Jiang Feng knew he couldn't let Uncle Huo keep fussing over him.
Otherwise, even if he avoided the risks in prison, getting tripped up by Uncle Huo would be a huge loss for little gain.
That morning, he allowed Uncle Huo to catch that he could consciously move his eyeballs.
By noon, he let Uncle Huo notice he could blink.
By nightfall, both his eyes could move freely—these changes made Uncle Huo especially excited, and he didn't dare show any carelessness with the medicine, preparing it twice a day. He even took it upon himself to massage Jiang Feng's legs and shoulders, worried that his Qi and blood wouldn't flow, and his body would stiffen from lack of activity.
By the morning of the third day, Jiang Feng couldn't hold in his piss and shit anymore and could only slowly try to sit up.
Uncle Huo was scrubbing the toilet, grinning from ear to ear.
Another day passed, and Uncle Huo could support Jiang Feng while they soaked up the sun in the yard, giving himself time to go home and check on things.
Just like that, seven days passed.
Jiang Feng could finally walk, though he still looked weak and short of breath.
Uncle Huo couldn't rest easy, coming by twice a day to decoct medicine for Jiang Feng, sometimes bringing a few eggs or buying a fish to nourish his body.
In the blink of an eye—
Counting from the day Jiang Feng "fell" at the door and hit his head, ten days had passed.
Today, Uncle Huo returned to the cell block.
Jiang Feng checked his system panel information.
Name: Jiang Feng
Fortune: 732
Cultivation Technique: Prison Guard Health Care Skill (Proficient+)
Skills: Prison Guard Long Fist (Beginner+)
Realm: Eighth Grade (Bone Refining)
Divine Power: Immortality
Starting from the seventh day, Jiang Feng found that his Fortune Point barely changed, reckoning the trouble in the cell block had passed. On the tenth day, he finally let Uncle Huo return to the cell block to work.
"Last time the house got robbed and I nearly lost my life, and I only gained two hundred or so Fortune Points. This time, the Fortune I've gotten is even more than last time. Looks like the trouble in the cell block was even more dangerous than before."
"But I still don't know exactly what happened."
"If Uncle Huo comes back tonight, I'll go check it out tomorrow."
Jiang Feng mused silently.
"Let's see how much strength I can boost."
Staring at those seven hundred-plus Fortune Points—
Jiang Feng directly dumped five hundred points into Prison Guard Health Care Skill.
The panel content instantly changed.
Name: Jiang Feng
Fortune Point: 232
Cultivation Technique: Prison Guard Health Care Skill (Mastery)
Skills: Prison Guard Long Fist (Beginner+)
Realm: Seventh Grade (Marrow Refining)
Divine Power: Immortality
As expected, with the improvement of Prison Guard Health Care Skill, Jiang Feng's realm changed as well. Just as he wished, he became a Seventh Grade Marrow Refining Martial Artist.
He noticed the plus sign behind Prison Guard Health Care Skill disappeared. Deep down, he calculated that when it appears again, perhaps it'll take a thousand Fortune Points or even more to upgrade.
But Jiang Feng wasn't in a rush.
He had immortality.
With time on his side—time no one could imagine—he could slowly grind away. As long as he keeps dodging risks, sooner or later, he would amass an unimaginable amount of Fortune, enough to become the number one master of the Great Tang.
The two hundred or so remaining Fortune Points, Jiang Feng kept in reserve, not using them on Prison Guard Long Fist.
For now, upgrading his realm and strength was the priority.
If there's ever a real emergency and he needs to boost Prison Guard Long Fist, he could do it then—no need to hurry now.
Night.
Uncle Huo came out of the cell block.
He specially dropped by to check on Jiang Feng, saw that Jiang Feng had recovered, and decided he could return to work tomorrow. Uncle Huo left at ease.
Jiang Feng walked Uncle Huo out to Chaoyang Alley.
As for what happened in the cell block these past ten days, Jiang Feng didn't ask; he didn't want to ask, couldn't ask, and wouldn't dare ask about it.
In any case, he'd be back in the cell block tomorrow.
Whatever oddities inside, if Uncle Huo could spot them, so could he.
The next morning, at the crack of dawn, Jiang Feng put on his Little Prison Guard Uniform and headed straight for Zhenbei Prison.
Same as usual—
He first completed his assigned duties: cleaning the workroom, wiping down the torture instruments, then pushing the wooden wheelbarrow loaded with empty wooden buckets and basins to pick up rice porridge. Within the allotted time, he distributed the porridge to prisoners in thirty cells.
Last time, Yang Qi was locked in Cell 6.
Jiang Feng paid special attention.
What he discovered was—
From Cell 1 to Cell 10, all ten prisoners were gone without a trace.
Yang Qi was also missing.
Only, the walls in Cell 6 seemed recently whitewashed—spotless and gleaming.
Normally, every cell had all kinds of marks carved and doodled by prisoners bored out of their minds.
For Cell 6 to have such clean, polished walls—not only the first level, but even on the second or third levels, there were probably few cells like this.
What's more, Jiang Feng personally handled food delivery for Cell 1 to 30—he knew this stretch better than anyone.
But seeing that Cells 1–10 were empty of prisoners, Jiang Feng dared not think too deeply. To avoid attention, he kept pushing his wheelbarrow without pause, heading straight to Cell 11.
Cell 11 held a deaf and blind middle-aged man. Rumor was he wanted to redeem his indenture but didn't have enough money, so his master stabbed out his eyes and deafened him. Whether there were other secrets, Jiang Feng hadn't asked, and only caught some fragmented tales from other prison guards.
He placed the rice porridge inside the cell.
Then rapped hard on the iron bars.
The vibrations helped the man sense something was different. He groped for the bowl and began savoring its taste.
Jiang Feng kept pushing his cart, delivering porridge cell by cell to all those still occupied.
Next, he discovered that Cells 12, 13, and 14 were also empty.
When the deliveries were done, he pushed the cart back to the workroom. This time, he did not even glance at Cell 6, as if nothing unusual had ever happened.
Returning to the workroom—
Uncle Huo was already inside, washing wooden buckets.
Jiang Feng didn't see Niu Wang,
Nor did he see the prison guard who'd been transferred here recently to cover for Da Zhuang.
Other than Uncle Huo, all the Little Prison Guards in their workroom were unfamiliar faces. Everyone greeted each other, but no one gossiped about what had happened lately inside the cells.
Who knew if they had sensed something, or if they were just new to Zhenbei Prison and were unaware of recent events.
In any case, Jiang Feng kept his nose out, focusing on doing his job as always.
And so, half a month drifted by.
In Dragon Capital, countless women from the pleasure houses threw themselves into the city moat. The reason—renowned talent Yang Qi, after getting drunk last night, fell into the moat and drowned. The news spread, and all his admirers were cast into grief.
There was weeping in every brothel.
Back in Zhenbei Prison, the guards gossiped about Yang Qi's infamous exploits. Many sighed with feeling—Yang Qi lived a worthy life. Even dying as a drowned ghost, he was a flamboyant drowned ghost.
Jiang Feng also played along and chimed in a few lines.
He expressed deep envy for Yang Qi's romantic antics, sometimes slapping his own thigh in mock excitement and lamenting how others' lives could make one die of jealousy.