The sudden voice caused everyone to instinctively turn their gazes toward it. Upon seeing the person who had appeared beside them, they all showed expressions of surprise.
“Eh? Qingqiu, why are you here?”
“Long time no see, Qingqiu.”
After reacting, Bebe and Qing Yu happily greeted her and pulled Yi Li Qingqiu over to sit down.
Qing Yu even took the menu. “Want anything? Their platters here are quite famous. Uncle Qing and Mu Ying are paying anyway, so order whatever you like.”
“Yeah yeah, Sister Qingqiu, don’t be polite~”
“I see.” Yi Li Qingqiu dragged out her words. Seeing Qing Shu Manjuan and Mu Ying silently sighing over their soon-to-depart private savings because of her arrival, she smiled faintly. “No need. I still have to help my dad organize some documents later.”
She didn’t forget to add one last line at the end.
“After all, unlike you two slackers, Uncle and Mu.”
The two who had just begun to breathe a sigh of relief immediately showed helpless expressions. They really shouldn’t have expected this little devil to speak up for them.
“Ahem. Qingqiu, what did you mean by what you said earlier?”
Qing Shu Manjuan coughed awkwardly. Although it was clearly an attempt to change the subject, it was obvious that everyone was equally interested in this topic.
Yi Li Qingqiu first answered their other questions. “I came looking for Bebe and Sister Qing Yu. I happened to overhear you discussing the Rhine Chamber, so I listened for a while.”
As for what she had said earlier… “Speaking of which—” Yi Li Qingqiu deliberately paused for a moment, only to see four warning gazes directed at her. She stuck out her tongue. “Fine, fine. I won’t keep you in suspense.”
Everyone silently thought that this was indeed the way to deal with this little devil.
However, she still didn’t explain directly. Instead, she asked Bebe and Qing Yu, “How much have Aurora and Paradise Lost roughly earned from the Rhine Chamber these past few days?”
“23 gold 58 silver.” Because they had recorded every transaction, Bebe quickly gave the exact figure.
“Around 19 gold. Maybe 18 gold or so.” In comparison, Qing Yu’s answer was much vaguer—she was clearly just estimating—which caused Mu Ying beside her to sigh. “I knew his girlfriend wasn’t great at math, but I guess his guild is about the same.”
“It’s pretty much what I expected.” Yi Li Qingqiu didn’t dwell on it.
After all, that wasn’t the main point. The main point was—
“So have you considered whether this situation feels a bit unusual? This is a phenomenon-level webnovel game, you know.”
Upon hearing this, Qing Shu Manjuan and the others seemed to finally realize what had felt off to them all along.
Just as she said, this was a phenomenon-level game. While the effort and returns might not be equal, it was impossible for there to be a mechanism that offered almost zero cost with such high returns.
Yi Li Qingqiu rested her cheeks in her hands and smiled as she analyzed, “So I can only think of two possibilities. The first is that it’s a bug, and the chamber leaving now is Epoch’s AI carrying out a reasonable fix.”
“If we go with that line of thinking, we’ve been maliciously exploiting a bug. Even though the officials claim there are no loopholes and we didn’t know any better, it would still leave a bad record.”
“Then what’s the second possibility, Sister Qingqiu?” Bebe thought for a moment and asked.
“If it’s not a bug, then it’s a logical, self-initiated behavior. There’s no way the natives would do something like this. There could be oversight, but the daily losses should have caught the chamber leader’s attention. Yet they still continued for several days. That tells us one thing.”
Yi Li Qingqiu paused, her bright eyes sparkling beautifully. “It means they deliberately set up this mechanism with some other purpose in mind. And that purpose is obviously not going to benefit us.”
Once she finished speaking, everyone fell into deep thought. Her words made a lot of sense—in fact, they had perfectly analyzed the overall situation with the Rhine Chamber.
“Although this is just my speculation, no matter what, we’ve already earned more than enough, haven’t we? There’s no need to take this final risk.”
“After all, greed always comes with a price.”
Yi Li Qingqiu winked playfully. “Alright, that’s all I have to say. I’ll be borrowing Bebe and Sister Qing Yu now.”
Leaving behind the still-contemplating Mu Ying and Qing Shu Manjuan, Yi Li Qingqiu pulled the other two away.
“Qingqiu, where are we going?” Qing Yu, who had still been deep in thought, couldn’t help feeling curious after being led out of the café.
“Didn’t we agree that our two teams would enter the Gloom City Ruins together? We need to let them get to know each other. Bebe, make sure to note down the equipment and materials we’re missing,” Yi Li Qingqiu explained to the two. “The ruins open the day after tomorrow. We can’t afford to be careless.”
Hearing this, both of them understood and nodded. Since this concerned their guilds’ honor, they naturally had to treat it seriously.
However, the girl who had just said that suddenly changed the subject the next moment. “By the way, since we have time on the way, I’m quite curious—how did you and Sister Qing Yu discover the Rhine Chamber~?”
Although speechless, Qing Yu still honestly recounted the events of that day in detail while Bebe supplemented from the side. When they mentioned the loli they had tailed, the two couldn’t help discussing how cute her outfit had been.
“You saw that little sister’s name was Yili?”
The black-haired girl beside them suddenly spoke up.
Qing Yu looked puzzled. “Yeah, why? Qingqiu, have you seen her too?”
“You could say that~” Yi Li Qingqiu smiled, a strange glint flashing in her eyes.
In the end, because of Yi Li Qingqiu’s opinion, Qing Shu Manjuan and Mu Ying chose not to take excessive action. They simply continued as previously planned—purchasing scattered materials on the market and going to specific leveling areas to farm monsters and collect.
Although the number of glowstone lanterns they obtained wasn’t particularly high, they still made some profit. Moreover, out of certain considerations, when selling to the Rhine Chamber they didn’t submit everything and kept half of their stock.
Paradise Lost and Aurora acted this way, but the other guilds didn’t think the same. Or perhaps they had similar doubts, but greed won out in the end. They used every method possible to collect glowstone lanterns.
The large guilds naturally thought of buying in bulk from merchants. Some even used guild assets as collateral to employ the rental method Mu Ying had mentioned, obtaining large quantities of goods from merchants in hopes of making a huge profit on the final day.
With such a pure-profit mechanism right in front of them, not taking advantage of it would be foolish. The vast majority of people thought this way.
After all, even 300% profit could make capitalists willing to walk to the gallows. A zero-investment, high-return opportunity was enough to turn anyone into a capitalist.
Dian Cang was one such person. As the guild leader of the fairly well-known guild Cangkong Bi in the Constanterna Empire, after discussing with his upper management he decided to use 50% of the guild’s assets as collateral to purchase a large number of glowstone lanterns from merchants and workshops in the surrounding areas.
This might have something to do with his long-standing preference for high-stakes, gambling-style gameplay.
Even though losing the bet would be devastating enough to instantly disband the guild they had worked so hard to build across several games, how could there possibly be a way to lose with a mechanism that handed out free money?
Dian Cang couldn’t help chuckling, feeling that those guilds who hesitated in the face of such an opportunity lacked the boldness required to achieve great things.
However, although he said that, to be safe he still personally took charge of the specific details.
After carefully inspecting all the glowstone lanterns, he had the guild’s trusted members submit them to the Rhine Chamber staff in batches.
Only after handing over the final batch of glowstone lanterns did Dian Cang subconsciously breathe a sigh of relief. Looking at the other guild members around him who were also busy submitting their goods, he narrowed his eyes slightly.
“If only we had known about this earlier… No, if only we had started doing this earlier.”
Since bulk purchasing took quite some time, they could only rush it on the last day before the chamber left. Otherwise, the profit could have doubled from what they had now.
Even though it was roughly equivalent to only a few days of the guild’s income, in the early stage of the game where every bit of advantage counted, it was enough to put them significantly ahead of other guilds and possibly even propel them into the empire’s top ten.
Thinking of this, Dian Cang felt somewhat annoyed. But there was no use saying more now. Like everyone else, he could just wait peacefully to collect the money in the afternoon.
However, although he said “peacefully,” this kind of thing could only truly be settled once the money was finally received.
After thinking about it, Dian Cang decided to skip afternoon grinding. Starting from noon, he and his trusted aides camped near the Rhine Chamber.
He wasn’t the only one. Many other guild representatives were also waiting around, some of them guild leaders or vice-leaders who had come in person just like him.
Dian Cang spotted quite a few familiar faces among them. However, no one was in the mood for catching up. After exchanging simple greetings, they all waited together.
With nothing better to do while waiting, Dian Cang browsed through some company documents in real life. By the time he finished most of them and returned to the game, he noticed that the atmosphere around him felt off.
The guild members were all whispering among themselves, occasionally glancing toward the shop with anxious expressions.
“Why does everyone look so anxious?” Dian Cang asked, feeling puzzled.
His trusted aide beside him hesitated before reminding him, “Boss, it’s already 1:30 PM. The shop should have opened long ago, but…”
Dian Cang thought for a moment and comforted him, “Maybe they’re just opening later today.”
But after another half hour passed with the Rhine Chamber’s shop showing no activity at all, and the whispering around them growing even louder, Dian Cang finally realized something was seriously wrong.
Thinking of the possible scenarios, he suddenly felt an inexplicable chill run down his back.
Fortunately, at that moment someone spotted a figure appearing from the corner not far away and walking toward them.
Under the gaze of many people who looked at her like a savior, the Rhine Chamber shop assistant hummed a little tune as she walked to the front of the shop, hung up the “Open for Business” sign—
And then flipped it over.
Even players a street away in Naldun Town’s Commercial Plaza seemed to be able to hear the unusually fierce commotion coming from nearby.
“Boss, hold yourself together! Boss!”
“It’s over. It’s all over.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Why did it turn out like this?”
“Open the door! I’m begging you, please open the door!”
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