Chapter 455

"There are some women in the lord's house…"

"Women? What's so strange about that?"

"You… should go take a look."

Zhao Chi walked toward the lord's house.

Zhao Ji's lord's house had already been remodeled.

It was made entirely of stone.

The door was iron, with very high security.

But now the door had been pried open—Tang Ruan and the others must have done it.

Zhao Chi went in, curious.

The moment he entered, he smelled a fishy stench again.

But it was relatively faint.

Entering the bedroom, he found an enormous bed.

It took up half the room.

On the bed were more than ten women.

Without exception, none of them wore a stitch of clothing.

All were shackled with iron chains into extremely shameful positions.

Iron chains on their necks, on all four limbs—everywhere.

They couldn't move at all.

Their expressions were equally blank, but there were no bite marks on their necks, and their bodies were the normal color of human skin.

Logically speaking, these women had already been soul-captured, so there'd be no need to bind them.

But Zhao Chi noticed their expressions were pained.

Their bodies were still struggling faintly.

Tang Ruan frowned as she looked at them.

Zhao Chi sighed: "Release them. They'll be free soon enough."

"Yes, my lord."

Tang Ruan called the female soldiers over to hack open their iron chains.

After that, those women just lay blankly on the bed, motionless.

Zhao Chi stopped looking at them and began searching the room carefully.

Only now did Zhao Chi notice the room was lavishly decorated.

The overall decor was gold and red.

It gave off a sense of luxury.

But Zhao Chi didn't care about that—he only cared whether there were any good things in the room.

But he was greatly disappointed.

Three big cabinets in the room, all stuffed full of various small toys, torture implements, and every kind of erotic apparel.

Besides these, there was nothing else?

Not a single useful item—damn it?

Tang Ruan quickly said at this point: "My lord, there's a small box I've already put away. There are quite a few good things inside."

Zhao Chi breathed a sigh of relief at that.

"Exactly. I was saying a noble's lord's house couldn't possibly have nothing good."

Tang Ruan pulled an iron box out of her system space.

Opening it, she found it was indeed full of items.

Though not as many as expected, it was still not bad.

After all, nobles also need to keep raising their strength.

Once they got rare items, they'd basically use them right away to boost their strength.

They basically wouldn't hold onto them.

So the quantity of items wasn't too great—Zhao Chi could accept that.

There was no time to sort through them now; he'd look when they got back.

Zhao Chi put away the box and searched the house carefully for a while longer, confirming there was nothing else.

The lord's house had other rooms, but there were no useful items in those either.

At this point, the search was basically done.

What remained was to transport all the supplies back.

Zhao Ji's territory had quite a few large wooden carts—ones Zhao Chi hadn't crafted yet. Perfect: take the carts along with the supplies, bring everything back.

The female soldiers hurriedly carried things out.

But at this point, many humans also helped carry things.

Their faces were expressionless, yet they carried all sorts of materials and loaded them onto the carts.

Zhao Chi found it a bit odd: "You don't need to bother—go back and rest."

But those people no longer obeyed orders at this point.

They all turned a deaf ear and kept carrying without pause.

Fine, then.

Time was tight anyway; with them joining in, things would go faster.

Half an hour passed.

Twenty large wooden carts were fully loaded.

Unfortunately there were no horses here, so they could only haul everything by manpower.

One large cart needed ten people — six pulling in front, four pushing from behind.

Luckily these women were strong, so six people would actually have been enough.

But Zhao Chi still had all ten of them pull each cart; that way everyone could work more easily, and the pace could be faster too.

The other women all carried large bundles on their backs, also stuffed full of supplies.

He quickly inspected everything once more.

Indeed most of the supplies were already loaded, so finally he had all the spirit stones on the spirit-energy towers taken down.

In an instant, every spirit-energy lamp across the entire territory went dark.

The female soldiers mounted a few torches for temporary lighting.

Zhao Chi gave the order: "Full speed ahead, return to the territory!"

"Yes!"

The female soldiers were greatly invigorated.

Setting everything else aside, just these twenty carts of supplies alone could be called a bountiful haul.

But those basic resources, including the food, Zhao Chi didn't take any of them.

That food might have been contaminated — he didn't dare eat it.

In any case Zhao Chi wasn't short on grain now, so he let it be.

Gu Qing walked while looking back: "My lord, they're following us."

"They?"

Zhao Chi turned his head.

He saw those deathly pale humans had all come out.

There were several hundred of them.

They were all expressionless, dressed in tattered cloth garments.

But each of them was carrying some supplies.

Some had several people hauling timber, some were hugging a large chunk of iron ore, and others were carrying the food that Zhao Chi didn't want.

From the looks of it, they wanted to follow Zhao Chi?

Zhao Chi wasn't sure what they were thinking.

But to tell the truth, Zhao Chi didn't want them.

First and foremost, the biggest problem was that Zhao Chi feared once they followed him back, they might very well expose certain things.