Chapter 385 - 280: Same State of Mind, Maize Like Rain

Chapter 385: Chapter 280: Same State of Mind, Maize Like Rain

But he surely felt it was better to avoid making trouble.

Besides, his own hands weren’t clean.

So, reporting them was out of the question.

Tang Wen acted according to the Elder Extraordinary’s plan.

Under the cover of night, he returned to the neighboring Stone Water Camp.

Arriving at the granary inside the mountain, Tang Wen first filled one Void Stone. Then he took out his original one and loaded it with hundreds of thousands of pounds of grain as well.

Using a Void Stone to store grain was simple.

His Spiritual Power enveloped the grain, and one granary after another was swept clean.

After working for half the night, he killed the granary’s steward and guards, including those at the main gate. He then tossed their bodies into the wilds for the Exotic Beasts.

While he was at it, he also plundered the wealth they had spent half a lifetime accumulating.

By the time he finished, day was breaking.

The sun rose, and the streets began to bustle with people.

Perhaps everyone had grown accustomed to the lax atmosphere.

The disappearance of an entire group of people went completely unnoticed.

This was especially true for the missing mid-level camp personnel, who usually held positions of some status.

Not showing their faces for half a day was hardly considered a big deal.

It probably just meant they had been out carousing too late the previous night and had overslept.

Was that really a problem?

Tang Wen patiently waited for the situation to unfold.

That afternoon, someone came looking for one of the ordinary guards who had been on duty at the granary gate the previous night.

Arriving at his house, the person found the front door ajar.

Peeking through the crack, he saw the interior was completely ransacked.

Clothes, tables, chairs, and various other items were strewn about everywhere. It looked like the place had been robbed.

The visitor panicked and pushed the door open. Seeing no sign of the owner, he hurried away to report it to the guards.

A guard was missing, and it seemed there had been some trouble at his home.

When something like this occurred, the natural course of action was to find his superior—the Guard Commander from the previous night.

But when they arrived at the commander’s home and called for him, they found the house deserted. The courtyard was a disaster, and his entire family had vanished without a trace.

When the higher-ups at Stone Water Camp received the report, they sensed something was amiss.

Then it occurred to them: the men had gone missing last night, but they should have been on duty guarding the granary.

The granary!

They rushed to the granary and hastily took inventory.

The granary was half empty.

The knees of the Martial Artist in charge of the granary went weak, and he collapsed with a THUD inside the mountain cavern. His heart filled with utter despair. ’It’s over. It’s all over!’

With so much grain missing, ten of his heads wouldn’t be enough for the chopping block.

After snapping out of it, he went to find the camp’s chief steward to discuss countermeasures.

When the man saw the scene for himself, he suddenly burst into laughter.

Just as the "Elder Extraordinary" from the neighboring camp had predicted the night before!

The chief steward shouted, "The books are balanced!"

Tang Wen, having witnessed this, was preparing to leave.

But then he saw the chief steward conferring with others. He ordered his men to empty the rest of the granary that very night, leaving behind less than a tenth of the maize, and then set it on fire.

The granary supervisor colluded with the Guard Commander, embezzled funds, and burned the grain—a crime worthy of death...

What’s that?

The chief steward was guilty of mismanagement?

Heh. Of the million pounds of grain he had embezzled, more than half had been gifted to the old steward of the Huang Family’s third household.

So what crime was he guilty of?

He had merely made a small mistake, the kind all powerful men are prone to make.

He’d just be reassigned to guard the pastures, and that would be the end of it.

The Huang Family was wealthy, and their maize harvests had been bountiful for years.

The granaries near Ganshan City were filled to the brim.

They didn’t consider the loss of this bit of grain to be a problem at all.

That night, Hu Qi led Tang Wen back to Flame Camp.

The council hall of the Royal Palace was packed. The Queen, General Zhou, Commander Qian, and many others filled the seats.

They had been waiting for a day and a night.

"He’s back!" The Queen suddenly lowered the wine flask from her lips and looked out the window.

Hearing this, the several Extraordinaries and Martial Artists present also looked outside, but they saw nothing.

The White Tiger was extremely fast.

In the space of a few breaths, Tang Wen and the Three-headed White Tiger landed outside the hall.

"The young lord has returned!"

A guard at the door shouted.

Everyone rushed out to greet him, their faces etched with concern.

"Well, look at this. Nobody went to bed?"

Tang Wen cracked a joke.

But no one laughed.

His sister, in the crowd, shot him a huge eye-roll.

’The camp’s very survival is at stake, and he’s still in the mood to joke.’

However, knowing Tang Wen as they did, Tangtang and Zhou Bing heard the tone of his voice and simultaneously relaxed. A great weight was lifted from their shoulders.

"How did it go? Did you intercept them? Did you have to fight?"

General Zhao, who knew Tang Wen well, fired off a series of questions.

Everyone held their breath.

Tang Wen smiled, not keeping them in suspense. "I ran into them. Good news is, the people from the Huang Family have been sent packing for now. Bad news is, the Huang Family is now preparing to deal with me."

Everyone felt a flash of joy, followed immediately by alarm.

"What exactly happened?"

Zhou Bing asked anxiously.

"Don’t be too nervous. This is just a normal confrontation between powers. I’m representing the Black Water Gang of Ganshan City and the White Tiger Tribe, so I have the upper hand on the Huang Family. They’d have to be crazy *not* to want to deal with me."

After Tang Wen’s explanation, the expressions on the others’ faces relaxed slightly. Only Tangtang and Zhou Bing still had furrowed brows.

He was ushered into the hall, where he exchanged a few words with the various Commanders and Extraordinaries.

They had spent the past two days on pins and needles, terrified that Tang Wen wouldn’t return and that a Fifth Grade master from the Huang Family would arrive in his place.

Now that the tension was broken, their frayed nerves began to relax, and someone couldn’t help but yawn.

Then, as if it were contagious, many others began to yawn and stretch their limbs.

"Alright! The camp’s crisis has been resolved. Everyone, go get some rest!"

Tang Wen’s words were met with popular approval.

The Queen also spoke up in agreement.

Those who knew him and those who didn’t all came before him to offer a greeting before departing.

It wasn’t that they were so overcome with exhaustion that they had to go sleep immediately.

Rather, they knew that Tang Wen and his inner circle were about to hold a private meeting.

Sure enough, once most of the people, including Tangtang, had departed...

Tang Wen was the first to walk toward the entrance to the Underground Palace inside the hall.

The Queen looked puzzled for a moment but then followed him, bringing Zhou Bing and several generals along.

A few minutes later, the group arrived at the lowest level of the Underground Palace.

The level was filled with empty rooms. The torches they carried could only illuminate a small area, revealing nothing but rows of stone doors.

Elder General Xia was very familiar with this place. "We’re deep underground, but it isn’t damp. I don’t know how the original builders managed it. I suspect that when this Underground Palace was constructed, they laid a foundation at least thirty meters deep."

The lowest level of the Underground Palace had a stuffy smell.

There was no air circulation.

Tang Wen crouched down, running his hand over the floor.

The stone floor was flat and smooth. The gaps between the flagstones were filled with a gray material that felt perfectly flush, neither raised nor indented, as if it were part of the stones themselves.

His Spiritual Power poured out like a flood.

In an instant, it enveloped dozens of rooms.

The conditions inside were identical in each one: smooth floors, very little dust, and not so much as a single insect.

Tang Wen couldn’t help but wonder how this place was built.

He had a feeling that even with the technology from his past life, an ordinary construction company couldn’t have built an Underground Palace like this.

"This place would make an excellent granary." Tang Wen dusted off his hands and stood up.

"Cough... a granary?!" The Queen, who had just taken a drink, choked. Her beautiful eyes, filled with anticipation, landed on Tang Wen.

She had seen Tang Wen retrieve things from a Void Stone more than once, so a guess naturally formed in her mind.

The same was true for Zhou Bing.

General Zhou didn’t notice their expressions. Thinking Tang Wen was just making an observation, he gazed into the distant darkness and replied casually, "Yes, it would. When I was young, my greatest wish was for everyone in the camp to be able to eat their fill for a few meals.

"You might laugh, but when I first became a Martial Artist, I felt like I could do anything! I secretly vowed that I would fill all seven hundred and thirty-three of these rooms with maize!"

"If I did that, no one in the camp would ever starve to death again."

Tang Wen didn’t interrupt his reminiscing.

General Zhou had been a prodigy in his youth. He’d had the chance to go to Ganshan City, to even larger cities, and live a much better life.

But he had stayed.

He had protected the camp for more than twenty years.

His contributions had been immense.

Lost in his memories, General Zhou continued, "Later, when I became a full-fledged Martial Artist, my ambition changed. I realized filling all of them with maize was too difficult.

"I just prayed that I could use ten years to save up enough grain to fill the few granaries on the level above.

"Later, I became an Extraordinary and the camp’s General.

"I stopped thinking about how long it would take to fill the granaries.

"I just led my people and worked hard at it. But alas!"

He let out a long sigh, and the others remained silent.

’Although Tang Wen didn’t feel as strongly about storing grain, he couldn’t help but be reminded of his past life. When he’d first started college, he’d wanted to become a billionaire.’

’Later, when he started his internship, he thought having a house and a car would be good enough.’

’And later still, after entering the workforce, he came to understand that for an ordinary person with no connections or resources, just staying out of debt and saving a little money meant you were already doing better than eighty percent of people.’

"General Zhou, you’ve done a wonderful job!"

He smiled and waved a hand, pushing open a stone door.

WHOOSH!

Maize poured down from thin air like a torrential downpour.