

Chen Xiao nodded in satisfaction.

"Indeed. Did I leave some information for myself?"

"Two vertical lines... If it were me, these marks must be for tracking time, so I should have been here for two days. No, it could be three days, or even longer, because on the first day I wouldn't have known that I had lost my memory!"

Next to these two marks, there was another pattern, drawn a little further away to distinguish it from the "days."

A "丨", and at the bottom end of the "丨," connected a slightly shorter "丿".

"What does this mean? An unfinished character? No, I'm not foolish enough to do something as effortful and noticeable as writing directly, so... is it still about time?"

"Hmm, it's a clock. This vertical stroke with a slant seen from the center of the room represents 7 o'clock. Something must happen at 7 o'clock... probably my memory gets erased at that time. But there isn't a clock or watch here, how did I know '7 o'clock'?"

Thinking this, Chen Xiao looked at the breakfast by the door.

"Figured it out from dinner? So, this 7 o'clock must be after dinner!"

"These guesses might be right or wrong, but either way, I'm quite reliable, huh!" he chuckled to himself.

I must have left other messages for myself.

Chen Xiao licked the tooth marks behind his lips.

"This must also be left by me, but what does it mean?" He thought for a while, unable to figure it out, so he didn't waste time on it and started observing the room.

He then discovered that aside from the bedsheet, no matter whether it was a button or a scratch, a kick or a bump, truly no trace could be left anywhere in the room.

"So, besides the bedsheet, only my own body could be worked with," Chen Xiao thought.

At that moment, Chen Xiao's tongue licked out a grain of rice from a corner at the back of his teeth...

The position of the rice was deep, on the side of his tongue root, in a gap where the teeth and gums couldn't close—a spot that was normally rarely touched. Thus, he must have placed it there intentionally.

Chen Xiao held the saliva-covered grain in his hand, scrutinizing it for a while.

"Actually, I've already left a signal for myself, there's no need for such methods as inducing vomiting," he thought, then put the grain of rice back where he had taken it out from.

While thinking, he started groping all over his body again.

"Nothing hurts, and there are no scratches on my body... Is there anything I'm missing, or perhaps the previous me has nothing to tell me? A more likely possibility is that he had no chance!"

Just then, footsteps approached from outside the door, startling Chen Xiao. He quickly grabbed the egg and apple from the tray and took a couple of bites out of the bread.

Immediately after, the tray was pulled away from the other side of the door.

Chen Xiao grabbed the apple, sat on the edge of the bed, and took a bite, beginning to organize his thoughts.

Judging from the termination point of my last memory, I was knocked out by that old man and then brought here. According to the signals left by the previous-day me, I must have been here for at least three days, and something happens every evening at 7 o'clock, or after dinner. Let's assume for now that my memory gets erased at that time. What's the method of erasing memory then? From the food? Impossible, the previous me would have noticed it long ago.

Therefore, it's highly likely that I would be taken out of this cell. Could I do something then? Or maybe I've done something already, but left no signal.

Why would this mysterious organization want to erase my memory? As a "lab rat" without any freedom, it seems unnecessary no matter how I think about it.

Chen Xiao kept pondering, feeling not the slightest distress, but rather exhilarated! Hence, he maintained a broad, grinning smile.

"I must find a way to preserve my memory, and contact the me from before the memory erasure! And after that, I probably need to think of a way to escape. Otherwise, I'm bound to end up dying inexplicably one day without even knowing how," Chen Xiao mused, "A person without memory has so much to do... hehehehe! It really is interesting..."

...

...

Chen Xiao slowly opened his eyes to a white ceiling, indiscernible of its material.

"Where am I?"

He sat up, realizing he was in an enclosed room,

Suddenly, his mind reeled with dizziness.

"Uh, what's going on!" Chen Xiao exclaimed, nearly falling to the ground.

The dizziness gradually subsided, and Chen Xiao rubbed his head feeling a hollow discomfort, which was very uneasy.

He slowly opened his eyes, just about to survey his surroundings!

All of a sudden, he licked the inside of his lips and noticed some swelling and a faint pain.

"Did I accidentally bite myself while unconscious?" he wondered.

Then, Chen Xiao noticed a light bloodstain on his forearm, made by a sharp object.

"D391? What does it mean?" he wondered, puzzled.

He then noticed his index fingernail, bitten into a sharp shape by his teeth.

"... Did I do that myself? But how come I have no recollection of it?"

"Hmm? What's this..."

Chen Xiao's tongue seemed to have touched something at the back of his teeth. He licked it out.

"A grain of rice...?"

For a moment, Chen Xiao's mind automatically linked these seemingly unrelated things together, with numerous possibilities emerging one after another. Chen Xiao selected the most probable answer from these "candidate answers."

He frowned, muttering to himself, "So it seems... has someone tampered with my memory?"

With that thought, he quickly rolled over and started searching the bed...

Soon, he found three scratch marks and a pattern of one vertical and one slanting line at one corner of the bedsheet.

Chen Xiao looked at these, and his mouth curled into a grin as he chuckled, "If that's the case... it really is interesting!!!!!"