A Scoundrel?

A month later.

In the Evergreen Inn, in the number one premier room.

Players began arriving one after another to turn in their quests to Lister.

"Assistant Commander Li usually lives in Rongning Ward in the inner city. Every morning, he goes to the outer city to patrol and meet with other intelligence agents. He returns home every afternoon to cultivate."

"He likes collecting fine swords and beautiful women. He recently took a new concubine, who is... Besides that, he visits the pleasure houses once or twice a week to listen to music..."

"Three days ago, Assistant Commander Li arrested a group of criminals—the thieves who attacked the daughter of Marquis Yongyi's Residence..."

Lister looked at the War God of Jiangling Prefecture, who was talking up a storm before him. The man's level had also fallen from level 4 to level 2, and Lister couldn't help feeling a sense of awe.

Although most of the information in the report was useless, Chen Shanqiang really had risked his life to get it for him.

From what Lister had seen in the public chat, Chen Shanqiang had once barged straight into Assistant Commander Li's residence, only to be cut down by a guard.

Another time, he had followed Assistant Commander Li to a meeting with an undercover agent of the Brocade Guard and had been killed again without a sound.

He had died twice in all, dropping two levels to obtain the information he now had.

"War God of Jiangling Prefecture, thank you for your contribution to the Kingdom of Lucian's diplomatic affairs..."

Although the information wasn't very useful, Lister still took a gold coin from his pocket and handed it to him.

If he didn't let everyone complete this side quest soon, the closed beta would be over in just over another month.

Lister did have that much credibility to uphold. Right now, he was one of the two hottest hidden bosses in the public chat. The other was naturally Assistant Commander Li.

To keep recruiting players to gather information after the open beta began, Lister decided that, starting today, he would pay out rewards to every player who came to turn in a quest.

Over this long stretch of time, things at Marquis Yongyi's Residence had surprisingly begun to settle down.

Assistant Commander Li had also made no further moves over the painting.

It was as though undercurrents were stirring everywhere, waiting for the outcome of the confrontation behind the two men.

Lister himself was somewhat anxious. He didn't know when the imperial decree would arrive, or whether the genuine visualization diagram was actually in Assistant Commander Li's residence.

He couldn't leave for the time being, and the true damage effect of the Yellow Court Saber Art Visualization Method was too tempting. Lister was determined to obtain it!

Fortunately, the game was currently in the player closed beta phase, so he decided to spend this spare time learning how to be a better NPC and familiarizing himself with interacting with players.

"Your Lordship, thank you for your generosity~!"

Lister had no idea where Chen Shanqiang had learned to talk like that. His politeness in person made him seem like a completely different man from the one who kept calling himself "this daddy" in the public chat.

"I also have news about your other quest, but I can't confirm it yet."

"You can tell me first. I'll send someone to investigate, and if it proves true, I'll have the reward delivered to you."

Lister kept his face impassive, but inwardly, he was pleasantly surprised.

He had spent quite some time having people in Jiangling Prefecture investigate the thief who had entered his room.

She had taken a slash from him, and he had described her height and build. Even if they couldn't catch her, they should at least have found some trace of her.

Unfortunately, there hadn't been a single clue until now. He hadn't expected the War God of Jiangling Prefecture to give him such a pleasant surprise today.

After all, no one had shared any useful clues or information about this quest in the public chat.

"At Shanyi Hall in the outer city, I tried my luck and took a quest... No, wait! While I was helping run errands, I noticed a woman whose height was very close to what you described."

"The que... errands I took mostly involved buying medicines to replenish qi and blood for the hall."

"I understand. Thank you for the information. I'll confirm it within the next few days, so please wait in the city for a while."

Once Chen Shanqiang had left, Lister hurried to change his clothes.

After thinking it over, he took off his family heirloom leather armor and changed into an ordinary local gray robe.

His main purpose in going there was to negotiate. He didn't want to scare them off by arriving fully armed.

Of course, he couldn't leave his saber behind. As long as he had it, he retained ninety percent of his strength.

After searching the outer city for quite some time, Lister finally found the so-called Shanyi Hall near the city wall.

From the outside, it occupied a fairly large area and was laid out as a courtyard compound.

The front gate stood open, and the sounds of children chasing and playing came from inside.

Indeed, contrary to Lister's expectations, Shanyi Hall was actually an orphanage.

At that moment, some of the children in the courtyard seemed to spot Lister, a stranger outside, and the noise of their play began to die down.

A woman in the courtyard saw this and walked toward him, looking somewhat worried.

"Young master, I'm Shen Mei, the head of Shanyi Hall. May I ask if you've come looking for one of the children?"

The woman was around 1.6 meters tall, with unremarkable looks and a few freckles on her cheeks.

Still, she gave the impression of being quite poised and carried herself briskly.

A system scan showed that she was level 1. She was indeed not the person Lister was looking for.

"I'm not here for a child. I'm looking for another woman here, around 1.7 meters tall..."

"Young master, apart from me looking after the children, there's no one else here."

Although she was afraid of Lister, Shen Mei still lied.

She was a woman who took in orphans, after all. Under these circumstances, there probably wasn't another person like her in all of Jiangling Prefecture.

Lister didn't want to make things difficult for someone like her either, so he raised his voice and called tentatively into the courtyard.

"Miss, we parted at the Evergreen Inn. Have you recovered from your injury?"

"If possible, please come and meet with me. Otherwise, I can't guarantee whether Shanyi Hall will still be here tomorrow!"

"Are all the people of your Kingdom of Lucian unscrupulous scoundrels like you?"

An angry, high-pitched shout came from inside.

A woman in a black robe appeared before Lister.

Her face was still covered by a black silk scarf, but her height and general build matched what Lister remembered.

He scanned her with the system once more and finally confirmed that she was the thief.

"Miss, if we're talking about scoundrels, surely you're the scoundrel for entering my room to steal?"

"I didn't come today to blame you. I only wanted to talk, but you've kept avoiding me."

"Pah! I'm a 'righteous thief.'"

"I steal from heartless rich people like you to help the poor."

"If you don't believe me, go ask the common people in the imperial city. Apart from rich and powerful households like yours, who would consider me a 'scoundrel'?"

Only her phoenix eyes were exposed, but even from that look alone, Lister could barely sense her disgust for him.

He couldn't agree with her words or her way of thinking, though.

Leaving aside the "rich and powerful household" part, the key point was that he wasn't even from the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty!

Besides, he was clearly the victim of the theft, yet she made him out to be the villain. Was he inherently guilty just because he had money and power?

Lister ultimately dropped the subject. There was no reasoning with someone like her; it would be a sheer waste of time.

She already had her own set of "standards of justice" in her heart and acted for the sake of her own pursuits. There was nothing more to say.

It was only because she was still very useful to him for the time being. Once this matter was over, if Lister ever ran into her again and managed to catch her, he would definitely slash her first—and this time, he would not hold back!

For now, he composed himself and patiently continued the conversation.

"Why don't we go inside to talk?"

"Don't worry, I only came to talk today. I'm sure that if you really wanted to leave, you could do so at any time."

Lister wasn't lying about that. Even standing right in front of him, the thief named Wu Yan gave off an extremely faint aura.

The slightest lapse in his concentration could cause him to lose track of her.

But now that he had found Shanyi Hall, she would at least have to swallow her displeasure and talk to him.