At exactly elven twenty in the morning, the Five left that awful motel with nothing but their hired car and a black bag filled with devices Shifu would otherwise forbid them to use if they weren't on an important mission. Even though there was only one bed (annoyingly), everyone slept surprisingly well considering three out of five of them were on the floor and Fan muttered in his sleep.
At eleven forty two in the morning the car slid in cleanly outside the daunting metal gates, stopping just short of them. Everyone turned to Jia, who gulped down a swallow of nervousness, gripping his shoulder-bag even tighter.
"Good luck with your interview!" Cong jokingly nudged him towards the car door.
Jia gave him a half-hearted side-eye. "You'll be fine Jia, just act normal." Yu comforted, reaching to the passenger seat to give him a head pat.
"And try to be in and out as fast as possible." Ying added.
"And take this off –" Fan lunged forward and snatched Jia's hat from his head. "it doesn't go with the suit and you're just gonna look weird."
Jia didn't bother fighting him, too nervous to bite back. "I still don't get why I'm wearing a suit," he muttered, voice weak with worry. "I'm not applying as a lawyer…"
"You look good in a suit so it's more likely they'll like you." Cong said, grinning, looking him up and down.
"Scientifically, attractive people do better in interviews." Fan winked suggestively at him.
Opening the car door and stepping out, Jia looked at him scathingly. "Thanks for the encouragement." He said sarcastically, before slamming the door in their faces.
He didn't bother looking back to see them drive off, and marched forward to the gates. It took a stupid amount of courage to press the little circular button.
It emitted a horribly loud ring and a wiry voice answered on the other line. "The gate is shut." The man said rudely, and Jia almost sighed.
"This is Chao Eng-ee? The – uh, cleaner, I'm here for a job interview?"
Some mutterings were heard as the man communicated with whoever was in the security room with him. After what felt like a year, he finally spoke up again. "Okay then, the gate is opening now."
The heavy metal stirred to life and creaked apart at a snail's pace. Impatient, Jia slid himself through the first tiny gap and set off on a brisk walk to the front of the prison. He couldn't deny it was a depressing place to be in. He didn't want to imagine actually having to work there, not to mention that the prison inmates scared him a little more than he'd like to admit. In the distance, through a fence with barbed wire, were a few dozen figures clad in bright orange, shackled together in a state of misery. Jia shuddered, he hoped to god that wouldn't be him if he got caught snooping through the prison's files.
A guard came to the door to greet him, and out of instinct Jia opened his bag to show his innocence.
The guard waved him off. "Don't bother, you don't look like you could do any harm anyway."
Jia had to refrain from openly glaring.
Cong glanced at the time on his phone. Three minutes had passed and the clock was only continuing to tick by. The coast would hopefully be clear, leaving him an easy path into the building Jia had just been let into.
"You better go now." Yu said, watching Jia go through carefully, face pressed up against the car window.
"Good luck bro," Fan patted him on the shoulder encouragingly. "don't get arrested!" He finger gunned and Cong would have done it back if Ying wasn't looking at him intently, probably ready to de-brief him for the final time.
"You know what to do, right?"
"Yes Ying I know –"
"You have the map on your phone, the lock pick, and you know exactly the file you're searching for?"
Cong sighed fondly. "Yes, now please calm down, take a seat and I will take care of everything." He said in what was meant to be a reassuring way, but it didn't seem to quell her anxiety, as she was still sitting far forward in her car seat, straining the seatbelt.
"Please don't mess this up." She ran a hand through her hair nervously.
He nodded to her and opened the car door. "Wish me luck guys!" And with that he took off, stealthily following the same path Jia did, narrowly avoiding anyone seeing him sneak through the gate that was about to close.
Jia was led into the dim building and through winding corridors. His and the guard's footsteps clicked on the clinically grey vinyl and echoed off the white walls. Admittedly, Jia had never been in a prison before, and he was terrified to say the least. Out of the five of them, him and Fan were the ones to go undercover the most. Fan because he was the oldest and could pull off looking and sounding older than his years due to that famously low voice of his. And Jia was the only one who could go unnoticed while simultaneously keeping a calm head in stressful situations.
Though this was his first time where he was not a simple observer or distraction.
Their fairly awkward walk had come to an end, and the guard opened a door in the depths of the prison, where a suited man sat at a desk.
"Good luck." He muttered gruffly, before following Jia in and closing it with a snap and standing next to it, turning to statue once again.
"Mr Eng-ee?" The man asked, not turning away from his computer.
"Yes sir, pleased to meet you." Jia said, putting on the earnest and innocent persona of a mere minimum wage employee.
The man harrumphed, seemingly unimpressed with his façade and Jia bit back a smile, this was going well so far. "You can call me Mr Liu," He said, putting on a pair of rectangular glasses and looking at Jia properly. "take a seat." He gestured towards the plastic chair in front of him.
Jia sat down, trying not to wince at the uncomfortable seating.
"Why a prison of all places?" Mr Liu asked, his demanding tone doing nothing to qualm Jia's knotting stomach.
"Ah well, I'm only a cleaner, so I'd like to find any way I can to help the community." He said demurely.
"Then why not a school? Or perhaps the local community centre."
What the hell were these questions? "I enjoy the discipline of a prison," Jia replied. "the thought that the prisoners here are… kept confined, is quite appealing to me." The bullshit response was something the others would find hilariously out-of-place, and he held back a small smirk on his lips.
Mr Liu hummed in appreciation. "And as a, mere cleaner, what do you possess that makes you an exceptional cleaner?"
"I uh –" Jia paused, it had been a while since he'd done a proper job interview, and admittedly he had not prepared an answer for this sort of question. "I do all my work and – uh, don't slack off." He finished lamely and Mr Liu raised his eyebrows.
"There are a lot of people who want this job, Mr Eng-ee."
"I know, and I will do my best to fulfil it."
Mr Liu typed something up on his computer, the clicking of keys filling up the silence for a minute. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two."
His pair of beady eyes looked him up and down. "There's not much of you, are you sure you can handle such an environment?"
It was hard not to be offended by their judgemental stares.
"Of course sir."
"Know any self-defense?"
"A little," He lied deftly. "I uh, picked up a few things after working in a museum of kung fu."
Mr Liu didn't appear to be convinced. "Enough to fight off a rouge prisoner?" He challenged.
Jia stopped. "N-no sir," He stammered out, the truth slicing him like a knife. "does that – does that happen often?" The nervousness was back, and despite the fact that he was in a famously dangerous group of spies he knew there was no way he'd be able to face those criminals in blue.
"Are you insinuating my inability to run this prison?"
"God no! Of course not!" Jia said hurriedly, huffing slightly over how quickly his mood changed. "I was just a little worried, that's all."
"Well, if you were to work here, you'd have to be able to handle the following," Mr Liu held up one large hand, fingers splayed. "rouge prisoners for one, escape attempts, lockdowns, violent fights-" He ticked off each point as he went along, and Jia became steadily more wary of the killer they were looking for.
"Oh, and of course, break ins."
The rake pick slid across the lock pins, in and out, several times, creating a small metal clinking sound. Cong yanked it out after a few more goes and discarded it back in his bag, The ball pick could work maybe? After lodging it into the lock he realised this one really wouldn't work and put it back. He paused for a second to change the position he was crouching in. Hiding out on the roof was not proving to be a good idea for his poor legs. Taking out the broken key extractor pack he looked at it in annoyance, Cong hated using this thing. So many different tools and a ridiculous amount of coordination needed to use it effectively. But, Shifu had trained them all impeccably in lock picking, so he rolled his shoulders back in preparation and got to work.
"Break ins?" Jia questioned almost immediately. "Surely they'd just be trying to get out, not go back in?"
Mr Liu fixed him with a searching look and leaned forward on his desk as if telling a secret. "Have you heard of the Furious Five, Mr Eng-ee?"
Jia gulped. "In passing, yes." He uttered.
"The vigilante group." The guard behind him finally spoke up gruffly. "A group of little bastards they are." He said with disgust.
Nodding in agreement, Jia turned back to Mr Liu.
"I'll let you in on a little secret," He said, a wicked grin lighting his features. "we may have imprisoned one of the Five!"
He sat back, leaving his hushed hiss to hang in the air dramatically. Jia had to force himself not to look un-phased.
"Oh! Uh, that's great to hear." He congratulated weakly.
"Isn't it!" Mr Liu yelled triumphantly. "And we're the first to catch any of 'em!"
"Yes um, very impressive…" Jia muttered, the dramatic irony not lost on him.
"Of course the little shit hasn't confessed yet," He looked back to his computer thoughtfully, the situation obviously at the forefront of his mind. "but we'll get it out of him, don't you worry."
Not wanting a whole lecture on how supposedly 'evil' his friends were, Jia tried to change the subject. "But back to the break ins –"
"Ah yes!" The triumphant tone was back. "We're preparing any moment now for the rest of the Five to come get their buddy, they'll know he's missing and those fuckers stick together like glue, there's no getting away with catching just one of them." A very sadistic gleam had appeared in his eyes as he described what the tabloids said about them.
"Right, of course…"
Mr Liu sat back again, chair creaking in protest and looked at Jia with a small smile on his face. "I like you, Mr Eng-ee," The words caused Jia's blood to go cold, and he knew he had to find answers fast. "you seem like a man who has his head in the right place."
Jia, who was watching the clock above him, widened his eyes in shock. "Well I uh – I just follow what goes on around me." He said weakly.
"And you agree that the Furious Five will ruin China!" Mr Liu stated proudly, grinning a set of yellowing teeth at him.
Jia thought back to Fan swearing loudly at Cong to stop blasting his favourite songs from the radio in the kitchen while Yu and Ying drank alcoholic concoctions in the living room, giggling at him staggering to and from the bathroom to throw up. It was a memory that made Jia wince, he'd drunk too much that time, and he was almost sure that Shifu would count that particular night as ruining China. "That does seem to be the goal…"
"Exactly!" Mr Liu pointed at him aggressively. "You, my friend, are an anomaly."
Jia blinked, trying to figure out what this man was on about.
"The whole of your generation idolises them!" He boomed, suddenly angry at the mere thought of anyone not hating the Five. "Those stupid websites and little accounts on your new facebook and such – they bathe these criminals in glory!"
"Yes they are a bit… blind." Jia muttered, picturing the slightly obsessive fan accounts littering the more cringe corners of the internet.
"And you're the only young person not fawning over them! I have to commend you for that."
"I'm not one to glorify celebrities anyway…" He tried not to balk at the massive generalisation this man was making of anyone younger than thirty. It was always annoying when older people looked down on the youth, but it was something done everywhere wasn't it.
"Of course you're not, you've got a decent head on your shoulders Mr Eng-ee." Mr Liu reclined back in his seat, running a hand through his messy mop of hair.
Finally, a sound that must have been sent from the high angels in heaven, a glorious click and the lock gave way at last, leaving the window to drift open. Not having enough time to celebrate, Cong lifted it completely with extreme care as to not accidentally give himself away with a loud noise. He jumped through, the slanted roof he was on giving him an easy way in. Cong landed on the vinyl floor with a forward roll to break the sound of his landing and… you know, for the finesse of breaking and entering a prison. It was one of the few joys of being a spy.
Once in he immediately thought of the floor plan Ying had made him revise while on the plane to Malaysia. Right is it…left? Yes, one left, then a right, then down then forward then take the second right… he thought to himself with confidence. It helped to have a good memory at times like these. He set off at a quiet jog, down the empty corridors. It did strike him as a little…odd, that the corridors were empty. He'd imagined there'd be guards walking around. He shrugged off his good luck, perhaps the prisoners were outside and all the guards were being used there.
Cong at last stopped at a door with a bronzing sign that read "Paperwork". Initially, he tried the door knob half-heartedly, ready to retrieve the lock pick from his bag so he could get in. Though he stopped in surprise when the door popped open with ease. Wasting no time, Cong went in and closed the door behind him.
Files and folders stacked the walls, from floor to ceiling the shelves were stuffed. Each shelf had a small, peeling label with scrawled numbers indicating the year, and dividers between wads of files with a month written on them.
Cong looked at it all with a small sigh of defeat. This was going to take a while…
Jia could feel their (admittedly very one-sided) conversation coming to a natural end and glanced at the clock on the wall with urgency. His phone had yet to go off. Nothing vibrated manically in his pocket and there was no mystery call, yet his interview had gone on for almost ten minutes. Surely this couldn't be right. Either way he had to buy more time.
He cleared his throat. "This uh – Furious Five member, how did you catch him?"
Mr Liu eyed him carefully before smirking. "Trying to get information out of me lad?"
"What?! No, no! I was just –" Jia panicked, backpedalling immediately.
He was interrupted by a booming laugh. "Well you've come to the right man!" Mr Liu grinned as if selling him something priceless. "I've probably got more info on this lot than anyone in China." He boasted arrogantly, blissfully unaware of the now mildly hilarious irony.
"You probably do sir." Jia said, going along with it.
"He was caught breaking and entering an Armani storage warehouse, you know that big designer brand? – yeah that one, it's expensive as fuck but the rich need a way to spend their money." Mr Liu shook his head bitterly. "Anyway, he was caught, said he was stealing to sell on eBay, and he would've made a fortune if he got away with it."
"Ah yes, petty thievery."
"The thing was, he wasn't alone, it was a group operation." Mr Liu pointed a finger to Jia as if telling him something important. "he had four other guys with him, they scrambled when the police arrived, leaving the poor sod on his own."
Jia winced, the real Five would never do that to each other, no matter how dire the situation. And if they were to do that, they'd have a damn good reason. Alone they were undeniably weaker, if they were caught alone then they'd have a slim chance of survival.
"Poor guy, easy to feel bad for him." Jia grimaced.
'Yeah well there's not much going on up there," Mr Liu tapped his temple and shook his head. "he was probably the weakest link, no point staying behind for him if he can't keep up eh?"
Jia hummed and nodded along in agreement.
"With all due respect sir," A voice behind Jia made them both turn round to look at the guard who let him in the building, still standing next to the door. Jia had forgotten he was still there. "we, as in myself and the other guards, think he's putting on the low IQ as an act." The guard said gruffly.
Mr Liu scratched his chin in thought. "What makes you say that?"
"The Furious Five are famous for never getting caught. They have to have a certain level of intelligence to be able to get away so easily." He answered, and Jia, despite the situation he was in, felt a little proud to be described in this way.
The guard then glanced at Jia. "We haven't had a prisoner escape in the last fifteen years Mr Eng-ee, so you'd be safe as a cleaner but like the boss said, we think the Furious Five are plotting to break in and save the fifth member."
Jia nodded slowly until he fully registered what the guard told him.
He whipped himself around properly, locking eyes with the guard. "Wait a second, did you say you haven't had anyone escape in the last fifteen years?" He asked seriously, heart beating in his throat.
"It's true Eng-ee," Mr Liu grinned smugly. "a completely clean record."
Jia gulped. "That-that's great, sounds great." He stuttered.
He looked at the clock again, they must be running out of time surely.
-.
Cong started by pulling out all the files for January of the year, deciding that, starting from the start of the year was a good point to go from. He spread the papers across the desk, optimistic that this wouldn't take too long.
Jia looked at the clock again, they must be running out of time surely.
He cleared his throat. "Is there a bathroom I can use?" He asked.
Mr Liu stopped and gave him a scrutinising look. "Why?" He stated, venom clouding his words.
Jia frowned. "For obvious reasons." And a second later he could have kicked himself due to his signature flat reply. It was the most out-of-character thing Chao Eng-ee would be saying at a job interview.
Mr Liu sighed and signalled to the guard. "Show him where it is."
The guard escorted Jia out the door and down some twisting, turning hallways. He stopped after going down some stairs. "Take two more rights and you'll find your way," He pointed towards a forked hallway. "you shouldn't really be on your own but you're only a cleaner anyway."
As the guard turned away Jia rolled his eyes, did he really not look very intimidating? That was a little disappointing.
He counted to ten until the guard's footsteps were merely a distant sound, then set off down a different flight of stairs. The hallways down on the ground floor were narrower and darker, but he could still read the peeling signs on the walls for where he wanted to go. Finding the door he needed, Jia edged it open with a click.
This was taking a lot longer than he anticipated.
Cong had searched high and low but there was nothing. The previously very tidy space had now become a trash pile of scattered papers. He'd initially tried to put everything back neatly, just to make things easier for whoever was unlucky enough to be tasked with cleaning up. But the more he searched, the more frustrated he became. How earlier he folded everything back with precision and returned folders to their proper place, now he'd stuff away whatever didn't hold the answer he needed. He glanced at the time on his phone. It had been a while already. Jia was going to kill him…
The sound of the door clicking open made him jump at least four feet in the air.
The sight that greeted Jia when he opened the door was…disappointing to say the least. For a moment he stood there and took in the sight of a dishevelled and startled Cong, surrounded by papers and folders, looking absolutely distraught
"You scared the living shit out of me!" He exclaimed.
"Cong, have you found anything, literally anything?"
"There's nothing!" He said, panic fraught in his voice. "I can't find any record at all!"
Jia closed the door and stepped over a pile of papers. "Cong I – I don't think there's anything to find." He whispered, conscious of how long he'd already been gone for.
"Are you sure? Maybe I've missed something –"
"No, no you didn't miss anything." Jia said. "Listen, I'll explain later, but for now, get out as fast as you can and go find the others, I'm going to go back to this stupid interview and try and end it."
He turned to leave but Cong took his arm. "No, we've been here too long, let's just escape." He said firmly. "We've already set you up for suspicion the moment you left the room, and surely they've noticed by now you've ages."
Jia took one look round the room, they were never going to find what they were looking for. He looked back to Cong and nodded. "Okay, let's leave the way you came in."
As they left the room, Jia felt a tiny tinge of guilt at leaving the papers in the state they were in, but shrugged it off quickly, their mission right now was to escape unscathed. Cong led him through a different route of corridors, going higher and higher up the stairs. And not once did they encounter any guards. Jia felt they were almost pushing their luck but remembered the empty files in the archives and swallowed down any nervousness.
They got to the top floor in record time and Cong stopped to look up at a window on a slanting roof.
"Right, I've already unlocked it, you help me up and I'll pull you through when I'm on the roof." Cong said, pushing Jia into place and already starting to find ways to climb on him like a monkey.
Jia frowned at being manhandled this way but bit his tongue, protesting over something that didn't really bother him was unnecessary in dire times like these. Cong's shoes landed on his shoulders and Jia held his ankles to steady him as the window was pushed open. A small grunt and the weight came off him instantly. He looked up to see Cong holding a hand out for him to grab. Jia jumped and held on, Cong starting to pull him up far enough so he could take the windowsill with his other hand and push himself up.
-not before a guard caught him.
The guard grabbed his ankle with a death grip and pulled him down.
Jia yelped with surprise, holding onto the window edge for dear life. Cong took his arm and pulled even hard to get him out the window.
Even though Cong was far stronger, gravity was on the guard's side, and Jia felt himself slipping down. In a moment of rare strength for him, he managed to free his ankle from the grip and forcefully kicking the guard in the face, feeling a satisfyingcrack as he did it.
"Ah fuck!" The guard yelled and fell back with a shout.
Cong wasted no time in pulling Jia up and through the window. "Come on!" He scrambled to join Cong on the roof, breathing hard from the close call.
Cong then ran to the edge of the roof and looked down. "We're gonna have to jump," He turned round and looked to Jia for confirmation. "okay?"
Jia looked down to the hard gravel below. "Jump…off the building?" He said in disbelief, voice shaking from barely contained fear. Even now, as a trained kung fu master, heights still scared him. Shifu trained them in jumping off of high places but Jia's phobia stayed with him even through the vigorous training.
"It looks a lot further than it actually is." Cong said encouragingly, though Jia was hesitant to believe him.
"Er no, not okay," Jia muttered. "but it's this or jail, so yeah, sure, okay."
Cong clapped him on the shoulder in what was probably meant to be a caring way. "That's the spirit! Now come on, we've been trained in this you know what you're doing."
"I know," Jia muttered. "doesn't mean I enjoy doing it."
"Go on three, okay?"
"S-sure." Jia stuttered out, looking over the edge, anxiety piling in his stomach.
Cong took his hand and pulled him back. "One, two…three!"
Still holding onto his hand, Cong ran forward, pulling Jia with him and leapt off the top of the building. Every bone in his body was begging him not to jump, but Cong held on so tightly that he had no option but to go off the edge with him. They landed with bent knees, hands smashing on the gravel. In Cong's case it was a fairly elegant, sturdy landing, good posture only seen in someone experienced jumping off of buildings. Jia, however, always avoided the more parkour side of kung fu, and only jumped from things when he really really needed to. Pain shot through his feet and arms, the palms of his hands were sticky with sweat and his heart beat in his mouth.
"Proud of you mate," Cong said quickly, then pulled him, trembling, to his feet. "now let's get out of here."
Jia nodded shakily, feeling a small spark of pride at conquering something that usually made him either want to crawl into a cave or lie on the floor and never leave.
They approached the gate and Jia could have cried. They were seriously going to climb over this thing and most likely jump off. Luckily, the gate wasn't nearly as tall as the prison building, and Cong sped towards it while Jia was still mentally preparing for another round of conquering his fears.
"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!"
Their heads whipped round to see a small group of armed guards running towards them. This was enough to give Jia the kick he needed to follow Cong up the gate. Cong had already started climbing it with ease, looking like he was born to do it, which he almost was really, he learnt the monkey style of kung fu, giving him the training to climb crazy places. On the other hand, Jia struggled, especially in the suit he was wearing, the trousers and shirt didn't give him a good amount of flexibility.
Cong got to the top of the gate and reached down to give Jia a hand, who took it gratefully and pulled himself up with gritted teeth.
"You okay to jump again?" Cong fixed him with a serious look.
"Um –"
"Well we're jumping again, they're about to shoot." He pointed towards the guards, who were already starting to get guns out their belts in preparation.
"Oh shit!" Jia exclaimed, and jumped off with about as much grace as a fish out of water.
Cong took off at a run, Jia hot on his heels. "We need to find the others!" He yelled.
"They said they'd be down that street with the off-licence!" Jia shouted back, voice shaking from the adrenaline rush.
They turned a sharp corner, still running for their lives, and spotted the car parked at the end of the road. At the sight of them running, it immediately revved up and drove towards them. They threw open the doors and dove in.
"Did you get caught?!" Yu exclaimed, a mix of alarm and frustration.
"No time to talk just drive!" Cong shut her up and yelled at Fan who was behind the wheel.
He obeyed and stamped on the pedal, sending them going at a speed that would surely be illegal.
"Did you find anything?" Ying asked hurriedly, phone in her hand, ready to type out their next move.
Cong looked back at Jia from the passenger seat and they locked eyes in the midst of the chaos. "We… we need to call Shifu." Jia said slowly. "There were almost no guards on duty, they didn't check my bag or me when I went in, they didn't even check my ID."
Cong nodded along with him. "There was nothing in the archives, absolutely nothing."
"Are you sure?" Ying asked seriously. "If you've missed anything then we're in so much trouble."
"One hundred percent," Jia said grimly. "there's been no escape in the last fifteen years."
so my posting schedule is basically non-existent...
What can I say, I've been working about five days a week and going out on the evenings I'm free, so I'm quite busy lol. BUT this fic is still my baby and I love it enough to stay up late to post this chapter when I have a 6am shift to wake up for tomorrow (lord kill me).
1. This chapter has a brief mention of Jia being scared of heights which is honestly just my personal headcanon and a guilty pleasure thing of mine haha. You'd know this already if you read my other fic "Fly" (which is also my first fic in this fandom holy shit)
2. I'm well aware this is probably not accurate at all to how prisons are run lmao, but as I've said multiple times I'm not fact-checking this and I have no idea how to research Malaysian prisons on google lol
3. This chapter got so long by accident and I really didn't mean to focus so much on Cong and Jia, I didn't know I'd end up writing so much and I PROMISE next chapter you'll get to see how Shifu and Po are getting along and more of the other characters too
Thank you VERY much for reading and I would really appreciate it if you leave a comment on what you thought about this chapter!