Restrictive Zone

RA 5 - Secret

"I'm betting three days," Luo Hai said.

Jiang Chijing more or less had a gauge of the power in Zheng Mingyi's strikes and felt that this guy would probably know how to protect himself; three days was really quite far-fetched. Full of confidence, he said, "A dinner at a Michelin restaurant."

"You're on." Coming to this point, Luo Hai appeared to suddenly think of something, changing the subject. "By the way, are you really not going to the blind date that I introduced to you before?"

Jiang Chijing moved his gaze away listlessly, indifferent as he said, "Not going."

"Don't blame me for not reminding you." Luo Hai patted Jiang Chijing's shoulder like an elder wise beyond his years. "You're going to end up forever alone if you go on like this, bro."

"Do you have any rights to lecture me?" Jiang Chijing batted Luo Hai's hand away. "Have you resolved your own singledom?"

"That's not the same," Luo Hai said. "I've got a prospective partner, and you?"

"I don't need one."

Jiang Chijing really didn't need someone to date, he only needed someone to voyeur on and his spiritual needs would be fulfilled. However, now the only guy he had been secretly spying on... forget it. The more he thought about it, the stuffier his heart felt.

On the way home from work, Jiang Chijing came across a middle-aged woman carrying two cartons of milk in front of a small supermarket outside the community.

The woman was Auntie Liu, who lived behind Jiang Chijing's house and would occasionally give homemade snacks to her neighbours on the weekends. She was a nice person to be around.

Seeing that Auntie Liu was struggling with her groceries, he slowed the car and pulled up beside her, lowering the window. "Hop on, Auntie Liu. I'll give you a lift back."

Auntie Liu's sweaty brows unfurrowed and she breathed a sigh of relief. "If I may trouble you then, Little Jiang."

Jiang Chijing had no way of changing his old habits. He and Auntie Liu were only casual acquaintances, but over the course of their interactions, he habitually analysed Auntie Liu's general situation.

Auntie Liu shouldn't have any men living with her, else she wouldn't have to carry milk home like this herself. She should have had children, but they weren't around, which was why she liked to interact with the young people in the community.

Jiang Chijing had always been a keen judge of people. Later, as they talked, he learned that not a single guess had missed the mark. Speaking of which, the only person he was completely out of his depth about was Zheng Mingyi.

***

At nine in the morning, while other inmates were still at their morning classes, the three new inmates over here had already handed in their test scripts.

The paper was 100 marks in total and consisted of thirty multiple-choice questions and one short answer question. Regardless of how well they answered the MCQs, as long as they showed a serious attitude when answering the last SAQ, Jiang Chijing would give them decent scores.

The test scripts of the fraudster and the thug were normal, with at least a hundred words in their last question. However, when Zheng Mingyi handed in his test script, Jiang Chijing immediately called hold of him. "This is your test script?"

Zheng Mingyi stopped in his tracks and turned his head over to look at Jiang Chijing, saying, "Yeah."

"Why didn't you answer the SAQ?" Jiang Chijing asked.

"Don't know." After flippantly tossing down this statement, Zheng Mingyi pushed open the meeting room door and left, following behind a prison guard.

Frankly, this short answer question was very simple. All they had to do was pen a paragraph showing remorse for their crime and Jiang Chijing would give them good scores.

Of all the new inmates that he had instructed, this was the first time that Jiang Chijing saw one who did not write a word. No, to be accurate, Zheng Mingyi did write one word—under the question, he wrote the word 'answer'.

Jiang Chijing never had much expectation for inmates to have good handwriting. But someone like Zheng Mingyi who could even make his own name look ugly were rarely seen. It really was a waste of such an attractive face.

Jiang Chijing believed that one's handwriting was revealing of character. If Zheng Mingyi's appearance gave him plus points in Jiang Chijing's books, then his handwriting subtracted an equivalent amount of points.

When he finished scoring the script, Zheng Mingyi had a total score of 1 mark.

It needed to be said that each MCQ was worth 2 marks. Even if he had gone by blind guessing, it was impossible to get every single question wrong. But Zheng Mingyi had perfectly avoided all the correct answers, only earning a grudging 1 mark from Jiang Chijing based on that single 'answer' at the end.

Truth be told, Jiang Chijing didn't even want to award him that 1 mark at all. He had always assumed that the financial market required a certain threshold of intelligence before one could muck around in the industry, let alone cause a financial crime case able to shake the roots of the nation. By right, the convict should be quite intelligent.

But now, Jiang Chijing only had one thought in his head—committing a crime with this level of IQ, it was no wonder that he got caught.

a/n. Actually, Zheng Zheng has quite a good brain on him, he just didn't expect that his wifey would judge him for this.