Chapter 290: Chapter 290 Infiltrating the Enemy’s Ranks_1
At seven o’clock in the evening, during the night shift, in the warden’s office.
Aiden sat at the desk, placing the processed documents to one side. Now that he had settled into the prison for the time being, he had slowed down his work pace a little for the day, but by now, all the work that needed to be done had been completed.
Then, he picked up a stack of papers on the desk, which were applications submitted by the inmates that evening. Normally, this would be work for the following morning, but he was free at the moment and didn’t mind handling it ahead of time.
He went through them one by one, stamping some with a seal to indicate approval, and rejecting others by signing his name on them. For some that made strange requests, he also had to write additional disciplinary decisions.
As he flipped through to a certain page, he paused.
The application read: "There is an inmate in the core area planning a large-scale escape, come to me if you want to know the details."
The applicant was inmate 3005, Ophelia Callado.
Aiden examined the application with interest.
He had anticipated Annie Drake’s attempts to sabotage her during the escape. Veronica had reported that when Annie was hanging out with the pair of small fry from cell six, he already had a rough idea of what Annie was planning to do.
But the fact that Ophelia would actually offer to come forward as an informant was really unexpected.
He could guess why Ophelia would know that someone was planning to stir up trouble in the prison – likely because Annie and the two small fry had deliberately sought her out for the escape plan.
The inmates in the core area didn’t know that Ophelia had changed her attitude, and to them, she was still the "Gopher Prince" who, after being tormented by the warden, harbored deep-seated hate against him and repeatedly fought and failed in escape attempts, one of the most restless sparks among the core area inmates.
After pondering for a moment, he stood up, left the office, and called for a guard, asking her to confirm the whereabouts of inmate 3005 in the core area. At this time, during the inmates’ evening activities, those with normal privilege levels could apply to be taken to the reading room, and some were scheduled for vocational training classes. Of course, most inmates would choose to stay in their cells.
Soon, the guard returned: "Warden, inmate 3005 went to the reading room."
"Bring her here, I have something to ask her," Aiden instructed, then added, "Oh, and when you call her out, make sure not to tell her it’s me looking for her. Just say there is an update needed for her commissary account, and she needs to come out to confirm it... just figure out some other plausible reason."
If Ophelia had successfully penetrated the troublemakers’ group, carelessly summoning her out in the name of the warden could possibly startle the conspirators.
The guard saluted and left, and about five minutes later, Aiden saw Ophelia in the interview room.
"Speak," Aiden got straight to the point as soon as the other had sat down across the metal table.
"Telling you everything counts as a meritorious deed?" Ophelia asked, crossing her arms and tilting back her head, "Can it reduce my sentence? Or improve my privilege level?"
"The tables have turned; it’s really you who will be subjected to a good interrogation if you don’t tell me, and if you’re not forthcoming, you’ll be held accountable," Aiden felt both annoyed and amused by her demeanor, "Discovering illegal conduct within the prison and proactively reporting and confessing is already a duty. Don’t take what you ought to do for granted and use it to make demands."
"You’re trying to pull a fast one, huh!?" Ophelia glared at him, "I got inside the enemy’s ranks for you, obtained first-hand information—"
"Those idiots came to you on their own, didn’t they?" Aiden interrupted her.
"Still, that counts as helping you, doesn’t it? Are you trying to deny me that credit? Are you singling me out!?" Ophelia said, puffing up with anger as she started pounding on the metal table.
"You call that an accomplishment? Do you think earning merits is that easy? Commutation of sentence has to follow the basic law." Aiden knocked on the tabletop with his knuckles, gesturing for Ophelia to calm down, "At the very least, you have to put in the effort to prevent other prisoners from breaking out before you can be considered to have earned merits. Yes, just like the time Asenna hit you with a ’Wraith’s Howl’..."
"Don’t bring that up. It annoys me just thinking about it," Ophelia’s face darkened.
"What I mean is, if others can do it, so can you. The key is..." Aiden spoke earnestly, "to find the right opportunity. When someone tries to break out, the organizer of the break becomes a walking opportunity for leniency."
"I have to act at that moment to count?" Ophelia caught on, her brow furrowing with suspicion, "Would you grant me casting privileges then?"
"That depends on how cooperative you are now," Aiden replied leisurely, "Actually, we’ve been aware of their plans to organize a breakout for a while, but since you know more specific details... it’s time for you to come clean."
"Alright. To put it simply, that new pirate made a bold claim that she has people on the outside coming to break her out and when they do, she intends to release all the inmates in the core area. Today, she even rounded up a few people, egging them on to cause trouble once they are out," Ophelia explained briefly.
"Besides you, who else have they approached? You should have figured that out."
"Of course."
"Good, then make a list for me." Aiden pushed paper and a pen in front of Ophelia.
After a brief hesitation, Ophelia began to write, and quickly a list materialized.
Aiden glanced through it and noted that the number of people was not small. After all, despite any improvements in morale, this core area still housed the most violent offenders. There were quite a few who would take any opportunity to slip away, and even think about getting back at the prison, including several dangerous red-alert-level convicts.
Indeed, it seemed better to deal with it sooner rather than later... One must be cautious about a Drake break, but the inmates in the core area of this prison were also nothing to scoff at.
In that case, the information provided by Ophelia was quite important.
"You seem to have forgotten what we just agreed on," Ophelia reminded him.
"I will give you the chance, but the opportunity to earn merits at that point will be very limited; it could very well be a case of too many monks and not enough porridge. You’ll have to seize the moment yourself. Plus, you must only act when I say you can, until then, you can play along with them," Aiden directed, then gave her a smile, "Regardless, evolving from someone who gets sold out and still counts the money for others to actively selling others out, you’ve indeed become smarter. That’s commendable."
"Hmph, don’t bring up the past just to mock me; I’m only looking out for my own interests," Ophelia sulked.
