Restricted Area

After leaving the infirmary, Jiang Chijing paced the corridor for a while before ultimately deciding against looking for the warden.

He even had a passing impulse to get the warden to arrange for Zheng Mingyi to come back. But on second thought, he’d only just chased that guy away yesterday. Getting him to come back now would make him look too spineless.

Anyway, Zheng Mingyi would come to the library during the afternoon break; he could just ask him straight when he did.

If Zheng Mingyi did do all that to help him clear up the rumours, then it wasn’t as if he couldn’t use this to offset Zheng Mingyi teasing him.

At the thought of this, Jiang Chijing returned to the library, waiting for the afternoon break to start. Today, however, noon passed, and Zheng Mingyi didn’t appear in the library as he always had.

Time passed by the second. Jiang Chijing kept checking his watch, the impatience in his heart palpable for all to see.

He had never known that Zheng Mingyi would listen to his words so readily. After simply telling him not to come, he really didn’t.

Not long later, the buzzing of conversation suddenly spread through the library. Already feeling annoyed, Jiang Chijing was going to rebuke them when he found that a good number of inmates were craning their necks, looking towards the windows.

He shifted his line of sight out of the window. Around four people stood at a shady spot on the yard, a replica of the formation they had witnessed the other day. Only, the one standing across from Xu Sheng had now changed from the thug to Zheng Mingyi.

Jiang Chijing’s pupils instantly shrunk, and even his heart had clenched quite some tighter.

Zheng Mingyi had already dealt with Princess, so why did Xu Sheng still have a bone to pick with him?

Before Jiang Chijing could give it more thought, the scene outside the window that appeared next triggered him to abruptly stand up from his seat. The office chair, following the momentum, knocked into the wall with a dull thud.

Inmates looked over at Jiang Chijing hearing this, but Jiang Chijing couldn’t care less about what these people thought.

Xu Sheng had thrown a fist to Zheng Mingyi’s face. Zheng Mingyi staggered back two steps, but still managed to stand steady. He used a thumb to wipe the corner of his mouth, and the same ferocity and ruthlessness that Jiang Chijing had once seen appeared again in his gaze.

“Fight, fight, fight!”

“Man up and hit him back!”

Some people in the library began hooting. Practically everyone looked like they were there to watch a good show, not minding if things blew up. Jiang Chijing unhooked the baton from his waist and slammed it against the desk surface with a loud bang. He said coldly, “Quiet!”

The inmates reined in their excitement a little. They stopped jeering so blatantly, but they still stared out of the window with gusto.

Jiang Chijing looked back towards Zheng Mingyi, with only one thought on his mind—don’t fight.

Xu Sheng had established himself in prison for more than a decade. There were some prison rules that even Jiang Chijing wasn’t aware of. If Zheng Mingyi really butted heads with Xu Sheng, it was highly probable that he would get mucked up so badly that he would eventually be forced to transfer out of Southside Prison.

Jiang Chijing really hoped that such a situation wouldn’t occur. He hated that he didn’t have telepathic abilities to let Zheng Mingyi hear his voice. However, at this time, Zheng Mingyi seemed to have sensed Jiang Chijing’s presence, abruptly lifting his gaze to look towards the library windows, and just like that, their eyes met.

They were far away from each other. However, Jiang Chijing could distinctly see the immediate transformation in Zheng Mingyi’s gaze.

The gathered hostility vanished into thin air and his taut expression relaxed, completely regaining his composure in the blink of an eye.

The time that their eyes met was brief. Zheng Mingyi shifted his gaze away, expressionlessly saying something to Xu Sheng. Xu Sheng didn’t throw another fist but took a step to the side, allowing him to leave.

Zheng Mingyi brushed Xu Sheng, heading directly for the admin block. The inmates in the library swore in disappointment, listlessly moving away from the windows.

Jiang Chijing mentally let out a sigh and looked at the time. He reckoned that Zheng Mingyi should have walked up to the second floor by now; restless in his seat, he simply walked out of the library to the corridor.

Less than half a minute later, Zheng Mingyi’s figure appeared at the staircase.

Jiang Chijing greeted the prison guard stationed on the second floor and got him to watch over the inmates in the library, then briskly walked up to Zheng Mingyi, looking at the blood staining the corner of his mouth. His eyebrows creased. “Are you alright?”

Zheng Mingyi stopped in front of Jiang Chijing. “I’m fine.”

Not taking Zheng Mingyi’s word for it, Jiang Chijing reached up to hold his chin and jerk his face to the side, inspecting the bleeding wound by the corner of his mouth. After ascertaining that it wasn’t major, his tightly furrowed brows finally smoothed out.

Zheng Mingyi was half a head taller than Jiang Chijing. He was probably taken aback that Jiang Chijing had held his chin so domineeringly, and a mix of surprise and amusement leaked into his gaze.

“Enough yet, Officer Jiang?”

“Come with me.”

Jiang Chijing tugged Zheng Mingyi’s wrist, pulling him into the infirmary. It was a rare occasion that Yu Guang wasn’t around, whereas Luo Hai was taking a nap on one of the single beds.

Seeing the two of them come in, Luo Hai lazily rolled out of bed. He eyed the wound on the corner of Zheng Mingyi’s wound and asked Jiang Chijing, “Who did it?”

“Xu Sheng,” Jiang Chijing answered tersely. After he got Zheng Mingyi to sit on another bed, he helped himself to the first-aid kit, going back to stand before Zheng Mingyi. he asked, “What’s up between you and Xu Sheng?”

“What else can it be? He was giving me a lesson.” Zheng Mingyi cooperatively lifted his chin, making it easier for Jiang Chijing to apply the medication on him.

Hearing the words ‘he was giving me a lesson’ spring out of the mouth of a fierce fighter like Zheng Mingyi caused Jiang Chijing to inexplicably sense the grievance in it.

“Didn’t you already deal with Princess?” Jiang Chijing asked with a frown. At the end of the day, he wasn’t a medical professional. Zheng Mingyi immediately hissed from the sting the moment the antimicrobial cotton swab dabbed the corner of his mouth.

“Officer Jiang, can you be a little gentler?” Zheng Mingyi objected.

“Am I not gentle enough already towards you?”Jiang Chijing carelessly stuck on a band-aid on the corner of Zheng Mingyi’s mouth. “You can ask Dr. Luo if you don’t believe me.”

Luo Hai, seated by a bed on one side, released a lamenting sigh, utterly done with the two of them. “He really is being gentler now than the way he treats me.”

Jiang Chijing, having pretty much stuck Luo Hai into the bro-zone, showed not a lick of gentleness towards him at all. If it was Luo Hai who had been injured, he would only help him grab the medicine kit, at best.

But only because Zheng Mingyi had helped him deal with the rumours, Jiang Chijing forced himself to wring out whatever little dregs of gentleness he possessed.

“Why did Xu Sheng want to punish you?” Jiang Chijing continued to ask.

“Because Princess was still unhappy,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Xu Sheng said that someone laughed at Princess for having bad taste behind his back.”

“So you made all those thousand and one calculations, even taking my business into account, but still left out this one layer,” said Jiang Chijing.

“Mm.” Zheng Mingyi assented, openly admitting that he did plan rather meticulously, but failed to consider this outcome.

“About the rumours.” Jiang Chijing paused, and he said in a low voice, “Thank you.”

“There’s no need for you to,” A corner of Zheng Mingyi’s lips hooked up. “Just be a little gentler towards me, Officer Jiang.”

Jiang Chijing believed himself to be most decidedly not a gentle person, so he didn’t continue this conversation with Zheng Mingyi.

The good thing was Zheng Mingyi only received a punch and that no other serious consequences came out of this, which was quite the silver lining of it all.

Jiang Chijing could finally relax at this. He pulled over a swivel chair, sitting in front of Zheng Mingyi. “It’s fortunate that you didn’t fight back.”

“I wouldn’t.” Zheng Mingyi looked at Jiang Chijing. “I’ve said this before. I’ll listen to you, Officer Jiang.”

The last time that Zheng Mingyi was holed up in confinement, Jiang Chijing had asked him not to use violence to resolve his problems.

Jiang Chijing suddenly recalled how Zheng Mingyi had looked towards the library without prompt earlier; he had probably thought of him when suppressing his anger, so inadvertently glanced over.

He really did listen to him.

“Ahem.” Jiang Chijing awkwardly cleared his throat, squishing down the odd feeling in his heart. “So I told you not to come to the library and you really aren’t coming by anymore?”

“Otherwise?” Zheng Mingyi tilted his head, looking straight at Jiang Chijing. “Could it be that you’re hoping I’ll come by, Officer Jiang?”

The more he was looked at the more unnatural he felt. Jiang Chijing said, deadpan, “Not at all. It’s up to you to come or not.”

Zheng Mingyi chuckled and asked, “So does Officer Jiang like me to be obedient or to be disobedient?”

“Oy.” Before Jiang Chijing could answer, Luo Hai piped in from the side, interrupting them. “Can you guys go back to the library and flirt?”

In Luo Hai’s eyes, Zheng Mingyi was still an inmate. Jiang Chijing believed that Luo Hai was already giving them sufficient leeway by having held back from saying anything until now. He was going to say that he and Zheng Mingyi weren’t flirting, but Zheng Mingyi put aside his lighthearted expression, changing to speak in a more serious tone. “Actually, there’s also another reason why I didn’t fight back.”

The manner of speaking instantly transformed, as if into a wholly different person. Jiang Chijing abruptly noticed that Zheng Mingyi appeared to only speak so casually in front of him.

“What is it?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Xu Sheng didn’t really put much force into it,” Zheng Mingyi said.

“Didn’t put force into it?”

“He did this.” At this point, Zheng Mingyi made a right hook with his right hand in slow motion, sticking it to the corner of Jiang Chijing’s lips, then pushed forward lightly before withdrawing his hand. “So what I received was mostly the thrust.”

Jiang Chijing’s face was pushed to the other side by Zheng Mingyi. He looked at the floorboards, bewildered. There were countless ways to put it, did Zheng Mingyi really have to touch his face like this?

It was his mistake for thinking that Zheng Mingyi was quite a reasonable guy, actively helping to steer the conversation away from the awkwardness when Luo Hai interrupted them.

And the consequence of this steering was that he still ended up teasing him, only that he found more legitimate reasons to do so.

“Are you saying he did this?”

Jiang Chijing turned his head back, looking coldly at Zheng Mingyi, and then threw a left hook towards Zheng Mingyi out of the blue.

In fact, Jiang Chijing wasn’t a leftie. He only used his left hand now because the other corner of Zheng Mingyi’s lips were already injured.

Naturally then, his left hand wasn’t as fast as his right, also that Jiang Chijing hadn’t been putting his strength into it in the first place. So Zheng Mingyi merely leaned back slightly without flustering, neatly dodging this left hook.

Jiang Chijing didn’t actually mean to hit Zheng Mingyi, of course, only to scare him a little and reclaim some lost ground.

As a result, little did he expect that Zheng Mingyi would agilely catch hold of his wrist and pull it diagonally backwards, and by the time Jiang Chijing recovered, he had already turned half a round to sit his ass into Zheng Mingyi’s hold.

“Officer Jiang, are you really going to make a move on me?”

Words carrying a slight threat drifted into his ears, as if saying that if you’re going to make a move, then don’t blame me for making a move on you too.

Except that the way the two people ‘made a move’ was completely different. Jiang Chijing had moved to hit him, whereas Zheng Mingyi had moved to loop his waist and cage him firmly in his arms.

Jiang Chijing struggled a little before suddenly feeling something seem to brush his ear. He reacted in the next second, deducing that it should have been the warm breath from Zheng Mingyi’s lips that touched his ears.

“Oy.” Sitting on one side, Luo Hai’s mouth twitched. “I already told you guys to go to the library, can’t you at least show a little consideration in the territory of your ex?”

His head pounding, Jiang Chijing breathed out heavily. He forcibly pushed away Zheng Mingyi’s chest and stood up. “Come out with me.”

Zheng Mingyi followed Jiang Chijing out of the infirmary, but no more than two steps later, he immediately asked, “What did Dr. Luo mean by ex just now?”

Jiang Chijing couldn’t be bothered to answer him, walking straight towards the front door of the library. However, as he walked on, he suddenly realised that the person behind him wasn’t keeping up. He rerouted back towards the door of the infirmary, only to see that there, Zheng Mingyi was standing by the door, looking at Luo Hai and asking, “Dr. Luo, are you Officer Jiang’s ex?”