Chapter 28: Three Deadly Ordeals in Prison

by cnwebnovels

The police gave no reason. They simply showed their credentials and a detention warrant.

My senior brothers gathered outside the compound trying to stop them. I called them back.

I respected law enforcement. A straight body need not fear a crooked shadow. Still, I handed the green jade token to Senior Brother Guanghuai for safekeeping—once inside, it would be hard to avoid confiscation. If someone discovered its secret, that would be trouble.

The police took me first to an interrogation room at the station for procedural questioning.

I cooperated. But something felt wrong. The officers were all from Jizhou, with clear Baoding accents.

During questioning, they told me to confess truthfully.

I didn’t even know what I’d done. Confess what?

They wouldn’t say. Just told me to think about it, then launched into a long recitation of policy.

I had no idea, so fine—we could drag this out.

The biggest thing I could think of was when Zhu Shaohua saved me and I’d injured several police-uniformed people under AI control. But Gao Minjun had died taking the blame for that, and both Zhu Shaohua and Gao Minjun were dead. Not much point reopening it.

But the police never asked about that. They kept pressing about the “electronic worm”—how I knew that name, where I’d been a month ago.

“Electronic worm” was a name I’d made up on the spot, and a month ago I’d been detained by CWP at their base.

I answered honestly and told them to verify it.

I don’t know if they checked. Either way, after interrogation they didn’t release me. They sent me to a detention center in the northern suburbs of Pingdu City.

The center sat deep in the remote northern mountains. A small compound—a yard in the center, two buildings, several rows of single-story rooms. Five- or six-meter electrified fences all around, armed guards in six corner towers.

As soon as I arrived, I was placed in a rear holding room with three burly, oily-faced men.

All three were covered in tattoos, heavily muscled, faces hard. They clearly knew one another and moved in sync.

When they saw me, they smiled wickedly.

I read danger in their thoughts. They’d been hired to finish me off.

I couldn’t tell yet who’d hired them or why. Based on my reasoning, two possibilities.

One: the Sweepers. They’d released me, but maybe under pressure. I’d learned too many of their secrets.

Two: whoever plotted against Du Changfeng. I’d just saved him and exposed their method. They might fear exposure.

I thought the second more likely. At the Sweeper base I’d beaten Min Long—they wouldn’t send three fools.

But if it was the second, the plotter’s reach was terrifying. He could mobilize the police.

Facing three vicious-looking men, if this had been me when I first arrived in Pingdu, I’d have been in trouble. Back then, I had still been a student fresh out of the novice village.

But now? They had no idea what I’d been through eighty levels underground. Against ordinary people like these, I barely bothered looking.

Sure enough, late that night one man stood guard by the door while the other two crept toward my bed, cotton blanket in hand, planning to muffle me before working me over.

I’d long seen through them with same-frequency sensing, so I lay relaxed, pretending ignorance.

Just as the blanket fell, I didn’t even sit up—I kicked sideways from the bed, one kick per man, both landing on the kneecap seams.

Both crashed down screaming. The police didn’t come right away.

The lookout at the door stood frozen, trembling. I ignored him and stayed on the bed.

I hadn’t shattered their kneecaps, only dislocated the joints. It was the kind of injury that caused excruciating pain without serious harm—but it stripped their will to fight.

Five or six minutes later, three detention guards ran over. The lookout looked like he’d seen a ghost, wanting only to flee. The guards grabbed him.

Only then did I sit up. I pointed at the lookout. “Ask him what happened. The three of them were going to jump me.”

The guards seemed curious why those two were injured. After brief questioning, they carried the injured men away with the lookout, leaving me alone.

Perfect. I could sleep in peace.

The next day I ate, exercised, slept. No one interrogated me.

Four days passed before someone came to see me.

Du Xinlang, with a lawyer.

The moment she saw me she wept, too angry to speak. The lawyer had to comfort her first.

Only after she calmed did I learn the truth from him.

Someone had reported me to the police, claiming I’d planted the “electronic worm” in Chairman Du. The basis: “electronic worm” was a top-secret designation known only to a few special agencies. How did I know it? How could I neutralize it?

The lawyer showed me some top-secret materials—all records about the “electronic worm.”

It was a murder tool made by an intelligence agency of a certain Western country. Ordinary people couldn’t access it. Even the police hadn’t known—only after the informant provided information did they take it seriously.

I told the lawyer someone had attacked me the night I arrived. Proof that someone feared exposure and wanted no witnesses. And these people could reach into the police station.

I turned to Du Xinlang. Had the Du family recovered the “electronic worm” after surgery?

She said that shortly after I left, police officers arrived with medical staff and took away the “electronic worm” immediately after the surgery.

She’d stayed with her father the whole time and only learned about me after Du Changfeng was discharged.

I asked the lawyer whether they had checked the hospital surveillance footage.

He said the police had already taken the footage. Even if they had not, we would only be able to access it through the police.

“What about our own video during surgery?”

The lawyer hemmed and hawed—first saying they had recorded it, then saying they had not.

I pressed him.

Finally he said they had recorded, but with the butler’s death, the video vanished too.

The butler was dead?

Du Xinlang said that after returning from the hospital, the butler had taken poison on his own. The police were now investigating.

I suddenly felt I’d fallen into someone’s trap. They’d targeted me likely because I could see through their scheme.

Also, since Du Changfeng was the ultimate target, Chairman Du still wasn’t safe. I told the lawyer and Du Xinlang, “Add protection for Chairman Du when you return. Investigate inside the group and any recent major projects.”

Since this involved an overseas “electronic worm” and the other side could infiltrate the police station, I believed the opposing force was extremely powerful.

The lawyer recorded my statement and requested residential custody outside detention for me.

Personally, I didn’t care. Unless they sent an expert, ordinary people were no match for me here. Besides, if someone wanted me harmed, they’d have methods outside too. In prison, at least there were systems and rules—safer.

Sure enough, the lawyer’s request was rejected quickly. Du Xinlang was reluctant to leave, but I persuaded her to go back, telling her that I could now protect myself and that she should return to the group, convene a board meeting, and discuss whether there were any problems with recent projects.

Two more days passed. A special person was assigned to my cell.

He was an older man, short and thin. He claimed to be a state cadre who had been falsely accused of corruption. He felt wronged and was trying to appeal.

I activated same-frequency sensing—found no threat—and chatted with him. But his words had little substance, always the same complaints, rarely about his unit or the case itself.

That night, seeing him sleep quietly, I didn’t disturb him. I sat on the bed meditating.

Just when I thought the night would pass peacefully, I noticed something wrong.

Same-frequency sensing showed all the old man’s pulses had uniform rhythm. Not right. Normal human micro-electrical pulses aren’t unified. Nerve waves vary in strength and distance. Even pulse has systolic and diastolic pressure—it can’t be uniform.

I suddenly realized—this might be a thoroughly modified AI being. Even the Sweepers’ Wisdom Capsules were only AI-enhanced versions within the human body. Normal bodily functions remained.

The thought sent cold sweat down my back. I’d been careless.

I’d seen files on thoroughly modified AI beings in Sweeper archives but never encountered one. Although they still had human flesh bodies, their AI electronic intelligence systems had already fully fused with the human body, and many human tissues and organs had become electronic and mechanized. They were semi-cyborgs.

During this imprisonment, I faced three life-and-death ordeals total.

I survived only because of advance perception. Without that ability, any one of these ordeals could have killed me before I left prison.

At the time I couldn’t fathom who wanted me dead.

Even at the Sweeper base eighty levels down, they hadn’t wanted me dead.

Sure enough, near dawn, when the sky was already beginning to brighten, the old man suddenly stabbed toward me like a ghost. Luckily, I had prepared in advance—I leapt up and flung the blanket from the bed at him.

I did that not to hurt him, but to slow the old man’s movements.

The old man moved too fast—so fast I could not react in time.