Black Flame City Prison is located outside Black Flame City. In this era, the towering city walls of Black Flame City were not intended to protect criminals, so the prison was placed outside the city, right next to the west gate. The entire prison was also within the coverage area of Black Flame City's defensive weapons.
Samira, seemingly still worried, followed Zhang Tie and his small squad of soldiers out of the west gate. Only after watching the soldiers complete the handover procedures with the prison guards at the prison gate did she finally breathe a sigh of relief and smile.
Zhang Tie was relatively free when he arrived, but during the prison handover, he was handcuffed and shackled by the prison staff.
The cold iron chains on his feet rattled and dragged on the ground as he walked, quite heavy and causing some discomfort to his ankles. With the chains and handcuffs combined, Zhang Tie suddenly carried nearly twenty kilograms more weight.
The prison in Black Flame City didn't seem to have changed much with the end of the Coal and Steel Union's rule over the city, at least not in this particular prison. Zhang Tie noticed that the prison guards were still wearing their old uniforms.
"How long am I supposed to stay here?" Zhang Tie asked the Norman Empire sergeant who had brought him here.
"Three days. The Military Control Committee will only arrange for Military Tribunal to hear your case after the cases ahead of yours have been tried!" the sergeant in charge patiently replied.
Then Zhang Tie was pushed through the high walls of Black Flame City Prison. Zhang Tie turned around and saw Samira smiling sinisterly at him. In Samira's smile, he saw smugness and the certainty of revenge.
The trial wasn't scheduled to begin for at least three days, so why was Samira smiling like that now? Zhang Tie couldn't figure it out for a moment. But a slight unease settled over him.
"What's this guy doing?" After passing through the cold, high iron gates of the prison, Zhang Tie saw a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a dark red Norman Empire military uniform and bearing the rank of captain. He stood on the stairs of a tower at the prison entrance, looking down at the prison guards who had escorted him in, questioning them. The guards hadn't changed, but there were now soldiers in the Norman Empire uniforms inside the prison; these men were the true rulers of the entire prison.
"This man is accused of harboring hostility towards the Norman Empire and is a potential dangerous element. The Military Tribunal of the Military Control Committee is expected to interrogate him in three days!" The prison guards who escorted Zhang Tie into the prison said as they handed a handover document to the man with great respect.
"Accused of harboring suspicion and hostility towards the great Norman Empire? Is he one of those hot-blooded youths still clinging to the Andaman Alliance?" The middle-aged man's cold gaze swept over Zhang Tie, a strange smile playing on his lips. Then he calmly ordered, "Take him to the largest room on the third floor and lock him up with the other prisoners!"
"Yes!"
The prison's roads were like the mazes in the maze games Zhang Tie used to play. On either side of the narrow passages, which were only two meters wide, were walls more than ten meters high, with barbed wire on top. The towers and watchtowers that looked down from above were connected to the high walls, like small fortresses, guarding the entire prison tightly.
The entire prison is located downwind of the Black Flame City industrial zone. Every breath of air inside seems to carry the smell of coal dust. No one is allowed to go out for fresh air, and there isn't even a designated area for it. The entire prison is like a Stone that has been left here to weather for decades, giving off a strange chill.
Having walked less than a hundred meters inside, Zhang Tie had already passed through three iron gates. Each gate was guarded, and with each gate he passed through, the light became even dimmer, and the murky smell in the air became even more pungent.
Zhang Tie's anklets dragged on the cold, hard cement floor. The clattering sound echoed with Zhang Tie step, reverberating throughout the maze-like corridor.
As he was being pushed into the underground tunnel where only gas lamps could illuminate the path, Zhang Tie realized that the three floors the middle-aged man had mentioned were not the three floors above ground, but the three floors underground.
"What crime has this little guy committed?" At the corner in front of him stood an old man with completely white hair, guarding an iron gate. He was over sixty years old. When he saw Zhang Tie being escorted in, he took out his key to open the gate and asked the prison guards who were escorting Zhang Tie.
"Accused of hostility towards the Norman Empire and being a potential sabotage element, Captain Eugen has ordered us to lock him up in that club on the third floor!"
Upon hearing this, the old man said nothing more, but only looked at Zhang Tie with sympathy before opening the iron gate. As Zhang Tie was being led away, the old man made the sign of the cross on his chest.
Zhang Tie walked a long way down the sloping passageway, passed through three iron gates, and completed an S-shaped downward descent before finally arriving at the third underground level of Black Flame City Prison.
Walking through the underground passage where there was no natural light, the sound of Zhang Tie Tie's leg chains became even louder. The stench in the air was almost suffocating. On both sides of the passage were small cells. Hearing the sound of the leg chains, the prisoners in the cells crowded to the side, looking at the new tenants on the third floor.
The people in the prison were less human and more like monsters. They were ragged, filthy, and stinking. They stared like wolves, their withered hands reaching out like ghosts, clawing wildly at the iron bars of their cells.
Zhang Tie's arrival stirred up a commotion among the people.
"Give him to me... give him to me..." Someone started frantically shaking the iron bars with both hands, "I'll give you anything you want, just give me this kid..."
"Give me..."
"Give me..."
Give him to me...
"Just one day, give me this fragrant little boy, just one day..."
Many people behind the iron bars of the cell wanted to reach out and grab Zhang Tie. They stared at Zhang Tie like hungry wolves, their eyes gleaming, drooling, and uttering all sorts of filthy, vulgar, and cursed words. Some even roared like wild beasts, which made Zhang Tie's face change color.
The people imprisoned here are no longer human, but insane, festering beasts. That's Zhang Tie's feeling. By this point, Zhang Tie had a vague idea of Samira's scheme. Samira did indeed want to use someone else to do his dirty work. The weapon Samira wanted to use wasn't the Norman Empire's Military Tribunal, but this damned prison. He seemed to have already guessed what would happen to him if he were brought here.
Annoyed by the noise, the prison guard escorting Zhang Tie simply pulled out a thin iron bar from his waist and began to violently strike the hands that were sticking out of the windows and through the iron bars.
"This kid's going to be sent to the club. Do you want to go with him?" the guard shouted as he pulled on the bars. Hearing this, the once noisy prison cell fell eerily silent. All the hands withdrew.
This long underground passage was over a hundred meters long. At the end of the passage was a cell. Standing at the cell door, the prison guards who had escorted Zhang Tie Zhang Tie made him stand still and then began to unlock Zhang Tie shackles and handcuffs.
"Kid, don't blame us. We're just following orders. Blame the guy who brought you here from outside!" One of the guards exclaimed as he unlocked Zhang Tie Tie's shackles, "My son was only about your age!"
Zhang Tie's expression was calm and cooperative. "I have a question: what happens if someone dies here?"
"Everyone locked up here is the scum of the earth. No matter how many people die on the third floor, nobody will care!" One of the guards seemed to be trying to remind Zhang Tie, "Kid, if you can get out of here alive, you can walk all over Black Flame City like a madman from now on!"
"I'm not a crab, it's better for me to walk upright..." Zhang Tie said while stretching his arms and legs.
As they were talking, the guard opened an iron gate, letting Zhang Tie walk in. Behind that gate was another iron gate, indicating that this cell had more security measures. The switch for the second iron gate was located outside the first gate. This cell, known as the "Club," seemed to be approached with great care by the guards, who were reluctant to get too close.
After Zhang Tie approached the first iron gate, the people closed it from the outside before opening the second iron gate from the inside.
"You'd better go in yourself. If you don't go in within half a minute, the people inside will force you in, but you'll be in a much worse situation then!" the prison guard outside warned Zhang Tie.
Zhang Tie walked in with an extremely calm expression. This cell was much larger than the smaller cells outside, at least the size of two of Zhang Tie's classrooms in school. More than twenty people were scattered inside, some sitting and some lying down. As he walked through the first door, Zhang Tie could already see the situation inside the cell through the second iron door. When Zhang Tie arrived, a series of heavy, animalistic breathing sounds slowly rose from the quiet cell.
Zhang Tie went inside. The second iron gate was closed from the outside by the prison guards, and then the guards left with noticeably faster steps than when they came in.
A gas lamp was placed on the wall of the passageway between the second and first iron gates, serving as the only source of light in the cell.
Dark, gloomy, and foul-smelling – that was Zhang Tie's impression of the large prison cell known as "The Club."
When the guards' footsteps faded from the sound of their footsteps, a group of people with contorted faces and bloodshot eyes, like wolves eyeing a lamb, slowly began to surround Zhang Tie from every corner of the dimly lit cell. (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote for it on Qidian. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please read on Qidian. com)