Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 385; Reclaiming 9

Black Water Ridge’s reputation was known to anyone with even passing familiarity with the city’s criminal justice system. It wasn’t just uncomfortable or unpleasant, it was genuinely dangerous. The maximum security wing housed the city’s most violent offenders, people who had nothing to lose and no incentive to follow civilized rules. Wealthy businesspeople thrown into that environment typically didn’t fare well. The guards couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protect inmates from each other completely. Violence was common. Wealthy prisoners made attractive targets for robbery, assault, or worse.

Lin Feng had made countless enemies over his career. People he’d cheated in business deals, competitors he’d destroyed, employees he’d exploited. Word of his presence in Black Water Ridge would spread within hours. And then.....

"Please," Lin Feng said again, and this time all pretense of pride or dignity had completely evaporated. His voice broke, tears beginning to stream down his face. "Please, I’m begging you. Give me more time. Let me make more calls. Let me reach someone who can help. I can pay... I have money, substantial resources. I can arrange bail if someone would just answer. Just give me a few more hours to find legal representation. I can’t go to Black Water Ridge. You don’t understand what will happen to me there. People there... they’ll know who I am. They’ll...."

"Mr. Lin," the officer interrupted, not unkindly but with finality, "we’re not the ones making these decisions. The court has issued transfer orders. Our job is to execute those orders. Whether you go willingly or in restraints is your only remaining choice."

"I have a daughter," Lin Feng tried one more time, his desperation so complete now that he was barely coherent. "Shuyin. She’s at my house. She has to be there. If you could just send someone to bring her here, to make her understand, she doesn’t know what’s happening. If she knew I was in this situation, she would help. She’s my daughter. She wouldn’t abandon me like this. There must be some explanation. Maybe she’s not receiving my messages. Maybe the staff isn’t telling her. If someone could just...."

"We are not a messenger service," the officer said firmly. "And we cannot compel family members to assist you. If your daughter chooses not to respond to your calls, that’s a personal matter between you and her. It has no bearing on this transfer."

Madam Chen began crying again, her body shaking with sobs that had been building since the moment they’d realized their grandson was missing and wasn’t coming back. "This can’t be happening," she moaned. "This can’t be real. Yesterday we were... we had everything. Our grandson, our home, our position. How did it all disappear so quickly?"

"The baby," Lin Feng said suddenly, latching onto something, anything that might provide leverage. "We were only violent because we were searching for our grandson. Any parent would react the same way. The child disappeared under impossible circumstances. We were distressed, not criminal. Surely that context matters. Surely the temporary emotional distress in the face of the missing family is understandable...."

"Save it for your hearing," the officer interrupted. "We’ve heard every excuse. The fact remains that you assaulted multiple people and destroyed property. Your emotional state doesn’t excuse violence against innocent hospital staff who were only trying to do their jobs."

He nodded to his fellow officer, who stepped forward with handcuffs. "Are you going to come quietly, or do we need to use force?"

Lin Feng looked at those handcuffs and something inside him seemed to break completely. His legs gave out and he sank back onto the cot, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs he could no longer contain. This was impossible. This couldn’t be happening to him. He was Lin Feng... wealthy, powerful, and connected. People like him didn’t end up in maximum security prisons. People like him had resources, had lawyers who moved mountains, had influence that made problems disappear.

But his lawyers weren’t answering. His house wasn’t responding. His daughter, the one person who should have been rushing to help, who had access to his accounts and his connections and everything needed to resolve this nightmare, was seriously sick in the hospital while the other one was silent. Completely, devastatingly silent.

"I’ll come quietly," he finally whispered, the words barely audible through his tears. What choice did he have? Resisting would only add more charges and make everything worse. And somewhere in the shattered remains of his rational mind, he still clung to the desperate hope that this was temporary. That once he reached Black Water Ridge, once he had access to phones there, once he could finally connect with someone who would help, surely then this nightmare would end.

He had no idea yet that the secret chamber hold up discovery had fundamentally changed his situation, that public outrage was building into a firestorm that would make bail impossible, that prosecutors were already building cases designed to ensure he never walked free again.

The officers helped him stand, he was shaking too badly to manage it alone, and secured the handcuffs around his wrists. In the adjacent cell, Madam Chen was similarly restrained, her crying now reduced to quiet, broken whimpers.

They were led through corridors filled with other detained individuals who watched with varying degrees of curiosity, contempt, and satisfaction. Wealthy people brought low always made for entertaining viewing. Outside, a transport van waited, its windows barred, its interior divided into secure compartments designed to prevent any possibility of escape.

As they were loaded into separate compartments, not even allowed the comfort of proximity to each other, Lin Feng caught a glimpse of the city outside. Normal people going about normal lives, completely unaware that the man watching from behind barred windows had been one of them just yesterday. Completely ignorant of how quickly everything could be destroyed.

"Shuyin," he whispered one more time as the van doors slammed shut, cutting off his last view of freedom. "Please. Please don’t do this to me."

But there was no answer. Only darkness, the rumble of the engine starting, and the beginning of a journey toward five days of hell that would teach Lin Feng exactly what powerlessness felt like.

Behind them at the city jail, the officers processed paperwork and made routine notes about the transfer. Standard procedure for high-profile cases.

But one officer, the younger one who’d been silent during most of the interaction, paused while filing the documentation. "Someone really wants them to suffer," he observed quietly to his partner. "The transfer to Black Water Ridge. The timing. The specific way the charges were upgraded. This feels orchestrated."

The senior officer shrugged. "Not our business to judge. The orders came through proper channels. Everything’s legal. And honestly?" He glanced toward where the transport van was disappearing into traffic. "After what they found in that mansion’s basement? Those two are getting exactly what they deserve."

The younger officer couldn’t argue with that assessment. If Lin Feng and Madam Chen spent five days terrified and helpless before their hearing, well, that was just the beginning of the justice they were owed.

The paperwork was filed. The transport was logged. And across the city, separated by miles of concrete and traffic and the vast gulf between freedom and captivity, two very different realities existed simultaneously.

In a mansion being systematically transformed from prison to home, Shuyin softly hummed as she dried her hair, the sound carrying a contentment she hadn’t felt in years. Perhaps hadn’t felt ever, if she was being honest with herself. She emerged from the bathroom fully dressed in comfortable indoor clothes, her damp hair wrapped in a towel. The room felt peaceful in the afternoon light streaming through the open curtains, warm and golden and somehow fundamentally different than it had been this morning.

"What a good life," she murmured to herself, picking up the hairdryer and plugging it in. A small smile played at her lips as she began the process of drying her hair properly. "What a genuinely good life."

This was the kind of existence she’d dreamed about during the long years of imprisonment and struggle. Simple domestic peace. A room filled with afternoon sunlight. Children safe and sleeping nearby. A husband who cared about her wellbeing. The freedom to make choices about her own day without fear of punishment or restriction.

Why did people have to live in constant competition and enmity? Why did families destroy each other over money and power and perceived slights? Why couldn’t everyone simply exist peacefully, pursuing happiness without needing to tear others down in the process?