Restricted Area

Secret

Completing Jiang Chijing’s words, the accurate answer should be—of course not.

Over the next few days, Zheng Mingyi would find that the showers and the toilets didn’t have security monitoring, and in a little while more he would find that even for places with surveillance installed, there existed blind spots and broken cameras.

This wasn’t any confidential secret. The reason that improvements were not made was that there were guards everywhere in the prison as well as a patrol team standing by twenty-four-seven. As such, it wasn’t as necessary to have video surveillance.

Southside Prison’s guards seldom relied on surveillance, but Jiang Chijing was the only one with a secret unknown to anyone.

The library was located in a corner of the second floor. Further inside, there was a storeroom appropriated by inmates.

The room used to store mops, pushcarts, and other cleaning agents. But from an unknown point in time, the inmates responsible for hygiene had moved these items elsewhere, leaving only two cabinets and emptying out the rest of the room.

During the harsh winters and the hot summers, some inmates were reluctant to shiver in the wind or melt under the sun. Also unwilling to read books in the library, they would go to chat in the storeroom.

Later on, picnic mats were spread across the ground. Some inmates brought in snacks, completely transforming this place into a recreation room for inmates to relax.

When Jiang Chijing first started working at Southside Prison, he had reported this problem to the warden. The lack of monitoring installed in the recreation room had essentially turned it into a haven for the inmates.

However, this recreation room had already existed for several years without anything serious arising from it. The warden didn’t want to sow dissent among the inmates, thus didn’t bother taking action on Jiang Chijing’s report.

So Jiang Chijing privately bought a pinhole camera and installed it in the recreation room for the sole purpose of catching inmates breaking the prison rules.

While he did catch several people smoking inside, this minor infraction wasn’t sufficient to warrant action against this recreation room.

Over time, Jiang Chijing eventually let go of his nosiness, but the pinhole camera remained in the recreation room. Every time he wanted to blow off steam, he would turn on his computer and watch what the inmates were doing in the recreation room.

This could be said to be voyeurism, it could also be said to be surveillance. Jiang Chijing wouldn’t feel any guilt over it; those people were convicts anyway, it wasn’t as if it was his neighbour…

Oh, right. His neighbour was now a convict too.

Returning from the small meeting room to his office area in the library, Jiang Chijing collapsed into the office chair, rubbing his temples with a headache.

The pent-up shock that he had earlier received now burst forth all at once. Mr. Zheng in an immaculate suit and Mr. Zheng in prison uniform flickered back and forth in his mind over and over again, causing him to be unable to tell for a moment who his neighbour really was.

Why would a good man commit a crime?

Jiang Chijing abruptly sat up straight and picked up the dossier he had tossed onto the table, flipping to the file containing Zheng Mingyi’s information.

The height and weight were rather close to what he had predicted, but under the education section, the words ‘High School Diploma’ were written in plain sight.

This was largely incongruent with what Jiang Chijing had guessed, for he had always assumed that Zheng Mingyi was a social elite or, at the very least, had a master’s degree from one of those prestigious overseas universities.

“Why? Your ideal type?”

Luo Hai’s voice suddenly came from overhead, disrupting Jiang Chijing’s thoughts. He let go of the paper in his hand, glancing leisurely at Luo Hai and saying, “You’re insulting me.”

Jiang Chijing, who said this, had conveniently forgotten that at least up to today, he had been using Zheng Mingyi as the object of his fantasies for the better part of a year.

Luo Hai casually leaned on the perimeter set by the office desk, arms crossed in front of his chest, teasing, “Isn’t that your ideal type? He’s tall and handsome, just like me.”

Jiang Chijing picked up the dossier and slapped Luo Hai’s back. “Get lost.”

Actually, Luo Hai wasn’t lying. After all, he was Jiang Chijing’s ex-boyfriend, who worked as a doctor in the infirmary opposite the library.

The two were introduced by a mutual friend but broke it off peacefully after two years together. It wasn’t really a problem with either of them, merely that their personalities weren’t very compatible.

The break-up was initiated by Jiang Chijing, who found that he and Luo Hai got along more like friends, lacking any of the passion that should be present between lovers.

More importantly, it was impossible for him to share his secret of voyeurism with Luo Hai, but what he wanted was an open and honest relationship.

Luo Hai readily agreed to the break-up when Jiang Chijng proposed it. According to him, he also felt that they were better off as friends.

After breaking up, they still kept in contact. It was precisely due to Luo Hai working in the prison that sparked the idea in Jiang Chijing that there could actually be a job perfectly suited to his hobby.

Putting down the dossier, Jiang Chijing leaned back into his office chair and continued the earlier topic, sighing deeply, “That man is a con.”

If before, Jiang Chijing still held unease in his frame of mind towards Zheng Mingyi, then by now this unease would have vanished without a trace left behind.

A convict was, in the end, a convict. No matter how attractive he looked, Jiang Chijing wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Yeah.” The joking expression faded from Luo Hai’s face, and he sighed shortly after. “He caused several broken families and deaths.”

“Were there many?” Jiang Chijing didn’t follow the case too closely and didn’t understand the concrete details of it.

“Just his most recent stunt alone caused at least two people to jump off a building,” Luo Hai said.

Jiang Chijing was long aware that playing with stocks came with its risks, so he never dabbled in it. But there were too many gamblers in the world who, even at the risk of losing their family fortune, wanted to gamble their future in the stock market.

“Many people in prison are probably disgruntled with him,” Jiang Chijing said objectively.

A national-scale case like this would similarly also come to the attention of the inmates in prison. Since Zheng Mingyi’s actions had sparked public outrage, there would certainly be inmates eager to right wrongs in accordance with Heaven’s will.

“Oh, for sure.” Luo Hai pushed up his glasses with his middle finger. “Shall we bet how long it’ll take for someone to mess him up?”

“A week,” Jiang Chijing said.

“I’m betting three days,” Luo Hai said.

Jiang Chijing more or less had a gauge of Zheng Mingyi’s strength with his fists and kicks and felt that this guy would probably know how to protect himself; three days was really quite far-fetched. Full of confidence, he said, “A dinner at a Michelin restaurant.”

“You’re on.” Coming to this point, Luo Hai appeared to suddenly think of something, changing the subject. “By the way, are you really not going to the blind date that I introduced to you before?”

Jiang Chijing moved his gaze away listlessly, indifferent as he said, “Not going.”

“Don’t blame me for not reminding you.” Luo Hai patted Jiang Chijing’s shoulder like an elder wise beyond his years. “You’re going to end up forever alone if you go on like this, bruh.”

“Do you have any rights to lecture me?” Jiang Chijing slapped Luo Hai’s hand away. “Have you resolved your own singledom?”

“That’s not the same,” Luo Hai said. “I’ve got a prospective partner, and you?”

“I don’t need one.”

Jiang Chijing really didn’t need someone to date, he only needed someone to voyeur on and his spiritual needs would be fulfilled. However, now the only guy he had been secretly spying on… forget it. The more he thought about it, the stuffier his heart felt.

On the way home from work, Jiang Chijing ran across a middle-aged woman carrying two cartons of milk in front of a small supermarket outside the community.

The woman was Auntie Liu, who lived behind Jiang Chijing’s house and would occasionally give homemade snacks to her neighbours on the weekends. She was a nice person to be around.

Seeing that Auntie Liu was struggling with her groceries, he slowed the car and pulled up beside her, lowering the window. “Hop on, Auntie Liu. I’ll give you a lift back.”

Auntie Liu’s sweaty brows unfurrowed and she breathed a sigh of relief. “If I may trouble you then, Little Jiang.”

Jiang Chijing had no way of changing his old habits. He and Auntie Liu were only casual acquaintances, but over the course of their interactions, he habitually analysed Auntie Liu’s general situation.

Auntie Liu shouldn’t have any males at home, else she wouldn’t have to carry milk home like this herself. She should have children, but they weren’t around, which was why she liked to interact with the young people in the community.

Jiang Chijing had always been a keen judge of people. Later, as they talked, he learned that not a single guess had missed the mark. Speaking of, the only person he was completely out of his depth about was Zheng Mingyi.

***

At nine in the morning, while the other inmates were still at their morning classes, the three new inmates over here had already handed in their test scripts.

The paper was 100 marks in total and consisted of thirty multiple-choice questions and one short answer question. Regardless of how well they answered the MCQs, as long as they showed a serious attitude when answering the last SAQ, Jiang Chijing would give them decent scores.

The test scripts of the fraudster and the thug were normal, with at least a hundred words in their last question. However, when Zheng Mingyi handed in his test script, Jiang Chijing immediately called hold of him. “This is your test script?”

Zheng Mingyi stopped in his tracks and turned his head over to look at Jiang Chijing, saying, “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you answer the SAQ?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Don’t know.” After flippantly tossing down this statement, Zheng Mingyi pushed open the meeting room door and left, following behind a prison guard.

Frankly, this short answer question was very simple. All they had to do was pen a paragraph showing remorse for their crime and Jiang Chijing would give them good scores.

Of all the new inmates that he had instructed, this was the first time that Jiang Chijing saw one who did not write a word. No, to be accurate, Zheng Mingyi did write one word—under the question, he wrote the word ‘answer’.

Jiang Chijing never had much expectation for inmates to have good handwriting. But someone like Zheng Mingyi who could even make his own name look ugly were rarely seen. It really was a waste of such an attractive face.

Jiang Chijing believed that one’s handwriting was revealing of character. If Zheng Mingyi’s appearance gave him plus points in Jiang Chijing’s books, then his handwriting subtracted an equivalent amount of points.

When he finished scoring the script, Zheng Mingyi had a total score of 1 mark.

It needed to be said that each MCQ was worth 2 marks. Even if he had gone by blind guessing, it was impossible to get every single question wrong. But Zheng Mingyi had perfectly avoided all the correct answers, only earning a grudging 1 mark from Jiang Chijing based on that single ‘answer’ at the end.

Truth be told, Jiang Chijing didn’t even want to award him that 1 mark at all. He had always assumed that the financial market required a certain threshold of intelligence before one could muck around in the industry, let alone cause a financial crime case that could shake the roots of the nation. By right, the convict should be quite intelligent.

But now, Jiang Chijing only had one thought in his head—committing a crime with this level of IQ, it was no wonder that he got caught.