Chapter 324: My Cellmates and Me…

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

　　It was June 30th on Friday in the tenth week of the semester.

　　During the morning self-study period, Dopey Guo said suddenly, “Did you hear? Yesterday, a girl from Prime Elevation High School had been dragged off by someone suspected of being a member of Shuigou Sect.”

　　“Mm, of course. It went viral on WeChat Moments.” Little Peanut nodded. “The girl said that she had been on her way home from school when a man had tried to take her away. That person lied that he was her father. The scariest thing was that no one passing by had stopped him…”

　　“Even upright officials can’t resolve family disputes! To a lot of people, it looked like a family matter, so naturally they didn’t want to get involved. That girl would have been in danger if Odd Zhuo hadn’t come in time,” Dopey Guo said. “The man they caught is now the biggest breakthrough they’ve had in the whole Shuigou Sect affair!”

　　“Senior Zhuo is really awesome!”

　　A lot of people couldn’t help exclaiming in admiration. There was a saying among high school students now: When Odd Zhuo makes a move, you’ll know if something’s up! After a series of major incidents, more and more people were becoming very familiar with this name.

　　After listening to the discussion, Wang Ling lowered his head silently.

　　He had specifically requested that Odd Zhuo take credit for the incident yesterday. However, the girl wouldn’t forget that Wang Ling had saved her, and in the beginning had refused to accept this arrangement. It had taken a very long time for Odd Zhuo to persuade her and convince her that this was for the sake of protecting Wang Ling’s privacy.

　　Wang Ling guessed that at this time, the girl was probably still cooperating with Odd Zhuo’s investigation.

　　A lead on Shuigou Sect had been discovered at long last; no one wanted to waste it.

　　…

　　Meanwhile, elsewhere in Songhai First Prison.

　　The interrogation of the man in the woollen hat who had been caught yesterday and who was suspected of being a member of Shuigou Sect had begun.

　　But Odd Zhuo and the prison’s Warden Liang had now run into a rather tricky problem — the suspect was refusing to confess to his crimes.

　　The man sat shackled in the middle of the interrogation room, his spirit energy completely sealed away. He shook his leg out of boredom and his speech was filthy as he jeered non-stop.

　　“Even if you beat me to death, I won’t tell you anything!

　　“Lock me away forever, see if you dare!

　　“Aren’t you quite capable? Come on, torture me! Fry me! Remember to turn me over! Otherwise, I this old father will become a potsticker!”

　　“…”

　　Outside the interrogation room, Warden Liang sighed deeply and felt very helpless.

　　At the moment, the man completely refused to admit to having any direct connection to Shuigou Sect; at the most, he could only be charged with attempted kidnapping. But then they would have caught him for nothing. An organization like Shuigou Sect, which had brazenly captured a dozen students without leaving any clues behind, definitely had to have quite the solid plan behind it.

　　It could be said that Warden Liang had completely expected this man to be tight-lipped.

　　But what the man said had hit Warden Liang’s sore spot. With the onset of the Spirit Energy Information era and continual advancements in the legal system, the ancient cultivation prison’s punishment model had already long been abolished. Who would have cared a thousand or two thousand years ago? The jailer could have directly used a set of “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B A B A(1),” and even the most stubborn mouth would have been forced to open.

　　“What should we do? What’s your opinion, Director Zhuo?” Warden Liang held his head and felt his trigeminal nerve throb faintly with pain.

　　After nearly two hours of interrogation, the man had refused to give so much as his name, and the ID he had been carrying was fake. The most disturbing thing was that when the DNA sample they had collected from him had been run through the cultivation police’s system, they actually couldn’t find a match — this guy was a true unregistered citizen!

　　And to put it bluntly, that was the reason why the man wasn’t fearful at all; he was aware that as long as he didn’t say anything, they wouldn’t be able to find any information on him at all.

　　“I remember that there’s a spell for forcibly extracting memories from the brain…” said Odd Zhuo.

　　“Absolutely not!” Warden Liang shook his head. “We only use this tactic on prisoners who are on death row. While this type of forceful intrusion can directly extract evidence from a suspect’s memories, if the suspect resists and refuses to cooperate, the memories will become jumbled during the extraction process, so the spell carries a very large risk.”

　　Speaking up to this point, Warden Liang pursed his lips. “Besides, if we want to employ this forceful intrusion, according to standard protocol, we’ll have to first wait on instructions from the higher-ups… It wasn’t easy to obtain this lead on Shuigou Sect. If something happens to the suspect, neither I nor Director Zhuo will be able to bear the responsibility.”

　　“I see.”

　　Odd Zhuo nodded, and then frowned. “Then we only have one last resort…”

　　Warden Liang: “What’s that?”

　　Odd Zhuo moved closer and whispered in Warden Liang’s ear. The latter’s eyes suddenly lit up as he slapped the table. “Wonderful! Let’s do it!”

　　…

　　Songhai First Prison’s special holding cell.

　　The man in the woollen hat was sent to the cell in the custody of two prison officers.

　　“Don’t f**king push me! I can walk myself!” His words were still stubborn, and he didn’t show any fear in front of the two prison officers, displaying instead a resistant character.

　　The two prison officers looked at each other and smiled. Hehe! Go on and laugh! You’ll be crying later!

　　Then, without saying anything, they simply lifted one foot each to kick the man’s butt into the cell. It was obvious that they had had it with his behavior! This kick felt very satisfying!

　　One of the prison officers stared at him. “You’ll be staying here until the second interrogation.”

　　“Where am I? It seems quite spacious!” The man didn’t care as he got up and looked at the prison officers. After looking around, he laughed shamelessly. “Tch! There’s even an exclusive guard here? Aren’t you treating me a little too well?”

　　The two prison officers sneered and closed the cell door with a bang .

　　The man laughed coldly as the two prison officers turned around and left. “What a shitty prison! Songhai First Prison? Its prison officers are nothing!”

　　However, just after he was done taunting, there was suddenly a hair-raising sensation behind him.

　　He turned his head to take a look, and just so happened to see his two cellmates in this special cell looking askance at him.

　　Instantly, the man broke out in a cold sweat…

　　Because his two cellmates weren’t just anybody.

　　One of them had appeared on the news recently, and was the leader of the biggest dark force sect in Huaxiu’s history, the Master of Immortal Mansion. The other was inside a woman’s body, the Master of Shadow Stream Jiang Liuyue, and had once plunged the whole of Huaxiu nation into a dark age of terror, the Devil Emperor…

　　(1) Pressing this sequence on the controller in the video game “Contra” gives players more lives.