The Director nodded, not at all surprised.
"Transferring to the Death Prison is only the beginning. From now on, you need to keep a close eye on Li Ban. All your other missions are suspended. You will be forcefully awakened once a month. Pay close attention to whether Li Ban can get close to Du An, whether he is trusted, and... whether he is hiding anything from the Laboratory."
"Yes!" Shen Kong quickly replied, before adding with some concern, "It's just that I offended him before, so I don't know if the Laboratory..."
"Out of the question!" The Director knew exactly what Shen Kong was about to say. "You absolutely cannot let him know your identity, otherwise what would be the point of sending you to spy on him? Grovel and apologize, injure yourself to win his pity, or offer him money—whatever it takes. In short, you caused this mess yourself, so figure out a way to fix it yourself."
The Director knew the undercover information of every agent, so he naturally knew that Shen Kong was the one who had reported Xu Shaoze.
However, first, Xu Shaoze had already left the Wizard World, making Shen Kong the only undercover agent left in the Beast Arena at the time; second, Xu Shaoze was already dead. There was no point in holding Shen Kong accountable anymore. The Director had merely given him a stern warning—if a similar incident occurred again, he would be directly terminated.
"Remember this. You absolutely cannot trip Li Ban up again. He has already approached the mission target. If you dare delay the mission's progress..."
The Director fell silent, simply staring at Shen Kong.
Shen Kong immediately shrank back in fear.
Only then did the Director nod. "If necessary, you are to lay down your life to save him."
Shen Kong disliked Li Ban, and he knew exactly what the consequences of dying multiple times would be. But right now, with the Director staring him down, he could only pat his chest and guarantee that he would complete the mission.
It was only after Shen Kong lay back in the Experimental Capsule and entered the Wizard World that Chen Dong asked the Director in confusion.
"Director, why have Shen Kong spy on Li Ban? If Li Ban finds out, won't he resent it?"
"Resent it?" The Director looked at Chen Dong, finding the notion laughable. "Does he have the right to be resentful?"
"After the lesson we learned with the General, every one of our undercover agents who gets close to a mission target must be watched by someone else. It's even better if they have conflicts with each other. We can't let things play out like they did before, where we only discovered the General's betrayal after he had completely cut off contact!"
The Director was seething with anger.
Even today, he couldn't believe that the General had actually betrayed the Laboratory!
Perhaps influenced by this emotion, his tone turned grim and chilling.
"If Li Ban dares to feign compliance while secretly defying orders—if he fails to complete the mission as I demand—we will brainwash him."
Chen Dong still couldn't bear it. "But radio-wave brainwashing causes massive damage to the brain. It can result in severe aftereffects, or even drive a person entirely mad."
The Director looked at the sympathetic Chen Dong. He paused for a moment, not as harsh as he was with the others, and explained in a low voice.
"It can't be helped. The Leader is pressing us. We no longer have the time to be... soft-hearted."
Chen Dong froze for a moment. Feeling helpless, he could only agree.
"It's just that Shen Kong can be rather unscrupulous." Given Chen Dong's personality, it was perfectly normal for him to dislike Shen Kong.
The Director waved his hand, his recent helplessness giving way to strictness once more.
"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary people!"
After becoming a prison guard, Li Ban didn't partner up with Liu Mu to oversee the first and second levels of the Death Prison.
Instead, he directly replaced Tree-man Bing's original position, heading to the main courtyard and Jingyan Hall to work.
And the job he was assigned just so happened to relate to the mission the Director had given him.
For example, helping Lu Qinghe organize the records and corpses in the corpse repository.
Because of this, Li Ban descended to the fifth level of the Death Prison for the first time.
The location of the Death Prison's fifth level was different from all the other levels.
Its entrance wasn't in the underground prison, but inside Jingyan Hall.
Inside Jingyan Hall was a hidden passageway that led straight underground.
There were no prisoners down there, only stacks upon stacks of corpses.
This meant that the Death Prison's warden, Du An, not only worked directly above the corpse repository every day but also slept right above it.
While helping Lu Qinghe move the processed corpses underground, Li Ban discovered that there wasn't just an ice cellar down there, but also pickled vegetable vats.
The methods for preserving corpses were highly varied.
Li Ban just didn't understand what use they had in keeping the corpses of these Spirit Practitioners.
Knowing that the General's Core Element consumed corpses, Li Ban kept a close eye out while moving things, checking whether any of the corpses in the various areas were mangled or missing parts.
However, the vast majority of these corpses were perfectly intact. The occasional one missing an arm or a leg didn't look like it had sustained the damage after death.
This left Li Ban, who had firmly believed that Du An was the General, feeling rather doubtful.
If Du An was the General, then according to what the Laboratory Director had said, he should need to feed corpses to his Core Element.
He wouldn't just simply store them like this.
While Lu Qinghe was explaining the rules of the fifth level, Li Ban asked her, "Why does His Lordship keep all these corpses?"
"You don't need to know the specific reasons," Lu Qinghe replied coldly. "These corpses all have their uses. You just need to store them properly and ensure they don't suffer severe rot."
Li Ban looked at the bodies. There wasn't a particularly massive number of them—certainly nothing compared to the River of Forgetfulness—but it couldn't be considered a small amount either. There were easily dozens, maybe over a hundred.
"Are these all prisoners from the Death Prison? To think so many have already died."
"Not entirely." Lu Qinghe led Li Ban in verifying the corpses one by one.
The ledger in her hands recorded the identities of the corpses, their time of entry into the repository, and their condition.
From now on, Li Ban would have to start doing this job as well.
The rarely-seen Tree-man Bing was standing guard over in another large repository.
That place likely held important valuables, and Li Ban couldn't enter it for the time being.
Only after they finished the inventory did Lu Qinghe speak. "The corpses of Yu Province's Spirit Practitioner prisoners are ultimately all sent here. This isn't considered a lot. A few years ago, during the Rebellion of the Two Kings—"
Halfway through her sentence, Lu Qinghe shut her mouth, refusing to elaborate further, and waved her hand.
"Good times or bad, people die all the same. It's just a question of how many."
After seeing the ledger, Li Ban grew even more confused.
There were records of corpses coming in and going out, though it didn't note where they were sent.
However, he could tell that they were likely being sent to other official departments, as there were signatures and thumbprints at the end of the entries.
And the corpses currently resting in the repository perfectly matched the ledger.
Under these circumstances, even though Warden Du An had access to many corpses, it wouldn't be easy for him to feed them to a Core Element.
Unless he kept a second ledger.
But based on their current operating routine, Du An only checked the ledger once a month and almost never set foot in the corpse repository.
With things like this, the probability of Du An being the General was lower than the probability of Lu Qinghe being the General.
If Du An really was the General, he was certainly acting with extreme caution.
It was no wonder the Laboratory had deployed so much manpower yet still failed to turn up any clues about the General.
As time passed, Li Ban discovered something else strange about Lu Qinghe.
She truly didn't act like a menial servant with a Tier 1 Identity.
Although Lu Qinghe rarely showed her face on a normal day and didn't interact much with the rest of them, every time she did appear, her aura felt entirely different from those around her.
Forget the prison guards—even the prison officials' auras were sometimes suppressed by hers.
Li Ban sometimes felt that Lu Qinghe didn't seem like Du An's bed-warming maid at all; she felt more like his adjutant.
Not only did she manage a great deal of paperwork, but she was also the only person allowed to stay alone in Jingyan Hall when Du An was away.
'Should I report Lu Qinghe's existence to the Laboratory?' Li Ban pondered.
A few days later, just after Li Ban finished delivering ice to Jingyan Hall, he returned to see Huo Jiang practicing martial arts in the outer courtyard's training ground.
Huo Jiang was wielding a Ghost-Head Saber. Its silver blade was bright and blinding, gleaming brilliantly beneath the sun.
A silver halo of light flowed and circulated around Huo Jiang's entire body.
If not for his right eye, Huo Jiang's movements would be nothing more than a blur to Li Ban right now.
But even observing with his right eye, he could only just manage to follow the blade's trail.
As for how Huo Jiang exerted his strength, or how he launched and retracted his strikes, Li Ban couldn't understand a single thing.
Perhaps noticing Li Ban's gaze, Huo Jiang sheathed his blade after a sweeping slash. He turned to look at Li Ban, breaking into an honest, good-natured smile.
"Want to learn?"
"Am I allowed to learn?"
"I can't teach you anything profound, but I can teach you the introductory saber techniques that all prison guards are allowed to learn."
Following introductory unarmed combat, Li Ban had finally unlocked introductory saber techniques.
He watched as Li Ban clumsily wielded a non-elementalized Ghost-Head Saber, following his lead to practice the basic movements.
Smiling, Huo Jiang told him, "In the future, aside from your daily cultivation, you need to practice your saber techniques and unarmed combat more often. Although we don't frequently take part in hunting down and arresting fugitives, it's still possible for us to clash head-on with the prisoners. When that time comes, these skills will be the capital you rely on to save your life."
After he started learning the saber techniques, Huo Jiang and Li Ban gradually grew familiar with each other.
Huo Jiang even brought Li Ban medicinal oils to help recover his sore muscles after martial arts practice.
The days passed in seeming peace for another month. Then, one day, as Huo Jiang was heading out, he suddenly called for Li Ban to join him.
"Li Ban, let's go. We're taking a trip to the Qingcheng County Yamen."
The two of them boarded a brand-new horse-drawn carriage—their previous carriage had been incinerated by the Blazing Flame Art over at the Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
Afterward, a deputy pagoda master of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda had directly gifted the Death Prison a new carriage.
Although the new carriage was also a single-horse vehicle, it was slightly wider than the original one, and most importantly, its shock absorption was excellent.
"Big Brother Huo, what are we going to the County Office for?"
Nowadays, Li Ban didn't have to act overly cautious when speaking to a prison official.
If he wanted to close the distance with his colleagues in the Death Prison, being too polite would only make them feel alienated.
"Delivering some documents." Huo Jiang directly showed the documents to Li Ban. "Can you read them?"
Li Ban took the documents, simply glanced at the cover, and handed them back. "Barely."
"These are the report documents regarding the last prison break incident. Sigh, Lord Du will likely have his salary docked, and we won't be able to escape punishment either."
He then picked up a second document. "This is Zhao Yu's transfer order. I'm guessing he'll be heading to the Fanggu Pagoda this month. When that happens, I wonder who will be transferred over to replace him."
"Will it be someone transferred from the outside like Shen Kong? Won't they choose from the currently qualified prison guards?"
Huo Jiang shook his head. "The higher the status, the fewer the positions. Once you reach the 3rd Tier, the people competing with you for a promotion are no longer just the ones around you."
"It shifts from open competition to hidden struggles. Eventually, it becomes a contest of who can gain their superior's approval, or who can make their superior happier. In more extreme cases, it's just about who can make their superior remember them."
Looking at the text on the transfer order, Huo Jiang seemed to be feeling emotional.
"Once Zhao Yu is transferred over, it probably won't be long before he's promoted. 4th Tier—he'll be on the same level as Lord Du."
The rest of the journey became somewhat stifling.
Li Ban could clearly hear the envy in Huo Jiang's voice, along with... a hint of bitter unwillingness.
Ultimately, all those emotions condensed into a single sentence.
"Li Ban, if an opportunity ever presents itself to you in the future—no matter what kind of opportunity it is—you absolutely must grab hold of it with all your might!"
For some reason, hearing Huo Jiang say this made Li Ban suddenly feel like there was a hidden meaning behind his words.
The suddenly bestowed mental-type element, the incredibly rare Spiritual Rhinoceros Fruit, Huo Jiang starting to tutor him in martial arts...
Was the 'opportunity' dangling over his head finally about to reveal itself?