The Prison

The two walked out of the room into a dim, narrow corridor. Judging by the layout, they were underground. Lu Yuan had no idea where he had been taken after losing consciousness.

The corridor was long, with other rooms on both sides. One door stood half open, and Lu Yuan saw that the room inside was quite large and lit with candles. More than a dozen cultists knelt in prayer beneath a bird-shaped idol. A sour smell of decay hung in the air.

"By the way, Lu Yuan, have you registered for the college entrance exam yet?"

Guo Huai suddenly asked as they walked.

Lu Yuan worked out the time in his head. By now, Xiao Bing should have registered him on the computer. Without betraying any reaction, he answered, "I have."

"Good. Give me your ID number and password later."

Lu Yuan nodded in agreement, alarmed. He had realized that the cultists in Jiangzhou City were planning to stir up trouble at the college entrance exam.

Otherwise, why would Guo Huai care about his registration and ask for his ID number and password? He certainly didn't think the cult guard was concerned about his studies and future.

Guo Huai eventually brought Lu Yuan to a small room and indicated that this was where he would be staying for a while. Lu Yuan wrote his ID number and password on a piece of paper. Guo Huai took it, locked the door, and left.

"Stay here and wait for orders."

Only when the footsteps had receded into the distance did Lu Yuan lean against the door and let out a long breath. For now, he was out of danger.

Ever since he had formally made contact with the cult, he had been nervous to death. When he was ambushed in the rented room, he had thought he was as good as dead.

He really hadn't expected to make it through. Lu Yuan recalled someone saying, just before he lost consciousness, "There are no signs of a Dantian having formed. He isn't a cultivator."

Luckily, Ji Yin didn't send Shang Qiyuan on this mission. Otherwise, I would have died at the first hurdle, Lu Yuan thought with relief.

He already knew that many staff members of the Internal Affairs Bureau were cultivators, though generally, low-level cultivators didn't count as official cultivators. Low-level cultivators could actually be identified by their appearance: if they wore uniforms, they had metal green-leaf insignia on their chests, some with one leaf, others with two or three.

Ji Yin was the only official cultivator in the Ning City Internal Affairs Bureau. He wore a silver, cross-shaped flower on his uniform, which might have been the mark of a mid-level cultivator.

Even if they were only low-level cultivators, their strength was beyond anything Lu Yuan could match. Any one of them could toss him around like a ball.

The same was true of Guo Huai today. Against that cult guard, Lu Yuan had no room to resist at all.

That was what Lu Yuan currently knew about cultivators, but today he had gained another important piece of information: only someone who had formed a Dantian counted as a cultivator.

As for how Guo Huai had determined that he hadn't formed a Dantian, or how a Dantian was formed, he had no idea. Apparently, those were cultivators' secrets too.

Safe for the moment, Lu Yuan surveyed the room and discovered that it was actually a cell. The door was made of cast steel and had to be opened from the outside with a key. Lu Yuan tried pushing it, but it didn't budge.

There was a ventilation window in the door, with iron bars welded over it. Even a mouse couldn't squeeze through the gaps.

The room was cramped, with a low ceiling and a rough, damp cement floor. A single wire-frame bed took up half the room, and a battered table and chair occupied the other half.

An emergency light hung on the wall, and there was a bedpan under the bed.

"Setting the facts aside, this isn't a bad place to study in seclusion."

Lu Yuan gave a self-deprecating smile. His hard life in his previous life had taught him to find joy amid hardship. Whatever else had happened, Guo Huai had at least left him his schoolbag.

His phone and ID card had both been confiscated, and his house key was gone too. With nothing else to do and unwilling to waste time, Lu Yuan began reviewing physics by the emergency light.

Strangely enough, perhaps because there wasn't much to distract him, he studied more efficiently than ever. Underground, where daylight never reached, Lu Yuan lost track of time as he studied.

He didn't know how long had passed when someone opened the door from outside and brought in a bowl of rice mixed with oil.

"You're quite the diligent student," the visitor sneered.

Lu Yuan looked up at him. He didn't recognize him, so he said ingratiatingly, "Brother, I'm so bored. There's nothing I can do.

"Could you let me pray at the holy statue? I haven't prayed in a long time, and my heart is full of fear and unease."

When cultists were together, their most common activity was kneeling in prayer together, which was devout enough. Lu Yuan had seen a prayer hall when he passed through the corridor, so the request wasn't out of place.

The cultist delivering the food nodded. "I'll report it to the guard."

With that, he left.

The food here was quite meager. Even Lu Yuan, who wasn't a picky eater, had trouble swallowing it.

He ground his teeth as he put his thoughts in order.

From what he had seen so far, the cultists' base in Jiangzhou City was much larger than the one in Ning City. The Ning City base had been no more than an abandoned factory building, with a dozen or so cultists in total.

This place, on the other hand, covered a vast area, and Lu Yuan had only seen the underground portion.

The cult had operated in Jiangzhou City for a long time, so Ji Yin's suspicion that the city was its headquarters for the surrounding region wasn't entirely without foundation.

Lu Yuan's assignment was to investigate the Jiangzhou cult and the operation they had recently been planning.

From the information he had now, the cultists' target was the upcoming college entrance exam. As for what they intended to do, Lu Yuan had no idea. As far as he knew, security for the exam was fairly tight. Two or three cult cultivators would probably have a hard time making much of a splash.

As for the location of the cult's headquarters and the identity of its leader, he still knew nothing. Guo Huai was quite cautious. Lu Yuan had been unconscious when he was brought down here, and heaven knew where this place was. It was hard to say whether it was even within Jiangzhou City.

As for the leader's real identity, it certainly wasn't Guo Huai. He was only a guard, after all, on the same level as Zhang Baocheng.

After sorting out his thoughts, Lu Yuan made some plans for what to do next. He couldn't just wait here forever. Although reading quietly here was quite nice, come on, this wasn't a study room. He didn't even know if he could leave alive.

A chance soon appeared. A string of footsteps approached, and the man who had delivered his meal returned.

"The guard says your faith is firm and has approved your visit to the prayer hall."

"Thank you, brother."

The middle-aged man who delivered the food opened the door, and Lu Yuan walked out. Then he saw the man walk over to his bed and bend down, and he immediately understood.

"Brother, let me do it. I can't trouble you to do something like that."

The room had no plumbing, so the man who delivered the food was also responsible for changing the bedpan. Lu Yuan hurried to pick up the filthy bedpan, much to the man's satisfaction.

"You're a good kid. From now on, just call me Brother Cheng."

"Brother Cheng!"

Brother Cheng led the way, and the two first went to the toilet at the end of the corridor to empty the bedpan.

"Leave it here for now. You can pick it up on the way back."

They then headed back the way they had come, and after a few steps, they reached the entrance to the prayer hall, the same room Lu Yuan had seen when he was brought down.

"Go in, but don't leave. I'll come get you when it's time."