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Chapter 354 Scales
These are all my words.

Huiyu widened his eyes and saw the newly appeared man in black rummaging around, taking some valuable gold, silver and jewelry from the shelf and putting them into a small cloth bag that he had prepared in advance.

Wait, something's wrong.

Normally, thieves who entered a treasure house like this would take whatever they could find, wanting to fill a sack and have their hands filled with rings and wrenches.

But the man in black only took a small cloth bag and looked calm and unhurried. He only picked high-value targets and did not even look at the cheaper treasures.

It didn't seem like they came here to steal, but more like they were looking for something and used the theft as a cover.

In the darkness, Hui Yu looked at Li Sheng in confusion. The latter opened his mouth and silently mouthed, "Sikong Lan of the Jinyiwei."

Historically, the Jinyiwei's responsibilities included but were not limited to guarding the emperor, supervising civil and military officials, managing the imperial prison, delivering documents, and supervising examinations. Its nature was close to that of a public security and judicial institution.
As the Ming Dynasty system became rigid, official positions and titles were sold within the Jinyiwei, and there was a serious problem of redundancy. It was inevitable that it would degenerate until it disappeared with the Ming Dynasty.

A funny thing is that the Jinyiwei has a terrifying image of "specially authorized by the emperor, killing all who stand in its way" in later literary and artistic works.
This is largely because of Chiang Kai-shek.

Progressive people in the Republic of China were angry at Chiang Kai-shek's reactionary rule of spies, but they could not criticize it openly. Therefore, they used the criticism of the Jinyiwei founded by Zhu Yuanzhang to allude to the many unscrupulous spies agencies in the Republic of China.

Zhu Yuanzhang was a monk and had a bald head, and Chiang Kai-shek also had a bald head. Both of them established their capital in Nanjing, both fought in the Northern Expedition, and both purged meritorious officials.

So scolding Zhu Yuanzhang is almost equivalent to scolding Chiang Kai-shek.

In this magically modified martial arts world, Emperor Yong'an ascended the throne at a young age. He immediately seized the Jinyiwei as his handle and abolished the policy that "high-ranking civil and military officials can pass on their sons to Jinyiwei for hereditary service", thus interrupting the trend of the military becoming a literati.

At the same time, the children of fallen soldiers were widely recruited into the Jinyiwei, giving them the best environment to practice martial arts and study, and to practice the martial arts secrets collected in the imperial palace.

This new group of Jinyiwei was absolutely loyal to the imperial power. Emperor Yong'an stripped away many unnecessary functions of the original Jinyiwei and specifically asked them to patrol the country and monitor taxation. If any official or gentry dared to evade taxes, they would be punished by the Great Memory Recovery Technique.

Relying on these loyal lackeys, Emperor Yong'an was finally able to collect taxes that previous emperors had been unable to collect, and thus had the financial resources to promote infrastructure, tax reform, open up the sea, and colonize.

It gives me a subtle sense that the U.S. Secret Service was created to detect counterfeit money.

Sikong Lan, as one of the nine Jinyiwei who went to the island this time, was already a peak acquired martial artist when he was less than 20 years old. The "Stepping on Snow and Picking Clouds" he learned was a top-notch light skill, and his figure shuttled between the shelves like a ghost.

After searching for a while without finding the target, Sikong Lan scratched his head and carefully took out a bamboo tube from his arms.

Open the lid of the bamboo tube and pour out a small and cute long-mouthed mouse.

The information integration glasses read out that the mouse was named "Treasure-Sniffing Shrew". Like the Octopus Sea Monster, it was a native species of this world. It had a keen sense of smell and could smell the scent of treasures from far away.

Sikong Lan held the shrew high above his head. The shrew took a breath and turned to look towards the northeast corner of the warehouse.

"What is he looking for?" Hui Yu asked Li Sheng curiously.

'One piece, probably.'

Sikong Lan walked silently to the northeast of the storehouse, lifted up a piece of double-sided gorgeous Shu brocade used for hiding, and found an iron box in the pile of brocade.

The iron box was heavy and had a complicated lock on the outside. Not surprised, Sikong Lan flexed his fingers, took out two thin curved wires, poked them into the keyhole, and pried them open with great concentration.

In the darkness, Li Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly, silently took out the drone remote control and took a look.

It's strange. If Sikong Lan went to the Tu family warehouse to steal things under the orders of the Jinyiwei, then the high-altitude drone should be able to see his accomplices standing guard nearby.

If he had no orders and was simply working on his own, who would have asked him to pry open the iron box safe? The other treasures in the treasure house were enough for an ordinary person to be financially free for a lifetime.

Just as I was thinking about it, a new heat source signal suddenly appeared on the remote control screen.

The third man in black, wearing night clothes, was walking on the roof and quietly approaching the warehouse.

It was obvious that he was not in the same group as Sikong Lan. He was extremely shocked to see the tiles being removed and the wooden boards being cut from the roof, and he subconsciously drew his dagger.

Li Sheng and Hui Yu who were hiding in the shadows almost couldn't hold back. Wow, so many thieves could come in one night, are they going to play Landlord?

Sikong Lan concentrated on prying the lock, using a warrior's superb muscle control to carefully feel the force feedback from the iron wire.

Finally, with a click, the lock opened.

Sikong Lan took a deep breath, pushed open the box, and took out a flat stone from it?
Li Sheng raised his eyebrows. The stone was fan-shaped, as wide as an arm, and as red as blood. Under the faint moonlight, it reflected a dazzling variety of light.

If you look closely, you can clearly see that the surface of the stone is covered with growth lines like tree rings.

That was not stone, but the petrified scales of some giant creature.

Sikong Lan held up the scales, something so big obviously couldn't fit into the bag. He skillfully took the rope from his body and tied the scales to his back.

However, the changes in the faint moonlight coming through the skylight sounded the alarm for him in advance.

Sikong Lan looked up suddenly and happened to meet the eyes of the third man in black from a distance.

The latter neither left nor called for the Tu family guards. Instead, he jumped directly into the warehouse through the skylight he had created. He lightly climbed up the beam with his hands, released his strength, and landed lightly and silently on the ground.

Both parties were masked with black cloth, and just by looking at the outline of the eyes, Sikong Lan did not recognize the man in black in front of him.

Seeing that the other party did not shout, Sikong Lan silently took off the small cloth bag full of jewels, put it on the ground, and pushed it over with his foot.

The meaning is very clear. There are many treasures in this warehouse and everyone is here to steal things. There is no need to tear each other apart and engage in vicious competition.

Unexpectedly, the third man in black, or Zhang Fuluan from Longhu Mountain, was completely unmoved and just stared at the scale on Sikong Lan's back.

From Li Sheng's perspective, even with the modified information integration glasses with the scanning skill activated, he could only read a short message from the scales.

[Divine Transformation]

(End of this chapter)