Huh? Isn't this an adventure kingdom building game?!
Chapter 216: Why Didn’t I Think of That?

Chapter 216: Chapter 216: Why Didn’t I Think of That?

The seed of suspicion took root and sprouted. No matter how Zhu Shi contemplated, something felt off, and his thoughts were straying down a path of no return.

If the three of them weren’t insiders, then many things simply didn’t make sense.

For example, the strange fishing net specifically restraining his magic power, or the sudden call to halt at a critical location even though there was little defense beforehand, and even knowing the exact positions of the traps!

The more Zhu Shi thought, the more he suspected that the Hall Master and the second and third elders were all possible culprits. After all, since the Bloodthirst Hall started this business, they had refined the second-best merchandise, with the best naturally being revered as the hall’s treasure...

"Damn it!" Zhu Shi’s sudden flash of insight auto-completed the thought in his mind: since they dared to plan this operation, the mastermind must aim for the hall’s treasure, not just those two pieces of heart and liver!

It’s brilliant, really. The three elders and the Hall Master of the Bloodthirst Hall were checking each other, eager to replace their organs with the fine heart and liver of the hall’s treasure to enhance their strength, but restrained by one another, they could only revere it.

Taking advantage of the opportunity when the hall planned a heist akin to conjuring something out of nothing by provoking the female corpse of Yin Mountain, they picked a suitable candidate to pose as an agent working for the corpse to conduct a raid on the treasury.

Besides pushing me to take the fall, the true mastermind not only benefits but also makes me take all the blame during trials!

"Damn it, why didn’t I come up with such a good idea?" he regretted deeply. He also thought of his dear disciple Qing Wu’s Teleportation Scroll. Could that kid have been bribed?

I knew that kid must not be allowed to stay! He’s too ruthless; to curry favor with his master, he dared to intercept and kill lone cultivators. Such a selfish scoundrel would likely sell his master out for a bit of profit!

"What? Still not going to talk?" Jiang Yuan, unaware of the drama Zhu Shi conjured up in his mind, lightly tapped with a wooden stick and said coldly, "Never noticed before, but you’re pretty loyal to the Bloodthirst Hall. I just don’t know how many pieces of Immortal Jade your loyalty is worth."

Bai Yunqi had no idea what the Venerable Family was doing, but he could tell the old guy was hiding something and trying to struggle until the end. He immediately launched a spiritual attack, "Are you sure you don’t want to speak?"

With his magic power bound and severely injured, Zhu Shi, unable to resist, felt as if he was falling into endless darkness. Giant cold, crimson vertical pupils abruptly opened, staring at him with a terrifying aura, making him feel he could be torn apart at any moment.

Zhu Shi realized escape was impossible this time. Even with stubborn resistance, it was meaningless. Since they were insiders intentionally sent to pretend to be robbers, they could easily kill him and dump his body in the treasury to take the fall for the theft.

"The strangling array below was personally set by the Hall Master. It’s heavily disguised and hard to detect," he gave up resisting and said weakly, "Members of the hall can pass safely by relying on their waist token’s aura. Outsiders without the token trigger the array and get instantly strangled."

Jiang Yuan raised his eyebrows and took the jade token from Zhu Shi’s waist, "Is it really that powerful? I don’t quite believe it. Why don’t you go try it first?"

"Why are you still pretending? You even know about the traps, so it shouldn’t be hard to carry a few waist tokens, right?" Zhu Shi was so furious that he almost gave up completely, "Past the traps is the treasury door. Outsiders won’t come, but there is an internal patrol passing by. It’s the first line of defense, and to avoid friendly fire, you can pass safely with a waist token. With your abilities, can’t you get through?"

"So you’re getting cocky? These are the Bloodthirst Hall’s rules. How could we outsiders know if you have any waist tokens in your storage bag?" Jiang Yuan toyed with the jade token, without intending to return it.

Zhu Shi was convinced these three were definitely pulling an inside job. No matter what they said, he believed they were trying to establish innocence and distance themselves, angrily indicating a spare waist token.

Equipping the waist token, he had only walked two steps when the Foreknowledge Technique again highlighted a trap for outsiders with the treasury door. He directly pointed it out, telling the old man not to play tricks while opening the door and avoid activating the door’s traps.

"Still claiming to be outsiders?" Zhu Shi’s face turned pale, especially when the other party specifically warned him if the treasury door released poison gas or hidden arrows, he’d be used as a meat shield. He was beyond aggrieved, wracking his brains to figure out who was so insidiously cruel.

After two warnings, captive Zhu Shi resigned to his fate. He no longer thought of using internal traps for self-rescue but hoped they would spare his life after taking the goods.

Death would mean losing everything, and this truth was painfully evident!

With him leading the way, the journey was smooth, taking no more than five minutes before Zhu Shi opened the final door.

"Is this all the Bloodthirst Hall’s treasury has?!" Bai Yunqi, who planned to take advantage of the situation, glanced around in disbelief, "What kind of junk is this?"

The secret room Zhu Shi opened was small, with two sets of heart and lung refined into magical artifact attributes, protected by an array. Though long without bloodstains, they were still fresh and glowing, and the system indicated these were the ones the Yin Mountain female corpse had paid heavily for that got snatched.

In a corner, there was also a small treasure chest containing more than half a chest of the Demon Realm’s universal currency, Yin Demon Pearls.

[New Currency Unlocked: Yin Demon Pearls. Currency exchange channel opened, 1 Yin Demon Pearl = 1 Spirit Stone]

Each cool, slick, transparent pearl held in hand revealed swirling gray-black energy, looking quite mesmerizing. The system popped up a prompt, indicating Jiang Yuan could deposit this half-chest of Yin Demon Pearls into his account for conversion to Spirit Stones anytime.

"Don’t you have the keys to other secret rooms?" Zhu Shi sneered, "You’re putting on quite a show. Why not just take what you want? Stop acting in front of me! This whole operation to deceive the Yin Mountain female corpse is under my charge. Before the storm passes, these two pieces of heart and liver are naturally in my care. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have leaked the information to that bastard Qing Wu on a whim.

Your master bribed him to use the excuse of retrieving stolen goods to raid the treasury and fatten their pockets, right? Hah, and you think they’d even bother to give you the keys for authenticity, wanting me to use a secret technique to open other secret rooms, just to make me take the blame for your master?"

Jiang Yuan suddenly understood why the system insisted on finding Qing Wu for the task; the root lay here, direct and straightforward to pinpoint the stolen goods.

As expected, Hu Zhile stepped forward and collected the two pieces of heart and liver, with the system noting the completed task’s final reward being issued to the storage bag.

Hearing this, Bai Yunqi knew the old man might have imagined something extraneous, but there was no need to expose it. He sneered, "Since you’ve guessed you’ll use a secret technique to open another room, what are you waiting for? Open it!"

Zhu Shi’s face was full of indignation, as if saying, "I knew it," and he asked, "Which one? Your master arranged it all, didn’t they mention I can only try my best to open one secret room and getting discovered afterward?"

He gestured with his chin, "To mimic the real thing, the Hall Master set up twenty-three secret rooms in the treasury, rotating with two people chosen by lot alongside the Hall Master to change the rooms at regular intervals. I didn’t participate last time, so I don’t know which door hides the real treasures. Since your orders came, surely you should know."