Chapter 162: There's Always Someone Worth Reforming (Asking for Monthly Tickets)

Bang bang bang—

The lights atop the workshop dimmed in succession until they were completely extinguished.

Chen Ya walked out of the workshop and handed over the basket in his hand; the prison guard recording the sorting tally marked a hook in the logbook.

"Chen Ya, ten pieces—oh wait, nine pieces, one is unqualified."

While recording, the prison guard picked out a blood-stained garment with crooked stitching from the basket and tossed it aside.

Chen Ya frowned slightly and followed his cellmates queuing back to their cells.

Cell 2104.

At 11 o'clock the lights went out; several cellmates all burrowed under the covers and closed their eyes, and for some reason tonight they felt especially drowsy—no sooner had they gotten under the covers than they all fell fast asleep.

Amid this quiet, Chen Ya gently lifted the covers and climbed down from the bed without a sound.

His little fingertip trembled lightly, and slender needles shot out from the back of his cellmates' heads, flying back lightly into his palm along nearly invisible silver threads.

In the narrow corridor, the lights still shone stubbornly, reflecting the mottled traces on the walls.

On the ceiling, fixed surveillance cameras stood like sleepless sentinels, red lights flickering; they silently monitored every inch of the corridor, leaving almost no blind spots.

Occasionally, one or two prison guards in uniform paced heavily back and forth along the corridor; they would sometimes halt and peer through the iron bars, casting scrutinizing glances into the cells.

"2122, what's all the racket? Everyone lie down and go to sleep!"

A prison guard's shout came from the distant corridor, the sound echoing in the hallway.

"Four prison guards, split into two shifts taking turns patrolling, an intermittent round every 13 minutes."

Chen Ya muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing to slits, a clear layout map of the security bureau emerging in his mind.

"From Cell 2104 to Cell 2126, straight-line distance 71 meters, four surveillance cameras installed along the way, their positions respectively at……"

Chen Ya's memory was outstanding; the precise position and subtle angle of every camera were engraved in his mind, as if a vivid three-dimensional image were unfolding deep in his consciousness.

After lying in wait patiently for a while, at a certain utterly silent moment, Chen Ya's fingertip lightly touched the sensitive g-spot of the cell door's electric latch lock core, and the door sprang open with a soft click.

He stepped lightly into the corridor; a high-frequency buzzing inaudible to human ears rose in the surrounding air, and the red lights of those camera probes flickered strangely in that instant, as if time had been subtly twisted for a moment.

The distortion was so swift that, inside the monitoring room, the duty prison guard who had just lowered his head to take a sip of water completely failed to realize:

In the split second he lowered his head, several small screens in the upper right corner flashed successive bursts of snowflake static, then quickly returned to normal, like a breeze brushing the air, leaving not even a ripple.

And at this subtle juncture, it just so happened that someone came to repair the cameras; they could only discover a needle-eye-thin trace on the wires behind the cameras.

However, if delayed by two minutes, that nearly invisible needle eye would likely have quietly healed under the action of the wire's rubber coating, like a wound smoothed by time, leaving no trace at all.

If the surveillance cameras could speak, they might quip: "Needle eye? Joke—how would I not know I'd been pricked by a needle? That was merely a normal pore contraction on my skin."

Cell 2126.

Originally all huddled under their blankets, the low murmuring chatter came to an abrupt halt—actually it was mainly Yuan Dabiao bragging, the other cellmates carefully chiming in agreement.

However, at a certain moment, those careful agreements collectively and uniformly transformed into snores of various pitches, like a symphony of snoring.

"I'm telling you, back when I, Yuan Dabiao, was still outside, I ran with Kun Ge—do you know who Kun Ge is?"

"Kun Ge was famous on the streets before; later he joined Shengguang Pharmaceutical Company, managing the security company under it."

"When I get out in a couple of years, I'll go join Kun Ge and join Shengguang Security……"

Yuan Dabiao's words brimmed with boundless anticipation for the future; his voice gradually rose, immersed in fantasies of his glorious future.

Then his brows suddenly knitted tight, his eyes widened, and he roared furiously: "Why is everyone snoring? Huh, did I say you could sleep? You guys……"

Before the words fell, Yuan Dabiao's mouth suddenly froze; his expression shifted from anger to shock.

He saw a face standing at his bedside, looking down at him unblinkingly from above, silent as a ghost.

Yuan Dabiao's heart skipped a beat; a chill like an electric current surged up his spine; his body involuntarily shuddered violently, as if seized by an invisible demonic claw, nearly bouncing off the bed.

"Keep it down, don't wake the others."

A low voice entered his ears, exceptionally cold, like the north wind on a winter night, piercing and merciless; he felt a hand lightly press on his forehead, and his whole body went limp and stiff as if drained of strength, lying back on the bed, unable to move at all.

"You don't need to get up; just lie there and talk." That voice continued.

Yuan Dabiao's pupils contracted sharply; his gaze locked dead onto the speaker's face, his facial muscles twitching involuntarily, his voice carrying undisguised surprise and fear: "It's you?!"

Yuan Dabiao's neck couldn't move; only his eyeballs could dart rapidly in their sockets; he strained his peripheral vision toward the electric-barred cell door—only to see the door was indeed shut tight, seamless.

"You… you… how did you get in?" Yuan Dabiao's brain nearly crashed.

Chen Ya frowned, not wanting to answer such a stupid question from Yuan Dabiao—he was already inside, did how he got in still matter?

He spoke on his own: "You shouldn't have disturbed my work this morning; you ruined a finished garment of mine, so I couldn't complete the 10 pieces Team Leader you demanded."

Chen Ya's tone carried a hint of helplessness, yet no anger—rather, he explained the logic in a serious and firm tone to Yuan Dabiao:

"So I only completed nine pieces in the end, still short one. This shortfall is Team Leader your responsibility; what do you say?"

Although Chen Ya's tone was calm and serious, explaining the reasoning word by word, to Yuan Dabiao he only felt his scalp tingle and an unprecedented terror surge in his heart.

At this moment, he suddenly realized that this kind of unhurried, composed reasoning was actually more heart-stopping and bone-chilling than the ferocious viciousness he had shown toward Lao Li this morning.

Yuan Dabiao swallowed, voice trembling: "Brother, I was wrong, truly wrong; you're right, it's all my responsibility."

Chen Ya knitted his brows, not too satisfied with Yuan Dabiao's attitude of admitting fault; he said: "You're afraid of me; you don't need to be afraid—I won't coerce you into admitting fault; reason isn't for bullying the weak with strength, but for becoming clearer the more it's debated."

Yuan Dabiao's mouth gaped into an O-shape, his heart screaming: "Brother, but I'm not afraid of reason—I'm genuinely afraid of you."

Chen Ya continued soothingly: "Rest assured, I won't harm you; I just came to make the reasoning clear and delineate the responsibility between us."

Yuan Dabiao's tongue seemed to be trembling too; he tried to make his voice sound more serious and sincere:

"No, brother, I'm not saying this because I'm afraid of you. I truly realized my mistake; the responsibility is all on me. I shouldn't have assigned you such a heavy workload; it's all my fault."

Chen Ya frowned and interrupted: "You're wrong again!"

Yuan Dabiao's heart sank with a thump: "Ah?"

Chen Ya explained patiently: "Assigning me ten pieces is your proper duty as Team Leader—that's not your mistake; your mistake was only that you shouldn't have destroyed my work product and disrupted my work efficiency."

Yuan Dabiao's gaze went dull; he felt this wasn't the same thing at all—wasn't it all bullying?

He stammered an apology: "Right right right, that's exactly what I meant."

Chen Ya lowered her head and stared at Yuan Dabiao, watching until the latter's heart was seriously creeped out, only then saying with satisfaction: "Good that you understand the logic."

Yuan Dabiao let out a long breath of relief in his heart, feeling a sensation of drifting from Hell up to Heaven, then heard that reasoning voice continue to transmit into his ears.

Chen Ya: "Since you confirm, my last piece of clothing being unfinished is your responsibility, then shouldn't you bear the responsibility and help me complete and make up for this work?"

Yuan Dabiao's mouth opened, observing Chen Ya's expression, he was pondering whether he should answer yes... or no?

Chen Ya's expression darkened slightly: "You're hesitating, looks like you just lied to me, you didn't truly realize your mistake at all."

Yuan Dabiao felt Chen Ya's gaze that seemed able to see through hearts, like silver needles piercing into skin, raising a layer of goosebumps on his face, he hurriedly explained:

"No, no, I truly understand everything is my responsibility. I was just thinking, exactly how should I do it, to make up for my responsibility and mistake."

Chen Ya looked skeptical: "Really?"

Yuan Dabiao seriously: "Really!"

Chen Ya smiled: "Team Leader you demanded I finish ten pieces of clothing today, fortunately, there's still the last tiny bit of time before today passes, enough for us to recover from each other's work oversights."

Yuan Dabiao could say nothing else, he could only "mm-hmm" in response.

Chen Ya's mouth cracked into an exaggerated arc, saying words Yuan Dabiao didn't quite understand: "My team members have always told me this world is filled with hypocrisy and lies, already thoroughly beyond saving."

"I feel they're too pessimistic, I believe this world still has many people who can explain logic and reason clearly, then this world hasn't reached the point of being beyond cure, still has hope worth saving, cannot completely give up on reconstructing them."

"You say, right?"

Yuan Dabiao completely didn't understand, but he could understand Chen Ya's palm spreading open, revealing threads of needles flickering with cold light.

He instantly felt his whole person as if falling into the Abyss, he lost his voice in shock, horrified to the extreme: "You just said, you wouldn't harm me?"

"That's right ah, when I was reasoning I didn't harm you."

Chen Ya replied very seriously, "But Team Leader you also acknowledged, you're willing to bear the mistake and recover the oversight, how could this be called harm, this is called self-redemption and reconstruction ah."

Yuan Dabiao couldn't refute, he silently acquiesced.

Perhaps, at this moment, he finally also had no choice but to acknowledge Chen Ya Captain's logic and reason were flawless, he was willing to give this discourse of the other party a full score?!!

Yuan Dabiao stared at the face right before his eyes, his fierce eyes seeming about to pop out reflecting a scene of needle light and shadows, his Throat stubbornly protruding, a silver needle straightly inserted on top of it.

End of Chapter