The Truth Comes Together and the Abuse Escalates

Daylight filtered through the narrow wire-mesh window high in the wall, sparingly casting a few bleak patches of light, but it could not dispel the chill and despair pervading Cell 107. The air still reeked of sweat, feet, and urine that even bleach could not mask, stifling enough to make anyone sick.

Lin Feng lay awake on the cold communal bunk. His eyes were sunken, ringed by heavy, almost black shadows, as though he had stayed up for several nights in a row. The words "clean up the trash," which he had overheard the night before, stabbed at his nerves again and again like a poisoned ice pick, bringing waves of physical revulsion and the exhaustion that followed violent rage.

He had barely slept all night.

Clang- The iron door opened, and the guard's hoarse wake-up call sounded like a death warrant.

"Everyone up! What are you dawdling for?!"

The prisoners rustled as they got up. Scar yawned and stretched, his gaze passing over Lin Feng, who still lay motionless. His mouth curled into a nasty grin.

"Hey! Dead? Still not awake?" Skinny Monkey caught on at once and sprang over to kick the edge of Lin Feng's bunk. "Get the hell up! Fuck, looking at you brings bad luck. You're just like a plague god!"

Slowly, with immense difficulty, Lin Feng sat up. His movements were sluggish, his eyes vacant, like a puppet drained of all life. His distracted, listless appearance immediately drew more mockery.

"Oh, what happened to you? Did a female ghost really suck out your yang energy last night?" Iron Head jeered in his rough voice.

"I reckon he went stupid with joy thinking about scrubbing toilets! Hahaha!" Skinny Monkey chimed in.

Lin Feng turned a deaf ear to all the taunts. He silently folded his blanket, silently followed the line to wash up, and silently ate his bowl of gruel, thin enough to see his reflection in. His soul seemed to float in midair, looking down coldly at the body that bore every humiliation, while he saved all his energy for the coming night and the eavesdropping link that led to the truth.

The daytime hours crawled by in torment. During recreation, he still huddled in a corner with his head lowered, indifferent to everything around him. Scar and the others found him increasingly boring, and even humiliating him seemed to have lost its appeal.

Yet beneath that outward stillness lay a volcano about to erupt. Every splash of filthy water as he scrubbed the toilet, every mouthful of pigswill-like food, every obscene insult he heard was like fuel added to its crater. And the words "clean up the trash" he had heard last night were the lava, boiling ceaselessly.

At last, night fell again.

The cell lights went out, and darkness and snores arrived as expected. Lin Feng closed his eyes almost instantly, sinking his entire consciousness into the link.

At first, the signal was still a jumble of background noise and inconsequential chatter from her roommates. Minute by minute, time passed, until Lin Feng was almost beginning to wonder whether he would get nothing tonight-

The crucial moment arrived without warning.

It seemed to be that close friend's voice, lowered almost to a whisper, with a hint of curiosity and probing. "Hey, Tingting, seriously... that time in the library, did he... actually touch you or not?"

The question was so direct, so naked!

Lin Feng's heart skipped a beat, and he held his breath completely! Here it was! This was what he had been waiting for!

A suffocating silence fell on the other end of the bug. There was only the faint hiss of electrical static, and... what seemed to be Sun Tingting drawing a soft breath.

A few seconds stretched as long as a century.

Then an extremely faint scoff, filled with boundless contempt and disdain, came through clearly.

"Pfft-as if he fucking touched me!"

Three words! Perfectly clear! Like thunder exploding in Lin Feng's mind!

"With a cowardly face like his, would he have dared even if you gave him ten times the courage?" Sun Tingting spoke in a light tone, as though recounting something amusing. "I just saw him sitting close and suddenly screamed, that's all. He was so scared he went dumb and couldn't even get his words out. Teacher Li happened to arrive just then, so I went along with it and cried, the more pitifully the better... See? Didn't it work pretty well?"

She even gave a soft laugh, as though boasting about a successful prank.

Boom-!!!

Though he had expected it, hearing her admit this outright fabrication in person, in such a relaxed, careless tone, still sent blood rushing to Lin Feng's head. His vision went black in an instant, and intense dizziness and suffocation seized him!

It was true! It really was true!

Every injustice, every ounce of anger, every bit of pain had received the cruelest confirmation at this moment!

He bit down hard on his wrist, using the searing pain to fight the urge to roar out of control! His body began shaking violently and uncontrollably, as if gripped by malaria, and cold sweat instantly soaked his prison uniform!

On the other end of the link, the conversation continued.

Her close friend seemed stunned for a moment, then clicked her tongue. "Holy shit... that was ruthless of you... But Teacher Li Jing just believed you? And even made him write a confession?"

A trace of smugness entered Sun Tingting's voice. "Her? She's shrewd. At first, of course she wanted to smooth things over. But... my uncle called her afterward... and she immediately became 'reasonable.' She even offered to help me figure out how to get that idiot to write the confession willingly. Hee-hee."

"Uncle," "called," "offered to help"...

Every word was like a sledgehammer crashing into Lin Feng's heart! It was not just a false accusation. There was also the intervention of power behind it, and a teacher who should have set an example helping a tyrant do evil! This was a thoroughly and carefully woven trap!

After that extreme rage, a hair-raising, icy stillness swiftly swept through his body instead. His trembling stopped, and his sweat turned cold. In the absolute darkness, his eyes became like two bottomless pools of ice, without the slightest ripple, holding only pure killing intent condensed to its utmost.

He was no longer angry. He had simply... remembered.

Sun Tingting. Li Jing. And that so-called "uncle."

Not one of them would escape.

Just then, something unexpected happened in the cell!

Perhaps Lin Feng's violent trembling, which he had not been able to fully suppress, had caught the attention of Skinny Monkey, who slept beside him on the bunk. Skinny Monkey already resented him for taking up space and making it hard to sleep soundly, and being awakened sent him into a rage.

"Fuck! Why the hell are you shaking in the middle of the night instead of sleeping? In heat or something?!" Skinny Monkey cursed in a low voice, viciously lifting his foot and kicking Lin Feng hard in the lower back through the blanket!

The kick was forceful, and it struck a soft spot.

"Ugh!" Caught off guard, Lin Feng let out a muffled groan of pain and curled up sharply!

The disturbance immediately alerted Scar, a light sleeper.

"What's all the noise?!" Scar growled impatiently.

Skinny Monkey immediately complained, "Brother Scar, this bastard won't sleep in the middle of the night. He's shaking all over the place and making a fucking racket! Even a kick won't make him behave!"

Scar sat up in the darkness, his gaze sweeping coldly toward Lin Feng. He felt that this newcomer had been getting more and more "disobedient" lately: glaring at him yesterday, and causing trouble in the middle of the night today.

"Looks like we didn't tire you out enough during the day, if you've still got energy to act up at night." Scar's voice was icy. "Fine, you like shaking, do you? Skinny Monkey, teach him a lesson."

At the order, Skinny Monkey immediately grew excited. He climbed down from the bunk, yanked Lin Feng's blanket away, and threatened him in a low voice, "Get down here! Kowtow to Brother Scar and bark like a dog a few times. Do that for waking Brother Scar, and we'll call it even! Otherwise, I'll make you scrub the floor with your hands again tomorrow!"

Bark like a dog?!

The extreme humiliation surged up again, but this time, the icy killing intent in Lin Feng's heart instantly overwhelmed everything else. He had just heard with his own ears how he had been framed, and now he was to be humiliated like a dog?

He did not move. He only raised his head slowly. In the extremely faint light, his icy, lifeless eyes, devoid of human emotion, stared straight at Skinny Monkey.

Skinny Monkey felt a chill under that gaze, but with Scar backing him, he forced himself to curse, "What the fuck are you looking at? Hurry up!"

As he spoke, he reached out to grab Lin Feng's hair.

Just then, Lin Feng's hand shot out-not to fight back, but to seize the battered plastic bucket beside his bunk with lightning speed, the one used as a toilet at night! There was still nearly half a bucket of murky cold water in it!

Before either Skinny Monkey or Scar could react, Lin Feng swung his arm up-

Splash-!

A whole bucket of icy, urine-reeking wastewater splashed squarely over Skinny Monkey's head, face, and body!

For an instant, Skinny Monkey was stunned! Completely stunned!

The icy wastewater streamed down his hair and cheeks, its nauseating stench rushing straight into his nose.

The entire cell fell silent in an instant, too! All the prisoners who had been awakened stared at the scene in disbelief, dumbstruck!

This "plague god," who had always submitted to everything, actually dared to resist?! And in such an extreme way?!

"Fuck your mother!!" It took Skinny Monkey two seconds to react. He let out an earthshaking shriek and roar, wiped the wastewater from his face, and was about to lunge forward like a madman!

"Enough!" Scar suddenly growled, his voice carrying a barely perceptible trace of suspicion and anger. He stared fixedly at Lin Feng.

After throwing the water, Lin Feng had curled up again, hugging his knees and burying his face in them, his body trembling slightly. It was as though that one act had used up all his courage, and he had reverted to his cowardly self.

Only he knew that his trembling was not from fear, but from an intensely suppressed, almost insane desire to destroy, surging through him!

Scar looked at the drenched, disheveled Skinny Monkey, trembling all over with rage, then at Lin Feng, curled up and motionless. His expression was frighteningly dark. For the moment, even he could not tell whether the newcomer had suddenly erupted or been scared witless.

"Fuck..." he muttered. "Skinny Monkey, shut up! Go wipe yourself clean! Keep making noise and none of us will get any sleep!"

He put a lid on the matter for the time being. It was not because his heart had softened, but because he felt there was something strange about Lin Feng at that moment. That icy gaze had made him uneasy. He decided to give him a proper "lesson" tomorrow.

Skinny Monkey was so angry he nearly spat blood, but cowed by Scar, he could only grit his teeth and look for something to wipe himself with, a sorry sight.

An eerie silence settled over the cell again. Only Skinny Monkey's heavy breathing and the sound of water dripping onto the floor remained.

Lin Feng stayed curled up, his face buried in his knees.

But inside him there was only icy stillness and a list of hatred, clearer than ever.

Sun Tingting. Li Jing. Uncle.

Scar. Skinny Monkey. Iron Head.

One by one, he had committed them all to memory.

He slowly unclenched his fist. Deep bloody marks scored his palm where his nails had dug in.

Waiting.

He only needed to wait for an opportunity.

The next summons would come soon.

Night passed slowly amid crushing oppression and surging undercurrents. The venomous serpent of revenge lay coiled in silence, calculating the weight of every measure of hatred.