Sir! Don't close the net!

"The situation is that it's not as simple as it seems; it's very complicated—"

Jeff, with his fingers interlaced, looked somewhat awkwardly at Simon and the other high-ranking prisoners sitting opposite him.

Because it was not convenient for the other members of the Teresa Prison's rule-keeping team to know about the files, Jeff chose to hold the conversation at the ranch that had been developed and was now managed by Simon and others.

Although thinking this way is a bit excessive

But the sight of Simon and the other high-ranking prisoners piled up in front of him without saying a word was indeed terrifying, giving him a strong sense of oppression that he could be attacked at any moment.

Jeff even felt a pang of regret that he should have brought some people with him.

"Leaving aside the lower-level prisoners, the crimes committed by high-level prisoners like you would only take two or three years to be released in other prisons, and at most ten years."

Before Jeff could finish speaking, a prisoner with features resembling a crab or lobster stood up excitedly.

“I’ve been in Teresa Prison for over twelve years! I should have left this prison long ago!”

The other prisoners also began to become restless.

To prevent the prisoners from getting too agitated, Jeff raised his hand to calm them down.

"Regarding this matter, I think there must be some misunderstanding. You were probably detained in Theresa Prison for reasons that are inconvenient to explain in the records."

Jeff observed the prisoners around him, most of whom looked bewildered. This intensified Jeff's ominous premonition. To avoid any uncontrollable problems, Jeff chose to conceal the crime of being the offspring of an evil god from the files.

Jeff wasn't skeptical of the existence of offspring of evil gods, but the constant talk of offspring of evil gods and the influence of evil rituals, coming back and forth like this, meant that even if offspring of evil gods truly existed, they certainly wouldn't be the prisoners of Theresa's Prison.

"Ahem—Anyway, if we don't figure out the real reason you're locked up in Theresa Prison, then getting out is almost impossible. So Simon, let's start with you. I'll help you recall what happened before you were locked up in Theresa Prison and see if we can find any clues."

Jeff coughed heavily a few times.

“Simon, I remember you were imprisoned in Theresa Prison for abusing and killing the sheep that the animals depended on for survival, and also for injuring a few people, right?”

Simon nodded subconsciously, but then immediately shook his head vigorously. "I'm innocent! I didn't kill those sheep, nor did I hurt those people!"

As he spoke, Simon's muscles began to ripple, and his body expanded from two meters to three meters.

“Simon, calm down. The important thing now is to find out why you were put in Theresa’s Prison,” Jeff said, pressing down on Simon’s neck to prevent him from breaking a bone on the spot.

The gentle tone of his voice gradually calmed Simon's bulging muscles.

Seeing Simon relax, Jeff also breathed a sigh of relief, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt a headache coming on when he thought about Simon's pre-prison record, which was more of a perfunctory than vague.

"In short, start with the place of birth and the parents' names."

Jeff took out a notebook and pen from his pocket and tapped the notebook cover with the pen tip.

"There's no need to repeat the old stuff. Try to recall those sudden events, such as who came into your lives or new businessmen who improved your quality of life."

Jeff narrowed his eyes slightly.

The conversation was much more difficult than Jeff had imagined. The prisoners who had been in Theresa Prison for seven or eight years were very insecure when talking about their past, often pausing and contradicting themselves, as if they were recalling a dream.

The words of such prisoners are not worth considering. They have already regarded their past as a beautiful dream. Now that they have the hope of being released from prison, they will only keep beautifying their past life. It is simply a pipe dream to find something unusual.

But Jeff listened carefully to the old prisoners' complaints and fantasies, and also wrote down the parts that were not of any use.

The prisoners who had lived there for two or three years and still had a relatively detailed understanding of their past provided him with a wealth of thought-provoking information.

First of all, these prisoners were ordinary people until they were fifteen years old. However, about thirty years ago, a special custom appeared in their hometowns. This custom was like a seed planted in the soil called society, which quickly took root and sprouted. Its strong convenience soon occupied the living environment of these prisoners, and almost all of the prisoners in front of him were born and raised in that kind of living environment.

Jeff had a bold idea: the reason these prisoners, and even all the prisoners in Theresa Prison, had become like these aliens wasn't because some strange entity had silently invaded their lives, but because they had grown up in a strange environment and then... were triggered.

Jeff ended the meeting near dusk, agreeing to continue it at a later date.

After lingering for a while in front of the comfortable dormitory assigned to him by Teresa Prison, Jeff dragged his tired body to Chrisdorf's cabin. Since Chrisdorf was a good man, Jeff's concern was how to persuade this elderly man, who spent years traversing the cold Teresa Road, not to be too hospitable and offer him his bed.

Fortunately, Li Yili was nearby, so he didn't have to worry about sleeping in a comfortable bed.

"Here—"

Jeff placed the laptop on the windowsill and swiped it to the right. Li Yili, who was standing outside the window, raised an eyebrow, shook the laptop, and said, "You bastard, do you know what you're doing?"

“Treatment of patients,” Jeff sighed, chin in hand, “is far more complicated and worse than I imagined.”

"Aren't you most averse to being overly concerned about a patient?" Li Yili opened her notebook, revealing densely packed, illegible handwriting.

The content made Li Yili's eyebrows twitch. In this world, only doctors themselves can understand what doctors write.

“Yes, it’s a very troublesome and inefficient process, but unfortunately this time it’s a group symptom. Once this problem is solved, all the prisoners will…” Jeff opened his mouth, paused for a while, then turned his head and sighed, “…are probably one step closer to being saved.”

"Click—"

The clock on the wall paused, and Jeff blinked once before the yellow raincoat covered Li Yili's body. The shadows and the starlight shimmering on the edge of the tattered raincoat obscured Li Yili's face. The viscous liquid followed Teresa's path, and a sound rose, terror walking on the earth.

Jeff's slightly widened eyes reflected the yellow fear that instilled awe in the entire Theresa Prison's alien-like inmates, as well as the notebook handed to him. The corners of his mouth gradually drooped.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: You have a really good eye for people!

"That guy mingled with those high-ranking prisoners today, but he's not stupid. This time he changed the location and limited the number of people to two. He spent most of his time receiving those high-ranking prisoners in his office."

Rebecca landed silently on the clothes rack behind Li Yili, bobbing her head from side to side.

Li Yili breathed a sigh of relief.

The guy Rebecca was referring to was Jeff.

As partners in the business of reselling medications for mental health issues, Jeff knew his personality perfectly well.

Seeing that Li Yili didn't speak, Rebecca sat down on the clothes rack, gently swinging her legs.

"That guy wouldn't actually want to get those prisoners out, would he? It's clearly impossible."

Li Yili was taken aback and turned to look at Rebecca. Her surprised expression annoyed Rebecca, who grinned and growled, "Why are you looking at me like that! Did I say anything strange?!"

“I didn’t expect you to be so self-aware,” Li Yili said earnestly. “After all, you look like a problem child among the inmates of Teresa Prison. Shouldn’t an inmate be thinking about escaping all the time?”

“Ha…you mean this,” Rebecca’s ears drooped down. “The only reason I want to leave prison is to live a free life under an assumed name. But look at me, how can I live under an assumed name? I can’t even enter the city. I can only live a life of hiding. Since I can’t walk openly on the street, I might as well stay in this Teresa Prison.”

Li Yili looked Rebecca up and down, crossed her arms and nodded, "What you said does make a lot of sense, but you're still lucky, at least you can pretend to be a wolf or a dog."

“No way—I’m not a wolf, nor a dog,” Rebecca said in a drawn-out voice. “Do you think I haven’t tried? At first you might think you’ve found your ideal world, your ideal life, but the more you try to abandon your human side, the more glaring your human side becomes, and then one day it explodes.”

"Let me make this clear first, I did not experience the kind of dramatic thing that happened where I was discovered by others and my wolf pack was slaughtered. I did it myself. One day, I suddenly developed a strong aversion to the life of the wolf pack and started to question myself constantly, wondering if I had gone crazy for living with a pack of wild beasts for so long."

Rebecca placed her hands on the clothes rack and leaned forward.

"So I killed the entire wolf pack I had lived with, and even now I feel no sadness at all. My only regret is that I should not have lived as a wolf with a pack of wild beasts in the first place."

"No matter how similar they look, they are not the same person."

"Forcing yourself to admit it will only lead to an outburst of irrationality one day. The prisoners in Theresa Prison are not locked up here; we are the only ones who can survive in Theresa Prison."

Li Yili stared blankly at Rebecca sitting on the clothes rack, her hands hanging down and resting on her waist.

"It's really surprising how much you have in your head."

"Cough—what do you mean by that!"

"Alright, I'll remember that you have no intention of escaping. What about the thing I asked you to investigate?"

Li Yili tossed a small cookie, which flew out and landed on Rebecca's lap.

"I said... you don't actually think you can shut me up every time with this method, do you?" Rebecca picked up the cookie, wiggled it from side to side, and flicked it with her finger. The cookie smacked right on Li Yili's forehead.

After tilting her head and thinking for a while, Li Yili turned around, went into the wooden house, picked up a large bag, and threw it onto Rebecca's lap.

Rebecca sneered and pulled open the bag. "You think... you're really good at judging people!"

Rebecca pressed the bag tightly against her stomach, and her tail wagged rapidly behind her.

"So, what about the thing I asked you to investigate?"

“Oh, you mean those guys in yellow? I followed one of them and found out they were in contact with high-ranking prisoners. They were trading some kind of fruit,” Rebecca reached into her bag with her right hand, pulled out a handful of freeze-dried fruit, and chewed it with a crunching sound. “Speaking of which, that fruit looks a lot like the fruit in that rainforest-like cell.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Li Yili grinned.

He had eaten Sif's fruit. Although it was unripe, he had to admit that it was the most satisfactory of all the tributes he had received. But thinking about it, it made sense, since the fruit was the most nutritious part of the entire plant.

现在

The mere mention of Sif's fruit would give him an inexplicable urge to eat another one, but the thought that the fruit came from Sif, who was half-human and half-plant, would dispel that urge.

"So, what do those Yellow-Clad Fools want Sif's fruit for?"

“What else can we do? Of course, we can offer it to the King in Yellow,” Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I don’t know where this came from, but it’s said that the King in Yellow’s true form is trapped in another world and requires enough power and offerings to fully revive him.”

Rebecca paused for a moment, then shrugged.

"Simply put, these madmen have their eyes on the ritual that was accidentally established last time, and they plan to summon the King in Yellow again."

"Let the Yellow King unleash his full power upon the world!"

"That's the feeling."

Rebecca grabbed another handful of snacks and stuffed them into her mouth, chewing them vigorously.

Li Yili raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Are the Yellow-Clad Clan really that loyal to the Yellow-Clad King? So many people died during the accidental summoning last time. Aren't they afraid of being wiped out as well?"

Li Yili felt uneasy because there was no such thing as a summoning ritual for the King in Yellow in this world.

It's one thing if the summoning ritual that the Yellow-Clad Clan put into their work failed.

If someone is manipulating things behind the scenes to profit from it, then things will get complicated.

Of course, the most troublesome thing is that the Yellow-Clad Clan might actually summon something terrifying.

“Who knows—” Rebecca stuck out her tongue. “Only a fool would believe in the King in Yellow.”

“Then let’s get to the bottom of this,” Li Yili said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I have a bad feeling.”

“Hey—since you’re the warden of Theresa Prison now, you can just lock those yellow-clad thugs in solitary confinement with a single word,” Rebecca said somewhat reluctantly.

“That’s the problem. My power was given to me by Warden August,” Li Yili exhaled a long breath. “He could take away everything I brought to Teresa Prison with a single word. But even at that point, I haven’t crossed his line.”

Li Yili paused, her tone gradually becoming serious.

“My current actions are still bringing him unimaginable benefits.”

Chapter Forty: You've been expelled from the Yellow Robe Clan.

Jeff smiled wearily and waved to the departing prisoners. The moment the door closed, exhaustion swept over Jeff like a tsunami. Jeff slumped into his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling. After a long while, Jeff reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Trying to give up..."

Of course, this is just talk. If I really give up, I will definitely spend the rest of my time in silence.

It was precisely because he didn't want to give up that he spoke up. Once he spoke up, he had to face it. Even if he eventually gave up... he could still fiercely despise himself for giving up and learn a lesson.