Once a few materials were placed in the main Magic Array in this room, the Magic Arrays throughout the passages would all activate at once, setting off explosions that would raze all of Nairui Town.
The Witch had already collected most of the materials needed to activate the Magic Array, but she had exhausted all her power in doing so, and her body was aging rapidly.
She realized she no longer had the strength to search for the last two materials, nor enough life force left to witness the destruction of Nairui Town that she so desperately longed for.
So she had written this letter, entrusting the task to a destined person who would come along in the future.
That destined person would be guided here to find this letter.
As long as they helped fulfill her final wish, they would receive her remaining magical power, enough to break open the Sculpture's body and retrieve the Magic Ruby she had hidden inside long ago.
The Sculpture referred to the mechanical Sculpture at the entrance to the Underground Chamber: Lulu, the girl posed in prayer.
The ruby had the power to grant one wish without any conditions.
After reading the entire letter, Zhao Xun finally looked up at Shen Yalong.
Shen Yalong tried hard to make his expression look less nervous and as innocent as possible.
"I just happened to come over for a look," he explained again.
"How much of a coincidence was it?" Zhao Xun casually dragged over a wooden chair, sat down, and regarded Shen Yalong with an air of indifference.
Shen Yalong had already prepared his story and immediately said, "I saw that everyone in the Duke's Manor had run away. I figured a manor this big had to have plenty of valuables, so I wanted to steal some to take back."
"Really?" Zhao Xun wore a faint, ambiguous smile. "You wanted to steal valuables, but instead of going to the Duke's bedroom, study, or treasury, you came to the garden and went deep into the Bamboo Grove?"
Shen Yalong had anticipated Zhao Xun's doubts and defended himself calmly. "I did plan to go to those places at first. But after I entered the Duke's Manor, I happened to see a guard running out with a bundle full of jewelry. I stopped him and asked, and that was how I learned there was an Underground Chamber deep in the Bamboo Grove where the Duke kept a lot of his valuables."
Zhao Xun asked unhurriedly, "Leaving everything else aside, you said a guard told you there were lots of valuables here. Can you see even a single gemstone anywhere in sight?"
"There are lots of rooms here. Of course all the valuables in this outermost room have already been looted," Shen Yalong said, convinced his argument was perfectly sound. "If you want to find anything valuable, you have to go into the rooms farther inside."
"What you've said is fairly logical." Zhao Xun gave Shen Yalong an encouraging look, then adopted an expression of regret. "Unfortunately, you didn't investigate thoroughly beforehand, and you left a huge hole in your story."
Shen Yalong's expression shifted slightly, but he still tried to remain calm as he asked, "What do you mean?"
"This is my second visit to the Duke's Manor today. There was already no one here when I came the first time." Zhao Xun slowly rose to his feet, savoring the way Shen Yalong's face grew increasingly ashen. "And before I entered this Underground Chamber, I already knew it existed-and knew for certain that there was no treasure here."
All the color drained from Shen Yalong's face, and his lips began trembling uncontrollably.
He desperately wanted to offer a few more words in his defense, but though he opened his mouth several times, no sound came out.
"I don't know how you learned there was an Underground Chamber here, but that doesn't matter." Zhao Xun took two steps closer and looked down at Shen Yalong. "What matters is that someone lived here for days without finding this letter, yet you found it. That alone is enough to prove you're the destined person the Witch was waiting for."
In other words, Shen Yalong's main quest was to fulfill the Witch's final wish.
If he blew up all of Nairui Town, there was no telling whether Shen Yalong himself could escape.
Let alone Zhao Xun, who still had a quest to complete.
Although Lulu the Sculpture had half an hour of free movement each day, she had never said it would reset at midnight.
If there was a twenty-four-hour cooldown before she regained that half hour of freedom, then the Sculpture and Ruby would have to wait until tomorrow afternoon to leave Nairui Town.
If the entire town was razed in the meantime, both he and his quest targets would be finished.
There was absolutely no way he would abandon his hidden quest over something like this.
He could, of course, agree on a time with Shen Yalong, drag the Sculpture out of Nairui Town with Ruby in tow, and then have Shen Yalong blow up the town.
But Shen Yalong had suffered at his hands and surely wanted nothing more than to kill him.
There was not a shred of trust between them.
Besides, after blowing up the town, Shen Yalong would still have to dig the ruby out of the Sculpture's body, which would conflict with his quest anyway.
In short, the simplest solution was right in front of him. There was no need to choose a more troublesome method.
Zhao Xun had already made his decision after reading the Witch's letter.
The only reason he had patiently listened to Shen Yalong's stream of excuses was to watch him rack his brains to keep his lies intact, believing he could escape disaster, only to discover in the end that his hopes were shattered.
That shift in emotion pleased him immensely.
At that moment, Shen Yalong finally realized what Zhao Xun intended, and understood that all his earlier efforts had made him look like a clown in Zhao Xun's eyes.
Yet he could not bring himself to feel angry.
Overwhelming fear engulfed him, pressing down so hard that there was no room for anger.
"Unfortunately, you'll still end up dying at my hands." There was not a trace of regret on Zhao Xun's face.
Shen Yalong's face was filled with undisguised panic.
He hopped away, trying to put a safe distance between them.
Zhao Xun pulled a pitch-black Reaper's Scythe out of thin air and swept it forward in a horizontal slash, its blade neatly severing Shen Yalong's head.
It was as though Shen Yalong had willingly offered his neck to the scythe's blade.
Shen Yalong did not even have time to cry out before his blood splattered across the floor.
Zhao Xun shook the blood off the blade, put away the scythe, then retrieved Ruby's woven bamboo suitcase from beneath the bed and strode out of the Underground Chamber.
His steps were light, and he was in a very pleasant mood.
After leaving the Underground Chamber, Zhao Xun cut down plenty of dead branches and leaves from the surrounding area and carried them inside, burying Shen Yalong's entire corpse beneath them.
Then he casually took an oil lamp off the wall and tossed it onto the dead branches and leaves.
The Underground Chamber relied on the Magic Array to cause explosions; there were no actual explosives, so he did not have to worry about the fire setting off a blast.
To prevent anyone else from activating the Magic Array before he left this game, he might as well burn the Underground Chamber down.
No matter where in the Underground Chamber the materials for activating the Magic Array were hidden, burning them would eliminate the possibility of an explosion at its source.
Once he had finished, Zhao Xun quickly left the Duke's Manor.
Inside the Underground Chamber, the tiny flames steadily grew, swiftly spreading into a towering blaze.
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