# 313
Chapter 313 – The Dark Cell
Xie Yu glanced at the clock on the wall and said, “Gentlemen, right now every corner of the Purification Chamber—except my office—is monitored by A.I. Wandering around will only cause trouble. Until my part is done, please stay in this room.”
Baili Pangpang scratched his head, choosing his words carefully. “But… we have our own business to attend to…”
“Your mission is weighty—I understand!” Xie Yu said earnestly. “However, the timing isn’t ripe yet; the situation at Sunshine Psychiatric Hospital is still unclear. Sit tight. Half an hour at most, then you can move.”
“Half an hour, huh…” Baili Pangpang nodded. “All right, we’ll follow your lead!”
After a few more pleasantries, Xie Yu left, leaving Baili Pangpang and Cao Yuan alone.
“Old Cao, what do you make of all this?”
Baili Pangpang leaned close to Cao Yuan’s ear and whispered.
Cao Yuan looked at him in puzzlement. “You’re asking me? You two chatted smoothly enough—wasn’t that part of your plan? I just didn’t expect the Baili family’s reach to run this deep, bribing the acting warden of this prison…”
Baili Pangpang blinked. “I didn’t bribe him!”
“Then your dad did?” Cao Yuan guessed. “Maybe he heard you were going to break someone out, realized how tough it would be, and greased the warden’s palm to lighten your load…”
Baili Pangpang frowned, suspicious. “Huh… could be. But since when does the old man care that much?”
“Does he usually not?”
“He’s a busy man—no time for me.” Baili Pangpang shrugged. “He barely bothers with my affairs. When I said I was leaving home to join the Night Watch, he didn’t even react—just sent a couple guys to see me off.”
Cao Yuan consoled him. “Maybe he only looks cold. Behind the scenes he could be tracking you all along. How else would the acting warden know our target is Sunshine Psychiatric Hospital?”
Baili Pangpang thought it over. “Yeah… makes sense.”
Cao Yuan stepped to the window, overlooking the empty Purification Chamber. “Anyway, we’ve successfully infiltrated the interior. You’ve been inside before—got a plan?”
“After so many years, I don’t know if anything’s changed…” Cao Yuan mused. “For now the whole place is under A.I. surveillance; we can’t move rashly. We’ll have to wait for the warden’s next step… Since he took your family’s money, he’ll see it through.”
Baili Pangpang plopped into Xie Yu’s chair, propped his feet on the desk, and sighed. “If we’d known the warden was bought, we wouldn’t have busted our asses earlier…”
…
Like a ghost, Xie Yu drifted through the dim, deserted corridor and stopped before a heavy metal security door.
He activated the identity scanner beside it: fingerprint, iris, then a thirteen-digit password. A soft click, and the door slid open.
Beyond lay the Purification Chamber’s main control room.
Xie Yu threaded between rows of black mainframes and reached the core console. From his pocket he produced a tiny USB drive and plugged it in.
The monitor flickered violently.
“External virus detected. Activating auto-firewall, emergency alarm, backup terminal…”
Xie Yu narrowed his eyes, moved to a server, opened its panel, fingers flying—
“Beep—auto-firewall interrupted.”
“Beep—emergency alarm interrupted.”
“Beep—backup terminal unresponsive.”
Two minutes later he returned to the console. The frantic flashing had ceased; all control privileges were his.
A faint smile tugged at his lips as he continued typing.
“Surveillance for Zones A1, A2, A3—offline.”
“Lighting system—offline.”
“Auto door control—disabled; manual mode engaged.”
“Cells 21682, 33214, 35731—unlocked…”
…
Bzzzt—!
Every light in the Purification Chamber died. Darkness swallowed everything.
The sudden blackout startled every on-duty guard; the prisoners were equally stunned.
“What the—? Lights out?”
“Power cut?”
“Bullshit! This is the Purification Chamber! If all of Great Xia blacked out, this place would still shine!”
“Well, it’s dark now!”
“Check if the cell door opens!”
“Damn—locked tight!”
“Then it’s just the lights. They’ll fix it soon.”
“Tch, and here I thought breakout time had come…”
“Dream on. Even if your door swung open, where would you run?”
“Just saying…”
“…”
The once-silent cellblock erupted in chatter. Guards who’d tensed at the blackout relaxed when they found doors still sealed.
Just a lighting fault—nothing more. Maintenance would sort it soon.
No one noticed that, amid the noise and darkness, three cell doors had quietly swung wide…
Three prisoners of the Believers slipped out, groped through the corridor, and converged in a hidden corner.
“All here?” Fourth Seat whispered.
“Present,” Sixth Seat answered.
“Mm,” Twelfth Seat added.
“Most guards have been pulled elsewhere; the east gate’s weakest. We go through there. Darkness is our ally—quick, silent kills, no noise!”
Agreement given, the trio glided toward the eastern gate, weaving flawlessly through blackness as if they’d rehearsed a hundred times.
As they passed one cell, An Qingyu inside let out a soft murmur and turned, a faint ash-gray glimmer surfacing in his eyes.