Those two black-armored soldiers were likely Xuanjia Army grunts. That meant the child they were dragging was almost certainly a legendary Suzai—a Spirit Girl / Lingnv.
Su Jin's eyes glinted in the oppressive dark.
Slapping a heavy wooden cangue on a kid that tiny... talk about a bad roll of the cosmic dice.
The guard rotation was tomorrow. If the Xuanjia Army took over this black site, the difficulty of his exfiltration would spike exponentially.
He had to breach the walls tonight. Zero margin for error.
First priority: replenish stamina and top off his physical condition!
Making his decision, Su Jin reached deep into his tactical underwear and retrieved a bottled espresso.
Between swigs of the bitter caffeine, he continually fished out vacuum-sealed snacks, eating them in utter silence.
Roughly twenty minutes later, fresh movement echoed down the cell block.
A larger group descended this time. The head jailer, flanked by two guards, led a pair of sharply dressed young men down the corridor.
They stopped right outside Su Jin's cell. The jailer unlocked the iron grate, his face plastered with a fawning grin. "Young Master Du, if you please! Our facilities are lacking, but this cell is relatively spacious and clean."
Alarm bells violently rang in Su Jin's head.
Shit!
His solo extraction zone just became a double occupancy. This new variable was going to complicate the breach.
The first young man had sharp, sword-like eyebrows and piercing eyes, dressed in the austere robes of a wandering swordsman.
Ignoring the jailer's groveling, he stepped into the cell with a deadpan expression and immediately sat cross-legged on the filthy straw.
After a tense silence, he raised his gaze to his companion. "Lu Mingxuan, did you come down here just to watch me make a fool of myself?"
Lu Mingxuan possessed a dignified, aristocratic face, thoroughly ruined by a pair of naturally sleazy, peach-blossom eyes.
Hearing Young Master Du speak, those eyes curved into a mocking crescent, dialing up his inherent creepiness.
He drawled in a lazy, teasing tone. "Du Wenyan. You cause a drunken, public scene, everyone else treats you like a plague rat, yet I personally escort you here... and this is the gratitude I get?"
Du Wenyan offered no rebuttal, simply letting his eyes slide shut.
"Brother Du, violating the prohibition is a mere slap on the wrist. Beg me. Say the words, and I'll walk you right out of here. How about it?" Lu Mingxuan smirked.
"Brother Lu, we have never seen eye to eye, but kicking a man while he is down?" Du Wenyan opened his eyes. "What blood feud exists between us? If you have a grievance, state it plainly. These veiled hints are the tactics of a petty coward!"
"Hmph!" Lu Mingxuan's mocking smile shattered, his gaze turning to ice. "Brother Du, I actually admire your so-called elegance. You're right, there is no blood feud."
"But... word on the street is you've been privately trashing my value. You claimed that among our generation, I, Lu Mingxuan, am not fit to carry Shen Yufeng's boots. Did you, or did you not, utter those words?"
"I did." Du Wenyan confessed without a shred of hesitation. "Of our generation, Shen Yufeng holds the zenith in the Xuanjia Army, and you hold the zenith in Tanyu Temple. Yet, in my estimation, you fall drastically short of him."
"He is a man of honor, grounded and unparalleled in discipline. And you? You squander your innate talent on hounds, falcons, and endless banquets."
The jailer and his guards stood paralyzed, their terrified eyes bouncing between the two elites like a tennis match.
"Hahahaha! Beautifully spoken!" Lu Mingxuan roared with laughter, though the sheer venom in his expression betrayed his fury.
He stormed into the cell and violently punted Su Jin right in the ass.
What the fuck does this have to do with me... Su Jin clutched his bruised glutes, a wave of bitter exhaustion washing over him.
Un-fucking-believable. Nothing had gone right in the past twenty-four hours.
He was literally just lying down, minding his own business, and still caught a stray boot.
"You!" Lu Mingxuan glared down at Su Jin like he was an insect. "How do I compare to Shen Yufeng?!"
"Shen Yufeng is absolute garbage! How could he possibly compare to the brilliance of Young Master Lu?" Su Jin instantly forced a mask of groveling sycophancy. "I have worshipped Young Master Lu from afar for years—gah!"
A sickening thud echoed as Lu Mingxuan kicked him again. Su Jin tumbled across the filthy floor, rolling into a defensive tuck.
"Sycophantic trash! Spouting cheap flattery!" Lu Mingxuan spat. "If the man shares my prestige, do you think I don't know exactly what kind of monster Shen Yufeng is?!"
Su Jin wisely snapped his mouth shut, flattening himself against the stone and playing dead.
"Enough!" Du Wenyan scoffed. "Taking your temper out on a powerless commoner? Is that the extent of your capability?"
"Rumor states you and Shen Yufeng have never actually crossed blades. It seems you harbor no illusions about your own limits. Knowing when to avoid a superior blade is at least a sign of basic intelligence."
"I avoid his blade?" Lu Mingxuan snapped his neck toward Du Wenyan, his voice dropping to a glacial chill. "Insult me all you want. I am a magnanimous man; I can brush off your petty slights."
Flat on the ground, Su Jin couldn't suppress a full-body shudder at the sheer hypocrisy.
"But I am the face of Tanyu Temple. To insult me is to spit on the Temple itself! It is your ultimate misfortune that you fell into my jurisdiction today."
Lu Mingxuan's lips curled into a sneer. "Do you truly believe you are a player on this board? You lack martial power. You lack aristocratic pedigree. The highborn elites invite you to their salons purely to parade your poetry around. To them, you are nothing but an exotic pet."
"Provoke Tanyu Temple, and we'll see who dares extend an invitation to you ever again!" With that venomous parting shot, Lu Mingxuan swept out of the cell. He barked at the head jailer, "Du Wenyan serves his full sentence, down to the final second. He eats exactly what the rabble eats, and he licks his bowl clean. Are we clear?!"
"Crystal clear, my lord!" The jailer snapped a crisp salute.
"See that he is well cared for. I will return for an audit later."
The heavy iron deadbolts slammed shut, and a suffocating silence reclaimed the cell block.
Neither Su Jin nor Du Wenyan spoke a word, retreating to opposite corners of their cage.
Stealing calculating glances at his new cellmate, Su Jin exhaled a long, silent breath of pure frustration.
What a spectacular streak of dog-shit luck. He hadn't even finished his coffee break before catching a random beatdown.
Later tonight, he was going to have to choke this Du guy out just to execute his breach.
...
The chronometers hit roughly 11:00 PM.
Two guards wheeled a splintering wooden cart down the cell block.
Atop it sat two massive wooden vats and unsteady stacks of cracked bowls caked in hardened black grime.
They pried the lid off the vat. A hyper-concentrated, viscous wave of rotting acidity slammed into Su Jin's finely tuned olfactory sensors!
It wasn't just the smell of spoiled food. It was a biochemical hazard—like day-old vomit reheated in a microwave, cut with stagnant mold, stale urine, locker-room foot rot, and liquefied cabbage.
Before the cart even reached his bars, the stench reached out like a sewage-soaked hand and violently clawed at the back of his throat.
The guards began slopping the rations into the rows of cages.
The local inmates seemed entirely immune to the biohazard. They snatched their bowls, smacking their lips as they slurped the edges in a circular motion. A horrific emulsion of gray rice-paste and jaundiced yellow-green sludge dribbled from their chins, hitting the stone floor with wet, sickening plops.
When the cart rolled up to Su Jin's unit, two splintered bowls were unceremoniously tossed through the bars to the ground.
A massive wooden ladle extended inward, dumping a gelatinous heap of indescribable horror into the wood.
Pinching his nostrils shut, Su Jin leaned in for a visual inspection. The sheer sight of it induced a wave of vertigo.
The substance looked exactly like a bowl of traditional mung bean soup that had been swallowed, aggressively digested in the duodenum, and violently regurgitated.
The textural profile was deeply disturbing.
Blackened husks that vaguely resembled beans were split open. Bloated grains of rice drifted through the sludge like drowned maggots. Clumps of stringy green biomatter clung to the rim of the bowl, perfectly mimicking wet sinus discharge.
Submerged in the depths, he spotted a few macerated purple chunks. They looked terrifyingly similar to sloughed-off intestinal lining.
Frankly, his horizons had been forcibly expanded. He was taking massive psychic damage just looking at it!
To engineer a meal this thoroughly repulsive took real effort. He hadn't felt this nauseated when he was performing field autopsies.
If he needed another reason to execute the prison break, this culinary war crime was it!
"Is this classified as human rations?" Su Jin asked, his voice entirely nasal.
The guard sneered. "First time in the hole, huh? That's what you get for wasting good grain. Eat it or don't. You get one feed a cycle. Skip it, and you can starve to death for all I care!"
Su Jin muttered a localized string of profanity and backed away to his corner.
At that moment, the meditating Du Wenyan opened his eyes. He uncrossed his legs, strode calmly to the bars, picked up his designated bowl, and returned to his spot.
Under Su Jin's stunned, horrified gaze, Du Wenyan gave a slight frown, raised the bowl to his lips, and began gulping down the grotesque slurry.
Three massive swallows later, Du Wenyan paused. He glanced at Su Jin, then pointed a finger at the untouched bowl. "Are you going to consume your portion? If not, pass it here."
"You've clearly hit a caloric deficit. Be my guest..." Su Jin flashed him a thumbs-up, a genuine, profound respect blooming in his corporate heart.
To shovel down that toxic waste without gagging—the man was an absolute unit. Su Jin gladly surrendered the title of the hardest bastard in the room!