Chapter 11: The Capital City

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“According to my investigation, Anguo Temple is not only a temple but also the largest bank in Chang’an,” said the Medic Yuan.

Upon hearing this, Yan Qing couldn’t help but ask, “A temple that’s also a bank?”

“That’s hardly surprising,” Medic Yuan explained. “Temples inherently have loan funds known as the ‘Longevity Treasury.’ It’s normal for noble families to store their money there and entrust those bald monks with lending it out. Otherwise, why do you think the temple flourishes with worshippers? Both poor and wealthy alike love to pray.”

Shang Xinlei blew on her teacup and rubbed her fingers, making a casual gesture. “Because it brings in money.”

Bang!

Medic Yuan slammed the stone table heavily but spoke calmly: “If you have questions or want to say something, wait until I finish—unless you want to take charge?”

Everyone shook their heads immediately. Ying Rushi pulled out pens and notebooks, pretending to take notes, but in truth, they recorded in a code only she could understand: “Black Wolf values rules, is unwavering; even if not a military commander, he is certainly a powerful figure commanding the enforcement forces.”

Medic Yuan continued, “Because Anguo Temple functions both as a temple and a bank, it sees many worshippers daily. The task requires arrival at quarter past noon. At that time, there aren’t many incense offerings, but Anguo Temple is surrounded by bustling restaurants and marketplaces where many people gather, just as this sand table shows.”

Everyone looked down at the real-time sand table display. Indeed, the area around Anguo Temple was teeming with activity, with street vendors and food shops lining the streets.

“To steal unnoticed and without raising suspicion is basically impossible. I suggest a frontal raid. What do you think?”

The three shared a glance and unanimously agreed.

Medic Yuan continued: “If we do a raid, we need to solve three problems—closing the temple gate, opening the gold cabinets, and escaping the pursuit.”

“Escaping pursuit is the easiest. Chang’an City is the main city, and both the imperial palace guards and the Shen Ce army outside hold the city’s internal security in contempt. The only force that can mobilize quickly is the Fire Brigade.”

“Moreover, we don’t even need to leave the city. We only need to stay on Zhuque Avenue for half a quarter of an hour before returning to the Thieves’ Den.”

“There’s no need to worry about temple defenses either. Since Chang’an is the main city, no one has dared to rob a temple before. Inside, at most, there are warrior monks who pressure civilians to repay debts.”

“As long as the Thieves’ Den lifts the main city’s restrictions for us, we can control the situation once inside Anguo Temple. Those corpulent bald monks will open the doors to the treasury for us with just a few threats.”

Yan Qing felt something was off.

Why would “Chang’an being the main city” mean “the military disregards internal security” and “temples never fear robbery”?

Could it be that Chang’an was some utopia where everyone was good?

But Ying Rushi quickly revealed the truth.

“Black Wolf, you can rest assured,” she said. “The last time the Thieves’ Den struck was fifty years ago at the Nightless City, which was then the capital of the Wei Kingdom. Their target was inside the palace, and they actually stormed through the main gate. The palace guards were so used to the rule that no one could be harmed inside the main city that they didn’t dodge when attacked. It took dozens of deaths before they realized they needed to fight back.”

“Whenever the Thieves’ Den acts, killing within the main city is allowed—though those who encounter the thieves are also released from the restrictions.”

Yan Qing suddenly understood.

He recalled the three main cities in the game: Jiangnan, Chang’an, and Nightless City, realizing that the “main city” they spoke of was indeed the game term for a safe zone where players cannot harm NPCs or other players.

He remembered that his designed “Thieves’ Den” dungeon required stealing within the main world’s main city. More precisely, stealing inside a safe zone was one of its selling points.

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At first, he had overlooked the concept of safe zones, since this was reality, not a game. Yet this world had been “gamified” so thoroughly—it not only had dungeons but also safe zones implemented!

“Now, the second problem: opening the gold cabinets,” Medic Yuan said, pointing to the massive gold cabinet inside Anguo Temple.

“There are four large gold cabinets, each one a ‘One-Zhang Cabinet’—one zhang tall, wide, and deep. The doors and walls are two chi thick, cast with several tons of refined gold by the Third-Level Imperial Fire Alchemist.”

“The mission time is only half an hour, including travel time from Zhuque Avenue to Anguo Temple and a half quarter hour for retreat. That leaves us only about a quarter of an hour to handle the cabinet.”

“There are only three ways to deal with the cabinet—take it whole, force it open, or pick the lock. Lock picking is the least feasible.”

“Why is lock picking not feasible?”

Shang Xinlei opened a small pouch, took out a pastry, took a bite, and sipped tea, as if enjoying dessert after a meal. Yan Qing thought she was quite generous to eat and drink so leisurely when she was the only one here—yet she didn’t share a bit.

But Shang Xinlei clearly didn’t hear his complaint; she spoke seriously: “I have the ‘Invisible Hand,’ and so far, I haven’t seen a lock it can’t bypass.”

She seemed worried they wouldn’t believe her, so she took out a thin silk glove from her bag. Though the glove should have been loose at the cuff, it fit her hand perfectly without a wrinkle.

If Yan Qing had an alternate character, he could have checked the glove’s detailed information. Unfortunately, he was just a three-dimensional being without a game system. Though Shang Xinlei didn’t explain the Invisible Hand’s details, she demonstrated its magic—her fingertips lightly swept across a piece of water chestnut jelly on the table.

The jelly, translucent like gelatin, clearly showed the water chestnuts inside under the light. As she stirred it randomly with her fingers, the chunks of water chestnut were crushed under her fingertips.

Yet when she withdrew her hand, everyone could see that although the jelly was riddled with holes inside, its surface remained undamaged.

“As expected of the Invisible Hand,” Ying Rushi praised, “With this, Red Snake, you don’t need a key to pick locks—your hand is the master key that can unlock all.”

“I don’t doubt your ability,” Medic Yuan said, “but the gold cabinet’s lock is more complicated than you think. Come closer and look…”

Seeing them all stand and lean over to observe the small part of Anguo Temple on the sand table, Yan Qing was reluctant to approach—though he carried the White Iron Straight Sword talisman, he was still an ordinary person without a class change. The more contact he had with them, the easier it would be for them to notice his flaws.

Besides, it was rather unintelligent—when observing a specific area, one should be able to zoom in…

Acting on muscle memory, Yan Qing instinctively flicked three fingers on the sand table.

The sand table immediately transformed, with other areas disappearing, leaving only Anguo Temple’s transparent zone enlarged to maximum detail—down to individual bricks and roof tiles.

The Thieves’ Den team fell silent, all eyes fixed on the sand table and Yan Qing. After a moment, Shang Xinlei asked, “Can you make it go back?”

Using the same muscle memory, Yan Qing withdrew three fingers inward, and the sand table returned to its original state.

It was strange—how could mobile and tablet gestures work here? Had “The Messenger” developed a mobile version after his transmigration?

“How did you enlarge Anguo Temple?” Shang Xinlei hesitated, realizing she was asking a favor, then coquettishly added, “Could you tell me?”

Red Snake was indeed a woman!

Yan Qing, Ying Rushi, and Medic Yuan all had the same thought.

Red Snake never disguised herself much. Though her clothes were practical and hid her figure, her utensils and pastries were exquisite, and her exposed hands were slender and pale, clearly marking her as a noblewoman with refined taste.

Yan Qing, of course, would not become infatuated just because Red Snake’s voice was sweet. Instead, he saw this as an opportunity to reinforce his persona.

“You don’t know how to do this?” he asked, sounding surprised, then smiled lightly. “Watch closely. If you want, I can demonstrate several times.”

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The gestures for zooming in and out were very simple. Shang Xinlei and the others learned it immediately, though they felt a bit annoyed. It was obvious from Yan Qing’s tone that he was condescending—like a city dweller teaching some trivial common knowledge to country bumpkins.

But despite their annoyance, they silently raised their opinion of ‘Yellow Dog’—he knew obscure knowledge, so he was not as simple as he seemed.

They quickly mastered zooming to scrutinize details. But Ying Rushi noticed that whenever they enlarged sensitive areas like the palace, barracks, or ministries, Medic Yuan would immediately shrink the sand table and enlarge other regions, seemingly obstructing their view of state secrets.

“Black Wolf must be from the Zhou Kingdom and fiercely loyal,” Ying Rushi recorded quietly.

After a while, Medic Yuan signaled to resume the meeting. She enlarged Anguo Temple to show the four gold cabinets inside the treasury.

“Though the cabinets are locked, there are no keys.”

“The doors have eighteen embedded steel locks that secure the cabinet and door shut. To unlock these eighteen embedded locks, you must turn this dial on the cabinet door.”

They saw a dial at the center of the cabinet door, with a single handle. Proportionally, the handle was just the right size for an average person to grip with one hand.

“You can also see this dial has only one handle, and it’s quite short,” Medic Yuan explained. “Even if the handle were extended, it wouldn’t save much effort.”

Ying Rushi looked at the door, which had a dial but no keyhole, and had a realization.

“The way to open the door is by turning this dial?”

“Exactly. Inside the door is a complex gear mechanism. It takes eighty-one turns to unlock one embedded lock.”

“So, to unlock all eighteen, that’s fourteen hundred and fifty-eight turns,” Shang Xinlei calculated immediately.

“By the way, the person responsible for opening the cabinet is a warrior monk who has trained his qi and blood all his life. His strength is about three times that of an ordinary martial messenger, yet even he takes one breath to turn the dial once. Opening the door takes at least half an hour.”

Medic Yuan paused. “These are all messages Anguo Temple spreads intentionally, so the nobles in Chang’an know how secure their cabinets are—secure enough to delay officials for half an hour even if their assets are seized.”

Now Yan Qing and the others understood why Black Wolf said lock picking was impossible—it wasn’t about skill but about strength and time.

Even if they had enough strength, they didn’t have enough time.

The Thieves’ Den only gave them half an hour.

They were left with only two options: take the gold cabinets whole or force them open.

Shang Xinlei said, “I could borrow the Universe Sleeve, but even a third-level Universe Sleeve can’t hold such a large cabinet.”

“The Midas Hand talisman can absorb and store gold normally and strengthen the gilding effect in combat,” Ying Rushi said. “I don’t have that talisman, but I can look for items that absorb molten gold along the same lines.”

Everyone proposed various ideas, but these either required extremely rare talismans or had uncertain effects. The cabinet’s one-zhang thickness was enough to negate most talisman damage.

While discussing, Ying Rushi noticed Yan Qing staring at the four gold cabinets inside the treasury. She nonchalantly asked, “Yellow Dog, do you have an idea? Tell us so we can discuss it.”

“I have a way to break these four gold cabinets.”

Yan Qing’s words stunned them. “And I don’t need talismans—just very simple tools.”