SWDnovel Chapter 005 [1 Second]
Chapter 005 [1 Second]
Walking straight down the street for about twenty minutes, Lu Chen finally saw the city gate.
It was slightly different from the "city gate" that Lu Chen knew.
—It's an iron gate, over a hundred meters wide!
It's only a dozen meters high.
It is currently in a closed state, and it is not apparent how it is opened or closed.
Above the city gate, there is a huge screen displaying the current time.
—21:54:39.
Like the string of numbers representing "time" on Lu Chen's left arm, it was fluorescent green.
Besides the timetable on the city gate and the [Timer] on his arm, there was also a fluorescent green light in Lu Chen's field of vision.
Not far from the side of the city gate, there is a very eye-catching sign that reads "Bank".
Beneath the enormous sign, there is only a row of windows with railings.
It was pitch black inside the window; nothing could be seen.
"Scan pupil information."
As soon as I stepped forward, a mechanical voice immediately sounded from inside the window.
Lu Chen instinctively stopped.
「复甦者：9527号，当月债务利息【300天】，将于2小时03分18秒后逾期。」
"Have you paid this month's debt interest?"
Lu Chen nodded heavily.
"Yes."
As soon as he finished speaking, a buzzing sound, similar to an ATM counting money, rang out.
With a sound, a robotic arm slowly emerged from the window.
Along with the robotic arm, a flat iron block emerged, its groove facing upwards, which looked extremely familiar to Lu Chen.
"Please pay."
Lu Chen stepped forward and, mimicking Yu's gesture of paying for "time," placed his left wrist downwards and hooked it into the groove above the flat iron block.
Then, he watched as the "Time" symbol on his left arm, seemingly along with his life force, was rapidly drawn away by the flat iron block.
【00:364:22:17:06】
...
...
【00:64:22:16:51】
"Payment complete."
After the [Time] on his left arm began to be extracted, Lu Chen felt his hand being tightly attracted to the flat iron block, as if it were a magnet.
Only after the extraction was completed did it seem as if the magnetic field suddenly disappeared, and with a "pop," the wrist detached from the groove on the flat iron block.
The mechanical sound rang out again, and the flat iron block was pulled back into the window by the robotic arm.
Standing in front of the window, I looked down at the remaining time on my left arm, then looked up at the dark window in front of me.
Lu Chen had a vague idea forming in his mind.
"bank……"
"Since it's a bank, then perhaps...?"
Thinking this, Lu Chen subconsciously swallowed, then coughed twice to clear his throat.
Then, tentatively, he said, "A loan."
"Recovered individual No. 9527, applying for a loan."
After he finished speaking, no mechanical sound came from inside the window for a long time.
Just when Lu Chen thought that he had not mastered the correct way to awaken the machine, or that the time bank could not lend money, the mechanical voice came out from the window again.
"Scan pupil information."
「复甦者：9527号，当前余额：【00:64:22:14:09】。」
"Current bank debt [6 years], monthly debt interest [300 days]."
"Private debt [2 years], repayment plan and interest to be determined."
Credit rating: None.
"Collateralizable assets: None".
"Debt default risk: 99.13%"
"Assess loan amount: [1 seconds]"
……
Inside the window, all was quiet once more.
Standing by the window, Lu Chenfeng looked disheveled.
Amidst the confusion, Lu Chen even felt a little like laughing.
Lu Chen was certain that this loan amount in just one second was absolutely because the lower limit of the bank's procedures was not zero!
What would you do with a second of that?
In that brief moment of 1 second, several tens of seconds have naturally passed!
After taking a deep breath, Lu Chen finally calmed down.
Then he said softly, "Recovered patient number 9527, please apply for storage."
This time, a mechanical sound quickly came from inside the window.
"Recovered: No. 9527, current storage time: [64 days]".
"Storing the items for 64 days will incur a daily service fee of 1 day."
"Confirm storage for 64 days?"
……
Lu Chen's face darkened.
—You have to pay interest to borrow time, and you have to pay a service fee to deposit time?
What happened to the promise of offering low interest rates to depositors and high interest rates to lenders to profit from the interest rate spread?
Are you really trying to profit from both sides?!
After another period of silence, Lu Chen finally accepted reality: trying to earn interest by accumulating "time" was simply not feasible.
"Cancel saving".
After giving this instruction, Lu Chen waited outside the window for quite a while longer.
After confirming that no mechanical voice such as "Customer did not respond, default to consent" came from inside the window, Lu Chen turned and left the bank.
This time, we didn't walk for too long.
After walking just over a hundred meters, you can see rope hotels stretching along both sides of the road.
Similar to the rope hotel in Victorian England that Lu Chen remembered;
—It’s called a ‘hotel’, but it’s not an enclosed building.
Instead, it is open on all four sides, with only four or six pillars supporting a rectangular roof...
Pavilion?
Although he didn't want to admit it, Lu Chen had to say that he had only seen two types of buildings like this before.
The first type is the pavilions and corridors in the park.
The second type is the livestock shed in the countryside...
Inside the shed, there were rows of dirty black ropes, each end fixed to the top of a wooden stake nailed to the ground, supporting the ropes at about knee height.
It was already past 22 p.m., and there was less than an hour left before the 23 p.m. curfew when people were prohibited from being in open-air places.
Inside the hotel, some people were already kneeling in front of the rope, hanging their upper bodies from under their armpits, trying to fall asleep.
Every now and then, tall, burly men wielding short sticks would walk back and forth between the ropes.
Whenever a person hanging on the rope shows signs of loosening, the burly man will walk over to that person and tighten his grip on the short stick in his hand.
Obviously, as soon as someone "falls" off the rope, the short stick will immediately fall down to remind that person to "go back to the rope to sleep".
Turning his gaze away from the short stick in the burly man's hand, Lu Chen's attention was drawn to the exposed left arms of those hanging on ropes.
【00:01:17:43:16】
...
【00:01:09:24:38】
...
【00:02:01:57:29】
...
【00:00:21:06:53】
...
As he walked, Lu Chen observed the remaining time of these people.
What surprised Lu Chen was that the vast majority of these people only had a little over one day.
Occasionally, a few people will pop up for two days.
Or it could be less than a day, only twenty-odd hours.
Realizing that he was likely the "richest" person in the area, Lu Chen subtly tugged at his sleeve, completely concealing his left arm under his clothes.
As I stepped into one of the hotels, the burly man holding a short stick immediately approached me with an unfriendly expression.
He didn't say anything.
He just stretched out his left hand fiercely, as if he wanted to shake hands with Lu Chen.
Not understanding the burly man's intentions, Lu Chen simply frowned in confusion.
"【time】!"
"Get out if you don't pay!"
Lu Chen felt a chill run down his spine, but still couldn't understand the burly man's intentions.
Seeing the burly man's face grow increasingly fierce, Lu Chen, in a panic, instinctively reached out and shook hands with him.
The burly man, however, was extremely adept at it, extending his left hand further forward and changing the "handshake" into a mutual grip on each other's forearms.
The timers on the two men's left arms also moved in sync with the strong man's movements.
Lu Chen's hand was on top, and the burly man's hand was on the bottom.
After shaking hands for a while, the burly man, who was no longer angry, suddenly widened his eyes again.
His gaze toward Lu Chen suddenly ignited with a raging fire!
"Are you kidding me?!"
"—You dare to play me!!!"