Restricted Area

Face-off

The three test scripts were returned to the Block C Supervisor. Unsurprisingly, the block supervisor would be going to give Zheng Mingyi a good talking to.

Over on this side, Jiang Chijing became idle again. Following routine, he had lunch before noon and went back to his office area to read while waiting for inmates to come.

The inmates’ afternoon break was from noon to two in the afternoon. This was also the time in the day that the inmates were given the most freedom.

Some of the inmates would take an afternoon nap in the cell blocks, but more of them would be outside. After all, lights-out was at ten o’clock every night; it naturally went that the hours that they had in the day were particularly precious.

With the rising temperature in recent days, more people also came to the library to pass the time.

“Officer Jiang.” An inmate came up to Jiang Chijing’s office desk with a detective novel. “I’ve finished the book. Do you have any other recommendations?”

Jiang Chijing’s gaze slid away from a corner in the distance, picked up the scanner to return the book, and said, “The works from this author are all pretty good, you can go check them out.”

The inmate went to the fiction section, looking for other works from the same author, whereas Jiang Chijing continued to turn his gaze to the man in the distance.

Zheng Mingyi had come to the library, but he didn’t borrow any books. He merely sat by the window watching inmates who were chilling in the yard outside, his thoughts indecipherable.

Jiang Chijing really couldn’t get a handle on this man.

He hid half his face behind the computer screen, looking at Zheng Mingyi’s side profile in slight vexation.

As Luo Hai said, Jiang Chijing was a gay man who had high standards for appearance and body build. The primary reason for this was because he himself was quite a looker, as such his standards for choosing a partner wouldn’t be low as well.

Luo Hai was a pretty good lover. He was funny, accommodating, and sympathetic to the weak. But once Jiang Chijing completely understood him, that was also when his passion completely fizzled out.

But the paradox was that compared to actual interaction, Jiang Chijing preferred to spy on others from the darkness. This was because when he had completely gotten a grasp of someone, he would also completely lose interest in that person, and there was nothing that sped up this process more than actual contact.

Humans were by nature a mess of contradictions. Only today did Jiang Chijing learn that seeing through someone would bore him, whereas not seeing through someone would vex him.

Just then, Zheng Mingyi seemed to sense Jiang Chijing’s gaze from across the room, suddenly turning his head over and meeting his gaze head-on.

But Jiang Chijing didn’t dodge this time. The library was his territory. He had every reason to observe every inmate in the library.

Zheng Mingyi seemed not to expect that Jiang Chijing would stare back at him this brazenly. He was initially casually seated on the chair, his shoulders slumped naturally; but after meeting Jiang Chijing’s gaze, he leaned back into the chair and folded his arms before his chest, affecting a posture of returning the ‘compliment’ in kind.

The two of them were sitting in the two corners in the library by the windows without anyone blocking their line of sight in between.

From the start, the library was already quiet. Their gazes met silently in the air, sounding out and staring each other down, as if they had reached a common understanding that whoever looked away first lost.

Jiang Chijing’s attitude in the present was completely different from his attitude in the past. Back when Zheng Mingyi was only his neighbour, he would feel guilt for secretly watching him.

But now, their identities had changed. Zheng Mingyi had become an inmate, and he was the prison officer in charge of the inmates. Moreover, the library was his territory; he had no reason to bow his head before Zheng Mingyi.

Until the corners of Zheng Mingyi’s lips suddenly curled up subtly in a faint smile that yet, also wasn’t quite a smile.

Jiang Chijing’s heart thumped and the focus in his gaze suddenly scattered. He endured for another two seconds before finally stepping out of battle, moving slightly and hiding his entire face behind the computer screen.

Why would he smile?

Did he find something interesting?

His habit of analysing others caused Jiang Chijing to be unable to stop his thoughts from spiralling. Instead of calming down, his disorderly heartbeat began to beat even more chaotically.

However, at this moment, a chair suddenly scraped the ground, cutting into Jiang Chijing’s thoughts.

He raised his head towards the sound and saw that Zheng Mingyi had stood up and was following another inmate out of the library through a door at the back.

The inmate who he was following was one of the gangsters in prison, and his ‘brother’ was a murderer nicknamed Old Nine.

Jiang Chijing had a bad feeling about this. He waited for a while, but Zheng Mingyi and the guy showing the way never passed by the front door of the library. Instead, some other people appeared out of nowhere and walked past the library towards the staircase.

The library was located in a corner of the second floor. There was only one place even further inside—the recreation room.

Jiang Chijing quickly understood the situation. The inmate who brought Zheng Mingyi to the recreation room chased the inmates originally occupying the room out.

The recreation room wasn’t large. Naturally, who could occupy it was determined by their hierarchy in the prison.

Jiang Chijing quickly pulled up the monitoring interface of the recreation room on his computer. As expected, he saw Old Nine and another of his lackeys inside. Including the guy who led Zheng Mingyi over, a total of three men surrounded Zheng Mingyi.

Jiang Chijing had long expected that there would be people who wanted to mess with Zheng Mingyi, only he never expected that these people would actually include Old Nine.

Old Nine was a bald guy who was a member of a gang before being incarcerated as a result of a gang crime crackdown. Although his nickname was Old Nine, among all the inmates in the prison, he was ranked second on the list that no one wanted to mess with.

“You do stocks, huh?”

Old Nine was quite some shorter than Zheng Mingyi and had to tilt his chin up when he spoke, yet this didn’t give him any impression of vulnerability. Instead, he had a commanding presence.

Jiang Chijing only had wireless earphones on. The volume on it was a little low, so he turned the volume of his computer settings up.

“Something wrong?” Zheng Mingyi was facing the pinhole camera. He arched his eyebrows slightly, asking back without turning a hair.

What else can it be? Jiang Chijing thought to himself from behind the screen, Of course they can only mean to mess you up.

The psychology of some prisoners was quite intriguing. They had obviously committed crimes too, yet in the face of a greater evil, they would actually task it upon themselves to punish evil.

However, coming back to that, Old Nine wasn’t any kind of saint. Before entering prison, he had committed a lot of atrocities that when compared to Zheng Mingyi, he really didn’t have any grounds to talk.

“Screwed ordinary folks outta quite a lot of money, didn’t you?” Old Nine said, “I saw it on the news, at least a hundred million.”

Zheng Mingyi didn’t immediately respond. He indifferently scanned the three men around him, unhurriedly asking, “You called me over here to have a chat about this?”

Obviously not, Jiang Chijing soundlessly moved his lips in response to Zheng Mingyi’s question. Seeing that Old Nine was here to extort money, he reckoned that aside from roughing Zheng Mingyi up, Old Nine should also have another objective.

“I’ll just get straight to the point. Cough up a protection fee and I, Old Nine, will cover your ass. You should know that there are people in prison looking to mess you up.”

“Mess me up?” It was apparent that Zheng Mingyi didn’t understand the law of the prison. “Why?”

“Are you really asking why?” The man who brought him over took a step forward, shoving Zheng Mingyi’s shoulder. “You screwed over the hard-earned money of innocent men and ruined so many families, and you still have the gall to ask why?”

Zheng Mingyi’s brows furrowed, as if finally sorting out the logic within. But when he opened his mouth, he only said breezily, “I didn’t harm anyone.”

Jiang Chijing and Old Nine both didn’t believe Zheng Mingyi’s words. However, his analysis was that Zheng Mingyi wasn’t trying to deny the truth, but that he didn’t even feel that he had harmed anyone.

Of course, this was also no more than Jiang Chijng’s unilateral analysis.

Old Nine shoved Zheng Mingyi another time, then nodded at the two lackeys.

Jiang Chijing counted to three in his heart. When he finished counting, the several people in the visual really did start coming to blows.

One of the lackeys first tried to cover Zheng Mingyi’s mouth to prevent him from crying out for help, but Zheng Mingyi never had the intention to do so from the start, catching the hand that came his way and throwing the man over his shoulder.

Normally, upon coming across a fight between inmates, prison guards should immediately break it up.

However, the recreation room had no other furniture aside from the two cabinets holding miscellaneous items. When these people started fighting, they didn’t knock into the ground but against the wall, and it didn’t cause much of a ruckus.

Put in perspective that Jiang Chijing was now in the library, far away from the recreation room on the other end. It made no sense that he would know that there was a scuffle going on inside.

He continued to watch the surveillance.

Zheng Mingyi proved his experience in boxing. When the others landed their punches, they would merely impede his movements momentarily, whereas when he landed his punches, he would knock them several steps back.

For the time being, regardless of the bet with Luo Hai, Jiang Chijing frankly didn’t care who between the two parties would get their asses handed to them.

In his eyes, these people were locked up because they had committed crimes. No matter the hierarchy in prison, this was their just dessert.

At this moment, an agonised howl suddenly erupted from his wireless earphones. Having set the volume to the max, the howl almost caused Jiang Chijing to bolt up from his seat in shock.

Old Nine was lying feebly on the ground. His limbs were motionless; from the way it looked, his mind was knocked dazed. And Zheng Mingyi was straddled above him, slamming punch after punch into his face.

The two lackeys appeared to be frightened stiff by Zheng Mingyi, tacitly backing off and pressing up against the door of the recreation room, as if hesitating whether or not to call for help.

But actually, there wasn’t any need for them to do so. The disturbance just now had already attracted the attention of the inmates in the library. The inmates were presently looking towards the recreation room, and in the next moment, they would be looking at how Jiang Chijing reacted.

On this side, Jiang Chijing had already flung his earphones into the drawer, rapidly taking out his walkie-talkie and notifying the patrol team.

He hastily ran to the recreation room, because he knew that if Zheng Mingyi kept with it, something would surely go wrong.

There was no way to lock the recreation room. Jiang Chijing sprinted up to it, straightaway wrenching the door open, shouting, “1017, stop!”

The two men blocking the door immediately retreated to one side and gazing helplessly between Jiang Chijing and Zheng Mingyi.

The guards on the patrol team quickly appeared. Someone went up to check Old Nine’s condition and notified Luo Hai to come over. Another took out handcuffs and cuffed up the remaining three involved in the fight.

“This guy really cheated money?”

“He’s a damn lunatic isn’t he.”

The two lackeys swore angrily as the patrol team escorted them away. Following behind them, when Zheng Mingyi walked past Jiang Chijing, he suddenly stopped in his steps and looked at him, asking out of the blue, “How did you know it was me?”