Chapter 857: Chapter 111: Prison Guard
"Go in," Granny Bizhu sighed for some reason before speaking.
Jiang Wang was very skeptical. Once he entered, if Granny Bizhu had ill intentions and closed the stone door, would he still have a chance to rush out? But there was no reason for Granny Bizhu to harm him at this moment.
He had come to the Diao Hai Building openly and upright, and Qi Country was his safety pledge.
So he took the lead and walked down the passage.
Only after entering did he realize that this passageway was not as cramped as it seemed from the outside—it was far more spacious than the scale he had sensed.
Standing outside, after all, one was limited by the size of the entrance, and perhaps part of the reason was an array formation, making it impossible to see clearly. The passageway was actually wide enough for at least four carriages to drive abreast and at least three zhang high.
On both sides of the passage walls, treasure beads the size of grapes were arranged in a mysterious pattern, vaguely forming some sort of design. But the pattern was too stretched out and too distant to be clearly visualized in the mind at that moment.
The worrying event did not happen; Granny Bizhu, leaning on her dragon-headed cane, also entered the passage.
The stone door behind them did indeed rise slowly, but with the elders from the Diao Hai Building at the side, there seemed to be nothing to worry about anymore.
Before venturing deeper, Jiang Wang looked back one last time. Only a crack at the entrance remained, letting through the daylight from outside the prison, which was quickly sealed off by the stone door closing completely.
It gave an inexplicably oppressive feeling, as if some kind of hope had also been extinguished.
"Is the stone door just strong and heavy? That doesn’t seem like it could stop very powerful people," Jiang Wang asked casually.
"Of course, it’s not just that," Granny Bizhu seemed to sense his unease and spoke very kindly, "If it wasn’t me who moved the door just now, the Array Pattern would have activated."
Jiang Wang did not ask indiscreetly about what specific Array Pattern it was but simply stopped and waited a while before walking alongside Granny Bizhu.
After a few steps, Granny Bizhu suddenly cautioned, "If someone talks to you later, just respond politely and don’t offend them carelessly."
This serious attitude was somewhat nerve-wracking.
"Who might they be?" Jiang Wang asked.
"Prison guards," replied Granny Bizhu with just these two words and refused to say more.
Her aged figure continued onwards without stopping.
Jiang Wang had no choice but to follow her deeper inside.
The passageway was long, and as they walked, it sloped further downward. Judging by the distance traveled, they must have been under the sea by now and still descending.
At the end of the long passage was another thick stone door, still unguarded.
Jiang Wang sketched out the pattern of the treasure beads on the walls of the passage in his mind as he had observed on his way down and suddenly realized... it was a dragon!
On both sides of the passage, two divine dragons were outlined with treasure beads!
Double Dragons Guarding the Prison?
The Diao Hai Building really liked to spoil dragons—minting Dragon Coins, building dragon bone ships, using dragons for prison wall murals.
It seemed like in every aspect, they were deliberately echoing the legend of their founding patriarch, "Fishing for Dragons at the End of the World Alone with a Single Rod."
This time, there was no need to push the door; Granny Bizhu just took hold of the ring on the stone door, knocked lightly twice, and then let go.
Suddenly, Jiang Wang felt he was being watched by a cold, sinister gaze. The gaze was like insects burrowing into one’s body, making one extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, the "observation" ended quickly.
Soon after, the stone door was pulled open from the inside.
Standing behind the door, the one who had opened it for them, was a drunkard in tattered clothes. With hair like a bird’s nest, he walked inside without looking back, seemingly not caring what Jiang Wang and the others were there for.
Granny Bizhu didn’t speak, and neither did Jiang Wang.
Not far behind the stone door was a filthy table, carelessly strewn with dominoes.
There were three people, sitting crookedly at three spots around the table. Two were shirtless, each displaying chest hair and flab. The one with clothes on was rubbing his feet.
In any case, each was more disheveled than the next, with wine jars strewn haphazardly under their feet.
They had clearly been drinking and playing Pai Gow before.
These must be the prison guards Granny Bizhu had seriously warned about, completely different from what Jiang Wang had imagined. Only those who could provoke a grave warning from Granny Bizhu would definitely be dangerous individuals. They should, at the very least, look cold and murderous to fit the image.
Instead, they looked like a group of aimless vagabonds.
But Jiang Wang then thought, perhaps it was precisely because they could only idle away here, with no way out, that they were especially dangerous?
The man with the nest-like hair who had opened the door for Granny Bizhu walked straight to an empty seat, belched, and cursed, "Whoever dared to swap my cards, I’ll finish him off!"
Ten steps behind this table was a cast-iron fence. There was only one gate on the fence, which was already open.
Through the gaps in the fence, one could see a long corridor beyond it, except now, instead of walls on both sides, there were cell after cell.
Some cells were occupied, some were not. But all were very quiet.
"Fuck your mother!" the prison guard across from the man with the nest-like hair, who was picking at his feet, cursed: "What’s there to swap with your shitty cards?"
The man with the nest-like hair slammed the table: "So you did look at my cards!"
He mixed up the dominoes on the table with one hand: "You cheated! This round doesn’t count!"
"Dammit!"
The foot-picking prison guard cursed, but clearly accepted it and did not stop the man with the nest-like hair from reshuffling.
Granny Bizhu didn’t greet them and went straight towards the gate in the fence, Jiang Wang silently followed.
"Hey!" Taking advantage of the moment when the man with the nest-like hair was shuffling cards, the prison guard who was picking at his skin gave Jiang Wang a few sideways glances: "Never seen you before, where are you from?"
Jiang Wang thought about Granny Bizhu’s warning and replied, "Linzi."
"Oh, a person from Qi!"
His words didn’t carry any malice, just a simple repetition of information, after which he went back to picking at his skin.
But the nest-like haired prison guard, who had finished shuffling and was stacking the dominoes, suddenly stopped and rubbed his messy hair.
He turned around curiously and looked at Jiang Wang: "Since you’re from Qi, why not tell us, how did Bi Yuanjie die?"
The other three prison guards also looked over, instantly creating a bit of pressure.
"Bi Yuanjie?" Jiang Wang frowned. He hadn’t heard this name before.
"He used to be one of the prison guards here but he escaped," Granny Bizhu’s voice explained from ahead: "Later, he joined Hell Has No Door, and became one of the Yamas. I think he was... the King of Bian Cheng."
The King of Bian Cheng from Hell Has No Door was a prison guard of the Sea Tower!
Each Yama was a Peak fighter of the Outer Tower. That meant the four disheveled individuals playing Pai Gow should also be at that level.
Four Outer Tower Summit fighters acting as prison guards! Including Bi Yuanjie who had fled before, that made five!
The guarding force of the Sea Tower was the strongest Jiang Wang knew of.
But wait...
Jiang Wang suddenly thought again, if that Bi Yuanjie was a prison guard, then why would he need to "escape"?
It was always the prisoners who tried to escape; he had never heard of prison guards needing to escape.
Unless, the prison guards here couldn’t leave of their own volition. They were also subject to some constraints...
While mulling over these questions, Jiang Wang honestly replied, "Apparently, he was crushed to death by the leader of the watchmen in Linhai County with a single blow."
The four prison guards playing cards looked at each other for a while, their expressions a mix of smiling and crying.
And then they continued to play cards without giving Jiang Wang another glance.
