Lin Dongxue and Chen Shi brought the police to the gym and called all the employees for questioning. During the period, the gym manager showed them the snapped belt for the equipment that had broken at the time. Chen Shi put on gloves to check it. It had been cut by a knife.

Xu Xiaodong brought over an employee and the employee said, "I haven't seen the person you mentioned, but a thin man kept smoking on the stairs that day."

"Which staircase?"

"It's the safe exit one."

The employee brought them there. There was a safe passage behind the gym. In fact, you could enter the gym directly from this staircase, but climbing the stairs was too tiring and few people came from here.

The employee got to the platform separating the stairs, pointed to the floor, and said, "Look, there are still cigarette butts on the ground! He had been standing here smoking the whole time. I saw him here at 1:00 in the afternoon and he was still here at 3:00, which was very suspicious."

"What did he look like?"

"Skinny, long hair, and with a tattoo on his hand." According to the employee, it was a bull head tattoo with some English.

Lin Dongxue asked, "Do you have time tomorrow? Can you come to the bureau to help us make a portrait?"

"Okay, I’ll definitely cooperate."

The police took the cigarette butts left on the ground back for sampling. Chen Shi proposed that they look for surveillance footage and walked down the stairs with Lin Dongxue. There wasn’t a security camera in the entire stairway. However, there was a clothing store on the first floor with a security camera.

After the investigation, it was getting late, so Chen Shi sent Lin Dongxue home.

The next morning, Lin Qiupu said that there was a response from the prison and they could go there today. When he found out that Xin Bai was among the people going, he questioned, "Why should this guy go?"

"He said he wanted to go to the prison to collect materials, and I agreed." Lin Dongxue said.

"Hai, you follow along quietly and don’t run amok when you get to the prison."

"Understood!" Xin Bai saluted with a grin.

Jiyu Mountain Prison in the countryside was the largest prison in Long'an. When he saw the long high walls with barbed wire and sentry towers on the mountain, Xin Bai was extremely excited and took out his mobile phone to take pictures.

In the car, Lin Qiupu kept thinking about things with his hands holding up his face. He said, "The prison didn’t respond to Chen Fengde's escape. They only said we’d talk in detail when we meet."

"Can someone escape from such a tightly guarded prison? Chen Fengde is almost 60 years old." Lin Dongxue asked.

"Any prison can be escaped from. The system is made from people, so there must be loopholes." Chen Shi said. "There was a prisoner abroad who weaved dental floss into rope and used it to climb over the high walls."

"Don't talk nonsense when you get to the prison. The prison system is different from ours." Lin Qiupu instructed.

When they arrived at the prison door, a leader came out to receive them and enthusiastically took Lin Qiupu's hand to shake it. Lin Qiupu heard the noise within the high walls and asked if the prisoners were having free time.

"Yes, they’re currently out and about, but they’ll go back soon." The prison chief said.

"Wait a while before going in." Lin Qiupu took out a cigarette case.

Many of the prisoners were sent in by themselves. Lin Qiupu didn't care about this, but he didn't want his sister to be exposed to the eyes of this group and be leered at by the prisoners.

When it became quiet, they walked in, passed through the doors, and arrived at an office.

Lin Qiupu introduced the people on his side to the other party. Chen Shi was said to be a policeman, Xin Bai the chief's driver, and Gu You was a psychology consultant assisting the police.

He thought of these words on the way. The prison chief knew Lin Qiupu, so he acted very politely and didn’t ask for their documents.

"There was a homicide in the city recently. The fingerprints left at the scene are an exact match with Chen Fengde, who was supposed to be serving his sentence here. Of course, we aren’t here for accountability. We just want to figure out what happened." Lin Qiupu said.

"Ah, this is the situation. Chen Fengde disappeared when he was working a week ago. We searched inside and out. We even called police dogs to search the nearby forest, but we never found him. We don't know how he accomplished this feat at all... The responsibility of course lies with our prison, but this matter is too bizarre. Chen Fengde has been crazy and doesn't feel like an ordinary prisoner."

"Are there no prison guards watching the prisoner when they go to work?" Lin Qiupu asked.

"Yes, there must be. Three people were watching him!" The prison chief's eyes flickered.

"Take us to the scene to have a look."

Gu You said, "I would like to ask whether Chen Fengde has been interrogated in prison?"

"He should have been."

"Is there any video kept? If so, I want to have a look if it's convenient."

The prison chief called a prison guard to take them to the archives room to watch the video, saying that he still had some official duties to deal with. Then, the prison guard, Little Wang, took them to investigate the scene.

As he was leaving, the warden gave the prison guard a wink. This little gesture didn’t escape Chen Shi's eyes.

The prison wouldn't go to the scene to destroy evidence, right? Chen Shi said vigilantly, "Since it’s like this, the five of us shouldn’t stay together. Let's act separately. One group should go to the scene and the other should watch the video."

Hence Lin Qiupu, Lin Dongxue, and Xin Bai went to the scene while Chen Shi and Gu You followed the prison guard to the archives room. The prison guard turned on the computer and said, "These videos are all his."

"Comrade, you don't need to be here anymore. If you have things to do, you should do that!" Chen Shi took out a pack of Yuxi cigarettes and handed it to him.

"You’re welcome!" The guard accepted with a smile. "Then, I'll go back to work first and come over later."

Gu You opened a video with a trembling hand. In the picture, an uncle with a crew cut in a numbered outfit was sitting on a chair. The prison guard sitting opposite him asked, "Your motive for murder."

"Helping them get their release." Chen Fengde replied.

"This is already the third interrogation. Are you still going to perfunctorily answer us with such remarks?"

Chen Fengde said unhurriedly, "In your eyes, they are vegetables, but you don’t know that they will also have dreams. It is very painful inside the dreams and they begged me to help them, so I helped them."

The prison guard threw the pen on the table impatiently. "This again? Can’t you have an excuse that’s fresh? ... Let me ask you this: Why did you kill the nurse?"

"Because Li Xiaomei told me that the caregiver was dishonest and often raped her late at night. He’s a villain."

"Who’s Li Xiaomei?"

"One of the vegetative people I killed."

"Hmph, it's a dream again!"

"Dreams are my everything. You can imprison my body, but you can't imprison my dreams. I can do anything in the dream, and I can know everything... I know that you went on a blind date recently, and you’re very satisfied with the girl, but she doesn't like your career. You’re very distressed. Also, you’re too addicted to smoking and can't quit. You often dream that you will die of lung cancer. "

"Who... who told you this?!"

"Dream Master."

"You’re crazy!" The guard was about to go into a fit of rage.

Chen Shi found two lines of tears on Gu You's face. He suddenly asked, "Miss Gu, you’re Chen Fengde's daughter, right?"