Main City

"According to my investigation, Anguo Temple is not only a temple, but also the largest money house in Chang'an."

Yaoshi Yuan had just said a sentence when Yan Qing couldn't help but ask, "A temple is a money house?"

"What's so strange about that? Temples themselves have longevity vaults for lending. It's normal for wealthy families to deposit money in temples and entrust those bald donkeys to lend it out. Otherwise, why do you think temples have such thriving incense? Everyone, rich and poor, likes to worship Buddha."

Shang Xin Lei blew on her teacup, rubbing her fingers in a vulgar gesture.

"Because it brings in money."

Bang!

Yaoshi Yuan heavily slammed the stone table, saying calmly, "If you have questions or want to say something, you can wait until I'm finished—or would you like to take over?"

Everyone immediately shook their heads. Ying Ru Shi took out a notebook and a graphite pen, pretending to take notes, but actually writing down records that only she could understand: "Black Wolf values rules and keeps his word. Even if his true identity isn't a military general, he's a powerful figure who commands violent institutions."

Yaoshi Yuan said, "Because of the dual nature of temples and money houses, Anguo Temple usually has many people praying to Buddha. The mission requires us to descend at three quarters past noon. Although there aren't many people burning incense at that time, the area around Anguo Temple is a commercial district with eateries. There are definitely many people nearby, just like this sand table shows."

Everyone looked down at the real-time sand table, and sure enough, the area around Anguo Temple was bustling with traffic, with both street vendors and restaurants.

"It's basically impossible to steal without being noticed. I suggest we go in and rob them head-on. What do you think?"

Yan Qing, Ying Ru Shi and Shang Xin Lei exchanged glances and unanimously agreed.

Yaoshi Yuan continued, "If we're going to rob them, we need to solve three problems—closing the temple doors, opening the gold vaults, and escaping the pursuit."

"Escaping the pursuit is the easiest, because Chang'an City is a main city. Whether it's the palace guards or the Divine Strategy Army outside, they all greatly underestimate the internal security of Chang'an. The only unit that can be quickly dispatched in Chang'an is the Wu Hou Garrison, which is responsible for putting out fires."

"Moreover, we don't even need to escape the city. We only need to stay on Vermillion Bird Avenue for a quarter of an hour to return to the Thieves' Den."

"There's no need to worry about the defenses of Anguo Temple either, because Chang'an City is a main city, so no one has ever dared to rob a temple. At most, there are only martial monks in the temple who are used to force commoners to repay their debts."

"As long as the Thieves' Den unlocks the restrictions of the main city for us, we can control the situation as soon as we enter Anguo Temple. A few slaps to those fat-headed, big-eared bald donkeys will make them open the door to the vault for us."

Yan Qing felt something was strange.

Why is it that 'Chang'an City is a main city', so 'the army will underestimate the city's security' and 'the temple is not afraid of being robbed'?

Could it be that Chang'an is the legendary land of model citizens, where everyone is a good person?

However, Ying Ru Shi immediately revealed the truth.

"You can rest assured about this, Black Wolf," Ying Ru Shi said. "The last time the Thieves' Den committed a crime was fifty years ago in Evernight Sky. At that time, Evernight Sky was still the capital main city of Wei Kingdom. The target of those thieves was in the imperial palace, and they actually killed their way in through the main gate of the imperial palace. The imperial palace guards were already used to the rule that no one could be harmed in the main city, so they didn't dodge or avoid even when they were being slashed on the head. As a result, dozens of them were killed before they knew to fight back."

"Whenever the Thieves' Den commits a crime, it will definitely allow the thieves to kill in the main city—of course, the restrictions will also be lifted for those who encounter the thieves."

Yan Qing suddenly understood.

He remembered the three main cities of the game, Jiang Nan, Chang'an, and Evernight Sky, and finally understood that the main city they were talking about was indeed the main city in game terminology!

An absolute safe zone where players cannot harm NPCs or other players!

Yan Qing remembered that the Thieves' Den dungeon he designed would indeed steal from the main cities of the main world. More precisely, stealing in a safe zone was one of the selling points of this dungeon.

However, he had initially ignored the concept of a safe zone, after all, this was reality and not a game. But he didn't expect this world to be so thoroughly 'gamified', not only implementing dungeons, but also implementing safe zones!

"Then the second problem, opening the gold vaults."

Yaoshi Yuan pointed to the super-large gold vault inside Anguo Temple: "Anguo Temple has a total of four large gold vaults. The large gold vaults are one zhang high, one zhang wide, and one zhang deep, called 'one zhang vaults'. The vault doors and walls are two chi thick, and were cast with several tons of refined gold by a third-rank Fire Control Herald back then."

"The mission time is only two quarters of an hour, which includes our round trip from Vermillion Bird Avenue to Anguo Temple and the half quarter of an hour we need to wait for evacuation. That means we only have at most one quarter of an hour to deal with this gold cabinet."

"There are only three ways to handle a gold cabinet—take it away whole, force it open, or unlock it. The least feasible of these should be unlocking it."

"Why is unlocking it not feasible?"

Shang Xin Lei opened the small bag she carried with her, took out a pastry from it, took a bite of the pastry and a sip of tea, as if she was having an after-dinner dessert. Yan Qing thought that this person was really calm, she was the only one eating and drinking here, and she could eat so comfortably—without even sharing some with me.

But Shang Xin Lei obviously couldn't hear Yan Qing's complaints, she said seriously: "I have the 'Invisible Hand', and so far I haven't seen a lock that can stop me."

She seemed afraid that they wouldn't believe her, so she took out a silk glove as thin as a cicada's wing from the bag. Originally, the cuff of the glove should have been slightly larger, but when she put it on her hand, it immediately became seamless, without any wrinkles.

If Yan Qing had a small account, he would be able to see the detailed information of this relic, but unfortunately he is just a three-dimensional creature without a game system. Although Shang Xin Lei didn't introduce the detailed information of the Invisible Hand, she still demonstrated the magic of this relic to them a little—

Her fingertips gently brushed over the horseshoe cake on the table. The horseshoe cake was similar to jelly, and the water chestnuts inside the horseshoe cake were clearly visible in the light. As her fingers stirred randomly, the inside of the horseshoe cake was stirred into a mess, and the square water chestnuts were crushed by her fingertips.

However, when Shang Xin Lei retracted her fingers, everyone could see that although the inside of the horseshoe cake was riddled with holes, the outside was unscathed!

"As expected of the Invisible Hand." Ying Ru Shi exclaimed: "With this relic, Red Snake, you don't need a key to unlock it, or rather, your hand is a universal key that can crack all lock cylinders."

"I don't doubt your ability." Yaoshi Yuan said: "But the lock of the gold cabinet is more troublesome than you think, come closer and take a look..."

Seeing them all stand up and bend down to observe the small part of Anguo Temple on the sand table, Yan Qing was not willing to get close—although he carried the White Iron Straight Blade relic with him, he himself was still an untransformed mortal. The closer he got to them, the easier it would be for them to discover his flaws.

And this is too unintelligent, when you want to observe a local area, you should be able to zoom in...

Almost out of muscle memory, Yan Qing subconsciously stretched out three fingers and swiped at the sand table.

Then the sand table quickly deformed, other areas disappeared, and only the transparent area of Anguo Temple expanded to the maximum, even the number of bricks inside and the number of tiles on the roof were clearly visible.

The Thieves' Den was silent for a while, everyone stared at the sand table and Yan Qing, and after a while Shang Xin Lei asked: "Can you change it back?"

With the same muscle memory, Yan Qing retracted his three fingers inward, and the sand table returned to its original state.

It's a bit strange, why does the operating logic of mobile phones and tablets also work? Could it be that "The Herald" developed a mobile game version after he time-traveled?

"How did you make Anguo Temple bigger?" Shang Xin Lei paused, seemingly realizing that she was asking for help, so she coquettishly said in a delicate voice: "Can you tell me?"

Red Snake is indeed a woman!

Yan Qing, Ying Ru Shi, and Yaoshi Yuan had the same thought in their minds.

In fact, Red Snake hadn't disguised herself much. Although her clothes were of a style that was convenient for movement and didn't show her figure, Red Snake was very particular about the utensils she used and the pastries she ate. Her exposed hands were so slender and fair that everyone could clearly judge that she was a noble woman who paid great attention to the quality of life in reality.

Of course, Yan Qing wouldn't be blinded by Red Snake's pleasant voice. On the contrary, he realized that this was an opportunity to strengthen his persona.

"You guys don't know how to do it?" His words seemed a little surprised, then the corners of his mouth rose, and he chuckled, "Then you should watch carefully, I can demonstrate it a few more times if you don't know how."

The gestures for zooming in and out were very simple, and of course Shang Xin Lei and the others learned it in one go, but they were all quite unhappy in their hearts. Everyone could hear the superiority in Yan Qing's words, as if a city dweller was imparting some insignificant common sense to country bumpkins.

But despite their unhappiness, they all silently raised their evaluation of 'Yellow Dog'—to actually know this kind of unknown knowledge, Yellow Dog is not as simple as he looks.

They zoomed in and out of Anguo Temple, and soon they learned to apply it by analogy and zoom in on areas to observe them carefully. But Ying Ru Shi noticed that when they zoomed in on important places such as the imperial palace, military camps, and the six ministries, Yaoshi Yuan would immediately shrink the sand table and then zoom in on other areas, as if to prevent them from observing the secrets of the Zhou Kingdom.

'Black Wolf must be a citizen of the Zhou Kingdom, and is very loyal to the Zhou Kingdom.' Ying Ru Shi silently recorded.

After playing for a while, Yaoshi Yuan signaled them to continue the meeting. She zoomed in on Anguo Temple, allowing everyone to see the four gold cabinets inside the vault: "Although the gold cabinets have locks, they don't have keys."

"The cabinet doors have eighteen fine steel embedded locks, which lock the cabinet doors and the gold cabinets together. To unlock these eighteen embedded locks, you can only rotate the cabinet door, which acts as a turntable."

All that could be seen was a dial in the middle of the gold cabinet door, with only one handle on the dial. Proportionally, the handle was just right for an ordinary person to grip with one hand.

"As you can see, this dial has only one handle, and the handle is particularly short," Yaoshi Yuan said, "But even if the handle were lengthened, it wouldn't save much effort."

Ying Ru Shi looked at the door with only a dial and no keyhole, realizing a possibility.

"The way to open the cabinet door is to turn this dial?"

"That's right, the inside of the cabinet door has a very complex gear mechanism, requiring eighty-one turns to unlock a single embedded lock."

"So, it requires one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight turns."

Shang Xin Lei immediately calculated the result.

"By the way, Anguo Temple assigns a martial monk who has spent his life honing his Vitality to open the cabinet door. This monk's strength is about three times that of an ordinary Martial Dao Herald, and even he needs a breath to turn the dial once. Each time the cabinet door is opened, it takes at least half an hour."

Yaoshi Yuan paused, "This is all information that Anguo Temple actively spreads, to let the nobles of Chang'an know how safe their gold cabinets are—so safe that even if the nobles' property is seized by the government, Anguo Temple can at least delay for half an hour."

Yan Qing and the others now understood why Black Wolf said that lockpicking was impossible, because opening this lock required no skill at all, but strength and time.

Even if they had enough strength, they didn't have enough time.

The Thieves' Den only gave them two quarters of an hour, about half an hour.

They only had two choices left: take the gold cabinet away, or forcefully break it open.

Shang Xin Lei said, "I can borrow the Cosmos Sleeve, but even a third-level Cosmos Sleeve can't accommodate such a large gold cabinet."

"Midas Touch relics can absorb and store gold in peacetime, enhancing the Midas Touch effect when facing enemies," Ying Ru Shi said, "I don't have a Midas Touch, but I can look for relics that can absorb and melt gold based on this idea."

Everyone put forward various ideas, but they either required extremely precious relics, or the effects could not be guaranteed. A one-inch thickness was enough to offset the destructive power of most relics.

Ying Ru Shi didn't forget to pay attention while discussing. She noticed that Yan Qing kept staring at the four gold cabinets in the vault, and casually asked, "Yellow Dog, do you have any ideas? Speak up, and we can discuss them together."

"I have a way to destroy these four gold cabinets."

Yan Qing shocked them as soon as he spoke, "And I don't need relics, just very simple props."