Chapter 4 Mo Men Yi

  In the gloomy, humid and sweltering dungeon of the廷尉府, a peculiar stench wafted through the air, reeking of blood and sweat, accompanied by the faint flickering of torches, making the notorious Qin Central Prison seem like a veritable hell on earth!

  Poor little Fu Su had disheveled hair, bare feet, and wore a dirty white prisoner's uniform. He dragged heavy handcuffs and foot chains, making "clanging" sounds as he struggled to walk in the corridor. "Look, look! Another one, another one!" The originally dull prisoners in the prison heard the news and rushed to the front of the cell to mock: "Wow, it's still a young bird, so small and already caught. What did you do?"

  Fu Su hung his head low, thinking to himself: "For the sake of my mission, I'll endure, I'll endure, I'll endure again!" He clenched his teeth and walked straight ahead without looking around. The sounds of clanging gates, iron chains crashing, and prisoners' cheers filled his ears, almost deafening him.

  Behind Fu Su's back, the prison guard, who looked fierce but was actually terrified in his heart, saw that a group of prisoners had started making a ruckus and were afraid that Fu Su would not be pleased. He hastily made eye contact with several trusted subordinates who knew a bit about the situation. The men understood, widened their eyes, raised the leather whips in their hands, and viciously lashed out at the noisy prisoners. "Ah!……" The prison was suddenly filled with cries of pain.

  Under the policy of flogging by prison guards, soon even the uncooperative prisoners became obedient, shrinking back to the corner of the wall, licking their wounds and quietly asking about the female ancestors of the Nth generation of prison guards. The prisoners who can be sent to the廷尉大牢 are mostly national serious criminals, a group of desperate people, so in order to subdue these people, the prison guards also have to be more ruthless!

  They soon arrived at the cell where Fang Zhong was being held. The prison warden and the guards all drew their swords, as if they were facing a great enemy, fearing that Fang Zhong, this madman, would hurt someone again. With a "clang", the lock was opened, and with a creak, the warden pushed open the cell door. "Go in! Behave yourself!" Fusou whispered: "Kick me once!"

  The prison guard was stunned, not daring to move! "Quick!" Fu Su glared at the prison guard. The prison guard swallowed his saliva, gritted his teeth, and with a fierce expression, he lightly kicked Fu Su's buttocks: "What are you dawdling for? Get in quickly!"

  Fu Su secretly smiled in his heart, taking advantage of the momentum to tumble and fall to the ground. "Rustle rustle, creak" after a burst of noise, the prison gate was locked again. "Go, go, go, let's go have a few drinks together!" The jailer gave a wink to several guards, and they knowingly swaggered away.

  As soon as the prison guard and several guards left, a group of ferocious ghosts and goblins, prisoners with human faces, immediately rushed to the front of the cell, stretched out their hands and frantically waved them in the corridor, shouting: "Haha, you're dead for sure!" "You little boy, what crime did you commit? It seems that no one bribed you!" "You little boy, being locked up with a madman, you're finished!" "Poor little white face! If I can enjoy it before dying, it would be great!"...

  Listening to the crowd of prisoners, Xiao Fu Su, who had never been treated like this before, shrank his head and crouched against the wall, trying to put on a timid and fearful appearance. In his heart, he was shouting: "I can bear it, I can bear it, I'll bear it again! A great man can endure any hardship, for the sake of 'Juzi Ling', I can endure even greater hardships!"

  So, Fu Su pretended to cry while secretly glancing at the strange man Fang Zhong. However, what Fu Su found strange was that the strange man remained with his back turned, lying on a pile of grass in the northeast corner, without even looking at Fu Su once. Although Fu Su was puzzled, he didn't dare make any rash moves, fearing that if he provoked Fang Zhong to go crazy and run wild, it would be disastrous. Therefore, he quietly sat by the wall, waiting for an opportunity.

  Those prisoners shouted for half a day, seeing Xiao Fusuo not speaking, and Fang Zhong also had no reaction, they felt bored too, and returned to the corner of the wall one after another, either closing their eyes to sleep or catching lice and scolding each other with foul language. The prison soon calmed down.

  At the same time, the originally relatively relaxed patrol suddenly became strict, from once an hour to once every half hour. Although the prisoners were a bit strange, no one asked anything. The廷尉大牢 (Ting Wei Da Lao) was equivalent to the Qin State's heavenly prison. Just entering the ordinary cell required passing through three heavy gates and more than ten sentry posts. Outside the prison, there were heavily armed guards. Since its construction, no one had ever heard of anyone escaping alive from here. Therefore, the prisoners did not care how often the patrol was conducted inside the cell; they couldn't escape anyway, so what's the point?

  Fu Su understood in his heart that it was Feng Jie and Dian Yu who were afraid that Fu Su would get into trouble, so they secretly strengthened the protection of the prison cell, but did not dare to be too obvious. They only slightly increased the patrol and had Dian Yu lead a team of people to personally guard the iron gate outside the watch room, in case of an emergency. Moreover, in order to prevent the secret of Fu Su's imprisonment from leaking out, all those who were brought in to cooperate with this action were Feng Jie and Dian Yu's trusted subordinates, so there was no need to worry! Fu Su understood that Li Si had just been appointed as the new Ting Wei and had been driven down by him, so he should not have established any significant power base within the Ting Wei government. On the other hand, Dian Yu, who was born and raised locally, and Feng Jie, who had served as a high-ranking official of Qin for generations, held an absolute advantage in terms of their power base within the Ting Wei government! That's why Fu Su dared to implement his top-secret plan so boldly in prison!

  It's unknown how much time had passed, and although the dungeon didn't distinguish between day and night, Fu Su estimated that night was approaching because his stomach was growling with hunger. Fu Su had also stopped crying a long time ago, as he was too weak from hunger.

  "Bang, bang, bang..." Suddenly, a dull clang echoed from outside the iron door at the end of the cell. The prisoners, who were either sleeping or awake but listless, immediately perked up and shouted in unison: "Hurry up, hurry up, we're all starving to death!" Fusou knew that it was time for dinner!

  A chaotic sound of footsteps came and went, four prison guards carrying two large buckets began to distribute food to the prisoners. As soon as they received their rations, the prisoners immediately squatted in a corner, eating hastily with an appearance of starving ghosts! Before long, the guards arrived at Fu Su's cell door, putting down the bucket of rice gruel and small highland barley buns. Fu Su took a peek: "What the...? A bucket of thin rice porridge and a bucket of small highland barley buns. This is all we get to eat!?" Fu Su couldn't help but feel his scalp tingle with anger!

  "Hey, new kid! Here's your bowl and chopsticks, come get 'em!" The lead prison guard yelled at Fu Su, winking at him secretly. Fu Su understood, slowly dragging his chains to walk over. When he arrived in front of the guards, the lead guard took advantage of the other prisoners' distraction to sneak a small package into Fu Su's hands. Fu Su suddenly caught a whiff of meaty aroma and understood, nodding his head in gratitude towards the few guards. The lead guard yelled again: "Alright, alright, hurry up and finish distributing! We'll go gamble some more!" The several guards carried the rice bucket away.

  Fu Su held a bowl of thin rice porridge in one hand and two small steamed buns in the other, and couldn't help but stare blankly for a moment: "The prisoners eat this? These things can't even fill my own stomach, let alone those big and tall men! Poor people, no wonder they all look like skeletons!"

  Fu Su let out a bitter laugh, and had no choice but to pinch his nose and grit his teeth as he forced down the overcooked rice porridge that was stuck in his throat. It took less than three minutes for Fu Su to finish eating, but his stomach still felt half hungry and half full. Under the temptation of his growling stomach, Fu Su secretly sniffed the meat fragrance in his pocket, discovering it was beef, and couldn't help but drool at the smell, feeling an unprecedented craving and affection for meat. But now Fu Su didn't dare to eat, he could only wait until Fang Zhong fell asleep at night before sneaking a bite!

  After waiting for a while, the food had started to cool down, but Fang Zhong still hadn't taken away the food in front of his cell, whereas most of the other prisoners had finished eating and started sleeping. Fusu couldn't help but feel a bit strange, so he plucked up the courage to quietly walk over, wanting to remind Fang Zhong who seemed to be asleep, and also get familiar with him at the same time.

  "When the sound of "ding-dong" was still three or four steps away from Fang Zhong, he suddenly sprang up, and a pair of shiny black hands shot out like ghosts, straight at Fu Su's throat. It was as if a rainbow had flashed across the ground, whipping up a fierce gust of wind. Fu Su was so frightened that his soul almost left his body, and before he could even let out a cry, he instinctively tried to dodge with an iron bridge."

  Who would have thought that Fang Zhong's hands were so fast, far exceeding Fu Su's reaction speed. Just as Fu Su's body was about to bend down, those two big black hands suddenly clutched Fu Su's throat! Fu Su was terrified and struggled with all his might while trying to shout for help, but unfortunately, Fang Zhong's strong hands tightly grasped Fu Su's neck, slowly lifting him into the air, and completely blocking all of Fu Su's cries for help in his throat.

  In the dark of night, under the faint light, Fu Su couldn't see Fang Zhong's face hidden behind his hair, but he could see a pair of eyes full of aggression in the darkness, shining with a cold glow. Fu Su felt that those eyes were even more terrifying than wild beasts and more cruel than Shang Jun. Under the intense desire to survive, Fu Su began to struggle even harder!

  However, once it fell into the hands of Mo Men's first master 'Jù Zǐ', Xiao Fu Su's struggle could only be in vain. But just as Fu Su's consciousness began to gradually blur, suddenly heard Fang Zhong "hmm" a sound, the iron hand pinched on his neck slowly began to loosen. A moment later, with a "thud", Fu Su, who was almost choked to death, fell from mid-air. "Cough...cough..." Fu Su, who had narrowly escaped death, couldn't help but let out a violent cough, and rolled and crawled to the southwest corner of the wall, desperately gasping for fresh air. In this brief moment, Fu Su felt that he had never been so close to death in his life!

  Fu Su pointed at Fang Zhong in horror, his upper and lower teeth chattering uncontrollably: "Madman, I was kind enough to call you to eat, why do you want to kill me!" Fang Zhong ignored Fu Su and walked to the front of the cell, picked up the cold porridge and bun, and swallowed them down in two or three mouthfuls.

  After finishing his meal, Fang Zhong said coldly with a dirty face: "Don't come near me, otherwise I won't kill you but beat you half to death just because you're a kid!" After eating, he didn't care about Fu Su anymore and lay down on the grass heap again, starting to snore.

  Fu Su's unsettled mind had been going over all the ancestors of the Fang family for generations, and learning from Stephen Chow's portrayal of Wei Xiaobao, he had maliciously arranged a vicious attack on Fang Zhong from childhood to adulthood. After silently scolding Fang Zhong for nearly an hour, Fu Su finally found some balance in his heart.

  Watching Fang Zhongwu sleeping like a dead pig, Fu Su cursed in his heart: "Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, all day and night is just sleeping, even pigs can't sleep that much. If you didn't have the 'Jade Son Decree', I wouldn't bother to accompany you!" Thinking of the 'Jade Son Decree', Fu Su couldn't help but get excited again: "Heh heh, although I had a scare today, at least it's clear that this madman isn't a butcher who has lost his mind, just pretending. Now I have full confidence that this guy who can defeat me with one move is definitely the contemporary 'Jade Son' Fang Zhongwu. But how can I get my hands on his 'Jade Son Decree'?" Little Fu Su couldn't help but start thinking again in the darkness...