Many prisoners hadn’t figured out the situation yet when they were knocked awake with a baton, then chased out of their rooms.
Xiao Fen and Ou Yu had walked out on their own after the Vice Squad Officers opened the iron doors. In the corridor, plenty of people leaned against the railings in disheveled clothes, standing crookedly every which way.
Next, they were herded downstairs in rows to assemble in the central open space.
Over a dozen Vice Squad Officers searched room by room. The place wasn’t that big, so soon enough, several officers found clothes and pants tossed into multiple rooms, all covered in dust and dirt—clearly the ones that guy had worn earlier.
Some from the second floor, some from the third—a total of three dorms.
The only thing they had in common was their proximity to the stairwell.
Ulysses paced slowly on the outskirts of the crowd, eyeing this group of societal dregs. Finally, he stopped in front of Xiao Fen.
Xiao Fen yawned, lazily lifting his eyelids to look at him with a half-smile.
Ulysses’s hand at his side gradually clenched. As he stared at that face, his heart pounded wildly.
He knew it was him.
But he hadn’t expected him to be this strong.
He suppressed his slightly trembling body from excitement, his gaze flickering with a hint of manic fervor.
Xiao Fen had originally tossed out a mocking smile for him to stew on, but seeing his reaction, it felt a bit off from what he’d imagined. He slowly schooled his expression.
What was this guy thinking? It felt kinda creepy.
These past few days, this was the only person he hadn’t been able to read.
Just then, Fang Si Ting walked over.
“Inspector Fang, who do you think that guy from earlier was?” Ulysses stared at Xiao Fen’s face as he asked the late arrival.
“No idea.”
“Did you go easy on him during that fight just now?”
Fang Si Ting’s dark eyes fixed on him. “Your face not beaten enough yet?”
【Seeing Fang Yama’s mouth is still so vicious makes me feel relieved.】
【Gives everyone the cold shoulder equally.】
【Only Deputy Team Leader Tang and them haven’t been snapped at yet. Come to think of it, he really cherishes his subordinates.】
【Not just not snapped at—super polite and distant too.】
【Don’t be sad, Xishi Bro. Brother Fen’s been snapped at the most, but his mentality’s rock-solid. Doesn’t care at all.】
【What snapped at? That’s called a love-hate relationship.】
Ulysses had already overheard a few nearby prisoners mockingly asking about the red welts on his face.
But he didn’t care. He just chuckled softly. “Xiao, next showdown, I hope you don’t go easy on me.”
Xiao Fen burst out laughing. “You a masochist or something?”
Ulysses simply gazed at him deeply.
No trace of lust in those ice-blue pupils, but the heat in his eyes made one’s scalp tingle.
No one knew that Ulysses’s entire body was buzzing with battle lust right now.
“The people from those dorms, step forward!” Bruce’s voice roared like a beast, his neck muscles twitching.
Without such a burly frame, he couldn’t intimidate most of the prisoners here.
But no one moved.
“If I have to drag you out of the pig pile with the roster, chicks, your good times are over!”
A few started stepping forward one after another, lining up in front of him.
Bruce didn’t waste words. He swung his baton, one strike per person.
They shot him looks of contempt.
Bruce was used to it. “You lot, here’s a chance to make amends. Did you hear anything half an hour ago?”
“Inspector, we didn’t hear a thing.”
“Didn’t see anything.”
“If you didn’t know, then how’d this end up in your rooms?” Bruce held up the prison uniforms high.
“Obviously tossed in from outside. When are you switching out these prison sliding iron doors for something higher-end? Something airtight.”
“Like the doors in a five-star hotel.”
“Revolving doors, you mean?”
“Hahaha, perfect for playing cat-and-mouse with our dear Bruce.”
“Nah, you just wanna hide behind him and kiss his ass.”
The front row of several dozen inmates burst into laughter.
Ou Yu’s sharp eyes caught a few prisoners signaling with glances toward one of the stepped-forward guys, who nodded toward Xiao Fen.
“Quiet!” Bruce blew his whistle.
【Zero discipline or organization.】
【prison guards is a dangerous job too.】
【About to go deaf from the noise. Brb.】
It took a good while before the dorm finally quieted down again.
“I get that you need trust to survive in here,” Ulysses said mildly. His waist-length hair and gentle features clashed with the surroundings. “But this is serious—not the time for covering for each other. I hope you’ll be honest and name names.”
“I’ll confess, Officer.”
Out of the six, the second from the left raised his hand leisurely.
A low murmur rippled through the crowd as they whispered and swapped info.
“Who’d you see pass your door?” Ulysses smiled in satisfaction.
The man’s blue eyes scanned the crowd before pointing at the guy in the middle of the second row.
“Him.”
Xiao Fen eyed the finger pointing unerringly at him and raised a brow.
Matthew stood beside him, his emotionless gaze mechanically shifting between the two.
“I can vouch,” his roommate chimed in. “He passed our door earlier and tossed the clothes in.”
Ou Yu stepped forward to shield Xiao Fen. “During lights-out check, everyone was asleep, no lights on—that pitch black, how’d you see his face clearly?”
Don’t make up such outrageous lies.
“Smell,” the first guy said, licking his lips as a lewd glint rose in his eyes. “I smelled his scent.”
Ou Yu choked.
Xiao Fen did have a clean scent of topical ointment, different from the sour stink around them.
Staying in prison lately had been torture on his nose.
That man’s gaze made him uncomfortable.
A weight landed on his shoulder. Xiao Fen pulled him behind himself. “Report, Inspector. I need to report something.”
Tangling with these guys to prove innocence would drag on forever. Prisons were never about evidence or justice.
The most effective move was to muddy the waters and shift all eyes elsewhere.
Bruce sized him up. That build did match.
But plenty of skinny guys in prison—he wasn’t certain.
A nearby Vice Squad Officer said, “From that guy’s accent earlier, sounds like an S Country native. Unlikely H Country.”
Bruce grew even more unsure.
“What’re you reporting?”
“Someone smuggled contraband into the prison.” Xiao Fen put on an innocent, guileless face.
The words hit like a bomb—not just prisoners, but the Vice Squad Officers paled too.
Mountain Pepper Prison was famous for strict management. They’d been cracking down hard, and now this.
“Got evidence?”
“Nope.” Xiao Fen smiled at the two who’d accused him. “I saw it with my own eyes too.”
His roommates instinctively took half a step toward him, realized it wasn’t the time to act out, and shrank back.
Xiao Fen followed their gazes casually, twisting his head. They were both staring at one person.
Killer Gan.
The man indifferently turned his head side to side—a signal.
The instant Xiao Fen’s eyes landed on Killer Gan, the other sharply met them.
The muscles on his tattooed-clown-cheek twitched as he grinned.
That was when Xiao Fen noticed Killer Gan’s teeth weren’t the flat human kind—each tip filed to a sharp point, like a slobbering beast.
“Who’s smuggling?” Bruce swept his fierce gaze over the crowd, faces flashing by until it locked on Black Octopus Gudbai.
Gudbai shook his head frantically—it wasn’t him. Sure, his connections with some officers let him snag outside goods, but he knew where the lines were.
Xiao Fen withdrew his gaze and spat out a name. “Jin Q.”
A loud curse erupted from the back of the crowd.
Jin Q flew into a rage, his followers howling threats, eyes burning with kill-intent like he’d murdered their families, itching to tear Xiao Fen apart.
“And those few.” Xiao Fen calmly pointed at the loudest five or six.
Their cursing stuttered for two seconds, then ramped up even more aggressively.
Bruce blew his whistle again. A shout wouldn’t cut through their noise.
“Sir, he’s slandering me! No evidence!” Jin Q yelled from the crowd, worked up.
“I won’t buy baseless rumors.” Bruce said.
“If you don’t believe me, search their rooms right now.” Xiao Fen replied. “Whatever turns up is proof.”
“You left your room—that’s gotta be punished too.” A Jin Q Gang member said.
“Go ahead and search mine. I’m clean, knew nothing, slept the whole night.”
Jin Q shoved out of the crowd, striding up with a cheeky grin that suddenly turned vicious. He raised his palm to slap Xiao Fen.
Xiao Fen didn’t budge. Before the hand landed, Jin Q took a kick and flew back into the crowd.
His gang rushed to help him up.
“Fighting—solitary for a week.” Fang Si Ting slowly withdrew his foot.
With the boss beaten, they didn’t dare make a peep this time.
Bruce glanced at him. This guy seemed even more the prison Vice Squad Officer type—could handle these antisocial types.
“Search their rooms.” He waved.
Jin Q went pale and bellowed, pinned down by Vice Squad Officers.
The officers knew the outcome just from his reaction.
A few officers headed upstairs on his order. Hundreds waited around doing nothing when Ulysses suddenly spoke. “I suggest we frisk them too. Key’s still missing, right? What do you think, Inspector Fang?”
Fang Si Ting didn’t care.
Whispers stirred in the crowd.
“Someone duplicated a key and snuck out tonight?”
“Who, that H Country guy? No way.”
“From his look, he seems clueless.”
“Guess we need to chat him up.”
“Be my guest.” Xiao Fen spread his arms to Ulysses.
Ulysses’s fingertips trembled as they brushed his collar. Feeling the warmth through the fabric, he suddenly pulled back. “Inspector Fang, you do it.”
He was about to lose it.
Fang Si Ting and Xiao Fen both shot him a glance, then looked at each other, equally baffled.
He was more than happy to.
“Stand still.”
Xiao Fen scoffed. “No need. I’ll prove it myself.”
Getting groped all over by those dry, hot hands in front of everyone would be mortifying.
He wasn’t thinking that way at all right now, but bodies had a mind of their own.
The refusal filled Fang Si Ting’s dark eyes with menace, his aura turning utterly terrifying.
【They can clash over this? Headache.】
【You can tell Brother Fen really hates Fang Yama now. Won’t even let him touch.】
【Just finished that brutal beatdown too. They’re destined for deathmatch.】
【Fang Yama’s glare—wants to strangle him.】
Xiao Fen shrugged off his jacket, shook out his T-shirt hem, emptied all pockets, even kicked off his shoes to show—no key.
The search team came down with several contraband items.
The prison doc dispensed one sedative per inmate, eaten on the spot—no extras. These were full strips, packaging intact—not from the doc.
All prisoners with stuff found in their rooms got nabbed.
No keys anywhere.
“Source.” Bruce glared, eyes bulging.
“No idea.” Jin Q clutched his gut in pain, refusing to admit. “Someone framed me.”
“It’s mine.” His roommate quickly owned up.
“Who’d you get it from?” Bruce zeroed in on him.
The roommate just grinned cheekily.
“You know the penalty for hoarding contraband?”
Bruce saw right away—this guy got disciplined often, totally numb to it.
“Yeah, solitary.”
“If you don’t fess up who gave it to you, it’s a month in solitary.”
Their solitary wasn’t just isolation in a room. It was a cramped, pitch-black hole—no light, one meal a day: thick bread slice and water cup. Pure mental and physical torture.
A month in there, any normal person would snap.
Panic and shock flashed in the man’s eyes, but he stayed silent.
Bruce knew they were currently filming the show. If they only caught him, it showed a massive loophole in prison management—an entire smuggling chain thriving right under his nose, and he had been completely oblivious. It was dereliction of duty for him as second-in-command.
He glanced at the three Vice Squad Officer guests, but none of them paid any attention to the matter.
This was internal prison business. The guests had helped uncover the management flaw, but what happened next wasn’t their concern.
He thought for a moment and ordered someone to escort the prisoners away.
“All of you, get back to sleep, lazy pigs.”
The prisoners filed back to their dorms one after another. Xiao Fen followed the crowd toward the second floor when his shoulder suddenly stung. He immediately twisted the arm of the person who had bumped into him, his eyes flashing with killing intent.
Jin Q’s sly and sinister expression instantly vanished. His gaze cleared considerably, and a fawning, apologetic smile crept onto his face.
Xiao Fen released his hand and veered into the corridor.
What a guy who didn’t learn from a beating.
After all the commotion, it was already late into the night. Before long, the morning bell rang.
They brushed their teeth, washed their faces, and lined up in the cafeteria for breakfast. Xiao Fen felt a chill on his back and turned to see Jin Q and several of his underlings staring at him with meaningful looks.
He was too lazy to deal with such small-time punks, but their constant harassment was truly annoying.
He shot Matthew a look.
Matthew froze at first, then his eyes lit up with surprise. A few seconds later, he said somewhat troubled, “But with so many rooms in the prison, if someone dies, won’t the housing prices all plummet?”
Xiao Fen: “？？？”
He was surprised that he had managed to win this guy over so successfully, with affection levels maxed out.
He truly admired his past self.
“Forget it. Just stay put and behave.”
He had barely touched his breakfast when several Vice Squad Officers entered the cafeteria and took a few people away.
“You too.” One of the Vice Squad Officers called out.
Xiao Fen was led to a small room that resembled an interrogation chamber.
One minute later, Ulysses walked in and shut the door behind him.
In an instant, only the two of them remained.
