Volume 1, Chapter 378 – Prison Break

“I just want to know some of the truth.”

Shi Lan looked at Hao Fei with a serious expression and pleaded,

“Please help me this once.”

After a long while, Hao Fei let out a sigh.

“Come back here in three days.”

“And one last piece of advice for you: know your limits.”

…

With the check tucked away on her person, Shi Lan returned to the car.

“You got it done?”

“Mm.”

“Now that it’s done, let’s go get something to eat.”

Zhang Guang slowly turned the car around and drove away from the bar.

“What do you feel like eating? Anything that flies in the sky, runs on the ground, or swims in the water. As long as it’s not a protected species, whatever you want today, you can have it.”

“I want beef noodles.”

“Beef noodles… that works too.”

…

Walking into the noodle shop from her memory, Shi Lan ordered two bowls of beef noodles and two portions of pan-fried dumplings, and paid first.

Funny enough, she still had not finished spending the money from selling the diving suit.

While they were eating, Zhang Guang glanced up at the Public Security Bureau across the street. The fact that Shi Lan had chosen this place surprised him a little.

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In fact, he had come to this noodle shop quite a few times back when they were handling Shi Lan’s case.

“Have you thought about what you want to do next?”

Shi Lan shook her head. She had quite a few things she needed to do, but she could not tell Zhang Guang about them. She could not drag uninvolved people into this anymore.

Zhang Guang said nothing more. Shi Lan had only just gotten out of prison. She definitely needed some time to adjust first.

“Want to go somewhere and have some fun?”

…

Shi Lan was not in the mood for that, so Zhang Guang drove straight home.

The car slowly came to a stop in front of a villa. After backing it into the garage, Zhang Guang undid his seat belt and felt around on himself for a moment, looking puzzled.

“I remember bringing my wallet…”

“Maybe I’m remembering wrong. Hang on, I’ll get someone to open the door.”

As Zhang Guang pushed open the door and got out, Shi Lan took a wallet from her pocket, pulled out a bank card, and quickly memorized the card number.

Zhang Guang’s wallet had naturally been in his pocket all along. She had simply taken it.

She had an excellent memory, almost never forgetting anything she saw, and she learned quickly as well. During that year in prison, she had picked up quite a few things from her fellow inmates. Many of those methods were not exactly honorable, but they still had their uses.

Song Run was a thief, and what she stole were never small things. After she was caught, her sentence had not been light either.

When Shi Lan had wanted to learn from her, Song Run had actually been unwilling to teach her, because she was afraid Shi Lan would go down the wrong path and ruin her whole life.

Once you got used to days when money came fast, it was hard to let go. After all, human desire was very hard to satisfy.

This sort of thing… was addictive.

But after Shi Lan brought it up again and again, and because she did not want the craft she had studied for more than ten years to die with her, Song Run still taught it to her.

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Song Run had even given the skill a special name: Flying Cloud Hand. It demanded extremely high speed and reflexes. After all, opportunities vanished in a flash, so you had to have sharp eyes and quick hands.

In her own words, if she had not gotten a little older and her reaction speed had not slipped, she would still be out there free as a bird.

Shi Lan vaguely remembered that when Song Run talked about that, she had laughed in a particularly strange way, laughing as she said that when her hand speed was at its best, she did not know how many people she had left flustered and trembling all over.

At the time, Shi Lan had not understood what she meant, and she had been too embarrassed to ask. She could only secretly guess that Song Run was probably talking about her reputation in the underworld.

Driving those thoughts from her mind, Shi Lan got out of the car with the wallet in hand, walked to the villa door, and returned it to Zhang Guang.

Click.

The villa door opened. The one answering it was an auntie in an apron. When she saw Zhang Guang, she smiled brightly.

“Sir, you’re back, and you have a guest with you.”

After seeing Shi Lan, the auntie turned around and set out an extra pair of slippers.

“Where’s Jiahui?”

“Madam didn’t sleep well last night. She’s still catching up on sleep.”

“Then don’t disturb her. We can talk after she wakes up.”

“Make a few more dishes tonight. Do we still have enough ingredients?”

“More than enough! I just bought groceries today.”

Zhang Guang brought Shi Lan to a room.

It was bright and spotless, clearly cleaned on a regular basis.

“You stay here for a couple of days first. We can talk about the rest later.”

…

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Shi Lan lay down and dozed for a while. By the time she opened her eyes, it was already evening. If Zhang Guang had not come to call her for dinner, she did not know how long she would have slept.

When she walked into the living room, she saw Zhang Guang’s current wife, Feng Jiahui. She was already more than six months pregnant, and her complexion looked very good.

“Congratulations on getting out.”

After seeing Shi Lan, Jiahui greeted her. The two of them had met before, after all, though they were not close.

“Come on, come on, let’s eat first! I’m starving,” Zhang Guang called out as he ushered everyone to the table.

“Eat, then. Just look at how fat you’ve gotten,” Jiahui said with a face full of disdain.

“Can you blame me for that? Who was it that took one bite of everything and threw the rest aside? All the meat ended up on me.”

Auntie Yu was an excellent cook, but Shi Lan could not taste much from this meal. Though Jiahui was smiling very happily, Shi Lan could tell that she did not welcome her arrival.

Putting herself in Jiahui’s shoes, Shi Lan did not think that reaction was wrong.

…

In the middle of the night, Shi Lan slowly opened her eyes, got out of bed, and quietly slipped out.

It was clearly not appropriate for her to stay here.

Zhang Guang’s room was not far away. The door was half-open, and when she drew closer, she could vaguely hear voices.

“Why did you bring her straight home?”

“She’s just a little girl all by herself. Where else was she supposed to go?”

“Couldn’t you have put her in a hotel? Having an extra person in the house is inconvenient.”

“Wasn’t I just thinking she’d only gotten out and might not adapt well? Besides, what’s so inconvenient about it? It’s not like she’s a boy.”

“When are you ever going to fix that soft-hearted problem of yours?”

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“How did this turn back on me again?”

Shi Lan stood in the living room for a while, then slowly walked toward the door. Her footsteps made no sound when they touched the floor. Just as she was about to open the door, she stopped, turned back, found some paper and a pen, and left Zhang Guang a letter.

If she left without saying goodbye, she was afraid Zhang Guang would go looking for her with great fanfare again, throwing his own life into even greater disorder.

Zhang Guang could be counted as one of her benefactors. Causing him trouble was never her intention.

…

Woooo—

The instant Shi Lan slowly closed the villa’s front door behind her, a shrill alarm split the sky, shattering the usual silence of Yunhai Prison’s night.

Tweet-tweet—

Sharp whistle blasts rang out again and again, and the entire prison instantly erupted into chaos.

“Move, move, move!”

Someone had escaped from prison!

…

A figure moved through the prison’s dark corners, as if gifted with foresight, avoiding every searchlight and camera. Strolling as leisurely as if taking a walk through a courtyard, it reached one corner of the prison wall.

With a single leap, using both hands and feet, it cleared the nearly four-meter-high wall in the span of a few breaths. Like a dragon returning to the sea or a tiger going back to the mountains, it vanished in an instant into the black mountain range.

…

For many people, midnight was only the beginning of the nightlife, and the streets were still lively.

As Shi Lan walked, she flipped through her identification documents. Looking at the address listed under her registered place of origin, a thought suddenly came to mind.