Warden of the Beast World: Everyone is a Hakimi

The central observation room is located on the top floor of the main building of Prison Zero. The entire curved wall has been transformed into a holographic monitoring screen, with hundreds of split screens displaying the situation in every corner of the five observation areas in real time.

The air was filled with the slightly bitter aroma of coffee. Lu Yu sat at the control panel, holding a freshly brewed cup of hot coffee, preparing to begin his routine morning inspection.

His gaze habitually swept first towards Observation Zone Five—Cangming's pool. Over the past eleven days, this scene had remained almost unchanged: the deep water, the blurry figures motionless at the bottom, and the steady but continuously declining vital signs data.

Every morning when he sees this scene, he mentally calculates: how many days are left? The longest a mermaid's lungs can tolerate holding their breath is fourteen days; beyond that, tissue damage will be irreversible.

He has submitted three reports to the military requesting mandatory intervention, but the military's response has always been, "Wait a little longer, the Haiyuan royal family won't be in trouble so easily."

Lu Yu picked up his coffee cup and brought it to his lips, his gaze unconsciously sweeping over the live feed from Observation Zone 5, before he froze.

In the scene, a petite figure wearing a dark blue prison warden uniform is standing by the pool, holding an absurdly long metal pole with a net attached to the top—the kind of landing net that ordinary people use to catch fish in shallow rivers.

The net was firmly covering Cangming, one of the Empire's only three SS-level combatants, the first heir of the Sea Abyss Royal Family, and the absolute ruler of the deep sea. Ye Tang was bent over, his feet digging into the ground, his face flushed, as he pulled Cangming towards the shore like a net of sardines.

"puff--"

Lu Yu sprayed a mouthful of coffee onto the control panel.

He frantically grabbed a few tissues to wipe the keyboard, spilling a few drops of coffee on his gold-rimmed glasses, but he didn't bother wiping them away, his eyes glued to the screen.

In the scene, Ye Tang had already pulled Cang Ming out of the water. With one hand, she was pinching the mermaid's chin and pouring nutrient solution into his mouth, while with the other hand, she took out a bunch of emerald green plants and stuffed them into his mouth.

Cangming—the Cangming who even sent an S-level pacification officer from the military to be repelled by his mental force field—was actually chewing. He chewed. He swallowed.

Lu Yu took off his glasses, wiped them haphazardly with his sleeve, put them back on, and leaned closer to the screen. The monitoring data for Cang Ming's mental breakdown was flashing in real-time on the adjacent secondary screen.

The curve had remained stable at 95 for the past twelve days, like a straight line nailed to its top; it was still 95 when he checked it this morning. But now, that line is declining. 94, 93, 91, 89—the numbers are still dropping, though the rate is slowing, but each jump makes Lu Yu's pupils contract.

He abruptly pulled up the monitoring data from the other four observation areas. Jingyao, down from 89 to 86. Hanzhou, down from 91 to 88. Lingshou, down from 88 to 85. Chiheng, down from 93 to 90.

All five collapse value curves plummeted downwards simultaneously within the same timeframe. Lu Yu leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the temples of his glasses, his mind racing.

His initial reaction was to use banned drugs. Indeed, a banned drug known as the "King of Tranquilizers" circulated on the Imperial black market, capable of forcibly suppressing mental turmoil in a short period of time, causing the collapse value to drop precipitously.

However, the side effects of that drug are extremely severe. Orcs who have used it even once will suffer an even more ferocious backlash after the effects wear off. At best, it will cause permanent damage to their mental domain; at worst, it will turn them into mindless mad beasts. Moreover, orcs who have used the forbidden drug will have obvious symptoms—dilated pupils, abnormal body temperature, confusion, and alternating periods of mania and lethargy.

He pulled up the behavioral monitoring footage from the five observation areas and zoomed in on each one. Jing Yao lay sprightly in front of the glass wall, his amber tiger eyes clear and bright, even rhythmically tapping the ground with his front paws—a habitual action when he was in a good mood.

Han Zhou did not remain hidden in the shadows as usual, but paced back and forth in the observation area with an elegant and powerful gait. Ling Shou circled in the air, its flight path steady and regular, unlike the erratic and reckless flight before the riot.

Chi Heng tucked his tail feathers and quietly squatted on the rocky hill. The surrounding temperature sensors showed that his body temperature had dropped by nearly ten degrees compared to usual, which was close to the normal body temperature range of a Vermilion Bird.

As for Cangming—in the picture, he is floating on the water, his upper body lying on the shore, and his fish tail swaying slowly and rhythmically in the water, as if he is playing in the water.

No one exhibited any symptoms of the banned drug's side effects. Everyone was conscious, emotionally stable, and behaving normally, even calmer than when they had been given sedatives.

Lu Yu picked up the coffee cup, wanting to take another sip to calm his nerves, only to find that the cup was empty; he had sprayed the entire sip onto the control panel.

At 2:14 PM, Lu Yu's personal computer rang. The caller ID made his hand hover over the answer button for a second—Jing Yao.

From the day Marshal Jing Yao of the Third Legion of the Empire was imprisoned in Prison Zero, the initiative on this communication channel has always been in the hands of the prison authorities, and no inmate has ever taken the initiative to call.

Because they come here to exile themselves and wait for their collapse, no one in the room is in the mood to chat with the management.

"Marshal, what are your instructions?" Lu Yu answered the communicator, his tone remaining as calm as ever.

Jing Yao's voice was deep, with the unique chest resonance of the Tiger Clan, but at this moment, there was no suppressed rage or dangerous hoarseness in his voice; instead, it was steady, clear-headed, and full of energy.

He didn't exchange pleasantries, make small talk, or even explain why he had suddenly returned to normal communication; he went straight to the point: "What was that green plant the female brought this morning?"

Lu Yu tapped his fingers lightly twice on the temple of his gold-rimmed glasses. His gaze swept across the monitoring data on the secondary screen—all five curves had dropped below 85: Jingyao 82, Hanzhou 84, Lingshou 81, Chiheng 85, and Cangming 86. The data he had seen that morning was neither an illusion nor a malfunction of the equipment.

"I don't know," Lu Yu answered truthfully, his tone tinged with consideration. "Based on the information we have so far, those aren't standard prison supplies; they were brought by Warden Ye Tang himself. Let me confirm—Marshal, are you feeling alright?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the communication line. Then Jing Yao's voice came through again, carrying a tone of almost reverence that Lu Yu had never heard from anyone before: "No. That plant is even more effective than the Radiant Repair Fluid and an S-level healer combined."

When Lu Yu put down the personal terminal, his fingers unconsciously tapped a few times on the control panel. The Brilliant Repair Fluid was the Empire's top-tier mental energy repair agent. The cost of one vial was equivalent to the annual fiscal budget of a small town. There were only three S-level healers in the entire Empire, and each of them was a national treasure-level resource that all the major families would fight tooth and nail to keep.

Jing Yao, the marshal of the Third Legion of the Empire who never bothered with pleasantries, compared a bundle of unknown green plants to these two things and said that the effect was even better.

He removed his coffee-stained gold-rimmed glasses, took a spare pair from the drawer, and put them on. His slender fingers brought up Ye Tang's file on the personal terminal, adding a highly confidential note in the remarks column. Then he opened the financial and personnel systems and began filling out two forms.

At this point, two hours had passed since Ye Tang finished delivering food and pushed her empty cart back to the living area.

Ye Tang was busy in the yard. Behind her small gray-white detached house was a large open space with a lush old tree whose canopy, like a giant umbrella, provided a large area of ​​shade.

The moment she saw the open space, her farming DNA and foodie DNA kicked in simultaneously—such a large open space, with shade and lawn, it would be an injustice not to use it for a barbecue.