The first day's work was extremely boring, and time passed so slowly, Su Mengfan felt that his movements were infinitely magnified:

Dig, pour, return, dig, pour, return...... Then back to the other side.

This damn process keeps repeating itself as new visitors keep coming in and there's no end in sight to the work.

Neither the visitors, nor the guards standing at the entrance to the workplace, at the end of the passage, at the axis of turn, no one hid their strong antipathy for the poor laborer.

They stood aside in disgust and covered their noses tightly.

What's more, the more discerning visitors took a deep breath before coming in, so as not to smell the stench of Su Mengfan and Mark.

Their expressions were so disgusted, Su Mengfan couldn't help but ask himself, could it be that these stinks. The shit wasn't pulled out of their ass?

At the end of the day, his hands were worn off, even though he was wearing thick canvas gloves.

Su Mengfan seems to have discovered the nature of human beings and the meaning of life here.

He now sees man as an intelligent machine that breaks down food and produces stool, and if measured by some kind of ultimate goal that comes to mind, "meaning", it is almost a meaningless way to live a life.

Meaning is a process: breaking up the food as much as possible, converting it at a faster rate, expelling the residue — the residue of smoked bone-in pork chops, juicy blanched shiitake mushrooms, etc. — becoming rotten and dirty.

Personality traits begin to fade and become impersonal, used to destroy the beautiful and useful, to create some corrupt and useless filthy system.

Su Mengfan hated humans, and his dislike for them was no less than their dislike for him.

Mark tried to cheer him up by pretending to be patient, saying things like "Don't worry, they told me a long time ago that this job is always difficult at first."

The main problem was that neither on the first nor the second day there was any possibility of escape, and the guards remained on alert.

In addition, the only thing Su Mengfan and Mark had to do to escape was to enter a tunnel a little farther away than the axis of rotation.

Then go to Dubreinin station, but this is almost impossible.

They stayed in a small room nearby at night.

The doors were closed at night, and at any time of the day, there was always a guard sitting in the glass house at the entrance to the station.

It's the third day of their subway station.

Time here is not an ordinary 24-hour day, it passes as slowly as a slug, like an endless nightmare second after second.

Su Mengfan was used to no one coming to talk to him, and he was in a pariah situation.

It's as if he's no longer human, but an incredibly gigantic monster.

People looked at him as if he were not just ugly and disgusting, but also something connected to themselves in some way—something that frightened them, and made them feel even more disgusted, as if he were a leper and would be contagious to them.

He always had at first devised an escape plan, then utterly despair of it, and then fell into a dull numbness, and his intellect was separated from his life.

He became autistic, touched the slightest feeling inside him, and then clung to a little consciousness somewhere in a distant corner.

Su Mengfan continued to work mechanically, his movements as precise as the robot - all his movements were digging, pouring, returning, digging, pouring, returning, changing pits, turning to the other side at a faster speed, and starting to dig again.

His dreams had lost all meaning, and what was in them was the same as what he had thought when he was awake.

He ran endlessly, digging, pushing, pushing, digging, running.

On the night of the fifth day, when Su Mengfan was pushing a wheelbarrow, he tripped over a shovel left on the floor, and the trolley overturned and the contents were poured out.

And then he himself fell.

As he slowly got up from the floor, an idea popped into his head.

Instead of rushing to fetch shovels and cloths, he deliberately walked slowly towards the entrance of the tunnel.

Now he himself felt so hateful and disgusting, and the smell of his body was enough to smoke everyone away.

At this moment, it may be a coincidence, the security guard, who usually hangs out on the route, for some reason, is not there.

didn't have time to wonder if someone would chase him from behind, Su Mengfan began to cross the crossbar.

Blindly, but without hesitation, he went faster and faster, and finally even ran.

The thought that he didn't want to go to work anymore guided his body, and the thought had been hiding in the corner.

There was no roaring behind him, no footsteps of pursuers, only the clattering of railcars loaded with goods.

These railcars have only dim lights illuminating the way forward.

Su Mengfan had to cling to the wall and let the rail car pass first.

The people in the car either didn't notice him, or didn't feel the need to pay attention to him, and their eyes passed over him, without lingering or saying a word.

Suddenly, an irresistible feeling welled up inside him, prompting him to lie down.

He covered himself with foul-smelling mud as if no one could spot him, which gave him strength and his consciousness began to gradually return.

He did it!

Who knows how he did it?

Despite losing his good judgment of direction, he managed to escape from that abominable station anyway, and no one was following him!

It's weird, it's amazing, but if you make sense of what happened now, and calmly analyze this miracle, the feeling will disappear immediately, and the searchlight beams of the patrol railcar will soon knock him back into the darkness.

The end of the tunnel glows brightly.

He slowed down, and a minute later, he arrived at the Dubreinen station.

The border guard there fanned him with one hand and put the other over his mouth, and only asked him, "Do they recruit cleaning technicians?" ”

This simple question was quickly released, which made him feel relaxed.

Su Mengfan had to continue to walk forward and leave the territory of Hansa as soon as possible before the security guards could react.

He had to leave as soon as possible before he heard the sound of his tin boots behind him, before the police shots rang out in the air.

He didn't look at anyone, his eyes were fixed on the ground.

His skin was crawling with something that he felt disgusting, and a vacuum had formed around him, allowing him to walk briskly to the border post without having to push through the dense crowd with his hands.

Now, what is he going to say?

Passports are increasingly used in more and more places, so how can he cope with the increasing number of cross-examinations?

Su Mengfan hung his head deeply, his chin resting on his chest, and he didn't see anything around him.

So, his memory of the entire station is the darkness and the neatly laid granite slabs on the ground.

He kept walking forward, terrified of being told to stand still.

Closer and closer to the Hanseatic border.