Those Things Are Worth a Fortune

Seeing Zhao Xun agree to cooperate put the girl in an excellent mood. "By the way, my name's Tiantian. What's yours?"

"Just call me A Shui." With that, Zhao Xun walked toward one of the walls.

A landscape-format painting hung there. It depicted a beautiful woman emerging from a bath, with long, curly golden hair that matched the statue's description.

He had looked carefully. There were plenty of beautiful blonde women depicted throughout the study.

But this was the only landscape-format painting featuring one with long, curly hair.

He was fairly sure he had found the right one.

When Tiantian saw Zhao Xun walk over to the painting, she followed him.

"What, is there something special about this painting?" she asked.

"Does the Duke have a habit of setting hidden traps?" Zhao Xun asked instead of answering.

"His head's stuffed with filthy fantasies. Where would he find the energy or attention to bother with traps?" Tiantian curled her lip, clearly scornful of the Duke.

Zhao Xun wasn't surprised. He had only asked to make sure.

He raised his hands and took down the painting.

Sure enough, no traps were triggered, and the wall behind it revealed an embedded safe.

"The evidence is in there?" Understanding what Zhao Xun was doing, Tiantian's eyes widened slightly. "I'd heard he had a safe full of jewelry and gold. But I never imagined he'd keep all his secrets in there too. That makes it far too easy to get everything in one fell swoop. I thought he'd scatter his secrets among different books throughout the study... Looks like I overestimated his intelligence."

Had she known it was this simple, she would have turned the study upside down and found the safe.

Why bother leafing through the books one by one? What a waste of effort.

Oh well. They had found the safe now, and she hadn't wasted much time.

Zhao Xun said nothing. He turned the safe's mechanical combination dial to 5188.

As expected, it didn't open.

Then Zhao Xun looked at Tiantian. "Has the Duke told you anything that might have to do with the combination?"

Tiantian carefully recalled every detail of her time with the Duke over the past two days.

"There is one possibility." She leaned forward and reached out to turn the dial to 1818.

With a click, the lock opened.

It was also at that moment that Zhao Xun began to give some credence to what Tiantian had told him about her main quest.

Whatever lies Tiantian might tell, she would instinctively pay attention to clues related to her quest.

If she devoted all her attention to unrelated matters and failed to complete her main quest as a result, being a veteran player wouldn't save her.

And all of Tiantian's actions so far, along with the clues she had gathered, showed that her main quest wasn't a lie she had made up on the spot.

Taking advantage of his height and long arms, Zhao Xun reached in ahead of Tiantian and took out a stack of documents.

"Take everything inside. We can look through it after we leave," Tiantian suggested. "Someone's trying to assassinate the Duke over there, right? That burly player is a guard, so he has to protect the Duke. He won't have any attention to spare for us. It'll be easy to get out while he's occupied."

Zhao Xun understood instantly. "The Short-Haired Woman is working with you too?"

That explained why the Short-Haired Woman knew the layout of the Duke's Manor so well and had been able to find the Duke's bedroom without a single wrong turn.

It also explained why Tiantian had left the Duke's side early and entered the study on the very night the Short-Haired Woman made her move.

And Tiantian couldn't possibly have missed the Duke's earlier cries for help, yet she hadn't been surprised at all. She hadn't even paused while turning the pages. That, too, showed she had expected the Short-Haired Woman's arrival all along.

"She's green too." Tiantian smiled at Zhao Xun. "Working with players who aren't hostile to us benefits everyone. Nobody loses, right?"

Zhao Xun wasted no more words. He took all the remaining documents out of the safe, closed its door, and hung the painting back in place.

"You actually ignored all the gold bars and jewelry in the safe." Tiantian looked regretful. "Those things are worth a fortune."

Zhao Xun remained unmoved. "I doubt we can even take those things onto the Endless Train, can we? All transactions on the train use points. Gold, silver, and jewels are useless there. Besides, if you could take them, you'd have grabbed them already."

With that, he carried the documents to the window and glanced outside. "Since you came prepared tonight, you must have planned an escape route too, right?"

They certainly couldn't leave through the study's main door now. The area outside the Duke's bedroom was probably already packed with guards. The moment the study door opened, someone would spot them.

There was no way Tiantian hadn't considered that.

"All right, you guessed it." Her answer covered both his points. Tiantian walked to the window, opened it, and pointed at the rope she had already secured there. "I was planning to climb down here. I just don't know whether you have the nerve."

Although they were only on the third floor, which wasn't particularly high, and sliding down a rope looked easy, it still required a certain level of physical fitness.

Descending too fast could cause an injury from the impact on landing.

Descending too slowly meant spending longer hanging from the rope, and there was no telling whether someone would have enough stamina to make it all the way down.

More importantly, the rope was flexible, making it difficult to find steady support.

For an ordinary person with no experience, getting down this way would be difficult even if all they had to do was overcome their fear of heights.

Zhao Xun said nothing. He simply pulled down the study's curtain, bundled the thick stack of documents in the fabric, and tied it to his back.

Then he took a pair of gloves from his trouser pocket, put them on, and went down the rope first.

He had loved all kinds of extreme sports since childhood, and his fitness had steadily improved over the years. Although he still fell short of professionally trained athletes, he already had a considerable advantage over most ordinary people.

Sliding down a rope from the third floor was easy for him.

As soon as he landed, he hurried aside and took cover beside the fountain.

Tiantian came down soon afterward.

She hid beside Zhao Xun and asked curiously, "You went over without a moment's hesitation. Weren't you afraid I'd cut the rope from up there?"

"I'm not that timid." Zhao Xun chuckled.

If Tiantian cut the rope, she would lose her own escape route. She had prepared that rope herself, after all. There was no reason for her to hurt him at her own expense.

Even if Tiantian really tried to cut it, given how quickly Zhao Xun moved, he would be roughly level with the second floor by the time the rope snapped.

With his abilities, landing safely from the second floor wouldn't be much of a problem.

Since he judged the risk to be low, he saw nothing wrong with taking the chance.

He couldn't insist on acting only when everything was completely safe. That would be far too timid.

At least, that wasn't his style.