Thieves' Den

"Welcome to the Thieves' Den."

Yan Qing felt as though he had slept through an afternoon nap until nightfall. Even after opening his eyes, he still hadn't come to his senses, and his retinas reflected a bewilderment that felt like he had awoken in another lifetime.

The floor was stone, the walls marble, and the ceiling was inlaid with luminous pearls. Despite there being no windows, a gentle breeze blew through the place, leaving it not the slightest bit stuffy. Without a doubt, this was a renovated cave.

Why am I here?

Yan Qing instinctively tried to stand, but his butt seemed to be glued to the chair with superglue. No matter how he shifted, he couldn't leave his seat!

Sounds came from all around him. Only then did Yan Qing realize that, besides him, there were three other people in the hall, each occupying a position around the marble square table in the center.

Like Yan Qing, they were all trying to stand, but some strange force had fixed them to their seats.

Although their outfits were all different, their styles were consistent—each person was dressed like some kind of animal.

From Yan Qing's direction, they were, from left to right:

The 'wolf,' wearing a black wolf-fur hood;

The 'fox,' wearing a white fox mask;

And the 'snake,' with a scarlet snakeskin wrapped around his neck.

But even the 'wolf' and 'snake,' who weren't wearing masks, had face coverings on, making it impossible to recognize their true appearances.

In that case...

Yan Qing realized something. The hall seemed to know their first reaction upon awakening as well, and had deliberately hung a bronze mirror on the wall in every direction. Thus, with a slight turn of his head, Yan Qing could see his own outfit:

A furry... wolf, with body fur the color of yellow firewood?

"I didn't expect the rumors about the Thieves' Den secret realm to be true."

The 'fox' chuckled. His voice was full of magnetism, conjuring the image of a handsome young gentleman in a decadent world. "Only the most formidable thieves can be summoned here to participate in a major job. In other words, you're all colleagues, right?"

"I don't know where you're from, but where I come from, only lackeys of the authorities pry into other people's business." The 'snake' leaned lazily against his chair, but his words were razor-sharp. "I came to see whether there was any big score to be had, not to make friends."

"See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil." The 'wolf's' voice was steady, sounding like that of an adult who had spent many years making his way through the martial world. "Since the Thieves' Den has prepared disguises for us, we shall address each other by our codenames."

"I am Black Wolf."

"You are White Fox."

"He is Red Snake."

"And the Thief King sitting in the seat of honor... is Yellow Dog."

Yan Qing's eyes widened. He momentarily forgot his predicament and argued, "My mask is clearly a wolf!"

"What wolf? It's obviously a country mutt! And not even one good for anything besides guarding the gate—a mutt that couldn't hunt if its life depended on it." White Fox somehow produced a folding fan, opened it lightly to cover his mask, and mocked him without the slightest courtesy. "How strange, how strange. According to the Thieves' Den's standards, the four of us should be the most formidable thieves below the fourth advancement, while the one sitting in the seat of honor should be the Thief King below Foundation Establishment. Yet this year's Thief King didn't get a wolf, a fox, or a snake. All he could get was a dog mask?"

"Perhaps the mask has no direct connection to strength." Red Snake seemed to be speaking up for Yan Qing, but then turned the conversation around. "Perhaps the Thieves' Den assigned them according to our personalities? Can't the Thief King be an honest and loyal dog? Right?"

Faced with the two of them ganging up on him, Yan Qing said nothing. It wasn't that he was too angry to speak; rather, White Fox and Red Snake's words had revealed some extremely important information.

"Stop arguing," Black Wolf suddenly said.

At that moment, the stone table suddenly contracted, opening a large hole. A gigantic Sand Table slowly rose from within it. During the silence, Yan Qing finally sorted out his thoughts and realized where this place was!

After graduating, he had joined a game company as a level designer. The company primarily operated a xuanhuan-style MMORPG called Messenger. But Yan Qing was a pure single-player game elitist, and he hated having to go to work in a game after getting off work, so he had barely played his own company's game.

After helping his coworkers repair several dungeons, the company felt Yan Qing wasn't busy enough and gave him more work—designing a new dungeon. But as a new employee, Yan Qing naturally wasn't qualified to design a version-ending eight-player raid. Instead, he was told to design a low-level four-player dungeon as practice.

While designing it, Yan Qing had a sudden idea: Would it be appealing to link the dungeon to the main world? Thus, he tinkered with it for a week and eventually submitted a proposal titled "Thieves' Den." According to his design, the dungeon's location would naturally be the Thieves' Den. The Thieves' Den was a hidden safe house established by the legendary Thief Venerable. No one knew where it was, and only the most formidable thieves would be invited inside.

"Thieves' Den" was a four-player dungeon. After being invited inside, players would appear in a cave hall, and the system would automatically disguise their appearances as thieves to enhance the atmosphere. After all, many players had especially bizarre appearances, making story scenes look like gatherings of aliens.

Yan Qing still remembered that he had been working overtime at home to finish the proposal. After sending the email, he had collapsed onto his bed and fallen unconscious. When he opened his eyes again, he had already arrived here.

This cave before him, these four thieves with disguised appearances—it completely matched the "Thieves' Den" he had designed!

So not only have I transmigrated into the world of Messenger, I even entered the dungeon I designed myself right at the start!?

The Sand Table gradually took shape. Figures even appeared within it, moving about vividly, as though the entire city had been moved onto the round table. Several lines of text appeared above the Sand Table, clearly visible to all four of them from every direction:

Current theft target: Chang'an, Anguo Temple, Bingzi Jiaolin

Arrival location: Eastern archway of Vermillion Bird Avenue

Arrival time: The third quarter of noon, five days from now

Departure location: Remain within the boundaries of Vermillion Bird Avenue for half a quarter-hour to return to the Thieves' Den

Departure deadline: The fifth quarter of noon

Successful theft: Obtain token item: Bingzi Jiaolin

Failed theft: Deduct nine thousand spirit jades and permanently lose access to the Thieves' Den

At the same time, golden light rose from the main hall of a temple on the Sand Table. The hall became transparent, and everyone could see a silver-white straight-bladed sword hidden inside a gigantic golden chest at the very back!

Just as Yan Qing had designed it, the special feature of the Thieves' Den dungeon was that the dungeon was only a place for preparation and planning. The actual battle would take place in the main world.

The dungeon's focus, however, was still the planning phase. If preparations were thorough enough, they might even succeed without fighting. But once combat was triggered, they could be surrounded and beaten to death, causing the mission to fail.

That might have been fun in a game, but it was another matter if it became reality—stealing a national treasure in the central district of a city was practically staking their lives on it!

"Bingzi Jiaolin? Isn't that Emperor Zhou's treasured sword? Why is it in Anguo Temple instead of the imperial palace?" White Fox grew excited. "It really is a treasure worth stealing."

"This reward is interesting..." Red Snake lightly tapped the table. "It's actually turning Bingzi Jiaolin into a token..."

"How are we going to divide it?" Black Wolf asked. "There's only one Bingzi Jiaolin."

"Putting aside the other treasures in the safe holding Bingzi Jiaolin, can't we just sell Bingzi Jiaolin to Great Qi or Great Liang?" White Fox smiled. "Even if Bingzi Jiaolin is completely useless as a token, plenty of people would still be willing to pay a high price for the sword just to humiliate Great Zhou."

Suddenly, a voice rang in everyone's ears: "Movement restrictions lifted. Personal rooms open. Teleportation open. Return to the Thieves' Den before arrival; otherwise, it will be considered a failed theft."

Black Wolf tried it, and sure enough, he could stand. He immediately said, "I have something to do. I'll leave first. Let's meet at this time tomorrow to discuss the theft plan."

With that, he ignored the others' reactions, turned around, and walked through the door behind him. The door gave a crisp click as the lock engaged, clearly indicating that the others couldn't enter the personal room.

"How aloof," White Fox said languidly as he waved his fan. "Then let's not worry about him. We can discuss—"

With a bang, Yan Qing shut his door directly, moving so quickly that he seemed to be fleeing. White Fox glanced at Red Snake. Red Snake answered with a cold look. After staring at each other for a moment, they both turned and entered their own rooms.

Inside his personal room, Yan Qing finally put his mind at ease.

In theory, they should be teammates in the Thieves' Den and unable to attack one another, but this wasn't a game anymore. Yan Qing didn't dare gamble on that.

He checked his pockets and did a few simple exercises. He soon confirmed one fact:

Although he had transmigrated into a game world, he was merely an ordinary person.

More precisely, he was an unclassed mortal, probably only level one!

Likewise, he didn't have the currency of this world: spirit jades.

He remembered that many quests in Messenger punished players by deducting spirit jades. If they lacked sufficient spirit jades—which generally meant a player had to be extraordinarily poor—they would die immediately and lose a certain amount of experience. The more spirit jades they lacked, the more experience they lost.

Losing experience was one thing, but if Yan Qing couldn't prepare nine thousand spirit jades within these five days, then once the theft failed...

Could he abandon the mission?

Of course he could. Not stealing it counted as abandoning the mission; all he had to do was pay spirit jades or die. For players, such a punishment was practically meaningless.

But Yan Qing was a real person!

Yan Qing forced himself to calm down and realized that things weren't quite so bad. Although he didn't know why he had transmigrated into this dungeon and become one of its thieves, the other three looked like extremely capable thieves. Perhaps the three of them could complete the theft mission on their own. Yan Qing could simply coast through the dungeon with them.

But...

There was a peephole in the door. Yan Qing looked outside through it and found that the hall was empty, meaning all three teammates had returned to their own rooms.

These teammates weren't transmigrators like him, nor were they players. They were probably natives of this world.

Yan Qing was certain because, when he had argued earlier, the words that slipped out of his mouth had been in this world's language—the same language used by his three teammates. But he didn't know why he could understand it. Thus, he hadn't noticed anything at first, only sensing that something was wrong when he spoke.

Yet they clearly understood the Thieves' Den dungeon, even knowing what sort of people the Thieves' Den would recruit. They also showed no fear of stealing treasures, indicating that they were a group of lawless people who understood the world's setting extremely well.

Once they discovered that he was exceptionally weak, it was hard to say whether they would turn on him. Even ordinary online games had low-level account killers like Sanjidao. What about a real world governed by the law of the jungle?

Moreover, this was a world with supernatural powers. Once someone reached level ten and advanced into a class, they would be far beyond what a mortal could resist!

Therefore, Yan Qing not only had to coast through this theft, he also couldn't let his teammates discover that he was an utterly weak freeloader!

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