I bought a prison in the United States.

Blue Snake first revealed a weakness. His left arm relaxed for a moment after the continuous confrontation. It was only half a second. The muscles relaxed briefly from the state of extreme contraction, and then tightened again.

But in that brief half-second, Ghost Fang's right arm broke free of control.

The metal wire pierced the blue snake's neck, running obliquely upwards from the mandible, penetrating the platysma muscle, and its tip stopped on the outer wall of the carotid sheath.

Blue Snake struggled violently, but was firmly suppressed by Ghost Fang.

"Ugh!"

His mouth opened, but his vocal cords were locked by spasms in his neck muscles, and no sound came out.

As time ticked by, the blue snake's eyes widened, its pupils contracting sharply in the moonlight.

Ghost Fang didn't pull out the metal wire. He left it around the blue snake's neck, then released his grip, letting the snake's body slump to the ground.

The entire process, from start to finish, takes no more than two minutes.

"I won."

Ghost Fang crouched beside Blue Snake, looking down at his face, his voice low and sinister.

The moonlight shone on the blue snake's wide-open eyes, and its pupils began to dilate, losing their contraction response to light.

His lips trembled slightly, as if he were trying to say something, but only some muffled bubbles escaped from the corners of his mouth, carrying a faint rusty taste.

About forty seconds later, the blue snake's lips stopped trembling.

Ghost Fang stood up.

His prison uniform was torn in six or seven places, and blood was seeping through in some places, but he didn't seem to feel it.

His breathing was gradually calming down, returning from the violent panting of the fight to a near-normal rhythm.

Guiya looked down at his hands, his fingers stained with blood, some from the blue snake, some from himself.

Blood appears black under the moonlight, and the viscous liquid slowly flows between the fingers, a sign of life force slipping away.

He wiped his hands on the blue snake's blanket, then turned and walked out of the cell.

The corridor remained quiet.

The breathing of 63 prisoners rose and fell... no, now it's 62.

Some people did wake up during those two minutes; they may have heard or felt something, but they chose to continue pretending to be asleep.

In prison, pretending to be asleep after hearing strange noises in the middle of the night is a survival strategy that has been preserved through countless rounds of natural selection.

Those who hear it may survive, while those who get involved may get caught up in it and then disappear.

Ghost Fang walked along the corridor deeper into the prison area.

The fight had depleted his energy reserves, and his footwork was no longer as precise and stable as before.

Occasionally, the toes will scrape against the ground when they land, making a slight rustling sound.

He walked past his own cell number twenty-eight without going in, and passed by "Three Dogs'" cell without stopping.

Ghost Fang continued walking towards the end of the corridor, where there was a ladder leading to the roof maintenance access.

The ladder was covered by an iron plate, and there was a padlock on the iron plate.

He took the thing he'd gotten from the chair in the duty room out of his pocket, but it wasn't a flashlight.

Besides a flashlight, there was also a flathead screwdriver on the chair in the duty room, which the prison guards used to repair their glasses.

He glanced at it as he passed by, and his hand made a decision faster than his brain.

This is the result of street survival training.

When something valuable comes into your view, you must assess its value and decide whether to take it within a fraction of a second.

Hesitation means loss!

He inserted a screwdriver into the gap between the padlock's clasp and the lock body, and pried it open forcefully!

The tolerance between the padlock clasp and the lock body is large, so it can be pried open with a flathead screwdriver and sufficient lever force.

With a "click," the padlock popped open.

He pushed aside the iron plate, grabbed the first horizontal bar of the ladder, and began to climb upwards.

1:40 a.m.

Wade stood by the window of the duty room, looking at the safety light at the end of the corridor.

He seemed to have heard something.

No, he didn't hear that, that's the strange thing!

The resonant sound from the ventilation ducts that should have been present in the confinement area corridor suddenly disappeared for about ten seconds, and then returned.

This change is so subtle that it would be impossible to notice it during the day, in an environment with running machines and noisy people.

But in the absolute silence of the early morning, every sound has its fixed location and rhythm.

When a sound suddenly disappears, even if you are not aware of its existence, your brain will sense that something is wrong.

Wade's sense of this was something he had accumulated over eight years of working night shifts, and it had almost become an instinct for him.

Just as an old fisherman can smell the change in salt content in the air before a storm, an old miner can feel the movement of water veins in the rock strata above his head.

He picked up the walkie-talkie:

"Coffee".

Kofi's voice came through the walkie-talkie:

"exist."

Where are you now?

"The connecting passage between Zones C and D... Jackson and I are together, what's wrong?"

"To the detention area, now!"

Wade did not wait for Coffey's reply.

He tucked the walkie-talkie back into his waistband, took a flashlight from the drawer of the table, and walked out of the duty room.

His steps were quick, but he wasn't running.

In prison, running means an emergency.

An emergency can trigger a chain reaction, causing prisoners to wake up and become agitated, taking the opportunity to do things they wouldn't normally dare to do.

An old prison guard will never run unless the fire is already at his eyebrows.

This is both a rule and a gesture.

Posture is a control tool.

He walked down the corridor of the prison cell block.

Moonlight shone on the iron fences on both sides, casting neat striped shadows on the cement ground.

Most of the prisoners in the cell were still asleep, their breathing steady.

But Wade noticed that the breathing in several cells was too steady, unlike natural sleep breathing.

True sleep breathing involves irregular fluctuations, occasional pauses, and turning over.

Breathing that is too even is usually a sign of faking sleep.

But he did not stop to inspect the cells.

Now is not the time.

He walked to the entrance of the restricted area corridor.

The passageway door was open.

Oops!

Wade already had a bad feeling and moved his hand to the baton at his waist.

He didn't pull it out, but his fingers were already gripping the non-slip texture of the handle, ready to pull it out at any moment.

He walked into the corridor of the restricted area.

The light from the safety lamp shone on the four iron gates.

Gate 1 is closed, Gate 2 is closed, Gate 4 is closed.

Gate number three is open!

Wade walked to the door of cell number three and shone his flashlight inside. The cell was empty, which made his face turn pale.

The plate was placed in the corner, the bread was torn into pieces, and a film had formed on the surface of the porridge.

There were some new scratches on the wall, and he could tell at a glance that they weren't made with fingernails, but with metal plates!

The scratches formed some simple patterns: a circle, a triangle, and a number.