I bought a prison in the United States.

There was a fluorescent light on the ceiling of the interrogation room, black at both ends, with a tired grayish-yellow light in the middle.

The light bulb probably hadn't been changed since the year Reagan took office, and it was buzzing loudly, like a fly with its wings swatted flat, still making its last struggle.

Montes sat in the iron chair welded to the floor, two red marks already visible on his wrists from the buckle.

The souvenir of Kofi's punch still clung to the corner of his mouth, a trace of blood clot frozen on the edge of his lower lip.

His expression remained composed, with a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth, revealing a calmness that made one's teeth itch.

"Boss, even if you lock me up until I die, I'll still say the same thing."

Montes raised his head, his eyes fixed on Ringo:

"I can't stand you, what did I do wrong?"

"Shouldn't I have at least a little backbone?"

His voice bounced back and forth in the sound-absorbing cotton-covered walls, becoming muffled and deep.

Lingo stood opposite him, two steps away.

There was no second chair in the interrogation room; this was intentional, as the person standing always had a psychological advantage over the person sitting.

He understood this principle back when he ran a factory in his previous life. Back then, when he was standing in front of his desk reprimanding the workshop director, the director, who was sitting in a chair, naturally lost some of his imposing presence.

"You can't stand me, so you'd rather destroy everything you have?"

Montes scoffed, a sneer escaping his throat with a hint of contempt:

"What do I have to destroy? Points, solitary confinement, that weekly pack of cigarettes?"

"Boss, you don't really think these things are that important to me, do you?"

"When I was out there, the money I lost in one night was enough for you to supply the entire prison with cigarettes for a month."

He spoke with such conviction that even he himself found it believable.

But Lingo has figured out this trick in the last few weeks: the tougher a person is on the outside, the less "pretending" they are on the inside.

Because true strength doesn't need labels; what needs labels is just self-encouragement.

"Boss, let me handle this. You have to be tougher on this kind of person."

Coffey stood by the door, his fist still clenched, his knuckles cracking.

He wanted to give this guy another hard punch, the kind that hits where it hurts and makes you curl up like a shrimp. He'd done it countless times, and it always worked.

Montes instinctively shuddered; if he were to take another punch, he'd probably throw up everything he'd eaten the day before.

But he quickly got hard again, "Come on, come on!"

Lin Ge snorted coldly and slowly raised his palm:

"You can go out now."

Kofi, who was rubbing his hands together in anticipation, paused for a moment, "Boss..."

"go out."

Coffey hesitated for a moment, then nodded and stepped outside.

The iron gate closed, compressing the entire room into a closed space for just two people.

Montes looked surprised; he hadn't expected Ringo to clear the area.

Leaving a prisoner alone with the warden in the interrogation room is against the rules, as anyone who has worked in the prison system knows.

Either this Chinese man is highly skilled and daring, or he simply doesn't care about the rules.

Montes leans towards the latter.

This Asian man has never played by anyone's rules since day one.

"What, boss, you want to beat me up yourself?"

Montes chuckled knowingly, lifting his chin to reveal the scar on his neck:

"Let me tell you, you can't beat me."

"I fight in underground boxing matches, not cardio boxing in the gym."

Lin Ge didn't respond to his comment.

He took half a step forward, getting closer to the iron chair, then bent down to align his line of sight with Montes'.

At this distance, he could see his own reflection in Montes' pupils.

Montes' breathing rhythm changed, a signal that adrenaline was starting to be released, and his body was preparing to deal with some kind of threat.

However, he didn't actually take Ringo seriously. In terms of physique, Ringo was far inferior to Kofi.

Coffey could easily handle Montes, but Montes was equally confident that he could easily handle this skinny-faced monkey as well.

As soon as he makes a move, I can find the right opportunity to punch that disgusting face hard!

Let him know the consequences of being smug in front of me, even if it means being locked up for it, it's still a win for him!

But to everyone's surprise, Lingo did not make any move; he simply closed his eyes.

This action startled Montes slightly.

Do they close their eyes during interrogation?

What kind of approach is this?

No one closes their eyes when facing their opponent.

Isn't this just making yourself a target?

At this moment, Lin Ge imagined his consciousness as a hand reaching into the drawer in his mind that stored emotional specimens.

The "guilt" extracted from the anxious businessmen at the Chamber of Commerce.

The "guilt" extracted from those prisoners who trembled after being caught red-handed.

There was also that dark gray "self-reproach" floating above Mrs. Martha's head.

She always felt that she hadn't been able to give her children a better life, a feeling as intense as undiluted ink.

Ringo dredged these things out of the depths of his consciousness bit by bit, and then stuffed all these emotions into Montes' brain at once.

Montes' body stiffened abruptly.

The vein in his neck throbbed, and then his entire shoulder shrugged forward as if someone had slapped him from behind.

"..."

Montes' pupils suddenly contracted, as if something had suddenly exploded in his brain.

Lin Ge opened his eyes, stood up straight, and began to speak:

"Montes, I never imagined you were this kind of person."

He didn't angrily question the other person; his tone was filled with a sense of disappointment and frustration.

It's like a father watching his son squander his tuition at the gambling table, too weary to even scold him, only able to let out a sigh:

"I've given you a private room and an extra fifty points compared to other prisoners."

"That's a full fifty points. You have to work ten days straight at the factory to earn that."

Montes's smile faded slightly, and his expression became somewhat strange.

On one hand, he found what Lin Ge said ridiculous, but when he wanted to laugh, he suddenly couldn't laugh and didn't know why.

He felt as if something strange was churning inside his body, affecting his thinking.

Looking at the other person's expression, Lin Ge sneered inwardly, "Let you taste what it's like to be forced into moral blackmail."

"Think about it carefully. I'm the one who lets you smoke a pack of Marlboro every week, and it's not even the cheap kind that prisons issue, made from scraps of paper."

"When you got your cigarettes last week, you even told Coffey that they were good. Did you think nobody heard you?"

Montes slowly lowered his head. He had forgotten whether he had said those words or not, but he couldn't think of them now.

His jaw was clenched, his masseter muscle bulged out, forming a lump on the side of his cheek, making his expression even more distorted.

Ringo was still listing all the "benefits" he had given Montes:

"Because you are part of the technical team, I have given you priority treatment in the medical room."

"You don't need to wait three days for your toothache; you can see a doctor on the same day."

"Have you forgotten how you crouched in the corner of your cell last month, burying your face in a pillow, when you had a toothache?"

Tommy took you to the medical room, prescribed you ibuprofen, and you even thanked him.

Montes' eyes started blinking more frequently.

When a person is unwilling to face a certain fact, they will subconsciously increase the number of blinks, as if trying to fan the image away from their field of vision.

The feeling of "gratitude" was amplified to an extreme degree, as if the ibuprofen had saved his life and he should feel honored for it.

"But how did you repay me?"

A crack appeared in Ringo's voice, and what leaked out from that crack was something Montes could hardly bear, causing his heart to pound.

"You betrayed this prison! How can you face your conscience?!"

Montes opened his mouth, his tongue already pressed against the roof of his mouth, ready to let out the cold laugh he had been brewing for so long.

He mentally encouraged himself, "What kind of benefits are these?"

Solitary confinement?

He lived in a house with a swimming pool, although he never went into that pool from the time it was filled until he moved out.

Fifty points?

Outside, he used money to bribe everyone; the Serbian bar owner in northern Tulsa took his money without batting an eye.

One pack of Marlboro cigarettes a week?

He was smoking cigars he brought back from Cuba outside; one of them was enough to buy three packs of Marlboro cigarettes.

These thoughts stood before him like shields, each one polished to a shine, enough to block any questioning.

However, the shield did not stop it.

That attack bypassed his reason, bypassed the defenses he had built for himself, and went straight to his soul.

It's like the cold winter wind seeping into the cracks in the wall little by little, and by the time you realize it, the whole room is already chilly.

The sneer caught in his throat, failing to become a sound; it merely rolled around on his Adam's apple, and then…

He felt a sense of guilt.

"I……"

Montes suddenly felt a tightness in his chest. He tried to take a deep breath, but could only inhale half of it, the other half being blocked by an invisible piece of cotton.

He looked down at his hands.

Those hands were still soldering circuit boards last night.

He remembered the team leader's praise and the circuit boards he had soldered day and night.

He let down the technical team, and he let down those circuit boards!

He ruined those hands!

It wasn't the circuit design that ruined it, it was a phone call.

He listened to the stranger's words during a phone call that lasted less than three minutes, without even knowing what the other person looked like.

Besides hating the prison and Ringo, there were other reasons.

Parole.

He was so desperate to get out that he was willing to sacrifice the interests of the prison just to get out.

Now, Montes feels that everything he did was wrong, that he shouldn't have done it, and that his conscience wouldn't allow him to do it!

He turned his hands over and looked at the lines on his palms.

The grooves were worn smooth by the handle of the soldering iron, leaving thin calluses, and there were also several scars left from burns caused by soldering.

He destroyed those scars, even though they really hurt when they were burned.

But he still believes that he has ruined the only skill he could rely on to make a living after leaving this place!

"I...I..."

Montes' breathing began to quicken.

He couldn't get enough air in through his nose, so he opened his mouth, looking like a rotten fish thrown ashore.

The damp cotton in his chest cavity was still expanding, making his ribs ache.

He tried to recapture that expression from before.

The curve of his lips that he had practiced countless times, the smile that made him look like he didn't care about anything.

But his facial muscles wouldn't obey him; they were frozen in place, like a machine whose power had been cut off.

Then, tears welled up before he could understand.

"I...I'm sorry~"

The tears he shed at that moment had nothing to do with a tough guy with broken ribs.

It's like a child who has done something wrong, and after being scolded by their father, they break down and shed pathetic tears.

It came without any warning.