Chapter 41: Fairy-Tale Kingdom (8)
“No, no.” Su Qiong hurriedly waved his hands, stopping Shi Yuntian from entertaining such a dangerous idea. “I never thought of doing that.”
Shi Yuntian reluctantly put away his blade and muttered, “What? I thought I’d finally guessed correctly for once.”
“Huh?” The Fairy-Tale Princess wore a rare expression of disbelief. “You actually intended to kill me?”
Shi Yuntian answered with complete honesty, “Of course. If we kill you, we can leave this instance.”
“There are other ways to clear it,” Su Qiong muttered softly. “Besides, I think this instance is fun, and the food is delicious.”
From the very beginning, he had never intended to clear the instance by killing the Circle Lord.
However, the Fairy-Tale Princess took Shi Yuntian’s words to heart and pulled out her apple.
“Fine! Today, this princess will show you exactly how foolish your idea is.”
“Huh? Wait!” Yu Qimiao and the others hurriedly tried to stop the fight and persuade the princess to change her mind.
Her level was nearly ten times Shi Yuntian’s. Did anyone need to imagine how the fight would end?
Unfortunately, Shi Yuntian was a battle maniac who had never been able to resist provocation.
Ever since entering IF, he had not enjoyed a truly satisfying fight. His hands had been itching for one for ages. He drew his sword again and charged forward.
“Hey! Both of you, stop!” Yu Qimiao shouted.
“Don’t worry. I’ll leave him with one breath,” the Fairy-Tale Princess said “kindly.”
Shi Yuntian became completely fired up and spoke with outrageous arrogance.
“That’s what I should be saying to you.”
“Shouldn’t we stop them?” Moi and Qiyi sensed the overwhelming pressure radiating from the Circle Lord. They clung tightly to each other and watched the battlefield with worry.
A showed no nervousness whatsoever.
“There’s no need.”
The battle was about to erupt, but ERROR’s gaze remained fixed on Su Qiong, a hint of admiration flashing through his eyes.
“This was one of your goals too, wasn’t it? Clever.”
On the surface, Su Qiong appeared soft, adorable, and harmless.
In reality, every step he took was carefully calculated.
He had probably learned it from Yu Qimiao.
Yu Qimiao, who had been forced to take the blame, stopped trying to prevent the fight after receiving the princess’s promise. He found the best viewing position and comfortably prepared to watch.
Although the Fairy-Tale Princess was spoiled and arrogant, she always kept her word and had never done anything truly excessive.
Since she had promised to leave Shi Yuntian alive, they might as well allow the two to fight. It would also let them test the princess’s abilities.
Su Qiong had gone to great lengths to “steal” the princess from her castle. He had probably wanted to investigate her strength and prepare a strategy for clearing her instance.
Learning the Circle Lord’s abilities and items in advance would be extremely useful when they eventually challenged the Fairy-Tale Princess.
Once they understood that, the companions found places to watch and allowed Shi Yuntian to repeatedly test the boundary between life and death.
The Fairy-Tale Princess was generous enough not to conceal her item.
The players had already seen the apple in her hand back in the beginner zone, but they had never learned how it worked.
It was large, red, and looked extremely sweet.
Yet no matter how they examined it, it did not resemble an offensive item.
Was she going to kill someone by throwing an apple at them?
“Hey, little girl.” Shi Yuntian pointed his heavy blade at the princess. “Take out your bonded weapon. Stop playing around with that flashy nonsense.”
“I am the noble Fairy-Tale Princess! You’re forbidden from calling me a little girl!” Her temper was just as explosive as his, and she immediately shouted in fury. “Don’t worry. I won’t show you any mercy.”
Shi Yuntian continued courting death.
“So your weapon really is just an apple? No way, no way, no way.”
“!!!”
Those three sarcastic repetitions sent the princess’s anger straight to its limit.
She ground her teeth, brought the apple to her mouth, and took a forceful bite.
The other members of the Orphan Alliance sat in the front row and enthusiastically discussed the spectacle.
“I thought she was going to throw the apple at Boss Shi. Why did she eat it herself?”
“Based on my analysis, the Fairy-Tale Princess should correspond to Snow White. In the story, Snow White ate a poisoned apple and fell into an endless sleep.”
“Then the prince kissed her awake! I understand! She wants Shi Yuntian to kiss her, then poison him with the apple in her mouth!”
“Wake up. If a Circle Lord used such a stupid attack method, the system would have stripped her of the position long ago.”
“So the question is, how does the apple attack?”
Even Su Qiong and ERROR, who understood the system better than the others, thought seriously for a long time without reaching a reliable conclusion.
If they did not witness the apple’s ability with their own eyes, the players could probably rack their brains forever without guessing correctly.
“It’s fortunate Su Qiong brought the Circle Lord here and allowed us to investigate her in advance,” Yu Qimiao praised.
“That’s right~ Little Pastry is amazing.”
“Mm-hm. I’m amazing!” Su Qiong accepted every compliment without hesitation, then gestured ahead. “The princess looks a little different now.”
After eating the apple, the Fairy-Tale Princess’s eyes had turned a vivid red. For some reason, a pink diamond fragment had also appeared between her eyebrows.
“Wow, she became prettier!”
After seeing the princess’s transformation, A turned toward Su Qiong with a thoughtful expression.
Lu Shufan voiced the question for him.
“Little Pastry, do all Circle Lords become like that?”
“Like what?” Su Qiong asked adorably.
“Do all of you become more beautiful when you use your abilities?” Lu Shufan was gifted with words and quickly added, “I’m not saying you aren’t beautiful now.”
“Huh?” Su Qiong tilted his head in confusion. After thinking for a moment, he answered, “I’m not sure. Circle Lords don’t communicate with one another. Besides, there are Circle Lords like the Order Staircase.”
Lu Shufan thought of the Order Staircase and fell silent.
Not only had the Order Staircase failed to become more beautiful, it had not even possessed a human form. It had remained a staircase from beginning to end.
The Circle Lords of IF truly came in every imaginable form.
The Fairy-Tale Princess had taken only one bite of the apple and launched a single attack, but Shi Yuntian already found it almost impossible to withstand.
She hurled him into the rocks behind him. His spine crashed against the stone wall, and the sound of bones breaking rang through the air. Shi Yuntian spat out a mouthful of blood.
Upon seeing this, Su Qiong resignedly opened the item shop and exchanged for a recovery item for him.
The Fairy-Tale Princess turned toward them. At some point, her girlish face had acquired a trace of bewitching wickedness.
“Are you all going to keep sitting there and watching?” she asked mockingly. “Aren’t you companions? Are you planning to watch me beat him to death?”
“First of all,” Lu Shufan said, “we believe the princess is kind, beautiful, and true to her word. You definitely won’t kill Boss Shi.”
“Secondly…”
A glanced at the steep rock face.
“He hasn’t surrendered.”
“Pah!” Shi Yuntian spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva mixed with white fragments—pieces of his shattered teeth.
He drew a ragged breath and peeled himself away from the rock wall.
The tremendous pain made him sway unsteadily, but his eyes still burned with an unyielding light.
“Again.”
“You truly possess admirable courage.” Seeing him stand again, the Fairy-Tale Princess shook the apple in her hand. “My apple can be eaten in seven bites. The first bite grants only an ordinary attack. Every bite afterward multiplies my attack power. Once I take the seventh bite, even a casual attack will destroy the entire Circle.”
“Wow. Even though her eyes turned red, the princess is still the same princess.”
“Always explaining everything. Always talking so much.”
“Who are you calling talkative?” The princess’s personality truly had not changed. She was still extremely easy to provoke.
She clenched her fist and took another bite of the apple. Her eyes turned orange, her bewitching aura intensified, and another pink diamond fragment appeared between her brows.
“So beautiful!” Su Qiong exclaimed again.
“She is beautiful, but don’t you think…”
“She looks a little dangerous?”
No wonder people often said the more beautiful something was in nature, the more poisonous it tended to be.
Beauty truly did accompany danger.
The orange-eyed Fairy-Tale Princess walked toward Shi Yuntian one step at a time.
Perhaps because she still remembered their agreement, she did not use too much strength. She merely raised one finger and flicked it lightly.
Everyone clearly saw that her finger never touched Shi Yuntian.
Nevertheless, the wind generated by her fingertip sent him flying far away. He rolled several times and slammed against the rock wall again.
“Boss Shi…” Lu Shufan could barely watch.
After knowing Shi Yuntian for so long, this was the first time he had seen him beaten so miserably, without the slightest ability to fight back.
Shi Yuntian was a professional player who had dominated the world championship for three consecutive years.
After entering IF, he had seemingly traded every point of intelligence for combat power. He could fight an NPC ten levels above him on equal terms.
Unfortunately, the princess was more than two hundred levels above him.
Even though she was not fighting seriously, Shi Yuntian could not endure her second attack.
“Cough… Cough, cough…” Shi Yuntian rolled over and fell heavily to the ground. With great effort, he lifted an arm and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
Although his entire body was nearly falling apart, a satisfied smile still curved his lips.
“That’s powerful. This is what a proper fight should feel like.”
“What’s satisfying about it? This princess is almost dying of frustration.” The Fairy-Tale Princess was afraid of killing him and had barely used any real strength.
She looked toward the people sitting nearby and forcefully demanded, “You! Get up and fight me too!”
“Princess, our strength is roughly equal. Even the highest among us is only Level Forty or Fifty. We aren’t your opponents.”
“Hmph!” The princess snorted coldly and appeared extremely angry.
Su Qiong suddenly remembered that the Fairy-Tale Kingdom’s main objective was not to kill the Circle Lord, but to make her happy.
Although he still did not know why the princess was unhappy, making her laugh here should at least reduce the difficulty of the instance, right?
Clearly, his teammates had reached the same conclusion.
A stood and reached for the chain around his waist. With a sweep of his arm, the familiar silver whip appeared.
He did not love fighting as much as Shi Yuntian and had relatively less practical combat experience.
However, A had undergone systematic training. His tactical ability was more than one level above Shi Yuntian’s.
He used a feint, pretending to flash past the princess on her right. The whip in his hand circled around and wrapped around her left arm instead.
The princess was caught off guard, but she reacted quickly. She threw off A’s whip, and the diamonds on her fingernails transformed into boomerangs that flew toward him all at once.
A immediately retracted the whip and transformed it into a sword, knocking the boomerangs away.
There were too many of them.
By the time he struck down the last one, the princess had already flown above him, a murderous cold gleam flashing across her fingertips.
It was too late to raise his sword.
A calmly assessed that if he endured the attack, he would be badly injured even if he survived.
Clang—
The sound of blades colliding rang through the air.
ERROR appeared in front of A at some unknown moment, holding an utterly ordinary dagger.
“Your Highness, do you intend to kill him?”
Several of the princess’s nails had broken. Feeling somewhat displeased, she said, “I thought he could play with me a little longer. He’s too weak.”
A: “…”
This was the first time in his life anyone had called him weak.
The damned level system of IF.
“If you want to play, I can play with you until you’re satisfied,” ERROR said. “But you must agree to one condition.”
“What condition?” the Fairy-Tale Princess asked.
ERROR did not explain.
“Will you agree or not?”
“All right.” The Fairy-Tale Princess actually agreed.
“She really does need playmates,” Su Qiong muttered quietly.
“Su Qiong.” ERROR called to him. “You should still have one use of Order Deduction left, right?”
Su Qiong nodded. “Yes.”
“Can you send us into the space created by your deduction?”
“I can, but…” Su Qiong pointed at himself. “Am I not going?”
ERROR gave him a beautiful, beguiling smile.
“It would be best if you didn’t.”
“All right.” Su Qiong was not particularly curious by nature. Since ERROR did not want him to follow, there had to be a special reason.
Before activating Order Deduction, Su Qiong gave a specific warning.
“Each deduction lasts only ten minutes. If the person serving as the deduction’s viewpoint dies during that time, it will end immediately. Also, I can use this ability only three times in each instance. This is the final use.”
“Are you sure you want to use the last one here?” the other companions objected.
“Since it’s Su Qiong’s ability, Su Qiong should decide,” Yu Qimiao said.
“I’ve decided to use it here,” Su Qiong replied. “If she gets to play to her heart’s content, the princess should become a little happier, right?”
Su Qiong knew perfectly well that the instance quest would not be that simple. The princess’s current happiness would only be temporary.
But if they could not even give her a moment of happiness, how could they possibly make her happy forever?
“Order Deduction.”
Su Qiong activated the ability for the final time.
The Fairy-Tale Princess and ERROR froze in place, maintaining their current positions.
Order Deduction existed on the mental plane. The physical bodies of those participating would not be affected.
Even if they were injured or killed during the deduction, nothing would happen to their real bodies.
Once it ended, they would briefly retain their final positions from the deduction, but only for a few hundredths of a second.
The players could see only two motionless figures and had no idea what they were doing inside the deduced world.
Time passed second by second.
With nothing else to do, everyone helped Shi Yuntian over and treated his injuries.
“It’s all because of this bastard system!” Shi Yuntian complained, completely unconvinced by his defeat. “Without the level restrictions, I’d definitely beat her into the ground!”
“Boss Shi, say less.” Lu Shufan shook his head. “You’ve played too many competitive games. In a normal leveling game, no one creates a new account and immediately kills the boss. Level up slowly.”
“Fuck!” Shi Yuntian cursed. “Then what about A? His level isn’t much higher than mine. Why could he block the Fairy-Tale Princess’s attack?”
A glanced at him without emotion, yet Shi Yuntian somehow saw a trace of pity in his eyes.
“Because I don’t throw myself onto her blade.”
Shi Yuntian: “…”
That sounded like an insult.
“What are those two doing inside the deduced world? Su Qiong, can you really not see?”
Su Qiong shook his head. “I initiated the deduction from ERROR’s perspective and pulled the Fairy-Tale Princess into the deduced world. Only they know what’s happening inside.”
Lu Shufan looked toward the motionless princess and had a dangerous idea.
“She’s standing there without moving. What if I launch a sneak attack…”
“That won’t work,” Su Qiong explained. “If the deduction senses danger from the outside, it will immediately end. Besides, we have an agreement with her. If you break it, she can break it too.”
With the Fairy-Tale Princess’s fighting strength, every player in the Fairy-Tale Kingdom combined would still be insufficient to defeat her.
“If that’s the case, what gives ERROR the confidence to challenge her? He has no weapons, no abilities, and the system stripped away his levels.”
“Confidence, probably.”
“Five minutes have passed,” Moi reported accurately.
Shi Yuntian and Lu Shufan traded insults while speculating about ERROR’s miserable condition.
Su Qiong rested his chin on his hand, feeling that something was wrong no matter how he considered it.
Five minutes had already passed.
The Fairy-Tale Princess had defeated Shi Yuntian in ten seconds and A in one minute.
This deduction used ERROR as its viewpoint. If he died, it would end immediately.
Half the time had passed, yet the deduction continued. That meant ERROR still had at least one breath remaining.
He had faced a Circle Lord alone for five minutes and remained alive.
Could it truly be as ERROR had said—that no NPC inside the system could kill him?
Worry appeared in Su Qiong’s eyes.
Yu Qimiao, standing beside him, sensed his emotions and also looked toward the two frozen figures.
“Su Qiong, don’t be too nervous.”
“Why would I be nervous?” Su Qiong explained. “There are only a few things I don’t understand.”
“Such as?”
“If he can’t be killed, why does he insist on protecting me?”
More confusingly, after binding himself to Su Qiong, ERROR had realized that Su Qiong wanted to follow Yu Qimiao and had agreed to join the Orphan Alliance.
At the time, Yu Qimiao had said he would provide ERROR with protection.
Su Qiong had also assumed that ERROR, who had fallen to Level Zero, was too weak and would be in danger if he acted alone.
Now it appeared that perhaps he had never needed protection at all.
“Speaking of that, there’s an even bigger mystery,” Yu Qimiao said slowly. “Do you remember the sacrifice ritual in the beginner zone? Every high-level player who participated had a reason, including A, who had always acted alone.”
“But ERROR had no reason. I thought about it for a long time.” Confusion appeared in Yu Qimiao’s voice. “At first, I assumed his goal was to enter the Circles. But he knew perfectly well that a powerful Circle Lord intending to sacrifice every player might not allow any of us to enter.”
“I would never do that!” a certain “powerful Circle Lord” immediately defended himself.
“I know. But when ERROR first met you, how could he have known your reasons?” The moment Yu Qimiao realized that Circle Lord Su Qiong was the same Su Qiong who had guided them in Gangan Village, he knew Su Qiong would never sacrifice every player simply to grant himself new life.
But no one else could have been so certain.
“At the time, I kept wondering why ERROR was so determined to awaken you.”
“…”
Su Qiong could not answer.
His gaze remained fixed on ERROR.
Then he keenly noticed that the Fairy-Tale Princess moved first.
Her body swayed. She retreated several steps and supported herself against a nearby boulder, looking utterly exhausted.
Su Qiong immediately checked the countdown.
Exactly ten minutes had passed.
ERROR must have used every second before leaving the deduction.
Furthermore—
During that brief glance, Su Qiong saw that the princess’s eyes had turned blue. Six pink diamond fragments formed a six-pointed star between her brows, and only one bite remained of the apple in her hand.
In other words, she was only one bite away from the attack she had claimed could “destroy the entire world of Circle Two.”
ERROR’s consciousness returned. He appeared calm and composed, as though he had merely closed his eyes to rest for ten minutes.
“Your Highness, did you enjoy yourself?” ERROR asked leisurely.
The Fairy-Tale Princess took two more breaths before raising her head to look at him.
“You…”
ERROR raised one finger and lightly pressed it against his lips, warning her to be careful about what she said.
The princess looked at the surrounding players and ultimately did not reveal what had happened inside the deduction.
She lazily stretched and pretended she was merely tired from playing.
“I’m going back,” the Fairy-Tale Princess said.
“You’re leaving already?” Su Qiong sounded disappointed. They had not even caught snow rabbits for her.
But Shi Yuntian had been beaten half to death and would not be capable of catching any for quite a while.
“Mm. I had a lot of fun today.” A faint smile appeared on the Fairy-Tale Princess’s face as she looked toward Su Qiong. “I’ll wait for you at the castle.”
“All right.”
“You must come!” She emphasized every word. “You absolutely must come!”
“Mm.” Su Qiong promised her, “I’ll go.”
There was something strange about the princess’s tone.
Rather than making an appointment, it sounded more like…
A plea.
The players exchanged glances, simultaneously sensing that something was wrong.
As the Circle Lord, could the Fairy-Tale Princess also possess some unspeakable difficulty?
In the blink of an eye, the final day in the Fairy-Tale Kingdom arrived.
Su Qiong entered the castle in advance. Every surviving player had gathered there, numbering an estimated twenty thousand.
Su Qiong remembered that nearly one hundred thousand players should have cleared Circle One.
After only two Circles, seventy or eighty thousand were already gone—and that was despite Su Qiong’s group defeating the Order Staircase.
IF’s clearance rate was pitifully low.
The surviving players had either joined guilds or met others inside the game, allowing information to spread among them.
Everyone knew that to clear Circle Two, they had to work together, collect the keys, and open the door to the aerial corridor.
After the combined efforts of every player, all the key-related rooms on the top floor of the first castle were finally cleared.
However—
When they combined the keys, they discovered there were only thirty-nine.
“One key is still missing. Where is it?”
The players became anxious and searched everywhere for the fortieth key.
“If someone is secretly hiding one, please hand it over.”
“Hiding a key is useless at a time like this. Once the time runs out, we all die.”
“Even that blackhearted capitalist Yu Qimiao was willing to share his keys!”
The members of the Orphan Alliance arrived just in time to hear the final sentence.
Yu Qimiao spoke calmly.
“What kind of image do I have in your minds?”
The players who had looked fierce moments earlier became visibly intimidated when they saw him.
“Guild Leader Yu, you must have misheard us. We definitely weren’t speaking badly about you!”
“Where are the keys?” Yu Qimiao asked.
Xi Huaiji approached them first, but she walked directly to Su Qiong.
“I followed your request and escorted that little girl through the instance. We also gathered all the keys. But now there’s a problem.”
Su Qiong had already learned the reason from their conversation.
“One key is missing? Are you certain?”
“Yes. To verify the count, we used the keys we had already collected to open the locks.” Xi Huaiji gestured toward the sealed door.
Forty locks covered it. Thirty had already been opened, leaving ten.
Without wasting words, Yu Qimiao took out his team’s nine keys and opened nine of the remaining locks.
One solitary lock remained.
“There’s only one lock. With more than twenty thousand players, can’t we break it by force?”
“No,” Su Qiong said. “It’s an item guarding the path to the Circle Lord. How could it possibly be broken by force?”
The players who had experienced the sacrifice knew that although Su Qiong was adorable, he was fundamentally the Circle Lord of the beginner zone.
If he said the lock could not be broken, then brute force was not an option.
“What do we do?”
“We can only continue searching. We opened all forty rooms. How could one key be missing?”
“If anyone is hiding it, please hand it over. I’m begging you.”
“Su Qiong, can you identify whoever concealed it?”
“My level is too low. I can’t forcibly inspect players’ inventories. Besides, I don’t think anyone would hide the key at a time like this.”
Players would do anything to survive. They would certainly inspect every person’s inventory one by one.
If the person hiding the key was discovered, not only would they gain nothing, but they would also be tortured repeatedly.
What would be the point?
Were they a masochist demanding a reward?
Su Qiong looked at the last lock on the corridor door again. He picked it up to investigate and triggered a new prompt.
[System: Divine-grade item of the Fairy-Tale Kingdom—The Emperor’s New Lock. Only intelligent people can see its key.]
[Hint: The Emperor’s New Key may be hidden anywhere in the entire Fairy-Tale Kingdom.]
“The entire Fairy-Tale Kingdom?” Su Qiong froze. “But we don’t have any opportunity to rewind our progress.”
“Su Qiong, what happened?” Hearing him muttering, the people beside him hurriedly asked.
Su Qiong showed them the prompt he had just received, immediately provoking a chorus of curses.
“Calm down!” Xi Huaiji ordered. “Take out every item you collected in the instances and see whether any of them is the key.”
“Guild Leader, Extremity’s members already inspected everything. No one obtained a key.”
“Damn it. Are we really going to die here because of one key?”
“No!” Su Qiong stared at the prompt for a while longer before inspiration suddenly struck. “Read it again. The key is hidden inside the hint.”
“Huh?”
The players repeatedly read the hint until they could practically recite it, but still found no trace of a key.
As expected, only intelligent people could see it.
“Su Qiong, where is the key?”
“The item’s full name is the Emperor’s New Key. It has an owner.”
“The emperor!”
When the players first entered the castle, they had seen the emperor and his ministers preparing for a grand celebration.
Today was the final day in the Fairy-Tale Kingdom and also the day of the celebration. The emperor and his ministers were currently gathered in the banquet hall for the festivities.
After learning that the key was probably on the emperor, the players rolled up their sleeves and prepared to kill the old bastard.
“Calm down first. There are many high-level NPCs surrounding the emperor. Even if we can win a direct conflict, it will waste too much time.”
“Right. We only need the key. There’s no reason to fight them head-on.”
“Do you have an idea, Su Qiong?”
“I do, but I’ve used all my deductions. I can’t guarantee it will succeed.”
Xi Huaiji spoke with confidence.
“That’s fine. Extremity’s high-level players are all here. We can fight if necessary.”
Every member of Extremity looked ready to obey their guild leader without question.
The other Orphan Alliance players had rarely interacted with Xi Huaiji and could not resist examining her more carefully.
Guild Leader Xi looked like a decorative beauty. How had she made the entire guild submit to her?
“All right.” Su Qiong spoke seriously. “First, we need to blend in among the NPCs.”
Everyone wore an expression of hesitation.
Should someone remind him?
He was already an NPC!
Five minutes later, many unfamiliar figures had slipped into the lively banquet.
The emperor was busy drinking and socializing and noticed nothing.
Su Qiong’s plan was simple.
If the key was hidden on the emperor, they only had to make him remove all his clothes to find it easily.
Since the item was called the Emperor’s New Key, they would follow the plot of The Emperor’s New Clothes and make the emperor the first character in the Fairy-Tale Kingdom to perfectly recreate his original story.
The emperor was drinking happily when an unfamiliar minister suddenly requested permission to introduce a tailor.
The emperor waved dismissively.
“I already have enough clothes. I don’t need a tailor.”
Marshmallow Tailor Su Qiong nearly cried.
He wanted that many clothes so badly.
“Your Majesty, please listen.” The fake minister praised Su Qiong extravagantly before adding, “Once you wear his clothes, you’ll become as beautiful as he is.”
Su Qiong raised his delicate little face.
The emperor instantly changed his mind.
“Fine. Let him try. When can the clothes be completed?”
“Now. Look.” Su Qiong displayed his bandages, which were covered by a mimetic cloak and appeared to be an elaborate garment.
The emperor was immediately captivated by the clothing’s beauty and prepared to try it on.
However, his shoulders were broad and his waist thick, so no matter how he struggled, he could not fit inside.
Su Qiong lied with his eyes wide open.
“Your Majesty, this is shapewear. It must be worn directly against the skin to be effective.”
The emperor was already enchanted by the gorgeous clothing and Su Qiong’s exquisite face. Desperate to try it, he voluntarily removed his clothes.
Su Qiong signaled the players hidden around the banquet.
Without attracting attention, they searched through the emperor’s clothing and found the key inside.
The emperor knew nothing.
Only after putting on the garment Su Qiong had given him did he sense something was wrong, but it was already too late.
The bandages were a divine-grade restraint item. By voluntarily wearing them, he had turned himself into Su Qiong’s captive and could only watch helplessly as a group of robbers stole the key.
“They’re thieves! Guards, stop them!” the emperor shouted.
The guards hurried to his side and anxiously asked where the thieves were.
At that exact moment, Su Qiong withdrew the bandages.
The emperor’s naked body was openly displayed before everyone.
“Ah!” He immediately struck Marilyn Monroe’s skirt-holding pose, but his imitation was so hideous that it assaulted everyone’s eyes.
Meanwhile, Su Qiong had already escaped with the key. From the staircase, he called back, “Your Majesty, do you like the new clothes I gave you?”
The emperor flew into a rage.
“You’re forbidden from looking! Capture them! Hang every last one!”
“Your Majesty, if you won’t let us open our eyes, we can’t catch anyone.”
“Useless! All of you are useless!” The emperor’s face turned dark purple with rage, and he fainted on the spot.
The culprits successfully opened the final lock.
Experienced by now, they took out flashlights but did not immediately enter the pitch-black corridor.
Yu Qimiao stood beside the door and smiled politely.
“Since Su Qiong found the key, shouldn’t you pay a toll before using the corridor?”
The players: “???”
So the two of you joined forces because you’re trying to take our miserable lives?
Xi Huaiji had expected this. She gave up resisting and said flatly, “Form a line and let him finish killing everyone quickly.”
