What a surprise, not at all.
Yan Qing sighed inwardly. When he saw that the task reward was only a Bingzi Pepper Forest, he knew this would happen—but he couldn't blame anyone else, because the setting of the Thief's House was his own creation.
Fighting over task rewards, with teammates scheming against each other and even backstabbing, was one of the joys of the Thief's House gameplay. When designing this game, Yan Qing referred to elements from board games like Werewolf, striving to give players a tense and thrilling experience even in this low-level instance.
However, encountering teammates in real life who start scheming before completing the task is a bit too tense and thrilling.
"Wow, the Qi Kingdom's official Rare Token, the Brave General Sword. It's said that only five can be synthesized each year, making it an honor for Qi Kingdom's military aristocrats to wield it. Who would've thought you, White Fox, also have such a precious token!" Shang Xinlei commented keenly from the side, "Although an ascended Rare Token is generally more powerful than a synthesized one, in the past, the Emperor Divine Martial led the Qi Kingdom's brave generals to dominate the world, and Black Wolf, your Bright King Armor leans towards defense—"
Ying Rushi heard Shang Xinlei's words and thought something was about to go wrong.
Black Wolf was clearly of the Zhou Kingdom's military nobility and couldn't stand the Qi Kingdom's Brave General Sword's reputation!
Every word from Red Snake seemed to hit the points that would anger Black Wolf!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sure enough, after hearing Shang Xinlei's words, the onslaught from Pharmacist's Wish became even more ferocious, forcing Ying Rushi to counterattack unwillingly. But the more Ying Rushi counterattacked, the stronger the pale golden glow on Pharmacist's Wish became. Ying Rushi knew that once the glow accumulated to a certain level, Pharmacist's Wish would unleash a terrifying counterattack, leaving her with two choices—surrender, or break through the Bright King Armor's defense now with a stronger attack!
She had to, and could only, choose the latter!
Ying Rushi had always played the role of a peacemaker, smoothing things over since joining the Thief's House. But even a mud figure has some fire, let alone a County Duke of the Qi Kingdom? Her relatives would casually kill and abuse people on the streets, and she refrained only because she understood propriety, integrity, and honor, not because she couldn't!
The Brave General Sword shimmered with a faint blue light, sharp enough to slice even the wind.
Pharmacist's Wish saw the spiritual light of the Brave General Sword, and her eyes immediately lit up, her Qi Blood surging. Her desire to obtain the Thief's House stemmed not just from wanting to make the Zhou Kingdom great again but also to face off against strong opponents from all over the world!
Let's see if my Bright King Armor remains unmovable as a mountain, or if your Brave General Sword breaks armies and thwarts paths!
"Enough."
A White Iron Straight Saber suddenly thrust between them. The brilliance in Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi's eyes flashed, seemingly unable to hold back their power, as the Brave General Sword and Fine Steel Long Spear slashed with all their might!
Clang!
With a loud crash, the three weapons clashed together, but both Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi's expressions changed simultaneously.
Their weapons emitted lingering waves of spiritual power, indicating that they had both activated the powers of their tokens and infused them into their weapons.
But the White Iron Straight Saber that stood between them had no spiritual power fluctuations!
A token without spiritual power activation is no different from a mundane item!
Not to mention that their full-force strike could dent the door of a gold cabinet, yet the White Iron Straight Saber withstood their combined attack without a single notch.
How is this possible?!
Yan Qing seemed to effortlessly separate two fighting small animals without even activating a token.
How on earth did he do it?
Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi couldn't comprehend or accept it because this outcome could only prove one thing—
The gap between Yellow Dog and them was so vast that they couldn't even recognize his methods!
Third-turn? Fourth-turn?
"Have you had enough of this?"
Yan Qing coldly glanced at them, tightened his grip on the saber, and gently tapped upward, shaking their weapons free. He used little strength, but Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi were intimidated by his might, not daring to resist as they obediently retrieved their weapons.
"And you, Red Snake!"
Yan Qing pointed the saber at Shang Xinlei.
"If you don't know how to speak, then don't open your mouth."
Shang Xinlei immediately clutched her throat, her mouth opening and closing without making a sound, as if Yan Qing's command had disabled her voice. Her expression was one of terror, as if suddenly discovering she was mute, pitifully pleading for Yan Qing's forgiveness.
Little drama queen.
The same thought popped into the minds of Yan Qing's three companions.
Under the watchful eyes of Ying Rushi and Pharmacist's Wish, Yan Qing directly reached out and took the Bingzi Pepper Forest from the gold cabinet.
"I'll hold onto this saber," he paused for a moment, "until the task is complete."
The two, already subdued by his presence, were relieved to hear he wasn't claiming it for himself but merely holding it temporarily, and they accepted this resolution.
Seeing that the commotion ceased and they all became docile, Yan Qing felt relieved.
Originally, he didn't dare to intervene in the conflict between Black Wolf and White Fox, as both appeared to be Second-Turn messengers, and he wasn't their match if a real fight ensued. But witnessing their weapon clash, Yan Qing suddenly remembered one thing—they could attack each other, but the game system still recognized them as teammates.
The Thief's House is ultimately a cooperative PVE instance, not PVP, so while they could attack and even kill teammates, a teammate's death wouldn't drop any equipment or lose experience—it was simply a defeat and task failure.
Of course, in real life, there's no 'free death'; dying means truly dying.
As we all know, game programs try to call upon as much existing code as possible instead of adding new code for every new feature. After all, with more new content constantly added, keeping on adding new code would just create a pile of junk.
Designers use the same logic. Those who constantly dream up brilliant ideas and have programmers endlessly write new features will eventually be dragged out by the programmers and eliminated. A competent designer, when conceptualizing a new event, should reference existing features in the game and have programmers transform old features into new gameplay.
To get his design proposal approved, almost all the new gameplay in the Thief's House could find prototypes in the game. For example, the Thief's House gameplay where teammates can attack and backstab each other was based on the very common 'Teammate Sparring Mode'—as long as players in the same team activate sparring mode, they can fight each other without any losses when they die.
In sparring mode, a player's weapon and armor won't lose durability, nor will their tokens be destroyed by 'crushing damage' (damage exceeding the weapon's durability) from opponents.
In simple terms, teammates in the Thief's House can harm each other but cannot destroy each other's tokens.
If his assumption was correct, then even if Yan Qing lacked the strength, he could still intervene in the battle between Black Wolf and White Fox!
Yan Qing admitted there was an element of risk in his bet, but it paid off.
Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi could only see Yan Qing blocking their attack with the White Iron Straight Saber. Even if they guessed it had something to do with 'Celestial God Rules', it would be hard for them to uncover the truth in a short time.
Before they figured it out, they could only overestimate Yan Qing's strength as much as possible.
As they left the treasury, Pharmacist's Wish and Ying Rushi instinctively lagged a step behind, with Yan Qing walking resolutely at the forefront.
He carried a large sack in his right hand and the Bingzi Pepper Forest in his left, leading everyone out of the inner hall.
Outside in the main hall, many people were waiting, encircling the exit in three layers—the outermost were monks, followed by aristocrats, and naturally An Wu was blocking the exit. At this point, An Wu's left arm was nearly burnt out, his charred blackened arm bone exposed, and his left side severely burned, no longer resembling any human form.
Seeing Yan Qing and the others emerge, the monks retreated in fear, including Martial Monks and even Second-Turn Messengers at the Chengming level. Yet, they did not dare approach Yan Qing's group.
There is a disparity even among Messengers; true strong Messengers rarely linger in the main city if they don't frequently enter the Secret Realm. Martial Monks stationed at An Guo Temple, where there is no security pressure, even if they are Second-Turn, lack much spirit?
"Should we kill them?" Pharmacist's Wish suddenly asked.
The monks panicked at once, crawling and scrambling deeper into An Guo Temple.
"We're thieves, not serial killers." Yan Qing said flatly, "But it doesn't matter if you want to kill them."
Pharmacist's Wish thought for a moment and still refrained from killing—the monks were too quick to run, killing one by one was too inefficient. When she returned home, she could clean up such pests under the guise of Embroidered Guard Commander.
Xue Yan and other aristocrats, although seeing them carrying many large bags, pretended to be blind and mute, keeping their mouths shut without saying a word. Under everyone's watchful eyes, Yan Qing walked to the ghastly figure of An Wu and patted him on the shoulder.
"Thirty."
An Wu nodded, stopped blocking the entrance, and began to count down, "Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."
Yan Qing turned to the aristocrats and monks, "If you don't want to die, leave An Guo Temple before he finishes counting."
Passing by An Wu, Yan Qing stopped for a moment and softly said a few words.
"You've worked hard."