Restricted Area - Chapter 4

Baton

Right as Jiang Chijing finished speaking, the nearest-seated fraudster started to toady up to him, greeting, “Afternoon, sir, afternoon.” With the way that he said it, he was just short of offering up a pack of smokes.

In prison, a portion of the inmates would ingratiate themselves with the guards; the fraudster before him was obviously a textbook example.

Jiang Chijing had no personal opinion about such behaviour. He would do favours or make things easy for a few inmates from time to time, but his criteria for that wasn’t based on whether the other had sucked up to him, but based on his own unique standard for judging good and evil.

“Open up the prison rulebook in front of you.”

Jiang Chijing moved back to the whiteboard, turning over to take a marker and writing on the board in striking letters: ‘Obey the Officers.’

Contrary to his soft and delicate appearance, Jiang Chijing’s handwriting was bold and vigorous, his strokes beautifully written, causing the words to appear even more imposing. But only Jiang Chijing knew how much effort it was taking him to maintain a calm facade.

That guy named Zheng Mingyi didn’t open his book. His two hands remained perched on his legs, his gaze chasing after and never deviating from Jiang Chijing’s face.

On the night that he was almost exposed, Jiang Chijing had felt this gaze before, and back then he had managed to hide behind the curtains in time. However, the situation now didn’t allow him to evade again.

“1017.” Jiang Chijing swept a gaze over the number on Zheng Mingyi’s prison uniform. “I asked you to open the book in front of you.”

The two men held in a deadlock for a split second that seemed stretched on for an age before Zheng Mingyi finally spoke, not moving a finger. “You read, I’ll listen.”

It was a flat, even tone, his attitude neither servile nor overbearing, at a pitch slightly deeper than what Jiang Chijing had expected.

Here was the second classic type of inmate, who would place themselves on equal standing as the prison guards.

There were two extremities that those tended to fall into—either they were reasonable and genial, never stirring trouble; else, extremely dangerous and once offended, became wildly unpredictable.

Jiang Chijing was inclined to categorise Zheng Mingyi in the latter, but it wasn’t the time now to dwell on this question.

He averted his gaze, using the marker to tap the whiteboard, continuing, “There are three chances in life to receive education. First, from your family; second, from schooling. If these two chances weren’t able to teach you the right path, that’s fine. You still have your third chance. Prison.”

Most people only had a vague concept of good and evil. They knew what they could and couldn’t do, but there was also a murky grey area in between.

But Jiang Chijing had a perfectly cohesive concept of good and evil. Just like how he spied without authorisation on others, he should do some good deeds accordingly to recompense for it. If a convicted felon who had committed a crime didn’t show any intention to redress, then he would classify them as baddies.

In a nutshell, the attitude that Jiang Chijing showed the bad eggs was very discourteous.

“Sir.” The thug who hadn’t said anything until now suddenly pointed to a line in his book. “Help me take a look, what does this mean?”

Faint surprise flashed in Jiang Chijing’s eyes. He walked over to him, tilting his head to read what the thug pointed at, only to see that four words were written there plain as day: insult the prison guards.

Another guy with nothing better to do than to make trouble.

Before Jiang Chijing could move his gaze away, he felt a hand touch his ass.

“Tch, bejeezus, it’s so perky.” The thug clucked his tongue as he squeezed it. “It must feel good to fuck.”

When he spoke, the other two also shifted their gazes to Jiang Chijing’s ass.

For some reason, Jiang Chijing couldn’t care less about the fraudster looking at him, yet Zheng Mingyi’s gaze on his ass made prickles go down his back.

This was wrong. In a lesson from a curriculum aimed to reform character, something so vulgar shouldn’t be the focus of everyone’s attention.

Jiang Chijing turned his head marginally, looking apathetically at the hand behind him. He deftly unhooked the baton from his waist—“Bang!” It pounded into the thug’s lower arm.

The thug cussed in pain, his body instinctively hunching towards where he was hit. Jiang Chijing used the baton to jab the thug’s forehead, stopping him and forcing him to sit up straight, coldly saying, “Do you think that this is a detention house?”

The detention house was a temporary lock-up for felons. As such, they were laxer with discipline there.

Jiang Chijing had looked through this thug’s file earlier and knew that he was a first-timer in prison, so he chose to use the detention house to draw a comparison instead of directly asking if he wanted solitary confinement.

This was the third classic type of inmate. Those discontent in the face of discipline, always making trouble for the guards and repeatedly jumping across the line. However, this type was also the easiest to deal with; if they didn’t listen, simply place them in confinement—keep them holed up until they relent.

“You got it, boss.” The thug raised both hands in surrender. “Carry on.”

The reason that Jiang Chijing could go the better part of the year without incident wasn’t that the inmates were being charitable, but because it wasn’t a wise idea to provoke him in the first place.

He indifferently swept a gaze over the other two before turning back to the board, reading aloud the contents of the book.

Long ago, a philosopher once put forth a theory that human nature was evil, as humans were born evil. This wasn’t a cynical standpoint, but postulating that humans needed to continually improve themselves, restraining their inherent evil.

Jiang Chijing strongly agreed with this standpoint. Just like the evil of voyeurism that was in his bones, good upbringing allowed him to have a good moral sense.

So he didn’t just muddle through the lesson; when teaching the prisoners, he genuinely hoped that his words would get through to them.

After that episode, the thug did sit up and look at the whiteboard in earnest. The fraudster was greatly intimidated by the baton and listened with rapt attention, cooperatively nodding every now and then.

As for Zheng Mingyi, seated furthest away, not only did he not flip through his book, his eyes were even closed as he listened.

What’s up with this guy, does he think he’s here to take an afternoon nap?

Perhaps because Jiang Chijing was in his element, he gradually broke away from the shadow of his voyeurism, reaching true composure in his mind.

“1017,” he called out Zheng Mingyi’s number again. “The contents that I’m teaching today will be tested tomorrow. The scores will affect your prison performance grade, you’d best listen well.”

“I’m listening.” Zheng Mingyi lifted an eyelid. There wasn’t any cloudiness in his gaze, like he was simply resting his eyes earlier.

“Are you sure?” Jiang Chijing asked. “Then what did I just say?”

“Don’t form cliques, don’t oppress others,” said Zheng Mingyi.

His answer was word for word, as if he had carefully taken all of it in. But that was content that Jiang Chijing had only just covered; it was normal to have some impression of it.

“And before that?” Jiang Chijing persisted.

“You’re Jiang Chijing.” Without even taking any time to think, Zheng Mingyi gave this answer.

Jiang Chijing blanked for a split second, only after recovering then realised that that was the very first thing he had said to Zheng Mingyi after entering the meeting room. Which also meant to say that he got Zheng Mingyi to recount what he had earlier said, and Zheng Mingyi directly cycled all the way back, returning straight to the starting point.

His thought processes… really leapt quite far.

Jiang Chijing’s momentary stupefaction caused the topic to jam here. He simply chose to drop it, going back to talk of the key points in the rulebook.

Half an hour later, Jiang Chijing finished covering to the last page. He looked at the three men and asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”

The thug raised his hand, asking, “Is the test open book or closed book?”

“Closed,” Jiang Chijing said.

“Then if caught cheating…”

“Solitary confinement.” Jiang Chijing interrupted the thug impatiently. “Next question.”

“Sir.” The fraudster raised his hand. “When will we receive our labour allocations?”

Jiang Chijing glanced at Zheng Mingyi. Seeing that he didn’t seem to have anything he wanted to ask, Jiang Chijing flipped the whiteboard over to the other side, pointing to a basic schematic diagram on it. “Next, I’ll explain to you how things work in Southside Prison.”

Southside Prison had a total of three cell blocks and over two hundred inmates. Newly incarcerated convicts would stay in Block C for a period of time first to acclimatise to the environment. Then, based on their performance, they would be assigned to either Block A or B.

Block B was the regular block with multiple inmates to a cell, whereas Block A had confinement cells and single cells, holding the most dangerous inmates.

“The guy who brought you over is Block C’s supervisor,” Jiang Chijing said. “For the next period of time, you will mainly be reporting to him.”

“Is he easy to get along with?” the thug asked.

“That depends on your performance,” said Jiang Chijing.

All inmates needed to do labour. Two hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, with two hours of free time in between for them to rest. At night, there would be time for them to watch the news or other such group activities.

“What labour activities are there?” The thug cut into Jiang Chijing again.

“Painting, woodworking, sewing, farming, and so on.” Jiang Chijing tempered himself to answer.

“Which is the easiest?” The thug continued to ask.

This time, Jiang Chijing’s gaze turned completely cold as he looked impassively at the thug. He could show patience when interacting with the community workers, but to such unremorseful convicts, he never had much of a temper.

The thug awkwardly scratched his nose, likely understanding what Jiang Chijing was saying with his eyes, and stopped asking useless questions.

“The building you’re in now is the admin block. Aside from meeting rooms, there is also an auditorium on the ground floor. The library and infirmary are on the second floor, and the office area for the prison guards is on the third floor.”

The admin block and the three cell blocks were all three-storied buildings. There was also a corridor on the second floor connecting the buildings together.

Jiang Chijing concisely explained how Southside Prison worked and the daily schedule of the inmates, then routinely asked, “Any more questions?”

The fraudster and the thug didn’t utter a word, as if able to tell that Jiang Chijing was close to the end of his fuse.

Seeing that there were none, Jiang Chijing picked up the slim book, ready to end this class. But just then, after having stayed silent for a long time, Zheng Mingyi suddenly jerked his chin up, speaking to Jiang Chijing. “Is there surveillance installed everywhere?”

Slightly perplexed, Jiang Chijing’s eyebrows knit and his mind involuntarily started to guess what Zheng Mingyi was angling at with this question.

No questions popped up from nowhere. For example, the thug asking about the consequences of cheating exposed his thoughts of cheating, and his asking which menial labour was the easiest exposed his preference for easier labour.

However, what Jiang Chijing couldn’t understand was why the prison surveillance mattered to Zheng Mingyi.

Could it be that he was thinking of breaking out?

It was rather unlikely.

He only had a one-year sentence. If he behaved well, there might even be an opportunity for him to reduce his sentence; he shouldn’t need to take the risk of escaping prison.

But apart from this, Jiang Chijing really couldn’t think of another reason. He disliked this feeling of groping in the dark, yet this neighbour who lived across the street always seemed to be this way, arousing his burning curiosity at the drop of a hat.

He swiftly collected his jumbled thoughts, giving Zheng Mingyi a not-quite-accurate answer—

“Of course.”