Restricted Area

The psychiatrist’s professional report was sent back to the prison late the next afternoon, by which time Zheng Mingyi had completed a full 24-hours holed up and was released from the confinement cell.

Luo Hai still believed that the report had underestimated how dangerous Zheng Mingyi was, but professionals were professionals. Also knowing that his own opinions were not as important, he could only go over to Jiang Chijing’s to chat with him for a bit.

Seeing that it was almost time for the inmates’ afternoon break, Luo Hai didn’t linger any longer and returned to the opposite infirmary.

Jiang Chijing picked up the latest copy of the weekly newspaper, idly flipped to a fun little column, and found that the puzzle for the column this week was sudoku.

Sudoku was a mini-game that required mathematics and logic. The player had to fill in the remaining numbers in a nine-by-nine grid, making sure that the numbers in each row, column, and box contained 1 to 9 without any repetition.

Jiang Chijing had solved a fair number of sudokus before, but the difficulty for today’s was evidently on the higher side; after completing half of it, he was unable to use elimination to solve it, and had to test the possibility of each number individually.

The afternoon break time wasn’t a suitable time to work the brain anyway. Jiang Chijing simply placed the newspaper aside, picking up the A4 psych report that Luo Hai left behind.

It stated on the report that Zheng Mingyi had an ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judgement) personality type with all the polarity indexes above 85%. He was rational, calm, and characteristically slow to anger or irritation. He had a more passive nature and did not show tendencies of violence, but this didn’t eliminate the potential that he would turn to extreme action when threatened.

A result like this wouldn’t have any effect on Zheng Mingyi’s treatment in prison. After the settle-in period, he would still be allocated to either Block A or B depending on his performance.

As he thought this, someone suddenly held a book in front of Jiang Chijing.

Some inmates would borrow books to read in their cells, and after reading, take them back during their afternoon break.

Jiang Chijing routinely took the book, then found that the title of this book was Strawberry Planting Techniques. If he wasn’t mistaken, this book was never loaned out to any inmate before.

He unconsciously lifted his head and ended up locking eyes with Zheng Mingyi.

“You want to borrow a book?” Jiang Chijing’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I thought you can’t read books.”

Wasn’t it some form of masochism for a person with dyslexia to actually read a book?

“I’m not borrowing it,” Zheng Mingyi said. “I’m reading it here.”

“You don’t have to notify me if you’re just going to read it here.”

“But I need you to read it to me.”

In a twinkling, the air in the office area turned still. Zheng Mingyi’s tone was too matter-of-fact, such that Jiang Chijing even suspected for a split second that he had missed some kind of detail, causing him to be unable to keep up with Zheng Mingyi’s logic.

“What did you say?”

Jiang Chijing remained polite as he asked this, but the expression on his face had already exposed his inner thoughts: excuze moi?

“I need you to read it to me,” Zheng Mingyi repeated once more, “I can use my phone to read books outside prison, but I can’t do that here.”

Jiang Chijing tempered himself to say, “That’s why this is prison, it isn’t somewhere that you can do whatever you please.”

“Doesn’t prison advocate learning and reformation?” Zheng Mingyi looked unwaveringly at Jiang Chijing. “I want to learn strawberry planting techniques now, I think that the prison should provide me the necessary support.”

That was the principle of it. Just about any prison earnestly wished for inmates to proactively seek to reform themselves.

But the problem was, Jiang Chijing didn’t want to give himself unnecessary work.

“You can take it up with the warden. If he agrees to your request, then I’ll read it to you.”

Jiang Chijing understood the warden’s temperament. This middle-aged man close to retirement was a staunch believer that wherever possible, the fewer complications the better. He was an expert at glossing things over. As long as it wasn’t absolutely essential, he would choose to maintain the status quo and not make any changes.

If he agreed to grant Zheng Mingyi special privileges, this could incur trouble, such as other inmates finding excuses to request for extra privileges, or such as inmates dissatisfied with Zheng Mingyi raising objections, and whatnot.

In essence, no matter how he looked at it, Jiang Chijing didn’t feel that the warden would agree to Zheng Mingyi’s request.

Zheng Mingyi leisurely took back the book in his hand, seeming pensive as he hung his gaze down, his thoughts inscrutable.

Then, his gaze landed on the newspaper that was placed to one side. He looked at the pencil markings on it and said, “Are you doing sudoku?”

There wasn’t anything to hide about this, but Jiang Chijing had yet to solve this sudoku, and he naturally didn’t want to expose this.

He flipped the newspaper over, indifferently saying, “It’s none of your business.”

Zheng Mingyi lifted his gaze from the newspaper to look at Jiang Chijing, and he said, “It’s a 5 over there.”

“What?” Once again, Jiang Chijing was unable to keep up with the leaping of Zheng Mingyi’s thought processes.

“The place where you’re stuck.” Zheng Mingyi said, “The answer is 5.”

Jiang Chijing didn’t have the mood to discuss sudoku with Zheng Mingyi. His brows knit slightly. “Is there anything else?”

Zheng Mingyi placed Strawberry Planting Techniques back on the bookshelf and then walked straight out of the library.

Jiang Chijing had been thinking about it all this while. He flipped the newspaper back over, filled in a 5 at the spot where he was stuck, following which, like having breached the city defences, Jiang Chijing captured spots on this high-difficulty sudoku in quick succession.

So that place was a 5.

What kind of abnormal talent was this to be able to solve a puzzle with a single glance??

A strange thought suddenly popped up in Jiang Chijing’s mind. Since Zheng Mingyi had such strong logical reasoning ability, why didn’t he anticipate his own arrest?

Or, in other words, could it really be as Guan Wei had analysed, that he had hidden in prison for his personal safety?

The more Jiang Chijing thought about it, the more frustrated he got, so he stopped thinking about it. But by the time he came back to his senses, he found that all the tabs he had opened on his computer were news related to Zheng Mingyi.

Zheng Mingyi used to be HX Management’s hotshot fund manager, once directing a highly notable short-selling trade.

At that time, the market sentiment was optimistic for the rise of a certain industry, but Zheng Mingyi believed that the stock prices of this industry was inflated and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. Consequently, he invested a huge sum of money and sold shares of the industry at a high price, just waiting for the stock prices to eventually plunge.

Everyone in the trade as well as his clients thought that Zheng Mingyi had something wrong with his head, but soon after, the stock prices of this industry collapsed overnight. The pockets of a vast majority of those in the stock market were wiped clean. However, Zheng Mingyi made a killing, and from this gamble, HX Management also made a name for itself.

After reading these articles, the image of a social elite resurfaced in Jiang Chijing’s brain.

Indeed, compared to the prison uniform, Zheng Mingyi looked better in a suit.

…Hang on. His focus had deviated off course.

Jiang Chijing clicked open another search tab, intending to look up HX Management. But right after he hit the enter key, no relevant search results popped up on the page, only a comic with the words ‘I’m a capitalist, I step on people and feast on steamed buns made of human blood.”

On the bottom-right corner of the comic, there was a small lightbulb signature.

The corners of Jiang Chijing’s lips twitched speechlessly, thinking to himself that this stinky brat had only been out of prison not too long ago, and was already thinking of returning.

A sound caught his attention from the library door, Jiang Chijing looked over; it was Luo Hai, calling him over with a loud whisper.

He glanced at the inmates in the library. Everyone was quietly reading their books, so he got up and went to the corridor outside, asking Luo Hai, “Did you see it too?”

“I’m about to die of anger,” Luo Hai took a deep breath, his brows pinched together in a frightful mess that he didn’t usually show. “I’ve been urging him to study well for university, and I get a hacked website in return.”

The person that Luo Hai was speaking of was a 19-year-old kid who had only just gotten out of prison a short while ago.

This kid kept feeling that what he was doing was fighting for justice, refusing to listen to the advice of others, and so Jiang Chijing called this justice of his the fool’s justice.

“Did you still keep in contact with him after he left?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Of course,” said Luo Hai, his head aching. “Apart from me, is there anyone else who will manage him?”

Jiang Chijing couldn’t help but find it funny. “It’s not as if he listens to you anyway.”

“So this time I must make sure to get through to him.”

Right after Luo Hai was done, the voice of the warden’s secretary abruptly blared from the walkie-talkie attached to Jiang Chijing’s shoulder: “Officer Jiang? Please come over to the warden’s office.”

“What’s the warden looking for you for?” Luo Hai said, surprised.

Jiang Chijing’s job was very slack. Under normal circumstances, the warden never had any serious matters to take up with him. However, recalling what he had just said to Zheng Mingyi, the glimmerings of an ominous premonition surfaced in his mind.

He turned his head and said “Roger” back to the walkie-talkie, then told Luo Hai, “I’ll go up and check it out.”

When Jiang Chijing pushed open the office door, sure enough, he saw Zheng Mingyi inside. But what was far from reassuring was how Zheng Mingyi was sitting on the sofa for receiving guests in the office.

Usually, when inmates were called to the warden’s office, they wouldn’t get such good treatment and would be standing.

The bad feeling in Jiang Chijing’s head gradually intensified, but he still believed in his assessment that the warden was someone who was afraid of stirring trouble, therefore wouldn’t agree to Zheng Mingyi’s request.

“Ah, Little Jiang, 1017 wants to learn strawberry planting techniques. That’s something to be encouraged.”

“…It is.”

Fine, maybe he had a lapse in judgement. Then he could only rely on himself.

“He has dyslexia. I heard that you helped to conduct the psychological assessment for him, subsequently, I’m getting you to help read the book to him as well.”

“But that’s not very good, warden,” Jiang Chijing said sincerely, “he can only read books every day from noon to two. I have to take care of the library at this time, am I supposed to read to him in front of all the other inmates there?”

“You don’t have to worry about the timing, it can be adjusted.” The warden said, “Other than at noon, his morning classes in the future will be under your supervision as well.”

“…What?” Jiang Chijing tried his best to suppress the incredulity in his tone.

“As for the contents of the morning classes, ahem.” The warden cleared his throat. “You can read the financial news to him.”

And here, Jiang Chijing finally remembered a certain key point that had slipped his mind.

—the warden was an old-timer at trading stocks.

And in the whole of Southside Prison, there was no one who knew stocks better than Zheng Mingyi.

Jiang Chijing maintained the polite smile on his face, biting out words from between gritted teeth. “Warden, isn’t this going a little too far?”

“It’s making effective use of resources.” The warden averted his eyes and sipped his tea. “You can also learn how to do stocks, Little Jiang.”

From the looks of it, superseding his fear of trouble, the warden much preferred to rake in cash.

With a swish, Jiang Chijing’s head whipped towards Zheng Mingyi seated opposite him, only to see that his head was tilted ever so slightly, and the corners of his lips, ever so gently, hooked upwards.

a/n. In simple terms, short-selling means making a profit out of a drop in stock prices.

To those who have said that this reminds them of Shawshank, this is a movie that I’ve watched over a decade ago. The only reference I took from it is Jiang Jiang’s profession (based on vague impression), not the plot. I saw someone mention that the protagonist had ‘also’ falsified accounting books for the warden—I don’t even recall this detail anymore. Further, stock speculating is miles different from accounting.

What I did reference for the background is the kdrama ‘Prison Playbook‘. It’s a more lighthearted and feel-good drama, those who are interested can check it out.

Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress

t/n. Shorting isn’t illegal in itself btw, it’s the way it’s done e.g. market manipulation, insider trading, that could make the transaction illegal. Shawshank Redemption is my personally favourite actually, mindblowing movie w a prison backdrop, also The Big Short, another one of my favs, about short-selling and profiting off the 2007 financial crisis.