How to Bring Common Sense to Xianxia World - Chapter 221: Heist, Loose mouth Snake

Zhang Tianlong did not reply. He merely snorted and rolled his eyes.

As for Snake, after making Zhang Tianlong shut up, she finalized the plan and refined it further while discussing details with the other two. Zhang Tianlong himself was only here to serve as their muscle.

“Alright! We’ll start at midnight. We only have three hours to pull this off, Don’t mess this up!” Snake said.

— Midnight —

Under the midnight sky where the moon hung in place of the sun, the night within Thousand Treasure City was full of life. The nightlife had only just begun as many entertainment districts flared with lights and the vibrancy of sin under the supervision of the city.

But despite the vitality of the nightlife, Thousand Treasure City also had many districts that slept in silence, such as the warehouse district and the residential district, where the only people awake were the warehouse patrols and the city enforcers.

Amid the quiet night of the warehouse district, with the lights of the nightlife glowing only at the distant horizon, four silhouettes rushed through the shadows atop the warehouse rooftops toward the towering structure in the distance.

Their qinggong and timing between the patrol routes of the warehouse guards and city enforcers were impeccable. None of the patrols had discovered their existence.

The four silhouettes were, of course, none other than the Zodiac group planning to commit a heist tonight.

While they moved from roof to roof with speed like passing wind, for Nascent Soul Realm cultivators such as Zhang Tianlong, this kind of movement could be considered no different from crawling.

They did not use any transportation artifacts, flying swords, flying talismans, nor did they use spiritual qi to propel themselves toward their target. What they used was only basic qinggong, no different from Qi Refining Realm ants who could not fly and could only move with their feet, leaping from roof to roof.

Zhang Tianlong, who was moving within the formation, began to grow annoyed as they slowly advanced toward Thousand Treasure Pavilion Headquarters on the horizon.

“Aren’t we in a hurry? Why are we crawling around like ants? Why don’t we just fly straight to Thousand Treasure Pavilion already?” he asked, irritated by their slow pace.

“Weren’t you listening when I explained the plan? We’re not flying because if we do, we’ll immediately become targets. The area around Thousand Treasure Pavilion is a no-fly zone. People without permits can’t fly there!” Snake replied, clearly annoyed.

“But… aren’t we trying to break into the place anyway? Why are we still following their rules?” Zhang Tianlong asked, still confused.

“Because we don’t want to take chances. Who knows what kind of strange artifacts they have to detect people flying into their so-called no-fly zone? We don’t want them discovering us, do we? So shut up and move your feet!” Snake barked before increasing her speed further, almost to the point of using spiritual qi to enhance her movement.

After about twenty minutes of jumping and running from roof to roof, they finally arrived at a quiet corner just outside the building where their target vault was located.

The team followed Monkey to the entrance he had prepared beforehand. It was a simple window connected to one of the cleaning supply storage rooms that he had secretly opened earlier.

The four used their qinggong to climb the smooth wall toward the opened window in one swift motion. Monkey, who arrived first inside the cleaning supply storage room, quickly checked the surroundings and found that everything was exactly as he had arranged it.

No witnesses. No patrols at this hour. He counted the time and checked the clock on the wall.

Everything was according to plan. This was the small gap between shift changes.

“Quick! We only have five minutes before the next patrol comes!” Monkey whispered to his team as he slowly poked his head out of the cleaning supply room to inspect the corridor.

The long hallway was devoid of life. No one was there, but that would only remain true for the next five minutes.

The team quickly gathered and rushed downstairs while keeping track of the time. The vault was located in the basement. The four of them moved like the wind, their footsteps so light that average mortals and even low-rank cultivators would not be able to hear them.

“One minute!” Monkey whispered again, sounding increasingly frantic and hurried.

The four sped up, bordering on using spiritual qi to enhance their movement. Finally, they arrived at the vault.

At the same time, the shift change ended and the door leading to the barracks opened. The patrols resumed their duties.

One of the guards walked down toward the vault, completely unaware of the intruders. He clocked in using his time card and hung it on the rack beside the clock.

The man yawned before sitting down in his comfortable chair. He had just returned from drinking and wasting away his stamina at the brothel. To him, tonight was no different from any other night. He would sit around, check a few situation tick boxes during patrol, then relax behind the counter in front of the vault.

Bam!

Before he could sink into his usual drowsiness, a sharp pain shot through his neck and he lost consciousness.

Zhang Tianlong dropped down from his hiding spot on the ceiling after knocking the unlucky guard out cold. Ox quickly tied the man up and sealed both his dantian and mute acupoint to prevent him from calling for help after waking up.

Monkey immediately rushed toward the vault door and prepared all his tools to crack it open.

“You do know that opening this damn vault within three hours is near fantasy, right?” he said while laying out the many tools of his trade.

“Yes, but do we have a choice? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Zodiac to get our hands on Primordial Divine Metal!” Snake replied, her eyes filled with zeal and greed.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t forget this is the last time I work for the Zodiac,” Monkey muttered.

“For what? For your so-called niece, the daughter of your deceased unrequited love who got gangbanged to death?” Snake taunted.

Monkey’s hands immediately stopped moving.

He slowly turned toward Snake as if looking at an enemy.

“What did you just say?”

Monkey stood up slowly, dropping the tools in his hands.

Ox saw that the situation was about to spiral out of control and quickly stepped in.

“Please, Monkey, Snake didn’t mean it like that! You know how she is. In this form, her mouth gets loose and she can’t control herself!” Then he turned toward Snake.

“Snake! You should apologize to him! You know as well as the rest of the Zodiac that this kind of vault can’t be opened without Monkey’s help! He’s the only one we know who can do it!” Ox admonished Snake, who was sneering from the side.

“If you two are going to kill each other, then go ahead. That way I can leave early since this whole heist will eventually fail anyway,” Zhang Tianlong said, reminding Snake of their deal.

The Zodiac had helped him annihilate Heaven’s Spire Sanctuary once, and in return, he had agreed to help them with this task. It was a fair trade. If the mission failed, he held no responsibility beyond the risks that naturally came with the job.

So Monkey and Snake killing each other and causing the heist to fail would actually be an ideal outcome for him, since it would let him leave early.

As if hearing the voice of reason, Snake gritted her teeth and cupped her fists in apology.

“I apologize, Monkey. I spoke too rashly.”

Monkey snorted.

“Hmph! You should let your brother come out instead. He’s far more reasonable than you and actually knows when to shut up.”

He spat out the words before returning to his work, once again trying to unlock the vault door, an impossible task for any ordinary thief.

“He’s resting right now. I’ll let him come out as soon as he’s had enough rest,” Snake said, her face tightening with a mixture of irritation and worry.

Time passed. Minutes turned into hours as parts of the vault were dismantled one by one with careful precision, like the hands of an artisan slowly taking apart an item he himself had created.

Each gear and component was placed aside according to its shape and function. Monkey arranged them not because he intended to reassemble the vault later, but because he needed to keep track of which parts had already been removed and which remaining parts inside were traps meant to lure him into triggering the alarm.

Monkey held his breath and slowly extracted a small crystalline component.

But before the crystalline part could fully leave the vault door, Snake spoke impatiently.

“Can you hurry up already, Monkey? We’re running out of time!”

Monkey glared daggers at Snake. The component he was currently handling was the most complicated part of the entire mechanism. It was designed to detect sounds loud enough to be considered an intrusion, which was why Monkey had spent so much time carefully dismantling the vault door.

Suddenly, red warning lights blared to life.

The alarm rang throughout the entire area as the surroundings lit up in flashing crimson. At the same moment, Zhang Tianlong’s spiritual sense picked up numerous powerful presences rushing down from the barracks.

“And here I thought there wouldn’t be any accidents. Great,” Zhang Tianlong said sarcastically.