Kind-Hearted Slaughterhouse​

Chapter Four: Suffocating Silence: First Steps into the Silent Campus​

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The moment Li Entai’s thick fingers plucked the contract bearing Chen Mo’s distorted signature from the table, a phantom chill seized Chen Mo’s hand—the lingering memory of the pen’s metallic bite deep in his marrow, the ghostly ache of Li Entai’s vise-like grip on his arm. Outside the window, the churning fog, a vast, grey-white maelstrom, seemed to silently swallow his name and his last shreds of resistance into its bottomless void.

"Perfect!" Li Entai’s voice boomed, resonant with the satisfaction of a lucrative deal concluded. He rose, his fleshy face smoothed into a benevolent mask. "Welcome, Teacher Chen, to the heart of the 'Hope' family! Come, let's get you settled into temporary quarters. Once the bond clears in three days, we'll move you to spacious faculty housing!" He mentioned the "bond" with the casual ease of discussing the weather.

He casually lifted a sleek, silver-grey walkie-talkie from the desk, bringing it to his lips with practiced fluidity. "Hu Qiang. Location? Escort the new teacher, Chen Mo, to Prep Dorm 307. Keys at the duty desk." Harsh static crackled back before a flat, emotionless male voice responded: "Acknowledged."

Hu Qiang. The name dropped like a stone into Chen Mo’s gut. The crew-cut driver! The same man whose impassive bulk had dominated the surveillance feed outside Xiaoyu’s room!

Li Entai set the device down, clapping Chen Mo’s rigid shoulder. "Hu Qiang is our logistical cornerstone. Any issues, find him. Now, Teacher Chen, let's get you acquainted with your new surroundings."

Exiting the office, thick with cigar smoke and the cloying scent of power, Chen Mo felt like he waded through tar. The cavernous open-plan office, bleached sterile by overhead lights, resembled a morgue. His temple throbbed with a dull ache amplified by the emotional turmoil. The specter of "24-hour comprehensive vital sign surveillance" tightened like an invisible noose. He dared not imagine Xiaoyu alone in that cold room, the red eye of the camera perhaps fixed on her pale, sleeping face.

The heavy fire door clicked shut automatically behind him. He stood once more in the vast, cold, oddly scented lobby. The giant black metal characters—"SILENCE | HOPE"—glinted under the ceiling lights with a heart-stopping chill.

Hu Qiang materialized like congealed shadow from the gloom beneath the staircase. Still clad in his faded navy work jacket, his square face remained impassive, his gaze assessing Chen Mo as one might appraise furniture.

"Follow." His voice was a low monotone.

Chen Mo followed in silence. Hu Qiang didn't lead towards the annex where Xiaoyu was held, but towards the main building's broad, icy staircase.

Tap… Tap… Tap…

Only their solitary footsteps echoed in the vast lobby and stairwell. The steps were cold terrazzo, the railing frigid metal. Hemispherical surveillance domes hung high on the stairwell walls like silent sentinels, tracking their ascent. Chen Mo could hear his own slightly ragged breath, the frantic drumming of his heart—sounds that only amplified the profound, suffocating silence, a silence that felt violently enforced, devoid of life.

The third floor was dimmer. The corridor stretched long and deep, one side blank wall, the other lined with identical pale green doors, their metal numbers reflecting the feeble, dying-candle glow from a single overhead lamp at the far end. The air hung thicker, saturated with the same nauseating cocktail of chemical cleaner and stale mildew from the office area, now layered with a faint, metallic tang of rust and disinfectant. Chen Mo’s senses prickled, catching a fleeting, sickly-sweet coppery scent that vanished as quickly as it came.

At the corridor’s end, swallowed by the deepest shadow, stood a slightly wider door. A small metal plaque beside it bore the chilling inscription: "Quiet Contemplation Room," the letters edged with cold light.

Hu Qiang halted at door 307. The heavy metal door was painted institutional pale green, cold and smooth. He produced an oversized, antique brass key, its insertion into the lock grating harshly against the oppressive silence. Screech… Click. The door swung open.

Hu Qiang gestured Chen Mo inside and followed, closing the door with a solid thud that severed the last sliver of hallway light.

The room was small, perhaps fifteen square meters—a concrete cell. Opposite the door, a grimy square window filtered the churning fog outside into a sickly, grey-green twilight that suffused the space. The air was stagnant, heavy with the cloying stench of decay, disinfectant, and rust.

A bare metal-framed cot hugged the right wall, topped only by a thin, unyielding plank. A set of neatly folded, stiff, greyish bedding smelling faintly of bleach lay upon it. By the window stood a scarred, ancient wooden desk bearing the barest essentials: a cheap plastic cup, a new toothbrush, a small bar of soap, a hardcover notebook stamped with the school’s name, and a plastic ballpoint pen.

Nothing else. Walls and ceiling were raw, rough grey concrete. High in one corner, a polished metal surveillance dome gleamed—a third, unblinking eye in the room.

Chen Mo’s heart sank. This wasn't a prep dorm; it was a minimally furnished cell. He could almost feel the cold gaze of the camera recording his every twitch of pain and exhaustion on that hard plank.

"Meals: first floor cafeteria. Seven AM. Noon. Six PM. Late? Starve. Building locks at nine PM. No wandering. Especially nights." Hu Qiang announced the rules from the doorway, his voice devoid of inflection. "Issues? Duty desk. Or use the internal line." He pointed to the desk's edge, where an ancient, keypad-style phone, its edges green with verdigris, was embedded in the wall. "Internal calls only."

Without another word, Hu Qiang turned the handle to leave.

"Wait!" Chen Mo’s voice rasped, tight with suppressed fear and anger. "My... my daughter..."

Hu Qiang paused at the threshold, half-turning. His eyes swept over Chen Mo with utter indifference. "School doctor visited. Dinner delivered. Quiet benefits her."

The words were ice shards to Chen Mo’s heart. He clenched his fists, nails digging deep into his palms, choking back the surge of desperate questions and terror.

The door slammed shut.

Absolute silence crashed over Chen Mo like viscous floodwater. He could hear the blood pounding in his temples, the stifled rasp of his own breath echoing faintly off the concrete. It felt like being buried alive in a soundless tomb.

He moved slowly to the window, peering through the grime at the fog-bound campus—a vast prison. The dark grey classroom buildings stood like tombstones; the empty plaza lay desolate. The world seemed reduced to shades of grey and suffocating silence. Xiaoyu, where are you? Is that 'temporary' room safe? His heart felt roasted over coals.

Time crawled in the silence. Without a clock, Chen Mo gauged the approach of evening by the fading light leaching through the fog. He sat on the cold plank bed, back against the rough concrete wall. The weight of the contract, Xiaoyu’s safety, this suffocating void—poisonous thoughts gnawed at his nerves. His temple throbbed relentlessly.

BANG! BANG!

Sudden, sharp knocks rattled the door!

Chen Mo jolted upright, heart hammering against his ribs. Who?

Hu Qiang’s toneless voice came through the wood: "Teacher Chen. Director Li Enci summons you. Art Prep Room. C Wing. First floor. Now."

Li Enci?

Alarm bells shrieked in Chen Mo’s mind. What now? The bond isn’t cleared! Another trap?

Suppressing the surge of dread, he took a deep breath and opened the cold door.

Hu Qiang stood like a stone sentinel outside. "Follow."

Leaving the stifling cell of 307 for the equally oppressive corridor, Chen Mo realized his palms were slick with sweat. The corridor remained dim, but now he sensed a difference—the heavy metal door at the end, marked "Quiet Contemplation Room," stood slightly ajar! From the narrow gap seeped a sliver of eerie, sickly blue-green light! And on the threshold, just inside that ghastly glow, lay a thin wrist clad in grey-and-white striped fabric—skin stretched paper-white over bone! Around the wrist… coiled a stark white bandage! Freshly applied!

Chen Mo’s heart seized as if gripped by an icy hand.

The bandage… Zheng Tai?!

The next instant, a choked, guttural sound—Hhh… hhh…—erupted from the crack! A sound of unbearable agony violently suppressed! Then, a heavy black rubber boot shot out from the gap and stomped down with brutal, disgusted force onto the skeletal wrist lying on the threshold!

THUD!

A boy’s piercing, aborted scream—"Aaaa—!"—ripped through the crack, instantly strangled into silence!

Then, the eerie blue-green light within winked out. Utter darkness. Silence inside. Silence outside.

The entire episode lasted mere seconds.

Hu Qiang showed no reaction, his stride unbroken, his broad back an impenetrable wall against chaos and questions.

Chen Mo stood frozen, thunderstruck! His temple wound flared as if pierced by an ice pick! The frail arm! The fresh bandage! The vicious stomp! The half-scream! Images of violence and terror burned into his retinas and eardrums!

Zheng Tai! The boy with the bandaged wrist! Locked in that "Quiet Contemplation Room"?! Beaten?! Why did the scream cut off?! What horror lay within?!

Ice needles pierced Chen Mo’s limbs. Terror and fury threatened to drown him. This was no school! No ordinary institution! This was… a torture chamber! A prison! Hell!

Blood roared in his ears; nausea clawed at his throat. He yearned to charge down the corridor, smash that door open! But he couldn't. He knew unseen eyes watched. The contract! Xiaoyu!

His teeth ground; knuckles whitened. After a few seconds of violent internal struggle, Chen Mo forced the boiling rage and questions deep down. He wrenched his gaze from the door of terror, forced his leaden legs to move, stumbling to catch Hu Qiang’s retreating form as it vanished around the corridor corner.

Each step felt like walking on hot coals.

Hu Qiang led him through the maze-like main corridors, down the cold stairs. The lobby remained vast and silent, the "SILENCE | HOPE" sign now a mocking barb. They exited through an inconspicuous side door into a narrow, covered walkway connecting the main building to a smaller, three-story grey structure. The plastic roof panels were fog-blurred, admitting only feeble, dying light.

The air was damp, cold, thick with mildew and earth. Dark, damp stains blotched the walkway floor. Here, the suffocating silence seemed to lessen, replaced by a thicker, more unsettling tension.

Hu Qiang gestured towards the smaller building—Teaching Wing C. A sign above the entrance read: "Art & Handcrafts Instruction Zone."

Pushing open the heavy wooden door released a wave of odors: cheap paint, paper dust, wood shavings, and beneath it, the sharper tang of chemical glue and plastic model solvent. The corridor was narrower than the main building's, its walls painted a slightly brighter mint green. Display boards lined the walls, showcasing photos of children's artwork—bold colors, strange, sometimes twisted lines. Yet instead of vibrancy, the harsh overhead fluorescent light rendered them unsettling, cold, and oppressive.

The corridor was deserted, silent except for their footsteps.

"Art Prep Room. End of the hall. First door left." Hu Qiang stopped mid-corridor, pointing, then turned towards a door marked "Equipment Storage," unlocking it and disappearing inside without a backward glance.

Chen Mo walked alone towards the end. The chemical stench grew stronger. He stopped before the door labeled "Art Prep Room," hesitated, then knocked.

"Enter." Li Enci’s voice, uniquely flat yet penetrating, came clearly from within.

Chen Mo pushed the door open.

The room was larger than expected, a hybrid of warehouse and workshop. Overhead, multiple stark-white fluorescent tubes bathed everything in a cold, clinical light. Walls were tiled in cheap white squares. Tall steel shelving units crammed with supplies divided the space: tubes of paint like colorful artillery shells, brushes jammed into grimy holders, stacks of paper, dusty canvases, and plaster casts piled in corners. The air reeked of turpentine, acrylics, and old paper.

A large, stained wooden workbench dominated the center. Li Enci stood beside it, elegant in a pale teal wool suit that accentuated her chilly composure. Her trademark, fixed smile was intact—a porcelain mask. Beside her stood a heavy black metal apparatus—a chair-like structure with a high back and armrests, but topped by a movable armature holding a curved, helmet-like device studded with hundreds of tiny acoustic holes! It rested on a heavy metal base tangled with cables, radiating cold, mechanical menace. A small black screen was embedded above the chair back.

Li Enci’s slender hand rested lightly on the cold metal rim of the helmet, her fingertips tracing the acoustic holes.

"Ah, Teacher Chen." She turned, indicating he should approach, her gaze fixing precisely on his face. "Apologies for the interruption. Director Li Entai is finalizing administrative details, so I thought I'd introduce you to a core teaching environment." Her tone was courteous, almost welcoming. "Art is a signature feature of 'Hope,' a vital showcase." She emphasized "showcase."

"..." Chen Mo’s throat was dry. He tried to speak, but his attention was riveted by the metallic monstrosity. An ineffable chill radiated from it.

"This," Li Enci’s voice remained calm, as if describing a slide projector, "is our newly acquired 'Immersive Tranquility Learning Aid.' Particularly suited for institutions like ours, dedicated to the highest quality 'silent' education for special needs students. It effectively shields external auditory distractions, enabling students to achieve deeper, more focused states of 'tranquility.'" Her long finger tapped the acoustic helmet, producing a dull metallic thunk. "The system is still in calibration. Coincidentally, an external delegation arrives tomorrow to observe our art pedagogy. Director Li Entai proposes utilizing your inaugural art class to demonstrate this technology's practical application."

A showcase? Using my class? The first one?! Chen Mo’s heart plummeted. This wasn't kindness; it was being thrown into the fire!

"I... I have no experience with this equipment," Chen Mo managed, struggling to suppress the nausea and rage from the "Quiet Room" incident, his voice hoarse. "And the students..."

"No need for concern," Li Enci’s smile deepened microscopically, a flawless mask. "Operation is simple. Our technician will assist. The focus is demonstrating forward-thinking pedagogy. As for students," her tone softened slightly, "arrangements are made. Children with... specific focus requirements. They will be exceptionally cooperative."

At that moment, a faint, anomalous scraping sound came from the doorway! Subtle! Like a shoe sole dragging inadvertently!

Both Chen Mo and Li Enci looked over.

In the shadowed threshold, a small figure stood.

A girl. Perhaps eight or nine. Dressed in the school's standard grey tracksuit jacket, sleeves too long, swallowing her small hands. She was painfully thin, a wisp of a thing. Her face was pale and pointed, cheekbones prominent, making her eyes seem enormous. But those eyes, which should have been bright, were turbulent pools—shock, confusion, a deep, heartbreaking plea... and beneath it, a flicker of despair and numbness!

Her gaze was fixed, unblinking, on the black Tranquility Chair! As if beholding pure terror!

Her right hand nervously, repeatedly rubbed a spot on her left forearm, near the wrist—where the grey sleeve was pushed back, revealing a patch of deep, livid bruising! Purple-black, edges swollen! Like the mark of something heavy... brutally pressed down?!

Chen Mo’s pupils contracted. Wrist! Crushing injury! Zheng Tai?! That stomped arm?!

The girl made no sound. But her body trembled minutely. She seemed poised to enter, one foot lifting then falling back, hesitant as a fawn scenting a predator.

"Zhang Hui?" Li Enci’s voice cut the air, smooth as undisturbed water, yet carrying a sliver of cold like a needle of ice. Her smile didn't waver. "Your 'Tranquility Session' concluded? Shouldn't you be preparing for dinner?"

The name struck Chen Mo like lightning—Zhang Hui! The girl who carved cryptic patterns on her desk!

Zhang Hui flinched violently! Her terrified eyes snapped to Li Enci, the plea in them instantly drowned by overwhelming fear! She jerked her head down, hands clutching her jacket hem, knuckles white. Then she spun around and fled down the corridor, movements stiff, clumsy, choked sobs escaping despite her efforts. Her thin frame vanished into the hallway shadows like dust swallowed by the sea.

Only the faintest echo of muffled weeping, like a kitten's whimper, lingered.

A deeper, more suffocating silence filled the room. The chemical smells seemed to congeal. Li Enci, as if oblivious, moved to the workbench, picking up a sketchbook from a corner and handing it to Chen Mo. Her voice was warm again. "Here. Zhang Hui's work. The child possesses talent, though prone to... restlessness. Prone to self-injury. Prone to defacing property." She flipped pages, revealing chaotic pencil sketches—coiled serpents, fractured geometry, violent scratches and deep punctures radiating pain and struggle.

"See," Li Enci’s fingertip rested on a central area of one page—a violently blackened mass, edges torn. Her finger partially obscured the core, but Chen Mo, from his angle, glimpsed a twisted, half-visible symbol beneath! A broken-necked bird? Half a wing? A distorted echo of the strangled bird emblem glimpsed on the contract?!

Her voice held icy regret. "Such destructive potential requires... 'tranquil' guidance." Her gaze, deep as a tarn, lifted to meet Chen Mo’s. "As her instructor, you will utilize this auxiliary technology to help her overcome these... disruptive impulses."