37: Chapter 37: The three main characters meet in prison, embrace, and weep bitterly—a scene worthy of being called a world-famous painting.

"Clang—!"

With a heavy metallic clang, Chen Beixuan was roughly shoved into a cramped prison cell, and the thick alloy door slowly closed behind him.

There were no windows, no beds, not even a toilet.

The four walls were made of a special alloy that emitted a cold, metallic sheen, and a massive shadowless lamp on the ceiling cast a blinding white light that illuminated the entire space without a single shadow, leaving nowhere to hide.

"Is this a cage for a Mortal?"

Chen Beixuan stumbled to steady himself, looked around, and a deep look of disdain flashed in his eyes.

The gag in his mouth had been removed, but the cold metal collar around his neck, like a death warrant, constantly reminded him of the humiliation he had just suffered.

He sat cross-legged, ignoring the hard, cold floor.

The most urgent task was to restore his strength.

As long as there was even a sliver of Spiritual Qi, he would have a thousand ways to escape from here, and then... wash the entire Bureau of Anomalous Affairs in blood!

He closed his eyes and, following the techniques of the 《Beixuan Immortal Scripture》, began to try and draw in the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi.

However, as soon as his Divine Sense probed outward, he felt that something was wrong.

The concentration of Spiritual Qi in this cell was actually negative!

No, it wasn't just a matter of thin Spiritual Qi; this space was like a massive black hole for Spiritual Qi, crazily and actively draining the True Qi from his body!

"What is going on?!"

Chen Beixuan was terrified, forcibly circulating his Cultivation Technique in an attempt to lock down the little remaining True Essence in his body.

"Sizzle—!!!"

The moment he condensed his True Qi, dense blue electric arcs suddenly lit up on the metal floor beneath him, and a current—weaker than the one on the rooftop but still enough to pierce his heart with pain—instantly surged through his entire body!

"Ah—!"

Chen Beixuan let out a miserable scream; his whole body, like a frog being electrocuted, jerked violently, then crashed back onto the floor, convulsing all over, with white foam spilling from his mouth again.

He finally understood.

This cell was simply a meticulously designed trap.

Want to Cultivate?

First, get drained of Spiritual Qi, then enjoy ten thousand volts of electrotherapy.

This place cut off every possibility of him restoring his power.

Just as Chen Beixuan fell into despair, the alloy door of the cell slid open silently.

A tall, expressionless prison guard walked in, holding a broom and a filthy rag, and threw them with a "bang" in front of Chen Beixuan.

"Prisoner 9528, don't lie on the floor playing dead."

The guard's voice was as harsh as metal grinding against metal, "Today's task is to clean all the corridors and toilets in East District Cell Block One. Move fast; if you don't finish, you don't eat."

Sweeping?

Cleaning toilets?

Chen Beixuan suddenly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at the guard, as if he wanted to spew fire.

"You! Dare! To! Humiliate! This! Immortal Venerable!"

He spoke word by word, the voice squeezed out from between his teeth, filled with monstrous killing intent, "Do you know who this Immortal Venerable is? To make me perform such menial labor, are you not afraid that one day when I regain my strength, I will grind your bones to dust and scatter the ashes, destroying your Divine Soul completely?!"

The guard looked at him as if he were looking at someone mentally disabled.

He couldn't even be bothered to reply, simply pulling a small remote control from his waist, pointing it at Chen Beixuan, and gently pressing the red button.

"Zzzzt—!!!"

A current ten times stronger than before erupted from the collar!

"Awooo—!!!"

Chen Beixuan let out a shrill, inhuman scream; the bones throughout his body trembled, his eyeballs rolled back, and he completely lost control of his body.

This electrocution lasted for a full five minutes.

Five minutes later, the current stopped.

Chen Beixuan lay on the floor like a puddle of mud, black smoke rising from his body, emitting the smell of burnt protein, without even the strength to lift a finger.

The guard stepped forward and nudged him with the tip of his boot.

"Are you still going to act like an Immortal Venerable?"

"..."

"Still going to grind bones to dust?"

"...I'll sweep..."

Chen Beixuan's voice was as weak as a mosquito's buzz, filled with endless humiliation and fear, "I'll sweep... I'll clean the toilets..."

...

Anomalous Creature Detention Center, Central Monitoring Room.

On the massive screen wall, divided into hundreds of small squares, the movements of every "special prisoner" were displayed in real-time.

Gu Changan held a steaming cup of goji berry tea, calmly watching one of the screens.

On the screen, the once arrogant Immortal Venerable Beixuan was holding a broom taller than himself, clumsily sweeping back and forth in a spotless corridor; whenever his movements slowed, the supervising guard would poke him with the end of an electric baton, not too hard, not too soft.

"Team Leader... no, Deputy Bureau Chief."

Chen Xiaobei, standing to the side, pushed up his glasses. Looking at the ridiculous scene on the screen, he couldn't help but ask, "This kind of person... this kind of guy who only thinks about killing entire families and treats human life like blades of grass, can he really be reformed?"

"Yes."

Gu Changan blew on the steam in his cup and spoke indifferently.

"What do Cultivators fear the most? They fear Heart Demons, they fear Karma, they fear the Heavenly Tribulation."

He took a sip of tea and continued, "Now, the nation's laws are the strongest Heavenly Tribulation hanging over their heads. The logic in his heart of 'submit and prosper, oppose and perish' is his greatest Heart Demon. And labor reform is about helping him resolve past bad Karma and planting new seeds of abiding by the law."

"If he refuses to submit or cooperate, that's fine too."

Gu Changan set down his teacup, the corners of his mouth curling into an icy arc.

"Then have him copy 《Ideological and Moral Cultivation and Legal Basis》 and 《Interpretation of Criminal Law》 ten thousand times each. Only when he has engraved 'Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony' into his Dao Heart will we consider reducing his sentence."

Chen Xiaobei was stunned.

Using the Core Socialist Values to reshape an Immortal Venerable's Dao Heart?

This operation was even more outrageous than nuking a Golden Core Old Ancestor!

Just then, Chen Beixuan, who was sweeping, was taken by the guard to a public recreation area.

Calling it a recreation area, it was actually just a massive open-air playground enclosed by high-voltage electric fences.

Dozens of people wearing the same gray prison uniforms were squatting in the corner, staring blankly at the sky.

When Chen Beixuan was shoved in, he immediately noticed three people with distinct temperaments.

One had eyes as sharp as a hawk; even wearing a prison uniform, he couldn't hide that aura of iron-blooded slaughter.

One looked refined and cultured, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a faint medicinal scent on his body.

And there was another... hmm? This one looked a bit familiar; wasn't he that old man who was publicly sentenced to death on TV a few days ago?

Wait, he hadn't been executed yet?

While Chen Beixuan was puzzled, the sharp-eyed youth noticed him and walked over on his own initiative.

"New here?"

The youth looked him up and down and asked.

Chen Beixuan couldn't be bothered to respond.

But the guard's electric baton nearby was "zzzing," so he could only nod reluctantly.

"Brother, what did you do to get in here?"

The youth seemed to be the type to get familiar quickly, squatting down next to him and handing over half a cigarette butt he hadn't finished smoking.

Chen Beixuan frowned and dodged it.

"My name is Defendant Ye Tian."

The youth introduced himself and sighed, "Sigh, it's embarrassing to even say it. I just wanted to go to my fiancée's company to help her solve some trouble, but that lunatic surnamed Gu said I was gathering a crowd for a brawl and illegally possessing firearms..."

Before he could finish, the one wearing glasses also came over, adjusted his glasses, and looked bitter.

"My name is Divine Doctor Lin Chen. I originally wanted to save someone using an ancestral Pill Formula, but he said I was practicing medicine without a license, selling fake medicine, and the amount involved was huge... he sentenced me to life imprisonment."

After the two finished speaking, they both looked at Chen Beixuan.

Chen Beixuan was silent for a moment, feeling the faint, similar yet different "protagonist" aura on this group of "prison mates" around him, and a feeling of extreme absurdity rose in his heart.

He opened his mouth, his voice dry.

"I... I just underwent Rebirth... and wanted to throw a classmate off a rooftop..."

Defendant Ye Tian: "..."

Divine Doctor Lin Chen: "..."

The air suddenly went quiet.

Defendant Ye Tian and Divine Doctor Lin Chen exchanged a look, patted Chen Beixuan's shoulder with complicated expressions, and finally, a thousand words condensed into one sentence.

"Brother, your nature is much worse than ours..."

Just then, the playground's loudspeaker suddenly blared, playing Gu Changan's emotionless voice.

"Everyone, attention! Squat down where you are, hands behind your heads! Prepare to study today's lesson on legal knowledge!"

"Today's topic is: 《On the Dialectical Relationship Between Spitting and the Crime of Endangering Public Safety》."

As his voice fell, the massive screen in the center of the playground lit up and began playing a legal education video.

Defendant Ye Tian, Divine Doctor Lin Chen, and Chen Beixuan—the three children of destiny who should have been calling the wind and summoning the rain in their respective worlds, surrounded by beauties—could only squat on the ground in humiliation with their hands behind their heads, alongside a group of prisoners.

The three exchanged a look, and in each other's eyes, they saw endless grievance and confusion.

Eventually, it was Immortal Venerable Beixuan who had returned via Rebirth whose psychological defenses were the first to collapse.

He buried his head in his knees, his shoulders heaving violently, and let out a suppressed, desperate sob.

"This script is wrong..."