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

Xia Feilin remained unaffected by the anxiety in the newcomer's words; his expression merely darkened slightly. "What's their background? How do they have a token that allows them to enter the building?"

The newcomer said, "They seem to be members of a cult from elsewhere. The people serving at the front of the training ground didn't know our true strength and didn't dare to stop them, so they let them in... The man went up to the arena and quickly won the championship, but he was still not satisfied, so he started fighting with our people..."

Tang Li looked up at the man, and even she could hear the ambiguity in his words.

Xia Feilin sneered, "You said he went onto the stage, but ended up fighting with you."

A scream of extreme pain—

He had somehow acquired a knife, the blade already embedded in the complainant's shoulder.

"Think about it again?" he sneered. "Since that person was willing to abide by the rules of the building and fight in the ring, why did he start fighting with you after coming off the ring?"

"explain!"

"My lord! My lord, spare my life!" the man pleaded, finally revealing the truth, "It's just that... in order to attract attention, they even displayed the jade balsam flower sculpture that you had your eye on! They said that as long as we said it was the owner's prized possession, no one would dare to take it away by force..."

"But who knew that the man would take a liking to the jade carving at first glance, and naturally the people below wouldn't give it to him, so... so..."

"My lord, please understand! This was all their own doing, and it has nothing to do with me... Aaaaaaah!"

Xia Feilin slightly swung his knife, and a huge wound was slashed open from the man's shoulder to his chest and abdomen, from which thick, red blood began to flow.

Xia Feilin appeared to be extremely angry, but his aura remained perfectly calm, and his expression was also composed.

"It's not a serious matter," he explained to Tang Li. "I just hate it when my subordinates lie to me."

Tang Li blinked, knowing that this was also a warning to her, and said, "Oh."

But he stood still and didn't move.

The little girl pointed to the person lying on the ground, who looked like he was about to die, and asked hopefully, "Um, can I have this person?"

Xia Feilin paused as he was about to walk around the person and continue forward.

He turned his head and looked at Tang Li in disbelief, not understanding why, despite his intimidating actions, she could only see this fresh "corpse" lying on the ground.

Where did this reckless little madman come from?

"Hmm... anyway, he doesn't seem to be of any use to you anymore," Tang Li carefully chose her words, looking up at Xia Feilin with genuine sincerity, "People are expensive, you know, I don't want to waste them..."

Xia Feilin sighed silently, "Alright."

Tang Li's behavior made him lose much of his suspicion towards her.

He pointed ahead, "Just keep walking along this road, push open that door, and that's the exit on the second floor. You probably fell from there too."

"I'm in a hurry to go out and take care of someone," he said, glancing disgustedly at the person beside him who was gradually becoming still. "This is yours."

"After you've 'digested' it, come find me yourself." He said, already taking a step forward. "Don't even think about running away, otherwise, the person under your feet will be your future misery."

"Don't worry," Tang Li squatted down, smiling broadly, "I really... love this place."

The familiar sound of a mechanism opening rang out from ahead. Xia Feilin ignored her and left through the hidden door.

Tang Li waited for a while, then suddenly lost her strength and leaned back against the wall, feeling utterly exhausted.

She certainly didn't intend to do anything to this dying man; she was just looking for an excuse to leave Xia Feilin.

After all, the couple mentioned by this person were clearly Lian Sheng and Lian Shi. If she and Xia Feilin went out together and were identified as a group by the other members of Xue Man Lou, it might become a means for him to threaten them.

"Beep beep beep." A persistent notification sound rang in her mind.

Tang Li rubbed her temples wearily and glanced at the system panel.

[System notification: A human body with impending death has been detected nearby. Would you like to add it to your "Killer Achievements Score"?]

Your current assassin rank is: None (You have not yet reached the minimum rank of Assassin Apprentice). You are 1 battle point away from leveling up.

[Friendly Reminder: To add the target mission to your "Assassin's Marks Score," you must personally deliver the fatal blow.]

Tang Li stared at the panel floating in mid-air, knowing full well that this was why the other players had gone crazy trying to kill the natives to make up the numbers, as it concerned their killer rating.

To advance from no rank to "Assassin Apprentice," all you need is one kill. But to reach the highest rank, "Gold Medal Assassin," you'd probably need to kill thousands upon thousands of people.

The dungeon's friendly reminder was still flashing before her eyes, telling her that she had to take this opportunity to finish him off, otherwise, once he died on his own, this great opportunity to level up would be wasted.

Tang Li squinted at the newly refreshed notifications for a while, then suddenly chuckled.

She tapped the air with her finger, minimizing the previous page. A bluish ripple-like shadow flashed before her eyes, and a new page appeared out of thin air.

[Current dungeon completion criteria: Eliminate the source of the strange phenomenon and explore the truth behind the "Impatiens Flower".]

[Player faction's progress: 2.33%]

These few lines of text flickered every now and then, displaying illusory circles of light and shadow on the shimmering panel, as if they were being forcibly dragged to the surface by something, only to stubbornly resurface the next second.

The bizarre lord... no, it's mainly his "managers" who rack their brains to please him; the methods they use are truly despicable.

To fill this world with bloodshed and violence, and to deliberately incite war between players and native inhabitants, they manipulated the system to hide the dungeon completion standards.

The system, by its very nature, would side with the mysterious lord.

Most importantly, Tang Li's cold and sarcastic gaze was actually harmless to the players participating in the dungeon.

They come to this instance only to improve their combat power, and the unarmed NPC civilians are always weaker and more vulnerable than those strange beings. Therefore, for them, the instance quests that have been forcibly hidden are actually a more favorable choice for them.

This is also why she has been using props to block the live stream. In the previous instance, the reason she was able to gain so much support from players was because they empathized with the "children" and "swollen human bodies" who were trapped in the instance and unable to leave.

However, in this instance... players can only empathize with other players.

To them, NPCs are nothing more than pigs and sheep.

But they never thought that the indigenous people were not blind or deaf. How dare you regard them all as cattle and sheep to be slaughtered?

Han Zhou had become a hunter whose arrows never missed their mark. Tang Li thought.

More and more native inhabitants will discover the player's presence. The conflict between the player and the native inhabitants will intensify, and the player, who was originally in the lead, may not be able to gain the same advantage as before when facing the native inhabitants who are now on guard.

The fact that "Jie Bailing" has had no survivors in recent rounds of the game is the most obvious indication of this.

The eeriness lies hidden among the native inhabitants, lurking in the shadows that players intentionally or unintentionally condone.

It extends its claws and fangs without restraint.