Chapter 214: with translation of chapter title

Damn...

Cursing under their breath, Sheldon's arm muscles instantly bulged.

But before they could throw a punch, a nearby veteran grabbed their wrist.

Looking at the other's eyes brimming with hot tears, akin to pleading, Sheldon opened their mouth, but could only swallow this breath, their voice hoarse.

"Sorry~~ please accept my sincerest apology! We were wrong!"

If they knew what kind of people they were facing, and what they were actually beating the air for...

Sheldon would probably rather commit suicide on the spot than make today's concession.

As the live broadcast, recordings, and screenshots of nearly a thousand people spread, their apology process was fully transmitted to another world.

The sight of villains suffering humiliation and faces changing at lightning speed often makes for the most entertaining plot twists, naturally eliciting laughter and discussion from netizens worldwide,

And 【Sheldon's apology】, due to its strong relevance to the trending topic and its entertainment value, evolved into a new internet meme.

Look, after my safety inspection, how much has their vigilance increased?

All the slackers who were goofing off have disappeared, replaced by sentries with tense faces, their eyes fixed rigidly on the wall outside.

Sheldon suppressed the anger in their heart, consoling themselves that they still had plenty of supplies, only a small amount had been taken.

But...

After considering all possible places to obtain supplies, he finally decided to borrow another sum from Dean An.

What's more, can you even stop it!

Recently, Ji Ming has been diligently practicing his movement technique, and with the aid of fifteen points of qi and blood, he easily leapt over the wall.

This is borrowing; I'll definitely pay it back later!

In short, Ji Ming borrowed fifty or sixty crates of supplies, and after cleaning up, he left the basement the way he came.

"Ouch, that was a fierce fight; I heard they were still brother tribes just two days ago."

By inputting pure magical power, one can open this door, which was originally single-sided but secretly designed with a hidden mechanism.

Wait a moment.

— No wonder I always feel uneasy when discussing business during the day.

They with difficulty completed the apology segment that was purely meant to embarrass people, then lowered their head and silently returned to the camp.

Anyway, that uncle with the eight-shaped moustache who came to apologize this morning repeatedly emphasized several times.

Only a little bit remains!

Instead, he simply took the goods out of the box and stuffed them into the spatial ring for unified retrieval.

He predicted that Sheldon, in order to regain trust, would not report the mysteriously stolen goods.

"Folks, did you see that? They really started fighting because of my instigation, haha!"

Fearing something might go wrong later, Ji Ming did not let Cloi follow him in, but instead slipped alone into the rock crevice.

But looking around, the manor today is vastly different from before.

Having just noticed, it turns out that two small tribes down by the southern stream have started fighting again.

Then they activated the account-ban function, issuing a three-day suspension warning to players who had been excessively consuming the human blood steamed buns in a dangerous game.

Under the effect of the Suggestion Technique, the sharp-eyed guards were mere decorations, only able to watch helplessly as he entered the manor.

"Yeah, what else?"

But the other side hid it so thoroughly that going back and forth would probably waste a lot of time.

Having calculated the direction, after clearing one spot, a heavy iron door finally appeared before Ji Ming.

As a shortcut An De Lu envisioned for directly escaping disaster, the basement's hidden exit naturally leads straight out of the city.

"Dr. Ji Ming, just tell us what you need; we mountain mercenaries value loyalty above all—if we can help, we definitely will!"

Ji Ming just loves that phrase "if we can help, we definitely will"—it's put perfectly.

Right, this is the place!

Following the endless descending stairs, Ji Ming entered the basement in a way no one could have imagined.

Dealing in arms is hard to define; even in the real world, many people make a living from it.

Moreover, although players have flooded into this emerging industry, they want to quickly make a fortune.

But because purchasing weapons requires exchanging points, and crafting them oneself demands skill and time.

Since we've advised, we've advised; since we've punished, we've punished—let the players figure it out themselves.

Saying it and doing it, wearing a breath-holding talisman, he easily made his way from the commercial street to An De Lu's manor.

The mercenaries were fortunate when they first dug the exit; after breaking through, they directly obtained this natural barrier.

"You mean the hateful stitching monster? I thought you already knew about the beaker thing."

But he also guessed that An De Lu might do that, and had already prepared a second route.

Cloi slightly loosened the gap, then took another brief look.

"Nothing's wrong, no need to ask."

He quickly returned to the clinic, teleported to the underground city, rode Cloi along the underground city's small path back to the surface.

For Ji Ming, who has a hoarding tendency, such a large disparity practically makes him unable to sit or stand still.

And a comic that you couldn't draw without adding some water to the brain, which sends the salty crowd into a numb state: 【For the sake of crying cat sister, Xie Luo Li can even……】

But doing this might be a little too crazy, don't you think?

"Wait outside, don't let unrelated people get close."

Then came a flood of emojis, wildly viewed absurd videos, and the derivative brain‑hole mini‑games.

He first adjusted the shop system, limiting the number of weapons players could purchase.

Fu Lu Jia: Hello.

Ji Ming had no choice but to turn and leave, trying to ask those mercenaries if they knew where the key was.

"Your body…… why does it have an artificial, eerie aura?"

Ji Ming suppressed the urge to take a screenshot and raised an eyebrow.

Although, with Ji Ming's methods, it wasn't impossible to pull the same trick again to get a new key.

At least during the time he inspected the warehouse and browsed related videos, only six or seven weapons had been sold, and the purchasing speed had already leveled off.

"Eh, this isn't my fault; I just trimmed the beginning and end—I definitely didn't alter anyone's original words when relaying them, okay?"

"Ah this…… mm!"

An De Lu's original idea was to leave a quiet back route to the manor for emergencies, but who knew it would end up so cheap for Ji Ming.

Under the premise of trying not to damage the overall appearance of each small warehouse as much as possible, he reluctantly refused the convenient option of packing and taking them away.

But among them, the liveliest one, who was practically jumping up and down, really was a bit over the top.

"Sir, what are you doing……"

After storing the zero-cost purchases in the warehouse, Ji Ming opened the map for a second check.

Doing live commentary and analysis like that is quite normal; such behavior counts as being a war correspondent.

But if one continues forward along the rugged cave, one can see some traces that, although old, still show humans have been there.

Moreover, the manor's interior had become much stricter than before; even late at night, many mercenaries were still on patrol, daring not to slack off in the slightest.

"I've helped you guys this much, and you're treating me like an outsider now, huh?"

Just like the underground cave in "The Forest," this place initially had nothing suspicious about it—only a patch of darkness and desolation.

Moreover, on their livestream they posted a line from the boss: "He who loves war will perish; he who forgets war will be in danger," which counts as peace education and military popular science for netizens.

This was, in a way, a subtle emphasis of the official stance.

Well, it seems An De Lu is like someone bitten by a snake once and then afraid of well ropes for ten years—he's started to lay false defenses.

He gestured to the guard at the door, and Ji Ming entered the office building as easily as if he were leading an inspection.

"Seems it's with the regiment leader, though I vaguely heard Captain Johnson might also have it, I guess……"

But that wasn't the end; continuing to search around, he soon felt a strange stone with an unusually low temperature.

With such tight security, without the aid of multiple abilities, trying to sneak in purely by body technique would really be impossible.

After harshly criticizing this chaotic behavior, Ji Ming suddenly fell silent, then had a sudden realization.

Have to say, the sight of a big black wolf squatting on the ground covering its nose is still pretty funny.

All I can do is give a rough summary.

So……

However, after asking around—including the self-disciplined squad leader Bals whom he happened to meet—no one could give an answer.

"Hey, saying this is actually fun—clearly each of their dog brains is about to be beaten out, yet they still have to thank us!"

Human desires are infinite; only by facing this fact can we better control them.

As it turned out, while I was committing those wicked deeds in Sunshine City, the players were down in the dungeon cosplaying horror.

"But we don't need to worry either; after this fight ends, whichever side survives will definitely still need to come buy stuff from us!"

……

So, to avoid startling the snake and to not bother the busy, generous neighbors any more than necessary, Ji Ming didn't take anything blatantly this time.

Although Ji Ming didn't think those deceitful, crafty little Tribes could peacefully survive until the end of the closed beta—they were bound to become player experience fodder sooner or later……

The guard on duty instinctively wanted to ask, but was silenced by the captain's slightly reddened eyes, like those of a put-upon little wife.

Anger, trembling, cold.

Ji Ming activated the camera to zoom in; sure enough, it was a group of players livestreaming the war process.

Compared to last time, after receiving another wave of supplies, their warehouse inventory really had increased quite a bit.

"Ah, no—how could what we, the lawful good, do be called stealing?"

Upon second thought, Ji Ming realized that Dean An really ought to pay him.

The closed-beta resources he had painstakingly prepared were just sold off by the players, so Ji Ming naturally needed to hurry and find a way to plug that gap.

Cloi was lying honest-to-goodness outside the cave, and upon seeing Ji Ming she quickly stood up.

"What's wrong?"

"Come on, do a good job!"

"No, no—although hatred smells pretty disgusting, as an artificial lifeform he wouldn't have that."

Even if this behavior isn't quite proper, at most it counts as moral corruption, and there are already players who can't stand it trying to persuade them to leave.

Moreover, besides those two clusters of white points devouring each other into oblivion, there is also a small scattering of blue points on the battlefield's edge, just watching.

"Damn it, who the hell is this bastard, stirring up trouble so that even the ruler and his ministers can't find peace!"

Therefore, in recent times, An De Lu shouldn't have any large shipments needing transfer, making a large-scale inspection unlikely.

"Can you control your tail a bit? I don't recall wolves having this kind of emotional expression."

As for those who hang around the battlefield laughing and munching popcorn, watching the show all the while, chatting and cracking hell jokes on the danmu—those livestream-type players.

"Been robbed of a little bit?"

If that's how we count, then the challengers, plus those few masters still researching the Rejuvenation Elixir in the handcraft workshop, are definitely receiving blame.

After walking who knows how long and crawling through a rock cavern, a fairly spacious chamber came into view.

And in a woodland east of Sunshine City, a very concealed rock fissure is hidden among the vines.

However.

Sunshine City's biggest thief is you lot—could there really be peers coming to steal from you?

Everyone's so on guard—just who are they defending against? Maybe there's some shady friend dealing behind the door.

Under the hanging stalactites, the slightly damp ground was piled with messy rubble in its four corners.

But just as previously said, at this moment Xie Erdun does not know this.

These meager supplies on hand would be tight even for a few hundred people, let alone the fact that there are over a thousand players.

Lustful karma?

Who can make up for this missing bit of lustful karma for me!

But with another breath, a pungent smell suddenly surged into her nasal cavity, making her involuntarily extend her claws.

I have food and weapons on hand; as long as I develop steadily and plan slowly, everything will get better!

But after ordering his subordinates to open the warehouse door, he rubbed his eyes and let out an indescribable shriek.

Seeing the players still busy torturing Xie Erdun, he took out the Breath Holding Talisman and the Space Ring, and under the cover of the Suggestion Technique he made a round of the mercenary camp.

But compared to the total number of troops stationed here, it's clear that Lao Xie hasn't been doing well lately, giving him the feeling of being sabotaged.

As the iron door opened, air flowed faster, and the familiar scent of wheat and rust mingled and drifted out.

If the method is right, what difference is there between a narrow exit and a concealed entrance?

——This is also the fundamental reason he didn't rush to kill An De Lu; he needed a stable logistics supplier for emergencies.

It even accompanied the players' development and conquest in Yangyue World, shifting from export to domestic sales, and as an emerging culture it became popular in every corner they reached.

Thus, he stole a little……

Cloi originally wanted to use silence to hide her embarrassing inability to change her doggish nature.

No, I still have to manage it somehow.

But just as he took out the key, preparing to help Dean An check whether the basement's defenses were tight, he discovered the lock had been completely replaced.

No, I still need to figure out how to get supplies……

If I don't go get the supplies now, wouldn't that show I'm petty and not give Dean An face?

Whether it's savings or inventory, in the business competition of you chasing me and me chasing you, the players' current resources can be said to have all been poured in.

As for the rest.

Cloi shifted her butt back two steps, sat on the grass, and carefully recalled the passage she had seen when reading at her clan grandfather's house earlier.

"Exactly, this is indeed the stench of a patchwork monster, but it's not the direction of creating life out of thin air relying on alchemy and corpses."

"But rather, it involves cutting off the souls and bodies of other existences and forcibly fusing them with normal life through soul-body splicing."