CH 10.1

Second Floor (3)

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

He Is Just Expressing His Grand Form of Art

“Doctor, you’ve become the hottest topic on the second floor right now.”

Lin Yi knocks on the window, then hands the scalpel and bandages to Jiang Yiyi.

“These are all I’ve got. Make do with it.”

Jiang Yiyi takes the scalpel, and the familiar touch makes him twitch his fingers by reflex——And the sharp scalpel spins in response like a toy at his fingertips, the reflection painting a mesmerising picture off the blade.

Lin Yi admires for a few seconds and then comments, “it truly is quite the handicap without the scalpel for you.”

Jiang Yiyi stops his hand, and turns to look at him.

“You were too bold earlier.” Lin Yi’s brows crease ever so slightly as he expresses his disapproval, “Lunatic is insane. Any mishap and the price would have been heavy.”

He glances at Lunatic, currently sitting quietly at the corner, “it is not a good idea to stay with him. Are you confident you can control him for a lifetime? Beasts are beasts because they can always revert and retaliate…”

“You’re blabbering.”

Jiang Yiyi gets up and walks over to Lunatic, while observing his wound, “take your clothes off.”

Lunatic is staring blankly at him.

Jiang Yiyi continues to look at him calmly.

Lunatic’s pupil makes a movement. The response makes him look that bit more human.

“I do not like repeating myself. Take your clothes off.”

“Can’t you just slice it open?” Lin Yi asks, sounding impatient, “he’s insane and there’s a chopstick in his body. What were you expecting…”

He stops abruptly.

Lunatic’s hands move and he looks down at his clothes, pawing at them. Unable to find a way, he suddenly tears the prisoner’s clothes apart, revealing the powerful muscles and crisscrossing scars underneath.

Jiang Yiyi looks past his orderly rows of abs, arriving at the wound. He is unemotional now.

The scalpel slices, divides, with an artistic stroke to the performance of life and death put on atop the flesh.

“Hey, how many people have you killed?” Lin Yi’s body has straightened up in the meantime, as he asks.

Not a surprising question, for the jarring difference there is between Jiang Yiyi with a knife and without.

When he has his possession, it appears all the bones, muscles, veins and flesh are only his most familiar toys. A mechanical efficiency and smoothness in slicing only turns the show into a work of art, rather than the reality that there is a living person at the mercy of the blade.

He’s not saving people. Nor is he killing people.

He is, just an artist.

In art, there is no life nor death. No crime nor justice. Only art.

A masterful display can never come about from pure talent. Only lifelong dedication can produce such an innate understanding of the human body——How many people has he killed?

Jiang Yiyi has finished his suture following the clear display of the dissection diagram, and is rewarded by his skill upgrading to Masterful.

“Did you ask something?” Jiang Yiyi throws Lunatic the bandage and turns his head to ask Lin Yi.

The operation had no anaesthetics——Which wouldn’t have been possible to apply in a prison cell setting regardless——Yet, Lunatic does not look fazed by the pain at all. He is indifferent enough that he doesn’t look like he was operated on and sewn back up just now at all by Jiang Yiyi.

Lunatic is staring at the bandages.

“How many people have you killed?” Lin Yi repeats.

Jiang Yiyi scrutinises his expression while admitting his surprise, “do you know you look like a good guy right now?”

Lin Yi is speechless for a moment, “I’ve always been a good guy.”

“Oh.” Jiang Yiyi makes a noncommittal noise then answers his question, “I have not.”

“What?”

“I said, I have not killed anyone.”

“Impossible.” Lin Yi is adamant.

“Why not?” Jiang Yiyi adds thusly to Lin Yi, “I am also a good person.”

Lin Yi can’t help but smirk, “impossible.”

“Hey, when you said that, I didn’t mock you in turn.” Jiang Yiyi makes clear his displeasure, “this attitude of yours…”

Lunatic, after blankly staring for so long, slowly works the bandage on him with an oddly professional air to it.

“Are you telling me what to do?” Jiang Yiyi, with a scalpel spinning in hand, approaches the window.

Lin Yi takes a step back in reflex.

Jiang Yiyi stops and raises his brow, “it appears you have misunderstood the cooperative relationship between us.”

Lin Yi realises that his step back was a clear sign of his lack of confidence. Still, looking at Jiang Yiyi, he does not walk back up. He asks, with a safe distance between them, “mmhm?”

“See, you are not particularly useful to me right now.” Jiang Yiyi points out calmly and succinctly, “Butcher is happy to help me out, while you…” He tilts his head, “appear to be unwelcome among the prison officers now.”

“Earlier, I convinced Butcher to keep you around. Now, it’s time you prove to me that you are useful to have around.”

Lin Yi says, after a few seconds, “the second floor is quite far away from my men on the lower floors.”

“Is that an admission that you are now useless to me?” Jiang Yiyi’s tone raises.

Lin Yi remains silent for even longer.

“What is it that you want?”

That’s a good question. He thinks for a few seconds, with time for an introspective surprise at his whole lack of motivation; for a person, he seems overly devoid of desires.

After some thought, what Butcher said lingers in his mind.

“The file on Lunatic…” Jiang Yiyi pauses, then hands the scalpel outside, “and, blend into the second floor.”

Lin Yi takes the scalpel and looks at Jiang Yiyi in the eye, “that’s all?”

“Which is why I would expect no less than a pass with flying colours.”

Jiang Yiyi’s return towards the bed pauses, as he looks back at Lin Yi to add, “naturally, there is a simpler way. Whatever your means, eliminate all your rival competitors from my pool of choice, and that leaves me with only you.”

Rival competitors? Butcher?

That is no easy task.

Jiang Yiyi discovers quite quickly that the second floor offers ample amount of courtyard time, ample enough that it is probably to drain all those pent up energy the prisoners build up.

Which has nothing to do with Jiang Yiyi directly——After his immediate fame in that fight, the prisoners have wisely kept their distance from him. Nobody wants to be the blind fool that tried to size Jiang Yiyi up, after all.

Not to mention his new little follower the sticks to him like a shadow, Lunatic.

So all in all, Jiang Yiyi is enjoying a far more comfortable time here than on the first floor.

The more merciless an environment, the more it bends to those with power.

Jiang Yiyi retracts the scalpel and then throws bandages at the prisoner with this crying smile on his face, then gives him a business smile, “now patch yourself up.”

The bandage lands on the prisoner’s lap, but his inexplicable intense shaking causes it to then fall onto the ground. Now dusty from rolling, it stops next to someone’s legs.

Jiang Yiyi is ready to leave, when he spots it, and looks at the person by the bandages.

That man glances at the bandages, and does not do anything.

Jiang Yiyi is looking at him with indifferent eyes. His scalpel dances between his fingertips. There is a sudden tension in the air.

Lunatic raises his head behind Jiang Yiyi. His eyes are locking on.