On his first day in prison.
“No matter who you were on the outside, once you enter Zarat—this hell of a prison—you are nothing but a convict!”
“Do you understand?!”
The guard's voice echoed through the cells.
However, only three days had passed.
“My, Mr. Li An, are you settling in well? Is there any inconvenience? Just tell me, and I will have someone handle it immediately.”
Warden Cheshire of Zarat Prison stood with a face full of smiles, carefully dusting off Li An's prison uniform.
This prison was situated on a remote island, and it was said that since its construction, no prisoner had ever successfully escaped.
Yet now, the grand warden was acting like a respectful butler.
“It's quite good,” Li An nodded.
“Every morning I wake up feeling refreshed, and prison life suits me very well.”
“However...”
“The bread for breakfast is slightly hard.”
“What?!”
Cheshire's expression shifted.
“How can this be!”
“I will severely reprimand the delivery staff immediately! How can the bread be hard? This is a very serious issue!”
“...”
Li An looked calm.
“Then I shall trouble the Warden.”
“Please rest assured! I will definitely deal with this right away!”
Cheshire nodded repeatedly.
“I hope you have a pleasant day in the prison today as well.”
“You take care of your health as well, Warden.”
Li An walked out of the warden's office.
The reason he was enjoying this kind of treatment was, in the end, because he had casually asked about purchasing land before.
As it turned out, mana crystals had been dug up from that plot of land.
Since then, the warden's attitude toward him had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.
“Mr. Li An!”
The guards outside the door saluted in unison.
“It is currently midday recreation. Would you like to rest in your cell today, or go out for some activity?”
“My back is a bit sore lately, so let's go for a walk.”
“Understood, please follow me.”
The guard respectfully led Li An to the prison yard.
The other prisoners were already enjoying their brief moment of freedom there.
“Pass it here! Pass the ball! You idiot!”
“To me! Don't pass it to that brainless fool!”
The scene was in complete chaos.
The guard could not help but shake his head.
“Tsk tsk, even if you give them freedom, this bunch can't even maintain basic order.”
“Now those are real convicts, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Li An?”
“Haha,” Li An smiled, “perhaps.”
The guard looked left and right.
After confirming no one was paying attention, he quietly leaned in to Li An's ear.
“How many bets do you want to place today?”
“The third match.”
“Splendid!”
The guard's face instantly lit up with a grin, and he trotted off happily to place the bet.
Li An stood alone in the yard.
He looked up at the sky.
The sea breeze blew in from the distance.
Screech—
Seagulls glided across the blue sky.
No one knew what life would bring next.
Yet Li An had never imagined that just a few days ago, he had been at the height of his glory in the empire, and now he was locked in a prison.
And it was the empire's most notorious Zarat Prison, at that.
“...It's a bit strange.”
Li An fell into deep thought.
Back when that article about the Jewel Frog had just been published, the imperial guards had immediately knocked on his door.
No trial.
No investigation.
They didn't even present any decent evidence.
They simply arrested him.
And then sent him straight to Zarat.
It was almost as if...
Someone had been waiting for this exact moment.
To pull this off, two conditions had to be met.
First, the other party must possess enough power to shake Li An's current position.
After all, market manipulation was a major crime.
To throw a high-ranking imperial official straight into Zarat without any solid evidence, their authority had to be so immense that they could treat the law like a mere suggestion.
Second, they had to harbor a deep enough hostility toward Li An.
After all, Zarat was not a place one could easily leave once they entered.
“...The Second Princess?”
The first person to cross Li An's mind was Serena.
She had plenty of power.
And she might indeed bear a grudge against him over certain matters.
If it was in line with her character of “if I can't have you, I'll destroy you,” it wasn't entirely impossible.
“No, that's not right.”
While this deduction seemed logical, there was a glaring loophole.
On the very day Li An was imprisoned, the Second Princess had actually sent him an invitation.
If she were the one behind it, she would have had no reason to invite him at a time like that.
So, rule out the Second Princess.
That left... the Emperor.
The Crown Prince.
The ministers...
The Emperor was highly unlikely.
If the Emperor had personally acted, with Li An's current status, he probably wouldn't even have made it to prison—he would have long since turned into ash at the execution grounds.
The Crown Prince didn't seem likely either.
After all, the Crown Prince had personally ordered him to investigate and seize Count Deval's property.
And given the Crown Prince's personality, he wouldn't use Li An only to set him up and throw him into prison at the same time.
In that case...
“The ministers.”
Li An recalled the scene when he had an audience with the Emperor.
Those ministers standing beside the Emperor, each with a flattering smile and honeyed words.
And a certain line that Kane, the chief of Section One of the Evaluation Department, had once said.
—If not for those sycophants surrounding the Emperor, you would have become an imperial minister long ago.
“As expected...”
Li An's gaze darkened slightly.
The most likely culprits to throw him into prison were those high ministers who served by the Emperor's side year-round.
“Li An!”
A gruff voice interrupted his train of thought.
A man so towering he was almost like a giant walked over.
“Come play!”
Li An snapped out of it.
“Sure,” he replied, “play what?”
“Knitting.”
The man grinned.
His name was Jerob.
Though he looked big and burly, his fingers were exceptionally nimble.
He picked up the yarn, his fingers dancing up and down, and soon knitted a beautiful pattern.
“I love knitting the most.”
“Hehe.”
“...”
Li An smiled and sat down beside him.
Although Jerob looked fierce and menacing, he was actually quite easy to get along with.
When he first entered the prison, he had seemed somewhat timid because he wasn't used to the environment.
It was Li An who had taken the initiative to strike up a conversation with him.
Since then, Jerob had been sticking to Li An's side.
“As long as I'm with Li An, I feel like staying here for the rest of my life would be fine.”
“It's very interesting here.”
“Hehe.”
“...”
Li An remained silent for a moment.
“Perhaps.”
Zarat was located on an island, after all.
The air was fresh.
The occasional sea breeze was also highly pleasant.
Every day, he only needed to eat, bathe, and sleep.
The days passed just like that.
There was barely anything to worry about.
“Could it be...”
“That being a convict is my true calling?”
Li An inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity.
He felt as if he had experienced this kind of life somewhere before.
“Hahaha! Minister!!!”
“I've come!”
“You're actually still alive!”
“...”
Li An raised his head.
“Sushia.”
“Are your eyes just decorations?”
“Don't you see the Minister is right in front of you?”
According to the rules of Zarat Prison, prisoners were not allowed visitors.
But rules, when faced with the power of a ducal family combined with the warden's personal connections, were clearly of little use.
Sushia looked at Li An through the visitation window.
“Minister!”
“Your face has gotten so thin!”
“How are you suffering so much!”
“I merely lost some weight,” Li An said helplessly.
“In fact, the structured prison life has made me quite healthy.”
“You don't have to tell such lies in front of me...”
Sushia's eyes instantly welled with tears.
“Sob...”
However, what Li An said was the absolute truth.
The food here was surprisingly decent.
Sushia whimpered and cried for a while longer before finally calming down and starting to talk about the events outside.
“With your sudden arrest, Minister, the entire Evaluation Department has thrown into complete chaos!”
“The empire is also in an uproar.”
“Yes.”
“Right now, the entire Evaluation Department is on strike!”
Sushia gritted her teeth.
“They're even prepared to lose their lives!”
“As long as the Minister doesn't come out, they won't work for a single day!”
Li An raised an eyebrow slightly.
This was indeed unexpected.
After all, this was the empire.
If they displeased the Emperor even slightly, their heads could roll at any moment.
Yet now, even with the Evaluation Department causing such a massive uproar, their heads were still safely attached to their necks.
It seemed the Emperor was still observing the situation.
“Furthermore, the catkins working in the empire have also joined the strike.”
“They said they must protect the benefactor who brought them a new life.”
“...Why did even they...”
Li An was somewhat speechless.
“So Minister, please do not worry at all!”
Sushia continued, “Most importantly, His Highness the Crown Prince is absolutely furious!”
“He said he will thoroughly investigate this matter!”
“Even Her Highness the Third Princess is said to have strongly protested at a formal occasion!”
“...”
Elizabeth?
Li An fell silent.
Originally, he thought that once he lost his utility, the Third Princess would leave without a second thought.
But now, it seemed there were far more people standing on his side than he had imagined.
“And I couldn't just sit by and do nothing either.”
Sushia puffed out her chest.
“I used every connection I had and finally uncovered the mastermind behind this incident.”
“The mastermind?”
“It really is Marquis Sevis and Count Galtana!”
Sushia said indignantly.
“Those sycophants!”
Li An's gaze narrowed slightly.
Marquis Sevis.
Count Galtana.
They were indeed among the ministers standing by the Emperor's side during his audience that day.
As expected.
It was them.
“However...”
Li An asked, “Even if they are high ministers of the empire, they shouldn't have been able to bypass a formal trial and send me straight to Zarat, right?”
“I find that strange too,” Sushia nodded.
“But please be at ease, Minister!”
“I will absolutely find a way to get you out!”
“No,” Li An shook his head.
“Things are actually best as they are now.”
“Huh?”
Li An knew very well in his heart.
Even if the empire fell one day, Zarat Prison would not disappear.
At most, it would only change masters.
In a sense, staying quietly in prison was actually a pretty good option.
Good air.
Light work.
Decent food.
As long as he still had those influential figures backing him, life in Zarat was actually quite comfortable.
“Oh, right.”
Sushia suddenly remembered something.
“I also brought you some newspapers.”
“That way, you can keep up with what's happening outside lately.”
With that, she proudly began pulling items from her bag.
The guard glanced over, then silently averted his gaze.
This was power.
“Thank you,” Li An accepted the newspapers.
“Things seem to be progressing well,” Sushia smiled.
“You don't need to worry too much, Minister.”
“Your innocence will definitely be proven!”
Usually, once words like that were spoken...
Things tended not to go so smoothly.
“Visitation time is up, Lady Sushia,” the guard reminded her.
“Then I'm off, Minister!”
Sushia stood up reluctantly.
“I will definitely come again!”
“You must take care of your health!”
“Yes.”
Sushia walked a few steps, then couldn't help but look back.
A few more steps, then another look back.
Only when the guard finally lost patience and urged her along did she reluctantly leave.
Li An watched her retreating figure.
“...”
That girl.
She was actually quite endearing.
At the very least, she had actually boarded a ship to come to this godforsaken place just to see him.
Li An's evaluation of Sushia couldn't help but rise a bit higher.
Dinner time.
After eating, Li An returned to his cell.
He took out the newspapers Sushia had brought.
“Still, I should keep an eye on the situation outside.”
He spread open a newspaper.
As expected.
The front-page news was about him.
▶ Light of the Empire, Imprisoned in the Worst Hellhole!
Li An glanced over it, then continued reading down.
▶ White Magic Tower Takes Notice of Jewel Frogs?
▶ Crown Prince Kane: “I Will Absolutely Not Stand By and Watch!”
▶ Duke of Senistia Expresses Regret Over Recent Event
▶ Catkin Initiate Total Strike!
▶ Third Princess Elizabeth Breaks Long Silence, Publicly Speaks Out in Official Setting!
Li An fell silent for a moment.
“...”
It seemed...
The outside world had truly turned into a complete mess.
He folded the newspaper and leaned against the cold stone wall of his cell.
And in the meantime, the undercurrents of the empire were only just beginning to surge.
Rate on N.U.
