Era of Magic and Martial Arts-Chapter 234 - 218: Sending Him Off, The Value of a Discarded Piece
In the office of the division head, Chang Wei appeared extremely fatigued.
The call display on the table showing "Sister" kept vibrating, but Chang Wei ignored it, having no mind to answer the phone.
His face was covered with stubble that hadn’t been shaved for days, as he sat in the large leather chair, looking at Ma Xuan beside him with a gloomy expression, his voice deep and slow:
"After this is over, you plan to arrange a long vacation for me, don’t you?"
Ma Xuan wore a fake smile and said:
"Yes, Feng Mu is Li Bashan’s junior brother, and Li Bashan has joined the Prison Director. If something happens to Feng Mu in your division, regardless of evidence, both the Prison Director and Li Bashan will hold you accountable."
Ma Xuan paused for a moment, then continued,
"Zhou Hu will give you a break afterward, which is like letting you avoid the wrath of the Prison Director and that brute Li Bashan directly, it’s for your sake, don’t overthink it."
Chang Wei smoked one cigarette after another, and remarked in a hoarse voice with a cold smile, "So, once I return from my vacation, I can still have my current position?"
Ma Xuan seemed to expect this question, and replied without hesitation, "Your position is secure, this vacation is just to temporarily keep you away from trouble, once you return, everything will be as before."
Ma Xuan hesitated slightly, then, to reinforce the persuasiveness and credibility of his words, deliberately emphasized his tone and added:
"As long as Zhou Hu is still in his position, no one can dislodge you from yours."
Chang Wei did not respond to Ma Xuan’s assurance, he just silently smoked, his eyes filled with struggle, as if pondering over something deeply. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂
The atmosphere in the office turned heavy, with only the ticking clock reminding them of passing time.
Suddenly, Chang Wei pressed the cigarette butt heavily into the ashtray, seemingly having made a final decision.
He stared straight at Ma Xuan, speaking with an emotional tone: "I remember when you first came to the Second Prison to work under me as a guard, who would have thought that today, it would be you sending me off, haha—"
Ma Xuan, filled with emotion as well, consoled: "It’s just a break, once the dust settles, you’ll be back."
Chang Wei laughed maniacally as if he heard a funny joke, while Ma Xuan remained awkwardly silent beside him.
After a while, Chang Wei stopped laughing and rejected the call on his continuously vibrating phone, the phone wallpaper showed a photo of him with his sister and nephew.
His sister divorced early, and Chang Wei never married, so he always regarded Cang Qingsen as his own.
Chang Wei glanced at the phone screen and, with a hoarse voice, said: "I, Chang Wei, may not be as smart as you, but I’m not a fool either, I can feel the wind in the Second Prison is changing."
"Forget it, I won’t say any more, just convey to Brother Zhou Hu for me, I don’t ask anything of him, but I only have this one nephew, let him remember what he promised me?"
Ma Xuan nodded, as he had his first child just two months ago, so he deeply understood and sympathized with Chang Wei’s feelings.
Chang Wei suddenly stood up, ripped off his prison guard uniform, tossed it onto the sofa, and then strode out while replying to a text message.
——Send him on his way!
Ma Xuan slightly shifted his body to make way, meanwhile, his peripheral vision unintentionally swept across the phone screen, and a fake smile appeared at the corner of his mouth:
"Leaving in such a hurry, don’t you want to stay to see the result?"
Chang Wei paused slightly in his steps, letting out a cold laugh: "With all the effort of drugging, tampering with the stun baton, and continuous fatigue bombardment, with all the groundwork I’ve laid, can Feng Mu possibly live?"
"Since he’s going to die, what’s the point of watching the body, after all these years of seeing corpses daily in the Second Prison, I’m already fed up with it."
Ma Xuan frowned: "I meant, he did replace your nephew’s spot after all."
Chang Wei sneered: "That’s why I agreed to this job. But, someone who comes to prison for a few days, can’t collect a penny, and is reluctant to beat the prisoners, do you think he’d strike my nephew just for a mere quota?"
"Of course, he took my nephew’s spot, so he ought to die, but the ones more deserving of it are those backing him, whether it’s Li Bashan or the Prison Director."
Chang Wei didn’t wait for Ma Xuan to speak and stared at the latter’s eyes behind his glasses, emphasizing word by word: "Isn’t this what you told me?"
Ma Xuan remained silent.
Chang Wei showed a skin-deep smile and said: "Alright, I should go on vacation, you figure out the arrangements for collecting the body yourselves."
Bang!
With a heavy sound, the office door was slammed shut.
Outside the door, Chang Wei’s voice faded into the distance: "Hey, sis, don’t overthink, I just spoke with the leadership at the Second Prison, he will definitely help me find Aomori..."
Ma Xuan stood in place, listening to that voice gradually disappear at the end of the corridor, finally, he slowly took out his phone and edited a message, sending it to two people:
——Everything proceeds as planned, Chang Wei has gone on vacation.
Prison Chief’s office.
Zhou Hu picked up the phone and glanced at it, then stood up and walked to the window, gazing at the giant iron gate below the high walls, shortly after, he saw the gate open just wide enough for one person to pass through, and a lonely figure walked out.
The iron gate closed, severing that figure from the inside forever.
Meanwhile, in the Prison Director’s office.
Behind triple-layered explosion-proof glass, Qian Huan sat in front of the computer manipulating the mouse, switching to the surveillance at the entrance.
Focused and enlarged through the surveillance, Qian Huan saw far more clearly than Zhou Hu, he could even see the slight, unnatural twitch of the corner of Chang Wei’s eye muscles as he stepped through the iron gate.
"It seems our Division Chief Chang Wei is very reluctant to leave our prison, but unfortunately, as a pawn, sometimes being abandoned is his greatest value."
Qian Huan turned off the screen, then deleted the message on his phone, smiling as he spoke to Forensic Doctor Qin Liang outside the explosion-proof glass.
Qin Liang sat on the sofa outside the glass, sighed after hearing this, and said: "Poor Chang Wei, after doing dirty and tiring work for Zhou Hu for over a decade, this is the end he meets, it’s tragic."
Qin Liang paused his speech, then turned his tone slightly: "So, is Feng Mu the pawn chosen by you, Prison Director Qian?"
Qian Huan pondered for a moment, then laughed: "Not really, Feng Mu was never my person, how could I abandon him, at most I was secretly stirring things, wanting his death to activate another piece I had in mind."
Qin Liang uttered a name from his mouth: "Li Bashan!"
Qian Huan laughed: "Does Forensic Doctor Qin honestly believe Li Bashan’s capability is just a registered fourth rank?"
Qin Liang pondered momentarily: "The real world, after all, isn’t a game, grades and levels aren’t something that displays directly above one’s head like game characters. We can only judge based on paper records, as for authenticity or timeliness, they can all be artificially manipulated."
Having often tampered with the causes of deaths in corpses, Qin Liang understood the nuances quite well, if even dead people can be tampered with, isn’t there even more room to maneuver with living ones?
Qin Liang hesitated and asked: "So, do you think Prison Director Qian that Li Bashan has hidden his true power?"
Qian Huan, with no solid evidence but trusting in his acute sense of danger, laughed lightly: "I’m not sure, but I feel if Li Bashan is used properly, he can be very sharp."
Qin Liang stopped asking further, saying: "Understood, I’ll make Feng Mu’s autopsy report complete and impeccable."
Knock knock knock!
Just then, a knock suddenly interrupted their conversation.
Immediately after, a figure that Forensic Doctor Qin Liang would never have imagined walked in...
