Chapter 321

Ma Xuan tilted his head to the side, but Wang Anquan's electric baton had no sense of measure, nearly jabbing into his eyeball.

He gave Wang Anquan a gloomy, sidelong glance, correcting his assessment:

"Alright, make that three. What exactly did Feng Mu pour into their heads?"

Among these three, Ma Xuan judged that Guan Zhong was the one most deeply poisoned by Feng Mu, because his gun-holding arm didn't move a fraction, and his gaze was calm too.

A calm that bred unfathomable madness.

But the one giving Ma Xuan the strongest sense of pressure right now was Jiang Li, because this guy's gun-holding hand kept trembling, and that was simply terrifying; Ma Xuan's scalp tingled in sync with the trembling of the other's arm.

Feng Mu curled his lips, very satisfied with the three's transformation.

He noticed Ma Xuan's legs had a bending, retreating motion, so he smiled and said:

"Don't back up anymore. Blood's already splashed on your trouser leg; the more you dodge, the less you'll ever get it clean."

Ma Xuan lowered his head to glance at his trouser leg; his pupils shrank. Though his shoe surface wasn't wet, the edge of his trouser leg clearly bore splatter stains of filthy blood.

He could hear the deep meaning in Feng Mu's words, and couldn't help but let out a cold laugh, his tone carrying sarcasm:

"What, killing one Prison Guard wasn't enough, so you actually want to pin the same charge on my head too?"

Not waiting for Feng Mu to respond, Ma Xuan gave another cold snort and continued pressing:

"Leaving aside whether your words are worth believing, just look at the present — who gave you the guts and the authority to kill a colleague inside the Prison?"

Feng Mu patiently waited for Ma Xuan to finish speaking, then said blandly:

"Kill a colleague? In my eyes these beasts who started a riot aren't my colleagues; they're murderers who deserve to die ten thousand times over."

He paused slightly, his gaze sweeping sharply over Ma Xuan, and continued:

"On the contrary, your words right now make me have to suspect your stance. Do you want to defend these people, or are you the same as the dead Prison Guard — also….. Right, otherwise why would you be so anxious to snatch Lou Rui back?"

Feng Mu deliberately stopped there, not speaking the rest of the words.

This kind of crucial accusation, leaving blank space only invites more imagination; at least some of the surrounding Prison Guards' looks at Ma Xuan had already turned subtly wrong.

Especially those Prison Guards who had good relations with the dead Prison Guards of the Dead Security Bureau — their eyes looking at Ma Xuan were tinged with a layer of suspicion and anger.

Feng Mu shifted his tone and said:

"As for where my guts and authority come from?"

Feng Mu — the smile on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by a stretch of solemnity and ruthlessness. He scanned the crowd, took a deep breath, and righteously shouted at the top of his voice:

"It's granted by the wronged souls of the more than one hundred Prison Guard colleagues who sacrificed themselves this morning! It's granted by the sorrowful hopes of the orphans and widows they left behind! And even more, it's granted by Prison Warden Qian Huan!!!"

Feng Mu paused, pulled out the freshly issued Appointment Letter from his bosom, and slapped it heavily onto Ma Xuan's chest.

At the same time, his right hand gently curved, pressed against his ear lobe, as if truly listening to those silent calls. His movements were filled with grief and piety; his voice suddenly pitched an octave higher, tone both mournful and eerie:

"Open your eyes wide and look carefully around you. Those dead colleagues haven't left yet. They're standing right around us now, necks twisted broken, arms hanging twisted, howling at us in grief."

Ma Xuan naturally couldn't see the "ghost shadows" Feng Mu spoke of. He was staring wide-eyed, dead fixed on the Appointment Letter in his hand.

【In view of the major vicious case that occurred in the Second Prison today…… After study and decision, the Second Prison Internal Investigation Department is hereby immediately established, specifically responsible for conducting a comprehensive investigation into this case.

……..

The Internal Investigation Department has the authority to mobilize internal Prison resources, including manpower, material resources, financial resources, etc., to ensure the investigation proceeds smoothly.

……..】

The Appointment Letter was brand new; ink fragrance still lingered on it, the red seal of the stamp pad still damp, just as fresh as the deep crimson gushing out from the hole smashed in the back of the head underfoot.

In Ma Xuan's eyes, this thin document was far more terrifying than those invisible ghost shadows.

The surrounding Prison Guards were exactly the opposite; they couldn't see the document in Ma Xuan's hand, but listening to Feng Mu's emotion-laden depiction, they collectively shivered, all casting suspicious, paranoid glances at the empty air.

Cold lamplight reflected on the blood-soaked ground; the damp chill in the air seemed to carry a faint tinge of red…… unnoticed at first glance, but the more one looked, the more gloomy and terrifying the surroundings felt, as if twisted ghost shadows truly flickered in and out of existence within, making one's hair stand on end.

Feng Mu's mouth split open, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. He raised his voice to the highest pitch, face contorted, and roared at Ma Xuan:

"You can't hear them, but I hear them crystal clear. They're right here, continuously weeping, wailing, screaming. They died in too much pain, too miserably……"

Feng Mu suddenly reached out, grabbed Ma Xuan by the collar, and yanked him close to his face without warning, enunciating each word:

"They didn't die at the hands of rioting Prisoners. They died at the hands of their own people wearing the same uniform. They died at the hands of Gong Lao who helped Prisoners escape. They died at the hands of Lou Rui who colluded with them. And they died at the hands of….."

The composure on Ma Xuan's face could no longer be maintained. Hearing Feng Mu's heart-piercing words before everyone, his peripheral vision sweeping over the surrounding Prison Guards' terrifying gazes, his face instantly turned pale as paper, all color draining away in an instant.

The air was incomparably oppressive. Everyone held their breath, focused, waiting for Feng Mu's next words.

Lou Rui struggled desperately on the ground, just about to make a sound, when Wang Anquan stabbed an electric baton into his mouth, smashing it; broken teeth mixed with his bloody tongue got stuck in his throat.

Just then, a broadcast voice suddenly rang out in the air. The voice was Liu Yi's, and the content played was precisely the document tightly clutched in Ma Xuan's hand:

——"……"

——"…… All on-duty personnel must unconditionally cooperate with the Internal Investigation Department's investigation work."

——"If anyone during the investigation process is discovered to have any form of obstruction or interference behavior, the Internal Investigation Department has the right, depending on severity, to regard them as a suspect of this case, and adopt necessary compulsory measures for detention and interrogation."

——"Feng Mu is hereby appointed as the person in charge of the Prison Internal Investigation Department. This appointment takes effect immediately!"

The timing was perfect — not a second early, not a second late — perfect like a narrator's voice inserted right before the curtain falls in a meticulously arranged stage play.

Pushing the atmosphere in the arena to its peak, yet also like a judge's gavel falling, nailing Ma Xuan's heart into the depths of the abyss.

With the atmosphere stacked to this point, Ma Xuan understood he had been completely backed into a dead end by Feng Mu. At this moment, even if he still had a thousand words, they were useless. He could only shut his mouth and obediently listen to Feng Mu.

Feng Mu slowly released Ma Xuan's collar, even carefully smoothed the collar flat for him, then resumed a calm expression and said in a gentle voice:

"As for whose hands they died in at the end, I think you'll be willing to tell me, to redeem your sins. Right?"

(End of Chapter)