Is That Prison Food That Smells Good? It’s the Judge! - Chapter 3

Fan Jue glanced at the Demon-Binding Chain around his neck, then at Yan Zhi holding the Divine Sword, and finally at the Pallas’s Cat Spirit with his weak spiritual power. He spoke decisively. “We’re not running.”

“Why not?!”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Fan Jue stated bluntly.

Wang Yisun burst into tears. “But I worked so hard to come up with my Thumbtack Tire-Bursting Technique!”

Fan Jue looked at him with mock kindness. “With an IQ that low, it’s a miracle you’ve survived this long.”

Wang Yisun: “…”

“Just be a good driver for now. We’ll wait for another chance…” Fan Jue glanced out the window at Yan Zhi, who was talking to someone through a small box. “I’ll find a way to deal with him.”

“How will you deal with him?” Perhaps it was an innate disadvantage, or maybe just the Inquisitor’s cold aura, but Wang Yisun subconsciously felt intimidated by Yan Zhi. “I can’t beat him…”

“Hmph,” Fan Jue almost laughed out loud. “A hundred of you wouldn’t be enough to fight him.”

“Then what is Your Majesty planning…?”

Fan Jue stared at the Divine Sword in Yan Zhi’s hand for a moment before slowly speaking. “Nine years ago, I had just awakened and my power hadn’t recovered yet. I was no match for him. But now… I believe our strengths are evenly matched.”

Fan Jue had only been keeping a low profile for the past nine years to wait for his strength to recover.

Wang Yisun’s eyes lit up. “So the mass prison break at the Stone Prison of Demon Suppression and the theft of the Demon-Suppressing Stone were really your doing?”

Fan Jue neither confirmed nor denied it. He simply continued, “But that sword in his hand is a bit troublesome.”

For some reason, Fan Jue felt that the sword possessed a power specifically designed to counter him. Otherwise, it would never have been able to sever his demonic horn so easily. Perhaps the Heavenly Dao had deliberately sent down a Divine Artifact to deal with him.

“Yes, yes. Just looking at that sword makes me feel uneasy… Your Majesty, how do you think we should solve this?”

“Steal the sword,” the Great Arch-Demon Fan Jue said shamelessly.

“Um… huh? But for a powerhouse like Yan Zhi, shouldn’t his Divine Sword already be fused with his spiritual sense?”

“If it’s fused with his spiritual sense, does that mean it can’t be taken out?” Fan Jue gave him a strange look. “Have you forgotten that I can use Soul-Snatching?”

As long as he could find a person’s malicious intent, Fan Jue could snatch their soul at any time. Yan Zhi was no exception.

“With Yan Zhi’s primordial spirit strength, I could only successfully perform Soul-Snatching for fifteen minutes at most. Completely annihilating his spirit would be a bit difficult… but taking his sword wouldn’t be hard at all.” As long as Yan Zhi didn’t have his sword, he would be unable to do anything to Fan Jue.

Wang Yisun immediately gave a thumbs-up. “That’s great!”

“However, I haven’t found his malicious thoughts yet,” Fan Jue’s tone shifted. Instead of feeling frustrated, he seemed even more intrigued. “Tsk, I wonder what the Grand Inquisitor would look like when he’s consumed by malicious thoughts and can’t pull himself out.”

Wang Yisun silently supported His Majesty.

On the other side, Yan Zhi seemed to have noticed Fan Jue’s gaze, and those golden eyes looked back.

Fan Jue gave him a lazy smile, opened the car door, and walked over.

Yan Zhi hung up the phone.

Fan Jue looked curiously at the small box in Yan Zhi’s hand. “Some kind of Sound-transmitting Spiritual Tool?”

“You could understand it that way.” Yan Zhi tossed the phone to Zhang Xi. “He agreed.”

Zhang Xi nodded. “As long as the Director agrees… You… go ahead and be busy! I’ll go help Wang Yisun change the spare tire!” After saying this, he quickly ran over.

“He seems to be very afraid of you,” Fan Jue said thoughtfully, looking at Zhang Xi.

Yan Zhi raised his eyes to look at Fan Jue.

In truth, most people were afraid of Yan Zhi.

Fan Jue was the exception.

“You left me alone in the car. Aren’t you afraid I’ll run away?” Fan Jue leaned in closer. If Zhang Xi had been there, he would have noticed that the distance between the two men had clearly crossed the line of a safe personal space. Yet, Yan Zhi seemed completely unfazed.

“You can’t escape,” Yan Zhi said with absolute certainty. “You’d better behave, or the ABMA will have to reprocess you.”

Fan Jue raised an eyebrow. “The ABMA?”

Yan Zhi didn’t bother explaining. He took out his phone, tapped the screen twice, and handed it to Fan Jue.

Fan Jue looked at the glowing device with curiosity. It was a strange little box that emitted light and displayed modern text. Thanks to his long stint in prison, he had managed to learn most of the modern language, narrowly avoiding becoming completely illiterate.

He read the explanation from a search engine:

ABMA (Full name: Abnormal Biological Management Administration). A legendary government department dedicated to the unified management of demons, ghosts, and various supernatural incidents.

It oversees several subordinate agencies: the Anomalous Crime Investigation Bureau, the Anomalous Criminal Sentencing Tribunal, the Nanqiao Stone Prison of Demon Suppression, and the Demon-Binding Special Task Force. These agencies are responsible for investigation, sentencing, imprisonment, and execution, respectively, processing and judging various anomalies according to the law.

*****

“So, the Grand Inquisitor is the highest-ranking official in the Tribunal?” Fan Jue pondered. “Still, it seems even the Director-General has to show you some respect…”

Why show Yan Zhi respect? Because he was strong. The demons the Special Task Force couldn’t capture, the monsters the Demon Suppression Prison couldn’t contain, only a powerhouse like Yan Zhi could handle them all.

The powerhouse himself, Yan Zhi, woke the phone screen that had gone dark in Fan Jue’s curious hands.

Fan Jue finished reading the explanation on Baidu and Wikipedia. “The ABMA… They want to arrest me because I tore the Firmament? That’s illegal? How amusing. How else was I supposed to break the seal?”

Who would hold the Heavenly Dao accountable for sealing him away and forcing him to sleep for a thousand years?

Yan Zhi looked at him. “Why were you sealed?”

“Tsk. I’ve slept for so long, how should I remember?” Fan Jue tossed the phone back to Yan Zhi. “But it doesn’t matter. Whether I was an innocent victim or a monstrous criminal, what do your laws have to do with me?”

A Heavenly Devil acts as he pleases. Right or wrong, good or evil, morality, laws, and even the Heavenly Dao’s decrees cannot stop him.

Yan Zhi watched Fan Jue for a moment, then suddenly turned his head and murmured, “So the Heavenly Dao won’t let you go.”

His voice was too soft, and Fan Jue didn’t catch it. He only saw Yan Zhi turn away.

Fan Jue chuckled. “So anyone who tries to stop or restrain me is my enemy… Yan Zhi, do you like money?”

The topic shifted so abruptly that even Yan Zhi froze.

“Or power? You don’t look like the type…” Fan Jue continued, his eyes wandering with curiosity as he took in the wonders of the modern world. He stared at a traffic camera for a moment. “What about material desires? None of those either? Do you have any obsessions? Maybe someone you hate?”

Greed, anger, obsession, hatred—all were forms of malevolence. Fan Jue was already mentally preparing how to deal with his enemies.

Yan Zhi: “…”

Fan Jue studied Yan Zhi’s unchanging expression for a while. He concluded that Yan Zhi truly lacked any such malevolent desires.

Is it too late to cultivate a wicked thought in Yan Zhi?

Hiss… Fan Jue fell into deep thought. He stared at Yan Zhi’s face, and a flash of memory struck him: the way Yan Zhi had looked so uncomfortable when seeing the H-manga, and how he had turned his head away when their eyes met.

It seems Yan Zhi is very easy to manipulate in this regard.

Lust is also a wicked thought.

Fan Jue had an idea.

As he pondered, he walked to the guardrail of the national highway. A long wire dangling from the sky landed right at his feet.

What is this?

Curious, Fan Jue crouched down to reach for the wire.

“Fan Jue!” Yan Zhi suddenly called out from a short distance away. As Fan Jue picked up the wire, he turned his head to glance at Yan Zhi.

For the first time, a look of astonishment appeared on Yan Zhi’s face.

Fan Jue: “?”

His hand touched the wire.

Zhang Xi and Wang Yisun had just finished changing the spare tire. They turned in unison, ready to call the Grand Inquisitor to get in the car, only to see a fallen high-voltage wire sparking violently as it struck something with a flash!

Zhang Xi and Wang Yisun: “…”

****

Inside a high-end villa.

Surprisingly, deep within this villa, there was a prison cell covered in seals.

The Grand Inquisitor stood inside the cell, glancing at Fan Jue, who lay unconscious on the floor after being struck by the power line.

This was Yan Zhi’s home.

The Director-General had added the seals, worried that Yan Zhi couldn’t keep Fan Jue under control. Yan Zhi didn’t care much about them. He knelt down, casually tore off Fan Jue’s tight-fitting prison uniform, which had been shredded by the high-voltage electricity, and slipped a simple shirt over him.

Fan Jue wore a necklace with a red pendant. Besides that, a thick, wide Demon-Binding Chain was clamped around his neck like a collar, making it difficult for Yan Zhi to put the shirt on.

Without the Demon-Suppressing Stone, the Demon-Binding Chain would soon lose its power.

Yan Zhi lifted his eyelids and directly unlocked the chain.

At that exact moment, the unconscious man on the floor suddenly sprang up, his hand shooting out to crush Yan Zhi’s neck!

The Divine Sword shot forward with a whoosh, intercepting Fan Jue. The righteous and demonic forces clashed head-on!

Yan Zhi looked at Fan Jue impassively. “Finally done pretending?”

Fan Jue let out an “Ah.” “So you found out already, Grand Inquisitor.”

For an ordinary person, being struck by a high-voltage line would be a certain death sentence. But for a Heavenly Devil like Fan Jue, that bit of electricity wasn’t even enough to singe a single hair on his head.

He had been feigning unconsciousness all this time, waiting for someone to let their guard down and change his ruined clothes, which was actually the Demon-Binding Chain.

Until that moment, Fan Jue had kept his murderous intent hidden. Now, he finally struck at Yan Zhi with a lethal blow.

“I’ve been playing nice for a long time,” Fan Jue said, though he hadn’t really been trying that hard. He looked at Yan Zhi. “And it never fooled you. Tsk… if you’re the one watching over me from now on, I might spend every day trying to kill you in a different way. Are you sure you don’t want to just eliminate the threat permanently?”

“I’m sure,” Yan Zhi replied.

The Divine Sword’s power surged, blasting Fan Jue backward. Fan Jue shook his hand in disappointment and decided not to continue the attack.

He glanced at the shirt he was wearing. “New clothes? I’ve never seen this before. Not bad.”

He couldn’t find where the restraints were tied.

Yan Zhi glanced at him and slowly walked forward.

Fan Jue watched him thoughtfully. Is he finally going to kill me?

Yan Zhi reached out.

Then, Fan Jue watched as the Grand Inquisitor leaned down and began to fasten the buttons of his shirt, one by one.

“I will definitely kill you,” Fan Jue said.

“I know,” Yan Zhi replied softly, fastening the last button at the collar.

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