Roll call was over.
Li Xiang's assignment today was not patrolling the streets, but guarding prisoners at the prison.
Only three days into his new post, Li Xiang was intensely curious about everything in the Brocade-Clad Guards.
He was unlike the other muddleheaded old hands, who rang the bell for each day they spent as monks, merely going through the motions.
He paid for his meals and stayed out of brothels.
He patrolled conscientiously and taught the street thugs with powerful backers a lesson...
But no one took him very seriously.
The old hands in the Brocade-Clad Guards had seen plenty of people like him.
Who hadn't been a hot-blooded youth with ideals and ambitions when they first stepped into society?
They dreamed of living upright lives and performing their duties fairly.
But after society gave them a savage beating, didn't they all become so-called mature people who drifted with the current?
The prisoners received only two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening.
Li Xiang was responsible for dinner: porridge as thin as it could possibly be, accompanied by a few pieces of salted radish.
The Ding-Character Prison.
As Li Xiang ladled out porridge for the prisoners, he asked curiously, "What crimes did you commit?"
There were rather too many prisoners in this cell.
The person he questioned gave him a timid glance, not daring to answer.
Li Xiang felt something was amiss. He questioned several people in succession, but none gave him the answer he wanted.
In fact, no one even dared to answer him.
"No idea. I was eating noodles when they suddenly arrested me. Perhaps it was because I hadn't put vinegar in them."
Just then, a voice drifted over.
Li Xiang looked toward the voice and saw a man leaning