The black shoes on his feet were of the expensive Giorgio Armani brand, which he invested half of them in the fall of his 11th grade as soon as he received a $3,000 scholarship to the National Youth Chess Tournament.

"You kid, if you continue to be narcissistic like this, all the people in this room should be suffocated with prostatitis!" The middle-aged Taiwanese kept banging on the thin wooden door with his fist, and unceremoniously condemned William in stiff and broken English.

William silently turned off the faucet and hurried away from the mirror.

An unfamiliar face was reflected in the mirror, startling himself. The fat and dirty orange-red prison uniform on his body made off his gray face even more, his red hair had long lost his luster if he was neglected, and he was hanging down on his head in patches, his bloodless lips were stubbornly pursed, his nose was still arrogant and straight, his thin cheeks and stubble cheeks were sunken inward, and around his eye sockets was a circle of sickly gray-brown shadows.

The most shocking thing is the scar on the forehead, although the stitches have long been removed, the wound is deep into the skull, it heals very slowly, and it often suppurates, and after a few months, it is still a crimson one, and the centipede-like stitch marks on both sides of the wound crawl obliquely all over the entire right forehead, which is more real and terrifying than the traumatic makeup of Oliver obliquely across the cheek in the play "The Butcher".

William opened the door from the inside of the bathroom and glanced at the bluffing little Taiwanese, who was now lying upside down on the concrete floor, covering the lower side of his lower abdomen with his hands very indecently. When intertwining with William's body, he glanced at William with his small triangular eyes very unfriendly.

William didn't want to worry about him, think about it, this Taiwanese is sad enough. When he told him that he was charged with arms trafficking, William was shocked and had mixed feelings about being locked up with felons like arms dealers.

Later, I learned that the so-called weapon he was selling was just a cheap charged batons.

This kind of baton costs dozens of dollars a piece in the United States, but it only costs a few dozen yuan wholesale from Chinese mainland, so he played a clever trick and brought a whole box of electric batons from the mainland, and was arrested at customs.

He had come in just over a month before William, and his case had not yet begun because he had not been released on bail and for some other very bloody reason.

After four or five months of getting along, William obviously felt that this Taiwanese's English was improving day by day, mainly due to the patience of the veteran grandfather.

Still, he regularly pops out of his mouth with short, powerful Chinese phrases every day. At first, William didn't know what that meant, but through slow observation, he found that Taiwanese would say a specific phrase when they went to the toilet and had poor excretion, say two other phrases and a monosyllabic word when the food was unpalatable, and alternately curse this desperate world in English and three or four Chinese phrases when they were in a bad mood.

William finally understood that those phrases were supposed to be curses in Chinese.

Now, he can basically blurt out the few words that Taiwanese often say, and on a few occasions, when Taiwanese are in a good mood, they also sincerely praise him for his talent in learning languages and accurate pronunciation.

William sat back down next to the kind old white man, picked up half of Crime and Punishment, and couldn't read a word.

The white-haired old man sitting on the other side of the bed, the dark-faced old man was still babbling in a low-decibel voice.

Five or six months ago, when the impatient Taiwanese heard the old man's chatter, he would always say rudely, "Shut up!" Now everyone has long regarded this nagging as background music, and William can even hear some life lessons from the old man's words.

The old man was the eldest in the small cell, and at the same time, the one who had been in for the longest time. According to himself, he was a soldier when he was young and served on the battlefields of the Vietnam War.

He looks so good that no one would believe he is 88 years old if he doesn't say it himself.

The year before last, the veteran grandfather was diagnosed with rectal cancer, because after he left the army, he has been relying on various construction sites to do odd jobs, driving rollers for a living, no medical insurance, no savings, just two visits to the doctor and spent all his savings.

One day, he got drunk on some liquor with the only $20 he had left at home, and then ran to a nearby construction site, where he saw a roller parked there, exactly like the one he used to drive, so he took advantage of the alcohol to get the driver out of the car, jumped on it and drove it himself.

After driving a short distance, the locomotive deviated from the hard shoulder and slid down the side of the unrepaired highway onto another road. Several normally driving cars failed to dodge this behemoth that fell from the sky, and crashed into it all at once, forming a series of crashes, but fortunately there were no fatalities.

I heard that not long after the veteran grandfather was detained, he had a blessing in disguise and cut off the rectum that had been infected with cancer cells. His case was heard last year and should have been transferred to the Connecticut State Penitentiary, where there were no empty beds.

Later, the state prison finally had empty beds, and the veteran's grandfather's sentence was about to expire, and the detention center made it more convenient for him to go to the nearby hospital for regular check-ups, so the old man lived happily in the detention center until now.

At present, his biggest fear is that he will be released in a little more than a year, and at his age, no construction site will hire him to drive a roller, and then he will live without food and clothing.

William put down the thick copy of "Crime and Punishment" in his hand, got up and touched the Mexican brother who was lying on the opposite bed with his eyes wide open and in a daze, and asked, "Tonight, when we go to the activity room, let's go to the next plate, right?" ”

The little brother remained motionless like a carved clay sculpture of wood, except glancing at a pair of dark eyes in William's direction and lowering his eyelids.

William interpreted the expression as agreement.

Regardless of the fact that this Mexican is three years older than him, the severity of the crime should be on par with William, or even more serious.

His public identity is a food delivery boy, but he was arrested for drug trafficking, and it is too common for people like them to help drug dealers occasionally carry some drugs.

Most of the time, the Mexican guy didn't speak, lying on the bed reading without saying a word, occasionally lying on the upper plank bed, leaning through the narrow window, looking at the sky outside in a daze.

He looks like he's mute, probably because he can reveal a thick South American accent as soon as he opens his mouth.

By chance, William learned that he could play chess, so he played with him in the activity room. Surprisingly, William, who has won many state chess championships and national awards, defeated this unremarkable little brother in the first game with a difficult victory, and actually lost the second game.

Detention centers are considered by default to places where they will not live for long, so suspects do not have access to the outdoors. If you behave well, you will only be allowed to go to the activity room to watch TV or go to the gym for a fixed period of time, however, as soon as you get out of the room and into the common area, you must be handcuffed.

At first, William had a hard time accepting his handcuffs, and his mind was filled with sweaty basketball on the court with Daniel, ethereal chants and flickering candles in the chapel, sitting around the Harkness round table, squatting over an academic issue, and even overcooked steaks and thickly sliced fried potato chips in the dining room......

He waited eagerly for the day of the trial, although he knew that after the trial, he might not know what fate he would face, but such a dull and boring day made him feel tormented.

Once, William had nothing to do, and talked to the grandfather of the lower bunk, the Taiwanese and the Mexican brother, how he led the school's speech team to win the chess championship in high school, beating the state's talented private and public schools, and how he wrote, directed, and starred in a play from the school theater to the Lincoln Center; There are also school dances, parties, and the rich collection of books in the library......

The three roommates listened with straight eyes and envious expressions. They had never been to such a place in their lives, and felt that the life described to them by William existed only in the land of fairy tales.

The old man looked at William's handsome and thin face, and sighed regretfully: "If you don't have this scar on your head, take a bath, shave, and put on a set of exquisite clothes, you will still be a very good handsome young man." ”

The Taiwanese pouted the corners of his lips and said, "You're not the president of the student union now, so let's give less speeches!" Have time to think about how you can save a few years in prison! If you go to a state prison, you're bound to be locked up with a felon, it's hell on earth! Putting aside the fights and killings inside, even if you are lucky enough to come out alive unscathed, staying in such a wicked 'university' for a few years must be a decathlon of murder, arson, robbery, and drug trafficking. ”

What the crow-beaked Taiwanese said was not unreasonable, and William was frustrated, and that day, he spent several hours alone.

Time in the detention center is like that of a mischievous magician, sometimes stagnant and frozen at one of the most tragic moments, sometimes running desperately forward like a scud child.

William didn't know how long he had been here.

William, who has been on the fast track of life for many years, suddenly experienced the dull and monotonous life in the detention center, which made him feel anxious, which was diametrically opposed to his previous life experience.

Before, he only knew that he was desperate to stride forward and go straight to the ultimate goal of the end of the road, but he had no time to take care of the changes in the scenery around him.