Rebirth: General, Don't Mess Around!

As they nearly reached the end of the staircase, faint snoring sounds came their way. Xia Jinyuan slowly peeked out and saw two guards clinging to their pistols, fast asleep against the wall.

Xia Jinyuan gestured to Ye Jian for a split and clear motion, swiftly approached one of the guards, and directly slashed at his throat, sending the poor man into an eternal slumber.

”To the left is the auction stand, and to the right are the small booths where the buyers sit,” Xia Jinyuan pointed inside and said, ”There’s likely nothing important in the booths on the right. We should focus on the left, Mr. Will suspects there might be a hidden basement there, possibly storing contraband or the artifacts to be auctioned.”

If they destroyed this place, Cyril would go mad.

Guided by the faint light emitted from the flashlight, Xia Jinyuan and Ye Jian carefully made their way to the auction stand they had seen that day. Ye Jian specifically noted that the entire tabletop was made of solid wood and whispered to Xia Jinyuan, ”This must be Cyril’s favorite spot.”

Her tone was relaxed, and her demeanor equally so, devoid of any tension.

Seeing her speak so casually about other matters, Xia Jinyuan couldn’t help but smile, ”After this is over, I’ll allow you to stand here for a minute to soak it in.”

”Thank you, Captain, but I don’t like it,” Ye Jian quickly pulled back, realizing this was Cyril’s favorite spot, not hers.

Who knows how many Chinese artifacts this guy standing here had illegally auctioned off!

She retreated to Xia Jinyuan’s side. Xia Jinyuan casually handed her the dim flashlight, signaling Ye Jian to illuminate for him.

Taking the flashlight, Ye Jian directed the light onto the heavy drapes suspended above, which Mr. Will had mentioned were worth examining.

The two of them tiptoed to the front of the auction stand’s curtain. Xia Jinyuan slowly pulled the curtain on the left, revealing just a concrete wall with nothing unusual. When he pulled open the curtain on the right, they exchanged glances.

Behind the right curtain was a wall with a bulletproof steel door, firmly closed with two bank vault-like combination locks in front of them.

Xia Jinyuan gently pushed on it to no avail, knowing just a simple push wouldn’t open the door.

He listened closely at the door but couldn’t hear any sound from inside. After checking for heat sources with a thermal imager, T6 whispered, ”No heat sources, entry possible.”

Cracking the combination lock was no hard task for Xia Jinyuan while Ye Jian kept watch. Xia Jinyuan checked whether he could successfully unlock it.

On the side, T6 could see the silhouettes of the two through the thermal imager—one standing guard, the other one fiddling with his arm. Suppressing his voice, he spoke somewhat boastfully, ”King Q, this time you’re teamed up with Azure Bird, don’t embarrass yourself. A mere lock like this, if it were me, I’d crack it in three minutes.”

Opening the lock wasn’t really a problem for them, though it usually required some tools. Xia Jinyuan wasn’t provoked by T6, nor did he immediately go for the lock. After a careful inspection, he said calmly, ”Not enough tools, can’t open it. If I tamper with the first digit, the alarm control mainframe will immediately send an alert through the wireless network.”

Cyril was careful, having installed the safest bank vault locks. It required three password groups to open the door and, moreover, entering the wrong password for the first digit would instantly trigger the alarm. Without the appropriate tools, Xia Jinyuan refrained from tampering with the lock as any rash action was unwise at the moment.

As for the action... they also couldn’t open the lock.