94. A Double Room Turned Into a Single Room

“What does that shark-faced guy think he’s doing? He even dares to laugh. Is he trying to provoke us old-timers?”

“He looks pretty strong. Seems like a hard case. He does have the right to be arrogant.”

“Hmph. No matter how tough he is, he’s still just a newcomer. We’ll teach him the rules here later.”

“…”

The prisoners all murmured about Ghost Shark, and some had already set their sights on him.

The prison guards led Ghost Shark and the others one by one to their assigned cells.

“Get in!”

At the end of the corridor, a guard unlocked the last cell door with a key and shoved Ghost Shark inside.

A double room?

As soon as he stepped in, Ghost Shark noticed that the cell contained bunk beds. A narrow-eyed man was seated grandly on a stool, looking at him with open amusement.

This man was Ghost Shark’s cellmate.

“Kid, what are you in for?” the narrow-eyed man asked casually, sounding quite interested in Ghost Shark.

Before Ghost Shark could answer, he began boasting first:

“I’m here because of a woman. She betrayed me and got together with another man. So on the day she held her wedding in the village, I went to offer my congratulations, and then... I killed the whole village, heh heh.”

When he spoke of it, his face was full of pride.

In truth, in this prison called Ghost Lamp City, there were plenty of scum like him—men who had butchered others without mercy, or fanatics consumed by cruelty.

“So, tell me. What did you do?” the narrow-eyed man asked again after boasting of his own glorious exploits.

“I’m sleepy. This lower bunk is my bed, isn’t it? I’m going to sleep first.”

Ghost Shark ignored the question and walked straight toward the bed.

Hmm?

Seeing that Ghost Shark had the nerve not to answer him, the narrow-eyed man frowned at once and said with a cold laugh, “Kid, looks like you really are a bumpkin who doesn’t understand the rules at all. A newcomer like you still wants the lower bunk?”

“What’s wrong? Shouldn’t prisons take care of newcomers?” Ghost Shark asked, puzzled.

“Hahahahaha!”

The narrow-eyed man seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. He bent over with laughter, almost in tears.

“Kid, you look like an idiot, and in fact you really are a complete idiot. You want the lower bunk? Fine. Come over here and lick my shoe first. Then you can think about calling me big brother.”

With a teasing grin, the narrow-eyed man stood up and pointed at his own shoe.

“All right.”

With no other choice, Ghost Shark walked over, and then...

He raised his right hand and swung a heavy slap at the narrow-eyed man’s left cheek.

Crack.

Caught utterly off guard, the narrow-eyed man was slapped so hard by Ghost Shark that his head rang. Stars burst before his eyes, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

This sudden scene immediately sent the prisoners in the opposite cell into a frenzy of howls.

They had a good show to watch.

“Hey, narrow-eyes, what’s wrong? You can’t even handle a newbie?”

“If you don’t hit back quickly, you’ll lose all face. You won’t be able to survive in this prison anymore!”

The prisoners watched the spectacle and wildly fanned the flames.

Sure enough, the narrow-eyed man was provoked. He sprang to his feet from the floor and cursed at Ghost Shark, “You damned bastard!”

Before the words had even faded, he had drawn a small knife from the sole of his shoe and lunged at Ghost Shark.

Ghost Shark dodged left and right. His seemingly bulky frame moved with astonishing agility, causing every one of the other man’s attacks to miss.

“What’s going on? What’s all the noise?!”

In the corridor, two guards who had not gone far heard the commotion and rushed back.

When they saw the narrow-eyed man wielding a prohibited blade and frantically stabbing at Ghost Shark, their faces changed. They barked orders while hurriedly unlocking the cell.

“Die!”

By now the narrow-eyed man had lost all reason. He swore he would stab Ghost Shark to death before the guards could stop him, and avenge his humiliation.

Just then, Ghost Shark struck.

He shifted sideways, avoiding the knife, while lowering the index finger of his right hand behind him. Chakra threads shot out from his fingertip.

At point-blank range, they wrapped around the narrow-eyed man’s hands and feet, taking control of his body.

String Release: Puppet Strings Technique.

The next second—

Whoosh.

The narrow-eyed man watched in terror as he found himself holding the knife and stabbing toward the guard who had just entered the cell.

With a wet sound, one guard was stabbed in the shoulder and let out a miserable scream.

The other guard turned pale with alarm. In a panic, he raised his matchlock rifle and aimed it at the narrow-eyed man.

“Wait!”

The narrow-eyed man screamed in panic, but his hand never stopped moving as he thrust toward the guard.

Bang!

The guard pulled the trigger. With a blinding flash of sparks at the muzzle, the narrow-eyed man charging forward fell heavily to the ground.

Blood streamed from beneath the corpse, quickly staining the cell red.

He died with his eyes wide open.

Silently, Ghost Shark withdrew the chakra threads.

Thud, thud, thud.

More bootsteps echoed down the corridor. Other guards, alerted by the gunshot, hurried to the scene.

The injured guard was sent to the infirmary for treatment.

“What happened?” the guard captain asked with a deep frown. He questioned the other guard and the prisoners to reconstruct the events.

The conclusion of the inquiry was this:

The narrow-eyed man had clashed with the newcomer Ghost Shark. During the fight, the narrow-eyed man went berserk, stabbed a guard with a knife, and was ultimately shot dead.

The guard captain examined the corpse and, finding nothing suspicious, ordered his subordinate:

“Take the body to the morgue and have it cremated.”

“And how should we handle this newcomer?” someone asked.

The guard captain glanced at Ghost Shark and said coldly, “On his very first night in prison, he attacked an old inmate and even got a guard injured. By the rules of Ghost Lamp City, we’ll throw a troublemaker like this into solitary confinement first and let him cool off for a few days.”

“Yes, sir.”

At that, the guards entered the cell with handcuffs and cuffed Ghost Shark.

Amid the prisoners’ murmurs, Ghost Shark was escorted through the corridor and taken to solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement was a secluded cell deep within the prison.

The cell was less than fifty square feet in size and completely bare.

Three sides were walls, and only the outer wall had a window about the size of a human face. On nights when the moon was out, a sliver of moonlight would shine through the window like a lamp.

When a prisoner stood by that window, they could see the moon hanging high in the night sky and the sea in the distance. Freedom seemed separated by only a single wall, close enough to reach.

And yet that single wall was farther than the ends of the earth, filling the heart with even deeper despair.

Many prisoners, after being locked in solitary for a few days, developed serious psychological problems, and some even broke down completely.

In short, this was a place no prisoner would ever want to visit twice.

Ghost Shark was an exception.

“Though the conditions are a bit poor, at least it’s a single room. Not bad.”

Thinking this to himself, he lay down on the floor, put both hands behind his head, and crossed one leg over the other.

He looked entirely at ease.