Warden of the Beast World: Everyone is a Hakimi

Lu Yu stood in the central observation room, where the holographic screen in front of him was covered with five monitoring curves for mental energy collapse.

He had been watching the two lines of Jingyao and Hanzhou for almost half a month. They were steadily at 74, fluctuating by no more than 0.5 per day, like two straight lines nailed to the scale.

This is not a recovery from stagnation; this is artificial score manipulation.

Two generals from the Imperial Army, with their terrifyingly precise mental control, kept their collapse value just one point below the release threshold, allowing them to comfortably freeload in his prison.

If they continue living like this, Prison Zero will really have to be renamed Hotel Zero.

He took a deep breath and pushed open the security door to Observation Zone One. Jing Yao was sitting in human form on the edge of the stone platform, flipping through a paper book he had somehow acquired.

The humanoid marshal of the Third Imperial Army was very tall, with short, snow-white hair. His amber pupils gleamed faintly gold under the cold white light. His features were deep and he never smiled. Just sitting there flipping through a book, his aura made the air in the observation area feel heavier.

"Marshal, it's time for you to be released from prison. The military still needs you..." Lu Yu stood ramrod straight, his tone a standard reporting voice.

"Colonel Lu, are you trying to teach this Marshal how to do things?" Jing Yao turned a page of his book, his gaze never leaving the page. His voice was neither loud nor soft, but it carried a kind of imposing authority honed from countless battlefield command experiences.

Lu Yu felt his breath catch slightly. He silently mobilized all his mental energy to resist the pressure, and a small patch of his shirt on the back was already soaked with cold sweat.

He recalled how Ye Tang would push her food cart among these big shots every day, laughing and calling out "Big Cat" and "Free-Range Chicken," never affected by anyone's intimidation. He wondered how she managed it. Was his mental threshold too low, or was she just too thick-skinned?

"Marshal, you really should go back." Lu Yu said again through gritted teeth.

"What if I, the Marshal, say no?" Jing Yao finally raised his eyes and glanced at him. In that one glance, Lu Yu felt as if he had been locked onto by a ferocious beast at the top of the food chain from hundreds of meters away.

He paused for a moment, gave Jing Yao a military salute, then decisively gave up and turned to walk into Observation Zone Two. Compared to Marshal White Tiger, perhaps the taciturn Black Panther Commander was easier to communicate with; at least Han Zhou wouldn't use intimidation to crush him.

In a corner of Observation Zone Two, Han Zhou lay in the shadows in his beast form, his pale golden leopard eyes gleaming with a cold, eerie light in the darkness. When Lu Yu entered, he didn't even look up; he merely flicked his tail lightly on the ground as a greeting.

"Commander Han, you..." Lu Yu carefully chose his words.

"I know," Han Zhou replied succinctly.

"When are you leaving?"

"tomorrow."

This crisp and decisive answer left Lu Yu speechless, unable to utter a single, well-prepared statement.

He had initially thought Han Zhou would be harder to persuade than Jing Yao, the chief commander who was known in the military for his aloofness and never explained his decisions to anyone. But Han Zhou didn't need his persuasion.

He is the commander-in-chief of the military, the brain of the entire imperial military. From frontline deployment to logistical scheduling, every link must pass through his hands to function.

Jing Yao would occasionally delegate the daily affairs of the Third Legion to You Ming, but Han Zhou had no such substitute, and no one could coordinate the overall situation for him.

Even while imprisoned in Prison Zero, his personal computer received military briefings every day without interruption. Even when his consciousness was so blurred that he could no longer take form at the peak of his breakdown, he would still reply to the instructions one by one during his moments of lucidity.

He knew he couldn't stay here forever, but he hadn't had a suitable reason to force himself to leave. Now that Lu Yu had brought it up, he had no excuse to stay any longer.

Looking into the calm, light golden leopard eyes in the corner, Lu Yu suddenly felt a tightness in his throat.

He had seen Hanzhou on the verge of collapse, cutting himself, enduring excruciating pain, and gritting his teeth to handle military affairs.

Han Zhou's breakdown value remained stuck at 74. Like Jing Yao, he didn't want to leave. However, Han Zhou wasn't as willful as Jing Yao; he was born to be forged by responsibility.

Lu Yu opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but found that none of his most eloquent official phrases were suitable for this situation. In the end, he simply bowed slightly and left Observation Zone Two.

When Ye Tang received Lu Yu's message, she was in the kitchen making sweet and sour sauce. A message popped up on her personal terminal, and she glanced at it, her hand holding the spoon pausing for a moment.

Hanzhou is leaving tomorrow. The black panther said no more than ten things to her in the past month: "Hmm," "I know," "No need," "Too sweet," "It's okay." She remembered every single one of them.

She took off her apron and brought out all the usable ingredients from her storage space. The sweet and sour pork was coated in six layers of egg batter and fried until golden and crispy. The sweet and sour sauce was freshly made by her using hawthorn and rock sugar, with a sour taste first and a sweet taste later, and it wouldn't solidify into sticky sugar cubes after cooling.

Honey-glazed roasted chicken legs were brushed with three layers of honey water and roasted until the skin was slightly crispy. A few small holes were poked in them with bamboo skewers to let the juices seep out, so they would taste good even when cooled.

A box of sweet and sour pork with pineapple. The pineapple was freshly picked from her spiritual field in her space. She casually popped a piece into her mouth while cutting it into chunks, and it was so sour that she squinted her eyes, but Han Zhou liked that kind of sourness. There was also a pot of tomato beef brisket. The beef brisket was taken from the freezer in the supermarket in her space and stewed for several hours. It was so tender that it would fall apart with a chopstick.

After everything was prepared and cooled, it was vacuum-sealed into individual portions, with a handwritten label on each bag indicating the heating time and method. She also brought a whole box of freshly harvested catnip, wrapped tightly in cling film, the dew still clinging to the leaves.

The next morning, when Han Zhou walked out of Observation Zone No. 2, the lights in the corridor cast a cold white outline around his human figure.

He wore a minimalist black military uniform, the stand-up collar buttoned to the top, the silver lieutenant general's epaulets gleaming coldly under the light. His black hair was neatly tied back, with a few stray strands falling across his forehead, making his long, narrow, golden eyes appear even more serene. His figure was tall and straight, with clean, sharp lines from his shoulders to his waist, making him resemble a black blade sheathed in its sheath.

This was the first time Ye Tang had seen him in human form, and five words inappropriately popped into her mind: abstinent handsome man. If this were on Earth, his face alone would be enough for him to debut as a celebrity.

Han Zhou walked silently toward the prison gate, his golden eyes sweeping over the few people standing in the courtyard. Jing Yao leaned against an old tree, You Lie lay at the feet of Ye Tang, Chi Heng squatted on the wall, and Ling Shou was not there.

He didn't speak or turn around, but paused slightly at the doorway. In that brief moment of hesitation, Ye Tang ran over and slipped a storage ring into his hand.

"Take this to eat on the way. Let the sweet and sour pork cool down and then microwave it for two minutes. Don't use an open flame, or it will burn. Chew on the catnip as much as you want. And the tomato beef brisket, if you think it's too sour, ask the military canteen to add a spoonful of sugar. Don't throw it away; I stewed it for several hours." Ye Tang rambled on, her voice a beat faster than usual.

Han Zhou looked down at the storage ring in his palm, still warm from his body. He didn't say thank you, nor did he show any expression; he simply put it into the inner pocket of his military uniform.

Then he turned and stepped out of the gates of Prison Zero. His face remained perpetually expressionless, his jawline taut as always, and he didn't even blink.

But Ye Tang's gaze had already habitually shifted downwards, landing on the long, powerful black leopard tail behind him. The tail was swaying from side to side almost imperceptibly and with minimal movement.

Ye Tang lowered her head and secretly smiled. Her years of experience petting cats and dogs were fully validated at this moment; a feline's tail is more honest than its mouth. This leopard was in a very good mood.