Chapter 198 - 145: Case Closed, Prequel: "A Born Criminal

Time: August 12th, last century,

Summer

Prologue:

’The "He Came From Hell" Case’

["A Born Criminal"]

"WAAAH!"

A baby’s cry rang out.

In the dead silence, the piercing sound shattered the world, making everyone instinctively turn to look.

"The baby’s here! The baby’s here!"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"He’s got the goods! It’s a big, healthy baby boy!"

"Congratulations to the family... Where’s the family? Where is the family!?"

In the hospital, several nurses holding the baby stood at the delivery room door, staring blankly at their surroundings.

Unlike the other delivery rooms, where anxious fathers banged their heads against the wall, this baby had virtually no family present.

The doorway was deserted. Not a single person was there to welcome him... unless you counted the police, of course.

In that case, there were plenty.

"We’re screwed. What do we do with this kid?"

A few rookie prison guards looked at the child, completely at a loss.

There were three of them in total.

One veteran guard and two rookies. But even the old-timer had no experience with something like this.

"We can’t seem to contact the family."

"We found his grandparents’ files in Linlan City, but we can’t find them. We don’t have a phone number or anything, and Chen Hong won’t give us a specific address."

"What about the father? Sun Pengyu?"

"Seems he’s still on the run from his debts. Damn it, his wife has been in prison for a year and he hasn’t visited once. He probably doesn’t even know the kid exists..."

"So what do we do?"

The guards stared at the little meatball in their arms, their eyes filled with confusion.

Until...

"Hey, I’ve got it!"

A glimmer of wisdom appeared in one guard’s eyes as he raised his hand.

"Let’s dump this problem on the warden!"

"Great idea!"

The three of them instantly agreed.

And that was Sun Jiang. His birth was ordinary, and yet, not so ordinary.

When he got a little older, he ended up in prison.

The Penglai City prison in ’83 hadn’t been renovated yet; there was no special unit for raising children.

The warden looked at the little meatball with a face full of disdain.

"Hmph, how could the prison have time to raise him?"

"No, no way. Get him out of here, fast. Don’t you see what kind of place this is? Is this appropriate for him!?"

His subordinates were in a bind.

They worked through the night to contact social services.

The warden said, "Damn it, are you out of your mind? Don’t you know where those Turtle Masters we have locked up get their ’goods’ from!?"

The guard felt he had a point.

They racked their brains and, in a stroke of genius, suggested finding an adoptive family.

The warden said, "You really are out of your minds. Who would adopt a criminal’s child? Besides, his mother, father, and grandparents aren’t dead yet!"

"What you’re suggesting is a crime! How is that any different from what the Turtle Masters do!?"

The guards were speechless and couldn’t come up with a new plan for several days.

Then, the warden reluctantly picked up the giggling little meatball and said:

"I’ll take care of him, begrudgingly. Hmm, go a little easy on Chen Hong. Put her in a separate cell and we’ll temporarily convert that area into a special mother-and-infant unit. Put the child there."

And so, the little meatball’s guardians became Chen Hong and, additionally, the warden.

Chen Hong looked at her child, and after a long silence, named him Sun Jiang.

Now that he had a name, Sun Jiang’s lively nature began to show.

Sun Jiang was also very smart. He walked earlier than other kids, ran faster, and solved puzzles quicker.

Watching him, the warden clapped his hands. "It’d be a waste for this kid not to go to school!"

And so, Sun Jiang went to kindergarten.

But he found the other children too immature.

So, after the warden gave him some allowance and a warning, Sun Jiang secretly snuck into the prison block.

The moment he entered the prison block, Sun Jiang was stunned.

The people in the prison block were stunned too. Countless inmates stood on the recreation yard, staring at this little meatball who was barely as tall as their knees.

"Your son?"

"No way. Whose kid is this?"

"Couldn’t be your son, could it?"

"Hey, I’m sterile!"

The prison block erupted in chatter.

Sun Jiang weaved his way through a forest of legs. After a while... a metal wire appeared in his hand. He looked at the object and tilted his head.

In the crowd, Huang Song stared at him, dumbfounded. He quickly patted himself down and was horrified.

His escape tool was gone!

Huang Song said to Sun Jiang, "You don’t know how to use that. Give it to me, I’ll teach you."

As he spoke, he made a gesture like turning a key.

Seeing this, Sun Jiang seemed to ponder for a moment. Then his eyes lit up. He found a discarded lock on an iron gate, stuck the wire inside, and twisted it a few times.

At this, a smile appeared on Huang Song’s face, and he was just about to say something.

With a CLICK, the lock sprang open.

Huang Song: ?

Huang Song’s smile vanished.

He looked at Sun Jiang, whose face was filled with delight as if he’d found a great new toy, and a question mark popped into his head.

He froze, hesitated, then waved the boy over, and they chatted about something.

A short while later...

Huang Song was even more silent, watching Sun Jiang, who knew how to create a distraction and then use sleight of hand to steal. He was utterly speechless.

A few of his fellow inmates came over, laughing and joking.

But before long, they were even more silent than Huang Song.

When it was time for dinner, Sun Jiang happily trotted away.

Watching his retreating back, Huang Song was lost in thought.

A moment later, he suddenly smacked his right fist into his left palm and exclaimed in amazement:

"This kid is a born criminal!"

...

Sun Jiang was a born criminal.

Of course, he wasn’t really a criminal. His education, handled by the prison guards and teachers, took up most of his time.

He was just very smart.

So smart that he could learn things just by seeing or hearing them once.

Slowly,

word of this reached the warden’s ears.

...

「1991.」

The warden looked at Sun Jiang, his thoughts unreadable. Then he hid the boy away and gave him the belongings Chen Hong had left behind.