Chapter 185

At the Likaile State Prison, Enio, Yisen, and another companion entered the visitation room together.

Lanse, Mo Lisi, and a few others were already there; they had brought some new clothes and other such items that would be useful for when they were released.

Along with these, there was some fresh fruit, cigarettes, and alcohol.

They didn't lack cigarettes here, but they weren't exactly wealthy either.

The warden was a man who only cared about money, to the point that the entire prison was filled with people who only cared about money; a pack of cigarettes here cost two dollars, the same kind that only cost five cents outside.

Although Lanse had spent money, the connection was through Lawyer Luo Ben; as far as the prison was concerned, they had done what they were supposed to do, and the rest was just following their rules.

According to the regulations of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, this was clearly a violation of the rules—so many people together, and bringing in so many things.

But here, no one cared.

The federal prison warden was supreme; he could decide the fate of everyone in this prison.

In fact, whether it was a private prison or a federal prison, the essence was much the same: if you had connections and money, you could get away with anything.

So regardless of the type—federal prison or private for-profit prison—as long as you found the right way, they would be like your own backyard, letting you come and go as you pleased.

As for a few minor violations?

Who would go and make things unpleasant for the warden over such a small matter?

"You've put on weight!" Lanse patted Enio on the shoulder and punched Yisen in the chest; the three of them were now plump and fair-skinned!

Mo Lisi stood to the side and teased, "Is the food in prison that good?"

Yisen grinned, "It's average. There's a small steak every night, but you can eat your fill of the other food."

"And even though we live in single cells, it's impossible to walk around outside the cell block too freely, so apart from yard time, the rest of the time is just eating, drinking, and sleeping."

He felt a bit embarrassed saying it himself.

He had originally thought he was coming here to suffer, but after getting in, he was almost raised like a pig; if he hadn't started working out recently, he reckoned he could have been even fatter!

Ever since the Lanse family wiped out the Kamila Gang, the state prison had received the news immediately, causing some prison gang members who had intended to "test their mettle" to give up.

People with a background and people without one were treated completely differently in prison.

After the laughing and chatting ended, Lanse brought up everyone's recent progress: "We're doing very well. If nothing goes wrong, we'll be able to make a large sum of money before summer arrives."

"Soon we will enter the fast lane of development, and by then, the entire New Jincheng, and even Likaile, will be our stage!"

Lanse was very certain about this, whether it was criminal syndicates, gangs, families, or capitalists.

If you want to make a splash on the big stage of the Federation, you must achieve two things: either have a background and money, or have money while being covered in thorns.

As for those traditional noble families, they were the representatives of the former; when their ancestors appeared in those oil paintings, it was destined that they wouldn't need to take risks to possess a future that most families couldn't have in several lifetimes.

And for the vast, vast majority of those in the true sense, if they wanted to obtain what these people possessed, they needed not only money but many other elements.

Luck, decisiveness, shamelessness, the ability to let go, enough ruthlessness...

Mr. Qiaobafu was wealthy enough, but to those people, he wasn't even considered part of the top circle; just being a mayor, he had already completely lost control over the development of events.

A mayor had him firmly in his grip, let alone the big shots at higher levels.

Only he always felt that as long as the level he reached was high enough, he would definitely be able to change his fate.

So for the sake of the future, he could try to give up some things.

This also exacerbated the mayor's change in attitude toward him; it looked like the relationship was very good, but everywhere were dead ends.

As for the people at higher levels, they didn't even need to exert effort themselves to deal with Mr. Qiaobafu.

It might just be a matter of one sentence, and he would be arrested and sentenced to the electric chair because his urine splashed onto the edge of the toilet while he was peeing.

Don't want to die?

Then hand over all your money.

As for the fact that the Federation didn't have a law stating that urine splashing on the edge of a toilet was punishable by death?

That wasn't important; they could pass it overnight. As long as the big shot who made the decision was "big" enough, there was nothing they couldn't do.

Capitalists who were not native to the Federation during this period were actually very unlucky; they contributed when society was developing, they paid taxes when it was time, and when they became wealthy enough, capitalists and politicians would collude to stab them in the back.

Every year, many well-known foreign investors and capitalists were thrown into prison after having their assets confiscated for various reasons.

But one rarely heard of any major gangs or families being wiped out by the federal government.

On one hand, the stability of the underclass of society needed these people; a region controlled by a gang would have a level of public security far higher than a region without one.

On the other hand, these people were now covered in thorns, and one would hurt oneself if not careful; the reason they were unwilling to hurt themselves was that there were also contradictions and divisions within the groups that could decide certain issues.

But one day, when external contradictions began to truly affect their rule, or when someone tried to challenge their authority, they would unite.

After chatting for a while about things happening outside, Lanse looked at Enio: "Before you leave, don't forget to send off the last person we missed."

Enio nodded: "I will."

Lanse looked at the three of them: "You will be released in a week. You'd better do it on the night before you leave; the prison side will give you some convenience..."

Lanse and the others left soon after, having agreed on the time to pick them up.

In fact, Enio had been observing the last "lone survivor" of the Kamila Gang during this time; when he first came in, he seemed to still have some "social status."

The Kamila Gang was more or less a well-known gang in New Jincheng, and it was still active outside.

As long as it wasn't the case that they were the only ones left in their family, people in prison were actually quite unwilling to offend such active gangs, mainly out of fear that their families would be retaliated against.

But as the collapse of the Kamila Gang spread through the prison, his days became less and less easy.

Prison was a society where the law of the jungle was even more prevalent than outside; being even slightly weak here meant living in great pain.

It wasn't just as simple as not having enough to eat; one had to get beaten up for no reason, and even pick up soap every day.

After making appropriate concessions and showing an attitude of maintaining a bottom line, and after fighting a few fierce battles and refusing to compromise to the death, those people didn't continue to trouble him, because he was a "thorn."

The day before Enio and the others were to leave, the prison arranged a large amount of work, which happened to be the turn of the Kamila Gang's high-level cadres' cell block to do.

These jobs were all indoors; it was said that the warden intended to clear out an old warehouse to do something new, and needed them to clean the warehouse thoroughly.

There were many things in this dilapidated warehouse; their group of more than thirty people moved things from one warehouse to another, and then had to clean the place up.

It took four or five hours of continuous work to finish, which also made everyone sweat.

It wasn't easy to get this tired in the middle of winter; the warden seemed to have had a change of heart and allowed them to take a hot shower before sleeping at night.

Even now, in the middle of winter, there was no hot water in the prison; it was all cold water.

Only prison guards could take hot showers; for these people, this was simply a gift!

The fatigue and unhappiness of working in the afternoon seemed to become less important in the face of a hot shower.

After dinner, they went to the small bathroom in batches; only here was there hot water.

The moment the showerhead was turned on, the scalding hot water sprayed out from the showerhead and landed on his skin; the high-level cadre felt comfortable all over.

He ran his hands through his hair, and the hot water splashed onto his body; at this very moment, the hot water took away all the fatigue and irritability on his body.

Hot water was like a magical elf that could soothe all the pain on his body, and even in his heart.

His mind was empty; he seemed to be thinking about many things, but it also seemed like he wasn't thinking about anything at all, just enjoying the water.

There was no soap, but there was a bit of bath powder; this stuff stung the skin a bit, but... whatever.

While rubbing his body with bath powder, he thought about the future.

Over the years, he had also secretly saved quite a bit of money; after getting out, he would take that money, leave this damn place, and live a low-key life elsewhere.

A total of more than 100,000 dollars; for this era, this was a huge fortune!

In fact, to some extent, if he could use this opportunity to break away from the Kamila Gang and break away from Haile, then it might not be a bad thing!

A new life was beckoning to him; he had even made plans for the future—buy a house and then live a life of collecting rent.

The bath powder reacted with the water on his body, creating something like soap suds; it stung his eyes a bit, so he squinted slightly and washed his hair as well.

In prison, how to ensure the cleanliness of one's hair was also a problem.

He didn't know what the bath powder was; it made his body feel hot and dry after the shower, but it was indeed very useful in terms of cleaning!

He started to take a shower; the surroundings were filled with steaming mist; he didn't even notice that the people around him had almost all left, and in the end, only he remained.

Danger had already arrived, but he knew nothing about it.

Just as he was humming a little tune while washing away the fatigue of his body and soul, suddenly a powerful arm wrapped around his neck.

At first, he didn't react, thinking someone was joking with him; he even patted the arm a few times and said in a not-so-loud voice, "Don't, I'm taking a shower..."

But as the arm suddenly began to exert force, he immediately struggled violently, but by this time, it was too late!

He was hoisted by the person behind him and turned around, and then he saw Enio.

He didn't know these people, but he knew that there was a group of people in the prison who had connections and had paid money.

They were all registered with the warden and couldn't be offended at will, and among this group was this person.

His face was already flushed, not knowing if it was because of the hot water or because of hypoxia; while struggling hard, he tried to say something.

Enio had a knife made of iron in his hand; while wrapping it with a towel, he said, "When Haile and the others left, Mr. Lanse was by their side, but you are an exception."

"He couldn't come personally to send you to see God, so...", he drilled into the towel and knife in his hand, staring into his eyes, "He asked me to say hello to you. Good night, bastard!"

Saying this, he used his hand wrapped with the towel and the dagger to stab the high-level cadre in the chest a few times; fresh blood began to gush out, and together with the hot water sprayed from the showerhead, it was swept into the floor drain.

He struggled frantically and almost broke free from Yisen's control, but in the end, his strength was not as good as Yisen's, and he was firmly suppressed.

Soon, he didn't have much strength left, and even the intensity of his struggle diminished significantly.

The water was still splashing on him, but this time, he didn't feel warmth and comfort, only feeling his body getting colder and his consciousness getting blurrier.

His struggle also became weaker and weaker; a sense of despair began to shroud him; he thought of many things, thought of his brothers from before, thought of Haile, and thought of the 100,000 dollars he had buried, not knowing who would benefit from it.

The arm on his neck was like steel, motionless; at this moment of death, he suddenly had a realization.

He had harmed so many people before; some people, before they died, had cursed him with roughly the same words, cursing him not to die of old age in a warm bed, cursing him to die a violent death outside just like them.

He had once scoffed at this; he never thought he would have an accident, but at this moment, he realized that in the dark, there seemed to be a force that made him have to choose to bow his head.

When his body weight hung completely on Yisen's arm, Yisen let go of him.

He fell to the ground, and blood flowed from the wound, not as much as it was at the beginning.

Subsequently, another person pushed a trash can over, and the two of them threw him into the trash can; someone would clean him up thoroughly later.

Every year, many people go missing in federal prisons; the warden doesn't even need to rack his brains to make any "plan," just tell people that the missing person tried to escape and was shot dead.

Then burn it with a fire, scatter the ashes in the surrounding wilderness, and then write a report.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons once issued a document, which mentioned that one should be brave to strike against prisoners who escape; the general meaning was don't fucking be afraid to shoot, kill these sons of bitches!

After taking a shower, the three of them left the bathroom calmly and returned to the cell block.

About ten minutes later, the alarm sounded throughout the prison, and then a large number of prison guards began to enter the cell block with guns.

Everyone was required to come out of the cell block, stand at the door of the cell block, and then someone searched room by room.

The three of them knew what had happened, so they were very cooperative.

When it was halfway through, gunshots suddenly rang out outside, and then quickly subsided.

About seven or eight minutes later, everyone was required to return to their own cell block.

Immediately afterward, news spread through all the cell blocks that someone was taking a hot shower in the prison guard's bathroom but was thinking of escaping, and was shot dead as a result.

Some people didn't believe it because some of them knew the high-level cadre and knew that he actually didn't need to escape at all.

But now the person was already dead, and whatever the prison side said was what it was, and they had no intention of seeking justice for the high-level cadre.

The three of them had a good night's sleep; the next morning, at the prison gate, they saw the motorcade that came to pick them up.

It was only a little over 100 kilometers from New Jincheng to here, a three-hour drive.

The icy weather had finally improved a lot over the past two days; as soon as the three of them came out, the smiles on their faces couldn't be controlled; almost everyone had come!

Lanse stood at the very front; he hugged Enio and handed him a newspaper by the way: "I read today's news, well done!"

There was a palm-sized space in the news that published a piece of news, saying that a fugitive tried to escape from prison last night and refused to surrender during the escape process, and was shot dead on the spot.

Next to it was a photo of the high-level cadre.

The report stated that this was the 17th escape incident in the state prison in five years, but not a single case had succeeded; it was a castle that could never be conquered in Likaile State, and also a loyal executor of the law!

The article boasted a little bit and said that these were all the warden's credit.

But in fact, apart from the high-level cadre, among the 16 people, who was truly dead because of escaping, no one was clear.

Enio was a bit embarrassed; his childhood was spent in denial and domestic violence; his father had never praised him, so Lanse's praise for him, even if it was a very ordinary sentence, made him a bit embarrassed.

"Yisen and the others also have great credit; if it weren't for them, I might not have been able to do these things alone."

Lanse nodded and hugged Yisen and the other person again; after everyone had greeted each other, Lanse let the motorcade go to the New Jincheng Cemetery.

He specifically bought a piece of land to bury the people who died in the family.

Several tombstones were not lonely together; the scene had already been cleaned—Lanse had called before, saying that he would come to see these guys today.

The cemetery management office arranged for people to sweep the snow here; after all, they had to collect management fees every year; if they didn't even do surface work, that would be really too much.

Lanse lit the newspaper and placed it in front of the tombstone.

No one spoke; everyone just stood quietly.

When the last bit of newspaper was burned to ashes, Lanse let out a long sigh of relief: "Go home!"

In February, the weather already had signs of warming up; some branches that had been withered for a winter had already begun to sprout tender green buds the size of sesame seeds.

Although they were still very small, they already made people feel that the tenacious, unyielding, and great vitality was brewing.

When the time was right, it would dye the whole world green!

Winter had already ended, and spring was not far away!