After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

It was too late to cover the girl's mouth.

But at this moment, Tang Li completely forgot about the gatekeeper who was about to break down the door.

Her gaze was fixed on something at the girl's feet. The object, which had been hidden in the girl's sleeve, floated lightly to the ground with her sudden movement.

—It was a withered oleander branch.

Tang Li involuntarily reached into her bosom, feeling a rough texture on her fingertips: it wasn't hers.

and so.

Tang Li suddenly grabbed the girl's sleeve. At this moment, she could hear the anxious voices of the gatekeepers coming from several shelves, followed by increasingly hurried footsteps.

She knew time was running out, so she forcefully leaned close to the girl's ear and spoke rapidly.

"Who gave you the oleander?"

"Do you know Liu Lang?"

Upon hearing this name, the girl burst into tears once again.

Tang Li's eyes were frighteningly cold.

It turns out that Liu Lang assigned this task to more than just her.

He was merely a steward who had put on airs and bossed Liu Lang around. Yet, Liu Lang hated him so much that he casually caused the deaths of two innocent people.

Do we have to squeeze every last bit of value out of every NPC?

Not only bad, but disgustingly bad.

Fifteen minutes later.

The girl and Tang Li were both taken to a spacious and bright room.

An unnamed elder, his face ashen, strode in, his hawk-like eyes sweeping fiercely over Tang Li and the girl. Tang Li immediately knew that this man had no intention of letting the matter rest.

Perhaps it's because distinguished guests are visiting today, and they can't afford to cause any trouble; or perhaps in a naturally ruthless assassin sect like "Jie Bailing," the death of a lowly steward in a corner of the storeroom isn't something the sect's higher-ups would care about.

The only one in charge of handling this matter was that elder.

I just don't know whose side this elder is.

"What exactly happened?" he demanded angrily of the two men below. "How did Steward Li die? Did you two kill him together?!"

At this moment, Tang Li realized her naivety.

She had actually given serious thought to how the sect would investigate the murderer.

But now, Manager Li hasn't even been taken off the beam. The body wasn't examined, and the elder didn't consider what Tang Li, at her age, could do, or how a frail young girl could kill a grown man like Manager Li. He didn't even notice the overturned stool at Manager Li's feet. The scene was clearly staged to look like a suicide.

He only shouted angrily, "You two killed Steward Li?!"

Ultimately, the elder only wanted to quickly resolve the matter and suppressed it, so he casually pointed out two "assassins" nearby, with no intention of finding out the truth about Steward Li's death.

Just then, the girl, who had been so frightened that she was out of her mind, stepped forward.

"I killed Steward Li! It was me! It was me!" she cried, raising her voice as high as she could. "It had nothing to do with her!"

It's gotten to this point...

"Look," Tang Li thought coldly to herself, "I saw it coming a long time ago, didn't I? She naturally had an honest and kind appearance."

But why have they fallen to such a state?

The elder's sinister gaze swept over the gatekeeper, as if he had only now remembered that there was a "witness" beside him.

The gatekeeper stammered, "Elder Ying, this little girl only entered the storeroom about fifteen minutes ago. Perhaps, perhaps she really didn't have time to kill anyone."

As he spoke, he hesitated, then took another step forward and whispered, "This girl came with Steward Ouyang's identification card and is on official business. You see..."

Elder Ying waved his hand impatiently, pointed at the girl, and said to the gatekeeper, "Then let her kill Steward Li by herself and take her to the torture chamber."

Then, pointing at Tang Li, he said, "Let her go."

He stood up with a final flick of his sleeve. "Alright, go do what you're supposed to do. Find someone to put Steward Li down. Drag him to the southwest corner and bury him tonight."

"Keep your hands down! If you disturb our distinguished guests, or if the higher-ups find out, I'll have you all buried with Steward Li!"

After saying that, the elder turned and hurriedly left.

I wonder if he's in a hurry to curry favor with some important person at the banquet.

Behind him, the gatekeeper looked miserable: he had been lucky enough to get the easy job of guarding the storeroom, but now he suddenly had so many more chores to do.

He reached out and grabbed the girl's arm, venting his anger from working overtime for no reason on her: "Let's go!"

The girl's pretty face was streaked with tears, and her posture clearly showed panic and resistance, yet she still took difficult steps and stumbled along with the gatekeeper.

Tang Li squinted her eyes. If others had seen her, they would have only noticed that the girl was staring intently at a point in the air, and they would have suspected that she was stunned by the sudden changes that had occurred tonight.

But she was staring at the system panel in mid-air, which only she could see.

The same line of text was still displayed on the panel.

Side Quest 2: Please uncover the truth behind Steward Li's death.

Tang Li's thoughts raced. At this moment, the cause of Manager Li's death seemed clear: he was killed by that girl, and further back, Liu Lang had ordered the girl to kill Manager Li.

By filling in the answers, she can receive the side quest reward.

but……

Is this really the answer?

Tang Li looked up and found the system notification from last night.

[System Notification: The current dungeon has high exploration progress requirements. Several side quests will be generated simultaneously to assist in the investigation and provide corresponding generous rewards. Please be aware.]

Therefore, if Manager Li's death was indeed, as she imagined, indirectly caused by a girl who harbored resentment towards him, then it was nothing more than a player's venting of his disregard for human life, a cruel but extremely common incident in dungeons.

How can it advance the exploration progress of the dungeon?

Qiu Wanting: She wasn't the one who killed Steward Li.

"Qiu Wanting: If the contract is fulfilled, the pink oleander will disappear immediately. Only if the contracted party dies before they can act will the oleander wither due to its failure."

unambiguous evidence.

Tang Li wondered, what exactly did the girl see that made her so insistent on killing Steward Liu?

She stood there, watching the two figures walk away, while the gatekeeper continued to shove the girl. Tang Li thought to herself, "Luckily, the elder said that with such distinguished guests today, it's not auspicious to see blood, so he didn't take the girl's life on the spot."

The five-year-old girl, taking advantage of her small size, had already quietly followed along.

The gatekeeper had been reduced to guarding the storeroom door, so he was clearly not a highly skilled martial artist. In addition, the girl herself was weak and unable to walk, so she stumbled along the way, and Tang Li actually managed to follow her successfully.

However, she was too naive. The "torture chamber," located in the northwest corner along with the "cemetery," was not the dilapidated courtyard she had imagined, a place where she could sneak in and have a conversation.

—That was clearly a large and heavily guarded prison.