Chapter 34: Chapter 34 The Filthblood Reaper_1
Hearing Veronica’s exclamation, Aiden just calmly glanced at her, "She has been living next to you this whole time, and you only just noticed?"
Veronica looked at Avansa, who was shrinking in her cell, with a face full of shock. When she was in jail as a death row inmate, she had never paid attention to the other prisoners.
At that time, she had no desire to interact much with these criminals, so she also never noticed that the girl next door was so young—she appeared to be no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, wearing the smallest size prison uniform, with bandages wrapped around her face and hands.
Avansa felt her gaze and turned her head to look over, her expression calm like a pool of stagnant water, "Is there something?"
"No..." Veronica subconsciously shook her head.
Avansa mechanically turned her face back and continued to stare at the wall opposite her bed.
Veronica instinctively felt an extremely unusual aura emanating from the girl. There was no hint of humanity in the girl’s tone or demeanor, just an extreme calmness as if all emotions had been erased, like a machine.
"Her situation is a bit special. She hasn’t reached the age to work, but she’s also one of the prisoners who help me with things, so she doesn’t need to work. She just needs to receive correctional education on time, and someone will come to take her to class at 8:30 every day," Aiden explained to Veronica.
The world’s prison laws were not so meticulous and lacked a dedicated institution for juvenile offenders. How to manage juvenile offenders like Avansa was a dilemma for most prison managers.
But for Aiden, it was not particularly troublesome, after all, he still had the experience from his previous life to draw upon.
"She’s helping you with things too? What can such a young child do?" Veronica was surprised.
"Don’t say that, this child is my ace enforcer," Aiden smiled.
Veronica was stunned, "Enforcer!? She..."
"She’s a notoriously high-risk offender," Aiden nodded, "Have you heard of ’The Filthblood Reaper’ who was arrested by the Heretical Judgment Bureau two years ago?"
"Of course, isn’t that an S-level wanted criminal?"
"That’s her," Aiden said nonchalantly.
Veronica looked at Aiden with a bewildered face. After a few seconds, Aiden nodded at her, "It’s true."
This time, Veronica’s expression solidified completely due to shock.
During her time as a mounted police officer, Veronica had heard of the name "The Filthblood Reaper."
"The Filthblood Reaper," reportedly the acknowledged king of assassins in the underworld, began his activities about four years ago. He was only active for less than two years, but the number of people who died by his hand was in the triple digits, without exception, they were all influential figures, the wealthy, or other top-tier criminals. He completed many legendary assassinations by himself and was issued an extravagant bounty.
About two years ago, the Heretical Judgment Bureau announced that their elite forces had caught "The Filthblood Reaper," but all files on "The Filthblood Reaper" were then sealed by them. To this day, most people still believe "The Filthblood Reaper" has been secretly executed while some believe that this king of killers is nothing but an urban legend.
Veronica could never have imagined that the legendary King of Assassins was actually in the prison she had been transferred to work at, and furthermore... that he was such a young child.
"She helped quite a bit when we looked into your case before, but I can’t reveal the details. If you want to thank her, you could buy her some snacks, but don’t let the other prisoners see," Aiden whispered a few words in Veronica’s ear, "Alright, let’s move on to the next place."
After leaving the core area, Aiden took Veronica to the workforce area where the prisoners participated in labor.
"This is where the prisoners work. Our prison’s workforce area is divided into three parts: one is the textile workshop, another is the garden for cultivating flowers, and then there’s one for assembling children’s toys. We mainly supply some of the flower shops and clothing workshops in Silvertown..."
"The prison also operates industries?" Veronica was somewhat surprised, as this was the first time she had heard of such a thing.
"Yes, each prison has its own industries. Thorn Iron Prison, for example, has quarries and carpentry workshops. With hundreds to thousands of prisoners in a prison, all of them are labor forces; it makes no sense to leave them idle—they’re not here for a vacation. Having them work not only subsidizes some of the prison’s operating costs but also allows some of the idle prisoners to learn a trade and accumulate some work experience. Besides the work in the workforce area, cleaning the prison, and various miscellaneous jobs are also the prisoners’ responsibilities."
Veronica nodded and began to observe the situation inside the textile workshop: it was a small workshop with about fifty workstations where prisoners sat in front of sewing machines, handling fabrics with uniform movements, monitored by only two guards.
"On workdays, prisoners assemble at seven o’clock to start work, begin working at around seven-thirty, and finish at four-thirty. Overtime is common. After work, the schedule is similar to what you’ve experienced before: time for meals, exercise, showering, and the remaining time can be spent in their rooms or they can apply to go to the reading room. At eight-thirty in the evening, we do roll call, and at nine o’clock, lights out—it’s roughly like this."
Aiden explained the prisoners’ workday schedule to Veronica in one breath.
"I understand," Veronica answered quickly; after all, she had spent time in prison herself and was familiar with the routine, except for the work details.
"The textile workforce area is basically arranged with two surveillance posts per workshop. If there’s any trouble, one handles it while the other remains on guard; prisoners are taken to the restroom in batches every hour on the hour, and there’s a one-hour lunch and exercise break at noon," Aiden explained, then turned around and waived his hand, "Let me take you to the other areas now, and tell you what to pay attention to at each post."
They left the textile area and entered the prison’s main building, heading for the other workforce areas.
As they walked along the corridor, they saw an elderly prisoner with handcuffs and shackles, escorted by two guards, approaching from the opposite direction.
"Ah, Warden, what a coincidence," the old man said with a genial smile at Aiden.
"Prisoner 1081, oh right, you’re ’leaving’ today," Aiden remembered something, nodded, then tipped his hat to the old man, "Take care on your way."
"Sure, sure," the elder nodded back and then glanced at Veronica twice, "The girl is quite new here."
"A newcomer," Aiden casually replied.
"Very nice, very nice, and quite good-looking," the old man’s eyes squinted into a smile, "Young lady, do your best."
"Um... thank you," Veronica said, somewhat stunned.
"That’s enough, it’s about time for you to go," Aiden indicated towards the other end of the corridor.
"Yes, farewell, Warden," the old man bowed slightly to Aiden and walked slowly towards that direction with the guards’ escort.
