Restricted Area

Jiang Chijing abruptly discovered that stopping Xu Sheng’s escape was, in essence, similar to bungee jumping.

Everyone knew that bungee jumping was no more than closing their eyes and jumping to be done with it, but when actually standing on the elevated platform, many people’s hearts would begin beating the march of retreat.

Stopping Xu Sheng was the same. It seemed to be no more than blocking the delivery truck and fishing Xu Sheng out—just as simple as that. But when it actually came down to it, Jiang Chijing inexplicably felt a sense of unpreparedness.

It wasn’t that he was afraid, only that he had never done such a thing before, so he would doubtlessly feel unconfident.

What if another prison guard found him loitering outside the cell block? What if Xu Sheng refused to cooperate and he was forced to notify the patrol team?

When he thought more carefully into it, there were so many uncertain variables that it didn’t seem as simple as Zheng Mingyi had made it out to be.

After Zheng Mingyi helped him sort his thoughts, Jiang Chijing had calmed significantly. But now, abruptly finding out that Xu Sheng’s escape attempt would be tonight, his heart started to fluster in anxiety again.

He hoped to confirm a few of the details with Zheng Mingyi, but when noon came, Zheng Mingyi didn’t appear at the library as he usually did.

By now, a few inmates had learned that Xu Sheng had gotten Old Nine to stop, and the usual faces started to return to the library one after another. Yet, strangely enough, the person who came every day without fail was nowhere to be found.

“Idol,” Yu Guang peeked his head through the library door and waved at Jiang Chijing. “Come over for a bit.”

It wasn’t convenient to talk as there were others in the library. Jiang Chijing could tell that Yu Guang had come with a purpose, so he came out of his work area to the door.

“What is it?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Zheng Mingyi got me to tell you that he has something on today and won’t be over in the afternoon,” Yu Guang said.

“Something on?” Jiang Chijing didn’t expect that Yu Guang was actually being used as a messenger. “Did he say what that was?”

“Eh, no.” Yu Guang said, aggrieved. “I didn’t want to pass the message for him but he threatened to hit me.”

“He won’t,” Jiang Chijing said. “If he does, I’ll take it up with him.”

Actually, what Jiang Chijing meant was that Zheng Mingyi had already agreed not to turn to violence; if he breaks his word, then Jiang Chijing would take it up with him.

But Yu Guang obviously misinterpreted what Jiang Chijing meant. His eyes sparkled as he said, “Idol, I knew it, I’m more important than him in your heart.”

That wasn’t it at all…

Jiang Chijing was afraid that this kid would walk further and further down the road of no return, so he tactfully reminded, “Don’t you think that Go and I have quite dissimilar dispositions?”

“Tss, a bit.” Yu Guang rubbed his chin and said, “Idol is very cold and aloof online but in real life…”

“In real life…?” Jiang Chijing raised his brows.

“In real life, Idol’s a bit fierce,” Yu Guang said. “You’re always schooling me, like a disciplinarian.”

Jiang Chijing, “……”

“Luo Hai.” Jiang Chijing walked towards the infirmary. “Hurry up and take this guy away.”

“Idol,” Yu Guang hurriedly spoke, “Don’t you mind, I’m just saying it for fun.”

Half of Luo Hai’s body poked out of the infirmary. He didn’t say much else, just looking at Yu Guang like that. Even Jiang Chijing, who was close friends with Luo Hai, couldn’t help but feel that his expression was quite intimidating.

“Idol, I’ll find you another time,” Yu Guang sighed and obediently walked to Luo Hai. “If you and Zheng Mingyi are up to something, you must call upon me, ‘kay?”

The corners of Jiang Chijing’s lips twitched in speechlessness. What could he and Zheng Mingyi be up to? They now needed to block Xu Sheng’s prison break; Yu Guang obviously wouldn’t be of any help there.

As for where Zheng Mingyi was now, Jiang Chijing had no idea. But from the way it appeared, he could basically only rely on himself to stop Xu Sheng from escaping.

When returning to the library, he heard people hollering from the staircase. Jiang Chijing turned his head towards the sound. It was Old Nine and his gang.

“Officer Jiang, have you been feeling comfortable the past few days?”

Old Nine strutted over to Jiang Chijing. That cocksure manner was not at all like Xu Sheng had got him to stand down. This further affirmed the idea that Old Nine was waiting for Xu Sheng to escape and take over his position.

“Why, have you made the library your home now?” Jiang Chijing asked coldly.

Let alone whether Jiang Chijing would stop Xu Sheng from getting out, even if Xu Sheng really left, he would still find other ways to take care of Old Nine, not to let this guy play hooligans on his turf.

“Did anyone say that I’m going to the library?” Old Nine snorted. He motioned to those following behind him, pointing to the recreation room. “Let’s go.”

The group of them passed the library entrance and openly went into the recreation room in the corner.

Jiang Chijing instantly perceived that something was afoot.

These seven or eight musclemen squeezed into the small space of the recreation room, sitting cross-legged on the ground. Let alone any recreational activities, even moving around was a problem.

Intuition told Jiang Chijing that these guys didn’t just go into the recreation room to while their time. He returned to his work area and opened the monitoring software, putting on his wireless earphones.

“It should be soon, right?”

A lackey’s voice quickly piped up in his earphones. Jiang Chijing’s guess appeared to be on the mark; these people were discussing Xu Sheng’s planned escape.

Even Jiang Chijing didn’t expect that the surveillance he installed in the recreation room would actually come into play for such an occasion.

“It’s definitely within the next two days. The paint’s almost out. It’d be tomorrow, by the latest.”

“Anyway, no matter when it is, we can’t make any mistakes with our plan.”

Plan?

Jiang Chijing couldn’t help but find it weird. Was it possible that Old Nine and the others were also going to participate in Xu Sheng’s escape plan? But on second thought, Old Nine was Xu Sheng’s subordinate. It was only natural for him to act as a shield.

However, the style of the subsequent conversation lost Jiang Chijing again.

“It’s about time for Old Xu to get the hell out. Does he take the prison for a school? Even criticising me over a mere prison officer.”

It was undoubtedly Old Nine who said this.

“Brother Nine is right. Brother Xu has lived in peace for so long that he forgot what kind of place this is.”

“Brother Xu’s words don’t make sense in here. If everyone can really be that obedient, how could we have entered prison?”

“If you ask me, prison is where the strongest is king. It’s only right for us to use violence to decide it.”

Several of them chimed in agreement, then he heard Old Nine speak again. “So on the night that Old Xu escapes, we must make things blow up as big as possible, so everyone else will be convinced of the new pecking order.”

Hearing this, a thought gradually became a clear image in Jiang Chijing’s mind—Old Nine had long been dissatisfied with Xu Sheng.

He began to analyse what Old Nine could mean by ‘make things blow up big’. Could they be going to make Xu Sheng’s prison break known to all?

But Old Nine was obviously looking forward to Xu Sheng being out of prison. Making a big deal out of Xu Sheng’s plan wouldn’t do then any good.

Either that or he intended to create a separate incident that would lure the guards’ attention, helping Xu Sheng to leave successfully.

But making a scene in prison, especially when it’s ‘making things blow up big’, would likely lead to a lockdown or heightened security measures, which would conversely obstruct Xu Sheng from escaping.

After going back and forth, Jiang Chijing could only think of one possibility—

Old Nine intended to wait for Xu Sheng to leave before making a scene, and he intended for it to blow up big, completely establishing his position in prison.

“How far should we take it, then?” someone asked.

“If not dead, handicapped, at the very least,” Old Nine said.

Jiang Chijing couldn’t figure out the logic when Old Nine said this. However, before he could give it more thought, someone abruptly appeared in front of his office desk, scaring him so much that he reflexively shut the monitoring interface. He cautiously eyed the person in front of him. “Something wrong?”

“You can do it both front and back?” Princess’ lifted his chin, icily sizing up Jiang Chijing, tossing this at him out of the blue.

Jiang Chijing didn’t understand what Princess was talking about at first. But when he linked it to Zheng Mingyi claiming him to be a top, along with the long conversation he had alone with Xu Sheng yesterday, Princess could very possibly have mistaken him as a switch.

Once achieving this stage of realisation, Jiang Chijing seriously wanted to facepalm.

He was expending time and effort to help Princess settle the matter with his husband and just happened to eavesdrop on key information, yet this guy ended up running over to him to eat non-existent vinegar—couldn’t he have better timing?

“I don’t have the time to deal with you.” Jiang Chijing couldn’t help that there were still other inmates in the library, so could only lower his voice and say, “If you don’t want anything to happen to Xu Sheng then don’t bother me.”

A hint of astonishment flashed across Princess’ eyes. He rapidly scanned for people behind him and leaned over the table, suppressing his voice to a whisper. “You know what he’s up to?”

“What did you think I was looking for him for, otherwise?” Jiang Chijing really wanted to say: your Xu Sheng isn’t my type. He was completely unable to raise the slightest interest; but he reckoned that this would probably fly over Princess’ head.

Princess’ lips twitched, as if swallowing down what he wanted to say. He was obviously warding against the gossipy inmates in the library behind him. Jiang Chijing noticed that there were already inmates watching them, so he brought Princess outside the library.

“Do you really know about that?” Princess asked Jiang Chijing, looking at him suspiciously.

“I will find an opportunity to block him.” Jiang Chijing didn’t mention any word of escape, but these words were revealing enough, including that he and Princess were standing on the same battlefront.

“Why?” Princess frowned. “Why aren’t you reporting him?”

“Do you honestly want me to report him?” Jiang Chijing said. “I have some understanding of the situation he’s in. I’ll do what I can to help.”

Princess went mute, as if completely at a loss as to what Jiang Chijing’s motive could be. Or perhaps in his world, there never existed anyone who was kind for kind’s sake like Jiang Chijing.

Afraid Princess would misunderstand that he was lusting after Xu Sheng, he randomly spouted some nonsense, “Don’t worry, I only like the sort like Zheng Mingyi… muscled, fierce bottoms.”

When he said this, even Jiang Chijing felt so many goosebumps raise over his body that they started falling to the floor. However, this excuse worked well on Princess; he visibly lowered his guard, asking Jiang Chijing, “How are you going to block him?”

Jiang Chijing considered it but still didn’t reveal too much to Princess, only saying, “I will find a way.”

“Can I trust you?” Princess looked straight at Jiang Chijing.

Jiang Chijing pursed his lips, but he wasn’t able to give any guarantee. “I’ll do what I can.”

“All right.” Princess nodded. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“Don’t let Xu Sheng know that I’m going to stop him.” After Jiang Chijing said this, he remembered Old Nine, and added, “Help me keep an eye on Old Nine. Don’t let him make trouble.”

Jiang Chijing had only just finished his sentence when the group in the recreation room came out. Old Nine walking at the forefront. When he saw Jiang Chijing and Princess together, he taunted, “Why, has Princess changed his tastes again?”

Princess didn’t pick up the conversation. The gaze that he sent Old Nine looked rather impatient. When those people disappeared down the staircase, he shifted his gaze back, telling Jiang Chijing, “It’s a deal.”

Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress

***

Please do not repost or retranslate.

When it neared the time for him to clock off work, for the first time, Jiang Chijing appeared for dinner in the mess hall.

Several prison guards greeted him upon seeing him and asked why he wasn’t getting off work yet. To this, he only said that he wasn’t done clearing some work and no one pressed him for details.

The sky gradually darkened. Jiang Chijing checked the time and locked the library, going to hole out not far away from the cargo vehicle exit.

He unconsciously smoked a few cigarettes. Then, a large container truck finally appeared at the prison exit.

Lao Wang, at the guard post, ran through the usual clearance with the driver. Several guards on sentry duty also went up with guard dogs to do a check. From the looks of it, this should be the truck delivering paint.

After going through the formalities, the delivery truck followed the route that Zheng Mingyi had drawn out, slowly heading towards the back door of Block A.

Jiang Chijing hurriedly extinguished his smoke and avoided the surveillance range as best he could, arriving at the predetermined spot.

Next was an endless wait, because it took quite a while to unload paint.

Right now, Xu Sheng should be using this time to secretly change into a set of delivery workers’ clothes, blending in with the large container truck.

He could be hiding on the roof of the truck or beneath it, or even inside an empty storage tank with a metal lid above him, creating an illusion that it was empty inside.

As each second passed, fine sweat gradually beaded on Jiang Chijing’s forehead.

The sun has long since set, but the air around him was stiflingly hot.

Don’t panic.

Jiang Chijing consoled himself, but his heart was beyond anxious. He took out his cigarette box wanting to light another cigarette, but at this time, he could hear the thumping of the delivery truck from around the bend ahead. Simultaneously, two broad shafts of light shone towards Jiang Chijing.

The truck was approaching.

Jiang Chijing crushed the cigarette box in his hand, his heartbeat stopping for a count as he did.

He raised the torch light that he had prepared in advance, shining it towards the driver’s seat. He raised an arm to block the wide lane for container trucks. “Halt, vehicle check!”

t/n. Finally had time to skim through past chapters; fixed some of the more glaring grammar mistakes, typos, etc. So sorry about those. If I missed anything, please let me know (bows)