*Are you serious? I'm completely covered up, and you still manage to find me?*
Although he had managed to get a rather decent badge off the policewoman, Leon had faced quite a few awkward situations and really didn't want to have a confrontation with her. Therefore, he tightened the edges of his coat and continued to feign sleep with gritted teeth.
After tapping a few times without a response, the policewoman intended to increase her strength but found it rather impolite. She hesitated, biting her lip and pondering whether to continue or not.
At this moment, the female prisoner, who had been coldly observing from the side, seemed to have guessed her intentions. After gently nudging her with her shoulder, she said expressionlessly,
"Don't bother, I won't run."
*You say you won't run, but does that guarantee you won't? A man who declared all nobles were lice from the crotch still insisted he wasn't with the rebels!*
Although sympathetic to the other party's plight, the policewoman wasn't foolish enough to believe the prisoner's assurances. Not only did she not give up on waking the pretending-to-sleep man, but she also increased her force.
After all, disturbing someone's sleep is just impolite, but if a prisoner indeed escaped and hurt someone, it wouldn't simply be a matter of manners.
"Sir? Sir? Wake up, please!"
Watching her attempts go ignored, the policewoman persistently continued to "bother" the man beside her, amidst the noisy rumbling of the boiler. The female prisoner remained silent for a while, then couldn't resist asking,
"You don't believe me, do you? If you think I'd deceive you, why insist on investigating the Ryan Family based on my intel?"
"It's not a matter of believing you or not, but rather I must do my job well."
Turning back to check the prisoner's state and discovering her emotions seemed unstable, the policewoman had no choice but to turn around and respond seriously amidst the roar of the boiler,
"Although the nature of my work is somewhat special, I am still a police officer in the police department. I have the responsibility to do my job properly and try to prevent the general public's lives from being affected.
"Therefore, I can't relax my guarding of you just because I feel you won't hurt anyone, nor can I abandon investigating the case because I dislike your harming of ordinary people or worry it may offend the Ryan Family."
After listening earnestly to the policewoman's reply, the prisoner fell silent for a moment, then looked at her as if she were some kind of anomaly, eyes full of surprise as she continued to ask,
"Just because of this?"
"Forget it... Pretend I never said anything..."
After observing the policewoman's bewildered expression, the female prisoner unexpectedly dropped her prior compliance, her expression tinged slightly with sarcasm, saying,
"Respected Miss Yisha, when I first knew your surname, I only had some slight suspicions, but now I am certain.
"You must have a very deep connection with the one who took office in the military department early this year. At worst, you should be some distant relative, or maybe even his direct family."
"Ha, I should have thought of it earlier. After all, only a family like that could raise someone as naive and foolish as you."
Watching the policewoman beside her, whose expression revealed utmost astonishment as if something had shocked her, the female prisoner, around her late forties or early fifties, snickered coldly. Her face, graced with crow's feet and sunspots, displayed sincere disdain and mockery.
"Miss Yisha of illustrious origins, you probably have no idea what kind of outcome awaits someone taking on their duty to pursue 'justice' in this place!"
Before the policewoman could recover from the shock of her family background being exposed, the prisoner, seizing the moment, stretched out her right hand shackled in clothes she had used to conceal it. She prodded her chest firmly, a gloomy expression coming over her as she whispered,
"My husband used to be an auditor at the military department's readiness bureau. On the eve of the national war six years ago, he discovered companies under the Ryan Family's name were using low-cost black cotton instead of selected medicinal cotton to produce bandages, which easily led to wound infections after use.
"After several ineffective reports upwards due to concerns similar to your own, he insisted on bypassing levels to report. When he still received no feedback and was repeatedly condemned, he even wrote a report letter to the one in charge at the military department back then. So, can you guess what he got in return?"
"Was it... dismissal?"
"Of course not; it was a grand commendation!"
The female prisoner smiled after watching the policewoman's astonished face, then leaned over and said in a cold and indifferent manner amidst the ear-splitting rumble of the boiler,
"After receiving the letter, the one at the military department immediately ordered a thorough investigation, replacing all problematic bandages and receiving applause from top to bottom. My husband also received his deserved commendation for the credit, getting transferred from the readiness bureau to a more important confidential bureau. Meanwhile, I and our daughter also moved into the assigned housing.
"Unfortunately, not even two weeks later, as my serious and foolish husband had just completed handover barely, the man sent down to inspect promptly announced that the intelligence file my husband managed seemed to have been extensively rummaged through. He was then arrested for espionage, being interrogated for a solid seven months in your Secret Investigation Bureau!"
"Interesting, isn't it?"
Watching the silent policewoman, the female prisoner sneered,
"Taking over the file without careful checking inevitably led to traps left by the predecessor, but thorough verification and inventory meant inevitable espionage suspicion. Hence, from the moment he accepted the transfer, no matter how my husband chose, the end result was the same."
"The even more interesting part is the person investigating my husband at the Secret Investigation Bureau was his previous superior! Due to repeatedly obstructing him from proper reports, his superior was suspended and then transferred. The place he got transferred to was precisely the Secret Investigation Bureau, responsible for interrogating my husband. Ha, don't you find it quite the coincidence?"
Light chuckling escaped her lips, but there was no humor in the female prisoner's face as she continued,
"Luckily, my husband was not just tough-boned but also lucky. After being locked up for seven whole months, apart from losing forty pounds and 'accidentally' becoming lame in one leg, he managed to survive and come out without confessing guilt.
"Unfortunately, the military department had too many affairs, and couldn't wait for a suspected spy who was now crippled. His original position had long been taken by someone else, and not a single department was willing to 'accommodate' him. Our daughter and I had also been driven out of the assigned housing."
"Ha, during the national war period, prices in the Capital City surged up to fifty-fold. By the time he got out, our family's savings had nearly dried up, with only a few Silver Wheels left when added all together.
"In the end, in order for our daughter and myself to survive, and for the so-called just national war, he accepted a settlement bonus and enlisted only to get shot in another leg because his lameness made him run too slowly."
Listening with bated breath, the policewoman bit her lip, her face turning slightly pale as she said,
"Then your husband..."
"Dead, went from being a fool of a cripple to a dead cripple!"
With a calm face, after recounting her husband's fate, the female prisoner's lips slightly curled, speaking with a playful, soft voice,
"By the way, there's something even more interesting in this story. Do you want to hear it?"
"If you don't object, I'll assume you do."
The female prisoner smiled and rolled up her sleeve slightly, revealing a wrist bandaged with a bloodstained, old wrapping. In the corner of rough seams, a clump of coarse cotton was tenaciously poking out, coagulated in dark, festered blood.
"When he was brought back home, his leg was conveniently wrapped with this bandage, with yellowish pus oozing beneath it, teeming with fat, white maggots!"
After slightly turning her wrist, the female prisoner gazed at the relic of her deceased husband on her wrist, her expression peaceful as she smiled,
"My cripple of a husband truly was of hard luck. He wasn't shot dead on the battlefield, managing to crawl back to safety. Unfortunately, he ultimately couldn't overcome infection in the wound.
"And what killed him in the end happened to be the very thing he risked everything to report—a substandard bandage pressed out from filthy black cotton. Isn't it just laughable?"