Scar survived. The doctors managed to pull him back from the brink, but whatever wires ran through his ferocious frame had snapped for good. Scar would never walk again. He was already dead, not in the literal sense, for men like him, a life spent trapped in a broken body was the cruelest punishment. For the rest of his days, Scar would feel only cold sheets, the sting of old wounds, and the regret that a weakling in Harbor City Prison had broken him forever.
Bruce Chen's sentence was doubled. The ink was barely dry on the report before the judgment was final, decades more inside, with the dim hope of freedom all but snuffed out. But Bruce hardly cared. Whether they handed him 30 years or a whole lifetime made no difference anymore. He'd stepped so far past the threshold of hope that even despair had nothing left to offer him.
Bruce was slammed into solitary confinement, most expected him to break. Instead, Bruce transformed. Behind the cold steel door and under the relentless glare of the fluorescent lights, Bruce found a strange sanctuary. There was no one to taunt him, no enemies to evade or please, only time, and a body aching to fight and revenge.
Every day, Bruce forced himself to rise on cracked, bruised limbs and began the grueling ritual of rebuilding. Bruce recalled memories of vulnerable human body points from Old Zhao's special anatomy book. He practiced hitting those points silently, the hollow clang of his knuckles striking the air and thighs echoing into the cold walls. Over and over, throat jabs, rib strikes, solar plexus blows, Bruce trained not just for survival but for vengeance.
Victory, he knew, would come not from brute strength alone but from precision and preparation. Every day spent alone built him stronger, sharper, more dangerous.
After two weeks in that relentless cage, Bruce was returned to the general block. This time, the guards acted with a new wariness, their hands never straying far from their batons. More officers stood watch by the cell door. They did not want another Scar incident on their hands.
Inside, seven men clustered together on the far side of the cramped cell. These were Scar's men, even in their slouched postures and darting glances, that much was plain. Yet the air was changed. Not one dared look Bruce in the eye. Their hands fidgeted, eyes slid away, and each seemed to shrink into himself, as if proximity to Bruce invited disaster.
Bruce sat alone on his bunk, silent. He let the tension build, watching the fear rise in them like water behind a dam. He seemed carved from stone, expressionless, patient, dangerous.
After several minutes that dragged out like the edge of a storm, Bruce finally stood, towering over the gloom. He looked at the men across from him, his shadow casting a pall over the small bunk space.
"I hear a lot of talk," Bruce said, his tone as cold as the cell walls. "Some of you want me dead. Want revenge for Scar."
The reaction was immediate. All seven jumped as if shocked by a live wire, hands waving in desperate denial.
"N…No! Not at all, absolutely not, I swear!"
"We'd never, never! It's a misunderstanding!"
Bruce stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking with every word. His eyes were empty, glinting with something that chilled even the hardest among them. He let the silence crush them for a moment longer.
"You all know what happened to me. My parents wouldn't have died if not for me. I've got nothing left to lose," Bruce continued, voice eerily calm. "A lonely death is a waste. Better to take a few along for the ride."
Bruce's words landed like hammer blows. The group collectively paled, shrinking back. It was clear then that for all their numbers, the balance of terror was no longer in their favor.
Mouse, a wiry man with nervous energy and the quickest wit of the lot, pushed forward a false, ingratiating smile. "You misunderstand. Scar was an asshole, always picking on us, treating us like dirt. What you did? Most of us wanted to do that for years. Now, with him gone, it's a relief. We owe you, really."
"You're the boss here now, Boss Chen. Whatever you say. Right, everyone?"
The others echoed Mouse, scrambling to sound eager, voices tumbling over each other in nervous loyalty.
Bruce spat on the ground between them, his contempt obvious. "Spineless cowards," he sneered. "Go on. Get out of my sight. Get lost."
At once, the seven men slunk away, eyes lowered in humiliation and terror. No one so much as touched a bunk without Bruce's unspoken leave. They clung to the shadows, barely daring to breathe, terrified that a single misstep would unleash Bruce's fury.
From that moment, Bruce Chen was no mere leader. He was the ghost in the darkness, a presence so chilling that a glance was enough to send shivers through hardened criminals. Scar had ruled with violence. Bruce ruled with the madness of a man who did not care whether he lived or died, and that was something all of Harbor City Prison would come to fear far more.
New born of terror spread beyond the cell, through whisper and rumor. In the eyes of the inmates, Bruce was not just their new boss, he was a living curse. One look from Bruce and even the bravest flinched, haunted by the knowledge that he'd already killed his future and would not hesitate to take anyone else's if pushed.