HCB Chapter 393 Reward and Punishment
Chapter 393 Reward and Punishment
Neville was holding Howard's food in his hands. He had only given away half of the bread, and the rest of the food was still on the plate.
The food was covered in bits of debris and there was no way Neville could eat it.
So he asked Howard:
"what should I do?"
Howard was speechless for a moment. He opened his mouth, but swallowed the words back. Then he wanted to say something again, but before he could say anything, he laughed.
"I don't know," Howard replied.
So Neville stared at the food in his hand for a long time, and soon he thought of a new way.
He once again clung to the railing and shouted to the prisoner next door who had cheated him out of half a loaf of bread:
"Hey! Hey! Wake up!"
But the prisoner ignored him.
So Neville took out the remaining half piece of bread:
"Do you want this?"
These words finally moved the other party. The prisoner slowly and stiffly sat up from his nest and looked at Neville.
"Do you want this?" Neville waved the bread in front of the prisoner's eyes.
The prisoner stared at Neville for a long moment, then nodded hesitantly.
The other party is also a human being and has his own thoughts. He is not a machine.
Neville warned himself in his heart, while trying to figure out what the prisoner was thinking when he did this.
It was obvious that he must have wanted this half piece of bread, but given the unpleasantness just now, the prisoner must have been wary of Neville.
So Neville broke off a third of the remaining half of the bread and threw it to the prisoner.
The prisoner was obviously much more cautious about the bread thrown by Neville this time. He just watched from a distance at first. After finding nothing unusual, he picked up the bread from the ground, put it to his nose and smelled it again and again. Finally, he hesitantly put it into his mouth and swallowed it after chewing it carefully.
Neville waited for him to finish the bread, then shook the remaining bread in his hand and asked:
"Do you still want these breads?"
With the experience just now as a prelude, the prisoner also believed that Neville did not lie to him, so this time he nodded more firmly than before.
"My name is Neville Gunther. Tell me your name." Neville asked.
The question seemed to sting the prisoner, for he suddenly rushed at Neville in a rage, but was stopped by the bars, though he banged his head against them no less.
But Neville was not frightened by the other party. Those who could be imprisoned here were either servants of the Gunther family or enemies of the Gunther family. In short, there could be no ordinary citizens of the hive city. Therefore, this guy's sudden rage was understandable.
But after the other party calmed down, he weakly gave his name:
"Ienar."
"Very good, Ainar." But Neville did not give him the remaining bread immediately. Instead, he rolled a new mashed potato ball, which was only a quarter of the size of the bread.
"You help me distribute the food. As a reward, I will give you all the bread at the end. How about that? If you continue to steal food like you did just now, you won't get any of this bread."
Ironal didn't refuse the option, so Neville tossed the mashed potato balls to him, and he tossed them around like a toy, finally, casually tossing them to another prisoner behind him.
With the help of Iannar, Howard's meals were soon distributed, and it was time for Neville to fulfill his promise.
But at this time, the prisoner named Ainar seemed to have lost interest in the remaining bread in Neville's hand.
But Neville didn't notice this. He still waved the bread in front of Einnar:
"According to the agreement, I should give you the remaining bread."
But when it came to this, Neville suddenly changed the subject:
"But because you initially took the food I gave to other prisoners, I shouldn't have given you this piece of bread."
Ironal remained indifferent, but Neville continued his performance:
"But I'm the one who should keep my promise, and you did a good job of cooperating later, so I should reward you."
As he spoke, Neville took out the half sausage he had left over, put it in the bread, and threw it to Einnar:
"As long as you are willing to cooperate, if there are food distributions in the future, you will still be able to get these. If you are greedy like you were at the beginning, then you will get nothing."
By combining kindness with severity, and carrying out rewards and punishments at the same time, Neville felt that he had become adept at understanding and exploiting human nature.
The bread with sausage in it fell at Ienar's feet. Ienar bent down to pick it up, but instead of stuffing it into his mouth or hiding it to eat later as Neville had imagined, the prisoner pinched the bread in his hand and dug all five fingers into it, as if he wanted to crush it.
But in the end, Ienar relaxed, and then he casually threw the bread in his hand to other prisoners. He did not eat anything, but lay back in his nest, with his back to Neville again.
"You..." Neville's cognition was shocked again. When he was preparing to control the other party from the perspective of human selfishness, he found that the other party had done something beyond this framework.
And in the end, did Ienar throw the bread to other prisoners because he had awakened his conscience?
No matter how naive Neville was, he wouldn't be so stupid.
"He..." Neville, who had nowhere to confide in, finally looked at Howard again: "What's going on with him?"
But Howard also leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, looking like "don't ask me".
Neville knew he wasn't going to get answers from this man.
Despite this small incident, the food was finally distributed. Neville considered this a victory, so he put on a slightly proud expression and said to Howard:
"Look, I did it."
Howard finally lazily opened one eye and asked, "What did you do?"
Neville: "I overcame the difficulties and persuaded the guy who just ate the food to cooperate, and sent out your food as well."
"Oh." Howard just agreed perfunctorily and closed his eyes again.
"No! Is your reaction so cold?" Neville was a little anxious, like a child who got high scores but didn't get praise from his parents. He said anxiously:
"When I asked you at first, you said you didn't know how to do it. Now that I've done it, don't you have anything to say?"
"What did you do?" Howard asked.
"I shared the food!" Neville replied.
Howard: "Then why do you divide the food?"
Neville: "I don't want to see them starve."
Howard: "So, you think that if you simply share your food with mine, the dozens or hundreds of prisoners in this dungeon won't be hungry?"