Chapter 35 Hell
This is an abandoned quarry that stretches deep into the mountains. A large hole had been dug in the belly of the mountain, revealing bare stones. From a distance, it looks like a monster with a wide mouth of blood and a large mouth to choose people to devour.
Where we are is a training camp at the foot of the mountain that specializes in training fighters from all over the world. "Hell" is the Russian name of the place where we are. I don't know if the name was given to the boxers who were trained or if it was given to us smugglers who were caught, but now everyone calls it that, including the instructors who train the fighters, and that's what it should have been called. The reason I say instructors and not instructors is because they are always dressed in camouflage uniforms, dressed as soldiers, and some even have pistols around their waists.
Every morning at 6 a.m., the fighters are woken up on time and run 20 kilometers down the mountain road. Then there's the various target training and strength technique training. At noon, the trainees take an hour or two off and practice until 7 p.m. in the afternoon. It has all the training facilities you can imagine, and it's like a huge gym. However, the fighters who come to train are different from the leisurely and leisurely in the gym, they are more self-disciplined and hardworking. It is said that these fighters are the elite of black market boxers selected from various countries. In some countries, the death rate of black market boxing is extremely high, and some even require that one must die. If you don't work hard, you may fall in the ring tomorrow. In order to survive, they must desperately strengthen their bodies.
Those of us who were caught stowaways obviously couldn't enjoy the spacious gym. What awaited us was endless toiling and the occasional whip from the overseer. We need to take care of all the logistics of the camp, such as laundry, cooking, sanitation, etc. If you really don't want to continue this painful life, and you are determined to oppose the overseer, you may be waiting for you to report to Marx in advance. Who cares about the life of a stowaway? Who can notice the disappearance of a stowaway in the world?
In this place, as a stowaway, if you know a little bit of cooking, you may be transferred to the kitchen, if you know a little bit of mechanical and electrical, you may be involved in the maintenance of equipment, and if you know a little bit of carpentry and bricklayer work, you may be involved in some peripheral infrastructure. But if you're like me and Lao Wa who don't understand anything, then you might be doing some of the most tiring, dirty, and bitter jobs like the two of us. Lao Wa was assigned to do the laundry, while I was assigned to clean the toilet. I am responsible for the daily cleaning of the five toilets, which are cleaned at least three times a day according to the supervisor's requirements. Heavy physical labor and mushy meals all day long make our physical recovery even less exhausting. When he first arrived, Lao Wa said that he would rather die than eat this shit-like meal, but within a day, Lao Wa began to beg the fat man who cooked to give him an extra spoonful of this meat paste.
We lived in one of those old-fashioned bungalows, with four people crammed into a small space of less than twenty square meters. An old-fashioned toilet is facing the doorway, and there is no privacy to speak of. The lack of window ventilation fills the space with a foul smell.
It's been six months since I came to this prison, and at first I imagined that Xiao Yang might come to rescue us. But when the guards shot and killed a North Korean who was trying to escape in front of everyone, I knew that there was little hope that Xiao Yang would find this place and get me out. Let's survive first!
Over time, I understand why we stowaways call this "hell." Repeating yesterday every day, there is no family, no affection, and most importantly, no hope. You don't know when your days like this will come to an end, and days like this are really hell.
In this hell, my only gain may be my Russian, and in six months I was able to communicate in Russian, understand the tasks assigned by the overseer, and receive much less whipping than I did at the beginning.
After filling the barrel with water, I carried it to my third toilet of the day.
It is a toilet in a general training hall. The most people come here to train, and the toilets here are the dirtiest and messies. Every day when you open the toilet door, you can see unimaginably nauseous. It's the same today!
Sighing, washing the mop in the barrel, I began to sweep the filthy floor.
"Phew!" a mouthful of thick phlegm spat on the floor I had just cleaned.
A Japanese man who had just finished training and was shirtless glanced at me. I know him, his name is Yuji Yamamoto, and he's a well-known fighter in "Hell."
Yuji Yamamoto is not famous for his kung fu in "Hell", but for his deep hostility towards all Chinese in "Hell". Not only do we stowaways be beaten by him from time to time, but even the few Chinese fighters in "hell" are often provoked by him.
In such a place, whoever has a hard fist will have the right to speak. And the Chinese fighters trained in "Hell" are indeed inferior to the Japanese here.
I silently dragged Yuji Yamamoto's soiled ground again, and continued to bend down to clean up. I began to get used to life with my tail between my legs, where Chinese are bullied every day, and I am used to everything here. The blood in his chest has been exhausted in just six months.
My silence frustrated Yuji Yamamoto's original provocation, and he gave me a disdainful look, and spoke in Japanese.
The ghost knows what Yuji Yamamoto said about this call, but I have heard the phrase "Baga" in many film and television dramas. It's not that I didn't think about teaching this Yuji Yamamoto a good lesson, but even if I cleaned him up, I might get a whip and be thrown into confinement like a dog, and maybe a bullet if I didn't get it.
Although I am confident in winning over Yuji Yamamoto!
Every night, the gym finishes training with fighters at 7 o'clock. And my training for myself at seven o'clock has just begun. No matter how busy and tired I am every day, I soak myself in such a perfect training gym from 7 to 12 o'clock every night, and I never stop! Although my diet is not as good as those fighters, without the erosion of tobacco and alcohol, my physical fitness has been more abundant under my hard training in the past six months, and my muscle lines have become more full!
I know, I'm stronger than ever!
I'm going to live too!" I said to myself.
"Smack!", the whip slammed on my body, and my body shuddered despite wearing a thick cotton coat.
"He's lazy again, aren't you?" overseer Barrow's hoarse voice rang out again.
Looking at Barrow's fat pig-like face, I took two deep breaths and slowly released my clenched fist. I can't be impulsive, here, it's hell!