Early the next morning.
Xiang Yi had stayed up until the middle of the night reading technical manuals in the workshop, yet he still woke up early — and feeling noticeably better than he had the past two days.
A knock came at the door right on schedule. The doctor Xiang Yi had grown familiar with pushed it open and stepped inside, though this time he didn't appear to have brought any equipment.
Catching Xiang Yi's puzzled look, the doctor explained, "I'm taking you to the hospital for a checkup today, so I didn't bother bringing anything."
"Uh… I've got work to do."
"Don't worry about it. Director He already squared things away with Technician Zhang — heading over a bit late is fine."
"Alright then."
Xiang Yi wasn't thrilled about it, but he couldn't exactly come up with a good excuse to dodge the physical He Dong had arranged.
He had no choice but to follow the doctor to the hospital, which was located on the same middle level of the prison.
A dedicated section of the asteroid's interior had been hollowed out to make room for a small hospital.
It took the entire morning. The doctor walked Xiang Yi through nearly every department in the building, running a full head-to-toe workup.
When everything came back, Xiang Yi was in pretty good shape across the board — just a little anemic.
After all the running around, the doctor handed him a carton of milk — some habit from god knows where — and sent him on his way.
Standing outside the hospital entrance, Xiang Yi wasn't about to just stand there doing nothing. He cracked open one of the milk cartons and started drinking, his eyes sweeping slowly over the surroundings.
Any corner of this place could hold an opportunity — a clue for his escape.
He'd planned to leave once he finished the milk if nothing caught his eye, but then his gaze snagged on something.
Someone in a white coat had just passed through the hospital corridor.
They were a fair distance away, and practically everyone in the hospital wore a white coat, but that silhouette — if Xiang Yi wasn't mistaken — looked like He Dong.
He Dong was here at the hospital?
Xiang Yi wasn't entirely sure. He closed his eyes and replayed the image in his mind, comparing that retreating figure against He Dong's face.
Yes. That was He Dong.
Part of him wanted to follow and see what was going on, but his better judgment told him not to.
He remembered that He Dong's work revolved around the Blood Crystal Abnormality — and as for himself…
Xiang Yi glanced down at his bandaged arm. He'd been exposed to the Blood Crystal environment while injured…
And the doctor had been taking meticulous care of him these past few days, even going so far as to give him a comprehensive full-body checkup today…
Not to mention, every single time the doctor changed his dressings, he practically always drew a tube of blood…
"Hm…"
The more he thought about it, the more a sense of danger radiated from He Dong's direction — but he had nothing concrete to go on.
He needed to move faster. The sooner he got out of this prison, the better.
Xiang Yi tossed the empty milk carton into the bin near the hospital entrance.
That's when he noticed a doctor in a protective suit pushing an orange-yellow waste bin out through the hospital's side door, turning toward the back of the building.
The bin was marked with a prominent biohazard symbol. Medical waste.
Something flickered in Xiang Yi's eyes.
He might've just found something useful.
Any functioning hospital was going to generate medical waste, and that waste couldn't just be piled up and dealt with like ordinary trash.
Especially not on an asteroid only ten kilometers across, one that also happened to contain a dangerous Abnormality like the Blood Crystal.
The hospital had to have some way of disposing of it.
But the asteroid's space was the problem — more than half of it was already taken up by the prison, the mine shafts, and various other facilities. There was almost no chance it had the infrastructure for proper medical waste processing. It probably couldn't even be fully self-sufficient.
And yet the prison had to keep running, which meant there had to be supply lines from a nearby planet.
If that was the case, then the waste had to be going somewhere.
Xiang Yi was about to head around to the back of the hospital when a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him. "Hey, what are you still doing here?"
The doctor had appeared behind him at some point without him noticing.
Xiang Yi immediately threw together an excuse. "Oh, I was just wondering if I needed to come back for a checkup tonight. I was about to go find you and ask."
"Just a minor follow-up tonight — nothing major. But if you're willing to come by, I'm certainly not going to turn you away. You've got staff clearance to access this area now, right?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry to put you out."
"It's no trouble. I'll probably be bothering you plenty more after this."
Any chance of slipping around to the back of the hospital during the day had just evaporated.
Not that Xiang Yi was in any particular rush. After lunch, he made his way back to the workshop where he nominally worked.
He'd barely sat down and turned on his computer when a job notification popped up on the screen.
Mine shafts 20 through 22 were set to reopen, and someone was needed to perform final electrical inspections and maintenance on the wiring below.
These three shafts had been closed even before shafts 1 through 3 — the ones where Xiang Yi had encountered the Blood Crystal Worm — were sealed off.
If they were reopening, the inmates Xiang Yi used to work alongside would most likely be assigned here.
As far as Xiang Yi could remember, he'd spent his first two weeks mining in shaft 2, alongside people who'd been housed in his cell block or neighboring ones.
The prison probably followed the same logic when assigning workers to newly opened shafts, which meant there was a good chance he'd be running into some familiar faces.
The realization sparked an idea — and it took shape in his mind quickly, with enough structure to actually be workable.
He reached over and manually accepted the assignment.
"Hm?"
Zhang Lang noticed the notification pop up on his own screen and craned his neck over. "What are you doing?"
"Working," Xiang Yi said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I've got a pretty good handle on how you guys assign tasks around here. I can't just sit on my hands, can I?"
Under normal circumstances, that would've been exactly what Zhang Lang wanted to hear from a new addition to the team. But these were far from normal circumstances.
Xiang Yi was already gathering his tools, and Zhang Lang moved quickly to talk him out of it. "Director He could call for you at any moment. You've got your own assignment — that piece of equipment matters a lot more than routine shaft maintenance."
"It's fine. The equipment's in perfect condition, ready to go whenever. I'll just bring it along — honestly, the most likely place I'd ever need it is down in the shafts anyway."
"That's… I need to check with Director He about this."
"Go right ahead. I'll head out first."
"Wait!"
If Xiang Yi just walked out the door, Zhang Lang would be on the hook regardless of whether he checked with He Dong or not.
But he couldn't think of a single good reason to stop him — Xiang Yi was technically following the rules. So maybe the better play was to just… go get it done quickly. As long as they were back before Director He noticed anything, it would all blow over.
"I'm coming with you."
Xiang Yi didn't object.
The two of them packed up their tools in short order and boarded the elevator heading down to the prison's innermost level.
They had just arrived at the mine shafts when something on Zhang Lang's person started vibrating.
He pulled a tablet-sized device from his coat pocket and woke up the screen.
The moment he saw what was on it, his expression shifted. He immediately fished an earpiece out of his pocket, jammed it into his ear, and answered the call with barely concealed anxiety. "Director He — what can I do for you?"