Restricted Area

Almost instinctively, Jiang Chijing closed the surveillance, not daring to look directly into Zheng Mingyi’s eyes through the interface.

It took him a while for the numbness prickling the depths of his heart to dissipate, and before he could consider how Zheng Mingyi knew the position of the surveillance, he hurriedly got up and ran towards the front door of the library.

When the prison guard stationed by the staircase saw Jiang Chijing appear, his right hand moved towards the baton by his waist, following behind him. “What happened?”

Without a turn of his head, he ran towards the recreation room. “Going to check it out.”

Jiang Chijing could only think of one possibility why Zheng Mingyi had called him over to the recreation room in this manner—

He should be trying to engineer the facade of being violated, letting Jiang Chijing witness all of this, then have Princess accused of sexual harassment.

But there was a problem with this, still.

Even if Princess was put in confinement, he would only be locked up for a few days at best.

If Zheng Mingyi set up Princess in this way, it would be a cure for the symptoms but not the cause, and would conversely incite Xu Sheng’s wrath, inviting even more trouble for himself.

The distance between the library and the recreation room was only about a dozen metres. It wasn’t enough to give Jiang Chijing time to calm enough to think.

He expected that Zheng Mingyi would act like a victim when he pushed open the door to the recreation room, but the result was poles apart from what he imagined. The rebuke was already on the tip of his tongue, yet he saw Princess standing two metres away from Zheng Mingyi, looking Zheng Mingyi from head to toe with disgust on his face.

Jiang Chijing was, for a time, unable to make sense of the situation. The rebuke he prepared got twisted on his tongue, finally changing into a harmless sentence. “What are you doing?”

Seeing Jiang Chijing and the other guard, Princess rolled his eyes dramatically, his expression complicated as he studied Jiang Chijing, then brushed past him to leave the recreation room.

“What’s going on?” the guard who had followed him over asked.

“It seems to be nothing, I thought that something would happen.” Jiang Chijing’s mind was still filled with a confused fog, but he didn’t forget to give an excuse for running over. “Help me look over the library. I’m going to have a few words with 1017.”

This prison guard was stationed on the second floor every day and knew that Jiang Chijing and Zheng Mingyi were on somewhat good terms with each other. He didn’t press the issue, making an ok hand gesture and leaving the recreation room.

Only Jiang Chijing and Zheng Mingyi remained in the narrow space. Jiang Chijing let out a sigh of relief, but immediately frowned after and looked towards Zheng Mingyi, asking, “What’s going on between Princess and you?”

“Dealt with it,” said Zheng Mingyi, relaxed.

Jiang Chijing distinctly remembered that before he shut the monitoring software, Princess was even squatted in front of Zheng Mingyi, wanting to give him head; how could Princess’ attitude have undergone such a huge transformation in a time as short as a minute?

“How did you get him to give up?” Jiang Chijing asked strangely.

“I told him that I’m a bottom.”

Jiang Chijing, “???”

The air in the recreation room congealed. Jiang Chijing’s expression stiffened. He stared at Zheng Mingyi disbelievingly.

The gears of his mind swiftly spun, and he finally thought of another possibility for Zheng Mingyi to call Princess over to the recreation room.

No matter what he did, accept or refuse Princess’ advances, he would get into Xu Sheng’s bad books, so the best solution was to make Princess lose interest by himself.

And there wasn’t anything that was more of a buzzkill than two people with conflicting sexual preferences; if there was, that would be only finding out this incompatibility midway through doing it.

Zheng Mingyi had deliberately called Princess over to the recreation room, a private space, to raise Princess’ excitement to the peak, then picking an opportune moment to say that he was a bottom, dousing icy water over Princess’ head.

In prison, it wasn’t uncommon to see bottoms with muscular builds like Zheng Mingyi. A person’s inclinations couldn’t be deduced just based on their outer appearance.

Let alone Princess, even Jiang Chijing felt an inexplicable buzzkill hearing Zheng Mingyi say that he was a bottom.

As for the reason why Zheng Mingyi would call Jiang Chijing over was probably that he wasn’t completely sure of Princess’ personality either. In the event that Princess refused to give up, Jiang Chijing’s appearance would be just the thing to extinguish any last bit of flame

Once a person was thoroughly turned off, it would be difficult for them to be turned back on again.

From the looks of it, Jiang Chijing didn’t even have to come over at all. Zheng Mingyi’s move had already caused Princess to completely lose interest.

Jiang Chijing pursed his lips into a thin line, unsure whether to ask the words catching in his throat. But by all logic, whether Zheng Mingyi was a top or a bottom had nothing whatsoever to do with him; there was no reason for him to be this curious.

Further, there was clearly something more pressing for him to find out than that.

“How did you know,” Jiang Chijing temporarily calmed the billows tossing about in his heart, slowly speaking, “about the surveillance camera?”

“Are you talking about that? ” Zheng Mingyi walked up to the cabinets, raising his eyes to look at the messy stacks of newspapers cluttered on top of them. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

The whole recreation room was empty as can be, with only two cabinets placed in the corner. If hidden surveillance was to be installed in this room, it would have to be concealed near the cabinets.

The cabinets were light green tin cabinets that formerly used to store mops and other paraphernalia, but now housed inmates’ snacks, poker cards, etc.

There were three slits on the upper side of the cabinet doors, behind which a pinhole camera could be installed. However, as these cabinets were often opened by inmates, it wasn’t possible to install a camera there.

“The most inconspicuous spot would be above them,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Once you determine the range, it’s easy to find the location of the camera.”

Jiang Chijing turned his head away, looking out of the windows, and exhaled, saying reluctantly, “So did you already see through it that time with Old Nine?”

“Nope, it was just a guess,” Zheng Mingyi said.

“Ah?” Jiang Chijing looked at Zheng Mingyi uncomprehendingly. Was it possible that Zheng Mingyi had acted contrary to what he analysed, bringing Princess to the recreation room without a proper plan in place?

“Let me tell you a secret, Officer Jiang.” A corner of Zheng Mingyi’s lips subtly hooked up. “The monitoring software can be hidden, but it also can be found.”

Jiang Chijing, “……”

Got it. Completely busted.

The corners of Jiang Chijing’s lips twitched in frustration. Keeping tabs on the score now, he had failed to hide two things that he wanted to hide; first being that he was Zheng Mingyi’s neighbour, second being the surveillance he installed in the recreation room.

However, luckily for him, he hadn’t exposed the matter of his voyeurism yet. Zheng Mingyi shouldn’t know that he had already been observing his every action on the sly from more than half a year ago.

“That’s to monitor the inmates.” Jiang Chijing lifted his chin, gesturing towards the camera above the cabinet. “There isn’t any surveillance here, I’m afraid that something would happen.”

“Your attentiveness in fixing the oversight is commendable, Officer Jiang.” Zheng Mingyi nodded approvingly, yet somehow, Jiang Chijing kept feeling Zheng Mingyi still had his reservations.

Jiang Chijing abhorred feeling this way. He kept being exposed in front of Zheng Mingyi, one thing dropping after the next. It was as if his clothes were being torn off him piece by piece, and he was left only in his underwear, whereas Zheng Mingyi was still meticulously dressed and completely impregnable to him.

It was unfair.

Jiang Chijing looked at Zheng Mingyi, quietly asking, “Are you really a bottom?”

Zheng Mingyi answered him with a question. “Officer Jiang, does this question bother you?”

It did bother Jiang Chijing a little—but he also knew that he didn’t have any place to care about this question. Disinterested, he turned around, walking towards the door of the recreation room. “It has nothing to do with me.”

“Officer Jiang,” Zheng Mingyi called hold of Jiang Chijing. “Let me tell you another secret.”

What secret? Jiang Chijing unconsciously paused in his steps, his ears perking to listen out for movement behind him.

The word ‘secret’ always made people pause to think. Associating this word with the topic at hand, Jiang Chijing’s thoughts started to spiral uncontrollably again. Could Zheng Mingyi really have some kind of physiological condition that caused him to be unable to top?

Distracted thinking about physiological conditions, Jiang Chijing didn’t notice that Zheng Mingyi had already walked up behind him.

Zheng Mingyi’s arms encircled Jiang Chijing’s shoulders, bringing him into his embrace. He lowered his head to breathe into his ears, “If you’re curious, you can try it for yourself, Officer Jiang.”

After saying this, Zheng Mingyi dropped his voice further, “No one else’s here now.”

Caught completely off-guard, Jiang Chijing knocked into Zheng Mingyi’s chest, and he unconsciously clasped the lower arms that extended in front of his chest.

Back when Zheng Mingyi was boxing, Jiang Chijing habitually used his monocular to observe the raised blue veins jutting up on Zheng Mingyi’s arms as he felt that they looked very sensual.

And now these arms were in Jiang Chijing’s hands. His palms could feel the heat emanating from the skin, and were even touching the blue vein lines.

His heart involuntarily stuttered, but he didn’t have time to digest it properly because he could understand the subtle implications behind Zheng Mingyi’s words.

Although he deeply hated this side of himself, his mind uncontrollably started churning utterly indecent filth again.

Zheng Mingyi’s exhales, falling behind his ears, carried dense undercurrents of testosterone, penetrating his skin like a catalyst, causing the blood all over his body to boil.

Clearly, Zheng Mingyi hadn’t done anything much to light the fire, only encircling his shoulders and speaking in his ears, but it was as if all his strength had been drained out of his body; it felt difficult to even stand.

Was it really still about his voyeurism?

To a voyeur, intimate contact with the object of their voyeurism was simply irresistible.

Jiang Chijing believed that he had quite a good eye for reading people, so how could the person he had been secretly observing for the better part of the year be a bottom? He was 100% certain that the man standing behind him at this moment, embracing his shoulders, was a big fierce top.

Jiang Chijing couldn’t pull the brakes on his mind once it started. Countless stimulating visuals appeared before his eyes.

He recalled the time that he had accidentally sat in Zheng Mingyi’s lap. It was the first intimate contact between the two of them. He had requested many times for Zheng Mingyi to close his legs before that to no avail, but once he accidentally straddled them, Zheng Mingyi automatically closed both legs and used the root of his thighs to hold up Jiang Chijing’s hips.

He could feel that tautness and power in Zheng Mingyi’s thighs, and the arms, resting on his back, that seemed on the verge of tightening around his waist.

His thoughts drifted further and further away, like an untamed horse tossing off its reins, galloping into the wilderness, whilst his sanity humbly screamed in a cramped little corner. It was only when Zheng Mingyi spoke from behind him again that Jiang Chijing’s consciousness was abruptly jerked back to reality.

“Officer Jiang, what’s on your mind, hm?”

This silky hum from Zheng Mingyi nearly slid straight into Jiang Chijing’s heart. His lax eyes suddenly refocused and he forcefully pushed Zheng Mingyi away, his shame morphing into anger. “Are you insane? I’m a prison officer.”

While this sentence sounded like a warning to Zheng Mingyi, it was better called a warning to Jiang Chijing himself.

He didn’t dare to meet Zheng Mingyi’s eyes. He was clearly fuming with rage, but his gaze kept darting around; his guilty conscience was plain as day for all to see.

“Officer Jiang.” Zheng Mingyi suppressed the smile on the corners of his mouth. “You really don’t take teasing well, huh.”

Jiang Chijing also knew that he was acting weird. Zheng Mingyi didn’t even do much to him and his mind had already auto-filled all sorts of indescribable visuals. He didn’t even realise that he was actually a person with such an easily combustible attribute.

To hide his guilty conscience, Jiang Chijing unhooked the baton from his waist, glaring at Zheng Mingyi. “Try laughing one more time?”

Zheng Mingyi raised his arms in mock surrender. “I don’t dare.”

Even so, mirth still danced in his gaze on Jiang Chijing.

In a twinkling, Jiang Chijing abruptly became aware of a problem. He was unable to hold his own against Zheng Mingyi.

There were inmates of all sorts in Southside Prison, but it was just as if Zheng Mingyi was Jiang Chijing’s natural predator, subduing him at every turn, and he was utterly incapable of resistance.

Jiang Chijing resolutely decided not to speak with Zheng Mingyi anymore, keeping his baton and leaving the recreation room.

The air conditioning was on full blast in the admin block, but when Jiang Chijing glanced at the sunlight roasting the concrete outside, he couldn’t help but loosen the top two buttons of his uniform.

Goddamnit, why is it so hot.