Lin Feng shifted on the thin mattress, his cracked ribs screaming in protest with every shallow breath. His gaze darted toward the others. Wang Jian was awake, sitting upright with the calm of a man who had already decided the night's outcome. Chen Wei lounged against the far wall, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve as though the evening were merely tedious. And the tattooed man—the one whose ink crawled up his neck like strangling vines—sat motionless on the edge of his bunk, eyes fixed on Lin Feng with the unblinking focus of a predator that had already marked its prey.
Lin Feng's throat tightened until swallowing felt like forcing glass down his windpipe. "What… what is it?" he asked, the words fracturing before they fully left his mouth.
No one answered.
Then came the sound.
Not from inside the cell.
From the corridor.
