Chapter Twenty-Four: The Real Treasure
As soon as the Xiaoyao Gang entered the inner village, a team of guards immediately blocked the entrance to the inner village, preventing others from entering. The "others" referred to those irregular troops. Then they started closing the door and beating the dog, striking and eliminating the remaining bandit forces everywhere.
"Brother, where are the grain stores and armory? The leader told me to go inform the brothers to pack up and escape!" Unable to find the place where the mountain bandits stored their supplies after searching around, Xiao Ying randomly grabbed a mountain bandit and started talking nonsense.
"Right behind the stable! I'm telling you, brother, you want wealth but not at the cost of your life, what's the point of fighting if you're not going to run away? Quickly find a place to hide and talk about it later! You need to have a life to enjoy the wealth!" The mountain bandit pointed in a direction and said, then very kindly advised me. Looks like this NPC has a pretty high IQ!
He didn't waste any more words with him and immediately sprinted in the direction he had pointed earlier. What place couldn't be built, just build it behind the stable, huh? Xiao Ying silently scorned and despised him, but indeed found a large copper door locked with handcuffs behind the stable. He didn't know if there was no one guarding here or if the guards had escaped for their lives, and he didn't bother to care about that either. He took out his silver gun and slashed it at the copper lock, making a "clang" sound as the lock fell off instantly. Hurriedly opening the door and walking in, if he didn't act fast, later on, when the people from the Wandering Heroes' Guild arrived, not only would they fail to obtain what they wanted, but they'd also have to leave their lives here.
Pulling open the door, inside was only a passageway leading to the bottom of the earth. The passageway had several glowing pearls hanging from it, how luxurious! Not having time to admire it, I quickly ran in. At the end of the passageway were two caves, each about 400 square meters and three or four zhang high. However, there was only food and weapons inside. Alas, Xiao Ying still fantasized about a cave full of gold, silver, and jewels. But it's better than nothing! With a few swift slaps of my palm, I sucked up the large quantities of food and equipment like a giant whale drinking water, storing them into the Love Ring. If only I had known there was such an opportunity earlier, I wouldn't have wasted my money buying bows, arrows, and food. Now I'm left with only a few hundred gold coins on me.
Like lightning, he snapped his palm for over ten minutes, snapping until his hand went soft. Fortunately, the system setting stored items within a certain range, and muttering "collect" could collect items; otherwise, taking one by one would take several hours. After finishing the search, he didn't have time to look closely, as the distant cries of killing were getting closer and closer. Xiao Ying quickly changed into the attire of the Wandering Heroes' Sect, rapidly retreating while gazing longingly at the Night Crystal on the passageway, silently sighing that one should leave some soup for others when eating meat, and being a person shouldn't be too extreme.
Rushing out of the passage, Xiao Ying immediately sprinted towards the mountain bandits' gathering hall. As a 14th-level full-attribute warrior, her current stats were: Leadership 26, Strength 43, Intelligence 26, Politics 7, Charm 87, Insight 70, and Luck 12. Even if she only considered strength, she wasn't necessarily inferior to a 30th-level character, despite the equipment bonuses. The large complex of buildings, spanning over a thousand square meters, was filled with cries of killing from all directions. However, judging by the situation, it was clear that the Xiao Yao Gang had suffered significant losses here. Most of the people present were mountain bandit guards, all of whom were high-level bandits in their 20s, and could be considered special troops. The Xiao Yao Gang was mostly relying on sheer numbers, using their quantity to overwhelm and kill the mountain bandit guards one by one. Xiao Ying didn't have the kindness to help the Xiao Yao Gang clear out obstacles, so she rushed towards the inner hall, where the fighting was most intense.
As soon as he stepped into the inner hall, Xiao Ying realized that this was not just intense, but rather a massacre. Over a thousand people were besieging dozens of others, with more troops from the Money Army queuing up to charge in, replacing the fallen ones. The 70-level leader of the mountain bandits and nearly 20 mountain bandit guards were somehow still holding their ground against the hail of arrows and crossbow bolts, cutting down countless players from the Wandering Help Army. This war of attrition was clearly being fought by the recruited NPC army. Just look at that mountain bandit leader - one swing of his sword could take out two or three people, and no one could withstand it. Players were all very selfish, who dared to go up and challenge him? Xiao Ying had collected a few high-level NPCs earlier, but now he realized just how useless they were. No wonder Gong Sun Yang never left the valley - if he came out, who could stop him? It was a wonder that players didn't flip the forum upside down. He could take on gods and kill them, Buddhas and destroy them - of course, these gods and Buddhas referred to players, including their small armies! Now, 90% of the recruited troops were around level 10, with very few having leveled up or advanced.
Xiao Ying came to collect interest, so he quietly slipped away and went to the building complex next to the inner hall. He searched house after house, densely packed with four courtyards, like walking in a maze, making Xiao Ying's head dizzy. It seemed that all the four courtyards in the inner hall were inhabited by top leaders. After searching for several hours, although he encountered many people from the Wanderers' Guild who were also searching around, no one paid attention to him. He guessed it was because his clothes were also those of the Wanderers' Guild, and Xiao Ying was rummaging through boxes and cabinets while they were searching for remaining mountain bandits. It was probably an NPC army! But players weren't that stupid! However, he did manage to find a lot of gold, silver, and treasure, conservatively estimated to be over 100 diamond coins. He still thought it was too little. What were mountain bandits? They specialized in robbery and murder, so those leaders must have been extremely wealthy.
"What are you doing? Why aren't you out searching for the mountain bandits? Who are you?" Xiang Ying was rummaging through a house, searching for valuable items, when suddenly a stern voice sounded from behind him. He turned his head to see a person wearing a green scholar's robe, which seemed to be from the Wandering Heroes' Sect. It was definitely a player, as NPCs in the military rarely had scholar-type characters.
"The boss ordered me to search and see if there are any valuable items or drawings! There aren't any here, I'll go take a look somewhere else!" Xiao Ying replied very "honestly", and before he could react, he had already slipped out the door and run off to another place. If not for fear of stirring up unnecessary trouble, he really wanted to send him a bullet.
Rushing around, he suddenly arrived at a single courtyard house with a garden. Xiao Ying's eyes lit up involuntarily, guessing that this was not the lair of the mountain bandit leader, but rather someone closely related to him. He immediately went in and searched everywhere, and indeed found it to be luxurious and extravagant. This time, Xiao Ying really did swoop in like a bird, not even sparing the decorative items, and surprisingly, there was even a bookshelf? Seeing the bookshelf, Xiao Ying's eyes lit up again. Having played for so long, he had almost never seen books before, most of which were just decorations that couldn't be read. He didn't know if these could be read either. In "Yu Wang", reading many books could increase intelligence, leadership, politics, charm, and insight. He flipped through several volumes in a row, all of which were wooden book covers that couldn't be opened. Of course, it was also possible that Xiao Ying's abilities were insufficient, or his intelligence wasn't enough.
Think about it, bandits know how to read books, and they casually flipped through a few more, still not working. Just as I was about to give up, I didn't expect this one to be opened by me. One look and it turned out to be - Fake Spring and Autumn Annals of the Left Family. Now everything is fake, even books are fake? Unbelievably, I carefully looked at a few more, when suddenly a system prompt sounded:
