The words settled between them like a vow more binding than any legal contract. Shuyin leaned forward despite the soreness, pressing her forehead to his, breathing in the scent of him mixed with lingering jasmine. "No more carefully maintained distance," she whispered. "No more hesitation. If we’re doing this, we’re actually doing this."

"Agreed," Lu Yuze murmured, sealing the promise with a kiss that was tender rather than passionate, acknowledging her current physical state while still conveying the depth of feeling behind it.

They enjoyed this quiet and peaceful moment together.

— — — — — —

Eight o’clock in the morning at Black Water Ridge Penitentiary arrived with harsh fluorescent lights flickering on throughout the cell blocks, the automatic system indifferent to whether prisoners had slept or spent the night in pain-filled wakefulness. In the men’s section, Lin Feng lay on his thin mattress, every movement sending fresh agony through his battered body. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The fight had been twelve hours ago, but his body felt like it had happened moments before. His face was a landscape of bruises, deep purple around his left eye where it had swollen nearly shut, darker blue across his jaw where Madam Chen’s desperate strikes had landed repeatedly. His split lip had crusted over with dried blood that cracked and wept fresh whenever he tried to move his mouth. His throat still burned from the lucky hit she’d managed to land, making each breath feel like swallowing glass.

But the physical pain was almost bearable compared to the humiliation that had followed.

When the guards had dragged him back to his cell after the ring fight, still bleeding and barely conscious, his three cellmates had been waiting. They’d heard about the fight, news traveled fast in Black Water Ridge, especially when it involved fresh meat who’d been forced to beat each other for entertainment.

Wang Jian, the man Lin Feng had framed for embezzlement seven years ago, had laughed so hard he’d nearly choked. "How’d it feel, Lin Feng? Fighting your own wife while everyone watched betted and laughed? That’s what you get for thinking you’re better than everyone else."

Chen Wei, whose father had died after Lin Feng destroyed the family business, had been crueler. "I heard you were crying the whole time. Begging them to stop. Just like my father begged you for mercy when you ruined him. How does it feel to be on the receiving end for once?"

The tattooed cellmate who’d terrorized Lin Feng on the first night had just smiled that terrifying smile and said nothing, which was somehow worse than the others’ verbal abuse.

Lin Feng had crawled onto his mattress and curled into himself, trying to make his body as small as possible, trying to disappear. But there was no disappearing from this nightmare. No waking up to discover it had all been a terrible dream. This was real, and it was his life now.

He’d tried to call out to the guards during the night when the pain became too much to bear, when he thought maybe he was bleeding internally from the way his ribs felt. But the guards had just walked past his cell without stopping, their expressions suggesting that watching prisoners suffer was part of the job’s appeal rather than something to prevent.

Now, in the harsh morning light, Lin Feng forced himself to sit up despite his body’s screaming protest. The movement made him gasp, fresh tears springing to his already swollen eyes. His reflection in the small mirror near the sink showed a stranger, a broken, beaten man who barely resembled the confident businessman who’d walked these streets freely just days ago.

Wang Jian stirred on his own mattress, opening one eye to look at Lin Feng. "Still alive? Pity. I was hoping you’d save us all the trouble and die during the night."

"Please," Lin Feng whispered, his voice hoarse and barely audible. "I need medical attention. I think something’s broken inside. I can’t..."

"Can’t what?" Wang Jian interrupted, sitting up with predatory interest. "Can’t breathe right? Can’t move without pain? Can’t believe this is actually your life now?" He laughed, cruel and sharp. "Welcome to what you did to others, Lin Feng. This is justice. And it’s only the beginning. You’ve got years ahead of you here."

Years. The word hit Lin Feng like a physical blow. Years of this hell, of sharing a cell with people who hated him, of being forced to fight for entertainment, of guards who wouldn’t help no matter how much he begged, of watching everything that had made him powerful and respected in the outside world mean absolutely nothing within these walls.

He thought about Shuyin sitting in that viewing room, watching with cold satisfaction as he and Madam Chen had been forced to destroy each other. His daughter, the girl he’d sent to prison and tormented for a few weeks now held all the power while he had none.

The realization that she’d orchestrated this, that she had connections powerful enough to control what happened to him in this place, made his despair complete. There would be no rescue. No lawyer swooping in to save him. No business contacts pulling strings to get him out. Shuyin had made sure of that.

In the women’s section of Black Water Ridge, Madam Chen’s situation was equally desperate but manifested differently. Her cellmate, the hardened woman who’d terrorized her from the first moment, sat on her own bunk eating breakfast that had been brought by the guards while Madam Chen lay untouched on her mattress, unable to move without crying out.

Her hands were the worst. She’d never hit anyone in her life before last night, and the repeated impact of striking Lin Feng had shattered something in the delicate bones of her fingers. They were swollen to twice their normal size, purple and black with bruising, bent at angles that suggested multiple fractures. She couldn’t close them, couldn’t grip anything, couldn’t even wipe away the tears that streamed constantly down her face.